The Man in the Buff Breeches (6 page)

He releases me roughly, causing my head to jerk back against the pillow. I gulp in a huge breath of air as he checks that my restraints are secure. Then he takes a linen handkerchief from his pocket and stuffs it in my mouth. “Just to keep you nice and quiet,” he warns as he turns towards the door. “I’ll be back, and if it isn’t there I will have to start hurting you. I don’t intend to leave without it, Shona, no matter what it takes. And I’m guessing your pain threshold is not too high.”

I’m guessing he is right
. I sniff as the tears course down my cheeks. I don’t know where the bloody elephant is. I wish I did. But there is serious pain to come if I don’t remember.

I wonder how DS Salter is doing.
Please, God, don’t let him die.
Those lazy brown eyes and sultry mouth are stuck in my brain. How could I believe he was a stalker? But then again, what sort of judge am I? An hour ago I thought Nick,
aka
Mr. Hyde, was the most desirable man on earth. My throat constricts, and I think I will choke on this gag. I take a steadying breath through my nose. Think! Where is that stupid elephant? If he has already murdered DS Salter to get it, he isn’t going to spare me.

How long will it take him to go through my boxes? Ten minutes at the most. I strain my ears for the awful sound of him returning. It is a slow torture, and the damp satin patch on the front of my dress expands as the tears roll down unchecked. Damn you! DS Salter, why didn’t you warn me—or did he? Was he watching over me or just waiting to trap me? I don’t know. But he could be bleeding to death out there and somehow elephants, con men, and my guilt are all unimportant. I need to get help for the man in the hall!

I bite down on the linen in my mouth and with every ounce of energy pull on the twine. The sound of my heart thudding is crashing in my ears along with the frantic creaking of my bedstead. I prepare myself for a second attempt when I hear the terrifying sound of footsteps in the hall.

He’s back.

The door swings open, and my heart stops for a few seconds as DS Salter stumbles in. His head is bleeding, and he is holding his ribs with his right hand. He walks awkwardly to the side of the bed and blinks down at me swaying slightly.
Thank God he’s alive
. He stands before me frowning and my eyes bore into him.
For heaven’s sake, get this gag off me.
I need to warn him about Mr. Hyde’s imminent return
.

His confusion seems to clear, and he leans forward and gently pulls the material from my mouth and the breath whooshes in to my body.

“He’s coming back,” I gasp. “He’s only gone to the shed. He’s coming back!” DS Salter winces as he sits on the bed beside me. He looks so calm that I want to shake him despite his injured state.

A warm hand gently encircles my arm. “It’s all right, we have your boyfriend,” he says.

I blink and realize he must be concussed. “No! He is coming back.” I clutch his arm.

“No, Shona, he’s not. My partner guessed I’d be here after I signed off duty. Your garden is quite crowded with police officers. There is no way he can escape.”

I’m shaking uncontrollably
but manage to loosen my hold on his arm. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, and he’s definitely not my boyfriend, he’s a maniac.”

“Yeah, you should be sorry, you have a vicious kick.” He is looking at me with careful eyes. “You okay? Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically, although he almost terrified me to death.” Now that I know DS Salter has survived, I fly from uncontrollable weeping to uncontrollable anger. “But no! I’m not bloody okay. Why didn’t you tell me you were police?”

“It‘s complicated. But trust me, you’re safe now.”

“Safe! I am trussed to a bed post. Are you going to untie me any time soon?”

He supports his ribs with one hand and winces again as he searches his pockets. I wince with him, feeling a huge surge of guilt. He needs attention more than I do.

“A strange choice of knot,” he mutters, peering at my bonds.

I blink in disbelief. “Are you some damn bondage expert?” I whisper.

“No, but I’m quite experienced with these.” He produces a pair of handcuffs, and I think for one moment that he is going to arrest me. Well, why not? I’m a smugger and an accomplice to attempted murder of a police officer. If I was him, I wouldn’t take any chances. Who knows what crime I will commit next!

To my relief, he puts the handcuffs to one side and delves back in to his pockets. He pulls out a penknife and slices through the bindings. I flex my arms and wrists back to life.

“Just promise not to hit me again,” he says. “I’ve collected enough bruises for one night.” He helps me to sit up, and I feel him groan softly at the effort.

“Are you sure he’s not coming back?” I gulp back another sob at the thought.

