The Tied Man

by McGowan, Tabitha

  ‘This had better be important, Henry.’

  ‘Lilith was terribly agitated, Lady Albermarle,’ came Henry’s response.

  ‘Yes, well Lilith seems intent on creating her own melodrama. And if they’re not here, I’m going back to bed.’ Blaine strode into the room and her face immediately blanched as she took in the bloodbath.

  ‘Tell Coyle he needs to review his screening procedures,’ I said.

  Finn

  I was cold. Sleeping-on-the-streets, Dublin winter cold. It was a strange feeling, lying there in a pool of my own blood, with the dawn’s summer warmth seeping into the stones beneath me, and still shaking with a ferocity that made my teeth ache. Even when Lilith laid a blanket from the bed over me, it made scant difference.

  ‘Henry, go and call Doctor Parnell,’ Blaine ordered, but there was a tremor in her voice that suggested that despite her outward calm, for once she was well and truly rattled.

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. He needs a hospital, Blaine,’ Lilith snapped, before Henry had the chance to take a single step.

  ‘Out of the question.’

  There was no way Blaine was going to let me off the island. If Doctor Parnell couldn’t fix me with a couple of sticking plasters and an aspirin, I was just going have to lie stark bollock-naked on the floor of a dungeon and quietly bleed to death. I wanted to tell Lilith to save her breath, but then the way she went at it with Blaine, I’d have been pushed to get a word in. Instead, I shut my eyes and listened as Lilith Bresson went to war on my behalf.

  Lilith’s voice bounced off the stone walls. ‘He’s been stabbed in the stomach, Blaine, and he’s been left hanging for the best part of an hour. And do you want me to teach you about the arteries in the back of his knee? Right now you’re facing the very real possibility of a man bleeding to death in your cellar, so unless the sainted Doctor Parnell has got the facilities to deal with anything from a lacerated liver to a blood transfusion, I would say you’re really going to have to think out of the box on this one.’

  Then she came up with the clincher. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, shall I? If my Big Reason For Staying does end up weighed down with rocks in the lake, I’d probably consider that a bit of a deal-breaker. Wouldn’t you?’

  As she spoke, Lilith surreptitiously took my hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. I was glad of the reassurance, especially as she was discussing my potential demise with all the concern of a forensic scientist.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Blaine snapped, and raised a hand in the air to halt the tirade. ‘Just let me think this through for a moment.’ She massaged her temples as she tried to make this mess vanish. ‘Henry. You can take him.’

  Henry actually took a step back. ‘Oh God, I couldn’t. I’ m so sorry, but it’s all that blood. You know what I’m like with that.’

  ‘Well Coyle can’t take him. Not with his driving ban. He’s not allowed off the estate.’

  ‘I’ll take him,’ Lilith said.

  Blaine gave a hard laugh of derision. ‘I don’t think so, do you? I couldn’t begin to imagine the feeding frenzy if the press find Lilith Bresson driving around Northumberland with a half-dead naked man in her passenger seat.’

  Even in the very depths of a crisis, no one could accuse Blaine of forgetting the priorities.

  ‘People don’t recognise me, that’s just it,’ Lilith rejoindered. ‘They know ‘Brand Lilith’, not some scruffy cow in tracksuit bottoms and mud-brown contacts – how many times has someone spotted me in the village, huh? Not once. They’re looking for the ballgown and the attitude. It took the best part of three hours yesterday to transform into the woman most people expect to see.’

  There followed a pause that lasted for days in my head, and I felt the numbness in my stomach begin to morph into something involving devils and hot pokers.

  Finally, Blaine spoke, her voice controlled once more. ‘Right. You can take him to Castlerigg Hospital. It’s a private clinic – I’ll get Henry to bring you directions – where he’s to be seen by a Doctor James Maxwell. Nobody else. He’s an old friend of mine. I’ll make the call to inform him that you’re on the way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lilith said, gracious in victory.

