Crunch Time (23 page)

‘Anything else?'

‘Costain is out of surgery, but not out of danger. Critical and still unconscious. I've informed Mr Fanshaw-Bayley, the chief constable, of the situation, too.'

Donaldson and Andrea eyed each other wordlessly.

‘We're doing all we can,' Anger said. ‘Henry might not be on my Christmas card list, but …' Donaldson's mobile phone rang, interrupting him. He answered without checking the caller, just pressed a random button.

‘Karl, it's Kate.'

‘Hiya darlin', we haven't—'

‘Karl, there's someone outside the house,' came her whispering, petrified voice. ‘I think they're trying to get in, or something.'

Henry blinked as the pit door was lifted and light flooded in. The two menacing, backlit figures of Ingram and Mitch leered over the edge. Henry and Gina were huddled together in a corner, his right arm around her shoulders. She was tucked into him and he could feel her quaking.

‘Don't be scared,' he whispered.

‘Can't help it.'

‘Well, well, well,' Ingram said, ‘or should I say, “'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's going on 'ere then?” What a pretty picture. Hm, I see you managed to get your hands free, the least I would have expected from a cop. Doesn't matter, though.' He had a gun in his hand, waving it loosely at the two captives.

Shielding his eyes with his left hand, Henry said, ‘I'm not a cop and whoever told you I am is lying.'

‘Makes no odds to me,' Ingram said. ‘No smoke without fire, is what I say, and if I suspect something I always act on it.'

‘What're you going to do?'

‘Kill you.'

‘And if I am a cop, then you'll be up the shitter, won't you?'

‘And if you're not, you'll be dead anyway … if you are, so be it. I don't take chances.'

‘You need to let us both go.'

Ingram hee-hawed and looked at Mitch, then back at Henry. ‘Nah, she's an asset, you're a liability … I'm just going to balance the books, is all.'

Mitch said, ‘Shall we?' with glee.

Ingram nodded.

‘OK, Frank, or whatever your name is' – he too held a handgun pointed directly at Henry – ‘up you get. You too, missy.'

‘What's going to happen?'

‘Er, you're gonna get dead and she's gonna get fucked.'

Gina emitted a moan of terror. Henry held her tightly. She gripped him in return.

Mitch moved to the head of the inspection pit steps.

‘You first, Frank. Up here.'

A jerk of pain shot up through Henry's rib cage as he shifted even slightly. He wanted to say something reassuring to Gina, but couldn't find the words. He was feeling helpless and impotent. He raised himself slowly, wincing as he came upright, and wondered how he was going to deal with this, maybe his last few minutes on planet Earth.

He guessed there would be little opportunity for anything. Having seen Mitch in action, he doubted whether either he or Ingram would wish to spend much time discussing their holiday plans with him. These two men were ruthless operators, murderous individuals who killed without remorse, not feeling any reason to explain anything to their victims, as Henry had witnessed in Stratford, a town, he guessed, which would reel in the aftermath of the double murder.

But Henry knew that any time he could wangle out of them would give him a chance – and somehow he had to make time. If they were going to march him out of here and double tap his head without any formalities, then that was that, game over. He had to stall them, buy some time, look for a chance.

He glanced at Gina. She stared up at him, open-mouthed, trusting. He gave her a discreet wink.

‘What're you going to do with her?' He raised his face at the two men.

‘Indulge ourselves,' Ingram said, so matter-of-fact it scared the daylights out of Henry. A shadow crossed the man's face, the look of lust and perversion. ‘After we've killed you, that is.'

Henry's insides did a quick roll-over. He gasped. It was an emission of fear, but he hoped Ingram would interpret it as something else, along the lines his depraved mind was working.

‘Can I watch?' Henry blurted.

‘You-fucking-what?' Mitch laughed with disbelief.

‘Whatever happens, whatever you believe about me, I'm going to die, yeah? So just let me watch the girl being fucked, then do me and at least I'll die happy.'

‘You want me to let you watch as I fist fuck her?'

‘Last request and all that. I won't cause problems, just sit, watch, maybe pull my plug.'

