My attention is then split between gauging Clement’s reaction and watching Alex Palmer plod towards the front door of the house. Within seconds, he disappears from view and a door slams shut. With Alex out of earshot, I can finally speak.
“I fucking knew it was him,” I squeak excitedly. “My gut is rarely wrong.”
“What do you wanna do now then?”
“Simple — we go and confront him.”
“You’re just gonna knock on the door and accuse him of being the Tallyman?”
“More or less, yes.”
“And what if he denies it, and slams the door in your face?”
“If he does, I have a secret weapon — I have a Clement.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m sure you can force the door open and we can then conduct one of your special interviews.”
“Yeah, we could, but then what? A confession ain’t much good without evidence.”
“This house has been visited by both men we know to be involved in the Clawthorn Club. When you consider it’s located in the middle of nowhere, and it’s registered to an untraceable overseas company, it has to be the most likely place to find evidence.”
“Maybe.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“I ain’t sure, doll. You really wanna do this?”
“As opposed to what? Heading back to London and sitting on our hands?”
“No, but … I dunno. Somethin’ don’t feel right.”
“You need to be more specific.”
He squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds as if trying to dredge his mind for a lost memory. I wait patiently for a reply as droplets of cold rainwater begin trickling beyond my collar triggering an inadvertent shudder.
“I’m getting cold,” I chatter. “Can we make a decision?”
He opens his eyes. “Alright,” he sighs. “We’ll do it your way.”
I give him a peck on the cheek before standing upright — much to the relief of my aching back and thighs. I need to act quickly before he changes his mind so I step beyond the hedge and usher Clement to follow.
We leave the cover of the undergrowth and it then becomes clear why the homeowner chose to dump several tons of gravel at the front of the hideaway — it’s like walking across a blanket of Cornflakes, and a silent approach is near-impossible.
With stealth no longer an option I decide haste is more important and jog up to the front door. I turn and wait for Clement to catch up but he’s in less of a hurry.
And then, behind me, I hear the door open.
I spin around.
“Hello, Emma,” Alex says flatly.
I’m immediately struck by his calm demeanour, considering we weren’t expected. That, and his odd stance; feet slightly apart and both hands tucked behind his back like a sentry on duty.
I hadn’t considered what we might do if Alex casually opened the door and said hello. My muddled brain can’t work quickly enough to compute a revised strategy.
As it is Alex makes the first move.
As Clement crunches up behind me, Alex removes his hands from behind his back. With no great sense of urgency he raises his arms out in front of him. In each hand he’s holding what looks like a black and yellow power drill. For some inexplicable reason, one of the drills is pointed towards me, and one over my right shoulder in Clement’s direction.
I hear the sound of gravel crunching behind me but then, a millisecond later … pain. So. Much. Pain.
The only muscles I’m able to control are those behind my eyes, and they allow me to view the two wired prongs embedded in my chest. Too late now, but I realise I wasn’t being threatened by a power drill, but a Taser.
I collapse to the gravel — I’m not alone. I send a message to my arm, to reach out towards Clement’s prone body, but it doesn’t arrive. My legs fare no better. Every nerve in my body burns but none of them appear capable of transmitting instructions. I now know what complete paralysis feels like.
Next comes a fear unlike any I’ve ever felt before — the fear that comes with being completely and utterly helpless. I watch on in horror as Alex kneels down next to Clement, extracts a syringe from his pocket, and jabs it into Clement’s arm. My saviour isn’t able to save himself — he groans, but then … nothing.
Alex then pulls out a second syringe and turns to me. I try to speak, but there are no words and even less ability to say them.
“You never did know when to give up,” he says, wearily. “Which is why I’m not really surprised you followed me here. Well done, though — I had no idea.”
It would be a minor victory but I can’t even tell him he’s wrong.
He jabs the second syringe into my arm.
“Best you and your boyfriend have a nap while I work out what to do with you.”
My head lops to the side and I’m greeted with a panoramic view of a dark sky. It grows darker by the second, until …
33.
So much of so much.
My mind swims with confused thoughts. What happened? Where am I?
I try to create order but the … the pain. It arrives from different destinations: my skull, behind my eyes, my shoulders, my chest … and my wrists. And I’m cold … so fucking cold.
My mouth is dry but I can taste blood. There’s something else, too. Is it a taste, or a smell? I sniff: wood … damp wood, and a musty odour like old sackcloth.
I dare to open my eyes.
My pupils are dryer than my mouth. I blink several times.
I’m on the floor, on my backside. I hadn’t even realised, but now I see my legs stretching out in front of me. I move my head but a splintering pain quickly puts paid to that. The pain of moving my gritty eyes isn’t as nauseating, and I look up to find a single window thick with grime and cobwebs. There’s nothing to see but a rectangle of patchy shapes in various shades of grey.
I roll my eyes to the left. Walls constructed of wooden slats, and a door with a rusting metal handle. Piecing together what little I know I conclude I’m in some kind of dilapidated wooden structure. A shed possibly?
