Tara

by Lesley Pearse

  She had never heard Needles be anything but polite. His size was enough to deter most troublemakers. Tony said goodbye, quickly followed by the barmaids, Dennis and Alec. More voices she didn't recognise, discussing something about a car, then they left too.

  'Good night tonight!' Duke's voice wafted up to her. "That prat lost over two thousand to Reg. Both bars exceeded their targets, the door money was up, too. I hope you'll stay on with me once the sale's finalised, Needles.'

  'I need to speak to 'Arry before I make any promises,' Needles said staunchly, and his cold tone revealed his loathing of the man.

  'Your loyalty's touching.' Duke's sarcasm chilled Tara. 'But I'm going to be the boss here permanently. It might be a good plan to think on what that means!'

  Tara heard the door open and a man's feet stepping down on to the pavement. She heard a click which could be Needles setting the alarm, then the front door slammed and keys were turned.

  One set of feet went off to the left, stopped, then she heard a car door open. The others crossed the road and within seconds two cars pulled away. Tara watched the red tail lights till they were out of sight, then she made her move. She was stiff through sitting still for so long and her heart fluttered with fright. The narrow passage to the wooden stairs was pitch dark. Remembered tales of how Harry had found a rat playing in the men's urinal one morning made her flesh creep. She didn't dare switch on her torch, not until she was safely in the office.

  She hoped that no alterations had been made to the alarm system since it was installed. Harry had been like a child back then, making her walk about in the bar till she stepped on the pressure pads. She remembered too that all windows and exterior doors were alarmed, so she must stay away from those.

  She noticed the smells that Harry used to speak of, now the extractors were turned off. Not just stale beer, cigarette smoke and perfume, but old musty smells from the time this was a warehouse.

  The office door was locked. For a moment she panicked. She had to lean on the door and take a few deep breaths before she remembered how the spare key system worked. The office key was in the main gaming room, the key for that was kept on a ledge up above the office door. She reached up and groped for it, smiling as her fingers touched the cool metal. Harry liked these rather childish puzzles and playing his game brought him nearer.

  A sudden buzzing noise startled her. Goose-pimples came up all over her, but then she remembered it was only the chiller in the bar below. She took a deep breath to calm herself, then carried on.

  Across in the gaming room, she found the key on a hook underneath the bar. Her teeth were chattering with fright so she helped herself to a measure of brandy from one of the optics to steady her nerves.

  As she opened the door of the office all fear faded away. This was Harry's domain. The leather Chesterfield was where he slept when he worked late or drank too much to drive home, the brass desk lamp with a green shade was the one she'd bought him. Even the signed framed photographs on the wall reassured her – famous old boxers Harry admired, one of him and David Bailey when he took the pictures for an article in a Sunday supplement, and a score of actresses and actors who'd been to the club.

  The steel shutter over the window was locked. She pulled the curtains over and switched on the desk lamp. Systematically she went through each of the small cubby holes in the desk, reading everything. Receipts for petrol, reminders of an unpaid water bill, letters from the electricity board, some of them so old she wondered why they were still there. A brochure of villas in Spain, even a seed catalogue!

  It was in the middle section she found something unusual. She was quite sure it wasn't important, just a small dog-eared car-park ticket, but it was for Lympne airport. It was because she had no idea where this was that she tucked it into her jeans pocket. It was dated just two weeks ago and was tucked into an electricity bill, paid on the same day. There were more bills in this section, all receipted as paid in cash by Duke. This seemed to bear out the fact that he really was taking over the running of the club.

  When Tara looked at her watch again it was almost five. She'd been through the desk, a filing cabinet and a chest of drawers. But all she had found that was out of the ordinary was a list of telephone numbers.

  At first glance there was nothing odd about these either. They were all in major cities – Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Plymouth, Glasgow and Leeds. But by each of them, instead of a name, was a type of bird. Sparrow, Falcon, Thrush. Were they some sort of code?

