Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (21 page)

‘This is it,’ she said, regretting that she hadn’t had the foresight to have stashed a spare gun or even a can of mace in the glove compartment.

Inside the car, Milly had seriously overheated and was panting heavily even though they had left all of the windows slightly open. As soon as she spotted Sandra though, she began to perform the canine equivalent of a triple Salchow with double backflip.

‘What ye daein’?’ MacFarland said when Sandra’s hand moved towards her jacket pocket.

‘Key?’ she said. ‘I need it to get into the car? – Anyway, you frisked me back at the hotel if you remember.’

‘Okay, get on wi’ it.’ He watched closely as Sandra reached inside her pocket.

Her fingertips grazed the leather fob of the car key before she withdrew her hand, and she made sure he could see her empty palm. She tried the other pockets in her jacket and then in her trousers, feigning an increase in frustration after each unsuccessful search.

‘Oops,’ she said when there were no more pockets to explore. ‘Seems I must have left it back at the hotel.’

‘Yir kiddin’ me, right?’

Sandra noticed a slight movement of his gun hand under the jacket and stretched her arms out to the side. ‘You can always frisk me again if you don’t believe me.’

MacFarland’s eyes darted up and down the street. ‘Put yir bloody arms doon, will ye?’

She did as she was told, the irony not lost on her that he seemed reluctant to be seen feeling her up in public even though he clearly had few qualms about shooting her dead on the spot. It also occurred to her that now he knew where the car was, he had no further need to keep her alive. She knew it was a gamble, but if the key ploy worked, she thought that even he would probably opt for the relative privacy of the hotel room before he blew her brains out. If that was the case, she’d be safe for a little while longer at least, and during that time a better means of escape might actually present itself.

He seemed to be hesitating about what to do for the best, so Sandra gave him a gentle verbal prod. ‘Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it was in my bag.’

MacFarland continued to dither, probably playing some version of Kim’s Game where he was trying to remember whether he’d seen the key amongst the heap of her belongings on the bed.

‘Phone a friend?’ said Sandra, feeling now that whatever revenge he intended to exact couldn’t get any worse, so she may as well derive the maximum pleasure from winding him up.

Her remark seemed to jolt him into making up his mind. ‘Just shut yir damn hole and get moving,’ he said, and she felt the jab of the pistol, this time in the region of her left kidney.

When they approached the spot where she had tripped the young lad with the skateboard, Sandra was glad to see that both he and the small crowd had disappeared. She had neither heard nor seen any sign of an ambulance, so she assumed that any injury the boy had sustained must have been slight. On the other hand, there was still no wailing police siren either or even so much as a beat copper to indicate the kid had done as she had asked.

* * *

Trevor was beginning to think the lift door was never going to close when a dull click and a soft whirring sound reassured him that he was mistaken. It couldn’t have happened a moment too soon because the guy they called Delia was almost on them. That was strange though, Trevor thought. Delia had only been a few yards behind them when he and the waiter had left the hotel room. It would have taken very little extra effort to have caught up with them even before they’d reached the lift, never mind got into it, hit the button and waited for the door to close. It was almost as if the guy had deliberately dragged his heels.

‘Your friends no nice people, eh?’

Trevor turned to the waiter at his side and was struck by the sadness which seemed to be indelibly etched into his black-brown eyes. ‘You could say that,’ he said. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t describe them as friends. In fact, they’re very bad people indeed.’

‘Heh. Tell me about it. That fat son of a beach who treat me like piece of shit? I like to kick his goddamn arse.’ He feigned spitting on the floor and added, ‘Putka!’

‘Putka?’

‘It mean lady’s baby tunnel in Bulgarian,’ the waiter said with evident delight.

‘Ah, I see,’ said Trevor.

‘Very useful word if ever you come in my country.’

Judging by the waiter’s earnest expression, Trevor realised the remark was merely a linguistic slip of the tongue rather than a deliberate double entendre. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said.

Seconds later, a robotic female voice with an American accent announced that they had arrived at ‘Ground floor and reception’, and the lift door slid open. Trevor paused only to thank the young waiter and then hurried off across the thinly populated foyer. He glanced around him as he went, and particularly towards the foot of the main stairs, in case Delia had discovered a sudden burst of energy and raced into the reception area ahead of him. Apparently, he hadn’t. He was nowhere to be seen.

The Japanese drummers were still pounding away inside Trevor’s chest, but the rhythm was more mellow now, the beat less strident than before. He was within five or six yards of the exit, and only a short distance beyond lay his escape from the sheer hell of the last couple of days, not to mention the prospect of his first proper food since lunchtime on Friday. Oh yes, as soon as he was through the door, all he had to do was—

At that precise moment, whoever was conducting his internal percussionists must have suddenly decided to up the tempo and simultaneously bring in the gong and cymbal players too. Sandra was on the other side of the revolving glass door, and MacFarland was right behind her.

Trevor’s instincts screamed at him to leave the fighting to someone else and stick with the fleeing option, but he had no time to act. Sandra was already through and was bracing her back against the door, trapping MacFarland in the next compartment.

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Get me one of those.’

He followed her nod to the half dozen umbrellas in a tall metal bin beside the door. He grabbed one and held it out to her.

‘Shove it in the gap.’

Again, Trevor followed the direction of her eyes and saw that the crack between the edge of the revolving door and the outer casing was widening. He bent low and put his shoulder to the glass. The addition of even his minimal strength slowly reduced the opening, and the moment it became little more than a narrow slit, he rammed the umbrella in.

He stood upright, and Sandra stepped away from the door, both looking to see if the plan had worked. MacFarland was heaving alternate shoulders at the glass with such force that the entire structure seemed to shudder on its mountings. Trevor couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, but he didn’t have to be a lip reader to get the gist. The venomous glare of unbridled malevolence was a bit of a giveaway.

