Falling (11 page)
I hang up and a lead ball settles
in my stomach. Then a thought forms. Could the man on the roof have been
Charlie?
‘Tell me you didn’t throw our
friend off the roof of this fucking office?’
He hadn’t. What he didn’t tell me
was they had tried to throw Charlie Wiggs off the roof. That was why he paused.
There was a physical resemblance between Leonard and Charlie. This was turning
into amateur dramatics week.
It couldn’t be Christine that had
the other set of accounts. Not unless he had given them to her before she went
on holiday. I dismissed her. The evidence on the computer pointed to a more
recent planning process than this. He could have given them to Charlie. But if
he had, was Charlie dead or alive?
I fire up my computer. I log on
to bbc.co.uk and then on to the local news.
‘Man stabbed in Glasgow.’
‘A man has been found with
fatal stab wounds on one of Glasgow’s main streets. The man has yet to be
identified. He was found outside Tyler Tower on West George Street at around
ten thirty this morning with a single stab wound and was pronounced dead on
arrival at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Police are following up a number of leads
and are asking any witnesses to the incident to come forward. No name has been
released yet.’
‘In a second incident
another man was found on the roof of Tyler Tower suffering from multiple wounds
thought to be the result of an assault. Police are not saying if these
incidents are linked.’
There was a picture of Tyler
Tower and a contact number for the police. Charlie had to be the other man in
the news story.
So Leonard was dead. Charlie
might be dead or Charlie might be alive. If he was still alive I might still
have a chance of getting my hands on the documents. That is if he has them.
I grab the Pay As You Go and
re-dial the number. The answer machine fires up again. Ten minutes later the
phone rings.
I explain my new request. ‘the
Voice’ tells me that it will not be possible until at least tomorrow. If I want
it done today I will need to make a choice between my previous request and this
one.
I need both done.
‘the Voice’ offers me a new
option. I don’t like it and my first instinct is to say no. The offer is to put
Dumb and Dumber back on the case. Either that or wait until tomorrow. After
their screw up with Leonard I didn’t want the Dynamic Duo on the case. I swear.
But needs must when the devil is booting your backside. I give the details I
have on Charlie. The phone drops dead.
I contemplate my next move. I
realise that I am redundant. Quentin is trying to crack the code. He will
inform me as soon as he breaks it or if someone triggers the forty eight hour
button. There are people on the street about to give a whole mountain of bad
news to the ‘strategic locations’. Dumb and Dumber are on the case with
Charlie. All in all stuff is going down.
All of this would come at a high
cost. Neither Quentin or ‘the Voice’ were cheap. I have no choice. If this can
be sorted - any price would be worth it.
I wander back in to watch Quentin
at work. I soon get bored. I go to lie down.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been
unconscious. An hour, a day, a week? The roof of the building seems an age ago.
I’m lying in a hospital bed in a private room. It is dark but as to whether
this is due to the thick curtains covering the window or time of day I have no
idea.
Pain seems to wash my body at
regular intervals like a bad tide. I do a check and the first thing I feel is
strapping on my left arm. I can’t feel my fingers. My face has a bandage
running top left to bottom right and I can only see from my left eye. My legs
are bandage free but it feels like someone has been playing football with my
right one.
I take a deep breath and pain
shoots through my chest in three different places. My guts feel twisted and
bile rises in my throat. So far there is nothing positive about this
experience. I try to sit up but either I’m too weak or the required muscles
aren’t working.
The dregs of the knockout drug
are washing round my system and I want to drift back to sleep. The door opens
and a nurse walks in and asks how I am. I tell her I feel like, well you know
and she smiles. Good she says at least you feel like something and with that
she presses a button above my head and a few moments later a doctor appears.
After a brief examination he explains that they have already x-rayed me and
fortunately the only broken bones are a couple of ribs on my left side.
This is a new meaning for the
word fortunately that I have missed in my life. I ask if they have caught the
person who did this and the doctor says no but there are two policemen who want
to ask me some questions. Do I feel up to it? I don’t but I ask him to send
them in anyway.
