Peter May - The Chessmen

‘You’ve had your compensation,’ Roddy almost bellowed at him. ‘We played an extra fucking hour!’

‘I still had people asking for their money back. People who left before you even showed up.’

I thought Roddy was going to go for him, and stepped in quickly, hand raised. ‘Okay, let’s get Donald on his mobile.’ Not everyone had mobile phones in those days. Donald had the latest model, but there was no guarantee that he would be in any fit state to answer it. He should have been at the gig with us. But he wasn’t. God only knew what had become of him.

I borrowed Tuckfield’s phone and listened as the number rang unanswered at the other end, until Donald’s messaging service kicked in. There didn’t seem any point in leaving a message. When I hung up I saw murder in Roddy’s eyes.

I tried to be the voice of reason. ‘Now look, Mr Tuckfield, you know why we were late. We saved a man’s life tonight. And we gave you an extra hour of our time to make up for it. Now, we’re not unreasonable people. And I’m sure you’re not an unreasonable man. So we’ll just go and pack up the van, and wait out front. And when you decide you’re going to pay us, we’ll shake hands, and say no more, and be on our way.’ I paused. ‘And if you don’t. .’ I could feel Roddy’s eyes on me, wondering what was coming next. ‘Well, you can stay in here and rot. I’ve driven two hundred and fifty fucking miles to get here, and I’ve another two hundred and fifty fucking miles to get home, and I’m not fucking leaving till I get my fucking money.’

I wasn’t one to swear much, although Mr Tuckfield wasn’t to know that, but Roddy did. And as I strode back out to the van, with Roddy almost running to keep up, he said, ‘Maybe you should be our manager, Fin.’ I just gave him a look.

We were packed up and ready to go shortly after midnight. Mairead and the other members of the band who travelled in the car wanted to go, leaving me and Roddy to deal with Tuckfield.

But I was adamant. ‘No. We all stay, or we all go. And if I go without being paid, this is the last gig I drive for you people.’ And they knew I meant it.

So we stood around outside at the end of the pier, smoking, wrapped up in coats and scarves, listening to the sea washing up against the stanchions below us. The streetlights of the town, rising up across the hill beyond the promenade, twinkled in the dark. But the good people of this once popular holiday resort had long since gone to bed, and the houses that lined the hillside stood in darkness. The rain had stopped, but everything was still wet, reflecting street lamps and stars.

I didn’t know how long Tuckfield was prepared to stay in there, but I was ready to sit it out till the following morning, if necessary. By one o’clock the others were getting restless.

‘Come on,’ Strings said. ‘This is pointless. Let’s go.’

Roddy was shaking his head slowly, almost like a man in a trance. He muttered, very nearly inaudibly, ‘This is the end for Donald fucking Murray. He’s finished. Finished!’

All the lights around the pavilion went out, plunging the end of the pier into darkness. Everyone was suddenly alert. Almost at the same time, the distant wailing of a police siren drifted to us across the night, and I turned to see the blue light of a police patrol car heading down the hill towards the front. It was no surprise when it bumped across the promenade and headed straight up the pier towards us.

‘Jesus!’ Rambo said. ‘He’s called the cops.’

I felt indignation welling in my chest. ‘So? We haven’t done anything wrong.’

But as it turned out, the cops weren’t interested in us. The patrol car drove straight past, swerving into a sideways skid on a handbrake half-turn, and coming to a stop right outside the main door. A white-faced Tuckfield emerged, quickly locking the door behind him, and jumped into the back seat of the police car. The car revved and spun its back wheels, and sped off along the pier.

For a moment we all stood watching in disbelief.

Mairead sat in the front seat of the car, face pale and angry, like a full moon reflected on the windscreen. Roddy and Strings were in the back, Roddy sitting side-on, with his legs out of the open door. I don’t really know what possessed me, but anger rose in me like overheated milk and I jumped behind the wheel of the car and started the engine.

‘What are you doing?’ Roddy shouted.

‘Just shut the door!’

He barely had time to get his legs in and pull the door closed before I had spun the car around to accelerate hard along the pier in pursuit of the police car. ‘For Christ’s sake, Fin, you can’t go chasing the cops!’

I saw Strings’ frightened-rabbit face ballooning into my rearview mirror. ‘Jesus, Fin, you’ll get us all arrested.’

I said nothing, and as I pressed my foot to the floor in an attempt to close the gap on the blue flashing light ahead of us, I was aware of Mairead turning to look at me. But she never said a word.

The police car slewed across the promenade and turned south towards a collection of fairground attractions shuttered up for the night. The driver ran a red light, and turned up the hill. I could feel the tension in my own hands as I spun the wheel and followed. There were no other vehicles around this early in the morning.

At the top of the hill the police car turned right then dog-legged to the left, and I felt my tyres sliding on the wet surface of the road as I followed, losing control for just a moment before finding grip again and picking up speed. I was almost hypnotized by the blue flashing light dead ahead, without a single thought of what on earth it was I might do if and when I caught up with it. But we were gaining on it, and the tension being generated by the others in the car was almost tangible.

Suddenly the brake-lights of the car in front filled our windscreen, blurred and dragged across it by the wipers. I stood on my brakes, feeling the car drifting beneath me, swinging left, and then right as I pumped the brake for grip and swung the wheel one way then the other to right the skid. We stopped, I think, within six inches of the rear bumper of the police car.

There was an almost collective exhalation of relief from Roddy, Strings and Mairead, and I sat clutching the wheel, breathing hard. For what felt like an inordinate length of time nothing happened. Both cars sat there, one behind the other, engines idling.

I could see Tuckfield’s frightened face, half turned to peer back at us through the dark. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.

Then the driver’s door of the police car swung slowly open. A goliath of a uniformed police sergeant stepped out on to the street, pulling on his cap and tugging its shiny peak down over his eyes. He stood for a moment glaring at us, then walked slowly towards my side of the car, one hand on his hip, the other touching the handle of the baton that hung from his belt.

I wound down the window as he leaned in to peer at me. His face was impassive, and his dark eyes flickered first towards Mairead, and then Roddy and Strings in the back, before returning to me. I could see a shaving of ginger hair around his head beneath his cap. ‘Are you in the band?’

‘I’m the roadie.’

He nodded and took a black notebook and pen from his breast pocket. He reached past me and handed it to Mairead. ‘My daughter’s got your CD. I figure she’d love to have your autograph.’

Mairead gave him one of her smiles. ‘Of course.’ She took his notebook, found a blank page and signed it. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Do you want the others?’

‘Are they in the group?’

‘They are.’

He nodded, and Mairead handed his notebook back for Roddy and Strings to sign. Roddy reached over my shoulder to give it to me, and I handed it back. He returned it to his breast pocket, then focused his glare on me once more. To my surprise he thrust his big hand through my window.