Warned Off (22 page)

‘Charmain, try and take in what I’m
saying to you.’ I cupped her face in my hands. ‘Try and take it in,
concentrate.’

I stood up slowly and gently gripped her
shoulders. ‘I’m going out for a while and for your own good I’m going to lock
you in. Try to stay calm and don’t call out because I can’t come to you.’

She didn’t look up, didn’t make a sound.
I squeezed her shoulders and turned toward the door, picking my way through the
debris. Locking the door I stepped onto the towpath, made for the car and
headed for home. Leaving Charmain alone for a couple of hours was a gamble, l
but it was one I had to take.

Back at the cottage, the place was cold
but I couldn’t bring myself to build a fire, too cheery. I sat silently under
the light of a small lamp knowing I was making the final admission to myself,
knowing I was extinguishing the last dregs of hope for our relationship.

At 9.55 Jackie called and we spoke
lovingly and I left her with the news of exactly where I was and who I was
with. And I knew that, if she did her job as well as she had with Harle and
Kruger, Stoke would soon be coming.

When
I got back to the boat there had been no change in the pitch of Charmain’s
whining. I went in and tried to get through to her that Howard could be on his
way and it was essential she stuck to the story we’d agreed. I was wasting my
time. She took nothing in.

I doubted that Stoke would come that
night. If he did I’d have real problems between Charmain and trying to rouse
the lock-keeper so I could use his phone. But I couldn’t take any chances so I
prepared for a night on the old barge. The only consolation was that I wouldn’t
be in the same room as Charmain and her moaning.

By 1 a.m. the only life I’d seen was a
fox trotting along the towpath. He’d stopped by the side of Charmain’s boat,
lifted a front paw and cocked his ears at the pathetic whingeing from inside.
She’d kept it up almost non-stop for two hours. The fox trotted on out of
earshot. He was lucky.

I spent an uneventful night disturbed
only by the cold and Charmain’s moans.

When dawn came and Stoke hadn’t showed,
the tension eased a notch and I was sorely tempted to try to get some sleep.
But I couldn’t take the chance.

I wanted a cup of coffee to warm me and
keep me awake but I was apprehensive about going back inside the boat. There
had been no noise from Charmain for over an hour. I guessed she’d fallen asleep
so I didn’t want to wake her and find myself subject to another desperate
pleading session.

And, Stoke could still arrive at any
minute. As soon as I walked through that door he could come coasting down the
hill in his big silent Rolls. I thought about it. I thought about the hot
coffee. To hell with it, I was going to make some.

Hoping not to wake Charmain I crept in
quietly but she wasn’t asleep. She sat on the floor by the bunk, her knees
drawn up to her chest.

As soon as she saw me she scrambled up
and stumbled toward me, grabbing at my lapels, staring up into my face. Her
hair was matted with stale sweat and her skin was deathly pale, making the
rings around her bloodshot eyes look even darker. Her breath smelled.

‘Did you get any?’ she whined, her eyes
wide and wild looking.

I tried to ease her grip. ‘No, Charmain.’

‘Yes
! You must have!’

‘I haven’t been anywhere! I’ve been in
the boat behind you all night freezing to bloody death.’ I held her shoulders
and turned her toward the bunk again. ‘Come on, I’ll make you a coffee.’

She tore herself away and pushed me so
hard with both hands I overbalanced and fell against the table, the leg wound,
again, getting the worst of it.

She stamped once and clenched her fists
and leant forward till her face was inches from mine. A vein swelled in the
centre of her forehead and a dozen sprung out on her neck and, screaming every
word at me she said,
‘I don’t want a fucking coffee! I want a fix
!’

It might have been through some desire
to calm her down but I think it was mostly anger that made me stand up and slap
her face. Reeling, she staggered back against the wall, tears welling in her
mad pathetic eyes. Slowly, she let herself slide downward till she was sitting,
knees up, on the floor. She stayed there weeping quietly.

I made the coffee, brought a mugful for
her and set it down by her side. ‘Black only, I’m afraid. You spilled all the
milk.’

Looking up at me she shifted into
pleading mode again. ‘Let me go ... please!’

I leaned back against the table. ‘Where
to? Where would you go, Charmain, in that state?’

‘Roscoe’s.’

‘Why?’

‘There’ll be some stuff there, I’m sure
there will. Alan might have left some, or Phil. Roscoe’s probably got some.’

‘And do you think he’ll give it to you?’

‘I’ll make him.’

‘Sure you will. How are you going to get
there?’

‘Just gimme the keys, I’ll drive.’

I hunkered in front of her. ‘Charmain,
you can hardly walk, never mind drive.’

