The cut to her eyebrow needed stitches, which right then was out of the question. Instead, Olivia fashioned a butterfly plaster to keep the jagged ends of the cut together and covered the area with another, larger dressing.
She sighed with tiredness as she remembered she was Sadie Smith to Kevin, and wearily pulled off the motorcycle gear. Dressing in Sadie’s faded jeans and an old T-shirt, she took the short blond wig from a cupboard and pulled it on, covering most of it with the baseball cap. Opening a drawer, she retrieved some bracelets and rings, but the fake nose stud and transfers were a bridge too far. She slipped on the denim jacket and pulled up its collar, hoping the Kevin wouldn’t notice the missing items of her disguise.
She looked around the caravan, fairly sure that once she left, she’d never be back. She gathered together as much as she could of her supplies of identity documents and explosive charges and stuffed them in the holdalls. Clothes she would need later went into a rucksack. Regrettably, she’d lost both her knives, the second one left by mistake outside Bottomley’s house when she was applying the scarf to her cut eyebrow. However, she did have all the cash she’d taken from Peters. Five thousand five hundred pounds that would buy her a passage across the channel and, if needs be, get her back to Rome.
“Bugger me, Sadie, what happened to you?”
The insistent banging on Kevin’s door had woken him from where he had fallen asleep in front of the television in what passed for his living room, the television there cursed with the same white noise as the one at the reception desk. He nearly fell over in surprise when he saw Sadie Smith standing in the doorway, her face a mess, not wearing her sunglasses and clutching two large holdalls and a rucksack.
She pushed past him.
“Shut the door,” she ordered.
“Fall off yer bike, Sadie?” asked Kevin. “You look as if you need to see a quack.”
“No time for doctors or ’ospitals, not at the moment,” said Olivia, looking around the room with undisguised disgust. “How d’you live in this shithole?”
“Each to his own, Sadie,” grinned Kevin. “I think it’s rather cozy, meself.”
Olivia pushed a pile of papers from a chair onto the floor and sat down. Her head was throbbing despite her having swallowed several strong painkillers. Rubbing her temples with the fingers and thumb of her left hand, she looked up, her eyes piercing into Kevin’s. “You still doing runs across the channel?” she asked, her voice menacing.
“What runs, Sadie?” said Kevin, his face all innocence.
“Booze, drugs.” She paused, wanting his full attention. “People.”
“Dunno what yer talking about,” replied Kevin, his eyes unable to meet hers.
“One day when you weren’t ’ere, I checked out yer van, my friend. It’s cleverly done, although like all these fings, it wouldn’t stand too close a look.”
She’d lost him. “Whatdya want, Sadie?”
“I want you to get me across the Channel, through the tunnel.”
“You in a spot of trouble?” asked Kevin, instinctively sensing a significant exchange of money for his services. “Wot you done?”
“None of yer business. I just need to get out of the country for a while.” A very long while, she thought.
Kevin was rubbing his chin, trying to be the cool businessman. “Interesting. Normally it’s people wanting to come in this direction. So I’ve heard, like. Not that I’d know meself.”
“Oh stop playing the innocent, Kevin. I know exactly how you operate. Don’t waste my time. I need to go now and I need you to take me. I’ll pay you a grand up front and anuvver when we get to where I want to go in France. The uvver grand is there, by the way, just in case you’re thinking of double-crossing me or reporting me.”
“Yeah, I’m likely to do that, Sadie, aren’t I,” said Kevin, sneering.
He hesitated before taking the plunge.
“And two grand ain’t enough.”
It was, in fact, more than he’d ever been paid, but he wasn’t about to let on.
“It’s normally more like five for an emergency exit, as it’s known.”
It was Olivia’s turn to sneer. “Don’t be greedy, Kevin. I know what the going rate is and my payment is generous.” She scowled at him, but, to his credit, he said nothing.
“OK,” she sighed, “I’ll make it three. A grand now, the rest once we get there. Now, let’s go, I don’t ‘ave a lot of time.”
