Sudden Death (26 page)

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t sweat it, Erasmus. Your generation always over think these things. And don’t worry, I will look after Rebecca.’

She winked at him and then leant down and kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’ll see you around.’

She sauntered out of the pub leaving Erasmus with his half drunk pint and a sense of regret that he knew he would carry with him for sometime.

Old Bob laughed, a dry, croaky, cancerous laugh.

‘She may be a cunt but she is a pretty one and she sure isn’t as much as a cunt as Erasmus,’ said Bob to nobody in particular and then he scratched his balls with a blackened finger.

‘He’s not that stupid old Erasmus,’ said Owen.

‘Fuck!’ said Erasmus and a second later he was out the door, following Cat.

He caught up with her thirty seconds later at the bottom of Mount Pleasant. She turned around at the sound of his running and took him into her arms. They kissed passionately, their tongues interlocking with hungry need.

‘Wait,’ she said and flagged down a passing cab.

They jumped inside and Erasmus gave the cabbie his address. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other and Erasmus felt himself being washed away with desire. Five minute later they were out of the cab and running up the stairs to his apartment. They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Stumbling through the hall, discarding clothes as they went, they fell onto the sofa.

Erasmus was on top of Cat. He stroked her face and then started kissing her again. He stopped and moved down, giving soft butterfly kisses to her neck, tracing along her décolletage and then further down, his tongue lingering on her flat stomach. She groaned with lust and anticipation. Erasmus slowly let his tongue track downwards until he sucked gently on her clitoris, taking that small bud and teasing it, making it flower in his mouth.

She writhed underneath him as he buried his head deeper. He brought her to the edge and just as he thought she would topple over she pushed him away, onto his back. Cat rushed on top of him. She held his gaze as she took him inside her. Erasmus let his head fall back onto the arm of the sofa and groaned with pleasure.

Somewhere amidst the lust, ecstasy and alcoholic fury, he could hear a small voice telling him it was wrong, that he was doing what he always did, running from intimacy, betraying Karen. He could have listened to it but instead he gripped Cat’s shoulders and kissed her deeply and with an intensity that simply drowned the small voice.

CHAPTER 32

He didn’t mistake the pounding on his front door for the pounding in his head. The pounding in his head was far, far worse and wasn’t going to go away as quickly. Even as he woke an image came to him, the booze had prised free the memory of the rubbish from Frank Tallow’s bins. He knew what it was now, what had been there that shouldn’t have been. It explained a lot.

He rolled over and put his arm around the empty space in the bed where Cat had been. There was no one there now. She was obviously the type not to wait around for breakfast.

He smiled and then the memories of the events of the night before came tumbling into his mind. Fuck. At least he was in his own bed. Although he only had the haziest of recollections of how he had got here.

The hammering on his door intensified. It briefly occurred to him that they might have left the front door of the apartment block open in their speed and desire to get to each other the night before.

‘OK, OK,’ he mumbled to no one in particular. He grabbed a T-shirt and some jeans from the floor. He could see a shoe and he put it on, the other reminded stubbornly hidden. There was another bang at the door, angry and determined. A quick look around the piles of clothes and records scattered around the room didn’t reveal the missing shoe.

Erasmus hobbled to the door, his one shoe throwing him slightly off balance. He pulled open the door and was confronted by the sight of a male uniformed police officer and a slightly older plain-clothes policewoman.

It was the woman who spoke. ‘I’m DCI Pobroksy and this is Officer Harris. Are you Erasmus Jones?’

‘Well, I’m not fucking Cinderella.’

She nodded and didn’t smile. Erasmus had a bad feeling about this. Policeman knocking on the door usually meant bad news, really bad news.

The woman was not unattractive, late thirties maybe, with only small lines around her eyes marking her tumble down the slope that led to middle age.

‘Is it my father?’

She shook her head.

‘Erasmus Jones, I am arresting you on suspicion of the rape of Natalie Cole on the 15th January 2015. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ She nodded at the police officer who produced a pair of cuffs.

Even in his hung-over state Erasmus knew what had happened. Cowley had set him up. This was payback for interfering.

