Mystery Man

by Bateman, Colin

  The Laguna reversed out of the bay and moved past us. As it did, I ducked down.

  'That son of a bitch,' said my driver incredulously, 'that son of a bitch has drugged her and now he's fucking passing her on to someone else. That's fucking trafficking! Can you fucking believe that?'

  Ordinarily, no.

  In this case, absolutely.

  40

  I wasn't sure at what point Alison's captor realised he was being followed. Most likely, it was a gradual thing. It was a fine summer's evening but traffic was light, making it more difficult to keep ourselves hidden, particularly because the driver ahead of us did not seem to be absolutely clear of where he was going. He stopped several times, and appeared to be examining street names, and then particular houses. He would reverse, and peer out, and then circle. After a while, and perhaps noticing us mirroring his every move, he appeared to change his mind and began to drive out of the city.

  Out on the open road, though, there was no hiding place for us. The car ahead began to increase in speed, and we kept pace. When we hit a stretch of dual carriageway, Alison's captor overtook quite recklessly. But there was also a curious politeness to it. He indicated when he moved into the fast lane, and then he signalled again to move back. My driver did the same.

  We passed through East Belfast, through Sydenham, on to Holywood, then veered off the dual carriageway and up into the Craigantlet Hills. The road became narrow and twisting, ditches and hedges on one side, stone walls and sharp drops on the other. My heart is usually in my mouth whenever I go over speed bumps, and here we were literally taking flight on certain humps, yet I seemed immune.

  My driver drove with his window down and his elbow resting half out. The fucking monster isn't even taking her home!' he raged. 'He's taking her out into the country, he's going to kill her, he's going to bloody kill her and dump the fucking body! Well we'll see about that, we'll see about that!'

  We were going so fast that the wind was howling in, carrying with it pollen and germs and bees. Yet I did not sneeze once. Even a few days ago I would have been traumatised – a speeding car, bugs, open spaces, trees, cows, fleas, ploughs, wheat – but now none of these perils seemed to be impacting on me. Perhaps there was a long-overdue sea change going on in my physiology, a kind of post-pubescent puberty in which long-held intolerances were suddenly vanquished.

  Or I was just quietly sliping into a coma and my senses were dulling.

  Or adrenaline.

  Or love.

  I'd never had love. Maybe that was what it did for you. It turned you around and made you less frightened of wasps. Maybe Chris de Burgh had it. Maybe he had also been afeared of trees and bushes and wildebeest until he found love. Or maybe it wasn't the finding of love, but the fear of once having found it, it being taken away that changed you. Taken away, stolen away, murdered. The way my Alison was being taken by this monster. The Creature from the Black Laguna. She was lying sick in the back seat, unable to help herself. She had to rely on someone else to save her, her hero, her prince; a flawed prince who had to overcome previously insurmountable obstacles like pollen to rescue her. I had to step up and be counted.

  Meanwhile, my driver rocked.

  Now that the chase was acknowledged, now that it was official, he kept on her captor's arse. Bumper to bumper at speed. More than once we scraped along a dry-stone wall, several times we narrowly avoided death by coming blind over a rise and almost smacking into a slower-paced truck or tractor.

  And then, when we came upon a long, straight, downward stretch, Taxi Driver upped the ante. Another two minutes and we would be off the hills and into built-up Dundonald where our chances of losing him in traffic would immediately multiply. I could see it. He summed it up more succinctly by crying, 'It's now or fucking never!'

  He pressed the pedal to the metal.

  He sped up beside the Laguna on the wrong side of the road.

  For a hundred yards we raced side by side.

  Then my driver suddenly threw his vehicle to one side, knocking into the Laguna on the front right-hand side with just enough force to push it off course and send it crashing through a farm gate and careering across a field of sprouting cauliflowers.

  My driver screeched to a halt.

  He reversed at speed.

  He turned into the field and gunned the motor towards our enemy. Vegetarian shrapnel sprayed up all around us.

  The Laguna had come to a halt about a hundred metres in, its front wheel buckled and useless.