When they enter I can feel their
suspicion enter with them and the questioning reflects this. I take them
through the sequence of events but there is one moment they keep coming back
to.
‘So you say they threw you off
the roof and then at the last minute changed their mind.’
It wasn’t they didn’t believe me.
George the maintenance man had been there and according to the police he had
helped pull me back from a long fall - I don’t remember that bit.
They go over the same ground a
dozen times. ‘
Did you know the men?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did they tell you who they
were?’ ‘No.’ ‘Have you any reason to believe that someone wants you dead?’
‘No.’ ‘Why would they change their minds about throwing you off?’ ‘Don’t know
.
’
And so it goes on.
I don’t tell them about the
parcel and the brief conversation with George. I don’t tell them about Leonard
and the
‘thievin’ prick’
line. I want to know if Leonard is alright but
I can’t think of a good reason to bring his name up. Suspicion is still rife
with the two policemen and I don’t blame them. I could mention the case of
mistaken identity but Leonard is a good friend and I need to know what has been
going on before I drop him in it. So I keep quiet.
The police leave telling me not
to go anywhere. Like I’m going to up and run the hundred metres anytime
soon. I close my eyes and start to drift off. I know I need to talk to George
and Leonard but first I need more sleep.
Another mission for
the gorillas
.
Bally says we’ve got another gig.
That was quick. Last one seemed to go well apart from the mad dash at the end.
But hey that’s the way things go in this business. He says the vic is the same
boy we tried to throw from the roof. Not the boy we should have thrown from the
roof but the boy we tried to throw from the roof. I’m not sure I follow this. I
ask why he saved him and he mutters something about me getting too big for my
boots and I should learn my place. Not sure what he means.
This time we’ve just to get some
info - not top him. Just as well we didn’t throw him from the roof I say. Bally
throws me a look. I have no idea what is going on. He tells me the vic is in
hospital. No surprises there. A get in to the hospital, beat the info out of
him and get out of the hospital job. A get in, beat up, get out. A GBG or as I
like to call ‘em a HeeBeeGeeBee.
We did one a few months ago. The
vic was in an old folks home on the coast. Hardly Fort Knox. We broke in at two
in the morning but things went a bit sour. I got the wrong room. It wasn’t my
fault. I have trouble with my sixes and my nines. Anyway we are laying into
this old geezer; who doesn’t look like he would last to the morning even if we
didn’t lay a finger on him. He keeps gibbering in some foreign lingo and Bally
is getting madder by the second.
We are getting nowhere when a
male nurse bursts in. Boy he was a tough bugger. It took both of us to bring
him down. Bally got back to work on the old geezer and he was wheezing like a
good ‘un and I reckoned he was about to blab when I spotted an envelope on the
desk. I can’t read very well but the name didn’t look right. I told Bally who
went ballistic.
Wrong guy. Can you believe we’ve
done the same thing twice in a couple of months - mistaken identity - but the
boy on the roof wasn’t my fault. Bally can’t pin that one on me. Anyway we
eventually found the correct old codger but even that didn’t work out. He was
stone cold - having died earlier that night. No point in us beating up on a
dead guy. Wasn’t our finest moment but we got paid and we got the roof gig.
Can’t be all bad.
Bally tells me we are going to
the Royal Infirmary. I ask if we should wait until it is dark but Bally says
there is a rush on. I ask how much. A grand. I’m happy. A grand from the job
this morning topped up with another grand this afternoon - that’s good cash in
anyone’s books. I tell Bally I never done a HeeBeeGeeBee in hospital and he
shakes his head.
We have little info on the vic’s
whereabouts in the hospital but Bally is good on that stuff. Although not that
good or we wouldn’t have been doing a Mikey on the wrong guy earlier today.
We get in Bally’s car and he
starts grilling me. What did I mean by
‘thievin’ prick?’
