many of the punters in this pub are people you do business with. Do we really want to make a song and dance out of this?’
Blenkinsop’s face had gone grey and sickly as melted snow. His lips had visibly dried. ‘I … I need to see your identification again.’
Heck showed his warrant card.
‘And hers.’ Blenkinsop nodded at Lauren, belatedly thinking it odd that one of these cops should be a young girl in a vest and running suit.
‘Everything alright, folks?’ Andreas the barman asked, leaning over the counter.
‘Everything’s fine!’ Lauren snapped. ‘Back off.’
Heck flashed his warrant card, and Andreas hastily retreated.
‘Listen, you piece of shit,’ Lauren hissed, crushing herself against Blenkinsop’s body. ‘Don’t fuck us around. We know exactly the sort of people you’ve been keeping company with and it’s all I can do not to waste you on the fucking spot. Now you walk out of this pub right now, or I’ll blow your fucking guts out.’
Hardly able to believe what was happening, Blenkinsop glanced down and saw that she’d drawn a firearm. She was doing her best to conceal it with her rolled-up running top, but its steel barrel was pressed hard against his stomach.
Heck added: ‘Believe it or not, Mr Blenkinsop, this is for your own protection.’
Unable to do anything else, Blenkinsop allowed them to hustle him from the bar. When he reached down for his bag, Lauren slapped his hand. She picked it up herself, but once they were outside, tossed it into a bin. The bustle of the street suddenly felt ominous. Everywhere they looked the pavements thronged. Log-jammed traffic honked and shunted. The attack, if there was going to be one, could come from anywhere at any time.
‘Do you have some wheels near here, Mr Blenkinsop?’ Heck asked.
‘Look, whoever you people are …’
‘I’ve told you who we are.’
‘I’m sure this is a terrible misunderstanding …’
‘I said do you have some wheels?’
‘Don’t you have some yourself?’
‘Answer the frigging question!’ Lauren snarled.
He nodded, swallowed. ‘My Jaguar’s in the company car park. It’s just down that passage over there.’
‘Take us,’ Heck said. ‘Quickly.’
‘Try anything cute and you’ll be dead before you hit the ground,’ Lauren added.
They threaded their way through the traffic, and walked down the side-alley to the multi-storey car park. The pedestrian door stood alongside the main entrance, in which a uniformed security man was standing smoking a cigarette.
‘Just keep walking,’ Heck advised. ‘Don’t try and signal to anyone — you’ll be getting them in the worst trouble of their lives.’
‘Morning Mr Blenkinsop, Sir,’ the security man said.
‘Morning Ted,’ Blenkinsop replied as they passed.
‘Fancy QPR’s chances this season, Sir?’
‘Oh yes, no question.’
Inside the pedestrian entrance, they jumped into an elevator and closed it behind them. Lauren kept the gun concealed as there’d almost certainly be a camera, but jabbed Blenkinsop with it repeatedly, just to remind him.
‘It’s on Level Six,’ he said shakily.
Heck hit the button, and they ascended — only for the elevator to stop three levels short. Its door slid open. Two parallel rows of parking bays, all empty, stretched about fifty yards in front of them. The only illumination came from electric lighting. This gave a stark glare to the concrete pillars and slick, oily floor. The level appeared to be deserted. On a stanchion opposite, a red number ‘3’ had been stencilled. Heck stabbed the button hard, feeling distinctly uneasy. The only reason why they could have stopped at Three when he’d requested Six was that someone on Three had called them first. Yet now there was nobody there.
The next time, they stopped on Six. Again, two parallel rows of parking bays stretched away. The lighting up here was dimmer. Heck saw why: though the bulbs were housed in metal cages, quite a few — each alternating one in fact — had been broken. Scatterings of recently smashed glass strewed the floor. Was that normal? he wondered. Wouldn’t a firm like Goldstein amp; Hoff keep things in good working order? Or had the lights been broken recently? Dim shadows now lurked behind every pillar.
‘That’s my car down there.’ Blenkinsop pointed thirty yards ahead to where a lone vehicle, a black Jaguar, occupied one of the bays.
‘Okay,’ Heck said, ushering him forward.
They advanced in a tight group.
‘Who are you supposed to be protecting me against?’ Blenkinsop asked.
‘You’re genuinely telling us you don’t know?’ Heck replied.
‘Yes … and I might say you’ve got a strange way of doing it. Would you please take that wretched gun out of my …’
‘Shit!’ Lauren halted sharply.
They all halted sharply.
The Jaguar’s four tyres had been cut, slashed repeatedly — until they were nothing but shredded rubber and severed ply-cord.
‘Shit,’ she said again. ‘They’re already here.’
Chapter 38
Ian Blenkinsop’s demeanour had gone through several transformations since they’d taken him from Mad Jack’s. Initially of course he’d been frightened and bewildered. Then, as it had dawned on him that this was something he’d half-expected to happen, he’d become less bewildered and much more frightened. As they’d ascended into the car park, and Heck and Lauren had still refrained from using violence against him, he’d become less frightened and more affronted, almost bolshy. But now that he’d seen what had been done to his forty- thousand-pound car, he was terrified.
‘Surely the security people would have seen that someone was in the car park?’ he stammered as they hurried him down the emergency exit steps.
Heck had opted to use this stairwell rather than the elevator. It was only a precaution, maybe an unnecessary one — he didn’t know if it was possible to sabotage a modern elevator, but he knew that he didn’t want to find out.
‘Just keep going,’ he said, urging Blenkinsop down.
Lauren had pocketed the Glock, as they no longer needed it to convince the errant banker that he’d be safer in their company than out of it. But she was ready to grab it at a moment’s notice.
‘Wait!’ Heck held a hand up.
They stopped, sweating. Heck could have sworn he’d heard the patter of feet somewhere above, perhaps coming down the stairs after them. But now there was nothing. Almost certainly it had been an echo.
‘Okay, keep going.’
They continued to descend, passing the fourth level, and the third. Again there were no windows in this part of the building, and when they reached the second level, the last two flights of stairs had had their lights broken. They halted, teetering on the brink, peering down into menacing blackness.
‘This way.’ Heck steered Blenkinsop through the fire door into the car park proper.
From here, they made it down to the ground floor by the vehicle ramps. The security man who’d been smoking in the entrance was no longer there. Nor was there any sign of him through the portal to his office.
‘If we can locate Ted Chadwick,’ Blenkinsop muttered, ‘he can probably help us.’
‘Ted Chadwick will be helping himself into an early grave,’ Heck replied. ‘Just follow me.’
