‘He’s at work, I suppose.’ Oliver glared at the screen. ‘Where are you, Ginevra Benton? Why can’t I find your birth certificate? Are you older or younger than your brother? And if Benton’s not the Basil from the tower block, why can’t I find him, either?’
Bea got to her feet, moving stiffly. Yesterday’s bruises were making a nuisance of themselves, and she needed to put her feet up and have a rest before she did anything else.
Besides which, she could hear Maggie coming down the stairs. A subdued Maggie, but one who was doing her best to sound bright and cheerful. ‘Hello, oldies! How goes it?’
Oliver said, ‘Enough, already. I’m switching off for the day. You don’t object, do you, Mother Hen? Maggie and I are going out on the town, hitting all the high spots between here and Piccadilly—’
‘Stupid!’ Maggie aimed a blow at him and missed. ‘A meal and a pint in a pub, that’s all.’
Bea wondered if Oliver might have more luck pleading the case of Maggie’s patient boyfriend than she had done herself.
Oliver vacated his chair. ‘What about you, Mother Hen? Why don’t you come with us?’
‘Tell the truth, I could do with a spot of peace and quiet. A snack and early to bed for me.’
‘You’ll take care not to open the door to strangers?’ Oliver was only half-joking.
‘Teach your grandmother!’
‘If you’re not coming, may we borrow the car? Then we could go out to a quiet pub I know in the Denham area.’
‘With my blessing, children.’
They tramped off up the stairs. Bea switched off the lights in her office and followed them, remembering to lock the door from the basement level as she did so. She heard the front door close behind the youngsters as she went into the kitchen to feed Winston and prepare a snack for herself. She was oh so tired.
The phone rang. Max, in a state. ‘Mother, you are in? Good. I must see you. I’ll be round in five minutes.’
‘No, you don’t. I’m going to bed early, not receiving tonight.’
‘How can you joke when the sky’s about to fall in on me?’
‘Calm down. Tell me, in words of one syllable, what’s so urgent—’
‘Benton’s threatening to … He’s given me till tomorrow morning. You wouldn’t understand, but—’
Panic crawled up and down her spine. ‘You haven’t been dallying with yet another blonde, have you? No, this time it’s a redhead, isn’t it? Take it from me, Nicole already knows.’
‘What do you mean?’ Blustering. Unconvincing. ‘There was nothing in it, I swear, a couple of drinks … But Benton said that if Nicole had the evidence … She’s been so difficult recently, you’ve no idea. I really don’t understand why you can’t do the right thing and help me out with—’
She crashed the phone down. She hadn’t intended to. Her hand had acted without direction from her brain.
She was breathing hard. She wouldn’t ring him back and apologize. Anyway, there was nothing to apologize for, was there? There was no way she was going to mortgage her future and the future of all those who depended upon her, by getting into debt for a man who was so stupid that he couldn’t keep his trousers zipped up in the wrong company.
She. Would. Not. Do. It.
With shaking hands, she put some soup to heat up in the microwave and laid out the ingredients for a ham sandwich. And then the phone rang again. If it was Max …
It wasn’t.
It was a high, breathy girlish voice that came and went. Bea had some difficulty in making out what she was saying. ‘Oh, Mrs Abbot, it is you, isn’t it? I’ve managed to get away, but I’m so afraid, and I don’t know who to—’
‘Dilys?’
‘I thought, if I could only get to a phone box, and I did, but—’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure, because I ran and ran, and I got lost, but—’
‘If you’re in a phone box, there should be a place name on it somewhere.’
‘Oh. Oh, yes; there is, but … I can’t stay here, in the light, he might find me, but if I hide nearby, at the back of the pub, that would be all right, wouldn’t it?’
‘What’s the name of the pub?’
‘The Red something. I can’t quite … It’s on the corner but I can’t … A bus passed me a moment ago, a double-decker. I would have got on it but I haven’t any money.’
‘What number bus?’
‘It’s gone round the corner.’
‘Did you see where it was heading?’
‘Bayswater Road, I think. Oh, I know I’m being stupid, but it’s so bright in here, I feel as if I’m in a spotlight. You will come, won’t you?’
