Gatecrasher

by Robert Young

  'You'll have to go first,' he said.

  She looked at him, open mouthed and panic in her eyes.

  'You're smaller, so I'll have to help you up.'

  'I'm not going in first,' she told him and her tone was emphatic. He thought about arguing but realised that it was pointless. He had wasted long enough trying to make her stay at home or wait in the car earlier on. If this girl said it, she meant it.

  'Fine, you stay in the alleyway and wait on your own then,' Campbell replied and hoisted himself up onto the wall.

  As he swung a leg up and over he manoeuvred himself into a sitting position and then swivelled round to see if he could help pull her up. Sarah, however, had both feet planted on the brickwork and her hands clamped on the top of the wall. Campbell watched in silence as she scrambled up, hooked a leg over and swung herself onto the wall next to him.

  Smiling, Campbell swung his other leg over and dropped onto the grass below. Sarah was standing next to him in a moment, close at his back, a hand gripped his arm gently.

  Moving to the back door, Sarah in tow, Campbell resolved to get things done as fast as he could. There were no sounds or signs of life that he could detect and he had no wish to hang around here any longer than he needed to. Oddly enough, for all Sarah's obvious nerves and fear, Campbell was finding that it was her strength that was keeping him going. For the hundred reasons she should have crumbled by now, the times that she might have just turned and fled, here she was, still at his side as they walked back into possible danger.

  He opened the door and they stepped inside. It was cold but the heating would have been off at this time. Even so, as his breath clouded in front of his face, Campbell felt uneasy. They stood listening intently for a minute to the complete quiet in the flat.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness in the kitchen, Campbell moved to the fridge searching for the card. He found a phone bill, a supermarket discount voucher and a postcard that his parents had sent him several months before from Italy. No card.

  'Shit,' he hissed.

  She didn't ask what was up. She didn't need to.

  For a second, the thought occurred to him that someone had been here and taken it but then he remembered suddenly that he had had it in his hand when last he was in the flat after having given Slater the slip at Liverpool Street. He had sat on his bed staring at it, trying to decide whether to call or not but deciding quickly against it before packing his bag and leaving. It would be on the bedside unit in his bedroom.

  'Wait here a sec,' Campbell told her and moved through into the lit hallway - the light here left on by them on their return as a marker for Gresham to come and find the note that they had left. In his bedroom he dared not flick on the light, mindful that they might be sitting outside waiting for some sign. He found the card where he had left it and turned quickly, suddenly filled with an urgency to get away from the flat now they had what they had come for. Just then, more light spilled in through the doorway from the hall and it hit him almost physically. He froze. That must be the kitchen.

 

 

  Sarah and Slater faced each other across the space of the room, his bulk filling the doorframe. The light had startled her but she had seen, in the split second before it flicked on, that the huge, broad shape looming in the doorway was not the one she had expected. He was tall, thick-necked and fierce looking and he stared at her with a mixture of anger and confusion. She was obviously not who he had expected to see.

  Come to think of it, where was Daniel? It was less than a minute that he had been gone, tip-toeing through the door.

  Slater nodded at her. 'Now this is interesting isn't it?'

  She didn't reply because she had no idea what he meant, except perhaps to scare her, and also because he was already scaring her. There was a spark behind his narrowed eyes that was as unsettling as the sight of him.

  'And who might you be?' Slater asked. 'Creeping around in the dark? Don't you ring the bell like normal people?'

  Sarah paused for a minute, unsure what to say. It struck her suddenly, crazily, that this man might actually live here, that Campbell had somehow tricked her. Slater took a step forward.

  'She got invited in.'

  Campbell was not actually visible, obscured by the size of the big man in the doorway, but she could just make out a flash of movement rushing across the hallway as Slater turned, and a huge ceramic plant pot came crashing down against his temple.

  The massive frame of Slater came sprawling back across the kitchen toward her, his legs buckling immediately as he lost consciousness. He fell and his back crunched heavily into the sideboard before he slumped the floor, knocking plates from the side as he went. Sarah had jumped backwards to avoid him and she stood shocked at the sight of him on the floor, an enormous red gash running from his temple across his cheek. 'You didn't.'

  Campbell stepped over the prone figure and grabbed Sarah's hand. 'I really hate that prick.'

  'Daniel,' she said, pointing to the wound which was now bleeding freely. 'What??'

  He shrugged and dragged her quickly through the back door again. 'I owed him that.'

  He almost walked into the man that was standing there waiting for him.

  52

  Tuesday. 12.35am.

  The air outside was bitingly cold and Drennan had his overcoat buttoned to the neck. He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on after he'd been sitting for an hour.

  The leafy tree-lined street looked peaceful in the still evening and the lights burning softly behind drawn curtains gave it a safe, suburban feel. Drennan eyed the expensive cars along either side of the road, the litter free pavements, the well-tended hedges.

  He sat in silence for a spell, shifting occasionally in his seat and trying not to allow himself to become distracted from watching Campbell's flat or the street around him for signs of his return.

  Soon he was fighting off sleep as he sat and waited in the cold. His eyes grew tired and heavy and his head began to sag against his shoulder. Occasionally he had to blink his eyes open as he felt himself dropping off.

