Chapter 6

The Gunner went through the back gate of the yard at the rear of Doreen’s house and ran like a hare, turning from one street into another without hesitation, completely forgetting his bare feet in the excitement of the moment.

When he paused in a doorway for a breather, his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer, but not because he was afraid. On the contrary, he found himself in the grip of a strange exhilaration. A psychologist might have found a reason in the sudden release from confinement after two and a half years in a prison cell. The Gunner only knew that he was free and he lifted his face up to the rain and laughed out loud. The chase was on. He would lose it in the end, he knew that, but he’d give them a run for their money.

He moved towards the end of the street and paused. A woman’s voice said clearly, “Able-fox-victor come in please. I have a 952 for you.”

He peered round the corner and saw a police car parked, window open as a beat constable in helmet and cape leaned down to speak to the driver. The Gunner retreated hastily and trotted towards the far end of the street. He was no more than half-way along when a police motor cyclist turned the corner and came towards him. The man saw him at once and came on with a sudden burst of speed, engine roaring. The Gunner ran across the street and ducked into a narrow entry between two houses.

He found himself in a small courtyard faced by a stone wall a good fifteen feet high and in one corner was an old wash-house of the type common to late Victorian houses. He pulled himself up on to the sloping roof as the patrolman pounded into the entry blowing his whistle, and reached for the top of the wall, sliding over silently as the policeman arrived.

The sound of the whistle faded as he worked his way through a network of backyards and alleys that stretched towards the south side of Jubilee Park. He stopped once as a police car’s siren sounded close by and then another lifted on the night air in the middle distance. He started to run again. The bastards were certainly doing him proud.

Ten minutes later he had almost reached the park when another siren not too far in front of him made him pause. It was standard police procedure on this sort of chase, he knew that, intended to confuse and bewilder the quarry until he did something stupid.

But the Gunner was too old a fox for that one. The park was out. What he needed now was somewhere to lie up for a few hours until the original excitement had died down.

He retraced his steps and turned into the first side street. It was flanked by high walls and on the left, a massive wooden gate carried the sign Henry Crowther and Sons—Transport. It seemed just the sort of place he was looking for and for once his luck was in. There was the usual small judas with a yale lock set in the main gate. Someone had left it on the latch for it opened to his touch.

He found four trucks parked close together in a cobbled yard. There was a house at the other end and light streamed between the curtains of a ground floor window.

When he peered inside he saw a white-haired old woman sitting in front of a bright coal fire watching television. She had a cigarette in one hand and what looked like a glass of whisky in the other. He envied her both and was conscious of his feet for the first time since leaving Doreen’s flat. They were cold and raw and hurt like hell. He hobbled across the yard towards a building on the right of the house and went in through doors which stood open. It had been a stable in years gone by, but from the looks of things was now used as a workshop or garage.

Wooden stairs went up through a board floor to what had obviously been the hayloft. It was in almost total darkness and seemed to be full of drums of oil and assorted junk. A half-open wooden door creaked uneasily and rain drifted in on the wind. A small wooden platform jutted out ten feet above the cobbles and a block and tackle hung from a loading hook.

He had a good view of the house and the yard, which was important, and sank down on an old tarpaulin and started to massage his feet vigorously. They hadn’t felt like this since Korea and he shuddered as old memories of frostbite and comrades who had lost toes and even feet in that terrible retreat south during the first winter campaign came back to him.

The gate clicked in the darkness below and he straightened and peered out. Someone hurried across the yard and opened the front door. As light streamed out, he saw that it was a young woman in a raincoat with a scarf bound around her head, peasant-fashion. She looked pretty wet and the Gunner smiled as she went inside and closed the door.

He leaned against the wall and stared into the rain, hunger gnawing at his stomach. Not that there was anything he could do about that. Later, perhaps, when all the lights had gone out in the house he might see if he had lost any of his old skill. Shoes and something to eat and maybe an old raincoat—that’s all he needed. If he could make it as far as the Ring Road there were any one of half a dozen transport cafés where long-distance lorry drivers pulled up for rest and a meal. All he had to do was get himself into the back of a truck and he could be two hundred miles away by breakfast.

He flinched, dazzled by light that poured from one of the second floor windows. When he looked across he could see the girl standing in the doorway of what was obviously her bedroom. The wind lifted, driving rain before it and the judas gate creaked. The Gunner peered cautiously into the darkness, imagining for a moment that someone else had arrived, then turned his attention to the bedroom again.

The girl didn’t bother to draw the curtains, secure in the knowledge that she was cut off from the street by the high wall and started to undress, obviously soaked to the skin.

The Gunner watched with frank and open admiration. Two and a half years in the nick and the only female company a monthly visit from his Aunty Mary, a seventy-year-old Irish woman with a heart of corn whose visits with their acid asides on authority, the peelers as she still insisted on calling them, and life in general, always kept him laughing for at least a week afterwards. But this? Now this was different.

The young woman dried off with a large white towel, then examined herself critically in the mirror. Strange how few women looked their best in the altogether, but she was more than passable. The black hair almost reached the pointed breasts and a narrow waist swelled into hips that were perhaps a trifle too large for some tastes, but suited the Gunner down to the ground.

