“You would indeed,” replied Durham, sounding as though his thoughts were elsewhere. “That’s very true and a bit peculiar.”
“Maybe she’s worried,” I chipped in, without conviction. “She might be thinking someone on the force tipped off Hoskins and his mates. Hardly unheard of.”
Durham’s eyes made contact with mine and they said all that needed saying. I decided not to press the point.
“Watts,” said Durham, turning back to his sergeant. “I want some of that lot idling around on the forecourt going door-to-door, the whole length of the street. Let’s find out if anyone saw anything. You never know, she might even have knocked on a door or two, looking for help.”
“Will do, sir.”
“I’ll get someone to take you back to the Churchill, Good,” said Durham, who seemed now to have decided I’d served my purpose, though no doubt my little quip about Hoskins being tipped off hadn’t helped to persuade him I was worth keeping around any longer. Touchy sods, are some of these coppers. “If Miss Rudd should happen to phone you at the hotel, you will make sure to let me know, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Inspector.”
Three minutes later, I was strapped into the back of a patrol car hurtling towards the Churchill at a speed that must have been just below supersonic, wondering why coppers always had to get from place to place as quickly as humanly possible.
Chapter Twelve
Things were a mess, there was no denying that. Not even the most positive of people could make a serious claim that things were looking tickety-boo where Alex Rudd was concerned. Attacked, kidnapped, missing and a body count, so far, of two hard-nosed thugs. A rare old few days it had been for her. And with a little thing like her leaving two solid-looking blokes lying in pools of blood. I wasn’t sure if I should admire her or be scared stiff of her. I certainly didn’t fancy the idea of seriously upsetting her.
I was standing on the end of the pier, looking out to sea, the wind snatching at my clothes and smacking salt spray around my chops, while the sun kept playing peek-a-boo through the gaps in the big white fluffy clouds that were crawling across the sky. Some people might have said it was bracing; perfect weather to get the old brain cells into action. There were probably dozens of people there with me on the pier, enjoying the entertainment on offer, but I hardly noticed what was going on around me. I was too engrossed reflecting on the events of the previous few days and wondering where Alex might be.
I couldn’t help thinking I’d seriously under-estimated her. It was one thing clobbering the first thug over the head with an ashtray in an effort to stop herself from being dragged away and for that blow to accidentally prove fatal. Accidents do happen, after all. But I couldn’t write off Tosh’s death quite so easily. It seemed to me that even if she hadn’t set out to kill him, she must have known there was a chance that’s what she would do when she decided to stick that knife in his neck. Had she just wanted to slow him down enough so she could leg it out the fire exit? Or had she meant to do him some serious harm, kill him even?
It takes some balls doing something like that. It’s not the sort of thing most people can do, not even when they’re under threat. And that knife had been buried a fair old way into Tosh’s neck. She must have given it some serious welly; no pussy-footing around. It had me wondering if she’d learned more from that former boyfriend of hers than she liked to let on.
One thing seemed certain, she was prepared to do whatever it took to stop those blokes from taking her back to London. The problem was, Groves might decide that if she wasn’t going to cooperate then his next option would be to shut her up permanently. I wondered if she’d thought of that herself. Whatever she might think about the risks of going back to the boys in blue, it still looked to me like being her best and, most likely, only option. And she needed to act fast, because it was inevitable that sooner or later Groves’s thugs would catch up with her again and she wasn’t going to be able to get away every time that happened.
I was finally brought back to the here and now by a sodding great big seagull that landed on a railing a few yards away from me and started letting out the most God awful screeching, like some demented monster in a horror movie. I came round with a start and I swear the bloody bird laughed. Scaring unwary tourists was probably its favourite party trick. I gave it the evil eye and hissed at it, but all it did was to screech again, so I gave it up as an unequal contest and started off back to the hotel. At least it was quiet and warm there, even if the thought of being cooped up indoors didn’t exactly appeal to me much. What I really wanted was some news about Alex Rudd and good news at that.
*
You ever had one of those days where so much seems to be going wrong that you start wondering why you even bothered to get out of bed in the morning? Whenever a day like that comes along, you soon start wondering just how bad things can get and often find yourself stunned and bewildered as one crap development is soon followed by another. It hadn’t occurred to me up until then that I was already well into just such a day but events were about to persuade me otherwise.
And what, you might well ask, brought about this change of mind? Well, if you remember, it was only Tosh we had found dead as a dodo at the petrol station. Two other blokes, we were informed, had been seen making a sharp exit in their motor, having discovered their mate was no longer in the land of the living and, what’s more, their woman captive had done a runner. It would seem reasonable to assume the two missing thugs were none other than Hoskins and Turner, my friends from the empty warehouse. I supposed their minds, limited though they appeared to be, would be fully focused on two things. First off, they’d be more than a little bit keen to avoid getting picked up by the cops, since, if they did get collared, they might find themselves struggling to come up with answers to some properly tricky questions. After that, it seemed obvious, they would be desperate to track down Alex and, this time, make sure they got her back to London.
