Moggerhanger

Chapter Eight

The car draped itself around me like a cocoon of velvet; good to be on the road and back in my mobile house. Even though my faculties were sharpened to follow motorway signs I strayed into Monza, but the streets were empty, and wayposting so frequent I was soon out and steering in the right direction.

The road was fairly free of traffic, so I mulled on Sophie, and wondered what sort of family she was from, what schooling she’d had and what job, though by her accent, manners and dress she was obviously of high quality. All I’d gathered was that her marriage was on the drift. I would have fished for more, but there hadn’t been time, with all we’d found to do. The further I got from the picture of her driving alone in the Rover, the more intense and longing were my thoughts. Never having been in thrall to the fact that ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ made me more determined to see her on my way back from Greece.

Traffic increased, so I sharpened my senses for safety. Other drivers drew level in the cut and thrust to look at the Roller, a rare car on the road. In driving long distance the first three days were the most dangerous, and any bad or fatal mishap was likely to take place in that period. So being still on the second day I drove as carefully as possible. By the third my intuition and body clock would have become synchronised, and thereafter I’d be in fair trim to finish the trip with neither accident nor incident.

A little black hatchback, tall aerial waving that could be used for sending as well as receiving communications, had been in my mirror almost from Milan, but I supposed some car had to be. Now and again he dropped behind. Suddenly he overtook. Then I got by him with a gaggle of other cars. A vehicle of any shape or colour would allow my paranoia to get a toe hold, so I stopped thinking about whoever it might be.

My speed was a sedate seventy, cars rocketting by with ease and delight at ninety or more. Even the lizziest tin lizzie could do such a speed, and when a motorist cut in too close I didn’t worry, dangerous though it seemed, knowing the driver to be laughing at the spectacle of plutocrat me in a trilby hat smoking a cigar at the wheel. I assumed every Italian was a good driver and knew what he was doing.

Signs for Bergamo slid by, Brescia and Verona as well, and I was sorry at being unable to call at such famous places and see what they were like, but I was under Moggerhanger’s orders and couldn’t wander. Also, the more time saved on the outward trip the longer I’d be able to dawdle up the Adriatic and stay a couple of days with sublime Sophie on my way home.

Famished after the meagre breakfast, I drove into a lay-by near Vicenza, a green hill rising towards the distant town, and a meadow over the fence pullulating with birds and insects, the day turning hot. A pick-up truck with a Fiat 500 on the back and, above that, a small speed boat on a specially constructed rack, didn’t seem too secure, so I parked some distance away should a wobble send the whole contraption onto the roof of Moggerhanger’s pet Rolls. A woman was followed out of a Gogomobile by a large Dalmatian which she addressed sharply as Caesar, and the dog immediately set about doing its business so copiously I expected it to deflate into a puppy and get back into the car with less trouble than it had taken on its exit.

I cut into bread, cheese, pickles and salami with my genuine lambfoot clasp knife, becoming hungrier the more I ate. I threw a round of sausage to Caesar, but he sniffed and turned away as if my name was Brutus.

Manoeuvering out, and thinking all was clear, a Lancia steaming up at a hundred and twenty — maybe my cigar had blocked him from the line of sight — missed my front bumper by an inch. Where the fuck did he come from? I could only suppose he waved good naturedly before getting ahead, but my hands trembled at the wheel for a few miles at such a stupid near miss. Deciding it might be better to go faster, at a hundred I felt like a Brand’s Hatch veteran recruited by the Foreign Office to show continental drivers that not all the British were sixty-mile-an-hour plodders, with cars full of kids, and yellow buckets, red spades, and luggage on the roof rack fastened down with flapping plastic.

The little black hatchback, emerging from a lay-by beyond the one I’d stopped in, came right behind me again, the same aerials swaying up from the bonnet fair and square in my rear mirror. He was behind me till he overtook and turned off for Trieste. It might not have been trailing me after all, though I regretted the car hadn’t passed close enough for me to see who or what was inside.

Off the motorway I handed the man in the booth a hundred-thousand lira note thinking it was a tenner, but he smiled at my mistake and gave the right change. If he hadn’t I might never have known, such honesty not to be forgotten, but telling me not to be so careless from then on.

At the Jugoslav border I tanked up with petrol, had four cups of muddy coffee, and set off up the winding road between green and rounded hills. By four o’clock I’d reached Postojna and, fearful of nodding at the wheel after my short night, and sufficient distance having been clocked up for the day, I pulled into the forecourt of the Hotel Sisyphus for a nightstop which Alice Whipplegate had marked on the map. Who was I to dispute such wisdom and forethought?

