In that instant Geoff knew he was no longer dreaming. His heartbeat raced as he realised he was actively involved in the theft of the skull.
44
‘Are you working for the Church of the Black Angel?’ Raven asked. His voice was surprisingly clear for a man speaking through an oxygen mask. ‘Have those devious fuckers decided to try and get some of their power back?’
Geoff didn’t bother replying. Picking up the skull was a simple matter. The jawbone had been professionally fused to the upper bone. It was a complete piece that felt light but solid in his hand. Geoff held it awkwardly by the lower jaw. He had his pilot case open but he didn’t drop it in there yet.
This wasn’t like the dream. Not only did the alarm sound louder and the spray of the sprinkler’s water feel colder, he could also now taste the acidic flavour of dust from the explosion. More obviously, in the dream, the skull had been made slippery with blood.
‘How much are they paying you?’ Raven demanded. He shook his head and seemed to decide that was a ridiculous question. ‘Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it. All you have to do is put the skull down and say you’ll work for me.’
Geoff considered the old man, sceptically.
Outside the room he could hear the subsiding shriek of voices. The alarm continued to rise and fall. The lights in the room were faltering from shadowy gloom to impenetrable dark. From faraway he could hear the approach of sirens. There seemed to be so many sirens approaching that he suspected the offices had earned a full complement of fire engines, ambulances and police cars.
‘Shaun was in there,’ someone outside Black’s office called. The voice sounded like Tony’s familiar baritone. ‘I’m not kidding you. Shaun was in that lift when it malfunctioned.’
Geoff smiled when he heard the word ‘malfunctioned’. Of all the words that could have been used to describe a chunk of the lift exploding and a downpour of chaos and destruction, the word ‘malfunctioned’ seemed strangely understated and coy.
‘Just put down the skull,’ Raven insisted. ‘We can make a deal.’
‘Like you made a deal with Harry Shaw?’
Raven scowled. ‘What do you know about Harry Shaw?’
Geoff could have told him that the rumours about Shaw were common knowledge to all those who worked overtime. He could have said that he had heard people discuss Harry Shaw when he had been drinking with friends on a weekend. But he couldn’t see the point in prolonging the conversation.
‘You’ll excuse me, Mr Raven,’ he began politely. He tested the weight of the skull in his hands. Even though it was light he knew it would make a formidable weapon. ‘You’ll have to excuse me but I don’t think I can accept your generous offer.’
‘I’ve seen your face,’ Raven told him. His voice spiralled with the threat of panic. He raised an accusatory finger that trembled with age and apprehension as he pointed at Geoff. ‘I’ve seen your face. I know who you are.’
‘Yes,’ Geoff agreed. ‘That’s going to be unfortunate for one of us, isn’t it?’
He struck the old man with the skull.
The first blow hit him hard across the face. Raven muttered an exclamation of shock and surprise as the respirator was swatted from his nose.
Then Geoff was smacking his face again with the skull.
The second blow squashed the old man’s nose.
The third one connected with bone and landed hard enough to make a cracking sound. Raven had been raising a hand in protest. It fell heavily downwards. Geoff guessed he’d killed his employer but, to be certain that was what had happened, he smashed the skull down twice more.
He was panting when he stepped back from the carnage.
Raven’s face was a battered mess. Only one eye was visible. The other was lost beneath a flow of blood that had poured from a gash on the old man’s forehead. The remaining eye stared at Geoff in blind accusation.
Geoff glanced at the skull and was not surprised to see it was smeared with blood. He didn’t bother wiping it off before tossing his treasure into the pilot case. He wanted to get out of the building before anyone found him leering over a violently murdered corpse.
Smiling to himself, Geoff stepped out of the office and into the smoky aftermath of the corridor. The alarm bells sounded louder outside Black’s office. The sprinklers were still pouring, pattering his shoulders with a serious dousing of water and washing the blood from his hands. He wondered if it would be bad taste to start humming a few bars of ‘Singing in the Rain’.
