Poisoned Cherries

Chapter 53

Ewan wanted to come with us, but that idea got short shrift; he was emotionally involved up there. Also, given the outside chance that things might get a bit physical, he was too valuable for us to run the risk of him getting hurt. There was a third consideration. What we were about to do was probably illegal; I was pushing my own luck, and as Miles’s friend I just couldn’t let his star be part of it.

Ricky wasn’t even keen on letting me go with him and Glen, but I squashed that notion. ‘You need me up there, pal,’ I told him. ‘I’m your independent witness; I’m not an employee of Ross Security.’

Ewan still couldn’t recall the number of Natalie’s apartment, but when we got to the door that turned out not to be a problem; her name was on a label next to the top buzzer, number 10a.

Ricky pressed it. There was no sound. ‘We should have heard that feed back from the other end,’ he said. ‘That’s funny.’

‘No it’s bloody not! How do we get in?’

‘With difficulty, if no one will open up for us. Of course if I’d known we were coming here, I could have brought a pass key.’

It had been a bad news day all round, so I tried one more. ‘Which of your operatives is responsible for this?’ I asked him. Glen Oliver was on his other side; I spoke quietly, hoping that he didn’t hear.

I could see his face fall. ‘Mandy O’Farrell,’ he whispered.

‘Terrific. Now tell me this. Suppose we get the hubcap lever from Glen’s car and use it to jimmy the lock on the door, what happens?’

‘An alarm goes off.’

I stood back and looked at the entrance; there was a single door, half-glazed, with glass panels on either side. ‘Suppose we break one of those panels? Are they alarmed?’

‘No, but the glass is toughened.’

‘So am I.’ I looked around. The communal gardens around the block had a rockery in one corner. I walked across and looked at the big stones, embedded in the ground. I tried one; it was set firm, but eventually I managed to work it loose. It was heavy, but after all the gym work I’d been doing it was no problem.

I carried it across to the doorway. ‘Give me your jacket, Glen,’ I said. He was wearing a big black leather jerkin. He nodded and slipped it off. I laid it on the ground, put the stone on top and zipped it up around it. Then I took the arms, tied them together and picked it up. I swung it experimentally, a few times. The boulder stayed in place; I had myself a club.

The glass panel wasn’t just strong, it was laminated; two toughened layers with a clear plastic lining between them. I hit the panel three heavy swinging blows; each one made a thumping noise, but there as no smashing of glass. After the third whack, the panel was hanging loosely; it was opaque now, with shattered crystals clinging to the lining, and there was no way I was going to be able to club through that.

Glen Oliver may be a man of few, indeed, of no words, but he can rise to the occasion. He reached into his trouser pocket and produced the biggest Swiss Army knife I have ever seen. . more like a Swiss Army bayonet, in fact. . and handed it to me. I folded out the main blade, which was so sharp I could have shaved with it, and sliced through the laminate, side to side, top to bottom.

I had been working as quickly as I could, and as quietly, in the circumstances, in the hope that there were no insomniacs in the flats above us. It seemed, as we stepped inside through our newly made door, that we’d got lucky.

‘Let’s walk up,’ said Ricky.

‘Don’t be daft,’ I told him. ‘What’s wrong with the lift?’

‘You might hear the mechanism from the penthouse.’

‘In that case, we run up.’ I led the way towards the stairway.

There were ten storeys in the block; ground, one to nine, and then the top floor. Ricky was breathing hard when we got to the top, but Glen and I still had our wind left.

There were two apartments on the penthouse floor, one on either side of the stairway door; number 10a was on the right. Ricky moved towards it, but I signalled him to stop. I unholstered my cellphone and dialled Natalie’s number yet again. We could hear it ring inside, eight times, until the message clicked in. I hit the red button but it played itself out.

‘Maybe she’s a really deep sleeper,’ Ross muttered. ‘Maybe she is on the bog.’

‘Maybe she should try Immodium,’ I suggested.

I looked at him in the green landing light. ‘Are we going in, or what?’

He nodded. ‘Glen,’ he said, ‘your moment has come.’

‘Try ringing the bell just once?’ I suggested.

‘What’s another fucking door? Glen.’

Ewan’s minder stepped forward, raised his right leg and opened Natalie Morgan’s apartment with a single kick.

