Final Toll Read online

  Final Toll

  Roger Ormerod

  © Roger Ormerod 1999

  Roger Ormerod has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1999 by Severn House Publishers

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Extract from Face Value by Roger Ormerod

  One

  Monday

  Rain was slanting across the cafe’s parking area and wind ruffling its flooded surface as Johnny Parfitt picked his way through the mud, keeping to the lee of the parked wagons wherever possible. He was limping from the discomfort of his sodden shoes, and chilled to a point of misery in wet trousers and a thin mac that clung to him like a black shroud. Finally he was forced to retreat from the weather, one aspect of life which, for four years, had not imposed on his consciousness. He had not been aware of the flaming summer, nor of its final break at the beginning of September. Now it was the end of the month, and still it rained. Johnny had known nothing of that. He had been released from Parkhurst Prison only that morning.

  The harsh blare of pop and the sudden blast of warmth at first confused him, but then, so as not to be noticed hesitating at the door, he plunged awkwardly for the counter. It was not yet eleven, and too early for lunch. The cafe was half empty. The noise was inescapable from the four speakers in the corners.

  He bought a mug of tea and cradled it to a remote corner, head low, dark hair slicked and dripping down his neck. With two hands to it, the handle pointing away from him, he gulped at the tea. The eyes of the man two tables away met his. Johnny stared, then looked away.

  Then he sat, allowing the heat to soak in. Here he felt comfort, there being fewer customers than he’d feared, and the atmosphere filled him with warm memories. He didn’t wish to consider his next move. Decisions were still difficult.

  He was a big, gangling man in his mid-thirties, with a long and mournful face, slow to smile but abrupt in his barked laughter. His eyes were deep, but he habitually shaded them with quick movements of his head and a lowering of his eyebrows. The impression was of uncertainty and fear, of insecurity. In practice it was self-protection, though he was not sufficiently intelligent to have analysed it. Far too many people took advantage of him, and his frank eyes revealed his gullibility.

  He went for another mug of tea, and on the way back the stranger kicked out a chair in invitation. “Going far?”

  Johnny sat nervously, putting down his mug and moving it around. He shrugged, not replying.

  “The name’s Kent,” said the man. “I’m heading north.”

  Johnny nodded, and buried his nose in the mug.

  What had the Governor said? ‘Beware of approaches. Until you get back on your feet, you’ll be very vulnerable.’ Johnny was not quite sure what that meant, but he was certain that he needed a friend. He nodded towards the trailer wagons outside the window.

  “You drivin’ one of those?”

  Kent smiled. “The new Dodge. Did you notice it?” There was evident pride in his voice.

  “Had me head down.”

  Kent considered him, nodding slightly. “You’re a driver.” It was a considered opinion.

  “Have been. Not now.”

  “I can see.”

  Johnny grinned suddenly, his face alive. “I’ve been standin’ out on the road, thumbin’ a lift.”

  “North?”

  Johnny nodded. “There’s no other way from where...” He stopped, and dug his stupid mouth into the mug again.

  “Could give you a lift.”

  And Johnny avoided his eyes. It was not from suspicion; the man seemed open and friendly. It was from indecision. North certainly, but how far? Branch east to London, and to his parents and his child? Or on to Shropshire — and to Laura? On one side was the powerful and comforting draw of family, on the other was a tangle of emotions that confused and distressed him. Laura might not welcome him. He had not even seen her in court at his trial, and had been more upset by that than by his sentence. But of course, Laura had taken up with Den by then — or the other way round, more like. At that time, the farm would have provided a reasonable hideaway for Den, for a while, and it was possible that he was still there. The last news Johnny had heard of him, he’d certainly been there, dug in, lying low, operating from the farm. But there’d be no welcome from Den, not since that first message from Johnny: Owe you for a crate of scotch.

  He grimaced at the memory, and Kent said: “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Come along with me.”

  “It’s not that. Depends where.” Johnny looked embarrassed. “‘Aven’t made up me mind.”

  “Plenty of time for that.”

  So they left together, Kent thrusting his fingers more firmly into his gloves. The rain had eased a little, the wind taking a breath. They skirted the brimming puddles. The clouds moved low, ponderous and unhurried.

  “This is it,” said Kent, his feet set wide. He gestured. No amount of nonchalance could bury his pride.

  Johnny stood and stared, entranced. The wagon consisted of a ten-wheeled towing unit and an eight-wheeled, forty-foot trailer, with its square load lashed down under a green canvas.

  “Twenty tons in that load,” said Kent. “You ever towed twenty tons?”

  Johnny shook his head. Six tons of scotch on an Albion wagon, that’d been his largest — and his last. He couldn’t take his eyes from it.

  “Well, ain’t you gettin’ in?”

  Johnny walked round and hauled himself into the passenger’s seat. The seat had arms! The wonders had no end. He looked round. The cab was spacious, driver’s and passenger’s seats being separated by a wide, bulging cover, from which the stubby gear-lever rose. Kent caught his glance.

  “Got a sixteen-litre diesel under there, mate. Eight-speed box. Can hold seventy on the motorway. No sweat.” He slapped his hands on the wheel, then reached forward for the key, which he’d left in.