I showed my passport and was taken to a cabin between the trees, parking the car where it would be visible whenever I twitched the curtains. A notice on the wall said that after ten p.m. it was expected that silence would be maintained in all the rooms. Guests were kindly requested to cooperate. This endeared me to the place, for I had long thought that the curse of the twentieth century was noise, and the less there was the better.

With much sleep to make up for I flopped on the bed and, to the singing of birds and an ambrosial breeze coming from eucalyptus trees, was unconscious in seconds.

Before opening my eyes I had to search in the darkness behind them to decide where I was. A jazz band hammered so loud from the main building it nearly crumbled my eardrums. Evening was coming on while I washed, changed my jacket and tie, and went to the dining room. Soup, cutlets, chips and a bottle of wine had one half of me lively, while the other stayed as exhausted as if recovering from a mild stroke. The prefabricated ersatz of the place wouldn’t stand up to much argy-bargy if I complained too pointedly about the band. All I could do was soothe myself with regret that Sophie wasn’t with me, though it seemed so long since our encounter on the train I wasn’t sure we’d recognise each other passing on the street.

The place was full of glum holidaymakers waiting to phone home and say how much they were enjoying life, so I queued twenty minutes at the booth and, according to instructions, called Lord Moggerhanger.

“Michael?” he said.

“That’s me.”

“I’ve been waiting. Where are you?”

I told him. “Just inside Jugoslavia.”

“My finger’s running east from Milan, looking for it. Ah, here it is.” He laughed, neither a good nor a bad sign. I was too far away for him to bother me, anyway. “That’s top hole,” he said, as if I cared. “You’ve got a pin on my map all to yourself. Don’t you think that’s an honour?”

“I do. Thank you very much.”

“Keep on keeping on. Call a little earlier tomorrow.”

I hung up — though imagined he beat me to it — and went to bed, falling asleep when the jungle-band piped down at eleven.

After a good night under a warm ocean of unrememberable dreams, I paid two hundred dinars for my lodging, and stowed my briefcase in the car.

I was always inspired by unknown territory, its sights and smells and mysterious expectations, and the unfamiliar horizons to lure me on. I threaded the Alpine houses of Planina, then floated along a stretch of motorway, the land lush and hilly. A young bloke in a pay booth coo-ed over the car, and asked my destination in precise English.

“Sofia,” I said, having seen it on the Michelin map of Europe and liked the resonance.

I agreed when he remarked it was a long way. He wanted to practice his English by saying he was a numismatist, and asking if I had a fifty-pence piece to complete his collection of queen-headed coins. I remembered a Jubilee Crown in my waistcoat pocket, and gave him that. As if unable to believe his luck he shoved a pack of local currency into the car, and when I scooped it up and handed it back he pushed it through the window again, told me to be careful on the road, and waved me on. I didn’t want his money, but maybe it was a reward for spontaneously handing over my last Jubilee Crown, a gesture which might bring the luck I could yet need on my expedition.

With so much traffic on the winding road it was impossible to overtake without the prospect of getting mangled, and sitting on the wrong side of the car made it difficult in any case. Scared, but in control, I trundled along, and beyond the Zagreb bypass the road was even more crowded. A bend brought a driver around on the wrong side, two more cars following as if competing in the foolhardy stakes of the Jugoslav Grand Prix. They had Sarajevo number plates, so must have been mindful of that fatal shot which started the First World War, and they were now trying for a third even at the cost of their lives. But I was no archduke, so ran my motor along the verge to let another madman in a souped-up pram get by.

The possibility of never seeing Sophie again split each second into two, and kept me on absolute alert. It was Death Road, unremittingly perilous, with lay-bys so short that only three or four cars could park at the same time. Rubbish heaps reeking of oil and petrol made me afraid to light up. Bottles, rags, tins and plastic bags underfoot sent me gladly back on the road, happy only until I was on it. A cross with fading flowers decorated a field every few kilometres, or displayed a burnt-out saloon, all doors open and surrounded by scraps of charred luggage.

Service stations were crowded with lorries on the Turkey and Middle East run, and clapped out Mercedes full of Turks going home from Germany, so jammed inside that nobody driving could see behind, luggage racks piled with mattresses and washing machines. I saw a dozen people get out of one car.

