Guy scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The morning star should have been at its most glorious, but there was too much cloud. The sky was lighter now, the colour of pigeons’ wings, with butterscotch clouds torn into small fragments and scattered from horizon to horizon. The surf was thumping into an outcrop of rock with a sound deeper than any rave band could produce, throwing plumes of spray into the air. The teenager surveyed it all, and felt happy.
A movement away to his left caught his attention. ‘Oh shit!’ he cursed – two men were walking down the beach. They’d scare away all the wildlife. The secret of good observation was to be very still and quiet, and let the animals and birds come to you, but these men would cancel out all the patience he had invested in this.
Guy trained the binoculars on them as they walked towards him. They were wearing combat jackets, and the smaller of the two had a slight limp. As they passed below him he could easily see the man’s facial features, and he gave an involuntary shiver. He looked as if he’d had some sort of accident that had left him disfigured. A boxer, maybe, with a bad record. He looked out of place on the beach, at this hour of the morning. The baseball bat he was carrying only added to the incongruity.
They were walking close to the bottom of the cliff, and passed within fifty yards of Guy. Neither of them spoke. After they’d gone he lost sight of them, hidden by the gorse and the outcrops of rock. Guy looked at his watch. The man with the Labrador would be here in fifty minutes. He was Guy’s signal to pack his belongings and go home for breakfast.
The chough didn’t show itself, and no sea monsters were observed. Highlight of the morning was a bird that alighted on a bush about twelve feet in front of Guy and gave him a concert. At first he thought it was a yellowhammer, but he suddenly realised that it might be a cirl bunting. He was trying to consult his guidebook with as little movement as possible when it flew away.
The man with the Labrador came every Saturday morning. No other day, just Saturdays. He was on the beach at least an hour before all the other dog-walkers. Guy saw the Labrador first, dashing towards the sea after being let off its lead at the bottom of the steps. It dashed into the waves, sniffed them, and galloped back towards its master.
He came into view and strolled along just beyond the reach of the tide, throwing stones for the dog, which it never recognised once they had come to rest amongst all the others. Guy trained his binoculars on him, and noted, not for the first time, that he was extremely well-dressed for dog-walking on the beach. As Guy watched, the man glanced back over his shoulder, and a look of apprehension gripped his face.
Guy lowered the binoculars and saw why. The taller of the two men he’d seen earlier had emerged from the foot of the cliff, behind the dog-walker, and was walking towards him. Now the other one, with the baseball bat, appeared in front of him. Guy stood up.
The man had turned back the way he came, taking a course to avoid his assailants, but the tall man moved to cut him off. Ugly Face, with the baseball bat, was running towards them. The man started to flee, trying to dodge round the tall one, but he couldn’t. He fell to the ground as the other one dashed up, raising the bat above his head.
‘Hey! Stop it!’ Guy was on his feet and shouting.
Three faces turned towards him. ‘Stop it!’ Guy screamed, and jumped down the first few feet of cliff between him and the men. Ugly Face froze, the bat still held aloft.
His colleague grabbed him. ‘Forget it! Let’s go!’ he yelled. They started running towards the steps. Guy stumbled and rolled the last few feet on to the beach. He leapt to his feet and started after them. When he reached the wooden stairs they were nearly halfway towards the top. Guy took the steps three at a time. He knew he had no chance of tackling them, but thought he might get the number of their car. They had to be in a car.
The tall one stopped. He delved inside his jacket and pulled out a gun. Guy saw a puff of smoke from it, whipped away by the wind, and above the pounding of the blood in his ears he heard a crack and the buzz of the bullet going past his head. He turned and ran back down the steps.
The well-dressed man was on his feet, dusting the sand from his overcoat, the dog jumping around as if it were all a game.
‘They got away,’ Guy told him, puffing from the exertion. The man’s face was the colour of the surf. ‘Are you all right?’ Guy asked.
He nodded, struggling for his breath. After a while he managed to say: ‘You saved my life.’
