“How about we talk about this over a drink?” I could see the Ford Focus in the corner, previously obscured by a since-departed plumber’s van. To get to it we were going to pass my car. Derin, to my left, spoke up for the very first time.
“A drink sounds really good right now,” he said, leaning forward to look across me at Leonard.
“Shut up, Derin. We get the bitch, then you get a drink.”
A group of four burly men tumbled out of the pub, laughing and joshing loudly. From the rugby club, by the look of them. All the better. One of them had his mate in a mock headlock, rubbing his bald head.
“Easy now,” Leonard said softly, pressing the Taser anew into my sore flesh. “No funny ideas.” Leonard was wary about attracting attention, which offered a glimmer of hope.
“I need to get something from my car,” I said, as we drew level with it.
“We’re going in your car,” Leonard said. “You’re going to drive.” At that moment I realised that Leonard was sensible and would not take unnecessary risks, which is why I decided to do what I did next.
“My keys are in my trouser pocket,” I said to him, jiggling my arm to let him know I meant his side. He relaxed his grip.
“OK. Slowly mind,” he said.
I nodded, lifted my head towards the group of men and shouted at the top of my voice, “YOU FUCKING CUNTS!”
“Shut up!” Derin hissed, sounding terrified. “What are you doing?”
The men went silent and looked at us, not believing what they’d heard. No pain shot through me. Nothing happened. The Taser dropped from my back – Leonard, as I’d hoped, wouldn’t do anything stupid in public that would attract attention.
The men were striding towards us, angry. “What did you say?”
“He’s drunk, mate,” Leonard said, trying to laugh it off. “No offence meant.”
“WE’VE JUST BEEN FUCKING YOUR MOTHER,” I shouted, in case my first provocation was attributed to high spirits. “SHE LIKES TO TAKE IT UP THE ARSE!”
They charged, from just twenty feet away. Leonard and Derin instinctively let go of my arms, Leonard’s Taser now held out in defence at the incoming herd. Derin turned and high-tailed it out of the car park, back to his uncle no doubt. I felt for my keys and scrambled over the bonnet of my car with all the grace of a shot-putter. It didn’t go well – my head and shoulder met the hard ground the other side of the car just as Leonard’s Taser met three hundred pounds of rugby prop, judging by the scream. Although I was away from the action I was now on the passenger’s side and unfortunately my car is too old to have remote locking so I had to actually fit the key into the lock. I focussed on this normally simple task, trying to ignore one of the guys heading to my side. I opened, slid into the car, shutting and locking the door just as he arrived and started pulling on the handle. I moved over the handbrake to the driver’s seat, the key slippery in my sweaty fingers. Leonard was pressed against the window, the Taser pinned uselessly between his chest and the glass. The guy on the passenger side gave up trying to open the door and began to rock the car instead. Leonard was pulled from the window and held in a bear hug, the guy he’d Tasered still stunned, sitting on the ground. Now two of them were rocking the bloody car, one each side, and it was listing alarmingly, first one way, then the other. These guys would have no problem tipping it over, given there were no cars parked either side – it was exactly the sort of challenge drunken rugby players would rise to.
I don’t know if you’ve tried getting your car key in the ignition while two very strong men rock it in ever-increasing arcs and your sweaty hands are trembling with adrenalin. It took a couple of hit-and-miss stabs until the key finally found its home and I turned it. The money I’d paid Densley was suddenly worth every penny as the 1.6 GTi roared to life. I gave her some extra fuel and put her in gear as my horizon shifted like the captain’s on the bridge of a rolling ship in a force 10 gale.
The Golf took off, wheels spitting gravel, people kicking the car. Something smashed through the rear window. I caught sight of Leonard managing to administer ten thousand volts to the thigh of the guy holding him, who went rigid and tipped onto his arse. I nearly ran Leonard down as he bolted and headed across my path for the exit onto the road. Our eyes met for a second through the windscreen before he disappeared into the dark. A quick glance in the rear-view showed the two rugby players who’d been trying to tip my car helping up their fallen comrades. I accelerated onto the road and headed for the relative civilisation of Cambridge.