With both hands she rubbed her forehead,
then her eyes. ‘I can,’ she wept, ‘I can.’

‘Charmain, listen ... listen to me.
You’ve got to be here when Howard comes. You’ve got to go through with what we
agreed.’ She wouldn’t look at me. ‘He’ll come before midnight tonight. I’m sure
he will. Then we’ll get you away from here, get you sorted out.’

She just shook her head slowly and the
quiet weeping gave way to heavy sobbing. I was fighting a losing battle and
couldn’t spend any more time trying to console her. For all I knew Stoke was
standing outside.

I turned and headed back to the old
barge, locking Charmain safely in behind me.

Toward noon a combination of boredom,
silence and a night without sleep had me dozing on my feet. I decided to risk
another confrontation with Charmain for the sake of a coffee and something to
read. Anyway, she’d been quiet for a while, maybe she was sleeping.

Unlocking the door I tiptoed in, wary of
waking her. I heard the metallic clunk at exactly the same time as I felt the
blow and I remember marvelling stupidly how synchronised it was as I slumped to
the floor and sank into unconsciousness.

I
opened my eyes and didn’t know where I was. My head hurt. I stared at the
ceiling, a long narrow ceiling. Was I in a hallway in some big house? Rolling
onto my stomach I slowly pushed myself up till I was kneeling. I looked around.
I was still on the boat.

It was silent, deserted. No Charmain, no
Stoke, no bad men. Beside me, upside down on the floor, was the steel cooking
pot I’d been hit with. It wasn’t even dented. Tenderly, I fingered my skull and
found a painful bump over my right ear.

I got to my feet. The dizziness was slight.
I walked a few steps toward the door ... Balance was okay. I kept going and
went outside. Dusk was falling. The car had gone.

I thought of the other car parked half a
mile away in Shipton and felt for the keys in my pocket. Found them. I set off
in a running limp toward the village.

I thought of Charmain as I drove. She’d
be there by now, easily. I wondered how she planned to find the stuff at
Roscoe’s. Would she wait till dark and try to break in? She couldn’t wait.
She’d be growing more desperate by the hour. What if she hadn’t told me
everything? Maybe she was tied in with Roscoe too, the same as she’d been with
Harle and Greene.

I drove fast, my leg wound pulsing at
every ridge and pothole. Even in the dark, driving the road that led the last
couple of miles to Roscoe’s brought back scary memories of the scalding. The
black shape of each large tree I passed reminded me of the one I’d woken up
under, lying on the frosty road.

Half a mile from Roscoe’s I stopped, got
the flashlight and lock-picks and quietly closed the car door. I felt only
minor twinges in my leg as I climbed the small fence and set out across the
fields. No lights showed in Roscoe’s house but I took a line toward the small
cottage sitting alone on an incline about two hundred yards from the main
stable block. The head lad’s cottage - it too was in darkness.

The door was unlocked. I looked around
before going in. Down to my left was the stable yard, dark and almost silent.
The only sound came from a box away in the corner where a shod hoof worked
through straw bedding to scrape at the concrete floor. Softly, I turned the
handle.

The flashlight lit up a narrow hall.
There was a door on either side of me. I chose the one on the right and eased
it closed behind me. I moved the beam a yard forward and in the spotlight was a
foot. The yellow training shoe hung only on the toe. Above the shoe the pale
pink leg of the tracksuit that had been new the day before. As the light moved
upwards something glinted on the floor by her side: an empty glass phial. Her
left sleeve was rolled up. Still hanging from her bare arm was the syringe, the
plunger pushed fully home.

Her eyes were closed. No more cramps. No
more shivering. No more loneliness chained up in the big house. Life’s agonies
were over.

As I knelt in the darkness to ease the
syringe from her arm someone switched the light on. I was dazzled for a second
then I turned round and Howard Stoke was there by the door, his hand still on
the light switch. Roscoe, looking strained, was at his shoulder. Switching off
the flashlight I slowly stood up.

Stoke and Roscoe hadn’t spoken. Stoke
still held the light switch. I considered yanking the door open and running,
then Stoke took his hand from the switch, put it into his coat pocket and
brought out a gun.

Stoke
pointed the gun at my head and I thought he was going to shoot me without
saying even one word. I wanted to look at Roscoe to see if there was anything in
his face to give me hope, but I couldn’t make my eyes leave Stoke’s trigger
finger. Something told me that if I looked away he’d fire.

His lips drew back from his teeth.

‘Tell me how it feels, Mister Malloy?’
Stoke said. The level of control he needed to steady his voice frightened me
much more than the silence had.

‘How what feels?’ My own control had
almost gone.

