Crimson (68 page)

The receptionist stammered, “We have strict instructions not to talk about Mrs. O’Dare.”

Adam was almost speechless with anger.

“I am Mrs. O’Dare’s lawyer!” His voice dropped as, carefully, he asked,.

“Is Mrs. O’Dare dead?”

There was a long pause.

“Well, is she or isn’t she?” Adam growled, his anxiety once more surfacing.

“No. Mrs. O’Dare hasn’t passed away,” said the receptionist reluctantly.

“But I can’t tell you more than that.” Clearly there was a lot more to be told. Something odd was happening at the Lord Willington, and Adam was sure he would get more information from this stupid bitch at the desk than from the assistant matron. He barked, “I’m coming down to Eastbourne immediately unless you tell me what’s happened to Mrs. O’Dare.”

The terrified receptionist didn’t want this bullying lawyer yelling at her in person. She blurted out, “That wouldn’t do any good Mrs. O’Dare’s no longer here!”

“What do you mean, she isn’t there?”

Adam bellowed.

Prudently the receptionist pulled the line from the switchboard.

Adam turned to Mike.

“I’ve been cut off. Deliberately, I suspect. I wonder what the hell is happening.” Mike was astonished by the speed with which his brother’s interest had switched from the frightening problem of Annabel’s injuries to trouble at Elinor’s nursing home. Why should it matter so much to Adam where Elinor was? And it was obvious that Adam had hoped she was dead. Why?

The answer had to be money, Mike figured. He’d probably rigged her will something like that. What a coldblooded bastard his brother was.

Adam tapped a finger against his teeth as he considered what to do. He decided, “I’d better get down to the nursing home and check what’s happened.” He looked at his watch.

“Six o’clock.” Snatching up the telephone, he said, “The quickest way to Eastbourne is by train. When’s the next express?” Having gained this information, Adam turned to Mike.

“You can take me to Victoria Station on your bike!” he ordered.

“The next train leaves in fifteen minutes, so get going, you lazy bastard!”

Mike stared, surprised. Normally Adam would never deign to ride a motorbike. He didn’t understand why Mike chose to drive a bike like a greaser when he had a perfectly good new E-Type that could go far faster than all his two-wheeled monsters. Adam didn’t seem to realize that a motorbike was no longer a poor man’s transport method: bikes were dangerous and exciting. A man who rode a bike was a man ready for action. And even the most oxpwsive Ferrari was a vanishing dot in the rearview jiliroir of a fast bike.

But apparently Adam did realize that, during the rush hour, nty transport was faster for weaving in and out of London traffic than a motorbike.

“Come on!” Adam urged brusquely, hurrying towards the door. In the hall, he pulled on his overcoat and waited impatiently as Mike buckled his German officer’s black leather trench coat liberated from the original owner by their uncle, in Munich, in 1945.

“Hurry!” Adam snapped.

Both brothers clattered down the back stairs rather than wait for the slow, wheezing elevator. As he did so, Mike fastened his helmet strap and pulled on his leather gloves: if he came off, he preferred to sacrifice the leather and not his skin.

Outside, it was already dark. The weak morning sunshine had dissolved the slush, and the roads were now dry.

“For Christ’s sake, get moving!” Adam snarled.

The bike didn’t start at Mike’s first kick.

“Mike the Bike!” Adam jeered. Even Adam knew that only legendary racer Mike Hailwood was known as Mike the Bike. He also knew that his brother didn’t like to be teased a bout his bikes. Mike, on edge after hearing the bad news about Annabel, turned his head and said, “Don’t take your bloody bad temper out on me!”

“I’ll say whatever I bloody well like to you, and you’ll bloody well do whatever I tell you to do!”

Adam yelled.

As always, Mike was bewildered by Adam’s abrupt change of mood. He understood the hard shell into which Adam retreated when the world became too threatening: he also understood the depth of feeling in Adam that lay hidden from the rest of the world. But Mike never understood why his brother always chose to vent his vile moods on him of all people.

Mike kicked the starter again. The bike merely coughed.

“Why doesn’t this fucking machine work?” Adam screamed. He kicked the side panel. I “Don’t kick my bike,” Mike growled. After years of being at Adam’s mercy, being humiliated by him, being the recipient of his bad-tempered kicks and snarls, Mike was finally pushed to violent action. He decided it was time that Adam stopped treating him like a dog. It was time more than time that he taught Adam a lesson. He would show him that he wasn’t always in the superior position. For once, Mike would be in control. He was going to give Adam the fright of his life.

