A Start in Life (25 page)

He gave her that impression as well: ‘No, Agnes. Who'd run things without me? Everything would fall to pieces. There are too many relying on me. Don't worry, love. It'll all blow calm again. There's nothing they can put on me, and they know it. They try a little frame-up now and again in the hope that it'll stick. They haven't got a chance. That Detective Inspector Lantorn just won't be sensible and let go. He's got to show willing now and again to Chief Inspector Jockstrap, otherwise he's a decent enough bloke. In many ways I've got a lot to thank him for, but we won't go into that now, especially a few years ago when …'

He saw me listening, and though I'm sure he trusted me, some inborn caution told him not to go on. It was true that we had become quite friendly, though with a certain distance always between us. He talked to me as if I were himself, and though this sometimes made me feel as if I were no longer myself, it did make it the most interesting job I'd so far had. He had a certain flinty wisdom which I was too young to see myself as ever having. I won't say I wanted to be like him, because I was too frightened of him for that, but I admired him nevertheless.

There was a suite of kennels outside the house. Apart from a brace of Dobermann Pinschers which served as guard dogs to his property, Moggerhanger kept a couple of champion greyhounds. One was run under the name of Long Tom, while the other was called Abel Cain. He'd bought them six months ago, but already they'd won a few races and were high up in the lists. They would have turned any Nottingham collier green with envy, if such people still kept whippets, which I wasn't sure of, because I'd never seen them doing so in my short life.

The only blight on Moggerhanger's arrest was that, as a condition of his bail, he was not supposed to leave town, and this came at the time when his sporting heart was set on letting Long Tom and Abel Cain race on a dogcourse in Devon. He not only stood to win fair money, but to increase the fame of his prime animals – which would jack up their price when they were worn out and he wanted to sell them. He fumed about this unreasonable confinement as I drove him from one to another of his clubs by day, and to a certain place in Knightsbridge at night outside which I had to wait in the car for several hours till he came wearily down, snappy with me, but pleased with himself. Cursing his ill-luck in this way was Moggerhanger's method of clarifying his thoughts towards a certain plan. He proposed to invite Detective Inspector Lantern over to dinner, and I was sent to the appropriate police station at seven o'clock to bring him back to Ealing.

He had a face that was distinguished by being utterly unrecognizable. He was as tall and thin as a ramrod. His look was thin and expressionless, and with the grey suit he was wearing and the glassy stare in his eyes he could perhaps more than in any other country have vanished like a fish in water, because if there were any features at all in his face I saw that they were getting uncomfortably close to those of a fish the more I got the opportunity of glancing at him.

I sprang out and opened the back door for him as he came down the steps – as I'd been told to do. He got in and sat down without even a thank you. What went on at the dinner I shall never know. Walking the lawns outside, I certainly heard a lot of glass clinking and gruff matey laughter. I don't suppose many people can claim to have been dined and swined at the Moggerhanger's, but when I drove Lantorn back to his Wembley home that night he was singing
Kemp Town Races
all the way, even when I'd let him out and watched him go crump at his matchbox gate.

Two days later I was called at six in the morning to drive them to the racecourse in Devon. For an hour neither Lantorn nor Moggerhanger spoke a word, but sat well back behind, arms folded into their overcoats, not even glimpsing out at the ominous fish-red dawn. Two sleek greyhounds sprawled on the upholstery at their feet, opening their scissor-jaws now and again for a yawn so wide that they seemed capable of swallowing the whole car. That's the picture I got when I heard the sharp whine of it above the purr of the engine. The sky as I went south from Wembley was purple and red as if God had slit His own throat, and was spilling Himself over the whole world. It seemed a normal, raw, unkindly London dawn, and I was glad to turn my back on it when we swung on to the Great West Road at Heston.

