London Large: Blood on the Streets (26 page)

But they had not counted on H
coming after them. He and
Ronnie had now blown the usual order of business out of the water and Blunt,
like the others, was dreadfully exposed. The message from Kuznetsov had shaken
Blunt to the core. The game was up. H, to whose own son he had shown no mercy,
would be on his way, soon.

Blunt had always lived alone.
He had known little love or genuine companionship in his life. But he had spent
a distinguished career dishing out severe justice to wrongdoers, and for that
had at least earned respect in some quarters. But Kuznetsov had sold them all
out, and now that would be gone. Gone. Along with everything else.

There was nothing else for
it. He drained a bottle of brandy, took some rope chording from a curtain, made
it into a noose, went into his conservatory and fitted the noose high, on the
metal framework at the ceiling. He had seen enough botched jobs over the years
- people making their problems worse in the long run by using doors, doorknobs,
windows - to know you had to go high and solid. He stood on a chair. He had
been depressed - quietly, desperately depressed - all his life. No one would
miss him. He felt strangely calm as he pushed the chair away.

Crunch! He found himself,
with a rush, in mid-air. An agony of writhing, jerking and gagging. His head
exploded with flashing lights and his ears rang like cathedral bells.

Not long now.

Ronnie was first in; he
smashed through a glass pane, barrelled across the floor and grabbed Blunt’s
legs, taking up the slack.

H was right behind him: ‘Is
he alive?’

Blunt’s attention came back
to the room. To the mortal world. The ringing in his ears subsided; he heard
voices. He wanted to live - to return to earth and live forever. He was
overcome with relief.

‘Sir Peregrine’, he heard
someone say, ‘I’ve got a few questions for you. Answer them nicely and we’ll
get you down. Don’t mess us about now. Simple questions, simple answers. Play
the game and we’ll take you straight to the hospital. Understood?’

Blunt nodded: yes.

‘Is it the case that Timothy
Skyhill ordered the murder of Tara Ruddock?’

Blunt nodded: yes. He tried
to speak, and in a low whisper said ‘Yes. But I never knew…the Russian has only
just told me.’

‘OK’, said H, ‘next question:
a young policewoman has been abducted. We think also by Skyhill. Do you know
about this? Do you know where she is?’

Blunt nodded: no. Fear and
despair rose within him.

I’ve got to give them what
they want, but…

‘I know nothing about this’,
Blunt whispered. ‘No abduction, no. Skyhill in charge…the “tidying up”
activities all between him and his people. He has a former MI6 man with his own
team.’

‘OK Sir Peregrine, last
question’ H said gently, ‘think very carefully before you answer this one.
Don’t hide anything from us now: where do you think he would have her taken?
You must have had some hideaways for your little parties? No?’

Blunt was getting weaker.

‘Let me down, please. I need
to sleep’, he whispered. He was becoming hard to hear.

‘Absolutely. But where would
he have taken her?’

Blunt searched his brain; it
was not exactly fizzing with oxygen. ‘We used…a place in Leysdown, on the Isle
of Sheppey…a clubhouse on an old caravan site…and an old warehouse on a wharf,
in Grays.’

‘Grays in Essex, Sir
Peregrine?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, thank you for you
cooperation Sir P. Let him down now Ron. I’ll phone an ambulance’, said H,
turning to go into the house.

Blunt breathed a sigh of
relief. Ronnie lifted him high, high, higher…and with a mighty guttural roar
threw him as high as he could. Blunt rose into the air, as if in slow motion,
and came down much faster, with a massive stomach churning CRACK!

H heard it in the other room,
and surged back into the conservatory.

‘Ron!’, he screamed, ‘what
have you done? What the fuck have you done?’

The information from
Blunt had given Amisha a lifeline; a lifeline H intended to grasp and haul in
with every ounce of energy inside him. Back at Ronnie’s flat he laid out a
large map of London and surrounding areas.

‘Skyhill can wait. There’s
only one game in town now. If Amisha’s still alive we’ll find her tonight,’ he
said. Leysdown and Grays were both areas he knew well.