  Already the glass was steaming. Kent put on the blower. “Better get that mac off,” he said. “Stick it down the back.” Then, again: “The name’s Harry.” Reaching.

  “My kid’s name, that is. Harry. He’ll be five, now.”

  Kent glanced questioningly at him. The choice of words gave him the clue. “That’s where you’re heading — to see the lad?”

  But Johnny shook his head, his eyes on the rearing moons of clear glass rising from the heater’s blast. He desperately wanted to see his son. But first — yes, surely first — it had to be Laura. Den meant nothing to her, he was sure. Even after all this time, it would be Johnny she wanted.

  “If you’re going as far as the M4...” Johnny ventured.

  “Sure. Turning east there, for Reading and the Smoke. If we can get through the floods.”

  The screen was clear, and they were easing out on to the road. The engine was a live, tense presence at Johnny’s elbow. He glanced at his friend. “There’s floods?”

  “All over. Hell, mate, where you been?” But his smile suggested he knew.

  They drove in silence for a while. Harry Kent put the radio on, but it seemed to intrude, so he switched it off again. The rain pressed once more on the glass, the wipers fighting
it away, and the black, slicked tarmac ran beneath their wheels.

  Presently, Kent suggested lunch at a place he knew, a little short of Marlborough. He spoke just as Johnny had been about to confide in him. It would have been rash, Johnny realised, such confidence, but perhaps this friendly little man might realise why Johnny wanted to try again with Laura. He’d go back to her and make everything all right again. Then he’d fetch little Harry back to the farm...But there was Den. Always there was Den, and Johnny didn’t want violence. The message he sent may have been angry, but now that anger had died. The bitterness had gone; the threat seemed ridiculous, empty. All this he might have explained to Harry Kent, but instead he said:

  “Sure. Suits me. They do egg and chips?”

  Kent parked immaculately. The surface was tarred. He marched ahead. Rain pattered about them.

  They collected their trays. “Over there,” said Kent. “By the window.” He spent his life behind glass.

  Johnny ate voraciously, his mind racing. The message, seven painfully chosen words, had been smuggled out in his first month at Parkhurst. Then they’d been a threat. ‘Owe you for...Oh, Den would’ve known what that meant.

  “You’re a moody bugger, ain’t you?” Kent said suddenly.

  “Sorry. Got things on my mind.”

  “If you’re looking for a job, I could help you. A man like you — your experience — I know somebody who could put something interesting your way. If y’get what I mean...”

  And Johnny knew just what was meant. He’d been typed. An ex-con. Johnny could guess how he’d be used, and he’d had enough of that. Suddenly he was afraid. Kent could be gently persuasive, and Johnny knew he could offer only a weak response to that.

  “I’m finished,” Johnny said. “You get another coffee, an’ I’ll go an’ fix that cover.” Simply to get away from the smiling, confident Kent.

  “What cover?”

  “One of your tie-ropes was loose. I’ll fix it, and wait in the cab.”

  Johnny walked out into the rain. He hurried to the wagon, to treasure as long a period as possible alone with the vehicle. Wagons, you could trust. They could be immensely gentle, yet powerful. Like Johnny himself, if he’d realised.

  The trailer was a forty-foot platform with two-foot sides, its load square and solid for another foot above them. A green canvas covered the lot, tied down to hooks along the lower edge of the platform, and it was only the front rope that had come untied. He climbed up, and could see the load, cardboard crates packed neatly, the first one in the near corner displaying its side. ‘Black & White’, it said. Black & White whisky, it had to mean. Whisky! Johnny snatched at the rope and quickly secured it, as though he had discovered a hidden treasure. Whisky!

  He climbed up into the passenger’s seat, and was very still. Suddenly he was cold again. Owe you for a crate of scotch. Now it was not just the words that came back to him, but the whole scene that had provoked them, with all its brutal clarity. But still there was none of his former hatred for Den.

  Then clearly he knew what he was going to do. With one gesture he could take up the ridiculous challenge contained in his message, and convert it to a big joke. Not a crate of scotch, not a dozen crates, but a whole bloody wagon-load, stuck under Den’s nose! Owe you...It’d be a big laugh. Den couldn’t help but see that. And Johnny would be escaping from the lure of Harry Kent.

  He did not work it out logically. His brain only fumbled round with ideas, impressions, but he got there just the same. His basic decision was made.

  The keys dangled in the starter switch. It was too much. The temptation to drive this beautiful vehicle was more than he could withstand. He scrambled over the padded engine cover, sat in the driver’s seat, placed his hands on the wheel, touched the controls, and knew he could not now turn back from it.

  His actions were precise and careful. He started the engine and felt its response beneath his right foot before he made a further move. Then he reached for the gear-lever and eased it into reverse. He idled in the clutch and slowly, eyes darting to each mirror, he backed out the monster that was now his. Then he drove north. Four years of wasted life flowed away, and it was as though they had never been.

  He spared no thought for Harry Kent. Parkhurst had bred its own kind of morality: self-preservation. He had once been told that it was not theft unless you expected to keep it. Johnny had not the slightest intention of keeping it. So that was all right, wasn’t it.

