Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid

by Rob Johnson

  ‘I was going to say we’d split it fifty fifty,’ she said, ‘but it seems your need is far greater than mine. I don’t want you pegging out on me just yet.’

  A variety of protestations flashed through Trevor’s mind, and he knew full well that the eventual ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of it’ sounded limp and utterly unconvincing.

  ‘Just eat the bloody thing, will you?’

  He wrenched his attention away from the Mars bar to check out her expression. Yep. Definitely pissy. His fingertips reached out and made contact with the wrapper, and this seemed to trigger a slight thaw in her features.

  ‘In any case,’ she said. ‘I need to shed some weight.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  Trevor blurted the words out before he had given them due care and attention, and he couldn’t even blame the alien being for taking over his tongue this time. For once, Sandra seemed at a loss for a response, and she put a hand to her face and glanced over her shoulder as if startled by a sudden noise behind her. That wasn’t a… blush, was it?

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Time we weren’t here.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Apart from the fitted cupboards, cooker and refrigerator in the kitchen area of the open plan living room, the apartment was almost entirely devoid of furniture except for a wing-backed armchair with wooden arms and legs, upholstered in faded gold Dralon, which looked like it had recently been retrieved from a skip. It was in almost the exact centre of the room, facing towards a wide, aluminium-framed window set into the wall opposite the main entrance to the flat. There were no curtains, and the late afternoon sun streamed in, illuminating vast clouds of dust particles that drifted lazily through the breezeless atmosphere.

  The grey-haired man in the suit who occupied the armchair would have felt the warmth of the sunshine on his pallid and wrinkled face even though he was unable to see it. Nor would he have been able to walk over to the window and open it to let in some cooler air. He could not have politely asked the man who sat on the floor beneath it to put down his Nintendo game for a moment and reach up to open it for him. The same silver duct tape that held his arms and legs firmly fixed to the chair had also been used to gag and blindfold him.

  Lenny – the man with the Nintendo – had not so much as glanced in his direction for the past half hour or more, so intent was he on his game. His brow was deeply furrowed in concentration as his thumbs worked feverishly at the console, stopping abruptly every once in a while and swearing in frustration. Considerably less often, he would lift one of his thumbs from its button to punch the air with a victorious exclamation such as ‘Yes!’ or sometimes ‘Oh yes!’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Damn it,’ said Lenny, dropping the console onto his lap. ‘I was just about to get to Level Four then till you opened your pie-hole.’

  Carrot’s bald head protruded from a blue and yellow sleeping bag in the far corner of the room, his features almost entirely obscured by the ginger toupee, which he had pulled down over his eyes to block out the light while he tried to sleep. He wriggled a hand up through the neck of the sleeping bag and adjusted the wig to its rightful position. Then he unzipped the bag as far as his waist and sat up, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles and yawning loudly.

  ‘As if it isn’t hard enough to sleep with your constant bloody bleeping,’ he said through the tail end of the yawn, ‘I also have to put up with you shouting “yes” or “bugger” or “shit” every few seconds.’

  ‘Oh pardon me for breathing.’

  Carrot looked at him and stretched expansively. ‘Lenny, I hate to have to tell you this, but you do sound unbelievably camp at times. You know that, don’t you?’

  Lenny gave him the finger and took hold of the window sill to haul himself to his feet. He pulled a face and massaged his backside with both hands. ‘Jesus. Remind me to bring a cushion or something next time, will you?’

  ‘Next time?’ Carrot snorted. ‘I bloody hope not.’

  ‘It’s all right for you, matey. You’re not the one with the old racing injury.’

  Carrot made no reply, but his eyes followed Lenny as he walked stiffly over to the kitchen area and began rummaging through the litter of empty cans, foil takeaway containers and pizza boxes on top of the breakfast bar.

  ‘So what time is it then?’

  Lenny checked his watch. ‘Half four,’ he said with the irritable tone of someone who had yet again been distracted from the job in hand. ‘Don’t tell me there’s no bloody food left in this craphole.’

