Take Two (A psychological thriller) (9 page)

She stood at the side of the road, trying to remember how far they’d driven since they’d passed a house. A couple of miles, maybe. There had been a farmhouse. And a couple of cottages, but so far as she could remember all of them had been in darkness. She started walking, wondering what the odds were of a car driving by at that time of night. Probably not good, she decided. She walked as quickly as she could but the Prada shoes and McCartney dress weren’t designed for trekking along a country road at night and after a few minutes her feet were hurting.  She realised she had made a big mistake getting out of the car, but she had been so annoyed at the way Waites had behaved she figured she hadn’t had any choice. With hindsight she realised she should have just sat there and made him drive her home. Her right foot twisted on the uneven surface and she cursed. She checked her phone again. Still no signal.

The road ahead curved to the left and as she reached the bend she saw a house ahead of her.  She smiled thinly when she saw the lights were on. ‘Please be home,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Please, please, please.’

She could see a high brick wall through the trees. Beyond the wall the land sloped upwards and the house was at the top of the slope.

She walked down the road and reached a set of black wrought iron gates set between two ten-feet tall brick pillars. She tried to open the gates but there must have been an electronic mechanism and they wouldn’t budge.  From where she was standing she couldn’t see the house. The driveway curved around to the right and there were lines of bushes either side. She looked around for a doorbell or intercom but there was nothing. There was a letterbox set into the brick pillar on the left, along with a brass plate that read ‘No Junk Mail’. She stood back and wondered if she had any alternative other than to climb over the gate.  The walls were too high and there was nothing to hold on to, but at least the ornate wrought iron provided handholds and footholds.  She sighed and took off her shoes, then pushed them through the gate, along with her bag. She hitched her skirt up around her waist and began to climb. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d imagined, though she had to be careful not to snag her dress as she went over the top. Once she reached the other side she smoothed down her dress, put her shoes back on, picked up her bag and headed up the driveway.

The house was a good hundred yards from the gate, it was modern, a two-storey white cube with lots of glass and a flat roof.  Between the wall and the house was a gently-sloping lawn that was as flat and even as a carpet. To the right of the house was a double garage and in front of it were parked two cars, a black Bentley and a white Mercedes. The front door was on the right of the building, and to the left was a floor-to-ceiling window that looked into the main sitting room. She could see a man standing in the middle of the room and there was another man sprawled on a sofa. Carolyn smiled to herself. At least there was someone at home. Hopefully they’d call her a cab and she could get back to London.

She carried on walking up the drive, now with a spring in her step, her painful feet all but forgotten.

CHAPTER 12

‘Where’s my fucking money, Nicholas? You’re going to save yourself a whole world of hurt by telling me now.’ Nicholas Cohen put his hand up to his lip, then blinked at his fingers. They glistened with blood. His blood. Cohen was middle-aged with a receding hairline, heavy jowls and an expanding waistline, the body of a man who had spent most of his life sitting behind a desk. Cohen was on his knees, looking up at the man who’d hit him. Drops of blood splattered onto the thick white rug underneath him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Warwick Richards shook his head.  Richards was sitting on one of the sofas, watching Cohen with hard eyes. ‘You see, lying like that isn’t going to help you.  You’re an accountant, Nicholas. You’re my accountant. Money is your job. Looking after it, putting it where the Revenue won’t find it. That’s what I’ve been paying you for. So telling me you don’t know where it is just doesn’t wash.’ Richards was a big man, six foot two tall and broad-shouldered, but he wasn’t the one who’d hurt Cohen.  It had been years since Richards had hit anybody. He’d reached the stage where he paid to have people hurt though, truth be told, he sometimes missed the adrenaline rush that came with dispensing retribution. Richards crossed his legs and straightened the creases of his Hugo Boss trousers. He stretched his arms along the back of the sofa as he waited for Cohen to reply.

‘I’m not lying, I don’t know where it is.’

‘Two million quid doesn’t just go walkabout on its own. The only two people who had signing rights were me and you and if I’d taken the money out I wouldn’t be asking you where it was, would I?’

‘I think he’s broken my bridge,’ said Cohen, gingerly touching his jaw.

‘What fucking bridge?’