Filling my waterbottle from a toilet tap, I hoped it hadn’t been through too many drivers guts. The coffee was like the boiled up Spanish root we chewed as kids — or some did — and I was even charged double for the rotten coffee.

Miraculously, I found an empty and fairly clean lay-by fifty miles on. Beyond a few trees in a rock-strewn field, and not far from a farmhouse, was a respectable sort of lean-to shaded by a few bushes. To one side children played ‘in and out the windscreen’ of a car with its front smashed in. My camping gas was soon flaming on a pile of old bricks, and I put the kettle on, to brew a mug of the best tea.

A man who came out of the lean-to seemed in a hurry to reach me. Instinct said get in the car and flee, but curiosity stopped me. He didn’t look like a beggar or appear threatening, yet wasn’t in the dress of a peasant either. He was a stocky man of about sixty — though he could have been forty in such a place — with plenty of grey beard fuzz around his features. His arms swung open the closer he got, highstepping between stones and furrows, a smile from one ear to the other as he came on.

If I hadn’t found the lay-by by chance I might have thought him one of Moggerhanger’s mainland squad checking up on me. His wave was a kind of signal while stepping over the low wall, and he grabbed the hand not holding my mug. It was no surprise when he said in English: “Have they sent for me, then?”

It was hard to talk, with juggernauts earthquaking both ways along the Ribbon of Death. “Sent for you? Who do you mean?”

“Somebody should have,” he cried. “It’s time they did. I’ve been here seven years.”

When he poked me in the ribs I was reminded of Jim Hawkins’ encounter with Ben Gunn in ‘Treasure Island’. “You don’t by chance have a jar of Marmite with you?”

I took a pace back on saying that I didn’t.

“Or a tin of Oxo?”

He frowned at my laugh, his face turning so miserable I had to give him something to live for: “If I come back this way I’ll bring you some.”

“But are you sure nobody sent you? I can’t believe they didn’t.”

I poured him the last of my tea. “I’m a bona fide traveller. Nobody sends me anywhere. I’m surprised you asked.”

He drank, gratefully. “You shouldn’t be. I thought you were from the British Embassy, or even the Foreign Office. The buggers promise now and again to send a car and get me out of here. They’re absolutely bloody heartless. Not that I’m sure I want to go. In fact I don’t think I do, not all that much, anyway. Sometimes I only think I want them to come and get me so that I can have the pleasure of telling them to piss off.” His blue eyes fixed me: “This is a rare mug of tea. I haven’t had such a good brew in a long time.”

I rummaged around the boot and brought out an unopened packet. “Make yourself a few more when I’ve gone.”

“Gone?” He looked distraught, even suspicious. “Are you sure you aren’t from the embassy? You wouldn’t deny me the thrill of telling you to leave me alone and get lost would you?”

“You flatter me.” Assuming he was clearly off his head I nevertheless opened a packet of Huntley and Palmers, which he also found welcome, as who wouldn’t? I was so intrigued by the lunatic I would have given him everything except the car. “Do you live in that shack over there?”

“Shack? You’ve got a cheek. It’s my abode. Neat and clean inside. I’ve lived there ever since it happened.” Tears fell down his face. “Things don’t get any easier to bear. But why should I expect ’em to, eh, you tell me that, go on, tell me.”

“Best not to expect anything,” was all I thought of to say. He clearly didn’t live in such a forlorn shelter for the pleasure of eking out his existence in a foreign country, and that was a fact. I waited for him to go on.

“It was like this, you see, my wife and two children were killed on this stretch of road seven years ago. Sometimes it seems an eternity, and at others it’s like only yesterday. And it wasn’t my fault. I wish it had been, then at least I could feel guilty.” He put half his drunk tea on a stone, and grabbed me by the collar and tie. “You believe that, don’t you?”

I pushed him away. “I was never so sure in my life.”

“That’s all right, then.” He picked up his tea. “I can’t bring myself to leave the place. They’re buried in the village cemetery. Usually I’m tending their graves at this time, but I’m glad I wasn’t today, otherwise I would have missed you.”

He was evidently in need of conversation, being only human. “Do you go there every day?”

The question brought more tears. “For an hour or two. It calms me down to be with them. There were two cars, you see, coming at a hundred miles an hour. They were side by side, so what could I do. If only we’d all gone together. But I was thrown clear, with hardly a scratch.”

“What about the other cars?”

