The strained silence that resulted was broken by the whine of Hooper’s telephone. She looked at the illuminated display. “I told you not to call me from that number,” she snapped. She listened. Then: “What?” She threw herself into a chair and sat forward. She listened with rising incredulity. “I gave clear orders to keep him in the hotel,” she groaned. “Must I do everything myself?” She listened again. “I don’t care. Just get him back. The boy’s a gawping primitive without a word of English. He can’t get far.” She listened again. She got up and went over to a framed map of Central London that the previous tenant had marked with his favourite shops and restaurants. She ran a forefinger between two points. She stood in silence, then finished the drink that Radleigh had helpfully carried over. “Activate Plan B for the demonstration,” she said, her voice menacingly quiet. “Seal the streets off. No one’s to get out—and no one in! Extreme prejudice as required.” More listening. Then: “I don’t care about that!” she said impatiently. “That danger was over last Wednesday. We only let it go ahead because it was too much trouble to stop. Now just stamp it out.” She held her telephone between shoulder and chin. She put her free thumb on the map, and stretched out her little finger to touch another point. “Withdraw the SSB units and get them combing everywhere within a one mile radius of the hospital,” She took her hand from the map. “I don’t care what it takes—I want that boy in my office tomorrow morning.” She paused and listened again. She let out an unpleasant laugh. “Yes, do get me a meeting with Duffy. And I want that ridiculous old queen there beside him. Professor of Greek?” she snorted. “He’ll be breaking stones in Ireland come Sunday!”
Hooper slid her telephone shut and reached for her black handbag. “Problems, Abigail dearest?” Radleigh asked, coming forward with his decanter. “Has Duffy spoiled things again? There is an answer to that, you know. Margaret Thatcher doesn’t need to have been the only woman to make it to the top!”
Hooper was on her feet and gulping back her second drink. She turned back at the door, a cold smile on her face. “If the girl turns nasty, Basil, it’s your own affair,” she sniffed. “If you’re still breathing tomorrow, call Simkins to have her collected. No one’s too ugly for socially useful work in the Dublin brothels. That, or she can be put to something equally useful here in London.”
She laughed and repeated herself about useful work in London. Radleigh said something back. But Jennifer was beyond listening further. She held tight on the stone sill, and tried to keep herself from falling down in uncontrollable sobs. After a week of fighting despair, the bottom had dropped out of her world. Perhaps she should have stayed to listen more, Jennifer told herself as she crept weakly down the fire escape. Perhaps she should wait till midnight, and then cut Radleigh’s throat. Perhaps. Perhaps….
Tired with despair, she sagged forward and leaned against the big rubbish bin. Now it didn’t matter if she was caught, she ought to do something. Anyone could have told her that. Anyone could have told her, that is, if he hadn’t seen how the sobs were shaking her entire body. She was barely up to creeping back into the street, let alone playing some female James Bond. She needed desperately to think everything through. She’d go back to where she was staying—no, not that: she might have been followed there. She’d go into Regent’s Park and sit on the edge of the all night market there. Otherwise, she’d….
That was the limit of her stated options. As she turned a corner into one of the darker side streets, something dark and heavy landed on her head and fell in suffocating folds down to her knees.
Chapter Twenty
“Ooh, but isn’t she a right looker?” someone shrilled. “Can’t we play with her a bit?”
“Shut up! Let’s just get the job over with,” Someone else replied.
Strange Meaters! Strange Meaters! The words flashed through Jennifer’s mind as if they were a neon sign. She hadn’t thought they came into Central London. Free from the heavy blanket, she stumbled forward against a wall and turned to blink in the glare of three torches, one of them slowly moving from her extreme right to the centre. She stepped forward to raise her hands in supplication, but tripped over something soft.
“Come on, you idiot,” the second voice said. “Get hold of her while she’s still in shock. There’s police and the whole sodding army on the streets.” It was a body Jennifer had fallen over. Untangling herself from it, her hand made contact with the face of one of Radleigh’s men—it was the humpy one, she could see. His head had flopped unnaturally to the left, and there was one golden tooth glinting in the torchlight. She was dragged to her feet, and thrown back against the wall hard enough to knock out all her breath. “Where’s Baldwin?” the second voice demanded. “Tell us where your father’s gone.”
Trying to get her breath back, Jennifer pulled herself upright. Not Strange Meaters, these—but who? And for what? She fumbled with her belt and managed to get out her knife. She squinted into the three intense patches of light, and felt the knife tremble uselessly in her right hand. “Been peeling potatoes, love?” the first voice chuckled. She opened her mouth to scream. But a rough hand reached out from behind the light and slapped her face so hard, it almost knocked her over. Perhaps it was the same hand that plucked the knife out of her hand. She heard it land somewhere to her left. The first voice went into a low and predatory laugh. The other man giggled, and there was a cough from a third man who’d not yet spoken but had been moving about. The torches came closer, and Jennifer made a sudden dash to her left. For a moment, she was out of the pool of unified light. But, as she crashed into another wall, the lights swung round and fixed her again like some animal cornered in a nocturnal hunt.
She did now manage a scream. She put her head down and tried to run forward. But she hadn’t thought there would be another body to trip over. This time, she fell into a pair of strong arms. She was thrown forward and taken into another pair of arms.
“Just keep hold of her,” the second voice said impatiently. As she struggled to get her arms free, she saw one of the torches go slowly to the ground. At once, there was someone blotting out its light, and she felt two big hands close about her neck. There was a sudden smell of onions and a pleased laugh. Jennifer tried to kick out. But all she managed was a momentary relaxation of the tightening grip. She felt two thumbs press slowly into her windpipe. “Where is he?” the third voice demanded. “No one stitches the Big Man up and gets away with it!”
He loosened his hold on her throat. “Please don’t hurt me!” she gasped. Before she could say more, the hold tightened again, and she went limp with fear as she realised she couldn’t breathe in. The man squeezed harder, and gibbered with a kind of sexual pleasure when her knees gave way.
He let go again, and bent down to where she’d fallen. “If you don’t tell me where to find Richard Baldwin,” he rasped, “I’ll kill you.” She choked air into her lungs and tried to scream again. If all she could bring out was a silly squawk, she heard the man who’d been holding her let out a sudden cry of alarm.
Michael had seen enough. The small man who’d been hanging back made no sound as he was grabbed from behind. His neck broke with only a little twisting. The cosh he’d been carrying fell noiselessly, and Michael picked it up. He swung it at the bigger man who’d been watching the interrogation, and felt the soft and gratifying crunch of a broken skull. That made four English dead in a single evening, he thought with a stab of pleasure more intense than the lights that had guided him over till he could hear the low sounds of the interrogation. He stood away from the pool of light that had led him over and looked at the one man who remained. He’d let go of the boy’s throat, and was trying to see past the lights. He held up big, murdering hands and stammered something in a scared voice. At once, he tried to make a dash for freedom. But Michael was expecting that. He caught hold of the man’s sleeve and brought him down. He got onto the man’s chest and took hold of both ears. He pulled the man’s head up, and rammed it hard back onto the slimy cobble stones. It needed two hard knocks before there was another crunch of broken head, and now the splashing of brains.