by Rob Johnson
‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you understand fucking English?’
The expression on the waiter’s face was a cross between indignation and bewilderment as he put the food back on the trolley and pulled himself upright. He showed no sign of leaving, however, and it was clear to Trevor that he was expecting a tip. Harry either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He merely reached over to the trolley and picked up the nearest of the three pints of lager. He held the glass up to the light and was about to take a drink when he stopped and squinted up at the young waiter. ‘You still ‘ere?’
The waiter opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, he turned abruptly and walked towards the still open door. As soon as he began to move, Trevor jumped to his feet and hurried to intercept him before he left the room.
‘Just a minute,’ he said and pulled out his wallet.
The waiter accepted the five pound note that Trevor held out to him with a broad grin and a slight bow of the head. ‘Thank you, sir. Most kind.’ He thrust the money into his jacket pocket and was about to continue on his way when Trevor laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
‘Hang on a sec and I’ll come with you. I need to get going myself.’ He flashed an unconvincing smile at Delia, who had not moved since he’d let the waiter into the room, and then at Harry. ‘Sorry I can’t stop for lunch. Maybe some other time.’
Trevor was surprised at how confident and natural he thought he sounded, whilst he was all too aware of the Japanese drumming troupe striking up inside his chest once again. The rhythm intensified as he saw the crimson flood into Harry’s cheeks and his eyes narrow to the merest of slits. But the pounding reached a crescendo when he noticed a hand ease itself under the room service menu on the desk.
‘Surely you don’t have to rush off quite so soon?’ Harry said through lips so tightly drawn they were almost invisible.
‘Places to go. People to kill— I mean, see,’ said Trevor, his concrete smile already beginning to crumble. ‘You know how it is, Harry mate.’
‘Oh I do indeed. I do indeed.’
The sight of movement under the menu convinced Trevor it was well past time for him to make his exit, and with a hollow sounding ‘See you then, guys. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ over his shoulder, he strode out of the room with the waiter immediately behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
From the moment they’d left the hotel room, Sandra had considered every possible means of escape that presented itself but dismissed each one almost as soon as it occurred to her. MacFarland and his gun were always just too close behind her, and now and then she even felt the hard point of the muzzle in the small of her back. At first, she had thought her best opportunity would be in the hotel foyer or the street outside, where there should be enough people around to deter the guy from actually pulling the trigger. But she wasn’t at all sure this would be the case. His undisguised lust for revenge might well be acute enough to blind him to the presence of witnesses, however many there might be. Come to think of it, he was very probably the type who wouldn’t much care if the odd bystander stopped a bullet or two in the process. She couldn’t even rely on his sense of logic telling him he had to keep her alive at least until she’d shown him where her car was parked.
As it turned out, the hotel foyer was almost deserted, and the Sunday lunchtime street was only sparsely populated with pedestrians. For want of any better ideas, Sandra made a vague attempt at playing for time. When they reached the pavement at the bottom of the hotel steps, she stopped and looked back and forth along the road.
‘Now where the hell did I leave it?’ she said, scratching her head for good measure and with almost as much exaggerated theatricality as a Stan Laurel impersonator.
She was enjoying winding the guy up but wondered if this might not be her best strategy when she felt the heat of his breath in her ear and caught a whiff of stale beer as he said, ‘Listen, hen, I’m nae even gonna count tae three.’
‘Maths not your strong point, eh?’ The beginnings of a smile were short lived as the gun barrel caught her somewhere in the region of her right kidney.
The flash of pain persuaded her there was little to be gained from the smartarse approach, and she was about to set off down the pavement when an elderly man with a thin grey moustache and a checked cap stopped in front of her and said, ‘You’re looking a bit lost, love. Can I help at all?’
The smile reappeared and now spread unhindered across her face. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m actually trying to get to er… the er… bus station.’
‘Happens I’m going that way meself,’ said the man, beaming back at her. ‘Come on and I’ll show you the way.’
