“King’s flat was torched. Might have been the girls celebrating King being out of their life, might have been pimps from rival patches. Whoever King fought with that night did something a lot of people had only dreamt about. He was only one man, but by all accounts he was a mad bastard with connections that he could call on if he had trouble.”
Martin listened as Richard explained that it had long been expected that King had paid thugs to rough up the girls in the area, kind of a racket so that they would welcome his protection and pay the necessary price. Some of the same thugs were sent by King when the girls played him up.
With King out of the way the girls had found they could earn more and work less without King’s increasing protection money and threats of violence if they failed to pay up. However, King’s protection had also gone and several girls near the area had gone missing, suspected to have been swiped by an Eastern European sex gang who kept their girls as prisoners in underground brothels pocketing all the money for themselves. The girls no more than slaves. Richard had learned from a transvestite lad who sometimes worked Arven that other pimps were reputed to be fighting over the territory and the girls were being drawn into the ensuing fights. Richard’s source had warned that the European gang were planning on taking King’s best girls in a swoop that night. Ivory would be at the top of the list.
Martin had agreed that they should warn Ivory, but doubted there was any urgency as he had paid her for three hours of her time that day and thought that would have made her all the money she would need that day, especially now that King would not be taking a cut of it. Despite this rationalisation Martin had dressed his wounded leg and driven here, picking Richard up on the way. He had to be sure of Ivory’s safety. Martin had suggested driving to her house to warn her, but Richard had insisted they drive to Arven as any wasted time was time where Ivory could be vulnerable if she was on the street. They had waited for an hour, and they had agreed that if she didn’t arrive soon then Richard would wait for her at Arven and Martin would drive around to her home, just to ensure that they found her.
“You know, some people think Ivory killed King?”
Martin couldn’t look at Richard. “I doubt that!”
“Who knows, under the right circumstances we are all capable of things we would never ordinarily consider.”
Martin certainly had been.
A blue Ford Transit van crawled down the road and parked in the shadow of the bridge leaving only the rear clearly visible. The doors were battered and scraped and the dirty windows were plastered with carrier bags from within.
“Trouble?”
Richard shrugged and they both watched the van. The engine idled but it didn’t go anywhere. The darkness made it difficult to tell if anyone got out or in through the cab doors.
Ten minutes later a battered red Nissan Bluebird T12 cruised up behind the van. Ivory stepped out of the car straightened her dress and coat down around her legs and pocketed a roll of money into her coat pocket. She offered the driver a warm smile through the window but when she straightened, it withered and her bland blank face returned. She had a face for punters.
Martin turned to Richard and told him that he would go and warn Ivory. He returned his attention to Ivory’s position and the rakish driver of the Nissan leapt out of the car, rounded the front and threw his arms around Ivory. He gripped his hands together at her chest and pinned her arms to her side and shouted something, the rear doors of the Transit were thrown open and a bald barrel of a man jumped down from the back to receive their captive.
“Come on!” Richard growled as he leapt from the car and hit the road running. His large feet clobbering the street.
Martin fumbled with the door and clumsily lurched out after him, but was stopped dead by his seat belt. The momentum of Richard’s rally was lost and he unceremoniously dropped back into his seat side-saddle fashion. He stubbed the button frantically and flailed his way out of the belt and jogged awkwardly after Richard, his injured leg protesting and his heart jack-hammering in his chest as he sped, terrified, into uncertainty.
Richard startled him by suddenly roaring out; “Police – STOP!” as a battle cry. It worked to startle, panic and caution the pair that had Ivory. Without adjusting his speed Richard entangled with the gangly attacker, his momentum carrying the three of them scuffling up against a wall, the attacker and Ivory forced to steady themselves from tumbling over into the garden.
