Cucumber Coolie (18 page)

I tried to get my aching head around what Andy was saying, my dry tongue crying out for some processed food. “How do I know you’re not lying? Not all a part of James’ bullshit little game?”

“You don’t,” he said. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

I swallowed some saliva in an attempt to dry my throat. Looked around this room. “How long was I out?”

“Not long. Not even an hour.”

Not an hour. Still over two hours to save Danielle.

Still over two hours to find out what James Scotts really wanted.

“He took my wife and my kid, Blake. His own fucking niece. Who’d do that?”

I tugged at the cuffs on my chapped wrists, but it was no use. “You said it yourself. A nobhead is a nobhead, family or not. How did you end up here anyway?”

“He knocked me down when I brought you in, which I’m sorry for—”

“Okay, okay. We just… we need to work together here. Figure out a way—”

The door slammed open.

A gust of cool air blasted against me.

And standing in the light was James Scotts.

He smiled at me first. Looked at me, not even paying any attention to his brother. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a checkered blue shirt I swore I’d owned once upon a time. He also wore black jeans and white Converse trainers.

“Blake Dent. You’re awake.”

“Looking a bit casual,” I said, trying to keep the tone light.

James Scotts smiled. Laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m my own boss. No uniform required policy. It works rather well.”

He side-glanced at his brother. A side-glance of sheer disdain.

“James, end this silliness,” Andy shouted.

“Shut your mouth, ‘brother,’” he said. “Always demanding, demanding. Same all your life. Ah well. Some people never change.”

“Where’s Danielle?” I asked.

James looked at me like he’d just heard a fly buzzing around the room. “Danielle? Oh you mean Subject C? Oh, she’s okay. Had a few, er… close calls, but she’s okay.”

I bit my lip. Resisted the urge to call this nutjob every name under the sun. “What more do I need to do? I’ve… I’ve done everything you asked—”

“Don’t play victim with me, hero,” James snapped. “It doesn’t sit right. Not after your little discrepancies so far. You know, your police friend, your little viral video…”

“I was rising to the challenge. Like you wanted.”

James Scotts stepped slowly towards me. His footsteps echoed against the solid concrete floor. “Well good work to you. Round of a-fucking-pplause.”

He clapped sarcastically, drawing them out and syncing them with his footsteps.

“Anne’s okay, isn’t she?” Andy asked. His voice was shaky, uncertain. “She… Anne and Jasmine. Please. Please tell me they’re okay.”

James Scotts stopped walking towards me. He sighed, and rolled his brown eyes. “Excuse my brother,” he said. “Always been one for over the top melodrama.”

He turned away. Walked towards Andy.

“Yes, ‘bro.’ They’re absolutely fine too, this spawn of yours. Jesus, the pair of you make out like I’m some kind of psychopath or something.”

Neither me nor Andy responded to that. Better not to feed the troll. Hopefully worked just as well in real life as it did on the internet.

“You’ve done your job, brother,” James said. He crouched down. “You both have.” He looked back at me. Winked. “And you will get your wife back. Your daughter back. Your girlfriend back.”

He patted Andy on his cheek. Stroked his face, as he exhaled strongly.

“Well, one of you will anyway.”

He walked into the middle of the room. I didn’t like how he said those last words.

“One of us? What do you mean?”

“Ip dip dog shit…” James pointed from me to Andy to me again, like he was selecting us for something.

I pulled against the cuffs around my wrists. “Quit it with your frigging games. Please. Just let us go. This can end here.”

“… You… are… it… to… DAY!” James Scotts pointed right at me. “Mr. Blake Dent, looks like you’re the lucky man.”

I stared at Andy. He looked just as wide-eyed, as pale-faced as I felt. I didn’t know what James’ idea of a lucky man was, although I figured it couldn’t be a good thing.

He walked over to me. Crouched in front of me. I could smell the sweat coming from him. Takeaway Indian food on his breath. He smiled, and in the back of his mouth, a silver filling shone.

“Fancy us meeting again like this,” James said. He reached into his jacket pocket. “Shoulda just helped me out that day, Blake. Shoulda just helped me ‘save’ my wife. Ah well. Still got a chance to be hero here.”