As he began to turn, Sandra felt a firm hand on her shoulder.
‘Ye know, darlin’,’ said MacFarland. ‘I think I must have left ma wallet back in the hotel.’
Sandra was momentarily struck by how much venom someone could inject into the word “darling”. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Well never mind, darling. Perhaps you could catch us up.’
She felt the fingertips dig into the flesh of her shoulder and thought she heard the faint click of the gun’s safety catch.
‘I dinnae think so, pet.’
The man in the cap looked mildly puzzled but gave them directions to the bus station and then went on his way with a cheery wave.
This time, the gun barrel scored a direct hit on her kidney, and Sandra bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. Again, she smelt the warm, beery breath as MacFarland lowered his mouth to her ear and said, ‘Ye tired o’ living or wha’?’
Another violent prod in the back gave her sufficient motivation to start walking, but after thirty or so, she spotted a boy of about eleven or twelve running towards them with a skateboard under his arm. She offered up a silent prayer that his plastic helmet and the protective pads on his elbows and knees would prevent him coming to any real harm from what she was about to do, and when he drew level with them, she edged her foot to the side and made the lightest of contacts with his right ankle. The kid staggered and dropped his skateboard, his arms flailing through the air as he fought an instinctive and desperate battle against the forces of gravity. But the speed of his momentum and Sandra’s accuracy meant that there could only be one winner, and he sprawled onto the pavement in an awkward tangle of limbs.
MacFarland had no time to react before Sandra threw herself down on her knees next to the boy’s contorted body.
‘You okay, kid?’ she said, carefully turning him onto his side and then onto his back. She examined him for any sign of blood or serious damage and was relieved that there didn’t seem to be anything obvious. The vacancy of his stare was worrying though, and she tried to remember her First Aid lessons and what you were supposed to do to treat concussion.
Just then, however, the boy’s eyelids flickered, and it was as if a light had been switched back on inside his head. Sandra noticed the tears that were beginning to form and felt a wave of guilt.
‘You hurt anywhere?’ she said.
He blinked again. ‘Don’t think so.’ He groaned as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position, and Sandra told him to stay where he was for a few more minutes till he got his breath back.
She looked up at MacFarland and tried to ignore the intensity of the rage that glared back at her. ‘Here, give me that,’ she said and reached out towards the jacket which was still draped over his arm.
‘Bloody comedian now, are we?’
‘I need it to support his head.’
‘Aye, right,’ he said with a snort of derision.
A small group of people had begun to gather by now, and a smartly dressed woman with a poodle rounded on him with a look of disbelief. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Give her the jacket.’
She too stretched out a hand towards it, and MacFarland took a step back. ‘Listen, hen, why don’t ye just piss off and mind yir own bloody business? Okay?’
He seemed faintly amused by the woman
’s open mouthed look of horror and then gestured to Sandra with his covered gun hand. ‘Right, ye. That’s enough o’ the Florence Nightingales.’
She realised she had no choice but to follow him, although first she needed to accomplish the main purpose of her plan. Another woman among the group of spectators handed her a thick woollen cardigan, and she rolled it into an elongated ball and eased it underneath the boy’s head. As she leaned over him, she kept her back to MacFarland and made sure he couldn’t see her face or hear the words she whispered into the lad’s ear. ‘I’m in big trouble. As soon as I’ve gone, get someone to call the police.’
The blankness of the boy’s expression made her doubt that he’d understood her or grasped what she wanted him to do, but she got to her feet, MacFarland’s pistol jabbing her repeatedly in the lower back as she walked away. ‘One more wee trick like that and yir gone. Ye get me?’ he said. ‘Oh and dinnae think I give a shite if some other poor bastard gets taken out in the process, ‘cos I don’t.’
So she’d been right about his total lack of scruples, and she knew she was wasting her breath when she reminded him that this was a public street and it was broad daylight so the likelihood of him getting away with it was pretty slim. – She’d contemplated using the phrase “scot free” but had decided against it.
