GBH (28 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“Listen,” I say, “they’ve got to me. They’ve—”

“Who? Who’s got to you? Who could?”

“I don’t know. But she—”

“She?”

“Lesley. She got the film to me. Into the house.”

“Lesley? What film?”

“I don’t know what’s happening. Now I’ve seen the film, they’re probably coming for me. Outside. I need help. James, you have to send help. I need help quickly.”

There is silence at the other end of the line.

“James?”

I hear James breathing in, then out, like a man who’s just surfaced for air.

“James?”

Again, his tone has altered slightly.

“Yes, I’m here,” he says.

“You’ve got to help me.”

“I will. I’ll get some people together. In fact I’ll come myself, if you want.”

“Anything. Just hurry.”

“Yes,” he says. “Now. What’s the address?”

I tell him the address and give him precise instructions how to find it when he gets close.

“Good,” he says. “Good. I’ve got all that. Now, how long do you think it’ll take us?”

“Four hours. No more than four hours.”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take to collect people,” James says. “People we can trust.”

“Just hurry.”

“I will. You were saying, about outside … there may be someone waiting.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening. Just get here. I can keep anybody away till then.”

“I’m leaving right away. We’ll be careful. And George?”

“What?”

“You be careful, too,” James says, and hangs up.

I put the phone down.

I stand up and look at the shattered projector.

Then I go over to it and take off both spools and kneel down in front of the fire and unwind the celluloid and tear it into short strips and throw the strips into the flames, piece by piece.

After I’ve done that I reload my Browning and go down into the basement and wait.

THE SMOKE

A
FTER A WHILE
, I was conscious of a tapping noise. It stopped. Then it started again. Stopped.

Then the door to the theatre opened.

“George?” James said.

I vomited, just once.

I sat there, perfectly still, and one single jet of vomit streaked towards the screen, descended on the seats in front of me.

James didn’t move.

After I’d done that, I stood up and walked towards the door, where James was standing.

“James,” I said. “I wonder if you’d do me a favour? I wonder if you’d take that reel off the projector for me?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t run it. Just bring it to me in the lounge.”

I walked past him and through into the lounge and walked round the sunken area, to where the open freestanding brick fireplace was, square beneath its hood.

I put a match to the permanently set fire. By the time James came through it was blazing away quite nicely.

James gave me the reel, and I began to unwind the film, tearing off little bits of celluloid at a time, dropping them piece by piece into the flames.

“Jean’s dead,” I said.

For a while James was silent. Eventually, when he spoke, he said, “What will you do?”

I threw same more celluloid into the flames. Black smoke rushed up into the hood.

“You ought to go away for a while,” James said. “I can take care of things. For a while you can be missing, presumed dead. I’ll be able to square things in the long run. There’s no evidence against you. Farlow won’t feel like providing any, not with his support no longer around.”

“Yes,” I said.

“When everything’s cooled down, they’ll probably put you up for the Queen’s medal when you come back. I mean, the entire Shepherdson family.”

I didn’t say anything.

“And don’t you worry about me. I’ll keep everything ticking over. Everything’s very straightforward. I’ll even be able to run rings round Parsons at the same time. But for the moment, I think it’s safer, just in case Parsons does anything rash and out of character, like trying to fit you up.”

I tore off another strip of celluloid.

“And it’s better, as far as the Shepherdsons are concerned. There may be some young heroes on their books that would like to make a name by topping you.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Go to the place in Wales. You’ll be safe there. You’ll be able to keep in touch. I’ll be able to come and see you and tell you what’s happening.”

“Yes.”

“Nobody else knows about Wales?” he said. “Besides me?”

I shook my head.

“Good,” he said. “You’ll go to Wales, then?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go to Wales.”

But I didn’t.

I went to Mablethorpe instead.

Where nobody, not even James, knew I had a place.

THE SEA

I
T
’
S COLD IN THE
basement.

I look at my watch. In an hour it’ll be dawn.

What’s keeping them?

Where are they?

I take the top off a fresh bottle of scotch and tumble some of it into the glass and drink.

I’m sitting at the far end of the basement, my back to the wall. Ahead of me, at the other end, are the steps, in full view.

Anybody wants to come and get me, they have to come down those steps.

There’s been no activity from outside. Nobody trying to get in. I can’t understand that. But at least when James gets here, he’ll be able to talk to me, make suggestions, help in that way.

Where are they?

What’s keeping them?

I take another drink, stop in mid-gulp.

Is that the sound of a car? Or is it my imagination?

I get up and go to the foot of the steps and listen.

It’s the sound of a car. Getting nearer, slowing, as it bumps along the track between the trees.

I lift the trapdoor slightly.

Yes. It’s the sound of a car.

The sound stops.

I push back the trapdoor and climb up into the garage.

Silence.

Then, beyond the garage door, the sound of a car door opening.

Nothing.

Then footsteps.

Cautiously walking to the flight of steps that leads to the bungalow’s front door.

I go over to the switches and flip one. Whoever is outside will now be illuminated by the outside light.

“Christ,” from outside, as whoever it is dashes back to the cover of the car.

Silence again.

I wait, by the switches.

Eventually a voice says, “George?”

I close my eyes and lean against the wall.

“George?” James says again.

I flip the switch that elevates the garage door and, still holding the Browning, I walk forward to the edge of the garage light.

A car door opens and James gets out.

“George,” he says. “Are you all right?”

I just stand there, glad.

The faint dawn light begins to define and separate the trees behind James and the car.

Two more cars’ doors open and two more figures get out and begin to walk towards the starker light of the garage. They’re both carrying shotguns.

Well prepared.

Then I squint into the darkness as the taller of the two figures comes closer to the light.

