Keeping Bad Company (24 page)

He began slicing a cucumber at a furious rate, the knife flashing wickedly near his fingers, missing by a miracle. ‘Would you happen to be free for the rest of the evening?’ He swept the cucumber slices into a bowl and reached for some greeny-orange tomatoes. ‘I know you’ve a busy day tomorrow, but as you can see, I’m fair rushed off my feet here. The cashier’s not turned up. You wouldn’t fancy lending me a hand? I can manage the till and taking the orders if you keep the spuds coming. It’s not difficult. There’s plenty of salad done ready, see?’ He waved the knife under my nose. ‘Just put a bit out on the plates beforehand. Then all you need to do is pop the spuds in the microwave. When they’re ready, add a filling. We’ve got another one now, tuna and sweetcorn, going very well. It’s all mixed up in a bowl over there.’

I followed the line indicated by the point of his knife and saw a huge plastic bowl of unappetising beige and yellow gunge.

‘That’s all there is to it. Put a few quid in your pocket,’ he concluded artfully.

Why not? I couldn’t do anything about Lauren tonight and though it mightn’t be
haute cuisine
, it would stop me brooding on the next day. ‘Sure,’ I said.

‘You’ll find the uniform on the coat rack in the corridor,’ he told me. ‘And go easy with the cheese.’

By the time I left Jimmie’s at ten, I was whacked. Business had been nonstop all evening, to Jimmie’s joy and my despair. I burned my fingers trying to keep the spuds coming along. As for the ‘bottomless cup’, that had proved a nightmare. The patrons, unused to being offered anything free here, had seen it as a challenge. They’d kept coming back and holding out empty cups, determined to take full advantage. The coffee percolator hissed, gurgled and spat dementedly and the tea urn ran dry. But at the end of it all, I had a tenner in my pocket and half a pound of left-over grated cheese in a washed margarine tub.

‘Make yourself Welsh rarebit for your supper,’ suggested Jimmie. ‘Save a few pennies.’

‘Tomorrow, perhaps,’ I said. Food had temporarily lost its appeal. I never wanted to see another potato in my life. The smell of melted cheese, singed potato skins and baked beans clung to me even after I’d peeled off the rayon overall that Jimmie called staff uniform. My hair must stink of it. But provided Angus paid up the next day as promised, I was doing all right this weekend on the financial front.

It had rained while I’d been juggling hot spuds and ladling out the beans. Surfaces gleamed in the lamplight. There were comparatively few people about and not much traffic, but as I walked away I heard a motorcycle engine cough and splutter into life a short distance behind me. Enjoying the cool damp air on my perspiring face, I took little notice.

With a low growl the machine caught up and passed me. It wasn’t travelling fast and that did strike me as odd. Most bikers like to take advantage of an empty road. I remembered then that I’d heard a bike before, revving up in the distance on the occasion of my night visitor’s second call.

I didn’t want to end up seeing and hearing things every time I stuck my head out of doors. But I decided to take a different route home, just in case. I turned the corner and left behind the lighted main road with its pubs, cafés, and security-lit store windows.

I was walking through deserted residential roads now. Curtains were drawn and doors locked against the night and its dangers. The only sign of life within was the flickering phosphorescent glow of television screens, playing on the blinds. My footsteps echoed on the pavement. I’d ceased to enjoy the coolness, and shivered as a cold draught whistled uncomfortably round my neck. Greasy paper wrappings from fried food and empty foil trays, discarded back there in the main shopping area, had been scooped up by the wind and diverted into this side street. They bowled past me, rattling and fluttering along the uneven flags. Occasionally one wrapped itself unpleasantly round the back of my legs. I pulled up my collar, shoved my hands into my pockets, in one of which I’d wedged the tub of cheese, and head down, hurried on.

