“Shut it. You’ll do like your mum would say and speak when you’re spoken to,” snarled Hoskins, or whatever his name really was. “Any more unwarranted interruptions from that nasty gob of yours and you get hit again. Got it?”
I nodded as I struggled to get my breath back. Even though it was early days as far as our relationship went, it looked to me as though Turner was going to be the sort of bloke who enjoyed his work, especially the parts that involved inflicting pain. Chances were that Hoskins was just the same, in which case, I couldn’t see much point in annoying them unnecessarily.
Whatever it was they were up to had to have something to do with Alex, but quite what the hell they expected to get out of me was anybody’s guess. I certainly couldn’t see there being much chance of me being able to do anything to help them get their hands on her, not now Durham and his mates had taken charge of things. They were likely to be disappointed if they had ideas about me handing Alex over to them. Unfortunately, they didn’t look like being the sort to take such a disappointment anything other than badly.
“Now then. Mr Groves, who’s a very considerate bloke, by the way, is missing his bird and he wants her back, pronto. Getting all lonely at night, he is. No one to snog his dick. Our job,” went on Hoskins, holding out a hand towards his two mates, “is to retrieve this bitch for him and shift her lardy arse back to London before the sun goes down. And Mr Groves, he don’t take well to being disappointed, so we’re going to make sure he gets what he wants. So, you just be a good boy and answer our questions nice and clearly, then we can do what we need to do and you can sod off home.”
He nodded at Turner. I had just enough time to tense my stomach muscles before the second punch of the day landed. The pain flared inside me so intensely and so fast I thought for a moment I was going to black out. Sadly, I didn’t.
“That wasn’t fair,” I gasped. “You didn’t ask anything.”
Another nod of the head and punch number three landed in the same place as the other two. Bile ran along the inside of my mouth and my head went all wobbly. I’m not the sort who likes to get involved in a bit of the old rough and tumble; not got the build for it, nor the attitude, for that matter. Normally, I like to run away whenever pain looks like it’s heading my way. When it does catch me off guard, it doesn’t take much to put me out of action.
“Now then, you ready to answer some questions, you dickhead?”
Hoskins sounded like he was enjoying the show, every second of it. I made a mental note not to ask him for an encore.
I lifted my head off my chest just far enough to spit in his direction. This time Turner’s rock hard fist made contact with my chin. Pain, barrow loads of it, shot up the side of my face and my brain rattled around inside my skull. One more of those and I’d not be able to answer any of his questions, no matter how insistent he got. Thick, warm liquid dribbled into the bottom of my mouth from a cut I could feel had opened up on my top lip.
I wanted to lift my head again and smile at Hoskins to show him how brave I was and how little effect his mate’s fists were having on me, but when I tried, it felt as if I was attempting to shift a ton of solid concrete and my chin slipped back down on to my chest before I’d managed to move it more than an inch.
“Wakey, wakey, arse ’ole. We ain’t even started with you yet.”
Someone grabbed a handful of my hair from behind and yanked my head up so far I found myself looking at a blurry ceiling, before a torrent of water crashed over me, running into my mouth and eyes. I came back round with a start. Tosh was standing a short way off to my right, with an empty bucket in one hand and a sick grin on his face.
“Now then, let’s start with an easy one, shall we? Any clever answers and Turner’s going to break your nose. A pretty boy like you ought to take care of his looks, otherwise he ain’t going to get himself any more skirt. Is Alex Rudd still in the Churchill, yes or no?”
I was groggy, but I could still think clearly enough to realise they already knew Alex was still in the hotel, because I’d made that clear when I asked Hoskins if he’d come to collect her. They were testing me and there wasn’t anything to be gained from trying to sell them a pup, not yet.
“Yes, she’s still in there,” I spluttered.