  ‘No matter what you think of me, I’m hardly the kind of person who would let someone die on the floor. I simply needed a little time to work out a plan that worked well for everyone concerned.’ Blaine had relaxed again now, happy that she had things under control. ‘I needn’t have to add that his curfew stands. Ten o’clock, back at the Hall, or I begin to make some very awkward phone calls for both gentlemen here. You talk to no-one else, and draw as little attention to yourself as is humanly possible. Are we perfectly clear?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Henry, call Mr O’Halloran, would you? Get him to drive his Land Rover to the jetty, and bring the spare launch over. I think Lilith’s Jaguar should stay in the garage for this little trip.’ Blaine knelt at my side, carefully avoiding the widening pool of blood. ‘This – ’ she placed a perfect finger on my lips, ‘– stays shut, Finn. I will get to hear everything, and if you so much as think my name between now and ten o’clock tonight, there’ll be two girls in Dublin who’ll think that their God has truly deserted them.’

  She straightened up and turned to Lilith. ‘I’m trusting you to manage things; all those years of coping with family crises have probably made this seem like an absolute breeze, but I can’t emphasise how important discretion will be.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’ll let you get on with your mission of mercy then, seeing as I have quite a list of tasks of my own, thanks to Mr Garvey and his delightful bride-to-be.’ Which was Blaine’s way of saying that dear old Roycie could kiss goodbye to his beloved career.

  I should have been worried. Should have feared for the safety of my sisters; for Henry’s barely-there mother; even for my own continued existence. But all I could think was that I was about to travel beyond the prison walls of Albermarle, and it was all thanks to the woman I’d so recently hated with every last inch of my being.

  *****

  When Henry returned with clean clothes and a map, and to announce that Coyle was on his way, Lilith gave him a list of orders that she counted off on her fingers as she spoke. He looked scared rigid – right now, Lilith terrified him about as much as Blaine did – but the little nod he gave her suggested that the message got through.

  ‘Am I really going to die?’ I asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

  ‘What?’ Lilith frowned. It didn’t seem like too much of a complicated question to me.

  ‘What you said. To Blaine. About me dying.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sounded pretty convincing.’

  ‘That was the idea.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Lilith picked up a pair of my old jeans that Henry had cut off at the knee. ‘This is going to hurt like buggery. No pun intended. You want to bite on something while we try to make you decent for the journey?’

  Lilith

  Coyle reversed a decrepit green Land Rover down to the jetty in a cloud of smoke and flying pebbles. I could smell the burning engine oil, and I wondered what our chances were of actually getting off the estate, never mind making it to Castlerigg Hospital.

  ‘Might not be as glamorous as your motor, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t let that shit-stabbin’ piece of filth bleed to death over the seats.’ Coyle stepped out of the car. ‘Now, are you sure this isn’t a bit too big for you to manage?’

  ‘Go and fuck yourself,’ I spat.

  ‘Nah, thanks.’ Coyle shook his head. ‘Think I’ll wait ‘til you do that for me.’ He began to drag Finn from the launch into the front passenger seat, and feigned dropping him just as he reached the door. Finn gave a pitiful cry and Coyle laughed. ‘Oops. Now look what you’ve made me do.’

  ‘Do that again, and I’ll have you castrated.’

  Coyle’s smile disappeared. ‘Don’t be pushing
it now, you stuck-up little bitch. I reckon you’ve just used up every favour for this life and the next, getting our resident fuck-toy here off the island. You’re getting very close to having a wee chat with me about your disobedience, and then your fancy accent and your pile of drawings won’t count for shit.’

  I climbed into the driver’s seat and had to pull it as far forward as it would go before the tips of my toes touched the pedals. I kicked a pile of faded, dog-eared porn magazines clear of the clutch before I tentatively revved the engine, and the whole car shook and rattled like an ancient tractor.

  Coyle stuck his head through the open window. ‘Curfew – ten o’clock, whether the faggot’s dead or alive. If you’re a minute late, every last sanction on his list comes into play, and if there’s any time left I get to play with dear old Henry for a few hours.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Finn

  Lilith handled Coyle’s knackered old Land Rover like she’d been driving it all her life, and for the first few minutes of the journey it seemed that we would be at the hospital in no time at all. Then we joined the nearest thing to a main road for miles, and got stuck behind a caravan.