“Flew away,” he laughed. “Flew away, as happy as sandboys. Just flew away.”

“How do you manage here then, all by yourself?”

“The local people are kind. They share as much as they can, because I don’t have any money to speak of. They give me my bread when they bake, and an egg now and again. When they kill a goat I get a bit of meat. They like me, because I speak their language now.”

He took an offered cigarette, and lit up with pleasure from my lighter. I had to ask for it back, then told him to keep it, seeing the fuel half gone. “So you don’t really want to leave?”

“Well, I sold up in London, didn’t I? Lived it up for a while, then the money I brought back kept me for the first few years. Between you and me,” he leaned closer, as if somebody could hear us through the terrible noise of lorries, “I’ve got an emergency amount to get to Godalming by third class train, if ever the mood takes me, but where would I go when I got there? There’s nothing for me in England anymore. And I’d miss being with my loved ones, wouldn’t I?”

I could have cried at his plight, but didn’t. His clothes were worn, yet he’d kept himself clean. At my staring too closely he said: “I have a decent suit to go to the village church in once a month.”

I gave him a jar of coffee, a carton of cigarettes, another packet of tea, the dinars the man had given me for the Crown Piece, and all my newspapers. “You’re a gentleman,” he said. “But are you sure you’re not from the embassy?”

“I’d know, if I was, wouldn’t I?”

I hoped he believed me, and left him, a forlorn figure clutching his packets. I wondered if he was who he said he was. He could have been a criminal who had found a fairly good hideout from justice, which would explain his anxiety about a messenger from the embassy bringing his extradition papers. His story was so outlandish that, charging on towards Belgrade, I mulled on his fate and wondered whether he wouldn’t languish there till death. I could call at the embassy in Belgrade and show them where he was on the map, demand that someone get him back to England’s social security system, and if he really didn’t want to go he could at least enjoy telling them to piss off. Maybe they did know about him already, and his abusive letters sent on by passing motorists every few weeks berating the heartlessness at not assisting a stranded man were the bane of the ambassador’s life. I didn’t know what to think, but there was nothing I could do about it, so he’s probably still there.

I massaged the rims of both eyes on seeing a little black hatchback in my mirror, certainly the same car that had trailed me from Milan as far as the Trieste turn off. He must have rejoined the motorway without my noticing, and followed me into Jugoslavia. Was he Moggerhanger’s unobtrusive (and unsolicited) escort to make sure I kept to the itinerary, to check that I didn’t hand the briefcase to the wrong person, or abscond to Scandinavia with the material taken on board? I doubted it. Though Moggerhanger’s arms had a longer reach than Kenny Dukes’, he knew I would never be so idiotic as to screw things up in that way.

There seemed no doubt that I was being followed, so who was it? I mustn’t let the motorist know that I twigged he was following me, that’s all I knew. If he’d had me under observation while handing those packets to the unfortunate bloke in the lay-by he’d have gone hot-footed to burgle the shack and check the colour of the Nescafe. Had that been the case the poor castaway would have thought the embassy was getting at him again, and his loud histrionic piss off would have been audible all the way back to Zagreb.

In motoring I talk more often in my mind to the chap behind than to the one in front. I don’t know why, but I suppose it’s normal. It put me at an advantage with regard to the hatchback, because there might then be less chance that he would speculate, at least with much prescience, about me, and have to wait on my shifts and variants. I once played the game on the arterial lanes of England against Kenny Dukes, who was the quickest motorlad in South London. But it was harder on the Balkan Highway to move in concentric switches, and keep my intentions hidden from the hatchback. A deliberate failure on my part to overtake a car in front got me so close to the hatchback’s fender he was in danger of being pushed rearwards to Zagreb. Not much wrong with that, except he would have no headlamps.

He thought it best to pull away for some distance, as I’d imagined he would, so with a risky overtaking into a lot less traffic I tonned up the car and he lost me. He would expect me to nightstop in Belgrade, but I turned off the main road fifty miles before, when he was no longer in my rear mirror, to a place where — Alice having done more of her homework — there was a hotel. Staying there would save me searching Belgrade for lodgings in the rush hour and half darkness.

I found a hotel, in a town whose name I couldn’t pronounce, and was given a room on the sixth floor. My window showed a river below, and a church whose onion dome, close enough to touch, reminded me again that I was abroad.