Ingram and Mitch exchanged glances again. Henry had touched a perverted nerve.

Ingram smiled in a twisted, contorted way.

‘Up her arse, everything,' Henry encouraged him. He did not allow himself to look at Gina, but he knew she was right down in the corner of the pit, sobbing, knees drawn up tight, her head hidden, her hands covering her ears, mortified by this betrayal.

‘I quite like that idea,' Ingram said.

Henry knew he would, Sex. Power. Life. Death. Ingram thought he controlled everything.

‘You're more of a perv than I am, Henry.'

‘My name is Frank.'

‘Whatever.'

But then Henry had a sudden, dreadful premonition.

This idea might buy him some time, but if it could do nothing to change his destiny, he would go to his death having witnessed the rape, torture and molestation of this wonderful, brave girl – and at his instigation.

He would die with that on his mind.

D
onaldson powered his Jeep out of Poulton-le-Fylde and accelerated towards Blackpool, his mobile phone cradled to his ear.

‘The local cops have been told and they're on their way. I'm ten minutes away.

‘Thank God,' Kate breathed.

‘What's happening now?' Donaldson swerved and overtook a slower moving car and floored the accelerator and did not even flinch when a speed camera flashed behind him, though he did glance at his speedo, which was registering seventy-two. He had enough faith in British justice to believe that, under the circumstances, this demeanour would be scrubbed.

‘I don't know.'

‘Have you seen anyone? Have you looked outside?'

‘Not for a few minutes. It's all gone quiet.'

‘Maybe he's gone … where are you in the house?'

‘Our bedroom. I'm frightened to move.'

‘OK, stay put. Cops'll be there soon, then me.'

‘Thank God,' Kate reiterated. ‘Hang on, there's something … just a second …'

‘Kate, what's going on?' Donaldson slowed for some red lights, but they changed to green as he hit them.

‘I heard something. I'm going on to the landing.'

‘What did you hear?'

‘Something at the front door, sounded like a letter coming through.'

Donaldson could hear a shuffling noise, Kate walking perhaps, a door opening, then there was a loud crashing noise, maybe a window breaking, and then Kate screaming dreadfully into the phone.

‘Kate! Kate!' Donaldson yelled as he almost rear-ended another car, but managed to brake and overtake.

The line went dead.

Mitch forced Henry down on to his knees as he came out of the pit, and whilst Ingram shoved the muzzle of his gun into the soft flesh at Henry's windpipe, Mitch rebound his wrists in front of him, palm to palm, as though he was praying.

Ingram bent close to Henry's face.

‘You are a cop, aren't you?' He screwed the gun painfully into his flesh.

‘No.'

‘I don't believe you.'

He could smell Ingram's breath – garlic – and body odour – sweat.

‘I'm Frank Jagger, a fucking good-for-nothing Jack the Lad, that's all I am.' Henry was looking at Ingram through the corner of his eye, his chin raised, his whole body twitching nervously.

‘Actually, I don't give a shit.'

‘I—' Henry began, but stopped before he'd started as he felt his mobile phone vibrating against the inside of his thigh. It was working. There was a signal now. Had his messages got through?

‘I, what, Frank, Henry?' Ingram asked. He shoved the barrel in hard against his Adam's apple.

‘Nothing.'

‘Done.' Mitch stepped away from Henry's tethered hands. Henry tensed his wrists, testing the strength of the fastening.

Ingram stood up.

The feel, the impression of the gun was still in Henry's neck even though Ingram had removed it.

Mitch pulled Henry roughly to his feet, obviously not caring too deeply about any injury he might have incurred. The phone between his legs dropped a quarter of an inch and Henry quickly drew his legs together. Too quickly. It was a movement noted by Ingram.

‘Problem?'

‘Need a piss,' Henry lied.

‘Do it in your pants, then.' Ingram looked down at the girl. ‘Come on.' She looked at him in fear, biting her lips, shaking her head. ‘You don't come, I drag you,' he warned her.

‘Fuck off,' she said.

Henry hid an inner smile. She really had some bottle, this kid.

