Starmouth races — that colourful, moneyful, tax-free event — Starmouth Races, when a town already full to the brim began bursting at the seams. From early in the forenoon the train-loads started to emerge. By lunch-time you could hardly move on the road to the race-course, and as for getting a sit-down meal, you were lucky to pick up a couple of cheese sandwiches. But it was Starmouth Races and nobody cared. You came for the fun and the flutter and the sea-air, and if you went back skint it was all part of the outing.
They’d got a brass band from Norchester, a regular festival-winning affair. It had come out today in a fanfaronade of new grey and pink, with a man on the baton who really knew his business. Dutt was enthralled. He had always had a weakness for brass bands. When they went to town with ‘Blaze Away’ it touched a chord in his simple cockney heart…
‘Worst day of the year!’ moaned Copping to Gently, ‘how can you police this lot with the men we’ve got? If we arrested all the dips and shysters who come up for the races it’d need a special excursion train to cart them back to town!’
The super was there, looking very spruce and commanding in his best blue with its rainbow of medal ribbons. He sharpened a glance for Gently’s baggy tweed. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Gently… Gish is out for your blood if anything goes wrong.’
Gently tilted his head accommodatingly and the super passed with a sniff.
As a matter of fact, Gently was beginning to worry himself, just a little bit. The thing wasn’t going to pattern at all. There had been no alarums and excursions, no rush for Sidlow Street in the quiet hours… Peachey had spent a restful night, said the report, or if not a restful one, at least a peaceful one. In the morning it was the same. The routine of ‘The Feathers’ had continued undisturbed. Louey had gone for his constitutional, Peachey had reported to the office, at lunchtime they had eaten together at a nearby restaurant and directly afterwards Peachey had fetched the car and driven Louey and two of the bar-regulars to the race-course. It was almost as though Louey were ignoring the situation, as though he were deliberately calling Gently’s bluff. Certainly there was no anxiety in his aspect, and if Peachey was looking rather more like a boiled stuffed rabbit than usual it was hardly to be wondered at.
Gently’s eye wandered through the busy crowd to the line of bookies’ stands. Biggest of all flamed a great orange banner, set up on two poles, and licking across it like scarlet fire ran the legend: LOUEY ALWAYS PAYS! — Not that it was necessary, such a banner. You could hear the voice of Louey like distant thunder, over-topping crowd, band and competitors:
‘ FIVE TO TWO ON THE FAVOURITE… COME ON NOW… ONLY LOUEY GIVES IT … FIVE TO TWO ON THE FAVOURITE!’
His gold tooth shone, his diamond ring flashed, he loomed over the crowd like a genial Goliath. And they liked Louey. He was an institution on the race-course. Plump Peachey could hardly scribble slips out fast enough to keep pace with the money going into that gaping Gladstone.
‘ FIVE TO TWO ON THE FAVOURITE… TEN BOB TO WIN TWENTY-FIVE… HUNDRED TO EIGHT ON CAMBYSES… COME ON NOW, THESE ARE THE ODDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR!’
Up beside him the sporty individual was taking signals from someone across in the stands and chalking up fresh odds on the blackboard. Down below a couple of bar-types were touting recklessly, yanking custom from the very shadow of rival stands.
‘ COME ON NOW… NO LIMIT… IF YOU WANT A FORTUNE COME TO LOUEY… YOU SEE MY BANNER — IT MEANS WHAT IT SAYS!.. COME ALONG NOW AND DO THE INCOME-TAX COLLECTOR IN THE EYE!’
It was all so innocent, all so regular. Moral or immoral, book-making was legitimate business and watching Louey up there in all his glory tended to shake one’s convictions. He looked so little like a murderous fanatic with the gallows threatening to yawn at his very feet.
But that was the situation and Gently had made sure that Louey knew where he stood. He was counterbluffing, that was all; doing what Gently would have done himself if the positions had been reversed. But counter-bluff was a temporary measure. There would be a plan behind it, a positive step. What was it cooking now, that calculating mind, when was it going to happen, and where?
Gently moved over to Dutt, who had resumed his role as Peachey’s protector.
‘Keep your eyes on your man,’ he warned him snappily, ‘he’ll be easy enough to lose in a crowd like this.’
‘Yessir… of course, sir. But you got to admit it’s a smashing bit of brass…’
‘I don’t admit anything — keep your eyes on Peachey.’
