Lifting the Lid(64)

‘Nice dog,’ said the officer. ‘Yours is it?’

‘Mine,’ said Trevor, producing his own false smile and just managing to suppress a sigh of irritation.

‘Anything wrong, officer?’ said Sandra with a look of innocent congeniality that made Trevor wonder whether all three of them were taking part in some kind of charity Smile-athon. If it had been a competition, he would have lost there and then as the quivering grin vanished from his face altogether, and he braced himself for the response.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE



As far as MacFarland was aware, there was no logical explanation for Harry’s aversion to travelling or his particular reluctance to go anywhere by road, which bordered on the phobic. He had never been involved in anything even approaching a serious car accident, and as for his own “death”, it hadn’t actually been him that was in the car when it exploded.

But whatever the reason for his pathological fear of cars, buses, taxis or any other mode of transportation by road, the outcome was that he was now fast asleep in a First Class carriage of the 15.50 from Sheffield to Bristol, his head lolled back and his gaping mouth periodically erupting in an explosion of volcanic snoring. MacFarland and Delia sat opposite him, Delia staring out of the window at the blur of the countryside and MacFarland staring at Harry and wondering how even he could look quite so innocent when he was asleep.

Being a tight-arse, Harry had bought tickets for Second Class, but when they’d boarded the train, it was heaving with pissed-up football supporters. They had presumably spent the night in whatever northern town they’d been to the previous day, and judging by the state of them and the mountains of empty cans, most seemed to have been swilling beer solidly for twenty-four hours or more. Happy-drunk would have been irritating enough, but this lot were boiling over with alcohol fuelled aggression, which made them louder and even more annoying. MacFarland could only assume that whichever club they supported had taken a severe hammering.

Soon after the train had pulled out of the station, Harry’s rocketing blood pressure appeared to add several decibels to the volume he achieved in making himself heard over the din, and he had issued a general warning as to what he was going to do to ‘you bunch of shitheads if you don’t shut the fuck up’. The threat seemed to have had the desired effect as a sudden and eerie silence had descended over the entire carriage, but almost immediately, three shaven-headed cave trolls with as many piercings as tattoos sauntered over to where they were sitting. The biggest of them had opened his mouth to speak but had instantly closed it again when MacFarland eased his jacket back to reveal the butt of his shoulder-holstered gun.

‘Now fuck off and let me get some kip,’ Harry had said when the three window-lickers backed sheepishly away.

He’d settled back in his seat and closed his eyes but had opened them again after less than a minute when the noise in the carriage had risen to an even higher level than before. MacFarland hadn’t been sure exactly what Harry had in mind when he’d given him the nod and begun to lever himself to his feet, but it was probably going to result in some serious shedding of blood – very likely their own included. With almost precision timing, however, a ticket inspector had appeared at the far end of the carriage and started battling her way through the mass of staggering bodies.

‘’Scuse me, darlin’,’ Harry had said as soon as she was within shouting range. ‘Can’t you do something about this lot? I mean, I didn’t pay good money to ‘ave to put up with this sort of shit.’

The inspector had shrugged and said, ‘They lost five one apparently’ as if this was a perfectly valid reason for doing nothing at all to try and restore some kind of order.

Harry had smashed his fist down onto the arm of his seat and was presumably about to give her a mouthful when the inspector pre-empted him by saying, ‘Of course, you’d be much better off in First Class. It’s only ten pounds each to upgrade at weekends.’

Tight-arse or not, Harry hadn’t hesitated before reaching for his wallet. At first, though, he’d only asked for two upgrades, telling MacFarland he could stay where he was as he seemed quite at home here amongst his own kind. But then he’d changed his mind and forked out the extra tenner with the explanation that ‘Useless twat as you are, if Bracewell really is on my tail, I want you with me twenty-four seven from now on.’

They had left the hotel in a hurry, partly because Harry wanted to get down to Bristol as quickly as possible, but mainly because he didn’t want Julian Bracewell paying them a visit. MacFarland had never seen Harry in such a state of anxiety, and it had shown no sign of abating as they had driven the short distance to the railway station. He had been constantly alert to anyone or anything that struck him as being in the least unusual and paid the utmost attention to any vehicle which stayed behind them for more than a few seconds. Only now in the comfort of the sparsely populated First Class carriage did his lolling head and the sound of his baritone snoring indicate that, for the time being at least, he felt safe from whatever Julian Bracewell had in mind for him.