Not running Leonard over when I had the chance was probably the worst mistake of the many that I made that night.
20
WITH THE BENEFIT OF THE FOLLOWING MORNING’S DAYLIGHT I surveyed my car on my drive, coffee in hand, in my pyjamas. There were dents in the bonnet, created by my attempt to skim across it, and in the doors, where I recalled the car got a kicking as I’d made my escape. The hatchback window was smashed, and a large stone, half painted white, was sitting on the back seat. I recognised it as one used in the pub car park to mark out parking spaces. Expensive fixes. I wondered whether it could be legitimately charged to Galbraith. I mean, I assumed this was his fault, directly or indirectly. I still hadn’t figured out how Badem’s Leonard and Derin had known that Aurora would be outside the church in Cherry Hinton, or that she’d be early. I hadn’t known that she was going to be early. Galbraith couldn’t have known from my call in the office.
Mothers on my street walking their kids to school gave me a forced smile and the minimum acceptable nod as they passed me. I would probably now be that creepy guy who lived on his own with the overgrown garden and stood outside his house in his pyjamas watching the kids go to school.
I went inside and called Sandra. She’s not very good in the morning, so I was passed to Aurora without much preamble.
“How are you, Aurora? How is your arm?”
“Very good, Mr George. It’s not serious.”
“You can just call me George, Aurora.” She remained silent so I got to the reason I’d called. “Who did you tell about our meeting yesterday, Aurora?”
“I told nobody, Mr George.”
“What about Joshua? He was there when you called because you used his phone.”
“Yes, of course Joshua know. He call me after to make the meeting time early. You told him.”
I stopped myself from reacting to this news out loud; I didn’t want to alarm Aurora.
“You haven’t called him, or anyone, since you’ve been at Sandra’s?”
“No, not yet. I am going to call now. They will be worried.”
“Please don’t call them, Aurora. I’m going to ring Joshua now and tell him you are alright.”
“You don’t want me to call?”
“No, it’s very important. You just stay there today and relax.”
“OK. I clean house,” she said.
“Right… Can I talk to Sandra?”
The phone passed hands.
“What’s up, George?”
“Can you make sure she doesn’t call anyone? I don’t think all her Filipino friends are as loyal as they might be.”
“Sure, but I’ll be going to the office soon and short of unplugging the phone…”
“I don’t think you should go to the office. Just in case Bill and Ben are back.”
“Who?”
“They’ve been following me around and hanging outside the office. They tried to pick Aurora up yesterday and I don’t want them to associate you with me.”
“That’s sweet of you, George, but I can take care of myself.”
“I couldn’t take care of myself last night and neither could four rugby players so please stay away from the office.”
“OK, OK. I can make some calls from here. I’ll chase up those number plates.”
“You can forget about the Ford Focus – it belongs to Leonard and Derin who I met last night – just the Toyota.”
“Fine. Are you alright?”
I looked at m
yself in the hall mirror. I had two bruises on my neck, like a vampire bite, and the small of my back was bruised. I’d hurt my shoulder after landing on it doing stunts over the bonnet of my car but otherwise I was intact.
“Mostly ego damage, and dents to the car, which I’ve just spent a fortune on. By the way, you’re not making Aurora clean your house, are you?”
“Yes, that’s the first thing I did when I woke her at five a.m. No, she’s adamant she wants to do it. I think it’s her way of thanking me for letting her stay here. She’s never had a day off so she doesn’t know what to do with herself. To be honest it’s too early in the morning to argue with her so I’m just going to let her do it and be happy. Besides, the place could do with a clean, I’ll be the first to admit. She’s just relieved that we don’t have a dog.”
“She doesn’t like dogs?”
“That ex-beauty queen of a boss has a dog, apparently lets it shit anywhere in the house. Guess whose job it was to clean it up?”
