by Mike Ripley
‘I try not to, Geoffrey. Life’s too short.’
I don’t think he heard me.
‘Even when you’re in the right, anger is a terrible thing: a destroyer of relationships, of happiness.’
He was either getting maudlin or rehearsing his next sermon. At least he didn’t look dangerous.
‘Is Lara that angry with the world, Geoffrey? Angry enough to kill someone?’
‘She already has,’ he said softly. ‘Indirectly. But God knows she was responsible.’
I licked my lips. I had to be careful. The guy was so guilt-ridden I could turn it to my advantage. Alternatively, he could react the other way and blow a fuse.
‘It was her at the Dwyer Street school, wasn’t it? Lara and Billy.’ I said it softly. ‘She was the one Billy was running from when he fell. That’s what happened, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he said with relief, ‘it was Lara. She’d suspected Billy for some time – suspected him of possibly betraying the cell. When we got to the school and we found the animals had gone, she thought it was Billy setting us up.’
‘So she took him aside for a few choice words; the sort of conversation she had with me earlier this evening, eh? But Billy knew about the Kateda. Knew what she could do. And what? He tried to jump her, get in first?’
‘I think so. He was very frightened. I saw him going across the roof. Lara was chasing him.’ He looked at me, and there was a flash of fear across his face. ‘She didn’t get to him. He fell – he just disappeared – while she was still yards away. You’ve got to believe that.’
‘That’s okay, Geoffrey, I do.’
I tried to change position, because I was cramping up and he was suddenly alert again. I showed him the palms of my hands to indicate I wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Did you teach her the Kateda?’ I asked for the sake of getting him talking again.
‘No, she taught me.’
I wasn’t sure whether that made me feel better or worse.
‘Was Peter with you that night at Dwyer Street?’
‘Yes, he was driving.’
‘Where is Peter?’
‘In prison.’
‘Prison?’
‘He was arrested just a few days ago, at a demonstration. He was sentenced to a month in prison because he refused to say anything.’
This was rich. If only Prentice knew. His fearsome Action Against Animal Abuse cell was already at half-strength. One dead, one inside.
But Lara was the one at large.
‘You’ve got to stop her, Geoffrey.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I lied to her, Geoffrey. I have been talking to the police. They know I’m here and they know Professor Bamforth is a target and they know you’ve been playing with explosives.’
‘Then they’ll stop her,’ he said, more to himself than me. Then, looking up again: ‘Can you forgive her, Roy?’
I made a play of looking at my foot and checking my cuts and bruises.
‘Of course I can,’ I said, because I felt it the right thing to say. ‘I’ll live.’
‘I’m sorry she’s taken your taxi,’ said Bell.
What? The lousy bitch. I’ll see her in hell.
Now it was war.
‘You’ve got to let me out of here, Geoffrey. I think I can stop her.’
‘I can’t,’ he said simply.
‘Why not?’
‘I promised her I would keep you here.’
‘That’s it? You’ll let her go after this Bamforth guy and stick a bomb through his letter-box when I could –’
Something in his face gave me an awful thought.
‘The bomb’s in Armstrong, isn’t it?’
He said nothing, which was like speaking volumes.
I twisted round to try and get a grip on the wall and pull myself up. I don’t know how I did it myself. My side hurt as I twisted, my left arm hurt as I tried to tension myself against the brickwork, and I was trying to keep my right leg away from anything.
‘You’ll hurt yourself,’ said Bell.
I’d heard that before as well.
‘Please don’t hurt yourself any more, Roy. There’s nothing you can do. I’m going now, and I’ll lock the door, so there’s no point in struggling.’
He started up the stairs. He was right, and I almost cried in frustration. All he had to do was leave and lock the door. It would take me a day and a night to climb those stairs alone.
Okay, then. No more Mister Nice Guy.
‘It won’t be just you, Geoffrey. They’ll get you, but it won’t be just you. They’re after Lucy as well. Lucy Scarrott, Geoffrey, remember her?’