Even though he had been the one who placed the explosive device in the lift, Geoff still found himself standing before the shattered doorway of the lift and momentarily wondering how he was going to get out of the building. Shaking his head with self-deprecatory admonishment, smiling a little at his foolishness, he walked to the emergency stairway and began to make his way down.
Cindy was still there, clutching onto the rails and struggling to manage the steps. Geoff considered her sympathetically and wondered if he should lend a hand. If he was seen heroically leading a nervous woman from the building it would make people less likely to think he had been responsible for the theft of the skull or the brutal murder of Charles Raven.
But, thinking about Raven, Geoff figured that Black would likely be returning to his office at any moment to discover the old man’s corpse. Once he had discovered the body, Geoff could imagine Black hurtling down the stairs, looking for the murderer, and pledging to have vengeance. Although Geoff currently felt confident enough to take on the world, common sense told him that it would be wisest to try and avoid facing Black until absolutely necessary.
Besides, he thought, given the way Cindy was making such a fuss about the coping with stairs, he wouldn’t be surprised if the clumsy bitch didn’t trip and fall and break her neck before she reached the bottom.
He brushed past her without speaking and hurried onwards and downwards to make his exit from the Raven and Skull building.
45
Geoff sat in The House of Usher and ordered a plain and hearty steak. He thought of asking if they could make one that didn’t taste of oily sweat, and then realised that would likely cause offence in the kitchens. Once this meeting was finished he figured he could start to expand his tastes and explore new flavours and better restaurants. He would be roughly £80,000 up on the deal and able to indulge a range of appetites that had previously been beyond his budget. But for now, for this celebratory meal, it made sense to mark the successful completion of the project with a certain air of tradition. He ordered a bottle of the house Merlot to go with the steak. When it arrived, Geoff thought the wine tasted too dry.
‘You heard what happened to Nicola?’ Don asked.
He sat, uninvited, at Geoff’s table. His eyes were rimmed with red. His jaw was unshaved. He had the dishevelled appearance of a man who had been too distracted to wash and dress properly.
‘I heard about Nicola,’ Geoff said, softly. ‘You have my sympathies.’
It was difficult to tell whether or not Don was properly grieving or merely putting on an act. Geoff had seen the man flirting with other women whilst he was involved with Nicola. Geoff also knew that Nicola had never put a lot of stock in her relationship with the restaurateur. She had always seemed more attached to his wealth than to him. But, he supposed, that did not necessarily mean that Don wasn’t grieving. It just meant their relationship was unconventional.
‘Do you have any idea how it happened?’
Geoff shook his head. ‘I know she got hit by the train.’
Don winced.
‘But I haven’t heard whether she tripped, got pushed or simply decided to end it all.’
‘If she was pushed,’ Don whispered. ‘I will find the bastard who did it. I will find him and I will make him suffer.’
Geoff said nothing. He wasn’t sure there was a way to properly console a psychotic like Don. He put down his knife and fork and tried to grace the man with an expression that combined sympathy, reassur
ance and condolence.
‘Mr Arnold?’
Geoff glanced up to see a vaguely familiar face towering above him. The man wore casual jeans with a hooded fleece beneath a leather jacket. His scalp was hidden beneath a skull-hugging grey beanie. As before, Geoff noted that there was a day’s worth of razor stubble dirtying the man’s jaw, and a religious scent of incense perfuming the air about him. He was the representative of the Church of the Black Angel Geoff had originally met at Shades.
The man looked conspicuously out of place in The House of Usher. He looked like a merchant sailor on shore leave. Set against the pristine white tablecloths of the restaurant and the polished cleanliness of every surface, the man from the Church of the Black Angel looked grubby and unsanitary.
Nevertheless, Geoff smiled when he saw the man because he could see the man was carrying another large tote bag. He cut himself a slice of steak and chewed on it as he pointed at the bag with his knife.