“Just take it easy. You really are safe.” He looks white as a sheet, and I pray he is not hallucinating about the backup in the garden. A drop of blood trickles down his head, and I take a tissue from my box on the cabinet and mop it gently. “You need a hospital,” I say.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been hit over the head.”

“I can believe it.” I say, and stop my attempt at first aid as I realize he is staring at me as the wretched tears cascade uncontrollably down my cheeks. His brown eyes soften, and then his arms are around me and I’m sobbing on his shoulder—and I hate myself for it. “I didn’t know you were the police I swear. He told me you were a stalker, and I thought you were going to attack me.”

“No. Wrong way round,” he murmurs. His arms tighten protectively, making him wince again. I should untangle myself, but I don’t—even though I can hear that back up have now arrived in the flat. Someone enters the room and DS Salter holds a hand up.

“We’re okay, just give her a minute, and then better get her checked out at the hospital.” I think he has far more need of a hospital, but I appreciate the feel of his solid chest against my cheek as it shields me from the sirens and footsteps which are filling up my flat. The arms that I am contentedly snuggled in finally fall away, and I sense my golden-haired comforter disappears as he reverts back to detective mode.

I blow my nose and look him straight in the eyes. “I didn’t know what he was after, and I didn’t know he was going to hurt you. You should have told me you were police.”

I want him to say,
I believe you. Everything is all right.
But he doesn’t. He is suddenly looking very serious.

Another officer puts his head around the door, and DS Salter gets to his feet and gives me a hand up. I sway a little as I stand, and he curls an arm around my waist to steady me. We wince in unison.

“Why was Nick down in the shed?” he asks.

“He thinks the elephant is there, the one everyone is looking for.”

“So you knew what he was after.” Suddenly the warmth in his voice has vanished.

“No!”
Oh hell! He doesn’t believe me
.

“He was torturing me and asking about one of my elephants. I told him it was in the shed, because I needed to get him away from me…” I shudder at my own words. DS Salter gives me a long assessing stare. Oh, I wish his irritating smirk was back again. I want him back to casual annoying security man—not serious “I am going to read you your rights” detective.

Ten minutes later, my lounge is bursting with activity. DS Salter has moved me to the settee, and a paramedic is trying to persuade him to leave for the hospital.

His comforting embrace still burns around my shoulders, but he hasn’t actually said he believes my story, and looking back on the evidence I cannot blame him as I can hardly convince myself of my innocence. Where is that elephant? If I could account for that then I could maybe make it more convincing that I was duped.

My flat is being searched, and my elephants and other belongings are all being intimately examined. Oh, I deserve to be arrested for the offence of being a complete gullible idiot.

A face appears around the door, and to my amazement Bo Peep strides across the room and looks sternly at DS Salter. “Hospital. Now! What the hell were you thinking, Sam, going in early?” I think she is going to get her whip out, but then she puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Strangely I want to slap it away and put mine there instead.

DS Salter is looking deathly pale but manages a small smirk as he introduces us. “This is DS Shepherd from the drug squad. She has been tracking your boyfriend for some time.”

“DS Shepherd!” I let out a snort of laughter despite my world caving in.

She glares at me, and I instantly return to terrified mode. Her blonde hair is scraped back into a ponytail, and the absence of makeup does nothing to distract from her fine-boned attractiveness. She is dressed in black tailored trousers and a tan, fitted jacket.

“Shona Turner—you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence…” My heart tightens as she delivers her caution. They are going to arrest me. Oh, this is so unfair! She leaves me for a moment, herds the police officers into a gaggle, and talks to them out of my ear shot. The officers leave except for a young female who takes a seat beside me and a burly male who positions himself, like a Buddha, by the doorway.
Well there goes my escape route.
I shudder as I watch Bo Peep take out her notebook and sit down opposite me. All of a sudden I want DS Salter back and turn just in time to see him disappear out the door on a stretcher.

I look back at Bo Peep. “He will be okay, won’t he?”

“Concussion and a staved rib or two I suspect,” she says, fixing me with an ice blue stare.

“Staved ribs?” I frown.
But he was knocked on the head
. The bastard must have kicked him after he had tied him up! Oh, what I would give for a few minutes with that Nick. I would stuff his linen hanky down his throat, stake him out on the floor, and shove a few elephants up his orifices.