  ‘You only just had lunch.’

  ‘What are you? My mother?’ said Lenny, continuing his fruitless search amongst the debris. ‘Makes me hungry, all this hanging about.’

  Carrot gave a heavy sigh. ‘Have a look in my bag. There might still be a few biscuits left.’

  ‘Holding out on me, eh?’

  Lenny strode over to the small black holdall near the door of the flat’s only bedroom. He crouched down and unzipped it, scouring the contents momentarily before snatching up a half-empty packet of McVitie’s plain chocolate digestives.

  ‘Happy now?’ said Carrot and watched Lenny unravel the twisted neck of the packet and peer inside.

  ‘Milk chocolate would have been better.’

  Carrot called him an ungrateful little prick and told him to hand them over if he didn’t want them.

  Lenny teased out a biscuit between forefinger and thumb. His features instantly pinched into a scowl of disdain. ‘Ah, Jeez.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘They’re bloody melted.’

  ‘Oh, for f— Well, put them in the fridge or something.’

  Lenny was holding the biscuit up to his face, turning it this way and that as if trying to decide whether it was fit for human consumption in its present state. ‘Don’t be a twat,’ he said. ‘There’s no electricity, remember?’

  Carrot sucked air in through his teeth as a prelude to launching into a tirade of abuse, but he was interrupted by the ringing of a mobile phone – his mobile phone. He swallowed back the first of the insults that had already begun to form on his tongue and told Lenny to pass him the phone. ‘It’s in my bag.’

  For some unaccountable reason, Lenny transferred the still untasted biscuit from his right hand to his left and licked the goo of molten chocolate from his fingertips before delving into the holdall once again. He tossed the phone to Carrot, who fumbled the catch so that it bounced off his chest and onto his lap. The tinny sound of Michael Jackson’s Beat It came to an abrupt end as Carrot pressed the answer button and put the mobile to his ear. Almost immediately, his palm flew to the crown of his toupee as if a sudden gust of wind had threatened to whisk it from his head.

  ‘It’s Harry.’ He mouthed the words silently at Lenny and then: ‘He’s here… in England.’

  Lenny responded to each unspoken statement with a frown and shaped his own lips into an inaudible ‘What?’ His mouth still open from the second ‘What?’, he apparently decided this was as good a time as any and took a large bite out of the chocolate digestive. As he began to chew, a look of satisfaction spread across his face, and he nodded to himself as though pleasantly surprised that the taste was far better than he’d anticipated. From then on, he took little or no interest in Carrot’s phone conversation.

  Carrot, on the other hand, had no option but to listen to Harry Vincent’s expletive-strewn monologue. So shocked had he been to hear his boss’s voice that he hadn’t even smiled to himself at Harry’s opening line of ‘I’m on a train’. This was then followed by a brief explanation as to why he’d had to fly all the way over from fucking Greece to sort out their fucking cockups and the announcement that he’d be at the flat himself in the next couple of hours or so.

  Towards the end of the “conversation”, Carrot became aware that Lenny was slowly circling the armchair in the centre of the room whilst steadily munching biscuit after biscuit and occasionally licking his fingers. At first, he seemed to take only a passi
ng interest in the occupant of the chair, but Carrot grew increasingly concerned as Lenny’s circling brought him closer and closer to their captive with each rotation. Not only that, but his passing interest in the man gradually transformed into attentive curiosity and then into concentrated study. By the time Carrot ended the call, Lenny had stopped circling altogether and was stooping over the guy in the chair and gently patting both of his cheeks between the palms of his hands.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Carrot, wrestling himself out of the sleeping bag.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Lenny without turning. ‘I think he might be dead.’

  Three paces brought Carrot to Lenny’s side. The guy certainly didn’t look too good. His complexion was a bluish shade of grey, and the complete absence of movement from his chest was a worrying indication that he had stopped breathing.

  ‘We need to get a look at his eyes,’ said Lenny and took hold of one end of the duct tape that obscured them.