‘My bridgework. Three of my teeth, they’re a bridge. He’s broken it.’  Cohen pointed at Mick Halpin, the man who did most of the hurting that Richards needed doing.  Halpin was an inch or two shorter than Richards but much wider, with a square shaved head and the thick muscular neck and forearms that came from regular visits to the gym and equally regular purchases of illegal steroids.  Halpin had a small gold earring in his left ear and a thick gold chain around his neck. He was wearing an open-necked shirt that was flecked with Cohen’s blood and, as he stared down at Cohen, he cracked his knuckles.

‘The only reason that Mick hit you is because you won’t tell me where my bloody money is. This is on your head, Nicholas. So don’t cry about your busted bridge because it’s all down to you. Now where’s my fucking money?’

‘I told you, I don’t know.’

Richards sighed and waved a languid hand at Halpin.  Halpin stepped forward and backhanded Cohen across the face. The sound was as loud as a pistol shot and Cohen fell back onto the white rug.  Halpin kicked him hard in the stomach and the accountant curled into a foetal ball.

‘Don’t lie to me, Nicholas,’ said Richards. He looked at his watch, a solid gold Rolex. ‘Stop messing me around. I’ve got to be at the club before it closes.’

CHAPTER 13

Carolyn stood rooted to the spot, her hand over her mouth.  The man on the sofa, the good-looking one, was saying something to the man on the floor.  The bald man kicked him again and Carolyn winced. She took her mobile phone out of her bag. Still no signal.  She began to shake, partly because of the cold but more because of what she was witnessing. Her mind was in a whirl, and she had absolutely no idea what to do. She knew she should just turn and walk away, climb back over the gate and head off down the road, that nothing good could possibly come from her staying where she was. She knew the sensible thing to do was to get away from the house, but it was as if her legs had turned to stone. She stared at the men in the living room, her hand still clamped over her mouth.

CHAPTER 14

Cohen stayed on the floor, curled up with his knees against his chest. ‘Get the fuck up and stop being such a baby, Nicholas,’ said Richards. ‘You took my money. I found out. Now I want it back. You’re going to be eating hospital food for a few weeks, but if you don’t stop fucking around it’s going to be a lot worse than that.’ Cohen didn’t react other than to sniff loudly. ‘Get the fuck up, Nicholas, now!” screamed Richards.

Cohen sniffed again and pushed himself up onto his knees. ‘Warwick, mate, let me tell you what happened,’ he gasped.

Richards stood up and pointed a finger at the kneeling man. ‘You’re no fucking mate of mine, Nicholas. Not after this.’

‘Look, just listen will you. I moved the money, you know that, but I can’t get it back.’ He coughed and spat out bloody phlegm.  You know I gamble, right?’

‘What?’

‘Oh come on, mate, we’ve been to the races together. Cheltenham. Goodwood. I took you to Ascot once. All on me, remember?’

‘What’s your point, Nicholas?’

‘Cohen coughed again and sat back on his heels. ‘I had a bad year. I lost more than I won. Hell, I lost a lot more than I won.’

‘How much, Nicholas?’

Cohen shrugged. ‘A few grand at first. So I remortgaged this place. That was easy enough. But I kept on losing. So I borrowed more against the house.’

‘So your bank’s got my money, is that what you’re saying? Then you’re going to have to sell your bloody house if that’s how I get my money back.’

‘I’m sorry, Warwick. It’s more complicated than that.’

‘What do you mean?’

Cohen began to cry and he wiped his cheeks with the palms of his hands.

‘I was chasing my losses. I figured I was just on a bad streak and it would turn, so I borrowed.’

‘Borrowed? From who?’

Cohen swallowed nervously.  ‘Lenny Wilson.’

‘Lenny fucking Wilson? Why the fuck would you borrow from that shark?’

‘I know, I know. I just wanted a loan for a week, I had a couple of sure things. But  then they lost so I had to borrow more and then he started giving me credit and then…’  He began to sob again and buried his head in his hands.

‘Lenny fucking Wilson has my money? You stole two million quid from me and gave it to Lenny fucking Wilson? How could you lose two million on the horses?’