Guy helped him up the steps, back towards where his car was parked. When he was more composed, the man said: ‘They shot at you. You could have been killed, too.’
‘Missed by a mile,’ Guy told him with forced bravado. ‘What do you think they wanted?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know. Probably just a mugging. Drug addicts, that sort of thing.’ They’d reached his car. It was a big Rover, and brand new. ‘What’s your name?’ the man asked.
‘Guy Dooley.’
The man extended his hand. Thanks again, Guy. You were the right person in the right place. I’m grateful to you.’
Guy shook his hand. ‘What about the police?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I suppose we’ll have to tell the police. Will you do that?’
‘OK.’
He drove away, leaving Guy to go back to retrieve his birdwatching apparatus. As he drove off Guy wrote the number of his Rover in his notebook. It was a personal number, the letters being RJK. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said after the retreating vehicle. Now he felt scared. He daren’t go back down to the beach, so he walked home. He’d have to come back later for his stuff, when there were more people about.
A bus ride from the dock to the centre of Rotterdam was included in the fare. We drove in on the A15, past ten miles of oil storage tanks and a forest of windmills. Sadly, they were the modern propellor-driven type. I read the road-signs: Ring Road Nord, Utrecht, Den Haag. We passed huge depots belonging to Mitsubishi and Wang, and were overtaken by a van with Slagboom written down the side. I’d visited Holland before, when I was an art student, and it was still the same bewildering mixture of the familiar and the totally foreign.
Rotterdam was bustling. I discovered how to use the underground system and spent three hours in the Boymans-Van-Beuningen Art Gallery. When I was lost, I asked, and people were very helpful. I lunched the easy way, in a department store self-service restaurant, and couldn’t resist having a warme appelbol for pudding. Scrumptious!
The novelty had worn off for the journey home. The meal wasn’t as good and the airline seat was even more uncomfortable. I had a couple of drinks in the bar and fell into a conversation with two girls from Bradford who’d caught the train to Amsterdam and visited the Rijksmuseum. They’d wandered into the red light district, and couldn’t tell me about it for giggling. Maybe I should have gone with them.
The Jag was right where I’d left it when we docked at eight o’clock on a bright Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure what to do next. In theory, I had a kilogram or two of an illegal substance on my person, so I ought to be disposing of it, somewhere. I drove into the centre of Hull and did some exploring, learnt my way around. Early Sunday morning is the best time for that. Then I went for a spin in the Jag.
I drove over the Humber Bridge, into no-man’s-land. It was fun driving the E-type across the bridge, but I’d have liked to have been down on the river, watching it go by. I pushed the tape into the machine and waited for the music. It was the Karelia Suite; just right.
The roads were deserted. The only other vehicles I saw were the occasional police traffic cars perched on their ramps at the side of the motorway, the driver with his head down, engrossed in the News of the World on his knees. I shot by at about a ton without attracting any attention. The M180, M18 and M62 took me to the A1 services and breakfast. It was just after eleven when I revved the engine in the drive of the cottage, hopefully awakening Kevin from his slumbers and dreams of the Big Time.
At ten past twelve, shaved and showered, I knocked on his door. He e
merged blinking, like Mr Hedgehog on the first day of spring. It soon would be, I thought, and a week later Annabelle would be home.
‘Hi, Kevin. Fancy going to the pub for Sunday dinner?’ I asked.
‘Er, dunno.’ He was tucking his shirt into his trousers.
‘C’mon, do you good. My treat, I’m feeling flush. We’ll go in the Jag.’
‘Oh, all right then. Ta.’
‘Good lad. Come round when you’re ready, but don’t be too long: my stomach thinks my throat has a knot in it.’
He came in about twenty minutes, looking quite smart in a suit but no tie. I was restricted to jeans, clean shirt and my trusty leather jacket. I drove us over the Humber Bridge again to a big pub I’d seen on the outskirts of Brig. Maybe I showed off just a little on the way. Kevin beamed like he was coaching a team of synchronised swimmers.
