Quintin Jardine - Poisoned Cherries

The flat was absolutely silent; we stood there, unwilling to switch on a light, looking around us for the prospective horrors that had drawn us there.

And then in a door to the left, a figure appeared. All we could see was a silhouette; around medium height, slim, wearing a one-piece, head-to-foot garment strikingly similar to that I had seen worn by the SAS extras in the McEwan Hall. I’d seen Mandy in the dark before; naked, or clothed like this, the shape was the same.

A whisper came from Ricky. ‘Glen.’ The minder and the black figure moved towards each other. He carried himself loosely, a bit like a wrestler, looking to restrain, then detain.

He never had a chance. The figure seemed to leap straight off the ground, then hit him with a left-footed jab to the midriff, and a right-footed kick behind the ear. Oliver moaned quietly, and sagged to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Ross started to moved forward, but I held him back. ‘You block the door,’ I told him. ‘There’s a fire extinguisher on the landing outside. If this character gets past me, put it to good use.’

The figure stood there, waiting for another of us to have a go. I obliged, by inching forward; in the dim light I could see teeth gleaming in the centre of the tunic’s black balaclava-type helmet. I edged sideways, round Oliver’s motionless form, until I bumped into a wooden-framed swivel chair, positioned in the middle of the room.

‘Okay, Mandy,’ I said quietly. ‘Round two.’ I feinted a move with my left foot. She bought it and launched into a spinning, right-footed counter-kick. I ducked under it, and as I did, grabbed the chair one-handed, and threw it at her. Its wooden edge caught her flush on the knee-cap. She almost fell, but recovered her balance. Too late though; I had closed in by then. I whipped the feet from under her with the Russian leg sweep that Liam had taught me, and followed up as she went down, driving my knee hard into the midsection of the black tunic. It was all over then, but I had seen and experienced enough to take no chances, so I hit her, once, hard, with my right fist in the middle of the forehead. I could see her eyes now; they glazed over as she went out, cold.

‘Find a light, Ricky,’ I shouted, as I pushed myself up from the motionless figure and headed for the door through which she had come. I fumbled for a switch on the inside of the door but found none. Then for the first time I became aware of a soft splashing sound. It was a bathroom; I found the switch on the outside and flicked it on.

I didn’t see Natalie Morgan at first, but I heard her quickly enough. Her bath was a big old Victorian thing, big enough to accommodate a five-a-side football team. She was in it. . on her own.

The tub was full almost to overflow point. Natalie was beneath the surface. A big strip of gaffer tape had been slapped over her mouth, her arms were bent behind her and her legs were doubled beneath her. Her wrists were lashed tight to her ankles, and lying on her back as she was, she was helpless. She was also on the point of drowning, she was moving, but only slightly, and I couldn’t see any bubbles coming up.

I plunged my arms into the bath. . the water was no more than tepid. . and lifted her out, then laid her on her side, in the middle of the floor. She had been tied with a satin cord, which might have been the sash of a dressing gown. Whatever it was, it was sodden and the knot would not budge. Luckly, I still had Oliver’s big clasp knife in my pocket. I produced it and cut her free, then I ripped the tape from her mouth.

She had stopped moving altogether, and her lips had a bluish tinge to them. I rolled her on to her back, and was about to begin mouth to mouth, when she coughed, and spluttered. Quickly, I turned her over. . and jumped clear as she vomited all over the tiled floor. As I did, I saw an empty vodka bottle, and a glass, on the floor by the bath.

‘Do we need a medic?’ Ricky was in the doorway.

‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ I replied. ‘How’s Glen?’

‘He thinks it’s Christmas. I told him that if it is, the fairy on top of the tree just kicked the shit out of him. He’s okay, though.’

‘And how about Mandy?’

He surprised me; he laughed. ‘Come and see,’ he said.

We left the naked Natalie to puke in private, and I followed him into the living room. It was lit by a fancy, modern, five-bulb halogen arrangement. The figure on the floor was still out; although as I looked down, her right leg twitched, involuntarily, as if she was dreaming about kicking some bloke in the head.

Ricky had ripped off her helmet. I looked down, and whistled, as I realised why he had been laughing. ‘I think we’d better get Ewan up here,’ I told him. ‘Mrs Capperauld’s got some explaining to do.’

We paid Margaret Capperauld plenty of respect; when she came round a couple of minutes later, she was tied into the swivel chair with the same cord she had used to bind her would-be victim.

Natalie herself was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a towelling robe, shivering with a mixture of cold, fright, and alcohol. She must have drunk all that vodka; she was completely pissed.

Ricky had vetoed the idea of Ewan coming up; correctly, when I thought about it. He’d have wigged out. Instead he had sent Glen Oliver down to sit with him in the car, and to call Ronnie Morrow’s home number and dig him out of bed. There would be credit going, he had pointed out, and he wanted his protege to get it.

It took another minute or so, but, eventually, Margaret’s eyes were fully focused. When she realised where she was, she strained against her binding for a moment, then gave up.

‘Olympic gymnast, eh,’ I murmured. ‘And them some.’

‘And free-style climber,’ she replied, ‘and martial arts student.’

‘. . And vengeful wife?’ I suggested. She glared at me.

I had already worked out the climbing part; on the terrace outside I’d found a coil of rope and a heavy hard rubber grappling hook. She’d got up to Natalie’s penthouse by scaling the whole damn block, floor by floor, taking the stairway balconies one by one.

‘David spilled the beans, didn’t he?’

She looked at me again, as archly as her husband might have, then she winced in pain from the big lump that had sprouted about an inch above her nose. ‘What did you hit me with?’ I held up my right fist. ‘That’s no way to treat a lady,’ she murmured.

Then she nodded. ‘Yes, he did. He came to see me in London and told me the whole story. He said that he had asked Ewan for money to forget about his adventure with Natalie, and that all he had got was a threatening phone call from her uncle.

‘He told me that he guessed I would do anything to protect Ewan’s reputation and his career, so he proposed that I pay the money instead.’

‘And did you confront Ewan?’

‘Absolutely not!’ she snapped. ‘I love him. He can have all the bimbos he wants. . not that he has before, to my knowledge. . and I’ll overlook them, as long as he comes back to me. No, I confronted this bitch here. First I told her that if she ever looked at my husband again, I would kill her, and then I told her that I would take care of the problem myself.’

She frowned; it made her wince again. ‘David was right, you see. I would go to any lengths to protect Ewan.’

‘So when you went to see him, that Wednesday, he thought you were going to pay him off?’

Margaret gave a cold smile. ‘That he did. . and that I did.’

‘But why implicate Alison?’

‘I needed someone to take the blame quickly, to avoid any chance of the police looking in our direction. She was the obvious person. . and anyway, I was sure, I still am sure, that she was in on the blackmail attempt.’