‘Is that my fifty grand?’
‘I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your business,’ Don said.
Neither Geoff nor the representative acknowledged him as he stood up and staggered away from the table in the direction of the kitchens.
‘Is that my money?’ Geoff prompted.
‘Do you have the item?’
Geoff had the pilot’s case beneath the table. Without bothering to bend down he kicked it so that it slid towards his contact. He cut himself another piece of the steak and savoured it. The taste was not brilliant. If anything this was a little overcooked. But it didn’t have the unpleasant flavour he had come to associate with steaks at The House of Usher.
The representative sat down. He started to fumble with the lock until Geoff told him the combination for both latches. The man nodded a curt thank you and then opened the case.
‘Langet manman,’ he purred.
Geoff didn’t understand the man’s Creole but he could hear the undercurrent of awe in his tone. He grinned around the steak he was chewing and took a swig at his Merlot.
The contact frowned and pushed his hand inside the case. For one unsettling moment Geoff feared the man was going to bring the skull out of the case and place it on the dining table. He didn’t have any genuine qualms about it being seen but he was wary that someone might notice and say something and the talk would eventually get back to Roger Black.
The contact drew his hand out of the case and appeared to be examining his fingers with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.
‘There’s blood on it.’
Geoff shrugged. ‘You never said it had to be clean. It is the correct gold-plated skull that you wanted, isn’t it?’
The contact considered him. ‘Yes. It’s the correct skull.’
‘Then I fail to see why you’re bitching.’ He used his fork to gesture at the contact’s holdall. ‘Is that my fifty grand?’
The contact pulled the holdall closer to his leg. ‘Perhaps I might decide to keep this money,’ the stranger suggested. ‘You delivered this late. You delivered this dirty. This is not a good way to do business.’ He tilted his jaw defiantly and asked, ‘What are you going to do if I make the decision to keep this money?’
Geoff shook his head. ‘Don’t push me.’
Was that a line from Rambo? Or was he quoting Fifty Cents? Geoff wasn’t sure and he knew it didn’t matter. The sentiment remained the same. He swigged a mouthful of the wine to clear his palate and pointed a wavering finger at his contact.
‘Don’t push me,’ he said again. ‘It won’t end well for you.’
The contact sneered.
Geoff bristled.
He didn’t have to take this shit. After all that he had endured and managed over the past couple of weeks he knew that he didn’t need to tolerate the grumbling threats of a miserable go-between. He snatched the pilot’s case back.
‘What–?’
‘No,’ Geoff told him. He kept his voice low but it was louder than a whisper. If other diners heard he didn’t think it would matter. Two nights earlier he had watched a roomful of diners ignoring Chloe when she got murdered. He figured most of those eating this evening would turn a deaf ear to the transaction he was negotiating with the representative from the Church of the Black Angel.
‘I’ll give you one chance to retract what you were saying and give me the money I’m owed,’ Geoff told him.
The representative considered him with a scornful sneer.
‘You’ve already seen that the skull in there is stained with blood,’ Geoff told him. ‘That’s because I used the damned thing to bludgeon Charles Raven to death.’
The representative blinked but said nothing.
‘I take it you’ve heard about the other death at Raven and Skull today?’ Geoff continued. ‘The poor fucker who died because of the lift shaft explosion? That’s another one you can add to my total. And, if you’re trying to calculate my kill-to-death-ratio, you might want to think about what happened to my accomplice yesterday evening. I had no qualms about throwing her into the path of an oncoming train.’ He leant across the table and lowered his voice to a menacing whisper. ‘I’d have even less qualms about dealing with you in those terms if you try and double-cross me.’
The representative nodded and sat back. Grudgingly, he pushed the tote bag towards Geoff. ‘Very good,’ he allowed. ‘You’re the big man who’s not scared of killing. You’re powerful and you’re violent. I won’t challenge you. It sounds like you’ve earned this money.’