Dutt clicked his heels and did as he was ordered.
Gently wandered away with a frown on his brow. He was biting Dutt’s head off now! The double strain of a waiting game with Louey and a checking game with Gish was beginning to fray at his nerves. Gish wanted action. He hadn’t any faith in Gently. One had a shrewd suspicion that twenty-four hours would be the limit of his patience.
A slinking figure appeared to materialize out of the worn turf in front of him and Nits’ pop-eyes strained up to his own. Gently summoned up a smile for the halfwit.
‘Hullo! You come to see the races too, my lad?’
Nits gibbered a moment with his invisible mouth.
‘You better get over by the rails — there’s a race starting in five minutes.’
‘You let her come back!’ piped the halfwit, ‘you let her come back!’
Gently nodded gravely. Nits chittered and gabbled under his staring eyes. Then he turned to cast a glare of hatred at the towering form of Louey.
‘Him — he’s a very bad man — very bad!’
Gently nodded again.
‘He came to see her — frighten her!’ Nits hesitated and crept a little closer. ‘You take him away! Yes! You take him away!’ He laid a hand on Gently’s sleeve.
‘I’m thinking about it, Nits…’
‘He’s the bad one — yes! You take him away!’
Gently shrugged and slowly released his sleeve. The halfwit gabbled away furiously, darting angry glances, now at Louey, now at Gently. Gently produced a coin and offered it to him.
‘Here you are… but don’t go making bets with Louey.’
‘Don’t want it — don’t want it!’
‘Buy yourself an ice-cream or a pint of shrimps.’
The halfwit shook his head violently and knocked the coin out of Gently’s hand. ‘You take him away!’ he reiterated, ‘yes — you take him away!’ Then he jumped backwards with a sort of frisking motion and dived away through the crowd.
There was a stir now and a general surge towards the rails. The horses had come up to the tapes and were under starter’s orders. Out of a grey sky came a mild splash of sun to enliven for a moment the group of animals and riders, the brilliantly coloured shirts, the white breeches, the chestnut, grey and dun of satin flanks. Tense and nervy were the mounts, strung up and preoccupied the jockeys. A line was formed, a jumpy horse coaxed quiet and almost before one realized what was happening the tapes flew up and the field was away. Instantly a shout began to rise from the crowd, commencing near the gate and spreading right down the track. Fifty thousand pairs of eyes were each magnetized by that thundering, flying, galloping body of horse.
Out in front went the favourite, Swifty’s Ghost, and following it close came Cambyses and Rockaby, the latter at a hundred to one and scarcely looked at by the punters. Three furlongs, and the field was getting lost. Six furlongs, and you could almost draw your money. Seven furlongs, and Cambyses, a big grey, was making a terrific bid and going neck-and-neck. Eight furlongs, and out of the blue came Rockaby, fairly scorching the turf, a little dun horse with a halting gallop, but moving now like a startled witch. Could Swifty’s Ghost hold them? Could Cambyses maintain his challenge? — The roar of the crowd ebbed up to a fever pitch. But Rockaby drew level with a furlong to go, Rockaby slipped through with a hundred-and-fifty yards in hand, Rockaby passed the post two lengths ahead of the grey and the favourite was beaten to a place by another outsider called Watchmego. The roar died away, the roar became a buzz. They’d done it again… another race to line the bookies’ pockets!
Gently hunched his shoulders and turned away from the rails, and at that precise moment things began to happen. He had only time for a confused impression; it took place like a dream. There was a crash, some angry shouting, a sound like a quantity of coins being shot on the ground, and then somebody or something struck him heavily in the back and he was lying on his face on the bruised turf.
He wasn’t hurt. He got up in a hurry. All around him a crowd was milling about a centre of attraction which was otherwheres than himself. Inside this centre a dialogue for four voices was developing with great verve.
‘Of course it was on purpose — I bloody saw you do it!’
‘I was shoved, I tell you.’
‘You can tell it to the coppers!’
‘I tell you I was shoved — some bastard tripped me up!’
‘Do you think we’re blind?’
‘Well, you don’t look too bloody bright.’
‘Now look here, you dirty so-and-so!’
