Peridale Cafe Mystery 20 - Cocktails and Cowardice

by Agatha Frost

  The men jumped into the car, but Castro took his time settling in instead of tearing off down the street like Hillard and Rodger had done.

  “Is that it?” Jessie asked, hands planted on her hips. “We’re meant to sit tight and wait here until they get back?”

  “We should,” Julia said, biting her lip and looking back towards Minnie’s hotel. She rested both hands on the curve of her bump. “But . . . my gran and Percy are still out there, and Rodger and Hillard are about to lead the way.”

  “Well, whatever you’re thinking,” Jessie said, nodding at Castro’s car as he struggled to reverse out of the tight space, “you better do it quickly, or we’ll lose them.”

  20

  DOT

  T he crackling flames of the fire were an orange blur through the thick smoke on the other side of the outbuilding window. Dot attempted to pull herself up as high as she could, desperate to force the window open. The cracked sink wobbled under her weight, and the screws tugged away from the crumbling brick just like the bars in the bedroom’s villa. This time, the disrepair was nothing to celebrate.

  “You wouldn’t fit, dear,” Percy said, quickly adding, “Not that you’re not slim enough, but the window looks tiny from here.”

  “I know.” Dot gave up and cycled around to the door again, rattling the handle for all she was worth. “I simply can’t believe it. After getting so close to freedom, we’re going to be barbecued to death?”

  “Smoked I should think, my love.”

  “Even more pathetic!” Dot threw as much of her weight at the door as she could. “Why couldn’t this have happened twenty years ago? Even ten? But no! I have to be trapped in a tiny building with a fire creeping towards it at eighty-bloody-five.”

  “You’re spritelier than most.”

  “But my bones are still as fragile as wafer biscuits!” she cried, pushing her shoulder into the door. “I can’t give it enough weight.”

  “I do think it opens inwards anyway.”

  “Then why am I wasting my time?” She slapped the door, wanting to start kicking and screaming though she knew a tantrum wouldn’t help anything. “This can’t be it, Percy. Can it?”

  Percy looked thoughtful, his blinks slow and shaky. He patted the bare mattress next to him and opened his arm for Dot. She slid up next to him, close as could be. Her eyes went straight to the bandage on his shin, somewhat in disbelief that the infection that had consumed her every waking thought was no longer even a priority concern.

  “If this is it,” he said, running his fingers up and down her arm, “we had a good run, and we gave our escape a fair shot. Not many our age would have been brave enough to do what we did. We got one over on a teenager. Not bad for two old codgers, don’t you think?”

  She huffed an almost-laugh. “Not bad at all.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. The popping and sizzling of the fire was almost soothing, as if they were sat at home in front of the fireplace. Dorothy could almost imagine her perfect cup of tea in hand and an overflowing plate of biscuits between them.

  “I wish we’d met when we were younger, Dorothy.”

  “Percy, don’t.”

  “I need to get it out, dear,” he said, clinging to her arm. “Meeting you gave me another slice of life, and as much as I wish we’d had longer, we had fun, didn’t we?”

  “We did.”

  “We had a Wizard of Oz themed wedding,” he said, chuckling softly, “and then we burnt to death on our honeymoon after being held hostage for ransom money. They’ll make a film about this one day.”

  “They’ll probably cast us younger. I expect Helen Mirren will play me.”

  “I see myself as Michael Caine.”

  “Michael Caine?” Dot pursed her lips. “I think he’s older than both of us and far too tall. And he has too much hair for that matter. Danny DeVito springs to mind for you.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He was in a film with that Austrian chap,” she said. “And no, not Hitler. The Terminator fella, but not that film, another film. I think they were twins. It’s another one Jessie made me watch.”

  “Twins with the muscular robot chap?”

  “Fraternal twins,” she replied flatly. “Imagine a short, egg-looking man.”

  “Oh.” Percy sighed. “I think I preferred Michael Caine.”

  Grey smoke began curling through the gap at the bottom of the door. Dot decided against calling Percy’s attention to it. She grabbed his hand in hers and clung tightly.

