As Good as Dead

by Ben Westerham

  And that was where my brain was at as I stopped outside room seventeen and stared at the little peephole, asking myself one last time if I really wanted to knock on the door. But who was I kidding? Of course I wanted to knock. So I did, loudly. Loud enough to make the corridor echo, which had the added benefit of clearing my head and bringing back a little focus.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was Longmeadow who opened the door. He didn’t recognise me at first, which I suppose is fair enough, given we’d only met the once before and that had been a brief encounter. I smiled large and held out a friendly hand.

  “Hello Andrew. David Good. We met at the cafe the other morning. You were having breakfast with my client, Alex Rudd.”

  There was a pause while his brain was busy making the connection.

  “Ah, that’s right. The detective chap.”

  He shook my hand with, I noticed, some hesitation and I watched a series of different expressions pass across his face in short order. It seemed recognition was followed by concern, which was in turn followed by confusion. Bingo! Without even opening my mouth to ask the question, I already knew Alex was in the room. His problem was, he couldn’t make up his mind if he was supposed to let me know that or not. Good guy or bad guy was the question playing through his head. I decided it was probably best if I made up his mind for him.

  “Good guy,” I stated, with a little flick of the head.

  “What?” He sounded as confused as he already looked.

  “I’m one of the good guys. You look like you’re trying to make up your mind.”

  “Er, I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

  He inched a little to his right, so that he was standing right in the middle of the doorway.

  “You’re wondering whether or not you can tell me what I already know: that Alex is in the room with you. Now, if I was really one of the bad guys, one of two things would already have happened. If I was feeling confident about putting you down, I’d have run straight over you already. On the other hand, I could have turned right around and trotted off to get back-up. Since I’ve done neither of those things and am still waiting here patiently, I’d say it’s a safe bet to assume I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Well, so you say...”

  “It’s alright, Andrew. Let him in.”

  The voice was unmistakeably Alex’s and it came from somewhere towards the back of the room.

  “Shall we?” I asked.

  Longmeadow stepped aside and I strolled in. The room was as plain and modern as the hotel’s owners could make it, the off-white painted walls sporting some more of those framed pictures of lakes and trees I’d seen elsewhere. The smell of coffee and warm food was in the air, though all I could see were a couple of empty cups and the abandoned wrapper from a small packet of biscuits.

  The space in the room was mostly taken up by a double bed, with two small, uncomfortable-looking armchairs at the far end, where a wall-to-wall window looked out on trees and shrubs. To the left of the armchairs was a doorway. The door was partially open, giving me just enough of a view to see that it was the bathroom. If she wasn’t hiding in the huge wardrobe behind my left shoulder, Alex had to be holed up in the bathroom.

  There was the sound of fidgeting behind me, then a feeble cough.

  “What it is you want?” asked Longmeadow, his voice betraying that he was nervous, maybe even worried.

  I turned to face him. It was such a bloody obvious question and, like I’ve already said, one I didn’t properly know the answer to myself, despite the fact I’d asked it half-a-dozen times. But the fact of the matter was, I was there. I decided to go with the most plausible answer I could come up with, mainly because it was, at least in part, true.

  “I want to make sure my client is doing alright,” I answered, in a cheery tone. “She’s had a right hard time of things. More than most would be able to put up with.”

  “That’s true,” he said, eyeing me for a moment, probably wondering if that was all there was to my visit. “Alex is a little shaken, but she’s safe here; for now, at least.”

  “Good man. You’re right to say she’s safe here for now, because, if I can track her down, then so can the bad guys. I know what you’re thinking: they might not be as smart as yours truly. But they’ll still have enough about them to find her.”

  As we spoke, Longmeadow picked at the back of one thumb with the opposite index finger. He looked the sort to get worried if the milkman turned up ten minutes late with his daily pint and it was easy to believe my appearance had taken him to the edge of blubbering wreck territory. I could only hope Alex hadn’t been expecting any more of him than a roof over her head for a day or so. Mind you, it wasn’t altogether a bad thing if he was fast becoming a bag of nerves. They both needed to understand that the current arrangements were safe only in the very short term.

  “So what would you suggest we do next?”

  A good question and one I was glad he’d asked, but I had barely opened my mouth to reply when the door to the bathroom swung wide open and Alex stepped out. She was wearing a big, fluffy pink dressing gown that I was certain she didn’t have at the Churchill. Her hair was damp, glistening in the light. I realised it was the first time I’d seen her without make-up. Some women take a serious turn for the worse when they don’t have their warpaint on but Alex looked just as good without hers on. It made her eyes look softer, for one thing. Mind you, her feet looked terrible, all lumpy and bumpy, not the smooth, clean lines of a top rate model. Oh well, you can’t have it all.

  “Hello David,” she smiled as she checked the belt on the dressing gown was properly tightened. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again after we’d said our goodbyes at the Churchill. I’m not complaining,” she added, almost, it seemed to me, as an afterthought.

  “Well, that’s good to hear. Would hate to think I wasn’t welcome.”

