The screws relieved me of money and fags and hurled me onto the moor.

When the door had slammed and the laughter died away, I rose slowly to my feet and breathed in freedom. It smelled of moorland and donkey doings. It smelled very heaven.

On the previous day a limousine had arrived at Purbeck to collect the Doveston Archive. I confess to being somewhat surprised that it had not returned for me.

I set out along the single—track road, expecting any minute to see it appear on the distant horizon.

But it didn’t.

I should have been down-hearted, but I wasn’t. I was free. I marched along, my prison sandals scuffing up the dust. It was a shame that the prison laundry had mislaid my street clothes. I’d been quite looking forward to getting back into my kaftan. But, as the chap who ran the prison laundry told me, these things happen and it’s always best to make a completely fresh start. As it happened, he was wearing a kaftan just like mine when he told me this, and I must say that he looked a bit of a twat.

I would make a fresh start. I just knew it. And, of course, I knew that I would, because I had glimpsed the future. It was a great pity though that I hadn’t glimpsed all of the future. Because if I had, I would never have stepped into quite so much donkey shit.

But to Hell with it all. I was free. I was free. I was free. I marched and I grinned and I sang and I whistled and I stepped in more shit and I didn’t give a toss.

I was just so happy.

I don’t know how I came to wander off the track. But in a way it was lucky that I did. If I hadn’t wandered off the track, I would never have come across the little farmstead that nestled all but hidden in the shallow valley. And if I hadn’t found the farmstead, I would never have found the scarecrow. And if I hadn’t found the scarecrow— Well, I did find the scarecrow and he provided me with a change of clothes. I crept down to the farmhouse and had a bit of a peep through the windows. I didn’t want to bother anybody, but it did occur to me that I might ask whether I could use their telephone.

There was just one little old lady at home, no—one else, and as I was feeling in so jolly a mood, I thought I would play a harmless prank on her. I returned to the scarecrow and put on his big pumpkin head and then I went up and knocked at the door.

‘Boo!’ I said as the old lady opened it.

Well, I didn’t know that she had a heart condition. But in a way it was lucky that she did. Because if she hadn’t had the heart condition, she would never have had the heart attack.

And if she hadn’t had the heart attack, I’ll bet she would never have let me borrow her car to drive off to the nearest telephone.

The nearest telephone was in a pub, some twenty—five miles distant from the farmhouse. The landlord there gave me the warmest of welcomes. I had thought that my appearance might put people off, but no, the landlord was all smiles.

‘The last time I saw a hat, coat and trousers like that,’ said the landlord, ‘my dear old dad was wearing them. He was a farmer in these parts all his life, God rest his soul.’

I asked whether I might use the telephone and the landlord asked me why.

I explained to him that an old lady of my acquaintance had had a heart attack and I wanted to call for an ambulance.

The landlord shook his head sadly. There was no nearby hospital, he said, and no doctor who would come out at night. His dear old dad had died of a heart attack and he felt certain that his dear old mum, who lived some twenty-five miles distant, alone on a farm and suffered herself with a heart condition, would, in all probability, go the same way.

‘It’s God’s will,’ said the landlord. ‘Let Him sort it out.’

I sighed and said, ‘You’re probably right.’

‘Would you care for a pint on the house?’

I had a pint on the house and then another and when I had finished this, I told the landlord that I really should be on my way. The landlord, still chuckling about how much my coat looked like the one his father used to wear and which his mum now apparently used on her scarecrow, slipped a ten-pound note into its top pocket.

‘You look like you could use that,’ he said. ‘Be lucky.’

As I drove away into the night, I felt certain that I would be. I just knew that I would be.

And I would.

15

I had no home to go to. My parents had disowned me when sentence was passed. My mother wept the tears that mothers weep and my father took it like the man he was and said that he’d never cared much for me anyway. As I drove down to London, I had but one destination in mind and that was the House of Doveston.

The House of Doveston was no longer in Brentford, but then the House of Doveston wasn’t a house. It was a very swish tobacconist’s in Covent Garden.

I knew that the Doveston had sold his penthouse flat in Hawtrey House. He’d sent me a press cutting, all about how the council were selling off the flats and how fortunes were being made. Another cutting covered the trial and conviction of Councillor McMurdo, who had apparently siphoned away millions from the borough coffers. I never met up with McMurdo when I was inside, I think he went off to one of the rather luxurious open prisons, where people who have behaved badly but have good connections are sent.

Now, I was impressed by the House of Doveston. It was right on the central plaza, next door to Brown’s Restaurant. And it was big.

The style was Bauhaus: the German school of architecture and allied arts that was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius (1883—1969). The experimental principles of functionalism that he applied to materials influenced the likes of Klee, Kandinsky and notably Le Corbusier. Although the Nazis closed down the Bauhaus in 1933, its influence remains amongst us to this day.

I gazed up at the building’s façade, all black glass and chrome. The name was picked out in tall slim Art Deco lettering, which, along with the triple tadpole logo, was in polished chrome on polished black. It was austere, yet grandiloquent. Understated, yet overblown. Unadorned, yet ostentatious. Vernacular, yet vainglorious.

I hated it.

I’d never given a monkey’s member for the Bauhaus movement. Give me the Victorians any day. And one thing I had learned in prison was that running gags which involve esoteric knowledge and the use of Roget’s Thesaurus earn for the teller a well-deserved kick in the balls.

I pushed open the black glass door and swaggered into the shop.

And someone kicked me in the balls.

I toppled backwards, out into the street, passed by a shopper or two and sank to my knees in the road.

‘Oooooh,’ I went. ‘That hurts.’

A large and well-knit black chap in a natty uniform stepped out from the shop and glared down at me. ‘Move on, sniffer,’ he said. ‘No place for your type in there.’

‘Sniffer?’ I went. ‘Sniffer? How dare you?’

‘Sniff your glue pot down the road. Go on now, or I’ll kick your ass.’

I eased myself with care into the vertical plane. ‘Now just you see here,’ I said.

He raised his fist.

‘I am a friend of the Doveston,’ I said.

The knuckles of the fist made crackling noises.

‘I have a letter here of introduction.’

My left hand moved towards my left coat pocket. He watched it carefully. I made rummaging motions with my fingers. His head leaned forward, just enough.

I brought him down with a right cross and put the boot in.

I mean, come on now, I’d just spent seventeen years in prison. Did you not think I’d learned how to fight?