Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (20 page)

‘Bloody what?’

‘Nora?’

‘You ‘ear that, Delia?’ said Harry and rotated his chair a few degrees in his direction. ‘I think our friend ‘ere must be a bit posh.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Delia, who was standing by the window, staring down at the outside world.

‘Bloody Nora, vicar, but it would be simply splendid if you’d care to partake of another of these rather delicious cucumber sandwiches, what.’

It was a rubbish attempt at an upper-class accent, but Trevor decided not to mention it and resumed his detailed study of the carpet pile.

Harry drained his can of beer. ‘Anything ‘appening out there?’

‘Can’t really see from here,’ said Delia without turning round.

‘What you lookin’ at then? Tottie, I s’pose.’

‘As if.’

‘We got this young Greek lad does odd jobs for us at the villa now and again. Cleans the pool and stuff. I might even fancy him myself if I was, you know… that way inclined. You’ll have to come out some time.’

Trevor was too absorbed in the all-too-vivid images of his own painful and bloody demise to have registered much of what had just been said, but Harry’s sudden burst of laughter shook him back into the reality of the present.

‘Come out?’ he was saying. ‘Bit bloody late for that eh, Delia.’

Trevor had no idea what the joke was, and if the lack of reaction was anything to go by, Delia hadn’t got it either – or at least hadn’t found it particularly funny.

Harry’s laughter subsided like a punctured balloon, and he crushed the empty beer can in his fist. ‘Any more of these in there?’ he said, nodding in the direction of the mini-bar.

Delia either had eyes in the back of his head or the crunching metallic sound was enough to convey what Harry was asking. ‘Dunno, Harry. Probably.’

There was a brief pause as Harry seemed to be considering a response, but he said nothing and went over to the mini-bar to investigate for himself. He took out a can and cracked open the ring-pull.

‘Where’s this food then?’ he said. ‘I’m bloody starving.’

No sooner had he spoken the words than there was a knock at the door. For the first time in several minutes, Delia turned his attention away from the window and caught Harry’s eye.

‘Who is it?’ Harry called out.

‘Room service,’ came the barely audible response.

Harry looked down at Trevor and put a finger to his lips. He then used the same finger to make a slashing movement across his throat. ‘Got me?’ he said and picked up the gun that MacFarland had left on the bed. He sat back down on the swivel chair and placed the pistol on the desk, covering it with the room service menu.

Delia made his way to the door and, as before, opened it a few inches and peered through the gap.

‘You order room service, sir?’

The voice was clearer now, and Trevor picked up the strong foreign accent. Delia stepped back, and a two-tiered trolley entered the room followed by a sallow featured young man in a blue and grey uniform. He wheeled the trolley over to the desk, and Trevor caught a tongue-tingling whiff of onions, chips and hot bread, which gave his badly deprived stomach the gastric equivalent of a hardon.

Harry held up his hand. ‘Just leave it all where it is.’

The waiter looked at him and then down at the first of the three covered plates which he had begun to transfer from the trolley to the desk. ‘You no want me to—?’

‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you understand fucking English?’

The expression on the waiter’s face was a cross between indignation and bewilderment as he put the food back on the trolley and pulled himself upright. He showed no sign of leaving, however, and it was clear to Trevor that he was expecting a tip. Harry either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He merely reached over to the trolley and picked up the nearest of the three pints of lager. He held the glass up to the light and was about to take a drink when he stopped and squinted up at the young waiter. ‘You still ‘ere?’

The waiter opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, he turned abruptly and walked towards the still open door. As soon as he began to move, Trevor jumped to his feet and hurried to intercept him before he left the room.

‘Just a minute,’ he said and pulled out his wallet.

The waiter accepted the five pound note that Trevor held out to him with a broad grin and a slight bow of the head. ‘Thank you, sir. Most kind.’ He thrust the money into his jacket pocket and was about to continue on his way when Trevor laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

‘Hang on a sec and I’ll come with you. I need to get going myself.’ He flashed an unconvincing smile at Delia, who had not moved since he’d let the waiter into the room, and then at Harry. ‘Sorry I can’t stop for lunch. Maybe some other time.’

Trevor was surprised at how confident and natural he thought he sounded, whilst he was all too aware of the Japanese drumming troupe striking up inside his chest once again. The rhythm intensified as he saw the crimson flood into Harry’s cheeks and his eyes narrow to the merest of slits. But the pounding reached a crescendo when he noticed a hand ease itself under the room service menu on the desk.

‘Surely you don’t have to rush off quite so soon?’ Harry said through lips so tightly drawn they were almost invisible.

‘Places to go. People to kill— I mean, see,’ said Trevor, his concrete smile already beginning to crumble. ‘You know how it is, Harry mate.’

‘Oh I do indeed. I do indeed.’

The sight of movement under the menu convinced Trevor it was well past time for him to make his exit, and with a hollow sounding ‘See you then, guys. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ over his shoulder, he strode out of the room with the waiter immediately behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

From the moment they’d left the hotel room, Sandra had considered every possible means of escape that presented itself but dismissed each one almost as soon as it occurred to her. MacFarland and his gun were always just too close behind her, and now and then she even felt the hard point of the muzzle in the small of her back. At first, she had thought her best opportunity would be in the hotel foyer or the street outside, where there should be enough people around to deter the guy from actually pulling the trigger. But she wasn’t at all sure this would be the case. His undisguised lust for revenge might well be acute enough to blind him to the presence of witnesses, however many there might be. Come to think of it, he was very probably the type who wouldn’t much care if the odd bystander stopped a bullet or two in the process. She couldn’t even rely on his sense of logic telling him he had to keep her alive at least until she’d shown him where her car was parked.