  She patted her face dry with a hand towel, then hung it over the back of the nearest chair.

  “How did you manage to find me so soon? I didn’t think you had many contacts in Brighton.”

  “Sorry to have to tell you it wasn’t exactly difficult. All I did was get hold of a phone book and call one hotel after another, until I found the one where the receptionist didn’t tell me it was a waste of time leaving a message for Andrew Longmeadow.”

  “And that was all?” She sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Aren’t they supposed to treat that sort of information as confidential?” chipped in Longmeadow.

  “There’s no law against it,” I replied. “Anyway, I didn’t ask if you were staying here. All I did was ask if I could leave a message asking you to call me back. Why would they take a message for someone who wasn’t staying here? Simple but effective.”

  Alex seemed to be impressed by my cunning. “That’s so clever, David. And you think those men that are after me will do the same thing?”

  “That or something like it. If they get desperate enough, they can always try handing out bungs.”

  “How long do you think we have?” asked Longmeadow, who had stopped picking at his thumb and was, instead, now scratching an ear.

  “Twenty-four hours tops, I’d say. Stay much longer and every minute will be borrowed time. That door won’t keep them out for more than the time it takes them to hit it with a size nine boot and I bet those windows don’t open all the way, so you won’t be escaping that way.”

  Alex looked at the windows then stepped across and opened one as wide as it would go, which wasn’t far enough for anyone above the age of five to slip through to the outside world.

  “We’d be trapped,” she said, closing the window.

  “Yep and I don’t imagine they’d be too nice to matey boy here. Probably let him know in their usual way that he should keep his nose out of other people’s business.

  A glance was exchanged. Seemed like that was something else that hadn’t occurred to them. Still, to be fair to the two of them, they hadn’t exa
ctly had the luxury of time to come up with a foolproof scheme. Needs must and all that.

  “Well, we’ll have to make our escape sooner rather than later, in that case,” said Alex, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “You got a plan?” I asked.

  “We have, as it happens,” replied Longmeadow, his voice now filled with confidence. I hoped it was justified.

  I looked at Alex.

  “Andrew is going to drive me down to Bude; that’s in Cornwall. He’s rented a caravan on a holiday park for me, in his name, of course. I shall stay there for a few days, while the police get their act together and come up with a sensible offer, then I’ll make my way back to London.”

  “Cornwall? What do you want to go all the way down there for? It will take hours. And a caravan park. You’ll have nothing to do except play bingo, drink cheap lager and watch crap variety acts at the campsite club. Why not give Durham a call and let him send someone over to pick you up? You’ll be a lot safer with the law than shacked up in some draughty, fifty-year-old caravan.”

  Alex hesitated and looked down at those ugly feet of hers, probably wondering, for the umpteenth time, if they were really hers or the result of some terrible mix-up at birth. When she raised her eyes again, she had a serious look on her face.

  “I don’t trust them, David.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The police.”

  “The law. Why not?”

  “How did those thugs know I was going be picked up by the police? And what route we were going to take? I’ve been thinking about that a lot and I just can’t see how they would know that unless someone on the police force had told them. I suppose they pay lots of money for that sort of information, just like they do on the television.”

  I scratched my head. I needed a moment to think. Seriously? A copper taking a backhander. Well, I supposed it happened every once in a while, so maybe she had a point and it had already crossed my mind. But I couldn’t see Durham leaving room for anything like that to happen again, even assuming it had been behind Hoskins snatching her on the way to the safe house. But one thing I was certain about, she was still a lot better off with Durham than she was continuing to hide out on her Jack Jones. I decided to do a bit of a rewind and clarify a few things.

  “What happened, when Hoskins and his mates grabbed you?”

  She looked at me like I’d just called her something unpleasant. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes half-closed. I didn’t think it was that bad a question.

  “Does it matter? I thought you said we need to move quickly.”

  “You do, but if I’m to do the job you’ve paid me for I need to know what happened. It might help me understand what move Hoskins will make next. How much risk he’s prepared to take. That sort of thing.”

  Alex’s face lost its look of irritation.

  “Oh, I see. Well, they blocked our car in on a narrow road. To me it was as though they’d appeared out of nowhere and I don’t think the two policemen escorting me knew what was going on either; not by the look of surprise on their faces. Two men jumped out of the car and ran across to ours. The older one had a gun. When he pointed it at the policeman in the back with me, I told him I didn’t want anyone getting hurt and that I’d go with them.”

  “Just like that? You didn’t try locking yourselves in and calling for back-up?”

  “Of course they called for help, but it was never going to get there fast enough and I really didn’t want anyone getting shot on my behalf, so what else could I do? I suppose I hoped the police would catch up before we’d got very far.”

  Yet again, it looked like Alex had shown more bottle than hard-nosed men twice her size. She certainly had more wotsits than I did.

  “Then what? They stuck you in their motor and floored it, I suppose?”

