by Daisy Waugh
‘I’ve not forgotten about it. It never happened.’
‘You were naked.’
He laughs. ‘No. You – are insane.’
‘You’re a liar,’ she says slowly, sadly. ‘A liar…I hate you, Horatio.’
They stare at each other, hearts and minds spinning in the horrible silence, both of them too hurt and too angry to do anything now but more damage. They don’t register the first tap! at the half-open window. Nor even the second. But the third missile, a small piece of gravel, misses the glass entirely, flies right through the window and lands at their feet.
‘What the –’ Horatio says, picking it up. He and Maude both turn to the window, expecting to see Superman. Instead, on the flat roof beneath the COOP they see Daffy Duff Fielding, hair tousled and dress slightly torn. She must have climbed up the wisteria. She signals to them frantically. ‘Can you let me in?’ she whispers. ‘Quickly! I can’t go through the kitchen. They mustn’t see me. Hurry! There’s a skylight – here. Open it up and let me in.’
‘I’ll go,’ Maude says immediately. ‘Where are the children?’
‘I can hear them splashing. It’s fine. They’re by the pool.’ Maude and Horatio turn to each other, nod, as if to acknowledge the unfinished business between them. ‘Be careful,’ Horatio calls after her.
Moments later, Daffy is upstairs with them both, up in the COOP. Breathlessly, she explains what has happened – that Jean Baptiste has been left at the hotel to look after her son and to deal with the hostage, still unconscious when Daffy left. ‘I would have stayed myself, but – Timothy can be very commanding, if you see what I mean. After all these years I might have buckled or something. I mean, I’ve never really gone against him.’
‘So where are our friends?’ Horatio demands. ‘Have they left already? They don’t have any papers.’
Daffy shakes her head. They haven’t left she explains. She’s come here in the hope she can pick up the papers and take them away.
‘But they’re not ready!’ Maude frowns. ‘We’ve not had time –’
‘Oh!’ Daffy’s shoulders sag. ‘Oh gosh. Oh gosh. I thought – but you got back yesterday with the photographs…Fawzia said you could do these things very quickly. I thought – Oh, crikey. What are we going to do? We all assumed…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Maude says. ‘I didn’t actually get back until a few minutes ago. Stupidly. Stupidly.’
‘Oh! But –’
‘I didn’t think there would be such an emergency.’
Horatio glances at her, his handsome face harsh with unforgiveness. ‘When isn’t there an emergency in this work?’ he asks.
‘I know. Bloody hell. I’m an idiot. I’m a stupid fool –’
‘Fuck the mea culpa, Maude,’ he snaps. ‘Save it. Just – Give me the passport pictures.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she says, scrabbling in the overnight bag and handing them over. ‘Of course.’
‘We need a couple of hours,’ he says to Daffy. ‘I’ve got most of the paperwork done. I did it while you were away,’ he says to Maude, and the coldness in his voice makes Daffy wonder what she’s walked into; makes Maude wince. ‘But personalising the passports – with Murray and Len downstairs interrupting us – it’s going to take time. Even with both of us on it.’
Daffy nods. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘there’s no point me waiting here. They’ll only worry what I’m doing.’ She beams suddenly and adds, irrelevantly, ‘And James has come! He’s at home now, with Jean Baptiste!’
It takes a moment for either of them to work out who Daffy is talking about. ‘Ah,’ says Maude finally. ‘Your little boy! But that’s wonderful! You must be happy!’
‘I’m so happy,’ Daffy says dreamily. ‘Well, I would be if his father hadn’t been knocked on the head and locked in the bedroom…I mean I would be, if your lovely friends get out of this in one piece. I mean I am. Of course. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. Jean Baptiste and I –’
Horatio looks at his watch. ‘Right then,’ he says, cutting her short. ‘Let’s get on with this, shall we, Maude?’
Maude is, in fact, already at her computer. She talks to Daffy with eyes fixed on her monitor. ‘Come back in an hour, just in case we finish early,’ she says. ‘No. Don’t come back. It’s too risky. There are too many people hanging around. One of us will meet you, as soon as we can get away, back at the spot you found us yesterday morning. OK? By the butterfly wood. Can you remember how to get there?’
