Love, Honour & O'Brien

by Jennifer Rowe

The next thing Holly remembered clearly was the Mazda swinging out onto the highway, heading west. She remembered thinking the car was going too fast for her to try to jump out. She remembered the roll of fat on the neck of the man in the passenger seat, and the scaly, scrawny, bristly neck of the driver. She remembered feeling lumps beneath her and realising that she was sitting on Leanne Purse’s sling-back shoes, floral skirt, pin-tucked blouse and pale blue cardigan, and that Leanne’s overnight bag, gaping and empty, was under her feet. She remembered Leanne herself, lumpy in her cleaner’s uniform, shrinking into the opposite corner of the back seat, whimpering, ‘I know you! You’re the woman in the motel!’

  Holly screwed herself around and looked through the back window. The black four-wheel drive was close behind them—so close that she could see the sap marks and bird droppings on its bonnet, and the gum leaves caught in the windscreen wipers. It was the four-wheel drive that had been parked in the Horsetrough Lane lay-by!

  Its driver was wearing sunglasses, but his face was vaguely familiar. Holly knew she had seen him before, and suddenly she remembered where. He was one of the two men who had forced their way into Andrew’s emptied house while she was staying there. It came to her that the muscular man who had grabbed her was the other.

  Then something else struck her. It was the muscle man who had been looking over the back fence of 16A yesterday! And a little later Abigail had sprung him inside the building. She had thought he was a hesitating client, but he’d probably just been on his way out after searching O’Brien’s flat.

  While I was in the bathroom, doing my hair and makeup, Holly realised, remembering the parrot’s piercing shrieks coming through the wall. The parrot had been warning her there was an intruder! And she had just ignored it.

  ‘Is this about Andrew McNish?’ she shouted. ‘If it is, you might as well let us out right now. We don’t know where he is. We don’t know anything!’

  ‘Who’s Andrew McMish?’ sobbed Leanne Purse from her corner. ‘Who are you? What do you want with me?’

  ‘Shut up!’ growled the man in the passenger seat. He punched a number into his mobile phone. ‘I’ll let Moonie know we’re on our way,’ he said to the driver. ‘He worries, and he’s got that ulcer.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have left him there on his own when we went after her this morning,’ fretted the driver. ‘You and Bernie could have got her easy, but I thought . . . Christ, Fen, if this was all a con and McNish has got away while we were farting around—’

  ‘Moonie? It’s me,’ the man called Fen said into the phone. ‘Anything up?’ He listened. ‘Okay, now, Moonie, don’t stress,’ he said after a while. ‘Take one of your pills . . . Shit, I’m not calling you anything, Moonie, I’m just saying . . . Listen, calm down, we’re on our way. Five minutes . . . No, no luck. But we’ve got his girl . . . Yeah, she’d gone back to Mealey, like we thought. We picked her up just standing . . . Yeah, we’re watching her, don’t worry. She wasn’t carrying. Didn’t even have a knife, cocky bitch. Plus we got another one . . . No, another girl. And we got her car as well. We’re in it now, Skinner and me. White Mazda. . . . No, another white Mazda. Bernie’s in the four-wheel drive . . . No, don’t worry, he’s right behind us. Well, Moonie, it’s a long story . . . yeah, well . . . Five minutes. Ten minutes tops, okay?’

  He clicked the phone off.

  ‘Moonie’s not happy,’ he said to the driver.

  ‘Shit! Has McNish—?’

  ‘Nah. McNish is still in the house with the old woman. The Elvis freak took the hearse out, and the lawyer was following him in the BMW, but the branches we left on the road stopped them all right, so—’

  ‘Are you taking us to Medlow Bath?’ Holly broke in furiously. ‘To the house on Horsetrough Lane? Did you leave this Moonie person keeping watch in the lay-by in case Andrew tried to escape? While you followed me in the four-wheel drive to Leanne’s place, and then to the motel? If so, you’ve all been wasting your time! Andrew’s gone!’

  The men ignored her completely.

  ‘So while they were clearing the track,’ Fen went on, ‘Moonie snuck round and got a good look inside both vehicles. Nothing.’

  ‘The BMW boot?’ the driver asked sharply.

  ‘Just a bag of golf clubs. Clean.’

