Outside Chance

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘We don’t believe you.’ The voice said conversationally. ‘Try again.’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘There’s nothing else to say. It’s the truth.’

  There followed a murmured exchange between his captors, during which Ben waited, his head still spinning from the blows, not daring to hope he’d be believed.

  His pessimism was borne out.

  The third slap was harder and the voice that followed it was plainly losing patience.

  ‘You’re a reporter. If you uncovered a story you wouldn’t run to the pigs, you’d take it to your editor. Now, if you don’t start to co-operate, Mr Copperfield, we’re going to have to get rough. You’ve met little Lenny Salter, I believe. We were talking to him ourselves, just last night. Ain’t it a small world?’

  From behind Ben there came a low chuckle.

  ‘Ain’t it just?’

  Suddenly, strong fingers grasped Ben’s face through the fabric.

  ‘Tell us where the fucking tape is! We ain’t going till we’ve got it, you know, and by the time we’ve taken out both your knees and started on your fingers, you’ll sell your granny to save yourself, so why not be sensible and tell us now, huh? That way we’re happy, the boss is happy, and you get to keep the use of your legs. Sounds like a good deal to me.’

  It was starting to sound like a good deal to Ben, too, but it had also occurred to him that if he told the men where Salter’s tape was, they’d almost certainly take the other tape, too. Once Truman had recognised Jakob’s accent as identical to that of Stefan Varga, it wouldn’t take any great powers of deduction to make the link between his ex-jockey and the Csikós, especially given the content of the recording. From there, surely, his thoughts would run along the same lines as Ben’s had and, whatever crime they might have committed, he couldn’t wish Truman’s kind of trouble on Jakob and his troupe.

  ‘Did Lenny say there was a tape?’ he asked, when he was free to move his jaw again. The words came out slurred and, running his tongue round his mouth, he discovered that on one side his lip was cut and swollen.

  ‘Oh yes. He said there was a tape and he said that you had it. When we got started on him little Lenny sang like a bird.’ The speaker moved close to Ben’s hooded face and said low and menacingly, ‘We ’aven’t got started on you yet.’

  Ben tried to steady his breathing.

  ‘Lenny would have said anything to get you off his back. I don’t know what tape you’re talking about.’

  ‘Then why,’ his tormentor enquired, ‘did Lenny have a cheque with your name on it? What did he sell you, if it wasn’t a story, huh? Tell me that, wise guy.’

  Ben couldn’t think of anything remotely convincing to account for the cheque. The muzziness in his head wasn’t conducive to quick and creative thought.

  ‘You can’t, can you?’

  As he braced himself for another blow to the head, a fist slammed into his stomach instead and the strength went out of his legs, leaving him hanging, gasping, in his captor’s grasp.

  Oh, Fliss, Fliss, what have you done? he thought, but the fault wasn’t really hers – she couldn’t have known.

  As if from a distance he heard one of the voices say, ‘We won’t get shit out of him if you keep doing that.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘All right. Bring him through here.’

  Ben was helpless to prevent himself being half-carried, half-dragged out of his kitchen and across the hall in the direction of his sitting room. The fact that a straightforward battering seemed, for the moment, to have been removed from the agenda might have been comforting had he been able to prevent his mind from wondering what might take its place.

  Depressing thoughts as to the probable condition of his prized new leather suite flitted through his consciousness in the moments before he was dumped unceremoniously on the rug-scattered flagstones of the sitting room floor. For a moment the significance of the rattle and squeak of the wood-burner’s door escaped him.

  ‘Still hot, deep down,’ one of the voices remarked. ‘Wouldn’t take much to get it going again. Be a shame to let Ben get cold, wouldn’t it?’

  A chuckle greeted this observation but, in spite of the horror of the implication, suddenly Ben wasn’t listening. Somewhere outside he’d heard the dull thunk of a car door closing.

  Lisa. Oh, dear God, no!

