by Bateman
‘It’s okay,’ I whispered to Patrick. ‘Just a few minutes . . .’
But he stood up. ‘I need an espresso,’ he said.
I took a panicked gulp of air and said, ‘Have you money?’
He shook his head and moved forward and I jumped up and grabbed his arm and said, ‘None of us have. It’s not free, Patrick – just sit down and you can have as many as you want as soon as—’
He brushed me off and stepped up to the kiosk and said, ‘Double espresso, please.’
The girl was only about eighteen. She smiled and said, ‘You’re up early,’ and turned to prepare the coffee.
‘Patrick, please.’
He shook his head again. ‘Espresso,’ he said.
The girl glanced behind her, and smiled a little more hesitantly. I looked to the doors and to the car park beyond for some sign of Jeff, and then back to our seat and saw that Gabriel was gone and my heart jumped – and then I saw him over at the elevators and I sprinted across and took his arm and turned him round and he didn’t resist as I sat him down again. I turned back to the kiosk and the girl was telling Patrick it would be £2.50. She hadn’t yet handed over the coffee and I knew then that she had been down this road before with patients. Patrick had his hand out and was clicking his fingers and saying, ‘Espresso, espresso, give me the espresso.’
And then there was an alarm sounding, and a door opened behind the reception desk and two security guards came running out and towards the elevators and I knew that JMJ had discovered not just the Patrick poo but that he and I were missing and quite possibly Gabriel too, and that it would only be minutes or seconds before they began a lockdown because a couple of nuts on the loose was one thing but an escaped murderer was something else entirely. There wouldn’t just be hospital security, there would be police, and many of them.
Patrick clapped his hands together, and it cracked across the reception area.
‘Espresso!’ he shouted. ‘Give me the fucking espresso!’
I pulled Gabriel up and dragged him across to Patrick. I got a grip on Patrick’s arm with my free hand and turned him towards me and said, ‘We have to go now. This is our last chance, come on, come on now.’
‘Espresso,’ he said, ‘I need espresso!’
I tugged at him but he would not budge and I looked to the doors and there was Jeff in his mum’s Volkswagen Golf pulling up and then the elevator doors opened and there was JMJ and two security guards and the alarm was still blasting and the girl was pulling down the shutter on the kiosk to protect herself from attack and I tried one more time with Patrick but he just stared at me and I could see in his eyes that it had nothing to do with the espresso but that he was terrified of leaving the hospital and I let him go and he stood there while I dragged Gabriel through the doors and across the car park with the security guards now charging after us and I pulled open the rear door and pushed Gabriel in and hurled myself in after him without even a moment to consider that I had run and tumbled and did action-type things when I was a man well known to have Brittle Bone Disease and collapsible lungs, yet I seemed to have plenty of flexibility and breath, more than enough to yell, ‘Drive! Just drive!’ at Jeff and he took a moment to put the Golf into gear and then indicated that he was pulling out.
He indicated.
Who ever did that in a getaway?
Who ever, ever, ever did that in a getaway?
Jeff did.
And I loved him for it.
34
Jeff got us to the gates at speed, but then, under advisement, proceeded at a leisurely, unremarkable pace along the Queen’s highway. Several police cars passed us almost immediately, lights flashing, sirens sounding on their way in to Purdysburn. I noted that they were not indicating. I told Jeff to keep his eyes on the road and away from the mirror, but he couldn’t help himself.
‘Is that Gab . . .? Is that . . .? Is that . . .?’ And back to the road for a moment before returning to the mirror. ‘That’s – that’s – that’s –’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said.
‘You haven’t been released, you’ve escaped. With him.’
‘That would be correct. Now concentrate on the road.’
‘But you called me in our time of need.’
‘Yes, I did.’
