by Robson, Roy
‘Grays in Essex, Sir Peregrine?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK, thank you for you cooperation Sir P. Let him down now Ron. I’ll phone an ambulance’, said H, turning to go into the house.
Blunt breathed a sigh of relief. Ronnie lifted him high, high, higher…and with a mighty guttural roar threw him as high as he could. Blunt rose into the air, as if in slow motion, and came down much faster, with a massive stomach churning CRACK!
H heard it in the other room, and surged back into the conservatory.
‘Ron!’, he screamed, ‘what have you done? What the fuck have you done?’
87
The information from Blunt had given Amisha a lifeline; a lifeline H intended to grasp and haul in with every ounce of energy inside him. Back at Ronnie’s flat he laid out a large map of London and surrounding areas.
‘Skyhill can wait. There’s only one game in town now. If Amisha’s still alive we’ll find her tonight,’ he said. Leysdown and Grays were both areas he knew well.
Leysdown, just far enough out of London to dupe south London kids arriving on holiday that they’d arrived at an exotic location by the sea, rather than a dead-end outpost on the south side of the Thames Estuary. Grays, 20 miles east of central London on the north side of the river, through the Dartford Tunnel and a couple of miles off the M25. It was said in repeated opinion surveys to be one of the unhappiest places in England, although H had no idea why. He’d always rather liked it there.
Ronnie said ‘H we’re going to need manpower. We can’t cover everywhere.’
‘Quiet Ron, I’m thinking.’
A plan of action crystallised in H’s head. He called Confident John.
‘John, do you know anyone in Medway, Sheppey, especially around Leysdown area?’
‘I’ve got one or two old mates down there, yes. Why?’
‘Call them. Ask them to have a root about on the old, disused caravan sites...Look for anything going on where there shouldn’t be. Any dodgy looking types. Anything, anything at all. There’s a 50/50 chance Amisha’s there. Tell your mates there’s a young woman’s life at stake. This is very urgent John.’
‘OK, will do H.’
‘What about those bits and pieces me and Ronnie asked for?’
‘I got hold of two semi-automatics, a few grenades - stun grenades, like Ronnie said - and some smoke bombs. I’ve also got a couple of long trench coats and some balaclavas. I got them on tick off the Albanians.’
What a fucking turn up.
‘Blinding. On our way,’ H said.
‘Let’s go Ron.’
H filled Ronnie in on the plan of action as they sped back to Bermondsey.
‘Blunt gave us two locations. Amisha might be somewhere else completely - if that’s the case then she’s as good as dead. All we can do is assume it’s a 50/50 she’s either in Grays or Leysdown. Grays is nearer and I know it well, did a bit of work there not long ago. There’s a couple of deserted warehouses. If she’s there that’s where she’ll be. I’m sure of it. If not we move on to Sheppey. About another 45 mile.’
‘H, this might be too much for us, have you considered that? They’re probably mob handed and tooled-up. We’re not spring chickens anymore mate. Amisha will stand more chance if you call this in.’
‘Listen Ron, think it through mate. I’m suspended. Skyhill has his fingers everywhere. For all I know he’s already having people build a case of trumped up charges against me. If I can manage to get someone to take this seriously, which is unlikely, it’ll be a day before they act. If Amisha’s still alive I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a fucking day left.’
They pulled up outside John’s. H was in the zone, thinking clearly, quickly, crisply. After the dash up the stairs to John’s flat he returned with the goodie bag. He and Ronnie checked the guns were fully loaded and in good order. The pistol John had got for him earlier was also in the car. H trousered it.
‘Only one bullet left in this Ron, but every one counts,’ he said as he jumped into the car and headed east towards the Dartford Tunnel.
Ronnie sat, pensive, as the bright lights of the London evening whirled past and his manic driver accelerated, broke, shifted gear and ducked in and out of the traffic with the fearlessness and unconditional focus of a kamikaze pilot on a mission.
