‘Where did you learn it?’
‘Excellent: engage with your persecutor, humour him and it might go easier on you. Respond only, and remain solely in the position of the subjected. You are very clever. The same environment as yourself.’
He’d said he’d had a similar upbringing.
‘You’ve taken it to extremes.’
‘The goal is the same, Lucille: pressure applied to extract that which is not volunteered. Psychological persuasion, one might say. A technique which I have also studied. In your case for sexual favours?’
‘Given against my will.’
‘Of course. Which some blatantly demanded, while others used cunning – those of the “don’t tell” fraternity. Puzzling. Since no one would believe you, and since they saw to it that you never could tell, the dictum was thus rendered academic.’
‘And in yours?’
He didn’t answer. Since he’d brought it up, I took it that he’d undergone ‘psychological persuasion’. Mental torture, I would call it. We’d both been abused as children, a topic I’d rather not go into. You do your best to live through it, that’s all. I do not blame the Church. God did not abuse me – those who abused the position He had given them did.
‘Your instinct for survival has not deserted you, Lucille.’
‘Sometimes instinct is all you have to go on.’
‘And yours is telling you to …?’
‘I’ll answer your questions for another length of timber.’ The rats were scaring the life out of me. ‘In case you should go out and be delayed.’
‘I shall try not to be. Go on.’
‘I think the laptop belongs to a man called Ted Lyle. Gemma worked for him.’
‘Her pimp?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was blackmailing her clients?’
‘I don’t know that for sure.’
‘Yet if, as you say, you told no one of Clonkeelin, then how did Lyle know where to go to retrieve his computer? It’s gone from your car.’
‘I didn’t tell him. I don’t even know Ted Lyle – only by sight.’
‘Nor I. Yet. I shall pay him a call.’ The door opened. ‘Your payment.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Anon.’
I now had two pieces of timber.
I waited for an hour or so until I was sure I couldn’t hear him walking around on the floor above me then took the only chance I could see of getting out of there.
The walls of the cell were modern concrete block, but on the other side of the door the masonry was much older. No daylight came from any direction into the corridor. I had to be in a cellar. The house had to have two. If the ceiling above me was plaster, joist and floorboards, maybe I could just find a way out.
I put the claw of the hammer onto the edge of the first piece of replacement timber and hit it with the second one until it split then broke the split length into pieces. Using three of the four nails, I nailed them to the second one and made treads to make a kind of ladder.
The crate was to the left of the door, which meant that when Picasso opened the door, the crate was behind it. I took the risk that he wouldn’t see that piece of ceiling to the side almost above his head. If he looked up, my plan wouldn’t work.
I put my home-made ladder at an angle on the top of the crate, climbed up to the ceiling and began scoring a square in its plaster. It would take time.
The problem was the rats. If they ate their way through, I’d have only one nail to shore off the crate. It wouldn’t be enough.
RED DOCK
The following morning I was back watching Picasso’s place, though it was well into the evening by the time he drove away in his Transit. Time to go up and have a look.
His front door had a lock on it like something you’d see in a dungeon. I couldn’t pick it. Cylinders and modern mortises are about my limit. His back one had a cylinder. And it wasn’t his only line of defence. A monster was roaming the downstairs, a cross between a big dog and an even bigger big dog. Huge slobbery mouth on it too. Didn’t fancy it. It had jaws that’d bite clean through your wrist.
Now as you well know, the best way to deal with a dog is to put your boot up its arse. But not when its arse is as high off the ground as your own. I’ve used a device the makers call ‘Scare Away’, though I don’t carry it with me. It’s about the size of a car battery and gives out a sonic pitch only dogs can hear. Makes them act like they’re hearing terrible news and back off. It works only on nine out of ten dogs though. This one might’ve been the tenth.
I used it on an old woman once. She lived next door to a bank job I was setting up. We needed her kitchen wall for the purposes of gaining entry. And, in keeping with my no-fuss methods, she had to be out of the house. Fortunately her husband had just dropped dead and she was all alone with their faithful Kerry Blue Terrier. So I installed the ‘Scare Away’ treatment in their bedroom. The dog wouldn’t enter it. She thought it was her hubby’s spirit. Dogs being able to see spirits that we can’t. Because only the dog could hear it, it kept her awake night and day howling. She had to go and stay with her daughter for rest and recuperation. And came back and found a big hole in her wall. Of course, you’re probably saying to yourself: why didn’t he just hit her over the head with something? I would have, but I wanted to try out my experiment.
Another way to fend off dogs of course is to use a warden’s loop or maybe a dart gun or a shield – one that looks like a big upside-down cheese grater. They lunge at you and cut their paws to bits on it. Handy if you like
