Hardly able to believe what was happening, Blenkinsop glanced down and saw that she’d drawn a firearm. She was doing her best to conceal it with her rolled-up running top, but its steel barrel was pressed hard against his stomach.
Heck added: ‘Believe it or not, Mr Blenkinsop, this is for your own protection.’
Unable to do anything else, Blenkinsop allowed them to hustle him from the bar. When he reached down for his bag, Lauren slapped his hand. She picked it up herself, but once they were outside, tossed it into a bin. The bustle of the street suddenly felt ominous. Everywhere they looked the pavements thronged. Log-jammed traffic honked and shunted. The attack, if there was going to be one, could come from anywhere at any time.
‘Do you have some wheels near here, Mr Blenkinsop?’ Heck asked.
‘Look, whoever you people are …’
‘I’ve told you who we are.’
‘I’m sure this is a terrible misunderstanding …’
‘I said do you have some wheels?’
‘Don’t you have some yourself?’
‘Answer the frigging question!’ Lauren snarled.
He nodded, swallowed. ‘My Jaguar’s in the company car park. It’s just down that passage over there.’
‘Take us,’ Heck said. ‘Quickly.’
‘Try anything cute and you’ll be dead before you hit the ground,’ Lauren added.
They threaded their way through the traffic, and walked down the side-alley to the multi-storey car park. The pedestrian door stood alongside the main entrance, in which a uniformed security man was standing smoking a cigarette.
‘Just keep walking,’ Heck advised. ‘Don’t try and signal to anyone – you’ll be getting them in the worst trouble of their lives.’
‘Morning Mr Blenkinsop, Sir,’ the security man said.
‘Morning Ted,’ Blenkinsop replied as they passed.
‘Fancy QPR’s chances this season, Sir?’
‘Oh yes, no question.’
Inside the pedestrian entrance, they jumped into an elevator and closed it behind them. Lauren kept the gun concealed as there’d almost certainly be a camera, but jabbed Blenkinsop with it repeatedly, just to remind him.
‘It’s on Level Six,’ he said shakily.
Heck hit the button, and they ascended – only for the elevator to stop three levels short. Its door slid open. Two parallel rows of parking bays, all empty, stretched about fifty yards in front of them. The only illumination came from electric lighting. This gave a stark glare to the concrete pillars and slick, oily floor. The level appeared to be deserted. On a stanchion opposite, a red number ‘3’ had been stencilled. Heck stabbed the button hard, feeling distinctly uneasy. The only reason why they could have stopped at Three when he’d requested Six was that someone on Three had called them first. Yet now there was nobody there.
The next time, they stopped on Six. Again, two parallel rows of parking bays stretched away. The lighting up here was dimmer. Heck saw why: though the bulbs were housed in metal cages, quite a few – each alternating one in fact – had been broken. Scatterings of recently smashed glass strewed the floor. Was that normal? he wondered. Wouldn’t a firm like Goldstein & Hoff keep things in good working order? Or had the lights been broken recently? Dim shadows now lurked behind every pillar.
‘That’s my car down there.’ Blenkinsop pointed thirty yards ahead to where a lone vehicle, a black Jaguar, occupied one of the bays.
‘Okay,’ Heck said, ushering him forward.
They advanced in a tight group.
‘Who are you supposed to be protecting me against?’ Blenkinsop asked.
‘You’re genuinely telling us you don’t know?’ Heck replied.
‘Yes … and I might say you’ve got a strange way of doing it. Would you please take that wretched gun out of my …’
‘Shit!’ Lauren halted sharply.
They all halted sharply.
The Jaguar’s four tyres had been cut, slashed repeatedly – until they were nothing but shredded rubber and severed ply-cord.
‘Shit,’ she said again. ‘They’re already here.’
Ian Blenkinsop’s demeanour had gone through several transformations since they’d taken him from Mad Jack’s. Initially of course he’d been frightened and bewildered. Then, as it had dawned on him that this was something he’d half-expected to happen, he’d become less bewildered and much more frightened. As they’d ascended into the car park, and Heck and Lauren had still refrained from using violence against him, he’d become less frightened and more affronted, almost bolshy. But now that he’d seen what had been done to his forty-thousand-pound car, he was terrified.
‘Surely the security people would have seen that someone was in the car park?’ he stammered as they hurried him down the emergency exit steps.