  She was feeling very odd now. Not so much tired as strung out, every sound making her jump nervously. Jotting the numbers and names down carefully, she tucked her copy into her pocket and put the original back where she found it. The poker room was the only other room used for secret meetings, she didn't feel searching the whole building was justified. The poker room was another with steel shutters, so she could safely turn on the green-shaded light, which cast a murky beam over the baize.

  It was disappointingly bare. No boxes to delve into, no briefcases, just an unemptied ashtray, a couple of dirty glasses and a Capstan full-strength cigarette packet with two left in it. A small cupboard stood in the corner with a locked drawer above it. The cupboard held nothing but new sealed packets of cards and a set of dominoes in a wooden box. Behind the bar was just as disappointing, nothing out of place but a bottle of red nail varnish and a baby's squeaky toy. The knife for slicing lemons caught her eye. She picked it up and looked thoughtfully at the locked drawer.

  'There has to be something in it,' she reasoned. 'Why lock it otherwise?'

  Harry was a dab hand at opening locks, she'd seen him do it to the door of her flat when she forgot her key. He made it look simple, but it didn't work for her. She twisted and poked, pummelled and scraped, but it didn't make any difference. Just as she was about to give up she remembered the keys still in the door. It was obvious none of them would fit, they were all too big, but one seemed to turn the lock partially. She pushed it in with one hand and turned it, driving the blade of the knife in next to it, and to her amazement the lock turned.

  A gun lay in the drawer.

  Tara recoiled in horror, her hand over her mouth. It was a fancy little pearl-handled pistol and she knew instinctively it belonged to Duke. It somehow went with his name, his looks, the way he spoke to Needles as they closed up. A ruthless man, who would push anyone out of his way with whatever means were to hand.

  It was another reminder of the danger of being caught here. Beads of sweat jumped up all over her and she could hear her heart hammering.

  There was a fair-sized brown envelope underneath it. Inside was a smaller padded envelope with something bulky in it and a single sheet of paper on which were written those same telephone numbers she'd found in the office.

  The smaller padded envelope was sealed, but Tara knew she had to open it.

  Sliding the lemon knife under the edge she tried to open it without tearing; with luck there might be enough sticky to close it again. She slid her hand in and knew immediately what it was.

  Harry's passport and wallet! She'd bought the wallet herself for his last birthday, soft brown pigskin with his initials engraved on the stud fastener.

  Tears came to her eyes, a feeling of abject misery washing over her as she pulled it out.

  'I'll keep it next to my heart,' he'd joked as he transferred money from his back pocket into it. 'You'll be wanting me to carry a furled umbrella next.' There was nine pounds inside it and a receipt for petrol. There was space for a photograph, but he'd laughed when she'd suggested he put one of her in there.

  'Pillocks carry their girl's pictures,' he joked. 'Hard men have one of their dog.' But even though he'd laughed about it, claimed his pocket was all the wallet he needed, she'd never known him go out without it.

  His passport had no stamp for Germany, nothing but two old ones for Spain, several years before.

  He had to be dead, she knew that with certainty. Someone had gone back to his flat to collect the pas
sport and other clothes, they'd moved his car somewhere. But his wallet would have been in his pocket wherever he was!

  Blinded by tears she shoved everything back, not caring now if they did discover the drawer had been opened. She had to get out of the club. But how? The downstairs windows were all barred. If she attempted to tamper with the door the alarm would go off.

  She tried to calm down, going through the procedure of locking the door and replacing the keys where she'd found them, but even as she tried to think logically, the feeling of claustrophobia grew.

  Standing on the gallery, with the first murky ray of daylight lighting up the sky beyond, she remembered something Harry had told her a year ago.

  'Needles locked me in. He thought I intended to stay the night, but I'd promised George I'd go round there. I had to climb out of a window on the top floor and shin down the roof.' She ran there now, into each of the top-floor rooms. Two had barred windows, the third's were too small. As she peered out of the last window her stomach churned again. It was a drop of at least ten feet to the slanted roof of the poker room below, beyond that was a sheer drop to the Thames.

