by Jake Cross
Nate fought the urge to scramble to his feet. He didn’t want to spook this guy before he got himself into a better position to flee. The guy stopped close and held out a hand to help him up.
‘Okay,’ Nate said. He slid the phone into his pocket, and left his hand in there. Suddenly the fear was gone. He knew what he had to do, and the knowing, somehow, made it seem easier. Single path in a maze. Nate took the helping hand and was yanked to his feet.
‘Look, I found something that might help the police work out what’s going on. Maybe you know what this is.’
He fumbled in his pocket. The biker’s head bent forward, eyes on the pocket, mind all over Nate’s words. What could Nate have found? Evidence that implicated him?
Nate pulled his hand out fast, twisting his body slightly to that side to hide the item until it was ready to be shown. Then he twisted the other way, purely to generate momentum, to pack mechanical energy into the knuckleduster that he powered forward with all the force in his shoulder. It was a devastating blow that sent a wave of pain along his forearm and hurt his elbow. So much so that he knew it was a done deal. Game over. The biker’s head snapped backward and he went down so quick that he was a crumpled mess on the tarmac before Nate’s arm had finished its swing.
He ran through the trees, knowing that the bike would never catch him. It could slip by the trees and negotiate the undergrowth, but not with the dexterity that he was slaloming. Half a minute’s running and he emerged onto an open space. Putney Heath cricket ground. He stopped to think. To the north, the area of Putney Heath where he’d been scheduled for burial, back west, past the village, was Richmond Park. South lay Wimbledon Common. A lot of nice hiding places if he so chose, but curling up in a bush that would get him no closer to finding out what the hell was going on.
And finding out if his brother was alive.
He needed to get to a police station. There were policemen swarming around his house, of course, but going back that way was not an option. The biker had been waiting there, maybe just to watch the show, or maybe in case Nate returned – which he had. Who knew how many other men were scattered around, waiting for him to show up? He had no idea how many people were involved in this, but it was too risky to assume it was just the three he’d met. So home was not an option. Hell, home didn’t exist any longer.
Wandsworth Police Station was not much more than a mile west of here. Nate had been there once to retrieve his lost car keys, which some kind soul had found and handed in. It was good to know there were decent people around.
There had to be police cars around, too, surely at least one or two floating about somewhere closer than a mile away. Putney Village itself might be nice and pleasant, but this was still London at night, even though he’d once read that Wandsworth was the safest borough in all of London. Or was it just inner London?
Regardless, there would be cops about, and he needed one. His best bet was to keep going west. He’d meet the A219 soon enough and could jaunt south to the Tibbets Corner junction of the A3, and once there he’d surely happen upon a cop car before long. Or he could just flag down a driver for help. Or he could smash a window and wait for the cops to come get him. But first, get the hell off Putney Heath.
So, back into the cover of trees. His thudding heart was just fear and adrenaline, then, not exertion because he ran fast. He emerged from the woods into shrubbery and immediately ducked, holding his breath. There was a man directly ahead, also in the shrubbery, just three or four metres ahead and staring straight at him.
Nate’s fingers clutched tightly around the knuckleduster. He must have pulled it from his pocket without thinking about it. Was this guy one of their team? How the hell could they have known where he would exit? How many were there?
Cars were zipping past along the northbound two lanes, which would have covered the noise of his exit from the trees. But then the cars vanished and the road was quiet, and he heard a strange rustling noise.
The guy ahead, a dark shape in the night because he was partway between two street lamps, turned and walked away. Nate raised his head slightly and saw the guy approaching a car parked in the bus lane. It was a taxi. As the driver turned sideways to walk around to the driver’s side of his car, Nate saw him fiddling with the zipper on his trousers. The guy had been taking a piss in the bushes.
