by Iain Cameron
‘There’s one good thing about hospitals,’ Alex said.
‘What’s that?’
‘The crumpet. Look at these two walking towards us. I’d happily take the one on the right. Is the one on the left ok for you?’
‘I suppose so, but as long as I can get a shot of yours afterwards.’
‘Afternoon ladies,’ Alex said as they walked past.
‘At least they smiled,’ Steve said. ‘It’s good to see you’ve lost none of that boyish charm.’
They were walking down a long corridor, not far from their destination when Steve spotted a changing room.
‘In here,’ he said.
They reappeared two minutes later, transformed into look-alike junior doctors with pens in the top pocket of their white coats, a lanyard with an ID card around their necks and carrying clipboards.
‘I was just saying to Doctor Newman the other day,’ Steve said as they passed a small gaggle of visitors.
‘You idiot. Doctors have all got posh voices, they don’t sound like something out of Eastenders.’
‘Why the hell not? We’ve got doctors in Bethnal Green.’
‘Yeah, but they all go to the same medical schools don’t they? There, they refine their posh accents otherwise the big chief consultant would think they were morons.’
‘Get away, he wouldn’t think you were a moron just ’cause you came from the East End.’
‘Steve, mate, shut up, we’re nearly there. Try to look professional.’
The nurse buzzed them through double doors leading into a row of private rooms. The room David Frankland was in couldn’t be more obvious, as there was a copper sitting outside the door.
‘Now, Steve, keep your trap shut,’ Alex said, ‘and let me do the talking.’
The copper looked up from his newspaper when he heard their approach, a riveting article in the Sun about a cheating Hollywood heart-throb’s love child.
‘Afternoon officer,’ Alex said in his best posh doctor voice.
‘Afternoon doc. Back again? One of your team was here not fifteen minutes ago.’
‘We’ve just received a high reading from his blood pressure monitor. Might be something or nothing.’
Alex reached for the door handle, cool and professional, all the time listening for any movement in the corridor or any sign of the copper reaching for his radio. He walked into the room, Steve at his back.
The patient lay unmoving, all tubes and wires, his eyes closed and no sign he knew they were in the room. Alex looked round and saw the copper had twisted around in his chair looking in. He walked over and closed the door.
‘Grab that wheelchair over there,’ Alex said, ‘and I’ll get him ready.’ Alex knew some of the connections as he had nursed a terminally ill father with lung cancer for four months, and there was bugger-all to do in places like this if you didn’t read books or watch day-time telly.
The saline drip and heart monitor were easy as long as he remembered where the alarm kill button was before he disconnected, but the leg brace was a bit trickier and required a degree in Mechanical Engineering to undo.
Steve pushed the wheelchair closer and with a fair amount of huffing and puffing even managed to get it open.
‘Check the wardrobe,’ Alex said.
‘What for?’
‘Kim Kardashian, who else? His fucking clothes. If you think we’re taking him out in this hospital gown that opens all the way up the back, you’ve got another think coming. He’ll freeze his bollocks off.’
‘Ok, ok. I get the message.’
He turned to the patient. ‘David, I’m just going to put you into this wheelchair so I’m gonna have to pull you about a bit. Ok mate?’
‘Uh, uh,’ came the reply.
‘Is he all right?’ Steve said as he stood, a strange expression on his face, holding Frankland’s clothes. ‘Is he gonna die?’
‘He’s not gonna die, you arse. He hit a telegraph pole at less than fifty miles an hour in a bloody solid car, for Christsakes. A few broken bones and concussion is all. The telegraph pole’s in a worse state.’
‘Why is he, you know, comatose?’
‘He’s drugged up to give the nurses an easier time.’
‘They do that?’
‘Sure they do. Help me get him into his coat.’
They sat him up and laboriously threaded each arm before pulling him to the edge of the bed.
‘Listen up, Steve, he’ll feel a dead weight so don’t let him fall, ok?’
‘What do you take me for?’
‘There’s no answer to that. After three, ok? One, two, three.’
