Dead Flowers Page 17

  ‘Good. They’ve got a camera somewhere. CCTV.’

  ‘I understand the concept,’ she said. ‘What have they done to you?’

  ‘Nothing much so far. Just got me trussed up like a chicken dinner and threatened to cut off my manhood. But they’ve just killed Sharon’s husband, and they’ve got her prisoner inside. They’re trying out some scam to get the lottery winnings.’

  ‘Oh, Nick, I’m sorry. You were quite fond of him weren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve known worse blokes. But we’ve got no time for that now. Those two will be coming to finish me off soon.’

  She reached over and felt the handcuffs. ‘How are we going to get out of this?’ she said.

  ‘On the floor under the front seat,’ I said. ‘There’s a big pair of bolt cutters. That’s what they threatened to use on my dick. Get ’em.’ She fumbled around and came up with them. ‘Slice the cuffs off,’ I said.

  It took her all her strength, but the blades were strong and the handles were long enough to give her leverage. After a bit of a tussle I was left with just a set of matching bracelets as souvenirs. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ I said, and we left the car and ran over to where Matty was waiting behind a pile of beer crates.

  60

  We crouched down together as the rain tumbled from the sky, soaking us to the skin. ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said to Matty. ‘I owe you one. Another one,’ I added.

  ‘Didn’t you know we would?’ She was smiling.

  I shook my head.

  ‘You don’t know who we are, do you, Nick?’ she said. A question she’d asked before, but I still didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant by it, so like before I ignored it. This was certainly no time for guessing games. Instead I said, ‘Sharon’s inside with fatso and his mate. They’ve killed Grant and they just shot Ray Miller down in the street.’

  ‘We should call the police,’ said Maddie.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It was my fault Ray was murdered. I set him up. And I owe him too. I’m going to get Sharon myself. You can do what you like.’

  ‘You haven’t got a weapon,’ said Maddie. ‘And they’re armed.’

  ‘I know they’re armed. I’ll take my chances. Anyway I’ve got these.’ I held up the bolt cutters that I’d brought from the car. And then something struck me as I looked at the crates of bottles all around us. ‘And that’s not all,’ I said. ‘Wait here.’

  I jumped up, ran for the car and tried the boot. It was locked, so I inserted the blades of the cutters into the gap between the lid and the bodywork and twisted them hard. The boot popped. Inside was the spare wheel and as I’d hoped a plastic can. I picked it up and shook it and heard liquid slop inside. I slammed the boot shut, praying that the boys inside weren’t watching the TV monitors, and ran back to the girls.

  I unscrewed the top of the can and crossed my fingers it wasn’t water for the radiator, but I smelt petrol fumes and grinned through the rain running down my face. ‘Delicious,’ I said. ‘Grab a couple of bottles. And be quick in case those bastards spotted us.’

  They did as they were told and I filled four bottles to their necks. ‘Either of you girls got any tampons on you?’ I asked when they were full.

  ‘This is hardly the time to worry about our menstrual cycles,’ said Maddie.

  ‘I’m not worried about the time of the month,’ I said. ‘Have you?’

  ‘I’ve got some panty pads, I think,’ said Matty, and opened the shoulder bag she had slung round her neck and rummaged around in it. ‘Here.’

  She gave me a packet with half a dozen pads inside and I ripped off the plastic backing from four of them and folded the pads themselves and forced one into each of the four bottles filled with petrol. ‘More absorbent, see,’ I said as I splashed petrol on to the cotton, trying not to get any on my hands or clothes.

  ‘You coming with me or not?’ I asked when the Molotov cocktails were ready.

  ‘Course we are,’ replied Maddie.

  ‘Cop for these then,’ I said to the girls, who took two each. I picked up the bolt cutter, and thus armed I tried the back door of the pub. It was open this time, Albert and Freeze not having bothered to re-lock it when they went inside.

  Careless boys, I thought and we went inside too.

