by Tim Ellis
‘John? Are you there?’
He knew the second man would soon follow the first over the wall when he received no reply. Quigg made his way back to where he’d left Ruth. Taking her wrist, he said, ‘There’re two of them - come on, we have to get out of here.’
He had a vague boyhood memory of Hyde Park and knew the Serpentine Long Water lay directly ahead. He veered towards the right.
They ran through bushes and across paths until they reached the end of the Serpentine. Here, they made their way along the path until they reached a restaurant, and beyond that a crossroads with a multi-directional signpost. Quigg squinted and found the sign pointing towards Speaker’s Corner. They would be able to get out of the park there. He took Ruth’s hand and they began running again. It was a straight path and they soon reached the famous landmark and climbed back over the wall.
***
Standing outside the Montcalm Hotel Nikko on Cumberland Place at the north-east corner of Hyde Park, Quigg wondered whether they would be thrown out as vagrants if they went in to beg for two rooms.
‘It looks a bit luxurious,’ he said. He wasn’t used to staying in five-star hotels. Yes, he’d been on courses and conferences, but most of the hotels he’d stayed in had two and three stars; they were clean, tidy and functional. He had never stayed in a five-star hotel with a swimming pool, gym, sauna and jacuzzi before.
‘It is what I am used to,’ Ruth said.
They needed to get off the street before they were spotted; the two of them were both covered in dirt and leaves. He brushed the leaves off Ruth and patted himself down, then followed her inside. Ruth ordered a room as if it was her God-given right. The receptionist didn’t even blink at the shabby sight of them. Ruth booked a Marble Arch double room at £450 a night, and gave the receptionist her credit card.
Quigg was going to ask why she had booked a double room instead of two singles, but stopped himself when he saw the price of the rooms displayed on a board by the reception desk. It was nearly a monkey, he thought. Thinking about a monkey, he’d have to ring Duffy and let her know that her car had been murdered. She and Cheryl would need to catch the tube to work in the morning. It was quarter to one; he couldn’t ring her now. When she found her keys missing, she’d ring him to ask where he was. He’d tell her what had happened then.
There was no need for the porter to carry their bags - they didn’t have any. They caught the lift up to the fifth floor, number 505. The room had a deep pile burgundy carpet, a king size bed and a marble bathroom.
His back and arm were hurting like hell. He stripped off his duffel coat, shirt and bullet-proof vest, and sat on the bed. The squashed 9mm round fell out of the Kevlar layers of the vest and disappeared into the carpet pile. He’d never been shot before and hoped he never would be again. At least he had on the vest. He’d have to thank Duffy for that; it had been her idea. He gave a wry smile when he thought about the ways in which he could thank her, and possibly which one she would choose.
Ruth knelt on the bed behind him and touched his shoulder. ‘You have a large bruise, Quigg. It must hurt terribly.’
‘Yeah, I can feel it a bit.’
‘A hot shower will make it better. Take off the rest of your clothes. I will rub it better to say thank you for saving my life.’
Unashamed, she stood before him, unzipped the back of her grey sleeveless herringbone dress and let it fall to the floor. Beneath she wore matching silk lingerie and a pair of ruined hold-up stockings. She took everything off.
He stood as she put her hand in his and let her lead him into the bathroom. She removed his jeans. He kicked off his shoes and socks. Together, they stepped into the hot water of the rain shower.
She gently massaged his back with hotel-supplied aromatic oil, but she didn’t stop there. Her hands strayed to his stomach, and carried on down. It had only been three hours since he’d been standing in another less ostentatious shower, having sex with two beautiful women. Now here he was, about to have sex with another beautiful woman. What the hell was happening to him? He was turning into a philanderer, a satyr.
He realised that, subconsciously, he had dreamt of this moment since first meeting Ruth Lynch. But he wondered why a sophisticated, beautiful woman would want to have sex with him. He was nobody in the grand scheme of things. He had nothing, and probably never would have anything. Why had she rung him? She could have simply walked to a hotel and booked herself in for the night. There had been no need for the frantic escape. Why involve him?
