already slept with him at least a dozen times,
when she was supposed to be spending the night with a girlfriend in
Finchley.
He said he supposed she was going to say she was in the pudding club;
and she said he should not be so stupid, she had been on the pill since
her sixteenth birthday, when her mother had taken her up to the family
planning clinic. That was when Ron came near to hitting his wife for the
first time in twenty years of marriage.
Ron got a pal in the police force to check out Louis Thurley, aged
twenty-two, unemployed, of Barracks Road, Harringey. The Criminal
Records Office had turned up two convictions: one for possession of
cannabis resin at the Reading pop festival, and one for stealing food
from Tesco's in Muswell Hill. That information should have finished it.
It did convince Ron's wife, but Judy just said that she knew all about
both incidents. Pot shouldn't be an offense, she declared, and as far as
the theft was concerned, Ron and his friends had simply sat on the
supermarket floor eating pork pies off the shelf until they got
arrested.
They had done it because they believed food should be free, and because
they were hungry and broke.
She seemed to. think their attitude was totally reasonable.
Unable to make her see sense, Ron had finally forbidden her to go out in
the evening. She had taken it calmly. She would do as he said, and in
four months' time, when she was eighteen, she would move into Lou's
studio apartment with his three mates and the girl they all shared.
Ron was defeated. He had been obsessed by the problem for eight days,
and still he could see no way to rescue his daughter from a life of
misery--for that was what it meant, without a shadow of doubt. Ron had
seen it happen. A young girl marries a wrong '. She goes out to work
while he sits at home watching the racing on television. He does a bit
of villainy from time to time to keep himself in beer and smokes.
She has a few babies, he gets nicked and goes inside for a stretch, and
suddenly the poor girl is trying to bring up a family on the Assistance
with no husband.
He would give his life for Judy--he had given her eighteen years of
it--and all she wanted to do was throw away everything Ron stood for and
spit in his eye. He would have wept, if he could remember how.
He could not get it out of his mind, so he was still thinking about it
at 10:16 A.M. this day. That was why he did not notice the ambush
sooner.
But his lack of concentration made little difference to what happened in
the next few seconds.
He turned under a railway arch into a long, curving road which had the
river on its left-hand side and a scrap yard on the right. It was a
mild, clear day, and so, as he followed the gentle bend, he had no
difficulty in seeing the large car transporter, piled high with battered
and crushed vehicles, reversing with difficulty into the scrap yard
gate.
At first it looked as though the truck would be out of the way by the
time the convoy reached it.
But the driver obviously did not have the angle of approach quite right,
for he pulled forward again, completely blocking the road.
The two motorcycles in front braked to a halt, and Ron drew the van up
behind them. One cyclist heaved his machine onto its stand and jumped up
on the foot plate of the cab to shout at the driver The truck's engine
was revving noisily, and black smoke poured from its exhaust in clouds.
"Report an unscheduled stop," Ron said. "Let's work the routine like the
book says."
Max picked up the radio microphone. "Mobile to Obadiah Control."
Ron was looking at the truck. It carried an odd assortment of vehicles.
There was an elderly green van with
"Coopers Family Butcher"
painted on the side; a crumpled Ford Anglia with no wheels; two
Volkswagen Beetles piled one on top of the other; and, on the upper
rack, a large white Australian Ford
when she was supposed to be spending the night with a girlfriend in
Finchley.
He said he supposed she was going to say she was in the pudding club;
and she said he should not be so stupid, she had been on the pill since
her sixteenth birthday, when her mother had taken her up to the family
planning clinic. That was when Ron came near to hitting his wife for the
first time in twenty years of marriage.
Ron got a pal in the police force to check out Louis Thurley, aged
twenty-two, unemployed, of Barracks Road, Harringey. The Criminal
Records Office had turned up two convictions: one for possession of
cannabis resin at the Reading pop festival, and one for stealing food
from Tesco's in Muswell Hill. That information should have finished it.
It did convince Ron's wife, but Judy just said that she knew all about
both incidents. Pot shouldn't be an offense, she declared, and as far as
the theft was concerned, Ron and his friends had simply sat on the
supermarket floor eating pork pies off the shelf until they got
arrested.
They had done it because they believed food should be free, and because
they were hungry and broke.
She seemed to. think their attitude was totally reasonable.
Unable to make her see sense, Ron had finally forbidden her to go out in
the evening. She had taken it calmly. She would do as he said, and in
four months' time, when she was eighteen, she would move into Lou's
studio apartment with his three mates and the girl they all shared.
Ron was defeated. He had been obsessed by the problem for eight days,
and still he could see no way to rescue his daughter from a life of
misery--for that was what it meant, without a shadow of doubt. Ron had
seen it happen. A young girl marries a wrong '. She goes out to work
while he sits at home watching the racing on television. He does a bit
of villainy from time to time to keep himself in beer and smokes.
She has a few babies, he gets nicked and goes inside for a stretch, and
suddenly the poor girl is trying to bring up a family on the Assistance
with no husband.
He would give his life for Judy--he had given her eighteen years of
it--and all she wanted to do was throw away everything Ron stood for and
spit in his eye. He would have wept, if he could remember how.
He could not get it out of his mind, so he was still thinking about it
at 10:16 A.M. this day. That was why he did not notice the ambush
sooner.
But his lack of concentration made little difference to what happened in
the next few seconds.
He turned under a railway arch into a long, curving road which had the
river on its left-hand side and a scrap yard on the right. It was a
mild, clear day, and so, as he followed the gentle bend, he had no
difficulty in seeing the large car transporter, piled high with battered
and crushed vehicles, reversing with difficulty into the scrap yard
gate.
At first it looked as though the truck would be out of the way by the
time the convoy reached it.
But the driver obviously did not have the angle of approach quite right,
for he pulled forward again, completely blocking the road.
The two motorcycles in front braked to a halt, and Ron drew the van up
behind them. One cyclist heaved his machine onto its stand and jumped up
on the foot plate of the cab to shout at the driver The truck's engine
was revving noisily, and black smoke poured from its exhaust in clouds.
"Report an unscheduled stop," Ron said. "Let's work the routine like the
book says."
Max picked up the radio microphone. "Mobile to Obadiah Control."
Ron was looking at the truck. It carried an odd assortment of vehicles.
There was an elderly green van with
"Coopers Family Butcher"
painted on the side; a crumpled Ford Anglia with no wheels; two
Volkswagen Beetles piled one on top of the other; and, on the upper
rack, a large white Australian Ford
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