They got him on his feet and, as expected, it was like holding a six-foot, sixteen-stone rubber doll, as he wasn’t helping one bit. With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they manoeuvred the wheelchair behind him, eased him towards it and pushed him in. Alex buttoned up the coat and made him presentable for a trip outside.
‘Let’s go,’ Steve said. ‘I’ll push.’
‘Not yet. We have to deal with him out there,’ Alex said pointing at the door.
‘Oh yeah, I forgot about him.’
‘Remember our plan?’
‘Yep, got it.’
Steve took up position and removed a bottle of isoflurane from his pocket. He tipped some into a clean handkerchief, being careful not to inhale some of the fumes, and nodded to his companion.
Alex walked to the door and opened it. PC 3456 was again reading his newspaper. He had moved to the back pages now, all the latest transfer news.
‘Officer, could I ask you to help me for a minute, please?’
He put down his newspaper and followed Alex into the room.
‘Hey,’ the officer said. ‘You can’t do this with Mr Frankland, he’s not to be–’
Before he could finish his sentence, Steve’s arm wrapped around his throat and with his other hand, put the soaked handkerchief over his mouth and nose. Seconds later Steve let the copper fall to the ground like a sack of spuds.
Steve dragged him into the space between the bed and the wardrobe. ‘Is he ok here?’
‘I would prefer to tie him up,’ Alex said, ‘but we forgot to bring a rope. Here, I’ll take his legs, you take his head and we’ll stuff him in the wardrobe. Do it quick, we gotta go.’
They wheeled David Frankland out of the room and shut the door. Steve pushed and Alex put on his concerned face, rehearsing a story about taking the patient down to the Blood Unit for testing, as he was worried about his BP.
‘Piece of cake,’ Steve said as he eased the now more compliant figure of David Frankland into the back of the Volvo and strapped him in.
‘I’ll agree with you when I see my uncle’s smiling face as he hands me a thick wad of fifties.’
‘What are you gonna spend the dough on, Alex?’ Steve asked, as he guided the big car out of the car park before heading north on the Horley Road.
‘I’ll take the missus on holiday. We haven’t been anywhere for about year. Somewhere nice like America.’
‘I like Spain, great beaches, fantastic clubs and women out for a good time. You can’t beat it.’
‘I thought you didn’t like flying?’
‘I don’t, but Spain’s only a couple of hours away. I can manage that with a few black rums inside me.’
At Redhill they took the A25 east. Depending on his mood, he might ask Steve to continue along this road through the smart little villages of Sussex and Kent, or, if needing to get there soonest, head north at Godstone and hit the M25. He hadn’t decided yet.
A mile or so after joining the A25 they heard the siren. He didn’t need to say anything to Steve as there was nothing wrong with his hearing. Alex didn’t turn round and look suspicious to all and sundry, but kept watch in the wing mirror, Steve doing the same in the rear view mirror. This section of the A25 was busy, one carriageway in each direction with few overtaking opportunities, making it hard to put any distance between them and the patrol car, and equally, for it to close the ga
p on them.
It was a tough call knowing the best thing to do. They could speed up to try and maintain the distance between them and the patrol car, only to find it wasn’t them being chased but get pulled over for driving too fast, or they could allow them to close the gap and discover who they were chasing. If the cops were after them, it would be too late to make a getaway.
Alex decided he would try and outrun them, as his philosophy in life was to assume the worst and hope for the best. First, they needed to get off this road. The app on his phone indicated there was a right turn up ahead, but they were travelling so fast he didn’t think they would spot it in time.
‘You’re taking a right in a few secs, Steve,’ he said trying to give the driver as much notice as possible. ‘It’s coming up any minute now, get ready, ready. There!’
The big Volvo had all the aerodynamic quality of a log, great for ramming cars and smashing into shop windows, but it wallowed like a yacht on corners. Steve was a good driver and well used to the car’s unique handling characteristics; he hoped. He jammed on the brakes and carefully picked his time to make the turn, a steel signpost ready to tell him otherwise if he didn’t. As soon as the car was facing in the right direction and the violent rocking had subsided, Steve floored the accelerator.
