he once again felt alive, no longer an emasculated zombie wage
slave. He chuckled: Maureen would habitually speak of the dignity
of labour. There was no dignity, he thought: labour was subjuga-
tion, and all subjugation was humiliation.
Martin had been on the blower with his associates. It was worth
the cost, frantically slotting ten- pence pieces to feed the insatiable appetite of the telephone around the corner. The first consignment
was to be expected in days, although details had yet to be finalized.
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Meanwhile they had set to redecorating the dingy little shop, covering the window first with newspaper. They had ripped out the
ancient carpet, painted the dark walls that reeked of tobacco with
white emulsion and slapped gloss paint over the dented old counter.
For their stock, Martin’s contacts in Belgium, the Netherlands and
Scandinavia were vital. Roy provided the business know- how and
the backbone.
He was just thinking of climbing uncomfortably from the sofa
and brewing a cup of tea for himself when an impatient rap came
on the front door of the shop. He threw off the frayed grey blanket and, taking his time, dragged on his shoes, ran his fingers though
his hair, tucked his shirt inside his trousers and shuffled towards the noise, which had not abated. A short, snappily dressed young man
stood on the other side of the glass door. He looked impatiently at Roy, who looked him up and down, taking in his chalk- stripe suit
with wide lapels and flared trousers, his Chelsea boots, his wispy
moustache, his Brylcreemed hair and his cocky expression. He
knew his type: on the make and in a hurry. No doubt there was
some angle here and Roy would have to hear him out: some special
offer on some tame porn or knock- off booze, or suchlike. Well, he would listen politely.
‘Mr Mannion, is it?’ asked the young man brightly. Roy had taken
the precaution of using the name for this piece of business.
‘Who’s asking?’ said Roy brusquely.
‘Name of Smith. John Smith. No, that really is my name.’ The
young man laughed to denote the practised joke. ‘Like a millstone I carry around with me, that name. No one believes me. But here I
am. Large as life. John Smith. Care to see my driving licence?’
Roy looked uninterested. It could well be a hooky one anyway.
‘Why should I? What do you want?’
‘You’re new on this plot, aren’t you? My associates and me knew
Archie well. Good old boy. One of the best. Old school. Knew his
civic duty, played a part. No, Mr M. I thought I’d just come by and welcome you to the area on behalf of the local businesses. I may
have seen you around before in fact. You may have noticed me.’
‘Can’t say I have. Where’s your shop?’
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‘Oh, my business is all over the place. I don’t have a fixed base. Me and my associates are in the business of providing services for our customers. And we sincerely hope you’ll shortly be one too.’
He grinned broadly. Roy did not. He was bored. He was having
none of this schoolboy shakedown.
‘What kind of services?’
John Smith’s good humour did not leave him. He smiled again
and said, ‘Mr M. You’re a businessman. I’d have thought you’d have
some kind of idea.’
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t. Enlighten me.’
‘All kinds of things. We’re entrepreneurs. We can help with sup-
plies, food, drink, literature, that kind of thing. I hear you’re opening a bookshop here.’
‘You seem well informed. Where did you get that from?’
Mr Smith ignored his question. ‘Staff, even. We’ve got a good
stock of, ahem, very presentable employees. If that’s what you’re
interested in. We have good relations with the local filth too. Can make some introductions for you if you like, to ease your path.
Pretty much anything.’
‘Thank you. But I think we’re well catered for,’ said Roy
gruffly.
‘One of our most popular lines is security. We look after a lot of
the businesses in the area. Not nice if you’re starting up a new business in a new area to fall foul to burglaries or what have you. We can make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘Not interested. Thank you.’
‘Whereas if you don’t get sorted with the right kind of insurance
all kinds of things can happen. Or my associates may be interested
in a joint venture. A merger, shall we say? Or even in taking over
your business for the right price if it has any prospects.’
‘Just clear off out of it, will you, sonny? Or I’ll give you a clip round your ear for your pains.’
The boy continued to grin. ‘No need to be like that, now, Mr M.
We don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, do we? Don’t want no
little misunderstandings. You’ll probably need some help along the
way. Some goodwill, shall we say?’
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‘I don’t need scumbags like you and your little pals shaking me
down.’
‘My word,’ said Smith. ‘You do have a temper on you, don’t you,
Mr M? A word to the wise, this is not good for customer relations,
or for community spirit. We all like to get on. We don’t like nothing to rock the boat. Bad for business. Especially for the one doing the rocking. Can I suggest you give it some consideration? I’ll come
around tomorrow so that we can talk brass tacks.’
