To Hell in a Handcart. Richard Littlejohn

was furious but he had to protect his son. Fortunately for Ilie, Marin didn’t only smuggle cars, he smuggled people.

      Ilie joined a party of Roma bound for England. Marin gave him $5,000 and told him to lose himself as soon as he got to London. He was not under any circumstances to contact his elder brother, Boban, who ran the London end of the car theft racket. They would be watching Boban, Marin warned. Nor must he attempt to phone home. Ilie would have to vanish until Marin could square things with the Russians. Marin would get word to his son when it was time.

      Ilie and the other Roma, men, women, children and babes in arms, who had paid $3,000 each for their passage to England, left Romania at the town of Timisoara, on the Hungarian border. They were hidden in false ceilings in lorries and driven across Europe to Calais. Once there they were transferred to fresh vehicles and loaded on cross-Channel ferries, unhindered by the French authorities.

      Ilie and the others had their instructions. Once at sea, they were to destroy all the passports and documents, anything which might identify them. Britain had a reputation throughout Eastern Europe as a soft touch, for interpreting the 1951 Human Rights Convention on Refugees more liberally than any other country. Asylum-seekers from Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Romania poured daily across the Channel.

      Ilie and his party had been abandoned at a motorway service area near Ashford in Kent. The women had immediately started begging outside a fast-food outlet. The men banged on car windows at petrol pumps, demanding money. The children descended on the convenience store and stole everything they could carry.

      When the outnumbered private security staff called the police, a single squad car arrived. The officers handed out leaflets in thirty-two different languages, many of them scribble, instructing the new arrivals to make their way to the immigration service reception centre at Croydon, in Surrey. Transport would be provided.

      Ilie’s instinct was to slip away. But where to? He couldn’t get in touch with Boban. He needed a new identity. He boarded the luxury coach laid on by the local authority and travelled with the rest of the party to Croydon.

      If he bucked the system, he reckoned, he might still be arrested and deported.

      At Croydon, as a further precaution, he told the inquiring immigration officer through a resident translator that he was sixteen. His father had told him they could not deport him if he was a minor. Ilie could just about pass for sixteen from a distance. The immigration officer looked at him and shrugged. He was past caring. He was on a promise and just wanted to get home for the night.

      Under ‘age’, he wrote ‘sixteen’.

      Under ‘name’, he wrote down the first name that had come into Ilie’s head. The name of the man Ilie left dead by the roadside in Hamburg.

      ‘Gica Dinantu.’

       Nine

       ‘And in a late-breaking story, before the Deputy Prime Min ister flew off to Acapulco he decreed that as part of the government’s integrated transport policy the whole of central London, Birmingham and Manchester were to be pedestrianized. He also confirmed that proposals to put humps and other traffic-calming measures on motorways were being studied at the highest level in line with global warming and road safety targets. That’s all for this bulletin. Next news in an hour. You’re listening to Rocktalk 99FM, your first choice for classic rock and conversation. Here’s Jimi Hendrix with some of that old “Crosstown Traffic”.’

      Mickey hit the OFF button. He’d had enough cross-town traffic for one day. Enough cross-country traffic, too. Enough motorway traffic. Enough traffic to last him the rest of his life. Full stop. But they’d made it. Four and a half hours after leaving Andi’s mum’s house in Palmers Green, and several light years after leaving home, the French family finally arrived at Goblin’s.

      As they drew up to the entrance, Mickey couldn’t help noticing that the ‘l’ and ‘s’ were missing. The gap-toothed neon sign above the door consequently read ‘GOB IN’. It made it sound like a punk rock revival.

      The car eased to a halt. Mickey put on the handbrake. No one else stirred. Terry had eventually come down to earth on the south side of the Dartford River Crossing and had collapsed into a deep sleep.

      Sheer exhaustion had caught up with Andi and Katie, too. They had both slept most of the way and Mickey had to content himself with Rocktalk 99FM for company.

      He only really listened to the station because Ricky Sharpe worked for it. He thought the other DJs were brainless chimps, who belonged on children’s television. He liked the music, though, so he stuck with it.

      ‘Andi, wake up love,’ he said, gently shaking his wife’s right shoulder. ‘We’re here.’

      The kids were unconscious. ‘Come on kids. Terry, son. Kate, love. Wake up, bambinos. The eagle has landed.’

      Mickey eased himself out of the car with a modicum of difficulty and lit a Marlboro. He could feel his back. Although the doctors at Stoke Mandeville had made a fine job of rebuilding his shattered discs, his back was prone to seize up on long journeys. He had experimented with one of those seat covers made out of wooden balls, which some cabbies and bus drivers swear by. But he’d thrown it away. It had been like sitting on marbles and played havoc with his Chalfonts.

      ‘Your back OK, Mickey?’ Andi asked, with a trace of anxiety. She still feared it might snap without notice.

      ‘A bit stiff. I need to straighten up.’ Mickey stretched, rocked on the balls of his feet, supported his weight on the driver’s door and attempted a couple of squat thrusts, which brought on a violent bout of coughing.

      ‘I think you’re supposed to take the cigarette out of your mouth first,’ Andi joked.

      Mickey smiled back. ‘A Radox bath should do the trick.’

      ‘I’ll give you a nice massage, if you play your cards right.’ She blew him a kiss.

      ‘Carry on like that and it won’t only be my back that’s stiff.’

      ‘Dad! Mu-um!’ said Katie. ‘Don’t be so-oo gross.’

      Mickey and Andi reddened. They’d thought the kids were still asleep.

      ‘Only joking,’ Mickey said. ‘You know we’re far too old for that sort of thing.’

      ‘Old enough to know better, too,’ Katie played along. Secretly she was thrilled that her mum and dad still fancied each other. It’s just that she didn’t want them flirting in front of her. And they didn’t usually. Although they had always been open with the kids, privacy was important, too.

      Whenever they went away, even though it hoisted the bill, they always got the kids separate rooms of their own, ever since Katie had reached the self-conscious stage. They’d booked three rooms adjoining at Goblin’s.

      Mickey walked round to the back of the car and opened the rear tailgate. Cousin Roy had done a good job.

      As he reached inside to begin unloading their luggage, Mickey heard a shout.

      ‘Oi, you.’

      Mickey looked up and saw a belligerent elf, about 5ft 11ins, in a Lincoln-green jerkin, green tights, curly boots and red felt hat, marching towards him, gesticulating like a deranged tic-tac man. He wore a green and white badge the size of a side plate, bearing the words: ‘Goblin’s Greeter. Here To Help You Have Fun.’

      ‘Oi, you. Yes, you. I’m talking to you. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the elf barked.

      ‘Excuse me. And who are you, exactly?’ Mickey replied.

      ‘Security.’

      ‘You’re kidding me. You don’t look like security. You look like something that just fell off a toadstool.’