A Lesser Evil (51 page)

‘Get out of here,’ the man roared, getting to his feet. ‘You think you can come on to my turf and threaten me? I’ve eaten boys like you for breakfast.’

The fact that Trueman didn’t persist in denying he had the women, or ask any questions, was enough proof for Dan that he had got the right man. He could see what Trueman was, a bully through and through. He’d grown so used to frightening people with his hired thugs that he’d forgotten that alone he was just another middle-aged man, and a cornered one at that.

‘This gun is loaded, the door downstairs is locked, and your secretary won’t be back for an hour at least,’ Dan growled at him. ‘I really want to hurt you, I’m dying to beat the shit out of you for taking my wife, so if you’ve got any sense you’ll tell me where she is now.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Trueman said, but he looked scared now, taking a step back behind his desk.

‘Sit down, you piece of shit,’ Dan bellowed at him, taking a step closer.

Trueman’s eyes were swivelling around the office as if looking for a weapon, but he did what Dan had ordered and spread his big hands out on the desk. ‘You’ve got the wrong man, son,’ he said. ‘I run clubs, I’m a businessman.’

‘Yeah, what business did you have in the Muckles’ filthy den then?’ Dan asked. ‘You got your men to take my wife because you guessed she’d seen you going in there. A little girl was raped and killed there, what kind of business is that? Well, I got here before the police because I want my revenge. So tell me where she is, or as God is my judge I’ll start shooting, first your hands, then your legs, and it will be some time before I finish you off altogether.’

Out of the corner of his eye Dan saw a thick walking stick propped up at the front of the desk and he guessed that was what Trueman was looking for. It was a flashy job, all varnished knobbly bits with silver on the handle. He leaped forward, grabbed it with his left hand and whackedit down with force on Trueman’s hands.

The man yelped involuntarily.

‘Tell me,’ Dan insisted, lifting the stick again.

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Trueman said, but the power had gone out of his voice. ‘I haven’t taken her.’

Dan was past caring what he had to do to get it out of the man, so he hit him again, this time hard on the head.

Even if his left arm wasn’t as strong as his right, by rights the blow should have smashed Trueman’s skull. He reeled back in his chair, clutching at his head now, but although blood was seeping through his fingers, he wasn’t knocked out.

Guns weren’t Dan’s thing. He wanted to feel the man’s flesh beneath his fists. He put the safety catch on and slipped the gun back into his pocket, then leaped on Trueman, pulling him up by the shoulders and hammering his fist into his face. His nose almost exploded, and before he recovered from that one, Dan punched him in the mouth. He picked him up again, twirled him round and threw him over the desk, knocking off the lamp, papers and a box of cigars.

Dan had been a fierce brawler in his teens, he’d boxed too, and the years of bricklaying had given him iron muscles and stamina. Trueman was some four or even five stone heavier than himself, and although the room was too cramped for fighting, in his anger he tossed the older man around the office like a rag doll.

Trueman’s false teeth shot out on to the floor and his whole face was a bloody pulp. He tried desperately to reach the door, but with one more power-packed punch Dan knocked him down again to the floor. He landed on his side.

Dan was on to him instantly, rolling him over on to his face and sitting astride him. He pulled the rope from around his waist, and twisting Trueman’s arms up behind his back, he secured his wrists while the man was still reeling from the last blow.

He hit him several more times before he managed to get the man’s knees bent back so he could secure his ankles along with his wrists. The finished effect was like a trussed chicken; the more he tried to move, the more it would hurt.

Trueman cried out with the pain, but Dan lit a cigarette and knelt on the floor beside him, looking right into his eyes.

‘Tell me where she is,’ he said, and held the cigarette to the man’s temple. When he didn’t reply Dan burned him and Trueman yelled out again. ‘I’m not fucking about,’ Dan warned him. ‘You give me the address and I’ll phone my mate to go and get her. Once I know she and the other woman are safe I’ll let you go. Or at least let the Plod have you. But meanwhile I can just sit here and burn and burn you until your whole body’s covered in them. And I’ll enjoy it.’

As he put the cigarette close to the man’s face a second time, Trueman yelled out, ‘Don’t do that, I’ll tell you.’

Dan waited.

‘I’ll do a deal with you,’ Trueman rasped out. ‘I give you the address, you let me go. If you turn me over to the police my boys will get you and crucify you.’

