A Fairly Dangerous Thing

by Reginald Hill

  He turned away with unseemly haste and ran across the road, waving at the bus. As it slowed down, Maggie came up behind him and took his hand. He turned. Her face was full of concern.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, love?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Sure. Goodbye.’

  He pushed her firmly up the steps. Oddly enough the purely functional contact with her body through her cardigan did what all the wiles of nudity had been unable to, and as he waved at the retreating bus he felt himself roused ready for action.

  ‘Damn! damn! damn!’ he cried aloud. Why did it have to be today? Why couldn’t she have been as resolute against the final attack as she had always been in the past? And why had all the background scenery—sunshine, flowers, birdsong, etc. etc.—been so perfect for such a shoddy performance? Up against a wall, in a bus-shelter, in the park even, it might hardly have mattered. You could forget it, blame it on the drink, the Chinese food, the damp air.

  But here!

  ‘Damn!’ he said.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ said Cess.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop talking to me like the office boy!’ snarled Joe. ‘Get this, and get it good. You need me. You need me a lot. OK? And while we’re at it, I think five per cent’s not enough. I want ten per cent of the extra stuff. Right?’

  Cess looked at him in amazement. Lord Jim flexed his broad back-muscles significantly. Bertie laughed out loud while Killer and Third Man stayed dough-faced and drew on their hand-rolled cigarettes.

  What have I said? thought Joe, the anger and frustration which had built up during the rest of his drive evaporating in the heat of his own folly. But Cess when he spoke was conciliatory.

  ‘All right, Joe. Don’t get so het up. We’ll talk about it later. I know how important you are. We all do, believe me. Right, Jim?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jim.

  ‘I was only five minutes late,’ said Joe, sullenly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Not now it doesn’t. But later, we’ve got to be on the ball. So we might as well try to start right.’

  They were standing round a Volkswagen mini-bus which was parked in a lay-by overhung by trees so that they were all shiftingly dappled by sunlight. Joe had nearly missed them as he was looking for a Bedford van.

  ‘Sod who owned it’s gone off for the weekend,’ explained Cess sourly. ‘So we had to make do with this kraut thing.’

  He kicked a tyre mistrustingly and shot a nasty glance at Joe’s beetle.

  ‘Right, Joe. Hop aboard. Let’s get going.’

  ‘Will my car be all right here?’ wondered Joe.

  ‘What do you want. A bleeding lock-up? You’ve got insurance, haven’t you? Leave your wallet and stuff in it. Anything that might identify you. And hide your key somewhere.’

  Unhappily Joe obeyed and clambered into the mini-bus. Lord Jim got into the driving-seat with Cess beside him. Bertie and Third Man joined Joe in the back where a couple of large cardboard boxes lay on the floor.

  ‘Our gear,’ explained Bertie, catching Joe’s puzzled glance.

  Killer slammed the door and made his way to a Vauxhall estate-wagon farther along the lay-by.

  ‘Why’s he not coming?’ asked Joe.

  ‘We need someone on the outside, don’t we?’ said Bertie amiably. ‘To protect our rear.’

  The thought of relying on Killer for anything as important as their escape route made Joe relapse into a dark melancholia for the rest of the trip.

  They met the queue of traffic making its way to Averingerett a good half-mile from the house. Lord Jim tried jumping the queue, cutting in sharply in front of a bus, which blew an angry horn.

  ‘Watch it!’ said Cess warningly.

  The hold-up was obviously at the bridge where entrance money was collected, or rather at the second gate some fifty yards on the other side of the bridge where the park proper began. A dozen cars at a time were let through, then the barrier came down again till there was sufficient space on the park-road to take the next dozen. Meanwhile the bridge barrier went up, permitting the next twelve cars to fill the space between the two gates, which were never open simultaneously. Men in Sanders-of-the-River gear collected the money, and there were four, two on each gate, who carried heavy rifles and stood looking keenly into the park.

  The precautions, Joe suspected, were as much for show as necessity. The particular white hunter who took their money had spectacles like a Victorian sweet-shop window and his long hair made his bush-hat seem more appropriate to Ascot than a big-game park.