  His subsequent actions were instinctive, arising from lessons learnt his youth. He had never owned a car, so taking out his girl meant borrowing somebody else’s, and then the complex business of evading the police. From this experience Johnny now drew. He drove north — that was where he had told Kent he was heading, and that was where Kent would send them as he saw the truck leaving; but he did not intend even to reach the M4. He took the first reasonable-looking road to the right and kept going until he reached another ‘A’ road, where he turned right again, right at Hungerford, and thus drove back through Marlborough, but now heading due west. He reckoned that Marlborough was the one place they wouldn’t be looking for him.

  He realised that a wagon loaded with twenty tons of scotch was likely to attract more attention than the odd car taken for a joyride. So he dodged and twisted, using minor roads once he was through Chippenham, but gradually moving north, and eventually, as the light in the sky slowly faded and the weather began to worsen, he saw that he was close to Worcester. Worcester to Kidderminster, he thought. He was nearly there. But the A449 seemed too big a risk, so he turned left off the main road, not realising he’d made a serious mistake.

  The Troughton farm was on the east side of the river. Laura lived there with her father — and possibly with Den. But Johnny was now working his way north on the west side of the river, with only two miles to go to the next bridge.

  He slowed in order to think about it. In this area he was on his own ground, and he could see trouble coming at that bridge. The road from the south required a tight right-hander onto the bridge, which was not very wide anyway, and just over the bridge there was a sharp left-hand turn. Probably huge tractor vehicles with forty-foot trailers managed to negotiate that bridge, but one false move and the wagon would become the centre of attention. Johnny frowned. It was not on.

  There was another bridge less than a mile from here, which he and Laura had walked across half a dozen times. It was hardly known, connecting one sub-minor road to another across the river. Josiah Prescott’s suspension bridge, that was.

  This, too, was narrow, but it had the advantage that it would probably be quite deserted, and Johnny would be able to manoeuvre without attracting attention. He slowed even more, looking for the turn-off down to the bridge. It was no more than a narrow lane, not sign-posted because strictly speaking it was not for general public use. The bridge had originally been intended as no more than a link between the two halves of Josiah Prescott’s estates. Prescott’s Folly, they called it around there. But Prescott had committed this folly splendidly in 1837, and it still stood in memory of his enthusiasm, and was still used by the occasional farm wagon and light vehicle.

  Prescott had been faced by a problem in that the river, here, was flanked by almost vertical cliffs to a height of a hundred feet. Also, the ground approaching the river from each side had risen steadily. He had therefore cut approach roads into the hillsides, twenty feet lower than the cliff tops, so that they faced each other squarely. These cutaways, though, were only as wide as his bridge, which was fourteen feet. The lane that Johnny was now taking was therefore fourteen feet wide, and curved gently towards the left before reaching the bridge, due to a rock outcrop that Josiah Prescott had not troubled to subdue.

  A hundred feet from the bridge, Johnny realised that he was committed. By this time he was easing the massive vehicle along the cutaway at walking pace. Vertical cliffs were pressing in on him from either side, gradually rising higher. The rain had grown heavier still, and strong gusts of wind were dri
ving it against the windscreen. He concentrated every instinct, his eyes darting always to the wing mirrors to be certain the trailer was free.

  Then he came in sight of the bridge, and his stomach churned. It seemed so frail, when before, walking across it with Laura, it had seemed firm and strong. Prescott had slung two massive chains from the tops of the cliffs above, beneath which was supported 135 feet of roadway which looked like a slim and flimsy platform. It waited for him, eighty feet above the racing water.

  He stopped the vehicle, pawing his face. He felt hot and scared. If the cab had not been so close to the vertical rock surface on his side, he could have opened the door and walked the rest. The rain beat fiercely at his window. To hell with that! He started again. The towing unit shuddered. He rolled the front wheels on to the bridge.

  He was now entering the straight line of the bridge platform at a slight angle, and in order to clear the rear wheels of the trailer he had to keep the cab as far over to his right as possible. The out-rigged mirror was the first thing to go. Some instinct told him to keep moving, the speed only a trickle, the cab brushing the hangers on the driver’s side.

  The bridge platform was stiffened by a four-foot cast-iron parapet in a latticework pattern, and was supported from the chains by iron hangers of one-inch diameter rods at three-feet spacing. For its time the bridge had had a safety margin far beyond its means, but Prescott had not dreamed of over thirty tons on his bridge.

  The cab was one third across the bridge when the first hanger bar snapped. It was just behind the cab window, and in the sudden release of its tension it slapped sideways. Johnny heard it strike behind him, but kept going. The rear trailer wheels were clear of the rock edge, and just about to roll on to the bridge.

  Then another hanger bar snapped, again on the right, where most of the weight now rested. It cracked like a flayed whip into the side of the cab. The window beside him flew in, and Johnny felt blood on his cheek. The cab was now tilting to the right, and the bridge protested, seeming to writhe with pain. The whole vehicle lurched, and three more hangers parted at the same time.