(1995) By Any Name (16 page)

GUARANTEE SECURITY AT CONFERENCE.

Gentlemen we look like bloody fools now, don’t turn us into the world’s laughing stock.’

‘Sir,’ Baker risked courageously, ‘to date we have tracked down fifteen known IRA terrorists, all trained by Arab organisations, whom we suspect of switching allegiance to their former trainers. We’re engaged in trying to get a fix on every one of them now.’

‘And in the meantime our man has gone to ground.’

‘We are following every lead, sir.’

‘This is the first I’ve heard of a lead, Heddingham.’

‘We are looking into one or two possibilities, sir.

But we have nothing definite as yet. The moment we do, you’ll be the first to know.’

When John disappeared into the bathroom with the hair dye and the transfer tattoos, Elizabeth washed and prepared the salad, chopped garlic, mixed it into the butter and filled the French loaf. She battered the steak with a lethal looking metal tenderizer she found in a drawer, and laid it on the grill pan. A search of the freezer yielded a turkey steak which she slid into a frying pan for herself. She laid the table, wrapped the salad in a tea towel and pushed it into the fridge.

Placing the onion rings on an oven tray and the smoked salmon on a plate to defrost, she found herself with nothing better to do than watch television.

She switched on the set which was still tuned into the news channel they had watched earlier. The funerals of the plane crash victims and the build-up to the conference due to start in three days took precedence over the manhunt for John West.

Speculative questions about her plight as West’s hostage were put to the police by a female reporter with an irritatingly, over-sympathetic approach. She could have quite cheerfully kicked her when she thought of her parents and brother.

The interview was followed by photographs of Dave and the paramedic, and an interview with Dave’s brother who pleaded with the media to leave his sister-in-law in peace. Tears fell, scalding and bitter from Elizabeth’s eyes when recent photographs of Dave and Carol with the twins were flashed on to the screen. She wished she could be with Carol now, to put her arms around her… .

‘You should give up watching the news if it upsets you that much.’ John was in the doorway.

‘My God!’

He had shaved his black curly hair to a skinhead stubble that he had bleached white-blond. He’d even lightened his eyebrows and lashes to match his hair.

He was wearing black leather trousers and a black T

shirt, torn at the sleeve and across the front to display the realistic looking tattoos she’d bought. And, as though they weren’t enough, letters had been scored over his knuckles in black ink, HATE on his left hand, LOVE on his right. A serpent twined down his nose, its tail ending in a silver ring. A skull and crossbones dangled from his right ear, a coffin from the edge of his newly pierced eyebrow.

‘Where did you get the jewellery?’ she asked.

He fingered his ear. The holes he’d pierced with the darning needle were painful. ‘They were in the pocket of one of the leather suits downstairs. Do you think I’ll pass muster?’

‘No-one,’ she turned to his photograph in the newspaper she’d bought, ‘is going to connect you, the way you look now, with John West’

‘I brought a leather suit up from the cellar for you.

It should fit.’

‘Is there any hair dye left?’

‘Yes,’ he crossed the room and touched her long black hair, ‘but you’re right, it would be a crying shame to do anything to this.’

‘It will grow again.’

‘It would still be a shame.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She left her chair. ‘John, you’re taking a risk in going out, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘I take it you mean a risk aside from the obvious?’

he said seriously.

‘If your memory returns suddenly there’s no predicting how you’ll react.’

‘But you’re prepared to take that risk?’

‘I don’t see how we have any other option but to run it.’

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

‘For what?’

‘The “we” and for believing in me.’

‘I’m not sure I do, Martin.’ She flung the name out casually, watching as he blinked, his eyes irritated by the hair dye. ‘Martin?’ she repeated. ‘You know the name?’

‘I do. It’s… it’s… ’

‘Yours?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No, but it’s familiar it’s… ’ Anger and frustration welled to the surface, and he slammed his fist into the door frame. ‘Fuck it! I thought I had it, but it’s gone.

Was Martin a lucky guess?’

‘When the man stopped me in the car park he asked if I’d rented the flat from Martin.’

‘Did he mention a surname?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Only Martin.’

