Shelter, page 16
A neat man, Raymond thought. A place for everything and everything in its place.
He went back out into the hallway and stood at the bottom of the stairs listening. Silence; as expected. All his research so far told him that Tanner was a bachelor and lived alone. But one could never be too careful. A girlfriend might have stayed over, and he moved through the house cautiously.
The bedroom door was open, the bed littered with discarded clothes. He walked past, stopping next outside a door he presumed to be the bathroom. He pressed his ear to the door. He could hear the spray from the shower hitting the tiles. He swore softly. Perhaps he’d been right about the girlfriend. He eased the handle down and opened the door a crack.
The room was filled with steam. It condensed on the mirror above the sink and on the large frosted-glass window set in one wall. He stepped quietly into the room. The shower curtain was pulled around the stall, but there didn’t seem to be any movement beyond it, not even the shadow of someone using the shower. Puzzled, he closed his fingers around the edge of the curtain and with one movement drew it back, making the curtain rings hiss on the rail.
Empty.
The water streamed out of the showerhead to splash uselessly on the pristine white tiles.
He heard a small cough behind him, and instantly realized his mistake. He really should have locked the front door behind him. He barely had time to turn before something hard and heavy crashed down on the back of his skull. His legs buckled as he lost consciousness and pitched forward into the shower stall.
A bee was buzzing around her head. Sleepily she waved it away. The caravan was in darkness and the bee continued to buzz. Gradually she came to, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her mobile phone rang persistently—not a bee at all. She yawned and stretched out her hand, picked up the phone, and switched it on. “Yes?”
“Ah, the wanderer returns,” Maggie said. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
“London,” Laura mumbled. “Been to London. What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock. Were you asleep?”
“Must have been,” Laura said, gathering herself and shaking off the last vestiges of sleep.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. So what were you doing in London, and whom were you doing it with? As if I need ask. The lovely Richard?”
Memories of the drive home from London came crashing in on her. At least while she was sleeping she didn’t have to torture herself, but now she was awake and the pain was like a sharp knife cutting slices from her. “Yes, he was there too,” she said.
“Well, you don’t seem very happy about it.”
“No, I’m not. I think I’ve blown what could have been a wonderful relationship.”
There was an element of sadness in Laura’s voice that Maggie had rarely heard. “Tell Auntie Maggie all about it,” she said gently.
Laura hesitated. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to talk about it. The wound was too new, too raw. But at the same time she needed to go through, to see if she’d made such a terrible mistake. Maggie could provide a fresh perspective. She took a deep breath and began.
“So, do you think I’ve blown it?” Laura said.
“I agree it doesn’t sound good,” Maggie said. “But I don’t think you should blame yourself. It sounds as if Richard has some issues that need to be dealt with. I did tell you they were rather an odd family. Mind you, losing her brother like that, it’s not surprising that Catherine went off the rails. I think you should give it a few days, then call him. He’ll have probably come round by then, realized he let a terrific catch like you slip through his fingers.”
“I’m not chasing him, Mags. If he wants the relationship to continue, then it’s up to him to make the first move.”
“And we all know what pride comes before, don’t we?”
“It’s not pride, Maggie, honestly it’s not. If you’d been in the car with us coming back from London you’d understand. I tried and tried to make it up with him. In the end I was making conversation just to break the awful silences. As you say, he’s got issues. The first approach has got to come from him.”
“So what are you going to do while you wait for him to come to his senses?”
“I have enough to do here to keep me occupied. I’ve got a stack of wallpaper catalogues and paint charts to go through. I’ll keep busy. But . . .”
“But what?”
“I just hope I haven’t blown it!”
Shaun slouched on the sofa aware of but not really watching the television. Siobhan stood in the doorway. “Are you going to be much longer?” she said. “Only I’d like to go to bed.”
Shaun didn’t look round from the screen. “You go on up. I’ll be a while yet.”
“What are you watching?” she said, taking a step into the room.
So far as he could make out it was some kind of American made-for-cable drama. The women were always impeccably made up, the men had hair that never moved, and the action took place in attention-deficit sound bites. Ideal for someone like him who was thinking entirely of something else. “A film. Not very interesting, but I’ve got into it now, you know. . . .”
“I thought you might have found a porn channel,” she teased. “Come to bed. I’m feeling . . .” She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling the soft skin beneath his ear with her lips.
Inside he tensed but he tried hard not to let that translate to his body. He didn’t want to upset her. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her, but he was more afraid of what else he might do to her. “Another hour. Go and pour yourself a glass of wine, run the bath, light some candles. I’ll be finished by the time you’re ready for bed. Promise.”
She disengaged herself. “Okay,” she said. “Sounds good. Do you want a glass?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why not?”
He waited until she’d brought the wine and he could hear the bathwater running; then he turned the sound down and slipped his fingers beneath the thin material of his T-shirt, feeling the hairy, slimy growth that was covering his shoulder.
