by Jim Eldridge
He crossed the road to the pavement on the other side, and then began walking blind, hoping that he was heading in the right direction and not into a dead-end. There didn’t seem to be any people around. Jake guessed this was commuter land, with most people out at work. He wondered whether to go up and knock on a door and ask where he was, but realised that such an action would only arouse suspicion; and whoever he asked would surely be on the phone to the police as soon as they shut the door on him.
He came to a road sign, telling him that he was walking along Elm Way; then another at a turning saying that this one was called Oak Avenue. The next street was Willow Path. Obviously part of the original woods had been bought up by a developer and turned into this housing estate.
Suddenly, as if it was a mirage, he saw a black London cab standing outside one of the houses. Someone was just paying off the driver. Jake saw the cab indicating to move off, and he ran out into the road, waving an arm to call the taxi to a halt. The cab driver looked at Jake and grinned.
‘Well, this must be my lucky day,’ he said. ‘There was I thinking I’d have to drive back empty from the middle of nowhere.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Jake.
The driver looked at Jake suspiciously.
‘You don’t know where you are?’ He peered closer at Jake, and the expression of suspicion on his face deepened as he took in the bruises on Jake’s face, and his crumpled and stained clothes.
‘I came here in my mate’s car,’ lied Jake. ‘He brought me here, and now he’s gone off, leaving me stranded.’
‘Why?’ asked the driver, still suspicious.
Jake sighed.
‘We had a row,’ he said. He gave a rueful smile. ‘Long story.’
The driver looked at Jake thoughtfully, then asked: ‘Is that why you look in such a state?’
Jake nodded.
‘’Fraid so,’ he said.
The driver shook his head.
‘It’s none of my business, but I’d be careful who your mates are,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you’re in Chigwell.’
Chigwell, thought Jake. Essex. On the outskirts of north-east London.
‘OK,’ said Jake. Quickly, he considered his options. He could get an underground train from Chigwell, but it could take time. He could ask the taxi to take him back into central London, but the streets would be gridlocked with traffic, even in the bus and taxi lanes; they always were. He’d be going nowhere. And then it suddenly hit him where he wanted to go. A place he hadn’t been for a long time. Too long.
‘D’you know the River Lea at Lea Bridge Road?’ he asked.
The driver looked almost offended.
‘I ought to, I was born near there,’ he said. ‘Right by Hackney Marshes. I played football on the marshes every Sunday.’
‘That’s where I want to go,’ said Jake.
As the driver looked again at Jake’s battered and crumpled state, his suspicious expression returned. ‘You got money to pay for it?’ he asked warily.
‘Yes,’ said Jake, and he took out his wallet and showed the driver the notes inside. The driver grinned.
‘Jump in,’ he said.
The taxi made its way through the maze that was the estate, and finally joined the main road back towards London. As they headed down the wide road, they saw police cars and an ambulance by the side of the road on the other side. The crashed car was still there, half off the road, its front buried among bushes and trees.
‘Hello, an accident!’ said the cab driver.
‘Yes,’ said Jake.
The driver shook his head.
‘Too many mad people on the road,’ he said. ‘Give someone a driving licence and it’s like giving them a gun. Half of them don’t know how to drive a car properly, or think they know everything. And show them a bit of open road and they think they’re at Brands Hatch!’ He shook his head. ‘Speeding, I bet! Then they lose control.’ He sighed. ‘People like that shouldn’t be allowed behind a wheel!’
Chapter 26
Jake sat on a tree stump on the towpath by the side of the River Lea looking at the houseboats moored along the bank. He remembered when he used to come here as a boy on Sunday mornings with John Danvers, while Mary Danvers prepared the Sunday roast. Just like the sort of family you saw on TV or read about in magazines. Jake had never known a family like that before. All the families he had encountered as a child were dysfunctional; the foster parents he was sent to live with, the families of the other kids at the different schools he went to. When he’d first gone to live with the Danvers, he was suspicious of them. No one could be that nice, not in his experience. But they were.
John Danvers was a car mechanic. Mary Danvers was a teaching assistant at a primary school. They lived in a neat two-bedroomed terraced house in Leyton. Jake was eleven years old when he went to live with them, and he spent the first three months just watching and waiting for some sort of nastiness to show beneath the surface. But there had been no nastiness; and Jake realised that with John and Mary Danvers it was a case of ‘what you see is what you get’. They were a kind, loving couple who wanted to give a home to a child to make their family complete.
Jake remembered how he and John had walked along this towpath, pointing out the differences between the houseboats. ‘Me and Mary often thought of living on a boat,’ John told him. ‘It’s so quiet and peaceful here, on the water. Away from the noise and dirt of the streets and the roads.’
And it was still, Jake reflected.
He’d come here because he needed this time to sit and recover himself; and this was his special place. His sanctuary.
Not that he’d thought of it that way before. When Mary had discovered that she had cancer, everything had been thrown into turmoil. By then, Jake had been living with them for just over a year. Three months after Mary was diagnosed, she was dead.
Her death had destroyed John. Jake had done his best to help him, insisting that they went for their regular walk along this towpath, looking at the boats, and listening to John talking about Mary.
