Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

‘You’ve got the stuff then, all of it?’ The voice sounded thin and far away.

Instant sweat formed on my hands. ‘What do you mean? You got it all.’

‘Don’t fuck about, Honeysett. Take down these directions. Bring the stuff, all of it, mind, wrapped in several carrier bags, and take — ’

‘Hold it. I don’t have the stuff.’

‘What the fuck do you mean, you don’t have it? I know you cleaned out his safe, the grapevine’s buzzing with it.’

‘And two blokes with balaclavas and baseball bats mugged me for it in Charlcombe Lane five minutes later. I presumed that was you. You’re telling me it wasn’t?’

‘Of course it fucking wasn’t, we had a deal, why should I have to mug you for the stuff? You handed it over? You didn’t even put up a fight?’

‘How do you know I didn’t put up a fight?’ I protested.

‘Because you’re not talking from a hospital bed, you arsehole. You totally fucked this up.’

‘Where is Louis? We kept our side of the bargain, we emptied Telfer’s safe. Someone obviously knew that was going down and only you could have told them, we certainly didn’t. So return the boy. Keep your side of — ’

‘Shut up, Honeysett. Do you think I’m going to all the trouble of snatching the kid and feeding him baked beans and Hula Hoops and listen to him whining all week just so I can give him back for nothing? I can’t believe you fucked this up. If I find out you are trying to pull a fast one I’ll make you regret it.’

‘I don’t. I was held up. Baseball bats studded with nails. I wouldn’t do anything to put the boy in danger.’

‘Shut up, now, let me think.’ There was a brief pause. ‘All right, Honeysett. I’ll find something else for you to do. Until you deliver, the boy stays where he is.’ The line clicked dead.

‘Verdict?’ Annis asked after a moment of intense silence.

‘He said it wasn’t him, or them, that held me up in Charlcombe Lane. Someone else knows what’s happening here, but whoever has Telfer’s stuff now isn’t connected with the kidnapping. Something seriously weird is going on here.’ I thought of the man in the hat watching us through binoculars. ‘This all smells somehow of a turf war between rival gangs, everyone ripping off everyone else, with us smack in the middle. The worst thing about it is he won’t hand over the boy until we’ve pulled some other stunt for him.’

‘Did he say what he wants?’ Tim asked, looking worried now.

‘No.’

‘I know you don’t want to hear this, Chris,’ Annis said, ‘but I think it’s time we went to the police. We’re completely at this guy’s mercy and Jill has had about all she can take, not to mention the boy’s — ’

‘Save your breath, I agree.’ It seemed obvious now. I had felt defeated ever since I had lost the ransom loot in Charlcombe.

‘You do?’

‘I do.’ It was more than just the logical conclusion of an operation gone so wrong that it could no longer be expected to work out well and it was more than fear for the boy’s well-being. It was a leaden tiredness and a sudden and complete loss of faith in my own abilities. Standing in the middle of the room, uselessly holding on to the phone, with two pairs of expectant eyes on me, I felt like running away. I’m only a painter, I felt like saying, this isn’t my kind of job. Had I volunteered for this? Must have done. Whatever for? Did I really need this much excitement? ‘I’ll take it straight to Needham, personally, no phone calls, it’s safer that way.’ I chucked the phone on to the sofa.

‘You want us there?’ Tim asked.

‘No, you lot stay here.’

Half an hour later I was riding the Norton through blustery wind and rain into town, nearly blinded by the moisture on my goggles. The rain stung my face. I was on my surreptitious way to the police station where I would explain to Superintendent Needham how I had got myself into the biggest mess of my less-than-illustrious career as a private eye. It would not count as betraying a client’s confidence since Jill was by no means a client but it was without doubt an admission of total failure. And trust. What if I was laying Louis open to reprisals? I was no longer sure whether I had to take the death threat seriously. Surely that was just something kidnappers said to frighten you?

Halfway down the London Road I got a bad case of the jitters. I began to feel as though I was caught in the cross hairs in a madman’s rifle sights. I was getting more paranoid by the minute. I checked over my shoulder — the Norton had no mirrors — every few seconds, not knowing what I was looking for.

I parked the bike in the motorcycle bay in North Parade Passage, locked up the helmet and stuffed gloves and goggles into my pocket. I’d try and see Needham privately. I had to arrange for us to talk outside the station where we couldn’t be overheard. I’d make sure though that someone heard me say that it had to do with the Albert Barrington murder, not that I thought that was any guarantee that our kidnapper, if he had an ear in the station, wouldn’t somehow suspect foul play. Foul play. . Who was I playing foul? The kidnapper? Hardly. But was I breaking a promise to Jill for ‘her own good’ or the boy’s or for my own peace of mind? Did I simply want to abdicate responsibility because I’d had enough? I couldn’t deny that I was planning to heave a deep sigh of relief and hide in my studio for the foreseeable future from the moment the police took charge of this mess.

I was walking along Manvers Street on the opposite side from the police station and slowed down now to check the cars in the car park in front of it. Needham’s big grey saloon was in its reserved space. Traffic was steady. Just as I got ready to dodge across between two buses a voice behind me piped up. ‘Sir?’

‘What!’ I turned around and found myself looking at a young man of perhaps twenty. It was hard to tell because only the small tanned oval of his face was visible as he peered out through rain-blinded glasses from the enormous hooded plastic poncho that covered him and what for his sake I hoped was a rucksack.

‘I’m supposed to give you this.’ He breathlessly held out a folded piece of paper. His accent was antipodean and he might have sprinted from the backpackers’ hostel a few doors down.

It was a lined piece of paper from a notepad, folded into a small rectangle and already damp. I opened it up. It was written in biro in hastily scribbled capitals.

HOPE YOU’RE NOT THINKING OF TALKING TO THE POLICE. TOLD YOU I’D KNOW. TOLD YOU WHAT WILL HAPPEN. WAIT TO BE CONTACTED.

‘Who gave you this?’

‘Some guy.’ He gestured over his shoulder.

‘Where? What did he look like?’

‘I don’t know, only saw him for a moment. Back there at the corner. He wore a hat. Gave me a fiver to catch you up.’ He was already moving on, towards the station.

‘Wait a second, I need a better description than that.’ I tried to hold him back by the arm but he shook himself loose.

‘Look, mate, I can’t stop, I gotta make the fuckin’ train to Heathrow. I’m outa here, your weather’s turned to shit, mate, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

I trotted beside him. ‘What kind of a man was he? I mean was he young, old, tall, short, fat, slim?’

‘Just normal, like. He wore a hat. I only saw him for a second and I can’t see much through wet specs anyway. Rain’s always a pain in the ass.’ He peered at me over his wet glasses.

‘What else was he wearing?’

‘Jeez, if I’d known you’d give me the third degree I’d have told him to forget it. Some coat I guess, nothing so it’d stick in your mind, all right?’

That always depended on the mind, I thought, and let him get on. I watched him weave his way through the traffic between bus and railway station. I looked around, behind me, along Manvers Street, scanned the pavements full of pedestrians pushing hurriedly through the rain in both directions. Where was the dark sinister stranger in a hat watching from a street corner? Where was the threatening soundtrack that always helped TV detectives to know when they were being watched with ill intent? The rain stopped abruptly. A long row of faces in a passing tourist coach looked up; I followed their gaze. The dark clouds were being rolled back by a high wind and bright, broken cloud followed from the west. By the time I had squelched my way back to the Norton the sun had made an appearance. Good, my jeans might dry off eventually. I used my sleeve to wipe the water off the seat, started the engine and rode off towards the unfamiliar sunshine.