I cruised at fifty and sixty where I shouldn't have done more than forty, but this was to see whether the big copper in the back would stir up and say anything. He didn't, so I hoped a patrol car would tail us and pull us in to see why we were going so fast. Then I'd see an exchange of looks that might be interesting. There wasn't much traffic on the way out, and I thought how good it would be to have a few hundred miles of road all to myself. If I were king I'd issue a proclamation saying that all subjects were to be off the road on such and such a day, and then I'd get into a souped-up Rolls with my prime minister, minister of war, and chief of police, and speed along freely wherever I wanted to go. As it was, any honest chauffeur making a living risked his life on England's arterial lanes. It was good practice for my self-control, not being able to curse blind because of my passengers, as I went through town after town and there still seemed no end to getting out of London. But those at the back didn't worry, and when Moggerhanger let out a reverberating belch Lantorn stirred and asked: ‘What did you say?'

‘Not a word,' said Moggerhanger. Long Tom jumped on his knee at the sound of his voice, but he eased it off with the back of his hand. Moggerhanger was getting his own way and that's all that mattered to him and his underworld. He'd asked Lantorn if he couldn't waive his metropolitan regulations and let him go off for the day to race his favourite dogs in Devon. At first Lantorn refused just to show he had some weight to throw about, but then he relented on condition that he, James Lantorn, could go along too to keep an eye on him, and maybe win a bit of money into the bargain on these dogs Moggerhanger boasted about so much. Moggerhanger swore they were certain to win every race, and I for one knew him to be right. I was prepared to bet every pound on the dogs because they couldn't help but win. I'd seen Claud put the dope and syringes into his small case before leaving that morning, which was something Lantorn might or might not know. But as I drove along I saw I was stupid in thinking he didn't know, when it was obvious he knew very well, because it seemed to me that James Lantorn and Claud Moggerhanger were two of the biggest crooks in the world – as I opened up and went at sixty towards Basingstoke. If there was an angel in the car at the moment it must have been me, and I kept saying it to myself in case I should fall for the trap of being proud of it.

Lantorn must have been awake because I heard him say, when a Jaguar overtook me: ‘That bastard's doing above seventy. I'd pull him in if I was in a squad car.'

‘It's terrible, the sort of people you get on the roads these days,' said Claud. ‘If it was up to me every car would cost ten thousand pounds cash, and them that couldn't afford it could walk, or take a bus. That'd keep the decks clear. It's getting bad, and it'll get worse.' He took out a bottle of brandy and a silver cup, poured a round, and passed it to Lantorn, who silted it down without a word. ‘Cards?' said Claud. There must-have been a nod in his direction, because I heard the case come open, and the crisp efficient shuffle of a deck. Cigar smoke filtered through, and the rattle of money. Small stakes, I thought, as laughter at some surprising hand or other dinned my neck. There were light-hearted curses, a slapping of thighs, and an occasional harsh: ‘Get down, you bastard,' as one of the dogs tried to barge its long head in, or when they hadn't even moved but Claud had lost and wanted somebody to take it out of.

I stopped at a town traffic lights and half turned my head to see what was the score, and Moggerhanger rapped out: ‘Keep your eyes to the front, and your ears to the front. That's what I pay you for. Not to drive. Any ragbag can drive.' He laughed at this, and Lantorn joined in, but I shot forward on green so that the deck of cards moved. Surprisingly, Moggerhanger didn't bury a razor in my neck or sack me on the spot. Apparently his bad hand had suddenly become a good one, and it was Lantorn who laughed on the other side of his face when he couldn't get things back to the way they'd been before. When we stopped for a sandwich Moggerhanger looked more like the copper to me, a real hardback if ever there was one. But we felt in a better mood after eating and a mug of tea. The dogs were brought out for a piss as well, to stretch their long and lovely legs that were set, when specially primed, to win us so much goo.

At eleven o'clock, and not far from the course, I heard them packing the cards away. Moggerhanger was in a grumpy state of mind because he'd lost five quid. Being a millionaire he resented it more than a man whose last money had slipped away. ‘You'll get it back on the way home,' said Lantorn in a friendly manner, seeming to feel that this bad mood between them wasn't worth such a measly sum.

‘I bloody-well will,' said Moggerhanger, an unrealistic prophecy that seemed nevertheless to cheer him up. ‘Let's see to the dogs, anyhow,' he added. ‘Hold the buggers.' I heard a couple of yelps, then a few slaps at the arse to get the stuff into circulation, so that both my passengers considered that all was right with the world.