Gently shouldered his way through. The scene enacting was self-explanatory. A bookie’s stand lay on its side amid a debris of betting-slips, notes and coins, about it four angry men. Three of the men were obviously allies. The fourth, a burly gentleman in a mackinaw, appeared to be the defendant in the case.
‘Police!’ snapped Gently, ‘you can stop that shouting. One of you tell me what’s been going on here.’
The gent in the mackinaw broke off a challenge to the opposition and stared at Gently with aggressive insolence.
‘Police, he says! A snouting copper! You keep your big nose out of this, mate, or it’ll finish up a different shape from what it started this morning!’
‘You hear him?’ struck in one of the aggrieved, on his knees and trying to collect the scattered money, ‘that’s your man, officer — you don’t have to ask! Come up and threw down my bleeding stand, he did, never as much as a word offered to him!’
‘Mad!’ snapped a little man with a big coloured tie, ‘mad, I tell you — that’s what he is!’
The gent in the mackinaw seemed about to resent this allegation when he was interrupted a second time by a new arrival. This time it was Dutt and he was propelling in front of him no less a person than Artie of the ferret face.
‘I got him, sir!’ panted Dutt, ‘he’s the one, sir — saw him wiv me own mince pies! Standing right close-up to you he was, sir, all during the race, and as soon as this lot here started he catched you a right fourpenny one and hooked it… all he didn’t know was that I was watching him!’
Gently stared at the scowling bartender as though he had seen a ghost. ‘Get back!’ he thundered at Dutt. ‘Good God, man — don’t you understand? The whole thing’s a trick to get us out of the way — get back at the double, or there may be another body on the beach tomorrow!’
The odds were still being called under the orange banner, but it wasn’t Louey calling them. The slips were still being scribbled and handed out, but the man with the book wasn’t Peachey. It was the sporty individual who had taken over, with one of the touts for his clerk. He welcomed Gently and Dutt derisively as they rushed up to the stand.
‘Hullo-ullo! Coupla gents here getting in training for the selling-plate!’
‘All right!’ rasped Gently, ‘where are they — where have they gone?’
‘Gone, guv’nor? And who is it that’s s’posed to have gone somewhere?’
Gently wasted no time. A brown hand flicked out and fifteen stone of sporty individual was picked off the stand like a pear. ‘Now…! This may be fun for you, but it’s murder to me, and if you don’t tell me what I want to know I’ll see you in dock for complicity. Where’s he taken Peachey?’
‘I don’t know, guv, honest-!’ He broke off with a yell as Gently applied pressure to his arm.
‘Where’s he taken Peachey?’
‘I don’t know — we don’t none of us know!’
‘That’s right, guv!’ broke in the tout with the book, ‘he just said him and Peachey had got some business to see to what he didn’t want you to know about.’
‘It’s the truth!’ shrieked the sporty individual, ‘oh, my bloody arm!’
Gently threw him down against the stand, where he lay massaging his maltreated limb and moaning. ‘Find Copping!’ rapped Gently to Dutt, ‘tell him what’s happened — tell him to issue a description to all his men — send one to “The Feathers” and one to Sidlow Street — the rest fan out and search the area round the race-course. Where’s Louey’s car parked?’ he fired at the sporty individual.
‘It’s over there — right by the gate!’
‘Check and see if it’s gone — if it has, alert all stations.’
Dutt hesitated a moment and then turned in the direction of the gate, but before he could set off an animal-like form came darting and swerving through the crowds and threw itself at Gently’s feet.
‘He went that way — that way! I saw him! I saw him go!’
Gently’s eyes flashed. ‘Which way, Nits?… which way?’
‘That way!’ The halfwit made a fumbling gesture towards the north end of the enclosure.
‘Gorblimey!’ exclaimed Dutt, ‘it’s “Windy Tops” again!’
Gently rounded on him. ‘Forget what I’ve been saying — just tell Copping to bring his men up there. And when you’ve done that, don’t wait for him… I shall probably be in need of some help!’
‘Yessir!’ gasped Dutt, ‘yessir — I’ll be there with you!’
But by that time Gently was gone.
It was a hummocky bit of paddock separating the race-course from the lane to ‘Windy Tops’ and Gently, past his best sprint years, found it very heavy going. At the far side was a scrubby thorn fence in which he had to find a gap. Nits, frisking along at his side, went over it like an Olympic hurdler.
‘You get back, m’lad!’ panted Gently, ‘there’ll be trouble up there!’
