Blind Needle (29 page)

‘The harbour's going to get crowded,' I said.

The blonde woman, Susan, smiled a thin pitiless smile. ‘You're not even worth killing, my sweet. Wayne has a special cocktail that'll make you tell us everything. In fact you'll be glad to tell us.' Her mouth went thin and straight. ‘Then you can crawl back under the same stone you came from.'

Wayne grinned, took a step nearer. ‘I have too.'

‘What about the body in the harbour?' I kept on. ‘Make a habit of killing people on Benson's say-so? Do all his dirty work for him, do
you?' I tried to smile but the muscles in my face were stiff. ‘He's got you by the short and curlies. Any time he feels like it he can pick up the phone and have a quiet friendly chat with one of his brothers in the Masons. The Chief Constable perhaps. I don't suppose you're in the local Lodge, are you?'

It was pathetic, I knew it – a desperate last-ditch attempt at creating a rift of bad feeling between them – and plainly it wasn't working. Wayne came right up to me and stared me in the face: the slits of his eyes in the puffy folds of flesh were febrile, glittering with hatred.

‘Don't come it, squire, I'm warning you – you're in deep shit as it is.'

‘All right, all
right,'
Benson broke in, as if he'd reached the end of a very short tether. His slightly bulbous eyes roamed up anxiously to the ornate plaster ceiling as from somewhere above came the sound of a woman singing about lost memories and forlorn regrets in a shaky soprano. ‘Understand me, whatever-your-name-is. Mess me around and I'll let them sort you out. You're on a hiding to nothing.'

‘Then I've nothing to lose.'

Benson's mottled jowls quivered. ‘Get him out.' He gave one swift nod to the others, who started to close in. I tipped over a large blue vase with a curling rim and it broke with a crash on the parquet surround. Benson furiously jabbed the air. ‘I'm not having this here, in my house! Move him! Now! Out!'

Gaz penned me in a corner. He tensed, forearms bunching, his large veined hands raised and slightly curled. Ray circled round behind him.

‘If he wants to play silly buggers …' Wayne said off-handedly, taking out a soft leather pouch. ‘He just dun't know who he's playing silly buggers with.'

Benson turned on him incredulously. ‘Not here, you cretin. Take him to the shop.'

‘Eh?'

‘I don't want to see it—'

‘Why not?' Susan said, getting up. ‘It's for your benefit.' The contempt in her voice was unmistakable. ‘None of this would have happened if you'd taken better care of your briefcase or if your daughter had more important things on her mind than what to wear for her luncheon appointments.'

‘Don't put the blame onto Ruth—'

‘That's right, mustn't upset poor Ruth, must we?'

‘Don't be bloody stupid.'

‘Must keep her pure and unsullied.'

‘That's not the point! You can't involve a young girl in matters of business, for Christ's sake. She wouldn't understand.'

‘She understands a fat monthly allowance.'

Benson twitched his neck, blotchily red, inside his collar. He had the embattled look of a man faced with implacable female logic who would have liked nothing better, this very instant, than to resort to brute force. For a moment they stared one another out, the blonde woman's gaze as steady, if not steadier, than his. Then he half-turned away. ‘Do what you bloodywell like, but keep Ruth out of it.'

But she wasn't going to let him have the last word. ‘This isn't my mess, remember. And also remember who I'm doing it for, and why.'

She pushed back her sleeves and folded her arms.

‘Now then, whoever the hell you are' – icily calm, voice without a tremor – ‘it's all very simple. Either you volunteer the information now, this minute, without pain, or I can ask Wayne to assist you. I hope you'll be sensible. Then we can get this matter cleared up and out of the way and that's the end of it.' She stared hard at me and then gave a little shrug. ‘Myself, I prefer the simple, painless way. But there is an alternative …'

Holding the pouch in his bandaged hand, Wayne unzipped it and opened it like a small book. It contained a syringe, needles, and a plastic ampoule with fluid the colour of rosewater. He held it out.

‘Take a good look, squire.'

I pressed back against the wall. I didn't want to look but I couldn't help myself. The lamplight, dim and diffused as it was, reflected a gleam on the glass syringe which seared my eyes. I saw Dr Morduch's face looming over me and I knew what was coming. I closed my eyes, seeing a swirling redness that sucked me down, and felt my legs dissolve.