Ingram tutted, went down the steps and dragged her to her feet with ease, and though she kicked and punched him, he held her with his left hand, his right still holding his gun, and seemed to enjoy her writhings.

Sex, power, Henry thought.

After a few moments, though, Ingram had had enough.

He got rough.

He smacked the butt of his gun across her face, then punched her down with a left jab, then began to pound on her.

Henry jerked towards him, his protective instinct cutting in.

Mitch grabbed his upper arm in a vice-like grip and gave him a warning look.

Then Henry settled back. He knew he had to keep a grip on himself. He was still Frank Jagger and if necessary it was the identity he would take to the grave with him. The same Frank Jagger who had just made the most perverted last request ever – so the girl getting a pre-rape battering wasn't something that should have bothered him in the slightest.

Ingram screwed his left hand into Gina's hair and balled his fingers into a fist, then heaved her up and shoved his face into hers.

‘I like that,' he breathed.

Despite himself, Henry could not control his heartbeat, nor the flaring of his nostrils, nor the surge deep within him.

Gina, God bless her, spat a mouthful of phlegm and blood into Ingram's face, which drove him into a paroxysm of undiluted rage. He threw his gun down and started to beat Gina about the head, pummelling her repeatedly with his fists, driving his knees into her lithe body.

Henry caught Mitch watching this display of manliness with the expression of a salivating dog. No doubt he would get the leftovers.

Just for a moment, the big man's guard was down.

Henry now had to make his judgement. Was this the moment he had been seeking? Or was it doomed to failure?

Both villains were now diverted by the suffering of a little girl, their minds focused on that and nothing else.

Henry's moment had arrived.

Donaldson pressed the redial button, could hear Kate's phone ringing out.

‘Come on, girl,' he intoned, negotiating a roundabout one-handed, the Jeep lurching, tyres squealing. He was in Blackpool now, on the back roads, almost at the junction of the A587, having just passed the hospital in which Troy Costain had undergone emergency surgery, and the zoo. Once on the 587, he was about three minutes from Henry's house – if he ran all the speed cameras along that road – which he fully intended to do.

The phone was answered.

Kate was hysterical.

‘He's pouring petrol in through the letter box!'

Donaldson almost swerved off the road.

Other than surprise, Henry had no weapons at his disposal. His hands were tied in front of him; Mitch, standing two feet away from him at the edge of the pit, was armed, as was Ingram down in the pit itself, beating up the girl – although he had thrown his gun down when he'd decided to attack her with two fists.

Between his legs, Henry's phone vibrated.

At least they would be able to triangulate his position, he thought disconnectedly at the back of his mind. Find my body, maybe.

Henry interlinked his fingers rather like a volley ball player about to make a dig.

God, he was hurting, too. Every small movement made him wince. The pain was incredible.

There would be no second chance with Mitch.

It had to be right.

It had to be now.

He tensed his whole being, fought off all thoughts of pain. Mind over matter: it was not going to hurt him.

Mitch looked at him, a faraway look of pleasure in his eyes.

In the pit, Ingram pounded Gina mercilessly. Kicked, punched, engrossed like a demon.

Henry caught Mitch's expression, reflected it back. Two guys, same wavelength. Two sick guys.

It needed to be an upward swing, executed perfectly, almost like a golf stroke.

His body twisted at the hip. His right shoulder rose, his left dipped and his bunched hands drew back and then he pivoted. He swung round and ignoring the ribs and everything else, he cobbled together all his strength and went for the hole in one. The punch he hoped would be enough to floor the big man.

It came up under Mitch's chin and connected with the sound of knuckles rapping a door as Henry's fists smacked up into the jaw. There was even more pain for Henry as he felt one of the bones in his hand crack. He hit him as hard as possible and knew from the impact that shock waves must have been sent up through the big man's cranium like an earthquake.

His head snapped back and he staggered away a few steps, but even then, Henry knew he had to keep going, pound in his advantage and make it pay, otherwise Mitch would just shake his head like a grizzly bear, then shoot Henry dead.

No hesitation, no second thoughts.

Henry went in hard, following Mitch as he went backwards.