The black Egli Vincent with the nickel-plated frame started on the third kick. Listening to the thundering noise from the throbbing 1,000 cc V twin, Mike smiled to himself. The Vincent engine was tuned to Black Lightning Specification, capable of doing a hundred and forty miles an hour.

Mike turned from Cadogan Place, then left on to Pont Street. With a roar, the bike shot ahead into Belgrave Square, a central garden encircled by cream, classical buildings.

“Hey!” Half deafened by the noise from the exhaust, Adam yelled over Mike’s shoulder.

“This is a one-way street! You just turned the wrong way!”

Mike smiled. He knew that at this time of night, there was never much traffic in Belgrave Square.

The Egli tore at increasing speed around the black-spiked railings that surrounded the central garden.

“What the fuck do you think you’re iloing?” Adam screamed into the wind.

His brother’s terrified reaction made Mike grin. The euphoria went right to his head, like a glass of fizzing champagne on an empty stomach. His bike throbbed beneath him, leaping ahead. “The harsh wind on Adam’s face forced tears from the of his eyes. The buildings were leaning out at’ him No, the bike was leaning in. He felt dizzy and frightened. As the Egli swerved to avoid a sedate limousine, Adam screamed, and his arms tightened around Mike’s waist.

Mike laughed. He could still hear an enraged horn behind them as, with a thunder of exhaust, he slid out of Bclgrave Square. He knew it seemed to Adam that he was handling the -Egli with violence even savagery; Adam probably thought that he wasn’t completely in charge of his machine, though Mike knew that he was.

Leaving the square, Mike should have turned right, towards Victoria Station. Instead, he turned left.

“This isn’t the way to Victoria Station! Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” The wind flung Adam’s words back into his mouth.

At this point, Adam seriously considered throwing himself from the Egli, but that would be even more dangerous, with all the traffic, on this dark night, than clinging to his brother.

As the bike picked up speed, Mike felt increasingly exhilarated. Adam, who never spared a thought for other people, now knew what it felt like to be at someone else’s mercy, to endure violence, to be terrified.

Ahead of the Egli loomed a high triumphal arch with elaborate gates. Mike headed towards these closed gates, as if to smash straight into them.

Adam screamed. At the last minute, the Egli swerved. Now, to Adam’s left, shadowed trees threatened him from beneath oldfashioned lamplight; to his right loomed the spike-topped walls of Buckingham Palace.

“Lean in with me!” Mike yelled over his shoulder.

The Egli started to slalom. In terrifying fashion, the gleaming monster wove in and out of the moving vehicles.

The shrieks of protesting horns could be heard even above the howl of the bike. Adam ducked his head behind Mike’s body and clung to him, concentrating simply on staying alive and thinking only from one moment to the next.

With a powerful roar, the bike zoomed around the statue in front of Buckingham Palace and up the Mall, where Mike took the Egli up to maximum speed.

Adam’s cheeks were forcibly drawn back, and his breath torn from his mouth. The crenellated walls of St. James’s Palace blurred past on his left. In front of the Egli, traffic lights were red.

Mike did not reduce speed. Adam shut his eyes. Just as the Egli reached the lights, they switched to amber. The Egli roared on, at full throttle.

Adam, surprised to find himself still alive, opened his eyes to see, ahead, the stately grey curve of Admiralty Arch.

With a squeal of tyres, Mike viciously decelerated, turning into Trafalgar Square. Briefly the Egli’s front wheel left the ground.

Adam’s brain began functioning again as the bike slowed down.

“What do I have to do to get you to stop? What do you want?” he yelled to a background cacophony of loud bangs as the engine backfired on the overrun, and flames flashed from the exhaust.

Mike swung the bike to the right, calling over his shoulder, “Ten per cent of what you’re getting from the Dove Trust. “

“Bugger that!” yelled Adam.

“NoP Mike grinned. So he had guessed correctly. Adam was milking the trust. He flicked his wrist and the speed increased.