‘You can bugger off and if you come round here again I’ll kick
your arse for you.’
‘We obviously haven’t hit it off. Maybe if one of my associates
dropped by?’
‘I’ll kick his spotty arse for him too. Now just piss off and don’t come back.’
‘You may be making a big mistake.’
‘What? You going to call by with a few of your pals, are you? I
don’t think so. Do I look like I’m quaking in my boots?’
‘Not a good move, Mr M,’ said John Smith, wagging his finger.
7
‘Trouble,’ said Martin a few days later. ‘Big trouble.’ He was out of breath when he entered the shop.
‘Calm down, Martin,’ said Roy. ‘Now tell your Uncle Roy all
about it.’
‘Did someone calling himself John Smith come by the other day?’
‘What if he did? I can handle him.’
‘It’s not him you have to worry about. It’s who he represents.
He’s only the softening- up act.’
‘It’s just an amateur protection racket. All we need to do is stand up to them.’
‘You don’t understand. They go back years. They own most of
the properties, or if not have the landlords’ balls in the vice. They’ll let people go about their business so long as they don’t shit on their doorstep and pay their dues.’
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‘Storm in a teacup. Teething problems. We’ll be all right.’
‘No. I don’t think so. They’ve had me in and given me a good
talking- to. The big men, not your John Smith. They don’t like you.
Not much we can do about it.’
‘All right,’ said Roy slo
wly. ‘How much?’
‘It’s beyond that.’
‘So what? A pitched battle along Wardour Street? They wouldn’t
want that, would they?’
‘No, they wouldn’t.’
‘What’s the deal?’
‘They’ll compromise. They don’t want the bother.’
‘That’s good. So. What. Is. The. Deal. Martin?’
‘We clear out today and leave the keys on the counter. As in piss
off out of London.’
‘Or else?’
‘They didn’t specify. There’s more.’
‘There always is.’
‘They know about our consignment. I’m assuming they know
from the far end. They’ve tipped off the Old Bill about when and
where. The consignment’s been seized at Folkestone.’
‘And we’re to take their word for that?’
‘They told me exactly how it was coming in. My contact down
the dock says it’s buzzing with cops and Customs down there.
Smith’s bosses will give us thirty minutes – I pleaded with them –
and then there’ll be another phone call that goes in to tell them
where it was headed. Then the Flying Squad will be on us. Just a
little hurry- up, they said.’
Roy considered momentarily, then spoke. ‘Right, let’s go.’
In silence they gathered together Roy’s belongings in a grip. With
a damp cloth he wiped all the surfaces that he imagined he might
have touched. He removed the keys from his key ring and placed
them on the counter.
They slammed the door behind them as they left and walked
swiftly to the Tube station, their collars turned up.
‘What now?’ said Roy when they had finally settled in a pub at
Ealing Broadway.
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‘I have some ideas. Whatever got into your head, Roy?’
‘I’ve never been pushed around by anyone. Least of all a little
lowlife like that.’
‘That little lowlife is the nephew of one of the big boys. Very
highly regarded. That’s us finished here.’
‘So what next?’
‘Pastures new,’ said Martin with a smile, draining his pint glass.
8
Roy disliked intensely being wrong when Martin, idiot Martin, was
right. But he was: a precautionary and careful pass along Berwick
Street confirmed a burnt- out shop front in the place of his hopes and dreams. Unless it was an elaborate ruse of Martin’s by some
obscure means to wrest Roy’s savings from his grasp, the next move
of which he would shortly witness, it was simply true. No, no, Mar-
tin did not have the wit for the grand scheme. Oh no.
He had returned to the Paddington hotel room and waited. The
room, under the eaves, was cheap as well as nasty, but he did not
want to spend more than he needed to of his funds before his life
began again in earnest. He was bored. The room had no television
and he returned from his excursion to Soho with his copy of the
Sun, which he read from cover to cover. He slept for a while in the afternoon.
It was even worse being dependent on Martin. For the moment,
Martin was in the lead, sorting out their travel arrangements and
obtaining passports from a contact he knew in the East End. Roy had no option but to trust him: he had removed all his cash from his bank accounts but dared not set out on his own to put things right. He was bereft of ideas, devoid of contacts. With his light manner at their meetings each evening, Martin unwittingly piled more indignity on
to Roy. At some stage in their joint career, Martin would pay for this.
Tonight, allegedly, they would be on the move. For the photographs
to be used in their new forged passports that Roy judged prudent
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just in case the police should arrest them as they attempted to leave the country, they had each had their shoulder- length locks cut to a short- back- and- sides and shaved off their moustaches. Martin had been dispatched to some contacts of his in the East End to have the passports made up. We shall see, thought Roy, we shall see whether
young Mr White turns up.
