Chapter 19
Santa Pola, Spain, August 1999
Doolan lay back on the sun lounger feeling the fierce Spanish sun roasting his skin and watching the large terracotta wall thermometer telling him that it was thirty-eight degrees in the shade. He didn't understand the Celsius scale but he knew it was bloody hot. He watched Caroline at the other end of the big balcony reading a book beneath the shade of a large umbrella, her body clad only in the skimpy bikini she had bought yesterday in the street market. He applied another layer of sun blocker to his face. Something was going to happen today he was sure of it. For the first time since they had arrived Mother had left the apartment and been gone for several hours.
From the airport Mother had insisted that they take separate taxis to their destination in Santa Pola del Este. She obviously knew where she was going while Doolan and Caroline, who spoke no Spanish, only had the address written down on a piece of paper. The taxi driver didn't live in Santa Pola and had consequently had some difficulty finding the right apartment block. By the time they had found it both they and the taxi driver were more than a little stressed.
After the taxi had eventually disgorged them onto the pavement they found that the even numbers were on the right side of the blocks and the odd on the left. The number of their apartment was nine and the blocks were five stories high so it was with some resignation that Doolan had picked up both suitcases and started up the long flight of steps running up the side of the building. By the time they were halfway up he was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. On reaching the top of the steps he went through the open front door and across the hallway, where dropping the suitcases in the middle of the long lounge/diner he collapsed onto a settee. Mother had appeared from what was obviously one of the bedrooms dressed in a light cotton sundress and looking for all the world like a sixteen-year-old girl. Only the grey hair spoiled the illusion. Caroline had gone on ahead through the lounge out onto the big balcony and was gasping with delight at the view.
The apartments did not go straight up, but were layered back in steps against the hillside into which they were built. Caroline had come back inside and pulled him out of his seat to look at the view and he had reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged back out into the mid-morning heat, but it was magnificent. To the right you could see all along the coast and across the bay almost to what was Torrevieja. Down below them to the immediate right was the main town of Santa Pola, with its fishing fleet tied up in neat rows and its yacht harbour filled with at least two hundred different small pleasure craft. While immediately in front of them was the island of Tabarca, in silhouette against the morning sun and looking like a giant battleship moored out in the bay.
They had unpacked and after Doolan had drunk one of the cold beers from the refrigerator and had a shower, he'd felt human again. Since then the days had consisted of going down to the local shop in the mornings to buy the makings of a picnic lunch and then spending the rest of the day on one of the small artificial beaches built all along the coastline of Santa Pola del Este. In the evenings they had gone out to one of the local restaurants to eat, returning to the apartment at about eleven to find that Mother had discreetly gone to bed. That was the bit Wayne hated. Caroline would take her nightly shot and boosted by the drug would want to make love. It was hard enough in that he had never really fancied her in the first place, but knowing that sooner or later Mother was going to kill her made his task almost impossible. Half of him hoped she would do it quickly and get it over with while the other half shrank from the thought and couple of times his erection had just failed him leaving Caroline sulking and making snide remarks about men who drink too much wine.
This morning while Caroline was in the shower he had tried to find out how much longer he was expected to keep this up, literally and figuratively, but Mother had only given him the angelic smile and told him that he should be enjoying his holiday, not worrying about horrid details. All would be taken care of. She had playfully patted his cheek as she said this and was then he realised that she was enjoying it all and suddenly became more than a little afraid of her. Caroline's voice broke into his thoughts.
"Its a shame we couldn't go to the beach today, darling, but if I take anymore sun I will start peeling."
Doolan had told her that the holiday was to give her some time to get herself back together and to say thank you for her past endeavours. Caroline had pretended to accept this. She was acting as if they were young loves dream and that nothing had ever been wrong between them. More importantly she had accepted that Mother was only there to look after them. She had taken every morning to handing Mother those of her clothes that required laundering and then been effusive with her thanks when she returned from the beach to find them folded neatly on their bed. Mother just gave her the smile and reminded her to put on plenty of sun cream so that she didn't burn her lovely skin. He decided he had enough sun for one morning and getting up went and stood in the shade of Caroline's parasol while he looked down at the sea.
