Gatecrasher (26 page)

‘Wait here a sec,
’ Campbell told her and moved through into the lit hallway – the light here left on by them on their return as a marker for Gresham to come and find the note that they had left. In his bedroom he dared not flick on the light, mindful that they might be sitting outside waiting for some sign. He found the card where he had left it and turned quickly, suddenly filled with an urgency to get away from the flat now they had what they had come for. Just then, more light spilled in through the doorway from the hall and it hit him almost physically. He froze. That must be the kitchen.

Sarah and Slater faced each other across the space of the room, his bulk filling the doorframe. The light had startled her but she had seen, in the split second before it flicked on, that the huge, broad shape looming in the doorway was not the one she had expected. He was tall, thick-necked and fierce looking and he stared at her with a mixture of anger and confusion. She was obviously not who he had expected to see.

Come to think of it, where was Daniel? It was less than a minute that he had been gone, tip-toeing through the door.

Slater nodded at her. ‘Now this is interesting isn’t it?’

She didn’t reply because she had no idea what he meant, except perhaps to scare her, and also because he was already scaring her. There was a spark behind his narrowed eyes that was as unsettling as the sight of him.

‘And who might you be?’ Slater asked. ‘Creeping around in the dark? Don’t you ring the bell like normal people?’

Sarah paused for a minute, unsure what to say. It struck her suddenly, crazily, that this man might actually live here, that
Campbell
had somehow tricked her. Slater took a step forward.

‘She got fucking invited in.’

Campbell was not actually visible, obscured by the size of the big man in the doorway, but she could just make out a flash of movement rushing across the hallway as Slater turned, and a huge ceramic plant pot came crashing down against his temple.

The massive
frame of Slater came sprawling
back across the kitchen toward her, his legs buckling immediately as he lost consciousness. He fell and his back crunched heavily into the sideboard before he slumped the floor, knocking plates from the side as he went. Sarah had jumped backwards to avoid him and she stood shocked at the sight of him on the floor, an enormous red gash running from his temple across his cheek.

Campbell
stepped over the prone figure and grabbed Sarah’s hand.
‘
I really hate that prick.
’

‘Daniel,
’ she said, pointing to the wound which was now bleeding freely.
‘
What…?’

He shrugged and dragged her quickly through the back door again. ‘Owed him that.’

He almost walked into the man that was standing there waiting for him.

Tuesday
.
12.35am
.

The air outside was bitingly cold and Drennan and Tyler both had their overcoats buttoned to the neck.
Tyler
pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on after they had been sitting for an hour.

The leafy tree-lined street looked peaceful in the still evening and the lights burning softly behind drawn curtains gave it a safe, suburban feel. Drennan eyed the expensive cars along either side of the road, the litter free pavements, the well tended hedges.

They sat in silence for a spell, shifting occasionally in their seats and trying not to allow themselves to become distracted from watching
Campbell
’s flat or the street around them for signs of his return.

Soon
Tyler
was fighting off sleep as he sat and waited in the cold. His eyes grew tired and heavy and his head began to sag against his shoulder. Occasionally he had to blink his eyes open as he felt himself dropping off.

Suddenly a car swept noisily past them down the road and drew to a sudden halt up ahead, the tires squealing on the road.
Tyler
was sharply awake and trying to take things in as he sat up in the seat.

‘What the fuck is this?’ hissed Drennan as he sat forward and grabbed for the ignition.

Up ahead the driver side door of the car swung open and a tall, solid figure stepped out and jogged around to the rear door on the other side, pulling it open.

From the gap in the hedge in front of
Campbell
’s flat several figures emerged, a man and a woman in front as far as Drennan could see, both being manhandled by another two figures who pushed them roughly toward the open door.

As they bent toward the car the light from inside lit their faces briefly.

‘Shit. That’s him.’ said Drennan.

‘Yeah, but who the fuck are the rest of them?’

The driver had leapt back into the car and as one of the other two figures followed Campbell and Sarah into the back seat and the other man took the front, the car roared to life and sped away.

‘I think we ought to find out,
’ said Drennan starting the car and pulling out after them.

Tuesday
.
1.15am
.

Gresham
had not been lying about his kidnapped daughter and the evidence was sitting in front of him now looking tired, scared and unkempt, like she hadn’t slept or eaten or washed in days.

Even so he recognised her.

Campbell
’s eyes met with hers and through the fear in her expression he could see defiance too, a strength that
Campbell
did
n
ot feel he could match. He was terrified.

He and Sarah were both standing, hands bound, in a small room lit with a naked lightbulb. The snot green paint on the walls was flaking and stained and a pair of long navy curtains hung loosely in the window.

In front of them stood a tall, slender man with short dark hair swept sharply across his scalp and parted at the side with almost geometric precision. His nose was thin and pointed and his eyes were small and intense as he stared at them drawing deeply on a cigarette. Nobody spoke.