After taking such good care of his cast by wrapping it in a plastic bag earlier, it now lay on the shower floor, a shredded waterlogged mess. He’d have to go back to the hospital, get another x-ray, and see what damage he’d done. At least he could use both hands to knead her spectacular breasts, and to hold her firm hips as he pushed himself deep inside her.
Afterwards, in the wastelands of the king-size bed, they made love twice more before eventually seeking sleep at three in the morning.
Residing fleetingly in that place between unconsciousness and wakefulness, he wondered what he would do in the morning. Should he leave Ruth Lynch here? They hadn’t really had a chance to talk. Had she found anything out about the Apostles? Is that why they wanted to kill her? Maybe she had got too close and it wasn’t about him at all. Then there was Duffy and Cheryl. That had gone too far. He’d been lured into a honey trap like a naive teenager.
***
Bartholomew and Andrew were eating breakfast in the Old Bailey restaurant. Members of the public were not permitted into this facility, which was reserved for judges, defence and prosecution barristers, and solicitors. Although, solicitors were not really welcome and they were frowned upon when they did enter. Andrew had signed Bartholomew in as his guest. It was eight thirty; there were only a few people in the restaurant, and they were the only ones in the queue.
Andrew helped himself to a full English with fried bread and black pudding. Bartholomew thought - what the hell. It smelled great and it had been years since he had indulged himself with a fry-up. ‘I think I’ll have the same, Andrew.’
‘Help yourself, old man. You only live once.’
Bartholomew piled his plate high. He knew he’d never eat it all, but it was there should a world-wide shortage of food occur between the counter and the table.
‘Have you told James?’ Andrew asked when they had both sat down away from any eavesdroppers and were redistributing items from overfilled plates into ravenous mouths.
‘No. I thought I’d run it past you before I approached James.’
Andrew’s brow furrowed. ‘I know things are not going according to plan.’
‘I’ve been thinking the same thing.’
‘Maybe you’re hiring the wrong people, Bartholomew. They might lack the will to succeed.’
‘The tasks set before them have been simple enough, yet still they fail.’
‘It could be that whoever you send against this policeman, Quigg, will fail.’
Bartholomew stopped eating, his fork mid-way between the plate and his mouth. ‘I didn’t know you were interested in the supernatural, Andrew?’
Andrew smiled. ‘I am not suggesting that Quigg has super powers, or some such nonsense. Merely that he appears to be invested with a natural ability to squirm out of difficult situations. I have had clients with similar abilities.’
‘He certainly has an unnatural instinct for survival. Something is keeping him alive.’
‘You could go directly to the final solution, Bartholomew.’
‘I am loath to do that, Andrew. As soon as we implement that solution, things will become highly unpredictable.’
‘James will make the final decision. I should speak to him. Remember, we are all in this together and have too much to lose to make a mistake now.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I’ll see James later today.’ Bartholomew cleaned the plate with the last of his fried bread. It took him back to his working-class childhood in Blackheath after the S
econd World War. His father had been invalided out of the army in 1943 - not because he’d been injured in the fighting, but because he’d shot himself in the foot as a means of getting out of the war. The man was a coward, but the authorities couldn’t prove it. As soon as he was old enough, Bartholomew left home and severed all contact with his sad excuse for a father.
‘No wonder you eat here, Andrew; that was excellent.’
‘I try not to do it too often, old chap. One could become the subject of one of those real-life documentaries: The Twenty Stone Barrister. Imagine that!’
They both laughed.
Chapter Eighteen
Quigg found the ringing phone beneath his duffel coat, which lay in a heap on the floor where he’d left it. He pressed accept and held the phone to his left ear.
‘Sir?’
‘Good morning, Duffy.’
‘Good morning, Sir. Have you got my keys?’
‘Yes.’
‘And my car?’
‘I’m afraid your car has been murdered, Duffy.’
‘Murdered?’
‘I’ll tell you about it at the station. In the meantime, I’ll get my mechanic onto it.’ His mechanic! He sounded like he had a personal mechanic for his fleet of Rolls Royces, Porches and Lamborghinis.
