Stitched

by Taylor, Peter

  ‘Bella!’ he shouted. ‘Come here, Bella.’

  Nothing happened. The smell of cooking drifted from the kitchen. Sleek’s nose twitched as he caught the aroma.

  Sleek nodded at Squat. ‘Look around,’ he said. ‘I’ll take this one into the living-room.’

  Squat reached inside his jacket. Bridge caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster. A Beretta appeared in his hand as he started down the hall. Meanwhile, Sleek pushed Bridge into the living-room, made him sit and sat down opposite. He looked cool, as though he was right at home, the air of a professional about him, someone who’d done this many times. Earlier, when he’d been offered money, there’d been no reaction. Bridge didn’t know what to think or do. He’d heard that real pros, the contract killers, couldn’t be bought off, honoured the original agreement because they valued their reputation in the market place. He’d heard of such men but never met them.

  Minutes dragged by, the clock on the marble mantelpiece marking each one audibly, as though to remind Bridge he might not have many more left. He wanted to say something but he sensed Sleek wouldn’t have any of it. At last, Squat entered the room looking perplexed.

  ‘Searched everywhere,’ he said, rubbing his neck. ‘Can’t find the bitch.’

  Sleek thought for a moment, then said, ‘We saw her come up in the car. She must be around.’

  ‘Nowhere to be seen,’ Squat said. ‘Maybe she saw us coming, got suspicious and found a hidey-hole.’

  Sleek looked at Bridge. He put the gun down, reached inside his jacket pocket, drew out a pair of handcuffs and threw them at his partner.

  ‘Put them on him,’ he said. ‘We’ll figure her out later.’

  Squat did as he was told. Bridge complied without fuss because Sleek had the gun pointed at him and he sensed it wouldn’t make any difference what he did or said since these two were set on a course of action and nothing was going to divert them. A straitjacket of fear enveloped him because he was at their mercy, more so with the cuffs on. His only hope was that they had purposes other than killing on their minds.

  When Squat finished putting the cuffs on he stepped away. Then Sleek stood up, strolled lethargically across the room, the gun at his side. He looked down at Bridge from under his lazy, lizard lids with an air of total boredom, as though mundane routine had sapped his energy and enthusiasm.

  ‘Cover the door in case the bitch is around,’ he told Squat.

  Bridge watched Squat do as he was told and take up a covering position. Everything felt so wrong; he wished he’d made a move before they’d put those cuffs on him. The straitjacket of fear tightened, constricted his throat. He found his voice but it was the croak of a man with a desert thirst pleading to the unrelenting skies for sustenance.

  ‘I’m a rich man. If it’s a ransom you want—’

  ‘Open your mouth!’ Sleek ordered.

  Bridge shook his head, tried to rise. Sleek put his open palm on his face and pushed him back down.

  ‘Do it!’

  Bridge complied, gaze fixed on the gun which was hanging loose at Sleek’s side. His stomach churned and his bowels started to loosen but his mind clung to the hope that all this was just to frighten him, not to kill him.

  ‘Close your eyes!’

  Instead, Bridge shut his mouth, blinked and blustered, ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.’

  Sleek smiled, showed a set of yellow teeth which were incongruous with the rest of his appearance. ‘I’m told I’m dealing with someone who thinks deaf means dumb. Who’s the dumb one, Bridge?’

  It took a moment, but he remembered that the doc’s daughter was deaf and knew in the same instant how they’d found him. His heart sank to fresh depths. One error, one small neglect where the girl was concerned, was all it had been. Bella had warned him. Why hadn’t he finished the girl off then and there?

  ‘Please don’t kill me,’ he mumbled, knowing now death was the most likely outcome. ‘I can top whoever’s paying you. The doctor can’t be paying much.’

  Even to his own ears he sounded pathetic, a man stripped of his dignity. Sleek, with that same of boredom, brought the gun up, pushed the barrel against Bridge’s lips.

  ‘Mouth open again! Eyes closed!’