The night breeze met us as we stepped inside. I looked across the open-plan living room and saw wide glass doors, leading to a west-facing terrace. They were open. There was something piled on the tiled floor outside, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

The flat was absolutely silent; we stood there, unwilling to switch on a light, looking around us for the prospective horrors that had drawn us there.

And then in a door to the left, a figure appeared. All we could see was a silhouette; around medium height, slim, wearing a one-piece, head-to-foot garment strikingly similar to that I had seen worn by the SAS extras in the McEwan Hall. I’d seen Mandy in the dark before; naked, or clothed like this, the shape was the same.

A whisper came from Ricky. ‘Glen.’ The minder and the black figure moved towards each other. He carried himself loosely, a bit like a wrestler, looking to restrain, then detain.

He never had a chance. The figure seemed to leap straight off the ground, then hit him with a left-footed jab to the midriff, and a right-footed kick behind the ear. Oliver moaned quietly, and sagged to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Ross started to moved forward, but I held him back. ‘You block the door,’ I told him. ‘There’s a fire extinguisher on the landing outside. If this character gets past me, put it to good use.’

The figure stood there, waiting for another of us to have a go. I obliged, by inching forward; in the dim light I could see teeth gleaming in the centre of the tunic’s black balaclava-type helmet. I edged sideways, round Oliver’s motionless form, until I bumped into a wooden-framed swivel chair, positioned in the middle of the room.

‘Okay, Mandy,’ I said quietly. ‘Round two.’ I feinted a move with my left foot. She bought it and launched into a spinning, right-footed counter-kick. I ducked under it, and as I did, grabbed the chair one-handed, and threw it at her. Its wooden edge caught her flush on the knee-cap. She almost fell, but recovered her balance. Too late though; I had closed in by then. I whipped the feet from under her with the Russian leg sweep that Liam had taught me, and followed up as she went down, driving my knee hard into the midsection of the black tunic. It was all over then, but I had seen and experienced enough to take no chances, so I hit her, once, hard, with my right fist in the middle of the forehead. I could see her eyes now; they glazed over as she went out, cold.

‘Find a light, Ricky,’ I shouted, as I pushed myself up from the motionless figure and headed for the door through which she had come. I fumbled for a switch on the inside of the door but found none. Then for the first time I became aware of a soft splashing sound. It was a bathroom; I found the switch on the outside and flicked it on.

I didn’t see Natalie Morgan at first, but I heard her quickly enough. Her bath was a big old Victorian thing, big enough to accommodate a five-a-side football team. She was in it. . on her own.

The tub was full almost to overflow point. Natalie was beneath the surface. A big strip of gaffer tape had been slapped over her mouth, her arms were bent behind her and her legs were doubled beneath her. Her wrists were lashed tight to her ankles, and lying on her back as she was, she was helpless. She was also on the point of drowning, she was moving, but only slightly, and I couldn’t see any bubbles coming up.

I plunged my arms into the bath. . the water was no more than tepid. . and lifted her out, then laid her on her side, in the middle of the floor. She had been tied with a satin cord, which might have been the sash of a dressing gown. Whatever it was, it was sodden and the knot would not budge. Luckly, I still had Oliver’s big clasp knife in my pocket. I produced it and cut her free, then I ripped the tape from her mouth.

She had stopped moving altogether, and her lips had a bluish tinge to them. I rolled her on to her back, and was about to begin mouth to mouth, when she coughed, and spluttered. Quickly, I turned her over. . and jumped clear as she vomited all over the tiled floor. As I did, I saw an empty vodka bottle, and a glass, on the floor by the bath.

‘Do we need a medic?’ Ricky was in the doorway.

‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ I replied. ‘How’s Glen?’

‘He thinks it’s Christmas. I told him that if it is, the fairy on top of the tree just kicked the shit out of him. He’s okay, though.’

‘And how about Mandy?’

He surprised me; he laughed. ‘Come and see,’ he said.

We left the naked Natalie to puke in private, and I followed him into the living room. It was lit by a fancy, modern, five-bulb halogen arrangement. The figure on the floor was still out; although as I looked down, her right leg twitched, involuntarily, as if she was dreaming about kicking some bloke in the head.

Ricky had ripped off her helmet. I looked down, and whistled, as I realised why he had been laughing. ‘I think we’d better get Ewan up here,’ I told him. ‘Mrs Capperauld’s got some explaining to do.’