Chameleon

leave here and…'

Jamieson tried to assimilate what he was hearing but the rising spate of anguish within him was threatening to block out everything else. The postman was taking an age to deliver his directions but Jamieson knew it would do no good to shout at him.

‘… and it's the third opening. You can't miss it.'

The tyres screeched on the road as Jamieson turned the car without the nicety of a three point manoeuvre. A dustbin was sent tumbling as the front of the car bounced up on to the pavement and hit it a glancing blow. An on- coming car blew its horn long and loud as he pulled out in front of it but Jamieson ignored it as he did the angry gesture from its driver.

The needle of the speedometer was touching fifty as he screamed up the outside of a long trail of traffic in third gear but then was forced to cut in again when the blazing headlights of a petrol tanker coming towards him assured him that its driver was not going to give way.

'Bloody lunatic!' yelled the tanker driver from his window as he drew level. Jamieson ignored him. He could only think of Sue and what she must be going through.

'For Christ's sake, move!' hissed Jamieson through gritted teeth as he saw the traffic lights ahead change to green but with no apparent response from the head of the queue. 'Do you need a personal fucking invitation?' He craned his neck impatiently to see what the hold-up was and caught a glimpse of the 'L' plates on the roof of the car. 'Jesus Christ!' he swore loudly and slapped his hand down hard on the wheel. He rubbed his forehead hard with the heel of his right hand in an unconscious gesture of annoyance with himself. 'For God's sake get a grip,' he muttered.

In the moments when blind anger did not obscure his vision to anything other than Sue's plight Jamieson began to wonder why the man had telephoned him at all. Why should a sex attacker phone the husband? To gloat perhaps? But if that was the case, did not that infer that HE was the man's real target and not Sue? Someone wanted so badly to get at him that they would do something like this? Who would do such a thing and why?

As the traffic again slowed to a halt it now occurred to Jamieson for the first time that the call might conceivably have been some kind of awful hoax. He had not checked to see if Sue had gone from the residency. Maybe she was sitting there at this very moment wondering where he was. But if that were the case, why should the man give him an address to go to? Could this be some kind of trick to lure him personally into something? This line of reasoning suddenly took a back seat as Jamieson again considered that Sue could be lying bruised and beaten in this lock-up place, alone and terrified. A surge of anger came over Jamieson again as the traffic started to move and he engaged first gear.

He turned left at the junction after Halford's Cycle shop. This was the last of the postman's directions that he could remember. He pulled in to the side and asked a woman pushing a trolley with her shopping basket on it for directions to West Side Mews. The woman shied away from him as he approached. 'It's all right! I only want to ask the way to West Side Mews,' Jamieson assured her but the woman was not listening. A strange man had accosted her in the street and in this city at the present time: that was enough. She was off.

Jamieson looked for someone else to ask. A teenage boy was coming along the road on a bicycle that was several sizes too large for him. He was standing on the pedals, moving up and down like a fairground horse. Jamieson shouted to him as he drew level. 'Where's West Side Mews son?'

'Along there on the left Mister. After the yellow painted shop.'

Jamieson turned left into the lane. The yellow painted shop was a sub post office. There was a telephone booth outside it and it was empty. It would only take a moment to check out the hoax theory. Jamieson called the hospital. There was no reply from his room. He asked for Clive Evans' extension and the call was answered at the first ring.

'Have you seen Sue? Is she in the residency?'

'No she isn't. I bumped into her earlier this morning. She said she was going into town to do some shopping. I don't think she's back yet.'

'Sweet Jesus,' muttered Jamieson.

'Is something the matter?'

'Sue's been hurt. I want you to get an ambulance and the police to West Side Mews.' Jamieson gave Evans the number and checked that he had taken it down correctly. 'It's urgent!' Jamieson put down the phone and cut off the question that Evans was about to ask. He left the phone booth and decided to leave the car where it was. He ran round the corner on foot and into West Side Mews. Lock-up number seven was the last one in the line.

Jamieson stopped in the middle of the road and stared at the white painted number seven above the garage door. There was no one else in the lane and it was very quiet. He could hear the sound of his own breathing as he began to walk slowly towards the door. There was a window above the garage. Jamieson guessed that it was some kind of loft store room judging by the junk he could see through the dirty glass. Just below the window he caught sight of the infra red beam device. It comprised a black, plastic box with a small tube protruding from it at an angle. Jamieson stared at it and wondered. There was nothing unusual about garage door opening devices these days but you could use beam triggers for a range of other things. Maybe he was being paranoid but explosions featured among them. He avoided crossing the path of the beam and tried the small door at the side of the garage. It was locked.

There was still no sign of life anywhere and no sound came from inside any of the lock-ups. The awful thought that Sue might be dead was born inside Jamieson's head as he stared at the featureless door in front of him. He took a step back and threw himself at it. The door did not give but the splintering sound gave him encouragement. He put his shoulder to the door another two times and it flew back against the wall with a crash.

Silence returned as Jamieson took his first tentative step inside. He was in a narrow corridor that led to a flight of steps leading up to the loft above the garage. Just in front of the steps was a door leading off to the left. It had to lead into the lock-up. Jamieson turned the handle slowly and it opened. It was pitch black inside. He felt along the wall for the light switch and pressed it.

Sue's terror filled eyes were like saucers above the gag that kept her silent. Jamieson rushed towards her. All he could think of was that he had found her and that she was still alive. Why had the bastard tied her up in the way he had? Why had he tied her hair to the ceiling? He was searching in his trouser pocket for a penknife to cut away the gag from Sue's mouth when he heard the police cars turn into the mews outside.

Jamieson smiled reassurance at Sue but saw that there was something awfully wrong. Her eyes were not registering relief; they were showing absolute terror. Her eyes rolled up to the top of her skull and Jamieson looked at the wall above her head. Her hair was not tied to the ceiling it was tied to… 'Jesus Christ!' yelled Jamieson as the truth dawned on him and the first police car crossed the path of the infra red beam outside. The door motor whirred into life and Sue's head was jerked hard against the wall. 'No!' he cried, springing to his feet and throwing his arm into the pulley mechanism. Pain exploded inside his head as the flesh of his forearm was drawn into the moving gears and then he blacked out momentarily as the bone jammed hard against the steel pivot and the whole mechanism seized to a halt. Smoke started to rise from the motor and a burning smell filled the garage before the main fuse blew and the lights went out.

Jamieson came round to discover Clive Evans and two policemen trying to free him.

'We'll have to get the Fire Brigade,' said one of the policemen.

'We can do it if you bring that hydraulic jack over here,' said Clive Evans with quiet authority.

'Sue…' murmured Jamieson. 'Where's Sue?'

'Your wife is all right sir,' said one of the policemen gently. 'She passed out but she's all right.'

The other policeman wheeled the garage trolley jack across the floor as, in the distance, they heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.

Clive Evans gave instructions for the jack's positioning and then asked the policeman to start pumping the handle. The steel bar trapping Jamieson's arm was prised slowly away from the pulley wheel and Evans released Jamieson's arm. There were sighs of relief as Jamieson brought his arm down in front of him and they could assess the damage.

'The bone isn't broken,' said Evans but the flesh is a bit of a mess. You are going to have some scars to remember.'

Jamieson ignored his wounded arm, holding it across his stomach as he went to kneel by Sue whose head was being cradled by one of the other policemen. He could see that that her hair and scalp were undamaged. 'Oh