  Behind all this almost irreverent and pantomimic activity at the bridge, the great house lay imperturbable in its strength and beauty. Joe’s heart turned over as he looked at it. He could never enter it as an owner but tonight at least he would take by force that which others had so casually acquired.

  Like Tarquin and Lucrece, he thought, and laughed at his own absurdity. The barrier rose ahead and the mini-bus rolled slowly forward into the Great Park.

  Eighty yards ahead the road forked, the great majority of cars carrying straight on to make the full encirclement of the park leading eventually to the exit over the south bridge. Those wishing to visit the house as well as see the lions forked right here and passed through another well-manned gate into the car-park by the stables.

  As they approached this gate Cess turned round and began to talk.

  ‘Right, Joe, lad,’ he said, ‘here’s the plan.’

  He’ll tell me now, thought Joe. He thinks we’re committed.

  It was a dreadful plan. He had expected something incredibly subtle, too clever for the non-professional mind to conceive. Instead he was told they were going to stay behind after closing time. Cess even looked as if he expected him to be impressed.

  ‘In the house?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘You can’t stay in the house! No one can. They go through it with a fine-tooth comb every night!’

  ‘No. Not in the house,’ said Cess scornfully. ‘In the garden.’

  Joe rolled his eyes.

  ‘In the grotto,’ explained Bertie, watching his reaction with flattering anxiety. ‘How’s that grab you?’

  Joe considered. He had to admit the grotto might work. In fact, if he had been consulted, as he bloody well should have been as the Averingerett expert, the caves of the Blue Grotto were exactly what he would have recommended.

  ‘The grotto, eh?’ he said coldly. ‘I suppose that might work. But what the hell happens then? How are we going to get into the house without sounding the alarm?’

  New objections were rushing to offer themselves. He peered down at the sellotape-sealed cardboard boxes.

  ‘This stuff, you can’t lug these around with you! And the van, what’s going to happen to the van? And how are we going to get out through the park?’

  ‘Bloody amateurs!’ groaned Cess.

  Bertie patted his shoulder sympathetically.

  ‘All taken care of, Joe boy! At least,’ he said, eyeing Cess thoughtfully, ‘we’ve been given big assurances it’s all taken care of.’

  Cess swung round again, his teeth showing in a Geronimo snarl.

  ‘Careful!’ said Lord Jim. ‘We’re here!’

  They pulled into the crowded car-park and found a spot next to the stables’ wall. To Joe it seemed that the car-park attendants stared curiously at this vanload of five ill-assorted men.

  Perhaps they’ll think we’re the Gay Liberation Front on a day outing, he told himself hopefully.

  ‘What happens now?’ he asked as Lord Jim pulled open his door.

  ‘Now? Now we take a walk around. Enjoy the gardens. Look at the treasures. Get the feel of the place. Have a cup of tea. Act like the rest of these mugs.’

  Cess jerked his head scornfully at the line of people, shirtsleeved and summer-frocked against the hot sun, making their way slowly under the stable arch.

  ‘Be inconspicuous. We split up now. Then about half past five, make your way casually up to the Blue Grotto. And don’t leave it too lat
e. You know your way there, do you, Joe?’ Ironically.

  ‘You can’t miss it,’ said Joe. ‘Past the sign saying Dangerous, do not pass this sign.’

  No one laughed.

  ‘And have a piddle before you come to the grotto,’ said Cess. ‘It’s a long wait till dark.’

  Now they all laughed, even Joe. Cess liked to be appreciated.

  ‘Off you go, Joe,’ said Cess, almost kindly. ‘We don’t know each other if we meet. But don’t worry. Lord Jim’ll stick close.’

  With this comforting thought in his mind, Joe plunged into the crowd of people making their way under the arch, over which the cracked bell of the invisible clock struck three.

  Three hours till closing time.