  But what if it was alarmed? Harry had never mentioned this! Her heart thumping with fright, she reached up for the latch and turned it. Nothing! The window creaked as it opened, flakes of ancient paint falling off like dandruff, and the wind straight from the river came howling in.

  It took only a minute to collect up her belongings, but far longer to brace herself for the climb out. The window was just the width of her shoulders, the drop seemed to grow longer as she looked at it.

  Her bag went first, clonking down on to the roof below,. Dragging a box over she rested her hands on it and put one foot out the window, then heaved the other leg up to join it. Pushing up with her hands she wriggled her body backwards until finally she was in a position to drop her body over the edge and hang by her fingertips.

  She hung there, paralysed by fear. Looking down, the sloping roof seemed miles away from her feet, and slippery too. What if she fell? She might slide right off the roof into the river.

  Her arms were almost pulled out of their sockets with her weight, she had to let go now as she couldn't get back. As she hit the roof a loose slate was dislodged and went hurtling over the edge. Miraculously her feet gripped the tiles, and crouching down she inched towards the edge.

  'Shit!' she exclaimed. It was a sheer drop to the river, perhaps fifty feet or more, and the tide was out, leaving thick greeny-grey mud.

  She sat down and shuffled back across the roof on her bottom. The wind was nearly cutting her in half now and she was so scared her legs felt like rubber.

  Peering down into a dank gully between the club and the old warehouse next door, she knew this was the way Harry had got out, but her heart sank even further as she looked at it. Iron struts zig-zagged down to the bottom. The shaft was less than four feet wide, the struts perhaps four or five feet apart, but only a strong, agile man like Harry could swing like an ape from strut to strut.

  The wind whipped her hair as she looked back longingly at the small window, but there was no way she could get back to it. She couldn't stay here either, unless she wanted to involve the police before she'd even had time to think about anything. She had to climb down!

  She dropped her bag down into the gully, gulping as she saw how long it took to hit the mud at the bottom. Sitting on the roof with her feet dangling over the guttering she reached out for the first strut and gripped it.

  Fear clutched at her, but taking a deep breath, she pushed herself forward and swung forward into space.

  To her surprise her feet touched the next strut and by letting go of the bar with one hand she managed to find a sticking-out brick on the wall to steady herself. Slowly she lowered herself to a sitting position and shuffled sideways down the diagonal rail, clinging on for grim death. Now she had a different perspective she saw she was over the worst part. It was just like a child's climbing frame, all she had to do was cling on to the poles and zig-zag down with them.

  She was down to the last one, the black slimy gully less than twelve feet beneath her. The smell was so disgusting she tried not to breathe. She lowered herself on to her stomach on the last horizontal bar and braced herself to swing. But this time the strut was wide, she couldn't get a proper grip and, as she let her arms take her weight, her fingers slipped away.

  Her feet hit the slime and skidded out behind her. She landed face down, her arms shooting out in an attempt to save herself. The smell was worse than the shock – stagnant rainwater, seagull droppings and the accumulated filth of years. The horror of falling into such foulness made her scrabble to her feet, scarcely noticing the pain in her leg.

  She was soaked to the skin, covered in black stinking slime. Hobbling over to the edge of the gully, she saw she still had to negotiate a nine-inch ledge just above the water line to reach the side alley.

  It was broad daylight now. A river-police launch was coming in to dock as she scrabbled the last thirty feet. Crouching in the alley, trembling with the cold and stinking so much it made her gag, she knew no taxi driver would dream of letting her get in his cab.

  'Josh!' She said his name aloud. 'He'll know what to do.'

  Chapter 33

  Harry forced himself to get up out of the bed.

  'Exercise, you lazy bastard,' he muttered. 'If a chance comes and you aren't fit you'll blow it!'

  He felt terrible. He hadn't shaved or had a bath since he got here, toothache nagged at him and his head hurt constantly from lack of fresh air. Down on to the floor, then press-ups – one, two, three.

