On the first floor the two rooms were occupied by the inspector and his assistant and helpmate, Sergeant Hanks. The inspector had a larger desk than anyone else, a wooden desk that had been varnished and polished so often that its surface shone like a black mirror. He had the softest armchair too, and a colour television. Behind the television, in the corner furthest from the door, was the entrance to the inspector’s private lavatory, his pride and joy which he washed and disinfected every day, allowing no other person to use it. The lavatory’s every wall was tiled in six-inch squares of white porcelain, so was the ceiling. On the floor was a green carpet of cord and the toilet seat itself was padded and plush-covered; ‘just like they are for the Royals,’ Sussworth always said, proud and smug. Under an ever-open window, and within arm’s reach of the velvet throne, stood a small bamboo table which always carried a pile of tough, water-resistant lavatory paper and several copies of the Police Gazette. This was Sussworth’s inner sanctum, this was where he retired to think.
In the sergeant’s room there was only a small desk but it did have three telephones as well as a radio receiver and transmitter. Hanks did not have a television of his own but he frequently watched programmes with the inspector. In fact, considering how totally different they were, it was amazing how well the two policemen got on. Some people said that Sussworth only kept Hanks in the group to remind himself and his men how gross and unpleasant the world really was. Others, more cruel perhaps, said that the sergeant only maintained his place in the SBG because he knew how to flatter Sussworth to the limit and how to do his bidding, even before it was bidden. Whatever the truth of the matter, they relied on each other a hundred per cent.
On the day of Bingo’s capture, and not many hours after that event, Inspector Sussworth sat at his desk in the house in Micklethwaite Road and doodled on a piece of paper, his face lowering in deep concentration while in front of him the vapour rose from a cup of tea: no milk, no sugar, and very strong. The inspector dressed well and his uniform was as splendid as any grenadier’s; it was neatly pressed and its buttons shone like stars against the deep blue serge of the material. Sergeant Hanks, always servile, always unctuous, relaxed in an armchair and waited for his leader to speak.
‘So,’ said the inspector when he had gathered his thoughts, ‘we’ve caught a suspicious Borrible at last, but that’s only one, Hanks. This is only the beginning; we’ve got to do better, much better.’
‘We have indeed, sir,’ said Hanks, bobbing his head up and down several times, ‘and we will, I feel sure.’
The inspector picked up his cup of tea between two delicate fingers and sipped. The beverage was exactly how he liked it and he smiled. He had a strange thin face, made stranger by this smile, and in the face every feature took the wrong direction. His chin, which was sharp, did not go the way it should have gone. His nose bent itself in the middle and tried to aim the end sideways, while his ears threw themselves forward with energy instead of lying back with decorum. Sussworth’s face was like a three-fingered signpost, turned by mischievous hands so that everything pointed down the wrong road.
His forehead was narrow, his eyebrows dark and well marked. His hair was lank and oiled and fell over his forehead in a solid lump. His eyes skulked deep in their sockets and, when they could be seen, were the colour of used washing-up water left overnight and found greasy-grey in the morning. Under his nose lived a small black moustache about the size of a jubilee postage stamp; it led a life of its own, that moustache, and twitched whenever it thought it would. Sussworth was only five feet six inches tall, with a slender body. Whether he sat or stood his feet always moved with nervous energy. He kicked the ground when he was annoyed, he did a little three-step dance when he was pleased. He was stubborn and he was proud; his blood bubbled with a lunatic zeal, he was an evangelist for rectitude and decorum, an enforcer of law and order.
By comparison Sergeant Hanks was an enormous man with broad shoulders and hands so big that when he clasped them it looked like he was carrying six pounds of raw pork sausages, unwrapped. His arms were as muscular as other people’s thighs and covered all over with curly ginger hair, stiff as wire. He had a belly that surged frontwards; it began just below his neck, it ended just above his knees, but there was nothing flabby about it. It was a powerful belly, and sinew rippled across it all the time and made his uniform move as if he had a large python living underneath his jumper.