Nate pulled his wallet, waved it and shouted to get the guy’s attention. A minute later he was in a warm seat, listening to the radio, his tale told. Since it was a Friday night, he’d been out on a stag-do with friends and had gotten lost. And beaten up. Lost guys should rendezvous at the junction where Wandsworth High Street met Putney Bridge Road, he’d been told. He didn’t want to mention that he needed the police station, which was just off that junction. The driver accepted his story, or didn’t, and cared only about accepting his fare. Either way, the guy drove, and that was all that mattered.
The warm seat hugged him. He felt his eyes start to close. He didn’t fight it. Brain all mushy, straight thought impossible, body feeling twice its own weight – a little sleep would be nice. The bad guys couldn’t get to him here.
He jumped as he felt the phone vibrating in his pocket.
The same number as before. The biker calling again, but perhaps this time trying to reach Nate because he knew what had happened to his comrades.
He felt a wave of fear, then damped it down. It was a phone. The guy wasn’t about to reach through it and grab him around the throat. There was no harm in answering the call, and he might be able to get some information from the guy.
He pressed the button to answer the call, but said nothing.
‘Nathan, what’s going on?’ the biker said.
So he knew Nate had the phone. Nate said nothing.
‘You can’t go running about on your own. They’ll get you, Nathan. Where are you? I hear a radio, so I’m thinking you’re in a car.’
Nate said nothing. He looked at the driver, who was just watching the road.
The biker laughed. ‘Fair enough, Nathan. You worked it out. Yeah, I’m one of the bad guys. How did you get away? And get my man’s phone?’
Nate said nothing.
‘Keep running, Nathan. That’s all you can do, because you can’t go to the cops on this one. Give it up now because we’ll get you sooner or later, and later will be worse for you.’
Nate said nothing.
Angry now: ‘Okay, Nathan. You just keep running and we’ll keep tracking you.’
He remembered the biker’s words about phone tracking. Nate killed the call and took the battery out, then snapped the phone in his hands and tore the sim card in half. He didn’t know if the kidnappers had the ability to track this phone, but he wasn’t going to take that chance. He saw the driver looking at him, puzzled, but the guy said nothing. Not his business.
Nate stared out the window. When the trees on both sides ended and gave way to civilisation, he relaxed a little and cleared bad thoughts from his mind. They were leaving Putney Heath behind, finally. He wound down his window and tossed the phone pieces away. He put his head back, trying to think.
Can’t go to the cops. What did that mean?
The radio was a low chatter of background noise against his racing thoughts. But when Nate heard Putney Village mentioned, he perked up and turned up the volume.
‘Hey, you don’t touch,’ the driver said. He moved to turn the volume down, but Nate grabbed his hand. He cut off the next protest in mid-word by slapping a £10 note into the driver’s hand. Cash and protests were gone two seconds later.
Breaking news on a Wandsworth radio station: ‘…receiving reports now, some from residents there, that a mansion is burning on Bakersfield Crescent, Putney Village. People at the scene claim the police believe it’s a suspicious fire, started deliberately…’
Deliberately? Nate felt the nails of one hand dig into the back of the other. A fire started on purpose?
‘…apparently, police are questioning residents about the owner of the h
ouse, who was seen driving away in the few minutes before witnesses saw smoke emerging from the mansion…’
Seen driving away? Nate understood. His last memory before waking up in the van: he had been heading out of the house. He must have taken his car, which meant the kidnappers must have captured him out on a street somewhere. Pulled him over, maybe, and dragged him out and folded him into the van.
‘…neighbours heard a car racing away fast…’
Dear God. Now he remembered. He and Pete had had an argument and Nate must have stormed out of the house in anger. All still vague memories because of the drugs in his system, but the story was there. Pete had made him a drink and Nate had thrown it at him, and knocked over the kitchen table in anger, and then thumped out of the house. He remembered a sound of screeching car wheels, the G-force as the car turned fast out of the driveway. But surely the police couldn’t think that he had–
‘…wish to trace Nathan Barke, forty-two, of Bakersfield Crescent, Putney Village, with an eye to providing answers about the possible cause of the fire…’
And there it was. Undeniable. Nate felt bile trying to claw its way up his throat. This was what the biker had meant. Some witness at the scene had told the cops that Nate had driven away from the house just before it caught fire, and now they thought he might have been responsible. That he had burned down his own house.
