by Iain Cameron
TWENTY-ONE
Slowly and groggily, Harvey Miller regained consciousness. He had been so out of it, whoever slugged him could have taken him to a place miles away and he would have been none the wiser; but no, he was still there, lying on the ground outside a barn in Loxwood.
A face leaned towards him: young, scruffy and smelling of beer. ‘Get up you scummy bastard.’
With great difficulty, he got to his knees. Leaning against the wall of the barn for support, he pulled himself upright. He stared malevolently at his attacker, wishing the pain would recede from his midriff sufficiently for him to raise a punch and sink it hard into his face. He was glad he did nothing, as he now saw the gun.
The man raised the weapon and poked the barrel towards him. ‘This way fucker,’ he said jerking his head over to the left, ‘and don’t try and scarper. This baby’s loaded.’
Miller started to walk, and as he did so, assessed his escape options. He would bet the kid wasn’t a good shot, and in the dark most people couldn’t see a barn door, never mind hit one with a handgun, but where could he run to? There could be big fences all around this place, just like at Château Osanne, and he didn’t rate his chances hiding out in open fields with someone chasing him who knew the lie of the land better than he did.
Away from the shelter of the barn, the contours of the house appeared before him, many lights burning behind closed curtains and blinds. Close up, it looked to be a large house, old but extended several times.
‘Over there,’ the kid said, indicating a door at the back.
He walked towards it, his ears picking up the sounds of other voices inside the house.
‘Open the door and get in,’ his antagonist said, poking him in the ribs with the weapon to remind him, as if any reminder was necessary, that he still had a gun.
He did as instructed and stepped into the kitchen. Before he had time to assess his surroundings, a foot kicked him in the back and sent him sprawling over the cold, unforgiving, quarry-tiled floor.
‘Looksee here, Dave. I caught this bastard trying to break into the barn when I went out for a smoke,’ Gunboy said.
Someone stood, the legs of the chair scraping noisily over the floor and walked over.
‘Let’s beat the fucker up and teach him….well bugger me. If it isn’t our old friend, the Yankee investigator from Bordeaux, what’s his name again…’
‘Harvey Miller,’ another voice said.
‘Christ so it is!’ Gunboy said. ‘If I knew it was him I’d have put a bullet in his noggin.’
Miller pushed himself upright. He immediately recognised one of the guys sitting around the table as Jim Bennett, the guy who beat him up in Bordeaux, and the kid with the gun, aged about mid-twenties and looking like a close relation, the other attacker. Hearing him speak and looking closer, he could see now it was the same father and son team who abducted him and took him to Wild Park.
The other man sitting at the table and staring at him with malevolence, the one they called Dave, was the rude Aussie who gave him the brush-off outside the gates of Château Osanne. It was all coming together, but could he get out of here to tell anyone?
Bennett rose from the chair. He was short and squat, a less imposing figure than the tall Aussie. He walked towards Miller and kicked him in the leg. ‘What the fuck are you doing round here?’ he said, a gun tucked into his trouser waistband like a Mafia hit man. If there was a God, the weapon would suddenly develop a malfunction and blow his bollocks off, but it didn’t happen in the movies and it didn’t happen here.
‘I was trying to find out where you lot had moved to.’
‘It didn’t take you too long to find us, did it Sherlock? How the hell did you do it so quickly?’ Dave said, his casual tone gone and genuine concern creeping into his voice.
He had nothing to lose by telling them. Brook was one of their own, and he didn’t care if it landed him in a pig sty with his ears being fed to his porky friends. ‘I followed the guy from the wine shop, Brook.’
‘Brook! I might have known,’ Bennett spat. ‘He’s about as covert as Danny La Rue at a fucking vicars convention. What a prat.’
‘We need to fix this,’ the Aussie said, his face stern. ‘I’m not having this new operation fucked up by anybody; no way. Jim, give me your gun, I’ll take him outside.’
‘Hang on a sec, Dave, not yet. I’d like to shoot him myself but Perry needs to be told first. He said after last time, we had to tell him about anything affecting business.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. He went ape-shit when we were forced out of Uckfield. I’ll ring him now.’ Dave turned and disappeared into the darkened hallway.