  If Ben had known terror before, now the level of fear was almost paralysing. She mustn’t walk in on this. The thought of what his two visitors might do to her was unbearable. Of course, there was no question that he would give them the tapes immediately if there was any threat to her, but it was also desperately important that she shouldn’t be exposed to even the hint of a risk because of him. The power of his need to protect her shook him to the core.

  The way he’d fallen had left the rough hood gaping a little at his neck, allowing a sliver of light to find its way in. Wriggling his body downwards, caterpillar-like, he managed to rub the edge of the fabric on the rug beneath him and work it up a few more inches. The sound of hand-operated bellows covered any noise he might have made.

  ‘Now we’ve got him scared. He don’t fancy a hot poker up him,’ one of the men observed coarsely, apparently catching sight of his movement. ‘Or shall we take his eyes out with it? Wouldn’t be much of a reporter if we burned his fucking eyes out. Couldn’t see what was happening and couldn’t see to write it down.’ He laughed out loud.

  Ben didn’t share his amusement: He kept wriggling but, even as the edge of the fabric began to clear his eyeline, one of the men realised what he was doing.

  ‘You idiot! He’s getting the fuckin’ hood off!’

  A rush of footsteps and the rough material was grasped and jerked back into place, wrapped tightly round his nose and mouth so that once again, breathing became an issue. Ben was flooded with furious frustration at the impotence of his position, and kicked out hard with both feet.

  He was swiftly paid back in kind with a foot in the ribs.

  ‘Stop a minute!’ The command came from across the room.

  ‘The bastard kicked me.’

  ‘Just shut up! I heard something.’

  They all paused to listen, Ben included, and heard the unmistakable sound of the front door shutting. Immediately after, soft footsteps moved away from the wood-burner and across towards the door as one of the men went to investigate.

  Almost frantic with fear for Lisa, Ben drew in what breath he could through the fabric with the intention of shouting a warning. What actually made it past the stifling hood was little more than a muffled squeak, and even that was cut short by the firm application of his companion’s hand. He also put a knee between Ben’s shoulder-blades, pulled his head up and back, and hissed, ‘Shut your fucking mouth!’ close to his ear, regardless of the fact that he’d already done it for him.

  Completely helpless and in some considerable discomfort, Ben could do nothing except wait, with a pounding heart, for the inevitable return of the second man with Lisa as a terrified hostage.

  With the hood twisted tightly around his head, Ben’s hearing capacity was severely depleted and, as the seconds ticked by with no apparent developments, the tension was unbearable.

  It seemed his captor was getting a little twitchy too, for after a moment he muttered, ‘Come on, come on … Where are you?’

  The silence stretched on, with both Ben and the man who held him straining their ears for the slightest sound.

  Nothing.

  ‘Spence! Where are you?’ the voice was threaded with a touch of panic now. ‘What’re you doing?’

  No answer. They could have been alone in the house.

  ‘What the fuck …?’

  Abruptly the pressure on Ben’s back eased as his companion seemed to come to a decision. Grasped by his jacket, Ben was hauled to his feet and once more gagged by the hand across his mouth. His arms still securely tied behind him, he was just as helpless as he had been but several degrees more comfortable. He w
as no less mystified than his assailant as to what was going on, but the difference was that he could only view the apparent disappearance of the partner in crime as a good thing. Anything that unsettled either man was fine by Ben. Pushed ahead of his captor, he began to shuffle slowly towards the living room doorway.

  ‘Come on, you bugger, where are you?’ The words were muttered, almost inaudibly, next to Ben’s ear.

  Through the doorway and up the short corridor past the dining room, Ben sensed his position in the house, and with every step the tension mounted.

