“Well, Terry did come round last Sunday with a computer he said he'd picked up from someone at the club as part of a debt,” I said uneasily, remembering he'd been supposed to be collecting the lap-top this weekend, but he hadn't been in touch.
“Hang on a minute – who’s Terry?” Jacob said, sitting down again.
“He’s the local mobile video man,” Clare put in promptly. “He comes round to the office every Friday. Or he usually does, but this week he didn’t show up.”
“And he gave you a computer as part of a debt?”
“No, no,” I explained. “He told me that someone at the club owed him money, and they’d given him a lap-top computer instead, but they’d password protected it, so Terry couldn’t use it.” I forked a chunk of meat into my mouth and savoured it as it dissolved on my tongue. If I believed all the scare stories that I was going to get mad cow disease from eating British beef, I reckoned it was probably worth it.
“So why did he come to you?” Clare asked. “You don’t even own a computer.”
“No,” I agreed, “but I have friends in low places. You remember Sam Pickering, with the Norton? He’s a bit of a whizz with the things and he managed to get round it, no problem. The only thing was, when we got into the machine, there didn’t seem to be anything on it, so I don’t know if it was one stolen recently from the club itself, or if it just happened to belong to somebody who worked there.”
“How did Sam get round the password?” Clare wanted to know, elbowing Beezer who was trying to sneak onto her lap to beg food from her plate.
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” Under the table, Bonneville decided I might be a softer touch and dumped her greying muzzle on my knee, sighing noisily. If she thought I was going to share Jacob’s cooking with her, she had another think coming.
“More to the point, what
“Bacchus,” I said, spelling it.
“Bacchus,” he repeated, almost to himself. “Hmm. Someone’s into Greek mythology with a twist.”
“You know what it means?” I asked, surprised. “My dictionary didn’t include it.”
“It’s the Latin name for Dionysus, who was the son of Zeus and the god of wine,” Jacob said promptly, raising his glass and grinning at me. “Your education is sadly lacking, Charlie.”
“That’s a bit obscure, isn’t it?” Clare demanded. “And anyway, apart from the wine bit, what’s the connection with the nightclub?”
Jacob held up a finger to silence our questions and left the table. After half a beat, both the dogs scrabbled after him. Bonneville cannoned off the door frame on the way out.
Jacob returned a few minutes later, carrying a book on Greek mythology. The dogs circled him expectantly. He sat down and pulled out a pair of delicate half-moon glasses. They should make him look like an old man, but they actually have a magnifying effect on his sex appeal.
“Ah, here we are. Bacchus. Also known as Bromius the Boisterous, which gives you some idea what he got up to in his spare time. Married Ariadne. He was also god of tillage, law-giving and intoxicating herbs like ivy and laurel. And,” he looked at me, “he was worshipped at Delphi.”
I felt a shiver ripple across my back.
“But Delphi isn’t the same as Adelphi,” Clare protested.
“True,” he allowed. “Adelphi isn’t mentioned by the ancient Greeks at all, but it would be an easy mistake to make.”
“Particularly,” I said slowly, meeting Jacob’s dark gaze, “if your education was sadly lacking.”
***
In the afternoon we had a ride up to the local bikers' meeting spot at Devil's Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale, stayed there until about three, then headed back towards Caton.
I was easily persuaded to stop off at Jacob and Clare's for another quick coffee, and we ended up slouched in the lounge watching the Superbike racing on Eurosport. It was past five o'clock and pitch dark outside by the time I dragged myself reluctantly away.
The lack of cloud cover meant the ground was crystallised with frost. I rode back into Lancaster very cautiously, taking corners strictly upright and feeding the brakes in gently. The Suzuki's pathetic headlight, even on high beam, would have made hurrying a reckless exercise, in any case.
Town was quiet as I stooged through and I was soon chaining the bike up outside the back of the flat. I pulled the cover over it and set the alarm, then ambled round to the front of the building.
I jogged up the wooden staircase without any thoughts of stealth, my bike boots clattering loudly on the treads. My mind was on nothing more than a bite of supper and trying to catch up on some of my lost sleep from the night before.
I was right up to the flat door before I noticed that it wasn't locked any more. Wasn't even shut, in fact. Before it dawned on my sluggish and outrageously slow brain that getting away from the place very quickly was possibly the best idea I'd had in a long time. Maybe I just wasn't having a logical day.
Of course, in that sort of situation the last thing you actually want to do is walk away. I was filled with anger that someone had broken in, gone poking through my things while I'd been away. Pawed all my belongings. I thought all too briefly of bringing in reinforcements, then pushed open my front door.
I only took a couple of steps inside the door of the flat when I froze. Almost literally. It was like an ice box in there. I realised I'd been so irritable when I'd left that morning, I'd forgotten to close the shutters to the balcony. Now the night air cast an arctic chill over the interior. Damn.
The second thing was the smell of cigarettes.
Not only do I not smoke, but I don't let anyone else who does do so in my flat. My heart lurched in my chest. I turned to flick the overhead lights on and that's when they jumped me.
Something very hard, moving very fast, landed with a sickening crunch just over my right ear. I remember starting to fall, but there the recollection ends.
By the time my floorboards had rushed up to meet me, I was out of it.
Eleven
My awareness returned slowly, and not without discomfort. It brought with it an irritating headache like pins and needles, as though from the release of a constricted limb.
I was still lying face down on the floor, presumably right where I'd fallen. There was an annoying tickle round my right eyebrow. It took me a moment before I vaguely registered it was probably blood. By the feel of the dull throbbing, there was a lump behind my ear the size of a closed fist.
I mentally retraced my steps. I remembered chaining the bike up, and walking up the stairs. Then what? Oh yeah, the busted lock and the smell of cigarettes.
I could smell them again now, stronger and fresher, if that's the right word to describe the sickly choking odour. Whoever had decided to lamp me over the head had obviously lit up shortly afterwards. A sort of debonair Neanderthal.
I could hear lowered voices, arguing somewhere in the middle distance. I struggled to orientate my thoughts. It all seemed unconnected with me, somehow. As bizarre as a dream.
Without opening my eyes I could tell that somebody had got round to completing my last manoeuvre and switched on the lights. No need for stealth now they'd got me right where they wanted me.
Footsteps approached, causing the floorboards to bounce under my cheekbone. I struggled not to wince at the vibration it set up through my head. I kept my eyes shut, trying to regulate my breathing so they didn't realise I was conscious.
“You shouldn't have hit her so fucking hard!” one voice said. It was harsh, raspy. I put him down as my smoker.
“Well he never told us it was a girl, did he?” complained a second voice, with a strong Liverpudlian accent. I hazily wondered if men's skulls were generally considered thicker than women's. “Charlie's a feller's name, for Christ's sake!”
“If you've killed her, the shit's really going to hit the fan after last time,” the smoker warned.
“Look, she's not dead, all right? Let's finish what we came for and get the fuck out of here,” the Scouser said.