  The rooms were unpleasantly crowded compared with last time, and the Averingerett policy of letting people make their way round at their own speed was in danger of bringing all movement to a halt. For the first time the beauties of the old house began to pall and Joe used his shoulder ruthlessly to force a passage through the crowds. Even so, he found his mind automatically checking that all was as it should be, everything in its accustomed place. Criminal conditioning! he thought ruefully, cutting between an ugly small boy and his mother. The boy set up a terrible howl and momentarily conscience-stricken, Joe turned to re-unite them. From behind a hand gripped him firmly by the shoulder and his criminal conditioning threw up a sweat of sheer terror all over his body.

  ‘Here again, Joe?’ said Jock Laidlaw.

  ‘Christ, Jock!’ said Joe, shaking. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘You’re a glutton for punishment,’ said Jock lifting two bottles of Guinness out of the cupboard in his room. The thick stone walls of the stables ensured it was always cool in here and, while Joe would rather have avoided his old friend today, it was a relief to get out of the heat and the crowds.

  ‘All alone, are you?’ continued Jock. ‘No kids? Or a girl?’

  ‘No,’ said Joe sadly.

  ‘Pity,’ said Jock. ‘It’s time you got married and settled down.’

  ‘That’s great advice coming from an old bachelor like you!’

  ‘Maybe so,’ said Jock, unrepentant. ‘Me, I’m married to my job so to speak. You’re not, Joe, if I’m not mistaken. It wouldn’t break your heart if you never saw another classroom in your life, eh? But me, I love looking after this place.’

  He looked lovingly around, as if his eyes were seeing beyond the solid walls of the room into the great chambers and the rich gardens of Averingerett.

  ‘Man, I’ll be happy here till I die. You though, Joe, you need a woman.’

  No, thought Joe. Not a woman. I need my head examined. I need to be beaten through the streets with rods of iron. If anything goes wrong tonight, it’s not just me that will be caught and punished. Everyone knows I’m a mate of Jock’s. This could lash back at him, maybe lose him his job. I haven’t the right.

  He downed his drink and stood up, his face set with resolution. Cess had to be told immediately. Jock looked surprised.

  ‘What’s your hurry, laddie? Have another.’

  ‘No thanks. I’ve got to be pushing on.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Laidlaw glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll walk a-ways with you.’

  He pushed open the door of the control-room as they passed. A man was sitting at the console monitoring walkie-talkie messages from the park-wardens and gate-keepers.

  ‘All well?’

  ‘Fine, Mr Laidlaw. Couple of fools leaning out of windows to take photographs, but we got to them before any damage was done.’

  ‘Funny things, people,’ said Jock as they moved on. ‘They’ll look twice before crossing the road but they don’t really worry about dangers they don’t understand.’

  ‘Then the lions are really wild?’

  Jock shot him an ironically amused glance.

  ‘You believe me, Joe. Don’t find out the hard way.’

  They stopped outside the entrance hall.

  ‘I’ll leave you to fight your way through the mob,’ said the steward. ‘I’m off to check that his lordship’s rooms are in order.’

  ‘Trevigore?’ said Joe. ‘But I thought that lot had all left for fresh woods and pastures new?’

  ‘Aye, they did. But they’ll be back tonight. It’s his lordship’s birthday and they’re having a wee bittie of a party. It’s a damn nuisance.’ He spoke with grave disapproval. His love of the house was in no way linked to a love of the Trevigore family. Indeed Joe often felt he regarded them as bothersome intruders. And certainly the thought of frivolous celebrations disturbing the peace of Averingerett would give him great offence.

  But the causes of the streak of Puritanism in Jock were far from Joe’s mind as he re-entered the house. So the Trevigores were back! Would this in itself be sufficient to put Cess off the job that night? Bertie was a better bet. He obviously liked his operations cut and dried. Unexpected changes of circumstance brought unprepared-for risks. Cess would be much harder to turn aside once he had gone so far.

  In any case, thought Joe, the job’s off. If they don’t decide it, I will. I’m not putting Jock’s head on the chopping-block, no matter what they do to me.

  He pressed through the crowd more, hoping for a glimpse of Cess. Or even Lord Jim whose proximity had been so threateningly promised. But there was no sign of either. The determination in his mind was now at constant war with the fear in his belly, and as the struggle grew more violent, his head began to swim and he had to lean against an alabaster pillar, sharing its support with the neanderthal bust of the seventh earl.