  Bridge shook his head. Sleek, moving swiftly and with economy, swiped him hard across the face with the gun barrel.

  ‘Do it!’ he commanded, animated for the first time.

  Whimpering with pain, Bridge obeyed. Bizarrely, a childhood memory, sitting in a dentist’s chair and kicking out, floated into his mind through the pain and panic. But this was no dentist’s chair and Sleek had the air of an executioner.

  ‘Don’t move, just listen,’ Sleek hissed. He paused dramatically for a moment, then continued: ‘Remember a girl called Hussein, do you?’

  For Bridge it was the moment of total comprehension. He had the missing pieces that created the chain of events that had put him in this mess; the doc had gone to Hussein or vice versa and they’d planned this together. With that understanding, he knew he had not the smallest chance because Hussein was a rich man and would be paying well.

  Before he could react to the question he felt something in his mouth, something soft and powdery that penetrated his throat and windpipe. He started to choke and was compelled to swallow. His eyes were wide open as he gasped for air. Sleek gripped his hair, pulled his head back, forced more of the powdery substance into his mouth and he thought he was going to black out. Coughing and spluttering, he fought his way back from the brink, became aware that Sleek and Squat were hovering over him like visitors at a deathbed waiting for the moment.

  ‘It’s pure heroin, courtesy Ali Hussein. He wanted you to know that,’ Squat said. ‘It’ll drag out a bit but you’ll be as good as dead before we’re gone.’

  ‘Nothing personal on our part,’ Sleek added, then sideswiped him with the gun barrel.

  Bridge felt himself tumbling into a black hole. Somewhere in the darkness there was a pinprick of light. He desperately wanted to get to it but it was receding too rapidly.

  ‘That’s only half the job done, so half the money,’ Squat complained. ‘Let’s find the bitch.’

  Sleek shook his head. ‘Another day. We’ve spent too much time here. Got to dump the car yet.’

  ‘Bitch got lucky,’ Squat grumbled and followed Sleek outside.

  ‘Maybe,’ Sleek said. ‘But it could be she’s resourceful and we’ve underestimated her because she’s a woman.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bella had seen her brother coming up the incline just as she stepped out of the pool. She had waved, then gone inside and up to the bedroom to put on her bathrobe. That was when her first piece of luck kicked in: from the upstairs window she noticed the car coming too fast up the hill. Her second piece of luck was that the binoculars were conveniently placed on the window ledge, no more than an arm’s length away. She focused on the car as it drew up alongside her brother.

  Alongside the luck, instinct played its part now, because something in the casual confidence of the men who got out of the car set off warning bells. Her brother’s posture was wrong too, the way he shrank away from the taller man. What was he afraid of? She swivelled the binoculars on to the man. That was when the third piece of luck blessed her with just the briefest glimpse of the gun Sleek was concealing under the jacket over his arm. As her brother climbed into the car, she fought against a tide of panic. Think, she told herself as the car headed up to the house. There’s always a way.

  One weapon. They kept one loaded weapon, a pump-action shotgun hidden at the bottom of the old well in the garden, nothing nearer at hand because they’d felt safe here. Get it, Bella’s instincts screamed. Already she could hear the car pulling on to the drive.

  She bounded down the stairs and was running through the back door when she heard them come through the front. She closed the door behind her, then ran across the flower-beds to the old well. In one fluid movement she grasped the rope and went over t
he side. Holding on tight, she used her feet to gain purchase against the side wall and lowered herself into the depths.

  The well was deep but dry this time of year. She felt her feet hit the bottom and let go of the rope. It was dark, too dark. The light from above wasn’t nearly good enough. She remembered that Charles had used a torch when he’d clambered down. Hoping her eyes would adjust, she waited as vital seconds ticked by. There was only a little improvement in her vision so she began to feel her way around.

  Charles had told her the shotgun was in a cavity behind a stone that protruded more than the others. She got down on her knees, used her hands to feel for the stone, froze when she heard a noise above her. She glanced up. The silhouette of a man’s figured blotted out the patch of blue sky at the mouth of the well. She scrambled to the side, flattened herself against the wall as the figure stared down into the depths.