  Carrot shot out a hand and grabbed his arm before he could peel back the tape. ‘Hang on. Hang on. If he’s still alive and you take the tape off, he’ll be able to identify us later. That’s the whole point of the blindfold.’

  ‘Yeah, I see what you mean,’ said Lenny, letting go of the duct tape. He pulled himself up to his full five foot two inches and tweaked his chin as if giving the dilemma some serious deliberation. ‘How about the gag? At least that’ll tell us if he’s breathing or not. If he shouts out, we’ll know he’s still alive and we can slap it straight back on again.’

  The length of tape came away with a sharp screeching sound as Carrot tore it from across the man’s mouth. There was no cry of pain even though the stickiness of the tape must have taken a considerable amount of four-day-old facial hair along with it. This was not an encouraging sign, Carrot realised, and he bent his ear close to the man’s mouth.

  ‘Well?’ said Lenny.

  ‘Can’t hear a thing. You got a mirror?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A mirror. You hold it up to his face, and it clouds up if he’s breathing.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s one in the bathroom,’ said Lenny after a moment’s contemplation.

  Carrot slowly turned his head to look up at him and pointed out that the bathroom mirror was not only about three foot square, but it was also screwed to the wall, so unless he had a screwdriver in his pocket, the idea was a non-starter. He didn’t even bother to respond when Lenny said something about mountains and Mohammed and suggested they could carry the guy into the bathroom, chair ‘n’ all, and hold him up to the mirror instead.

  He shifted his ear downwards to the man’s chest but could detect no sign of life there either. He stood upright and absent-mindedly adjusted his toupee, suddenly aware that Lenny had left his side and was once again sifting through the litter of empty food containers on the breakfast bar.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Lenny. Don’t you think we’ve got more important things to think about than your bloody stomach?’

  Lenny ignored the remark but came back from the kitchen area, polishing the base of a tinfoil takeaway carton with his sleeve. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Try this.’

  Carrot was forced to admit – but only to himself – that Lenny wasn’t always quite as stupid as he looked. Taking the empty container, he caught a whiff of curry as he bent down again and held it up to the man’s face. He kept it there for several seconds and then inspected the reflective base for any sign of misting. It was still just as shiny as when Lenny had handed it to him. He listened to the chest again. Nothing.

  It occurred to him that the pulse might be a better indicator of life or death but instantly realised that both of the man’s wrists were hidden beneath the silver duct tape which secured them to the arms of the chair. He had an idea you could also check someone’s pulse in their neck, so he placed the tips of his fingers gently against the side of his throat.

  ‘Anything?’ said Lenny.

  He shook his head and moved his fingertips an inch to the right.

  ‘Maybe you should try the other side.’

  ‘Don’t be a prat,’ said Carrot, but since he was hardly an expert in such matters himself he did as Lenny suggested.

  ‘I still reckon we need to take a look at his eyes,’ Lenny said when it became clear there were no apparent signs of life from either side of the neck. ‘It’s what they do in all those hospital shows on the telly. They pull back the eyelids and have a good look inside with some kind of torch or something.’ By way of demonstration, he used his forefinger and thumb to roll back the lids of one of his own eyes and, for added authenticity, ranged the protruding eyeball in a random variety of directions.

  Carrot straightened up and was about to remind him of the inherent dangers of removing the guy’s blindfold when he was struck by what he considered to be an ingenious solution. ‘Hang on a minute. I’ve got an idea,’ he said and scuttled over to his holdall.

  He took out two pairs of underpants, one black and one bright red, and held them aloft, a pair in each hand, with a triumphant ‘Ta-daa.’

  Lenny looked from one pair of briefs to the other and then back at Carrot. ‘And your point is?’

  ‘Disguises. We can use them as masks.’

  There was a lengthy pause before Lenny replied. ‘You out of your fucking mind?’

  ‘They’re perfectly clean,’ said Carrot and held out the black pair. ‘Here.’

