Sabbathman (31 page)

‘He’s asleep,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘Fast asleep.’

Annie heard a door slam. Then footsteps. She had the gun out now, levelled at the door. She should have phoned the emergency number. She knew it. She shouldn’t have bothered with Kingdom. That was breaking the first rule. That was greed. And weakness. And stupidity. That was asking for it. She bent to the phone.

The voice was fainter now, as if losing interest. ‘A friend, are you? Only–’

Annie dropped the phone, crouching low, waiting for the door to open. She could hear voices raised next door, someone knocking over a chair, someone cursing, then the door splintered around the handle and two men burst in. They looked like figures from a nightmare, anoraks, jeans, ski-masks. They both had hand-guns and she took the biggest first, the one on the left, the closest one, point blank range, aiming for the base of his throat. She squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. She tried again. Another click.

The men were on her now, hauling her upright. She looked the smaller one in the eyes. His eyes were yellow. She could smell the whiskey on him. He hit her twice under the rib cage, big clumsy blows that drove the breath from her body. She heard the Browning clatter to the ground then skid across the lino as someone kicked it against the skirting board.

She was on her knees now, gasping with pain, and when she opened her eyes she saw the feet in front of her, the high-laced boots, the leather toecaps glistening with fresh mud, everything happening in slow motion. She caught the first kick on the side of her chest, turning her body side-on, trying to protect her face. Then something burst inside her head, a bright blinding light, and she felt a gloved hand on her mouth, muffling her screams. She was on her feet again, supported on either side, her chin on her chest, and before they dragged her away she saw the telephone,
still dangling on the end of the cord, and she heard the voice, as bewildered as ever.

‘Alan?’ it was saying. ‘You want Alan?’

Outside, she felt the rain on her face and she turned her head back towards the pub, trying to force another scream past the hand that gagged her mouth. The effort exhausted her but when the hand tightened she lashed out with her feet, making solid contact with the man behind. He began to curse her in the wet darkness, forcing her arm up her back until she knew her shoulder was on the point of dislocation. Her upper body had become suffused with pain, an almost liquid thing, swamping every other feeling. She heard a car door open. Then, abruptly, her feet left the ground and she was thrown head-first onto the rear seat. Someone clambered in beside her, sitting on her back, a terrible weight that drove the breath from her body. The engine started, the car accelerating hard, and before the darkness came she had time to marvel at the workings of her own brain, how detached it was, and how perceptive. Some kind of Ford, she thought. Not the VW at all.

When she came to, the car was travelling at speed. The weight on her back had gone but when she tried to move her hands, nothing happened. She tried again, pulling hard, realising that her wrists had been bound together beneath her body with some kind of tape. She got her head down, exploring it with her tongue, aware for the first time of her broken teeth. Her lips were swollen, the blood already beginning to scab, and the steady thump-thump in her head began to quicken as she strained again at the tape.

The car lurched into a bend and she peered up, trying to make sense of the shapes around her. She had the back seat to herself but she could smell the sharp, acrid tang of hand-rolled tobacco and when the car hit a bump in the road, making her gasp with pain, a face appeared in the gap between the two front seats, a featureless oval of white against the frieze of blurring trees beyond the windscreen.

‘You OK?’

She recognised the accent, the harsh Belfast vowels.

The face was still looking at her. ‘You’se want a cigarette?’

Without waiting for an answer, a gloved hand reached back, the tip of the roll-up glowing in the darkness. She shook her head, turning her face away, and then she heard another voice, the driver this time, something she didn’t pick up. Then the car braked suddenly, the wheels locking, and when she looked again the face had disappeared.

One of the front doors opened. She heard another car, the VW this time, definitely. It pulled up alongside. The driver in the front was yelling now, telling someone else to hurry up. There were footsteps close by and she felt movement on the springs as someone rummaged in the boot behind her head. Then the rear door beside her opened and she smelled petrol, recognised the slosh of it in a can, and for a moment she closed her eyes, expecting the worst. They’re going to pour it all over me, she thought. And then light a match.

The footsteps again, and the cough of an engine as the VW started. It pulled away and Annie heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tyres. The door beside her head was still open. The petrol smell had gone. She lifted her head, swamped with relief, listening hard as the VW bumped away, aware now of another sound. Water, she thought. A stream, or maybe even a river.

The two men in the front were talking, their voices very low, the conversation masked by music from the radio. From time to time, one of them laughed. They seemed relaxed, off-guard. When she began to move, first one leg, then the other, they didn’t look round.

Annie closed her eyes, trying to slow her pulse, knowing that she had to get it right. In situations like these, they only gave you one chance, you only made one mistake. Screw this up, and there’d be no more open doors.

She tensed herself, both legs sliding off the narrow bench seat, both feet finding a purchase amongst the litter on the floor. Oblivious to the pain, she began to ease out of the car and as she did so she heard a whoosh in the darkness nearby, and saw a blossom of livid yellow silhouetting the trees across the road. The driver was laughing again, the man beside him too, both leaning across, gazing out at the burning shell of the VW, two kids on bonfire night, and for a moment, wriggling out onto the wet
tarmac, Annie thought they hadn’t seen her. Then she heard one of the men shouting, a car door opening, and the heavy thud of footsteps racing after her.

She scrambled into the trees across the road, searching blindly for a path. The river was closer than she’d thought, wide and sluggish, the flames dancing on the water. She ran as fast as she could, her hands still taped in front of her body, fighting to keep her balance. She followed the river, knowing that the men behind her were gaining with every step. She could hear them now, the rasp of their breaths, a muttered curse as one of them missed his footing in the wet bracken.