He glowed. He was easily flattered. Jeff was dependable. You could depend on him to do what he was told. You could depend on him not to think things through properly and to only put up the most token resistance. He also did not have a backbone. In Nazi Germany, he would have been one of the many only following orders. He had a quisling mentality allied with cowardliness. I had phoned him mostly because I knew he had access to his mum’s car and that it would not be as obvious or immediately traceable as the Mystery Machine. Also, Alison would have understood immediately that I was making a bid for freedom, and that Gabriel being with me would make her equally liable to be charged with aiding and abetting the escape of a murder suspect. She had already had me committed once. If I had told her of my escape plan she would have informed the authorities, and now that I was out, if I contacted her she would undoubtedly attempt to lure Gabriel into a trap.
Gabriel, meanwhile, had closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep almost instantly. Playing the same tune over and over again for twenty-three hours a day will do that for you.
Jeff glanced back at him again and asked if I’d managed to crack him and I said no.
‘And are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You would say that.’
‘How’re your exams going?’
‘Not well.’
‘Your eye has cleared up nicely.’
He used his cleared-up eye to eye me suspiciously.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘We’re going to the shop, via the wasteland behind Botanic station they use as a car park.’
‘Okay. Why there?’
‘You’ll see. Does your mother still keep that spare container of petrol?’
‘Yes, she does. How do you know about that?’
I shrugged. I watch people at night and sometimes poke around. I had checked out Jeff’s mum’s car several times. She never seemed to lock it. I knew she kept spare petrol in the boot, and a quarter of Mint Imperials in the glove compartment. Once I sucked one of the Mint Imperials down to about half size and left it stuck to the passenger seat. I never knew if she noticed it, or had ever mentioned it to Jeff. It wasn’t the sort of thing I could bring up in casual conversation without it looking suspicious.
I said, ‘We’re a little low, good to have some insurance in case we’re caught short.’
‘We’ve plenty,’ said Jeff, ‘unless we’re making for Rio.’
I rolled down the window and breathed in. The air had a cold bite to it, but it was refreshing after so long sucking in the antiseptic fumes in the hospital. Jeff shook his head. I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘Nothing.’
I looked again at Gabriel. He was snoring lightly. I leaned forward and tapped Jeff on the shoulder.
‘So tell me what you have on Martin Brady?’ I asked quietly.
‘Have? Nothing, beyond a nice series of wedding photos from an old issue of Belfast Confidential. They looked very much in love.’
‘Was he in the SAS?’
‘I don’t know. The SAS don’t seem to publish a yearbook.’
‘Is that sarcasm, Jeff?’
‘No one I spoke to had a bad word to say about him.’
‘And who did you speak to?’
He looked a bit shifty, and admitted that he had only spoken to the guy who had taken the photographs for Belfast Confidential, which had ceased publication two years previously, and a corner shop where Martin Brady occasionally stopped for groceries.
‘It was only yesterday you asked me, and I had revision.’
‘What, then, on Sean O’Dromodery and the shopping centre they’re building?’
‘Likewise.’
‘Revision?’
/>
‘I’m sorry, I have a limited amount of time to devote to this. I’m only human.’
I said, ‘Okay. Don’t worry about it. Your exams are important.’
‘Is that sarcasm?’
‘No. I mean it.’
We stopped at traffic-lights. He used the opportunity to look back at me. ‘What did they do to you in there?’
I laughed. I rolled the window up. The wasteland car park was to our right. Jeff pulled in. He took a ticket at the machine. There were only three other cars. I directed him to park at the far side, well away from them. He switched off the ignition. He turned in his seat and looked back at Gabriel.
‘Okay, wakey-wakey,’ he said and squeezed his knee.
Gabriel’s eyes blazed open and his hand shot up and grabbed Jeff by the throat. Jeff’s hands flapped helplessly as Gabriel tightened his grip. It shocked me so much that it was a few moments before I shook myself into action. I grabbed Gabriel’s wrist with one hand and then tried to peel back his fingers with the other.
‘It’s okay,’ I said as soothingly as I could, ‘it’s okay, it’s okay. Let go, you’re okay, let go!’
