A Prospect of Vengeance

by Anthony Price

‘Railway line? Fine! They keep telling us we should use the railway more often.’ Buller sank his big nose into his glass. ‘An’ I got the car over the bridge down the road, by the cutting. If no one’s nicked it.’ He returned to Mr Malik. ‘Ladder up the wall. An’ plenty of sacking on top, over the glass, mind you … An’ plenty of hot lime pickle an’ chilli pickle with the special. An’ some eatin’ irons, just in case—an’ six bottles of Tiger, my lad. With an opener … an’ all on the Lady’s slate—got that?’ He advanced on Mr Malik as he spoke, shepherding him towards the door. ‘Orderly damn departure—no panic—five minutes from now—ack-dum an’ pip-emma—an’ then no nasty questions for you, after … see?’

  As the door closed on the little man Reg Buller was already heading for the bar again. ‘It’s a nice motor, the BMW—very easy to drive.’ He delivered this intelligence to Ian, over his shoulder. ‘So you can drive it, then.’ He studied the stock. Troubles enough we got, without me bein’ stopped by some little nipper in blue in the line of duty when we’re doin’ a bunk, before we can ditch it.’ He cocked an eye at Jenny. ‘They’ll ‘ave the number out soon enough. But I reckon we’re safe until morning. An’ you got your passports and Eurocheques with you, like always? You ‘aven’t changed your rules, since last time? ‘Cause I don’t want to ‘ave to put those whiskers on again, an’ chance my arm going back to your place, I tell you!’

  Ian looked at Jenny unhappily as he heard the odds being so casually raised through the roof in this appalling mathematical progression.

  ‘Are you proposing that we flee the country, Mr Buller?’ Even Jenny sounded a bit shaky at Buller’s clearly implied proposition.

  ‘Well, you don’t want to stay to face the music, do you?’ Self-released from the necessity of having to drive his—or the late John Tully’s—‘nice motor’ while far over the limit, Buller was helping himself to another beer and another chaser. ‘You don’t think that Mitchell’s goin’ to let you play games do you?’ He poured the beer expertly, with a steady hand. ‘”P. L. Mitchell”—Doctor Paul Lefevre Mitchell, as ever was—“one of our foremost young military historians”, no less—‘ he held up the glass for inspection, and sniffed. And then drank. And then looked at them both. “Ow the ‘ell did you let him get on to you, then?’ The look became accusing.

  The look stung Ian. ‘Mitchell saved my life this afternoon, Reg.’

  ‘ ‘E did?’ Another drink—another sniff. ‘Or was ‘e like the man who saved a maiden from a fate worse than death—‘e changed ‘is mind?’

  That was the maggot in the apple: it all depended on whether Mitchell was telling the truth. ‘Does the name “MacManus” mean anything to you, Reg, “Paddy MacManus”—?’

  ‘Never ‘card of ‘im. But then I never ‘card of Dr Paul Lefevre Mitchell ‘till this morning. So that don’t mean anything. So … who’s he then, when he’s at home? MacManus?’

  ‘He’s a contract killer, Mr Buller. Ex-IRA—?’ Jenny had seen the maggot too. ‘So Paul Mitchell says.’

  ‘Does he, now? Well … he should know, I suppose.’ As tell-tale as the maggot was Buller no longer dropping his aitches: the seriousness of their situation and the drink together reverting him momentarily to his more educated self. ‘Mitchell … mmm … ’

  Ian looked at Jenny. ‘He’s a historian … as well as—?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Buller fielded the question. ‘And he’s done time in Ireland, in Dublin. Watch by the Liffey—“A history of the Irish Guards in the Great War” … and I’ll bet he wasn’t just researching the Guards when he was watching the Liffey.’ He looked at Ian. ‘And then The Forgotten Victory—same war, but a different river. The Ancre, in France. But you can look at that in the car—and that’s £14.95 on your bill, too. “Necessary expense”, that comes under. I had to buy the hardback.’ Buller’s features creased. ‘How d’you think I recognized him? It’s got his picture on the back flap. “P. L. Mitchell”, it says, for all to see.’

  There was more to it than that. More in Buller’s face than he could read—and more in everything Buller had said and done since he’d arrived. And more, not least—more most—in his insistence on their using the ‘back way’ to leave the Taj Mahal.

  ‘”P. L. Mitchell”, Reg—?’