He would wait until he was sure Siobhan was asleep before getting into bed. He wanted to make love with his wife—they hadn’t yet reached the stage where he was avoiding it, and hoped they never would—but he couldn’t, not tonight, and maybe not again. The growth on his skin was spreading. It was getting deeper, the original patch denser, a coarser feel to it. He didn’t want to risk spreading it to Siobhan.
He imagined he could feel tiny roots from the hairs burrowing under his skin, felt a tightness in the area beneath it that made it easy to believe the growth was eating his flesh.
For the first time since childhood he began to feel afraid. Very afraid.
Raymond’s head felt like a mule had kicked it. He was lying naked on a stone floor, his wrists and ankles bound by what felt like duct tape. He struggled with the bonds briefly but soon realized that the more he strained against them the tighter they became. Eventually he stopped struggling and lay there, conserving his energy.
The room was dark, the only light entering the room seeping in from a dusty window set high in one wall. It seemed to be some kind of storeroom. There were the shadowed shapes of old furniture, piles of cardboard boxes, shelves on one wall stacked with tins of paint and rolls of browning wallpaper. Set in the wall to one side of the shelves was a steep wooden staircase. Leading to where?
The floor on which he was lying was rough and cold, concrete or stone. Its coldness seeped into his body, making his joints ache. Probably the basement, he realized. These old houses always had a basement. He wondered how he’d got down here. He weighed 220 pounds and it would have taken a feat of considerable strength to carry him down that narrow, almost vertical staircase, but apart from the crushing pain in his head, his body seemed undamaged.
He couldn’t believe he’d been ambushed so easily. All those years of training counting for nothing. He was used to commanding situations, used to being in control. Now that control had been taken away from him and he felt foolish and vaguely frightened.
Anoise to his left made him turn sharply—a furtive, skittering sound of something moving through the bundles of old magazines in the corner. Probably a mouse, he thought, and dismissed it. The noise above his head was not so easy to ignore. The ceiling was creaking as someone walked across the floor of the room above him, steady measured footsteps, unhurried. There was a small click and a creak as a door was opened. More light spilled into the room from the staircase. Feet appeared at the top of the stairs and then a light was switched on.
Raymond screwed his eyes up against the glare from the bright bulb hanging down from the ceiling.
“Is the light bothering you?” Brian Tanner said. He stood with the light behind him, throwing his face into shadow. Raymond said nothing. Assess your enemy. Find out what he wants, what his motivations are.
“You don’t look very comfortable down there,” Tanner said and moved around behind him. He slid his hands under Raymond’s arms and dragged him backward across the floor, raking the skin from his buttocks. He propped him in a sitting position against a wooden tea chest. “There, that’s better.” Tanner took an old wheel-backed chair from a pile of furniture in the corner and set it down in front of Raymond, then sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring hard into Raymond’s eyes.
Jim Raymond returned the gaze defiantly, his chin raised pugnaciously.
“So,” Tanner said easily. “Who are you exactly . . . ? Oh, nearly forgot.” He stood and took Raymond’s wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He flipped it open and produced a small white business card. “James Raymond—Raymond Security. Is this you? Yes, I suspect it is.”
Raymond watched him cautiously. The ease in which Tanner had dragged him across the floor was alarming. He could have been dragging a bag of feathers, yet there was nothing about the other man’s appearance to suggest such strength. He was big enough, but there was no obvious muscle development, no signs that he was anything other than a man that worked in an office. There was no strength in his demeanour either; despite his present advantage he seemed uncertain, almost nervous. Looks in this case, however, were deceptive. Raymond moved his position slightly, trying to ease the pain that was coming from his raw skin. A thin film of perspiration polished his brow and slowly dribbled down into his eyes. He blinked to clear them.
The Verani used Tanner’s face to smile. It was enjoying this. It had ambushed Raymond so easily. It had been aware of Raymond’s car across the road for much of the afternoon, and it was obvious the man was watching the house. Tanner had driven out of the road and parked around the corner, returning to the house on foot, almost at the same time that Raymond pulled the plastic strip from his wallet. From then on, the Verani had been behind him as soon as Raymond stepped through the door, but the other man was completely oblivious. He hadn’t heard it walking but a yard behind, hadn’t even sensed its presence there. In the bathroom Tanner deliberately coughed, just to let his intruder know he’d been caught. It was an immensely satisfying moment.
Tanner sat down again, flicking through the contents of the wallet. There was a surprising amount of money—four or five thousand in crisp fifty-pound notes. He removed them, folded the notes in half, and slipped them into his pocket. They could come in useful later. He watched Raymond’s eyes widen furiously, but still the man didn’t speak.
“I suppose you’re wondering what I’m going to do with you,” Tanner said. “I certainly would if I were in your position.”
“You can’t keep me here,” Raymond said, his voice thick with the dust from the room.
“Ah, it speaks. I was beginning to wonder if you were mute. Well, as you’ve started you might as well continue. Who employed you to come snooping about here, snooping on me?”
“I said you can’t keep me here. I’ll be missed.”
“Really? Who by?”
“My secretary. I keep a log of my movements at the office,” Raymond lied. “She’s only got to check my diary to see where I am.”
