Pulling his mobile phone from his pocket, he called a number he knew by heart. ‘Outside,’ he said when it was answered.
Electronic doors slid open just wide enough to allow him to drive in, revealing a brightly lit, cavernous space, then began closing behind him instantly. Inside he saw about twenty cars, most of them the latest model, top-end luxury machines. He clocked two Ferraris, an Aston Martin DB9, a Bentley Continental, two Range Rovers, a Cayenne, as well as some less exotic cars, including a Golf GTI, a Mazda XR2, a classic yellow Triumph Stag and a new-looking MG TF. Some of the cars appeared to be intact, while others were in various stages of dismemberment. Despite the lateness of the hour, four boiler-suited mechanics were working on vehicles – two beneath open bonnets, one on his back under a jacked-up Lexus sports car, the fourth fitting a body panel to a Range Rover Sport.
Skunk switched off the engine and with that his music fell silent. Instead some cheesy old Gene Pitney song crackled out from a cheap radio somewhere in the building. A drill whined.
Barry Spiker stepped out of his glass-windowed office over on the far side, talking into a mobile, and walked towards him. A short, wiry, former regional champion flyweight boxer with close-cropped hair, he had a face hard enough to carve ice with. He was dressed in a blue boiler suit over a string vest, and flip-flops, and he reeked of a sickly sweet aftershave. A medallion hung from a gold chain around his neck. Without acknowledging Skunk, he walked all the way around the car, still talking on his phone, arguing, looking in a foul mood.
As Skunk got out of the car, Spiker ended his call, then, brandishing his phone like a dagger, walked up to him. ‘What the fuck’s this piece of shit? I wanted a three-point-two V6. This is a two-litre piss-pot. No use to me. Hope you’re not expecting me to buy it!’
Skunk’s heart sank. ‘You – you didn’t . . .’ He dug the crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, on which he had taken down the instructions this morning, and showed it to Spiker. On it was written, in his shaky handwriting, New-shape Audi A4 convertible, automatic, low mileage, metallic blue, silver or black.
‘You never specified the motor size,’ Skunk said.
‘So which fucking tree did you fall out of? People who buy nice cars happen to like nice engines to go with them.’
‘This goes like hot shit,’ Skunk said defensively.
Spiker shrugged, looked at the car again pensively. ‘Nah, not for me.’ His phone started ringing. ‘Don’t like the colour much either.’ He checked the display, brought the phone to his ear and said abruptly, ‘I’m busy. Call you back,’ then he hung up. ‘Sixty quid.’
‘What?’ Skunk had been expecting two hundred.
‘Take it or leave it.’
Skunk glared at him. The bastard always found some way to screw him. Either there was a mark on the paintwork, or the tyres were knackered, or it needed a new exhaust. Something. But at least he was making a secret profit on the car park, getting back at the man in his own small – but satisfying – way.
‘Where did you get it from?’
‘Regency Square.’
Spiker nodded. He was checking the interior carefully, and Skunk knew why. He was looking for any mark or scratch he could use to beat the price down lower. Then Spiker’s eyes alighted greedily on something in the passenger footwell. He opened the door, ducked down, then stood up, holding a small piece of paper, like a trophy, which he inspected carefully. ‘Brilliant!’ he said. ‘Nice one!’
‘What?’
‘Parking receipt from Regency Square. Twenty minutes ago. Just two quid! Top man, Skunk! So you owe me twenty-five quid back from that float I gave you.’
Skunk cursed his own stupidity.
39
His words shook her. Scared her. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot. Had he been drinking? Taken some drug?
‘Open it!’ he said again. ‘Open it, bitch!’
She was tempted to tell him to go to hell, and how dare he speak to her like that? But, knowing how much stress he must be under, she tried to humour him, to calm him down and bring him back from whatever place or space he was in. She removed another layer of tissue. This was one weird game. First we shout and swear at you, then we give you a present, right?
She removed another layer, balled it and dropped it on the bed beside her, but there was no thaw in his demeanour. Instead, he was worsening, quivering with anger.
‘Come on, bitch! Why are you taking so long?’
A shiver of anxiety wormed through her. Suddenly she did not want to be here, trapped in her room with him. She had no idea what she was going to find in the gift box. He’d never bought her a gift before, except some flowers a couple of times recently when he’d come over to her flat. But whatever it was, nothing felt right; it was as if the world was suddenly skewed on its axis.
And with every layer she removed she was starting to have a really bad feeling about what was in the box.
But then she got down to the last layer of tissue paper. She felt something that was part hard, part soft and yielding, as if it was made of leather, and she realized what it might be. And she relaxed. Smiled at him. The sod was teasing her, it was all a wind-up! ‘A handbag!’ she said with a squeal. ‘It’s a handbag, isn’t it? You darling! How did you know I desperately need a new bag? Did I tell you?’
But he wasn’t smiling back. ‘Just open it,’ he said again, coldly.
And that brief moment of good feeling evaporated as her world skewed again. There was not one shred of warmth coming back from his expression or his words. Her fear deepened. And just how strange was it that he was giving her a present on the day his wife was found dead? Then, finally, she removed the last layer of tissue.
And stared down in shock at the object that was revealed.
It wasn’t a handbag at all, but something strange and sinister-looking, a helmet of some kind, grey, with bug-eyed glass lenses and a strap, and a ribbed tube hanging down with some kind of filter on the end. A gas mask, she realized with dismay, the kind she’d seen on soldiers’ faces out in Iraq, or maybe it was older. It had a musty, rubbery smell.
She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Are we about to be invaded or something?’
‘Put it on.’
‘You want me to wear this?’
‘Put it on.’
She held it to her face and instantly lowered it, wrinkling her nose. ‘You really want me to wear this? You want to make love with me wearing it?’ She grinned, a little stupefied, her fear subsiding. ‘Is that going to turn you on or something?’
For an answer, he ripped it out of her hands, jammed it against her face, then pulled the strap over the back of her head, trapping some of her hair painfully. The strap was so tight it hurt.
For a moment, she was completely disoriented. The lenses were grimy, smeared and heavily tinted. She could only see him, and the room, partially, in a green haze. When she turned her head, he disappeared for a moment and she had to swivel her head back to see him again. She heard the sound of her own breathing, hollow exhalations like the roar of the sea in her ears.
‘I can’t breathe,’ she said, panicking, claustrophobia gripping her, her voice muffled.
‘Of course you can fucking breathe.’ His voice was muzzy, distorted.
In panic she tried to pull the mask off. But his hands gripped hers, forcing them away from the strap, gripping them so hard they were hurting. ‘Stop being a stupid bitch,’ he said.