Heck had opted to use this stairwell rather than the elevator. It was only a precaution, maybe an unnecessary one – he didn’t know if it was possible to sabotage a modern elevator, but he knew that he didn’t want to find out.
‘Just keep going,’ he said, urging Blenkinsop down.
Lauren had pocketed the Glock, as they no longer needed it to convince the errant banker that he’d be safer in their company than out of it. But she was ready to grab it at a moment’s notice.
‘Wait!’ Heck held a hand up.
They stopped, sweating. Heck could have sworn he’d heard the patter of feet somewhere above, perhaps coming down the stairs after them. But now there was nothing. Almost certainly it had been an echo.
‘Okay, keep going.’
They continued to descend, passing the fourth level, and the third. Again there were no windows in this part of the building, and when they reached the second level, the last two flights of stairs had had their lights broken. They halted, teetering on the brink, peering down into menacing blackness.
‘This way.’ Heck steered Blenkinsop through the fire door into the car park proper.
From here, they made it down to the ground floor by the vehicle ramps. The security man who’d been smoking in the entrance was no longer there. Nor was there any sign of him through the portal to his office.
‘If we can locate Ted Chadwick,’ Blenkinsop muttered, ‘he can probably help us.’
‘Ted Chadwick will be helping himself into an early grave,’ Heck replied. ‘Just follow me.’
They re-entered the alley. There was a figure at its farthest end. It looked female, and was carrying a briefcase; perfectly normal for this part of London, yet it was standing in the middle of the alley, staring after them. They only just managed to avoid running as they proceeded the other way towards Cornhill. It was a relief to join the teeming crowds, which seemed ludicrous given the vulnerability they’d felt there only a few minutes earlier.
‘Who exactly are we looking out for?’ Heck asked Blenkinsop.
‘I don’t understand …’
‘Don’t mess me around, you understand perfectly! What do they look like?’
Blenkinsop shook his head. He wore a tortured but helpless expression. ‘I’ve never seen any of them – I’ve never seen their faces, at least.’
‘How many are there?’
‘I got the impression quite a few.’
Heck started along the pavement, Lauren and Blenkinsop following. They descended the first stairway they came to, which led to Bank tube station.
‘Haven’t you got any more men than this?’ Blenkinsop wondered.
‘Just keep moving,’ Heck said.
‘We making this up as we go along, or what?’ Lauren asked.
Heck rounded on her. ‘Got a better idea? These bastards have been one step ahead of us for days. Well, I’ve had enough of it. We’ll take trains at random … try to throw them off the scent.’
She stood guard while he bought them all a day’s travel pass. After that, he ushered them down to the Waterloo & City Line, where they caught the first connection south. At Waterloo they changed to the Bakerloo and headed north. When they reached Paddington, they took the Hammersmith & City east, changing to the Victoria at King’s Cross. All the time they watched their fellow passengers, which became increasingly difficult. The ever changing crush of humanity pressed into and out of the confined space of the tube trains; all types were on view – every race, sex, age and creed. On the Victoria, Heck felt concern about a tall black guy standing close to them. He was handsome, dressed in a smart suit and wearing a distinctive pearl earring. He had a briefcase at his feet and was absorbed in a copy of the
Financial Times
.
‘See that dude?’ Heck mumbled to Lauren.
She nodded.
‘I’m pretty sure I saw him riding the Bakerloo in the carriage behind us.’
‘There could be a totally normal reason for that.’
‘Could be. We’ll know in a sec.’
At Green Park, they jumped out, Heck virtually shoving Blenkinsop down onto the platform. Rushing straight to the Piccadilly Line, they took an immediate train north, changing again to the Bakerloo at Piccadilly Circus, and back onto the Victoria Line at Oxford Circus.
‘Surely … this is unnecessary?’ Blenkinsop gasped. They were again crammed in with hordes of fellow travellers, many of them foreign tourists wearing iPods and backpacks. The air was rank, stifling. ‘No one’s going to try anything down here.’
‘No,’ Heck agreed, ‘but we don’t want them following us ’til they get us somewhere where they
can
.’
‘Dear God, this is ridiculous … utterly bloody ridiculous.’
‘Just watch the crowd, Blenkinsop. See if there’s anyone you recognise.’