“You want to go now? Can’t it wait til morning? I’ve ’ad a coupla drinks.”
“Make yourself a strong coffee.”
She held out her hand. “Gimme the keys to yer van; I want to take a closer look at this chamber, make sure I’m not going to suffocate.”
Kevin shuffled over to the cooker and lit the gas under a kettle. “They’re on that peg, behind you,” he said, pointing.
He paused, plucking up courage before turning to look her in the eye. “If you’re serious about this, Sadie, I want all the cash upfront.”
Olivia picked up the rucksack. She was in no mood to barter with him. It was only because she needed him that she didn’t kill him on the spot. Unfortunately, he was the sort of creep who was required in times of dire emergency; it was probably what kept him alive.
She opened the rucksack and pulled out a wad of notes she’d separated from her main stash when she was still in her caravan.
“Here’s the grand,” she said, tossing the wad onto the table. “I told yer you’ll get the rest once we’re in France.”
Kevin had chosen his cover well. The signage on his van announced his company to be ‘Kevin Maxwell. Racing Bike Specialist’. Under the trendy, urgent letters symbolising speed was a silhouette of a hi-tech bike. If the customs inspectors opened his van, they would find two state-of-the-art bikes loaned to Kevin by a mate who ran a bike shop in Brighton, the fake paperwork indicating he was delivering them to a company in Lille. Behind the carefully positioned bikes on their stands bolted to the van floor was a large tool box spanning the van. On opening it, anyone inspecting it would see a neat tray of gleaming tools laid out in their foam holders. A second tray reinforced the image of quality maintenance. Under the second tray was a void capable of carrying one adult in coffin-like conditions, the air supply just sufficient to prevent suffocation.
The journey through the channel tunnel went without a hitch and three hours after she had banged on Kevin’s door at the caravan site, Olivia burst impatiently out of the tool box the moment Kevin removed the trays of tools. They were on a quiet country road outside the town of St Omer, a few miles from Calais.
“Jesus, Kevin, that was worse than any nightmare,” she said as she sat down heavily on the box. She was still hungrily sucking in breath, her eyes wide. “It was like being buried alive. And stowing my two bags with me didn’t help.”
“Yeah, I used to recommend sleeping pills to most of my clients, then one bloke snored so loudly that I thought he’d be heard, so I stopped.”
He looked her up and down.
“You look pretty shook up, Sadie. I’ve got a flask of tea. D’yer want some?”
Olivia glanced up at him. For a man, he was better than she’d given him credit for. He was just a run-of-the-mill petty criminal, nothing dodgy. She was thankful for that. The way she was feeling, she’d have found it hard to fight him off, even if she did tower over him.
“That would be nice, thank you,” she said, for a moment forgetting the accent she used when dealing with Kevin.
“You sound very posh all of a sudden,” said Kevin with a sideways glance. “Is this the real Sadie Smith?”
“Don’t push yer luck,” replied Olivia, reverting to the accent Kevin was used to. “Right, I need you to take me to Brussels and then do one more little job for me before we go our separate ways.”
“Brussels?” repeated Kevin as he handed her a plastic mug of tea. “I dunno, Sadie …”
Olivia shook her head and took a deep breath of resignation. “It’ll be w
orth an extra five hundred.”
On the outskirts of Brussels, Olivia got Kevin to check them into a seedy hotel where the sleepy receptionist was hardly likely to have the latest police notices at his fingertips. Nevertheless, Olivia wound a scarf around her face and kept her head down as she hurried to the stairs.
On entering their dingy room, she headed straight for the bathroom to get the money from her rucksack. She checked her face in the mirror. It was a mess and about to get messier.
“There,” she said, as she went back into the room. “Your balance of two thousand.”
Kevin took the money and stuffed it into a pocket.
“I thought you said there was an extra five hundred,” he said, warily.
“There will be. Like I said, I’ve got one more job for you. It won’t take long.”
