Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (28 page)

By moving his head from side to side, he was able to examine every part of the bathroom in the mirror except for the bath itself. This was almost completely obscured by a yellow and white striped shower curtain which fell to within a few inches of the floor. Trevor took a step forward to bring the whole of the curtain within his direct field of vision. He narrowed his eyes and squinted hard at the mildew stained plastic, but the light was too dim to make out whether there was anyone behind it or not. Noticing there was an unshaded bulb hanging above the bath, he reached round the upright of the door frame for a switch, and his hand brushed against a nylon cord. He gave it a sharp pull, not sure if this was a good idea or not, but all it produced was a loud clicking sound.

Given the position of the light bulb, he had hoped it would instantly reveal whether anyone was standing in the bath by silhouetting their shape against the curtain – or rather, he had hoped that it wouldn’t. When the expected illumination failed to materialise, Trevor knew there was only one course of action left open to him. He would simply have to bite the bullet and— Then it occurred to him that there might be a second option. He could wait until Sandra came, and she could blast hell out of the shower curtain with her gun. He was beginning to ponder the distinct advantages of this approach when the image of the Dreamhome Megastores mouseman flashed into his mind once again, but this time he was alternately chewing on a lump of cheese and a bullet.

‘Oh come on, you wuss. Get on with it,’ he said to himself and shook his head to clear it of the grinning rodent in the black and orange uniform.

Wishing that he hadn’t watched quite so many serial killer movies, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and tightened his grip on the pepper spray. He reached the bath in two strides and tore open the shower curtain. Without waiting to see if anyone was behind it, he pressed down on the aerosol button and released a jet of gas in every direction. He just had time to register that there was no-one either standing or lying in the bath before his eyes closed instinctively to shield themselves from the needles of pain being fired into them by the mist of pepper spray.

‘It’s not bloody air freshener, you know.’

Trevor was scarcely aware of Sandra’s voice from the doorway behind him and even less so of the amusement in her tone. His lungs heaved with the effort of fighting for breath, and her words were almost inaudible over the din of his relentless coughing. Nor did he hear the clatter of the aerosol can as he dropped to his knees and let it fall from his fingers into the empty bath. Supporting himself by gripping the rim of the tub with one hand, he clutched at his pumping chest with the other. He blinked repeatedly to try and cool the infernos that blazed beneath his eyelids, but it brought him little relief.

‘Now you know why it’s illegal,’ said Sandra, and he felt her arms slide under his armpits.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You need to wash some of this crap off.’

With Sandra’s help and by pushing downwards on the edge of the bath, Trevor managed to get to his feet and, still half blinded, allowed himself to be guided to the wash basin. He heard the rush of water as she turned on the tap, and only then did it occur to him that he wasn’t actually dead.

CHAPTER FORTY

Statham turned into a narrow side street and eased the Skoda to a halt behind the unmarked police car.

‘I guess this is it then,’ said Patterson, opening the passenger door, his relief that the white knuckle ride was finally over immediately subsumed by a growing anxiety as to what they might be about to discover. If it was bad, his job could be at stake. If it was very bad, his life might be.

Statham followed him over to the police car, and they identified themselves to the two uniformed officers, one of whom went with them to the corner of the street and pointed out the target’s Peugeot and the scruffy block of flats which they had passed about fifty yards up the road.

‘Cabot Tower,’ said the officer. ‘That’s where they went when they got out the car.’

‘Any idea which flat?’ said Patterson.

‘Sorry, sir. Our orders were just to keep tabs on the car.’

‘Fair enough.’ Patterson caught Statham’s look of surprise, but he knew he had little or no grounds for giving the officer a bollocking. He’d simply done what he’d been told to do and that was that. No more, no less.

‘So what do we do now then?’ said Statham.

‘We wait.’

‘For?’

‘For them to come out.’ Patterson looked towards the block of flats. ‘I don’t see we have much choice given that they could be in any one of seventy-odd apartments. In the meantime, we need to find out how many exits there are and stick a tracker on the car. Just in case they give us the slip – again.’

He pondered the situation while Statham went back to the Skoda and opened the boot. On balance, grabbing them in the street might even be a better option than bursting into some flat where they’d no idea what to expect. How many of them were there? He doubted there’d be just the two from the Peugeot What sort of weapons had they got? He checked his watch. And where the hell were Jarvis and Coleman?

Statham came back from the car and, as if seeking Patterson’s approval, held out a piece of black plastic that was about the same size and shape as a box of matches. Patterson glanced at the tracking device and nodded.

‘It’s a pity the car’s right opposite the flats,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to brazen it out and hope the apartment’s at the back of the building or that no-one’s looking out the window.’

They set off down the litter-strewn pavement, and when they reached the Peugeot, Statham knelt down and attached the magnetic tracking device to the underside of the car. The metallic “clunk” must have woken the dog, which he’d failed to notice on the back seat, because she immediately sprang to her feet and began barking wildly at the perceived intruders through the partially open window.

He staggered backwards on his haunches and threw out a hand to stop himself falling. ‘What the—’

‘Still got the mutt I see,’ said Patterson and scratched his head while he contemplated whether the dog’s presence had any particular significance.

‘You might have warned me,’ said Statham, getting to his feet and brushing the dust from his trousers.

Patterson ignored the remark and scanned the windows at the front of the apartment block. ‘Don’t think anybody heard.’ He looked back at the dog, who seemed to take this as her cue to crank up the volume by several decibels.

‘Not yet anyway,’ he added and stepped off the pavement as the dog threw back her head and emitted a wolf-like howl of ear shattering proportions. ‘Come on, Colin. Get a wriggle on.’