It was seven thirty. He’d had sex and a shower, and was now sitting in an easy chair wrapped in a thick towelling bathrobe. It was comforting to know that he didn’t need Viagra to function effectively. He’d had sex six times in as many hours. He hadn’t realised he had it in him. Ruth sprawled naked on the bed reading the newspapers. They were filling in the time while waiting for room service to arrive with breakfast.
‘Cheryl and I enjoyed last night, Sir.’
‘So did I, Duffy.’
‘It’s a shame you had to leave, Sir. The ice cream was really nice, but we’ve saved a tub for next time.’
Next time! He wasn’t sure there was going to be a next time. His life seemed to be moving in a strange direction. ‘I was looking forward to dessert, Duffy, but I had to go out. I’ll see you at the station in a couple of hours. Oh, and while you’re waiting for me, get a copy of the obituaries in the broadsheet newspapers for the past week. I want you to look for anyone who might have died in a fire.’
‘OK, Sir. Cheryl says - hi.’
‘Later, Duffy,’ he said, terminating the call.
He put his feet up on the coffee table and watched Ché Guevara’s granddaughter reading newspapers in the nude. It felt surreal. How many people could say they’d had sex and were about to have breakfast with the descendant of a Cuban freedom fighter this morning? He smiled, closed his eyes, and leaned back in the chair. Not only that, the odds of anyone having had sex in the shower with two women must be astronomical. He was a betting oddity, a numerical phenomenon.
A memory surfaced. ‘When you saw the man shoot my friend,’ he said, ‘how did you know the gun was a Glock45?’
‘I investigated and reported on the illegal arms smuggling from Syria to Lebanon. I learned about all the weapons so that I knew what I was writing about.’
‘What have you found out that makes the Apostles want to kill you then?’
‘I have sent the word out to my contacts, but nothing has come back to me yet.’
‘It occurred to me that if Body 13 was someone in a powerful position, then they couldn’t simply disappear. If they had, we’d have heard about it on the news or read about it in the newspapers. I’ve got my people looking at the obituaries…’
‘I am more than a sexy body, Quigg. I have good ears and an excellent brain.’
‘Yes, but I’ve experienced more of your sexy body than I have of your ears or your brain.’
‘I can soon change that.’
He leapt on the bed, sat astride her waist, pinning her down, and started to tickle her ribs.
‘No, Quigg. You must not. I will wet myself.’ She could hardly talk for laughing and wriggling beneath him.
He stopped tickling her, leaned down and brushed her lips with his. Her breathing was laboured. ‘You have a beautiful brain, Ruth Lynch.’
A knock on the door smashed the moment to smithereens. Ruth ran into the bathroom. Quigg looked through the eyehole to confirm it was room service, and then opened the door. A waiter wheeled in a trolley with salvers, pots and crockery. He realised he needed to tip the man. At £450 a night for the room, what was the going rate for a tip, £50? His wallet was in his jeans; his jeans were in the bathroom. Shit! ‘Thanks very much,’ he said and ushered the man out. He couldn’t give him a tip if he didn’t have his wallet - simple.
Ruth came out of the bathroom wearing a matching bathrobe. They were sitting at the table and ate in silence. Afterwards, Quigg said, ‘What will you do today?’
‘I do not know. I cannot go home; they will be waiting for me.’ Her face dropped. ‘In fact, I can never go home again until you catch them all, Quigg,’
‘You can’t stay here; this place will make you bankrupt.’
‘I am an heiress, Quigg. Money is of no concern.’
He took a sip of coffee and stared at her. ‘If you don’t need the money, why do you work?’
‘I enjoy what I do. I am sure that if it were left up to you I would be lying on my back.’
He chased her round the bed. She was easy to catch. They made love. It was nine thirty before he rang Arrowsmith Motors.
‘Smokin’ Joe.’
‘Hello, Smoking Joe – it’s Quigg.’
‘I thought we said five tonight, Mr Quigg?’
‘It’s not about my car, Joe. I’ve got another one for you. Can you meet me at The Mansion, Ennismore Gardens in Knightsbridge?’