  ‘Fuckers!’ Lilith howled at the oblivious driver. ‘All bloody day to make this journey and you decide to make it now? And what the hell are you driving? A sodding pedal-car?’

  Cocooned in a duvet and light-headed from leaving most of my blood on the dungeon floor I could almost find it funny at first, but as soon as Lilith had found space to overtake we found another almost identical caravan blocking the route.

  ‘Damn it. Bank holiday.’ Lilith thumped the steering wheel.

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘It’s the bloody August Bank Holiday, isn’t it? Every sodding caravan in northern England’s going to be on the road between us and the hospital, and each one towed by some geriatric old fart who took his test in nineteen-bloody-thirty-two and refuses to go faster than twenty miles per hour.’

  She overtook the next trailer as she raged, and we missed the oncoming motorbike by what appeared to be the depth of a layer of paint. ‘Twat!’ Lilith yelled as the bike’s wheels threw up clouds of dust from its emergency swerve to the kerb.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Sorry – I’ll try to keep it a little steadier.’

  ‘No worries. Wasn’t you – Coyle, dropping me ... jarred a bit.’

  Lilith frowned. ‘You okay? I mean, in the whole, ‘just got stabbed’ context.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine. Just try not to kill any coffin-dodgers, huh?’ I used my elbows to try and manoeuvre into a comfortable position. The old t-shirt that Henry had dug out for me stuck wetly to my stomach, and I hoped to God it was just sweat.

  The trees disappeared first. Well, not so much disappeared, but kind of merged with the sky and the road. It wasn’t an unpleasant sight, but try as I might, I couldn’t get them back into focus. Even with one eye shut, they stubbornly remained a big pastel blur. I wondered if it was worth mentioning to Lilith, but she was pretty preoccupied with the whole driving business, and speaking was now a little too complicated for me to manage. I shut my other eye, and let myself begin to float.

  ‘Finn? Finn Strachan, you fucker! Bloody well stay awake, you bastard!’ Lilith hollered in my ear. It seemed a little aggressive, considering I’d only just drifted off, but I grudgingly forced myself to look at her. She had the same cotton-wool quality as the clouds, and now the whole sensation didn’t seem half so pleasant.

  Lilith

  A set of temporary traffic lights gave me the first opportunity to stop. Something was badly wrong. I leaned over and pulled the duvet aside, and saw the cherry-red stain that had spread across Finn’s t-shirt since we had started the journey. I recalled Coyle’s stunt as he moved Finn into the Land Rover, and realised that it had done far more damage than I had first thought.

  ‘You know, sometimes stoicism is a very overrated virtue.’

  Finn gave me a drunken look of puzzlement. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I rested my forehead on the grimy steering wheel and for the first time since I’d started my rescue mission, began to fear for its success. I had naively thought that getting Finn off the island was the end of the problems, but in reality it was only the start. I guessed I still had some twenty miles to go before I reached the hospital, and the way things were going, it was going to take us until curfew to cover the next few yards.

  Just before the lights changed, I saw the only break I was likely to get that day. Two hundred yards ahead, sunlight flared off the reflective stripe of a police patrol car, hiding in a nest of hawthorn and cow parsley. Before I had time to analyse the risk, I placed a hand on Finn’s shoulder. ‘Hold on,’ I warned him. The lights turned to green and I ground the stubborn gear lever into first and floored the accelerator.

  We were already doing sixty by the time we streaked past the incredulous officer at the wheel of the BMW. Within seconds, the cab of the Land Rover was flooded with dancing blue light and I pulled into the verge. I jammed a frayed and filthy baseball cap on my head before I wound down the window. I could only hope I’d managed to bag myself a good one.

  ‘Eager to get pole position are we, miss?’ A ruddy-faced officer in his early fifties peered into the car, ready to deliver a stern telling off in a broad Yorkshire accent. Then he caught sight of Finn, slumped in a widening puddle of his own blood, and his complexion turned a whole shade lighter. ‘Oh, hell fire...’

  ‘I think we need your help, officer,’ I said, as calmly as I could manage.

