Henry cried out. Gunk stopped twisting.
‘ I… we didn’t go to the cops.’ It was difficult trying to speak with a gushing bloody nose. ‘Think I’m fucking daft or something? I had ten thousand bottles of stolen whisky on that lorry park. I’m not going to go waltzing up to the cops, am I?’
‘ You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ Thompson said.
‘ Only ‘cos it’s the truth. On my mother’s grave, I swear it. I have not been to the cops and nor has Eric. We don’t fucking intend doing so either, but in case they get hold of us, you’d better tell me what you want us to tell them. Help me get my story straight.’
Thompson nodded to Gunk, who released Henry’s ears. Henry dropped his head on to his chest and choked back a sob of fear. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘ Do we believe him?’ Thompson asked the room. There was no reply.
Thompson dropped his feet and leaned forwards, placing his chin on the desk, looking playfully across at Henry. ‘Benefit of the doubt, Frank. But make no mistake, we’ll be keeping a close eye on you until I’m one hundred per cent. If I find you have gone to the cops, you’re dead meat and so is your pal.’
They jumped into the first available taxi and Danny shouted her address to the driver. Then she and Rik fell greedily into each other’s arms on the back seat of the cab, kissing hard, both driven by lust. Danny could not wait to get Rik’s trousers off him, but for the sake of propriety in the cab, she limited herself to forcing her hand down the front of them and grabbing his pulsating penis. He, in turn, less than romantically, found his way straight up her skirt to the top of her tights and knickers, easing them down and sliding his hand between her legs, cupping her hot sex, inserting a finger which sent a wonderful shiver right up to her nipples.
They bailed out of the cab outside her house. She threw a tenner at the fortunate cab driver and waved him away. She immediately grabbed Rik where they stood at the bottom of her driveway.
Rik rained lascivious kisses all over Danny’s face and neck, whilst expertly dealing with the buttons on her blouse.
She teetered backwards as Rik’s mouth worked down to her fettered breasts. He popped one of the firm, milky-white mounds out of its constricting support mechanism. Danny almost shrieked with ecstasy as Rik’s burning mouth closed around a hard, erect, plum-coloured nipple.
‘ Come on, let’s go inside.’ She hoisted him towards the front door.
Within a moment her key had opened up. They stumbled into the dark hallway. Danny kicked the door shut with a heel and turned to Rik with an expression that said, ‘I am going to fuck your brains out, pal.’
She did not care that one of her lovely breasts was hanging out and that her tights had laddered. She was hungry for orgasms.
Once more they clashed, pitching uncontrollably down the hallway as things progressed.
Danny tore his jacket off, threw it to one side. He did the same with hers and whipped it away down the hall, then pulled her blouse out of her skirt waistband and finished unbuttoning it.
‘ God! Fucking clothes,’ she breathed.
‘ A pain, a real pain,’ he agreed, reaching behind her, unhooking the Marks amp; Spencer bra. She unfastened his shirt, ripped it out of his pants and removed it with his assistance. Now, both their top halves were naked. They embraced again, Danny revelling in the sensation of her breasts being crushed against Rik’s chest.
They lurched further down the hall, bouncing from wall to wall, kissing, fondling, moaning, until they twisted into the kitchen where Danny slammed him up against her new fridge. Still in darkness, no lights.
Here they separated and Danny’s eyes bore into Rik’s. So as to save time, she unhitched her skirt and shimmied it down her hips, at the same time removing her damaged tights, knickers and kicking off her shoes. She was naked in front of him.
She swallowed, moved towards him, her mouth working over his face, across his shoulders to his chest, smooth and hairless, muscled. She sank lower, tongue flickering over his stomach and she thought, Jesus, a real six-pack! And then she was kneeling in front of him, her face inches away from his groin, fingers fumbling with his belt, unbuckling it. Then his flies. She tugged his trousers down to his thighs, revealing white boxers with an unbelievably huge and hard penis outlined inside them.
Almost with dread, she took hold of the boxers and peeled them down, revealing a wonderful, glistening cock which she needed to devour.
‘ No! Fucking hell!’ Rik screamed and pushed Danny away from him, hitching his pants back up.
Danny fell backwards onto her arse, stunned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘ I can’t do this!’ he shrieked, searching frantically for his shirt. ‘No way.’
‘ Why, why, what have I done?’
‘ It’s too weird. God! This is where he did it, didn’t he? Jack Sands — blew his freakin’ head off in here and we’re going to… no chance, babe.’
He picked up his coat and shirt and ran down the hallway and out of the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
Danny closed her eyes.
She had forgotten, actually forgotten, about Jack Sands — for the night, at least… but it was quite obvious others had not. She sat up and rubbed her face, everything having drained out of her. The ghost of Jack Sands was alive and well and seemed to loom out of the fridge and sneer at her. She started to sob.
Chapter Eleven
Henry Christie surveyed himself in the mirror over the washbasin. What he saw could not be described as a pretty sight. Both sides of his head were red, tender and sore as a consequence of Gunk’s initial punches which had felled him. The bridge of his nose, which had been head-butted, was not broken, or so he believed, but the impact of the blow had blackened his left eye and given a certain amount of swelling to his right. Blood caked and crusted around his nostrils.
Henry stood upright and gingerly raised both arms. Blotchy purple and black bruises dotted the right side of his ribcage, each one a result of Gunk’s steel toe-capped shoes. Like his nose, Henry believed his ribs had escaped breakage.
He lowered his arms and looked down at his naked body. Carefully he wrapped his testicles up in the palm of his right hand and massaged them very gently. They were very sore indeed. He winced. The deep pain caused by Gunk’s knee was still lurking in his lower abdomen. He doubted his ability to be able to father children again. Not that he wanted to, but the necessary attributes to do so would have been nice. It was one of those ‘man’ things.
Behind him the bath was almost full of steaming hot water, frothing with bubbles. He bent down to switch the taps off. The act of bending sent a shockwave of agony through him. Four hours in bed since the hammering had only served to make him feel worse.
Before easing his troubled body into the bath, he swallowed another couple of aspirins, then sank slowly into the water, thinking back to what had happened.
Henry thanked the Almighty that Thompson and Gunk Elphick had only been blessed with a peanut for a brain between them. Had they had something more substantial between their ears, he knew that he would probably be floating face down in the ship canal now, brains blown out.
He had been given a good solid beating, been crudely interrogated and denied their allegations — so he must be innocent. Henry knew of some cops who worked along those lines: if someone doesn’t ‘cough’ a job under such circumstances, then how could they possibly have done it? That was the theory. Henry was fully aware that getting a prisoner to admit guilt was a far more subtle process than that. Quite often, physical violence was counter- productive. Good interview technique was far more effective, and neither Thompson nor Elphick had it. They simply relied on intimidation and a sound thrashing. Probably it usually worked. But he didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had to hold out because it was a matter of life and death for him. If he admitted talking to the cops as Frank Jagger, he would have been dead; if he had told them he was an undercover cop, he would have been dead. There was no way he could have admitted either.
