Cut to the Chase (33 page)

‘You would have known nothing about it, and you should have been dead,' he said soothingly as though that made everything all right. ‘We would have been doing you a favour in this unkind world.'

Wallace wasn't so sure of that, he began to feel a revulsion against Kalim. He wondered if they were going to try it again. Kalim must have read his thoughts.

‘And now you know too much, we cannot risk you being able to talk.'

He turned to go as once again Wallace was consumed with horror.

‘You have been a nuisance over the last few weeks, Mr Wallace.'

‘Look, I'll never tell a soul,' Wallace began, to his shame he found himself beginning to plead. ‘I promise you that your secret will be safe with me…!'

He saw it coming and managed to ride it. The back of Kalim's hand hit him across the temple and he spun to the floor. He was moving in the same direction and the blow was a glancing one. Kalim wrung his hand, it must have hurt him too as it was the back of his fingers that connected not his knuckles. Wallace put on a performance that would have done credit to an English Premier League forward in the opposing team's penalty area; he writhed and clutched his head. Kalim looked down at him, and then turned on his heel.

‘Goodbye, Mr Wallace, and it is truly goodbye.'

Tara came in and removed the breakfast things and the door slammed behind him. Wallace sat there clutching his head, and tears sprang to his eyes. He suddenly realised how much he valued life, and how little of it he had left.

W
allace knew he had to get out somehow, if he didn't then he was doomed. Though a peace loving type by nature, he now had no qualms whatsoever about doing anyone an injury in trying to escape.

He looked around the attic, the window was clearly far too small, the only way out was the door. Tara came in later for one of the toilet breaks, probably Wallace's last. Physical force was out of the question, Tara was too big, and in any case even if by some fluke Wallace won a physical contest, the resultant noise would bring reinforcements.

He examined the lock closely when Tara led him out to the toilet, it didn't look too substantial. When securing an attic door the original architect would hardly have considered fitting a strong room lock on the assumption that one day somebody would be incarcerated in it. Further, although the radio/computer room appeared to be fully occupied during the day time hours, it was vacated around 6.00 pm and they all trooped downstairs – presumably to enjoy their evening meal and rest from their labours and, in Fino's case, from ill treating the prisoner.

Fino brought in the evening meal and left it on the floor; he must have been in a good mood because he merely left it and departed without his customary blow. Wallace sniffed it carefully, apart from being badly cooked it seemed all right, he could detect nothing untoward such as he'd experienced in the restaurant dinner with Kalim and in any case, he was ravenous. By the time he had reached the end of it the back end of the meal was cold, but he still ate slowly. If he felt at all queasy or experienced any strange taste in his mouth he had determined that he would cease eating. However, on completion he still felt all right, though still hungry.

He secreted the fork under the mattress and left the knife and spoon on the tray. He would have liked to have retained the knife as well but two missing items would be too obvious. Fino came in about 8.00 pm and picked up the tray without even looking at it. He went downstairs and Wallace waited for the voices, the heavy tread on the stairs and the bursting open of the door followed by a comprehensive search…but nothing happened.

He took out the fork and set to work. He bent one of the prongs and inserted it into the keyhole. In his school days he had attained a high level of proficiency for picking the locks of the lockers in the gym, and also the padlocks on bikes in the bicycle sheds. His services had been in great demand by joy riders and practical jokers. Wallace was not so sure whether his capabilities and skills had survived the passing of the years now that his life depended upon them.

He felt around gingerly with the bent prong and located one of the levers; it was highly unlikely with a room of this type that the lock would be anything other than a two lever. He would have to be very unlucky, and the house unusual, for there to be more than two levers in any lock, especially as British house owners did not customarily use their upper rooms as jails.

There was a click, he tried the door handle but it didn't budge.

‘Shit!' he uttered feelingly, and his previous emotions, those of tears and sheer fright, overcame him once more. He probed around again and realised that the end of the prong was against something unyielding, it was the second lever. He eased it up and down, and…did it move? It did, there was another click and this time he actually saw the tongue of the lock move backwards. He pulled on the door handle, the door stayed shut but it moved slightly. He tugged again, there was a scraping noise and the screeching of metal against metal as the door jammed tight, the tongue of the lock was still half way out and jamming against the door jamb. It had stuck.