‘What will she do?’ he asked, inevitably.
I shrugged my shoulders and sucked a long breath in, like a cowboy plumber surveying someone’s flooded kitchen. ‘It’s supposed to do a hundred and fifty,’ I told him, modestly adding: ‘but I’ve only ever had a hundred and thirty-five out of her. That’s plenty fast enough for me, though.’
‘And me. What does she do to the gallon?’
Kevin asked questions all the way. Anything I didn’t know I invented. All part of the training, some might say. What do macho drug smugglers have for Sunday lunch? Something different, like trout and salad, would have been very nice, but I had an image to cultivate.
‘Roast beef and Yorkshire,’ I told the waitress, dismissing the proffered menu.
‘Yeah, me too,’ Kevin agreed. ‘So,’ he said, sipping the froth off his pint. ‘How did the trip go?’
‘Pretty good,’ I replied. ‘One package collected and delivered. Charlie paid, cash on delivery. That’s how I like it.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Just to Rotterdam. No sweat. You ever been?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been a few times. So where did you have to deliver to?’
I plonked my glass down hard. ‘Come off it, Kevin. You’ll be asking me what was in the package next. And if you do, the answer is: “I don’t know”.’
He grinned and said: ‘I bet you’ve a good idea, though.’
The waitress was hovering with two heaped plates. I leant across to him an whispered: ‘Well, I don’t suppose it was friggin’ Edam cheese.’
It was my treat, so I fetched the drinks each time and was able to order myself low-alcohol lager. Strange thing is, you feel just as drunk on it. I didn’t quiz Kevin about his activities, being content to concentrate on winning his confidence. He’d open up, do some boasting, all in good time.
He insisted on buying a final round, so I told him to make mine an LA. ‘Don’t want pulling over by the filth,’ I said, strangling a burp.
I drove back well within the speed limits, and laughed a lot. When Kevin got out, in my drive, he said: ‘Thanks for the meal, Charlie. I appreciate it. I’ll get the next one, if things buck up a bit.’
I adopted my grave, empathic look. I did a course on it, once, but the pretend booze helped. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t you doing too well at the moment?’
He looked embarrassed. ‘No, not really. Things have dried up a bit. It’s just temporary, though.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Kevin,’ I said, in tones you could have sweetened porridge with. This was my fatherly bit. ‘These are rough times for everyone, it’s not easy. Look, I might be able to direct something your way. Would you be interested?’
‘Er, no. Thanks all the same though, Charlie. I’ve heard there’s something in the pipeline for me, in the next few days. Like I said, it’s just temporary.’
I was glad about that. The plan was that he recruit me, not the other way round. I said: ‘I hope so, Kevin,’ adding: ‘Well, I don’t know about you, old pal, but I’m going to crash out for four hours, catch up on my sleep.’
And that’s what I did.
In the evening I drove home, to Heckley. There was a long blue envelope lying on the doormat, with four stamps with elephants on them, nearly obliterated by the wavy lines of the franking machine. I made a pot of tea and opened a new packet of custard creams. When I was nice and comfortable in front of the gasfire, I sliced open the envelope and unfolded the pages.
It was a long letter, and I’d been looking forward to receiving it, but now I felt a strange reluctance to read. Sometimes, distance changes one’s perspective, throws you into decisions that you might not otherwise take. She’d be visiting new places as well as familiar ones, meeting interesting people, finding a purpose. Maybe Heckley and its inhabitants couldn’t compete with all that.
The phone was ringing, but I ignored it. Annabelle had arrived safely and was met at the airport as planned. After six rings the tape on the ansaphone clicked into action and I heard my flat tones inviting the caller to leave a message. Annabelle’s schedule was hectic, no time for sightseeing, so she hadn’t seen any wildlife.
A faraway female voice said: ‘Hello, Charlie, this is Diane Dooley …’
Annabelle had written: I’m missing you; wish you’d been able to come, too. Maybe next time?
‘… could you give me a ring, please. It’s about Guy.’