But I was making no impression on him, and all the time Jeff was getting bluer and bluer in the face. It is a universally accepted fact that I have no strength, and if it had been left entirely to me to save him, then my occasional assistant would have departed this mortal coil unpublished – but in the end it was Gabriel himself who loosened his grip; some kind of realisation that Jeff was not a threat must have permeated his shutdown mind, for he abruptly let go and sat back as if nothing was amiss, leaving Jeff to collapse into his own seat gasping and coughing.
‘What the . . .’ he wheezed out. ‘What the fuck!’ Gabriel was now quite placidly staring out of the window. ‘He’s a lunatic! What the fuck are you doing helping him escape?’
As he was wracked by another fit of coughing, Jeff opened the car door and rolled out onto his hands and knees in the gravel. ‘Lunatic,’ he growled, between gasps. ‘Lunatic.’
I got out and knelt beside him and patted his back and said, ‘You just took him by surprise. He’s been in a psych ward for months – who knows what’s been done to him? He’s just like a porcupine, putting his spikes up.’
‘Fucking prick, more like,’ Jeff spat. ‘He needs locked up. Locked back up.’
I helped Jeff up. I dusted him down and said, ‘Please don’t think the worst of him. He’s innocent, I know he is. And together, Jeff, we’re going to prove it. Okay?’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘Jeff . . . Jeff – come on: you spend half your life championing innocent victims for Amnesty International, but they’re always in some foreign hell-hole like Iran or Wales. Here’s one right on your doorstep.’
‘I champion political—’
‘Who’s to say this isn’t political? It’s a travesty of justice, Jeff, that’s for sure, and it could lead anywhere. Yes, he attacked you, but you attacked him first, at least, that’s how he interpreted it. Come on now – I need your help on this, Jeff. Please?’
I had never knowingly laid the P-word on him before. He blew air out of his cheeks and gave me the big eyes. ‘Okay, but just remember . . .’
‘Later. I need you to go on up to the shop and make sure it’s all clear. Do you have the keys on you?’
‘No, Alison won’t let—’
‘Doesn’t matter. You know the secret hiding-place for the spare one for the back door?’
‘Under the bin?’
‘That’s it. Keep your eyes peeled. If anything looks dodgy just walk on past and loop back round. If it’s all clear, get into the shop, go upstairs and put a light on in the front store room. I’ll bring Gabriel up as soon as I see it.’
Jeff nodded warily. He reached into the car and took the keys, and then said, ‘Do you want to get him out so I can lock up?’
‘That might take a wee while. Sure, leave me the keys.’
‘I’d really rather . . .’
‘Jeff, leave me the keys. I’m a big boy, I’ll do it.’
‘It’s my mum’s . . .’
‘Jeff.’
I put my hand out and snapped my fingers. He bit on his lip for a moment before pressing them into my palm. ‘Make sure it’s properly locked and the windows are up,’ he said, ‘and don’t be too long, I only put an hour on the pay and display – and I have to get it back to her.’
‘I hear you. Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you. I just don’t want to walk into an ambush, and I need a word with Gabriel so he doesn’t react like that again. Okay?’
Jeff nodded and gave his assailant a final glance before trudging off, still rubbing at his throat. I waited until he had disappeared round the corner onto Botanic Avenue before I opened the back door and gently encouraged Gabriel out of the car. He came without any bother. I guided him a dozen metres away, and then patted his arm and told him to wait there. I moved back to the car and opened the boot. The plastic container of spare petrol was exactly where I remembered it. I took it out, removed the top, and liberally splashed the inside of the vehicle with it. I put the key in the ignition and turned it enough to switch on the cigarette-lighter but not enough to start the engine. When it had heated sufficiently I removed it, stepped back out of the car and pressed the lighter into a sponge Jeff’s mum kept in the driver’s side pocket to help with the demisting of the windscreen. It began to burn and melt simultaneously. I then tossed it into the back seat and stepped back sharply as Jeff’s mum’s car went up with a whoosh.