Bennett had a lived-in face, more suited to receiving a punch in a bar room brawl than sipping beer and coffee in this large and modern farmhouse kitchen. Dave was taller, better looking but with an air of hidden menace. With these two thugs around, Miller wondered what Gunboy did, as he was decades younger, and looked like a refugee from an American football game with his baggy, blue jeans and yellow bomber jacket. He was tall and thin with an ungainly walk, imitating the movement of LA rappers or his long bones hadn’t fused properly.
A few minutes later Dave re-entered the kitchen. ‘He couldn’t talk; said he’ll call back in five. He said to take him down to the barn and tie him up in the office. He started whispering and went all husky like a fucking spy. I’ll bet he wasn’t at the theatre like he said, but shagging that gorgeous wife of his.’
Bennett laughed. ‘Payback for all the money he spends on gym memberships and facials, I call it.’
Bennett turned to his son. ‘Kenny, take this scumbag out to the office in the barn and tie him up, but don’t shoot him unless he tries to escape; you hear me?’
‘Right Da. I’m not to shoot him but if he tries to leg it, I can. In the meantime, can I break something like his arms or his yapping mouth?’
‘Not yet, big man. There’ll be plenty of time for that later once we decide what we’re gonna do with him. Get a shift on and get this toad out of my sight.’
‘Take this,’ Dave said handing Kenny a rope.
The young runt prodded Miller with the gun until he got to his feet. He was led out of the kitchen and back towards the barn. The pain in his shoulder from his fall on the floor had eased, but the boy took great pleasure in kicking him several times, laughing when he was sent sprawling over the damp grass.
This situation he was in, away from the house with only Kenny Bennett for company, provided a better chance to escape than before, as it was clear the boy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the light box, and he was treating this incident like a game. However, the boy held the gun in a steady grip and kept his distance from his prisoner, much like the US police manuals instructed. It was close enough for him to take a clear shot but far enough away that the prisoner couldn’t turn and attack him with a boot or a fist.
When they reached the barn, Kenny unlocked the door and switched on the lights. What a revelation! Half expecting to find another empty space, Miller was amazed to see it was almost an exact replica of the operation at Uckfield, with a long technicians’ workbench, barrels of wine, empty wine bottles; the whole kit and caboodle. It was the confirmation he came here to find, it was just a shame he couldn’t pull out his camera and take some pictures. He was pushed towards a small office at the back and instructed to sit in the visitor’s chair.
The office was much as he expected from a gang of criminals, unlikely to be sitting in there diligently filling out their sales tax records or writing up employee appraisals. It was sparsely furnished with a desk, chair, coat stand, filing cabinet and visitor’s chair, no computer or photographs of the wife and kids on the desk, and most likely used by the boss to get away from the smell of chemicals and put their feet up for five minutes.
Kenny wrapped the rope around him before tying it to the chair. Risking a smack on the face Miller asked, ‘Did you and your pa kill Chris Fletcher?’
‘What of it?’
‘Why did you kill him?’
‘He was goin’ to the cops, wasn’t he, just like you. And d’ye know what, you’re gonna end up just like him. He got eaten by the fishes, you’ll get yours from the rats and foxes.’
‘My, what a vivid imagination you have.’
Kenny finished tying the rope and turned the chair towards the door before standing back to admire his handiwork.
‘You thought you could come here and have a snoop around, did ye?’ he said. Miller’s eyes were drawn to a gap in the centre of his teeth where he was missing the left incisor, and failed to see the hand sweeping up to slap him hard across the face.
‘Our business is our fucking business and we don’t want you or any other scum coming here to spy on us.’ He slapped him again. He was obviously enjoying himself, beating up a defenceless man. If Miller’s hands were free, he would show the skinny runt how hard he could punch. ‘When them indoors decide your time’s up, I hope I get the job of doing you in. I’ll enjoy it and no mistake.’ He bunched his fists and punched Miller in the stomach. He was about to thump him again when the door opened and his father walked in.