‘How it feels to be living the last two
minutes of your life.’

‘What do you want me to say? That I’m
sorry about Charmain? About Phil Greene and Alan Harle?’

His reply started under control but each
word jumped ten decibels. ‘I want you to say you’re sorry for fucking up my
life!’

The gun quivered in his hand. I fought
to keep cool. ‘It wasn’t my doing.’ I said.

‘Whose was it, the man in the fucking
moon?!’

I stayed silent. Whatever I said he was
going to shoot me. I’d never seen such rage. The volcano had started erupting
and it was only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, before it blew completely.

‘Look at her,’ he said. I kept my eyes
on the gun. ‘Look at her!’ he yelled. I turned and looked at Charmain.

‘The stuff in that syringe, the stuff
she squeezed into her arm cost me almost half a million pounds ... Two liquid
ounces ... One single ampoule ... Five hundred thousand pounds.’

And four lives, I thought, but didn’t
say.

‘And that bitch shot it into one dirty
vein. But don’t think you’ve beaten me, Malloy ... I’d hate you to die thinking
that. Skinner didn’t fuck up completely, he did remember to write the formula
down, so we will be back in business very soon. Very soon, Mister Malloy, and
without you this time.’

He stepped forward and motioned Roscoe
into the room. ‘Where’s Skinner?’ Stoke asked him. I glanced at Roscoe. He
looked very wary of Stoke.

‘He’s outside.’

‘Get him in here.’

Roscoe went out and came back with the
vet, who darted a frightened glance at Stoke.

Stoke looked at me. ‘I believe you’ve
met Mr Skinner,’ he said. I didn’t reply. ‘He’s almost as bad as you, Malloy.
You know how these guys with degrees are supposed to be brainy? I mean, they
told me this man was a genius when I took him on. He was smart enough to work
on the ultimate drug, completely undetectable. A drug that will make me
millions, give me control over all the arseholes in racing, like you, Malloy.
Pretty smart, then, you’d say, eh?’

I watched him as he turned his attention
to the scowling Skinner.

‘But not smart enough to remember to
lock the fucking door behind him!’

I guessed that was how Charmain had got
in.

Stoke glared at Skinner, who looked away
quickly. Stoke turned back to me.

‘What did McCarthy tell you? You’d get
your licence back if you cracked it? The Jockey Club would reconsider and all
that fucking garbage? And you believed it? They took you for a mug, Malloy, and
look where it’s got you now.’

I kept watching his finger. Slowly he
lowered the gun and held it out to Roscoe who’d moved away. ‘Roscoe!’ Stoke
almost screamed. ‘Take this! ‘Roscoe, pale-faced, hurried forward and took the
gun. ‘If he even moves, shoot him,’ Stoke ordered.

Stoke put his hands on his hips and
smiled at me. ‘Cool, Malloy, very cool. I thought I’d have had you begging,
thought you’d have been on your knees. You must have known I wouldn’t shoot
you.’ He took off his coat and walked to the sink unit, talking as he went. ‘No
way ... I couldn’t just kill you without you suffering any pain.’

‘Bad for your reputation.’ I said and
wished I hadn’t.

‘Very cool, Malloy, but very true.’ His
voice was much lighter now. He seemed to be enjoying the prospect of whatever
he had planned.

Lifting a phial of dark liquid from a
shelf he held it up. ‘This is what’s going to kill you, Malloy, and it’s going
to take weeks, maybe longer. I’m going to lock you away and come every day to
watch you die, to see you suffer.’

I stared at the phial. My brain had
stopped working.

‘Sit down beside my wife, Mister Malloy,
make yourself comfortable. And before you do, take off your jacket.’

I took it off.

Stoke took his off.

‘Now sit down like I told you.’

I eased myself down onto the floor
beside Charmain’s body. It was already cold.

‘Now let’s roll our sleeves up.’ He
rolled up his shirt-sleeves. ‘Come on!’ he yelled.

I rolled them up.

Carrying the liquid he came toward me
moving like the eighteen-stone slob he was. As he walked, he said, ‘Did you
know what your friend Harle died of?’

‘Heroin overdose.’

‘Nope.’ He stood over me, blocking out
the light. I looked up at him. He smiled. ‘Ever heard of Hepatitis B?’

I kept staring. He kept smiling. ‘Harle
had it. We did give him an overdose, two syringes full, in fact. Both needles
were infected.’

My eyes were going to the glass phial as
he asked, ‘Guess what this is?’ He held up the dark brown liquid.

I knew.

‘A clever fucker like you will have
sussed that it’s a blood sample from Harle’s corpse taken shortly before we
dumped him in your car.’