That had stopped him in his tracks, halfway up.
‘The police think there’s a connection between her and Billy, and they’ve been looking for her. I could tell them where she is.’
I was almost upright now and sweating fit for a Turkish bath. Each time I tried to put my right foot down, it was pure agony.
‘What?’ He’d said something I’d missed.
‘You’ve seen Lucy?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve seen her. She wasn’t involved with Billy at all, except as a friend, though he probably loved her madly. I’ll bet he went for Lara as well, just like you did.’
I’d lost him again. He wasn’t listening any more. I had to find another chink in him, but without it rebounding in violence, against me.
‘I met Lucy’s daughter as well, Geoffrey. Lovely little kid.’
A guess, but a good one.
‘What’s her name?’ he asked quietly.
‘Of course, she’d be taken into care if anything happened to Lucy ...’
‘What’s her name?’ he shouted.
Bullseye.
‘Cleo. She’s a beautiful little girl. Really.’
He stayed where he was; frozen on the stairs. I tried an experimental hop, overbalanced and touched the floor with my right foot. I almost fainted and went into a one-legged crouch a bit like a Cossack dancer after a heavy night.
He was talking again.
‘I promised. I can’t let you out.’
There was a definite emphasis on the last ‘I,’ but before I could plead again, he had gone. Five steps up and then the door slammed and I heard a bolt shoot home.
More in despair than anything, I threw myself at the stairs, and to my surprise I got my arms onto the bottom one. If I could haul myself up them, all I would have to deal with was a bolted door, a 60-mile jog to London and a black belt female psychopath with a car bomb.
Should do it by midnight; no problem.
I was two steps from the top when the bolt was drawn back. Exposed, unarmed and helpless, I cowered down behind the step so at least he couldn’t get a straight shot at my head.
The door opened and a female voice said: ‘Bloody hell, you look like the pits, man.’
I risked a glance over the step. Bright yellow high heels, black fishnet tights, gold lurex figure-hugging strapless dress and a brown leather bomber jacket hung dead casual over one shoulder.
‘Hello, Stephie,’ I smiled. ‘Boy, am I glad to see you.’
‘I still think we should have called the police,’ she said for the tenth time.
‘Where’s your spirit of adventure? Light me another cigarette, will you?’
I should have listened more closely to the Reverend Bell. He’d said he couldn’t let me out, because he’d promised Lara, and some weird and wonderful bond, which I couldn’t fathom, had held him to that. So he’d gone over to the disco at The Five Bells and told Stephie to come and do it. When I’d asked where he was, she’d said she’d last seen him heading for the church and the lights coming on there.
I hoped for his sake that God had left the answering machine on over the holiday.
‘Who ga
ve you the black eye?’ she’d asked.
‘Nobody gave it to me, I had to fight for it,’ I’d said, and made her help me out of the rectory.
With great presence of mind, she’d left me sitting on a flower tub while she went back inside, to emerge with my anorak (and wallet) and a walking stick she’d purloined from the hat-stand in the hall. It appeared that all rectories of that age came with a hat-stand full of walking sticks. It must be in the contract somewhere.
I had to admit it helped, but it was still comforting to have a lean on her as well. When she’d said ‘What now?’ I had taken 20 pounds out of my wallet and told her to go over to the pub and buy a bottle of whisky, some cigarettes – to hell with good intentions – and find someone willing to drive me to London. And to offer however much cash, paid on arrival, they wanted.
She’d come back after no more than ten minutes, unscrewing the cap on the whisky bottle as she click-clacked her high heels up the path. I’d taken a pull on the bottle as she’d unwrapped the cigarettes.
‘I got matches too,’ she’d said.
‘Initiative,’ I’d replied, between drinks.
I’d taken a cigarette from her and broken off the filter tip and thrown it away. As I’d exhaled smoke, I’d asked her about a driver.