They were circling Trafalgar Square now. In the square, the base of Nelson’s Column was guarded by four enor bronze lions in a semicircle of iron posts. Behind this ols, their fountains of bronze -mermaids and 0 POns floodlit from below. Naturally, no tourists or slick-selling touts were hanging about after dark in the cold, but there was plenty of traffic around the square. The Egli thundered past weary, red double-decker buses and liquorice-black taxis.

Adam again wondered whether it was more dangerous to stay on the bike or hurl himself off. He half decided to throw himself off, knowing that Mike would have to slow down when he turned right if he turned right at the top of the square.

But as the Egli climbed uphill towards the top, Adam saw the row of posts that protected the stone steps leading down into the square; to hit one of those iron guards with his head would mean a funeral march.

He decided to hang on tight and remember what a good driver Mike was although it was no use thinking that Mike wouldn’t put himself at risk, because a biker did that all the time.

Mike swerved to the right. The Egli dodged between two posts.

Adam beyond screaming gurgled hoarsely as the motorbike slithered down the shallow steps to the square.

A crowd of pigeons fluttered into the air as the Egli bounced from the steps, then passed the ornamental pools, thundered past the dark, crouching lions, and bumped on to the road again.

Again Mike flicked the bike to the right. Dear God, Adam thought. He’s going to do that nightmare stunt again! He leaned forward and yelled into Mike’s ear, “All right! Ten percent. You win!”

Mike grinned into the wind. He knew Adam wouldn’t give him a penny,

but Mike wasn’t serious about the money. He didn’t want it. What he wanted was to be in control and have Adam begging for mercy -just once.

“You’re sure you really want to give me ten per cent?” Mike teased over his shoulder as the Egli again circled the square.

“Yes!”

Sur eT “Yes! Yes!”

“I don’t believe you!” Mike’s laugh was torn by the wind. He was really enjoying this ride.

As the Egli tore past the top of the square for the second time, it continued straight ahead. Like a howling black and silver bullet, the motorbike shot past the policeman at the traffic lights. Then Mike turned left, into the Strand.. On Adam’s right shone the lights of Charing Cross Station. The bike’s acceleration made him feel nauseous. He hoped he wouldn’t vomit… Hell, what did it matter if he did? The first set of lights were green. The second set of lights were green. Adam’s heart thudded against his chest as the Egli thundered towards the third set of traffic lights, where the road was divided by central iron railings.

The third set of lights were green. As the bike charged on, Adam ducked his head and glimpsed the silvery metal portico of the Savoy Hotel. Top-hatted porters in green uniform stood before revolving doors.

Mike slammed the bike to the left, curved around the island of the Aldwych, then drove back towards the Savoy.

At this point, the downpour that had been threatening all afternoon suddenly started. Mike immediately slowed down.

Adam, relieved, hunched his back, but couldn’t prevent the rain from streaming down the back of his neck. He let go with one hand to turn up his coat d kill Mike when he finally stopped! ey approached the brilliantly lit cul-de-sac where the Savoy Hotel stood, the traffic lights changed to green, which allowed the Egli right of way.

Not noticing that the lights had changed, a majestic maroon Bentley slowly drew out of the cul-de-sac on to the main road.. Mike hurriedly swerved to the right to avoid the tank. tough Bentley. He then swerved again to avoid the central line of iron railings that divided the road.

in front of the Egli, an Italian businessman had just paid his taxi fare. Without looking, from force of habit he mistakenly opened the right-hand passenger door.

The Egli charged into the open door of the taxi. The door ripped from its hinges. The plump Italian was Rung back into the interior of the cab, with a broken thumb. Mike and Adam were hurled into the air over the door of the taxi.

Head-on, Adam crashed into an ornate pale blue lamppost. He was thrown backwards on to the pavement.

The Egli slid down the Strand on its left side, the footrest and handlebars raising a shower of sparks from the road.

After that, nothing seemed to happen for a long time. Mike lay on his back in the road, between the cab and his bike. As he tried to sit up, pain shot through his left arm and leg, and he fell back. He clapped his right arm to his left and touched shredded flesh and sticky blood: the arm of the jacket had been ripped off. He fumbled for his left thigh and felt the shredded remains of his trouser leg. But his kneecap was still there. He tried again, unsuccessfully, to bend his knee.

Slowly Mike lifted his head and looked around. The Egli lay on its left side, wheels still spinning.