  ‘Andrew McNish isn’t in that house!’ said Holly, loudly and clearly. ‘He was there, but he left on Tuesday night. He’s probably not even in this state anymore. He could even have left the country!’

  Probably has, she thought. If he managed to sell those rings . . .

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ the driver jeered, without bothering to look around. ‘That’s why you keep going back to the Maggott house, is it? And got a heavy to check the boundary? And had a smart-arse lawyer hanging round? Because McNish isn’t there?’

  ‘Who’s McMish?’ Leanne Purse shrieked. ‘What do you want with me? Why is this happening?’

  ‘Shut up!’ roared Fen. ‘Jeezus H Christ!’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Holly exploded. ‘Obviously you’ve been following me ever since I left Andrew’s house in Spring-wood, but you’ve got it all wrong! I’m not his henchwoman, or messenger or enforcer, or whatever you think I am. I’m just his girlfriend—his ex-girlfriend!’

  Fen laughed. ‘So you’re going to tell me it’s just a coincidence that you visit a private dick who’s poking his nose into McNish’s business, and the dick conveniently drops dead, are you?’

  Leanne gave a little scream.

  ‘Yes,’ said Holly with dignity. ‘O’Brien died of natural causes.’

  This time both men laughed.

  ‘She’s good,’ said Fen appreciatively. ‘You’ve got to admit it, Skinner. First she nearly loses us on the highway so we have to drive to buggery around in a circle to get back to the motel, and only see her going into that bloke’s room by a miracle. Then she gets out and away right under our noses while we’re going in to get her. Smooth.’

  ‘It was all those granny and grandpa tourists,’ Skinner grunted. ‘She’d never have given us the slip otherwise. So, what’s up with Moonie, Fen?’

  Fen shrugged. ‘He just wants backup. Plus he’s run out of cigarettes. Plus he doesn’t get why we picked up two women instead of one.’

  ‘Yeah. Why did you have to grab the wrong car, you stupid prick?’ Skinner muttered.

  ‘It looked like the same car,’ grumbled Fen. ‘I didn’t know McNish’s bint had already gone, did I? Plus the other bitch came tearing out of the motel like a bat out of hell. Plus she had a bag with her. A blonde bitch with a bag, see? How did I know she was the wrong one?’

  ‘She’s a fatso, for a start, dickhead! Her hair’s longer. She’s wearing different clothes!’

  ‘I don’t notice that shit. A blonde with a bag, that’s all I saw. Well, I saw the dress but I thought she’d put cleaner’s shit on as a blind.’

  ‘Moron!’

  ‘Don’t call me a moron. You’re the moron, Skinner. You’re the moron who said we should turn over that guy’s room because she’d probably passed him the loot. You’re the one who ripped off a bag that turned out to be full of paperclips and pictures of office shit! You should’ve seen your face when Bernie opened it.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Skinner glanced in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Shit, that dickhead in the van’s caught up. Thought we’d shaken him off in Mealey. He was losing oil after the smash.’

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Fen shook his head. ‘Why did he chase us out of the motel anyway? He didn’t see anything. He was just coming in as we were leaving.’

  ‘Saw you throw your fag out the window, maybe. Thinks he’ll make a citizen’s arrest,’ said Skinner, and sniggered.

  Holly twisted around to look through the back window again. The four-wheel drive was still tailgating them. And right behind the four-wheel drive was Trevor Purse’s little green van. As the road curved, she could see Purse crouched low over the wheel, his face grimly intent. Two people were crammed together beside him. Holly’s breath caught
in her throat. Abigail and Mrs Moss! Had they flagged Purse down on Stillwaters Road? Had they just forced their way into the van while Purse was still groggy after bashing into the four-wheel drive? However it had happened, they were there. They had come after her! Hot tears of fear and gratitude welled up in her eyes.

  ‘It’s this woman’s husband!’ she shouted. ‘Pull over and let us out! He won’t give up till you do. He’ll never give up. And by now he’ll have rung the police!’

  ‘Trevor!’ screamed Leanne Purse, kneeling up on the seat and beating at the window with her fists.

  ‘Shit!’ said Skinner, and put his foot down.

  The little white Mazda responded, surging strongly forward. Glumly Holly reflected that her Mazda wouldn’t have done that. No doubt Leanne’s had been regularly serviced.

