The mercy of unconsciousness was denied him; as one of the men slapped him while the other threw water from the tap over him, also tugging his hair in an effort to bring him round.
He awoke to screaming pain in his hand, which hung uselessly at his side. The palm and most of his wrist were scorched black, the flesh seared into thick red welts. And again there was that sickly sweet stench of cooked flesh which clogged his nostrils and made him want to vomit. When his head lolled back, his hair was seized and tugged hard.
‘Last chance,’ Farrell said flatly. ‘Where’s the book?’
Connelly was sobbing uncontrollably now.
‘You can’t do this, please stop, Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know. Oh God,’ he whimpered, tears pouring down his cheeks.
The man holding him tugged his hair and yanked his head back.
‘Ward hadn’t even written the fucking book, I swear to God.’
Farrell pushed his companion aside and grabbed the agent by the throat, almost lifting him off his feet, staring right into his bulging eyes.
‘What do you mean he hadn’t
written
the book?’ he said.
‘He was still researching it.’
‘He stole it.’
‘Stole what?’ Connelly babbled frantically.
‘He stole the book. He took it from us.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Liar,’ snapped Farrell. He pushed Connelly’s head towards the cooker, determined to push his face against the blistering rings.
‘I don’t know,’ he shrieked, the screams cut off by Farrell’s free hand. The muffled bellows were the only sounds he could make as his face was pushed closer and closer to the glowing rings. He could smell his own burned flesh on them, could see blackened streamers of skin sticking to the metal.
‘Ward stole the book from us,’ Farrell said. ‘Where did he hide it?’
The heat was unbearable. Connelly used every ounce of strength he had to push himself away from the cooker, but Farrell was a powerful man and forced the agent’s face ever closer to the ring. Another two inches and the burning cooker ring would be against his flesh.
‘Tell me where he hid it,’ Farrell urged.
One inch.
‘He doesn’t know,’ said one of the other men, smiling thinly as he watched the agent struggle.
Connelly was fighting as hard as he could but it was useless. The heat made him feel faint; as his face was moved closer, he could actually feel the blistering heat drying his eye.
It was over now.
Farrell suddenly yanked him upright, away from the cooker. As he did he drove a fist hard into Connelly’s face, the impact propelling him across the kitchen. He slammed into a wall, his head snapping back to crack against the plaster, then he fell forward.
‘Bring him,’ Farrell said, nodding towards the door. ‘We’re taking him with us.’
Forty-Nine
At first he thought they’d blinded him.
Martin Connelly was sure that his eyes were open, yet he could see nothing. It took a few seconds after he regained consciousness to realize that he was blindfolded. The cloth had been knotted tightly round his head, cutting into his temples. But the discomfort was mild compared to the pain which engulfed the rest of his body, filling his veins like liquid fire. His head throbbed mightily from the blows he’d received, and the continuous agony of his burned hand made him feel as if the limb was swelling to gigantic proportions. Soon it would simply burst.
Connelly flexed his fingers and toes and felt renewed pain, a feeling of weightlessness. A terrible strain on his shoulders and neck. As if...
He was suspended in mid-air, dangling there like a useless, discarded puppet. He had no idea where he was and no idea how far off the ground he was. It could be two or three inches, it could be several hundred feet. Also, he was suddenly aware of the numbing cold. As a cool breeze swathed his sweat-drenched body he realized they had taken his clothes.
Martin Connelly dangled naked in the air, supported only by two thick pieces of hemp, wound so tightly around his wrists that they chafed the skin raw.
Help me.
He noticed the smell.
A rank, fetid odour clogged his nostrils and reminded him of bad meat. It seemed to be coming closer to him. Perhaps the mad fuckers had hung him in an abattoir. His mind began to race, all the possibilities hurtling through his consciousness. If he was hanging in a slaughterhouse, then might they not choose to use the implements of the slaughterer on him? The cleaver. The butcher’s knife. The skewers.
Connelly felt sick and tried to twist himself free, his legs swinging helplessly beneath him. His ankles were unbound; it made him think he was higher off the ground than he would have liked. Perhaps they reasoned that even if he managed to slip clear of the ropes he would have so far to fall it wouldn’t matter. The agent stopped struggling and hung there, aware of the pain in his wrists and the rasping against his skin, but even more conscious of the massive welts and blisters that covered his throbbing hand.
The silence was unbroken but for his own laboured breathing.
He let out an involuntary groan of pain and desperation.
‘Where is the book, Mr Connelly?’
The voice lanced through the blackness, close to him and below him to the right.
He looked in that direction but the blindfold prevented him from seeing who had spoken.
’Where is it?’
Another voice. This time below to his left.
It was like the first. Slow, deliberate. Slightly mucoid. As if the speaker had a mouthful of phlegm.
‘The book.’