Afterwards, I wasn’t quite sure why I did it, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
35
There is a reading lamp I have by the computer which I use when I’m working late ordering stock or surfing for information about badgers; Jeff got hold of it and moved it to the counter and twisted it so that it was shining directly into Gabriel’s eyes. He was a breath away from saying, ‘We have ways of making you talk,’ when I took hold of the flexible stem and turned the brightness away from our guest. ‘Would you catch a grip?’ I said.
‘We have to do something,’ said Jeff. ‘He’s just staring into space like a gormless big idiot.’
I studied Gabriel, nodding slowly. ‘Like Tommy,’ I said.
‘Tommy who?’
‘No, Tommy by The Who.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a rock opera. About a deaf, dumb and blind kid, by The Who?’
‘The who? I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Are you trying to wind me up? Everyone has heard of The Who.’
‘The . . .?’
‘Jeff? Just be quiet.’ We studied Gabriel some more. And then I said, ‘You’ve really never heard of The Who? Or Tommy? It went double platinum in the States in 1969.’
‘My parents weren’t even born in 1969,’ said Jeff.
‘What were they, like twelve when they conceived you? On second thoughts, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you should know of The Who.’
‘Well, I don’t. And also, you can’t say that he’s deaf, dumb and blind. I’ve done a course.’
‘Okay, Jeff, whatever you say. I’m sure being politically correct will help us solve our case. Gabriel, you aren’t deaf or dumb or blind, you’re hearing impaired, vocally challenged and visually skew-whiff. Feel better now? Oh, I forgot, you’re deaf, dumb and blind and you can’t hear me, or see me or feel me.’
Gabriel did not react.
Jeff, on the other hand, cast a nervous glance towards the shutters. ‘I don’t know what we’re even doing here. We’ve just heard about his escape on the radio and they’ve advised people to approach him with caution and I’m bloody locked in here with him. As soon as they know it’s you, they’ll be thinking of this place, and as soon as they spot the car round the corner, they’ll know for sure and then they’re going to come blasting their way in, shooting first and asking questions later. It’ll be like Placido
Domingo all over again.’
‘Jean Charles de Menezes,’ I corrected.
‘That’s who I meant. Christ.’ He rubbed at his brow. ‘You see what you’re doing to me? I’m losing it. I’ve hardly slept with all the revision, and that’s what I should be doing, not being here with this . . . this vegetable.’
‘This vegetable, Jeff, nearly throttled you.’
‘Whatever. I need to get going, Mum will be waiting for the car. She goes to St George’s Market on Wednesday mornings. She likes to get there early. Really, seriously, I need to go. Why bring him here at all?’
‘Because these,’ and I waved my hand around the books, ‘they inspire me. This is my nerve centre, Jeff. It’s like Quantico. Quantico crossed with Fort Knox.’
‘Is Quantico not like Poundstretcher?’
‘No, Jeff. Quantico is the FBI Academy in Virginia. And relax, the police couldn’t shoot their way in here with anything short of a heavy artillery: those shutters are reinforced steel.’
‘You mean unless they cared to check under the bin for the back-door key?’
‘You replaced it?’
‘Yes, of course, as you’re always telling me to.’ He gave a long, low moan. ‘I really have to go. I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.’
‘Jeff, you’re always complaining that I don’t treat you like my partner, that I favour Alison when it comes to investigations. Well, this is your chance to contribute something.’
‘I always contrib—’
‘Something meaningful.’
‘I came to the hospital, I—’
‘I know, and that was great. But this, this is the real meat and potatoes. Crack this and we crack the case. Okay? Never worry about your mum’s car, it’s safe, it’s fine, and I knew this would take a bit of time so I put an extra couple of quid on the pay and display. So relax. The police are not that smart. They are not going to find their way here that quickly. And I just need a bit of time on this, with you, and then we can announce to the world that he is innocent and you will be carried shoulder-high through the streets by Amnesty International’s top worriers. Stick with me, Jeff, and share the glory.’