'Why do you suppose I had Marty bring the truck along?' Judge enquired. 'We can have that car halfway across England before anyone even realises you're missing.'
Linc hesitated; it wasn't easy, discussing arrangements for one's own death and disposal, but there was one other thing it was imperative for Rockley to know – if indeed Rockley it was. 'Got it all worked out, haven't you? One could almost think you'd done it before. Is The Meadows the first, or is there some other industrial park up North with a body buried in its foundations?'
Judge didn't answer. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'What are you playing at? Why all the questions? Most people would be shitting themselves by now . . .'
While he'd been talking, Linc had moved round slightly behind Judge, who now turned to keep him within view.
'Ah, but I'm not most people, am I, Al?' Linc looked away from him, to where Marty stood kicking his heels some thirty feet away. A similar distance in the other direction, Beanie and his uncle had slowed up, apparently engaged in conversation.
Linc looked back at Judge. 'My ancestors were fighting duels when yours were probably still grubbing around in the hedgerows! We don't just turn belly-up when we're threatened . . .' Mid-sentence, he took two swift steps towards the businessman and cannoned into him, shoulder-first, catching him off balance and sending him stumbling backwards. Arms windmilling, Judge tripped over the raised edge of the metal retaining sheet and sat back heavily in the liquid cement, swearing like a trooper. '. . . we bite back!' Linc finished, with exquisite satisfaction.
Without pausing to enjoy the sight of Judge, leather coat, cavalry twills and all, floundering around in the thick grey sludge, he took to his heels and ran through the open doorway into the gloomy depths of the nearest unit.
Even as he plunged into the semi-darkness he was aware that the other three were already in pursuit, but because he'd seen it in passing, he was also aware – which they might not have been – that there was a small, personnel door standing open on the far side of the structure, and it was towards this that he sprinted.
Grateful that he was wearing soft suede desert boots, he sped across the gritty concrete floor with the noise of his pursuers echoing nightmarishly around the empty interior, spurring him to extra effort. Reaching the doorway, he shot out into the comparative brightness, skidding a little as he hesitated to get his bearings.
Ahead lay a rough grassy strip some forty or fifty yards wide, on the far side of which was the ten feet or so of chain-link security fence. Although Linc was reasonably fit, he was not at all sure he could climb the fence, and was almost certain he couldn't do it before one or more of his pursuers got close enough to grab his foot and haul him back. If his sense of direction was true, the gate and the abandoned vehicles should be somewhere to his left, so he set off, as fast as his legs would carry him, in that direction.
Racing alongside the metal wall of the unit, Linc couldn't resist throwing a look back over his shoulder to see how close those following were. What he saw wasn't very reassuring. Marty and Scott were just emerging from the building, the teenager pulling ahead and possibly gaining ground on him, and there was no sign of the site foreman. As he pounded on, his breath beginning to come fast and hard, Linc wondered whether this was because the heavier man had fallen behind the others, or because he'd taken another route altogether.
Passing the first alleyway, he glanced sideways and found it clear, but thirty yards or so further on, as he reached the next opening, the missing man hurtled out just feet away and launched a flying, rugby-style tackle at Linc's running form.
Desperately, Linc veered away, spoiling his assailant's aim and instead of taking him waist high, the man's arms wrapped around his legs, just above the knees.
The immediate effect was basically the same. Linc and his pursuer hit the rough ground hard in a slither of stones and building debris, and rolled through one complete revolution, still locked together. As they finally stopped moving, the foreman made a fatal error. Rather than maintaining his perfectly adequate grip until help arrived, he tried to gain a better hold by hooking his fingers into the belt of Linc's jeans and shifting his weight higher up.
Linc wasn't in the mood to hang around. He knew that once the other two caught up, the game would be over, so as soon as he felt the man's grasp ease, he kicked out with all the force he could muster, and felt his left foot score a direct hit. With a grunt, the foreman let go, and without further ado Linc scrambled to his feet, glanced over his shoulder, stumbled and ran on.
That quick look was enough to show him that his advantage over the chasing pair had been halved and when he reached the next alleyway he turned into it in desperation.
It wasn't a good move. The passageway was perhaps six feet wide and littered with builders' debris: odd lengths of wood, bundles of dirty-looking polythene, pallets, scrap metal and a split bag of cement powder. It wasn't impassable by any means as far as it went, but unfortunately it only went about twenty feet. At this point the two buildings apparently became one and Linc's heart skipped a beat as he found himself faced with a towering, blank wall.
For an instant he paused in disbelief. What was the point of an alleyway that didn't lead anywhere? It was a waste of space. Then, about two-thirds of the way down on both sides and flush with the rippled walls he saw doors, and knowing he no longer had time to go back he ran on, hoping against hope that at least one would be unlocked.