Kevin said nothing; he had no idea what to expect, and when she told him, he could hardly believe his ears.
“Ever slapped a woman around, Kevin?”
“What? What d’you take me for, Sadie? I don’t go around bashing up women. I don’t do the physical stuff, and even if I did, it wouldn’t include women.” He shook his head dismissively. “Nah, I don't care who it is, I’m not into that.”
Olivia snorted a laugh, the movement of her skin sending a dagger of pain through her nose. “I’ll wager you’ll change your mind when I tell you.”
Kevin screwed up his face. This conversation was way outside his comfort zone.
“It’s me, Kevin, I want you to knock me around a bit.”
“You’re bonkers, Sadie. Did somefin’ happen to you in that box? Not enough air, or somefin’? I’m not going to knock you about. You’d break my neck.”
“I will if you don’t, and I’ll be the two grand I’ve just given you better off. Now listen, I’m not going to retaliate, I just want you to slap my face very hard three times. It doesn’t matter why, I just want you to do it.”
Kevin looked as if he was about to be sick. “Sadie, I—”
“I can see I’m going to have to train you,” said Olivia, shaking her head. She turned to pick up a pillow from the bed.
“Right,” she said. She pulled the room’s one chair from under its tired-looking desk, turned it round so that the seat faced her and the back faced Kevin.
“That’s my face,” she said, jamming the pillow down onto the top of the backrest. “Whack it as hard as you can. Take a good backswing.”
Kevin took a step back, thinking he might just leave.
“Do it, Kevin! Be a man!”
Kevin’s hand slapped into the pillow, his eyes full of fear as he waited for Olivia’s reaction.
“I asked you to slap it, not tickle it, you wimp. Give it some welly!”
Three slaps later, Olivia still wasn’t satisfied.
“You’re pathetic, Kevin,” she yelled. “So far, I would hardly even have felt those. Imagine you’re trying to knock my head off, launch it through that window there.”
Kevin took a deep breath, stood straight and twisted his head hard to the right and then the left, his neck vertebrae cracking. He rolled the fingers of his right hand nervously before launching his palm at the pillow, hitting it so hard Olivia almost dropped it.
She smiled. “That’s better. Now, do it again.”
Kevin’s hand smacked across the pillow.
“Good. Again.”
On the third slap, Olivia let go of the pillow a fraction of a second before Kevin’s hand contacted it and it flew across the room.
“Perfect, Kevin.” She flipped the chair and sat down on it, facing him.
“Now do the same to me. You’ve got three goes.”
Although Kevin was now breathing heavily, his eyes still radiated doubt.
Olivia grabbed her rucksack from the bed next to her and pulled out the five hundred pounds she’d separated and tossed them onto the desk.
“There’s your money. Now go for it.”
The crack of hand on flesh surprised them both. Olivia was sitting on her hands, willing herself not to duck or retaliate, and when the blow came it was far harder than she had anticipated.
“Shit, Kevin. Ow, that hurt,” she said shaking her head. “Now, again. Even harder!”
Kevin hit her again and she almost fell off the chair. The room began to spin. “Once more,” she groaned, biting her lip in anticipation and lifting her head to receive the blow.
As soon as he’d hit her for the third time, Kevin took a step towards her. “Christ, Sadie, I’m sorry. I—”
“Just bugger off. Right now, before I decide to kill you,” mumbled Olivia. “Go on! Take your money and get out!”
Kevin had thought of calling on a contact in Lille and picking up some tablets, a little extra business to add value to the trip, but he was so disturbed by what Sadie had demanded of him he could think of nothing except getting back through the tunnel to Kent as fast as he could.
After leaving Folkestone at six thirty the following morning, he stopped at a roadside cafe to pick up some strong coffee. As he paid, his eye fell on a rack of the early editions of several national newspapers, each of them prominently featuring a photograph of a woman on the front page. Although she looked different in the photo, he was in no doubt about who it was.
