Candleland (20 page)

As he tried to look round, a dark presence loomed into vision. He felt himself being roughly grabbed by the shirt front and pulled up.

The face staring at him was big and wide. Goatee beard, swarthy skin. Hair at the sides of the head greased back but bald on top. The eyes looked him over. Stone eyes. Killer's eyes. The man nodded.

“Get up,” he said in a guttural voice.

He hefted Larkin to his feet. It was too much movement too soon and his head began to spin, his legs to buckle. The biker didn't notice.

“Get over there,” the biker rumbled and swung Larkin towards the sofa. Larkin connected and flopped down, unable to move.

Larkin began to take in his surroundings. Diana's reconstructed sanctuary had been destroyed. It had been systematically smashed, shattered piece by piece, artefact by carefully accumulated artefact. The last piece of reconstruction, Diana, lay on the floor in amongst the debris. She, like the room, looked broken. Her clothing was ripped, her body battered, bruised and bloodied. She lay still, her eyes staring open. If it hadn't been for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Larkin would have taken her for dead. Perhaps that's what she wanted; she was naked in the cruellest possible way, but her eyes showed she was in a place beyond modesty or dignity, a place beyond caring.

Larkin looked again at the man who'd flung him on the sofa. He was all in black – leather bike jacket, T-shirt, Levis, motorbike boots. Sitting in an armchair on the opposite side of the room was another man. Smaller than the first, he had sandy-coloured hair quiffed and gelled back, a small pencil moustache. He was wearing a pinstripe double-breasted suit jacket over a violent Hawaiian shirt, black jeans and cowboy boots. His head was tipped back, eyes closed, and his fingers popped and tapped either to what was playing on the Walkman phones plugged into his ears, or something else entirely, something only he could hear.

The biker stomped over to him, hit him on the shoulder. The other man immediately shot up, eyes blazing with anger.

“Don't do that! Don't do that! Never do that to me, never!” His voice was like his eyes and his body. Quick, darting, wired. “Miles was blowing! Nobody interrupts Miles.”

The biker shrugged, gestured with his thumb. “He's back, Lenny,” he said, as if he didn't care one way or the other.

Lenny looked at Larkin, flicked off a hidden Walkman switch from inside his jacket. “So he is,” he said, and crossed the room.

“You're Larkin, aren't you?” Lenny asked, eyes pinwheeling.

Larkin gave a small nod.

“You took your fuckin' time gettin' here,” Lenny said, then gave a highpitched, snickering whinny of a laugh. “I think Diana got bored entertainin' us.”

“Yeah,” said the biker. “You should 'ave a go. You can't tell the difference. Not after a while anyway.”

Diana lay unmoving on the floor, eyes miles away from the rest of them. Larkin could only guess what she'd been through.

“Yeah,” said Lenny, giggling. “We showed her all our tricks. And me an' Ringo know a few tricks, don't we?”

Lenny giggled again. Ringo gave a flat-eyed nod.

Hell's teeth, thought Larkin. Where the fuck did these two come from?

“So you forced her to call me,” said Larkin. “I'm here now. What d'you want?”

“The boss'll tell you that,” said Ringo with a dismissive sniff.

“The boss?” repeated Larkin. This was starting to get very serious, he thought. They might seem like idiots, but look what they did to Diana. They're not to be messed with. Larkin could feel fear creep over his heart. He tried to keep it in check. The last thing he wanted to do was expose that emotion to these two.

“So who is this Mr Big?” asked Larkin with considerably more cockiness than he actually felt. “Have I wandered into a straight-to-video gangster film by mistake?”

Ringo crossed the room and stood right in front of him. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

“I didn't hear you laughing,” said Larkin.

Ringo stared at him with reptilian eyes then, with a speed that belied his size, gave Larkin a walloping kick to the balls.

Larkin doubled up. The pain was too intense even to shout out at.

“Ringo! Ringo! What you doin'?” squeaked Lenny. “The boss said not to damage him. We need him.”

Ringo shrugged. “Boss won't notice if there's a couple of bits missin' here an' there.”