The phone went dead. If only Bea hadn’t let Oliver have the car! Well, it couldn’t be helped. She ordered a taxi. No time to waste. She made sure the grilles over the downstairs windows were locked, the curtains drawn and the alarm set. She snatched up her coat and bag and ran down the steps into the street. As she went she entered the clues she’d been given on to her smartphone … A pub called Red something. A bus going down the Bayswater Road.
‘Where to, missus?’ A drizzly rain. A black cab with a black driver.
‘Bayswater Road for a start. A friend of mine’s in trouble, has run away from her abusive husband, wants me to fetch her, but hasn’t given me much to go on.’
‘Bayswater Road? Traffic’s heavy tonight. Might take a while.’
‘My friend said she’s in a phone box opposite a pub called the Red something, not far from a double-decker bus route which goes down the Bayswater Road. Any ideas?’
‘The Red Rum pub, named after a famous racehorse. You never go to the races? Hold on tight.’ He made a U-turn in the road.
‘Not really my scene.’ She held on tightly, willing him to make good time. Unfortunately there was, as he’d warned her, a lot of traffic about. They moved a foot at time. Then two cars’ worth. And then idled.
‘Not a nice area, that,’ he said. ‘You sure about going there?’
She grimaced. ‘Needs must. She sounded dead scared. Wouldn’t wait in the phone box.’
‘Lucky to find one that hasn’t been vandalized.’
She nodded. They inched forward. She started to pray. Dear Lord, keep her safe. Don’t let him find her before I do. Let the traffic ease up …
The traffic eased, and he shot along. Stopped at the next set of lights. The driver was doing his best. Dear Lord, keep her safe.
Across the Bayswater Road they went and turned off it, going north. A less prosperous area. Traffic lights winked red. Cars drew up in a queue.
He said, ‘The road’s blocked ahead. I know a back way.’ The taxi twisted and turned through side streets. They said a London taxicab could turn on a sixpence. They probably could in the old days. Perhaps not now. But still, this man knew how to drive all right.
They moved into a quieter, darker area where the streets were not as wide. No trees in these streets. Multiple occupancy houses? The odd corner-shop and pub.
A flare of light as a pub came into view. Red Rum, named after the racehorse.
The driver drew in to the kerb. ‘Not a good area for her to be waiting around in. You sure this is it?’
‘There’s the phone box.’
‘No one in it.’
‘She said she’d hide round the back of the pub.’
‘Don’t get out.’ Click. He’d locked the doors so she couldn’t get out even if she’d wanted to. He drove slowly round the block, looking for a woman who might be hiding in a doorway, or even behind a wheelie bin. No sign of Dilys. They ended up where they’d started, facing the pub.
‘Perhaps she’s moved down the street into a better hiding place?’ said Bea.
‘What I don’t like,’ he said, ‘is those two big blokes on a motorbike behind us. Take a butcher’s. All in black, with their visors down. A dark night like this, you can hardly see them. They was sitting right there when we first arrived, and they haven’t moved. Your frie
nd wouldn’t be wearing that gear, would she?’
Bea took ‘a butcher’s’, rhyming slang for taking a look. ‘Butcher’s hook’ equals ‘look’. Two large men on a powerful motorbike, anonymous heads turned towards them. Watching? Waiting?
She said, ‘Dilys is a little bit of a thing. Those two are probably waiting for someone to come out of the pub.’
‘By the pricking of me thumbs, something wicked this way comes. My old Mum used to say that. She also said it helps to have a good nose for trouble, and I reckon I’m smelling something rotten at this very moment. Don’t you get out, missus.’
Bea hadn’t the slightest intention of getting out. The presence of those two men was giving her a bad feeling, too. ‘Do you think they’ve come after Dilys, too?’
‘We’ll go round the block again once more to be sure, shall we?’
He drove off slowly, and this time the motorbike also moved off, keeping a little way behind them. Turn left. Straight on. Another left turn. Another. And … back to the pub.
The bike idled its way to a stop in exactly the same place as before, about a car’s length behind them.