‘Bugger you!' Wallace snarled and set to work with the prongs again, the tongue slid back another millimetre or so but the clearance was now sufficient to enable the door to open…but under protest with more screeching and scraping that echoed and re-echoed throughout the house and was probably heard the other side of the street.

He peered out onto the landing; there was no sign of anybody. He crept to the top of the stairs, the light was on down below in the hallway and the door to one of the rooms was open. He heard the sound of voices so he couldn't go that way. He went back along the passageway; the door to his attic prison was still open so he stealthily closed it. The open door would immediately give the game away if anyone came upstairs. The door protested once more with metal upon metal, but it did look closed. Wallace could get in again if he needed to.

He went into the next room, it was a bedroom and he went over to the window hoping to find a convenient drain pipe. There wasn't one. He entered the radio/computer room, peered out of the window and saw that this time there was a handy drain pipe and it ran close to an out-house roof. That would do. He raised the sash window and stretched one leg over the window sill. As he did so the telephone in the room rang and he nearly fell off the sill onto the floor in a panic.

‘Oh God!' he moaned to himself, if anyone came to answer it he couldn't fail to be discovered. He thought about dashing back into his attic prison but could hear footsteps on the stairs. With a yelp of fear and despair he squeezed into a gap between the filing cabinet and the wall and sank down on his haunches.

The ringing ceased, he could hear voices down below. The steps on the stair went past the door and entered the toilet. Fearfully Wallace decided to head for the window again, but on an impulse he picked up the receiver and placed his hand over the mouthpiece.

‘…unnecessary complication, you're not in a banana republic now, you bloody fool!'

‘He knows too much, you understand? If he is allowed to live I would be forever compromised.' This was clearly Kalim.

‘So you expect me to dispose of him…I suppose I haven't much choice, but we are dealing with a country that has an efficient police force, not a corruptible rabble. I want more money, my friend! This is far more dangerous now especially as the police are looking for him as well.'

‘All right, Juan, you'll get it, we can wear that, but he has to disappear, and for good!'

‘Good!' Wallace heard Juan purr, and felt a surge of fury that his demise should just be a marketable commodity. ‘Apart from your colleagues, and mine, does anyone suspect your hand in Ravindran's death, and why Wallace is being held there?'

‘No Juan, except…er . . !'

‘Tara and Fino, no problem, I understand,' Juan said. ‘I'll come within the hour, is he conscious?'

‘Yes, for the present, but we can arrange that if you prefer. I'll get Tara to deal with it,' said Kalim.

‘Make sure he does it properly because we don't want any repetitions of that cock up at Knightsbridge,' rasped Juan. ‘How did he survive that?'

‘I don't know, maybe he had some physical immunity, I really don't know.'

‘Well we'll make sure he doesn't survive this time,' snapped Juan and rang off.

Wallace waited until Kalim had also hung up and replaced the receiver. He resisted the first urge, which was to faint, and the second which was to vomit. Clearly he had to get out now, and quickly. As he headed for the window he spotted some computer flash drives in a plastic box next to the computer, he opened it up and thoughtfully weighed them in his hand. There were two of them, there was another in the computer and there was an organisational chart on the screen. He located the designation for the flash drive on the menu, moved the mouse arrow up to save and pressed the left hand side of the mouse, it started to save without asking for a file name. Then he extracted it and then placed the three of them in his shirt pocket, which had a do up button. He secured them and then thrust his leg over the window sill again.

He nearly panicked when he heard the toilet cistern being flushed, and almost fell outward; it was a long way to the ground. He took a grip on himself and managed to hold on by one hand and reached for the drain pipe. He barked his shins as he did so and felt the muscles in his shoulders and arms creak. Then his shoes hit the wall again and he slid down the drain pipe for about four feet, reached out for and landed upon the out-house roof. He crawled to the edge and peered over and then swung himself to the ground, landing on all fours.