West sat on the sofa after she left and continued to watch the news. An interview with America’s foreign secretary on what they hoped to achieve in the disarmament summit. A similar interview with the Russian foreign minister and two Arab statesman. The arms summit faded to a news report on the privations being experienced by refugees in various camps in Africa. Then, as a special uplifting seasonal treat, there was a report on the dismal Christmas the London homeless could expect presented by a journalist who was accompanying a Salvation Army worker on a soup run. Having had as much misery as he could take for one day, West turned off the television.

‘Am I a suitable partner for a Hell’s Angel?’

Elizabeth hadn’t dyed her hair, but she’d hacked it just short of shoulder length and spiked it. The leather biking clothes hung loose on her slender frame.

‘You’ll do. But gold stud earrings don’t complement that outfit.’

‘You want me to take them out?’ She touched the studs superstitiously. They had been the last present Joseph had given her.

‘Not yet. I’ll see if I can find something more suitable downstairs.’

‘Like a lavatory chain?’

‘Now that’s an idea. And I could paint a tattoo on you.’

‘It wouldn’t be seen.’ She’d zipped her jacket over her shirt.

‘It would be, if I drew it on your face.’ He traced an imaginary line from her hairline to her chin. She trembled at his touch, hating herself for behaving like a fool. She’d broken every rule of self-preservation and safety that had been drummed into her during her training. Of course John seemed rational and sane at times. All patients had flashes of reasonable, charming behaviour, even sociopaths. But it didn’t prevent them from killing when the mood possessed them. She should have run this afternoon when she’d had the chance. Why had she returned only to put herself completely at his mercy, yet again?

‘As there have been no other leads or sightings, we’ve been given another twenty four hours.’ Simmonds handed the telephone back to the clerk, and looked at Chaloner who was sitting with his feet up, eating fish and chips with his fingers.

‘Very generous of them.’

‘Do you think we’ll come up with something by then?’

‘Impossible to predict.’

The clerk had retreated to the other side of the operations room. Taking advantage of the privacy, Simmonds confronted Chaloner. ‘You don’t seem to give a damn about anything, Chaloner.’

Chaloner smiled. ‘You’re wrong, I could give a damn, but,’ he broke off a huge piece of battered cod and looked at it, ‘I see no sense in expending energy to no good effect. If and when we get a definite sighting, I’ll get excited. Not before.’ He pushed the fish into his mouth.

‘And if we don’t?’ Simmonds demanded.

‘We’ll be rested for our next job,’ Chaloner answered when his mouth was empty.

John reappeared from the cellar with a selection of gruesome silver ear and nose rings. Elizabeth balked at the idea of him making a hole in her nose with the darning needle, but she removed the gold studs from her ears and replaced them with twin silver coffins.

‘They’re heavy,’ she complained.

‘But they add just the right touch. You’ll pass, providing no one comes too close.’

‘Given the way we look, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to.’

‘This is a small town.’

‘It didn’t look that small to me.’

‘It’s small enough for everyone to know everyone else, and that means they stare at strangers.’

‘You might not be a stranger, but then, I doubt anyone will recognize John West in your biker image.’

‘But it’s not John West we’re looking for. It’s… ’

She watched the frown reappear on his forehead.

‘Shall we eat?’ She wasn’t hungry, but she couldn’t bear to see the pain of him trying to remember.

‘Later. It may be only half past six, but it’s as dark as it’s going to get, and too early for the pubs to be crowded.’

‘You want to go now?’

‘The shops will be closed, the pubs open, and they’ll be quiet. I can’t think of a better time. Can you?’

‘We might be less noticeable if we wait until the pubs get crowded,’ she suggested.

‘On the other hand if we go now, there’ll be less people to notice us.’ He picked up the leather jacket and pulled it over his torn T shirt. Taking the keys from his pocket he handed her one of the helmets.

‘We’re taking the bike?’

‘It’s one way to see the town, without them seeing us. One head covered with a helmet looks very like another.’

‘I hate motor bikes.’

‘You ever been on one?’ he asked.

‘No. Have you? That you can remember?’ she challenged.

‘Not that I can remember.’ He smiled grimly.

