Picture You Dead

55

Saturday, 2 November

When he opened his eyes, Archie Goff was confused and disoriented. The back of his head was throbbing. He had been in the Cannon Place car park behind Churchill Square. Who were these people? Big, unsmiling identical faces, in matching black mandarin collars and with identical shiny black hair slicked back.

Was he seeing double? For a moment, in his befuddled state, he thought he might have been mugged. That this face or these faces belonged to his rescuers.

But he wasn’t seeing double, he realized, after some moments. And there was something in their eyes that he really did not like.

Slowly he became aware of his surroundings. He was in a huge, cold, empty warehouse, as vast as an aircraft hangar. Some wooden pallets were stacked over in a far corner; a couple of grey-sided containers. Over to the right, as far as he could crane his neck to see, was a white van. There was nothing else in here except for the two massive, muscular men who looked like identical twins. He was stark naked, he realized with shock, and seated in a chair, but as he tried to move, neither he nor the chair budged. It felt like the chair was cemented to the floor and his bum and back were cemented to the chair. He was bound by a rope across his midriff and by something sharp around his wrists and ankles.

Suddenly his right palm was seized in a vice-like grip; his fingers were straightened out by a hand as strong as steel, then something pressed against the tips. Tighter. Tighter.

Crushing them.

He cried out in pain.

Crushing them further.

‘Stop! No, please, please stop!’

Tears of pain streamed down his face, blinding him. The pressure eased but his fingers throbbed in agony. Then the same thing began happening to the fingers of his left hand. The tips were being crushed in a vice. As he screamed and sobbed and pleaded, the man on the right spoke. His accent was London.

‘Did you ever see that film Reservoir Dogs, Mr Goff?’

Through his blur of tears he vaguely registered the almost ridiculously large gold watch on one wrist, and a gold ring on his middle finger, with an equally over-sized ruby in the clasp. The stone was too big to be genuine, he thought. It was ten times the size of the ruby he’d bought Isabella. Total bling. Archie tried to think, to disassociate, to take his mind to anywhere but here.

The crushing stopped but the throbbing agony just worsened, hurting more and more by the second.

‘Reservoir Dogs, Mr Goff. Directed by Quentin Tarantino? Great movie, wasn’t it?’

In pain and terror, close to hyperventilating, Archie nodded and blurted, ‘Yes.’

‘So you would remember the nicknames, right? Mr White, Mr Brown?’

Unsure where this was going, but liking it less by the second, Archie tried to think through the excruciating agony in his fingers. ‘Yes.’

‘Very good. You may call me Mr White, and my brother Mr Brown. Are you OK with that?’

‘Fine, fine with that.’

Who were these people? What did they want? Who had sent them?

Suddenly, the man on the left leaned over and grabbed a military-looking fuel can. The kind that could hold several gallons. He held it up right in front of Archie’s face. ‘Have you ever seen someone badly burned, Mr Goff?’

And now Archie began to tremble. He struggled with every ounce of strength in his body but was unable to move anything. ‘What do you want? What – what do you want? Please tell me what you want. Money? What do you want?’

‘Oh, I am sorry, but it is not what we want, Mr Goff,’ the man with the red ring said. He sounded almost genuinely apologetic. ‘It is what our boss wants that you have stolen from him.’

Archie stared back in terror. ‘There must be a mistake. Your boss? What does he think I’ve stolen?’

‘A painting.’

‘A painting? You mean your boss is Mr Kilgore?’

‘Mr Kilgore is not our boss. Mr Kilgore works for our boss.’

There was a brief, tense silence.

‘I... I don’t understand.’

The one on the left flipped back the lid of the can and held the spout under Archie’s nose. He smelled the strong, unmistakable stench of petrol.

‘N-n-n-no, please, n-n-n-no,’ Archie stammered.

The one on the right, with the red ring, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook one out and offered the thin white stick with the filter tip to Archie. ‘Smoke? Like a snout?’

Goff shook his head wildly.

‘Not good for your health, are they, Mr Goff.’ Replacing the pack in his pocket, he then pulled out a plastic lighter and clicked. A large flame burned. He clamped the cigarette between his own lips, lit it and drew in a deep lungful, smoke spurting from his mouth as he spoke. ‘But I don’t think it is the snouts that are going to kill you right now.’ He smiled and took another drag. ‘We don’t have the luxury of time to wait for that to kill you; it could be years, couldn’t it?’ Then the smile fell off a cliff and he looked deadly serious.

‘Our boss don’t like being made a fool of, Mr Goff. He would like the painting you removed from the wall of the Kiplings’ house, not the copy that the artist Mr Hegarty had made. If you’d like to see your lady, Isabella Reyzebal, again, it is very simple. All you have to do is direct us to where the original painting is.’

Archie stared back at him, totally confused through his terror. ‘I... I’m sorry... I... the painting I handed Mr Kilgore last night is the one I took off the Kiplings’ wall.’

The man slammed his fist into the side of Archie’s head, momentarily dazing him. Archie felt agonizing stinging pain as the ring gouged out a chunk of flesh. Then blood running down his cheek.

‘My boss does not think so. Maybe we should jog your memory, Mr Goff.’

His twin circled Archie, pouring petrol in a steady stream all around him. Then, holding the can, he stepped back a few paces. ‘Is this helping you to think any more clearly?’

‘I swear!’ Archie screamed. ‘I swear the painting I gave Mr Kilgore is the one I took off the wall. I don’t know anything about art. Why the hell would I try to screw the man who’d bailed me out of prison? You have to believe me. You HAVE to. Please!’

‘Are you familiar with the television show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Mr Goff?’ the one with the ring asked.

‘I... I’ve seen it, yes,’ he croaked, the reek of petrol all around him, and watching the glow of the cigarette in utter terror.

‘So is that your final answer?’

‘NO!’ he screamed, realizing where this was going. ‘NO, this is NOT my final answer.’

‘So, just tell us where the original painting is.’

‘I just did what I was told,’ Archie yammered. ‘I photographed the painting, front and back, as instructed and gave the photos to Mr Kilgore. Then, as instructed, I switched the painting he gave me with the one on the wall.’

‘So why do we think you are lying, Mr Goff? And why does our boss think you are lying?’

‘I’m not lying. Please, you have to believe me.’

Both of his tormentors shook their heads. ‘We are paid to believe our boss,’ the one on the left said. ‘Not a piece of used toilet paper like you.’

‘We’ll give you one more chance to think clearly,’ his twin with the ring said. Then he began to empty the contents of the petrol can over Goff, dousing him from head to foot. ‘Where is the original?’

Archie was sobbing, the petrol fumes stinging his eyes, almost overpowering him. ‘Please,’ he choked. ‘Please believe me, I gave you what I took from the wall of the Kiplings’ house. Please believe me.’

‘Final answer?’ the twin on the right said.

‘Please believe me!’

The twin took a hard drag on the cigarette, now burned down almost to the tip. It glowed bright red. He tossed it onto Archie Goff’s petrol-soaked lap.