  The four-wheel drive kept an even distance behind them. The van quickly fell back. Then a white ute overtook the van and it was hidden from view.

  ‘That’s got him,’ said Skinner.

  ‘The Medlow Bath turnoff ’s coming up,’ Fen said nervously. ‘Plus it’s an 80k limit here, Skinner. If a cop car sees us—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ snarled Skinner, who seemed to react badly to stress. He gunned the Mazda past the Medlow Bath sign and swung recklessly left at the turnoff that led to Horsetrough Lane. The four-wheel drive followed as if it were attached by a short string to the Mazda’s tail. Looking back, Holly could see no sign of the little green van.

  ‘He’ll miss the turnoff,’ wailed Leanne. ‘He won’t know where . . . Oh, Trevor! Trevor!’

  ‘Call Moonie again, Fen,’ Skinner said. ‘Tell him we’ll be with him any minute now. And tell him to get his shit together. We’re going in.’

  20

  Five minutes later, the Mazda was parked beside the Horsetrough Lane lay-by. Holly was sitting in the driver’s seat. Fen was in the back, close behind her, pressing the muzzle of a gun against the nape of her neck, so she was being very careful not to move. As a result, one of her ears had become fiendishly itchy, her nose was running and she had developed an overwhelming urge to cough. The gun could have been a replica, or even a toy, but it had looked real when Fen showed it to her. And it felt real—hard, cold and very bad against the skin of her neck.

  The black four-wheel drive was idling close beside the Mazda. The ponytailed driver sat silently in the front seat. Leanne Purse was huddled in the back, having been bundled out of the Mazda as soon as it stopped at the lay-by, where the man called Moonie had been waiting impatiently.

  Moonie, who looked like a rugby player run to seed and had a few dozen long, glistening black hairs combed over his balding scalp, was standing on the road with Skinner, squeezed between the two vehicles.

  Immediately ahead, the Maggott mansion rose silent behind its railings. Deep shadows lay on the flat green lawn.

  ‘Creepy old dump, isn’t it?’ said Moonie. ‘Who’d want to live way out here?’

  ‘The old woman’s a nutter,’ said Skinner. ‘Her dad was the same. He messed around with Bernie’s grandma before he buried her, right, Bernie?’

  The thin man behind the wheel of the four-wheel drive nodded shortly. His long grey face was expressionless. So far he hadn’t said a word. Holly found him more frightening than any of the others, though it was Fen who was holding the gun.

  ‘I still reckon the rest of us should go in on foot,’ said Moonie. ‘Then we’d have more chance of taking him by surprise.’

  ‘We’ve been through that!’ snapped Skinner.

  ‘See, once we’re in, we don’t need surprise, Moonie,’ Fen said soothingly from the Mazda’s back seat. ‘All we have to do is move fast. We’ll get McNish easy. He’s a cream puff. And we’ve got the girlfriend, that’s the point.’

  ‘Right,’ said Skinner. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Dimly Holly wondered if he had watched too many action movies, or if the dialogue in action movies actually reflected the way people like him really talked, which was something she’d never previously considered.

  Clutching the wheel of the Mazda, she waited as Skinner climbed into the passenger seat of the four-wheel drive and Moonie got into the back to sit beside the whimpering Leanne. Behind her, she heard Fen breathing heavily through his nose as he punched Una Maggott’s number into O’Brien’s phone. She heard the tinny sound of Una’s voice answering. She felt the gun muzzle shift slightly as Fen reached over the seat and pressed the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello?’ Una was saying. ‘Hello? Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Holly Cage, Ms Maggott,’ Holly said. ‘Could you open the gates, please?’

  When Skinner had told her what she had to do, her first thought was that she could give Una Maggott some coded warning, some hidden instruction to call the police, if she chose her words carefully. But then Fen had pulled out the gun, and its pressure on the back of her neck seemed to have emptied her mind.

  The phone went dead. Ahead, the gates began to open.

  Fen gave a grunt of satisfaction and took the phone back. The gun slid from Holly’s neck as he lay down on the back seat to keep out of sight.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘And remember, I’ve still got you covered. I’m aiming right at your spine. You try anything and you get it. Get it?’

  He obviously watched a lot of movies too, but his dialogue needed work.