The large man launched himself with surprising speed and hooked a meaty arm round Richard’s neck. Martin could only watch from his distance as Richard’s attacker twisted sharply around and peeled Richard from the lanky man and bent him over into a headlock. Richard recovered his wits quickly and stamped a boot down on the man’s trainer. It had little effect but Richard was not deterred and rained down a series of snappy stamps on the man’s foot. The fat man eventually snatched his foot away and Richard took immediate advantage of his imbalance and lurched forward. The man was immediately overbalanced and forced to loose his grip as he steadied himself against the doorframe of the van. In that split second of weakness Richard tugged himself free and planted three jabs into the man’s face sending him tumbling backwards onto the floor of the van.
Although the tall man still held Ivory from behind, Ivory had leant her body against him and used her legs to push herself into him and pin his lower half against the wall. His struggle against her and to keep his balance afforded her a chance to break from his grip. Martin ran towards them but before he could reach them Ivory retaliated against her attacker. With an unnatural agility she abruptly doubled over, her hair flicking forward, then snapped back as if her waist were a spring-loaded hinge. Her hair whipped the air and the back of her skull destroyed the man’s nose and lips. Clutching the bloody pulp he reeled back, arching over the wall and offering his fleshy groin up to a blow that she delivered with her elbow. He doubled up and tumbled over the wall and out of sight.
Ivory stepped away from the struggle as the image of calmness. Richard froze before her, transfixed by her like a deer caught in headlights. The large man leapt out of the van behind Richard with a length of brutal metal pipe brandished in his thick fingers.
Martin slammed into the van door and carried it closed with his momentum against the man’s knees. A garbled scream echoed from within the van, followed by a loud thud as he crashed down onto his back.
“I think. We should. Get. Out of. Here.” Martin panted, breaking the moment of standoff between Ivory and Richard as she suddenly associated Richard with Martin. “We heard. Something was going. To happen tonight. And that you might. Be in danger,” Martin answered her frown. Richard seemed incapable of speech and was just staring at Ivory. Possibly in shock from the skirmish, but with his unblinking stare at Ivory, Martin was unsure.
The bushes of the garden trembled and a clumsy and noisy clambering from the back of the van signalled that their attackers were stirring. Martin panicked and beckoned for Ivory to follow. She looked unconcerned at first, but then she appeared to recognise that Martin had his car waiting and decided to follow. Richard matched her pace and kept beside her the way he had seen bodyguards do on TV. Ivory accepted the door Martin opened for the back seat, but he left her to shut it behind her as he scrambled back into the driver’s seat to make their getaway. Martin turned the key and the car coughed into life while the man clambered over the garden wall and was joined by the staggering fat man. Martin waggled the gear stick into reverse, turned in his seat so he could see out the rear window and pumped the accelerator. The Focus responded, whining backwards down the road as the two attackers ran to the front of the van. Martin yanked the wheel of his car around as they emerged from Arven, shifted gear and sped into the night, knowing that the van would be in pursuit.
Chapter Fourteen
The rain drummed against the roof, the traction of the tyres on the waterlogged roads hushed, thrashed puddles hissed, and the windscreen wipers whispered and squealed, whispered and squealed back
and forth. Neither Martin or Richard had spoken since their escape with Ivory. They sat in the gloom of the orange and white streetlights that passed overhead and were continually vigilant for any pursuers. The quiet and the dark was a comforting temporal sanctuary where Martin could avoid talking about the plans they didn’t have. His body still protested against the stress of their escape with an uncomfortable heat and urgency in his bowels and a sickly sweat on his body. He was content to put as much distance between them and Ivory’s attackers, even if it meant criss-crossing the city from one outskirt to another.
He gripped the wheel tightly, giving him a firm control over the car should he need to make a sudden diversion and loose anyone suspicious in his rear-view mirror. His eyes flicked from the road to the mirror as a peak in the sound of traffic caught his attention. A car had pulled sharply out of a road about five cars back. He squinted against the scintillant headlights in the glass, desperate to make out the detail of the large boxy vehicle, his stomach fluttered. It was a dark Cortina mark V not the Nissan Bluebird. He realised how hunched he had become and relaxed back into his seat.
