False Diamond--An Abbot Agency Mystery (17 page)

She grimaced. ‘Needs must. She sounded dead scared. Wouldn't wait in the phone box.'

‘Lucky to find one that hasn't been vandalized.'

She nodded. They inched forward. She started to pray.
Dear Lord, keep her safe. Don't let him find her before I do. Let the traffic ease up …

The traffic eased, and he shot along. Stopped at the next set of lights. The driver was doing his best.
Dear Lord, keep her safe.

Across the Bayswater Road they went and turned off it, going north. A less prosperous area. Traffic lights winked red. Cars drew up in a queue.

He said, ‘The road's blocked ahead. I know a back way.' The taxi twisted and turned through side streets. They said a London taxicab could turn on a sixpence. They probably could in the old days. Perhaps not now. But still, this man knew how to drive all right.

They moved into a quieter, darker area where the streets were not as wide. No trees in these streets. Multiple occupancy houses? The odd corner-shop and pub.

A flare of light as a pub came into view. Red Rum, named after the racehorse.

The driver drew in to the kerb. ‘Not a good area for her to be waiting around in. You sure this is it?'

‘There's the phone box.'

‘No one in it.'

‘She said she'd hide round the back of the pub.'

‘Don't get out.' Click. He'd locked the doors so she couldn't get out even if she'd wanted to. He drove slowly round the block, looking for a woman who might be hiding in a doorway, or even behind a wheelie bin. No sign of Dilys. They ended up where they'd started, facing the pub.

‘Perhaps she's moved down the street into a better hiding place?' said Bea.

‘What I don't like,' he said, ‘is those two big blokes on a motorbike behind us. Take a butcher's. All in black, with their visors down. A dark night like this, you can hardly see them. They was sitting right there when we first arrived, and they haven't moved. Your friend wouldn't be wearing that gear, would she?'

Bea took ‘a butcher's', rhyming slang for taking a look. ‘Butcher's hook' equals ‘look'. Two large men on a powerful motorbike, anonymous heads turned towards them. Watching? Waiting?

She said, ‘Dilys is a little bit of a thing. Those two are probably waiting for someone to come out of the pub.'

‘By the pricking of me thumbs, something wicked this way comes. My old Mum used to say that. She also said it helps to have a good nose for trouble, and I reckon I'm smelling something rotten at this very moment. Don't you get out, missus.'

Bea hadn't the slightest intention of getting out. The presence of those two men was giving her a bad feeling, too. ‘Do you think they've come after Dilys, too?'

‘We'll go round the block again once more to be sure, shall we?'

He drove off slowly, and this time the motorbike also moved off, keeping a little way behind them. Turn left. Straight on. Another left turn. Another. And … back to the pub.

The bike idled its way to a stop in exactly the same place as before, about a car's length behind them.

No Dilys.

Bea's mouth was dry. ‘You think they're waiting for me to get out of the cab?'

‘That's a nice handbag you're carrying. A good watch and earrings, too.'

She clasped and unclasped her handbag. ‘You really think they're only out to rob a passer-by?'

‘No, I think you've upset someone, missus. This Dilys's husband, perhaps?'

‘You don't think she's here, do you?'

He shrugged. ‘We looked, didn't we?'

‘You think this was a trap. I was to be lured here and … what? Beaten up?'

‘The man on the back of the bike is holding something. Want to take a chance on it being a stick of Blackpool Rock?'

‘Dilys really has gone missing though. Do you think we could go round the block just once more? Then if we see her, I could whip her into the cab before they could catch me.'

He set off again.

The motorbike followed, this time closing the gap between them.

Turn left.

The bike moved out and turned left, too. But now the two blank visored heads were turned towards the cab. The bike kept pace with the taxi.

Bea shrank back into her seat. She was annoyed to find that she was shaking.

Dear Lord, what do I do now?

Turn left again … and the cab driver put his foot down, leaving the bike far behind … for a short fifty yards.

The traffic lights ahead turned red.

The cab driver swore. ‘Get their licence number, right?'

Bea peered at the bike. ‘It's too dark to see it properly. I can't make it out.'

Had the licence plate been dirtied deliberately? If so, it meant that this attack had been planned.