As it turned out, there was one thing missing from that very short list of mine and that was an unexpected and apparently urgent desire to get reacquainted with me. Well, I know I’ve got my charms, but, honestly, who’d have thought Hoskins and Turner would need to cosy up with me again so soon after our previous encounter. Maybe they’d not had enough love and attention when they were in short trousers and had spent their adult lives trying to make up for that. Very sad.
Mind you, when I say, cosy up, I’m probably giving you a slightly misleading impression of things. You see, I’d not even shut the door to my room when I was grabbed by the collar and hurled through the air, taking a nasty tumble over the nearest armchair. Dazed and confused, I’d barely got back up on to my hands and knees when someone kicked me in the guts with what felt like a size eleven jack-boot. I gasped for breath and rolled over on to my side.
When my eyes opened, I found myself looking up into the ugly face of Hoskins.
“I didn’t call for room service,” I spluttered. “You must have the wrong room.”
Hoskins gave a little flick of the head and I felt hands grab hold of me from behind, dragging me up on to my feet as pain raced through my midriff. The room, or maybe it was me, had started wobbling and I had a little trouble getting a proper fix on Hoskins, who seemed to be moving towards me. It did, though, occur to me that at least this time I wasn’t tied up and there was just the two of ’em, not the three like there’s been at the warehouse. Maybe I’d got a chance; not much of one, but something to cling on to.
My arms were yanked back behind me and a knee pushed into the small of my back, making me gasp with the pain. Bloody hell, I thought, why did I put myself through this sort of thing? Seriously, what was wrong with a nice, safe, crap job in an office, or on a milk round? Sometimes it felt like I got more knocked around than Giant Haystacks and the rest of those nutcase professional wrestlers my gran used to like watching on Saturday afternoon TV.
“Suppose you think you’re some sort of comedian,” snar
led Hoskins. “I’ll give you sodding room service.” At which point he planted a heavy, swinging right on the end of my chin.
Christ, it hurt. My whole face felt like it was about to explode and my brain seemed to be vibrating in my skull. I made a pathetic effort at breaking free, but I was already so wobbly on my pegs a five-year-old could probably have kept me under control. But just when I’d started wondering what would be left of me for Angela to clean up, I realised something had changed. Hoskins wasn’t screaming at me any more. Better still, there were no more punches landing on my handsome boat race.
I tried to focus properly, to see what was going on. It took some effort, but gradually things started coming back into view. Standing there in front of me, holding his right hand in the palm of his left, Hoskins had his face screwed up in pain. Being a bit on the concussed side, I didn’t understand at first what he’d done and I just stood there staring like some half-wit.
Turner threw me down on the settee and barked at me to stay there. That was easy enough to do because I doubted I could have got back to my feet and stayed on them for long enough to take a single, solitary step. Instead, I lay there in a crumpled heap, while the room seemed to turn into some sort of funfair ride. Things had gone all blurry and wobbly again. There was noise but it wasn’t anything I could make out; just a jumble of sounds that my befuddled brain couldn’t properly grasp.
After what I supposed must have been a minute or two, I got the urge to sit up, so I did. Don’t ask me how I managed it; I’ve no idea. Blood rushed around inside me, doing its best to adapt to my being more or less upright. It wasn’t an altogether welcome sensation, since it left me feeling sick, but I persisted and tried to focus my eyes on the ground in an effort to regain my senses. The voices of Hoskins and Turner began to draw my attention away from the floor and I turned my head gingerly in their direction.
Although it was still hard for me to concentrate properly, I could see Hoskins standing a short way from me. He was busy wrapping something around his right hand and, as he did so, he filled the air with the kind of colourful language that would have made a vicar’s wife blush. Turner stood nearby, silent, rubbing his chin while he watched his boss. Had Hoskins hurt himself, I wondered.
The room started to wobble again and I had to lean back against the settee while my head cleared. A coffee, that’s what I needed. A nice fresh cup of coffee would have me shipshape in no time. As my wobbly moment past, I made an effort to stand up, thinking I might be able to make a break for the door, but I’d hardly got to my feet when Turner rushed over and shoved me back down.
“Stay put, you twat. We ain’t finished with you yet.”
“Alright,” I mumbled, wondering why I’d been daft enough to try standing up in the first place.
Hoskins re-appeared, alongside his mate. I may have been confused and light-headed, but I could still see Hoskins’s face was red and bloated, his eyes mad. He wasn’t happy, even I could tell that, despite my befuddled state.
“Where is she, you wanker?” screamed Hoskins, shoving his puffed up face right in front of mine.
My aborted attempt at standing up had left me once again light-headed and I struggled for a moment to understand what this angry, ugly man was going on about. I said the only thing I could think of, “Which woman?”
I suppose the words were a bit blurred. They should have been; I was a man running on nothing other than a sense of self-preservation. Even the best of us can only take so many beatings in the space of twenty-four hours. Whatever, the words must have been clear enough for Hoskins to understand, because he wasn’t impressed.
“Alex sodding Rudd, that’s who.” Spit hit my face. “What you done with her? Stuck her in some safe house, have you?”