  'Keep going. Four, five, six.' He counted, trying to wipe everything from his mind, concentrating only on pushing himself further and further.

  Harry looked rough, his hair falling over his face in greasy black rat's tails as he bobbed up and down. In only a pair of black underpants it was apparent his body hadn't suffered; the muscles in his arms, chest and legs still stood out under lightly tanned skin. But the yellow bruise on the back of his neck, thick black stubble and a drawn white face proved the strain of being held captive.

  A stink of sweat, urine and stale cigarettes hung thickly in the air. A pile of newspapers and a couple of paperbacks with lurid covers lay on the table. Grey army blankets were tossed back on the narrow iron bed, a grubby nylon shirt hung over brown corduroy trousers on the back of the only chair. The bucket sat in the furthermost corner, covered in a newspaper.

  'Keep going,' he urged. 'Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two.'

  This was the worst kind of prison. He didn't know why he was being kept here, or for how long, where he was, or who was behind it.

  It had been three days before the men let him see them without masks, but that only made him more terrified. Keeping their identity secret meant they intended to let him go eventually. Taking off the masks meant the only way he'd get out was dead.

  Micky was the only one of his captors who had a human side. The other three were animals, and Joe Spikes was the worst.

  They didn't know he'd discovered Joe's other name. Micky had lost his temper one day and referred to him as 'Spikes'. No doubt Joe would slice his goolies off if he knew that. But then Harry wasn't going to give the game away, or admit he'd heard of the guy before, not yet. He might be able to get Micky on his side.

  Several things had become clear since he was captured. Joe Spikes was a psychopath, totally immersed in whatever this project was. He didn't allow himself to get anywhere near Harry, almost as if he was afraid just talking to him might somehow weaken him, yet he kept tabs. Micky was given a slapping for getting too friendly, Frank, one of the others, got in serious trouble for not locking the far door while Harry was in the lavatory. Yet for all this, Joe Spikes wasn't the boss. Micky described him as the Sergeant, intimating there were officers above him.

  The days were endless. Every morning he had to force himself out of bed like this, just so he had a chance of sleeping at night. At eight they would unlock th
e cell door, allow him to empty his bucket in the toilet out in the passage and wash in the sink there. Another door was beyond it, always locked except for that one time, and on that occasion he hadn't realised it.

  Around nine he was brought breakfast, always fried, invariably swimming in grease. Most days they brought him a paper to read, occasionally another cup of tea later in the morning, but usually he was alone until at least two when he got a sandwich and some fruit. The main meal was often as late as seven and it varied from fried, often burnt food, to meat pies and instant mashed potato.

  He knew now it wasn't a church. He'd scraped into the walls and discovered brick, not stone. It had to be a big country house, empty because the men never worried about noise. He'd worked out for himself it was near the coast because he heard Frank mention tides once, and he remembered a kind of tang to the air as he was hauled out of the van. The advertisements in the newspapers seemed to be mainly for places in the South-east, so he could be anywhere from Margate to Brighton.

  Setting Joe Spikes aside, Harry had tried to find out about each of the other men. Micky was the youngest, no more than twenty-three, with curly brown hair and a round, almost cherubic face. He was a good-looking, well brought-up lad who had fallen in with the wrong crowd and didn't have the brains to realise where he was heading. Harry never got enough time alone with him to find out the whole story, but he got the impression of a lad not unlike himself.

  Frank, Micky's mate, was born nasty. Twenty-eightish, been in trouble since he got out of nappies. Dirty, straw-coloured hair, pale blue eyes and a mean, bony face. He was pretty certain Frank had only latched on to Micky because he felt he had a touch of class, and would sell him down the river if push came to shove.

  Carl, the third man, had to be ex-Army. Harry felt he saw himself like some SAS man, taking his orders, doing the job, all without considering why. He was older than Micky and Frank, mid-thirties, with a square, raw-looking face. The sort of man Harry would pick himself to take on a job that required split-second timing, courage and dependability.