And then John had fallen ill, and also been diagnosed with cancer.
The childcare authorities had moved in, and before Jake had time to realise what was happening, John was in hospital, and Jake was back in the children’s home.
Jake asked to go and visit John in hospital, but the authorities decided it wouldn’t be right for Jake to visit John in his condition; that it would be too distressing for him. So Jake had run away and tried to get into the hospital to see John, but he’d been caught and returned to the children’s home.
The next thing he knew, John had died, and Jake hadn’t had a chance to see him and tell him how much he and Mary had meant to him. Because of that, Jake was even angrier at the authorities. He’d had to find private places where he could cry his grief for John and Mary without anyone seeing him.
Never again, he’d told himself. Never again will I let myself get so attached to anyone.
And that had been how it was until he’d met Lauren, and fallen in love with her. All he wanted to do now was get Lauren back. Which meant getting the book to the lab so Michelle could verify it, and publish her article.
He took out the phone he’d taken from the thugs, and dialled Michelle’s number. She answered straight away.
‘It’s Jake,’ he said.
‘Where have you been?!’ demanded Michelle, not even trying to disguise the anger in her voice. ‘I’ve got everything set up! You promised you’d be here with the book!’
‘I got held up,’ said Jake.
There was a pause, and Jake was sure that Michelle had just realised that something bad must have happened to him.
‘Serious?’ she asked.
‘Very serious,’ confirmed Jake.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘The thing is, you’re ready now, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘Only the last time I came to your office I got grabbed. I don’t know who else may be watching there.’
‘So we need to m
eet up somewhere else.’
‘Yes, but I’m pretty sure this conversation is being listened to, so we can’t say where.’
There was a pause, then Michelle said: ‘Where we first met.’
Of course, realised Jake: the timber yard where Michelle had found him.
‘OK,’ he said.
‘How soon can you be there?’ asked Michelle.
Jake thought it over. Getting to Euston, collecting the book, then out to Holloway Road and the timber yard would take about an hour, providing nothing went wrong again. But something was always going wrong. People were still out there, looking for him. People who would kill him. He needed help. He needed someone to watch his back.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said.
As he stood up, the gun in his pocket banged against his side.
I don’t need this, he thought. I’m not a killer. If I carry this, it could go wrong for me. I’m the one who could end up being shot.
He walked over to the edge of the towpath and looked down into the dark swirling waters. Even with all the clean-up of London’s rivers that had been going on, here the water was so thick with sludge and silt, and muck from the boats, it was like soup. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching, then lifted the gun from his pocket and tossed it into the water.
OK, he told himself. Time to play the final card. But first, I need to get me some back-up.
Chapter 27
Jake stood on the balcony outside Benjy’s flat. The music from next door was still pounding, although not as loudly as it had been the last time Jake had been here. He pressed the doorbell. After what seemed like ages, the door opened a crack and an eye peered out. Then the door opened a bit wider and Benjy looked out enquiringly at Jake. Jake noticed the security chain stayed in place.
‘Hi,’ said Jake, and he smiled.
‘You’re the guy who was here with Jez and Ronnie,’ said Benjy warily.
‘Right.’ Jake nodded. ‘Are they here?’
Benjy looked at him in surprise.
‘Why would they be here?’ he asked. ‘They don’t live here.’ He grinned. ‘They don’t live anywhere. They fly by night.’
‘Yes, well, is it possible for you to get in touch with them for me?’
Benjy regarded Jake suspiciously.
‘Why would I do that?’ he asked.
‘Because I need to talk to them urgently.’
The look of suspicion remained on Benjy’s face.
‘You’re accusing them of something?’ he demanded.
Jake stared at him, indignant.
‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘Why would I do that? They saved me! I owe them!’
Benjy stayed studying Jake, the suspicious look still on his face, then he said, ‘Stay there.’ With that he went into the flat and shut the door.
Jake looked around the balcony nervously. He didn’t like staying exposed in one place for too long. After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened again and Benjy held out a mobile phone.
‘Jez wants to talk to you,’ he said.
Jake took the phone.
‘Jez,’ he said, relieved.
‘You gotta be in trouble, Jake,’ said Jez.
‘I am,’ admitted Jake.
‘Get in the flat. I’ll be along.’
With that, the phone went dead.
Jake handed the phone back to Benjy.
‘He said . . .’ he began.
‘I heard,’ said Benjy. He held the door open. ‘You better come in.’
He let Jake in, and pointed to the kitchen.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he said. ‘Only, you eat anything, put some money in the jar by the fridge. OK?’
‘OK. Thanks.’
But Benjy had already gone into his room, and shut the door.
Jez arrived half an hour later. He took a look at Jake’s bruised face and let out a low whistle.
‘Someone messed you up,’ he observed.
‘Yep,’ said Jake. ‘They were going to kill me, but luckily I got away.’
Jez studied Jake, and Jake knew he was weighing up whether to ask him for details.
Instead, Jez said, ‘I told you you should’ve had back-up.’
‘You were right,’ admitted Jake.
‘So now, what’s happening?’
