Remix (2010) (26 page)

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h-e-l-p i a-m t-i-e-d u-p t-h-i-s i-s n-o-t a j-o-k-e p-h-i-l s-h-a-r-o-t-t i-n c-o-o-k-h-a-m e-n-g-l-a-n-d i-s g-o-i-n-g t-o k-i-l-l m-e c-a-l-l t-h-e p-o-l-i-c-e m-y n-a-m-e i-s c-a-z t-a-l-l-i-s r-i-n-g j-a-m-e-s 0-2-0-7-3-5-4-5-5-7-1 p-l-e-a-s-e h-e-l-p m-e

I clicked
Get Answer
. A new screen appeared. One question, three instructions. Aagh!

Are you new to JustAnswer? YES NO

Y-e-s.

Create Your User Name
I ran my nose along the keys: koiujyhtg

The crisp tap of approaching feet.

Create Your Password
sdfghj

The doorknob rattled and the door swung open.

Enter Your E-Mail Address
Quick, quick, I can do this, thank God it’s an easy address: c-a-z -t-a-l-l-i-s-
Shift key with my tongue and @, h-o-t-m-a-i -

The keys clattered and scraped my nose as a hand yanked the keyboard away. For an instant I thought Phil was going to smash it over my head, but instead he bent to read the screen. I struggled to my feet, despair in my heart. All was still, then Phil switched off the computer. The screen changed to black. Appropriate.

As he faced me, Phil’s battered face was calm; perhaps his mouth a firmer line than usual, as if having to deal with a time-wasting client for the second time in the same day. A faint rattle came from the white box he carried, and he laid it on the desk. Maybe he was less calm than he looked…

Neither of us spoke. I waited, choosing my moment, shaking much worse than Phil. This, I reckoned, was my very last chance. I just might be able to head-butt him. If I was insanely lucky and knocked him out, Ric and I might still escape.

I didn’t believe I was going to be that lucky.

Where should I aim for? He was so much taller than me.
His throat, try to hit his Adam’s apple.
He hovered a couple of feet away, eyes cautious.
Last chance.

“Now there’s really no point your making this difficult…” he began, and as he came tentatively towards me I launched the top half of my body forward as hard as I could. He twisted, my forehead smacked into his shoulder; I crashed to the ground, unable to save myself. I lay stunned for a few seconds on my side, the breath knocked out of me. Phil pushed me on my front, put his knee in my back, and pulled up my sleeve. I jerked my arm, and he held it in a surprisingly strong grip. A pause while his other hand reached for and groped in the box on the desk, a stinging pain, a spreading warm numbness. Phil stood up and walked away.

I thought, this is it; the end of my life, and what a squalid, awful way to end it. Thank God Mum was dead. My death like this would have plunged her into a lifetime’s grief. Ric, he’ll kill Ric now, no…my brain blurred, my eyes closed. I’ll never finish Saladin…someone will, hope they get the dapples right…delicate Ayres dapples…

Chapter

28

*

What’s happening? Brain funny, I feel weird…but not dead…lilies, I can smell lilies, I am dead and it’s my funeral…no, I’m tied up, I’m alive…

I opened my eyes. The carpet, inches away, undulated, its subtle colours singing to me, incredibly beautiful. I watched it for a while, then turned my head, and saw by the gentle light of a single lamp a different room, the one Emma was in when I arrived, but now it was a ship, its walls were sails, they billowed and made me seasick. I shut my eyes, and I was flying. I didn’t like that. Maybe that was why my heart pounded. My head wanted to float away, spinning like a sycamore seed.

“I’m Caz Tallis,” I whispered to my friend the carpet, “and I can get out of this. They shot Philip Marlowe full of dope in
Farewell My Lovely
, and he escaped. So can I.”

I lay there for an indefinable space of time, thinking about moving. At last, making no noise, I rolled on to my back and attempted to sit up. Extra-strength gravity didn’t make it easy, but at least the walls were calming down, and my relationship with the carpet had cooled. I could see there was nothing that special about it. The world was getting back to normal. Not, on this occasion, a good normal. Ric was over the far side of the room, fastened to an office chair with duct tape round his shoulders and ankles, his head bowed, his face greyish. My heart lurched. He looked terrible.

Footsteps in the corridor made me stiffen then slump to the floor.
Phil wants to kill us
. Galvanized by fear, my woozy brain heaved itself to its knees and staggered upright, synapses firing all over the place.

I rolled on my front. I lay motionless, and let my mouth sag open; saliva dribbled to the carpet. Feet stopped at the door, then came in. I sensed Phil standing over me, then I heard someone else, and he moved away.

“Emma - what are you doing? You’re dressed…don’t come in here.”

“I can’t sleep, not knowing what’s happening. Have you got rid of those things…in the folder?”

“All gone.”

“Is Ric - are they…”

“Don’t worry, my love. I don’t want you to be worried. They’re both out for the count, you can see for yourself.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Deal with it.”

“I want to know how.”

A pause. “Leave it to me. Let me take you back upstairs.”

Emma’s voice was low and urgent. “No! Tell me! I’m frightened…how are you going to do it?”

“It’s under control.” Phil’s voice was not as certain as his words. His other illegal activities had not been as hands-on as this, and I felt he was barely coping. Maybe Emma thought so too. Her breath hissed impatiently. He said, “I made plans weeks ago for Ric. If only he’d gone to Scotland, none of this would have happened.”

“How would Scotland help?”

“It’s isolated. My boat’s there. If he’d agreed to go to Europe with me -“

“But he could’ve come back any time he liked!”

“Not if he never arrived. Some of the water’s very deep in those parts. No one would find him.”

Nothing was said for a few seconds, then, “So you’ll do the same with Vikki - Ric’s girlfriend?” She sounded eager, as though this was the answer to everything, and once we were out of the picture they could get back to their affluent life, their future unthreatened.