With five hundred kilometres on the clock since morning I felt as scruffy and tired as after a day in a factory — though I’d never worked in one — so went along the corridor for a shower. The hotel was newish but rundown, as if Vandal Tour buses stopped there now and again, because lights didn’t work on the top floor, locks in the men’s lavatories were smashed, the sinkshelf in my room hung from the wall, and plaster on the ceiling patched with rust looked ready to fall. Who was I to complain? It was a better bolt hole than Peppercorn Cottage.

I waited half an hour in the eating hall for wiener schnitzel and chips, bread and salad, a litre of wine and a bottle of mineral water. The usual Slav band pounded tunes into our ears, but from behind a partition. A young unshaven man on crutches swayed to my table and held out a hand, pain and intimidation in his eyes. When I gave him some change he indicated thirst, so I let him knock back a glass of wine from my carafe, then hobble away in at least one part mended.

Needing fresh air and a walk afterwards I found a street market selling tomatoes, peaches and cucumbers, and bought a bag of each for picnics. Soldiers strolled forlornly in a park behind the church as if a Woodbine or two would cheer them up. They could have earned them, I thought, by digging pits at the lay-bys to pitch all the garbage into.

I put my shopping in the Roller and, blessing Alice for sheer genius, sorted out a plug for the upstairs sink, which headed a list of things she’d told me to bring.

I got through to Moggerhanger on the blower, and told him where I was.

“Will you spell that again? I only know English.”

I took him through the two words letter by letter, and had him repeat them back.

“I’ve found it. I’m moving the pin at this very second. Do you have anything to tell me?”

“Yes. I’m being tailed. A little black hatchback keeps me in its sights.” I only now wondered why I had been sent in a Rolls Royce, the most conspicuous automobile on the road. Common sense would have been to drive a Ford Escort with a luggage rack and flapping plastic. Had I been set up, or what?”

“Michael, what do I pay you for? Lose him.”

“How do you expect me to do that in a country with only one road? Or three at the most?”

“That’s your department. You have your orders. I leave it to you.” He put the phone down.

Worry had never found a toe hold to help anyone wanting to climb up me. I went to bed and read Murder in the Bath by Sidney Blood, the Nether World Band in the dining room shaking every plywood partition in the place.

Rain splashed so tunefully in the morning I thought the plumbing had done a total eclipse, but I was up at eight, though it was nine because my watch hadn’t registered the change of longitude.

A bypass took me around Belgrade, to the outdoor market I’d been instructed to look out for, and I saw some sense at last in driving the Rolls Royce, because my contact had no trouble finding me. A tall heavy man, whose smile must have got lost in childhood, came out of a smart Mercedes Coupé and parked so close that the transfer of goods and money was finished in a few seconds. His mouth seemed full of gravel: “Give Lord Moggerhanger my fervent wishes, from Gavril.” Half a dozen younger men in shades and short haircuts went back into their cars after the transaction. Gavril gave me a wave as they went away in as much of a convoy as could be managed in the crowds of shoppers. I wandered the market stalls, bought a wedge of cheese and a loaf for something like seventy-five pence.

Back on the highway, the hatchback came from the opposite direction so fast there was hardly time to put up two fingers. Having missed me yesterday evening he had waited farther south and, losing patience if not heart, had spent the night in Belgrade. This morning he had set off and, after a hundred miles, realised I couldn’t have got that far, so was now on his way back for a recce.

With no more rain, and wondering who had given him my route all the way from Milan, I bowled along as if on holiday, green hills opening to far horizons, fields of maize, and sunflowers whose faces were still turned east. But I wasn’t there to take in the scenery, with so many lorries overturned or jackknifed (often both) by the roadside, wrecked bits of motor car scattered around as if a mastodon had eaten up an entire automobile factory and staggered out here to be sick. Maybe it was a policy of the Road Safety Department of Jugoslavia to arrange such a glum display as a warning for traffic to take care, though it didn’t look as if with much success. It must have been an insurance firm’s nightmare, and I didn’t want my almost-corpse filling out a claim before getting to Greece that night. So I wouldn’t go too fast, in spite of the hatchback still on the prowl.

Prosperous Serbia dropped behind, and I said hello to the precipitous landscape of Macedonia. The hatchback, aerial gleefully waving, stayed close behind. You scratch my hatchback, and I’ll scratch yours; but I’ll drive you off the fucking road first, mate, I said aloud in basic Nottingham-speak, always used at times of crisis.