  The door at the end of the Long Gallery seemed an un-crossable distance away and the intervening space was odoriferously packed with sweating visitors whom the heat seemed to have fused together.

  The whole scene wobbled like a desert mirage on the point of disappearing. And now his ears were going too.

  ‘Joe! Joe!’ a voice seemed to be calling; sweet, bell-like; angelic. Perhaps this was the way the end always began.

  Then suddenly, violently, everything clicked back into sharp focus.

  Standing in the doorway, waving her hand and calling out over the heads of the intervening throng, was Maggie. She felt his gaze lock with hers, a broad smile broke dawn-like over her face and she began to fight her way towards him.

  Pushing off from the pillar with a violence that almost dislodged the seventh earl, Joe plunged back into the crowd and did not let consideration of either sex or age impede his retreat till he was out in the garden and making his way through the protection of an azalea grove towards the Blue Grotto.

  CHAPTER III

  How Maggie had made her way to the house he did not know. Nor was he very eager to find out. Another encounter with her now was out of the question. If her eagerness to see him had survived his recent flight, she would probably look for his car in the car-park. When that failed, there would be nothing left for her but to make her way home by whatever means she had come.

  But while there was still a chance that she was wandering around the house looking for him, he did not dare venture forth again.

  He wouldn’t have minded so much if only it had been cool inside the caves of the grotto, but the air seemed to hang heavily and there was a musty smell which pervaded everything. He suspected it was a remnant of the days when the grotto offered the nearest thing to a public convenience in this part of the gardens. He hoped now the warning notice and two strands of barbed-wire would deter any potential users.

  The Blue Grotto, so called because of the bluey-grey stone which predominated, had been created in the nineteenth century to satisfy the Romantic tastes of the sixth earl. The boulder against which Joe rested at this moment was part of the rock-fall blocking the main cave which had formerly run right through the grotto. As the gigantic rockery now formed part of the barrier separating the house gardens from the lions’ park, it seemed unlikely that the passage would ever be restored.

  Joe glanced at his watch. Two hours till closing time. H
is stomach rumbled appealingly and he had a sudden vision of Maggie’s picnic-basket and the hock in the ice-filled plastic bag. They were still in his car. He wished with all his heart he were with them. Disconsolately he brought his knees up to his chest and settled down to wait, dimly recalling that this was the position in which some South American Indians arranged their dead.

  He must have fallen asleep for he was awoken by a hand shaking his shoulder and Bertie’s voice saying, ‘Give ’im a kiss and tell ’im the spell is broke.’

  It was Third Man doing the shaking. Joe grunted a greeting and peered at his watch. Only fifteen minutes to closing time. Cess would be here soon. He had to use the time to sow seeds of worry in Bertie’s mind. The refusal absolute face to face with Cess was something he still hoped to avoid.

  ‘Bertie,’ he said urgently. ‘I was talking to Laidlaw, the head steward. The Trevigores are here tonight. There’s a party of some kind. God knows how long it’ll go on for.’

  Bertie looked discouragingly unconcerned and Joe opened his mouth to clarify what he had just said, in case there had been a misunderstanding.

  ‘Good,’ said Cess approvingly from the mouth of the cave. ‘I told you, Bertie.’

  ‘I believed you, Cess, else I wouldn’t be here, would I?’ said Bertie. ‘You want a medal or something? For hobnobbing with the nobs?’

  For a moment Cess looked offended. But Joe broke in before he could speak.

  ‘You know? How?’

  ‘I move in the right circles,’ said Cess smugly.

  ‘Then why are we here? We can’t break in while the house is occupied.’

  ‘Wrong,’ said Cess. ‘With that alarm-system, we can’t break in while the house isn’t occupied.’

  Why am I arguing? wondered Joe. All I’ve got to do is tell him that it doesn’t matter whether the house is occupied or not, it’s off.

  Listen, Cess. This is the end of the road. I’ve come this far for the giggle, but enough’s enough. Run along home now, there’s a good little criminal. Vandalize a phone box and go to bed happy.

  ‘No,’ he said aloud.

  ‘No? No what?’ asked Cess.