Dan laughed then, relief that he really had got the right man flooding through him. ‘You ain’t got no power now, sunshine! You’re just a nasty old fart with a lot to answer for. When word gets around I just breezed in here and did this, you’ll look a right prat. You might be able to hire a hot-shot defence, but your so-called boys will desert you the moment you’re nicked. So just give us the address and I’ll stop making you squeal.’

There was some hesitation, but Dan only had to put the cigarette close to Trueman’s face again and he began gabbling about a barn at Bexley. He even told Dan that the keys for the padlock on the barn door were in his desk drawer.

‘Who’s there with her?’

‘No one, just her and the Frenchwoman.’

Dan opened the desk drawer. There were several bunches of Yale keys, but two smaller keys on a piece of cord looked as though they opened a padlock. He took all the keys anyway, just in case. There was also a car key with a Jaguar logo. He smiled to himself. ‘Where’s your car parked?’ he asked.

‘In Soho Square,’ Trueman gasped out.

Dan got the registration number out of him, then stood looking down at the man. All he wanted to do was flee and get Fifi, but Trueman might be banking on that, and he was crafty enough to have given him the wrong address, especially if he knew some of his men were coming by later. Then there was Janice, he didn’t like the thought of her coming back to this little lot. The whole office was upturned and Trueman’s face was like something on a butcher’s block.

He aimed one almighty kick at the man’s ribs. ‘Right now, tell me the truth about where she is. No more fucking about,’ he yelled at him.

‘It is the truth,’ Trueman blubbered. ‘The barn is up a track off Hurst Road, Bexley.’

‘If she’s dead when I get there I swear I’ll make it my life’s work to torture you,’ Dan said, kicking him one more time for good measure. But he could wait no longer. He went into the tiny cloakroom, washed the blood off his face and hands, and then phoned Kennington police station. Roper wasn’t there, but he spoke to Sergeant Wallis whom he’d met when he’d gone down to the station with Harry and Clara.

‘I’ve got the man with the red Jag,’ he barked out. ‘His name is Jack Trueman and you’d better come and arrest him because he’s just admitted he’s got my wife. He’ll need an ambulance too.’

Wallis tried to question him but Dan refused to be drawn. ‘You just hold the bastard until I’ve got my wife,’ he said, snapping out the office address. ‘I’m on my way to get Fifi now.’

Hastily he wrote a note for Janice, to stick on the downstairs front door, telling her not to open the street door but to wait outside until the police arrived.

‘The police will be here soon,’ Dan said sweetly, grinning down at the pulp that had once been Trueman’s face. ‘If you haven’t told me the truth about where my Fifi is, I’ll make sure they don’t get a doctor to look at you until you have.’

It was half past two as Dan slid into the driving seat of the red Jaguar. He had blood all over his suit, his knuckles were raw and bleeding and he was shaky. He didn’t even know where Bexley was apart from it being south of the river, but he saw there was a map in the glove compartment, and he’d check it out when he got as far as the Old Kent Road. It felt as if it ought to be eight or nine at night, definitely the longest day he’d ever known. But with luck he’d be with Fifi in an hour.

Dan swore aloud when yet another turning off Hurst Road only took him into a row of houses with no drivable access to the fields behind them. The rain was making visibility poor, and he thought now he should have waited for the police instead of coming alone.

There were very few people around, and those he’d stopped and asked if they knew of a lane with a barn had just looked puzzled.

Hurst Road was far longer than he had expected, and he’d now been up and down it so many times he half expected a police car to turn up suddenly because someone had reported him behaving suspiciously. While that might appear to be the best thing, he knew what police were like – they’d probably ignore what he said, see the blood on him and haul him in for questioning.

Seeing a boy of about fourteen walking along Hurst Road with a greyhound on a lead, he stopped the car and got out.

‘Do you know a lane anywhere off here that leads up to a barn?’

The boy was lanky and spotty, wearing an oilskin coat that was several sizes too big. He looked gormless.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Well, it ain’t a lane so much, just a track.

I go up it with the dog sometimes.’

‘Would you take me there?’ Dan asked, and reached in his pocket and pulled out a ten-shilling note.

‘I got to get home,’ the boy said, but he was looking at the note as if he wanted it.

‘I’ll take you back there afterwards,’ Dan pleaded. ‘Look, son, it’s really important. I think someone’s locked my wife up in this barn. I’ve been trying for ages to find it, and I’m getting a bit desperate now.’