A taxi had just pulled up in the road below and he saw the unmistakable figure of Mother emerge and bend to pay the driver. She looked up and seeing him gave a cheery little wave. He shuddered. Mother was beginning to frighten him more than Terry Beck could ever do. It was the surface old lady sweetness covering the underlying evil that really threw him. He wondered if she was one of those people he had read about, people who could commit any evil act without compunction and then at once forget about it and go and make a fuss of their dog. He went to open the door for her. When she came in she was carrying a small paper bag with the legend Farmacia Muñoz printed on it. His Spanish was almost non-existent, but he knew that a Farmacia was a chemist and wondered if things were coming to a head. He was about to ask when Caroline came in from the balcony.
"Hello, Mother. Are you not feeling so good?"
She indicated the bag in her hand.
"I'm all right dear, but I have this condition that comes on now and then. I have just been to a local doctor to get something to get something for it."
She smiled at Caroline and turned to go to her room. As she did so she caught Doolan's eye and gave a slow, theatrical wink.
He felt his heart start to pound and immediately wished to be as far away as possible. To do the thing himself would have been difficult, but waiting for Mother to act, was destroying his nerves. Twice he had been on the verge of calling the whole thing off, but had been terrified that to do so would put him in the frame alongside the girl. Mother's voice from the bedroom brought him back to his senses.
"If one of you young things would put the kettle on I will make us all a nice cup of tea."
Mother was a confirmed tea drinker and was supported in this by Caroline. On the first day he had held out for a beer, but after a ten minute lecture on how a hot drink could be more refreshing in the heat than a cold one he had given in and since then had drunk his mid-morning tea like a good boy. Mother said so. He filled the electric kettle and switched it on. Mother appeared beside him.
"Thank you Wayne", no one called him Graham anymore and it was as if the last year or so had been a long dream. "You go and relax and I will bring it over when it’s ready."
He obeyed and went to join Caroline in the shaded coolness of the lounge.
Ten minutes later Mother emerged from the small kitchenette with a tea tray and the regulation plate of biscuits.
"I think the Spaniards miss so much by not having the right biscuits to go with a nice cup of tea, don't you, Caroline?" She continued before Caroline could give any reply to the question. "Its probably why they have never become big tea drinkers. All the tea in the local shops is Chinese you see. Very scented for English tastes. That's why I always bring my own tea and biscuits with me."
Doolan, who's attention had wandered away to whatever Mother could have bought at the chemists that could prove lethal, came back to the present with a bump.
"Always bring my own tea and biscuits? How many times has she been here to Spain on
this kind of job?"
He would have to ask her. He drank the rest of his tea and put the cup down. Mother was in the act of refilling Caroline's cup. She raised her eyebrows to Doolan in enquiry, but he felt that one cup was quite enough to show willing. He sat back in the settee and gazed at the ceiling. For some reason the pattern of the ceiling tiles had suddenly become extremely interesting. He had never realised before that the pattern actually moved in time to the pulse in his head. He heard a crash and knew from what he could see from the corner of his eye, that it was Caroline, falling face downwards across the coffee table and breaking all the china. With an enormous effort of will he made his head turn to the right some fifteen degrees and lowered his eyes from the ceiling, so that he could see what was happening. It seemed to take him about five minutes and he was having the greatest difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
Mother was stood next to the coffee table lifting one of Caroline's eyelids with a thumb. All that could be seen was the white of her eye and he knew that she was unconscious or dead. In fact the whole room now seemed to be filling with whiteness as the colour faded from every object. He gripped the arms of his chair and grinding his teeth tried to force himself to his feet, but someone had put a great weight on his shoulders and it was too difficult to stand. Mother turned now to him and putting her hand on his shoulder gently pushed. He collapsed back into the chair. The whiteness began to fade and he felt darkness begin to close in on him. Mother bent down and stroked his face, her eyes like enormous blue lagoons. She smiled her angelic smile and suddenly he knew that he too was going to die. Somewhere inside his head he heard himself start screaming as the darkness crept in to take him and then he was still.
Now in the room all that could be heard was the sound of a car going by on the road below. Mother picked up the broken china and tea set and put it all into a plastic bin liner. She wiped up the spilt tea from the floor with a tea towel and that too; she put in the bin liner. Then she went to her room and returned a few minutes later with her handbag. Picking up the bin liner in her free hand she left the apartment, stopping only to fasten the double locks, and went down the seventy-two steps to the street below. There she put the bin liner into the communal dustbin where it would get collected that same night, before proceeding to walk slowly along the road into town, where she knew that in a few hundred metres she would find a public telephone.