Two helmeted head drew abreast of the cab. Idling.

Waiting.

One of the men shouted her name. ‘Mrs Abbot!'

So they knew who was in the cab. It
had
been a trap.

The cab driver said, ‘Your name Mrs Abbot?'

She nodded. ‘Yes.'

A gauntleted fist struck the window at her side, but it did not break. She drew in her breath sharply.

A fist or a stick went
rat-a-tat-tat
on the cab roof.

The cab driver said, ‘What the …!'

Bea's breath caught in her throat. ‘Look, you can't risk your cab—!'

The lights changed, and they shot forward.

The bike kept pace with them. Every now and then the driver veered close, and the passenger banged on the window or the roof.

‘Hang on, missus!'

He hung a left turn, and then a right. They made up a few seconds of time.

The bike skidded but righted itself and came roaring after them.

Bea fumbled in her bag. Where was her mobile? Why couldn't she find it? She had put her smartphone back in her handbag after Benton's departure, hadn't she? ‘Do I ring the police?'

‘Just hang on.' He ran a red light and got a volley of abuse from tooting horns. He skidded out from under a bus and turned right on to the main road. The road which they had left what seemed like hours ago.

Bea screwed round in her seat. Where was the bike?

Yes, it was still there, two cars back.

She said, ‘If they know my name, they know where I live.'

‘I said, hold on!'

Down a side road, through an alleyway and out into a wider street … and swish, into a car park beside a local police station.

The motorbike drew up at the entrance to the car park, idled for a moment while the two visored heads consulted, and then wheeled off and away with a final burst of speed.

Bea tried to relax. ‘They've gone.'

The driver was on his mobile. ‘Police? I'm sitting in your car park. Spot of trouble. Got a lady in my cab, been followed by two men on motorbike. Kept trying to beat their way into the cab. She's not getting out of my cab without an escort, right? Can you send someone down to …? Ta.' He clicked off his mobile. ‘So who have you been annoying, Mrs Abbot?'

B
ea was in the kitchen, cooking for a guest, when she heard the key turn in the lock and looked up to see Maggie and Oliver closing the front door and resetting the alarm.

‘We're having a fry up,' said Bea, taking a six pack of eggs out of the cupboard. She was so on edge that she felt she'd shatter into small pieces if anyone touched her. She knew her hair was a mess, her lipstick non-existent and her eye make-up smudged, and she didn't care. ‘Midnight feasts a speciality. Oliver, Maggie: meet my bodyguard, whose name is Lucas.'

The big black man tried to get to his feet, hampered by the fact that he was nursing Winston. ‘I said I'd leave as soon as you two got back.'

‘Not till you've been fed,' said Bea, breaking eggs into a bowl and giving them a whisk. ‘Children: Lucas has just saved my life.'

Oliver slapped his forehead. ‘You caught the tiger by his tail, and he didn't just roar defiance, but went for you?'

‘Laid a trap. At least, I think so. I can't bear to think that Dilys might have been there all the time, and I didn't find her. Have you two eaten, because if not, I can always do a second omelette? I got a phone call just as I was about to have some supper … and by the way, Winston ate the last of the ham I'd laid out for a sandwich for myself, but that's the least of our worries. Anyway, this phone call was from someone with a high, girlish voice, saying she'd escaped and would I come and fetch her. I assumed it was Dilys.' She pointed her whisk at Lucas. ‘You know what they say, never assume. But of course I did just that. Silly me. Catch the toast, will you, Oliver? The toaster's misbehaving. I really must get a new one.'

Oliver reached out and caught two pieces of toast as they shot up into the air. ‘A trap?'

Bea said, ‘Maggie, you're gawping. Take a seat while I finish cooking. Yes, it was a trap. Now, if you two hadn't gone off in the car, I suppose I'd have rushed to the spot indicated, for which sufficient clues had been given, in the backstreets up above Notting Hill, not a very nice area. Fortunately for me I took a taxi and Lucas is one of the most resourceful, bravest men I've met in a long time. They were waiting for us, you see. Two men on a motorbike. I think the passenger was Benton, though I can't be sure as they were both togged up in leathers and visors and gauntlets and boots. Quite scary, in a way. Yes, definitely scary.'