It was a moot point who was the more surprised, Wallace or the other man. He looked at Wallace in wonderment, he was big but Wallace did have the advantage of surprise. He opened his mouth and shouted, then Wallace's fist hit him under the heart and as he fell back Wallace hit him across the jaw with his other fist. He fell over, still mouthing but not too loudly, most of the wind knocked out of him. Wallace kicked him in the gut and tried to run, but felt a grip on his ankle and fell headlong. His assailant rose and dragged Wallace to his feet, not for the first time Wallace experienced utter despair.

It was Fino. He saw who it was and looked astonished, then he began to smile, a most unpleasant and triumphant smile. Wallace tried to struggle but Fino was far too strong.

‘Keep still, my little man, you can't leave this early.' He seized Wallace by the scruff of the neck and began to frogmarch him back towards the house.

He was laughing to himself, then Wallace heard the sounds of rustling in the foliage, there was a dull
clop
; the hand on his neck slackened. He heard Fino grunt and it wasn't a happy sound. There was another dull clopping noise and Fino fell headlong with Wallace underneath him. Wallace was completely winded, he struggled out from beneath Fino and a hand grabbed hold of him. Wallace swung feebly in desperation and self defence and was roughly shaken.

‘Calm down, you bloody fool!' an irate voice snapped out of the darkness. ‘This way, and for Christ's sake stay close and keep quiet!'

It was McKay.

‘How did you get here? How did you know where…?'

‘Stop asking bloody silly questions and shut up!' McKay snapped as they dived into the bushes. Lights were coming on at the back of the house and Wallace could hear shouting. ‘There's a wall over there, if we climb over that we're outside the property… follow me!'

Wallace could see McKay's dim shape flitting, or crashing, through the undergrowth, and there was plenty of that. There was also plenty of noise from Kalim and his men who clearly cared little for the garden plants. Wallace followed trustingly, being whipped across the face and arms as branches and brambles flicked back at him as McKay preceded him through the bushes.

‘Bugger it!'

‘Shut up, we're nearly there…Christ!'

He flung himself flat and began to wriggle under a rhododendron bush. Wallace followed him as a torch light came nearer and nearer. It flashed around near to where they were, there were two men.

‘How the hell did he get out?'

‘I don't know. Who is he anyway?'

‘Somebody Kalim doesn't like, maybe he stepped out of line.'

‘Well I wouldn't fancy meeting him in the dark if he can lay Fino out like that, he must have a punch like a mule…bugger it!'

There was a crashing sound as the speaker fell, he picked himself up cursing. Wallace felt some satisfaction not only at his fall but also the fact that he had clearly accumulated a reputation for being able to mix it. Respect for Wallace's capabilities was something that had been sadly lacking amongst Kalim's men; it was nice to note the degree of disquiet in the speaker's voice. The torch light went off at a tangent and the voices trailed off to be a mere rumble. McKay eased himself to his feet and snaked his way to the wall. It was a brick wall about six feet high.

‘There's barbed wire across the top,' Wallace objected.

‘Jesus Christ! Did you expect just to be able to jump over it? We're not playing games here, this is the real thing!'

‘There's no need to tell
me
that!' Wallace responded coldly. ‘I've just been locked up for about two and a half…!'

‘Shut up! You'll have the whole pack of them here. Just give me a leg up.'

‘What about me?'

‘Are we going to stay here arguing all fucking night? Maybe you'd like me to ask one of your recent friends to adjudicate.'

Muttering angrily, Wallace gave him a leg up; McKay clambered onto the top and sat astride.

‘Catch hold of this.'

He reached down with his arm, Wallace seized his wrist and McKay pulled him upwards. Wallace's legs went up so enthusiastically that they outpaced the rest of him and he was nearly hanging upside down. He heard McKay mutter another angry curse as he grabbed Wallace's leg and pulled him up alongside him. The barbed wire had been cut away for about three feet or so, for which Wallace was profoundly thankful; but he gave a yelp of pain as he sat down heavily onto his testicles.