‘You going to take him away!’ chuckled Nits. ‘I want to see you take him away!’
‘You stop down here and you’ll get a grandstand view!’
‘I want to see — I want to see!’
There was no discouraging him. Gently ploughed on up the slope of the cliff. By the time he reached the gates of ‘Windy Tops’ he was glad of the breather offered by a pause to reconnoitre and Nits, entering into the spirit of the thing, gave up his leaping and frisking, and slid away like an eel behind the cover of some rhododendron bushes. Not a sound had come from the house. Not a vestige of life was to be seen at any of the windows. Only the front door stood half ajar, as though whoever was within didn’t mean to be there for very long.
Keeping his breathing in check, Gently moved swiftly across to the threshold. Inside he could hear voices coming from somewhere at the back. Silently he worked his way down the hall towards the baize-covered door of the kitchen, which was shut, and pressed himself close to it, listening…
‘No, Peachey,’ came Louey’s voice at its softest and silkiest, ‘we don’t seem able to find that money anywhere, do we?’
‘B-but boss… he give me the message,’ came Peachey’s whine in reply.
There was the sound of a cupboard door being opened and shut, and something else moved.
‘Quite empty, Peachey… not a dollar-note to be seen.’
‘Boss, he t-took it with him… you don’t think I’d l-lie?’
‘Lie, Peachey?’ Louey’s laugh sounded careless and easy. ‘You wouldn’t lie to me, now, would you?’
‘N-no, boss, of course I wouldn’t!’
‘And you wouldn’t tell tales, Peachey, would you… not even to save your own worthless skin?’
A confused noise was Peachey’s answer to this sally.
Louey’s laugh came again. ‘You see, Peachey, we all have our value, looked at from a certain point of view. I have mine. Streifer has his. Stratilesceul had a value too, but unfortunately for himself he lost it. And now the pressing problem of the moment, Peachey, is your value… you do see what I’m driving at?’
A strangled sound suggested that Peachey saw it very plainly.
‘Yes, Peachey, I thought you would. I don’t want to be unkind, you know. I’m prepared to listen to any defence you may have to offer, but it seems to me that there can’t be any real doubt about the matter… doesn’t it to you? Here am I, on whom the forces of liberation in this country depend, and there are you, a small and expendable unit. Now I could betray you, Peachey, and that might be wrong. But if you were to betray me, that would be a crime comparable to the crime of Judas. You understand?’
‘But boss — I never — I didn’t — I told them I wouldn’t!’
‘ SILENCE!’ thundered Louey’s voice, stripped in a moment of its silky veneer. ‘Do you think I didn’t know, you miserable worm, do you think you can lift a finger without my knowing it?’
There was a pause and then he continued in his former voice: ‘I like to make these matters clear. I tried to make them clear to Stratilesceul. I’m not a criminal, Peachey, in any real sense of the word. There’s only one crime and that’s the crime against the forces of liberation: when we, the liberators, proceed against that crime, we are guiltless of blood, we are the instruments of true justice. So I am not killing you, Peachey, from hatred or even personal considerations… I am killing you in the name of Justice, in the name of Society!’
‘… No!’ came Peachey’s terror-stricken cry. ‘Boss… you can’t… you can’t!’
‘Oh but I can, Peachey.’
‘No boss — no! It’s a mistake — I never told them nothing!’
‘And no more you shall!’ came Louey’s voice savagely, ‘this is it, Peachey — this is the tool for traitors!’
Gently hurled open the door. ‘Drop it!’ he barked, ‘drop that knife, Louey!’
The big man spun round suddenly from the sink, over which he was holding the helpless Peachey. His grey eyes were blazing with a malevolent light, strange, fey. ‘You!’ he articulated with a sort of hiss, ‘… you!’
‘Yes, Louey — me. Now drop that knife and take your hands off Peach.’
‘… You!’ hissed Louey again, and the light in his eyes seemed to deepen.
‘Stop him!’ whimpered Peachey, ‘oh, God, he’s going to do for me!’ And with the energy of despair he twisted himself out of Louey’s grip and made a dive for the back door, which fortunately for him was only bolted. But Louey made no move to restrain him. His eyes remained fixed on Gently.
‘Let him go!’ he purred, ‘he won’t talk… I’m not so sure now he ever would have done, are you, Chief Inspector Gently?’
