‘All you think about,’ said Binny, ‘is your stomach or your roses. Or your precious wife. Nothing else matters. You don’t know how the other half lives.’
He frowned. ‘I never said she was precious. Certainly not in your hearing.’
‘I’ve been raped,’ said Binny.
He found he was smiling; he couldn’t help it.
‘By him,’ Binny said. She looked in the direction of the other room.
He saw Simpson slumped in the armchair with the absurd bow on his head.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she said. ‘You think it’s a joke.’
He moved to hold her, to comfort her.
‘Don’t come near me,’ she warned. ‘I don’t know how I ever let you touch me. I’d need gloves to come near you.’
Troubled, he tried to concentrate. He stared at the silver-coated apples on the window sill; he was dazzled by sunlight. His father’s hand, hidden in a leather glove, was raised to strike. Muldoon had split on him. He was a disgrace . . . not fit to mix with decent folk . . . I’m ashamed . . . I shan’t forgive you . . . The lovely shining badge skittered across a polished table. The field stretched green and sweet-smelling to the boundary line. That rotter Jonas, clothed in white, stood in the slips shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun . . .
Taking up an apple from the ledge, Edward rubbed it along his groin and, raising his arm, bowled from the shoulder at Simpson’s head.
He missed. The apple smashed against the shutters, the silver paper unravelled and the fruit slid downwards, slimy on the woodwork. It plopped on to the carpet.
21
At ten o’clock Ginger ordered Edward and Simpson to help Geoff downstairs. Muriel said it would be far better if one of them carried him slung against their back like a baby in a shawl. That way it wouldn’t hurt him so much.
‘I can’t do anything of that nature,’ said Simpson curtly. ‘I’d fall.’ He didn’t relish the injured woman clutching his throbbing ear. Let Freeman do it. The damn fool seemed to have enough surplus energy – hurling things about the room in that irresponsible way when they were going to be released at any moment. His aim was ludicrous.
Edward experienced great difficulty in helping the woman down the stairs and into the hall. He couldn’t think of her as a man. He didn’t like to grasp her under the armpits in case he touched her breasts. When he dumped her on the floor by the front door he averted his eyes from her exposed thigh. He had dreams of telling Simpson to take his account elsewhere, and then of writing anonymously to the Inland Revenue accusing him of tax evasion.
The gunmen found a ladies’ razor in the bathroom and shaved themselves. Clothes brushed and hair freshly combed, they waited for the police to knock at the door.
‘It’s all nonsense,’ Edward confided to Alma. ‘They can’t possibly have arranged it.’
‘They did, pet,’ said Alma. ‘When you were in the bathroom. They used the telephone.’ She’d asked Ginger twice who he intended to take with him, but he’d refused to answer. She wouldn’t have minded being chosen; she was quite certain they’d be stopped by road blocks once they reached the open road. She wondered if her message about the alarm clock had got through. If it hadn’t, it was possible that Frank and Victor were still fast asleep. If she went as a travelling hostage it would give them more time to wake up, and then none of her ordeal would be wasted. ‘Doesn’t he look as if he’s going on his holidays?’ she said, beaming at Ginger, spruce in his chair, Binny’s suitcase safe between his knees.
22
Some minutes after eleven o’clock, Ginger flung the shutters wide; the broken window let in the night air. They heard vehicles, voices in the street. The women rose in agitation and touched their tousled hair, smoothed their dresses.
‘This is how it’s going to be,’ said Ginger. ‘And I don’t want no mistakes.’ He stood Harry and Widnes shoulder to shoulder in the centre of the room. He placed Edward in front of them, facing outwards. He told Simpson and the women to form a circle round the three in the middle.
‘Ring-a-ring-o’-roses,’ he shouted. ‘Link up.’
Simpson was appalled to find he was holding hands with Ginger. He tried to move places, but the gunman held his fingers in a vice.
‘Not so close,’ Ginger ordered. ‘Spread yourselves out.’
‘Why are we guarding Teddy, pet?’ asked Alma.
‘He’s me,’ said Ginger. ‘He’s standing in for me, isn’t he? Right. We move down the hall like this and then on to the step. Nobody lets go. Anybody gets clever and I’ll blow their head off. It doesn’t matter now – there’s a whole bloody army out there. We get to the car—’
‘Holding hands?’ said Edward. ‘Who’s going to open the door?’
‘When we reach the car, you and him’ – Ginger stabbed his finger at Simpson and Edward – ‘you stay in the road and keep Harry in the middle. Then you go back into the house and get Geoff out of the bathroom.’
‘I can’t remember all this,’ said Edward testily. ‘I’ve had very little sleep.’
‘Listen,’ Ginger said. ‘You and him don’t get into—’
A voice, magnified nasally by a loud speaker, called from the street:
‘Attention. Attention. Proceed to car, registration number OBY 439N, cream Cortina, stationed in middle of road. Engine running, rear left-hand door open. Repeat, proceed to car—’
For an instant nobody moved. Then Ginger, breaking the chain of hands, went into the passage. ‘I’m warning you,’ he shouted. ‘Keep still.’
A loud knocking began.
Ginger returned, pushing the pram ahead of him. He sent it free-wheeling toward the fridge. ‘I’m warning you,’ he repeated. ‘Hold hands.’
Tottering backwards, the unwieldly circle oozed into the hall. The passage was so narrow they were pressed to each other like lovers. Glass crunched underfoot.
‘You’ve forgotten your piggy bank, you know,’ said Alma, face to face with Widnes.
The exodus was halted while the suitcase was fetched from the kitchen. Cursing, Ginger thrust himself into the centre of the scrum and, leaning across Harry’s shoulder, tugged at the front door.
The whole world blazed with light. Concentrating on keeping the ring intact they flowed raggedly down the steps. They passed the hedge and jiggled out on to the pavement. One huge intake of breath, like a vast sigh, rose from the crowd on the corner.
Startled, the outer circle faltered, and seeing those massed figures not a hundred yards away felt a surge of pity for themselves. How kind they are, thought Binny, blinded by tears. They care about us.
Reaching the car, the group disintegrated. Widnes and Ginger thrust the three women into the interior of the Cortina and scrambled after them. Ginger, hampered by the bulky suitcase, crawled over the front seat and sat at the wheel. Mindful of their instructions, Edward and Simpson, with Harry in the middle, skipped sideways up the path again in a desperate barn-dance to the door.
Several minutes elapsed before the men re-appeared. Harry carried Geoff on his back – one leg in a torn stocking dangled above the gutter. Widnes opened the far door of the car and shoved Muriel and Alma into the road. The women stood undecided.
I knew it would be me, thought Binny. I hope Alison remembers to do her teeth. She watched with interest, bent over her knees, as Harry bundled the wounded Geoff into the passenger seat. Simpson’s bandage, she noticed, had come undone and hung in a frayed noose about his neck. Edward was bending down and staring at her with his mouth open. The car began to move. She could see Edward’s stomach as he ran beside the window – he was holding the handle of the door, preventing it from closing. There’s no room, she thought. He’s too fat.
Then he was inside the car, impossibly jammed between the seats. Widnes swore and hit him in the face with his fist.
Eyes full of reproach, Edward leaned towards Binny and stretched out his arm.
‘I’ll never leave you,’ he cried.
The car gathered
speed and swung round the corner by the garage. The four occupants of the back seat lurched sideways. The door opened.
Liar, thought Binny, as Edward fell away from the car.
A woman at a window screamed, like the blast of whistle.
Injury Time Page 14