‘Woah, be careful or we’ll never get to Grays alive,’ said Ronnie as H jumped a red light and swerved out of the path of an oncoming lorry, broke sharply, slammed the car down a gear, regained control and pushed his foot back onto the accelerator.
But H wasn’t listening, his whole being concentrated now on his destination, on a single objective. They’d arrived at the last chance saloon and this was the last throw of the dice for Amisha. Inside his guts were churning faster than a washing machine on top speed and his heart was pounding. But these feelings never controlled H, never slowed him down or held him back or made him fearful. Instead they spurred him on, drove him to action, zoned him into the present emergency.
The near miss had snapped Ronnie out of his pensive mood. He felt like he was going into battle, like it was 1982 revisited. But this was London in the here and now, not the south Atlantic in the dim and distant past. Here he was, all these years later, following the best friend he’d ever had into battle. Some things never change, he thought, as H jumped another red light, navigated a slip road and launched the car onto the motorway that led to the Dartford tunnel.
‘Ten minutes Ron, ten more fucking minutes. Get your head straight.’
88
Amisha hadn’t lost touch with reality entirely, but normal awareness of the world around her had faded. She wasn’t entirely certain about anything, about where she was, what she was saying or how she had wounded up in the torture chamber of this repulsively sweaty sadist.
But they had come to a point past which she could not go and, after hours of relentless punishment, she gave up H and Confident John.
‘I… sent the files to...H...Detective Inspector Harry Hawkins.’
Despite her tenuous links with life a profound remorse cut deep as soon as she uttered the words.
‘Ah, our tough, no-nonsense “coppers’ copper”, no longer of the yard, I understand. I do hope you’re not expecting him to come riding through the door at any moment on a white charger. We’re already onto him, I’m fairly confident he will not be around much longer. But where, exactly, did you send the information? And how many copies did you make?’
‘One copy. I sent it to...to… a friend of H’s. John Viney.’
‘I see. And where does this John Viney live?’
‘Bermondsey.’
‘Address, my dear, address and full name.’
‘I can’t remember ...he’s just John, Confident John...I copied everything from the address book on my computer.’
‘I see. How convenient, given you have so expertly wiped your hard drive.’
He began to lower the sack again. Amisha screamed a scream of despair, deep and penetrating enough to wake the dead.
‘No... please, please… if I knew I’d tell you.’
The plea fell on deaf ears; the plump man smiled, with the satisfaction of the Devil when another lost soul arrives at the gates of hell. He lowered the sack with sadistic glee. After another four rounds of drowning, screaming, gasping and lost consciousness, Amisha once again jerked back to life.
‘Now, if you recall I asked you for the address of this John.’
Amisha genuinely couldn’t remember the address. So she made one up, a number and a road she remembered somewhere in Bermondsey. Anything to make him stop.
The plump man took a note of the address, went over to and opened the door of his torture chamber and passed it to one of the goons posted outside. ‘Go and check this address, see if you can find the files. Report back to me directly, no phone calls.’
He now refocused on his victim.
‘Well, while we await the result of my associate’s investigation I think it’s about time
you and I got a little better acquainted.’
He had never had anything that could be termed a relationship with a woman - healthy or otherwise - in his life. Despite his pleasant voice he’d always found it impossible to connect with individuals on a human level and had only ever had sex with two categories of people, prostitutes and victims. It was the latter that really got him going. There was something about inflicting pain, about watching a human suffer, about having absolute power. He wasn’t really sure. He didn’t really care. All he knew was he was as about as excited as he had ever been.
Amisha lay strapped down and helpless, physically exhausted and mentally broken; but she knew what was coming next. How much more could she take? She was filled with loathing and nausea as her torturer ran his hands over her body, ripped off her shirt and slobbered at her breasts. He loosened the straps that held her legs in place and climbed on top of her.
While the rape was in motion her mind shut down, as she tried to blank out what was happening.
