Rant (17 page)

…Oh.

I was gazing at the façade of the sewerage works.

I debated whether to sink back out of sight, but I knew that I could spend the rest of my life wandering around down there in Pooland without finding another exit.

Everything seemed quiet. The minibus was gone, as were the high-end cars and limousines that had been here when we arrived. So, Sam and Co. had abandoned me and fled with their share of the loot, or whatever it was, the police had disappeared, presumably in pursuit of someone, and the villains had gone to ground.

In all, it wasn't a bad result.

All I had to do now was

get to a phone

call up Anna's captors

clean myself up, then

avoid the police

and a bunch of gangsters

and the C.I.A

and presumably anyone else the Government could find to hunt me down and claim the price on my scalp (MI5, anyone? The Olympic Ballroom team?), then

make the trade and get Anna back without either of us being killed, arrested or maimed.

Easy.

Oh, and

find a way to get out of the country, after

persuading Anna of the truth of my story without being killed, arrested or maimed.

Not so easy.

I climbed slowly out of my hidey-hole, looking around as I went. Everything was silent. I pulled the manhole cover back and dropped it back into place as quietly and carefully as I could. Which meant, of course, that it clanged like the bells of hell in the silent car park and trapped my fingers under the edge.

I was still squeaking and panting and trying to free myself when I felt something cold touch the back of my neck.

‘Well, Mr Rant, we meet again,' said a familiar voice.

There was the click of a gun being cocked.

‘Hello,' I said. ‘Pardon me if…ooh…I don't get up. Fingers, see. Drain. Hurts. Could you…er…?'

The crack across the back of my skull helped obliterate the pain.

And everything else.

Thursday May 6
th
. Evening.

I was tied to a rickety steel chair.

Naked.

But at least I was clean now, much to everyone's relief – not least mine. God only knew what diseases I might be harbouring after my time in the flotation tank of the London sewerage system (though at this moment in time my chances of living to see them flourish are extremely slim), but the first thing Mr Barbu had his henchmen do after we arrived here was to strip me down and clean me off with a high-pressure fire hose. What was left of my skin was pink and shiny and smelt of Parma Violets.

We were in a large open space that looked as though it had been a garage at one point, though it was obviously long abandoned. There were oil-stains on the floor and oddly shaped, uncared-for tools lying around.

Speaking of oddly shaped, uncared-for tools, the three men in the room with me were still and silent.

I tried to make conversation but they weren't having any of it.

‘Look,' I said, ‘if you're going to torture me and give me a long, lingering death, just tell me now so I can have a heart attack and get it over with. I'm feeling a bit tingly down my left arm as it is.'

Nothing.

‘Hello?' I said. ‘Listen, I don't know anything, so you're wasting your time and energy. So unless this is some strange audition for an advert for the newest line in Trabant cars or some weird late night version of
Punk'd,
then maybe you could just let me go and we'll say no more about it. Hmmm? Promise I won't tell on you.'

Still nothing for a few moments. Then the man in the middle, Bela Barbu, nodded slightly.

The other two started towards me.

Uh-oh,
I thought.

At first they flicked wet towels at me, which hurt like a bastard, let me tell you.

Then one of them came over and punched me in the jaw. I felt a molar loosen. Tasted blood.

Then the other one punched me in the stomach.

Then they took turns standing on my toes with their heavy boots.

Then they took turns whacking me round the head with rolled-up newspapers, which hurts more than you might think.

Then they do-si-doed their partners and hooked me up to a car battery and a set of alligator clips on my nipples. The battery was flat, which disappointed them enormously, but it really stung anyway. My nipples were standing out like chapel hat pegs.

My heart attack eluded me. Though I did learn how to yodel, which is some small consolation.

Then one of them grabbed my shoulders and shook me really hard.

I was plagued by the image of my brain bouncing around like a pea in a whistle.
What happens,
I wondered,
if I end up with some terrible brain injury that leaves me fluent in Turkish but unable to toilet myself?

Barbu sat silently through it all on a chair opposite me, pecking away at a laptop, occasionally printing things off or moving his legs to avoid water or blood splatters. He did not seem in the least concerned or interested in what was going on.

Throughout everything I didn't let any useful information slip, though this was not for the want of trying. All I managed to say was
ow, ooyah, ouch, aaaaaaah, stopitstopitstopit you bastards, not the testicles, owowow, gnnnnnaaarrrggghhh,
and
I'll tell you anything you want to know just don't hurt me any more, please.
Though not necessarily in that order. Things are a little fuzzy in my recollection of this time.

