Corpse in Waiting (17 page)

‘Is there a pub or shop that's still open?' he asked curtly on receipt of the news that a man had attacked me, obviously speaking, because of the background sounds, in a taxi.

‘Not quite at the end of the road yet,' I panted.

‘Make for somewhere like that and call me as soon as you arrive.'

Hurrying, desperate to get somewhere where there were plenty of people, I was more than aware of my limitations. I badly needed to take more of the painkillers, the exertion of the past few minutes having reawakened all the reminders of the ‘accident'.

I was within fifty yards of the junction when a car roared up behind me and stopped a short distance ahead. A man got out and ran back. This time it was the man I had seen Alexandra with in Bath, Stefan.

‘I'll do the same to you as I did to him!' I yelled.

He took no notice and even though I jinked and tried to dodge around him, grabbed me by one arm. He let go when I swung round with the other and hit him, close-fisted, on the side of the nose, following it up with a kick to the kidney region as he half turned away. Then I ran. Feet thumped behind me.

On the corner of the road was a pub. I hurled myself into it, first door, and found myself in the kitchen; blokes, steam, frying, shouts of ‘Oi!' Erupting out of this I shot along a passageway. No, don't go into the ladies' or the gents' loos because they are potential dead-ends, traps. Keep moving. Another door and that was where I came face to face with him, he having come in through another entrance.

We faced one another, breathing hard, in the saloon bar.

‘You're making a real fool of yourself,' I said. ‘All these people watching.'

Well, two men and a fox terrier actually.

The presence of an audience did not appear to put Stefan off and he lunged at me. I jumped to one side, grabbed a full ice bucket from the bar and threw it. It hit him in the chest and ice cubes clattered into everything. I did not stay around to watch the resultant figure skating, just ran like hell through the public bar next door, regrettably jogging one drinker as he raised a full tankard to his lips resulting in him getting a beer tsunami. I thought about diving up a staircase to what was obviously private accommodation to give me a chance to phone but tore on: it was probably the only access and, again, I might become trapped up there.

Outside, the street was busy. I ran on, fuelled by adrenalin alone but rapidly running out of puff. Somewhere in my wake, and even over the traffic I could hear rapid footfalls. Huge office blocks, long boundary walls, churches and flats serenely flowed by while I pounded on. Then I saw an Italian wine bar around a hundred yards ahead and put everything I had into getting there.

Shockingly, I was suddenly grabbed from behind and hauled to a standstill. I screamed when another hand seized me by the hair. Countering this by going completely limp I slid to the ground, my hair being excruciatingly pulled even more but I clutched him round both shins and hung on. He overbalanced and crashed to the pavement.

No passers-by took the slightest notice. Not even when I had extricated myself, scrambled to my feet and aimed a kick at the last place he needed it. He moved and I caught him on the thigh instead. There was nothing for it but to run again, and I swerved through a narrow gap into a tiny tree-lined square praying he had not spotted where I had gone.

The only thing to hide behind was a large bush. It turned out to be several bushes with a gap in the middle that was filled with empty bottles, drinks cans and heaven alone knew what else. I stopped looking too hard but watched out for the used syringes.

Ye gods, if I carried on panting like this, like a steam train, he would hear me.

I found my mobile and rang Patrick's number.

‘Where are you?' he asked, not for the first time that afternoon.

‘In a bush, in a little park in Kensington High Street,' I whispered. ‘Near The Unicorn pub. Stefan's after me.'

‘Near The Unicorn? I know it. Stay right where you are!'

‘I can't. He's right behind me.'

‘I know it!' someone roared in the background. ‘Go back there!'

‘Go back there,' Patrick repeated.

Fine, go back there.

Someone was quietly patrolling around the outside of the bushes.

I picked up a handy half a brick and peered through the leaves but the greenery was too thick to see anything. So I listened instead, trying to work out where he was. This proved to be fairly impossible too. There was nothing for it but to run and head for an exit I had noticed on the other side of the square and hope to find my way back to the pub using side roads.

At which point Stefan lunged into the bushes hoping to surprise me. Well, he did and because I was holding the brick high all ready to hit him on the head he ran straight into it, getting it right in the mouth, and then floundered over backwards into the vegetation. I flung the brick, hard, with both hands, in his general direction and then bolted.

My legs did not want to run any more but I goaded myself on, not daring to waste time in looking back. There was a maze of roads but I turned right and kept going, following my nose. Before very long this picked up the smell of stale beer. I was down to a walk by now and could hear no one following me although the general hum of traffic and my own gasping for breath made this virtually impossible.

The rear entrance to the pub was on a corner; wooden gates that led into a yard. They were wide open. I hardly noticed the silver-coloured car that was drawn up by the kerb nearby and did a nervous shimmy when a man put his head out of the driver's window and spoke to me.

‘Slump down by the gateway,' Michael Greenway said softly. ‘Make out you're finished.'

‘I am,' I responded, knowing that I was to be the bait in the trap.

It was a huge relief just to flop there.

After a minute or so a woman came from a house across the street and looked down at me. ‘Are you all right, dear?'

‘It's OK, we're making a film!' Greenway shouted to her from his car.

She went away again.

No Stefan.

At least five minutes went by and then I heard a small movement from behind the other gate. Patrick appeared in my line of vision but not necessarily anyone else's in the road.

‘Any sign of him?'

‘No.'

‘Show me where you last saw him.'

‘You'll have to pick me up first.'

ELEVEN

W
e were able to go most of the way in the car and found blood and a knocked out front tooth. Enterprisingly, the latter and a sample of the former were popped into an evidence bag by the Commander who then took us back to the pub where Patrick bought the still sopping but not particularly aggrieved imbiber another pint. However, it was Greenway who placed a gin and tonic in front of me, a subtlety that was not lost on the recipient. I asked him to fetch me a glass of water so I could take a couple of painkillers.

