despite having visited every nook and cranny.
Gallagher looked cheated.
‘ What did you expect to find?’ Donaldson asked him. ‘He ain’t done nothin’ wrong, bud — unlike some people I could mention.’ He looked knowingly at Gallagher then gladly closed the front door behind him.
Donaldson returned to the lounge where the two exhausted daughters had crashed out on the settee and the two weary women, hollow-eyed, looked tiredly at him.
Kate had gone beyond crying.
‘ Is it true?’ she begged desperately. ‘Can Henry really have helped a murderer to escape? And rape? What does it mean?’
‘ You can take it from me that Henry has not raped anyone, nor has he helped a murderer to escape,’ Karl hissed quietly, one eye on the two girls. This was a conversation they didn’t need to overhear. ‘Henry’s as straight as an arrow; he’s just become involved with people who aren’t.’
‘ What do we do now, Karl?’ Karen asked.
‘ Wait,’ said Donaldson. ‘I’m sure he’ll contact us when he can. In the meantime, let’s have a cup of tea and get these little ladies back to their beds.’ He winked at Karen and gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen.
‘ They were after those statements as much as anything,’ Donaldson said quietly to her. ‘What did you do with ‘em, babe?’
‘ They’re down my knickers — almost. As soon as I heard them at the door I grabbed the paperwork and folded it down the front of my jeans.’
Donaldson’s face turned into a wide smile. ‘Now I know why I love you,’ he said. ‘Any chance of me removing them with my teeth?’
She punched him gently on the arm. ‘Every chance.’
Henry was wet and shivering again, the dryness of the car having been left behind ten minutes ago.
He and Rider were, once more, in dark shadow. This time they were fifty metres down the road from the front of Rider’s club, watching the last of the stragglers stagger away from the doors.
At last the place closed up and the lights went out.
The street was quiet. Nothing moved.
Ten minutes later the door opened again and the staff left en masse, a small posse of people probably on their way to a curry house.
The door closed.
‘ Jacko should be leaving soon, then we’ll have the place to ourselves.’
Ten more minutes.
No Jacko.
‘ I don’t like this.’
‘ Perhaps he’s robbing the till.’
Rider ignored the remark. ‘I didn’t see the bouncers, either. They usually leave with everyone else.’
He nudged Henry. Both of them trotted across the road and into a high-walled alley which ran down one side and the rear of the club. They stuck to the building line and at the point where the alley took a right-angled turn, Rider pressed Henry and himself into a doorway.
‘ Two minutes here, just in case,’ Rider whispered into Henry’s good ear.
The rain continued to fall, straight down, like thin steel rods. Unrelenting. Cold.
For Henry the wait was interminable. He needed to lie down. Here would do, but preferably in a hospital bed with lots of nurses fawning over him.
Rider tugged his sleeve.
They stepped out of the doorway and almost immediately there was a scuffling noise and a cough behind them. Rider flattened himself against the wall, dragging the slow-witted Henry with him.
A man walked down the alley, back-lit by street lights. He had that peculiar stagger which denotes someone pissed out of their heads who firmly believes himself to be sober.
The man paused unsteadily in mid-step, looking in their direction, peering towards them in the gloom. He was ten feet away. Henry could smell the beer and spirits on the man’s breath.
The man unzipped his flies, turned to face the wall. With both hands he directed his urination up and down the wall, making fancy patterns. He belched, broke wind, then vomited through the arc of piss. He spat the remnants of the Chinese meal out and finished his bodily function. He shook the drops off and slid the member away.
Henry’s stomach turned.
The man wiped his mouth on his sleeve, turned and wandered happily back out of the alley, muttering something.
They let him go before moving again.
Rider located the gate which led into the back yard of the club. It was locked.
‘ We’ll have to go over.’
‘ Fine, fine,’ acceded Henry.
‘ Give me a leg up,’ said Rider, seeing Henry did not seem able. ‘I’ll open the gate from the other side.’
Henry nodded. He intertwined his fingers, crouched low with his back to the wall, braced himself and hoped Rider hadn’t stepped into any dog muck.
Rider put his right foot into Henry’s hands, counted softly and on ‘Three!’ Henry heaved up, propelling Rider who got his left foot onto Henry’s shoulder and a moment later was lying astride the top of the wall. He shuffled his legs over and dropped into the yard.
Uncaringly, Henry wiped his hands down the sides of his trousers, dog shit or not.
The gate opened. Rider beckoned him through into the yard, which was not particularly big and was full of empty beer barrels and all the paraphernalia associated with the waste from licensed premises.
The back door to the club was a huge steel panel, riveted to the brickwork.
Henry studied it despairingly. ‘How the hell do we get in here? We’ll need bloody cutting gear.’
‘ We don’t — we get in up there.’ Rider pointed up to a window at first floor level. ‘We’ll stack up some barrels and climb up. It should open OK. This place is about as secure as Buckingham Palace.’
‘ I’m surprised you haven’t had it screwed.’
‘ We have. Security’s crap on the outside, but the bar area’s pretty tight.’ Together they manoeuvred two barrels on top of three others and Rider climbed cautiously onto the top one to find his head and shoulders more or less on a level with the window. He heaved at the window. Nothing gave. He tried to lap his fingers underneath the frame, which was rotten, and he started to ease it away. With great effort and persistence there was some movement. But the window remained firmly shut.
Using the initiative which seemed to have deserted his recent actions, Henry scoured the yard to find some kind of implement to assist.
More by luck than judgement he kicked against a rusty hand-trowel of the type used by builders. He handed it up to Rider who jammed it between window and frame and applied leverage.
With painful slowness the window moved. Eventually it was wide enough for him to get his fingertips in properly, and he completed the task with a loud, splintering crack, nearly overbalancing off the barrels at the same time.
Seconds later he was inside the club.
Henry followed, dropping down behind Rider into what was a long disused lavatory.
‘ Thank God for-’
‘ Shh!’ Rider warned him hoarsely. ‘You never know — cops could be at the bar, waiting for us to show. Let’s take it one step at a time.’
Chastened, Henry nodded silently. He followed Rider out of the toilet and into a dark corridor. With soft footfalls, they made their way along.
‘ What we can do,’ Rider whispered over his shoulder, ‘is get some sleep up here. We won’t be disturbed. Then tomorrow…’ His words drifted.
‘ Yeah, tomorrow,’ said Henry sourly.