The pain in his head was agonising and his throat felt as if had been filled with iron splinters several days ago and was sore and metallic tasting. He tried to swallow, but he couldn't raise enough saliva to make that possible. All was in total darkness and he felt that such an absence of light must mean that he was locked away in some dream somewhere. Then he realised that his eyelids were stuck together with dried mucus and with a supreme effort of will he managed to force them open. After a few minutes he remembered where he was supposed to be and he could make out the faint outline of a window, but it was not in the right place to be in his and Caroline's bedroom. He struggled to sit up, but his limbs refused to move or obey him and the pain in his head became jagged lightning. He tried to feel himself to see what was wrong, but he couldn't seem to find his hands. He concentrated on trying to move and feel his fingers and wondered how he had got this drunk, considering he rarely touched the stuff. He concentrated. He could now feel the fingers of one hand moving like a trapped spider against the back of the other hand, but his feet and legs he could not feel at all. He moved the fingers against the wrist again. It almost felt as if his wrists were tied together. He experienced sudden, violent, terrifying, screaming and claustrophobic fear. He knew where he was. He knew who had tied him up. He knew who had applied the tape he could now feel across his mouth. He knew who was going to kill him. Mother!
He sobbed. How could he have ever thought of her as a sweet old lady when it was so obvious she was a bloody psychopath? How could he have been stupid enough not to at least consider that they might get rid of him as well as Caroline, so that no one could tell stories? The bastards had used him to lure Caroline away knowing they were going to kill him as well.
He stopped as a thought struck him. Why was he still alive? What was going on? He turned his face very slowly towards the window so that the loose lead weights inside his head would not crash from one side to the other. The light coming through the gaps in the curtains was not natural. It was the ghastly orange of the sodium street lighting so it must be at least ten thirty in the evening, but which evening?
He listened. The hum of the refrigerator could be heard and the noise of passing traffic from the street five floors below. Music could also be heard, but it was faint and from some distance away. He considered. Was Caroline already dead or was she in the same position he was in? Come to that, what was his position and how come he wasn't already dead? Were they waiting for some help to get him down all those steps so they could take him out to sea and drown him, or were they just going to leave him here to die slowly and alone in the dark? What the bloody hell was going to happen to him? He began to feel an extraordinary feeling of pity for himself and his predicament. A depth of feeling he never knew he was capable of. What about all his money and what about that promise of a new identity and a new life? Shit! He had only made one little mistake. It seemed very hard that he was going to die for it. Tears squeezed from his eyes.
The noise of a key turning in a lock made him shiver as a strip of light appeared along the bottom of what had to be the door. He froze. Voices could be heard but only as a murmur. One seemed to be Mother's, but the other was a male voice he didn't know. It certainly wasn't Terry Beck's. The door swung open and the light from the other room cut across his eyes with the agonising effect of a laser beam. He turned his head to try and avoid it despite the pain the sudden movement caused him and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He heard Mother's laugh.
"Don't be shy, Wayne. This man has come all the way from England just to say a few words to you."
Doolan carefully opened his eyes a crack and saw an outline against the lit doorway. The light did not hurt as much this time. The man moved forward and sat down on the other bed, removing the white Fedora hat he was wearing. He stared down at him for several minutes without speech and although Doolan could not yet clearly make out the man’s face, but he knew that the expression on it was not one of compassion. The man switched on the small bedside lamp and despite the sudden pain it caused, Doolan could gradually make out his features for the first time as his eyes began to adjust to the light. He was well dressed, about the middle sixties; grey haired and his features were vaguely familiar. The man bent forward and ripped the plaster from Doolan's mouth with one savage tug. His eyes were cold.
"So you are the pig's arse who has involved my daughter in this business."
The voice was English public school, but with a veneer of some other accent. French perhaps? The swear words seemed strangely at odds with the cultured voice.
"Well answer me my little man, answer me"
Doolan swallowed and after several false starts managed to croak out an answer through the drug-dried throat.
"I don't know who your daughter is. I've never seen you in my life before."
The man nodded.
"True, you have never seen me before, but you do know her all the same and you are going to suffer for what you did to her. You broke the rules my friend when you recruited a non addict as a carrier and you have caused me much grief because of that mistake." He bared his teeth in an imitation of a smile. "Because of that I wanted to tell you personally what is in store for you."
