I’m sitting in the middle of a row of three seats, with a snoring man who keeps trying to use my left shoulder as a pillow, and a woman who has drunk herself into a stupor on my right. Around me the plane is quiet and the lights low.
Bring on tomorrow.
Chapter 55
Thursday August 7 ^th 2008
I got in late last night. I assumed Martin was in bed and I didn’t wake him. When I got up in the morning he was gone. I wasn’t actually sure if he had been in. A quick peek in his room and it didn’t look slept in. Then again he was neat and probably made the bed up before he left. As I yack into this thing, there is still no sign of him and it has gone ten o’clock at night.
The day has been a quiet one. I went over the events in Mallorca until I was blue in the face but I can’t make head nor tail of them. The whole thing was a set up. Of that there is no doubt, but the question is why and why in that manner?
If Dupree has decided I am excess baggage then he could have taken me down long ago. I have one working theory, and it is a poor one at best.
I’m thinking that Dupree knew of Spencer’s intentions and also found out about the box in Mallorca. He could have raided it, removed anything that might incriminate him and have left the single sheet of paper for anyone else that came along. When someone was fool enough to appear, then the local goon squad were alerted and that was why I was caught bang to rights in the shop.
As such there may be no pre-meditation in all of this. I simply followed the trail that someone else had already trodden. What I can’t figure is how they knew I was in the shop at that particular moment. Maria might have been in on it and the whole ‘helping me’ thing was a game. It would certainly explain the ease with which she decided to lend me a hand. But then why hit the alarm and save me? If she was in on it she could have just left me to the goon patrol. So if she didn’t alert them then who did and why?
I haven’t got any answers to this one yet. I’ll front up with Martin when he gets back and see if he has any ideas.
Chapter 56
Sunday August 10 th 2008
No sign of Martin. When he was still A.W.O.L. on Friday I put it down to him going away for the evening and not informing me. However he should have been back Friday night as a minimum, as he was picking me up from the return flight. I fully expected him to appear on Friday evening in a rage, having driven out to Glasgow airport only to discover I wasn’t on the plane.
I’ve tried his mobile but it isn’t even tripping to answer machine. It simply rings out and then dies. On Saturday I tried a few of his usual haunts but with no success. I didn’t push too hard. If Dupree wants me I’m not going to spread myself around town and advertise my whereabouts. I’m assuming that Martin’s house is safe, if for no other reason than that I would be dead by now if Dupree wanted me and knew I was holed up with Martin.
Mallorca is still spinning in my head but I’m no further forward.
Chapter 57
Monday August 11 ^th 2008
They found me. It was gone midnight last night and I was watching ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ’ on TCM — a weepie but a good one. I heard the door handle being turned and expected Martin to walk in, but when I saw the goon patrol from Mallorca bowl into the room I knew I was in a world of trouble.
Fortunately I hadn’t been on the giggle juice and my head was clear. They rolled in and I rolled off the settee and leapt to my feet. They headed for me but I was into the kitchen and out the back door like a cat with a poker up its arse. They gave chase but it was dark and I simply sprinted into the field behind Martin’s house and circled back on myself. I lay flat as the goon patrol squelched around for ten minutes and left.
I was in no position to move on. I needed my stuff from the house.
I sat for an hour in the chill and then approached the back of the house. There was no sound from within and I clambered onto the roof of the old coal hut with all the grace of a cat fifteen years past its prime.
My bedroom window sits above the hut and the latch on the window gave easily to a penknife. I climbed through the window and gathered up my stuff. Bag packed I went to the bedroom door and listened. If I was going to be out on the street for the night I could do with my jacket and some food. Both were downstairs.
I listened and I could hear the TV still playing out the end of the movie but nothing else. If the goons were in the house then they were playing it quiet.
I opened the bedroom door a touch and slipped out onto the small landing. The stairs in front of me dropped straight down to the front door. The first three steps were hidden from view but after that you could be seen from the living room.
I bent down and placed my hands on the first step and leant forward. The bit of the room I could see looked empty. I pushed my head a little further until the fireplace came into view and there was still no sign of life. Dropping my right hand one more stair I leant down and took in most of the rest of the room. Empty.
I stood up, grabbed a lungful of air and walked down the stairs. The front door was frosted glass but you could still see shapes through it and I tried my best to avoid it by leaping from the middle of the staircase straight into the room. As I landed I froze, waiting for an attack from either the kitchen or the front door. Nothing happened and I crossed to the kitchen door. The light was off and in the dark I loaded up on chocolate, crisps and diet Irn Bru.
I walked back into the living room and eyed my jacket hanging on a coat peg next to the front door. If anyone was watching then my shadow would be a give away. I walked to the stairs and dropped to my knees, then to my belly and wriggled towards the front door. If someone came in now I was a goner.
I reached the door and slid up the wall until I could relieve the coat peg of my jacket, caught it as it fell and wriggled back to the stairs.
I was half way up the stairs when the front door opened with a vengeance and the goons reappeared. Common sense would have been to lock it but it had never occurred to me.
I flew up the remaining steps, ran into my bedroom, slammed the door behind me, picked up my bag and scrambled through the open window. The door to the bedroom bounced off the wall behind me as the goon patrol entered at high speed.
I was on the coal hut roof and, with a leap, I dropped to the concrete below. Above me one of them shouted but I was over the fence and back into the field — this time I didn’t double back I just kept running.
As my breath shortened I began to ease up and turned sharp left. In the far distance I could see the main road through the village of Eaglesham. Behind me there was another shout but it was too far away to be an issue. I made for the light.
The trek was tough — crossing fields in the dark is not easy and I had no light to see by. After an hour I reached the village but stopped short of entering the pool of light that the street lights cast.
I had no idea where I was heading but it needed to be away from here. The goon patrol would not give in easily. Dupree was a bastard of the first order and failure was not tolerated well. The fact that they had been given a second chance and sent in after their failure in Spain was surprising enough.
I skirted the road and made my way through another field — keeping the road to my right. Twice I had to divert to avoid houses and then I hit a stretch of homes running across my path. I picked the one with the lowest fence and jogged through the garden and out onto the road on the other side.
The main road was to my left and knew if I turned right there was the Chinese restaurant on one side and the row of shops, a little further down, on the other side. At this time they would all be shut. Turning right would lead me into an estate and, much as I wanted to play hide and seek with the goon patrol, I needed to put distance between the village and me.