‘It wasn’t the horses, it was the interest. Ten percent a week. And then he said if I didn’t get the cash he’d kill me. And he meant it, mate. I know he meant it. And it wasn’t two million. It was just a couple of hundred grand, at first. I thought I could win it back so I took some from your account but that went and then I went back to Wilson. Then I had to keep paying.’

‘With my money?’

‘I’m sorry, mate. Really. I’ll get it sorted.’

Richards sneered at Cohen. ‘So what are you saying, that you’re more scared of him than you are of me?’

‘No, I just figured I could get back in the black before you found out. I’ve had a few wins, so I think my luck’s finally changed.’

‘Your luck? You fucking mug. There’s no luck in gambling. You gamble, you lose. It’s just that you’ve lost my fucking money, not your own. My fucking money. Why the fuck did you think you could use my money to pay off your debts, you fucking slag?’

‘Warwick, mate, be reasonable…’

‘Reasonable!’ yelled Richards. ‘You want me to be fucking reasonable. You stupid fucking twat!’ He reached over and grabbed a crystal figurine of a leaping dolphin off the coffee table, swung it to the side and smashed it into the side of Nicholas’s face. Blood splattered across the window behind him and Cohen slumped to the ground without a sound.

CHAPTER 15

Carolyn grunted into her hand, her eyes wide and fearful. Blood began to trickle down the window. She stared in horror as the man in the suit put the crystal dolphin back onto the coffee table. The blow had caught her by surprise - one moment the man had been talking, the next he had picked up the figurine and hit the kneeling man. There was so much blood on the window she was sure he was dead or, at best, seriously injured. Her whole body began to shake.  Without realising what she was doing, she took a step forward. Then another. And that was when the security light above the garage clicked on.

Carolyn stood rooted to the spot. The light was blinding -- as bad as looking into the sun -- and she instinctively threw up a hand to shield her eyes.

CHAPTER 16

A bright white light flooded the lawn and Richards screwed up his eyes. ‘What’s going on out there?’ he said, pointing to the window. 

‘It’s the security light,’ said Halpin. ‘Must be motion activated.’  He walked over to the window, pressed his hand against the glass and peered into the garden. ‘Boss, there’s someone out there.’

‘What? Who?’

‘A woman.’

‘Well get the hell after her!’ shouted Richards. He stared down at the blood-spattered body at his feet. ‘Do you see what you’ve done now, you stupid bastard!’  Cohen wasn’t moving and his eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. ‘Oh, shit,’ said Richards.

CHAPTER 17

Carolyn could barely run across the lawn so she kicked off her shoes. She heard a door slide open behind her but she didn’t look back. She pulled up her dress and concentrated on running, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The reason she spent hours in the gym every week was to maintain her figure, but for once she was grateful that all the time on the treadmill had boosted her stamina. She saw the gates ahead of her and ran to them. She threw her bag over the gate, hitched up her skirt,  grabbed at the metal bars and climbed over. As she reached the top she saw the bald man hurrying across the lawn towards her. He was jogging rather than running, his mouth wide open as he gulped in the night air.

Carolyn dropped down onto the ground and sprinted to the road, her bag clutched to her chest.  She ran at full pelt, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace for long. She heard a loud crack behind and she flinched. Was that a gunshot? Was he shooting at her?  Her hands began to shake and she squeezed them tight but it didn’t seem to make any difference.  She ran, barely aware of the pain of her bare feet slapping against the Tarmac. She was sure they’d come after her in a car eventually so she wouldn’t be able to outrun them. All she could do was run into the woods and hide, but she’d have to do that before her pursuer reached the road. He was a big man so she figured it would take him a minute or so to climb over the gate. Unless he had a key.

She reached the road and turned right. Her feet were hurting but she ignored the pain and ran for all she was worth. Her mind was in a whirl. She had to run into the trees at some point but which side of the road would be best?  She had no idea how thick the woods were, and if she made the wrong choice they’d find her.

The trees ahead of her were suddenly illuminated by a bright light and she heard the growl of an engine behind her. Her first thought was that they’d come after her in one of the cars but when she turned her head she saw it was a large container truck. She moved into the middle of the road and waved her arms. The driver sounded the horn and it sounded like an animal bellowing in pain.