  61

  We crept down the corridor towards Grant’s office, past his body which still sat in his office chair staring at the ceiling. I saw both Maddie and Matty wrinkle their noses in disgust. I was in the lead and I stopped for long enough to close his eyes. He deserved that respect at least, whatever he’d done. I pressed myself flat against the wall when we came close to the office door. It was shut. I touched my finger to my lips and beckoned for them to follow me, past the door and on into the bar, hoping no one had switched on the interior cameras.

  I pulled them both close into a huddle and whispered, ‘We’ve got to try and separate them. I need to get one of them in here and get his weapon.’ I looked round, then at the front door that was hidden by thick curtains. I walked over to it and pulled the curtains back. As I remembered from that morning, when I’d tried to get in, there was a bell push outside. I ran my hand up and found where the wires came through the jamb, ran up the frame and away to the bell somewhere inside the building.

  I beckoned the girls over and explained my plan. ‘I’m going to make this bell ring,’ I said. ‘Hopefully they’ll think it’s a customer or member of staff or a delivery or something. The pub should’ve been open hours ago, but obviously it’s not. If the bell keeps ringing, with a bit of luck one of them will come and tell whoever it is to get lost. You two get down behind the furniture. I’ll hide behind the bar and sort whichever one it is when he comes out. Don’t show yourselves unless you have to. You’ve got your lighters?’

  They nodded in tandem and showed me their twin Zippos.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Use the bombs if you need to and only if you need to. But for Christ’s sake be careful. They might both come out together, and they’ve got guns and they’re stone killers. I don’t want to lose you girls.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Maddie, and they ducked down behind a pair of banquette benches, one each side of the door, whilst I got to work.

  I pulled the bell wire away from the clips that held it against the wood and split the strands, then stripped an inch or so from each with my thumbnails and touched the wires together. There was a tiny spark and I heard the bell go at the back of the boozer. Bingo! I looped the wires together, getting a small shock for my troubles as the wires connected, left them, grabbed the cutters and ran and ducked down behind the bar.

  The bell ran naggingly for a minute, then two. Come on, come on, I thought. I heard a door open down the corridor, then slam, and muffled footsteps on the carpet and Freeze’s unmistakable voice shouting some obscenity. From my position behind the jump I saw his trousered legs pass the gap in the bar heading towards the door. He was alone and I breathed again. I popped my head up as he dragged the door curtain back and shouted, ‘What’s all the bleedin’ racket?’ He worked the bolts on the door, tugged it open and stuck his head out into the rain ready to berate the caller further.

  But of course there was no one there, and I saw him look up and down the street and then at the bell push outside as I silently came out from my hiding place and crept across the floor towards him. He let the door slam shut and pulled the curtain away. Then he saw the wires loosely tied together and stiffened.

  By then I was about two yards from his back. ‘Knock, knock,’ I whispered, and as he spun round I raised the bolt cutters above my head, one handle in each fist, and like some kind of matador from hell going for the kill I smashed the blades down into his chest. They penetrated with a crunch and he staggered back ripping the handles from my grasp.

  He stood perfectly still for a moment, the cutters protruding from his body, and then with a roar he grabbed the handles himself, pulled them out of his chest cavity with an obscene plop followed by a spurt of blood and tossed them into the corne
r where they hit the wall and bounced across the stage. He looked at me with an eye-popping stare, reached down and pulled the silenced Beretta from inside the waistband of his trousers and brought it up to bear on me. Shit! I thought and started back-pedalling fast, when Maddie and Matty got into the act.

  As Freeze pulled the trigger and a round whizzed past my ears, they popped up from their hiding places, a Molotov in one hand and a Zippo in the other, lit the fuses and threw the bottles. Maddie’s smashed against the wood of the door jamb sending a spray of molten petrol over Freeze, and Matty’s smashed into his head, broke, and covered him in fire.

  He dropped the pistol he was holding and screamed as he began to dance around the bar showering liquid flames with every step. He found the curtains over the door and dragged them down in an attempt to dampen the fire, but only succeeded in setting them alight.