His jacket had egg stains down it from collar to hem and from shoulder to shoulder, like the medals on a general’s tunic. There was only one thing that Hanks liked more than regular meals and that was the meals in between. His favourite food was four eggs and ten rashers of bacon with as much fried bread as could be stacked on a plate: what he called a ‘double-greasy’. His fleshy round face lit up when he smelt such a feast and heard the hot fat sizzling in the frying pan. At such times his pastel blue eyes would shine and glint with greed, but his silver buttons were always dull.
The inspector sipped his tea prudently, like a tea taster. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said, ‘we’ll take that little malefactor to Eel Brook Common and see what the horse makes of him.’
‘We will,’ said Hanks, ‘indeed we will.’
‘And those two little blighters who got away, they’ll have run off and told their mates what happened, won’t they?’
Sergeant Hanks rolled his head.
‘And we know what Borribles do when one of their mates gets caught, don’t we?’
‘Why,’ said Hanks, ‘they tries to get their friend uncaught before we clips his ears.’
‘Right, Hanks, right. So you can bet your next double-greasy that tomorrow we’ll be seeing quite a few Borribles at Eel Brook Common. They’ll be there … but so will we.’ Sussworth jumped to his feet, tipped the remainder of his tea into his mouth and then perched himself neatly on the edge of his desk like a paperweight. ‘Get the men down here,’ he ordered. ‘I want to give them their instructions.’
Sergeant Hanks pressed a button and all round the house bells rang. A moment later there was the sound of heavy boots in the rooms above and in the kitchen below. The noise moved on to the stairs and the door to Sussworth’s office opened. Twelve men in blue came to stand in front of their commander, not at attention but relaxed and confident.
‘I’m glad to see you section leaders ready,’ began Sussworth. ‘Now we were lucky today, we caught one. Tomorrow, when we take him to see the horse, I expect a rescue attempt to be mounted. We must be prepared.’ He leant forward and stamped twice on the floor. ‘During the night I want men from vans two, five and eleven to take over the area surrounding the common. I want some of you to get into the houses, some others up on the roofs. Men from vans three, six and nine will guard all escape roads. You let anyone who looks like a Borrible in, but you don’t let anyone who looks even remotely like a Borrible out. At exactly eight thirty I will arrive in van number one with the prisoner. This is an ambush that must work. You will be in position by midnight tonight. I don’t want anyone even to suspect that you are there … I have made arrangements for the vans to be hidden in lock-up garages until they are needed. Are there any questions?’
There were none.
‘Right, men,’ continued Sussworth, ‘it only remains for me to commend the work you’ve done in the past and hope for even better in the future. Remember this is our finest hour. This little blighter we’ve nobbled knows what we want to know and I’ll sweat it out of him just as soon as we’ve captured his mates.’ The inspector slipped from his desk and stretched out both his arms. ‘I have only one ambition and I know you men share it with me … to rid this city of Borribles. They are a threat to any normal way of life. They say they don’t want much and I say that’s too much. They say they want to live their way and I say they ought to live the way everyone else does.’
Sussworth’s eyes swivelled in his face and he dropped his arms to his side. He stood straight and stiff and he gazed up at his men. ‘Go and prepare yourselves,’
he said. ‘That is all.’
The policemen saluted their officer, nodded at Sergeant Hanks and left the room, shuffling down the stairs one after the other. When they had gone Sussworth fell back into his chair, exhausted by the effort of his speech. He groped for his cup and held it out, at arm’s length, to the sergeant. He needed a refill.
‘Oh, sir,’ said Hanks, taking the cup like it might have been a holy chalice, ‘you certainly know how to inspire men. You stir their blood, sir, make their hearts beat the faster. I see it as clear as day.’
The inspector stared dreamily at the surface of his desk. ‘It is only because I always tell them the truth,’ he said, ‘and the truth is what men want to hear.’