The boy’s face became more animated. ‘Cor!’ he said. ‘You mean like they kidnapped her?’

Dan nodded.

‘So will they have guns up there?’ the boy asked. He didn’t look frightened at the prospect, only excited.

But the mention of guns reminded Dan of the one in his pocket and that Trueman could have been lying when he said the women were there alone.

‘I don’t think so,’ Dan said. ‘But I’ll just have to take a look first and see how the land lies. You can hide up with your dog, and if anything happens to me, you scarper and call the police.’

‘Okay,’ the boy said eagerly, clearly not bright enough to exercise any caution. ‘I like your car, are you a gangster too?’

Dan had to smile; the Jaguar did look like a gangster’s car. A bricklayer certainly couldn’t afford one. ‘No, we’re the good guys. I’m Dan Reynolds, what’s your name?’

‘Clive,’ the boy said. ‘And my dog is called Lightning. ’Cept he isn’t like lightning, he’s really slow, that why my uncle let me have him.’

‘Come on then.’ Dan opened the car door. ‘In you get, Lightning can sit in the back.’

Dan would probably have never found the lane without help; as Clive said, it was just a track, and as the start of it was beside an old house it just looked like access to the back of it. It was very muddy too, and all Dan could hope for was that he wouldn’t get stuck.

Fortunately as they drove up it there were enough stones and weeds for the tyres to grip. It was very winding and overhung with trees. Clive remarked that hardly anyone ever came up this way because the farmer who owned it didn’t like people on his land.

‘But he died last year,’ he said. ‘They say they’re going to build houses on it soon.’

‘You’ll come to it in a minute,’ he added as they approached the top of the hill. ‘The lane goes on down to the farmhouse behind the wood. But no one lives there now.’

‘We’d better drive on past the barn first,’ Dan said. ‘Just to check if there’s anyone around. If anyone stops us we’ll make out we’re looking for our other dog that’s gone missing. Okay?’

All at once Dan saw the barn up ahead. In the grey light it looked menacing, but at least it stood in open ground, and he couldn’t see any vehicles other than a rusty old tractor. Dan slowed right down, looking about. It didn’t look as if anyone had been here for some time as there were thick weeds growing in cracks on the concrete in front of the barn and they weren’t flattened.

‘No one’s here,’ Clive said, sounding disappointed.

Dan had slowed down to a crawl. ‘There could be men inside the barn,’ he said, suddenly scared, realizing perhaps too late that he shouldn’t have asked the boy to come with him. ‘Can you run fast?’

‘I won the five hundred yards at sports day,’ Clive said proudly.

‘Is there any way back to the road other than the lane we came up?’

‘There’s a path down there.’ Clive pointed towards some bushes. ‘That’s the way I usually come up.’Course you can’t drive on it, it’s only a footpath. And there’s another lane out past the farmhouse, but that goes on to another road. That’s like the proper way to the farm.’

‘Right.’ Dan nodded. ‘We’ll get out now, and you are going to go over by that path and call for the dog we’ve lost. I’m going over by the barn to do the same. Now, if anyone comes out and grabs me, I want you to leg it off down that path with Lightning and go and call the police. You tell them you met a man called Dan Reynolds who was looking for his wife Fifi. Tell them to come quickly. You got that?’

Clive nodded, his eyes gleaming.

Dan gave him the ten-shilling note. ‘Now, what are we going to call the dog we’ve lost?’

Clive grinned. ‘Tonto. That’s what I’m going to call my next dog.’

‘Good name,’ Dan said. ‘Now, just promise me you will run for it if anything happens.’

‘I promise.’

‘Right,’ Dan said as he pulled up. ‘That’s it then.’

He was pleased to see the lad was obedient. As soon as he was out of the car with his dog he went straight over towards the bushes and began calling.

Dan went towards the barn.

‘Tonto,’ he called and then gave a piercing whistle. ‘Come on, boy.’

As the door of the barn was padlocked and chained on the outside it was extremely unlikely that there was anyone in there with the women, but Dan wasn’t going to take any chances.

He went right round the barn, continuing to call and whistle, but no one appeared. He tried to look inside the barn through a crack in the door, but it was too dark in there to see anything. He went back to Clive and told him he was going in. ‘Get in the bushes in case anyone comes,’ he said. ‘I’ll whistle if I need you.’