  I bent down and grabbed the gun. It was an awful sight seeing him crashing round the bar in agony, and I fired twice into the fire to try and finish it. But the bullets only seemed to make him crazier, and he threw himself across the floor leaving flaming footsteps on the carpet as he went, until eventually he crashed against the bar itself, tripped and fell to the ground, where after a final convulsion he lay still.

  62

  By then the fires Freeze had started while he was stumbling about were beginning to claim the bar. It was an old pub. Ancient really. One of those from Victorian times that hadn’t been demolished by bombs during World War Two – or the town planners who had made more of a mess of London during the fifties, sixties and seventies than any thousand Nazi pilots could in their wildest dreams. It was frightening how fast the flames were spreading as they devoured the material that lined the interior of the building.

  There was no hope for Freeze as he lay where he’d fallen, his clothes welded to his skin that was black as coal, where it was visible, and stank of cooked meat, enough to make me want to spew. ‘We’ve got to get Sharon,’ I yelled at the girls. ‘Get out,’ and the bottles behind the bar began to pop and their alcoholic contents made the fire rage even harder.

  We ran out of the bar into the comparative coolness of the corridor, but I knew that wasn’t going to last. The whole building was going to burn to the ground, and all inside with it, unless we got out quickly. I shoved the girls down towards the back. ‘Outside,’ I said. ‘And get clear.’

  The door to the office was still shut and I hammered on it with the silenced end of Freeze’s pistol. ‘Albert,’ I screamed, standing to the side, out of the line of fire. ‘It’s Sharman. The place is burning down.’

  It was just as well I had stepped back for all I got for my troubles was two bullets through the wood and a face full of splinters.

  ‘Come on, man,’ I yelled again as the smoke began to drift round my legs and I could feel the temperature rising. ‘I’m not kidding.’

  One more round came through and I knelt and tried the door knob. It was locked and the smoke caught in my throat and I coughed harshly and felt my eyes fill with tears. I checked the clip in Freeze’s gun. With the bullet in the chamber I had ten rounds left, and I shot shit out of the lock then kicked the door open, still keeping as far out of the line of fire as possible.

  The smoke drifted into the room. ‘Albert,’ I yelled. ‘If you don’t get out now you’ll burn to death.’

  ‘And Sharon with me,’ he yelled back. ‘What have you done with Freeze?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said.

  A hail of bullets slammed into the wall opposite and the sound of the fire was getting louder behind me. The smoke was billowing so hard I could barely breathe.

  ‘Give it up, Albert,’ I spluttered.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘You’ll fry.’

  ‘Like hell I will. I’m coming out and I’ve got your girlfriend with me. Throw down your gun or she gets it.’ ‘

  I don’t think so.’

  ‘Do it, Sharman,’ and Albert appeared at the door using Sharon as a shield, although she only covered the centre of his bulk. She still had her hands tied and the gag in her mouth, but he had cut the tape on her ankles. The revolver that she’d taken from me was in Albert’s right hand against the side of her head, the hammer cocked and his finger hard on the trigger. ‘Don’t think about it,’ he warned me. ‘You try a shot and I blow her head off. Now, throw down your gun.’ I couldn’t risk it. Even if I managed to put one into the flesh that Sharon didn’t cover, he could blow her head off and get a shot at me too, so I dropped Freeze’s pistol at my feet.

  ‘Kick it away,’ he said, and I concurred.

  He came all the way out in to the corridor. I moved away and could feel the hair crisping on the back of my neck from the heat of the fire, and steam was rising from my wet clothes, fogging my vision.

  ‘It’s been nice knowing you,’ he said and he moved the barrel of the revolver away from Sharon’s head and aimed it at me. ‘Sucker.’

  Then from behind him I heard a voice call his name and I could’ve sworn it was Grant’s. Albert stopped in his tracks as the voice called his name again, this time from closer, and he turned, and past him, through the smoke, I saw Grant, still in his chair, rolling down the slight slope in the floor from the back of the pub. In each hand he had a beer bottle full of petrol with the wick made from a sanitary towel burning merrily, and I swear for the split second I saw him, his eyes were wide open and there was a smile on his face.

