Big Boy Did It and Ran Away Read Online Free

help yourself.’
    All these flights down the years and he still couldn’t guess what the selection criteria were for them opening your hand luggage. Sometimes they stopped him, sometimes they didn’t, with no consistency as to his appearance, destination, whether he was alone or in company, anything. Was it something unusual spotted by the glazed and constipated‐
looking bastard peering with chronic ennui at the X-ray monitor? Was it utterly random, to meet a percentage quota? Would they at that particular moment rather open your neat, shiny briefcase than the forbiddingly grubby overnight bag of the eye‐
stingingly sweaty gut‐
bucket ahead of you, who’d required a shove to squeeze him through the metal‐
detection arch? Or did they just fancy a nosey sometimes? He’d have no respect for them if they didn’t.
    The bearded security officer gestured to him to open the case himself, an ostensible intimation of courtesy disguising the fact that he didn’t want to look like a twat by fumbling cluelessly around the latest needlessly complex latch‐
trigger system. He simultaneously pushed the buttons on either side, like it was a pinball machine and the ball was rolling lazily between the flippers. Turning the case smartly through one hundred and eighty degrees, he released the lid, its impressively gentle ascent smoothed by the telescoping aluminium supports that had added at least twenty per cent to the price.
    There wasn’t much to see. A couple of folders, a magazine, a newspaper, mobile phone, hand‐
fan, Walkman, king‐
size Mars bar and two cartons of juice. Hard to imagine any of that lot had appeared particularly suspicious going through the conveyor. Nonetheless, the guy had stopped him now, so he had to make it look worthwhile. Beardie started with the mobile, raising and lowering it on his palm to emphasise its weight as he handed it over.
    ‘Would you mind turning it on?’
    ‘Yeah, no problem.’
    He pressed the button, eliciting a cursory glance at the LCD window before Beardie took it back.
    ‘That’s fine. Bit of a monster, isn’t it?’
    ‘Tell me about it. Why d’you think I’m carryin’ it in the case? My new one’s knackered, so they’ve got me luggin’ this thing around. Surprised they let me take it on as hand luggage. Has to happen when I’m goin’ away as well.’
    ‘Sod’s law.’
    Beardie moved on to the Walkman next, getting nodded assent to press Play himself. The tape turned to his satisfaction, though he evidently gave no thought to whether the passenger might have painstakingly cued up his favourite take‐
off track. He then held up one earphone. A quick tinny burst sufficed, the palpated hiss sounding, unfailingly, like Speed Garage, which presumably was the only musical genre to sound exactly the same whether your cans were on or not.
    Beardie resumed his examination, undeterred by the lack of anything much to examine. He gave the fan a whirl; picked up the folders, magazine and newspaper, flicking through each in turn; then either out of admirable thoroughness or mild pique, checked out the Mars bar and finally the juice cartons as well. These last being his final chance to exert some authority, he gave each an inquisitive stare, before following it up with an investigative shake, which was the ultimate proof of the utter uselessness of the entire ‘security’ charade. If he was worried that the Ribena cartons actually contained nitroglycerine, would the advised procedural protocol be to give them a good shoogle?
    ‘Right, thank you, sir. Enjoy your trip.’
    It was only once he was on board the aircraft, and had heard the enduringly futile announcements on what action you could take in the event of the fuel‐
laden plane plummeting vertically from the skies, that it occurred to him to worry about the implications of these two‐
dimensional defences. Because let’s face it, if this plane was sabotaged and crashed before he made it to Stavanger today, he