Doolan struggled desperately, his voice pleading.
"Look, I don't even know what I am supposed to have done, can't we talk about ....."
"Shut up."
The words were whispered, but came at him like a knife.
"Shut up you little pile of pig shit and listen to what I have to say to you. They will be some of the last words you will ever hear."
He gave the ghastly smile
again.
"About ten minutes after I have left here, Mother will give you a massive overdose of Heroin"
He tapped Doolan's arm just above the elbow and he realised that it felt stiff and sore.
"She has already given you about half a dozen injections of water while you have been unconscious, to make it look as if you have a habit."
He indicated the doorway.
"Then you will be placed in the main bedroom with that other piece of flotsam and eventually, in about ten days or so when the smell gets really noticeable, someone will call the local police and another tragic drugs accident will be entered on the files, both here and in England."
He gave a little wave of his hand and showed his teeth in the rictus of a smile.
"Goodbye then."
He stood up and turned to Mother, Doolan now dismissed, forgotten, irrelevant.
"I'm going now. Terry is taking me to the airport, but he should be back here in about half an hour or so to help you to arrange them nice and artistically."
He stooped and kissed Mother on the cheek and left the room. They heard the front door close and Mother came over and sat where the man had been sitting. Doolan was still in shock, staring at the door though which the other had disappeared. He blinked several times.
"Who was that?"
Mother gave a sad version of the smile.
"Think about what he said to you dear, about his daughter and what you did to her. His little Angel."
"Angel? You mean that was Angel's father? That was Henri Parsouel, but he's a millionaire?"
The implication was that millionaires didn't do this sort of thing. Then he swallowed as realisation hit him. His eyes closed and his head slumped forward.
"Oh my god! He's the fucking boss, isn't he? I got the boss's daughter arrested and attention drawn to him, didn't I?"
He felt tears of self-pity and hopelessness spring to his eyes. He turned his face to Mother and pleaded.
"How was I to know? I didn't get her into Cocaine; she was already on it when I met her. She asked me for a job for Christ's sake. I didn't even have to recruit her."
His voice grew hysterical.
"Call him back so that I can explain, Mother. For gods sake call him back. I don't want to die over a mistake."
He broke down into sobbing tears while Mother sat and stroked his head, smiling her sad, angelic smile. After a while she stood up and looked down at him, still smiling.
"Time for your medicine, you naughty boy."
She left the room and going to the refrigerator in the kitchen, took out a small serving dish with two syringes in it before returning to the bedroom. She put the dish down on the other bed and picked up the first syringe, keeping up the conversation like some dear old district nurse about to give him an anti-tetanus jab.
"This one is just to quieten you down before I have to stick the other one in your vein. We don't want you struggling now do we? Never find the vein that way."
She was humming to herself as she held the syringe professionally up to the light to make sure all the air had been expelled and then replaced it in the dish.
"Tell me something," he was snatching at straws, anything to put off the terrible moment, "If I'm going to die can you send my money to Davey Cropp in the Seychelles."
Her amusement was genuine. She put the syringe back in the dish and turned to face him.
"Seychelles?" The laughter pealed out like a young girls. "You mean seashells I think dear, because that's where our Davey has gone. Down with the seashells"
Then, before he realised she had done it, she slapped another piece of plaster across his mouth and picked up the syringe again. She lifted her hand to wipe the tears of amusement from her eyes while bending at the same time to administer the injection to his buttock.
His lashed together feet shot out in a desperate attempt to prevent her reaching him, his bare heel catching her just behind the ear as she instinctively turned away to avoid the blow. The force of it sent her across the foot of the other bed and slamming into the corner formed by the built in wardrobe, the syringe flying from her hand and skidding across the tiled floor. She slid slowly down the side of the wardrobe and onto her back with her eyes closed, looking for the entire world like a badly injured child.
He struggled to sit up on the bed. His head was spinning and throbbing, but he forced himself to ignore it. Mother looked dead, but he could not be sure. He knew Terry Beck would be arriving within the hour and he now realised who had carried him from the lounge to the bedroom. His arms were still tied tightly behind his back at the wrist and elbow and until he could free them they were useless to him. He managed to get to his feet and began to hop around the bed and past Mother, towards the open door. There had to be something in the kitchen that he could use to cut his bonds. He had almost reached the door when the dizziness from whatever Mother had put in his tea hours earlier, caused him to lose his balance and only by crashing into the wall with his shoulder he kept on his feet. Pain shot through his arm and his head started to spin faster. He gulped in several deep breaths in an effort to steady himself, the plaster over his mouth and his panic, making normal breathing all but impossible.