  'Now we fucking have you!' my driver shouted as we skidded to a stop parallel to the driver's door. He sprang out with surprising agility. 'You get her,' he snapped, 'leave him to fucking me!'

  He hurried around to his boot and yanked it open. He removed the wheel brace. The Laguna's driver's door was just starting to open, but my driver struck first, smashing through the window and braining the creature at the same time.

  'You fucking sick fucking fucker!' my driver yelled.

  I walked across to the Laguna and pulled the back door open. Alison was lying face down on the seat; she had been sick everywhere. She groaned. I dragged her out and she flopped down into cauliflowers.

  'Please . . .' she mumbled, 'just leave me . . . just let me lie . . .'

  I pulled her and I prodded her until she managed to get to her knees. She threw up again. I got her under the arms and whispered encouragement in her ear and she told me to fuck off and leave me alone, which wasn't the reaction I wanted but was a good indication that she was still Alison, that I wasn't losing her. I grabbed her under the arms and dragged her back to the taxi. All the while I heard a kind of a slapping sound; it sounded like Sylvester Stallone beating a side of frozen beef in Rocky. The monster would not look very pretty by the time my driver was finished with him. He might not even be alive.

  I preferred not to look.

  I faint at the sight of blood.

  One advantage of coming down off the Craigantlet Hills was that the Ulster Hospital was literally only a few hundred metres away. It meant we were there in seconds rather than minutes, especially with the way my man drove.

  We pulled up in the emergency parking bay. My driver looked back at Alison, and then at me. His face was sprayed with blood. So was his shirt. And his hands. He looked like he'd had a bath in an abattoir. He was smiling. He was clearly insane. Yet he had saved my girl's life.

  'That'll be sixty-seven pounds sixty,' he said.

  I stared at him.

  He stared back.

  Alison groaned.

  My driver winked. 'Only rakin',' he said. 'You couldn't pay me for that! Like a walk down memory lane! Get her in there, get her sorted.'

  He put his hand out to me. It was thick with blood, and mud, and cauliflower, and a tooth was sticking out of one of his knuckles. I grasped it nevertheless, and we shook.

  I never knew his name.

  He never knew mine.

  It was the world we moved in.

  The taxi drove off. I settled Alison on the kerb because she couldn't walk, and rushed in to the casualty department and returned with a nurse and a wheelchair. I told her that Alison was my girlfriend and that someone had spiked her drink and she rolled her eyes.

  'Are you sure?' she asked. 'Because ninety-nine per cent of women who come through here saying their drinks have been spiked are just pissed.'

  'I'm sure,' I hissed.

  I followed her through the swing doors. I tried to avoid breathing. I did not wish to pick up bugs. Hospitals were the home of MRSA and C.difficile, and those were just the ones with bad press agents. There were thousands more that would kill you as soon as look at you. Hospitals were greenhouses for bugs, superbugs, and super-superbugs. My huge intake of medication was no protection; all they did was reduce the effectiveness of my immune system. Walking into the Ulster Hospital behind Alison's wheelchair was like signing my own death certificate.

  Yet I did it.

  She was helped on to a bed. I gave as many details to the nurse
as I could, and then the locum doctor tried to ask her some questions. Her responses were largely incoherent. She had hold of my hand and wouldn't let go.

  Instead the locum asked me what had happened. I told him her drink had been spiked.

  'Are you sure?' he responded. 'Because ninety-nine per cent of women who come through here saying their drinks have been spiked are just very drunk.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'I'm sure.'

  'You do seem sure.' He nodded. 'Do you happen to know which one – GHB, ketamine, roofies?'

  His clear implication was that if I knew for sure she'd been drugged, then I was responsible for it.

  'No,' I said, 'I have no idea. Just . . . fix her.'

  He raised an eyebrow. 'Well,' he said, 'there's a simple enough test.' He plucked one of her hairs. 'I'll send it for analysis; in the meantime let's see what we can do to make her more comfortable. If she has been . . . spiked . . . it could be eight . . . maybe twelve hours before she's on her feet again.'