‘Shit and corruption, look at that,' Wayne said in disgust. ‘He's gone.'

‘Stick him with it,' Ray said. ‘I would.'

‘Bring him over here and lay him down,' Susan said.

Hands gripped and carried me. I mumbled something, I wasn't sure what, and the woman said sharply, ‘What was that? What did he say … ?'

‘We'll soon find out,' Wayne said. ‘Roll his sleeve up.'

Susan crouched over me and looked into my face. I could tell she was near because her perfume enveloped me like a sickly fog. She leaned closer and enunciated each word: ‘Save yourself the pain. Tell me what you've done with the tape. Where is it?'

I was mumbling again, and that's what I hoped it was, an incoherent mumble and nothing else.

‘Let me at him,' Wayne said in a throaty, greedy whisper. ‘I've bin waiting for this.'

My sleeve was pushed up my arm.

‘You're sure about this stuff?' Susan said in a low, terse voice.

‘He'll squeal like a pig,' Wayne giggled. ‘Oink, oink!'

I smelt the foul odour of his breath on my face.

‘Here we go, boys and girls. Eyes down for a full house.'

Nausea bubbled and burned in my throat. I swallowed it back and lay still, inert, drained, and waited for the thin cold sliding pain to begin all over again.

‘What on earth happened here? Somebody have a fight?'

The ornate plaster ceiling swam as I blinked open my eyes. Everyone else was standing except me. I pushed myself up into a sitting position on the settee and saw Wayne slide the leather pouch into his pocket and keep his fist bunched round it protectively.

Nobody was looking at me. They were looking at Ruth Benson standing with one hand holding the edge of the door and staring at the smashed pieces of vase on the parquet floor. It was the silence in the room, the motionless standing figures, the lack of any response which seemed to disturb her most. She advanced slowly into the room, and as I remembered she was an exceptionally pretty girl, with dark eyes and long black lashes, and even her puzzled frown was fetchingly attractive. Ray scuttled out of the way as if he had no right to breathe the same air.

Benson briskly rubbed his hands together and said jovially, ‘Nothing to worry about, Ruth, darling. Just an accident.'

‘What's going on?'

‘Er, just a chat,' her father said. His reassuring smile was more a horrible grimace. ‘It's a meeting, that's all. If you don't mind …'

‘No, I don't mind,' his daughter said, gazing curiously at me. ‘I've seen you somewhere. Don't you work for us? Are you one of our drivers?'

‘This is business,' her father said grimly. ‘Leave us to get on with it, would you, please? Mmm? Ruth?'

‘I know you,' the girl said. Her face cleared. ‘You're the one – the man who took Daddy's case from the back seat of the Merc. You were in the office with Mrs Crompton. She was certain it must have been you.'

The blonde woman, Susan, was shooting a look of x-ray intensity at Benson, the lines of her face stretched tight. ‘Neville, for God's sake!'

‘Oh yes? What's this “Not in front of the children” stuff?' Ruth Benson asked the room at large. ‘Is somebody going to tell me what's going on?'

‘Ruth, please …' Benson said wretchedly.

‘I'll tell you,' I said, getting to my feet. Susan gave Gaz a swift flashing glance and he moved up behind me. ‘You're right, Ruth. I stole all your father's secrets and now he wants them back.'

‘What secrets? What do you mean?'

‘Go to your room at once,' the blonde woman said.

Ruth Benson swung round. ‘What – did you say?' Her expression was exactly the same as if the woman had just slapped her.

‘Neville, will you please tell your daughter to go upstairs before I start breaking things. We're in this mess because of her. If she'd had the sense to lock the car that damn case of yours wouldn't have been taken and we wouldn't be standing here now like bloody fools.'

Benson was breathing audibly through his wide nostrils. He brushed back his thick wavy hair, and then, in a process of mime, without actually touching her, began pushing his daughter towards the door. She was my last and only hope, what little hope there was. ‘If he doesn't get his secrets back he's going to have me killed,' I said, edging away, getting the settee between me and Gaz.

Ruth Benson stared at me in silence, and then she laughed.