  Suddenly a car swept noisily past them down the road and drew to a sudden halt up ahead, the tires squealing on the road. Drennan was sharply awake and trying to take things in as he sat up in the seat.

  'What the hell is this?' he hissed as he sat forward and grabbed for the ignition.

  Up ahead the driver side door of the car swung open and a tall, solid figure stepped out and jogged around to the rear door on the other side, pulling it open.

  From the gap in the hedge in front of Campbell's flat several figures emerged, a man and a woman in front as far as Drennan could see, both being manhandled by another two figures who pushed them roughly toward the open door.

  As they bent toward the car the light from inside lit their faces briefly.

  That's him, thought Drennan. So who the hell are the rest of them?

  The driver had leapt back into the car and as one of the other two figures followed Campbell and Sarah into the back seat and the other man took the front, the car roared to life and sped away.

  Drennan started the car and pulled out after them.

  53

  Tuesday. 1.15am.

  Gresham had not been lying about his kidnapped daughter and the evidence was sitting in front of him now looking tired, scared and unkempt, like she hadn't slept or eaten or washed in days.

  Even so he recognised her.

  Campbell's eyes met with hers and through the fear in her expression he could see defiance too, a strength that Campbell did not feel he could match. He was terrified.

  He and Sarah were both standing, hands bound, in a small room lit with a naked light bulb. The snot green paint on the walls was flaking and stained and a pair of long navy curtains hung loosely in the window.

  In front of them stood a tall, slender man with short dark hair swept sharply across his scalp and parted at the side with almost geometric precision. His nose was t
hin and pointed and his eyes were small and intense as he stared at them drawing deeply on a cigarette. Nobody spoke.

  On the floor in the corner sat the girl that Campbell had last seen pleading with him on his doorstep to let her in so she could get rid of the man that had started following her. A lie of course, which had led to Slater bustling through the door and dragging him off to meet Gresham.

  This was Angie then.

  Slowly and with a menacing assurance the tall man straightened up from where he had been resting against the wall and walked towards Campbell, stopping only when he was inches away from him and he could feel the heat of the burning cigarette near his face. The smoke wafted into his eyes and his eyelids instinctively blinked it away.

  And this must be the very unpleasant man George had told him about. Frank Walker.

  'I won't insult anybody,' started the man looking from Campbell to Sarah where his gaze lingered, 'by pretending that we don't all know what this is about.'

  Campbell tried not to break eye contact, failed.

  'Angela tells me that you have something worth a lot of money my friend,' he continued as his eyes drifted back to Campbell and fixed on him. 'You are going to give it to me.'

  Christ, thought Campbell, who the hell else knows about this now?

  Walker continued to stare into his eyes and slowly lifted the cigarette from his mouth, exhaled through his nose and then replaced it.

  Leaving it hanging in his lips he calmly stepped to the side and took Sarah's arm, drawing her across the room with him away from Campbell whose eyes went wide as yet more fear fizzed through his body.

  Spinning her around so she faced Campbell, Walker slipped a hand around her waist and drew her close to him, resting his chin on his shoulder and allowing Campbell to watch his gaze wander down over her body. Sarah froze and stared imploringly at Campbell, tears beginning to well in her eyes.

  The hand at her waist began to creep up over her midriff toward her chest and Walker looked up again at Campbell with a smirk full of malevolence. As his hand moved closer to her breasts she squirmed suddenly and tried to pull away but this only made Walker grin more broadly and he clamped his arms around her ribs and shoulders and held her to him, his cheek pressed against hers.

  Campbell made only the slightest of movements toward them, with no clear thought of what he might do. In a second he had dropped to his knees as a solid fist slammed into his kidneys from behind and his vision blurred as he winced in agony.

  'I could make this clearer for you,' came that voice again. Sarah began to cry at the sight of him on his knees, 'But I don't think that's necessary.'

  As he knelt there, the pain shooting up through his abdomen he blinked tears from his eyes and tried to fight off a tangible feeling of panic. Not when bound and beaten in Gresham's filthy lock-up, nor when Slater had chased him or even when the mystery caller at the cottage had run them down along the cliff-top had Campbell felt this scared. The situation had never been so completely out of his control until now.

  The stakes had been raised once more and he was way out of his depth. Again, Sarah was at risk and Campbell could do nothing to help her this time. He felt his resolve crumbling fast and he knew he wanted out. Now. He had been foolish to think that he could win this game, foolish to think that he could even play it.

  As he looked up again the tall thin man called Walker was in front of him and Sarah had slid down the wall and was crouched now next to Gresham's daughter who had watched the entire scene in silence. He caught her eye and she looked almost apologetic for a moment.

  'Now then,' said Walker and suddenly huge hands had wrapped painfully around Campbell's bruised chest from above and he was dragged roughly to his feet. 'Go with the boys, waste precisely none of my time trying to muck me about and then bring me back what I want.'

  He turned theatrically to look at the two frightened young women cowering on the floor behind him. 'Do be quick though. I'll have to find something to do if I get too bored.'

  54

  Tuesday. 1.20am.