As it turned out, the hotel foyer was almost deserted, and the Sunday lunchtime street was only sparsely populated with pedestrians. For want of any better ideas, Sandra made a vague attempt at playing for time. When they reached the pavement at the bottom of the hotel steps, she stopped and looked back and forth along the road.

‘Now where the hell did I leave it?’ she said, scratching her head for good measure and with almost as much exaggerated theatricality as a Stan Laurel impersonator.

She was enjoying winding the guy up but wondered if this might not be her best strategy when she felt the heat of his breath in her ear and caught a whiff of stale beer as he said, ‘Listen, hen, I’m nae even gonna count tae three.’

‘Maths not your strong point, eh?’ The beginnings of a smile were short lived as the gun barrel caught her somewhere in the region of her right kidney.

The flash of pain persuaded her there was little to be gained from the smartarse approach, and she was about to set off down the pavement when an elderly man with a thin grey moustache and a checked cap stopped in front of her and said, ‘You’re looking a bit lost, love. Can I help at all?’

The smile reappeared and now spread unhindered across her face. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m actually trying to get to er… the er… bus station.’

‘Happens I’m going that way meself,’ said the man, beaming back at her. ‘Come on and I’ll show you the way.’

As he began to turn, Sandra felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

‘Ye know, darlin’,’ said MacFarland. ‘I think I must have left ma wallet back in the hotel.’

Sandra was momentarily struck by how much venom someone could inject into the word “darling”. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Well never mind, darling. Perhaps you could catch us up.’

She felt the fingertips dig into the flesh of her shoulder and thought she heard the faint click of the gun’s safety catch.

‘I dinnae think so, pet.’

The man in the cap looked mildly puzzled but gave them directions to the bus station and then went on his way with a cheery wave.

This time, the gun barrel scored a direct hit on her kidney, and Sandra bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. Again, she smelt the warm, beery breath as MacFarland lowered his mouth to her ear and said, ‘Ye tired o’ living or wha’?’

Another violent prod in the back gave her sufficient motivation to start walking, but after thirty or so, she spotted a boy of about eleven or twelve running towards them with a skateboard under his arm. She offered up a silent prayer that his plastic helmet and the protective pads on his elbows and knees would prevent him coming to any real harm from what she was about to do, and when he drew level with them, she edged her foot to the side and made the lightest of contacts with his right ankle. The kid staggered and dropped his skateboard, his arms flailing through the air as he fought an instinctive and desperate battle against the forces of gravity. But the speed of his momentum and Sandra’s accuracy meant that there could only be one winner, and he sprawled onto the pavement in an awkward tangle of limbs.

MacFarland had no time to react before Sandra threw herself down on her knees next to the boy’s contorted body.

‘You okay, kid?’ she said, carefully turning him onto his side and then onto his back. She examined him for any sign of blood or serious damage and was relieved that there didn’t seem to be anything obvious. The vacancy of his stare was worrying though, and she tried to remember her First Aid lessons and what you were supposed to do to treat concussion.

Just then, however, the boy’s eyelids flickered, and it was as if a light had been switched back on inside his head. Sandra noticed the tears that were beginning to form and felt a wave of guilt.

‘You hurt anywhere?’ she said.

He blinked again. ‘Don’t think so.’ He groaned as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position, and Sandra told him to stay where he was for a few more minutes till he got his breath back.

She looked up at MacFarland and tried to ignore the intensity of the rage that glared back at her. ‘Here, give me that,’ she said and reached out towards the jacket which was still draped over his arm.

‘Bloody comedian now, are we?’

‘I need it to support his head.’

‘Aye, right,’ he said with a snort of derision.

A small group of people had begun to gather by now, and a smartly dressed woman with a poodle rounded on him with a look of disbelief. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Give her the jacket.’

She too stretched out a hand towards it, and MacFarland took a step back. ‘Listen, hen, why don’t ye just piss off and mind yir own bloody business? Okay?’

He seemed faintly amused by the woman’s open mouthed look of horror and then gestured to Sandra with his covered gun hand. ‘Right, ye. That’s enough o’ the Florence Nightingales.’

She realised she had no choice but to follow him, although first she needed to accomplish the main purpose of her plan. Another woman among the group of spectators handed her a thick woollen cardigan, and she rolled it into an elongated ball and eased it underneath the boy’s head. As she leaned over him, she kept her back to MacFarland and made sure he couldn’t see her face or hear the words she whispered into the lad’s ear. ‘I’m in big trouble. As soon as I’ve gone, get someone to call the police.’

The blankness of the boy’s expression made her doubt that he’d understood her or grasped what she wanted him to do, but she got to her feet, MacFarland’s pistol jabbing her repeatedly in the lower back as she walked away. ‘One more wee trick like that and yir gone. Ye get me?’ he said. ‘Oh and dinnae think I give a shite if some other poor bastard gets taken out in the process, ‘cos I don’t.’

So she’d been right about his total lack of scruples, and she knew she was wasting her breath when she reminded him that this was a public street and it was broad daylight so the likelihood of him getting away with it was pretty slim. – She’d contemplated using the phrase “scot free” but had decided against it.

She heard the now familiar snort of laughter and then: ‘Aye, but that’s the beauty of it though. Public place? Broad daylight? Nobody’s expecting a shootin’. They’ll just think it’s a car backfirin’, and whoever sees ye drop will just think ye fainted or somethin’. By the time someone actually notices the blood, I’ll be well on ma way.’

Sandra had to admit to herself that he might well be right, so she decided not to give him any more reasons to carry out his threat – for now at least – and they walked on in silence until they arrived at her car.