‘Don't be silly. You're just a thief.'

‘That's right, I admit it. Call the police.'

Her face clouded over. ‘What secrets are you talking about?'

‘I assumed you'd know but now I don't think you do,' I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. ‘You just spend the money and have a good time, don't you?'

I could never have imagined that Benson's daughter, of all people, would be my rescuer. Yet she was, it seemed, quite genuinely, the innocent bystander, the one person that Benson feared might learn the truth and who couldn't be silenced by threats. It was funny, in a way. If I hadn't been shaking, feeling sick and hollow inside, I would have thought the situation comic.

Susan started to say something, her face taut and livid, but I didn't give her the chance. In half a dozen strides I was past her and got between Ruth Benson and the door. Gaz made a move but Benson grabbed his arm, a tangle of emotions distorting his fleshy features.

‘Somebody stop him,' Ruth Benson cried out. ‘Ring the police—'

‘That's the last thing they want,' I said. ‘I know too much.'

‘Know
what?
What do you mean?'

Susan said quickly, as if to the general assembly, ‘We can't let him go, he's too dangerous. Ray!' she rapped out to him, loitering on the edge of the carpet.

Ray jerked into life – a reflex response to the sharp command – and lunged at me. I swung the heavy mahogany door and hit him in the face with the edge of it. Something cracked loudly. He yelled in agony and staggered backwards, crashing into one of the cabinets with the cut-glass animals, toppling it. I ran into the hall to a cascade of splintering explosions.

The front door was the nearest and quickest escape but I couldn't take the risk that it might be locked. I ran past the staircase and down the passage and through the door and into the fluorescent bright kitchen. The gleaming surfaces and white appliances shocked my vision: I blinked and hesitated, thinking wildly of dragging the huge refrigerator across the quarry tile floor to barricade the door, which wouldn't have taken more than ten minutes.

After the harsh brightness of the kitchen the garden was black as a tomb.

I ran blindly at full tilt, and dazzled by the darkness narrowly avoided smashing into a tree, seeing its black solid shape at the last possible second and swerving round it. I slithered on the damp grass, barely managing to keep on my feet, which was a mistake, because by staying upright the low thick branch caught me in the dead centre of the forehead and put me down as quickly and effectively as a short left jab from a heavyweight's glove.

‘I'll give him the skull-and-crossbones. That's what they put on dangerous stuff when they dump it – yeh, red skull with black cross-bones, right across his back.' Wayne pushed the slide control with his thumb and the shrill whine ascended the scale to a thin screech, like the point of a steel nail being dragged across a blackboard.

The fat boy uncoiled the cable with a twist of the wrist. He placed his bandaged arm on my shoulder, using it as a rest for the hand doing the artwork. ‘Eyes down for a full house.'

‘Make the bastard have it,' said Ray through his bloody handkerchief. ‘Make the bugger scream.'

The needle dug in. My flesh shivered. If I tried to move, attempted to evade it, the pain intensified as the needle snagged and tore. I couldn't move my arms, they were strapped to the chair. All I could do was hang my head and shut my eyes, feeling the jab-jab-jab as the needle scrawled a burning arc across my back. Wayne hummed, happy at his work.

‘The tape,' the blonde woman said. ‘Ask him about the tape.'

‘As if I didn't have enough on my plate,' Benson grumbled. ‘I'm trying to run a business. Why didn't he keep out of it?'

‘I hope that's a dirty needle you're using,' Ray said.

Their disembodied voices weaved through the crawling pain. The track of the needle felt aimless, malicious, puncturing my skin for the fun of it; Wayne probably wasn't using ink at all, and there was no pattern or design. Just enjoying the raw jab of the dry needle for its own sake. My head ached terribly – as if the pulpy grey brain tissue was inflamed and seeking to squeeze through the orifices of my skull.

‘Ask him about the tape,' Susan said.

Wayne pressed on, setting my back on fire. ‘You can't beat job satisfaction,' he breathed, his breath warm and foul.

‘There's just no gratitude any more,' Benson said sadly. ‘People are too damn selfish. You do your utmost, offer them chances, opportunities – you give them work, for God's sake – and they think you're trying to screw them.'