  “Michael Caine it is then,” she said, pushing forward the biggest smile she could. “Because I’ll say this for you, Percival Cropper, you’ve certainly the soul of a Michael Caine. In fact, Michael Caine should be so lucky as to play you!”

  They said no more as the smoke poured in. Hands clasped and fingers woven together, they stared silently ahead, an unspoken promise that they’d meet their end with as much dignity as they could muster hanging in the air between them. Dot wasn’t ready to go, but then, she doubted she ever would be.

  “I love you, Percy.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.

  “I love you too, my Do—”

  A loud bang at the door cut him off. They both cried out and jumped, clinging even more tightly to each other. Bang after bang reverberated through the door, each like a small bomb going off. Finally, the door burst open, its hinges popping out of the frame with the sheer force. It flew across the room, missing the bed by inches.

  A figure stumbled through the smoke.

  “Rafa?” Dot cried, jumping off the bed. “Is that really you?”

  “It is!” He coughed into his elbow as he held out his hand. “Out, now!”

  “Are we dead, Dorothy?”

  “Not quite.” She scooped her arm under Percy’s right side and nodded for Rafa to do the same on the other. “I think you’re going to have to put up with me a little while longer. We’re getting out of here.”

  They dragged Percy through the thick smoke, finally emerging into fresh air on the other side of the clearing. They took him to the dark villa and settled him against the front door. Dot clutched her side and caught her breath, eyes trained on the fire. It had taken over all the trees around the opening to the road, blocking the escape.

  “You were right, Mrs Dorothy,” Rafa said between deep, shuddering inhales. “I was letting Rodger control me. Only I could change this.”

  “That’s his name?” Dot asked, leaning against the wall with one hand. “Rodger? Who’s ever been scared of a Rodger?”

  “You do not know this Rodger.” Rafa straightened, hands on his hips as he continued to wheeze. “He is a man with many faces, and I believed the face he wanted me to see. It is the same face my abuela sees. He makes people feel safe, but he is an evil man. I see this now. I wanted to be like him, to have power, to not be weak, but I never thought people would get hurt. He told me this ransom plot was for show only, but he. . . he tried to kill her.”

  “Kill who?”

  “The hotel lady’s daughter.” He unravelled the bandage around his hand and showed Dot the deep cut in his palm. “He did this. I did not cut my hand on the bread. I refused to kill her when she figured out who he was. I failed his test, so he taught me a lesson.”

  “Lisa?” Dot’s hand drifted to her mouth. “Is she—”

  “Not yet,” he said, his eyes wide and focused, “but he does not like the loose ends.” He blinked and looked at the fire. “We must go.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “No car,” he said. “I ran. I expected Rodger’s men to be here still. I did not think my trick would work.”

  “That was you?”

  Rafa nodded. “I stole Rodger’s phone and told everyone the police had uncovered everything and that they should all run. Every man for himself. And it worked.”

  “They were in such a rush,” Dot said, nodding at the inferno, “they did that.”

  “We must walk.” Rafa ben
t to help Percy. “We cannot wait here. He will figure this out.”

  “We can’t walk.” Dot rushed to grab Percy’s other side. “His leg is bad. He can’t put weight on it.”

  “I’m quite alright, dear,” Percy said in his weakest voice yet. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “An infected flesh wound,” she reminded him, her shoulder caving under his weight. “And as much as I don’t want to admit it, I don’t have the strength to carry you, dear. I’ve been surviving off scraps of stale bread for days.”

  “Right you are.”

  “Use your phone,” Dot ordered as they settled Percy back onto the ground. “Call someone.”

  “You smashed it.”

  “Use the one you stole!”

  “I smashed that one.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because he would use it to track me.” Rafa looked around the clearing. “Someone will see the smoke and call for help.”

  “It’s the middle of the night!” Dot looked up and squinted at the smoke. “It blends into the dark.”