‘I think so. Jean Baptiste will.’
‘And if we can’t get away, we’ll send one of the children over the back field. All right?’ Horatio says.
And it occurs to him, as he taps away, and it occurs to Maude, as she squints at her computer screen, and it’s quite clear to Daffy, watching the two of them at work, what an easy team they make; what an unusually well-matched couple.
MONEY TO BE MADE
‘The point is, my idiotic little friends, if Horatio and Maude are doing something illegal, it’s because there’s money to be made. Yes?’
Murray and Len look at one another, and then at Skid, lounging against the breakfast bar, Horatio’s mobile still in his hand. The logic of that, at least to these three paragons of virtue, seems to be irrefutable. They nod, slowly.
‘So if there’s money to be made by Maude and Horatio…’ he says. ‘Why shouldn’t there be money to be made by us?’
‘Eh?’ Len looks at Skid with real disappointment. ‘Because we’re not doing it, you plonker. We’re slogging our butts off making stupid TV shows about melons. Aren’t we, Murray?’ He shakes his head, for a moment quite bewildered by the extent of his miserable luck.
Skid grinds his rotten teeth, manages to bite back his preferred reply, which wouldn’t have been helpful. Since Len and Murray won’t leave him to do this alone, he needs to bring them on board. But they don’t have much time. The children – worse still, the parents – could walk in at any moment, see the mobile in his hand. He slips it into his trouser pocket. ‘It won’t take long,’ he says. ‘We should just listen to his messages. That’s all I’m saying. There may be something…useful…on there. Something revealing. And if there is –’
Murray shakes his head. ‘I’m really not interested –’
‘– And if there is,’ Skid talks right over him, ‘there may be some money in it for us. Do you understand? There may be something he doesn’t want people to know. Something he’s willing to pay to keep quiet…’
‘OOOOOhhhhhhhhhhh!’ Len says slowly. Murray, at this point, chooses not to speak.
‘You see?’ coaxes Skid, sensing the shift. ‘…You see?…And judging by the way Horatio’s been so apoplectic about finding the fucking thing these last couple of days – as Len so aptly points out that he has – I’d say the odds are good. Wouldn’t you?’ He waits. ‘Come on. Are you going to sit back and miss an opportunity like this? When it’s handed to you on a plate, for God’s sake? Why the hell should they get all the money? Why? Why shouldn’t we get our slice?’
Skid takes their silence, their goggly eyes and nodding heads, for permission to continue with the plan, and pulls Horatio’s telephone back out of his pocket. ‘Just be quiet,’ he says, ‘while I listen. And keep a lookout in case someone comes in.’
With a thud of something very close to excitement (an emotion Skid’s not felt in a long time), he dials the answering service once again. Horatio has two messages: the first was left yesterday at seven o’clock:
‘Heck. It’s me…’ He recognises the voice. ‘…It’s Maude. Why are you avoiding me like this? I know we need to talk but I don’t think…Anyway. God, I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m even leaving this message…’
Blah, blah, blah, thinks Skid. Get on with it.
‘…Everything’s going according to plan, in case you’re interested. Which you obviously aren’t. Ahmed and Fawzia and the three children are in the back of the van –’
‘Ah!’ Skid holds out a hand for extra silence.
He grins, puts up his thumb.
‘What? What’s happening?’ demands Murray.
‘Shh!’
‘…torches and a disgusting supper. Poor sods. I really don’t envy them. Ahmed’s furious because I came instead of you, of course. Big surprise there. But otherwise everything’s fine. Got through English customs fine –’
‘Good God!’ Skid exclaims happily.
‘Now we’ve just got the French side. It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be fine…’
‘The bastards are people traffickers! Can you believe it?’
‘What? What’s that, Skid? What’s people traffickers?’
‘Shut up, Len!’
‘…turn in pretty soon…So. Anyway. Goodnight. I can’t imagine why your mobile has been switched off all day. Don’t you care what’s happened to me?…Give a goodnight kiss to Emma, won’t you? From me…’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Skid looks pleased with himself. ‘Marital squabbles! Another reason to thank the good Lord I never married. Women are so damned predictable…’
‘Well?’ Murray asks again. ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’
‘Shh. Shut up. There’s another message.’