He yanked a long, sharp blade out from his jacket pocket and pointed it at me.

My stomach sank with the realisation of the inevitable.

“James, don’t do this!” Andy begged. “You can stop this right away. You—you don’t have to kill anyone else. We can be a family again. Please, don’t kill him!”

James Scotts’ smile widened. He tapped the long blade against my legs, making it sting with its weight. He started laughing. Actual, full on laughing, like a madman’s.

Except he was a madman. That explained it.

He shook his head. Reached behind me. I tensed up. Prepared for the sharpness.

“Don’t flatter yourself, brother,” he said.

He unclipped my cuffs.

Placed the knife in my hands.

Forced me to my feet, pointing something at my back.

“I’m not going to kill him.”

He kneed me in my right thigh. Forced me to step closer and closer to Andy, closer and closer to a realisation of what was happening.

Andy frowned. He looked at me, and then at his brother, his frown growing. “What… what do… what are you—?”

“I have an action scene to film. A twist to add to the masterpiece.” James Scotts pushed me forward so hard that I hit the ground, almost cutting myself on the blade in the process.

And then he took out his camcorder. Pointed it at me. In his other hand, he had a big black device that looked a hell of a lot like a pistol.

“Blake Dent’s going to kill you,” he said, as he hit record. “At least, he is going to kill you if he wants Danielle to survive.”

THIRTY-THREE

Martha was usually pretty adept at dealing with shitty, stressful situations. A whole life growing up in the wrong gendered body trained her well for that.

But dealing with a kidnapped best friend whose kidnapper insisted on murdering his girlfriend if the police were alerted… well. That was a situation she wasn’t so trained at.

She sat still in the comfy leather seat of her Audi TT. The rain came down heavier than ever now, smacking the windscreen and getting on her nerves. How could anyone say that sound was relaxing? It was noise. Noise, getting in the way of her thoughts.

In the way of her decision making.

She chewed down on a piece of strawberry gum. It tasted stale, which was no surprise—she’d had it lying around in the pocket of her expensive leather jacket for longer than she could remember.

To call the police or not to call the police. To call them or not to call them…

She weighed up one side of the argument, the smell of the blackberry air freshener adding to the ridiculous sensory fruit smoothie. By calling the police, she could save Blake. Save Danielle. And technically, Blake wasn’t breaking the rules by her calling. Sure, there’d been threats from James Scotts, but how much weight did they even have?

She scratched at her tight blue jeans. Felt all shitty inside, like she had when she was waiting for the start of her sex change—the start of the rest of her life. On the other hand, she could play James Scotts’ game more by the rules. Keep the police out of it. Leave Blake to sort it out for himself.

But hell no. She wasn’t the kind of person to sit around.

Even if she was doing exactly that right now.

She leaned against the steering wheel. Looked in her mirror at the tramps staring at her car, the side road exit seeming very far away.

She had to do something. She couldn’t just leave Blake in there.

Martha hit the opening to her glove compartment. Looked around for something sharp. Something she could… hell, something she could
what
? What could she do? Stab James Scotts? Sneak in, go all secret agent on his and his brother’s ass?

No. Those days were behind her.

Yes, she had gone “secret agent” in the past, believe it or not.

Failing to find anything sharp or effective as a weapon, unless CDs counted, she closed the glove compartment. Clicked it shut, and leaned back against her headrest.

She looked at the time above the dashboard.

7.49.

Just over two hours for Blake to save Danielle.

She placed her head in her hands. Listened to the annoying as shit sounds of the rain blasting down on the metal car roof.

She had to do the best thing for her friend. The best thing for her best friend.

And sitting here in a pissing Audi TT with her head against the steering wheel was hardly helping out.

She gulped. Lifted herself away from the steering wheel. Stared at the garage-like building that Blake had been dragged inside.

She couldn’t go gung-ho.

She couldn’t risk that. Because if something happened to her, there’d be no chance. No chance of escape.

So with her shaking hand, she lifted her phone out of her pocket. Entered her contacts list.

She scrolled down to Lenny. When she reached his name, she exited the contacts list. No. She couldn’t call Lenny. The police were off-radar. Out of bounds.

But they were the only ones who could help.