  “Then we get to the road.” Rafa looked down at Percy, scratching the side of his head. “The old man will have to get on my back.”

  “Less with the old, if you please,” Percy grunted, coughing heavily. “I bested a teenager, I’ll have you know.”

  Dot helped get Percy up onto Rafa’s back, but Rafa let him slide back down when bright lights broke through the smoke. Dot steadied Percy against the wall of the villa and squinted as headlights emerged. She prayed for a fire engine but got something more hauntingly familiar, instead: the pickup truck with the cages.

  “I. . .” Rafa said, stepping in front of Dot. “I am sorry. I tried.”

  “I know you did.” She clenched his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

  The truck skidded to a halt, and Rodger jumped out, a gun already in his hand. Rather than the dark outfit with a cap he’d worn the night he’d picked up Dot and Percy during their great escape, he wore a beige linen suit and a pair of round silver spectacles. Subtle changes, but a quite a transformation. Remembering what Rafa had said about Rodger being a man with many faces, she wondered which version was the costume.

  “Nobody move an inch!” he cried, firing two warning shots into the air as he walked towards them. “Oh, Rafa. I gave you a second chance after you let them escape, and this is how you repay me? You steal my phone, scatter my men, release my hostages, and set fire to my villa?”

  Dot cleared her throat and said, “Technically, your men set fire to your villa in their rush to—”

  He fired another warning shot.

  Rafa spread his arms out, but Dot didn’t shrink behind him. She held her ground, keeping her eyes trained on the man who had masterminded the mess they were in. She’d imagined someone tall and handsome with an air of authority, but he was nothing of the sort. Rodger was as short as Percy, skinny as a rake, and perhaps only a decade their junior. And yet, Dot found herself scared of him – or scared of the crazed look in his beady little eyes and the pricked-up corners of his mouth, at least. Was he excited?

  “You couldn’t just play along, could you?” He sighed and pointed the gun directly at Dot over Rafa’s shoulder. “If you’d just sat and watched television, you’d have got out of this alive. The plan worked better than a break-in ever could! When Minnie signed over the hotel, she was going to get her money, she’d give one hundred thousand of it back to me for the convenience, and I’d continue my plan to own Savega.”

  “But why?” Dot stared down the barrel of the gun, the threat of being shot barely an inconvenience after the week she’d had. “What’s the point?”

  “The point?” Rodger laughed. “Power. Control. Why else?”

  She frowned. “And why do you want power so badly?”

  “Who doesn’t want the power I have?” he cried, shaking the gun. “I was raised in the East End of London – and not the East End of today where nobody can afford to live. It was the East End where you could never make enough to escape. You had to claw your way out with your fingernails. In my family, the criminal life wasn’t a choice, it was an expectation. We were good old-fashioned East End gangsters. There’s a reason they didn’t survive into the new century. I watched my brothers, my father, my uncles all go to court and beg for their lives, and then get sent to prison anyway. I had to do things differently. I had to speak differently. Dress differently. Operate from the shadows. I had to survive. Every test in my life has led to this moment, to being truly in control. Only a few more businesses stand in the way of my total domination, but they’ll fall. Everyone has a price. Everyone has something they’re not willing to lose.”

  His posh accent had slipped completely.

  “Frankly, my dear,” Dot said, “I don’t know how you can be bothered at your age.”

  Rodger fired two more warning shots, this time at the ground. Dot jumped backwards as the noise rang in her ears and the bullets burst the dry ground open. She looked back at Percy. He was struggling to keep his eyes open. Ignoring the gun, she went to Percy’s side and held him tight. When she glanced up to see what Rodger was doing, her gaze drifted to Rafa, instead. Very, very slowly, he was moving his arm behind his back and under his leather jacket.

  The gun shimmered in the light of the fires. The revolver was identical to the empty one she’d tried to fire at Rodger. She recalled the empty chambers of the cylinder. Enough room for six bullets. She looked at Rodger’s gun, and even through the smoke, creeping ever closer to them as the breeze shifted, she could tell they were the same.