‘I need to pick up the book and get it to a lab so it can be tested,’ said Jake. ‘The book’s in the Left Luggage office at Euston Station. The problem is, everyone who’s after it seems to know what I’m about to do next.’
‘If it’s MI5 and them, they’ll be using them CCTV cameras they got,’ said Jez. ‘They’re all over every main station.’
Jake reflected that Jez was right.
‘In which case they’ll know I was at Euston, and maybe picked up that I left the book there in a rucksack.’
‘And you’re thinking they might have someone waiting there for you,’ said Jez.
‘Yes. My guess is it won’t be a big stake-out, just one or two people at most, watching out for me; but when they see me, they’ll give a call.’
Jez remained thoughtful.
‘Where you got to get this book to?’
‘A timber yard off Holloway Road,’ said Jake.
‘A timber yard?’ echoed Jez in surprise.
‘That’s where I’ m meeting the person who’s going to take it to the lab.’
Jez was silent for a bit longer, then finally he nodded.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Here’s what you do. Do you know the Ibis Hotel beside Euston?’
‘No,’ said Jake, ‘but I can find it.’
‘On the corner of Drummond Street and Cardington Street. Right opposite the western side entrance to Euston. You can’t miss it. Go in there and wait in the reception area. There’s tables and chairs and stuff, so you’ll be OK. You’ll just be someone waiting.’
‘And then what?’ asked Jake.
Jez thought it over.
‘Give me two hours,’ he said. ‘Then things will happen.’
‘What things?’ asked Jake.
Jez smiled.
‘That depends what I can fix up in the next two hours,’ he said.
Chapter 28
Jake sat in the reception area of the Ibis Hotel, his eyes fixed on the glass double doors of the entrance. He’d been sitting here for half an hour, and so far there had been no sign of anyone he recognised from the flat. No Jez, no Benjy, no Ronnie, no one. Luckily, the reception area was full of other people waiting, most sitting with a tea or a coffee, or a newspaper, and all scanning every new face that appeared in case it was the person they were waiting for. Jake knew the bruises on his face made him conspicuous, but he hoped they’d help to make sure that people gave him a wide berth. No one wanted to get too close to someone whose face was marked by cuts and bruises. Luckily, he’d been able to damp his clothes down using the basins in the hotel toilet and get some of the stains off them.
He wondered what Jez was planning. Jake was sure that Euston would be watched, people waiting there for Jake to appear and collect the rucksack from the Left Luggage office. The big question was: by who? Gareth’s MI5 spooks? Pierce Randall’s people? Or the ones who’d sent those two thugs to find him and torture him, the ones who’d attacked Robert and left him near to death? Jake shuddered.
Suddenly he sat up, alert. The small figure of Ronnie had just walked into the entrance.
Jake stood up as she approached.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘We’re go.’ And she held out something to Jake. At first he couldn’t work out what it was, then he realised it was a crash helmet.
‘What’s this for?’ he asked.
‘In case you need it,’ she said. ‘The way people keep bashing you up, you need some protection.’
Jake shook his head.
‘I’m not wearing this,’ he said. ‘I’ll look ridiculous!’
‘Take it,’ she ordered, her voice taking no refusal.
‘No,’ said Jake. ‘I’m not putting that on. I
’d feel like a dork.’
Ronnie hissed at him: ‘Listen. Jez says you gotta take it. And I ain’t walkin’ around any more holdin’ it! I felt stupid enough walkin’ around bringin’ it here!’ She thrust it at him. ‘You don’t wanna wear it, fine. But you carry it! And don’t lose it. It cost money.’
Jake took the crash helmet from her. She gestured towards the hotel entrance. ‘Come on, time to go. Look sharp.’
‘Where’s Jez?’ asked Jake.
Ronnie held up a mobile phone.
‘He’s just a call away,’ she said.
Jake wasn’t reassured.
‘No offence, Ronnie, but these are tough people we’re dealing with.’
‘You sayin’ I ain’t tough?’ demanded Ronnie, put out.
‘No, no,’ Jake assured her. ‘You’re one of the toughest people I’ve met, but these guys — or, at least, the ones I’ve met so far — are tough and nasty. They could be armed.’
Ronnie shrugged.
‘We’ll cross that road when we come to it,’ she said.
‘Bridge,’ said Jake automatically.
Ronnie frowned.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘The phrase is “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” . . .’
Ronnie stared at him, incredulous.
‘People are out there lookin’ to kill you and torture you, and you hung up on the right and wrong word?’ She shook her head. ‘No wonder you always in so much trouble, you worry too much about the wrong things.’
She headed out of the Ibis, with Jake following her. At the kerb, she stopped and looked pointedly at Jake.
‘We’ve come to a road. We’re gonna cross it. That all right with you?’
‘Fine.’ Jake nodded, feeling sheepish.
They crossed the road and went into the side entrance of the station. All the time, Jake’s eyes were darting left and right, scanning the crowds, trying to identify would-be attackers. But it was impossible to spot if anyone was watching for him, or paying particular attention to the Left Luggage office; the concourse was crowded with people waiting for trains; and the shops around the main concourse, and right up to the Left Luggage office, were filled with a constant traffic of people getting supplies for their journeys: newspapers, sandwiches, drinks.