It was a languid dawn that rose over Eel Brook Common and the Borribles were early awake in it. The night had been warm and sleep difficult. The travellers had arrived in the middle of darkness and hidden themselves in the tiny front garden of a house that faced the common, screened from view by a low wall of brick and a scraggy privet hedge. All night the windows in the street had hung open and gross adults in their beds had snored and blasted their way through sleep, grunting and shouting in their dreams.
‘Blimey,’ said Twilight, ‘if only we could harness all that energy and gas we could obliterate the SBG in five minutes.’
Slowly the sky over London paled and became purple. Traffic started to growl in the main roads like an old monster, the stars glittered one last time and front doors slammed as bus drivers left home for work. Bedroom lights came on brightly and then faded as the day grew stronger; the grunting and snoring softened to nothing. The Borribles rubbed their eyes, sat up and peered through the hedge across the empty yellowness of the flat common.
‘Bloody parks,’ said Spiff, ‘draughty old dumps. Just look at it, nothing to steal for miles. I don’t know how anybody can like them.’
It was true that there was little to be seen except, on the far side of the field, a few small wooden huts behind a hedge and an iron railing. It was the sort of place in which park keepers store their tools and eat their sandwiches.
‘I bet that’s where they keep the horse,’ said Sydney.
‘Finding the horse,’ said Vulge, ‘is easy; it’s getting it away from keepers and keeping it away from keepers that’s tricky.’
‘It’s difficult to disguise a horse,’ said Twilight. ‘I mean you can’t stick it on wheels and shove it down the street like it was a toy, can you? It might drop a load just as a copper came round the corner.’
‘Quiet,’ whispered Spiff. ‘SBG.’
The others looked where he pointed and they saw a blue Transit van emerge from Wandsworth Bridge Road and come to a halt on the southern side of the common.
‘It’s full of John Law,’ said Stonks.
Spiff shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out a small collapsible telescope.
‘Well I never,’ said Vulge, ‘you got one.’
‘Found it in Sinjen’s School,’ said Spiff. ‘Like you said, very handy.’ He raised the telescope and poked it between the leaves of the hedge. He put his eye to it and studied the van. Two policemen emerged.
Spiff grunted. ‘Two out, but I reckon there’s about eight more inside. Can’t see too clearly, they’ve got mesh across the windows.’
‘Look at their shoulders,’ said Chalotte. ‘What rank are they?’
‘Strike a light,’ said Spiff, ‘that’s an inspector, that little squirt. It must be Sussworth ’imself, ugly sod, have a butcher’s.’ Spiff passed the telescope over to Vulge who stared through it while his companions stared at him.
‘Cripes,’ he said after a while, ‘he’s horrid all right, frighten Frankenstein rigid he could, and the sergeant with him ain’t a work of art either, strong though, crack yer philbert open as soon as look at yer.’ Vulge returned the telescope to Spiff.
The two police officers stood by the side of the van for a minute or two until they were joined by a park keeper wearing a brown uniform and a brown hat. After shaking hands the three officials walked away from the road, heading across the common in the direction of the wooden huts. When they got there the keeper took a key from his pocket, undid a padlock on the iron gate and disappeared behind the hedge. The policemen did not have long to wait. Within minutes the keeper returned leading a small horse behind him, a dingy horse with its head hanging at the rein and its feet dragging over the grass. An unhappy horse.
‘Is it Sam?’ asked Sydney. ‘I can’t see from this distance.’
Spiff passed her the telescope. ‘Have a look,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t know your horse from a ham sandwich.’
Sydney raised the instrument to her eye. ‘Oh,’ she gasped, her face bright with joy, ‘it is, it’s Sam. The horse who saved our lives.’
‘He didn’t save my life,’ said Spiff.
Chalotte sneered. ‘Nor would anyone with any sense,’ she said.
‘Knock it on the head,’ said Stonks, ‘something’s happening.’
While the Borribles had been talking the keeper had manhandled a small rubbish cart from one of the huts and was buckling Sam into it. At the same time a side door to the Transit van slid open and two more policemen appeared. Between them they held, by the arms, the small and dispirited figure of Bingo Borrible. His hat was gone, his ears were revealed.