I cannot believe I have been duped, not once but twice. My three years gaining a degree in psychology was clearly a waste of time. I might as well have studied Klingon. I must be the most stupid person in the world.

I reel off the answers to Detective Shepherd’s questions as she studies me with her big lie detector eyes. After what seems like an eternity of interrogation, she finally snaps her notebook shut.

“So you still can’t remember where you put this elephant, and you have no idea what it contains?”

“No, I swear. I have no idea.”

“Okay, that’s all for now, but we will need to question you further tomorrow. Your boyfriend Nick is a nasty bit of work. He used to operate down on the South Coast. When I transferred up to London I recognised him. You weren’t the first holidaymaker he used as a mule.”

“Mule indeed—stupid ass is more to the point,” I mumble, before she continues.

“The ship’s officer,” she pauses and refers back to her notes, “Stephen Davies, we picked up in Florida. He has confirmed that you knew nothing of the consignment. So we are not charging you with anything just at the moment. Unless DS Salter wants to bring a charge of assault against you.”

I groan, remembering his poor shins.

She surprises me by sending a sympathetic look my way.

“If it’s any consolation, the ship’s officer was worried about your safety. He was quite cooperative when he heard Nick couldn’t find the consignment he had given you to carry back. He got into money troubles, and Nick provided him with a way to reduce his debts.”

“Oh, not two complete bastard boyfriends then,” I say. “Just one and a pathetic weasel.”

She nods in comradely agreement.

I am so relieved DS Shepherd isn’t going to haul me off to the cells I want to hug her, but decide against it as she doesn’t look the
let’s have a group hug
type.

“Are you DS Salter’s partner,” I say.
Oh! That didn’t come out right
. “Professionally I mean.”

She raises her eyebrows, and I detect a smirk not unlike DS Salter’s. Perhaps it’s a detective thing.

“Only on this operation,” she replies. “He got roped in when I arrived at that weird Regency ball whilst tracking Nick. DS Salter was helping out the owner who is a friend of his. He was actually off duty that night. Then later, he was seconded into the operation after you took up with our suspect. He shouldn’t have gone in on his own tonight, like a knight in shining armour. He should have waited for back up, but he didn’t want you getting hurt. Usually he is more professional, driven by his brain not his…well anyway, he’s one of the good guys.”

Her words make my insides tumble.
Trust me not to spot the good guy.

She jumps up from the settee. “I’ll let you know how he’s doing. Any thoughts on the whereabouts of the elephant—get in touch immediately. You’re not being charged at the moment, but it would look a hell of a lot better for you if we could locate the thing.”

When she is gone, I sit amongst the jumble of my flat and pull out my phone. I open my vengeance file and delete “
idiot in buff breeches
.” I want to type in two other creeps’ names, but my eyes fill with tears. I have never felt more stupid, more used, or more depressed.

It is eight a.m., and I am still sitting on the settee in the aftermath of the night’s events. I have just Googled, “how to become a nun.” I decide that a nunnery would be the ideal way forward. I could avoid men for the rest of my life. I am sure I will never trust one again.

Outside, the dawn has given way to a beautiful sunlit morning, and I decide it is now too late to go to bed. Wearily, I check my messages. There is a text from Lyn, asking how the date went. I resist replying
, a violent criminal tried to torture me
, as I know she will come straight round and, right now, I can’t even face my best friend. Instead I call work to report that I have a severe migraine.

I close my eyes and try to figure out what it is about me that attracts such shitty men. I wonder how DS Salter is doing for the umpteenth time since his stretcher departure and consider phoning Bo Peep, but she is probably off duty by now catching up on her sleep. I decide to ring the hospital and am transferred a few times before I am informed that as I am not a relative, they can’t tell me anything, except he has been admitted to Eagle ward. Well at least I know he is still alive and not in intensive care. So I can stop worrying about him. Can’t I?

I need comfort so I eat a Kit Kat and wash it down with another coffee. The sun is now streaming through the windows, and I have the urge to escape my flat and get some air. I change into my jeans and trainers and step out into the street, adopting a brisk pace and keeping my head down. Exercise is what I need to clear the fog in my head. Fifteen minutes later, I’m shocked that my feet have automatically trodden a path to the hospital. I furtively stand in the reception searching for clues to the whereabouts of Eagle ward.