I must have lost consciousness at some point, since I suddenly found myself jerking awake as a bucket of icy water was thrown over me. I closed my eyes and tried to will myself into a coma but hands started slapping at my face.

‘Should we give him an anti-Semitic?' a voice asked.

‘Not just yet,' came back Bela Barbu's voice. ‘I think Mr Rant is ready to talk now, hmmm?'

I opened an eye.

I couldn't help myself. ‘What's an anti-Semitic?'

Barbu smiled.

‘A speciality of Eugene's,' he said, while I'm thinking,
Eugene?
You can't be a hired killer and torturer with a name like Eugene. It's worse than Eustace. Not much, I'll admit, but worse all the same. Though what you'd have to go through at school would be enough to turn anyone into a sociopath.

‘It involves cutting away the penis and testicles with the bluntest instrument you can find to do the job and leaving only the foreskin attached by a thin piece of flesh. It is, of course, done without anaesthetic and I'm led to believe that it is extremely painful and time consuming. Though in your case I do not think it would take so long. More of a minor operation from what I can see.'

‘Hey,' I whimpered, ‘it's cold in here with no clothes on.'

‘Whatever,' Barbu said. ‘Would you like to try it anyway?'

‘Maybe later,' I replied, all the while thinking that if Eugene didn't do it, Anna probably would. Or at the very least she'd offer to hold me down.

‘It's a bit racist though, isn't it?' I said, hoping to cause a distraction (though if he wasn't distracted by the sight of my naked booty, then talking wasn't going to help).

‘What's racist?' he asked.

‘Calling it an anti-Semitic.

‘How so?'

‘Well...racial stereotyping and all that.'

‘An interesting point. My Grandmother was Jewish, on my father's side, so I am in fact myself one quarter Jewish.'

‘Ah…' I said, knowingly, ‘the old “one cannot be racist against one's own racial group” line. But isn't it dependent on your audience? Should one only say such things to one's own race and social group? Because only then can one be sure that the humour you project is taken in the manner in which it is given.'

‘But Barthes would argue that such an assumption regarding the other's ability to separate the signifiers you use to convey your point of view from the signified would in itself be racist, would he not, Mr Rant?'

‘I'd need to think about it. I was thinking more of Bernard Manning's arguments myself, and they never convinced me.'

‘Okay, for now we'll just call it filleting your cock. How does that suit?'

‘It'll hurt just as much either way, won't it?'

‘I sincerely hope so,' said Barbu. ‘But like I said, I do not think it will be necessary. I think you are ready to cooperate, and we do not have all night.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Shoot.' Barbu picked up some papers and a gun from the floor and stood. Walked over me to me.

‘Er, bad choice of words,' I said. ‘Ask anything you like. Anything.'

He leant over me. Raised the gun. Then took a quick step backwards.

‘What is that smell?' he gasped.

‘Sorry. I'm getting a little stressed here.'

He spent a couple of seconds wafting his hands around theatrically and then came back over to me, though not quite so close this time.

‘Who sent you here?' he asked quietly, breathing through his mouth. ‘Who was it that sent you to kill me? Do you even know?'

‘No,' I muttered.

He considered this for a few seconds. He knew that I was broken, that I was unlikely to lie to him. ‘Tell me what you know about…' he checked some papers in his hand, ‘…Samuel Smith.'

‘He told me he's a CIA agent. Semi-retired. Him and his cronies set up this whole thing. To catch people who employed the service of assassins.'

‘And you believe that?'

I no longer knew what to believe. ‘Shouldn't I?' I asked.

He observed me again. Almost – I would think, if I didn't know better – almost sadly.

‘I think you know nothing about what is going on. I think you're a fool who has been sucked into this game and used. And I think you are of no use to me whatsoever.'

‘Well at least we agree on something,' I said. ‘Can I go now, only I've got a bus to catch and it gets busy at the emergency department when the pubs kick out.'

‘Still joking. I like that. Now, before I kill you,' he said quietly, ‘there is something I would like you to see.'

He dropped a glossy black-and-white photograph into my lap. It showed a young man in a double-breasted suit and a trilby hat, smoking a cheroot and grinning. He looked like Flash Harry in the St. Trinian's films. But there was no doubt that I was looking at a much younger version of Samuel Smith.

I felt my heart sinking. I didn't want to hear what Barbu was about to say.

Over Sam's shoulder, just visible, was a rundown public house; the name above the door read
The Khazginjystania Arms Hotel.

Oh dear.