To increase his enjoyment he lifted her head by the hair and slapped her face with venom. He wanted tears, to see her cry and beg. He slapped her again and a trickle of blood made its way from her mouth to her chin. But the tears and the begging didn’t come.
After he’d finished he stood over her, merciless and triumphant.
‘Don’t worry my dear, as soon as we find the files you printed we can put you out of your misery.’
Amisha no longer cared. Her mind was empty, detached, oblivious of space and time. The plump man stood, fascinated by her suffering, observing her as if she were a specimen in some kind of diabolical experiment.
Eventually there was a knock on the door. The goon was back from Bermondsey: ‘False information. Wrong address. A flat with an old lady and three cats. No files.’
‘Oh, my poor dear,’ said the plump man, and grinned from ear to ear as he retrieved his sack and watering can.
‘Time for more fun.’
89
H and Ronnie were all focused concentration as they watched the blue car pull up outside the isolated and gated warehouse. A gangly, nefarious looking type with a gash across his face got out and made his way past the guards posted at the gate. He looked like he was on a mission as he walked swiftly through the warehouse door.
H followed and marked his movements. Through the door and left. Thirty seconds later H saw the ungainly silhouette pass several windows. A door opened at the far end; there was a conversation by the door with somebody he couldn’t see. The door closed.
Through the door, left, up some stairs, door at the end.
H had got it right. After all the reconnaissance he’d done in the area he knew there were only a few places Amisha might be. He and Ronnie had pulled up half a mile down the road, scouted the area around the riverfront and found a bunch of moody looking types hanging about. H and Ronnie were now tucked in on the banks of the Thames watching the activities around the warehouse, seventy or so yards away.
With part one of the plan coming to fruition H’s brain was moving as fast as it had done in that fateful moment in the south Atlantic.
Option 1: Wait it out. The sentries had no idea they were here. They could stay hidden, wait for the changing of the guards so they knew how many were inside, and then strike with a fuller knowledge of their enemy.
But there was no time.
Option 2: Scale the fences from the rear. Ronnie was a lifelong gym bunny and could maybe make it if he could avoid impaling himself on the railings. But H knew the chances were not great, and he didn’t want them to split up; they needed to provide cover for one another.
Option 3: Full frontal assault. The option H preferred, once he’d discounted all the others.
‘What’s the plan then H?’ whispered Ronnie.
Old Father Thames, murky and laden with sewage, rolled on behind them, H turned and stared at his friend. They’d been here before, the two of them: outnumbered, outgunned and alone. Falklands images flashed through his mind and he remembered the young men he had killed there. He’d spent a lifetime coming to terms with it. They were men like him, under orders and ready to die for their country, protecting and doing the bidding of their politicians. But Falklands images didn’t incapacitate him this time round. He was too zoned-in to the present danger and the scum in front of them had made a choice. In H’s world that made them fair game.
Ronnie’s piercing blue eyes sparkled with life from inside his balaclava. He was all charged up and ready to go, fuelled by a burning hunger for revenge.
No fucking pep talk needed this time.
‘We charge up out of here. You go left, I go right. I’ll toss a grenade into the courtyard. You take care of the two on your side and I’ll do the same on mine. Through the door, left, up the stairs. Whoever’s inside gets the same treatment. Bob’s your uncle.’
Some fucking plan.
The two blood brothers burst forth from the riverbank. The four sentries outside the warehouse could hardly believe their eyes as two oddballs dressed in trench coats and balaclavas came charging up at them, like two new life forms emerging from the primordial soup, raw and untamed.
‘What the fuck is this?’ said one of them, unsure whether he should laugh or be afraid. He would have laughed, if not for the fact that a hand grenade exploded behind him and a bullet ripped through his throat. In the aftermath of the illuminating light thrown out by the explosion, rifle shots were being discharged with devastating accuracy, and the four men went down before they could put up a fight.