Up ahead, away from the burning car, the river was cloaked in darkness. Annie hesitated a moment, knowing it was her only chance, then she picked her way between the rocks and plunged in. The smack of the cold water took her breath away. The gravel beneath her feet softened into mud, then disappeared completely. She kicked hard with her legs, trying to stay afloat, then turned onto her back, still kicking. The first rock missed her head by inches. She half-saw it arching towards her in the darkness, closing her eyes as the water spouted beside her ear. Another came. Then she felt a terrifying pain in her knee, as abrupt as a gunshot wound, and she rolled her body over, trying to ease the agony. Face down in the water, she tried to raise her head, tried to breathe, her injured leg useless. For a moment or two she could taste the night air. Then her mouth began to fill with water and she held her breath as long as she could before giving up, aware of the darkness enveloping her, the icy kiss of the water in her lungs.

She came to on the river bank. Her cheek lay in a pool of vomit. Above her was a light of some kind, a torch, and a pair of faces peering down at her. One of the men was wringing water from his balaclava. The other was trying to light a cigarette. Annie groaned, reaching for her knee, trying to piece together the last few minutes, knowing that these men had stopped her drowning, probably saved her life, wondering why on earth they’d bothered. Then a third face appeared, much closer than the rest, and she blinked up at it. The thinning hair was as wet as her own, sodden through, but there was no mistaking the expression. She swallowed hard, tasting the vomit in her throat, not wanting to believe it. The
wide, fleshy, almost feminine lips. The deep-set eyes. The face in the photo from the Dublin warehouse. The trophy she’d brought back to London.

Annie began to struggle upright, knowing that somehow she had to get away but a gloved hand reached out, restraining her. The voice belonged to the face in the photo.

‘Take it easy now,’ he murmured, ‘we’ve lots to talk about.’

PRELUDE

He lay awake in his room, the bedside light still on, the curtains half-drawn, the Millwall FC mug on the window-sill, the agreed signal. He’d no real idea when it might happen but he’d raided his private supply of Le Carré novels in the library, and he’d no objection to reading half the night.

At eleven-fifteen, as usual, they’d secured the main door. He’d heard the key in the lock, first one turn, then another, then the precautionary tug on the handle, just in case. For weeks now, that had been the limit of their interest. No midnight checks. No patrols around the premises in the small hours of the morning. Nothing to disturb a decent stretch of solid kip. Maybe they were understaffed again, he thought, or maybe it had something to do with yet another Home Office directive on rehabilitation. Extend a little trust. Offer a little responsibility. Change a man for life. What a joke.

He yawned, peering over the book at the bedside clock. Quite what excitements the stranger might bring he didn’t know but only yesterday, in the visitors’ room, Trish had confirmed the money. Five hundred in notes had been stuffed through the letterbox and she’d been sufficiently impressed to suggest he stayed inside a little longer. In a way, she had a point. It was, without doubt, the easiest money he’d ever earned.

He returned to the book. It was one of Le Carré’s early efforts, and he’d read it before, but one of the things he’d noticed about this place was the tricks it played with your memory. The effect of even a modest stretch was almost chemical, like living on a permanent drip-feed of tranquillisers. Time hung heavy. The
routines never changed. You ended up numbed, softly bludgeoned by the boredom of it all, longing for something, anything, to happen. He smiled to himself, turning back a page, trying to pick up the story. Yet another reason, he thought, for saying yes.

The knock at the window came an hour later. He sat upright, realising at once that he’d been asleep. He reached for the bedside lamp, turning it off. There were inspection panels inset in all the doors, and light from the corridor spilled into the room. He waited for a second or two, then eased himself out of bed, stepping across to the window and releasing the catch. With the window open, he could hear the wind in the trees. The wind felt cold against his naked flesh after the warmth of his bed and he began to shiver. This side of the block was shielded from the office beside the main gate and a row of bushes provided extra cover. It was one of the reasons, he assumed, that they’d chosen his room, one of the reasons he’d been tapped up for the favour.

He peered into the darkness, seeing nothing. Then a voice, very close, beneath the window-sill.

‘Alright, then?’

The voice was light, amused with itself, an accent he’d grown up with.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You coming in?’

He stepped back into the room, pulling the curtain aside. A slim, slight figure balanced for a moment on the window-sill, then stepped carefully into the room, pulling the window shut behind him. He was wearing jeans and a tight black roll-neck sweater. An olive balaclava masked his face. Mud from the worn Reeboks left a set of perfect prints across the grey lino. The visitor nodded at the bed.

‘Get in. They tell you about this bit?’

‘No.’

In one hand, the visitor carried a plastic bag. On the outside it said ‘Debenhams’. He produced a length of cord and began to bind the prisoner’s wrists together, working quickly. Another loop of cord and a knot secured his bound wrists to the bar at the head of the bed. The visitor was wearing gloves. He could feel the soft leather against his skin.

‘That hurt?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you move at all?’

‘No.’

The eyes behind the balaclava watched him for a moment, plainly sceptical. Then he produced a long knife, the kind you can buy at specialist kitchen stores. He cut the cord and began to bind his ankles together, stripping back the sheets at the bottom of the bed and securing the rope around the frame.

‘That make it worse?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK.’

He bent to both knots, easing them. ‘Better?’

‘A bit.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah.’

The face was very close now. His eyes, in the light from the corridor, were a pale blue.

‘Which room?’ he said.

‘Twenty-six. Upstairs.’

‘Towel?’