They had barely reached the middle of the road when a screech of tyres from the far end of the street stopped them in their tracks. They spun round to see a dark blue Mondeo hurtling around the corner and fishtailing this way and that as the driver fought to regain traction.

Patterson’s jaw dropped as he watched the car straighten and then accelerate towards them. When it was within a few yards of where they stood, they heard the high pitched squeal of rubber against tarmac for a second time, and the car slewed sideways and came to a shuddering halt, almost blocking the entire width of the road.

‘Well if it isn’t Starsky and Hutch,’ Patterson muttered through gritted teeth, glaring back at Jarvis and Coleman as they beamed at him through the windscreen.

Jarvis leaned his head out of the driver’s window. ‘All right, guv?’ he said and gave him the thumbs up.

Patterson walked slowly over to the car. ‘I’m surprised that’s pink and not brown,’ he said, pointing at Jarvis’s outstretched thumb.

‘Sir?’ Jarvis’s broad grin was instantly replaced with a look of blank incomprehension.

‘Given that you seem to spend most of your time with your thumb up your bum and your brain in neutral.’

Jarvis’s vacant expression remained unchanged.

‘Tell me, Jarvis. Exactly what does the word “covert” mean to you, as in the phrase “covert operation”?’

‘Er—’

Patterson slammed his fist down onto the roof of the car. ‘Just park the bloody thing before you cause an accident.’

He stood back, and Jarvis began to manoeuvre the Mondeo towards the kerb. Once again, his eyes ranged across the windows of the apartment block to check whether anyone had been alerted by this second disturbance, but it appeared that all of the residents were either profoundly deaf or none of the flats at the front were inhabited.

‘Second floor.’

‘What?’ Patterson turned to see that Statham was pointing towards the flats.

‘Third from the left,’ he said. ‘Thought I saw somebody.’

Patterson grabbed his wrist and forced his arm downwards. ‘Jesus, Colin, you don’t have to
point
.’ He looked up at the window Statham had indicated. ‘Well there’s nobody there now, which I must say I find quite surprising. I mean, short of parading up and down with a bloody great banner saying “Hello, we’re from MI5 and we’re after your arses”, I don’t think we could have done a better job of announcing our presence.’

‘Double bluff?’ said Statham with a half-hearted shrug.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Well if you think about it from the bad guys’ point of view, they probably wouldn’t take any notice. They’d be expecting the Secret Service or whoever to be a bit more… secret.’

Patterson stared at him and wondered how it was possible that he had been assigned three of the most incompetent agents in the Service to carry out an operation which was supposedly a matter of national importance. – Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the whole thing was about setting him up to fail.

He hadn’t exactly been popular with MI5’s top brass ever since he’d been involved in an investigation into a suspected terrorist plot to assassinate Prince Charles some years back. Despite being a loyal patriot, Patterson had never been a big fan of certain members of the Royal Family and had happened to remark to a colleague that Prince Charles was a gormless tree-hugger with delusions of ordinariness and that his dad was a freeloading waste of space with a talent for insulting people. Unfortunately, the comment was overheard by one of the Prince’s staff, who put in an official complaint questioning whether “an anti-monarchist and probable communist sympathiser” was the right sort of person to be working for the British security services.

Patterson’s superiors were clearly of a similar opinion, and it was only because of the impressive inroads he’d made in a separate ongoing investigation that he wasn’t sacked on the spot. But that investigation had long since been concluded, and every assignment he’d been given from that point on could have been filed under “Largely Pointless and Potentially Dangerous” or occasionally “Successful Outcome Unlikely”. Perhaps his bosses had some knowledge that this current operation came into the second category – if not both – and failure would give them the perfect excuse to get rid of him once and for all.

‘Sod that for a game of soldiers,’ he said aloud and registered Statham’s frown of bewilderment. He had no intention of explaining what he meant, so he pre-empted any enquiry by turning his back and strode towards the entrance to the flats.

‘Stop dawdling, Colin,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Trevor’s eyes still smarted from the pepper spray, but at least his vision had returned to something like normal and he no longer had to rely on Sandra to lead him around by the hand. The hacking cough had also subsided to the occasional need to clear his throat, and when he spoke, the words were accompanied by an asthmatic wheezing sound from deep inside his chest.

‘So what’s with… the underpants?’ he rasped as he and Sandra stood gazing down at the dead man in the armchair and the pair of bright red briefs that lay in his lap.

Sandra picked them up daintily between her forefinger and thumb.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ she said, holding them up to the light to examine them more closely. ‘Maybe some sort of pervy thing. Doesn’t seem to be any sign of semen, though, as far as I can tell.’

‘Oh please,’ said Trevor, his features contorted with repulsion.

Sandra grinned at him. ‘What’s the matter? Not going squeamish on me, are you?’

With that, she flicked her wrist and let go of the underpants, launching them directly at Trevor’s face. He instinctively threw up his arms to defend himself, but his reactions were too slow, and the briefs landed on his shoulder. He brushed them off with the back of his hand as if he were being attacked by a swarm of hornets.

‘Do you not think we could be… serious here for a moment?’ he said, stifling a coughing fit. ‘I mean, we do happen to be in an empty flat with a dead bloke strapped to a chair and God-knows-who about to walk through the door at any second.’

Sandra forced the corners of her mouth downwards and frowned in a theatrical display of gravity. ‘Sorry, Trevor,’ she said, her voice almost masculine in pitch. ‘It won’t happen again. Promise.’

‘You see. That’s exactly what I—’

‘Have a look through his pockets.’

Trevor recognised the sudden shift in her tone from sarcastic to businesslike. He understood exactly what she was asking him to do but decided he needed further confirmation. ‘Pardon?’