This turned out to be more or less correct. I was told to wait in the car park while they went in and did business. I asked Moggerhanger if he would stake ten of my own quid on Long Tom, since I couldn't be at the race myself. He snatched it and said he'd do his best but that I'd no right to ruin myself getting into the gambling habit. I'd do much better, he said, sending it to my mother who no doubt could do more worthwhile things with it. The dogs, full of pep, pulled him away, otherwise the sermon might have gone on for an hour. Moggerhanger was still full of surprises to me, which may have been why I put up with so much from him.

I went over to a restaurant and got myself a plate of steak and mashed potatoes, cabbage and bread pudding. Travelling with such people there was no telling when I'd be able to eat again. They didn't seem interested in food, with such dog flesh and high finance on their hands. Afterwards I sat in the car and heard music on the radio, read a newspaper, smoked, lay full out along the seat and slept for an hour, a far-off announcement of winners coming over from the stadium, with the tremor of cheering and noise now and again.

It was four o'clock when Moggerhanger and Lantorn came out, flushed and half drunk both with booze and the success of their outing, regarding it as more or less over and done with. ‘All right, Michael, home we go,' Moggerhanger said, bundling the deadbeat dogs inside like so much window-leather. ‘Step on the petrol,' he crowed. ‘Sink the golden boot in. We cleared the decks, eh, Jimmy' – nudging old Lantorn when they were seated. ‘By God we did. You should be of good cheer, Michael, because you're a couple of hundred up on this little journey. Good, eh? He's a lucky lad, ain't he, Jimmy?'

‘I'd say so,' said Lantorn with a chuckle.

So we sailed away eastwards towards threatening clouds. We stopped at some Wiltshire market town called Pigminster and had tea at the hotel. The dogs, who had slept like two stones since leaving the course, woke up and followed us into the lounge, and the manager was so impressed by them, being a fervent greyhound man, that he let them lie like royalty beside our table. Moggerhanger took my saucer and his own and put them on the floor, full of tea. They lapped up pint after pint, and several pots were ordered because we were all thirsty. Neither Moggerhanger nor Lantorn were sober, and their laughter gunned around the large and otherwise empty lounge. Moggerhanger threw whole cucumber sandwiches across at the dogs, whose huge jaws snapped over them like crocodiles. By their eyes, and the way their ribs trembled as the food came flying, they looked as if they needed that sustenance, to stop them caving in altogether.

It pepped me up too, and I drove on across the Plain. Moggerhanger got his friend back on to the cards, but the game had lost its spirit now that they'd made so much at the races. I tried to speculate on the amount, but didn't get very far. If I'd won two hundred they must have made ten times as much. This thought was cut off when raindrops poxed up the windscreen, and I reached for the wipers. Grey clouds rolled low across the countryside, but the road was fairly empty and I bowled along near to seventy miles an hour, which wasn't bad on such a narrow and rotten road.

The dogs stood together and scratched at the carpets. ‘They want to piss,' said Claud, scooping up a few pounds he'd won. ‘Pull in when you can, Michael.'

There was a lay-by close to Stonehenge, and as soon as I opened the door they shot out with such force that I went down into the wet grass. They found a stump a few yards away, and I thought that if they emptied themselves much more they'd go down flat like balloons. Moggerhanger sat in the car and watched them proudly through the open door, while Lantorn lay with his head back after the hard day's work and was on the point of going to sleep.

When I went to get them in, Long Tom jumped in the air, spun like an acrobat, came down facing the opposite direction, and went off sniffing from tree to tree. Abel Cain snapped at my hand to bite it when I got close, then thought it might not taste so good, and ran after Long Tom. They romped and scampered happily, and for a while I thought maybe they had a right to ten minutes of fresh air and frolic, albeit wet, before coming back into the stuffy car.

But Claud thought differently: ‘Get them in.' I knew it was no good running, because how could I hope to catch them when they'd just won me two hundred quid against the fastest dogs in England? I crouched, and went up slowly, calling them pretty names, my hand held out as if a piece of raw steak were spread in it. They looked tempted, but only to torment me, because they turned and ran through a hedge and into the middle of a field. I chased them, aware of Claud's bull-like roaring behind. Together with Lantorn, who had now been roused, they fanned left and right while I was beating up front. My shoes and trousers were saturated, and rain started to come down heavier.