Erasmus was going to keep quiet but he couldn’t help himself.

‘Is there time for a slice of toast and a cup of tea?’

Harris held out some cuffs.

‘Do I have a choice?’

He put out his hands and Harris slapped the cuffs on him.

‘Scumbags like you don’t deserve breakfast,’ said Harris, his breath was heavy with the evidence of the coffee and cigarettes he had already enjoyed.

‘That’s enough,’ said Pobrosky angrily to Harris. ‘You’re coming with us, Mr Jones.’

It wasn’t the first time he had been in a cell and he wasn’t unduly worried by the situation. DCI Pobrosky had asked him who he wanted notified of his arrest and he had given her Pete’s details. Now it was just a matter of waiting. There couldn’t be any physical evidence and they hadn’t charged him yet so once Pete arrived there would be some shouting, legal threats and then an eventual interview followed by a quick release. Well, that’s what he hoped.

Erasmus sat back on the rubber mat that covered the concrete bed and leaned his back against the cold wall. He closed his eyes and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. There was the sound of keys being rattled and then inserted in the lock. Admiral Police Station was an old Victorian station and he guessed the budget hadn’t stretched yet to electronic doors.

The door opened. Harris stood at the door. His face twisted into a smile and his little eyes gleamed with delight.

‘You’ve got company.’

It wasn’t Pete.

Harris winked at Erasmus and then stepped back and to the side of the door disappearing from Erasmus’s view.

A man, at least six foot five and nearly as wide as the door took his place. He was bald and red faced with rat like features. He glanced at Erasmus and then squeezed through the opening before walking slowly to the bench on the opposite wall. He sat down and stared straight at Erasmus.

‘Say hello to the Duke. I’m going to go for my lunch now so I won’t be able to look after you two but I’m sure you’ll play nice,’ said Harris and then he slammed the door shut.

The Duke made a noise that to Erasmus’s ear sounded like a dog’s growl. Instinctively, Erasmus moved his back away from the wall and shifted his weight forward.

Just above the mass of the Duke’s head was some graffiti on the wall: DIE OR BE SAVED. Someone else had added a coda in green ink: FUCKING DIE CUNT.

The growl turned into a word. ‘Nonce.’

Saliva ran down the side of the Duke’s mouth and thin, red spider tracks covered the pinky whites of his eyes. Erasmus recognised the look and the contorted facial expressions. He had seen them before on clients of his who had been arrested for crystal meth possession.

For the first time since the Duke had entered the cell, Erasmus felt scared. He hadn’t been worried by the guy’s bulk, his muscles or his aggression but add in crystal meth and that changed the equation. He had known women, high on meth, slice away at their own fingers with a kitchen knife, removing pieces and remaining oblivious to the pain.

Erasmus looked down, avoiding eye contact but not fully averting his eyes. It was like waiting for a wild animal to pounce. He knew it was coming, it was only a case of when, and could he survive it?

He had a quick look to the left, nothing but a small, reinforced glass window, only two feet square and six feet off the ground. The room was bare and he had been stripped of anything – belts, shoe, pens, even his watch – anything that could possibly be used as a weapon.

Erasmus looked up towards the door and almost immediately realised his mistake, the realisation gaining him the millisecond that probably saved his life.

There was a rush of displaced air as the Duke shot forward, head lowered and his right arm pointing at Erasmus who dived off the bed and onto the floor, avoiding the arm and then the rest of the Duke that slammed into the wall where he had been reclining only a second earlier.

There was the sound of something metallic hitting the concrete and Erasmus saw that the grapefruit-sized fist of the Duke was clutching a crude, homemade shiv. Harris had obviously been in charge of the search at custody.

Erasmus leapt to his feet. The panic button was by the door but Erasmus was at the far end of the cell and the route to it was now blocked by the Duke, who had turned around and was getting to his feet. He could see the knife clearly now. A piece of forged steel and a black tapped handle: a classic shiv.

‘Listen, I don’t know what he told you but I’m innocent and I’m no nonce.’

The Duke spat something green and lumpy on the floor and lowered his head again preparing to charge. There was nowhere to go this time.