  How many warning shots had he fired?

  Two.

  Then one.

  Then another two.

  Rafa pulled out the gun and pointed it at Rodger.

  “Touché,” Rodger said, tipping his head at Rafa. “Maybe I taught you well, after all? But you’re weak, Rafa. You’re too scared to carry a loaded gun. That much we have already established.”

  “Do you think I would make the same mistake twice?” Rafa steadied the gun and parted his feet in a shooting stance.

  The final shot left Rodger’s barrel without a moment’s hesitation. Rafa dropped as though he’d anticipated it. The bullet shot through the large sitting room window in the villa, shattering the glass – and then the mirror Dot had moved above the television, too, by the sounds of it.

  “He doesn’t have any bullets left!” Dot cried.

  Instead of shooting his step-grandfather, Rafa jumped up and punched him squarely in the middle of the face. The old man stumbled back, dropping his gun and keys to clutch at the nose now gushing blood down the front of his suit. He stumbled into the smoke, tumbling back against the bonnet of his car. Steadying himself, his eyes darted down to the fallen keys. They both went for them, but the nimbleness of youth won. Rafa scooped them up and tossed them overhand into the fire.

  Rodger staggered back again. His gaze lingered on his step-grandson. Dot could see the disappointment all over his face, but she felt nothing but pride. Rodger turned and fled into the smoke, his hands still clutching his bleeding nose.

  Rafa exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath the whole time. He dropped both guns and fell to his knees.

  Distant sirens began to sing in Dot’s ears. She let out a laugh and looked up at the sky. Fire engine, ambulance, or police, she couldn’t tell, but all were more than welcome. She picked up Rafa’s gun and popped open the cylinder. Just like in the truck, the gun held no bullets.

  “You could learn a thing or two about a poker face from that boy,” Dot whispered to Percy as she gave his earlobe a little tug. “We’ll have you in a hospital before you know it.”

  She turned and stared at the blaze. One of the trees buckled under the heat of the flames and snapped halfway up. It landed on the roof of the outbuilding. The wood under the terracotta tiles caught fire in seconds.

  “Let’s get to the road,” Dot urged Rafa softly as she helped him up out of the shallow smoke. “We’ve
had quite enough near-death experiences in this clearing, thank you very much.”

  21

  JULIA

  T he old car trundled up the hill, every bump and pothole shuddering through a frame that had long since lost its suspension. The dim headlights still reflected off of Castro’s unmarked police car. If they had any idea who was following them, they were too rushed to stop and insist they go back. Julia imagined her phone vibrating all over the bedside table at the hotel the second Barker spotted them.

  Through the rear-view mirror, she watched as Minnie was tossed from side to side in the backseat. Just as Julia was about to tell her great-aunt to put her seatbelt on, she remembered there hadn’t been any when Lisa picked them up from the airport. Somehow, Minnie didn’t spill a drop from the bottle of sangria clutched in her fist.

  “You have to wiggle the gearstick, Jessie!” she cried, using the headrest to pull herself forward. “To the left. Go on, ram it!”

  “I’m trying,” Jessie grumbled through gritted teeth, attempting to shift the car down a gear as the road steepened. “The stupid thing won’t budge! I can see why they don’t make cars like this anymore.”

  Minnie reached forward and hauled the gearstick to the left and down into the second gear. The car bolted forward before Jessie eased off the acceleration. A pothole sent Minnie bouncing right back into her seat.

  “Why did she have to come?” Jessie whispered to Julia as they used the rear-view mirror to watch her chug sangria.

  “She insisted.”

  “Haven’t you had enough?” Jessie called into the backseat. “You’re gonna throw up.”

  “It’s to settle my nerves, sweet child.” She rubbed the spillage from her chin, but it left a faint stain. “I still can’t believe it! My dear neighbour, Rodger, The Buyer? Under my nose this whole time! Lies upon lies once again. I stupidly thought Rodger might be the one to replace my dear departed Bill, but he was playing me like a fiddle!”