  ‘Funny that—putting his picture in.’ Buller nodded. ‘Like … careless? But then, they’re all a law unto themselves, they are, in “R & D”. They make their own rules, it seems.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be finding a safe house for us at the moment, Reg.’ Jenny had also been reading the signals. ‘He said we weren’t safe here.’

  ‘He did?’ Buller almost seemed preoccupied. ‘Well, I’d say he’s right there. If I thought of here … when you didn’t go to your dad’s place—as maybe you ought to have done … ’ He crossed over to the door and applied a big blunt finger to the bell, leaning on it unmercifully. ‘He couldn’t have touched you there.’

  Ian didn’t look at her. ‘What d’you know about Mitchell that we don’t know, Reg?’ But then he looked at her. ‘Or what do you know, Jen?’ He struggled for an instant with his own knowledge. ‘He’s a colleague of Audley’s—or maybe a friend, even?’

  She was staring at Reg. ‘He’s up-and-coming—isn’t he? Jack Butler and St John Latimer … isn’t he one of their blue-eyed boys?’ Now she turned to Ian. ‘I rather think we should be flattered—or, you should be, anyway, darling: they put one of their top men on your tail today.’

  ‘Huh!’ Buller chased down the last of his beer with one hand, and then stabbed the bell again. “Top Gun” is more like it, Lady! Come on! Come on!’ He edited his face as he returned it to them. ‘You’d think little Abdul ‘ud be glad to see the back of us!’ He gave Ian a mildly inquiring look. ‘An’ what ‘appened to this Irish bloke—Paddy MacWhats-it—? Did you actually set eyes on ‘im, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ Where Jenny sweated, he felt cold, contrariwise. And now he was freezing. ‘But only at a distance—‘

  ‘An’ now ‘e’s playin’ ‘is Irish ‘arp—like on the Guinness labels—?’ The inquiry became harder. ‘But you don’t look that scared, I must say!’

  The door opened before Ian could reply, just as what Reg Buller was plainly implying and what had actually happened at Lower Buckland began to diverge confus-ingly, and Buller himself sprang away from it to one side, with surprising agility.

  ‘Madam—‘ Mr Malik addressed Jenny, and then flinched from Reg Buller as he became aware of him ‘—Madam—you come, eh?’

  ‘We come.’ Buller gestured at them both. ‘Double quick, we come!’ And double-quick, they came, with Reg Buller’s urgency transmitting itself to them, into the warm happy curry-smells on the landing, and round the banisters, and down the stairs.

  ‘Your coat, sir—your hat … your—‘ The false whiskers baffled Mr Malik ‘—Mr Buller, sir—!’

  ‘A lady’ll come for them—‘ Buller was already pushing them ‘—which way—the back-way—?’

  ‘The lady’s coat—it is raining—damn cats-and-dogs—‘ The little man shouted something in his own language, suddenly no longer despairing but commanding.

  One of his smaller waiters, who had been smiling encouragingly at the bottom of the stairs, stopped smiling and began to search feverishly among the coats hung above him.

  ‘Your dinner, sir—‘ Another waiter presented Ian with two large plastic bags, one after another, with a similar smile firmly in place. ‘Three extra-special—double hot lime, double chilli—‘ He offered the bags to Ian ‘—you come this way, please—‘

  ‘Where’s the beer?’ From behind Reg Buller had sorted out his priorities, grabbing the bag which had clinked from Ian. ‘Lady—just take the next coat—they’re all the same—‘

  Ian lost the rest of the exchange as he entered the kitchen, half in a daze as its heat and steam and concentrated smells-and-sizzling overwhelmed him: and bright light and stainless-steel and great bowls and frying pans—and there was a door open down the end, offer
ing escape—but what was he escaping from—?

  ‘Go on, Ian lad.’ Buller’s voice shouted from behind him, urging him forward down the aisles between the huge tables and the cooking ranges, even as the question answered itself, but then still left itself unanswered: he was running away from Paul Mitchell—from Paul Mitchell, who was worried about his safety—?

  He issued out of the kitchen, past a series of rough-painted doors into a small yard lit by a single bulb which seemed all the dimmer for the huge canopy of darkness above it. A thin drizzle shimmered in the yellow light, far removed from Mr Malik’s cats-and-dogs’ rain.

