Fatal Quest (23 page)

‘Do you have to?' Townshend groaned.

‘You know I do. It's for your own protection.'

‘Then make it quick.'

Woodend lashed out with his right hand. Townshend never saw the blow coming, but when it struck his cheek, his head rocked.

‘Well,
that
should certainly convince the watcher,' Townshend said, with what passed, on his battered face, for a grin.

‘I'm sorry I got you into this, Tom,' Woodend said, looking down at him. ‘If I'd known how deep it ran, I'd never have asked you to help.'

Then he turned, and stormed away like an angry man who had been frustrated at every turn – which, given the circumstances, wasn't a hard show to put on.

A
s he'd left Tom Townshend and Green Park behind him, Woodend hadn't even stopped for a moment to wonder where he would go next – because he'd already known he would be heading for Balaclava Street. The place seemed to have a hold on him. It exerted a magnetic – or perhaps even magical – pull that was hard to resist. Now, back in Canning Town and standing on the sordid street where hopes and dreams died before they had even begun to come into bud, he asked himself why he had bothered.

He didn't know what he expected to find there. He didn't
really
know if he expected to find anything at all. But since DCI Bentley's official investigation clearly wasn't going anywhere – and Tom Townshend's enquiries had been brought to a sudden, terrified halt – he had to do
something
himself.

Or to put it another way, he thought despondently, he had come back to Balaclava Street because he had no idea
where else
to go.

He walked slowly from one end of the street to the other; past the door of Victoria Jones's looted house; past the window behind which Lene sat watching her own narrow world go by; up to the pub where – contrary to what the DCI had claimed – Victoria Jones had
not
spent her days drinking, and where her daughter, Pearl, had
never
rung her to say that she all right.

He supposed that what he'd secretly been hoping for (
so
secretly that he'd even been keeping it from himself) was that someone would approach him and provide him with the lead which would get the investigation rolling again: a neighbour, who had written down the registration number of the big black car which had, early one morning, spirited Victoria away; a friend of hers from church (another
darkie
Christian, as her neighbours might say), who would be able to tell him where she got her money from; a snotty-nosed kid, a talking dog – anybody, or anything, which could give him the break he needed.

When he
was
finally approached, it wasn't by any of these. Instead, it was by three hard-looking men, who walked towards him with a firmness of purpose which left no doubt in his mind that he was their intended target.

He waited until they were a few feet from him, then raised his hand and said, ‘Stop right there.'

‘Or what?' one of them asked – but they had stopped anyway.

‘Or I'll breathe all over you.'

‘Come again?' the man said, as if he suspected he'd misheard.

‘I'm just gettin' over a very bad case of the flu,' Woodend warned. ‘An' let me tell you now, you wouldn't want my germs.'

And he was thinking, These aren't local lads at all. They've been brought in from outside.

Which was not good news – because London gangsters generally cleaned up their own mess, and it was only when they had a particularly nasty job they needed doing that they brought in outsiders.

‘Did you hear dat?' said the man who was clearly the leader of the trio. ‘He just threatened to breathe all over us! What we've got here, lads, is a bobby who can do a comic turn! I like dat.' He turned to the man on his left. ‘Don't
you
like dat, Paulie?'

‘Oh, I do, Eddie,' the other man agreed obediently. ‘I enjoy a good laugh, me.'

‘How about you, Jack?' Eddie asked the third man.

‘I tink the bobby's a regular riot.'

They were Liverpudlians, Woodend realized.

And that was more bad news – because there no harder gangs in the whole country than the ones based in Liverpool.

‘But ja know what's an even funnier joke?' the man called Eddie asked Woodend. ‘I've gorra a pistol in my pocket, an' if you don't do exactly what I tell you, I'm gonna blow your bloody head off.'

Eddie didn't want to shoot him – Woodend was sure of that – because the Liverpudlian knew that once he'd killed a copper, he was a marked man.

No one would protect him. No one would hide him. The moment he pulled that trigger, he was putting a rope around his own neck.

So Eddie didn't
want
to shoot him – but if things didn't turn out how he'd planned them to, if he lost his nerve for a moment – then he just well
might
!

‘Let's hear your patter, then,' Woodend suggested.

‘My patter?'

‘The little speech that you've got worked out in your head.'

‘Oh,
dat
patter,' Eddie replied, with a grin. ‘Well, it's like dis, Sergeant. We've come all de way down to the big city to teach you a lesson you won't forget in a long time. Now if you make us do it here, where there's witnesses, it's gonna be a very rough lesson. But if you let us take you into a back alley – if you cooperate with us, like – we might go a bit easier on you. So which is it to be?'

Eddie was lying, Woodend thought. The beating would be just as harsh
wherever
it was administered. But the longer it was postponed, the more chance there was that the three thugs would drop their guard for a moment.

‘I'll cooperate,' he said.

‘A wise choice,' Eddie told him. ‘I tink you'd berra turn round now, Sergeant. And do it slowly.'

Woodend performed a slow turn, and the moment he was facing the other way he felt strong hands grip his arms tightly.

Anyone who was watching would know exactly what was going on, he told himself.

But would they care?

Would they call the police station?

No chance!

In the eyes of most of the occupants of Balaclava Street, beating up a copper was almost a public service.

With Eddie behind them – and his pistol no doubt pointing at the sergeant's head – Woodend and the two other Liverpudlians walked a few yards down the street, and then turned into a narrow alley.

‘Shall we do it here?' Paulie asked.

‘No,' Eddie replied. ‘Let's take him round to der back street. It'll be wider, so we'll have more room to do de business.'

As they wheeled around the corner, Woodend saw that Eddie had been right. The back street was
much
wider than the alley, wide enough to accommodate what the council called ‘the sanitary engineers' vehicle' and everybody else – well aware that its sole purpose was to collect the large pails (often swilling over with faeces) from the street's outside toilets – referred to as the ‘shit cart'.