‘He’ll talk,’ retorted Gently, ‘there’s a limit to what you can do with a knife. Now drop it and put your hands up. It’s time you started thinking of your defence.’
By way of answer Louey let the knife slide down his hand, so that now he was holding it by the tip of the blade. ‘My defence, Chief Inspector Gently; you are looking at it now. Isn’t it a pity? I’ve let a miserable parasite like Peachey escape and in his place I must execute a man of your… attainments. Isn’t — it — a — pity?’
With the last four words he had reached back with his gigantic arm and was now leisurely taking aim at Gently’s heart. There was no cover to dive for. There was no prospect of a quick back jump through the door. The knife was poised and on a hair-trigger, it would reach its mark long before Gently could move to evade it. And then, at the crucial split second, the knife disappeared — one instant it was flashing in Louey’s hand, the next it was spirited away as though by a supernatural agency.
‘You take him!’ piped the delirious voice of Nits through the back door, ‘ha, ha, ha! You take him — you take him!’
With a roar of anger Louey recovered himself and leaped at Gently, but it was too late. A hand that felt like a steel bar smashed into the side of his throat and he collapsed on the floor, choking and gasping, a pitiful, helpless wreck of humanity. Gently snapped handcuffs on the nerveless wrists.
‘It had to come, Louey,’ he said grimly, ‘there has to be an end to this sort of thing.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ giggled Nits, dancing around them and brandishing Louey’s knife, ‘we’ll take him away now — we’ll take him away!’
Gently put out his hand for the knife. It was a curious weapon. The hilt and blade were one piece of steel, the former heavy, the latter relatively light and narrow. On each side of the hilt was engraved the mark of the TSK along with a number of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
‘Double-edged, about three-quarters of an inch wide,’ mused Gently, ‘it couldn’t be any other… it would have to be this one.’
Louey struggled up into a sitting position. He was still gagging for breath, his face was grey. He stared at Gently, at the knife, at the discreet links shackling his enormous wrists. ‘No!’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘you weren’t big enough… you just weren’t big enough!’
Gently nodded sadly and slipped the knife into his pocket. ‘It’s you who weren’t big enough, Louey… that was the mistake. We’re none of us big enough… we’re just very little people.’
Half the Starmouth Borough Police Force seemed to be congregating in the garden as Gently led Louey out. There was the super with Copping and three or four plain-clothes men, at least ten constables and the complete Special Branch outfit. Dutt came panting up the steps, relief showing in his face at the sight of the handcuffs and an unmarked Gently.
‘You’re all right then, sir — he never give you any trouble?’
Gently shrugged faintly. ‘About the routine issue…’
‘And Peachey, sir — you got him away safe and sound?’
‘Safe and sound, Dutt… all Peachey had was a scare.’
‘By thunder, Gently, you’ve pulled off a splendid piece of work!’ exclaimed the super, striding across. ‘I have to admit it — I thought you were going to fall down over this fellow. I suppose it’s unnecessary to ask whether you’ve got the goods on him?’
‘I got him red-handed… he was going to stab Peach with a TSK patent executioner’s knife. I think we’ll find it adds up to the weapon which was used on Stratilesceul.’
‘You’re an amazing fellow, Gently!’ The super gazed at him with honest admiration. ‘You’re not an orthodox policeman, but by heaven you get the results!’
There was a cough of some penetrative power indicative of the near presence of Chief Superintendent Gish. ‘I’m sure you’ll forgive me for interrupting,’ he observed bitterly, ‘but we, at least, have still some business to transact in this affair. I take it that Chief Inspector Gently no longer has any objections to my carrying out my duty?’
Gently signified his innocence of any such desire.
‘Then possibly Peach can be produced to answer a few of my irrelevant questions?’
Gently deposited Louey with Dutt and took a few steps towards the edge of the wildered garden. ‘Peachey!’ he called softly.
There was a rustling amongst some rhododendrons.
‘Peachey… it’s all right. We’ve got Louey under lock and key. You can come out now.’
There were further rustlings and then the parrot-faced one emerged. He was still trembling in every limb and his knees had a tendency to buckle, but the sight of so many policemen reassured him and he walked shakily over to the front of the house.
‘That’s the boy, Peachey… nobody’s going to hurt you.’