Geoff smiled to himself. He was about to thank the representative for finally getting the point when he heard a man’s deep voice say, ‘I agree.’
Geoff looked up.
It was Don who had spoken. He stood dangerously close to the table. The glint in his eye was manic with rage. He glanced from Geoff to the representative and then back to Geoff. ‘I think you’ve more than earned that money,’ he said, stiffly. ‘I think you’ve earned that money and quite a lot more.’
Geoff opened his mouth and tried to think of a way of retracting what he had said. He could tell Don it was a joke. He could tell Don it was merely an off-the-cuff comment to make the representative hand over the outstanding money. But he couldn’t say those things in front of the representative.
‘Don,’ Geoff began. ‘Don. I need to talk with you in private once I’ve finished this meeting here.’ He stood up trying to glare at Don and impress him with an expression of silent urgency. ‘Don,’ he repeated.
The man on the adjacent table stood up and grabbed hold of Don’s wrist. He was a squat, dark figure.
Geoff instantly recognised Roger Black.
He stifled a groan.
Black placed a hand on Don’s shoulder and tried to calm him. Glaring at Geoff he said, ‘I think Mr Arnold here will want to have a private word with both of us once he’s finished chatting with his friend,’ he said calmly. His smile was bereft of humour as he added, ‘And I think, between the pair of us, we can keep him talking for a very long time.’
46
‘You stole from Raven and Skull!’ Cindy gasped.
Geoff shrugged. ‘I don’t like the word ‘stole’,’ he admitted. ‘It makes me sound so criminal.’
‘You murdered two colleagues in cold blood,’ Heather said. ‘And you then used a gold-plated skull to bludgeon your employer to death before trying to sell contraband.’
Geoff glared at her.
The silence around the table threatened to become unbearable.
‘Do you know the one thing that’s more frightening than killing someone?’ Richard asked.
They all turned to face him.
It was late in the pub. Late enough to be early. The empties on the table had been cleared a couple of times but now, it seemed, the staff had given up on them and left the office workers to wallow in their own overflowing abundance of glasses and bottles.
Cindy hiccoughed.
Becky giggled.
Tony snored a little and then pulled himself awake with a start.
‘Do you want to know?’ Richard demanded. ‘The one thing that’s more frightening than killing someone is the shit that happens after you have killed someone.’
47
Richard watched Cindy drag Melissa’s battered body up the stairs. She hauled with the impressive mechanical industry of a farm labourer. She bent at the knees, grabbed Mel’s ankles, and then began to haul his wife’s unprotesting carcass up the stairs with relentless determination.
She made no complaint.
She didn’t falter from her goal.
She simply lifted and slowly dragged Melissa’s battered and broken body up to the top of the stairs.
‘I could use a hand here,’ she grunted.
He smiled and gave her a thumbs up sign.
Cindy rolled her eyes in exasperation.
Melissa’s skull struck one of the marble stairs. She yelled in protest and glared unhappily around. Her gaze fell on his. Her smile was made crimson with bloody teeth. ‘Richard?’ she called. She sounded confused and not fully coherent. ‘Am I upstairs or downstairs?’
‘We’re working on both,’ Cindy said, gruffly. She hauled Melissa up another step and glared down at Richard. ‘Can you get up here and give me a hand?’ she demanded. ‘This bitch might fit into a size eight frock, but that doesn’t mean she’s lightweight when she’s being dragged up a marble staircase. I’m going to give myself a back injury getting her up these stairs.’
Richard nodded and trotted up the stairs to join her. He made sure not to stand in any of the slippery puddles of blood that now made the journey treacherous. He wasn’t wholly sure he could do as Cindy expected. He knew that they had to drag her to the top of the stairs and he also knew, if they wanted any hope of staying out of jail, they would have to push her down the stairs again and hope she died this time. But he wasn’t sure he could do something so cruel and violent to the woman he had once claimed to love.
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