‘What the fuck you up to, Kenny, you bloody clown?’
‘I was just…subduing the prisoner.’
‘Subduing him? You were fucking having fun that’s what. Christ, no wonder Dave calls you a psychopath.’
‘What’s wrong wi’ you? You were jolly hockey sticks but five minutes ago.’
‘It’s Perry; he’s going ape-shit. Dave’s on the phone with him right now.’
‘What, about this guy?’
‘Could be, I don’t know. I could only hear part of it but it didn’t sound good. Dave doesn’t look too happy.’
Bennett looked and sounded agitated and if Miller was reading the signs, seemed to be expecting trouble. If the boys wanted to indulge themselves in a bout of argy-bargy and shoot one another, they could just go right ahead and fill their boots, but he’d rather not be tied to a chair as there would be nothing he could do to get out of the way of a stray bullet.
The kitchen door slammed and Dave came striding into the barn. His face was stern but he didn’t look as though he was about to plug Bennett or his son; shame.
‘What’s going on?’ Bennett asked.
‘You wouldn’t believe what Daniel’s told me.’
‘What?’ Bennett asked.
‘Brook and Landseer have been thieving.’
‘Thieving? What? From who?’
‘Thieving money from us, you idiot.’
‘How?’
‘Listen up, mate. Landseer had a problem with his personal laptop and Daniel suggested one of his IT guys take a look at it. The guy got it working and gave it back to Daniel. Cut a long story short, Daniel found a folder with emails between Landseer and Brook talking about the bottles they were earmarking for themselves. They’ve been skimming off thirty to fifty grand every sale.’
‘C’mon Kenny,’ Bennett said to his son, ‘you were good at maths at school. What’s fifty grand a sale over the last four or five years?’
‘About two, two and a half mill,’
‘Fuck me; the cheating, lying tossers,’ Bennett said. ‘I might have guessed Landseer would pull something like this. I’ve never liked estate agents and after hearing this, I bloody hate them now.’
‘The thing is,’ Dave said, ‘it wasn’t the fake bottles they were skimming. Brook buys a collection with Daniel’s money of say, five hundred bottles. We don’t know if it’s five hundred and twenty, or five fifty bottles, do we? We leave it to Brook. We don’t care as long as he buys them, adds in the fakes and sells the lot.’
‘Yeah, but we know how much he makes in a sale, don’t we?’
‘Sure, and we can look it up on the auctioneer’s website if we want to, but this is where Brook’s been crafty. He’s been shifting bottles out of the collection into his own stock then adding them to the sale as if they were his own. They’ve probably ripped us off for more, probably about three million.’
‘Fuck!’ Bennett exclaimed. ‘We’re being turned over good-style. I might have known a sleazy coke-sniffing bastard would pull something like this.’
‘How do you know Brook takes drugs?’
‘I…I don’t know. He must have told me.’
Dave rounded on Jim Bennett, pointing a menacing finger into his face. ‘I hope you’re not up to your old tricks, mate. Daniel’s been clear on this point, no drugs around this business – full stop. Cops will pull out an armed response team and a fucking helicopter for a big drugs bust, but they don’t give a toss about a few bottles of wine. D’ye hear me, both of you? No drugs.’
‘I hear you, Dave; got it.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ Kenny said.
‘What are we gonna do about them?’ Bennett said, his voice less steady than before. ‘What does Perry think?’
‘He says we’re to top the pair of them tonight. We don’t know what sort of warning our investigator friend here gave them. Brook might not be so clever to notice someone like him following his van here, but he’s smart enough to look after nicked millions.’
‘Right! Let’s go and do them,’ Bennett said, his face animated. ‘Let’s get these bastards.’
‘Action!’ Kenny said.
The three men headed for the door, causing Miller’s hopes to soar. Their departure would buy him time to think how he could escape.
‘Hang on fellas,’ Bennett said. ‘What about him in there?’
‘Leave him until we’ve sorted this thing out, he’s not going anywhere,’ Dave said. ‘Lock the doors and kill the lights. We don’t want the fucker getting too comfortable.’