‘…Heck, you stupid bastard…’
‘Ah. Maude again.’
‘…I’m just putting my fucking life in jeopardy here…’
He smirks. ‘Pissed as a fart.’
‘…smuggling our old friends across international borders. I may wind up in jail. But that’s OK. That’s fine. You just carry on rutting Emma Rankin. If you want to…Carry on…I hope she gets pregnant by it. And I hope it gives you a heart attack…’
‘HA, HA, HA,’ Skid roars ecstatically. ‘HA, HA, bloody HA!’ He’s still bawling with laughter, with the telephone pressed to his ear, and Murray and Len are closing in on him, when Tiffany and Superman burst into the room.
‘When are you going to start filming us?’ Tiffany asks, and stops short. Murray and Len look absurdly guilty; like dogs caught in the chicken coop. They cower. Skid, more nonchalantly, hangs up the mobile and slides it very casually into his trouser pocket.
‘Didn’t your parents ever teach you to knock before barging into a room full of adults?’ drawls Skid.
‘No,’ says Tiffany. ‘Is that –’ She recognised the telephone. She’s certain of it. She wonders why Skid has put it into his pocket. She wonders why Murray and Len look so afraid of her. She stares at Skid, at the bulge in his trousers where her father’s mobile has just been dropped. ‘Is that – I mean –’ Something, some blessed survival instinct, impels her to stop right there. She puts an arm out to Superman, standing just behind her, and begins to back out of the room. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘It looks like you’re pretty busy. Shall we come back in a couple of minutes?’
‘Come back in an hour,’ snaps Skid, who doesn’t watch children in the same way he watches adults, because they offer him nothing. He thinks they’re all stupid. ‘Go on. Fuck off. Scram. I can’t stand children in the kitchen while I’m eating breakfast.’
‘It’s our kitchen, anyway,’ declares Superman, ignoring his sister’s tug on the arm. ‘And we didn’t invite you to breakfast…Anyway, we only wanted to know when we’re going to be on the telly…’
Skid takes two long strides towards them. He bends, carefully positions his face a short inch from the end of Superman’s little nose. ‘SCRAM!’ he yells; so loud that the hair around Superman’s ears catch the gust of his rotten breath, and Superman recoils, briefly.
He will be in tears as soon as he gets out of the door, but before beating his retreat he looks straight back at Skid, eye-to-eye, no blinking. ‘Anyway, you stink,’ he says, and, with impressive dignity, he turns to Tiffany, takes her hand, and together they leave the room.
MESSAGE BREAKDOWN
‘Do you think they saw?’ asks Murray, hardly able to stand straight.
‘No,’ Skid declares confidently. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course they didn’t. They would have said something. Children are cretins. They’re only capable of thinking of things that directly concern them. Nothing else – Especially children like those.’ He screws up his face in revulsion. There is nothing in the world he finds more disturbing than a confident, articulate, well-loved child. For so many, many reasons. ‘Noncey little cunts. Forget about them, and listen to me. I have a plan…But first, I think you should probably listen to the messages yourselves. Why don’t you each take the telephone to the lavatory, one by one. Then come back to me and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. OK? Murray,’ he orders, before either has time to object, ‘you first. And for Christ’s sake, whatever you do, do not rub it off. Right?’
Murray nods, obedient as a little boy, takes the telephone and toddles away.
He returns a moment later, flushed with adrenalin. ‘You were bloody right, mate,’ he says to Skid. ‘This is dynamite. I always thought those bastards were up to something. All that crap about melon harvesting – seemed too good to be true, didn’t it, Len? Didn’t I say so?’
Len frowns, not entirely certain.
‘I said it loads of times. Well, well –’ Murray laughs happily. ‘Sneaky pair of sods, thinking they can pull the wool over our eyes. They’ve probably got thousands stashed away somewhere. Good thinking, Skid. If I do say so.’ He chortles again, and passes the telephone to Len, who trots out of the kitchen, holding it in front of him like a dirty nappy, or a bomb about to explode.