I’d read what I wanted to hear, so I jumped up and grabbed the phone. ‘Hello, Diane, it’s me. How are you?’
‘Oh, hello, Charlie. I’m all right, I think.’
‘You said something about Guy.’
‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind me ringing you …’
‘Of course not. Has something happened?’
‘I’m not sure. He says someone took a shot at him.’
‘Well, that sounds serious enough,’ I told her. ‘When was this?’
I heard a big sigh come down the line, then she said: ‘First of all, he went out with a patrol car one day last week. The school let him have a day off – work experience, they called it. Needless to say, Guy came back determined to be the next Chief Constable; he was full of it. By the way, he’s in the middle of writing you a thank-you letter.’
‘No problem,’ I interrupted. ‘Glad he enjoyed it.’
‘Oh, he enjoyed it all right. They were very good to him – gave him the full treatment. In fact, I felt quite envious when he told me all about it.’
‘So who shot at him?’
‘This was Saturday morning. He often gets up before dawn to go down to the beach, birdwatching. Then he comes home filled with fanciful tales of what he’s seen: killer whales, eagles, all sorts of things. Saturday he came home and said he’d saved a man’s life, and someone took a shot at him.’
‘And you don’t believe him?’
‘I’m not sure. He was certainly scared when he came home – he’d left all his stuff at the beach.’
‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’
‘I’d be grateful if you could, Charlie. You know how impressionable he is, but he seems to look up to you.’
That sounded like being damned by faint praise, but I don’t think it was intended that way. ‘Tell me the full story,’ I suggested.
When she’d finished I asked if she had the number of the Rover.
‘Yes, it’s here on the pad.’ She read it to me.
‘And the police haven’t been back to you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think they believed him?’
‘I’m not sure.’
I drew a doodle on my pad, of a stranded whale alongside a hole in the ground, with shovelfuls of sand being ejected from the hole. ‘Well, I believe him,’ I told her. ‘Leave it with me; I’ll see what I can find out and come back to you. It might be tomorrow.’
I rang Heckley nick and asked them to run a PNC check for me. ‘Don’t you ever give it a rest, Charlie?’ the duty Sergeant protested.
‘Just find out who he is. Nobody gives me a dirty look like that and gets away with it.’ A few minutes later I knew that the Rover belonged to one
Richard J. Kidderminster, of an address in St Ives. He had no convictions. Technology is wonderful.
I rang Diane straight back and asked her if the name meant anything. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Never heard of him. Shall I look in the phone book – see if he’s in?’
‘Mmm, good idea.’
But unfortunately he wasn’t.
‘Never mind,’ I told her. ‘I’ll have a word with the local police and see what they say. If I learn anything interesting I’ll let you know.’
It was late, but I didn’t want to sleep on it. I dug out an ancient copy of the Police Almanac and found the number of the station where I’d arranged for Guy to have his visit. The PC who answered had been on the early shift when I’d called in to make arrangements for Guy’s visit, and he’d read the reports of the shooting.
I said: ‘His mother is worried that he’s romancing, carried away after his ride in a squad car. Is his story being taken seriously?’
‘Oh yes, sir, very seriously. We checked with Mr Kidderminster and he made a complaint. Said young Guy probably saved his life.’
‘Good, I’m glad about that. Who is this Kidderminster?’
‘Sorry, don’t you know? He’s an MP.’
‘A military policeman?’ I queried, being my normal awkward self. Ambiguity is the mother of confusion.
‘Er, no, sir. A Member of Parliament. He lives in St Ives, but he’s MP for North Dorset. Apparently he comes down from London every Friday evening and takes his dog for a walk on the beach early Saturday morning. It looks as if they were waiting for him. We’ve notified the Special Branch and are awaiting further instructions. It’s in their hands now.’ He added: ‘I’m not sure if I ought to be telling you all this.’
‘Don’t worry about it. So presumably the Special Branch or the anti-terrorist people will contact Guy as soon as they find a map with St Ives on it.’
The Judas Sheep Page 15