Someone touched his foot. He looked down and saw that it was Mother. Her eyes were open and she was feeling around trying to make out where she was. Her gaze landed on his face and he saw recognition and understanding come into her eyes. She put her hands back and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. The smile came back to the beautiful, evil face and for the first time in his life he knew the real meaning of terror. They looked at each other. She sitting on the floor smiling up at him in his bonds and he leaning against the wall with his right shoulder, head bowed from his efforts and his chest heaving as he fought to get enough air into his lungs through his nostrils. She started to gather her left leg beneath her in order to get to her feet without losing her smile or showing any change of expression, looking around to see where the syringe had gone.
It was that smile that finally galvanised him into action. With a sob he dropped to his knees beside her and throwing himself forwards, head butted her squarely over the left eye. She again flew backwards, her head once more cracking against the wall before again sliding down onto her back. He threw himself forward and sideways on top of her, his bare feet scrabbling on the smooth ceramic tiles for purchase as the strength of fear and desperation drove him on. He used his bound feet to push himself backwards up her body while her hands clawed at him, her nails leaving long red scratches on his face and ears as they searched for his eyes. He shook his shoulders, breaking her grip, and with a grunt of relief and triumph dropped his elbow across her throat and let his full weight rest on it, laying half on his back on top of her while pinning her down to the floor, his eyes squeezed tight to avoid her raking nails. She struggled furiously for a while, but her slight build and the blows she had already received prevented her from pushing him off. He had her head wedged in the corner made by the wall and the wardrobe so she could not wriggle away from him and for what seemed like a hundred years he kept the pressure on, while her hands scrabbled at his face and the back of his neck and then gradually stilled. He waited for what seemed like another hour and then cautiously removed his elbow and risked a look.
The smile was gone never to return. The blue eyes still looked up at him from above the wide-open mouth, but they were now staring, empty and devoid of any life. The perfect white dentures having become dislodged by her protruding tongue during her frantic efforts to gain air, sat crookedly half out of her mouth. She looked more than ever like a doll, one that had been broken and discarded. He rolled from her body onto his face and sobbed his heart out from relief and nervous reaction. Then exhaustion and the drug she had given him took hold of him once more and he drifted into semi-consciousness. Twenty-five minutes passed before he recovered little and remembered Terry Beck. Then once more panic set in and the accompanying surge of adrenaline enabled him to climb to his feet and make
his unsteady way to the kitchen.
Laying on his back and using his toes, with some difficulty he opened a kitchen drawer and found what he was looking for, a sharp, six-inch vegetable knife. With his back to the drawer and working only by touch, he removed it and dropped it to the floor and then sat down with his back against the fridge door. The bonds around his elbows had loosened in his fight with Mother and now hung limply from his arms, but the tape as securely bound his wrists as ever. In the narrow kitchen, it was no more than a kitchenette really; he was able to push his feet against the opposite wall. He then lifted his bottom off the floor and with a struggle, finally managed to bring his bound hands under his backside and up under his knees. He wriggled his way over to the knife and held it between his heels on the floor with the cutting edge upwards. Five minutes later he was free and had removed the plaster from his mouth. He sucked the hot night air gratefully into his lungs as his sweat soaked limbs trembled with the efforts he had been making.
He allowed himself two minutes to regain a little strength before he climbed to his feet and gratefully drank directly from the tap. Feeling slightly better he crossed the lounge to the bedroom he'd shared with Caroline and looked in. She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed and looked almost peaceful. He crossed to the bed and felt for a pulse, but could find none. It was strange, but since he had almost shared her death, he now felt sorry for her. Then ignoring her once more he turned and went to the wardrobe, hurriedly taking out his suitcase, throwing all his clothes into it in a bundle. He gathered up the passport from the dressing table hoping that no one would question why Mr. Gerald Banks was not taking his wife back with him when they had arrived together on a shared passport. He went through Mother and Caroline's handbags and took out any money he found, it came to just under forty thousand pesetas or one hundred and fifty pounds. Enough to get him back to England. There was no sign of the Graham king passport that Mother had supposed to be holding for him and he guessed it had already been altered for some one else. He got out of the shorts and tee shirt he had been wearing when it all started and dressing in light trousers, safari shirt and his lightweight shoes and was ready to leave. As he was about to close the door behind him there were footsteps on the steps below and looking down, he saw to his horror that Terry Beck was on his way up. He ducked back into the apartment and looked around desperately for a weapon. The only thing available was a thick, glass, flower vase.