  'But she is . . . she is going to be all right, isn't she?'

  The locum gave me a long look. 'That depends,' he said, 'on whether she's been spiked or not.'

  I could have throttled him.

  Or, more likely, not.

  I just shook my head and looked back down at my love. She was already asleep. And yet her grip had not loosened one iota. If the superbugs showed similar determination, I really was screwed.

  41

  There were no beds to be had elsewhere in the hospital, not because they were overcrowded, a big fat nurse gleefully told me, but because half a dozen wards were closed due to a C.difficile outbreak. So Alison remained on a curtained-off bed in A & E while I moved between a red plastic seat by her bed and the waiting room. Several times I approached the Coke machine but backed away because the thought of all the sick fingers that had pressed its buttons made me feel ill. That and the air-conditioning and the smell of disinfectant, which, clearly, wasn't strong enough. The locum doctor I'd seen did not return to update me, and every time I re-entered Alison's cubicle nurses looked at me suspiciously, apart from the big fat one who seemed to think I was quite cute. She was probably out of her head on purloined drugs.

  An elderly man in a dressing gown and slippers sat down beside me in the waiting room, despite there being other chairs. I immediately felt uneasy. What if he collapsed and I was forced to give him the kiss of life? No, in fact, nothing would force me to give him the kiss of life. He could lie there until someone else noticed. I'd done all my saving for one day.

  He said, 'Everything all right, son?'

  'Yeah, fine.'

  'You don't look fine. Waiting for someone?'

  'Yeah.'

  'I've a bed here in casualty because everywhere else is full, but there's no bloody TV. So I sit out here, annoying strangers.'

  I nodded.

  'Do you want a nut?' he asked. He offered me a plastic bag. 'My daughter brought them, but I don't like nuts.'

  Ordinarily I would have told him to catch a grip, but I hadn't eaten since God knows when and I was starving. My mother used to say, 'You're not starving, people in Africa are starving. You're just hungry.' But no, I was starving. She knew nothing about Africa. I looked at the bag. I have been cursed with every allergy under the sun, except for a nut allergy. Ironic, you might say.

  'What's wrong with you?' I asked.

  'Slight stroke. Number five.'

  Strokes, I thought, were not contagious. I took the bag. I opened it and put one of the nuts in my mouth. It tasted of nut, with something extra, quite sweet.

  I was on my third when the paramedics came rushing in, pushing a trolley with the Creature from the Black Laguna on board. My locum came shooting out of another set of doors. He briefly examined the Creature's bloodied and bashed head and immediately instructed the paramedics to bypass A & E and to take him directly to theatre. The locum gave a slight shake of his head as the trolley zoomed away and in turning made eye contact with me. Briefly. He disappeared back through the doors.

  The stroke victim said, 'He's not long for this world.'

  I nodded. And thought: good riddance.

  I went to hand the bag of nuts back to the stroke victim, but he shook his head and told me to keep them.

  When I stepped back into Alison's cubicle, the fat nurse was just finishing changing her drip. She smiled warmly on her way out. I sat down. I ate a nut. I closed my eyes. I wondered what the taxi driver would say to his wife when he walked through the door covered in blood. If he went directly to his next customer, the customer would climb in one side, and immediately climb out the other.

  I drifted.

  I was holding Alison's hand when she made a sudden lurch, which woke me. I glanced at my watch: three hours had passed. She blinked groggily, then looked around her, clearly disorientated. She focused on me, then away and back. 'Where . . . where am I?'

  'It's okay. You're in hospital. You're safe.'

  'Safe? Hospital? What's going on . . . where . . .?'

  'You're all right. Max Mayerova slipped you a Mickey Finn.'

  'Mickey . . . who?'

  'He put something in your drink. GBH, Kitekat, roofties . . .'

  'I don't under . . .'

  'He spiked your wine, he took you outside, he handed you over to someone else, someone who was going to kill you. I followed, I got you back . . .'

  She looked lost. 'Wine . . .? I remember, I remember . . . the restaurant . . . '

  'I saved you.'

  'No . . . no . . .'