I jacked up speed as much as I dared, but he stuck to me like shit to a blanket, no doubt blind with anger at having lost me last night. Such a rate of knots soon took me to an emptier stretch of road. Moggerhanger had ordered me to get rid of him which, I supposed, meant luring him into a lay-by and cutting his throat, but that I wouldn’t do, not intending to end my life in a Jugoslav jail, or getting shot for it. Moggerhanger could serve his own time, and I hoped one day he would, though if he did his suite of cells at the Scrubs would be a fitted carpet palace, and he’d have the governor pouring out his Ovaltine every night before bed time.

I drove as if not realising hatchback was there, or as if I didn’t think he could have anything to do with me. At places where he might easily overtake, he didn’t. Had he tried I would have gone parallel in the hope of him getting booted off the road by an incoming lorry. Yet I was glad he stayed behind, not wanting him to be seriously injured, even by accident.

But get rid of him I must, whether or not it meant the Roller being knocked about. Even Moggerhanger realised that everything had its price. My luck became the hatchback’s nightmare when, after a few bends, the road was straight enough for my purpose.

Perhaps hatchback’s gaffer had ordered him to keep track of me come what may, or his job would no longer be pensionable. All I knew was this: that since it was him or me I could only do my best to make it him. Maybe by now he was stricken with liver fluke, and the poor bastard was heading for hydrotherapy in Greece.

I stamped on my brakes and waited for the crunch, in the split second realising he was more Brand’s Hatch than I was, though it did him no good. From my rear mirror I saw him go. He missed my bumper by the width of a matchstick as he swung clear. Maybe he thought me a sentimental Englishman who’d spotted a pretty rabbit in mid-road rubbing a white tipped paw across its smile. Or a cockerel scratching for grit to make him virile, which he would have considered more understandable. Had he struck my bumper I would have gone back and smacked him around his already bleeding head for being such a stupid driver, as I’d once intended doing to someone on the Great North Road, till I saw it was a woman, when I merely wagged my finger and called her naughty.

I was too intent on self-preservation to glimpse the face as he went by, but I’d have given much to know who he, or maybe they, were, whether Italian, French or Jugoslav, or even English, never wanting to injure anyone with whom I was so little acquainted. I put him down as a man of the Continent, for he certainly knew how to drive on the right. So did I, after a few trips with Frances to the Med and back.

On overtaking he performed the classic manoeuvre of cutting in so sharply I’d have to stop to avoid smashing into him. I’d expected it. I’d have tried it myself. But as his luck would have it his car clipped the only pothole for miles, shot across the road, and came to rest with its tin nose pressed against the arse of a considerable rock. The bonnet flew up, and the last thing I saw before smoothing my way ahead was a hand waving wildly from the window.

Hatchback must then have surmised I would do all possible speed to broach the Greek frontier that evening. He could think what he liked. My plan was to wait till tomorrow, by when he would have heard from whoever was to check me at that point (if there was any such person, but I was taking no chances) that I must have slid over unseen. The map showed two possible crossing places, while a third option led through Albania; but I didn’t want a free haircut, and in any case I had no visa.

The hotel fifty miles before the border turned out to be the fleapit of all fleapits. Anyone driving a Rolls Royce (not now so clean on the outside as it had been) would never have put up at such a place, but for my purpose it was ideal, and I parked at the back so that it wouldn’t be visible from the road.

As I walked in to book a room a couple of families were struggling from their cars with heavy luggage, while a young factotum of the establishment sat on the veranda with a pencil in his mouth trying to do a crossword.

I needed a prolonged sluice of cold water to get clean, but no taps ran, though the man checking passports said they would do so later. I slept for an hour, but found no water on coming to, no toilet paper either, so I fetched some from the car. A plain supper of brochettes, chips, salad, wine and bread, was served under the trees, a menu I noted because Frances was always interested in what I ate when travelling.

After coffee and the usual cigar there was no option but to go showerless to bed, useful in any case for an early start in the morning. The hotel being at the junction of two main routes, hundreds of lorries were grinding their way by all through the night, to the whistles and clanking of mile-long goods trains on the nearby trunk railway. Then, in case I doubted God’s intention to give me no rest, a storm with thunder and lightning was thrown into the mix.

There was no water in the morning, either, and I dreaded to think where enough was obtained to make coffee. As for finding a phone to put me in touch with Moggerhanger, that was the least of my worries. Breakfast was skimpy, so I soon shot out of the place.