Thankfully, they seemed to have lost the black guy with the earring. When they passed Warren Street a large number of passengers disgorged. There was now some breathing space.
‘Do you want to tell us exactly what you’ve been up to?’ Heck asked.
Blenkinsop broke into a puzzled frown. ‘Surely you’re already aware of that?’
‘If I was, I wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Well if you’re not aware of it, I’m certainly not going to tell you.’
The sweat was cooling on all their brows. Blenkinsop was breathing deeply, but now regarded Heck and Lauren with distaste and something like suspicion.
‘May I remind you,’ Heck said, ‘that I’m a police officer? I’m giving you a chance to explain yourself off the record. But if necessary I’ll take you to the nearest nick and make it official right now.’
‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to have done in the first place?’
‘I told you not to give us any shit!’ Lauren warned him.
‘Or what? You’re going to shoot me? In front of a trainload of witnesses? What kind of coppers are you two? You drag me out of a pub, you threaten me with a gun … now you’re running around London not even knowing who’s supposed to be chasing you …’
She grabbed his collar. ‘Listen, fuckhead …’
He violently struggled free. ‘I don’t have to listen to anything …’
She switched her hand to his throat, squeezing his larynx. He gagged, eyes bulging.
Heck snatched at her hand, yanking it loose.
‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to, Mr Blenkinsop,’ he said quietly but intently. ‘But I do know that you are involved with some extremely unpleasant people. Now you listen to me very carefully. This business is not going to end happily. You understand that? You saw what they did to your car. Nice bit of knife-work, wasn’t it? Trust me, that isn’t even a foretaste of what they could do to your flesh.’
‘In that case, why
don’t
you take me to a police station?’ Blenkinsop asked, rubbing at his throat. ‘Surely we’ll all be safer?’
‘Heck!’ Lauren hissed.
‘What?’
‘Six yards away, combat fatigues.’
‘Yeah?’ Heck didn’t risk looking over his shoulder, but could sense that someone was there now who hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.
‘He’s just come in from the next carriage through the emergency door.’
Heck nodded, understanding her suspicion. Unless you were a high school kid trying to reinforce your cool, moving from carriage to carriage was a big no-no when the Underground trains were in motion. It made even less sense on this particular occasion as both carriages were less than half full.
The train groaned to another halt. They were at Euston.
‘Let’s go,’ Heck said, stepping out, following the signs to the Northern Line. ‘What does this guy look like?’
‘Short, stocky, swarthy.’
‘You said he was in combat fatigues?’
‘Yeah, yellow and brown. You know what that means, don’t you?’
Heck nodded grimly. It meant they were desert fatigues.
‘It could be a coincidence,’ she said.
‘We’re not taking any chances.’
On the Northern Line, they headed south.
‘This is insane,’ Blenkinsop muttered. ‘We’re going round and round in circles.’
‘We’ll do it as long as we need to,’ Heck replied.
‘Can’t we at least go up to the surface? I’ve got to get some air …’
‘Forget it.’
Blenkinsop stuck a shaking hand in his overcoat pocket, and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Heck slapped them from his grasp.
‘No smoking on the Underground, Mr Blenkinsop. Surely you’re aware of that?’
Blenkinsop swallowed a lump of saliva, which, by the grimace on his face, must have tasted like poison. His lips had dried so much that they’d cracked and were beaded with blood. As they headed back into the West End, more and more people piled onto the train, which made them feel less conspicuous, though soon they’d be south of the river and the crowds would dwindle again.
‘Where to now?’ Blenkinsop wondered loudly. ‘The southern leg of the Northern Line? That’s bandit country by anyone’s standards!’
‘Chill the fuck out,’ Lauren snapped. ‘Panicking won’t get us anywhere.’
‘Yeah, okay. Like you lot are acting in a level-headed manner.’
They passed Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square and Charing Cross, and, as they’d expected, passengers began to disperse. Soon they were south of Waterloo and feeling alone again.
Blenkinsop suddenly stiffened, sucked in a tight breath. ‘You said there was a chap in desert fatigues on the previous train?’
‘That’s right,’ Lauren replied.
‘I can see through into the next carriage. He’s in there.’
This time Heck
did
risk a glance around. There was indeed a figure standing just beyond the glass of the emergency door in the next carriage. He had his back turned, but was clearly wearing combat fatigues. Lauren stole a glance too – and almost froze.