‘This is a photograph of a gentleman who goes by the name of William Milligan, a.k.a. Billy the Pill, a.k.a. the Rumour Mill. And I suppose, for now, a.k.a. Samuel Smith. He is wanted for questioning by the police in several European countries but he is something of a slippery character. He is not, as you seem to think, an American. He was born in London and has been a dealer of some significance since the nineteen fifties. He is a conman.'

My heart still stubbornly carried on beating, but it sank still further. Any lower and I could use it as a cushion to keep my buttocks off this bloody cold chair.

Odd snippets of conversation replayed in my head.

So do you think he knows?

Not yet, but pretty soon…and then we have a problem.

And dealing with that problem?

‘It's just a con?' I said. ‘This is just about money.'

‘It is always about money, Mr Rant.'

‘And what about the others? Joshua. Sebastian. Abigail?'

‘The others are members of his gang.'

As he spoke he flicked more photographs in front of me, all of them showing younger versions of the GIA.

‘Joshua Smith, a.k.a. Benjamin Cooper, a.k.a. the Chicken Coop, a.k.a. Benny the Answer Phone. Started out as a pimp and then got into the import and export business – people, not goods. Word on the street has it that a rival pimp poked out his voice box with a snooker cue. Cooper was taken to hospital and patched up, then returned to the snooker hall and finished off the game he was playing – apparently using his rival's testicles in lieu of a cue ball.

‘Mr Van Gogh, a.k.a. St. John Raleigh-Ramsbottom, a.k.a. The Professor, a.k.a. The Radge from the Raj. Something of an entrepreneur, this chap, and very well connected, it would seem. He set up a somewhat lucrative opium trade when he was in India in the forties, just before the British pulled out, and has been overseeing it ever since. He apparently supplies about forty percent of the Scottish heroin market – which is a lot of money.

‘The other two I do not know, but I am assuming they are probably associates, or just plain bodyguards, brought in to help them run this latest gig. Together the big three have masterminded some of the biggest extortion rackets, big cons, and long games in history. Rumour has it that they were the first crew to sell London Bridge to an American collector.'

‘I just wanted to save my wife,' I pleaded. ‘And my child. Though I didn't know about the child when this all started. I thought this Sam whatever-his-name-is was trying to help. I thought he was just helping me to rescue my wife. Please, you have to believe me.'

‘I do believe you, Mr Rant. And don't get too down. You weren't to know; he is very, very good at what he does. He has been scamming people for a long, long time. And the good conman has no room for sentimentality. He didn't care about you or anyone else. So remember – because of this man you will soon be dead, and so will your wife.'

He watched me closely.

‘I can help you to get your property back,' I said, desperately, ‘I know where one of the cases is and—what?'

He was laughing, still with that same sad smile.

‘I doubt very much that you know anything of the sort,' he said. ‘And besides – the contents of that case will be useless by this time tomorrow. Don't make the same mistake that Mr Milligan—sorry, Mr
Smith
made. There is always a back-up plan, and copies can be made.'

‘Copies of what? The title deeds to a sewerage works? What use are they to Sam, or whatever he's called, if they've been signed and authorized?'

He laughed again. ‘Your ignorance really does astound me, Mr Rant. I cannot believe how totally you have been duped by these people.'

‘Join the club,' I said. ‘Look. As you keep telling me, I have no idea at all what this is all about. Just let me go and try to save my wife, at least. You can follow me if you want, try to get the bastards who set you up…'

He had been shaking his head throughout my pleas. ‘No, Mr Rant.'

‘But even if it is a con,' I said, ‘they still have to collect on the deal – I just need to call the people who set you up and arrange—'

‘Tell me, Mr Rant, how much were these people offering you for the retrieval of the briefcase?'

‘One hundred thousand. All together. Fifty for killing you and fifty for the case… So you see you'll get one of the cases back and I can even give you the money, too, if you like. And I have a little extra that I…er…borrowed…'

He was laughing heartily now, as was everyone else in the room.

‘Oh, now, Mr Rant. I think you'll find that the contents of those briefcases are worth a little more than that on the open market. And Mr Milligan will certainly be aware of their value. He will not go anywhere near our Romanian friends. He will be off to find richer pickings. I will catch up with him sooner or later, don't you worry.'

‘But I can help you—'

‘No,' he states, with finality. ‘No, Mr Rant. You are nothing but a liability now. This is not some corny spy film where the arch villain spills his wicked plans to you and then, by some miraculous turn of events, allows you to go free and save the day. This is not an action movie with you as the romantic lead. This is business, Mr Rant. And nothing gets in the way of business.'