  He soon disappeared and she let her breath go, resumed her frantic searching. At last her fingers discovered a stone slab protruding more than the others. She manoeuvred it until it slid away, then hauled out the waterproof bag in which her brother had placed the weapon. She removed the shotgun, used her bathrobe belt to bind it tight to her body and felt for the rope. Luckily, the surface of the walls wasn’t flat so there were enough footholds to help her ascend. But she still had to feel for them with her feet. Progress was slow, agonizingly so because she was terrified for her brother up there in the house.

  At the top, she peered over the side to check that nobody was in the garden, then pulled herself out. She ran straight for the house, went in through the back door, flattened herself against the kitchen wall.

  A bird in the garden chirruped contentedly but she couldn’t hear any other sound as she crept down the hallway. When she was halfway to the front room the car’s engine purred into life. Relief that the men must be leaving vied with a fearful apprehension. What might they have done to her brother? In case one of the men had stayed in the house, perhaps hoping to trap her, she continued cautiously, dreading what she might find.

  That dread was justified when she found her brother on the living-room floor, back propped against the sofa. His eyes were open and she dared to hope, figuring they’d beaten him but had at least left him alive. As she rushed across the room and saw his eyes, a worm of doubt wriggled in her stomach. His eyes weren’t right. They had that glazed look she’d seen in the eyes of drug addicts and they were black, as if an evil spirit had driven out the personality, left a void. Kneeling beside him, she cradled him in her arms. That was when she noticed the white powder on his lips and down his shirt front and knew what was wrong.

  In spite of his condition her brother seemed to recognize her. He tried to speak and she had to lean closer.

  ‘Hussein – Huss . . . ein.’

  She understood then who had sent those men.

  ‘How, my darling? How could he know?’

  Her brother tried to answer but it was too much for him as the drug tightened its grip. Frustrated, with an effort he raised an arm and pointed to his ear. It was all he could manage before his eyes closed.

  She was wasting time. She’d have to get him to a hospital and the quickest way would be to drive him herself. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she tried to haul him on to his feet, but he was too heavy and she collapsed on the floor. The phone was an arm’s length from where she lay. She reached for it, called the emergency services, asked for an ambulance. Then, as she had done when they were kids without a grown-up to do it, on those occasions when she’d had to be both mother and father to him, she cradled him in her arms and stroked his hair. All the while a cauldron of bitterness boiled up inside her against those responsible for hurting her precious brother.

  He died in her arms two minutes later. All Bella wanted to do was stay beside him, for ever. But she was too much of a fighter, an instinct for survival was too ingrained. Hit the world back harder than it hits you had been her long-standing creed, as it had been her brother’s.

  She forced herself to stand. Tearfully, she looked down on her brother for the last time and resolved that Hussein would pay, even if it cost her life. She walked out of the room, went upstairs, collected all she needed in a suitcase, lugged it down, bundled it into the car and drove away.

  As the villa receded into the distance, she felt once again the pain of that little, lonely orphan girl abandoned by her mother. With Charles by her side, she’d made it through. Together they’d taken on the world, made something of themselves against the odds. Now, without him, without anyone of her own blood, the future seemed a lonely wasteland where she would have to venture alone. The ambulance passed her on the hill, its siren scream mocking any pretension that, for her, happiness could last. She didn’t turn around, kept her eyes on the road, vowing vengeance as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was a cold day in Scarborough, the wind blowing rain off the sea. Not many people were venturing on to the streets of the east coast resort today. Alex, braving the elements, called into a corner shop to buy some groceries and a newspaper. He stuffed the paper inside the plastic bag with the groceries, pulled his coat collar up and hurried back to the flats where he, Liz, and Ann had sequestered themselves while they waited to hear if the danger Bridge posed had dissolved and they could return to a normal life.