“There we go, that’s not so hard after all, is it? What do you reckon, lads?” asked Hoskins, looking in turn at his two mates, both of whom grunted some words in return. “Seems we agree with you on that one, she is still in there. That’s a decent start. Now then, let’s try something a little harder. She got any coppers looking after her?”
This did matter, no doubt about that. One bloke all on his own standing outside the door to her room wasn’t going to be enough to fend off the three of them. I needed to start getting creative, but not so much that it didn’t sound believable. Turner grabbed hold of me and shook me like a doll.
“OK,” I groaned. “There’s two of them, one outside the room, one inside,” I muttered, trying to make out I was more confused and shaken up than I really was. I was hurting, there was no denying that, but the bucket of water had gone a long way towards bringing me back to my senses.
“Two, eh,” repeated Hoskins, rubbing his chin as he looked deep into my eyes. Seemed he was the suspicious type. Probably had a hard time as a kid and found it hard to trust people ever since. “No one outside, in a motor?”
Again, I suspected he was testing me because they must have already worked that one out for themselves. Blokes like Hoskins could always spot a copper from a mile away, no matter how hard they tried to look like they were anything but police.
I went to shake my head, winced enough so they could see it, then squeezed out the one word, “No.”
“Yeah, that’s what we reckon too. You’re doing alright, so far, Dave. Let’s see if you can keep it up. What plans have the law got for her, then? Going to be moving her, are they? Not going to be any too safe in that hotel, I don’t reckon.”
I coughed up a little blood and felt it run slowly down my chin before dripping on to my shirt. My best option this time, I decided, was to play dumb and pretend I didn’t know anything about any plans the coppers had for Alex. That seemed reasonable to me. After all, why would they tell me anything?
“Don’t know,” I muttered. “They haven’t told me.”
For a bit added effect, I dropped my chin back down on to my chest, hoping to look like a man who was too badly beaten to try pulling a fast one. They weren’t impressed. My head was yanked back upright a second time. Much more of that, I thought to myself, and I’d end up losing half the hair on my head.
“You believe him, lads? No, me neither. He needs some more encouragement,” grinned Hoskins.
Turner stepped back round in front of me and threw another heavyweight right-hand cross into the side of my face. This time, I got a quick flash of blood as it flew through the air before everything went properly blurry. One more, that’s all I reckoned it would take. One more like that and I’d really be out for the count, too far gone for a bucket of water to bring me round. If I could just keep myself together long enough to wind them up some more they might make the mistake of overdoing things. Once I was unconscious, I wasn’t going to be answering anyone’s questions.
“You listen ’ere, you little bag of shit, we ain’t idiots. You’re on her payroll and you’re still here, so she’s going to be talking to you, asking you for your advice because that’s what she’s been paying you for. So, let’s ask that one again, what plans they got lined up for her?”
Hoskins was sounding well grumpy now, almost spitting his words out and he’d got much closer to me; close enough for me to smell the stench of cigarettes on his breath. Bloody hell, why did things like this ever happen to me? What had I done to deserve it? I’d babysat the woman for a few days. It was all supposed to be a piece of cake, easy money, earned having a decent time at the seaside. Now this lot had got it into their heads that I was Alex’s most trusted adviser, someone she’d consult on every
important decision she made. What colour shoes to put on. Which pair of knickers to wear. Which bloke to shag. Jesus wept, I was hired labour, not her best and oldest mate.
Someone kicked me in the shin and pain surged up my right leg. I opened my eyes with a start and swore like a trouper.
“Oi, Good. It ain’t the time for daydreaming,” snapped Hoskins. “I’ll ask you one last time, what are they going to do with her?”
“I’m telling you the truth,” I stumbled, making sure my eyes looked so glazed over they’d think I didn’t have it about me to make something up. “I don’t… know.”
Well, Hoskins must have finally lost his temper at that point because Turner hit me again, even harder than before. I lost focus on the room altogether and, after a brief moment when the pain felt so bad it was unbearable, things went dark. Voices lingered on the edge of the darkness, getting quieter and quieter until there was nothing to see or hear. I’d passed out, thank God.