Spiff snatched the telescope from Sydney. ‘He’s still got his ears,’ he said, ‘there’s still a chance.’
‘They’re taking him over to the horse,’ said Chalotte.
The six Borribles crouched behind their hedge and watched. The traffic was thick round the common now and people were striding this way and that towards bus stops and Underground stations. Meanwhile the sun was mounting steeply into the sky, ready to scorch the city for another day.
Bingo was shoved across the common. He did not struggle, neither did he go willingly. His head was down and his feet scuffed over the dry turf. Nearer and nearer to Sam he was dragged, made small and pitiful by the size of the men who escorted him, vulnerable in the middle of that great open space.
‘If only he knew we were here,’ said Chalotte.
But Bingo did not know. He was hauled up to the horse and made to stand in front of it.
‘Don’t do anything, Sam,’ whispered Sydney, ‘don’t do anything.’
It was no good. Sam had been lonely and maltreated when he’d toiled for Dewdrop and Erbie and he’d known no love until the Borribles had freed him. He’d never forgotten the great Adventure and he’d not forgotten the face or scent of any one of the Adventurers. He’d dreamed of them many a sad night over the months and months since they’d been obliged to abandon him. Now he raised his head and his nostrils flared and quivered. He saw the uniforms and swung his neck away for he did not like uniforms; then he caught the smell of Bingo and swung his head back. He saw the Borrible—he shook his head and stamped his feet hard into the ground. A huge neighing of happiness burst from him and he strained forward, pulling the cart along with him.
Bingo tried to step backwards, averting his face, but the two big-boned policemen were holding him and they stood firm in their massive boots. Sam came close to Bingo and licked his face and nudged his shoulder, and though the Battersea Borrible tried desperately not to show the slightest emotion it was obvious that the horse knew him and knew him well. In the end Bingo gave up all pretence and threw his arms round the horse’s neck. Even though this action placed him in great peril he remembered Sam with gratitude and knew that he owed his life to the horse. He knew also that friendship is never more valuable than when expressed in the deepest danger. Besides, he thought, why should the Woollies make him behave in a manner that was unnatural, in a way that was not like him.
‘Sam,’ said Bingo to Sam alone, ‘there are others who will rescue you. Whatever happens we haven’t forgotten our promise.’
From their hiding-place the Adventurers watched as Inspector Sussworth separated Bingo from the horse and they saw too how the police escort seized the captive an
d frogmarched him away. Sussworth and Hanks shook hands with the park keeper once more and left him. The doors of the Transit van opened and six more policemen came out of the vehicle. They stretched their arms to the sky and smiled.
As soon as Bingo arrived back at the van he was thrown into it and the doors were locked. His white face came to the window immediately and he peered through the grille at Sam who was now obliged to begin his day’s work, pacing round the fringes of the common, stopping and starting on command while the keeper loaded the cart with all the litter he could find.
The policemen now stood in an untidy group, congratulating their chief. Sussworth’s face became contorted with smiles, his moustache jerked to right and left and his feet stabbed the ground with pleasure. Sergeant Hanks was content too; cradling his magnificent belly in both hands he jiggled it up and down so that he could laugh more easily.
It took some while for the policemen’s mirth to subside but when it had the sergeant pointed across the main road to where a man in a dirty white overall was taking down the shutters from the front of a small transport café. The policemen crossed the road in a bunch and the man in the white overall opened the café door and ushered them in. The SBG were going to celebrate success with eggs and bacon and mugs of tea.
‘Bingo’s alone in the van,’ said Sydney. ‘Can’t we do something now?’
‘It looks bloody dangerous,’ said Chalotte.
Spiff pushed his telescope through the hedge and peered carefully round the common. ‘Of course it’s bloody dangerous,’ he said, ‘and what makes it worse is that I can’t see anything the slightest bit suspicious out there, which probably means the opposite.’
The Borribles Go for Broke Page 6
