As usual, The Pan feared he was being followed and a quick glance at the road behind him confirmed that yes, he was, for the second consecutive night. He hefted the sack over his shoulder, and thanking The Prophet for equipping him with his handy set of extra eyes, prepared to take the scenic route. He doubled back a couple of times until he was sure he had lost the two burly gentlemen who had been shadowing him, then he went back to the Parrot. He entered the usual way, by going down a side alley, climbing up a drainpipe and wriggling in through the landing window. Even The Pan would have admitted this behaviour was a trifle paranoid, but it did save him having to explain why an elderly gentleman in a tweed suit arrived at the Parrot and went upstairs and a shifty young man wearing dark blue canvas jeans and a loud purple and green paisley shirt came down again.
Having to take such a meandering detour made him late and having to wash the white dye out of his hair and eyebrows made him later. Gladys and Ada were annoyed. The Pan cooked his own meals, but they always made supper for him on Wednesdays because on that day he routinely returned from ‘work’ a couple of hours after his accustomed time. Gladys and Ada knew The Pan worked for Big Merv but not, officially, what he actually did. Unofficially, however, they had a shrewd idea. If his habit of departing for work, in disguise, via a drainpipe, instead of using the door like anyone else hadn’t given them a few clues, the fact his rent was discreetly paid, in cash, by one of Big Merv’s henchmen probably had. Gladys berated him for missing her meticulously prepared evening meal by explaining, in graphic detail, just how good it had been. She was an excellent cook so he had no trouble believing her. She usually made fish pie on Wednesdays and he almost wished he’d been a little less wary about returning home unobserved.
“You ain’t got no consideration for others,” she told him, “breezing in here at all times of the day an’ night. Serves you right if you gets yerself killed.” All of them were aware that she didn’t mean it.
“I’m sorry,” he said humbly.
“So you should be, young man,” said Ada tersely, “couldn’t you have called and said you were going to be late?”
“Not really, no,” he said, thinking of the size of the two men who’d followed him and what might have happened if he’d allowed them to catch up by stopping to make a phone call. Doubtless Smasher Harry, Frank the Knife or Big Merv would have made short work of the pair of them but The Pan knew his limitations. His talents lay in running away.
“Why not?” demanded Ada. “We worry.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, “I’m well protected.”
“Yer?” Gladys’ voice was full of disbelief, “how come?”
“I meant that I work for Big Merv.”
“That was Gladys’ point, dear,” said Ada.
“But it means there is nothing to worry about, tonight I was just ...” he held his hands out, palms upwards and shrugged in a characteristically Hamgeean fashion. The Pan, like all Hamgeeans did a lot of his talking with his hands. “I was held up. You know I often work after hours and I can look after myself, not that I need to, Big Merv takes care of my safety.”
“That’s why we worry, dear,” said Ada.
“Well that’s why you shouldn’t,” he forced a confident smile. “I’ve been GBI since I was sixteen years old; five whole years, give or take a day or two. I’m not going to die for a while.”
Gladys frowned at him in a way that suggested she didn’t buy his attempt at being upbeat. He didn’t bother to argue because he didn’t buy it either. Once he’d moved into the Parrot’s spare room, Gladys, Ada and Their Trev had quickly become his substitute family, but he had no illusions about his situation. He was blacklisted, immersed in the world of organised crime, and the one Grongle he had chosen to annoy, albeit a mere sergeant at the time, had since been promoted at astral speed and was now in a position to make life very dangerous for him. He was already living on borrowed time.
“We didn’t eat your supper,” said Ada, clearly satisfied that he was suitably contrite for being late.
“Ner,” said Gladys, “it would have served you right if we had, mind.”
“Exactly,” said Ada, “but we kept it hot.”
“Yer. It’s in the oven. I done it special. It weren’t fish pie neither. It were calamaries.” Gladys pronounced the word very carefully as if it might bite.
“Squid?” asked The Pan, his eyes lighting up. Like all Hamgeeans, he was particularly fond of squid.
“Yer,” said Gladys, as she hefted a plate out of the oven and dumped it on the kitchen table, “’S disgusting! Eating the tentacles an’ all. I dunno how you does it.”
“It’s very tasty and nutritious,” he said, grinning, “you should try one. Here,” he proffered a fork full of sucker-ridden tendrils at her and in absence of a positive reaction, ate them himself. By The Prophet it was good. “Done to perfection, are you sure you won’t try one?”
“Very,” said Ada.
“Suit yourself,” he said, waving the fork, “all the more for me.” He had a distinct impression Gladys and Ada wanted to speak to him about something else. Normally, at this point, they would head back to the bar. This evening they hovered uncertainly. Ada eventually broke the silence.
“You do realise, don’t you, dear, that if you ever get into any trouble, we have contacts, Gladys and I?”
The Pan couldn’t stop himself from doing a double take. He froze, knife and fork poised over his plate and as he stared at her, felt the colour drain from his face, not that there was much there. He seemed to have become paler recently. Lack of light, he presumed, from all the make-up he was having to wear.
“I hope you’re not in the Resistance,” he said coolly.
“Not the one you’re thinking of, dear,” she said.
Surely they hadn’t betrayed him, he trusted them, he always had, and he knew he had good instincts. No-one behind him. He listened. Nothing but the usual burble of voices from the bar downstairs. He was ready to run if he had to but it would be a pity to leave that squid.
“Mmm,” he put his knife and fork down, “then what are you talking about?” He made eye contact. It wasn’t something he did often which was why, by doing so the right way, he could make people feel extremely awkward. Not awkward enough to tell him the truth, though, even if Ada blushed and looked away first.
“Nothing,” she told him breezily. Yeh, right. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her.
“Nothing?”
“Eat yer squid,” said Gladys in exasperation, “Ada and I has to get back to the bar; Trev’s on ’is own.”
The Pan was puzzled. Whatever it was she had wanted to say, she’d chickened out. He had been so wrapped up in concealing his own secrets it had never occurred to him that Ada and Gladys might have any. They didn’t strike him as the secretive type. Clearly, he’d misjudged them. Somehow, he would have to find out more.