  If that had been Lisa coming in, then where was she? Had she managed to shut herself in the bathroom and lock the door before the one called Spence had reached her? And if so, why hadn’t they heard something? Or had the sound been that of the door shutting after she’d seen the chaos inside and gone for help? She was a level-headed girl who, he was prepared to bet, would choose a practical course of action. But if that was the case, where was Spence? If he thought she’d gone for help, wouldn’t he have collected his colleague and beaten a retreat, with or without Ben? Surely he wouldn’t just have left without saying anything to his partner. The worst scenario for Ben was that Spence had run after Lisa to stop her from raising the alarm, and that they were now struggling somewhere out there in the dark. She’d once told Ben that she’d done a self-defence course a couple of years ago, but there was no way that anything she’d learned there would have prepared her for the likes of Spence and his heavy-handed pal.

  They moved on cautiously, and Ben judged that they must be approaching the hall and the kitchen doorway when a quiet voice just behind them said, ‘Lookin’ for someone, matey?’ Ben’s captor jumped as if he’d been shot.

  Startled he might have been, but his reactions were impressive; Ben had to give him that, as an instant later he found himself being swung round to cannon into the owner of the voice with enough force to knock most people off their feet.

  The newcomer obviously wasn’t most people. He remained on his feet, catching and steadying Ben when he would have fallen, but even so, the velocity of the impact was enough to stop him in his tracks, and the curse it drew from him was followed shortly by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps. There was an urgent exchange of words, and then the front door banged against the wall as it was flung wide open and Ben’s attacker made his getaway.

  ‘Bugger!’ the voice said succinctly; then, ‘Ben? Are you all right?’ And all at once blessed light and air flooded round his face as the hood was lifted off and thrown aside.

  Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, Ben found himself staring at the stud-fastening collar of a combat jacket and, looking up, identified his rescuer as his landlord, Mike.

  Hard on the heels of this discovery, Ben found the walls tilting crazily and, the next thing he knew, his face was pressed into the canvas jacket-front and his nostrils were filled with the smell of leaf-mould and woodsmoke.

  ‘I was afraid it was Lisa,’ Ben told Mike a few minutes later, sitting on the sofa with half a tumbler of whisky in his hand. His head ached fiercely and there was hardly an inch of his body that wasn’t bruised, but he felt a whole lot better than he had just a short while before.

  Beside Ben was a length of electric flex, presumably ripped from one of the kitchen appliances, with which his wrists had been bound; next to that was the thick, tapestry-effect cushion cover that had done service as the hood. The luxurious leather sofa had been slashed at least once on each of its surfaces, as Ben had feared, and, looking across the shambles that was his living room, he could see that the second one had fared the same. His hi-fi was on the floor by the wall and looked as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. All in all, it was deeply depressing.

  Ben took a sip from the tumbler and winced as the spirit stung his cut lip.

  ‘What made you come in?’ he asked the big Geordie.

  ‘Well, I saw you come back, and then, when I came back past a few minutes later, I saw your shopping was still outside the door and the door was open. It seemed odd, with it being so cold and all, so I came over to see if you’d forgotten and as soon as I looked inside, I saw the mess in your kitchen and guessed you were in trouble.’

  ‘So what did you do with Spence?’

  ‘The guy that came out first? Did you know them, then?’

  ‘No. His pal called him that.’

  ‘Oh, that was a mistake. Yeah, well, I slammed the front door and waited round the corner by the coat stand, and soon enough Matey came padding along, so I clobbered him. He seemed to be out for the count, and your pal was calling for him, so I slipped along to the dining room and waited in the doorway for him to come looking. The rest, as they say, is history. I just wish I’d taken the time to tie Matey up, because he managed to get up in time to leg it when your guy did.’ He looked narrowly at Ben. ‘How’re you feeling now?’

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Hmm. Not good, I must say. They gave you a proper working over, didn’t they? Am I allowed to ask why? I assume this wasn’t burglary, looking at what they’ve done to your hi-fi and stuff.’

  ‘They were looking for something. A tape – or rather, a micro-cassette.’

  ‘Did you have it?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And that’s what this was all about?’ Mike indicated Ben’s face. ‘You wouldn’t tell ’em.’