“Let's calm down,” Lenny said, in a voice that sounded like he'd been existing on black coffee for the last fortnight. “We got a job to do.” He turned to Larkin. “You're comin' with us.”

“What choice … do I have … “Larkin managed between gasps.”

“None,” said Ringo, not spotting a rhetorical question when he heard one. He reached down, pulled Larkin to his feet. “Now,” he said, and began to drag Larkin towards the door.

He was pulled past the prone form of Diana. “And what happens to her?” asked Larkin.

Ringo shrugged. “With a woman,” he began, as if about to impart some philosophical pearl, “with a woman you just fuck 'er and forget 'er. She wants to play the game, she has to learn the rules.” He almost smiled, so pleased was he with his Wildean wit.

“She needs help,” said Larkin. “Call an ambulance.”

“Fuck that,” Ringo replied.

“You want me to come, you call her an ambulance.”

“You're comin' anyway, ambulance or not.” He leaned his face in close to Larkin's. It smelled like whatever he'd been eating hadn't been quite dead when it reached his mouth. “I can make you.”

“No you can't,” said Larkin with more confidence than he felt. “Because your Mr Big wants me unharmed. If he sees you didn't do that, if I put up a struggle, it won't look good for you, will it?”

Ringo thought about that one.

“Just do it!” snapped Lenny. He dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out a mobile, switched it on and dialled 999. He shoved it against Larkin's ear.

“You talk to them,” said Lenny. “Then it'll be your voice on the tape. And no funny business.”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” said Larkin, looking between the two of them.

The call was answered, he asked for an ambulance, gave the address. Lenny broke the connection before he could say anything further.

“Come on,” said Lenny. “They'll be here soon.”

Ringo dropped Larkin. He hit the floor with a painful thud.

“I'll get the Jag,” said Ringo, moving towards the door. “I'm drivin'.”

“OK,” said Lenny, shaking his head. “Do it quickly, they'll be here in a minute. But I choose the music.”

Ringo turned to him, face covered in threat. “I'm drivin',” he said, his voice a tone of monotonous dread. “I want Monster Magnet.”

“Fuck!” Lenny danced away as if he'd been physically struck. “I don't want any of that heavy metal shit! We'll have Miles!”

“I want Monster Magnet.”

“No!”

Ringo's voice deepened ominously. “I want Monster Magnet.”

Lenny sighed in exasperation. “OK! OK! Monster Magnet! Just hurry! Get the fuckin' car!”

Ringo, a small smile of triumph on his lips, turned and left.

Lenny sighed, paced the room, shook his head. “Sometimes,” he said, as if Larkin was his best mate, “sometimes I feel as if I'm the last intelligent man left on the planet. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” said Larkin, from his position on the floor, “I know exactly what you mean.”

Fuck me, thought Larkin, what the hell have I got myself into this time?

Ringo pulled up in a big, old black Jag outside Diana's flat and left it running, smack in the centre of the street. Cars were waiting on either side to get through, but one look at Ringo ensured that there wouldn't be any argument.

Lenny pushed Larkin into the back and jumped into the passenger seat. He plugged his Walkman defiantly into his ears, and with a twitchy, murderous glance at Ringo, sat back. Tinny sax leaked out from his ear plugs, calming him. Ringo slapped some pounding heavy metal into the sound system, forcing the volume up until it stopped fractionally short of ear-and nosebleed level, and, with a grunted attempt at singing along, gunned the car up and away.

“Shoulda blindfolded 'im,” Lenny shouted after a while, above the din.

Ringo shrugged. “He'll know where we're goin' soon enough.”

Lenny's brow creased and his mouth jittered, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't make the connection between brain and lips. Eventually this passed and he slumped back in his seat, finger clicking along to an unheard melody, keeping whatever sociopathic pearl had been there to himself.

Larkin gazed out of the window. He kept catching glimpses of places he half-recognised, half-remembered from his previous time in London. He was trying to memorise his route, find something to use as a signpost if he had to retrace the journey. If he ever got the chance. Eventually he saw something he couldn't mistake: Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, looming up dead ahead. Larkin immediately got his bearings. Ringo coaxed the Jag to the right and they entered the City.