I felt bereft on the road without the stalking presence of the hatchback, whose occasional appearances had given some excitement. Instead there were French caravans to worry about, one in front with a lifeboat on top and six bicycles strapped to the back door, and another behind with, I supposed, similar holiday and survival equipment. Much scenery was lost in winding along the valley, though the few spectacular drops to the right would have been perfect for pitching hatchback — accidentally — over the edge and bouncing him through rocks and bushes to the river.

In places where the road narrowed, quarter-mile tunnels reduced me to slow driving. Lorries coming from the opposite direction dazzled me with their thousand-watt headlamps, and I didn’t want a scrape that would burst me into flames.

After a short wait at police and customs I was back in civilisation. The sky seemed lighter in Greece, and it seemed ages since I had felt so carefree. In fact I appreciated the improvement so much I would have volunteered for the expedition to Troy, if it was about to leave. Glossy magazines festooned racks in the cafeteria, so many naked bosoms displayed bringing Sophie sharply to mind, since I was, after all, only human.

Still hungry after the sparse Macedonian breakfast, I flipped open the envelope of drachma currency — thanks again, Alice! — so that I could stuff on coffee and honey cakes. As scruffy as a tramp after no water at the last place, I had a good wash in the toilets, then waited for a couple of lorry drivers to finish telling their girlfriends umpteen times how much they loved them and what they were going to do to them when they got home, before dialling Moggerhanger.

“This is an unusual time of the day for you to come up out of the blue, Michael. Whose young lady’s arms were you in last night?”

“It was impossible to get through. I spent three hours trying.”

“I waited up.”

“The phone where I stayed had been vandalised.”

“That’s as maybe,” he sighed, “but it’s just not like you to leave no stone unturned, even if there’s a scorpion under every one. I’m surprised. I’ve never known you to let anything stand in your way. At least spell out the name of the place you stopped at.”

I did.

“And where might you be at this moment?”

I told him that, as well.

“That’s a blessing.”

“I’m making progress.”

“You certainly are.”

I stood on the other foot. “Tomorrow I’ll be in Athens for sure.”

“I like you, Michael. You always had a flair for telling me what I want to know. And the little mobile pram giving you aggravation yesterday, and attempting illicit intercourse with your backside, what happened to that?”

I laughed, for as long as was considered suitable.

“Such a noise presages good news. Tell me about it. Make my day.”

“I dumped him.” I related my adventure. “He must at least have a bloody nose.”

“Not seriously injured though, I hope?”

“I did my best to avoid that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You know how much I deplore violence. As Mr Clausewitz says: ‘Violence is a sign of failure by any other means.’ Though I know I shouldn’t say this, there was a time in my life when violence kept me young. It’s nice to have a little chat with you now and again, so tell me what happened to my Rolls Royce in the encounter.”

“Not a scratch.”

“Now I know why I sent you. Ah, I’ve just found the place for last night’s pin. What a trail they’re starting to make. I expect you to call me this evening, without fail.”

I distrusted his approval and praise, never knowing what lurked behind his words, though it was true enough that none of his other employees could have got this far. Toffee Bottle would have been pulled in by the police for going ten times the wrong way around Milan cathedral. Kenny Dukes might have reached Venice, but he would have sunk the car in the Grand Canal thinking it was a short cut to Jugoslavia. Cottapilly and Pindary would have tried to sell the car in Russia and got twenty years in the Gulag. Only Bill Straw would have done as good if not better than me, but he wasn’t on Moggerhanger’s payroll.

Nothing famishes me as much as driving, so I needed another bout of cakes and coffee. Back on the road, I weighed up the chances of my long distance pick up going wrong, hoping however that all would turn out well. The next moment I doubted that it could. In spite of Moggerhanger’s smooth tone it was hard to believe he hadn’t sent me out as some kind of decoy, a pawn in a game I was too far down in his hierarchy to fathom. Such a strange and uncomfortable sensation on my part was close to paranoia, yet I needed to be paranoid so that my easy-going nature could click into a state of self-preservation.

Glad at any rate that I had got rid of the vicious-looking hatchback, I went down a dirt road to the beach. Salonika was behind me, and I sat under an almond tree, sliced some bread, and opened a tin of sardines. I was relaxed and happy that all had gone well. The most difficult part was over. I’d made it from sea to sea, so what could touch me now?