  ‘They might not be. Even boil washing doesn’t always get rid of all the… skidmarks.’ He uttered the last word with obvious distaste and added, ‘You wouldn’t be able to see ‘em on the black ones, but they might still be there all the same.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake. Have the red ones then.’ He threw the red pair at Lenny, who dodged to the side, and the briefs came to rest on the lap of the man in the chair.

  ‘I’m telling you, I’m not wearing either of ‘em. All seems a bit pervy if you ask me.’

  ‘Well wear a pair of your own then.’

  ‘I haven’t got any clean ones left.’

  Carrot’s hand flew to the crown of his toupee yet again, and he kept it there while he considered the matter. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘I’ll wear the bloody underpants and you stay behind him. But whatever you do, don’t let him see you.’

  Lenny seemed satisfied with the change of plan and positioned himself behind the chair as instructed. Carrot quickly checked that the black briefs were really as clean as he’d claimed and then removed his toupee and dropped it on top of his holdall. Pulling the waistband of the underpants down over his head, he realised that the leg holes were too far to the sides of his face and he couldn’t see a thing. Not to be thwarted, however, he grasped the crotch piece and squeezed the material together into a narrow band. This had the effect of pulling the leg holes inwards towards his nose so that the openings coincided exactly with his eyes.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said, his voice slightly muffled by the cotton waistband, which completely obscured his mouth.

  Lenny gave him a thumbs up and winked. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘I mean, does it work? Would you recognise me if you saw me again?’

  ‘Only if you were wearing a pair of black underpants on your head.’

  Carrot stooped over the man in the chair, and with rather more care than he had taken with the gag, he began to unpeel the silver tape blindfold. As soon as the first eye was revealed, he hesitated and sucked in a gasp of air. It was staring straight back at him, the lids stretched wide and the eyeball boggled in much the same way as Lenny’s had done during his demonstration of a few minutes earlier. Unlike Lenny’s, however, this particular eye showed not even the slightest flicker of movement. The pupil was unnaturally dilated, and the whiteness around it was tinged with a dirty grey.

  The remainder of the tape came away with one swift tug as Carrot was impatient to see if the second eye betrayed any more indication of life than the first. It didn’t. The protruding
bulbousness of the eyeball, the dilation of the pupil, the greyish staining, the fixed rigidity of the stare – all were exactly the same. Carrot shifted his focus to include both of the eyes, and the combined effect made him feel even more acutely that the unflinching stare was directed specifically at him and was exuding a look of malevolent accusation. He waved the palm of his hand to and fro in front of the man’s face a few times. Nothing.

  ‘Well?’ said Lenny from his position behind the chair. ‘Is he dead or what?’

  Carrot straightened, grateful for an excuse to transfer his attention away from the almost mesmerising gaze of the man’s eyes.

  ‘Looks like it,’ he said, wrenching the underpants from his head and using them to mop the beads of sweat from his brow.

  ‘Shit,’ said Lenny and sidled round to the front of the chair to see for himself. He bent down and repeated the same action as Carrot, waving his hand in front of the man’s face, and then added a few clicks of his fingers for good measure. ‘Maybe we should get something with a sharp point – like a pen or something – and shove it at his face. That’d make him blink if he’s still alive.’

  Carrot finished wiping the perspiration from his neck and hairless head and flung the underpants towards his holdall. They landed on top of his ginger toupee. ‘Do shut up,’ he said. ‘And stop bloody hitting him, will you?’

  Lenny had resumed his cheek patting routine from before but with increased vigour so that the sound of slapping resonated off the walls of the apartment. He stopped the slapping and gave voice to the question which was suddenly uppermost in both their minds: ‘So now what do we do?’

  His toupee firmly back in place, Carrot was already packing his bag. ‘I don’t know about you, mate, but I’m gone. Harry’ll be here in a couple of hours, and I don’t intend to be around when he arrives and finds out our Mr Stiff has croaked. And nor do I want the filth after me for murder.’ He closed the zip on his holdall and scanned the room for anything he’d left behind that might incriminate him. ‘Come to think of it though, a life sentence would be a damn sight preferable to what Harry Vincent’ll do if he ever catches up with us. – You coming or what?’