Connelly felt a sudden stab of fear and also of quite irrational embarrassment. The pain seemed to take a back seat momentarily, then he moved his right hand and it came thundering back into his mind.
‘Christopher Ward took it from us, you know that,’ the first voice said. Connelly was aware of that rancid stench growing stronger. It was closer to him now. So close, he could feel breath on his thigh.
On the thigh.
That meant that, unless the one standing to his right was abnormally tall, he couldn’t be suspended more than about six feet off the ground. It was the only crumb of comfort he could salvage from the ordeal. He clung to it.
‘We want to know what Ward did with the book. We want it back,’ the second voice said.
‘We
need
it back,’ the first voice told him. ‘Where is it?’
Connelly cleared his throat.
‘I swear to you I don’t know what book you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘I know Ward was writing a book, but he hadn’t even started it, he was still doing research.’
‘We don’t care about the book he was going to write,’ the first voice snapped angrily. ‘We want back what is rightfully ours.’
‘He stole it and hid it somewhere. We need to know where so we can recover it,’ the other voice added.
‘Tell me about the book,’ Connelly said, the last vestiges of reason working in his tortured mind.
Could he possibly talk his way out of this situation?
‘I may be able to help.’
‘He doesn’t know,’ the first voice said.
‘He’s lying,’ said the second.
‘Ward was his client, he must have known,’ intoned a third voice. A harsh voice that Connelly recognized as belonging to the tall man with the dark, close-cropped hair. ‘He knows where it is,’ Peter Farrell insisted.
‘I don’t know anything about a stolen book,’ Connelly bleated.
‘Then you are no use to us,’ the first voice said.
‘Wait,’ Connelly said, panicking.
There was silence for a second, only his rapid breathing filling the air.
‘His wife knows where the book is,’ Connelly lied. ‘Find her and she’ll lead you to it.’
Would they believe it? Come on, convince them.
He realized that his last chance was to make his captors believe that Donna knew where the book they sought was hidden, whatever it was. If they thought that
she
knew, they might let
him
go. To hell with Donna. He had to save himself.
‘Ward told her everything. He would have told her where your book is,’ the agent continued, the lies falling easily from his lips. ‘Find
her
and you’ll find the book.’
‘You’re lying,’ snapped Farrell. ‘We didn’t find it at Ward’s house.’
‘Well, he wouldn’t keep it
there
, would he?’ Connelly hoped they couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. ‘Besides, he owns another place, a cottage in Sussex. It could be there. Look, she’s gone to look for it. His wife is searching for the book because Ward told her he had it. He told her he stole it. It’s
her
you want, not
me
. She knows.’
‘Where is this house in Sussex?’ Farrell demanded.
Connelly searched his mind desperately, trying to remember. He almost smiled when he did, quickly imparting the information to them.
‘It could be there but I doubt it. She was going to Ireland to find it. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her but she said no. She said she had to find the book, but that it was a secret between her and Ward. She’s in Ireland now.’
‘She was,’ Farrell corrected him. ‘She was seen near the lodge at Mountpelier yesterday.’
‘I told you,’ Connelly blurted.
‘Shut up,’ hissed Farrell, striking him hard across the stomach.
‘Is this true?’ the first voice asked. ‘She was at the Lodge?’
‘She left on a plane from Dublin last night. She’s being followed,’ Farrell explained.
Merciful fucking Christ, I think I’ve done it. They believe me, Connelly thought as he tried to suck in breath, tasting the rancid atmosphere as thickly as if it were smoke.
‘I told you,’ he said wearily. ‘She knows where it is.’
‘You would betray this woman to save yourself? ’ asked the first voice. A chuckle. It was a sound that made the hair at the back of Connelly’s neck rise. ‘You really have no honour, do you? I like that.’ Another laugh. And another. The whole room seemed to be filled with it. Raucous, insane laughter that drummed in the agent’s ears until he feared he would go deaf.
It gradually died away. His body swayed gently back and forth on the ropes.
‘I’ve helped you,’ he said. ‘Let me go, please.’
‘And if we do? We are to expect you to keep quiet? What do you think we are?’ the second voice snorted. ‘Your treachery is matched by your stupidity. If we release you, you will try to expose us the way Ward was going to.’
‘How can I?’ bleated Connelly. ‘I haven’t seen who you are. Please.’
He felt hands tugging at his blindfold.
‘Look upon us,’ the voice said and the agent opened his eyes.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered as he stared at his captors, his eyes bulging madly.
He gaped round the small room, realizing that he was suspended from a ceiling only fifteen feet high. There were a dozen or more people in the room, all seated, all staring at his dangling, vulnerable form.
‘You have been a help to us and now we are done with you,’ said the first man, smiling up at him.
‘No,’ shouted Connelly.
He heard the sound of liquid slurping in a metal container as Farrell approached him from behind.
‘What are you doing?’ he shrieked, twisting about madly on the ropes that suspended him.