Honour Bound (20 page)

Norton
recovered the Sig and stood at the back of the van. The woman was in the
drivers seat, head in hands cowering below the windscreen. He called through
the open rear door. "If you don't want to go the same way as your friend,
I suggest you get out of the van and lay on the ground."

"Please
don't kill me," her frightened voice pleaded as she opened the door and
stepped out. She caught sight of Silver's body, knife still protruding from his
neck, lying near the back wheel of the van. Her hand shot to her mouth and she
turned away, retching.

Norton
watched her from the cover of the van as she lay face down on the ground. He
stepped over Silver and knelt down beside her, pressing the Sig against the base
of her skull. He said, "I'm fresh out of being amenable. One wrong move
and I'll blow your pretty head all over the yard."

He
went over her thoroughly, running his hands over her clothing, searching for
any weapon or anything she could use as a weapon. He stepped back while she
rolled over then pressed the barrel of the Sig against her breastbone. Paying
scant regard to her dignity, preferring his personal safety, he searched her
pockets and the rest of her clothing. Finding nothing, he stepped back and
returned the gun to its holster.

"Get
up!"

She
rose slowly and stood trembling, uncertain what to do, what to say. "Help
me," she said finally, "help me to get away from them."

Norton
let out a disgusted sigh. "What makes you think I have any interest in
helping you? You must have a very short memory. Just a few minutes ago you and
the missing link here were all set to kill me."

"What
could I do about him," she pleaded, "I couldn't fight him off."
Tears rolled down her cheeks, sparkling like diamonds under the glare of the
arc light. "Please get me away from these people, please, please help
me."

The
remains of her self-control suddenly deserted her. She slumped against the side
of the van and sank into a foetal ball. Her stomach, still in turmoil over the
sight of Silver's corpse, discharged its contents on to the concrete. After a
short coughing fit, she burst into a desperate flood of tears.

-34-

Sarah
Conway, eyes still red-rimmed from crying, sat in Norton’s apartment, hands
circling a steaming mug of freshly made coffee. She looked around the room. A
low wooden coffee table surrounded by a practical three-piece suite rose like a
comfortable island from a sea of deep blue carpet. Two modern bookshelves
brimming with reference works and autobiographies lined one wall, while an
antique looking chiffonier broke the lines of another. Built in to the arm of
her chair was the remote unit for a CD system, though she could not see the
auto-changer anywhere in the room. On the mantelshelf above a gas fire, stood a
single framed photograph, a younger version of the man whose apartment this
was, and an attractive dark haired woman smiled out of the picture at the
unseen photographer. A television set and the usual bric-a-brac of a normal
family home were noticeable only by their absence.

Norton
entered the lounge from the bedroom after making a call to the clean up squad
about the body he had left at the garage, and sat on the settee. "I'm Sam
Norton," he said, "and whose company do I have the pleasure of?"

"Sarah,
Sarah Conway," she said. A hint of nervousness trembled in her voice that
she could not quite control.

"Okay,
Sarah, perhaps you had better
tell
me all about
it."

She
took a sip of the coffee and nodded. "I don't really know where to start.
It's been like a nightmare."

"At
the showroom you asked me to get you away from them, whoever 'them' may be.
That sounds like a good a place as any."

She
leaned forward and put the mug on the table. After taking a deep breath she
said, "Look, I don't know whose side you’re on but if you’re against Peter
Holmes then that's fine by me." She paused and picked the mug up again.
"You didn't answer his question by the way. Are you a burglar or are you
the police?"

Norton
could not help but smile. She was obviously nervous, not knowing whether she
had left the frying pan for the fire or whether the good guys had rescued her.
He studied her face, framed by the silky gold of her hair. She had a delicate,
slightly turned up nose and, he thought, very kissable lips. Her skin was
smooth, lightly tanned and flawless. Her light blue eyes failed to hold his
gaze for more than a second or two before they dropped to observe the contents
of the mug in her hands. He wondered how many times she would pick it up and
put it down. It was a nervous gesture, unsuccessful up to now, to try to hide
the shake in her hands.