I rang Joshua from the office mobile but he didn’t answer and I declined to leave a message. I ran a bath and, as I soaked my shoulder, worked through the events of yesterday, which now felt like a surreal dream. It looked like Galbraith had increased the odds of finding Aurora and his briefcase by roping in this Badem fellow, an ex-patient he had befriended. It was also clear that Galbraith wanted to speak to Aurora, not just retrieve the briefcase, but was it, as Badem had intimated, just to give her a telling off? Or would he have sanctioned a stronger punishment, as Badem seemed keen to administer? Kristina seemed less bothered about seeing Aurora again, or even the pearls, but then she had other things to worry about, like managing a lover on the side.
I remembered that Joshua worked as a theatre orderly at the hospital, and it was entirely possible he had access to Galbraith. Joshua was probably on minimum wage, Galbraith drove a Porsche and was on TV – it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he’d tried to earn a bit of extra cash by telling Galbraith he knew where Aurora was going to be. After all, Joshua knew that she worked for him. If Galbraith had then told Badem, Badem might have suggested getting Joshua to tell her to be there early so I wouldn’t be around when they picked her up. Luckily I’d arrived early myself, otherwise who knows what might have happened to her. Galbraith was behaving like a man on the edge, not a TV-appearing surgeon who had it all – the job, the attractive wife, the classic car, the nice house, the prestige.
I got out of the bath and put yesterday’s clothes in to wash. The work number rang as I set the machine going.
“George?” Speak of the devil.
“Mr Galbraith. How was your dinner party?” I asked, keeping it light and breezy.
There was a long sigh at the other end. “I’m ringing to apologise about last night. I was somewhat taken aback by events. I take it that you’re OK?”
“As well as could be expected in the circumstances.”
“I see. I understand that you had a conversation with Badem?”
“More of a verbal tirade and promised electrocution, which I narrowly avoided.”
“Gosh, I’m very sorry to hear that. As it happens it’s entirely my fault. I made the mistake of explaining why his notes were missing. Despite being a cultured person Iskender is a man of great emotion. He is, shall we say, exceedingly grateful for his surgery.”
“That he is,” I said.
“He’s Turkish, you see,” Galbraith said, as if that explained everything.
“A temperamental lot, people from that part of the world,” I said, wondering if he’d get the irony.
“Quite. Now, the thing is, George, I’m supposed to be flying off tomorrow for the US to do some blasted filming, and I was hoping we could conclude our business before then. I would actually like to travel with my briefcase,” he said with a fake chortle.
“What about Badem?”
“I’ve told him that I no longer need his help since you are obviously on the case, as it were.”
“And he’ll back off, will he? Him and his minions.”
“He assures me that you will be left alone. I told him last night that he’d taken things too far and from what you’re saying perhaps even further than I realised. Anyway, he agrees that he may have, um, overstepped the mark. I do have a reputation to uphold, after all; I mean I can’t afford these things coming back on me. It would be disastrous. Can you imagine the headline…” he chuckled, “…‘Top Surgeon Hires Thugs to Recover Patient Notes’.”
I laughed with him, as it did all seem rather funny in the light of day. He was being reasonable – maybe too reasonable.
“There will be adequate compensation for you, obviously,” he added. “In light of what happened. As I said, I do feel completely responsible.”
He was very good, I’ll give him that. Convincing. You could see why he was on TV. No mention of Joshua, or passing on the whereabouts of Aurora to Badem. No, it was all a terrible misunderstanding due to hot-tempered people from the Middle East. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to look inside this bloody briefcase of his.
“Great,” I said. “So how do we put this matter to bed?”
21
GALBRAITH AND I DISCUSSED WHERE WE WOULD MEET THAT night. I wasn’t keen on going back to Fulbourn so soon after my run-in with both Badem’s people and the rugby players, who might recognise me, and besides, Aurora didn’t want to go there. We eventually agreed to meet at my office at ten that night, since he had evening surgery.