H and Ronnie entered the compound and rushed the warehouse door. But they’d missed a trick: behind them a fifth guard appeared from the shadows and started firing. They’d had no idea he was there and were now no more than target practice, like sitting ducks at a funfair. They hit the deck, but it looked like there was no way out of this one; they had pushed their luck too far. Ronnie started to say something…and there was a flash from a weapon being fired by someone coming up from the river.
H and Ronnie swivelled as the guard fell to the floor, and saw smoke emanating from the gun in Graham Miller-Marchant’s hands.
Fuck me, saved by the Manbot. What a turn up.
‘How the fuck did you get here?’ said Ronnie.
‘You’ve been causing absolute havoc all over London; following you two is not exactly rocket science.’
90
‘No time for niceties now, boys,’ said H as he continued his surge towards the warehouse, rifle at the ready.
Through the doors turn left - No problem.
Up the stairs to the second floor - No problem.
Into the warehouse area - Big Problem. Very big problem.
H scanned the large, open warehouse area as he emerged at the top of the stairs, and was immediately aware of the positions of all remaining seven sentries; they were hunkered down behind overturned tables, weapons at the ready. He launched a grenade as he dived into the exposed area at the top of the stairs. Ronnie, close behind him, dived and rolled across the floor, spraying bullets left, right and centre. Their enemies, whoever they were, were stunned by the sheer audacity and speed of the attack.
Most were dead by the time Miller-Marchant stopped at the top of the stairs. He wasn’t about to dive into the line of fire but made a useful and necessary third man as he took careful aim and picked off a shadowy figure coming back for more.
The warehouse went quiet. H and Ronnie lay on the floor, their eyes scanning for movement of any kind. All was silent and still. Then Ronnie looked at H, and realised the big man had been hit. He crawled to his friend’s side.
‘It’s a flesh wound, H. Nothing to write home about. I’ll stick a tourniquet on it, you’ll be as right as rain.’
He started to tear strips off his shirt, but H shouted ‘Door Ronnie, door at the end.’
Ronnie signalled to Graham to finish the tourniquet and checked the door. Locked from inside. He charged at it and gave it everything he had. It didn’t budge.
‘Stand back,’ said Graham. He aimed his pistol and blew the lock. The door opened and H moved as if the bullet in his leg was no more than a splinter, leading the newly formed gang of three into the torture room.
91
H poured into the room like pent up water bursting through a dam, ripping off his balaclava as he took the situation in: waterboarding gear, a snivelling little plump man cowering in a corner and, in the middle of the room Amisha, naked, bound and bloodied.
She’s alive, she’s fucking alive.
He felt a rush of emotions he found impossible to process and control. Relief. Joy. Love. Hatred. An almost overpowering sense of guilt. He had got her involved and then failed to protect her. This was on him. No doubt about it.
Amisha came to and their eyes met. H felt like his heart was going to explode. H walked over to her, laid down his rifle and loosened her straps. He took off his coat and lay it over her. She wrapped it around herself and stood up; a single tear rolled down H’s face as they embraced.
He didn’t know what to say. Whereas danger spurred him to action, the kind of emotions he was feeling now left him speechless and frozen. He kissed Amisha’s forehead tenderly and squeezed her tight, letting her know she was safe now, that they couldn’t hurt her anymore.
She was weak and shaking and barely had the strength to talk, but she needed to say something, to get it out in the open straight away.
‘Guv, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He broke me, I gave him your names. You and John.’
Later, whenever H thought back to this moment, it filled him with admiration and respect for her. After all she’d gone through the first thing she thought of was saying sorry, apologising because these bastards broke her, these experts in torture, this merciless fucking scum.
But for now her words turned a switch on in his brain. It was the switch marked KILL.
You’re sorry. You’re fucking sorry.
Despite his injured leg H now moved swiftly across the room, retrieved his rifle, surged towards the corner and smashed the butt of his weapon into the plump man’s face. Teeth clattered from his gums as his cheek bones crumbled like chalk.