In the silence that follows, Murray finds himself thinking, at least for a moment. It occurs to him, fuzzily, that he likes the Haunts. That perhaps it might have been easier, after all, to have finished the job he was being paid for and headed home. Without causing trouble…But he can feel Skid’s eyes on him, watching. It makes him uncomfortable. More than uncomfortable. There is something about Skid. Something which, right now, is covering the back of his neck in goose bumps. Murray glances at Skid. Shakes his head. ‘…Like we haven’t got enough bloody foreigners scrounging off us already,’ he says brightly, to break the silence. ‘I’m not a racialist, Skid. But it’s got to the point, now, hasn’t it? There’s more of them than there are of us. And that’s not fair. Something’s got to be done…We have to stop these people, somehow. When you think about it like that. I mean, it’s our responsibility…’
‘Dress it up however you like, my old friend. If it makes you feel a bit better. Frankly, I couldn’t give a fuck one way or the other. I couldn’t give a fuck who lives anywhere. But I smell lucre.’ He smiles at Murray, a horrible smile; more like a snarl. Full of menace. ‘And I want. Know what I mean?’
With a shiver, a sort of feeble snigger, and a nod of half-hearted acquiescence, Murray’s gaze slithers to the floor. Moments pass. He seems unable to lift it. ‘…Seems a shame, though,’ he can’t help muttering. ‘They’re a nice couple of geezers, really. Underneath it all. Nice family.’
‘That’s what they want you to think.’
‘Mmm. Maybe.’ He shrugs. ‘Still. Seems a shame to mess them around.’
‘Murray, poppet,’ Skid says quietly, making Murray’s skin burn. ‘There’s no backing out now.’
Murray blushes. ‘Backing out?!?’ he cries. ‘Are you joking me, matey? Backing out, when there’s casherooni to be made? Not bloody likely!’
Skid doesn’t bother to reply. Several minutes pass in tense silence. Still Len doesn’t return. Skid is beginning to get twitchy.
‘What the fuck’s happened to him?’ he snarls. ‘Murray, I think you should go and fetch him out.’
Just then they hear a shuffling noise from the back of the kitchen and Len appears, looking unusually hangdog. He’s heard Maude’s messages, he says. ‘Very revealing,’ he adds sagely. ‘…Problem is, the damn telephone thingy’s playing up for us now, isn’t it? I pressed seven for Save, but…’ He’s somehow managed to erase both messages.
Skid is silent a moment.
Murray says, ‘Well. That’s t
hat then, isn’t it? Shame.’ But he sounds relieved. ‘Ha! And there was me thinking I’d got my pension sorted! It’s never as easy as that, is it?’
‘But it still could be,’ Skid replies. He looks at them both. ‘This is what we’re going to do…’
KIDS ALONE IN KITCHENS AND ALL THAT
Maude and Horatio, working in frantic, focused silence, can hear Murray approaching the private landing outside the COOP, calling out their names.
‘What the hell does he want now?’ Horatio mutters, not making any move to find out. ‘I thought they were doing the children this morning.’
But they can hear Murray moving closer, passing by the sliding bookcase towards their bedroom. ‘Hello? Anyone about? Maudie? Heck? Anybody?’
‘…He wouldn’t go into our bedroom, would he?’ Maude asks, pausing a moment.
‘He calls us Heck and Maudie. He’d probably climb into bed with us if he felt like it. We’d better get out there.’
‘I’ll go.’
Carefully, quietly, she slides the bookshelf from across the COOP door, waits until Murray has his back to her and steps onto the landing outside.
‘Oh! There you are, Maudie,’ Murray says, jumping slightly. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘I was in my bathroom, Murray,’ Maude replies. ‘I thought we agreed this part of the house was off-limits.’
But he doesn’t seem to hear her. He wipes a trickle of sweat from the side of his face. ‘There you are, Maudie,’ he says again, as if transfixed. ‘…There you are!’
‘Yes. Here I am…Are you all right?’
‘Mm? Me? Oh, I’m super-dooper, Maudie, my old mate. How about you?’
‘I’m fine. Actually, I’m quite busy – Was there something you wanted?’
‘Yep.’ He stares at her, but still there is nothing, he thinks, not the slightest clue that could have led him to believe she is – who she’s turned out to be. Nothing. ‘…It’s a funny old world, though, isn’t it, Maudie?’