I roll my eyes to the right. Relief washes over me at the sight of a pair of battered Chelsea boots poking out of bell-bottomed jeans.
“Clement,” I wheeze. “Can you hear me?”
No response. I turn my head and grimace at the resulting pain. Closing my eyes I wait for it to ebb away. I open them to a view of Clement, slumped against the slatted wall, clearly out for the count.
I need him conscious but, if I’m to rouse him, I need to get up and cover the six feet of space between us.
Every part of me hurts, and I know the pain is going to get a lot worse if I move. I have no choice — no matter how much it hurts, I need to get up.
My brain tells my arm to move so I can push myself off the floor. The message is sent, and received, but all I get for my efforts is a searing pain in my wrist. I try the other arm and it results in more pain. For some reason I can’t move my arms but I’m sure it’s not a result of being tasered. I try to cuss, but a jarring realisation steals my breath — my wrists are bound together.
Waves of fear, and pain, and helplessness crash over me in quick succession. Relentless, they pummel my mind to the point no other thoughts can form. No matter how hard I try to resist, the tears brew as the lump dances and my lip bobs.
Squeezing my eyes shut I let my head fall slowly forward as my chest begins to heave.
“Don’t … you … dare …”
With no thought to the consequences I open my eyes and simultaneously snap my head to the right. I almost puke it hurts so much, but I don’t care.
“Thank God,” I blubber.
“Don’t bother,” Clement rasps. “He ain’t listening.”
“Are you okay?”
He rolls his head left and right a couple of times wincing in the process.
“Yeah, bleedin’ triffic.”
Never has his sarcasm sounded sweeter.
“What the fuck happened?�
� he asks.
“Alex tasered us.”
“He did what?”
“We were shot with a Taser — kind of a stun gun that causes temporary paralysis.”
“How temporary? Feels like I’ve been out of it for hours.”
“He injected you … he injected us with something. I’d guess a sedative of some kind.”
“I ain’t feelin’ so sedate, doll more like I’ve been run over by a steamroller.”
“You and me both.”
“Don’t suppose you know where we are?”
“I don’t, or how we got here.”
“Well, I’m guessin’ he slung you over his shoulder but fuck knows how I got here. No way that podgy little tosser carried me.”
“To be honest, Clement, that’s not really our biggest concern at the moment. Whatever Alex is planning for us I’d rather not be here once he’s decided.”
“I’m with you there.”
He then tries to move and discovers the same issue I encountered.
“My hands are tied.”
It’s a term I’ve heard a hundred times; usually uttered by a jobsworth at the local council whenever I dare to make a complaint. This time, it’s literal.
“Mine are tied too.”
“Fucks sake.”
He slumps back against the wooden slats. If his hands weren’t tied, I’m almost certain they’d be reaching for the moustache. With nothing to offer myself I give him a moment to think.
He sits forward again.
“I need you to stick your hand in my boot.”
“Please don’t tell me you’ve got some kind of foot fetish. Now is not the time, and it certainly isn’t the place.”
“Nah, but I do have a knife fetish.”
“Eh?”
“That dipshit’s knife — I tucked it in my boot.”
“Did you? Why?”
“Cos I told you I had a bad feeling about this whole caper. You might have been right about that Alex bloke but I was right about something being a bit moody.”
“If I could, I’d kiss you, Clement.”
“Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here and then you can kiss me all you like.”
“Deal. What do you want me to do?”
“Try and shuffle on your arse so your hands are facin’ me. I’ll twist around and raise my boot so it’s close enough for you to get your fingers into it.”
“And then what?”
“Grab the knife, flick the blade out, and just hold it still. I’ll then back up to you and run these bastard ties across the blade. A couple of cuts and they should be weak enough for me to snap.”
I almost find a smile, and begin my shuffle. I’ve barely lifted my left buttock when a heavy clunk penetrates the wooden door. It sounds an awful lot like a lock being unbolted.
“Move back,” Clement hisses. “Company.”
I lean back against the slatted wall and attempt to find some composure.
The door creaks open and tepid light leaks in, closely followed by the chubby frame of Alex Palmer. He stands in the doorway and waits for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of our temporary prison.
There are a million things I want to say to him — none of them nice — and I can’t help myself.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Alex?”
Now sporting a dark-green wax jacket and Wellington boots, he glares down at me. Sensibly, he keeps his distance.
“I’m not playing at anything. Quite the opposite.”
“You’ve got precisely ten seconds to cut these ties and let us go, or …”
“Or what?” he spits. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands.”
It pains me to concede he’s right.
“What do you want?”
“That’s a good question, Emma. I’ll tell you what I did want, and that was for you to keep your nose out of matters which didn’t concern you. I gave you so many chances to walk away. Christ, I even offered you a job. But, here we are, so now it’s no longer a case of what I want.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s a case of what needs to be done.”
He dips a hand into his coat pocket and withdraws what could never be mistaken for a power drill.
“Get up,” he orders, pointing a pistol loosely in my direction. It’s amazing how you can go through life and never set eyes on a firearm — well, in the UK at least — yet I’ve now been threatened with a pistol twice in as many days. This really isn’t my week.