The apartment was constructed so that you entered from the rear of the building. Once in the hall the kitchen was on the immediate left with the bathroom opposite on the right while the hall led directly into the lounge and then onto the terrace. He left the suitcase in the lounge where it could be seen from the door and switching off the hall light slipped into the unlit bathroom. He listened to Beck's footsteps come up past the window to the front door and pause. He had seen the suitcase.
"All ready to go then, Mother?"
His footsteps came in and he passed the bathroom without hesitation.
"I said are you ready then?" His voice had taken on a puzzled note.
Doolan stepped out from behind the door and swung the vase across the back of his head just above the ear. It gave a dull thud and then the weight of the vase carried it on through out of his sweating fingers and it smashed into fragments against the wall, causing him a moment’s panic that he was now without a weapon. He need not have worried. Beck gave what sounded like a cross between a grunt and a sigh and pitched forward onto his face. Doolan went over and copying what he had seen Mother do to Caroline, rolled back an eyelid, unconscious or dead. He felt for and found a pulse. The bastard was still alive then. Going into the bedrooms he returned with several pairs of tights with which he proceeded to tie Beck securely, using an extra pair that connected his bound hands and ankles together behind him. It was neglecting that precaution that had killed Mother. He then struggled to lift him and lay him on his side on the settee before closing the front door. He drew the curtains and switched off all the lights in the flat except for one small table lamp. Collecting a cold beer from the fridge and the knife he had used to free himself, he sat and waited.
Ten minutes went by before Beck began to stir, but Doolan was no longer in any hurry. At these first signs of life he walked around behind the settee and poured a little cold beer onto Beck's lips. He shook his head and groaning, opened his eyes and tried to move, looking puzzled when his bonds prevented this. He realised that there was someone else in the room and swivelled his head to look up at Doolan. Recognition and hatred flared simultaneously.
"Where's Mother? If you've hurt her you bastard I'll break you into little pieces. Where is she?"
He struggled furiously against his bonds. Doolan smiled grimly down at him and then went back around to the front of the settee and drew up a chair to sit on.
"Hello, Terry. Surprise!"
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
"Mother is where she cannot do any harm".
This was true to all intents and purposes, as Doolan had come to believe that the whole world was a safer place since Mother's demise.
"What have you done with her, you bastard?"
Doolan produced the knife and casually made a small nick on the side of Beck's neck. He smiled at him.
"Don't threaten me, sunshine". He deliberately used one of Beck's pet phrases. "You aren't in a position to do so."
Terry Beck looked into Doolan's eyes and realised that he was with a changed and infinitely more dangerous person than the one he had known previously.
Doolan continued to talk to him in a conversational tone.
"Listen, Terry, I want to know all about the system, so I'm going to ask the questions and you are going to supply the answers, but first I'll tell you what I already know so we don't have a lot of unnecessary repetition. OK sunshine?"
"Get stuffed."
Doolan drove the point of the knife half an inch through the tight trousers into the genital area and was rewarded with a scream of pain and fear. He wiped the knife on the others trousers and taking hold of the tight blonde curls on the others head, twisted it until he was looking him straight in the eyes.
"You may remember a little conversation we had the first time we met when you asked me about a certain incident in Prison. All about cutting a man with a Stanley Knife, remember?"
Beck just glared at him.
"Well you think about what happened to him and he only wanted to screw me. You set a seventy year old psychopath to send me out of this world for good, so don't think I won't hurt you a little if you are anything less than fully co-operative. Savvy?"
He used the other hand to once more stab at the genital area, causing Beck to convulse so violently that he would have fallen from the settee if Doolan had not been holding him by the hair. Beck sobbed in pain and rage.
"You bastard! They will get you know. You can't run away from this lot like you did the Liverpool CID. Not this lot."
Doolan smiled and thought it was time to give Beck a bit of a shock.