“No. It’s a pity she came with him. The police will look for her. I doubt she’s left details with a lawyer like she says, but she may have mentioned Ric to her friends, or people may have seen them together. I’ve got to set it up so they won’t come looking here.”

“How?”

“Emma, you don’t need to be involved. I’ll do what has to be done. It’s an ugly business, you don’t want to know about it.”

“Actually, I do.” Her voice had gone hard. “My whole life’s at stake. I want to be absolutely sure you get it right this time. You were too soft before - you had the chance to get rid of Ric and you didn’t. You should have known he’d come back.”

“I thought he’d kill himself with drugs and drink, on his own in Asile.”

“Yes, and you thought wrong! I can’t afford you messing up this time!”

“I won’t. Listen: what if the police think she met a confidence trickster who persuaded her he was the late Ric Kealey? She believed him, gave him money, let him stay at her place, started an affair with him. He introduced her to drugs. In the end, he strangled her, stole her laptop, her phone and a few other things, set fire to the house and left. The last person he’d have gone near is anyone who knew the real Ric Kealey, like me, because I’d know he was an impostor. If I said no one had come here, no one had contacted me, the police would believe me. After all, what actually happened is pretty unlikely.”

Silence while Emma digested this, and while I imagined being strangled. A tsunami of panic engulfed me. That nightmare I had - it was going to come true. Oh God. I took stealthy deep breaths and struggled to think, distracted by terror. Phil’s scenario was plausible enough - except James would tell the police and they’d believe him, so he wouldn’t get away with it. But Ric and I would still be dead. If I told Phil about James, would he give up? Or include James in his plans, like he’d included me? And what about Jeff Pike? He’d tell the police it was really Ric. Except, somehow, I couldn’t see them warming to Jeff as a witness. They might discount what he said. My head hurt trying to work it out.

Phil said, “If she told anyone, or he was seen, we’re covered.”

“There’ll be Ric’s fingerprints,” Emma objected. “The police will have a record of them.”

“It won’t take long to wipe every surface. A criminal would do that. It wouldn’t look suspicious if there were no prints. Besides, if the place is burned…”

“How did they get here?”

“I’m just going to look.”

The door closed, its key turned. Emma’s sharp questions and Phil’s replies faded into the distance. I sat up. Ric’s eyes were open and on me.

“Ric! Are you all right?”

He moved his head cautiously, winced and said, “If your definition of
all right
is being tied up in a chair with your head feeling like it’s going to burst and some mad fucker planning to murder you in the next half hour, then yeah, I’m all right.”

My eyes filled with tears. “That’s good. Did you hear what they said?”

“I’ve been awake for a while. Acting unconscious. I should have listened to you. Sorry, okay?”

I sniffed and wiped my runny nose on the knee of my combats. “Okay.”

The thump of the front door closing disturbed the quiet. Right. I was not going to sit there, waiting for Phil Sharott’s return. I checked the room for a phone, just in case, but there wasn’t one. I heaved myself to my feet, not easy when you are bound wrist and ankle, and leaned against the side of a sofa until the sea swell of the floor had settled down. Feeling queasy, I swivelled sideways along the carpet, moving first my toes, then my heels. I started to inch towards the little antique desk.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting something to cut the duct tape.”

Emma’s laptop was no longer on the desk, and nor was the tray with its cup and saucer that I’d hoped to break. For a moment I stood, unable to think what to do next. I wished my brain would stop cutting in and out - I needed it. I looked around, then shuffled across the room to the mantelpiece. In front of a large mirror, between a pair of silver candlesticks, was an arrangement of Stargazer lilies and gypsophila in a cut-glass container. It was their heady scent I’d noticed when I came to. I bent forward, the throbbing in my head intensifying, and tipped the whole lot to the floor. Somehow it missed the marble hearth, falling harmlessly on the thick rug. The flowers half spilled out, and water darkened the carpet. I knelt clumsily, knocked the vase away from the flowers and tried to get hold of its edge with my mouth. It rolled briskly away.
Aagh
. I followed, nudged it round with my head, and had another go at getting a grip on it. It spun under the coffee table. I reached out and banged my head on the underside of the table. It hurt. Tears of frustration and pain stung my eyes. If Ric told me to hurry up, I might just struggle over and attempt to hit him.

He didn’t tell me to hurry up. He said, “I love you, Caz.” I’d think about that later. If there was a later…

I manoeuvred the vase against the table leg, and clamped my teeth round its cold wet rim. Carefully, I stood, moved back to the hearth, leaned over and dropped it. This time it shattered, the crash unbelievably loud in the quiet. Anxious moments passed as I listened for a reaction from Emma, presumably still in the house somewhere. Nothing. I knelt, avoiding the slivers shining on the carpet as best I could, and chose a triangular curving piece of glass, with a bit of the thick base along one edge. With my nose I shoved it to the corner of the marble. I turned round, my fingertips searching.

“Left a bit. Now back about three centimetres.”

There was excitement and hope in Ric’s voice.
Yes - got it
. I shuffled over to Ric. “I’m going to cut the tape holding you to the chair first. You direct me.”

“Do it where I can see.” I inched to his side. “Lower, bit lower, that’s it, towards me.”

It was a nightmare version of a children’s party game. I could feel the tape. I made sawing movements with the glass. Ric was strapped to a swivel chair, which didn’t help; he could only touch the floor with one foot to stop it moving. My bent knees began to protest, and my mind kept wandering off.
Concentrate
. Nothing seemed to be happening. If I got through this tape, I’d have to free Ric’s wrists with neither of us able to see what I was doing.

This isn’t going to work.

Ric said, “It’s just scratching it. There’s three thicknesses. Try piercing it with the pointed bit.”