‘None of that, Vince!’ snarled Fleur, pulling the skirt back down.
For a moment this display of female sympathy brought a flicker of hope to Gina, but it was snuffed out immediately as Fleur Delay continued, ‘We’ll do her kneecaps if we have to, but let’s give her a foretaste.’
She kicked her square-toed shoe violently against the woman’s left knee.
Her scream echoed around the little quarry.
‘Bad?’ said Fleur. ‘Imagine what it’s going to feel like when he blows it to pieces. Come on, dearie. What do you owe that lousy bastard anyway? He dumped you, he walked away, the only reason you got anywhere near him was us, and you want him dead so’s you can marry your other copper. Don’t be a stupid bitch all your life. Talk!’
She drew back her foot in preparation for another kick.
‘Please, no!’ cried Gina, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her gaze flickered desperately around the quarry as if in search of some impossible escape route, then her eyes focused on her captors.
‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know,’ she gabbled. ‘I’ll do anything you want…anything!’
She was looking up at Vince now. Her hands went down to her skirt and she dragged it even higher than he’d pushed it with the gun barrel. Then she slipped her thumbs inside the waist of her panties and began to ease them down. As her bush started to come into view, as vigorous and blonde as the hair on her head, a broad grin stretched Vince’s lips.
What the hell’s she doing this for? Fleur asked herself. Not only was it out of character, but even if she let Vince fuck her, she must know that, once he was done, the questioning was going to resume. So why…?
The answer was obvious. So obvious that on top form she’d have got there seconds earlier.
Distraction!
She turned in time to see a figure coming towards them at a dead run. In his hand was a jagged stone.
She had time to scream, ‘Vince!’ before the man’s shoulder hit her and flung her aside. Vince turned, the shotgun came up, Alex Wolfe swung his right arm and brought the stone crashing against the side of her brother’s head.
His legs folded, his arms flung wide, the gun sailed through the air, he collapsed on to his knees then fell slowly forward till his head rested against the ground in a grotesque parody of a Muslim at prayer.
Wolfe dropped the stone and knelt beside Gina.
‘You all right?’ he said.
She fought to control the sobs that were suddenly fountaining up through her chest and gasped, ‘Fine…oh Christ…I thought I was going to die…’
The sobs won and she leaned against him, crying uncontrollably.
He said, ‘It’s OK, I’m here, it’s OK. I saw them as I drove away. I thought, I know those faces…I couldn’t be sure, but I turned round anyway…things are going to be fine…you’re safe now…’
As he threw words at her to calm her down, his thoughts were racing in furious counterpoint. Seven years ago his life had disintegrated and he had fled into a saving darkness. He had emerged to find that, somehow, with only the most shadowy awareness of how it had happened, he had created a new life, patterned on the old, but with promise of greater durability.
He had checked out that old life and, though he did not doubt that his actions had left scars, he had been able to convince himself that he would do more damage by re-entering it than by staying out of it.
And then by one act of stupidity, by a joy-fuelled desire to give thanks, to pour a libation, he had put everything at risk. In that first life, the gods had destroyed him. In this second life, he had come close to destroying himself.
But it was still possible to restore the balance. Gidman was a pragmatist. Once he understood there was more danger in pursuing his prey than leaving it alone, he would call off his hunters. All he had to do was get that message to him, and he knew just the man to act as messenger. But first of all he had to make sure the Delays got the message too, and with Vince still in his devout oriental position, he’d made a pretty good start with that.
Then Gina screamed, ‘Alex!’ and he shifted his gaze and his heartbeat stuttered in fear as he found himself looking at a creature like an escapee from Dr Who with a high polished skull and black staring eyes in a face perfectly white except for the twin rivulets of red streaming from its nostrils.
It took a moment to recognize this as the woman he’d bowled over, dislodging her wig; and another to register that she was holding her brother’s shotgun.
He stood up and stepped away from Gina, partly to keep her out of the firing line, and partly to offer a moving target, though at this range and with this weapon, it wasn’t going to be easy to miss.
He said, ‘Fleur, Miss Delay, there’s no need for this. Ring Goldie, it’s all being taken care of…’ but even as he spoke he knew that yet again he’d let the chance of happiness slip through his fingers and not all the honeyed songs of Orpheus would be enough to soothe this wild beast.
18.57-19.22
Hendrix was singing ‘Castles Made of Sand’, but at the sight of this new visitor, Goldie Gidman did not hesitate to switch him off.
‘Mick! Good to see you. It’s been a long time. You’re looking well. Sit down, have a cigar.’
‘No thanks, Goldie. Gave up a long time ago.’
Purdy looked at the man seated in a deep leather swivel chair set in front of the huge TV screen. He hadn’t seen him in the flesh for some time. Not a lot had changed. A few more pounds on his belly, a crisping of frost on his tight-curled hair, but he still created the same impression of controlled menace.
‘Fell for the health propaganda, huh?’ said Gidman with a laugh. ‘Flo’s got me dieting, but I won’t give up my smokes. It’s all bull, Mick. You ever notice it’s always the good shit that’s bad for you? Them bible-punchers got this government by the short and curlies. Iran thinks it’s a religious state, they should come here!’
‘That going to figure in the next Tory manifesto, Goldie?’
Gidman laughed again and said, ‘Now how’d I know about that? Politics I leave to the boy. Sorry he couldn’t be around to make your better acquaintance, Mick. Heard you got off on the wrong foot at that committee thing. He’s had to take off with Flo down to Broadstairs. Her sister’s taken bad. Flo’s real worried. Me, I hope the cow snuffs it. Never did take to Flo marrying a nigger. Came round a bit when I got rich and respectable, but I got a long memory.’
‘Everyone’s got long memories since they invented computers, Goldie. I can remember when you had some very bad habits. I shouldn’t like to think you’re falling back into them.’
‘Sure you won’t have a cigar? You won’t mind if I do? This is the only room in the house Flo let’s me smoke in, can you believe that? She got smoke alarms fitted everywhere else so’s the fire brigade will come running the minute I light up. Even got a specially sensitive one over our bed in case I should even dream of daring to smoke in there when she ain’t around.’
He carefully snipped off the end of a cigar and went on, ‘But I know how to turn it off, Mick. That’s the secret to enjoying life, Not having no problems, nobody can manage that; but knowing how to turn them off, that’s the trick. Wouldn’t you agree, Mick?’
He put the cigar in his mouth. Slingsby, who’d followed Purdy into the room and taken up his stance by the door, came forward with a book of matches, struck one and moved it gently under the cigar’s end.
‘Never use a lighter, Mick,’ said Gidman between puffs. ‘You want a gentle flame for fine tobacco. Too sharp a flame and you start a bad reaction. Just enough and you get that slow, relaxing burn. There we go. Thank you, Sling.’
’I’m here to talk about Gina,’ said Purdy.
‘Gina? We’re talking Lollobrigida here?’
‘Don’t fuck about, Goldie. What the hell are you playing at?’
Gidman drew on his cigar and let out a long sigh of smoky satisfaction.
‘Not sure what you’re getting at, Mick.’
‘I’m getting at you faking a photo to get Gina shooting off to Yorkshire looking for her missing husband. And don’t give me that old-fashioned bewildered look. I know your pet pair of psychos are up there looking too. And I