  Albert screamed at the sight, let go of Sharon and fired repeatedly at Grant until the bottles exploded and the chair ran on into Albert’s great bulk streaming flames behind it. Just then the force of the fire from behind me blew the wall next to where I was standing on top of me. And I remember thinking what a waste all the efforts to get Sharon back alive had been, and that was all I do remember.

  63

  I woke up to the clatter of dishes and registered an institutional green ceiling and white walls. My throat felt like it was coated with carpet tile. I blinked and looked round. I was in bed in a hospital room. There was a TV mounted on the wall. It was on, showing an afternoon soap with the sound turned down low. Next to the bed was a locker with a vase of flowers and a bowl of fruit on top. Someone was sitting by my bed in an armchair. I blinked again, not believing my eyes. ‘Judith,’ I croaked.

  She looked up from the magazine she was reading. ‘Dad,’ she said, dropping the paper to the floor and jumping to her feet. ‘You’re back.’ And she really sounded pleased.

  ‘What happened?’ I said. ‘I thought I was dead.’

  ‘No. No. Of course you’re not. Don’t be silly.’ She went to the door.

  ‘Nurse,’ she shouted.

  ‘Gimme water, please,’ I begged.

  She came back and poured liquid from a plastic jug into a plastic glass and held it to my lips. I drank greedily, then pushed it away. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I said.

  A young nurse came into the room. ‘Welcome back, Mr Sharman,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Hungry. Thirsty.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She took my temperature, pulled a ‘not bad’ face and said, ‘I’ll get the doctor to look in in a minute. You seem fine.’ And she left.

  ‘Judith,’ I said when she was gone. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You got some minor burns and a bump on the head. At that pub, remember?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You were lucky. Someone called the fire brigade. They found you and a woman. Sharon Miller. You were looking for her. Do you remember that?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  ‘They got you out,’ Judith went on. ‘Seems you saved her life.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Sure. You’re a hero. You rescued her from those murderers.’

  ‘Blimey. Did I?’

  ‘Course you did.’

  ‘How long have I been here then?’

  ‘A week.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘And there’s someone else here
to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hold on, I’ll get him. He’s been here every day. He’s just getting a drink.’ She ran out of the room and left me alone.

  Within two minutes she was back with a companion. I blinked again. It was Ray Miller. ‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘You’re dead.’

  ‘Not quite, Nick.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. I’m getting all confused.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘So what happened to you?’ I asked. ‘The last time I saw you you’d just taken three bullets in the chest outside that pub in Waterloo in the pissing rain. It was you, wasn’t it?’

  He grinned and nodded. ‘After what you told me about those two killers, and when you sounded so strange on the phone, I dug this out,’ he said, then leant down and brought up a large plastic Selfridges’ bag from under my bed, put his hand in it and pulled out what at first looked like a khaki waistcoat. ‘I kept this from the Falklands,’ he explained. ‘My old flak jacket. It saved my life there and saved my life here. Look.’ He held it up like a clothes salesman and I saw that it was torn in several places. Old tears by the looks of them. And there were three new holes, clustered close together where his heart would be. ‘He was a good shot,’ he said. ‘Nice pattern. Knocked me down and I got some bruising, but nothing serious. Twenty-two calibre, a piece of piss.’

  ‘Just as well he didn’t go for a head shot.’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’

  I had to laugh. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘That’s outrageous. Ray, I’m so glad. You don’t know what they did to me to make me call you that day.’

  He looked serious all of a sudden. ‘Yes I do,’ he said. ‘Sharon told me. I don’t blame you. I’d’ve done the same.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. You’re a war hero, remember?’

  ‘Not when my nuts are in a vice,’ he said, then reddened and looked at Judith.

  ‘Sorry, love.’

  ‘I do know what you mean,’ she said.