Maybe he thought it might obscure the fact that he’d been crying – enough to be worth the pain it clearly caused him to move his head so abruptly. Nobody who looked at those red-rimmed eyes could make any mistake about that, but I didn’t think it kind to say so.
When we emerged to the others’ scrutiny, Sean’s question was gently put. As though he was only too aware of the pain it was going to cause to go over the events again, now Gleet knew that Tess was dead.
It was strange. In the past I’d watched Sean kill without compunction, without a hint of hesitation or regret. And yet here he was, behaving with such compassion towards a man he barely knew.
“I followed you all down to Mondello this morning,” Gleet said, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed and shuffling back against the headboard, hunching his shoulders so his elbow didn’t bump against the woodwork. “I met up with Tess down in the car park last night and she told me the plan.”
I looked at him in surprise. “That was Tess?” I said. “I knew someone had been down there with you but I didn’t think she could get up the stairs so fast in those heels.”
Even as I said it I realised there wasn’t any mystery. She’d just taken them off to scamper up the smooth concrete steps and across the polished lobby floor, and put them back on to walk back into the bar. Not exactly a difficult trick.
Paxo shot me a dark look, like I was side-tracking Gleet unnecessarily, and waved him on with some impatience.
“Seeing as I knew what was going on, I just hung around near the main gate at the track and waited for the pair of them to leave, like. Only I thought I’d got more time so I went for a bit of a wander. I thought the bunch of you would all be in with the advanced mob and you’d send Gnasher – Jamie – out with the intermediates.”
That flat grey gaze swept over Sean and me, cutting the others out. “He must have been spittin’ feathers when you two decided to drop down a group and force him in with the novices, but they needed you out of the way so Jamie could slip out with Tess, like,” he went on. “They shoulda been there and back inside twenty minutes and you’d never have been any the wiser, see?”
“Yes,” Sean said, ominous, “we do see.”
Gleet paused a moment as though the long speech had tired him. His skin had that waxy pale tinge and he’d started to sweat. He had his right hand tucked under his left forearm and was gripping it tightly, as though he could squeeze the pain away. From this angle it was pretty clear that his elbow joint was smashed and, from the scars, it probably wasn’t the first time.
“So,” Gleet went on, labouring a little now with the distraction, “I was in the wrong place. I was watchin’ the action from in the stands when I saw his bike leavin’. Took me a little while to get back to the Suzi and set off after ‘em, like. By the time I got to the petrol station, it was too late. They’d already gone.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else?” Sean asked.
Gleet started to shake his head and stopped, wincing. “No, nobody. Nobody except all the lads who were fillin’ their bikes up for the track. I stuck my head into the bog, but there didn’t seem to be nobody there, neither. I thought I must have missed ‘em on the road, but I knew I hadn’t.”
Sean and I exchanged a quick look. Had Gleet seen the dead courier? It would seem not. He had no reason to lie if he had.
“So, what then?” he prompted instead.
“Well, I shot back here and cruised round the car park a coupla times, but I couldn’t spot that little four hundred of Jamie’s anywhere, so I was just about to hightail it back to Mondello – feeling a right plonker if you must know – when the lift doors opened and there he was,” Gleet said, eyes focused inwards, remembering. “He was struggling like a bastard, I’ll say that for him, but two of ‘em had a hold of him and they knew what they were about – bouncer types.” His gaze snapped back, skimmed over Sean and took in the size and the way of him, recognising something of what he was.
“Struggling?” Daz said, frowning. “But we thought Jamie was the one who—” He broke off abruptly as Gleet’s head swung in his direction.
“Who what? Who did for Tess, you mean? No way,” Gleet said, stony. “Not the way he was fightin’ and yellin’, like. Whatever they’d done, he didn’t look like he wanted to be any part of it.” And he went quiet because now, unlike then, he knew exactly what it was that Jamie had not wanted to be a part of.
“So why were they taking him at all?” I wondered. “And where?”
Gleet forgot himself long enough to attempt a shrug, then had to pause to catch his breath. He’d begun to rock a little, almost unconsciously, in self-comfort.
“Search me,” he said at last. “But he didn’t want to go, that’s for sure.”
“So, what did they do with him, these men?” Sean asked, repeating my question.
“They had a big white van near the exit,” Gleet said. “Merc of some kind, I think. They started trying to bundle him into the back of it, but he didn’t want to go. Eventually, one of them pulled out one of those extending night-sticks and thwacked him one.”
Sean’s eyes flicked to mine again.
“They hit him?” Paxo said, sounding puzzled. “But we thought he must have been in it with them.”
“No way,” Gleet said. “I saw them hit him and it wasn’t no friendly tap, neither. He went down like a sack of spuds.”
“And what happened to you?”
“I hopped off the bike and waded in, like,” Gleet said, rueful. “Should have waited until they put that damned stick away first, though. Took one on my arm, first whack, then got lamped round the back of the head and that was me out of it. Next thing I knew, you lot were standing over me.”
“We still don’t know why they were taking him – or where,” Sean said, almost to himself. He glanced at me. “If they were going to kill him, why bother to take him with them at all?”