  As he climbed the stairs to the top floor flat he couldn’t help feeling this furtive existence was wrong. Was it his guilt resurfacing? He still had doubts about letting Liz persuade him to put his trouble behind him, ignore his conscience. For sure, he had no qualms about setting the dogs on Charles Bridge; the man deserved all he got in Alex’s book. Deep down, what was bothering him was that he hadn’t gone to the police right at the start. They would surely have helped him, and Officer Clark wouldn’t have ended up injured. Instead of that, his main priority had been preserving his dignity and pride in the eyes of other people; it had been the weakness they’d used to rope him in. Could he live normally with that knowledge niggling at him for the rest of his days? That was the big question.

  He let himself into the flat and walked through to the kitchen. His wife and daughter were seated close together at the kitchen table. It gave him a warm feeling to see them like that, to know he belonged to them, was a proper part of their lives again. Surely that bond, the warmth of his family, would drive out those feelings that had troubled him over the fortnight they’d been here? Well, he’d just have to try to reconcile himself to the past, learn to live with it, wouldn’t he? If he didn’t he’d be no good to anyone.

  ‘We need a holiday in the sun,’ he remarked as he hung his raincoat on the hook behind the door.

  Liz smiled and handed him a towel to dry his hair. He gave her the bag and she emptied the contents on to the table.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re fine here.’

  Ann signed. ‘It’s better than being at school.’

  ‘Don’t get too used to it, young lady,’ Alex said, relaxing into a chair and supping the hot coffee Liz put in front of him. ‘We’ll be going back soon, I hope.’

  Glad to be inside and out of the rotten weather, he picked the newspaper off the table and unfolded it. The main headlines were about the situation in Iraq, the front page apportioning guilt for the death of civilians, political leaders trying to wriggle away from facts. Spin seemed to be the new word for downright lies. It depressed him to see the prevarications, the avoidance of truth. Then it dawned on him he was hardly a man of integrity in a position to criticize, to pontificate about truth, having played hard and fast with the truth himself. Uncomfortable with that thought, he turned to the second page. A headline there screamed off the page and he quickly scanned the column.

  When he’d finished reading, he put the paper down. Liz noticed his faraway look, sensed a change in him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said resting a hand on his shoulder.

  He looked up, pointed at the headline. ‘It’s finished,’ he said, voice neither
elated nor sad, just flat.

  She grabbed the paper, read the piece for herself. Alex watched her growing relief as she comprehended what it meant for their future. She put the paper back on the table and sighed.

  ‘So Bridge is dead from a massive overdose of heroin. Thank God we’re free of him is all I can say.’

  Alex grunted. ‘He died the same way as Hussein’s daughter, except his wouldn’t have been a voluntary act. Grim, but a kind of justice.’

  ‘Cheer up, Alex,’ Liz said, noticing he was sombre. ‘You look right down when you should be relieved. This was the only way we could guarantee our long-term safety, remember. We’re free to live normal lives now.’

  Alex wished he could be as buoyant as she was. Normal lives sounded good. Could it be that way for him?

  ‘But will I ever be free of guilt, Liz? It’s still there, you know. I’m not always aware of it, but it’s like my shadow, always ready to put in an appearance whenever I think the sun’s shining again.’

  Tears, like small white pearls, formed in the corners of Liz’s eyes.

  ‘We’ve been over this. You’re with me and your daughter. That should be enough. Time is a great healer. It’ll all go away. We’ll make it go away.’

  He sighed. ‘You were my healer in Iraq, Liz, but this time I’m not so sure you can work your magic.’ Seeing how upset he’d made her, he cast his eyes down. ‘But I know I’ve got to try to settle my mind. I know that.’

  She wiped the tears away, then touched her daughter’s shoulder to attract her attention and direct Alex’s mind elsewhere.

  ‘We’ll be going home soon, Ann,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

  Ann’s face lit up. She looked across to her father and signed. ‘Are you definitely going to live with us back home? Are you going to be a doctor again?’

  Alex smiled. His troubles faded away when he looked at his daughter. Maybe Liz was right. Maybe he’d be all right.