  He sounded matter-of-fact, non-judgemental, for which Ben was grateful. He wasn’t clear in his own mind whether holding out against Truman’s men had been completely necessary – after all, Salter had already paid the price for talking to him, and if the worst came to the worst he could have warned the Csikós of the threat. He’d thought Salter’s tape might be useful leverage, or, at the very least, a kind of insurance, but had it been worth getting beaten up for? He had a strong suspicion that for the most part his refusal to yield had been down to a mixture of pride and monumental stubbornness – and that really wasn’t worth risking his life for.

  Remembering the final threat, Ben shuddered involuntarily. Would he – or even could he – have kept quiet when his sight depended on it? On balance he thought probably not, but he wasn’t at all sure whether his compliance, at that late stage, would have saved him. Spence and his pal seemed to enjoy their work a little too much.

  ‘So what now? The police?’ Mike asked.

  Ben looked round the room bleakly, thinking of the consequences.

  Sirens. Flashing blue lights. Half a dozen uniforms tramping in and out. Forensics. A statement. Photographs, both of the room and himself. Doctors; maybe hospital; and questions – dozens and dozens of questions for days to come.

  ‘Oh God!’ he groaned. ‘Must I? Do you want me to? I mean, it’s your property.’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘’S all the same to me. They haven’t damaged the building. If you don’t want ’em, don’t call ’em. But d’you think there’s a chance these jokers will come back?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tell you what, there’s a guy I know – a copper – who won’t make a big fuss if I ask him not to. I guess I could call him, but I don’t think I could cope with the other just now.’

  Mike made the phone call, at his own suggestion, and Ben didn’t know what he said to Logan, but the policeman arrived barely a quarter of an hour later, bringing with him a dour, middle-aged man in corduroys and a cardigan, who turned out to be a doctor.

  After tutting over Ben’s physical state and getting the basic facts about the attack with only a hint of ‘I told you so,’ Logan prowled off, presumably to inspect the rest of the damage.

  ‘Certainly picks his times to call in favours,’ the doctor grumbled, putting a leather holdall down on the remains of Ben’s coffee table. ‘I was just settling down with a sherry to wait for my dinner.’

  Grunting in response to Ben’s apology, he took a slim torch out of his bag and switched his attention to his patient, shining a beam of light into his eyes.

  ‘Did you black out at all?’
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  Ben couldn’t shake his head because his jaw was being held firmly between the doctor’s fingers and thumb.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Pain in the head?’

  ‘It aches.’

  ‘Double vision?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How many fingers?’

  ‘Three.’

  The doctor switched the torch off.

  ‘Don’t think you’re concussed. Now let’s look at those cuts.’

  In due course Logan reappeared with a compact digital camera in his hand. In his mid-thirties, lean and fit, with close-cropped fairish hair and blue eyes, he was no more than five-foot ten, but there was something about his quiet confidence that commanded respect. Ben could see that Mike was instantly aware of it.

  The policeman asked no questions until the doctor had completed his examination of Ben and reluctantly admitted that he would probably survive without the benefit of hospital treatment.

  ‘Painkillers and rest; arnica for the bruising, if you want. Can’t see what internal damage they may have done, of course, so any sharp pains, bleeding from nose, ears or anywhere else, and you get yourself checked out properly, all right?’

  Ben nodded obediently and thanked him. As Mike accompanied him to the door, the doctor could be heard saying, ‘Well, I’ll go and find my dinner then, though I expect it’ll be cold by now. Good day to you.’

  Ben glanced at Logan.

  ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘Oh, he’s an old family friend. He’s always moaning but he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s patched me up a time or two, and he’d be mortally offended if I went to anyone else. The thing is, he doesn’t ask questions. Just does his job. He’s a treasure. So …’ he eyed Ben speculatively, ‘Want to tell me what this was all about?’

  ‘I think it may have had to do with my visit to Lenny Salter yesterday,’ Ben said slowly. ‘I don’t have any proof, but I’ve a strong suspicion that my good friend Eddie Truman was behind it. You see, Lenny had quite an interesting story to tell, which I got on tape and persuaded him to put his name to.’