But while there was more space for Eddie's crew, there was also more space for him, Woodend thought. Because though he accepted the fact that he was going to take a beating – and probably a very bad one – he was not going to go down without a fight.

‘Dis'll do as well as anywhere,' Eddie said, when they had walked a few yards up the street.

Paulie and Jack stopped, did a half-turn, and – without relinquishing their grip on his arms even a little – flung their prisoner against the wall.

Woodend gasped as he felt the breath forced out of him. But no real damage had been done. Not yet!

Eddie marched up and down in front of the other three men, like an officer inspecting his troops.

‘Before we do what we're here for, I've been told by the feller who sent me to ask you a few questions,' he said.

‘An' who
is
“the feller” who sent you?' Woodend wondered.

‘We don't want to go into names. Let's just call him “a concerned friend”, shall we?' Eddie suggested. ‘Can I ger on wid de questionin' now?'

If Woodend could have shrugged, he would have done, but he was still held in a vice-like a grip which made such a gesture impossible, so he simply said, ‘If that's the way you want to play it.'

‘It
is
de way I want to play it,' Eddie told him.

‘Then ask away.'

‘What your “friend” wants to know is why, when he went to all de trouble of phoning you up to warn you off de darkie girl's case, you didn't listen.'

‘I must have had the phone held up to my left ear, an' that's the one that I'm deaf in,' Woodend said.

‘Still de comedian,' Eddie said. ‘I wonder if you'll still find it funny when you're crawlin' around on the ground, looking for dat
left ear
of yours.'

‘What else did my “friend” say?' Woodend asked.

‘De other ting that he wanted me to ask you was if you was really as stupid as you seem to be.'

‘An' why would my friend think that I was stupid? Just because I wouldn't listen to him?'

‘No – because you wouldn't listen to
anybody
. He says dat even an idiot like you should have worked out by now that nobody wants the case solved – and dat includes your bosses in the big cop-shop on de river.'

It was time to make his move, Woodend decided.

He let his body go limp – as if he were almost on the point of collapse – and said, ‘Listen, Eddie, you don't have to do this, you know.'

‘Did I say you could call me “Eddie”?' the other man demanded.

‘No, but …'

‘Then call me
sir
.'

Woodend gulped. ‘You don't have to do this, sir.'

‘But I
do
have to do it,' said Eddie, who was still parading up and down in front of him. ‘I've already been
paid
to do it.'

‘But … but if you went back to the man who sent you …'

‘Your concerned friend?'

‘Yes, if you went back to him, an' you told him that you thought I'd already learned my lesson …'

‘Not quite so full of yourself now, are you?' Eddie asked. ‘Face it, Charlie, you're going to take a hammering,' he grinned again, ‘so you might as well just sit back and enjoy it.'

‘Please …!' Woodend begged.

And then he tensed his body – and lashed out with his right foot.

He would have liked to have kicked Eddie in the groin, but the angles were all wrong for that, so instead he aimed at his left kneecap.

Woodend felt his boot connect, and heard Eddie scream out in agony. A heavy thud followed almost immediately, which was probably the sound of the Liverpudlian hitting the ground, but he didn't see Eddie fall, because he'd already turned his attention to Paulie and Jack, and was attempting to swing them round so that their heads banged together.

It didn't work.

He'd never really thought it would.

These men were professional hard cases, and had given more beatings than he'd had hot dinners.

There was a sudden explosion of pain in the pit of Woodend's stomach, and as he sank to slowly his knees, gasping for air, he felt a blow to his head which made his vision blur.

‘Don't hit him any more!' he heard Eddie call out. ‘He's mine!'

Eddie rose slowly to his feet, placed his left foot on the ground, and winced. He tried again, and seemed to find it more bearable this time. Satisfied he could just about walk, he took a flick knife out of his pocket and hobbled over to the kneeling man.

Very gingerly, Eddie bent his knees again, so that his head was on the same the level as Woodend's.

‘You shouldn't have dat to me,' he said, through clenched teeth, ‘'cos now I'm really going to hurt you. Now, I'm gonna take your eye out.'

The sudden and dramatic appearance of the large black van took all four men by surprise.

One second it wasn't there at all, the next it was speeding down the back street with its engine roaring. It seemed, for an instant, as if it would keep on going until it had ploughed them all down, then the driver hit the brakes and the van came to a screeching, juddering halt.

The doors flew open, and three men emerged. They were all carrying clubs in their hands, and had nylon stockings over their heads.

‘What's happening? Who de bloody hell are you?' Eddie yelled.

But by the time he had finished speaking, the first of the new arrivals – a man in a green duffel coat – had almost drawn level with him, and instead of answering the question, he simply swung his club.

The club found its target, hitting the side of Eddie's skull with a dull but sickening thud – and Eddie went down again.

Paulie and Jack, who had already released their grip on Woodend, moved into the centre of the street, where they would have more fighting space. But even as they stood awaiting the onslaught, they must have known that their knuckledusters were no match for the wicked-looking clubs of their three advancing enemies.

The fight was short and bloody. Paulie, attacked from two sides, was the first to go down. And then it was three against one, and though Jack did manage to land a single punch before he succumbed himself, the outcome had never been in doubt.

The man in the green duffel coat walked around the fallen Liverpudlians in what appeared to be partly a tour of inspection, and partly a lap of honour.

‘That'll teach yer not to come sticking your oar in where it's not welcome, won't it, you Scouse bastards?' he said, almost conversationally.

Then he kicked Paulie – hard – in the ribs.

Paulie groaned, but barely moved at all.

‘These toe-rags are making the street look untidy,' Duffel Coat said. ‘Get 'em in the back of the van.'