‘Wanted for murder, attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. Ex-Police Superintendent Olivia Freneton is at large somewhere in the country. If you see this woman, do not approach her under any circumstances. She is armed and dangerous. Call the police hotline at the number below’
Kevin fingered the cash in the inside pocket of his jacket. If he’d known who Sadie was, he’d have tried to get more, although in his heart he knew it wouldn’t have worked; she would probably have killed him and stolen his van. He read through the accompanying article listing Olivia’s crimes. He grinned, appreciating the opportunity that presented itself: there was no way she’d be back and her Kawasaki was still at the site, as was her caravan. They would be worth quite a bit.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Henry Silk dabbed at his lips with a starched napkin, leaned back into the hardwood dining chair at the poolside table and sighed with satisfaction.
“I’m thinking of getting married again,” he said, with a nonchalance that took Jennifer by surprise.
“You’re what! Who’s going to put up with your crazy schedule now that the acting world has finally recognised your talent?”
Henry shrugged. “Martina,” he said, as if the answer should be all too obvious.
“Martina?” Jennifer frowned as she tilted her head in question. “Who’s Martina? Do I know her?”
Henry waved his hand casually in the direction of the villa. “Martina,” he said.
“Our housekeeper? That’s all very sudden. Did you have a secret midnight tryst? Does her husband know about your plans?”
“Her husband is a minor detail, Jennifer. And as for a tryst, that would be far too vulgar for someone like Martina. No, I’ve decided that after last night’s dinner, this morning’s breakfast and now this quite exquisite lunch, I can’t possibly live without her. She’s a culinary goddess, blessed with gifts ordinary mortals can’t possibly aspire to. Certainly not the ones who run the studio canteens in Hollywood.”
“Idiot.”
“I’m serious,” replied Henry, although a twinkle had now appeared in his eyes. “How do you expect me to leave this afternoon, to return to the real world knowing such perfection is being created daily here on this magical island?”
“Well, you can’t have her. I’ll send you food parcels.”
“You’re too cruel. How can you be so mean to your father? I’m your flesh and blood.”
“Good impersonation of an ageing thespian; you should have been wearing a large floppy hat and a pink silk scarf.”
“Raspberry, dahling, crushed raspberry.”
“Silly old fart. D’yer want a cup o’ Nescaff before yer go?” sneered Jennifer in her best East Midlands accent.
Henry’
s response was a theatrical shudder. “What has the police force done to you? I fear there’s no hope. Actually a glass of that grappa would go down well; I’ve got hours of sitting on a plane ahead of me.”
“I don’t envy you that,” said Jennifer, pulling a face. “But I’m so pleased you came. We see far too little of each other.”
“Thank heavens for Skype,” said Henry, now back to his normal, less theatrical voice. “At least I can monitor your progress from afar.”
“Yes, it’s brilliant,” agreed Jennifer. “Although there’ll never be anything quite like sitting in the same room with each other.”
“Or racing each other round the point,” added Henry, his arm waving in the direction of the sea and the bay below the terrace where they had swum once again that morning. “Of course, I had to hold back to let you win. Positive reinforcement is all part of the recovery process.”
“Huh!” Jennifer was dismissive. “I’m fully recovered, thank you. You should know that I was only in first gear. I—”
She was interrupted by a ping from her phone. Another incoming text. As she glanced at the screen, her banter with Henry was immediately forgotten. The message was from Derek. ‘Call me ASAP’.
“God, what’s happened now?” Jennifer’s voice was filled with a sudden tension as she hit Derek’s name in her favourites list. “Sorry, Henry, I think this is important.”
The call answered in two rings.
“Derek! Wha—”
“Jen, thanks. I … sorry, I’m … a bit spooked.”
“What’s happened? You sound more than spooked; where are you?”
She looked up and caught Henry’s eye, realising as she did that she was gripping her phone so hard she was in danger of breaking it.
“Jen, listen, I’m fine. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Well, you don’t sound fine. Look, Henry’s here, OK if I put this on speaker?”
“Of course. Hi, Henry, how’s paradise?”
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