‘The public are advised to report if they have seen this man or know where he might be, but not to approach him…’
Not to approach? Every time the police said ‘not to approach’ someone, it was because that person was considered dangerous.
Nate couldn’t prevent it. He jerked forward, opened his mouth, and splashed vomit all over his trousers and the floor of the taxi.
The driver was screaming at him, but Nate couldn’t hear anything more than senseless noise, because his mind was overwhelmed with one thought. He had no memory of what had happened in the house in the moments before he fled in anger, but he knew one thing: he had been with his brother, Pete.
So where was Pete?
The driver stopped the car and told him to get the hell out, and Nate was glad to. He paid the soiling surcharge to make sure no police got the story, and heartily apologised. The driver pulled away with a long honk of his horn, whatever that was supposed to achieve.
Nate was on Wandsworth High Street, a few hundred metres away from the police station. But it might as well have been a million miles, because that place was out of the question now. No way he was going to the cops while they considered him an arsonist.
He was near St Thomas à Becket Catholic Church, and there was a left turn onto Santos Road just ahead. He took it. Anything to get off the main road and away from people. He had a horrible feeling that someone was going to recognise him and call the cops, and he didn’t want the police around until he knew more about what was going on. A tale of kidnappers wouldn’t go down well unless he had proof.
Santos Road was lined with three-storey Victorian double-fronted houses and he walked the pavement looking at each of them, not really sure what he was seeking until he saw it. A sign in a window saying ‘Cedar House rooms available’ in neon.
The jacket he’d stolen was dark and the bloodstain on the front had dried, so now it simply looked as if the garment was dirty. He sniffed it, but didn’t think the odour was clearly that of blood. That meant no-one else would recognise it, either. He straightened his hair and clothing. He could see that his earlier attempts to clean his hands of mud hadn’t been adequate, and had to spit and rub again. It hurt his raw fingertips. Then he tried to clean his face again, again using a wing mirror to see if he’d done a good job. Any damage to his gums when his teeth were being broken had been minimal because the wounds hadn’t bled again.
No-one answered his knock, but the door was unlocked. He stepped into a hallway with a child gate barring access beyond an inner door. A tiny bell rang and a middle-aged lady in pyjamas and slippers materialised from a doorway in the hall. He held up four ten-pound notes.
‘Wife booted me out. Argument. Need one night, no breakfast. I’ll go straight to sleep.’ He spoke as best as he could without moving his lips, to hide his animal teeth.
If she saw, she didn’t care. She snatched his money like a monkey grabbing a sweet, but after that was slow and precise about making him fill out a form, and show his driver’s licence, and if she saw the bloody thumbprint on it, well, she didn’t care about that, either. Formal lark done, she plucked a key off a row of them on pegs and rubbed it on her pyjama trousers before handing it over, but didn’t let her end go until she’d run through the rules: no visitors, no TV after one in the morning, and if he had to smoke, it was in the backyard and he’d never be welcome here again if he stubbed out his fag end in one of her plant pots. He promised to be a good boy and thanked her and went up to his room.
He didn’t even check out the room, or even turn on the light. In the dark he crossed to the window and stared out over a leafy garden. Similar houses beyond the backyard blocked his view of everything, which was good. If he could see London, it would remind him of his predicament, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to sleep and tackle his problems with a rested brain and sun-warmed cheeks. The houses helped him feel locked in and contained and secure.
So he lay on the bed, fully clothed. No way he was going to undress when he didn’t know what might happen. He wondered if he’d ever be able to undress again. Maybe it was now a phobia.
That thought brought a rare smile to his lips.
