Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  I said, “Can I say something?”

  “No.”

  “Can I sit up?”

  I braced myself for another kick, but none came. There was no reply for a moment. “Go on then.” So I struggled round into a sitting position, and managed to shuffle to the side of the van so that I could lean back against the wall. I massaged my ribs where I’d taken the kick. They were sore, but hopefully nothing worse. My shins were also smarting. I’d scraped them on the sill when I was first shoved inside, and I had a strong sense that they were bleeding.

  Presently one of the men squatted down opposite me. The third remained standing, perhaps ready to administer the next kick if called upon. None of them spoke, which was more unnerving than if they had. They were coolly disciplined.

  The journey seemed interminable. At times we sped up, evidently on major roads. At other times we stood still at junctions or traffic lights. I had an idea that we were crossing London rather than heading out towards the country. The pattern of our progress didn’t seem to vary much.

  In fact, we were probably on the move no more than forty or fifty minutes. Then we came to a stop and the driver put the van into reverse. I had the impression that we might be entering a driveway or a building. We came to a stop and the engine was switched off.

  One of the men opened the back doors jumped down to the ground and another instructed me, “Out.” I stood up stiffly and was hustled to the back of the van. I clambered clumsily to the ground, watched closely by all three.

  We seemed to be in a small yard, but there wasn’t enough light to see any detail. They shoved me in the direction of a wooden door, then down two flights of stone steps, along a corridor and round a corner.

  They opened a door leading off the corridor and led me across a small room into another larger one. It had a scuffed bare board floor and there was little furniture apart from a couple of old upright chairs and a small wooden table with an old-fashioned desk lamp on it. One of the men pulled one of the chairs out and placed it about fifteen feet from the table. “Sit.” I sat.

  “Give me your phone.”

  Reluctantly I handed it to him. I had a feeling that this time I wasn’t going to get it back.

  He said, “Wait here,” then followed the others out, closing the door behind him. I heard a heavy bolt being slid home on the other side.

  * * *

  A minute passed, then another. I fancied I heard the distant sound of a vehicle starting up – possibly the Transit van – but it was so muted that it might have been nothing.

  I stood up and walked over to the door, which indeed proved to be bolted on the outside. I looked around. There was another door in the opposite wall, and a third beyond the desk. They were both locked or bolted and all were solidly built. I wasn’t going to be breaking them open in a hurry. The only windows were high up and set back in the walls, and appeared to be covered over with plywood boards. The place was lit by two bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

  I went back to the chair and sat down again, examining my surroundings more closely. It was a modest-sized space, perhaps thirty feet by twenty, and the walls were panelled in dark oak. It had the air of a disused Victorian board room or meeting room. On some walls there were lighter rectangles where a painting or mirror might once have hung. There was a Victorian fireplace in the centre of one wall, complete with mantelpiece and ornate surround.

  I rubbed my shins, preferring not to check for blood. I sat there for a long time, unable to think what the hell to do next.

  I checked my watch. It was coming up to one thirty in the morning: just two hours since I’d left John and Joanna. Was I supposed to stay here all night? Then what?

  Two more hours passed before I found out. I spent most of that time pacing impatiently round the room, rattling the door handles and searching in vain for some other way to escape. I was tempted to start yelling, but I had the feeling that if this was likely to summon up rescue, my captors wouldn’t have left me alone here.

  In the end I sat down again and waited. And waited. Finally I heard steps approaching, and a key rattled in the door beyond the table. I stood up spontaneously, as if being on my feet would somehow arm me against whatever was about to ensue.

  The door opened slightly, and I heard light switches flicking on and off. The main lights in the room went out and the desk lamp came on, casting a pool of light in my direction. Then a figure came in from beyond it and the door closed.

  “Please don’t get up, Mr Stanhope. Just stay where you are.” It was the voice of a man in his fifties or sixties – a world-weary smoker’s voice, with a thin patina of culture barely disguising the east London accent.

  I sat down again cautiously as he drew out the other chair and sat down on the far side of the table, staring at me. He was directly behind the lamp, where I could barely see his features.

  “I’m sure you know what this is about, Mr Stanhope, so shall we talk?”

  Chapter 49

  “I ought to apologise for the theatricals,” he said. “This is all a bit too much like a spy movie, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged, saying nothing.

  “The thing is, the lads checked all this out for me this morning, and found that if I sit here, you can’t see me properly.”

  “So what?”

  “Think about it, Mr Stanhope. We can have a nice friendly chat, and then you can go home and we can all live happily ever after. You don’t know me – I’m just a ship passing in the night.”

  “Whereas?”

  “You don’t want me to spell it out, do you? Just be advised to stay exactly where you are. Over there you’re safe and so am I. If you get to know me, it’s an entirely different case. So don’t be tempted to leap up and charge over here with all guns blazing.” He laughed dryly. “Come to think of it, you don’t actually have a gun – but I do. That’s another thing you might want to think about.”

  I started to speak, but had to clear my throat first. “I hear you.”

  “Excellent.”

  There was a pause, then he said, “You’ve been talking to our friend Mr Stone, I believe.”