Maggie sat down with a flump. ‘You're not easily scared.'

‘This time I was. There was no sign of Dilys, and the men on the bike kept pace with us, calling my name, thumping the cab. Lucas tried to shake them off, couldn't, but fortunately he knew what to do. He drove straight to the nearest police station, and there the motorbike left us.'

She divided the omelette into two helpings, slid them on to plates, handed one to Lucas, and said, ‘Set to, before it gets cold. Toast on the side. Butter over there, if you want it. Tea for both of us, or would you prefer a beer? I think we've got some, somewhere, and you're off duty now.'

‘I'll get the beer,' said Oliver. ‘You're not hurt?'

Maggie clutched at her head. ‘They called your name? They knew who you were?'

Oliver uncapped a bottle of beer and poured the contents into a glass for Lucas. ‘I ought to have realized you were putting yourself in danger. I ought never to have gone out and left you.'

‘I've been well looked after,' said Bea, round a mouthful. ‘Wow. I was hungry. Salt and pepper, Lucas? Yes, my dears. They knew. If I'd gone in my own car and stepped out of it to search for Dilys, I'd have been toast by now. Which reminds me, do help yourself to some more toast, Lucas. I like to see a man with a good appetite.'

Winston had been dumped on the floor when Lucas started to eat. Winston wasn't going to be left out if food were on the go, so he jumped back up on to the table.

Oliver removed the cat, despite his protests. ‘What did the police say?'

‘They didn't say much. They were ultra busy, with two Rapid Response vans full of football fans who'd been trying their best to kill one another, and we soon saw that we'd have to wait ages to be heard. Lucas got on his mobile and talked to his handler, or whoever it is who controls his time on the road. Lucas was due to finish his shift and was worried about the damage his cab might have sustained, which I said I'd pay for, and of course I've given him all the money I had in my purse and I've got his phone number. And I said, would he like to make a statement there and then, just for him and me if they were all so busy at the desk? And he did, writing it down at the back of my big diary, which luckily I had with me.

‘Then I tried to ring my friend the inspector but of course he's off duty at this time of night so I left him a message. But we couldn't leave the station till we'd made our official complaint and that took for ever, because they were so busy. They did eventually get round to it, but said they thought it was just a couple of opportunists on the bike and that they hadn't really known my name but had called out any old thing to get me out of the cab, and had really been after my handbag and my earrings. And that pissed me off; sorry, children, I'm rather tired, but it did.

‘They gave us a crime report number, which I think I've put in my handbag but maybe it's in my coat pocket, and when we came out Lucas was worried the bikers might have been waiting for us all that time, but fortunately they weren't. Although it was well past the end of his shift, he insisted on bringing me home and he didn't want to leave me alone, so I said had he eaten, and he said not … and here we are. Ice cream for afters? Cheese?'

Lucas wiped the last of the toast around his plate. ‘I said, shall I ring round and get some of my friends organized to act as bodyguards, and Mrs Abbot said she didn't think she could feed the five thousand with what she'd got in the fridge, so here I am. But now you're back, I'll be on my way.'

Bea took both of his hands in hers and held them tightly. ‘Thank you, a thousand times. Will you keep in touch? That sounds stupid, as you probably don't want ever to be reminded of … Sorry, I'm rather tired, not thinking straight. But you'll let me know if there's been any damage to the cab, or if you think of something—?'

‘There was one thing. I told the police the make of the bike and though, as you said, the licence number had been dirtied so we couldn't read it properly, I think I got part of it. But I didn't write it down for you, so if you'll let me have a piece of paper, I'll do it now, before I forget. And let me know if you need me again as a bodyguard, any time. I'm not working tomorrow, for a start.'

‘Thanks.' Oliver handed Lucas the board on which they left messages for one another, and he neatly wrote down the details and his telephone number.

Bea followed Oliver into the hall as he let Lucas out. She watched him scan the street for passing bikers, but clearly there were none. She double-checked that the alarm had been set and leaned against the wall. Maggie was clearing away the remains of their late supper. Winston jumped on to the table to get at the butter dish, only to be shooed off.