  Then he saw the ‘damn great wall’: it was certainly well-furnished with broken glass set in concrete, but otherwise it had been even more exaggerated than the weather, being only waist-high to the waiter who was even now draping sacks over the jagged glass topping it. Behind it, through a thin screen of bushes, he could see the lights of the houses backing on to the opposite side of the invisible railway track.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Mr Buller.’ Jenny caught his own unspoken thought exactly. ‘Why do we have to go grubbing around in the dark out there—?’ She waved at the wall and their latest grinning waiter, whose white teeth shone yellow in the light of the single bulb on the side of the house above them. ‘What’s so terrible out there in front, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You tell me, Lady.’ Reg Duller sounded cheerfully unrepentant. ‘I’ve been up the street once all the way, with my kind lady-friend on my arm, an’ kissed her goodnight at the bottom, whiskers an’ all. And then come half-way back, an’ Abdul tells me you’ve got company—company I don’t care to meet just yet. So I did a bit more walking an’ window-shoppin’, till Dr Mitchell removed himself—‘ He stopped suddenly. ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘It’s the way you walk.’ She shook her head irritably. ‘But he’s gone, Mr Buller—Reg—‘ She scowled at him in the drizzle, the first strands of hair already dampened against her face. ‘—for God’s sake, Reg!’

  ‘As ‘e? Or is ‘e just waitin’ for you to run?’ Buller was role-playing again. ‘Though o’ course, the blokes down at each end of the street now, parked in their cars on the double-yeller lines, bold as brass—they may not be ‘is blokes, I grant you. They could be local villains waitin’ to do a job? Or villains at one end, an’ plain-clothes lads at the other, waitin’ to nab ‘em? An’ you want me to go an’ arsk ‘em, do you? ‘Cause, I tell you, I ain’t goin’ to—‘ He pointed into the darkness, clinking the bottles in the bag in his other hand as he did so ‘—‘cause I’m goin’ over the wall, is where I’m goin’.’ He swung round, clinking again. ‘We won’t be needing your ladder—just that box’ll do, my lad!’ He nodded at the wooden box which had been conveniently positioned below the sacking.

  ‘Oh no! Ladder damn necessary!’ Mr Malik skipped past them to the wall and on to the box, and addressed the darkness on the other side in his own language.

  ‘What—?’ Reg Buller strode forward and peered over. ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘Walls have two sides, see?’ Mr Malik addressed Ian this time. ‘This side—little wall. Other side—damn great wall. All the same wall, but you break your neck jumping it, if not careful. Ladder damn necessary!’

  ‘Right then!’ Buller drew back and gestured towards Ian. ‘Over you go. There’s a little bloke down there holding the ladder, so don’t drop on him, eh?’

  Going over the wall was uncomfortable and awkward, even with only one bag. But the other side was purgatory, one-handed on the slimy-wet rungs, brushed by sodden branches—the ‘bushes’ he had observed from above were in fact the tops of fair-sized trees—in almost total darkness … or, almost total darkness twice frighteningly broken by the passage of trains, each of which turned the dark into a nightmare of noise and light through the foilage. And the bloody ladder seemed to go on for ever: if anything, the little man had understated the size of his great wall.

  But then, to make him feel feeble and effete, Jenny came down after him like a cat, in half his time. And even Reg Buller made light of his descent, only worried for the safety of his beer.

  ‘Well, that’s blown away the cobwebs!’ Buller puffed slightly as he turned to the attendant waiter, whose white coat belied the darkness. ‘You do this often, do you?’

  ‘Please—?’ The single word sounded curiously unlndian: second generation London-Indian, different not so much because of its pronunciation as for its simple politeness …

  ‘Never mind, lad. We got down. Now, how do we get out? Are those lights I can see up there the ones on the bridge?’

  A sniff came from Jenny’s direction. ‘Now you ask!’

  ‘Don’t fret, Lady. I’ve been alongside more railway lines than you’ve ‘ad ‘ot dinners—as a nipper and as a copper, chasin’ nippers. There’s always ways in, an’ there’s always ways out.’ Buller drew in a breath. ‘Well, lad.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Those are the bridge lights, sure. You just follow the wall—you take my little torch, okay? People throw junk—very dirty people—and you maybe trip, see? But no difficulty … just the rubbish.’

  ‘And then we scale the wall again?’ Jenny’s voice was admirably calm.

  ‘No, Miss. The bank comes up by the bridge. The wall is very little there—very easily, you go up. Just the broken bottles of the dirty people, you got to watch for them. Then only little walls, like I say. No difficulty, Miss.’