She entered her contacts again, her stomach tense. She scrolled back down to Lenny. Hovered her thumb over it, her heart pounding, the vein in her neck throbbing.

“Please let this be the right thing to do,” she said. “Please, God, be the right thing to do.”

And then she hit Lenny’s name and listened to the dialling tone.

THIRTY-FOUR

“P—please, Blake. You don’t have to do this. You—James, please. Tell him he doesn’t have to do this.”

I stood opposite Andy Scotts, who was chained up to the wall. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his lips quivered. He just kept on begging for help, for forgiveness, for something.

James Scotts stood behind me. Kept something pointed at my back. Something sharp. I could feel his warm breaths on the back of my neck, smell his sour breath mixing with the growing smell of piss coming from Andy.

And in my shaking hand was a knife.

“You know that isn’t going to happen, Andy,” James said. His voice was so close that it made me jump. I could hear the electronics of the camera working away right beside my head, a first-person viewpoint of Andy Scotts’ pain. “Blake Dent is going to kill you if he wants to save Subject C, or ‘Danielle.’”

Every time he said the words, I died a little inside. So too did Andy, by the looks of things, who just kept on turning his head down, shaking all over.

Frigging hell. I couldn’t kill this bloke. I couldn’t just murder him.

But by not killing him, I was killing Danielle.

“Blake Dent, you won the ip dip doo. You won the coin flip. You’re in a very privileged position right now. It could so easily be my brother pointing the blade at you right now trying to save his own family. And knowing my brother the way I know him—”

“You don’t know me,” Andy shouted. Saliva spilled down his chin. His cheeks went red. “Don’t you pretend to fucking know me.”

James Scotts tilted his head. “Anger. Second stage of grief, isn’t it? Or is it third? I can never remember. Anyway, the point stands. Faced with the survival or the certain death of one’s family, I think I know you pretty well, brother. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we’d willingly kill someone we don’t know to save the ones we live for.”

Andy stared at me. Stared at me with his bloodshot, tearful, begging eyes. I didn’t know what to say. What to do. How to react.

I was stuck in a fugue state.

And not a Walter White one.

“This ends for you, Blake. Right here, it ends for you. You get Danielle back. Live a normal, happy life. We go our separate ways.”

“A normal—normal life?” I said, the words spilling off my tongue. “I’m a… a murderer. If I do this I’m a murderer. On camera, too. I… A normal life?”

James Scotts licked his dry, pale lips. Narrowed his eyes. “Well, perhaps not ‘normal.’ Maybe ‘normal’ is too strong a word. But you’ll live a normal enough life once you serve your murder sentence anyway. Might get manslaughter, if you’re lucky. And Danielle will be alive and waiting for you, at least I hope. It’s the least you deserve after all the loyalty you’ve shown to her. Heartwarming.”

“Please, Blake,” Andy shouted. “P—please.”

“But if you don’t, then Danielle will certainly die. I can absolutely guarantee you that. So it’s your call, Blake. Spend some years imprisoned by institutions for your crime, or spend the rest of your life imprisoned by guilt over the woman you could have saved.”

I saw Andy getting blurry, and I realised from the taste of salt on my lips that I was welling up. Grace Wallens. I’d let Grace down, all those years ago. I’d been hired to capture her by the police for a bounty. I’d fallen in love with her, against all the rules.

And she’d been murdered on the night I was supposed to be taking her in, all because I chose my heart over my head.

But now my heart and my head were in overdrive.

Kill an innocent man and save Danielle.

Don’t kill an innocent man and Danielle dies.

I wasn’t sure where my heart or my head were. I needed a pissing second opinion.

James tapped his foot on the concrete. Whistled away as he waited. “Come on, Blake. I don’t have all the tape in the world. Make your mind up.”

I took in a deep breath of the sweaty, putrid air. Tried to block out all thoughts, all ideas of morals, all the imagined tastes of Soothers and Lockets and all things menthol.

And I crouched down opposite Andy Scotts and pushed the knife towards him.

His eyes widened as I did. Face went even paler. He shook his head. Backed up against the wall. Kicked out his feet. “No no, please. I—my family, Blake. Please. My—my family. My family…”