The umbrella was already working its way loose.

‘Time we weren’t here, I think,’ said Sandra.

She blew an exaggerated kiss at MacFarland, but neither she nor Trevor waited to see if he responded in kind. They headed out of the more traditional door to the side of the revolving one and clattered down the steps to the pavement.

As they ran, Trevor glanced repeatedly over his shoulder and prayed for all he was worth that MacFarland was in as bad a condition as he looked.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MacFarland slumped down on a wooden bench which was almost opposite the hotel and tried to decide what the hell to do next. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, and he massaged his throbbing right foot. All that running and the bastards had still got away. He’d been within five yards of the Peugeot when he’d heard the engine burst into life and then the shriek of tyres as they’d fought for traction on the tarmac. He’d been inches from grabbing the door handle on the passenger side when the car leapt away from him, a rear wheel jolting over his foot in the process.

He hadn’t even noticed the pain to begin with. He’d been too busy aiming his gun. But when he’d caught sight of the dog jumping about on the back seat, he’d lowered the weapon to his side. It wasn’t that he was getting soft or anything, he’d kept telling himself as he’d hobbled back up the street towards the hotel, shafts of pain blazing up his leg with every other step. Shit no. He wouldn’t have hesitated if he’d had a clear shot at either of the two
people
who had caused him so much grief, so why should he give a damn about some mongrel mutt? No, the thing was, he’d known he’d probably only have time to fire once, and what was the point of wasting a bullet on the dog? That wasn’t going to stop them, was it?

Of course, the dog issue wouldn’t form part of his explanation to Harry, but he felt he had to work the thing through in his head to convince himself he wasn’t losing his touch. So what was he going to say to Harry? The guy didn’t need any more reason to despise him, and this latest little incident would be more than enough to tip him over the edge completely. This wasn’t the kind of business where you could just walk in and offer an apology and a letter of resignation. Shit, it wasn’t even the kind of business where you’d just get fired. Harry had a reputation to maintain, and part of that reputation included doing some pretty unpleasant stuff to people who’d pissed him off.

He remembered one occasion when Harry’s driver was a few minutes late picking him up from some club in Soho, which made him late for an important appointment, and Harry had the poor sod’s little finger taken off with a pair of secateurs. ‘Ten bloody minutes I had to wait,’ Harry had said at the time. ‘Maybe you’ll remember that in future when you wanna count to ten and can only get up to nine.’

One thing was certain. It wouldn’t be just his little finger Harry would cut off once he knew the
bitch
had got away with his money. But what was the wimpy guy doing on his own in the hotel foyer? Surely Harry wouldn’t have let him go before he had the rest of the cash?

‘Mind if I have a sit?’

MacFarland barely registered that someone was talking to him but looked up to see an old man with a tanned and cracked face eyeing the vacant space on the bench beside him. His long straggling beard was almost entirely white except for the dark brown stain of his moustache, and he wore a rainbow coloured woollen hat and a filthy tweed overcoat tied at the waist with string.

‘Suit yirself, pal,’ said MacFarland. ‘Free bloody country.’

He clocked the unmistakable stink of cheap wine and stale tobacco as the old man flopped down next to him with a groan. MacFarland edged away from him slightly and tried even harder to control his rasping breath so as not to inhale too deeply.

‘Not sure you’re right about that, old boy, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Eh?’ MacFarland was shocked into taking notice by the old man’s voice and turned towards him. The middle-class, educated tones just didn’t match up with the tramplike appearance.

‘What you were saying about this being a free country. Not if my own experience is anything to go by. Of course, it might be totally different in Scotland but, sad to relate, I have only rarely ventured further north than the delightful county of Durham.’ He pulled a half empty bottle of red wine from an inside pocket of his overcoat. ‘I take it from your accent that it is from Scotland that you yourself originally hail?’

Glesga,’ said MacFarland, wondering whether the guy really was English or from some other planet altogether.

‘Ah, Glasgow. European City of Culture 1990 and home to the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers football clubs,’ the tramp said and took a modest sip from the wine bottle. ‘And to which of these two fine exponents of the beautiful game do you yourself pledge your allegiance?’

MacFarland took a moment to work out exactly what he was being asked. ‘Celtic,’ he said, surprised to find himself engaging at all with this pissed-up old scadge. It wasn’t that long ago that he and his mates used to patrol the streets of his hometown on the lookout for a loser exactly like this to kick seven sorts of shit out of. ‘Ye ken a bit about fitba then?’

The old man smiled. ‘You may find this hard to believe, looking at me now, but many years ago I actually had a trial for Oldham Athletic.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Not quite good enough though apparently. Story of my life in a way.’ He took a long drink from the wine bottle and then offered it to MacFarland.

He held up the palm of his bandaged hand. ‘No for me, pal.’

‘Been in the wars, I see.’

MacFarland glanced down at the bandage and flexed his fingers. ‘Aye, ye could say that. But it’s ma bloody foot that’s killin’ me right now.’

The old man watched as he bent to massage it. ‘Like me to take a look at it, dear boy?’ he said and then laughed at MacFarland’s bewildered expression. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a foot fetishist. I used to be a doctor at one time.’

‘Oh aye?’

The tramp laughed again. ‘Only goes to show you can’t judge a book by its cover, eh?’

It was true that MacFarland had had enough trouble picturing this scruffy old wino running out onto the pitch at Oldham Athletic in full kit, but the whole white coat and stethoscope thing? Nah.

‘And in answer to your unspoken question, I was struck off in my prime, so to speak.’