Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Rous-Wheeler cleared his throat nervously, and it sounded loud.

Billy flicked him a glance. ‘Go for a walk,’ he said.

‘A… walk?’

‘Yeah, a walk. One foot in front of the other.’ He was offensive. ‘Down the runway and back should just about do it.’

Rous-Wheeler understood. He wouldn’t meet my eyes and he hadn’t even enough humanity to plead for me. He turned his back on the situation[477] and made for the exit. So much for the old school tie.[478]

‘Now,’ said Billy. ‘Just the two of us.’

Chapter Sixteen

He walked cat-footed round the hangar in his quiet shoes, looking for things. Eventually he came back towards me carrying an old supple broken bicycle chain and a full flat five gallon tin of petrol. I looked at these objects with what I hoped was fair impassiveness and refrained from asking what he intended to do with them. I supposed I would find out soon enough.

He squatted on his haunches and grinned at me, his face level with mine, the bicycle chain in one hand and the petrol can on the floor in the other. His gun was far away, on the bench.

‘Ask me nicely,’ he said. ‘And I’ll make it easy.’

I didn’t believe him anyway. He waited through my silence and sniggered. ‘You will,’ he said. ‘You’ll ask all right, your sodding lordship.’

He brought forward the bicycle chain, but instead of hitting me with it as I’d expected he slid it round my ankle and tied it there into two half hitches. He had difficulty doing this but once the knots were tied the links looked like holding for ever. The free end he led through the handle of the petrol can and again bent it back on itself into knots. When he had finished there was a stalk of about six inches between the knots on my ankle and those on the can. Billy picked up the can and jerked it. My leg duly followed, firmly attached. Billy smiled, well satisfied. He unscrewed the cap of the can and let some of the petrol run out over my feet and make a small pool on the floor. He screwed the cap back on, but looser.

Then he went round behind the girder and unlocked both the padlocks on my wrists. The chain fell off, but owing to a mixture of surprise and stiffened shoulders I could do nothing towards getting my hands down to undo the bicycle chain before Billy was across the bay for his gun and turning with it at the ready[479].

‘Stand up,’ he said. ‘Nice and easy. If you don’t, I’ll throw this in the petrol.’ This, in his left hand, was a cigarette lighter: a gas lighter with a top which stayed open until one snapped it shut. The flame burned bright as he flicked his thumb.

I stood up stifly, using the girder for support, the sick and certain knowledge of what Billy intended growing like a lump of ice in my abdomen. So much for not being afraid of death.[480] I had changed my mind about it. Some forms were worse than others.

Billy’s mouth curled. ‘Ask, then,’ he said.

I didn’t. He waved his pistol slowly towards the floor. ‘Outside, matey. I’ve a little job for you to do. Careful now, we don’t want a bleeding explosion in here if we can help it.’ His face was alight with greedy enjoyment. He’d never had such fun in his life. I found it definitely irritating.

The can was heavy as I dragged it along with slow steps to the door and through on to the grass outside. Petrol slopped continuously in small amounts through the loosened cap, leaving a highly inflammable trail in my wake. The night air was sweet and the stars were very bright. There was no moon. A gentle wind. A beautiful night for flying.

‘Turn right,’ Billy said behind me. ‘That’s Alf along there where the light is. Go there, and don’t take too bloody long about it[481], we haven’t got all night’. He sniggered at his feeble joke.

Alf wasn’t more than a tennis court away, but I was fed up with the petrol can before I got there. He had been digging, I found. A six or seven foot square of grass had been cut out, the turf lying along one edge in a tidy heap, and about a foot of earth had been excavated into a crumbling mound. A large torch standing on the pile of turf shone on Alf’s old face as he stood in the shallow hole. He held the spade loosely and looked at Billy enquiringly.

‘Go for a walk,’ Billy said loudly. Alf interpreted the meaning if not the words, nodded briefly, leaned the spade against the turf, stepped up on to the grass and shufled away into the engulfing dark.

‘O.K., then,’ said Billy. ‘Get in there and start digging. Any time you want to stop, you’ve only got to ask. Just ask.’

‘And if I do?’

The light shone aslant on Billy’s wide bright eyes and his jeering delighted mouth. He lifted the pistol a fraction. ‘In the head,’ he said. ‘And I’ll have bloody well beaten you, your effing bloody lordship. And it’s a pity I haven’t got the whole lot like you here as well.’

‘We don’t do any harm,’ I said, and wryly knew that history gave me the lie. There’d been trampling enough done in the past, and resentment could persist for centuries.