‘No chance,’ she’d said. Then she’d held up something bright in the moonlight. ‘But I talked Wayne into lending me the keys to his van. Do you think you can drive it?’
‘Has it got wheels?’ I’d asked.
She passed me another cigarette, having carefully snapped off the filter, and lit it for me so the match glare didn’t dazzle me.
‘I don’t think Wayne ever drove this fast,’ she said, tugging her seat-belt for added security.
I didn’t complain. I’d told her to keep talking to keep me awake. Despite the old van being Wayne’s travelling advert, with ‘THE FLYING FENMAN’ painted down both sides, it had neither radio nor tape-deck.
Stephie’s task was to feed me smokes and occasional nips at the whisky bottle, which she did with a great show of distaste as she didn’t like it.
‘Keep talking,’ I said.
‘What about?’
‘Anything. Just keep me awake.’
‘Do you think fishnet tights are tarty? My father says they’re in the same league as ankle bracelets, but Sindy Johnson, who’s in my class, has been wearing one for …’
Hunched uncomfortably over the wheel of Wayne’s van, with the walking stick instead of my right foot pressing the accelerator to the floorboards, we sped down the motorway.
If I got stopped and arrested now, they’d never believe me.
There was zero traffic about, which helped. Probably helped keep us alive.
I stayed on the M1l, which was easier for getting to Hackney, and by some miracle we made it to Stuart Street, intact, by 10.30. Lara had left me my house keys, so we wouldn’t have to disturb anybody.
‘Is this where you live?’ Stephie asked, not sure at all about getting out of the van.
‘Yes, but don’t worry, I just want to collect something.’
‘What?’
A weapon. But I didn’t say it.
She helped me up the stairs and into my flat, and the first thing I did was slip the latch on the cat flap in the door. Then I told Stephie to go straight into the kitchen and close all the windows.
I hobbled into the living-room and hit the lights. Springsteen was stretched full length on the Habitat sofa-bed. The remains of a turkey carcass, still with a couple of pounds of meat on it, were spread over my one good rug.
‘Hi yer, kid. Good Christmas?’
He opened one eye and watched me limp over to the bookcase where I stashed my booze. I selected the bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, which I’d bought for Lisabeth emergencies, and took the top off as I hobbled back into the kitchen.
‘Fancy a night-cap?’ I said.
‘Well, if you’ve got any …’ started Stephie.
‘Not you,’ I said a bit sharpish, jerking a thumb towards Springsteen, who was stretching his front paws to test if ground level was where he’d left it. ‘Him.’
‘He’s eaten the left-overs from your turkey,’ said Stephie indignantly.
‘Wasn’t my turkey,’ I said.
I put down a bowl and poured a good slug of the Bailey’s into it. Springsteen flitted through my legs, avoiding my damaged foot but indicating that he’d noted it was a weak spot. His face disappeared into the bowl.
‘Chug-a-lug, my son,’ I encouraged.
Stephie was horrified.
‘Isn’t it dangerous to get a cat drunk?’ she whispered.
‘I certainly hope so.’
I didn’t want to do Springsteen any harm, of course, but I did want him compliant enough to get him into his travelling basket. And until they make a cat basket out of the steel they use to keep the Great White sharks away from Jacques Cousteau, the only way to do it was get him tipsy.
While he was on his second dishful, I changed into my leather jacket, dug out a pair of leather gloves (however relaxed, he still had claws) and ransacked the bathroom cupboard. In a bottle marked ‘Multivitamin’ I kept a supply of benzedrine tablets, which are legal in Germany but not exactly on prescription in Britain. I took two and put two more into the pocket of my jacket.
They wouldn’t kill the pain in my foot, but they’d make me forget about it for a while.
I unearthed Springsteen’s basket from the back of my bedroom wardrobe (putting that in there is one way of keeping him out) and checked the locking mechanism. Now or never.