They both were. With swift inspiration he threw the one on the right-hand side open and then slipped through the left-hand one, pulling it quietly shut behind him.
If there was someone up there looking down on him, they'd come through in grand style. A weak light filtered in through skylights, way up in the roof; just enough to show Linc, not the vast empty space that he'd been quite prepared to find, but a building stuffed to the rafters with building supplies and machinery.
Knowing his trick with the doors wouldn't mislead Marty and Beanie for long – especially if the other half of the building turned out to be empty – Linc sprinted down the length of the structure to the big double doors at the front. Here, however, his luck ran out. The doors were securely locked on the outside. To the right a personnel door linked the two buildings but when he cautiously tried it, it wouldn't budge.
Heart thudding from a mixture of exertion and fear, Linc scanned the area for the best hiding place. Suddenly, outside the front of the unit, he heard voices.
'What the fuck are you playing at?' This was unmistakably Judge, his professional veneer gone as if it had never existed. 'How the hell did you let him get away? Am I surrounded by fucking idiots?'
'He hasn't got away, he's in one of these units.' Possibly the foreman, Linc thought.
'Then what are you doing out here? Get in after him!'
The other voice muttered something by way of a reply but Linc didn't stop to try and hear more. It was obvious that to stand any chance of escaping from the building, the best place to be was as near the rear door as he could safely get. He loped, soft-footed, back the way he'd come, urgently scanning the unit's contents for somewhere to conceal himself.
'He's not in here. The tricky sod must be next-door.'
The sound of Beanie's voice spurred Linc to a swift decision. Most of the piles of bricks, breeze-blocks, wood and bags of cement were loaded on pallets, wrapped in polythene or plastic mesh and secured with tough nylon tapes. They stood around, piled one on top of another, in regular square-based towers that, at ground level, offered only the most basic of short-term refuge, and none at all from two or more searchers. Remembering childhood games of hide and seek, Linc decided his best hope was to go up and, using the wheels of a dumper-truck as a step, was soon lying spread-eagled on top of two adjoining plastic-wrapped towers of breeze-blocks.
Just in time, as it turned out. He'd barely stopped moving when the door opened and someone came in.
'Oh, shit!' Beanie again. 'There's even more stuff in 'ere. It'll take all bloody night!'
/> 'Better get on with it, then. I've never seen old Barnaby so mad! I wouldn't like to be in Tremayne's shoes when we catch up with him!'
Marty – if Marty it was – could have been no more than ten feet away from the base of the stack on which Linc hid, and he had to suppress his impulse to shrink away from that edge of the square. Any noise at all would have been audible to the two men below. Lying on his face, Linc could feel the mobile phone in his pocket pressing against his ribs, and realised, with a sudden cold sweat, that it was presumably still switched on; could even still be connected to the last caller. What if someone spoke?
He dared not move to make it safe. All he could do was lie there, heart thudding painfully, and pray to a God he wasn't sure he believed in.
From the sound of it, one of the men was now searching further down the building, but as far as he could tell, one was still nearby. Linc wished he had something loose to hand that he could lob down the unit and perhaps draw the second man away.
Seconds ticked by and Linc began to think that maybe the second man was also at the other end of the unit after all, but then he heard a match flare and, shortly after, a wisp of cigarette smoke drifted up barely a yard away. He found he was trembling and tried to concentrate on his breathing, scared that if he shook too violently the waiting man would hear the movement.
'Scott? Any sign?' It was Marty.
'Nah. Why don't you help?'
'I'm doing this end. Gotta cover the door till the builder bloke gets round here.'
Linc heard the sound of his footsteps as Marty started to prowl, quartering the rear end of the building. At one point the noise grew fainter and he was steeling himself to risk a look when the door swung open again and someone, presumably the foreman, said, 'Is he still in here?'
'Must be. Didn't see him leave.' Marty's reply came from shockingly close to Linc's hiding place, and his whole body jerked inwardly in a nervous spasm. The tension of remaining inactive, with discovery just a whisker away, was agonising, and in spite of the unthinkable consequences, he was aware of an almost irresistible urge just to call out and surrender.
'Come on, Tremayne!' Marty again. 'There's no way out of this. Why don't you give yourself up?'
Linc screwed his eyes shut and bit hard on the mound at the base of his thumb. Marty was right. So much easier to get it over with.
'If I have to come and find you, it'll be worse for you when I do,' Marty vowed.
How much worse could it get than being buried in concrete? Link thought sardonically, and cynicism helped quell his rising panic. Stay quiet; stay still. Your moment will come.