Chapter Ten
There was a dripping sound somewhere in the void. Regular as clockwork, or so it seemed, a single drip would land on a hard surface and the sound would reach out to my ears. I listened to it, fascinated, wondering where it was coming from and what it was. Drip. Silence. Drip. On it went. I could happily have stayed there listening to it for ages. In fact, for a while I didn’t realise I had any choice about it.
Then, a tiny, thin crack opened in the darkness, a bright sliver of light cutting through, burning into my eyes, making me wince. And the effort of wincing, the movement it involved, made my head hurt. Step by painful step, my brain began to function again, bringing me slowly back to consciousness. I wasn’t dead, which meant I didn’t need to worry about finding myself in Heaven or Hell. No, I was still in the land of the living. It was a pain-filled land of the living, but I was there.
I began to prise my eyes open, just a crack at first. Light burned into them, making me shut the lids again almost as soon as I’d opened them. I gave it another go and, bit by bit, I eased them open, to find I was looking at a floor I’d seen before, although only briefly. Gently lifting my throbbing head, I found myself in the same room I’d been dragged into by Hoskins and his mates and I was still tied to the knackered metal-framed chair. Bloody Nora, I hurt, especially my face, which felt as though someone had driven over it with a double-decker bus, several times.
As my eyes adjusted to the light and I got my head back into some sort of working order, I realised I’d been left where I was when I’d passed out. No doubt the thinking had been that I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. I twisted my left arm, so I could get a look at my watch. Three-fourteen. I’d been there about an hour. Not too bad, but it was long enough for my three new playmates to have returned to the Churchill and grabbed Alex, if they had the necessary bottle. Had they believed my story about there being two coppers on duty? I could only hope so.
There wasn’t anything I could do to help if I stayed stuck in that warehouse. I needed to somehow get myself free, but things weren’t looking good on that score. Hands tied, legs tied, head throbbing and bladder full. Christ, I thought, now I was going to wet myself if I didn’t get free pronto.
Once I’d stopped feeling sorry for myself, I took a long, hard look at things and noticed that one of the front legs on the chair was bent about halfway down. It had opportunity written all over it. By shifting my weight from side-to-side I was able to keep pushing at the dodgy chair leg until, after maybe a dozen attempts, I felt it start to buckle. The welcome sound of snapping metal was quickly followed by me taking a tumble to the floor. I had no way to cushion the fall, which was a bit unfortunate because I cracked my bonce on the ground; just about the worst thing I could have done right then, seeing how badly my head already ached.
But I’m a big boy and, ignoring the pain, I managed to work my left leg free of the broken chair. Once I’d done that, I set about the other front chair leg, giving it the same treatment as the first, only it was a whole lot easier now I could move around; well, hop was more like it, but it did the business.
The arms were harder to get free and I had to resort to smashing the rest of the chair against a brick wall in an effort to break it up. It was proper hard work and more than once I thought the bugger wasn’t going to cooperate. My head began to fill with images of me walking back to the Churchill, my arms still strapped to the bigger part of the chair, something I was confident would have people crossing the street to avoid me. Anyway, after a good deal of effort and a couple of rests so I could get my breath back, I eventually knocked the seat away from the metal rods that held the back support, which allowed me to wiggle my arms free.
What a pa lava. And it took me nearly twenty minutes. That was more unwelcome time for Hoskins and his mates to do whatever it was they had in mind. I really did need to get my skates on and find a phone box, so I could warn Durham, assuming I wasn’t already too late.
I emptied my bladder against a wall in the office, then stumbled out of the warehouse, hurting from head to foot, though mostly my head and stomach. The truth was, I felt sick and if there’d been any food in my belly to bring up then I probably would have done just that. The temptation to sit down and have a little rest was a real one, but I pushed on, staggering off the industrial estate and heading in the general direction of the hotel, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for a phone box. Happily, a few minutes later, as I turned on to a road with a smattering of shops, I spotted a pair of the familiar red boxes about a hundred yards further on, outside a fish and chip shop.