He was relieved Richard had been with him back at Arven as his strength and courage to fight had driven Martin into action. Conflict was not something that had ever been part of his life and was not in his nature. Martin knew the limitations of his physique and temperament, although when he had seen Ivory in trouble he had an unsettling sense that he would have done anything to protect her.
Ivory sat in the middle of the back seat, her dark eyes ploughing the road ahead with a fixed stare. Richard had withdrawn into thoughts he was keeping to himself and sat with his head rested against the passenger window. Martin chanced another look at Ivory in the mirror and was startled to catch her all consuming eyes staring back at him.
He focussed on the road then back to Ivory in the mirror. “Are you okay?”
She snapped out a nod. She seemed to decide the gesture needed warming, maybe because of the risk Martin and Richard had taken in rescuing her, and gave her smudge of a smile. It held such innocence despite the life of vice and danger that she led.
Headlights burned a path through the car and blazed out of the rear-view mirror. He squinted against the stinging phantom of the light from his eyes and glanced at his side mirror. A dark transit van had cut into their road right behind them and drew in close to their rear. The brute of a vehicle pulled out into the other line of traffic as soon as it got the opportunity and sped up to level with them. Martin checked his speed. He was doing the speed limit for this area. The van’s cab was level with his door but he couldn’t see into the gloom beyond the window. Martin lifted his foot gingerly off of the accelerator and the van pulled across them. The vehicle was dark dirty and battered but there were no shopping bags at the door’s windows. It wasn’t their attackers. He sighed. He had to relax. They had been driving around the area for forty-minutes now and he had taken enough twists and turns to ensure their safety.
Richard seemed to read his thoughts; “What now?”
Martin glanced at Richard and then back at the road, he shifted his grip on the wheel uncomfortably. “Got any ideas?”
“Take her home?”
There was a strange look in Richard’s face, a hesitant expression looking to test Martin’s response. Martin looked to Ivory who had leant forward in her seat at the suggestion. “You want to go home?” Ivory answered him with a nod. “Then we take her home.” Martin flicked his indicators and steered the vehicle into a turning that would take them in the direction of Islington. Richard rested his head back against the window and his curious look had gone.
Martin and Richard discussed the possibility of there being a trap as a welcoming. They decided that Martin would pull the car into a space at the top of Ivory’s road and keep the engine idling while Richard got out and checked further down the road near Ivory’s home for anything or anyone suspicious.
Richard stared cautiously about him and crossed to the pavement opposite Ivory’s side of the street and stalked off in the direction of her house. He kept close to the walls and casually looked about the gloomy street. The lighting was adequate but the lines of parked cars on each side of the road, and the privets and box bushes in the majority of the gardens obscured the pavement with thick murky shadows. Recognising the rambling bushes that topped the wall of Ivory’s house he stepped into the concealing fall of shadow beneath the dense branches of an ornamental cherry tree and studied the rows of cars nearby.
The transit obviously wasn’t parked and waiting, but the Nissan would be harder to spot from a distance, especially with the spotted light and shadow. There weren’t any visible lights on in Ivory’s house. He couldn’t help but wonder what it looked like inside. Despite the worrying obsession he had had with Ivory he had never had the courage to call at her door as such an action would have committed him in a direction that frightened him.
Richard’s jacket and tee shirt suddenly tightened around him and he was yanked backwards and then pitched forward with force. He stumbled over his own feet and fell. He glimpsed the large box bush that spilled over the wall of a garden in front of him, and he clutched his eyes closed as he tumbled face first into the dense mass of sharply pointed twigs. The bush stabbed and clawed at the bare skin of his face and neck, and mauled his hands as they paddled the bush for something solid to steady himself against.