‘If you think I’m riding pillion on a motorbike with a man who only thinks he might have ridden one before… ’

‘And to think I had you down as courageous.’

‘Where did you get that stupid idea from?’

‘From your reaction when I kidnapped you.’

‘What happens if we’re stopped by the traffic police?’ she demanded, mustering every objection she could think of.

‘You get three days to produce your papers. A lot can happen in three days.’

‘Like you remembering your name?’

‘I might strike lucky.’ He went into the passage and opened the door to the staircase. ‘Ladies first.’

Switching off the lights, he locked the door and followed her downstairs. She scrutinised him. She hadn’t seen the gun since they’d watched the first news broadcast together, but the jacket he was wearing was loosely cut around the shoulders and across the chest. There was room under his arm for the Browning, and she didn’t doubt he was carrying it.

He opened the cellar door and wheeled the bike out into the yard. Leaving the door ajar, he checked there were no lights on in the adjoining offices before sitting astride the saddle and starting the engine. It roared into life at the first touch. He checked the headlight and brake lights before cutting the engine and locking the front door.

‘You seriously expect me to get on that thing?’

The helmet muffled her voice. He nodded and zipped the apartment keys into one of his pockets. Adjusting his own helmet, he climbed on the bike again and patted the pillion saddle. ‘Think of it as a new experience. You may even enjoy it. I’m a careful driver.’

Reluctantly she climbed on the back, locked her hands around his waist and tensed herself. ‘Do you want me to sway when you go around corners?’ she asked alarmed by the noise when he started the engine again.

‘Just sit and hold tight,’ he shouted back.

He took the first corner out of the yard into the lane slowly. Increasing his speed he raced up the lane barely pausing at the junction of the main street.

Accelerating hard, they roared up Wheat Street in a deafening blast of exhaust noise.

Elizabeth was paralyzed with fear. She hated situations where she wasn’t in total and absolute control, and plunging headlong through darkened streets, with only West’s body between her, the elements and disaster, embodied all her worst nightmares.

The bike screamed and throbbed beneath them as John raced through green traffic lights and although commonsense told her that the cars alongside them couldn’t be travelling at any great speed, she felt as though they were hurtling at hundreds of miles an hour. Raindrops obscured her visor as they tore up High Street, past the shops she had visited earlier. She closed her eyes and clung on as West negotiated corner after corner, turning into street after street. She doubted that he’d be able to recognize anything when he was travelling so fast.

But perhaps he no longer wanted to know who he was? Perhaps he had forgotten everything except the bike and the sensation of speed? And then again perhaps neither of them would be recognized after he’d crashed.

CHAPTER NINE

John didn’t need to slow the bike to read the names on the plaques fixed to the walls. He only had to glance at the houses for the name of the street to come to mind, and he found himself navigating the roads by a map that had somehow managed to ingrain itself on to his consciousness. He drove out of High Street, knowing to a split second when the road ceased to be High Street and became The Struet. He glanced up Priory Hill and knew the Cathedral was just up on the right. He could have described the high vaulted ceilings inside the building, the old tombs with their effigies of seventeenth century notables, their faces crumbling, as they lay attired for eternity in stiff folds of marble and stone period dress.

He could have directed a tourist to King Charles’

steps. He remembered the good draught beer in the Boars Head; the comfortable surroundings in the Castle, the George and the Wellington; the old world quaintness that still hung over the Sarah Siddons, the pub named after the actress who had been born there.

Then he recalled a pub that had been disparagingly described as the “squaddies haunt” the only one in town that welcomed military personnel. It wasn’t a place to take a woman, especially a woman like Elizabeth, but as neither of them was dressed for the George or the Wellington, they may as well go there and see if anything prompted his memory.

Although he’d decided his next move, he was reluctant to relinquish the pleasure of the bike ride.

After being incarcerated first in the hospital, then in cars and the flat, it was good to feel the wind and the rain in his face, and the power of the engine roaring beneath him. For the first time in his short memory he was the one in charge. He’d known he could ride, what he hadn’t known was how much he would enjoy the twin sensations of speed and freedom. Savouring every second, he turned up the Watton. Leaving the streets and houses behind, he drove out on to the bypass.