I rang Sandra back and told her I’d be round later and, now that I had his full name, asked her to look up Iskender Badem, just out of curiosity.
I took the white painted rock from the pub car park off the back seat, brushed out the small cubes of glass and drove over to Densley’s in my beat-up car. He was standing on the forecourt with his staff as I drove in. They stared at the car as I got out, my shoulder twinging with pain as I closed the door.
“Looks like she’s been in a fight,” was all Densley said.
“Not far off.”
He gestured to the sign over his garage. “I’m a mechanic, not a body repair shop, George.”
“I know that,” I lied. I’d assumed he just did all things car related. “I was wondering if you could recommend someone?”
He nodded and looked at the sky. “Looks like rain. We can rig something temporary up for the back window?”
“That would be great.” We went into his office and it was a mess. Filing cabinet forced open, papers scattered everywhere.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Yep, someone broke in last night. Junkies looking for cash, I’m guessing.”
“Have you called the police?”
He snorted, retrieved a business card from the pin board and gave it to me. “What’s the point? Nothing missing anyway. If the buggers knew what they were doing they’d have taken some of the tools. We might know them if they’re local. My son’s coming later to check the CCTV; I don’t know how to do it.”
“The young ’uns can be useful occasionally,” I said.
“That they can, although I hate the way they think they know it all, when they know nothing.”
“Amen to that.”
“Can you leave the car with us for an hour?”
Since I was off Mill Road I walked over to Kamal’s, texting him on the way. He replied, asking me to bring some breakfast. I picked up some croissants and a couple of coffees and soon we were sitting at his small table overlooking the road.
“Late shift last night?”
“Yes, but writing, not work. When the muse grabs you…”
“…she grabs you by the balls,” I said.
He laughed. “Something like that. By the way, I did a little more digging and got a titbit on Mr Galbraith, or at least about his senior registrar.”
I ripped a croissant and dipped it in coffee. “What about him?”
“Her, not him. The talk among nurses is that she’s taking up the slack resulting from his focus on TV an
d starting to feel the load. Might be getting help to focus and stay awake.”
“You mean pharmaceuticals? You know that for sure?”
“No, it’s just speculation.”
“Hopefully it will be over tonight, the case, so it’s probably academic.”
“Not to the patients,” he said. We finished our croissants and I remembered something.
“Have you got yesterday’s Argus?”
“It’s in the recycling bin. Why?”
“Fish it out and I’ll tell you.”
I watched the street while Kamal went into the kitchen. He came back unfolding it.
“You mean your girlfriend’s story on the murdered girl? A little flowery and clichéd, don’t you think?”
“No, not that, although I agree with you about the writing. Something in the paper spooked Galbraith, and there was only one story about Addenbrooke’s.”
He flicked through it, saying, “I thought you were going to be done with the case tonight?”
“Indulge me, I’m curious. It comes with the territory.”
He stopped turning pages and folded the paper to make it manageable. “You mean this story about the director?”
I nodded.
“Yes, it’s a juicy one. What it doesn’t say here is that porn was found on his computer at work. Apparently he was asked to leave without as much as a farewell to his staff. One minute he’s there, the next he’s escorted from the building. I only know about it because Chris, my lodger, works in the department he heads up, or did head up. But why would the story spook Galbraith?”
“I’ve no clue. Maybe they were pals?”
“I could ask Chris later what he knows. If you want.”
“As you say, it’s all a bit academic.”
“Yeah, but it leaves you feeling dissatisfied, right? Like a gnawing in your gut. I know you, George, you’re like a dog with a bone.”
“Now who’s using clichés?”
“Touché.”
* * *
One of Densley’s men had duct-taped some plastic sheeting to the rear windscreen which he said would only hold for a few days. Densley was busy with his son going through CCTV footage so I offered the guy some cash-in-hand for sorting it out but he told me Densley had said it was on the house.
The Runaway Maid Page 10