This time Alex did turn round. Seconds later, he saw it through the trees – a fast moving, blue flashing light travelled east along the A25. ‘I think we lost them.’
‘Thank fuck for that. Where does this road lead?’
Alex consulted his phone app again. ‘This is called Outwood Lane and… bloody hell.’
‘What?’
‘There aren’t too many turn-offs that I can see until we get to a place called Smallfield.’
‘That’s nearly back where we started.’
‘I know, I know, but at least we got rid of the cops. You obviously didn’t give the copper enough anaesthetic back at the hospital, he must have radioed his mates a few minutes after we left.’
‘It usually does the trick. He must have good lungs or something.’
A few minutes later Alex stopped talking and listened. ‘I think I spoke too soon.’ He eased the window down, and in the distance they could hear the wailing police siren again, growing louder. ‘Damn. They must’ve twigged our move.’
‘Shit, what do we do?’
Alex racked his brains. They’d passed no villages, farm tracks or turn-offs, and any tracks he did see led to farms that would take them across a flat, featureless landscape, visible to all. He was out of options.
‘Stop the car.’
‘What? No way am I handing myself in, think of something else.’
‘Stop the fucking car!’
He stopped the car and before the wheels stopped turning, Alex jumped out. ‘Help me get him out.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me, help me get David out. Be quick about it.’
They pulled David Frankland out of the car and laid him down in the road at the back of the Volvo. They’d stopped at the end of a straight section of road; the chasing coppers or another motorist had about a quarter of a mile to see the prostrate figure and stop. If they didn’t, they and David Frankland were in for a nasty surprise.
Alex looked down at the unmoving figure, eyes open but with no idea where he was. ‘See you, Dave, sorry about this.’
Alex jumped back in the car, seconds before Steve floored the accelerator, and with a puff of dirty exhaust fumes, they disappeared down the road.
THIRTY
The following morning, without stopping for breakfast, Jim Bennett and his son took a cab back to the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam. Jim Bennett felt crap, despite enjoying one of the best night’s sleep ever in a hotel. Too often the room was cold, the bed hard or the traffic outside noisy, but last night everything clicked; just a shame too much whisky had spoiled the soporific effect.
Kenny, who could enjoy a good night’s sleep on the outside step, had tried calling Brook’s room several times. On each occasion they put him though and the phone rang but no one answered. This made Brook a night owl and an eager culture vulture, keen to hit the museums before the crowds, two opposing forces that didn’t add up. Then again, maybe he was being overly suspicious, as Brook could well be in the john, having a shower or down at breakfast; but in the past, ‘suspicious’ had served him well.
When they arrived, they enquired once again at Reception and were told they had no idea of Mr Brook’s whereabouts, but they both could be assured a message for him had been left at Reception, and another on his room phone. If they were still in the hotel when Mr Brook returned or called, they would be contacted.
He looked over at the lounge where they had spent the previous evening drinking beer and whisky at five-star prices, and headed out to the street. Despite being a millionaire, he balked at the prices for a double scotch, as a couple of those could buy him a bottle of everyday whisky from Asda or Tesco. Bennett felt more despondent now than the previous night, a combination of the amount of time wasted hanging around this hotel and the thump-thump of a monumental hangover.
He didn’t have any idea where they were going and, blithely ignoring the trolleybuses, cyclists and a gaggle of tourists taking photographs of the river, they walked across the Hogesluis Bridge and headed towards a small café nearby. Bennett had a light breakfast of coffee and toast as he couldn’t face anything more substantial, while Kenny helped himself to copious amounts of bread, ham and cheese and anything his father didn’t eat.
By the time Bennett had downed his third coffee, colour had returned to his face and the pounding in his head scaled down from a bass drum to a light snare. In the Army, he could drink his platoon under the table and still appear for parade in the morning, his buttons and shoes shining, but along with creaking knees and a receding hairline, his liver wasn’t the fine alcohol processor it used to be.