Why was I
videoing the vic? What did I know that he didn’t? God is he going for it. I
tell him I know nothing. The
‘thievin’ prick?’
line was a lift from an
episode of The Sweeney I was watching on Dave last night. I tell him I thought
it sounded cool. He throws me another look. Always looks with Bally. He asks
about videoing the Mikey. I tell him that now and again I like to video the
vic. I watch it back later. He tells me I’m an arsehole and that if I’m caught
with the videos I’ll be banged up. I tell him I know this but I like them
anyway.
Bally can be a right pain when he
wants but he comes up trumps on the job front and I need the cash.
We park some distance from the
hospital and walk in. We approach the Royal and I remember that I don’t like
hospitals. I tell Bally this and he asks me what I want him to do about it.
Tetchy git.
Hospitals make me feel ill. Right
down in the pit of my stomach ill. I went to see my mother in law in hospital
last year and by the end of visiting I was lying across the foot of her bed
moaning my head off. I’m told it is all in my head but I know it is all in my
stomach.
We walk through the main hospital
entrance into reception and Bally asks the nurse at the desk where Charlie is
located. She doesn’t know but she gives us directions to someone who does. Her
directions will take us back out the main entrance and in another door.
I need the air. I feel sick
already.
Bally tells me we can cut through
the hospital instead. I ask if we can go the way the nurse said. Bally ignores
me. I traipse behind him like an ill lapdog, moaning at every step.
He doesn’t understand these
places. You can taste the illness in the air. It can’t be good for anyone to
walk around with the air full of so many bad germs. Every time I breathe I can
feel the little buggers sliding down my throat. I can feel them starting to
breed.
We pass an examination room and I
look in. A pile of surgical masks are lying on a table. I nip in and grab one,
put it on and catch up with Bally. Better. At least the wee swines can’t get to
my throat but I can still feel them everywhere. Landing on my suit, touching my
face - it all makes me squirm. We turn into a new corridor and Bally is
striding forth fixed on getting to the vic.
We pass another room and I notice
a white lab coat lying across a table. The very thing. That’ll keep the little
shits off my suit. I grab it and slip it on. Much better.
We pass a few hospital staff and
they stare as I pass. I don’t care. My aim is to be germ proof and they can
stare all they want. I feel an itch on my scalp and alarm bells go off. My
hair. Sneaky gits.
I look round. I need one of those
plastic hat things that doctors stick over their head. We pass a row of
examination cubicles and I nip into an empty one and rifle the equipment
trolley. Bingo. Not only do I find the hat thing but a pair of shoe covers and
a whole bundle of plastic gloves. I sit down and put on hat, gloves and shoe
covers and then jog a little to catch up with Bally.
I am now as near nuclear proof as
makes no difference. I reach out and tap Bally on the shoulder and he turns
round.
The gorillas play
Hide and Seek
.
I feel the tap on my shoulder and
I turn round expecting to see Jim.
Mother of God.
For a second I’d swear it was a
doctor about to go into surgery. Then Jim pulls down the face mask and smiles.
You have to be kidding. You seriously have to be fucking kidding. My mouth goes
into stutter mode. I want to say six things at once and my brain can’t make
this happen. Jim is still smiling. My mouth works and I ask him what the hell
he thinks he is doing. He keeps smiling and then goes into a diatribe about
germs. I grab him by the arm and drag him in to a small room. Thankfully it is
empty. I tell him to take all the shit off but he refuses. I tell him to get
real. This is not a joke, we need to blend in, look normal. Jim doesn’t see the
issue and tells me he is the one that looks normal in a hospital. He could be a
doctor.
I pull the hat off him, then the
mask and push him onto a chair. Reluctantly he takes off the shoe covers and
the gloves. He stands up to take off the lab coat and I stop him. Jim is planet
hopping again but maybe the idiot has a point. I tell him to take off the coat
but hang onto it. I tell him to wait and after a short hunt I return with my
own lab coat in hand. I push Jim back into the corridor and I head for the
location the nurse gave me.