  Holly drove the Mazda forward, leaving the four-wheel drive in hiding. By the time she reached the gates they were almost fully open. She heard the sound of the four-wheel drive revving up, and glanced in the rear-view mirror. The black monster was edging forward, waiting its moment.

  ‘Go!’ Fen muttered behind her. ‘As close to the steps as you can get, then cut the engine and stay put. Don’t move an eyelash.’

  Holly turned the Mazda through the gateway and eased it on, the gravel crunching softly beneath the tyres. As she pulled up, the front door of the house began slowly to swing open. She stared at it with a sort of horrible fascination.

  Una Maggott, bolt upright in her wheelchair, emerged from the dimness and moved out onto the verandah. She looked excited. The remote control for the gates was in her hand. She saw Holly still sitting in the car and beckoned to her irritably.

  There was a roaring sound from the road. Una’s eyes widened. In the rear-view mirror Holly saw the four-wheel drive thunder through the open gateway, gravel spraying up on either side of it as if it were a speedboat. The next moment it was skidding to a stop beside the Mazda. Skinner and Bernie leapt out, both wearing expressions of intense disgust. Moo-nie crawled more awkwardly from the back seat, dragging Leanne Purse, who was pale green and seemed to have been sick in his lap.

  ‘What do you people think you’re doing?’ shrieked Una. ‘This is private property!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Skinner bellowed, pulling a gun from his pocket and pointing it at her. She shut her mouth with a snap.

  ‘The woman spewed in the vehicle,’ said Bernie. ‘She spewed in the vehicle!’ He seemed unable to take it in.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Bernie,’ gabbled Skinner. ‘We’ll get it detailed—soon as we’re out of this. You go round the back, right? Secure the exits.’

  As if the final words acted as some sort of trigger, Bernie went at a run, quickly disappearing around the side of the house.

  Swearing, Fen heaved himself out of the Mazda, threw Holly’s shoulder bag into the lavender bushes and wrenched her door open.

  ‘Out!’ he ordered, gesturing with his gun.

  He looked very twitchy. Holly slid cautiously from the car, hoping his trigger finger wouldn’t convulse and shoot her by accident. He grabbed her and pulled her hard against him, sticking the gun in her ribs.

  ‘Leave the doors open,’ Skinner was telling Moonie. ‘Let the stink out.’

  ‘It’s all over my pants!’ babbled Moonie, whose face was fish-belly pale and shiny with sweat. ‘It’s on my shirt. Aargh! Shit, I hate sick! I’ve always hated sick. Ever since I was a kid and my little broth
er—’

  Bernie jogged back into view beside the light pole on the other side of the house.

  ‘Done already?’ Skinner called.

  Bernie held up a key. Presumably this meant that he’d found the key in the back door and deadlocked it from the outside.

  All the windows are barred, Holly thought. With the back door deadlocked and the front door guarded, the house is a prison. And Sheena, Lily and Dulcie were in there. Dulcie’s son, too, Holly reminded herself. She kept forgetting about him. The thugs didn’t seem to know they existed, but they had to be in the house if Eric and Allnut had been the only ones to leave. Why hadn’t any of them appeared to find out what was going on? Was it possible that they hadn’t heard the noise?

  It was, in fact, especially if they were upstairs. Holly remembered only too well how very silent the house had seemed when she was inside it—how its thick walls and sealed, barred windows seemed to muffle sound, shut the world out. If only one of them would look down, see what was happening, realise what it meant, and ring the police. Sheena, at least, had the brains for that. She could be doing it right now! Holly felt a wild flutter of hope, crossed her fingers and concentrated on holding still.

  Bernie had almost reached the Mazda. She watched him under her eyelashes, repelled yet fascinated by his weirdly immobile features, the smooth, even greyness of his skin. Then she saw him stiffen, as if he’d heard something. Her heart leapt as he turned his head to stare out at the road.

  ‘Shit!’ Fen muttered. He was goggling at the road too. Forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to make any sudden moves, Holly looked eagerly around.

  A small green van covered in bright yellow writing was labouring towards the house.

  ‘How . . .?’ Skinner was staring at the van as if it were an apparition.

  ‘He’ll have called the cops!’ Fen gabbled in panic. ‘Skinner, we got to—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Skinner had returned to high stress mode, but the expression of almost superstitious awe that had crossed his face when he first saw the van had gone. He lowered his voice to a mutter.