  It wasn't quite clear what was happening here but it was obvious that Campbell was the key to it. Who then, were these others? As far as Drennan was concerned it was only Gresham and his crew that ought to even know who Campbell was, let alone be carting him off in the middle of the night.

  So what was going on?

  Drennan had been chewing this over for a few minutes since having parked the car further along the street and watched the group in the other car empty out and enter a run-down looking terraced house. Gresham had been sitting on the memory stick since the fiasco of the break in at Griffin. Then they had screwed up knocking off Cooper as he'd told them to but that had somehow panned out OK when he'd died in a west London hospital.

  Neither Drennan nor his boss thought that Cooper would have been able to say too much to Campbell, who had got himself involved in something he couldn't possibly understand. But Gresham's lot had seemed as if they were going to tidy that up for them anyway, which meant that Drennan and his boss could stay nice and anonymous. Of course as time passed and there were no results his boss had grown increasingly nervous.

  Drennan could only imagine that perhaps Campbell himself had involved others and got himself further into trouble. He had certainly proved unpredictable so far and everybody had underestimated him, Drennan and his paymaster included. The other option made Drennan more nervous.

  That Gresham had involved someone else.

  Because if that was true, it could only mean one of two things; either Gresham was trying to sell the stick to a higher bidder. Or he didn't actually have it. Otherwise, why would somebody else be after Campbell?

  The young man was an irritation, and a possible witness and that meant that he was a threat to Gresham. But this new development seemed to change all that. Could that be it? Could that be the reason for his involvement? Not just that he knew something but rather that he had something?

  Drennan needed to find out what was going on. But there was something more important on the agenda and that was to eliminate the exposure of this information. Campbell - and now the girl, whoever she was - would be disposed of shortly and then the memory stick, if indeed it was in Campbell's possession rather than Gresham's, would be his. No more time for messing around with these amateurs he decided, unbuckling his seatbelt. It was about time a professional tidied this up.

  He moved quietly through the shadows and stuck close to the wall, watching the front of the house carefully, checking the windows for signs of movement.

  At the door Drennan pulled his hand from his coat and made sure that the suppressor was firmly attached to the handgun.

  He had no idea what they were getting into here but he could feel that familiar buzz of excitement and he fixed his eyes on the door figuring out where the locks were and where he'd have to kick.

  Here we go then, he thought and closed his hand around the butt of his gun.

 

  *

 

  The bigger of the two men was at least six feet four and must have been pushing twenty stone, none of it fat. He walked in front of Campbell twirling his car keys on his finger whilst the other man gripped his bound hands from behind. It seemed like it had been some time since he had last been tied up like this but the sores on his wrists from Gresham's rope stung as sharply as ever as he stumbled down the narrow staircase.

  His course was clear now and left no room for improvising or running. This new man, Walker, had the upper hand and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Campbell recalled the look of lost helplessness and terror on Sarah's face as he'd been dragged from the room and he felt nauseous at the memory and the thought of her alone back there.

  Now the driver and the man that he had run into as he had tried to flee his flat earlier on walked in front and behind him along a dim hallway of a small house. The bedroom upstairs, sparse and dingy with Sarah inside, was only a short distance away but already he felt as if he were miles from
her.

  Obviously Walker was the boss of the outfit. Obviously he was bad news as well. If he was willing to do something like this to a man like Gresham, he had to be.

  55

  Tuesday. 1.30am.

  Gresham could see Walker standing over Angie and he was watching him remove his belt and begin to beat her with the leather strap. Then he was dropping his trousers and moving down on top of her as she lay there, gagged and tied and helpless.

  Then something strange happened as Gresham saw that it wasn't Walker at all. This man was bigger and his skin was dark and his hair cropped short and not parted with that dead straight line at the side. Gresham saw now that he was looking at Julius Warren.

  Warren had betrayed him. Warren was helping Walker to do this to him and maybe the others were helping too. Maybe there was nobody he could trust anymore.

  He could hear Warren saying his name as he looked on but he didn't answer and the calls grew louder.

  He jolted awake. The phone was ringing.

  For a moment he did nothing. Dazed and bewildered he knew he was in his own living room and he realised that he must finally have fallen asleep but the dreams had come again and this one had been so clear. He pressed his hands to his eyes, trying to clear the image and snatched up the phone.

  'Keith?'

  Late in the afternoon Gresham had sent Slater to go and swap places with Warren. As his number two he had wanted him on hand, close. But Slater had been restless and grown more edgy as the time passed and eventually Gresham had relented, deciding that the man's energy might be better put to use elsewhere.

  'George. Something's kicking off.'

  'Where have you been?

  'We were watching the place and it had been quiet for about ten minutes or so and I decided to have a poke around inside. Then Campbell pops up out of nowhere, right there in the hallway,' Slater explained, barely able to believe it himself.

  'Where did he come from?' demanded Gresham.

  'Christ knows. And he had some bird with him. Anyway, I was creeping around with the lights off and heard something in the kitchen. I turned the light on and it was just this girl. No idea who she is. Then, two seconds later and he appeared behind me and smashed a bloody huge pot over my head. Put me down. Little bastard.'