  Despite the circumstances, I felt a surge of adrenaline. He must mean Liam Stone, the vanished diamond robber. In that single question he appeared to have confirmed everything I’d been speculating over.

  Mustering up what I hoped was a convincing show of incredulity, I said, “What?”

  “I’m asking you about Mr Stone. He’s no friend of mine, to be strictly accurate, but I’d very much like to get in touch with him. You can help me.”

  “You think so?”

  He coughed briefly, then said, “The others were all for doing this the hard way, checking your files and all that bollocks. I told them we were wasting too much time. We don’t have months to check through every bleeding letter and email you’ve sent your bank manager since nineteen ninety eight. I said let’s just have a friendly little chat with the man himself.” He paused. “So here we are.”

  Here was confirmation, if any were needed, that these were the people behind all the break-ins. At the moment this news brought me little consolation.

  I waited a moment. I needed to give my next remark as much weight as I could summon. There was no mileage in making it sound like a throw-away line. I cleared my throat again.

  “Look, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here. An absolutely basic mistake. If you’d come to me months ago and explained what you want, you could have saved yourself a lot of hassle and me a lot of grief.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr Stanhope.”

  “Hear me out, please. The simple fact is that I don’t know Liam Stone, I’ve never met him, he’s never been in touch with me, and I know nothing about his life or his current whereabouts. Absolutely literally nothing whatsoever. You’ve read this all wrong. It’s a total misunderstanding.”

  “Oh, I can’t agree, Mr Stanhope. You know a lot about him, and in particular you know how to contact him. I would like you to s
hare this information with me. In fact I won’t be satisfied until you do.”

  I said nothing for a moment. I turned my head and stared at the shadowy shape of the Victorian fireplace as I tried to round up some coherent thought. Finally I looked back towards him and said, “Look, can I ask where you’re getting this from? Should I assume it’s my book?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Right! Well you need to understand something. That book is total fiction. I made it up. I invented it. I’m a writer, for god’s sake! That’s what writers do. It isn’t a true story about real people. I don’t know anything about real people. It’s fiction!”

  He said nothing, but through the light beam I could see him uncross and re-cross his legs and adjust his position on his chair. “Give me some credit, Mr Stanhope. Your story is about an actual robbery that happened in the real world, a famous robbery. The whole world knows about it. You’re hardly going to tell me you made it up.”

  “No, no.” I could hear the urgent impatience in my voice. “I didn’t invent everything, I just invented the back stories – the bits about what happened afterwards.” I took a deep breath. “I took a real event, and hypothesised the detail. It’s a well-established technique. Writers do it all the time.”

  “I’ve no doubt they do, but not in this case. You had inside knowledge, and I want you to share it with me.”

  I found myself almost laughing with frustration. “This is ridiculous! You’re wasting your time and effort here. If I did know how to contact this man I might be tempted to tell you, but the fact is that I don’t, so I can’t. Please don’t take offence when I say this, but read my lips: I don’t know him.”

  There was a long moment’s silence. Briefly I thought I might have convinced him, but then he said slowly, “You seem determined to make this difficult for yourself, Mr Stanhope. Frankly I don’t understand your misplaced loyalty. When I said we were having a friendly chat, I don’t think you weren’t following my meaning. It can only be friendly if you tell me what I need to know.” He paused. “Am I making myself clear?”

  I resisted answering. My mind was racing as I searched for ways to break out of this loop. I said, “Can I ask which parts of my book have convinced you that I know these people?”

  The question seemed to puzzle him, which I thought was probably good. He said, “Which parts? What are you getting at?”

  “Well look, I’ve told you I invented a lot of the details in the book. If you can tell me which of those details you think are true, I might be able to tell you where they actually came from. Then you might see how I came to make them up.”

  He said nothing. I said, “Please! Just humour me.”

  “But if I pick out details, that just gives you the chance to think up some plausible explanation for them.”

  “Oh for god’s sake! One of us is getting the wrong end of the stick here, and it’s not me. We’re going round and round in circles. If you really want to find those jewels or whatever they are, you might as well let me go home and try some other approach.”

  He seemed to consider for a while. “All right, what about that hotel? You didn’t make that up, did you?”

  “Yes! I based that on my own life. I stayed in a hotel in Falmouth when I was about twelve years old. I switched it to Polperro for the book.”

  “Ha! But we happen to know that Liam and Martina were booked into a hotel on the south coast. He told me that himself. It was all part of his game plan to get them away.” He paused reflectively. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

  I stared over at him in disbelief. By pure luck I’d apparently guessed this part of the story correctly. Quietly I said, “I don’t know anything about that. If it’s true, it’s a complete coincidence. What I put in the book came straight out of my head.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you said that before. You’re beginning to sound like a cracked record. I suppose you invented Australia too.”

  “Yes!” I stopped myself and reflected. “I realise Stone apparently did go there, but I didn’t know that when I wrote the book.”

  “You made it up.”

  “Exactly.”