I turn my head towards Clement hoping he might telepathically offer a solution to our predicament. Judging by the look of concentration on his face and protruding veins in his neck, I’d guess he’s preoccupied trying to snap the ties around his wrists.
“I said, get up.”
I turn back to Alex.
“Or what? Are you going to shoot me?”
“You don’t think I will?”
“I think, Alex, you’re a pitiful, pathetic, excuse of a man who doesn’t possess the balls he was born with.”
He squats down so we share the same eye-line.
“Funny that,” he sneers. “Because your little friend, Gini Varma, said something similar on the phone last night. You’ve created quite the clone of yourself there, Emma.”
“This has nothing to do with Gini.”
“Like that notebook had nothing to do with you, or your father for that matter.”
“Are you going to tell me why he had it?”
“It’s not important now. The notebook is gone.”
“The final piece of evidence relating to the Clawthorn Club.”
“Whatever,” he snorts, dismissively.
“Come on, Alex — you might as well tell me now. How did you get involved?”
“That’s not how this works, Emma. This isn’t a Bond movie so I’m afraid you’ll never know.”
“I know you’re the Tallyman.”
No confirmation; just a shake of the head and a smirk.
Switching his attention to Clement, he calls across. “How are you getting on there, Lurch? I wouldn’t bother if I were you — those cable ties are virtually indestructible.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“No, you’re okay, thanks. However, Emma here …”
Clement’s body visibly stiffens, and if looks could kill, Alex Palmer would already be heading to the morgue.
“Don’t worry,” Alex adds. “I don’t do sloppy seconds.”
My glare is wasted as he checks his watch.
“As lovely as this chat is we need to go. Get up.”
“We’re going nowhere.”
“Yes, Emma, you are. If you don’t, your friend Gini will be joining her fiancé in the hospital, although I suspect she’ll be occupying a bed in intensive care.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? Do you want to take that risk? It just takes one call, and the same man who ran her fiancé down will visit her flat in Shoreditch this evening … when she’s tucked up in bed and all alone.”
I know Alex well enough to tell when he’s lying, and I don’t think he is on this occasion.
“Last chance. Get up.”
I move first and struggle like a grounded walrus as I try to get to my feet without using my hands. Clement makes it look a damn sight easier despite having considerably more bulk to shift.
Alex steps backwards through the door, keeping the pistol trained on me. Never has a man looked less suited to brandishing a firearm; like a ten year-old boy playing cowboys and Indians.
“Try anything, Lurch,” he warns Clement. “And she’ll get the first bullet.”
I take the lead and step through the door. Ordinarily, I like a bracing sea breeze — nothing like it to blow away the cobwebs — but, in this instance, the blast of frigid air summons a shudder. It might be approaching dusk but it feels end-of-days dark, with ominous clouds barrelling across the grey sky.
Glancing around I try to get some sense of where we are. There’s not
a lot to see. Our wooden prison is nothing more than a garden shed, located halfway down a wide lawn, bordered on both sides by a hedge which is as least a couple of feet taller than me. Looking back up the garden I can see what I presume is the rear of the whitewashed house. At the far end of the garden, some fifty yards away, the lawn abruptly stops and the sky begins.
I turn back to the shed door expecting Clement to stoop through any second. I can’t see in, but Alex can, and whatever he can see, clearly it’s not a welcome sight.
“Get up,” he yells. “Now.”
The pistol might be loosely aimed in my direction but Alex’s attention is fixed inside the shed. I take a few steps to my right so I can see what’s going on. It’s possibly the last thing I expected to see.
Clement is back on the floor but this time on his knees with his head bowed forward, as if in prayer. Alex looks as confused as I do.
“I’m warning you,” he barks. “Get the hell up.”
His order is ignored.
“My heart exults in the Lord,” Clement murmurs. “My horn is exalted in the Lord.”
Shit. He actually is praying.
“My mouth derides my enemies,” he continues. “Because I rejoice in your salvation.”
Alex turns to me. “Tell him to get up.”
“What? You’re the one with the gun — you tell him.”
He repeats his order, but Clement keeps his head bowed and continues the prayer.
Alex never was a decisive man, and faced with Clement’s refusal to leave the shed, he appears to be caught in two minds. In fairness, so am I. I’m wondering if this isn’t a ruse to distract Alex so I can make a run for it. Even if I were able to run the fifty yards to the house, and avoid being shot, where the hell do I go? There are no other houses for at least a mile, and even if Alex was stupid enough to leave my phone in my coat pocket, I can’t get at it. No amount of praying is likely to help if that’s what Clement expects me to do.
But why else would he choose this moment to pray?
The seconds tick by and the prayer continues. Alex’s patience is clearly at breaking point and he orders me to get down on my knees. Slowly, and reluctantly, I comply.
“I’ll give you five seconds,” he yells at Clement. “Then I shoot her in the head.”
The prayer continues.
Clawthorn (Clement Book 3) Page 29