I stumbled down the stairs and off into the night, wondering where I could go and how long before they caught me. For I had no doubt that Caldwell would unleash the hounds on me, and Wilson would be coming after me with glee in his vicious little heart.
EIGHTEEN
I headed north – homing instinct? – home to mother? It was starting to rain, that steady drizzle that soaks right through. Some Ayrshire clouds must have strayed south. I half-ran, half-stumbled, clinging to the park railings for support as I broke clear of Onslow Gardens, and came to the lit area round the underground at South Kensington. Two policemen were watching the crowds pouring into the station hall. Were they on to me already? I couldn’t risk it. I pulled my brim down further and detoured round the corner and away, still heading north. It was getting harder to walk straight; I saw splintered images, fractured lights through the downpour. A car blasted its horn at me.
“You drunken fool!” he shouted.
And that’s how it looked; this clown in a drenched coat and hat, crashing off railings and holding on to walls, lurching across roads, one foot forward, two to the side, in a drunken dance. Like the famous parties with the boys back home. Big Tam and Archie and me – fu’ as monkeys. The three musketeers. Here’s tae us, wha’s like us, damn few, and they’re a’ deid!
A’ deid. They’re a’ deid. And I might as well be. Valerie, Valerie, where are you? I need you.
I floundered into another set of railings. They forced me to turn off my course, pushed me to the right. Where was I? The map in my head wasn’t working. Then I saw the tall memorial, and the seated man, the golden man, shining in the moonlight. Albert. The love of Vickie’s life. It was Hyde Park. The railings were high, and I was dissolving. But I was also desperate. I found the gate which gave me easier footholds and hauled myself up and over, crashing in a heap on the other side.
I smelled grass and horse-shit, and crawled and staggered across the riding track. There were trees and shrubs, blessed camouflage but no place to spend a filthy night. I flopped across the soaking grass like a landed fish. Moonlight on water ahead. The Serpentine. The boathouse. Where Val and I walked the other day, the other life.
I felt my feet hitting boards, and clung to the wooden walls looking for a door or a window. Couldn’t be conspicuous. The park police would check later, on their rounds. Had to do it quietly and carefully. Nothing to show. There was a door. With a big padlock and a chain. I didn’t have my burglar’s kit and even if I did I didn’t have fingers that worked anymore. I kept searching. Nothing.
I smashed my shins on something, a wood bench. Cursing I sat down and nursed my pain till it ebbed. I leaned over feeling sick. When it passed I straightened up and patted the rough slats. At least I was under the shelter of the porch roof.
I had no choice. The band was tightening and the bad taste thickened my tongue.
I collapsed on the bench, pulled my wet coat around me and sank into hopeless dreams.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the cold in my bones, or the daylight or the sound of voices that woke me. I lay under a coarse tarpaulin. I flung it off in panic and peered round in the gloom. I was inside, in a shed of some sort, shivering in a filthy shroud and wanting to be sick. Though I lay on the ground I was surrounded by piles of folded deck chairs. I hadn’t been able to set one up and sit in it. I’d become a seaside joke. My coat was still soaking, as was my suit.
I could have fallen in the lake and come out drier. On my hands and knees I edged into the farthest recesses, and threw up. Sorry, mate, whoever you are. I don’t like your job this morning.
When some strength returned I knew I had to get out of there and dry off. If I didn’t, I’d get pneumonia. My head was pounding but I could see again. I’d live.
Just. I was desperately tired, as though I’d been on a night march. I rubbed my eyes and longed for a bath. I had a nagging sense of guilt, a sense that there was something important, something I had to remember, but there was no faithless jotter this morning. No revelations of my bloody past to wrestle with, or none I could recall. I shook my head. I had no idea how I’d got here, or where I’d been since collapsing on the boathouse bench. But I didn’t have the patience or the courage to sit and sift my dreams.
I wiped down my clothes as best I could, but even in the gloom of the shed I still looked like a tramp. My hands were sticky. I inspected them in the shaft of light. Blood. I looked down and there was blood on my trousers. Christ, what had I been up to? Then a thin memory popped up. I pulled up my left trouser leg and saw the deep cut and remembered whacking the bench last night. Harder than I thought. But at least it was my own blood.
The rain had stopped and some sun was filtering through the sickly clouds. Maybe if I walked fast I’d dry out, then I could brush off the mud. I peered through the crack in the door and saw one or two folk walking past on the opposite shore. To my left about fifty yards away was the boathouse. Some early bird was opening it up. Just in case there were any idiots wanting to sit outside on a deckchair in January, I decided it was time I was gone. I had a thought. I stepped back and picked up the tarpaulin. I folded it carefully, stuck it under my arm and pushed the door open.
Part blinded by the daylight I walked out fast and away from the shed, expecting any minute to hear cries behind me. Nothing. One piece of luck. Now what? I could hardly go home; the police would be waiting for me. Home to Scotland? The stations would be guarded. I didn’t know where Val lived or how to get in touch.
My thoughts turned to Liza. Liza Caldwell. Through my headache, nausea and shivering, came the distant pulse of anger. I was damned if I’d let Tony Caldwell and his female accomplices do this to me. I was going to find out the truth if it killed me… or them.
I crossed the bridge to the north side of the Serpentine and began hacking my way over the grass towards Bayswater. I checked my funds; I had two pounds three and sixpence on me. It would do for a couple of days. Just over one hundred pounds lay in an account at the Westminster Bank, but my savings book was in my office.
The walk was warming me up and the breeze was drying my clothes. Now I felt hungry. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday teatime. Just before I left the park at Marble Arch I found a gents toilet. I cleaned myself up as best I could. My hankie ran red time after time as I dabbed at the trousers and congealed blood on my hands and legs. I combed my hair, but my face looked like I’d drowned in the lake and been brought back to life. Almost. I needed some hot tea and grub.
There were no coppers at the gates. I was surprised, but then I hardly qualified for a full blown manhunt, did I? Or if I did, they might well have assumed I was miles away, having got on the underground last night. Abandoning the gun had been the smart thing to do: searching for a man who’d threatened you is one thing; searching for an armed intruder is another.
Paradise! A Lyons corner tea house. I pulled myself as erect as I could, tucked the tarp under my arm as if it were something all normal folk carried, and smiled my way to a corner seat. My clothes steamed gently as I slurped at two pots of tea and a full breakfast, but the girl was too polite to mention it.
Refuelled, I hopped on a bus to Oxford Circus and dived down the tube. A change at Tottenham Court Road and I was on the Northern Line to Hampstead. I was steadily drying out. It was just after nine o’clock, and I was filled with tea, toast and resolve.
Hampstead was its sunny best for me, and I felt the now familiar air of being on holiday, which in the circumstances was pretty daft. As I neared Liza’s house, I curbed my instinct to walk up to her door and demand answers. Instead I plunged into the woodland paths I’d grown to know and let the air and sun dry me. I took a circuitous route round to the copse above her street. Just as well; the big grey Riley was parked outside her door. I made a hide behind a tight mass of broom, spread my tarpaulin out on the leaves and grass, and settled down to wait.