But he duly did, and Roy felt a hatred that was undampened by its
irrationality. Martin had reduced him to this: impotence and dependence on a generally harmless and usually useful fool. He disguised
his contempt, as effectively as Martin concealed his new- found superiority, in cheerful solicitousness.
It was a big night, not just for them. Crowds milled around cen-
tral London, many heading for Wembley and the big match that
would see England qualify for the World Cup in Germany the fol-
lowing year. To give him his due, Martin had thought it through.
While the Metropolitan Police strained to effect crowd control in
London and residual lazy coppers watched Brian Clough drone his
ITV punditry on control room televisions, they would be going
against the flow.
Once they had negotiated the Tube and the teeming concourse
at Victoria, things became easier. They found an empty carriage on
the boat train and the worst to contend with was the waiting, as
British Rail vainly resumed its daily struggle to get a train away on time. People straggled into the compartment, a blinking German
student with evidently not a clue, obliviously knocking him on the
knee with his sharp- edged rucksack, two ugly Italian girls chatting thirteen to the dozen, three smiling and loud Dutch boys. Soon
there was the full complement of eight and Roy contained his seeth-
ing anger only by feigning to doze. This was not travelling in style.
This was not what he had imagined for himself.
schedule. It screeched to a jarring halt outside Dover station, shaking him from the deep slumber he had fallen into, and waited almost twenty minutes before, apparently without reason, jerking forward
again.
They waited until their young companions had disgorged from
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the train before picking up their bags, shrugging their coats on to their shoulders and heading through the passage towards the ferry
and passport control. Roy checked mentally that he had his cur-
rency well hidden in the bottom of his grip. The sense that if he
were to be detained and his belongings searched it would all be up
was, in a strange but familiar way, calming. He had travelled this
path before. The only factors that were in play at this moment were his demeanour and fortune, good or bad.
Martin and Roy separated and he hung at the back of a cluster of
young people, evidently on a trip of some kind, of excited English
secondary school children. He looked at their shabby guardians and
loosened his tie, mussed his hair and adopted a world- weary expression. His new passport indicated, after all, that he was a teacher. It was over in a moment once he had waited for all twenty- six children and the adults to pass and ensured that he followed them immediately. The official looked at him, bored, scrutinized his passport
fleetingly and handed it back. Simple as that, and he felt an inner glow.
As he boarded the vessel by the glare of the dock lights a blaring
radio carried by one of the seame
n announced that England had
drawn against Poland and would not after all be at the 1974 World
Cup. England, my England, he thought, as he glanced back at Dover.
Good to get you off my back for a while.
They were well into their third celebratory pint at the bar when
Roy raised the subject of their plans for the future. The ferry lurched and swayed on the rough seas and empty glasses slid on neighbouring tables. They were almost the only people in the half- lit space.
Martin looked wan and extinguished his cigarette, but Roy’s stom-
ach was stronger.
‘What next, Martin?’ he asked.
‘Hadn’t given it a thought,’ slurred Martin. ‘The main priority
was clearing out before the rozzers found us.’
‘Quite right,’ said Roy calmly, and waited a beat. ‘But we do need
a plan.’ He smiled encouragingly.
‘Thought we’d find some cheap hotel in Paris and take it from
there.’
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Roy sighed, almost but not quite imperceptibly. He said, ‘All right.
That’ll do for starters. But then?’
Martin looked blank.
‘You’ve got some contacts in Brussels?’ said Roy, prompting with
a cocked eyebrow.
‘Yes.’
‘Who deal in various commodities?’
‘Yes, but if you –’
‘Yes?’
‘You’d need money for starters.’
‘I reckon I could lay my hands on some cash. Seems a pity to
waste these lovely new passports.’
‘If you’re thinking of going back to England . . .’
‘I didn’t say that. But if your pals need some help getting stuff
down from Scandinavia or over from North Africa, who better than
a couple of upstanding British businessmen to help them? I’m sure
we could turn our hands to that. Don’t you agree? As long as the
price is right. And, as time goes on, set ourselves up properly in the import- export business.’
‘Cut them out, you mean? They won’t like that.’
‘You’re getting ahead of yourself, Martin. That’s not what I said.
Let’s just make ourselves useful in the first place and see where that takes us, shall we? Or have you got a better idea?’
‘No.’
‘Well then. You just set up the meetings and I’ll worry about the
money. How does that sound? All right with you, is it?’
‘I suppose so.’