‘What time?’
‘Half an hour? Say ten past ten?’
‘See you then.’
He got dressed in yesterday’s clothes. They were a mess. He had a bullet hole in the back of his duffel coat and his shirt; his jeans were caked with mud at the knees. He took the jeans into the bathroom and made the best of cleaning them up.
Ruth was sitting naked at the mahogany desk at the foot of the bed. She had switched the computer on and was busy reading, answering and deleting her emails.
‘I have to go.’
She stopped what she was doing and walked him to the door. ‘I know, Quigg, but you will come back to me?’
‘Tonight.’
‘I will be waiting for you.’ She kissed him hard on the lips and held him tight.
He opened the door and stepped out reluctantly.
At the reception he hesitated, then decided not to exit the hotel by the front door. He wandered through the corridors until he found a fire exit and left through that.
What was Ruth Lynch all about? An heiress! What did an heiress want with a man who had debts coming out of his ears? She was a beautiful socialite who could have anyone she snapped her fingers at. Instead, she was waiting in a hotel room for him – a beat-up policeman.
The Cumberland Gate to Hyde Park was open. He retraced their steps from last night. He was in no rush, although the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It had started to rain. He hunched into his duffel coat and put the hood up. It was the first time he could recall ever using the hood since buying the coat all those years ago. He left by the Alexandra Gate, making sure no one was following him by stopping, turning round and going back the way he’d come for a couple of minutes, and then turning again to finally leave the park.
Smokin’ Joe had found the MGB. A squat man without tattoos on his face was sitting on the bonnet of the car. Every other area of skin on his body, that Quigg could see, anyway, had been tattooed. Even Joe’s shaved head was adorned with a spider’s web, the spider crawling from his right ear. He had forearms like Popeye.
Quigg offered his hand and, even before Smokin’ Joe gripped it, he knew he was going to crush it. He grimaced in pain.
‘You shoot it ‘cause it wouldn’t start?’ he said, smiling.
Quigg handed him Duffy’s b
unch of keys. He had removed any keys that didn’t look like car keys earlier and kept them in his pocket. ‘The other way round.’
Smokin’ Joe looked confused.
‘Somebody shot it, and then it wouldn’t start.’
‘Oh yeah. Pop the hood - let’s look at the damage.’
Quigg opened the driver’s door, squatted, found the lever and pulled. The hood catch released.
When he was standing up, Quigg could see Smokin’ Joe shaking his head.
‘Another monkey?’ Quigg asked.
‘Bag of sand, Mr Quigg.’
‘A grand?’
‘That’s right. Look here…’ He pointed into the dark unknown recesses of the engine. ‘…The distributor’s mincemeat, there’s a bullet hole in the crank shaft and oil has leaked out. Your driver’s window is broken, the bodywork looks like a colander. Yeah, a grand ought to do it. That OK with you, Mr Quigg?’
What choice did he have? Where the hell was he going to get a bag of sand? Maybe Duffy had some money, although it wasn’t her fault. Maybe she’d go halves with him. Then again, maybe not. He couldn’t ask her to pay. He should never have taken her car without asking. Shit. Maybe he should rob a bank or a petrol station.
‘That’s OK, Smoking Joe. When are you likely to have it done by?’
‘Week and a half, say Monday 15th - in time for Christmas.’
‘Thanks, Joe.’
‘My pleasure, Mr Quigg. What about the Toyota?’
He’d forgotten about that. ‘Not my problem, Joe.’
‘I’ll leave them my card.’ He slipped a card under the front windscreen wiper.
Smoking Joe and his partner began unshackling the hook and chain on the back of the tow truck.
‘I’ll see you later, Smoking Joe,’ Quigg called and headed towards the tube station at Hyde Park Corner.
***
It was ten to eleven by the time he walked into the front entrance to the station. He usually entered through the door leading from the car park, and was surprised to see that they’d painted the reception and made it look half-decent with a new carpet and some vandal-proof easy chairs. He was also surprised to find Martin loitering behind the desk.