Tanner smiled. “And what entry did you put in your diary? Breaking and entering at Brian Tanner’s house perhaps? No, I think not. Anyway, I’m prepared to take that chance. Should anyone come knocking on my door tomorrow looking for you I shall simply tell them you popped in for a chat, stayed ten minutes or so, and then left again.”
Raymond glared at him.
“Oh, of course, there’s your car, parked conveniently outside my house. Well, at least it was. I’ve moved it, quite far away actually. So, you’re here, bound like a Christmas turkey, in the basement of my house. Chances of escape? Nil. Chances of leaving here alive? Slightly less. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know.”
As Tanner spoke the Verani felt such immense excitement that for the first time since leaving the shelter it could imagine blue skies and warm sun. For the first time, even after the killing of the woman, it felt its heritage and all the power and strength that came with it.
“Go to hell,” Jim Raymond said.
“I’ve been there, James . . . or is it Jim? Yes, Jim, I think. Well, Jim, you will tell me what I want to know.” Tanner started to unbutton his shirt. “Indeed you will.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maggie Kennedy took a file from the cabinet and opened it on her desk, rifling through the papers until she found the one she wanted, and then she kicked her shoes off, lit her tenth cigarette of the day, and washed down the smoke with a mouthful of strong Colombian coffee. She felt awful this morning. Influenza had swept through the office like an invasion and two of the regular staff were laid up in bed, with doctors’ sick notes guaranteeing them a week off. Only Paul Foster and Barry Hayes had turned up for work today, and the way she felt now it wouldn’t be long before they were holding the fort by themselves. Usually most of the coughs and sniffles that laid her colleagues low passed her by and she’d always maintained that her diet of coffee and cigarettes gave her an immunity her abstemious staff lacked. But now she was forced to eat her words. Her head was pounding and her throat was raw. Soon would come the shivers and she would be incapable of working.
She brightened immediately when she saw Laura step in from the street. She greeted her friend with a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Feeling better this morning?” Maggie said, her voice hoarse.
“God, you sound awful,” Laura said. “When did you go down with this? You were fine last night when we spoke.”
“I woke up with it. Bloody flu, I think. Coffee?”
“Yeah, I’d love one. Yes, I do feel better today. The restorative powers of sleep and all that.” She sat down at Maggie’s desk. It was the usual untidy clutter, property details sharing space with a computer terminal, telephone, half-full ashtray, and piles of leaflets for a couple of the local building societies. Maggie pushed some of the papers to one side and set the steaming mugs down.
“I was quite concerned about you last night,” Maggie said. “I can’t remember when I’ve ever heard you so down.”
“I was tired,” Laura said. “And thoroughly pissed off. Today I feel differently. I think it’s about being proactive. Actually doing something, rather than just sitting in that bloody caravan moping.”
“So what brings you into town?” Maggie said, lighting yet another cigarette.
Laura sipped her coffee. It was hot and strong, and gave an intense caffeine hit. She shuddered slightly. “Well, that certainly blows the cobwebs away. To answer your question, I’m trying to dig into the family history.”
“No need to ask which family. So what will you be asking Richard, should you happen to locate him?”
“That’s the problem. I’m not really sure. I still can’t fathom why Richard reacted so badly to my question about his uncle. I’ve got to dig deeper if I’m to make any sense of it. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom today. I got a phone call this morning from that odious Simon Lawson from the claims company. It seems the McMillans have withdrawn their claim.”
“I’ll bet that upset him.”
“He seemed a bit annoyed, but then he had the gall to recommend his company to me, if ever I should need that kind of service.”
“Cheek!”
“That’s what I told him. But I must say, it’s a weight off my mind.”
“Did he say why they’d withdrawn?”
“No, and I couldn’t get the reason out of him. Either way it’s a relief.”
“Hey, I’ve just had a thought.” Maggie was grinning. “Do you remember that bloke I went out with a couple of years ago? Mark Jameson?”
Laura made a face that showed her disapproval. “Real pig as I recall.”
“True, but he did have one saving grace. He used to be the chauffer for the Charterises.”
“You’re kidding?”
“They sacked him, about the same time as I dumped him. Shit happens even to pigs.”
“Got his number? He might have something for me.”
“I don’t have it. I never bother to keep the telephone numbers of my exes. It would be too easy then to get in touch with them when I go through one of my periodic desperate phases. I realized a long time ago that ex-boyfriends are ex for a reason, so I never go back. All I can tell you about Mark is that when he gave up being a chauffer he took a job with a courier company in Dorchester, A to Z Express. I saw him a couple of months ago whizzing around town on his motorbike, so the chances are he’s still working for them.”
“A to Z Express,” Laura said. “I’ll check it out.”
“It’s run by a bloke called Harry Sharples. Greasy little small-time crook. Thinks he’s Dorset Mafia, but really he’s just a middle-aged loser.”
The door to the agency opened and a middle-aged couple entered. Maggie got to her feet. “John, Eleanor, have you made a decision on Larksfield?”