On the floor in the corner sat the girl that
Campbell
had last seen pleading with him on his doorstep to let her in so she could get rid of the man that had started following her. A lie of course, which had led to Slater bustling through the door and dragging him off to meet
Gresham
.

This was Angie then.

Slowly and with a menacing assurance the tall man straightened up from where he had been resting against the wall and walked towards
Campbell
, stopping only when he was inches away from him and he could feel the heat of the burning cigarette near his face. The smoke wafted into his eyes and his eyelids instinctively blinked it away.

And this must be the very unpleasant man George had told him about. Frank Walker.

‘I won’t insult anybody,’ started the man looking from
Campbell
to Sarah where his gaze lingered, ‘by pretending that we don’t all know what this is about.'

Campbell
tried not to break eye contact, failed.

‘Angela tells me that you have something worth a lot of money my friend,’ he continued as his eyes drifted back to
Campbell
and fixed on him. ‘You are going to give it to me.’

Christ, thought Campbell, who the hell else knows about this now?

Walker
continued to stare into his eyes and slowly lifted the cigarette from his mouth, exhaled through his nose and then replaced it.

Leaving it hanging in his lips he calmly stepped to the side and took Sarah’s arm, drawing her across the room with him away from
Campbell
whose eyes went wide as yet more fear fizzed through his body.

Spinning her around so she faced
Campbell
,
Walker
slipped a hand around her waist and drew her close to him, resting his chin on his shoulder and allowing
Campbell
to watch his gaze wander down over her body. Sarah froze and stared imploringly at
Campbell
, tears beginning to well in her eyes.

The hand at her waist began to creep up over her midriff toward her chest and
Walker
looked up again at
Campbell
with a smirk full of malevolence. As his hand moved closer to her breasts she squirmed suddenly and tried to pull away but this only made
Walker
grin more broadly and he clamped his arms around her ribs and shoulders and held her to him, his cheek pressed against hers.

Campbell
made only the slightest of movements toward them, with no clear thought of what he might do. In a second he had dropped to his knees as a solid fist slammed into his kidneys from behind and his vision blurred as he winced in agony.

‘I could make this clearer for you,’ came that voice again. Sarah began to cry at the sight of him on his knees, ‘But I don’t think that’s necessary.’

As he knelt there, the pain shooting up through his abdomen he blinked tears from his eyes and tried to fight off a tangible feeling of panic. Not when bound and beaten in
Gresham
’s filthy lock-up, nor when Slater had chased him or even when the mystery caller at the cottage had run them down along the cliff-top had
Campbell
felt this scared. The situation had never been so completely out of his control until now.

The stakes had been raised once more and he was way out of his depth. Again, Sarah was at risk and
Campbell
could do nothing to help her this time. He felt his resolve crumbling fast and he knew he wanted out. Now. He had been foolish to think that he could win this game, foolish to think that he could even play it.

As he looked up again the tall thin man called
Walker
was in front of him and Sarah had slid down the wall and was crouched now next to
Gresham
’s daughter who had watched the entire scene in silence. He caught her eye and she looked almost apologetic for a moment.

‘Now then,’ said
Walker
and suddenly huge hands had wrapped painfully around
Campbell
’s bruised chest from above and he was dragged roughly to his feet. ‘Go with the boys, waste precisely none of my time trying to fuck me about and then bring me back what I want.’

He turned theatrically to look at the two frightened young women cowering on the floor behind him.  ‘Do be quick though. I’ll have to find something to do if I get too bored.’

Tuesday
.
1.20am
.

It wasn’t quite clear what was happening here but it was obvious that
Campbell
was the key to it. Who then, were these others? As far as Drennan was concerned it was only
Gresham
and his motley crew that ought to even know who
Campbell
was, let alone be carting him off in the middle of the night.

So what was going on?

Drennan had been chewing this over for a few minutes since having parked the car further along the street and watched the group in the other car empty out and enter a run-down looking terraced house.
Gresham
had been sitting on the memory stick since the fiasco of the break in at
Griffin
. Then they had screwed up knocking off Cooper as he’d told them to but that had somehow panned out OK when he’d died in a west
London
hospital.

Neither Drennan nor his boss thought that Cooper would have been able to say too much to Campbell, who had got himself involved in something he couldn’t possibly understand. But
Gresham
’s lot had seemed as if they were going to tidy that up for them anyway, which meant that Drennan, Tyler and their boss could stay nice and anonymous. Of course as time passed and there were no results his boss had grown increasingly nervous.

Drennan could only imagine that perhaps Campbell himself had involved others and got himself further into trouble. He had certainly proved unpredictable so far and everybody had underestimated him, Drennan and his paymaster included. The other option made Drennan more nervous.

That
Gresham
had involved someone else.

Because if that was true, it could only mean one of two things; either
Gresham
was trying to sell the stick to a higher bidder. Or he didn’t actually have it. Otherwise, why would somebody else be after
Campbell
?