She heard the now familiar snort of laughter and then: ‘Aye, but that’s the beauty of it though. Public place? Broad daylight? Nobody’s expecting a shootin’. They’ll just think it’s a car backfirin’, and whoever sees ye drop will just think ye fainted or somethin’. By the time someone actually notices the blood, I’ll be well on ma way.’
Sandra had to admit to herself that he might well be right, so she decided not to give him any more reasons to carry out his threat – for now at least – and they walked on in silence until they arrived at her car.
‘This is it,’ she said, regretting that she hadn’t had the foresight to have stashed a spare gun or even a can of mace in the glove compartment.
Inside the car, Milly had seriously overheated and was panting heavily even though they had left all of the windows slightly open. As soon as she spotted Sandra though, she began to perform the canine equivalent of a triple Salchow with double backflip.
‘What ye daein’?’ MacFarland said when Sandra’s hand moved towards her jacket pocket.
‘Key?’ she said. ‘I need it to get into the car? – Anyway, you frisked me back at the hotel if you remember.’
‘Okay, get on wi’ it.’ He watched closely as Sandra reached inside her pocket.
Her fingertips grazed the leather fob of the car key before she withdrew her hand, and she made sure he could see her empty palm. She tried the other pockets in her jacket and then in her trousers, feigning an increase in frustration after each unsuccessful search.
‘Oops,’ she said when there were no more pockets to explore. ‘Seems I must have left it back at the hotel.’
‘Yir kiddin’ me, right?’
Sandra noticed a slight movement of his gun hand under the jacket and stretched her arms out to the side. ‘You can always frisk me again if you don’t believe me.’
MacFarland’s eyes darted up and down the street. ‘Put yir bloody arms doon, will ye?’
She did as she was told, the irony not lost on her that he seemed reluctant to be seen feeling her up in public even though he clearly had few qualms about shooting her dead on the spot. It also occurred to her that now he knew where the car was, he had no further need to keep her alive. She knew it was a gamble, but if the key ploy worked, she thought that even he would probably opt for the relative privacy of the hotel room before he blew her brains out. If that was the case, she’d be safe for a little while longer at least, and during that time a better means of escape might actually present itself.
He seemed to be hesitating about what to do for the best, so Sandra gave him a gentle verbal prod. ‘Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it was in my bag.’
MacFarland continued to dither, probably playing some version of Kim’s Game where he was trying to remember whether he’d seen the key amongst the heap of her belongings on the bed.
‘Phone a friend?’ said Sandra, feeling now that whatever revenge he intended to exact couldn’t get any worse, so she may as well derive the maximum pleasure from winding him up.
Her remark seemed to jolt him into making up his mind. ‘Just shut yir damn hole and get moving,’ he said, and she felt the jab of the pistol, this time in the region of her left kidney.
When they approached the spot where she had tripped the young lad with the skateboard, Sandra was glad to see that both he and the small crowd had disappeared. She had neither heard nor seen any sign of an ambulance, so she assumed that any injury the boy had sustained must have been slight. On the other hand, there was still no wailing police siren either or even so much as a beat copper to indicate the kid had done as she had asked.
* * *
Trevor was beginning to think the lift door was never going to close when a dull click and a soft whirring sound reassured him that he was mistaken. It couldn’t have happened a moment too soon because the guy they called Delia was almost on them. That was strange though, Trevor thought. Delia had only been a few yards behind them when he and the waiter had left the hotel room. It would have taken very little extra effort to have caught up with them even before they’d reached the lift, never mind got into it, hit the button and waited for the door to close. It was almost as if the guy had deliberately dragged his heels.
‘Your friends no nice people, eh?’
Trevor turned to the waiter at his side and was struck by the sadness which seemed to be indelibly etched into his black-brown eyes. ‘You could say that,’ he said. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t describe them as friends. In fact, they’re very bad people indeed.’