I limped up behind him and scooped him in head first.
‘Let’s go!’ I commanded Stephie, and she ran ahead of me, opening doors and even carrying the basket down the stairs as I couldn’t manage it and my walking stick.
By the time we got to the van, he’d stopped hissing and trying to turn full circle. We put the basket in the back. If he did anything unspeakable, it would be Wayne’s problem.
‘We should have called the police,’ Stephie tried again, as I started the van’s engine.
‘We will,’ I said. ‘Soon.’
‘Why the big macho man?’ she said nastily. It wasn’t a game any more. ‘You’re going after her because she beat you up and humiliated you, aren’t you.’
‘Not at all,’ I said, jamming the walking stick on to the accelerator again. ‘She stole my cab.’
I used up a year’s traffic luck on that ride over to Finchley, with few cars on the road and no sign of a policeman.
I drove by Lara’s block of flats once without saying anything to Stephie. There was a light on in the top flat on the left.
Then I threw the van into a U-turn and pulled up outside a telephone box.
‘Got any money?’ I asked Stephie, who was sulking but still not quite ready to shout that she wanted to go home.
‘No.’
I gave her a handful of silver from my jacket and the piece of paper Prentice had given me with his private numbers on.
‘Ring these first and ask to speak to Detective-Sergeant Prentice. Got that? If you can’t get him, dial 999 and say there is a bomb in a car – yes, say it’s in a car – at the home of Professor Brian Bamforth. Okay?’
‘Where is that?’
‘What?’
‘They’ll ask where this Professor Prentice lives.’
‘Professor Bamforth and Sergeant Prentice. Do try and keep up. And I don’t flamin’ well know, but they will. Just keep saying it until they believe you.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Over there.’ I pointed to the block of flats.
‘Be careful.’
‘We will.’
The bennies were taking effect and the pain seemed almost bearable as I limped across the road, walking stick in one hand, Spri
ngsteen’s basket in the other. He’d adopted the basic cat defence of increasing his weight at will and seemed intent on wrecking the last remaining muscles in my left arm.
I made it, though, and my luck held. The main door to the flats wasn’t security locked. If nothing else, I could always grass on them to their insurance company.
I took the lift up to Lara’s floor and, just in case, I held the walking stick aloft as the doors opened. There was nobody in the corridor. Two doors, the one on the right Lara’s.
Without the benzedrine and the whisky, I would probably have stopped there and asked myself how I would get her to open the door. But in my state, I don’t think it occurred to me.
I put the basket down, leant the stick against the wall, and removed a semi-docile Springsteen, who by now weighed about a ton and seemed to be at least six feet long.
He stretched out a paw lazily. It seemed to go on forever, and I had the distinct impression he was reaching for the doorbell.
I wasn’t having any of that. That was my job. I pressed once, and the dull ding-dong echoed from inside.
The door handle turned and a lock snapped and I was watching it in slow motion.
She was saying ‘Who … ?’ when I put what was left of my shoulder muscles to the door, and as she flashed into view, I threw Springsteen at her face with as much force as I could muster.
Chapter Fifteen
It worked better than I thought it would; in fact, it was altogether quite spectacular. Springsteen hit and stuck like a limpet.
The reason was twofold. He found a neutral purchase in the material of her sweatshirt, locking his claws in above her breasts and swinging as the shirt stretched but didn’t rip. Lara helped by flapping at him, desperately wanting to swat him but determined not to actually touch him if she could help it.
She didn’t scream, but it looked as if she was, with the sound turned down, lips curled back and mouth open wide as she back-pedalled across the room. Springsteen hung in there, his back legs digging into her stomach to get a better grip. He wanted to go up and over her. By backing away, she was trying to make him fall backwards and down – two directions not found in a cat’s operational manual. It looked as if he was trying to get at her neck, like an illustration I’d once seen of the legendary Japanese cat vampire. (They have two tails, though; that’s how you can spot them.)