‘You got his kn-knife?’ gabbled Peachey, darting a wild-eyed glance at his shackled employer.
‘Yes, Peachey, we’ve got his knife… everything’s as safe as houses. All we want now is a little information — just a little, to begin with! I suppose you’re in a mood to do some talking, Peachey?’
Peachey was. He had never been so much in the mood before. Shocked to his plump core by his experiences in the house, Peachey had learned the hard way that honesty was his only hopeful policy and he was prepared to give effect to that policy in all-night sittings, if that should be required. Chief Superintendent Gish, however, was more moderate in his exactions. He was obstinately and snappily interested in but one set of facts — a short-wave transmitter and some records — and when he had obtained the address of same he departed in haste, leaving Peachey to waste his sweetness on the East Coast air.
‘But you wanted a statement about the m-murder, didn’t you?’ asked Peachey aggrievedly, though with an anxious look at the silent Louey.
‘We do, Peachey… don’t you worry about that,’ Gently assured him. ‘We’ll take you right back now and you can tell us about it over a cup of canteen tea.’
‘Then there’s Frenchy… she can b-back me up…’
‘She hasn’t been overlooked.’
‘And I dare say some of the boys… it was only me what was sworn into the p-party.’
Gently nodded and urged him towards the gate. The super signed to his men and Dutt touched Louey’s arm. From below them, through the scrub trees, came a murmur like a swarming of bees, a murmur that grew suddenly, became a frenzied roar. Louey stood his ground a moment. It was another race in progress.
And then there came a second sound, a rumbling, subterranean sound
… like the first one and yet strangely unlike it. The roar of the crowd died down, but the second roar didn’t. It seemed to be vibrating the air, the trees, the very ground itself. Yet there was nothing to see. There was nothing to account for it. It was Copping who suddenly realized what was going on.
‘Run for it!’ he bellowed, ‘it’s the house — it’s going over — get the hell out of here, or we’ll all be over with it!’
A sort of panic followed his words. There was a general and high-powered movement on the part of one super, one inspector, four detective sergeants, ten constables and a plump civilian in a down-hill and due south direction. This left a balance of three to be accounted for and a backward glance by Copping revealed them in a snapshot of dramatic relation which rooted him to the ground. There was Dutt, sprawling on the pavement; Gently, racing up the path; and Louey, roaring defiance from the top of the steps. And the house was already beginning to move.
‘Come back!’ howled Copping, ‘it’s on its way — come back!’
Gently pulled up short some feet from the steps. A crack was opening like magic between himself and the house.
‘What are you waiting for?’ roared Louey. ‘Come on, Mister Chief Inspector Gently — let’s die together, shall we? Let’s die as though we were men — let’s die as though we were more than men!’
Gently measured the distance and poised himself for the leap. Louey rattled his handcuffs in ironic invitation. Then, as though his good angel had whispered in his ear, Gently flung himself backwards instead of forwards: and at the same instant ‘Windy Tops’, complete in every detail, lurched out frightfully into space…
They ran to pick him up, Dutt, Copping and two uniform men. As they pulled him to safer ground another chunk of cliff dropped thundering to the beach. Down below them a raw gap loomed, large enough to put the Town Hall in. There was a curiously unnerving smell of dank and newly-revealed gravel. On the beach was piled the debris, lapping into the sea, a cloud of dust and grit still rising from it. Gently tore himself loose from his rescuers and stared down into the settling chaos.
‘Not so close!’ shouted Copping, ‘you don’t know where it’s going to stop!’
But Gently remained staring from the edge of the yawning pit. Then he turned to Dutt, a curious expression on his face. ‘All right… fetch him up. Use that little path over there and fetch him up.’
‘Fetch him up?’ echoed Dutt. ‘Yessir. Of course, sir. But we’ll need some picks and shovels, sir, and maybe a stretcher…’
Gently shook his head and walked away from the edge. ‘Not a single shovel, Dutt… not the strap off a stretcher. Poor Louey! This is his final tragedy. He thought he was big enough to play God, but when it came to the push he couldn’t even commit suicide.’
‘You mean he — he’s alive?’ goggled Dutt.
‘Yes, Dutt, and kicking too. If we’d left the door unlocked he’d have been buried in the middle of that lot, but as it is he went down on top… he’s sitting there now, shaking the muck out of his ears.’