No Dilys.
Bea’s mouth was dry. ‘You think they’re waiting for me to get out of the cab?’
‘That’s a nice handbag you’re carrying. A good watch and earrings, too.’
She clasped and unclasped her handbag. ‘You really think they’re only out to rob a passer-by?’
‘No, I think you’ve upset someone, missus. This Dilys’s husband, perhaps?’
‘You don’t think she’s here, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘We looked, didn’t we?’
‘You think this was a trap. I was to be lured here and … what? Beaten up?’
‘The man on the back of the bike is holding something. Want to take a chance on it being a stick of Blackpool Rock?’
‘Dilys really has gone missing though. Do you think we could go round the block just once more? Then if we see her, I could whip her into the cab before they could catch me.’
He set off again.
The motorbike followed, this time closing the gap between them.
Turn left.
The bike moved out and turned left, too. But now the two blank visored heads were turned towards the cab. The bike kept pace with the taxi.
Bea shrank back into her seat. She was annoyed to find that she was shaking.
Dear Lord, what do I do now?
Turn left again … and the cab driver put his foot down, leaving the bike far behind … for a short fifty yards.
The traffic lights ahead turned red.
The cab driver swore. ‘Get their licence number, right?’
Bea peered at the bike. ‘It’s too dark to see it properly. I can’t make it out.’
Had the licence plate been dirtied deliberately? If so, it meant that this attack had been planned.
Two helmeted head drew abreast of the cab. Idling.
Waiting.
One of the men shouted her name. ‘Mrs Abbot!’
So they knew who was in the cab. It had been a trap.
The cab driver said, ‘Your name Mrs Abbot?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
A gauntleted fist struck the window at her side, but it did not break. She drew in her breath sharply.
A fist or a stick went rat-a-tat-tat on the cab roof.
The cab driver said, ‘What the …!’
Bea’s breath caught in her throat. ‘Look, you can’t risk your cab—!’
The lights changed, and they shot forward.
The bike kept pace with them. Every now and then the driver veered close, and the passenger banged on the window or the roof.
‘Hang on, missus!’
He hung a left turn, and then a right. They made up a few seconds of time.
The bike skidded but righted itself and came roaring after them.
Bea fumbled in her bag. Where was her mobile? Why couldn’t she find it? She had put her smartphone back in her handbag after Benton’s departure, hadn’t she? ‘Do I ring the police?’
‘Just hang on.’ He ran a red light and got a volley of abuse from tooting horns. He skidded out from under a bus and turned right on to the main road. The road which they had left what seemed like hours ago.
Bea screwed round in her seat. Where was the bike?
Yes, it was still there, two cars back.
She said, ‘If they know my name, they know where I live.’
‘I said, hold on!’
Down a side road, through an alleyway and out into a wider street … and swish, into a car park beside a local police station.
The motorbike drew up at the entrance to the car park, idled for a moment while the two visored heads consulted, and then wheeled off and away with a final burst of speed.
Bea tried to relax. ‘They’ve gone.’
The driver was on his mobile. ‘Police? I’m sitting in your car park. Spot of trouble. Got a lady in my cab, been followed by two men on motorbike. Kept trying to beat their way into the cab. She’s not getting out of my cab without an escort, right? Can you send someone down to …? Ta.’ He clicked off his mobile. ‘So who have you been annoying, Mrs Abbot?’
TEN
Saturday evening
Bea was in the kitchen, cooking for a guest, when she heard the key turn in the lock and looked up to see Maggie and Oliver closing the front door and resetting the alarm.
‘We’re having a fry up,’ said Bea, taking a six pack of eggs out of the cupboard. She was so on edge that she felt she’d shatter into small pieces if anyone touched her. She knew her hair was a mess, her lipstick non-existent and her eye make-up smudged, and she didn’t care. ‘Midnight feasts a speciality. Oliver, Maggie: meet my bodyguard, whose name is Lucas.’
The big black man tried to get to his feet, hampered by the fact that he was nursing Winston. ‘I said I’d leave as soon as you two got back.’