‘She's a two-yob woman,' I said to Patrick. ‘At least.'

He was still annoyed with me. ‘Where did you come upon the other one then?'

‘In Boyles House. I spoke to a man by the name of Fred who was some kind of cleaner. He either told someone else that I was asking questions or I was spotted.' The G and T was going down a treat.

‘And?'

‘And nothing. I left him on the floor. Your training and all that.'

Patrick began to thaw. ‘What did he look like?'

‘Like a smallish pub or club bouncer,' I replied after due thought. ‘Broad shoulders, beer belly, around five feet nine, shaven head but, like Fred, several days' growth of beard, dark eyes, bad teeth, piggy eyes. He was wearing dirty jeans and a once-white sweatshirt.'

‘God, I wish all witnesses were that observant,' Greenway said under his breath. ‘It might pay for you to look at some mugshots.'

Patrick said, ‘And perhaps I'd better go and talk to this Fred.'

‘He seems to think Alexandra's running a brothel,' I told him.

‘We'd better make it a priority then – when I have the time.' He turned to his boss. ‘Thank you, sir, for helping out. But as you said, this is nothing to do with SOCA.'

‘Well . . . no,' Greenway said slowly. ‘But something dodgy's going on all right. We could get the Met involved.'

‘I'd like to get a little more evidence and then, if it's appropriate, hand everything over to DCI Carrick and he can make that decision – if that's all right with you.'

‘Delighted, as long as you don't use SOCA time to do it. It would help if we had a photo of this woman.'

‘We have,' I remembered. ‘Alexandra walked into shot when I was photographing the garden of the house in Bath from an upstairs window and I haven't deleted it.'

‘Deal with it tomorrow,' Greenway decided. ‘Can I give you a lift back to HQ so you can pick up your stuff?'

‘So does anyone live in this building or is it just offices?' Patrick asked me later when we had had something to eat.

‘No idea. Although from the long list of outfits that operate from it I would have thought it is just an office block.'

‘I think I'll go and have a look round.'

‘I'll come with you.'

‘I don't think you should. You're still not well.'

‘No, but as you said yourself, I bring you luck.'

He did not appear to have an immediate answer to that.

It was a little after seven thirty as we approached Boyles House. We had taken a taxi to The Unicorn where Patrick had been hoping to ask the barman if he knew Stefan, his friends or anyone with whom he worked. Not surprisingly, different staff were behind the bar, mostly foreign students, so there seemed little point in questioning them.

There were plenty of lights still on in the building and as we got closer several people exited through the main doors. But we did not go in that way, making our way around the side as I had done when I had first arrived earlier that day. The rear door was closed and locked.

‘It's a fire door,' Patrick muttered. He shook his head. ‘No, my keys are no match for heavyweights like this – it'll have to be the front. I wonder if there's . . .' He carried on walking around the outside of the building.

I looked around but there did not seem to be any security cameras, only the things one might expect to find; fire hydrants, utility room-type windows with bars on them and oil tanks, plus a lot of litter that had obviously been blown there and accumulated over the years. Stairs that led down to a basement were noted in passing. Then Patrick stopped, scenting the air like an animal. Even I could smell it; cigarette smoke.

Ahead a short distance away a wall around six feet high jutted out from the building. We silently approached and peered around the corner. It proved to be one of two and actually formed a porch around a doorway. This was ajar, smoke visibly emerging. There was a dim light within and I could hear voices. Patrick jerked his head and we went back to the basement entrance.

His keys soon unlocked it but the door was immovable: it was bolted on the inside.

‘Plan Z,' Patrick whispered, locking everything up again.

‘Which is?' I asked.

‘Bluff our way in through the front.'

‘There was a doorman who saw me,' I recollected.

‘It might not be the same one now. Can you describe him?'

‘Thin, round-shouldered, sallow complexion, dark, greasy, receding hair.'

‘I'll go in alone if there's any doubt.'

A large black man wearing a smart uniform was taking the air on the front steps.

‘Good evening,' Patrick called. ‘Have you seen Stefan?'

The security guard nodded with a big smile on his face. ‘You want him?'

‘Yes, I was hoping to knock his block off, actually.'

A bigger grin. ‘Someone already has, man.'

‘D'you know where he is now?'

‘He said something about getting his teeth fixed.'

‘D'you know where he lives?'

‘No, sorry.'

We went up the steps and Patrick said, ‘My wife was visiting an office on the third floor this afternoon when she was attacked by a man whom it would appear is a friend of Stefan's. Although we both work for the Serious Organized Crime Agency,' and here he produced his warrant card, ‘I can't investigate this officially as it is, at present anyway, outside our remit. But as you might imagine, I'm as mad as hell about it and I would very much like to have a look around up there.'

The man shrugged. ‘If you've got an ID card that says you're anything to do with the police, mister, then as far as I'm concerned you can have a nose round the whole place. Help yourself. But please don't tell anyone I said that.'

‘And I'd appreciate your not saying a word either.'

‘What did this character look like?' asked the guard.

I gave him the man's description.

He pondered. ‘Can't say as I know him. But there's hundreds of folk here during the day and I'm only around at night.'

We thanked him and went in. While this conversation was taking place I had again scanned the list of companies and organizations with offices in the building but nothing had been listed as located in room fifteen on the third floor. This was not in itself suspicious but did suggest a desire to keep a low profile.

We went up in the lift, the thought going through my mind that all security staff might have been bribed or threatened to report to certain people the presence of strangers asking questions. It had probably occurred to Patrick too, a swift glance in his direction revealing that he had tensed, his jaw taut, ready for anything.