  He gave a rasping cough and cleared his throat noisily. “If you want to take all night over this, that’s up to you. But you’re going to tell me how to contact him one way or the other, so you might as well get on with it and stop wasting everybody’s time.”

  Chapter 50

  The man stood up, pushing his chair back.

  I said, “You’re leaving then?”

  “I need a decent night’s sleep. I can do without these midnight shenanigans.” He started to turn.

  “So what next? You expect me to sit here indefinitely?”

  “My colleagues will be back to talk to you.” He adopted a more confidential tone. “I strongly advise you to tell them what they need to know.”

  More than a little desperately I shouted, “I can’t tell them anything any more than I can tell you! How many times do I have to say it?” I stood up abruptly and took a step towards him. “For god’s sake, can we just stop this nonsense and go home?”

  “Sit down!” His sudden vehemence cut through the space. “I can fire this gun in here and no one will bat an eyelid. Please don’t think I won’t.”

  Beyond the pool of light I could see his arm thrust forward, pointing a handgun at me. It wasn’t a bluff.

  I sat down slowly and risked saying, “If I really did know what you’re asking, it wouldn’t do you much good shooting me before I told you.”

  He lowered his arm. “Leave me to worry about that.” He turned again to the door.

  As he pulled it open I said, “Can I ask you something?”

  He half-turned back. “What would that be?”

  “How did you know about my book?

  He paused and gave a chuckle. “My nephew read it. Thought it might appeal to me. Very helpful of him, I must say.” He seemed to reflect. “I’ve got a question for you, too. How did you get on to Liam Stone in the first place? I thought we’d looked everywhere for him.”

  “I keep telling you I didn’t get on to him. If you couldn’t find him, what the hell makes you think I could?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  * * *

  A good hour passed. I spent much of it roaming around the room again in a state of increasing alarm. The man had left the desk lamp switched on and the top lights off, so the place was still illuminated by an eerie glow. I pointed the lampshade downwards so that it wouldn’t shine in my face.

  I rattled the doors and poked at the wood panelling, hoping in vain to find a cupboard or even some hidden exit. I was also on the lookout for weapons, though I found it hard to imagine using one against another human being. In any case, apart from the meagre furniture and the lamp, nothing suggested itself.

  Eventually I sat down on the chair again, then abandoned it and sat on the floor next to the fireplace, leaning on the wall with my legs stretched in front of me. The air was cold and slightly dank, but they’d left me with my jacket. In any case, that was the least of my problems. I could hardly feel relaxed knowing I was soon likely to be facing the thugs who had brought me here.

  Footsteps insinuated themselves into my consciousness. They grew louder and I heard the outer door being thrust open, followed by the door I’d come in by. My three original captors entered, and one of them came over to me.

  “Get up and sit on that chair.”

  “Or what?”

  “Grow up. Do it.”

  I rose stiffly to my feet and walked to the chair.

  “Sit.”

  I sat. He contemplated me – a man probably in his late twenties, with a jacket collar folded up over his unshaven chin and a beanie hat pulled down over his forehead. Once again, I was struck by how difficult I would find it to identify him later.

  Without warning he raised his right arm and slapped me ferociously across the face. The effect was shattering. I felt as if my neck must be dislocated, my head
knocked clean off my shoulders. Stinging, smarting, shocking pain – all that in one swift blow. I fell with the chair to the ground, jarring my elbow and shoulder as I landed, and lay there with my head ringing. I felt I was going to die.

  Distantly I heard the man saying to me, “You need to understand this is not a joke.”

  I could hear them muttering among themselves while I fought to rejoin the normal world. I could still move my neck. Nothing seemed to be broken. But what hope did I have if they were going to repeat this? What could I possibly tell them to make them stop?

  “Get up.”

  I managed to gasp, “What, so you can do the same thing again?”

  “Just get up.”

  I rose on to my knees and stayed there for a long moment. My head was still ringing. I stood up gingerly and looked at the three of them.

  “Sit.”

  I sat.

  “You need to give us some information. You know what the man wants. Just tell it to us, then you can go on your merry way. All right?”

  It was about the longest statement I’d heard any of them make so far, but you could still hardly call it a meaningful dialogue.

  “I hear what you’re saying.”

  “We’re going to leave you for a little while to think about it. When we get back, we’ll be staying till we get a result.”

  They started to move towards the door, then in sudden inspiration I said, “Toilet.”

  “What?”

  I drew a deep breath and cleared my throat. “There must be a toilet here. Can I go to it? You won’t enjoy talking to me in here if I have to piss and crap all over the place.”

  They seemed to think about this for a moment, then the speaker said, “Get up.”

  He shoved me towards the door, through the outer room and into the corridor. A little way down there was another door into a tiny toilet. He pushed open the door with exaggerated courtesy and switched the light on. “Hurry up.”

  I shoved the door shut behind me and looked desperately around. There was just a single high window in one wall – a vent really, and far too small to climb through. No weapons suggested themselves. I looked at the WC. It was relatively modern – which is to say maybe forty years old, not Victorian – but there was hardly any water in the bowl, just a disreputable brown residue at the bottom.