Two minutes later, I heard Durham’s dulcet tones asking who was there and, with relief, I told him everything he needed to know, especially the bit about getting a move on and beefing up the protection team looking after Alex. Give the man his dues, not only did he promise to check up on Alex and get a couple of extra blokes over to the hotel, he also arranged for a car to pick me up from the phone box. Thank God. I wasn’t sure I had enough energy left to make it the rest of the way to the hotel under my own steam.
By the time, PC Etherington dropped me off outside the Churchill, Durham’s extra hands had already arrived and Sergeant Wills was waiting for me on the steps, so he could let me know everything was fine; the bad guys hadn’t yet made their latest attempt to snatch Alex and Durham was getting a move on with the arrangements for shifting her to a safe house. Thank Christ for that, I thought. It made the battering I’d taken seem worth it.
I gave Wills the best descriptions I could of Hoskins and his friends and the basics of what had happened, fended off his attempts to take me to the hospital to have a doctor give me the once over, then took myself off upstairs to my room, where I collapsed on the bed and was sparko as soon as my head hit the pillow.
*
I woke up almost two hours later, my head still aching and my stomach tender to the touch, but the sleep had done me some good and it felt as if the pain was starting to ease off. Having laid there listening to the annoying sounds of screeching seagulls for as a long as I could bear, which must have been all of a couple of minutes, I forced myself up on to my feet and out of the bedroom, so I could make myself a cup of tea.
On the floor, just inside the door, was a note. I stretched down gingerly and picked it up. It was from Durham and was short and sweet. They’d picked up Alex and she was on her way to a safe house. She’d have said a fond farewell, but as I didn’t answer when she knocked, she decided to leave me sleeping, which I had to admit I was grateful for. It was a shame to have missed her, but at least she was finally somewhere safe.
I wasn’t so happy at the thought of Hoskins and his heavies still knocking around the place, but that was for Durham to deal with, not me. Mind you, after what they’d done to me at that old warehouse, I hoped Durham was up to the task of picking them up; I’m not the vengeful type, but Hoskins and co were due a little rest and relaxation at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
There was a newspaper on the coffee table. It was yesterday’s, but I didn’t mind. I sat down o
n the settee, cup of tea in hand, turned the paper over and started skimming through the sports pages. There was a lot of cricket coverage, which wasn’t really my thing, but I wasn’t feeling fussy. It wasn’t too challenging to read and gave me something to do that didn’t involve physical effort.
At some point, I put the tea down and swung myself up and round, so I could stretch out along the length of the settee, getting comfy. Inevitably, after a while I started to drift in and out of sleep again, my head beginning to fill with pictures of tropical beaches dotted with beautiful, sun-tanned women wearing nothing but two bits of string for a bikini, while I lay on a lounger with a drink in a tall glass with one of those brightly coloured umbrellas and a stick to stir my cocktail. It was paradise and seemed, for a while, so real, I could actually have been there.
Sadly, as I contemplated engaging one of the bevy of said beauties in stimulating conversation, a phone rang. I tried to ignore it and, instead, to keep myself on the beach, but the bloody thing just kept ringing and ringing. Selfish twat, calling me when I was otherwise engaged. Accepting the inevitable, I gave up on the beach, opened my eyes and eased my legs over the side of the settee, so I could stand up. The walk to the phone took only a few seconds, but I spent every one of them swearing at the git making the call and pleading for them to give up and bugger off. I wanted to get back to that nice, warm beach.
“Hello.” I grumped as I pressed the receiver to an ear.
“Good?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“It’s Durham. There’s been a development. Someone’s snatched Alex Rudd on the way to the safe house.”
Chapter Eleven
As Good as Dead Page 13