  “They did, but only after they’d stabbed holes in two of the tyres on the police car. Then we were off. There was a young man driving and the older one, Hoskins, kept telling him to slow down before he crashed into something. It might sound silly,” she added with a smile. “But I think that up until then that car ride was the most scared I’d been over the last few days. His driving was awful.”

  “A stupid question, maybe, but why the visit to the petrol station? Did they forget to fill up before starting out on their little adventure?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. It was me.” She grinned, like a child that’s got away with some properly naughty behaviour. “I kept telling them that if they didn’t let me go the toilet before we left town then I’d mess my knickers and they’d have to put up with the smell all the way to London. Eventually, it worked and we pulled over in that petrol station where, well, you know what happened next, I suppose.”

  Her eyes flickered and her voice trailed off to a whisper.

  “I do. Durham picked me up on the way there, when the call came in.” I wasn’t sure how to ask the next question. However I did it, I knew I needed to know the answer and I had to hear the words come from her own mouth and see the look on her face. I took a breath, then looked her full in the eyes.

  “Was the stabbing planned or a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

  “What?” Her whole body stiffened and the anger that flared in her eyes was something to see. Made me nervous, it did. “You think I carry a knife like that around with me, just in case I need to stab someone?”

  I took a breath. There was movement beside me, but I ignored it. As far as I was concerned, Longmeadow was only there to listen, not to add his pennyworth.

  “He didn’t make it,” I told her flatly.

  “What? Who?” The edge had left her voice as suddenly as it had arrived. She knew what I meant.

  “Bled to death on the floor at the petrol station, while his mates buggered off.”

  Alex closed her eyes and brought a hand up to her mouth. Well, I suppose I had my answer. She might be as hard as nails and, for sure, a tougher nut than I gave her credit for at the outset, but it didn’t look to me like she was anything other than distressed at the pile of bodies she’d been busy stacking up. That made me feel a little better.

  “I didn’t mean to...” she struggled to get the words out. “I saw that fire exit and thought it might be my last chance.”

  “It’s alright, I’m not saying I blame you for doing what you needed to do to get away. I doubt Groves will limit himself to giving you a slap across the back of the hand if he gets hold of you.”

  “I stabbed the knife in then pushed open the door and ran as fast as I could. There was an alleyway and some houses. I don’t really remember much more.”

  “Yeah, we checked out the alleyway and the coppers spoke to the locals, but there was no way of knowing which way you’d gone. You were probably a mile away by then.”

  Alex took a couple of deep breaths and adjusted the collar of the dressing gown.

  “When I eventually stopped and calmed down a bit, I realised I only know two people in Brighton. That’s you and Andrew.” She looked a little sheepish. “I suppose I associated you with the police. I don’t mean I thought you might be the one taking a backhander, just in my mind you and the police sort of went together. Andrew was the only one who had nothing to do with the police, so I phoned him.”

  “And now you’re here.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I suppose you might have finished up in a worse place,” I said, looking around again. “It’s not too shabby.”

  There was silence for a bit as we all contemplated what to say next. Well, at least, that was my excuse.

  “So, what next?” It was Longmeadow who spoke first. Probably thought it was his moment to add a little something to proceedings.

  I looked at him, then back at Alex. “I still reckon you’d be better off going back to Durham. I’d bet my mortgage he’s not bent. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say he’s a decent copper, one you should give another chance. You try to keep out of sight on your own and it’s bound to end in tears.”

  “No.” She
shook her head firmly and, although it was only the one word, it was clearly final. “That’s absolutely the one thing I’m not going to do. No, we’re going down to Bude and I’m going to call Scoular from there. He can sort things out with the police in London and, once that’s happened, I’ll make my way back there. Durham might be a perfectly good policeman, but I don’t believe all his colleagues are as trustworthy.”

  “You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Thought not. You want me to come with you? I know I’m not much use in a fight, but I could at least keep an eye out for you.”

  “That’s a nice offer, David, but no thank you. I don’t want to put you out like that and, no offence, but I’d rather it was just me and Andrew.”

  “Ouch!” I made out I’d just taken an arrow to the heart. “And I thought we were friends.”

  “It’s not that I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done and for the trouble you’ve been to in tracking me down,” she smiled. “I’m even starting to think you might actually be a real private investigator.”

  She laughed, sounding more upbeat than she had since I’d arrived.

  “I’ve not convinced myself of that yet,” I told her. “Well, I suppose I might as well have a jimmy riddle then leave you to pack your stuff and get out of here.” I took half a step towards the bathroom. “But I mean it. You can’t stay here a minute longer than it takes you to get your clothes on and pack your bags. The sooner you clear off, the better.”

  She nodded.

  “I promise we’ll be gone within the hour.”

  As I stood there in the bathroom, doing what came naturally, I could hear talking in the bedroom. I hoped they were agreeing they needed to clear out of town as soon as possible. For me, it would still have been better if Alex changed her mind and agreed to give Durham a call, but I’d let her have a couple of hours head start, then call the Inspector myself. I wasn’t about to tell him where Alex was heading, after all she was still my client, but I could at least let him know she was safe and sound, for now, and had buggered off to distant parts.