When she dressed again, she didn’t bother with a suspender belt. Simply pulled on a pair of hold-up stockings, black pants and bra, then took a dress from the wardrobe. He’d heard they were wearing them short since he’d gone down, but this was ridiculous. Not only was it half-way up her thighs, but crocheted into the bargain so you could see through it like the tablecloth Aunty Mary had kept in the parlour when he was a kid.

She stood at the dressing table and started to brush her hair, perhaps the most womanly of all actions, and the Gunner felt strangely sad. He’d started off by fancying a bit of the usual and why not? He’d almost forgotten what it tasted like and the business with Doreen had certainly put him in the mood. But now, lying there in the loft with the rain falling, he felt like some snotty-nosed kid with his arse out of his pants, looking in at what he could never have and no one to blame but himself.

She tied her hair back with a velvet ribbon, crossed to the door and went out, switching off the light. The Gunner sighed and eased back slightly and below in the yard there was the scrape of a foot on stone.

Jenny Crowther was twenty-two years of age, a practical, hard-headed Yorkshire girl who had never visited London in her life, but in her crocheted minidress and dark stockings she would have passed in the West End without comment.

“Feeling better, love?” her grandmother enquired as she entered the room.

Jenny nodded, rubbing her hands as she approached the fire. “It’s nice to be dry.”

“Eh, Jenny love,” the old woman said. “I don’t know how you can wear yon dress. I can see your knickers.”

“You’re supposed to, Gran.” The old woman stared in blank amazement across a gulf that was exactly fifty years wide and the girl picked up the empty coal scuttle. “I’ll get some coal, then we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

The coal was in a concrete bunker to the left of the front door and when she opened it, light flooded across the yard, outlining her thighs clearly through the crocheted dress as she paused, looking at the rain. She took an old raincoat from a peg, hitched it over her shoulders, went down the steps and lifted the iron trap at the base of the coal bunker. There was no sound and yet she turned, aware from some strange sixth sense of the danger that threatened her. She caught a brief glimpse of a dark shape, the vague blur of a face beneath a rain hat, and then great hands had her by the throat.

The Gunner went over the edge of the platform, hung for a moment at the end of the block and tackle, then dropped to the cobbles. He moved in fast, smashing a fist into the general area of the other man’s kidneys when he got close enough. It was like hitting a rock wall. The man flung the girl away from him and turned. For a moment, the Gunner saw the face clearly, lips drawn back in a snarl. An arm swept sideways with amazing speed, bunched knuckles catching him on the side of the head, sending him back against one of the trucks. The Gunner went down on one knee and the girl’s attacker went past him in a rush. The judas banged and the man’s running steps faded along the back street.

As the Gunner got to his feet, Ma Crowther called from the doorway, “Make another move and I’ll blow your head off.”

She was holding a double-barrelled shotgun, the barrels of which had been sawn down to nine inches in length, transforming it into one of the most dangerous and vicious weapons in the book.

Jenny Crowther moved away from the wall, a hand to her throat and shook her head. “Not him, Gran. I don’t know where he came from, but it was a good job he was around.”

The Gunner was impressed. Any other bird he’d ever known, even the really hard knocks, would have been on their backs after an experience like that, but not this one.

“Which mob were you in then, the Guards?” he demanded.

The girl turned to look at him, grinning instantly and something was between them at once, unseen perhaps, but almost physical in its strength. Like meeting like, with instantaneous recognition.

She looked him over, taking in the sailor’s uniform, the bare feet and laughed, a hand to her mouth. “Where on earth did you spring from?”

“The loft,” the Gunner told her.

“Shall I get the police, love?” Ma Crowther asked.

The Gunner cut in quickly. “Why bother the peelers about a little thing like this? You know what it’s like on a Saturday night. A bloke has a few pints, then follows the first bit of skirt he sees. Sometimes he tries to go a bit too far like the geezer who just skipped, but it’s all come out in the wash. Once it’s reported in the papers, all the old dears will think he screwed you, darlin’, even if he didn’t,” he assured the girl gaily.

“Here, just a minute,” the old woman said. “Bare feet and dressed like a sailor. I know who you are.” She turned to the girl and said excitedly, “They’ve just had a flash on Northern Newscast. This is Gunner Doyle.”

“Gunner Doyle?” the girl said.

“The boxer. Your Dad used to take me to see him. Topped the bill at the Town Hall a couple of times. Doing five years at Manningham Gaol. They took him into the infirmary because they thought he was ill and he gave them the slip earlier this evening.”

The girl stood looking at him, legs slightly apart, a hand on her hip and the Gunner managed a tired, tired grin. “That’s me, the original naughty boy.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “But you’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Better come inside.” She turned and took the shotgun from the old woman’s grasp. “It’s all right, Gran. He won’t bite.”

“You forgot something,” the Gunner said.

She turned in the doorway. “What’s that, then?”

“What you came out for in the first place.” He picked up the coal scuttle. “Lad’s work, that’s what my Aunty Mary always used to say.”

He got down on his knees to fill it. When he straightened and turned wearily, the girl said, “I don’t know why, but I think I like your Aunty Mary.”

The Gunner grinned. “She’d go for you, darlin’. I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

He swayed suddenly and she reached out and caught his arm in a grip of surprising strength. “Come on then, soldier, you’ve had enough for one night,” and she drew him into the warmth.