The figure is familiar. It begins, slowly, to raise the shotgun it’s carrying, taking hold in both hands, pointing the shotgun towards me.

The figure is one I know very well.

It’s Ray Warren.

I hurl myself across the face of the garage and I’m rounding the corner of the house as the first blast shatters into the brickwork.

“Take it easy,” I hear James call out. “Take your time. Don’t make a pig’s ear of it.”

I run down the side of the house and turn the other corner and take off through the trees for the gorse, in the direction of the beach.

Once I’m out of the trees and into the gorse all I can do is to keep on running. I can hear them, crashing through the gorse behind me, not firing until they’ve got a target they’re certain of hitting.

Ray Warren. I can’t believe it. Ray’s dead. Mickey topped him. Mickey topped Ray. And James. I—

A shotgun booms out behind me. One of them has tried a shot. I throw myself down into the gorse and roll over and over and then I reach the beginning of the sand dunes. Just one small dune and I’ll be out of sight.

I scramble up the small hillock and roll over the top.

Another blast screams above my head. I get to my feet and run along the depression of the interlocking dunes until I reach the track that leads on to the beach.

I turn on to the track and suddenly, beside me, as if she’s been waiting for me round the corner of one of the dunes, there’s Lesley, running alongside me.

“Don’t stop,” she says. “Hurry. You’ll be safe with me.”

She takes my hand, still running, towards the gap that opens on to the broad beach.

“Hurry,” she says, “it’s getting light.”

Now we’re on the beach, running towards the tank, a just-discernible blot against the early-morning blueness of the sea and the sky.

“Hurry,” she says, “you’ve got to hide. You know where to hide, don’t you? You’ll be safe there.”

The tank is getting closer.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll help you. You’ve got to hide first.”

We reach the tank.

“Quickly,” she says. “Inside. You’ll be safe inside.”

I clamber into the turret; she follows me down. There’s just room for the two of us.

Silence.

I look at her.

She smiles at me, knees up against her chest.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t leave you. Not now.”

Outside, on the beach, there are sounds.

I look through the observation slit.

I can only see one of them.

I squeeze the Browning through the gap and fire but I’m a mile wide. The figure runs out of sight, to my blind side.

All I can do is to listen to them discussing what they’re going to do. I can’t hear the words, just the voices, soft, thoughtful.

Then, when they’ve come to a decision, I can hear some of the words.

“Right,” Ray’s voice says. “I’ll wait here. If he sticks his nut out I’ll take it off for him. But don’t be long. It’ll soon be daylight.”

I look through the slit again. The other one is running back down the beach.

I loose off another shot but I can’t get a proper aim.

“Leave it out, George,” Ray calls. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

I look at Lesley.

But she’s not there any more.

“Lesley!” I scream. “Don’t leave me!”

Silence.

I look up at the sky through the turret top.

“Lesley!”

I stick my head through the gap. All I can see is Ray Warren, thirty feet away, levelling his shotgun.

I hit the bottom of the tank as the blast slams the turret with a sound of thunder.

Then there is another sound, a small scrambling. Lesley reappears through the hole in the turret, squats down opposite me. She smiles.

I stare at her.

“Ssh,” she says. “It won’t be long now.”

I open my mouth.

“Don’t,” she says. “I won’t leave you.”

The sound of a car at the gap that opens on to the beach. I look through the observation slit again.

Headlights made golden by the deep blue of dawn.

A door slams.

The other man comes running back along the beach.

Carrying something. Something flat, rectangular.

As the figure gets closer, the flat rectangular shape makes a swishing swilling sound.

As if there’s liquid inside it.

“Hurry up,” Ray calls to the running figure.

I look at Lesley.

She’s still there.

Still smiling.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll be all right with me.”

She stretches out a hand and touches me on my wrist.

“Stay,” she says. “You’ll be safe here. Honestly.”

There’s somebody on the roof of the tank. Crawling. Something clanks against the blackened iron. Metal against metal. Something swills.

Something is unscrewed, slowly.

I look at Lesley.

She smiles at me.

“Don’t go,” she says. “Not now.”

She touches my wrist again.

“Don’t leave me now,” she says.

Suddenly, drifting in from outside, there is the smell of petrol.

Then it’s filling the inside of the tank, raining down on our heads in its liquid form, splashing all over us.

I scream.

Lesley smiles.

I look up at the turret. There is a great blossoming whooshing noise and beyond the turret lid the dawn blue sky turns orange, and then the inside of the tank turns the same colour and I can’t stop screaming; can’t stop looking at Lesley, a mirror image to myself, as her skin and her flesh burn brightly away, burning off her, beginning here and there to reveal the bone underneath. The dark glasses melt and fuse into her eyeless sockets and the last of her flesh falls away from her as she smiles her final smile at me.

THE SMOKE

S
TANDING IN FRONT OF
the plate-glass window of the Penthouse, James raised his glass and said, “To your continuing good health.”

“Cheers,” Ray said. “Here’s luck.”

They both drank.

James smiled to himself.

Luck was right. A lot had depended on luck, on chance. But that was the way it had to be; informal, flexible. So as not to have tipped their hand. It had been a hand played with a lot of wild cards, of necessity. And playing them against Fowler, the risks had been extremely high.

But it had worked.

Not entirely as expected, but it had worked.

It had had to work. Fowler had had to be stopped; the Force could wear so much, but the torturings and the killings had been in danger of becoming too public. Justice would have to be seen to be done. And if that had happened, the Force itself would have come out of it extremely badly.

So, of course, James thought, would his good self.

The trouble was, his association with Fowler’s organisation had been extremely valuable. Too valuable to terminate.

So. The association with Fowler had to be terminated. But not with his organisation.

Terminate Fowler. Not his organisation.