He
leaned back into the comfort of the settee and tried to put her at ease.
"I am on the side of law and order," he said. "Although I am not
the police, I have a certain interest in Peter Holmes that is getting decidedly
unhealthy. For him, that is, and I'm afraid that's all I'm going to tell you,
so you can take it or leave it. If you take it, I will help. If you prefer to
leave it, then I'll show you the door."

She
looked at the contents of the mug again before speaking. "I don't really
have much choice do I. Look, I'll tell you what I know if you promise to keep
him away from me. Is it a deal?"

"Deal."

Relaxing
slightly, she drank some of the coffee and put the mug back on the table.
Norton held back a smile. She ran both hands through her hair and allowed it to
fall back to the sides of her face. She sighed and shuffled slightly before she
began.

"I
was a croupier," she said, "at one of his casinos, The Moonlight Club,
in Tottenham Court Road. I don't know if you know it."

Norton
nodded. "Yes."

"Anyway,"
she continued, "I used to work on the roulette tables. He had a special
table for his special guests, you know, the sort of people who could afford to
lose a hundred thousand in an evening and still keep a smile on their
faces."

"What
was special about the table?" he asked.

"It
was fixed. All the numbers had a very fine wire filament running through them.
The wires went inside one of the table legs and under the floor into a computer
room. The computer could tell which numbers were being covered and the ones
that weren’t. At the press of a button, or whatever, the computer could
magnetise the numbers on the wheel that weren't being covered. They didn't
strip everybody because that would have been too obvious. But the house always
won, and won big."

"What
was your part in it?"

"I
didn't even know it was rigged until I met Carlo. He was the man who operated
the computer. He was one of these computer eggheads. He explained how it worked
because he thought I was in on it. But all I did was rake in the chips and
commiserate with the losers."

"So
what did you do once you found out?"

"Something
really stupid, instead of keeping my mouth shut like I should have done, I went
to the manager and complained. I told him I was leaving."

"I
assume he didn't like that?"

"You
can say that again. I was told the only way I was going to leave knowing what I
knew, was in a box. That scared me. I'd heard about people going missing and I
believed they meant it."

She
paused, a slight shiver running through her as if she was re-living that
conversation in her mind. "Anyway," she continued, "within the
week I had been promoted," she made the word sound like a disease,
"to Fatso's personal assistant. His very first words to me were, 'If you
value your life, don't ever talk to the police.' That was eighteen months ago
and he's never mentioned the casino since."

"
Mmm
, Personal assistant, what did that entail?"

"Not
what you're thinking." She snapped. "He never touched me, not in that
way."

"Whoa!"
Norton said, "Come down from the ceiling, it's just been
re-decorated."

"I'm
sorry,” she said, “it's just that every time I was with him it was always the
same. The snide remarks, the knowing looks. I don't know what he used to tell
them, it wouldn't be hard to guess I suppose, but I could tell they all thought
I was his sexual plaything. That I was his personal prostitute." 

She
stopped and picked up the mug. Norton could see tears against her lower eyelids
like the waters of a lake brimming at the top of a dam. It would not take much
for her personal dam to be breached.

"I
apologise for the way I put that question," he said.

She
shrugged her shoulders, emptied the contents of the mug and set it down on the
table. "I don't think women were his preference," she said, the
floodwaters receding. "I don't mean queer or any thing like that. I think
money, or at least making a lot of it came first. He used me to parade in front
of his business associates. I think he thought it gave him more credibility, a
bit of a macho image."

"Did
you ever sit in on any of his meetings?"

"No,
never, I just had to be with him before and after, I waited around while they
were on." She yawned. "I'm
sorry,
it's
turned out to be a long day."

Norton
stifled a sympathetic yawn.
"Yes, for me too.
Look, just a few more questions then you can get some sleep."

She
nodded and ran her fingers through her hair before letting it fall back into
place. He grinned inwardly at her second unconscious mannerism.

"Ask
away," she said.

"What
were you doing at the showroom tonight?"

"He'd
been having a meeting with some of his cronies. I suppose we were quite lucky
in a way. If you had shown up ten minutes earlier, you'd have walked into
another four of his goons. We were just getting ready to leave when
Gerry," she paused and took a deep breath, "when Gerry said he had
caught someone."

A
bit of good timing there, Norton thought, they must have come out of the front
while I was making my way round the back.