‘Not till you’ve been fed,’ said Bea, breaking eggs into a bowl and giving them a whisk. ‘Children: Lucas has just saved my life.’
Oliver slapped his forehead. ‘You caught the tiger by his tail, and he didn’t just roar defiance, but went for you?’
‘Laid a trap. At least, I think so. I can’t bear to think that Dilys might have been there all the time, and I didn’t find her. Have you two eaten, because if not, I can always do a second omelette? I got a phone call just as I was about to have some supper … and by the way, Winston ate the last of the ham I’d laid out for a sandwich for myself, but that’s the least of our worries. Anyway, this phone call was from someone with a high, girlish voice, saying she’d escaped and would I come and fetch her. I assumed it was Dilys.’ She pointed her whisk at Lucas. ‘You know what they say, never assume. But of course I did just that. Silly me. Catch the toast, will you, Oliver? The toaster’s misbehaving. I really must get a new one.’
Oliver reached out and caught two pieces of toast as they shot up into the air. ‘A trap?’
Bea said, ‘Maggie, you’re gawping. Take a seat while I finish cooking. Yes, it was a trap. Now, if you two hadn’t gone off in the car, I suppose I’d have rushed to the spot indicated, for which sufficient clues had been given, in the backstreets up above Notting Hill, not a very nice area. Fortunately for me I took a taxi and Lucas is one of the most resourceful, bravest men I’ve met in a long time. They were waiting for us, you see. Two men on a motorbike. I think the passenger was Benton, though I can’t be sure as they were both togged up in leathers and visors and gauntlets and boots. Quite scary, in a way. Yes, definitely scary.’
Maggie sat down with a flump. ‘You’re not easily scared.’
‘This time I was. There was no sign of Dilys, and the men on the bike kept pace with us, calling my name, thumping the cab. Lucas tried to shake them off, couldn’t, but fortunately he knew what to do. He drove straight to the nearest police station, and there the motorbike left us.’
She divided the omelette into two helpings, slid them
on to plates, handed one to Lucas, and said, ‘Set to, before it gets cold. Toast on the side. Butter over there, if you want it. Tea for both of us, or would you prefer a beer? I think we’ve got some, somewhere, and you’re off duty now.’
‘I’ll get the beer,’ said Oliver. ‘You’re not hurt?’
Maggie clutched at her head. ‘They called your name? They knew who you were?’
Oliver uncapped a bottle of beer and poured the contents into a glass for Lucas. ‘I ought to have realized you were putting yourself in danger. I ought never to have gone out and left you.’
‘I’ve been well looked after,’ said Bea, round a mouthful. ‘Wow. I was hungry. Salt and pepper, Lucas? Yes, my dears. They knew. If I’d gone in my own car and stepped out of it to search for Dilys, I’d have been toast by now. Which reminds me, do help yourself to some more toast, Lucas. I like to see a man with a good appetite.’
Winston had been dumped on the floor when Lucas started to eat. Winston wasn’t going to be left out if food were on the go, so he jumped back up on to the table.
Oliver removed the cat, despite his protests. ‘What did the police say?’
‘They didn’t say much. They were ultra busy, with two Rapid Response vans full of football fans who’d been trying their best to kill one another, and we soon saw that we’d have to wait ages to be heard. Lucas got on his mobile and talked to his handler, or whoever it is who controls his time on the road. Lucas was due to finish his shift and was worried about the damage his cab might have sustained, which I said I’d pay for, and of course I’ve given him all the money I had in my purse and I’ve got his phone number. And I said, would he like to make a statement there and then, just for him and me if they were all so busy at the desk? And he did, writing it down at the back of my big diary, which luckily I had with me.
‘Then I tried to ring my friend the inspector but of course he’s off duty at this time of night so I left him a message. But we couldn’t leave the station till we’d made our official complaint and that took for ever, because they were so busy. They did eventually get round to it, but said they thought it was just a couple of opportunists on the bike and that they hadn’t really known my name but had called out any old thing to get me out of the cab, and had really been after my handbag and my earrings. And that pissed me off; sorry, children, I’m rather tired, but it did.
False Diamond - An Abbot Agency Mystery Page 13