The motorcycle roar, coming from directly behind me, broke into the quiet solitude like a wild animal let loose. Had I stopped and turned to face it, I’d have been a goner. As it was, instinct made me leap first without waiting to see. I scrambled up someone’s front steps as the machine raced past along the pavement. The tug of air as it swept by almost knocked me off my feet. The rider was crouched low over the handlebars, a dark helmeted faceless shape.

‘Maniac!’ I yelled after him. ‘What’re you trying to do?’

The margarine box of cheese fell out of my pocket and bounced away down the pavement.

My question had been both stupid and unnecessary. What he was trying to do was run me down. His speed carried him on to the end of the street. I hammered frantically on the door behind me, knowing it was useless. No one, hearing any kind of fracas outside, would open up at this time of night.

I jumped down the steps and began to run back towards the main road. Behind me, the biker had skidded round in a U-turn and the engine snarled as he began the run back. I couldn’t make it to the lights and safety ahead. There was a side turning and I dived into it. The machine swept past. He was faster than me but less mobile. He had to slow and turn again before making his third and possibly successful attempt.

I had no option but to run and no time to think where I might be running to. All I knew was that I had to find a hiding place. I pounded round the next corner and found myself in a broader street but even more poorly lit and not residential like the one I’d left. One side of it was entirely taken up with a large building, which, judging from the general architecture, had probably once been a warehouse. Despite that, a peeling sign advertised it for rent and specified a large amount of office space. The sign looked to have been there a long time. The building was in complete darkness and its windows stared down at me like so many blind eyes. Nothing suggested a security patrol or even a caretaker was there to look out and see my predicament.

The other side of the road was bordered by iron railings and bushes. It was eerily empty of all life. I couldn’t have chosen worse.

Since the commercial building offered nothing but a solid wall and ground-floor windows barred with iron grilles, I crossed to the fenced side of the street. I raced down the line of metal posts, hoping for a gap or at least a place where the spikes were broken and I might climb over. And there was a gap! I leaped into it just as the motorcycle’s headlight swept around the corner of the street.

I’d hoped to be able to scramble away among the bushes, but in my haste I’d miscalculated. The gap was the entry to a flight of steps leading downwards. I lost my footing and rolled and bounced to the bottom, where I landed face down in the dirt. I was bruised and my hands scraped but I had no time to worry about injuries. I crawled into the nearest bushes and crouched there. My heart was thudding and my breathing sounded so loud I thought my hunter must hear it. The machine was put-putting slowing along the street above. He was looking for me. He’d see the gap in the railings and he’d guess I’d gone down here.

The machine moved on. Had he missed the gap? Cautiously I put my head out and, for the first time, took note of where I was. A fresh breeze rippled past my face. Water lapped and nearby somewhere there was a creak of some wooden object. A pungent, tarry, muddy, faintly stagnant smell pervaded the air. It was familiar. I was on the canal towpath, not far from where poor Albie’s body had been taken from the water. I edged out and stood up. There was a bridge some way down and about fifteen feet from me, the same two houseboats were moored. I began to move towards them and then let out a yell as I stubbed my toe painfully against some hard projecting object.

It was a metal ring set in a lump of concrete. Attached to it was a length of coiled rope. The houseboat it was presumably meant to secure was missing from its mooring.

I cursed myself for having given away my position by the shout, and stood, straining my ears for my pursuer. Faintly, some distance ahead of me, I heard the splutter of an engine. Then almost at the furthest point of visibility along the towpath from where I stood, a sudden bright beam flashed and swept across the bank, path and water like a searchlight. A menacing engine cough told me it was the headlamp of the motorbike.

Dear Lord! I thought, my heart leaping sickeningly into my throat. He did see the gap and realise where I am. Now he’s found a way down on to the path! He’s coming down here!

I had to get rid of him. I could only elude him so long before our cat-and-mouse game finished suddenly, messily and horrifically. I looked down by my bruised foot and saw the coil of rope. I snatched it up and leaped into the tangle of shrubbery and nettles on the bank, hauling the rope behind me. As fast as I could I pulled it taut and secured it to a stump of tree-trunk. Then I poked out my head.