He bent and pulled the syringe from
Charmain’s arm. ‘She was still alive when we got here, you know. Told us you’d
be coming  ... To rescue her ... She always was a poor judge.’

Taking the liquid back to the sink unit he
dipped the empty syringe in it and drew the plunger till it filled. He turned
to Roscoe. ‘If he moves an inch either way, shoot him.’

Roscoe raised the gun. I looked at his
face. It told me nothing. I didn’t think he’d shoot but I didn’t know.

Stoke came for me holding the syringe
up. He stopped at my feet and stood open-legged. ‘Arm out.’

I didn’t move.

‘Hold your arm out or I’ll inject it
through your eye.’

Slowly I straightened my arm. Stoke leaned
over. I glanced at Roscoe, grim faced, still aiming. Stoke was astride my legs.
He reached for my wrist, bending, slightly off-balance. I leaned toward
Charmain, bent my right leg and smashed a kick so hard between Stoke’s legs I
felt his balls separate as the toe of my boot hammered deep into his scrotum.
He screamed and dropped the syringe which turned once in mid-air like a dagger,
then stuck into Charmain’s thigh.

Stoke clutched his groin. I reached up
and grabbed the collar of his shirt and hauled him down to shield me from
Roscoe. Pulling the syringe from Charmain’s leg, I held it to Stoke’s neck. He
was groaning and breathing in short gasps.

Roscoe, gripping with both hands, still
had the gun levelled. His knuckles were white as he held it at arm’s length.

‘Drop it or the needle goes in,’ I said,
trying to sound calm.

He didn’t reply, just grew more tense.

‘You’d have to shoot both of us,’ I
said.

He said nothing but I could see the
panic rising in his eyes. From beneath the perfectly set fringe, beads of sweat
began appearing. There were dark patches, too, under his arms. His lips were
parted, teeth clenched. The jaw muscles swelled then relaxed, beating like
steady pulses.

Skinner glowered at him. ‘Don’t let us
down, Roscoe.’

‘Come on, Roscoe ...’ I urged. Stoke was
still fighting for breath, gasping and spluttering, very close to the needle.

‘Shut it!’ Roscoe said, his voice very
thin and light.

I tried to weigh up the look in his eyes
again and hoped it was panic rather than madness. I played on. ‘What’s the
point? You’d have to kill us both.’

He sniffed hard. Sweat broke on his top
lip now

‘Where would you go?’ I asked. ‘Do you
think you could leave three bodies here? How will you explain all this stuff?
And Harle and Greene? Why take the blame for everything Stoke’s done? That’s
where they’ll pin it.’

He stared at me.

‘Put the gun down and call the police,
tell them what Stoke’s done. Hire a good lawyer, and you’ll get off with five
years, three, with good behaviour.’

He wavered.

‘Roscoe! Shoot him!’ Skinner cried.

‘Don’t’ listen to him, Roscoe. Okay,
you’ll lose your training licence, but so what? Stoke here, or Perlman, or
whatever you like to call him, won’t be sending you any more horses anyway.’

That seemed to do it. Slowly he
straightened up and lowered the gun. The tension eased from his face to be
replaced by a tired, defeated look.

Skinner moved forward and smashed his
elbow into Roscoe’s cheekbone, grabbing the gun from him as he fell. Skinner
came at me looking a lot more determined than Roscoe and almost as crazy as
Stoke, who was still gasping for breath.

I held the needle closer to Stoke’s
throat. ‘Another step, Skinner, and it goes in.’

‘Who cares? Kill the bastard, I never
liked him anyway, but you’re dying with him, you smarmy little shit.’

He moved sideways now, toward the open
door, aiming the gun at my head.

‘You’ve got too much to lose, Skinner.’

‘Shut it! That doesn’t wash with me! I’m
not some fucking wimp like Roscoe! You are going to die, so say your prayers
and say goodbye to your pretty little face that all the girls thought was so
fucking cute when you were a big-time jockey!’ He bent forward holding the gun
straight out. ‘Because I’m going to blow your head right off your shoulders.’

I watched his finger tighten on the trigger
and closed my eyes. Then I heard a sweet soft Irish voice say, ‘Don’t even
breathe, Mr Skinner. Drop the gun.’

The pistol clattered to the floor and I
opened my eyes to see Jackie resting both barrels of a shotgun just below
Skinner’s ear. The vet had gone very pale. ‘Lie down on the floor next to
Mister Malloy,’ she said.

Skinner obeyed and she took the gun from
his head and rammed it hard between his buttocks. ‘Now, Mr Skinner, you tell me
how it feels to have something unwanted and unexpected stuck in your arse.’ She
looked at me and we smiled.