The streets were dark and all but deserted; empty concrete, steel and glass monoliths overshadowing what few stragglers were left on the pavements. By six thirty the daily commuter exodus, by eight the pubs have closed, by nine the City is a ghost town. Only during the day does it come to life, as besuited drones file in from the suburbs to wrestle with VDU and calculator, keeping the cogs of capitalism turning, making the rich richer, the poor more marginalised. Worshipping at the temples of greed, money and cunning. A square mile of self-exaltation, a near-unstormable fortress dedicated to preserving the status quo.

Larkin knew the statistics. Over a quarter of the country's wealth was concentrated within this one square mile. This was where the country's real leaders, decision-makers, were based. It was also, Larkin knew from experience, where some of the most evil, corrupt bastards he'd ever encountered were to be found.

At the thought of that, Sickert flashed into his mind. Larkin sighed and shook his head. The image was losing its power. He was all cried out; his emotions and feelings spent. He was too tired, too soul-weary to respond with anything but weak indifference. His head was like a de-tuned radio – all he could pick up was static.

The Jag rounded the corner of Fenchurch Street, passing the overground station, turned down a sidestreet, under a railway arch, took a left. Larkin read the name of the street they'd turned into: Savage Gardens.

How apt, he thought.

The car came to a halt outside a large, anonymous building. Heavy, studded wooden doors were set in a white stone façade. Small, blacked-out windows covered with wrought-iron bars on either side of the doors gave no hint of what might have been going on inside. The seemingly impenetrable building looked to be a couple of hundred years old and there were no clues as to its present use.

Ringo switched off the engine, mercifully silencing the stereo, then he and Lenny, in one smooth, synchronised movement, opened the back doors and pulled Larkin out, pushing him up the steps to the front of the building. As soon as they approached, there was a deep, metallic buzz and one of the doors unlatched itself. Larkin was pushed swiftly inside, followed by Lenny and Ringo. Even allowing for them locking the car, the whole exercise hadn't taken more than fifteen or twenty seconds before they were off the deserted street.

Inside all was darkness. Larkin was pushed forward, and once his eyes had acclimatised to the gloom he was able to make out a long hallway. It wasn't as dark as he'd first supposed; muted, diffused lighting rather than none at all. On the walls and ceiling he could discern ornate decorations and carvings, Art Nouveau or William Morris. The floor was polished marble, the woodwork dark, heavy. The place spoke of wealth but only in terms of taste. Larkin could imagine visitors finding the place reassuring; like entering a welcoming cocoon of old money.

At the end of the hall a huge staircase, carrying on the dark wood and marble theme, coiled itself ostentatiously round an old, cage-type lift. Immaculately, elaborately maintained, the whole area wouldn't have looked out of place in turn-of-the-century Paris. Larkin was prodded into the lift, Lenny pressed for the basement and down they smoothly went.

The lift touched down gently, as if landing on eggshells, and Lenny pulled the cage doors open. They were in a chamber, quite large, decorated in an only slightly more subdued version of the upstairs hallway. Ahead of them was a huge wooden desk on which was placed various state-of-the-art CCTV monitors and computer systems, and behind which was a woman; expensively tailored suit, blonde hair pulled back from her face, glasses. Severely beautiful. She stood up. Piped classical music gently surrounded them.

“Good evening,” she said, in a voice as expensively tailored as her suit. “You must be Mr Larkin.”

“And you are?”

She ignored him. Her eyes landed on Lenny and Ringo.

“I was speaking to you,” said Larkin. “And you are?”

“None of your business,” she said, voice as warm as an Arctic winter. She locked her steely gaze on to Larkin, as if death rays would be fired from her eyes, then turned to Lenny and Ringo. “You're late.”

Ringo and Lenny exchanged glances. Neither spoke, each willing the other to go first. Their fear of her was sudden and obvious.

“That's because I was late,” said Larkin. “I didn't realise there was a time on my party invite. You got a problem with that, darling?”

The woman stared at him, as if a lower lifeform had miraculously developed the power of speech. She looked like she wanted to crush him, but managed to keep the impulse under control. Just.

“I'll tell Mr Rook you're here,” she managed to force out, then walked away, her spike heels clicking angrily on the floor.