He
looked at
her,
her mind seemed to be far away most
probably reliving the events at the showroom. He decided on a direct question,
mainly because her mind was distracted but also because he was interested to
see her reaction. "Does Holmes have access to explosives?" 

The
look that flashed across her face, the briefest of expressions said it all.
Fear,
or something very close, was replaced almost
immediately by a look of forced indifference.

"I
would be surprised if he didn't," she said. "He’s got his fingers in
so many pies he could probably get anything he wanted."

Norton
wondered why she was lying. How much of her nightmare was false. He decided not
to turn his back on this particular young lady.

"One
last question, do you know of anything he's involved in at the present
time?"

"Like
I said, he's got a lot of pies to choose from." Pausing, she looked at the
ceiling as if making a decision. "I got the impression that he was up to
something big. Over the last couple of months he's been, well, excited. He
disappeared for a couple of days not so long ago, said it was a business
meeting, it was the only time he didn't insist that I go with him."

"Do
you know where he went?"

"No.
He took his passport, so it could be anywhere I suppose. But I think he stayed
in England."

"Why England?"

She
shrugged. "Well, because he drove. Normally his chauffeur takes him
everywhere but this time he went on his own. I don’t think it could have been
very far because he didn’t take any bodyguards with him. That is not like him
at all."

"Interesting,"
Norton said, looking at his watch. He would leave it at that for the time
being. Let her think she had convinced him that she was an innocent pawn.
Tomorrow he would ask the questions again, just to see how different the
answers were.

"It's
getting late," he said. "You can stay here for tonight. There's only
one bedroom, I'll let you sleep in there." He patted the settee,
"I'll sleep on old faithful."

"Thank
you," she said. "Won't she mind," she nodded toward the photograph
on the mantelshelf. Norton looked at the picture and paused before answering.
"No. She won't mind. Come on I'll show you where everything is."

***

Norton
woke suddenly. His senses immediately alert. A noise, something, he was not
sure what had disturbed him. Very gently, he took the Sig from under the pillow
and held it on his chest beneath the blanket he’d taken from the bedroom while
Sarah was in the shower. His eyes flicked around the room. A faint cone of
light angled into the darkness from the open kitchen door, the glow emanated
from a hooded streetlight outside the window. The intruder alarm was silent,
indicating the infrared beams covering the only outside door and the windows
had not been broken. The noise came again, from the direction of the bedroom.
It was the sound of the door handle slowly turning. He thumbed off the safety
and waited. The door opened and he heard the soft swish of fabric as she
crossed the floor towards the settee.

"Sam,"
she said, barely more than a whisper.

She
moved into view. His half closed eyes and the barrel of the gun followed her
movement. The whiteness of the shirt he had lent her made her progress look
ethereal in the poor light. She knelt down beside the settee and gently put her
hand on his shoulder.

"Sam,"
she whispered, as she shook him lightly.

Norton
kept the gun trained on her torso. "What's the matter," he said,
trying to sound as if she had just woken him.

"I
lied to you earlier on."

"I
know."

"But
how..."

"When
I asked you about the explosives," he interrupted, "your face gave
you away. Do not take up poker. You'd lose."

"I
know about the explosives, because I had to plant some."

"What!"
He came up on one elbow, the blanket dropping away from the gun.

She
saw the dull gleam of the barrel pointing at her. "Do you think you need
that?"

"You
lied to me and I didn’t know why, better to be safe than dead." He thumbed
the safety back on. "Where did you plant the explosives?"

"It's
on the top of the Senator Hotel. I was told to wrap it around a satellite
tower's power cable."

"When's
it timed to go off?"

"It
isn't. At least I don’t think it is."

"What
do you mean?"

"They
told me it was radio controlled. I don't know what's going to happen, but it's
something to do with what I told you earlier. This big job he's got lined
up."

"Have
you any idea what he's up to? Think hard because it's very important. A lot of
people have already died."

"I
don't know. I didn't want anything to do with it. He threatened to kill me if I
didn't do as I was told."

Two
sad silver rivers reflected in the glow from the kitchen as tears rolled down
her cheeks. He put his hand on her shoulder and gently caressed it. Responding,
she leaned into him and put her head on his chest.