The Duke charged again, Erasmus dived to the floor and through the Duke’s legs. He quickly jumped to his feet and hit the panic button hard with the palm of his hand. No sooner had he done so than the Duke’s knife was plunged into the fleshy part of his right hand between his thumb and index finger and pulled out again.

Erasmus let out a yelp of pain and kicked backwards as hard as he could with the heel of his right foot. His bare foot connected with something hard and bony and there was a snapping sound.

Erasmus span round and saw the Duke looking down at his right leg. Erasmus could see from here that the Duke’s femur was broken. There was a bulge above and to the side of the Duke’s right knee where the bone had pushed out again the skin and the Duke’s jeans started to flower red.

The Duke looked down at his deformed leg and then a clown like grin, crimson lips and bulging eyes, tumbled onto his face. He started to limp forward, jabbing the knife towards Erasmus’s face.

For a second Erasmus considered sliding through the Duke’s legs again but he was too close now, he didn’t have the space to pick up any momentum. He would have to fight.

Erasmus was of the school of strike first and strike hard. He swung his left forearm in an arc colliding with the Duke’s forearm which sent him crashing backwards, he followed up by slamming his palm hard into the Duke’s face, smashing his nose into splinters. Erasmus screamed with pain as the open wound on his hand connected and he could feel the exposed bone slide up the Duke’s face.

He thought he would pass out with the pain, and he bit the inside of his lip hard. Passing out now would be fatal.

The Duke’s face was now smeared in blood, his own and that from Erasmus’s bloody palm. His nose was a mess of cartilage and skin that hung loosely from the broken fragments of bone.

The Duke smiled again, bloody stalactites dripping from what remained of his nose. He still had the knife and he began to advance again. Erasmus realised he couldn’t use his right hand, he couldn’t feel it, and even an attempt to make it into a fist was impossible.

He swung his left arm to ward off the knife arm again, but he couldn’t follow up with an attack. The Duke swung his left arm and his fist slammed into Erasmus’s right ear sending him crashing to the floor at the foot of the bed he had been sitting on when the Duke entered the room.

The Duke shifted unsteadily and started to turn, readjusting his position slowly. He may not have been feeling the pain, the dopamine overloaded synapses misfiring, but the broken leg had slowed him. Erasmus, laying at the Duke’s feet, started to feel faint, sounds seemed far away and he realised he couldn’t stand up. He had one chance and he took it. He fell rather than moved forward and his head came to rest on the Duke’s right knee. Erasmus raised his hands and he jammed his thumbs into either side of the lump of broken bone that he could feel just above the knee.

The Duke screamed and then staggered backwards.

The door to the cell was flung open and he saw a pale looking DCI Pobrosky raise a Taser and point it at the Duke.

And then Erasmus passed out.

***

At first he thought he was in a heaven that he didn’t believe in. There was a beautiful white angel standing above him, moving in and out of focus. He reached towards her with his right hand but he couldn’t move his hand more than a few inches.

A familiar voice chipped in, ‘You’re handcuffed to the bed, numb nuts.’

Pete.

‘I thought it was heaven not hell,’ said Erasmus.

The nurse, now in focus and perhaps not quite as angelic as he had first thought, smiled at him and then turned to Pete. ‘He’s fine now.’

‘You hear that, Raz, it’s official, you’re fine. If only that were the truth, eh? Can you give us a moment?’

‘Sure, I’ll be down at the end of the corridor if you need me.’

She left the room. Pete sat down in the chair next to the bed.

‘I always wondered who got a hospital room to themselves. Now, I know: private patients and suspected rapists.’

Erasmus tried to sit up but a shooting pain drilled through his skull.

‘Lay back. You’ve got a concussion apparently, that and a hole in your right hand. Luckily for you that Goliath didn’t hit any tendons.’

‘That cop put him in there deliberately, he told him I was a nonce.’

Pete shrugged. ‘Can you blame him? Lots of people would think he did a good thing. A nonce getting a kicking doesn’t bring out people’s innate feelings of sympathy.’

‘Can it, Pete. You know I haven’t raped anyone. It’s a set-up. Cowley wants me out of the picture until the transfer with Anzhi is a done deal.’