'Fuckin' hell!' Marty spat the words, slamming his hand into the side of Linc's tower. 'Right. You've had your chance, you upper-class shit! When I get my hands on you, you're gonna wish you'd never been born! You – whatever your name is – watch the door.'
Relief washed over Linc as he heard Marty move away. He'd come through it feeling somehow empowered. He wasn't finished. He was still in control and his actions were still capable of causing Marty grief. Linc didn't think he would ever be quite that scared again.
After a moment he heard Marty speak to Beanie, much further off, and knew the time had come to move. Getting his hands under him he lifted his head and shoulders just high enough to be able to locate the foreman, who was standing inside the door, dabbing at a cut eye with a handkerchief and looking pretty fed up with life. In the increasingly dim light, Linc couldn't see much of the far end of the building but he could hear Marty and Beanie's comments as they co-ordinated a systematic search. The logical option, Linc reflected, would have been to start their sweep at the top end of the unit, near the door, thus driving him into a corner, instead of towards his one possible avenue of escape.
Lucky for him they didn't seem too hot on logic.
Even so, the problem remained as to how to get down from his hiding place and across to the door without being seen or heard by the man who stood somewhere nearby. Unfortunately the plastic that encased his tower of breeze-blocks reacted to the slightest friction with a swishing, hissing sound, which more or less ruled out any attempt at stealth, and Linc had just resigned himself to a bull-in-a-china-shop approach when he became aware of a sporadic tapping sound.
It began very slowly but the frequency soon built up and suddenly, as the patter became an insistent drumming, and the light inside the building grew ever poorer, Linc realised what it was.
Rain.
Heavy, noisy rain, falling on to the single-skinned roof. Maybe there was a benign presence up there after all! But whether it was divine intervention or merely happy coincidence, Linc had no intention of wasting the moment. As the shower turned to a deafening downpour he slid swiftly down from his refuge and ran the twenty feet or so to the door, trying to keep out of sight behind the loaded pallets.
He needn't have bothered. When he reached the doorway, the foreman was leaning out, squinting up at the rain-filled sky.
Not at all sure that he could land the kind of punch with which movie heroes seem unfailingly to lay out their opponents, Linc opted for the safer option and picked up a stray length of broken pallet.
That did the trick. Seconds later, the unlucky foreman was stretched out cold, face down in a growing puddle of rainwater outside the door. Unwilling to have a death on his conscience, Linc paused long enough to roll the man on to his back, then dragged him a couple of feet so he could close the door and prop it shut with another length of wood from the pile outside. It would, perhaps, have been safer to leave him inside rather than out, but he dare not take the time. Instantly drenched by the cloudburst, he took off in the direction of the gate and the abandoned vehicles.
Rounding the end of the last unit, slipping and sliding on the newly wet ground, Linc was half-prepared to find that Judge had conjured up another couple of heavies from somewhere but there was no one to be seen, and he plunged on across the open ground towards the gate.
The three vehicles were exactly where he'd last seen them, and it was obvious that he would be going nowhere in the Morgan or the BMW with the lorry parked in the gateway as it was. The idea of trying to get away on foot didn't overly appeal to him, as the approach road must have been the best part of a mile long and he didn't fancy his chances if he was caught out in the open. And catch him they undoubtedly would. He was under no illusion that his makeshift prop would withstand the combined efforts of Marty and Beanie for very long, and after all, Judge was still around somewhere.
It had to be the lorry. With barely a glance for his own open-topped car, Linc headed for the huge grey liveried beast, hoping that the controls were at least similar to those of the much smaller horsebox he was accustomed to driving. Pulling the door open, he swung himself up into the cab, registering the smell of stale cigarette smoke and the mess of crisp bags and chocolate wrappers that littered the floor, before urgently scanning the dashboard and steering column for an ignition key.
It wasn't there.
It had to be. A movement on the construction site caught his eye and he glanced up to see, not only the two he'd imprisoned, but also Ray, the foreman, coming at a run. Linc swore. He clearly hadn't hit him hard enough.
His mind raced, reviewing his options. It would have to be the BMW. Out of habit, the keys to the Morgan were safely in his pocket, so if he took off across the site in the BMW, the only possible pursuit vehicle would be the lorry and he felt confident in his ability to out-manoeuvre that. If he could draw it away from the gate, his way would then be clear, and woe betide anyone who got in his way; in his present mood, he was quite prepared to run them down and take his chance in court later.
With an eye on the approaching men he turned to climb down from the cab and found Judge sneering up at him, grey with drying cement from the waist down, and dangling the lorry keys from his forefinger.
'This what you're looking for?' he asked smugly.
Linc didn't bother to answer. In his new-found spirit of moral liberation he put his foot behind
the cab door and smashed it as hard as he could at the smirking face.
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