‘Heh. Tell me about it. That fat son of a beach who treat me like piece of shit? I like to kick his goddamn arse.’ He feigned spitting on the floor and added, ‘Putka!’
‘Putka?’
‘It mean lady’s baby tunnel in Bulgarian,’ the waiter said with evident delight.
‘Ah, I see,’ said Trevor.
‘Very useful word if ever you come in my country.’
Judging by the waiter’s earnest expression, Trevor realised the remark was merely a linguistic slip of the tongue rather than a deliberate double entendre. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said.
Seconds later, a robotic female voice with an American accent announced that they had arrived at ‘Ground floor and reception’, and the lift door slid open. Trevor paused only to thank the young waiter and then hurried off across the thinly populated foyer. He glanced around him as he went, and particularly towards the foot of the main stairs, in case Delia had discovered a sudden burst of energy and raced into the reception area ahead of him. Apparently, he hadn’t. He was nowhere to be seen.
The Japanese drummers were still pounding away inside Trevor’s chest, but the rhythm was more mellow now, the beat less strident than before. He was within five or six yards of the exit, and only a short distance beyond lay his escape from the sheer hell of the last couple of days, not to mention the prospect of his first proper food since lunchtime on Friday. Oh yes, as soon as he was through the door, all he had to do was—
At that precise moment, whoever was conducting his internal percussionists must have suddenly decided to up the tempo and simultaneously bring in the gong and cymbal players too. Sandra was on the other side of the revolving glass door, and MacFarland was right behind her.
Trevor’s instincts screamed at him to leave the fighting to someone else and stick with the fleeing option, but he had no time to act. Sandra was already through and was bracing her back against the door, trapping MacFarland in the next compartment.
‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Get me one of those.’
He followed her nod to the half dozen umbrellas in a tall metal bin beside the door. He grabbed one and held it out to her.
&nb
sp; ‘Shove it in the gap.’
Again, Trevor followed the direction of her eyes and saw that the crack between the edge of the revolving door and the outer casing was widening. He bent low and put his shoulder to the glass. The addition of even his minimal strength slowly reduced the opening, and the moment it became little more than a narrow slit, he rammed the umbrella in.
He stood upright, and Sandra stepped away from the door, both looking to see if the plan had worked. MacFarland was heaving alternate shoulders at the glass with such force that the entire structure seemed to shudder on its mountings. Trevor couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, but he didn’t have to be a lip reader to get the gist. The venomous glare of unbridled malevolence was a bit of a giveaway.
The umbrella was already working its way loose.
‘Time we weren’t here, I think,’ said Sandra.
She blew an exaggerated kiss at MacFarland, but neither she nor Trevor waited to see if he responded in kind. They headed out of the more traditional door to the side of the revolving one and clattered down the steps to the pavement.
As they ran, Trevor glanced repeatedly over his shoulder and prayed for all he was worth that MacFarland was in as bad a condition as he looked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MacFarland slumped down on a wooden bench which was almost opposite the hotel and tried to decide what the hell to do next. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, and he massaged his throbbing right foot. All that running and the bastards had still got away. He’d been within five yards of the Peugeot when he’d heard the engine burst into life and then the shriek of tyres as they’d fought for traction on the tarmac. He’d been inches from grabbing the door handle on the passenger side when the car leapt away from him, a rear wheel jolting over his foot in the process.
He hadn’t even noticed the pain to begin with. He’d been too busy aiming his gun. But when he’d caught sight of the dog jumping about on the back seat, he’d lowered the weapon to his side. It wasn’t that he was getting soft or anything, he’d kept telling himself as he’d hobbled back up the street towards the hotel, shafts of pain blazing up his leg with every other step. Shit no. He wouldn’t have hesitated if he’d had a clear shot at either of the two people who had caused him so much grief, so why should he give a damn about some mongrel mutt? No, the thing was, he’d known he’d probably only have time to fire once, and what was the point of wasting a bullet on the dog? That wasn’t going to stop them, was it?