He put down his cup and looked pensively at his son. Despite necking a good number of Amstels the previous night, the daft bugger looked well and it seemed to have had no impact on his appetite. ‘Kenny, if the slippery Brook won’t come to us, then we need to go to him.’
He had to wait until Kenny swallowed a large piece of Gouda he’d just popped into his mouth before he regained the power of speech.
‘What do ya have in mind Da? How do we get to him if we can’t find him?’
‘We’ll go back into the hotel and without stopping at those useless buggers in Reception, we’ll head up to his room. If I can’t open the lock with my trusty little lock-pickers, we’ll blag our way in.’
‘How do we do that?’
He tapped his nose. ‘I’ll find a way, no worries.’
‘Sounds like a good plan. What do you think we’ll find in there?’
‘What do you mean, what do you think we’ll find in there?’ he said raising his voice more than intended. ‘We’re not going there to look through his bloody suitcases and to have a sneaky-peek at his dirty Y-fronts, are we? We’ll go into his room and wait for the fucker to come back. He might have been slipping in and out of the hotel without us knowing, did you think of that?’
Kenny’s face lit up. ‘I see what you mean, maybe he’s coming in through the kitchens like they do in the movies, or heading up the back entrance.’
‘Ha, ha good one, Kenny, heading up the back entrance,’ he said laughing for the first time that morning. ‘I think our sleazy wine dealer does a fair amount of that.’
He paid the bill and they walked purposefully back to The Amstel. They breezed past Reception trying to look like residents and, as always, Bennett avoided the double bank of elevators and headed for the stairs. Even with a hotel room on the eighth or ninth floor, he preferred to walk, but even he was thankful Brook’s room was on the fourth.
‘What, no carpets, and scratches all over the walls? I thought this place called itself a five-star hotel?’
‘Nobody uses the stairs in a place like this,’ Bennett said, puffing a bit more than n
ormal. ‘Everybody takes the lift. Most of the fat fuckers you see out there in the foyer would suffer a bloody heart attack if they came anywhere near a set of stairs.’
They reached the fourth floor and pushed open the door. As Bennett anticipated, a cleaning team were engaged in their morning duties; a cart with towels, coffee and little cartons of milk and sugar was parked not more than twenty yards away. As they approached, Bennett quickly looked round to make sure no one was looking and picked up a door card from a small pile that lay on a shelf inside the cart. They continued walking to the end of the corridor, turned a corner and located Room 407.
‘Watch and learn from the master,’ he said to his son.
He knocked on the door and listened. No reply. He knocked again, but the same silence returned. He bent over the door lock. ‘This is a card somebody left behind in their room when they checked-out, or a spare open-all card used by the cleaners, either way we can use it,’ he said. He pushed the card into the door reader but the light obstinately shone red. He tried again, same result.
‘No problem. Follow me,’ he said. They walked back the way they had come. ‘Take off your jacket,’ he said to Kenny, ‘and sling it over your shoulder. Make it look like you’re just going out for a walk or something.’ He did the same.
The service cart was parked outside a room in the process of being cleaned, and through the open bedroom door a chambermaid was busily cleaning the bathroom. He knocked on the door.
‘Excuse me, miss.’ He held up the door card. ‘My card won’t work for some reason. Can you let me into my room please? I’d go down to reception for a new one but I just want to pick up my camera.’
She looked at him and smiled. ‘Certainly sir,’ she said in a thick East European accent, ‘just a moment.’
She walked back with them to room 407, and using a card attached to her apron on a long chain, she opened the door. They thanked her and watched as she returned to her cleaning duties and disappeared around the corner without looking back.
Walking into the room, a brief smile flashed across Bennett’s face. At last, something was going right. He could be resourceful and clever when the time demanded and Perry would be reminded of that fact when they sat around the coffee table in his Barking mansion dishing out Brook’s stolen loot. With a wheeze across the thick pile carpet, the door closed softly behind them.
