Bob Shaw - The Peace Machine

He turned with the absurd idea of trying to mingle with a group of urchins but, using the well-developed instincts of their race, they had faded into the surroundings. The gray-haired man was only fifty paces away, running strongly in spite of his bulk, looking strangely incongruous in an expensive tweed overcoat. He was carrying a slim-bladed knife in a way which suggested he knew how to use it.

Sobbing, Hutchman moved to one side. His pursuer altered course to intercept him. Hutchman lifted a half-brick and threw it, but had aImed too low and it struck the ground harmlessly. The gray-haired man jumped over it, landed awkwardly and pitched forward, his face driving into a thicket of steel rods which projected from a slab of concrete. One of them punched its way into the socket of his right eye. And he screamed.

Hutchman watched in horror as a surprisingly large white ball, blotched with red, sprang from the socket and rolled on the ground.

“My eye! Oh God, my eye!” The man groveled in the dirt, his hands searching blindly.

“Stay away from me,” Hutchman mumbled.

“But it’s my eye!” The man got to his feet with the obscene object cupped in his hands, holding it out toward Hutchman in a kind of supplication. Deltas of black blood spilled down his face and over his clothes.

“Stay away!” Hutchman forced his body into action. He ran parallel to the fence for a short distance and angled away toward the point where he had entered the site. Children darted out of his path like startled pheasants. He reached the blue Jaguar and got into the driving seat, but there was no ignition key. His pursuer had been taking no chances. Hutchman got out of the car as several children appeared in the gap in the houses. They were going back into the site, but moving differently, with an air of authority which suggested they had the backing of adults. Hutchman hurried toward the street and encountered two middle-aged men, one of them in slippers and rolled-up shirtsleeves.

“There’s been an accident,” he called, pointing back across the desolation to where a single figure wavered in the slatecoloured mist. “Where’s the nearest telephone?”

One of the men pointed to the left, down the hill. Hutchman ran in that direction, back the way he had come, until he was in the wider tree-lined avenue. He slowed to a walk, partly to avoid looking conspicuous and partly because he was exhausted. The easier pace also made it possible for him to think. He had a feeling the man he had encountered was not a British detective or security agent — it would all have been handled differently — but no matter how much anybody might have learned from Andrea Knight, how could they possibly have found him so quickly? There was the car, of course, but surely that would have brought the police down on him rather than an anonymous man carrying a knife. Regardless of what had happened, he decided, Bolton was no longer safe for him.

As his breathing returned to normal Hutchman reached the main road and caught a bus going into the town center. Darkness was falling by the time he got off near the imposing town hall. Store windows were brightly lit and the pavements were crowded with people hurrying home from work. The crisp, pre-Christmas atmosphere brought on another of the unmanning attacks of nostalgia and he found himself thinking about Vicky and David again. Look what you’ve done to me, Vicky .

He asked a news vendor how to reach the railway station, set out to walk to it, then realized he could not risk going to any transport terminal, and that to consider it had been a dangerous lapse. I wanted to ride home in comfort, sitting in a window seat, humming “Beyond the Blue Horizon” , he thought in astonishment. But I’m the ground zero man, and I can never go home again .

He walked aimlessly for a while, twice turning into side streets when he saw police uniforms. The problem of getting out of Bolton was doubly urgent. Not only had he to escape from a tightening net, but the deadline he had given to the authorities was drawing closer. He had to journey south and be in Hastings before Antibomb Day. Could he travel in disguise? A flash recollection of Chesterton’s invisible man caused him to halt momentarily. The uniform of a postman would make him effectively invisible, and a rural postman’s traditional transport — a bicycle — would probably get him to Hastings in time. But how did one acquire such things? Stealing them would only serve to make him more easily identifiable…

In one of the narrow side streets he saw a yellow electric sign of a taxi company, and in the window of the office beneath it was a notice which said: “DRIVERS FOR SAFETY CABS WANTED — NO PSV LICENCE REQUIRED.”

Hutchman’s heart began to thud as he read the hand-lettered card. A taxi driver was just as invisible as a postman, and a vehicle went with the job! He walked into the dimly-lit garage beside the office. A row of mustard-colored taxis brooded in the half-light and the only evidence of life was the glowing window of a boxlike office in one corner. He tapped the door and opened it. Inside was a cluttered room containing a table and a bench upon which sat two men in mechanic’s overalls. One of them was in the act of raising a cup of tea to his mouth.

“Sorry to disturb you.” Hutchman put on his best grin. “How do I go about getting a job as a driver?”

“No trouble about that, mate.” The mechanic turned to his companion, who was unwrapping sandwiches. “Who’s the super tonight?”

“Old Oliver.”

“Wait here and I’ll fetch him,” the mechanic said in a friendly tone and Went out through a door which led to the back of the building. Encouraged and gratified, Hutchman studied the little room as he waited. The walls were covered with notices held in place by drawing pins and yellowing Sellotape. “Any driver who is involved in a front-end accident will be dismissed immediately,” one stated. “The following are in bad standing and must not be accepted for credit card journeys,” said another above a list of names. To Hutchman, in his state of intense loneliness, they appeared as indications of a warm, intensely human normalcy. He entertained fantasies of working contentedly in a place like this for the rest of his life if he got away from Hastings in one piece. Getting his job, being accepted into the cheery incidentrich life of a cab driver, assumed an illogical and emotional importance which had nothing to do with escaping to the south.

“Cold day,” the remaining mechanic said through a mouthful of bread.

“Certainly is.”

“Fancy a drop of tea?”

“No thanks.” Hutchman’s eyes stung with pleasure as he refused the offer. He turned as the door opened and the first mechanic came in accompanied by a stooped, white-haired man of about sixty. The newcomer was pink-faced, had a prim womanly mouth, and was wearing an old-fashioned belted raincoat and a peaked cap.

“Hello,” Hutchman ventured. “I understand you have openings for drivers.”

“Happen I have,” Oliver said. “Come out here and I’ll talk to you.” He led the way out to the garage area and closed the office door so that the mechanics would not hear the conversation. “Are you a PSV man?”

“No, but it said on your notice that…”

“I know what it said on the notice,” Oliver interrupted pettishly, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t prefer good professional men. These nasty little so-called safety cars with seats looking out the back window have cheapened the whole trade. Cheap and nasty.”

“Oh.” It dawned on Hutchman that he was dealing with a man who regarded taxi-driving as a calling. “Well, I have a clean ordinary licence.”

Oliver scrutinized him doubtfully. “Part-timer?”