‘I’ll do it, you two go on ahead,’ Kenny said.
Kenny back came into the office and stood at the door, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. A vicious smile played across his lips as he enjoyed once again the bedraggled sight of Miller slumped forward in the wooden chair, his thick frame dwarfing the chair’s beech framework.
‘We won’t forget about you ya sneaky bastard,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna get this.’ He made the shape of a gun with his fingers, pointed it at Miller’s head and made a ‘pow’ sound with his lips. ‘In the meantime, enjoy your stay.’ He walked up to him and kicked him in the chest. The chair spun slightly before tilting backwards towards the desk and, almost in slow motion, the edge came up to meet him.
His head smacked the edge of the desk with a bang and a shower of fireworks exploded inside his head. Seconds before he hit the floor and the lights went out, he heard a loud crack.
TWENTY-TWO
Harvey Miller woke but felt as if he was walking towards a tunnel through a thick bank of fog. The room was dark and he was lying on the floor on his side, his upper body and legs tied to a chair, and half-underneath a desk. The thump, thump in his head reminded him of his encounter with the edge of the desk sometime earlier, and with some difficulty, he spat out a clot of blood making him gag.
He remembered the kick from Kenny Bennett, the bang on the head, and the crack. The crack, where did it come from? He felt a wave of panic as he thought it might have been his leg, collar bone or God forbid, his spine. For several minutes he lay there motionless in the darkness breathing hard, trying to calm down and steady his nerves before summing up the courage to move.
He shifted position, anticipating all the time the sudden jolt from a broken bone or the gnawing throb of a damaged tendon or muscle. He felt nothing. Despite the ropes, he managed to lift his left leg a little and to his surprise, it moved without pain. Shifting his weight, he tried the other, which felt dull and lifeless where he had been lying on it, but with some relief he also found out it was not broken or damaged.
Bennett had certainly made a good job of tying him as he couldn’t move his body, but while the bindings around his right wrist were tight, there was more movement with the one on the left. He then realised what the crack he heard was all about. The back of the chair had broken, not his spine or arm
. He moved his back and shoulders trying to ease them free but even though the chair felt much looser than before, part of it seemed still connected to the base. With great difficulty, he tried to look over his shoulder and see if there was anything more he could do.
It was a basic beech wood chair with a framed back, attached to the base by two wooden posts. He could just make out that the post on one side had completely snapped, leaving a jagged stump. On the other, a large crack ran diagonally across it. It looked ready to split, but despite heaving his shoulders from side to side, he couldn’t break free.
It took ten minutes to manoeuvre the top of the chair under the bottom of the desk, and with fists clenched and his feet hooked under the base of a radiator, he eased his shoulders forward with as much strength as he could muster. The veins on his forehead bulged, unused stomach sinews and tendons protested and sweat dripped in little streams down his face as he pulled and strained doing the toughest exercise he’d done as an adult. It resisted and resisted until he heard it splinter and then a loud crack. He kept the pressure on, when suddenly he jerked forward as the back of the chair parted from the seat. Boy, did that feel good!
His hands weren’t together but tied behind him on to the wooden posts of the chair, and by squirming and leaning hard against the desk, he began to push both through his bindings. He was almost there, an inch or two to go, but it wouldn’t move any further. What he needed was something to hold the frame steady.
He scanned around in the dark, easier now that his eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, and with a picture in his head of the office layout before the lights went out. He spotted the ideal candidate. It was a long, metal door stop, designed to prevent the handle of the door swinging back against the glass partition. Unfortunately, it was at the other end of the room.
Hot, tired and with pain coming from so many places, all he had to do was think of the jolly trio’s return and it gave him a renewed burst of energy. He squirmed along the carpet, made easier now with more freedom to bend his torso. It didn’t take long and he soon hooked the chair back under the door stop and pulled. His bindings parted from the chair back at the first attempt. With only a little more wriggling, the rope fell easily from his hands. He set to work on his leg and, after a few minutes, threw the rope into the corner as if it were a poisonous snake.