The bedside clock had glowing green digits. Almost ten o’clock.
It also had a radio, which he turned on. He spent some time dialling through channels, and soon he found what he wanted. It was a local news program, and, with movie timing, it was all about him.
‘…body found inside. A police spokesman said that there are injuries beyond those caused by fire and that there are suspicious circumstances surrounding the death…’
Pete.
Nate had a strange sinking feeling, as if his bodyweight had just tripled. He couldn’t move his arms. His head was suddenly hot, as if he’d been holding his breath too long. In the dark, staring at glowing green lights on the clock, his anxiety tripled.
Pete. Dead?
He closed his eyes. Darker than ever, of course, but his lids were like great steel shutters that locked his aching brain away from the horrible world. And it helped. The neon fear instantly started to fade. But only a little.
Pete. Dead.
The next time he looked, the green digits said 11.31. He must have slept, amazingly. He remembered no thoughts or dreams this time, but during his out, his brain must have quietly been working on a plan. Because he sat up with a clear idea of what he had to do. And forget the sun – he knew he had to do it now.
He found the downstairs empty, except for the landlady. Through the living room door he could see the back of her head poking above the backrest of a wide armchair facing a TV. Quietly, he went past and into the kitchen, which had a laminated A4 sheet pinned to the door that said ‘GUESTS OFF LIMITS’. The door creaked as he opened it, but since he could hear the TV still, and she was right in front of it, he figured she hadn’t heard.
When she didn’t come running, he went all the way inside. And straight to a magnetic strip on the wall above a worktop that held knives of varying lengths, all with green handles and all pointed downwards. He selected the middle one, which was long enough to make a good weapon and short enough to hide comfortably in his clothing. As he turned to leave, he saw a mobile phone near the kettle and pocketed that, too.
In order to convince the police he was innocent, he needed proof. The phone he had taken off the bad guy might have worked, if the police could extract information about past calls and texts from it. But in a moment of fuzzy thinking he had tossed the phone away.
However, in a moment of clarity, he had a better idea: a confession. Admissions of guilt – always welcomed by the police.
&n
bsp; Before he knew it, he was heading out the door. Scurrying along the deserted street. He could hardly believe he was doing it, as if his body was being controlled by someone else. But doing it he was. Heading back.
Back to his gravesite and the men who had tried to bury him.
‘Emergency services, which service please?’
Nate had checked out police procedures for identifying burned bodies and knew that the go-to method was dental records. But the bad guys would have smashed up Pete’s teeth, same as Nate’s. And probably Pete’s face, so any kind of trick with bone-shape recognition was out of the question. Costlier, more time-consuming, was DNA, the last resort. Undeniable. Unless the body was completely destroyed, DNA could be extracted from intact organs, deep in the muscles, the remains of the brain, bone marrow – and from smashed teeth. Pete had had the option during his army days to store his DNA, for identity purposes, but had refused – Nate remembered his brother liking the idea of being the unknown soldier. So Nate didn’t think Pete’s DNA was on file anywhere, not even after the HyperX fiasco four years ago. So, the cops would be stuck.
Unless they got help.
‘Police. It’s about the house fire in Wandsworth,’ Nate said quickly, his tone high, a cheap form of voice disguise. ‘Tell the police that Pete Barker had sesamoiditis, left foot, piece of bone removed. That will help them identify him.’
Pete. Outwardly, a tough guy. Former Marine army sergeant, heavily muscled from a lifetime in the gym, and tall, and handsome, his curly hair still shiny and his teeth still white despite approaching the big five-O, even though he kept a big beard streaked with grey. A funny guy, even though his wit was all sarcasm, and a hit with the ladies, even though he liked men. But inwardly, still the fragile older brother Nate could remember from as long back as his memories went, prone to all sorts of ailments, always ill with this or that. Always first to get a cold, and last to lose it, easy to cut, with bones that broke under pressure that shouldn’t be a problem.