  'Yes, really . . .'

  'No . . . you didn't . . . no . . .'

  'He can't harm you now, sweetie, you're safe with me . . .'

  'No . . .'

  'You really are.'

  'No . . . Brian, where's Brian?'

  Oh fantastic. My moment of triumph and the bloody ex is once again her first thought. I had given her everything, or some small part of everything, and she had slapped it right back in my face. Christ. She had absolutely no idea which side her bread was buttered.

  NO.

  Wait.

  I should give her time, space. She'd just woken up, she was still drugged, she was rambling. About him. They must have spent a lot of time together. Having sex. It was ingrained. It was none of my business.

  Alison squeezed my hand. 'Please, where is he?'

  I grunted. I poured her a cup of water from a jug a nurse must have left while we were sleeping. Ice cubes plonked down into the plastic cup. I hoped the nurse had been wearing disposable gloves. Alison drank it down greedily. When she was finished she handed me the cup and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

  'I feel strange,' she said.

  'Of course you do.'

  'But I've missed you.'

  That was more like it. 'I've missed you too.'

  'But you wouldn't talk to me. You wouldn't tell me what you were doing. That wasn't fair. That wasn't nice. I thought we were partners.'

  Never partners, but it wasn't the time or place. I was constantly surprising myself – now I was self-censoring. I cupped my other hand around hers and patted it gently. I judged that she was now compos mentis enough to hear my news. My double whammy. Cracking the case and saving her life.

  I was some pup.

  'Alison . . .'

  I paused for effect, but she leapt in.

  'I didn't want to go behind your back,' she said, 'but you excluded me. I got angry. I wanted to show you what I was capable of by myself. That's why I arranged to meet Max Mayerova.'

  'It was stupid and foolhardy,' I said, 'but also brave.'

  'It was one of the most exciting things I've ever done.'

  'If I hadn't been following you, you might be dead right now.'

  She shook her head, and then looked woozy for several moments. She took a deep breath. 'No,' she said softly, 'it wasn't like that . . . please believe me . . . I knew he was involved in the murders, do you think I was going to go out with him all alone and keep it a big secret? How pr
ofessional would that be?'

  Not very. For a jeweller.

  'You mean you left a note or—'

  'No! For goodness' sake! I was never in any danger.'

  'He drugged you.'

  'I half expected it.'

  'But what if it had been poison and you'd died?'

  'I knew he wouldn't do that, or I guessed, or I supposed. He couldn't have me dropping dead on the table, and anything that was slow release would mean a possibility of escape and being able to finger him before I died. No, I pretty much guessed he'd find something just strong enough to knock me off my feet.'

  I stared at her. 'This isn't a game, Alison, he drugged you, he passed you along to his killer friend and—'

  'No. It wouldn't have happened. Brian was there to protect me.'

  'He . . . what?'

  She smiled sympathetically. 'Oh look at you, such concern, you're so sweet, but really, I was perfectly safe.'

  'Tell me that bit about Brian again.'

  'He's just so dead on. Even though I can't live with him, he's always there for me. Look, I would have wanted you to be there with me, or watching over me, but you were incommunicado, so I arranged with Brian to follow Max's car, and then to phone me at a prearranged time. I used the excuse of a family emergency and Brian came by to pick me up. And good thing he did, because I could hardly stand.'

  'It was very kind of him,' I said.

  'Well if you were watching as well, then I was in several pairs of very safe hands. But you must have seen him. Black Laguna?' I kind of nodded and shrugged at the same time. Alison yawned extravagantly, and for several moments seemed to forget where she was in the story. 'Oh yes . . . he came and got me . . . put me in the back seat, but I was so out of it I couldn't tell him where I was living now . . . I was very groggy . . . he must have given up on me and decided to take me back to his place out in the sticks . . . and . . . and . . . that's where it gets a bit hazy. You said you saved me, but I was with Brian . . . did he bring me here? Or did you go to his house . . . did something happen there? I'm confused, I can't . . .'

  'You need to rest,' I said. 'Plenty of time to explain in the morning.'