"Yes, I know. I am sure that Henri Parsouel has a lot of influence in a lot of places, but you see, Terry, he believes that I am dead by now and I reckon that will give me a head start. In the meantime you are going to answer the questions and if I think you are telling me the truth I will leave you here, tied up of course, when I go. Some one is bound to come and find you sooner or later when Caroline begins to stink. Less than ten days I think Henri said."
He gave a mirthless smile.
"You do have a choice of course. You can refuse to answer and I can give you the injection that was meant for me."
Beck's brain power may have been limited, but it was sufficiently recovered enough from the blow to work out that if he didn't arrive back in England in two days or so the alarm would be raised and they would come looking for him.
"OK, I'll do it if you tell me what happened to Mother and where she is."
"Agreed, but only after you answer my questions."
"Is Henri Parsouel the head of the Organisation in England?"
A nod
"What happened to Davey Cropp?"
Beck turned his head away, but Doolan once more took a grip on his hair and turned it back.
"Answer me you fucker or so help me I'll cut your throat right here and now."
The knife stabbed towards the testicles. Beck squirmed and screamed.
"He's dead."
Doolan was saddened. Mother had told the truth. His voice took on a dangerous edge.
"Who killed him?"
There was no answer from the other man and he twisted the hair violently and held the point of the knife touching an eyeball. Beck tried to squirm away, but couldn't. His voice rose half an octave in his panic.
"No, not my eyes. I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Mother did it."
Doolan released him, flinging him back onto the settee.
"Tell me about it, Terry."
Beck was now sobbing quietly now, the bully turned victim, but the prick of the knife against the side of his neck caused him to stifle them. His chin dropped against his chest and his voice became almost a mumble.
"Mother did at the guest house. She killed all of them there. That's what the top floor flat is for."
His head came up as he found a fresh well of courage and defiance for a few moments.
"You don't really think that we let you tossers float off around the world after two years with a quarter of a million quid in your pockets do you? How long do you think we would last before some Pratt shot his mouth off, or got in trouble with the filth and used the information to keep himself out of jail? Fucking grow up, Wayne."
Doolan hid his shock, a special room for killing people? He felt himself start to tremble. What sort of an outfit was he dealing with here that just killed people if they became inconvenient? How many had died in that room? Just the thought that he had lived in it for a few days brought the hair on his neck up. He asked the question.
"How many, Terry? How many people have you got rid of like that?"
Beck shrugged as if being asked something he had never expected to have to remember in any great detail. He shook his head.
"I don't know. Fifteen or so."
This time Doolan could not hide the shock. His voice rose.
"Fifteen? Mother has killed fifteen people?"
Beck nodded
"More or less."
"More or less! More or fucking less! Who the hell was she, Terry and why in Gods name is she called Mother, for Christ sakes?"
There was only silence. He held the knife against the eyeball again, but Beck just shut his eyes and held himself rigid, waiting for the thrust that would take half his sight away. Then for Doolan the penny dropped.
"She's your Mother isn't she, Terry? She's your Mother and your Henri Parsouel's bastard son. That's why you survive while the rest of us get retired to an early grave, isn't it?"
The eyes opened again and looked at him. The voice was plaintive like that of a lost child.
"Where is she? Where is Mother?"
Terry's defiance had run out in the face of a situation that was new to him. He looked like a small boy who has got lost in a strange place and Doolan wondered why he had never made the connection before. He thought about Davey Cropp and all the others who had died because they had not made the connection and he let the knife drift down from Beck's eyeball and onto his chest, while he thought of the terror the sweet old lady's victims must have felt as they realised their last moments had arrived. He thought about his own terror of the last hour or so and how close he had come to death at the hands of these two and the anger built up inside like an intense blue light until his body felt as cold as ice. He looked down at Terry Beck.
"Terry."
The blue eyes looked up at him without really seeing him.
"Would you like to see Mother now?"
"Yes." It was whispered.
He took the knife in both hands and placing it slightly to the left hand side of Beck's chest, used his full weight to push it home between the ribs and into the heart. It went in surprisingly easily, the only reaction being that Beck's eyes opened a little wider and his breath came out with a little gasp before his body relaxed into death. There was very little blood. Doolan left the knife in the body and picking up his suitcase left the apartment, closing the door behind him. He started down the long flight of steps for the last time.
Cocaine Page 20