The blue Aegean lapped at my feet, and I recalled how Frances had read me the Matthew Arnold poem in her lovely expressive voice. Two thousand miles, and here I was, hearing the sea that Sophocles listened to. I took off shoes and socks to let my toes murmur their appreciation, though they weren’t allowed to soak for long — not wanting to spoil them.

I drove by Mount Olympus, and slowed at the sight of an English Peugeot Estate parked at the Vale of Tempe. I waved to a fair haired young lad chasing butterflies with a net, and he gave one back before going into the bushes. When his lovely dark-haired mother blew me a kiss (maybe it was meant for the Rolls) her husband looked daggers.

A mile further on a black hatchback coming up on the port bow showed in my mirror. I own to a shock, and felt a lick of despair. This time it would be murder, or near enough, him or me, I was too enraged to care, but when it got closer I noticed there was no aerial, and the front was undamaged, so I couldn’t think it was the same car, when the woman driver overtook so nippily and turned off at the next fork. To celebrate my deliverance (or the hatchback’s) I stopped at a village and bought a three-kilo melon from a toothless old woman in black, who smiled as if wanting to take me home when I told her to keep the change. After eating a good half, and washing my sticky fingers at a pump, I took off my jacket, for it was getting hot, and considered unravelling my tie, but Moggerhanger had stipulated that we should always wear one when driving cars that belonged to him, and who knew when a hireling of his wouldn’t pass by and report the dereliction?

South of Volos I brewed tea, and looked at the map. Well off the main road and on the coast was a place at which Alice had indicated a small hotel. Anyone still after me would never imagine I’d pass the night at the end of an eight-mile cul de sac, the perfect place to shake them off my trail.

The road was winding and narrow, goats on the hills and a friendly sea to the right. An old man with a long stick saluted the car, and when I stopped to ask how far ahead the village was he answered in American English that I had only to go on till I saw it, which was plain enough to me.

The hotel, as simple and clean a place as could be found, welcomed me with a room. By five o’clock I was sitting on the terrace, a breeze cooling blue water lapping the stones below, not a cloud from one end of the sky to the other. I had stumbled onto a cushy billet to beat them all, as Bill Straw would have said. Two bottles of icy Fix beer stood on the table, and I could drink away till the time came for supper. The proprietor had promised fresh fish, rice, salad, and his best wine. Over coffee I would light up a Havana and celebrate the good fortune in getting to my first nightstop in Greece.

I would wake from a long night’s sleep to the rusty pump braying of a donkey, and after a leisurely breakfast swim in the briny before heading south to deliver the briefcase, and take up the packages from the quayside beyond Pireus. All was arranged and mapped out, perfect clockwork on the cards. Just one more day to do.

As for the return journey, I would high-tail it up through Arta, board a ship at Igoumenitsa for Italy, and steam up the Adriatic coast to call on Sophie near Ancona. We would tumble each other about for a couple of days, and make enough memories to last every mile of my way back to hearth and home. I didn’t have a home, but why spoil the fantasy?

Never so relaxed, with another guzzle of the delicious Fix, I blessed my luck in having been sent on such an interesting and responsible mission. However much I disliked and distrusted Moggerhanger there was a lot to be grateful about for his confidence in my abilities. Tomorrow I would phone and tell of my complete success, but this evening I’d let him fry, so that I could have my supper and then sleep undisturbed.

A touch of the cramp in my legs from so much driving, I bubbled out more beer to oil it away. If this was heaven I could believe in immortality, except I had no intention of dying yet. A boy came by with newspapers, such a smile that I bought one, though it was all Greek to me. If it weren’t for Moggerhanger having me on a string I would stay at least a week. Let him fume for a few days, anyway, because as long as I got the stuff back he would have no reason to complain. As for his wigging when I did phone, well, my ear hadn’t so far stuck fast to any plastic.

Was I hearing right? “You fucking bastard. We’ve got you now,” someone yelled. How crude the English are when they’re abroad. Some poor wife seemed about to get a pasting from a brutal yobbo of a husband because she’d parked the car too much in the sun. You can’t escape them, I thought, unless you go to the arse-end of Turkey, where they’re afraid to be seen. The scum who can afford to travel these days have no notion of good behaviour.

Reaching for another ambrosial bottle I saw the little black hatchback sitting in its own shadow at the end of the road. Two men came for me in a pincer movement. What sounded like a revolver shot turned out to be a well aimed stone, which splattered beer and bottle over the table. I dived for the gravel, my last useful thought being that I was going to have to fight for my life, and wouldn’t end up in paradise after all.