He was kicked in the back of the knee and his legs buckled under him. The scratching foliage hissed and crackled noisily around him as his weight pushed his head and shoulders further into the bush. His hands found the gritty paving slabs and he quickly backed out of the bush on his hands and knees, the knee that had been struck felt heavy and throbbed sickeningly, but his face and hands burnt with a fiery pain that overwhelmed his aching knee. He emerged from the bush but before he could get his bearings he glimpsed a boot swung in his direction. The kick made contact with his stomach and sent him crashing onto his side and left him winded.
The mouth and chin of the man that attacked him was a messy smudge of dried blood run with fresh tracks. It was the lanky man that had grabbed Ivory. The boot returned to Richard’s prone torso with an impact that sent him scuffing several inches across the pavement. He rolled onto his back, his abdomen painfully bruised, his breaths catching in his chest. Before he could recover, Richard’s head ricocheted off the pavement and his world went black as pain exploded across his face from a jab from the man’s fist. He clutched his face and balled himself up on his side waiting for the next hit.
It didn’t come.
He blinked through the tears that welled in his eyes and squinted through his fingers. The man was standing over him with a mobile phone held to his ear. He snapped something in a tongue Richard didn’t understand and ended the call. Undoubtedly calling for the thug in the van. The man dropped to his haunches over Richard.
“Where is the bitch that did this to my face?”
Richard struggled to orientate himself, unsure if his body would support him in escaping, let alone hitting back. Richard decided to test it. The man fell backwards clutching his face in a howl of agony. Well, his arm worked. It hadn’t been capable of a punch, but a drunken slap against the man’s pulverised nose had been all that was needed. Richard scrambled along the ground, dropping to his knees with each attempt at placing a foot on the ground to support himself. His aching leg was pulled away from him and he found himself sprawled on his front with the man clinging onto his ankle from his own prone position. Richard kicked awkwardly at the man’s head with his other foot, surprisingly it made contact and Richard threw more vigour into his efforts and delivered a rain of kicks until the grip loosened and he was able to break free.
He hobbled down the road, cursing having arranged for Martin to park so far down the street, not daring to falter his pace and look back to see if the man had recovered his pursuit. Richard started at hearing his name called out and looked to the source. Martin had left the parking space and driven down to Richard
. With a wash of relief he hastened over to the purring car that trembled, as if held back on a leash, and slipped through the door that was open and waiting for him. He barely had time to shut it behind him before the car accelerated to escape.
Martin spared a slumped and battered looking Richard a glance to make sure he was settled then returned his attention to the road and a determined escape. He had seen the dark hulking van draw into the street and knew they couldn’t leave Ivory there. The van would now undoubtedly be picking up the lanky thug before giving chase, giving them precious seconds to gain a lead in their escape.
Martin kept driving, his heart in his throat and his arms and legs tense at the wheel and pedals, the transit van haunted his rear-view mirror. He kept to the busier main roads, they didn’t allow for speed but they had late opening shops and he hoped that the presence of other traffic and people would deter the men from making a move. After an hour of this the transit van pulled away seemingly losing interest.
“Now what?” Martin asked.
“I guess we have to take her somewhere else.” The strange expectation had returned to Richard’s face, as if he considered Martin’s question rhetorical. “Yours?” There was a challenging edge to his voice.
“Or yours.” Martin countered with his own challenge.
“No.” Richard snapped in quick reaction. His tone softened as he continued. “Will Jenny mind?”
“Okay. Mine it is then.” Martin stated, then shifted his attention to Ivory. “Are you okay with that? It might be too dangerous to return you home, they could be waiting again. Maybe take you home tomorrow when it is light?” Ivory nodded. Richard asked to be taken home to his flat with an expression of distaste that Martin puzzled at.
Checking they hadn’t been followed they pulled up on Kingsland Road and Martin helped the limping Richard to his door next to the café they had sat and chatted in. Martin followed Richard’s glance up to the illuminated window in his flat.
Ivory Page 12