“Alex.” I had a little think, really not sure who this Alex person was. Did I know an Alex? Maybe. But if I did, I couldn’t remember her. Or was it him? Alex can be him or her. I was confused, though that wasn’t altogether unusual.
“Stop pissing me around, Good. Tell me where she is or Turner here is going to give your ugly mug such a going over any bird who sets eyes on you will run off screaming.”
He straightened up and stepped away from me, taking his ugly, noisy face with him. I felt better for that. I was, though, confused and began to think about sleep; a little shut-eye would do very nicely indeed. Someone shook my arm and I came back to the room with a jolt. As I did so, the name Alex popped back into my head, though I was still none the wiser. But hadn’t someone also mentioned Turner? Maybe it was Alex Turner. Alex, that name rang a bell. Alex…
We can sometimes be happy for small mercies and that applied to me on this occasion. You see, I was already in such a bad state by this time that I didn’t see the next punch coming and, therefore, didn’t have that horrible experience of watching the arm being drawn back, ready to inflict more pain. Instead, the blow hit me before I knew what was happening. Better still, as it turned out, Turner overdid things, hitting me so hard on the side of the face that he knocked me. Off to a land of darkness and tranquillity I went, where it was blissfully free of pain, confusion and worry.
*
“David. David.”
The voice was a woman’s. It seemed to be coming from the mouth of a garden gnome, a chubby-faced little fella with an enormous belly, who was wearing a long pink raincoat and holding a tennis racket in one hand. Why was a garden gnome dressed like that and shouldn’t he be holding a fishing rod or a shovel, not a tennis racket?
“David.”
There it was again, only it was louder this time and closer. The gnome began to disappear, breaking up like a mist when the sun comes out. That was a shame, I said to myself. He was a cheeky little fella. I was still wondering why the gnome was wearing a pink coat as the last of him disappeared, to be replaced by a painfully bright light that had me flinching and turning my head away.
“David.”
Who the hell was that and why wouldn’t they leave me alone? Someone shook me, holding my upper arm tightly. The light tried to break in again and still I resisted.
“David, it’s Angela. Wake up. Come on. It’s time to wake up.”
Angela? My eyes began to inch open, struggling to cope with the glare of the overhead light. Something moved to my left. I tilted my head a little to see what it was, my eyes attempting to regain focus.
“Angela?”
“Yes, you stupid idiot, it’s Angela. Or are you going to tell me, you can’t remember who I am?”
I was lying on my back, Angela leaning over me like some dark-haired angel. Forgetting how I’d got there, I went to sit up, but the pain that flared in my head soon put an end to that.
“Stay there,” my would-be angel commanded. “You may have concussion and we don’t want to risk making things worse.”
“Where am I?”
“In your room. One of the staff found you lying on the floor, unconscious. Can you remember how you got here?”
It took me a moment, but I got there in the end.
“With help.”
My mouth was dry, making it hard to speak, but even before I could shape the words to ask for a drink Angela had produced a glass of water and held it to my lips with one hand while she used the other to gently prop my head up. A couple of sips of cold water can hardly ever have tasted better.
“What do you mean, with help?” she asked.
“Groves’s thugs came back looking for Alex.”
I winced. Getting out even half a dozen words made the pain in my head worse.
“I wondered where the latest bruises had come from.” She dabbed at the side of my face with a damp cloth. “Just so long as people don’t go thinking it’s me that gave you them.”
Humour. Laughing in the face of adversity, or something like that. I was glad someone could find it amusing, though there wasn’t much chance of me joining in. God, my head hurt. So did my face. In fact, the more I got myself together, the more I realised it was my face that hurt the most. Hoskins, the
bastard. My unexpected and unwelcome visit from Hoskins and Turner began to filter back into my brain.
“Is it OK if I lift your head, so I can put this pillow underneath it?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
Angela eased my head off the floor, so she could lay it gently on the soft pillow. It felt so much better. I realised too that she’d laid the quilt from my bed over me. Since it had left me feeling too warm, I made an effort at pulling it down a little and when that turned out to be a little beyond me, Angela reached across and did the job for me.
“I’ve called for an ambulance,” said Angela, before adding, “I don’t suppose you realise you were moaning and talking while you were unconscious? Well, I say talking, it was mostly gibberish, hardly any of which I could make out. Something about a Sue and a Lisa and a...”
“Very funny,” I groaned. “Where’s that water?”
Angela helped me to another mouthful. It felt good, cool and refreshing as it slipped down my throat. The room had come almost fully back into focus and my head, though aching, was starting to throb a little less. My mind began to piece things back together and questions started to form in my head.
“There was no one else here when they found me?” I asked.
“The men who did this to you, you mean?” Angela wiped a dribble of water from my chin with the towel. “No, they’d gone. I suppose they gave up on you once they’d knocked you out. I don’t imagine unconscious people do a lot of talking. I take it they were after information?”
“Alex. They wanted to know where she is. I told them everything I know, which is nothing, but they didn’t seem to believe me.”
“I don’t suppose they would.” She leaned back and looked me up and down. “Is it normal to get beaten up this often when you’re working?”
As Good as Dead Page 15