The biker was waiting at the far end of the towpath. Cunningly he’d switched off the headlight. But I knew he was there, watching for a movement in the shadows or an outlined figure in the pale towpath lights. I remembered the cyclist who’d sped past me as I placed flowers in Albie’s memory. There was no telling if it had been the same man, come to see what was happening. A murderer returning to the scene of his crime. But if it had been the same man, he knew this towpath, access points, width, evenness of surface, everything. He was on home ground. I was playing his game.

So I obliged him further, stepping out on to the path. When he’d had time to spot me, I turned to run back the way I’d come.

He spotted me. The engine roared triumphantly. The headlight, leaping back into life, flung its long white beam the length of the path as he charged down it towards me – and the rope, drawn tightly a few inches above the ground.

I don’t know whether he saw it before he hit it or not. It wouldn’t have made much difference the speed he was going. I didn’t wait. Behind me a deafening crash shattered my ears, a final screaming roar from the engine, which was abruptly cut off and followed almost at once by a mini tidal wave as the surface of the canal lurched and splashed up over the towpath and my fleeing feet. I’d reached the steps leading back up to the road. I stopped briefly and looked back.

There was no sign of my pursuer on the towpath nor in the heaving water. Then a head popped up, an arm followed, waving frantically and he was splashing about in the canal shouting out for help. All at once, a light beamed out as the hatch of one of the houseboats was opened. A figure emerged and began flashing a torch around. It picked up the figure struggling in the water.

I heard the boat-owner shouting, ‘What the devil is going on?’ as I ran up the steps to the road.

I was scarcely aware how I managed the rest of the way home. Only when I’d stumbled down the basement steps and got inside my own flat could I even begin to take stock and organise my thoughts.

First aid was a priority. I went into the bathroom and took a look at myself in the mirror. I’d cut my chin, and blood was trickling down. The palms of both hands were badly grazed and grit was embedded in the weeping flesh. I wriggled out of my jacket. Using my elbow, I turned on the cold tap and ran the water over the raw area of my palms until the grit had washed out. The injuries burned like a million wasp stings. I smeared on antiseptic cream, yelping and swearing, because I’m a total coward when it comes to medical treatment of any kind.

My jeans were torn but had largely saved my knees from being skinned as well. My toe was red and swelling badly where it had struck the mooring ring. I hoped it wasn’t broken.

It all hardly mattered. I was alive.

So was he, my pursuer. I supposed they’d got him out of the canal by now. He’d lost his bike. Serve him right! I tried to be pleased he hadn’t drowned and I hadn’t his death on my conscience. But in truth my conscience was untroubled. He’d been luckier than Albie. If he was connected with Albie’s death then justice
hadn’t
been done. He ought to have drowned.

I hobbled into the kitchen and boiled the kettle. I don’t normally take sugar in drinks but it was supposed to be good for shock so I put two spoonfuls in my instant coffee. I retreated to my living room and settled on the sofa, the duvet pulled round my shoulders, and sipped the hot sweet brew. My toe pulsated painfully in the flip-flops I’d donned and my hands still felt as though they were on fire.

Who was he? And why the murderous assault? He might have been drunk or high. But he’d handled the machine too well. It might’ve been mistaken identity. He’d wanted to get someone else. But no, he’d been waiting outside Jimmie’s, I remembered, and he’d moved the moment I’d left the café.

He’d been out to get me. It had to be someone to do with either Lauren’s kidnapping or Albie’s murder or both, supposing the two to be connected as I was sure they were. Had it been Merv? If Merv had torched his car the other night, he might have taken to a motorcycle.

Otherwise I’d only come across one motorcyclist lately. That had been the courier in the offices of Thais Fine Arts. The possibilities opened up by that were endless. I’d no way of knowing if it had been the same man, of course, and mustn’t jump to conclusions.