Leysdown, just far enough out
of London to dupe south London kids arriving on holiday that they’d arrived at
an exotic location by the sea, rather than a dead-end outpost on the south side
of the Thames Estuary. Grays, 20 miles east of central London on the north side
of the river, through the Dartford Tunnel and a couple of miles off the M25. It
was said in repeated opinion surveys to be one of the unhappiest places in
England, although H had no idea why. He’d always rather liked it there.

Ronnie said ‘H we’re going to
need manpower. We can’t cover everywhere.’

‘Quiet Ron, I’m thinking.’

A plan of action crystallised
in H’s head. He called Confident John.

‘John, do you know anyone in
Medway, Sheppey, especially around Leysdown area?’

‘I’ve got one or two old
mates down there, yes. Why?’

‘Call them. Ask them to have
a root about on the old, disused caravan sites...Look for anything going on
where there shouldn’t be. Any dodgy looking types. Anything, anything at all.
There’s a 50/50 chance Amisha’s there. Tell your mates there’s a young woman’s
life at stake. This is very urgent John.’

‘OK, will do H.’

‘What about those bits and
pieces me and Ronnie asked for?’

‘I got hold of two
semi-automatics, a few grenades - stun grenades, like Ronnie said - and some
smoke bombs. I’ve also got a couple of long trench coats and some balaclavas. I
got them on tick off the Albanians.’

What a fucking turn up.

‘Blinding. On our way,’ H
said.

‘Let’s go Ron.’

H filled Ronnie in on the
plan of action as they sped back to Bermondsey.

‘Blunt gave us two locations.
Amisha might be somewhere else completely - if that’s the case then she’s as
good as dead. All we can do is assume it’s a 50/50 she’s either in Grays or
Leysdown. Grays is nearer and I know it well, did a bit of work there not long
ago. There’s a couple of deserted warehouses. If she’s there that’s where
she’ll be. I’m sure of it. If not we move on to Sheppey. About another 45 mile.’

‘H, this might be too much
for us, have you considered that? They’re probably mob handed and tooled-up.
We’re not spring chickens anymore mate. Amisha will stand more chance if you
call this in.’

‘Listen Ron, think it through
mate. I’m suspended. Skyhill has his fingers everywhere. For all I know he’s
already having people build a case of trumped up charges against me. If I can
manage to get someone to take this seriously, which is unlikely, it’ll be a day
before they act. If Amisha’s still alive I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a
fucking day left.’

They pulled up outside
John’s. H was in the zone, thinking clearly, quickly, crisply. After the dash
up the stairs to John’s flat he returned with the goodie bag. He and Ronnie
checked the guns were fully loaded and in good order. The pistol John had got
for him earlier was also in the car. H trousered it.

‘Only one bullet left in this
Ron, but every one counts,’ he said as he jumped into the car and headed east
towards the Dartford Tunnel.

Ronnie sat, pensive, as the
bright lights of the London evening whirled past and his manic driver
accelerated, broke, shifted gear and ducked in and out of the traffic with the
fearlessness and unconditional focus of a kamikaze pilot on a mission.

‘Woah, be careful or we’ll
never get to Grays alive,’ said Ronnie as H jumped a red light and swerved out
of the path of an oncoming lorry, broke sharply, slammed the car down a gear,
regained control and pushed his foot back onto the accelerator.

But H wasn’t listening, his
whole being concentrated now on his destination, on a single objective. They’d
arrived at the last chance saloon and this was the last throw of the dice for
Amisha. Inside his guts were churning faster than a washing machine on top
speed and his heart was pounding. But these feelings never controlled H, never
slowed him down or held him back or made him fearful. Instead they spurred him
on, drove him to action, zoned him into the present emergency.

The near miss had snapped
Ronnie out of his pensive mood. He felt like he was going into battle, like it
was 1982 revisited. But this was London in the here and now, not the south
Atlantic in the dim and distant past. Here he was, all these years later,
following the best friend he’d ever had into battle. Some things never change,
he thought, as H jumped another red light, navigated a slip road and launched
the car onto the motorway that led to the Dartford tunnel.

‘Ten minutes Ron, ten more
fucking minutes. Get your head straight.’