  The man’s stern facade evaporated, to be replaced with such a look of genuine concern that I could have kissed him. This was the Good One I had wished for.

  ‘Right, let’s just take it easy for a minute, shall we, Miss...?’

  ‘Masterson. Lili Masterson.’ I held my breath, waiting for the challenge, but none came. My transformation back from Lilith Bresson was complete.

  ‘Okay, Lili love. I’m Sergeant Eddie Newton. Call me Ed, why don’t you? Now, I’m just going to have a look at this fella of yours, see if there’s anything I can do. What happened to him?’

  ‘He was stabbed. Stomach and right leg. Behind his knee. About - God, I don’t know – four, five hours ago?’ I explained, rattling out the words. I saw the frown, and quickly added, ‘I only found him two hours ago. I’ve been trying to get him to Castlerigg ever since.’

  ‘What, the private place?’

  ‘Closest.’

  ‘Good idea. But it’s the bloomin’ bank holiday, isn’t it? Roads are full of numpties on their once-a-year run out. You’ll be having a right bugger of a job to get anywhere today.’ Sergeant Call-me-Ed walked around the car to open the passenger door. He had a lumbering stride that made him resemble a particularly friendly bear. ‘Now then, son. Let’s just see how you’re doing, shall we?’ He gave Finn’s shoulder a soft, encouraging pat.

  Even in his twilight world, Finn flinched away at the contact.

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. He’s going to help us,’ I assured him. To my relief he settled again as the officer checked his pulse and looked into his unfocused eyes.

  Ed finished his inspection and carefully folded the duvet back over Finn. ‘Well, someone’s done a nice job on you, haven’t they?’ He straightened up and winced as he was bitten by arthritis in his knees. ‘And us standing here nattering about it like a couple of old biddies is doing you no good at all.’

  He carefully shut the car door and came to stand with me. ‘Right, Lili pet, here’s what we’re going to do. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go manhandling the lad any more than he needs, so I’m just going to nip to my car and fetch a foil blanket so we can wrap him up like a Christmas turkey, then I’ll drive ahead with the blues and twos going and make sure you get a clear run to the hospital. How does that sound?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ll just radio through and let the chaps at Castlerigg nick know what I’m up to while I’m at it...’ He began to ambl
e back to his patrol car.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I whispered. For all that folksy, easy-going approach, Eddie Newton wasn’t a fool. The warmth was undoubtedly genuine, but his manner would have been honed by years of calming irate, violent customers. Some speeding, wild-eyed young woman with a stabbing victim wasn’t going to be a secret he could keep to himself, and Blaine’s ‘special’ friendship with his Chief Inspector loomed wraith-like in my mind.

  As if he’d heard my thoughts, Ed stopped halfway to the BMW and smiled at me. ‘It’s all right. I’ll give ‘em just enough info to keep ‘em happy as to why their champion butty-eating desk-sergeant’s suddenly turned into Special Branch, but I’m sure everything else can be sorted between us once we’ve got the young ‘un where he needs to be, eh?’

  Three months of Blaine Albermarle’s random cruelty had made me wary, and I paused, unsure of how he wanted me to react.

  ‘Trust me, love. It’s pretty ruddy obvious you didn’t do it, and the look on your face, I reckon something’s scaring the... well, let’s just say it’s shaken you up pretty badly, eh? Got a boy about his age, myself – our Damon. I’d kick the arse of anyone who laid a finger on him.’

  As soon as he said that, I would have followed the man blindfolded.

  Ed returned to the Land Rover and wrapped the foil insulating sheet around Finn as gently as if he were tucking a baby into its cot. ‘There we are, lad. Not long now.’ He looked at me across the bonnet. ‘Right, Lili – keep close. Don’t be worrying about red lights and the like, and just follow me. You reckon you can keep up in that crate?’

  I mustered a smile. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  *****

  I slewed the Land Rover to a screeching handbrake stop in a cloud of white smoke, jamming it across two spaces in the hospital’s pick-up point and ignoring the frantic horn-blaring and gesturing of a man in a Mondeo, coming to collect his hobbling wife.

  ‘They have those bloody lines painted for a reason, you know!’ the driver yelled out of his window.