  ‘Well … thank you.’ She prodded Ian inaccurately in the almost-darkness. ‘In your wallet, darling—for services rendered?’ She hissed the command.

  ‘Oh no, Miss.’ The young waiter moved towards the ladder like a ghost. ‘Service charges all included in the bill, my father says. I must go now—we’ve got to pull up the ladder damn-quick now, he says—okay?’

  ‘Okay. Up you go, lad,’ agreed Buller. ‘And hide the bloody thing too, just in case—if you can—?’

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir—‘ The voice already came from above them, through the branches ‘—we padlock this fire-escape ladder back in the passage. Then my father loses the key, I think … Good night, sir—Miss—‘ The voice faded.

  ‘Artful little monkey!’ murmured Buller admiringly.

  ‘But well-brought up,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Ah … well, they still bring ‘em up, don’t they! Model bloody citizens they’d be, if it wasn’t for their religions, makin’ ‘em all hate each other—‘ Buller stopped abruptly. ‘But we didn’t ought to stand gabbin’ sweet nothing’s—‘

  As he spoke, the sound of another train rose, drowning the rest of his words as it increased, until it filled the cutting deafeningly. But, more than the noise which reverberated around him, Ian was filled from within with an almost panic-stricken feeling of unreality, which worsened as he glimpsed the train’s occupants sitting and strap-hanging in safety and comfort in their brightly-lit carriages—late city-workers going home to suburban wives and husbands, girl-friends and boy-friends, families and friends … or (since he didn’t even know which way he was facing, up or down) going out happily for a night’s West End entertainment, taking their real world for granted … while he was cowering illegally on railway property in the darkness, with heaven-only-knew what vile refuse crunching underfoot!

  The noise fell away into echoes, which the wind of the train seemed to suck after it, down the line—up the line? And worse—

  ‘Come on, now!’ Buller moved into the deafening silence which the vanished train drew into the cutting, within the enormous hum of that same real world above them, and all around them. ‘We gotta get out of ‘ere, Lady—Ian lad—?’

  And worse! (The drizzle, working down through the leaves above him into single larger drops of rain, spattering irregularly on his face now.) And worse: the whole of that world, real or unreal, had turned against him. Ever since Reg Buller had first changed all the rules with his bad news, so few hours ago, but which seemed like forever now—now—

  ‘Come on!’

  He didn
’t want to move. This day had started unhopefully, yet then it had fed his ego deceptively, when he’d thought himself so clever. But from the moment he’d got through to Jenny its true nature had been revealed, albeit through a glass, darkly: the whole world out there was hostile, and full of dangers which he could no longer dismiss as imaginary.

  ‘Come on—‘ Buller had moved, lighting his own way first with the boy’s inadequate pocket-torch, and then helping Jenny as she had followed, leaving Ian behind in the actual dark, as well as his inner darkness. So now the voice came further off. ‘Mister Robinson!’

  ‘I’m coming.’ The feeble glow illuminated a great buttress, dark on his side and dirty yellow-brown on its railway side: the Victorian bricks in which London had burst outwards in its great days, in their untold billions; but now his feet were skidding and crushing on filthy modern detritus, of bottles and cans and plastics, up against the wall and the buttress, all mixed with the leaf-compost of a hundred years.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Buller shone the torch into his eyes challengingly. ‘We ‘aven’t got all night, y’know … You got the bag, ‘ave yer?’

  That was it! Ian felt the last strand of his patience snap, with the addition of the bag of congealing curries and rice and pickles to Buller’s assumed ‘working class’ voice, which was designed to jolly him along, challenging him to behave like an officer and a gentleman, and not let the side down.

  ‘No.’ He rounded the buttress, and then set his back against it, as though exhausted. ‘This is far enough.’

  ‘What?’ The torch came back to him.

  ‘Darling—when we get to the car—‘ Jenny supported the torch—‘—and I’m getting wet, too!’

  ‘Damn the car!’ When they reached the BMW, he would be driving it. And then it would be too late, because he would have to concentrate on his driving. And … maybe they were both relying on that. ‘I want to know what’s happening to me.’ As he spoke, he knew that he had the whip-hand: even apart from her unwillingness to drive and Reg Buller’s careless intake of alcohol (and consequently even greater unwillingness), they couldn’t leave him behind now, with whatever they each had in mind—not with Paul Mitchell out there … whoever else was out there.