Amisha hadn’t lost
touch with reality entirely, but normal awareness of the world around her had
faded. She wasn’t entirely certain about anything, about where she was, what
she was saying or how she had wounded up in the torture chamber of this
repulsively sweaty sadist.

But they had come to a point
past which she could not go and, after hours of relentless punishment, she gave
up H and Confident John.

‘I… sent the files
to...H...Detective Inspector Harry Hawkins.’

Despite her tenuous links
with life a profound remorse cut deep as soon as she uttered the words.

‘Ah, our tough,
no-nonsense “coppers’ copper”, no longer of the yard, I understand. I do
hope you’re not expecting him to come riding through the door at any moment on
a white charger. We’re already onto him, I’m fairly confident he will not
be around much longer. But where, exactly, did you send the information? And
how many copies did you make?’

‘One copy. I sent it to...to…
a friend of H’s. John Viney.’

‘I see. And where does this John
Viney live?’

‘Bermondsey.’

‘Address, my dear, address
and full name.’

‘I can’t remember ...he’s
just John, Confident John...I copied everything from the address book on my
computer.’

‘I see. How convenient, given
you have so expertly wiped your hard drive.’

He began to lower the sack again.
Amisha screamed a scream of despair, deep and penetrating enough to wake the
dead.

‘No... please, please… if I
knew I’d tell you.’

The plea fell on deaf ears;
the plump man smiled, with the satisfaction of the Devil when another lost soul
arrives at the gates of hell. He lowered the sack with sadistic glee. After
another four rounds of drowning, screaming, gasping and lost consciousness,
Amisha once again jerked back to life.

‘Now, if you recall I asked
you for the address of this John.’

Amisha genuinely couldn’t
remember the address. So she made one up, a number and a road she remembered
somewhere in Bermondsey. Anything to make him stop.

The plump man took a note of
the address, went over to and opened the door of his torture chamber and passed
it to one of the goons posted outside. ‘Go and check this address, see if you
can find the files. Report back to me directly, no phone calls.’

He now refocused on his
victim.

‘Well, while we await the
result of my associate’s investigation I think it’s about time you and I got a
little better acquainted.’

He had never had anything
that could be termed a relationship with a woman - healthy or otherwise - in
his life. Despite his pleasant voice he’d always found it impossible to connect
with individuals on a human level and had only ever had sex with two categories
of people, prostitutes and victims. It was the latter that really got him
going. There was something about inflicting pain, about watching a human
suffer, about having absolute power. He wasn’t really sure. He didn’t really
care. All he knew was he was as about as excited as he had ever been.

Amisha lay strapped down and
helpless, physically exhausted and mentally broken; but she knew what was
coming next. How much more could she take? She was filled with loathing and
nausea as her torturer ran his hands over her body, ripped off her shirt and
slobbered at her breasts. He loosened the straps that held her legs in place
and climbed on top of her.

While the rape was in motion
her mind shut down, as she tried to blank out what was happening.

To increase his enjoyment he
lifted her head by the hair and slapped her face with venom. He wanted
tears, to see her cry and beg. He slapped her again and a trickle of blood made
its way from her mouth to her chin. But the tears and the begging didn’t come.

After he’d finished he stood
over her, merciless and triumphant.

‘Don’t worry my dear, as soon
as we find the files you printed we can put you out of your misery.’

Amisha no longer cared. Her
mind was empty, detached, oblivious of space and time. The plump man stood,
fascinated by her suffering, observing her as if she were a specimen in some
kind of diabolical experiment.

Eventually there was a knock
on the door. The goon was back from Bermondsey: ‘False information. Wrong
address. A flat with an old lady and three cats. No files.’

‘Oh, my poor dear,’ said the
plump man, and grinned from ear to ear as he retrieved his sack and watering
can.

‘Time for more fun.’

H and Ronnie were all
focused concentration as they watched the blue car pull up outside the isolated
and gated warehouse. A gangly, nefarious looking type with a gash across his
face got out and made his way past the guards posted at the gate. He looked
like he was on a mission as he walked swiftly through the warehouse door.