CHAPTER EIGHT
The early evening’s entertainment began with a classical singer and a four piece orchestra in the sprawling gardens outside. Becky had left Harry to mingle with the other delegates, she could see that he was greatly enjoying the occasion and was welcomed back into the club with open arms. He looked happier than ever gesticulating a tale or two to the group who had crowded around him. He had that rare magnetism that didn’t involve being overbearing or egocentric, people just seemed to love him.
She walked over to the table draped in crisp linen for another glass of wine and peered across the gardens at the castle lit up in the distance. It was a magical evening, the weather was quite warm and a nice breeze had come in from the Firth.
A man in the corner saw she was alone and decided to approach her. “Hi Becky, are you enjoying the night air, it’s very beautiful.”
It was Alex again; he had come outside for a cigarette.
“Do you smoke?” he asked as he flipped open the packet
“Socially, I shouldn’t really but what the hell,” she smirked and took his offering.
“You know, it’s really great to see Harry on the loose again. He’s a lovely man, never acts like he’s above or below you.”
“You’re right about that. I came outside to give him some space, he seems to be having a wonderful time catching up on the gossip and sharing his stories.” She looked over at the man, he had pretty, effeminate features; she couldn’t see the skater in him, it sounded totally bizarre.
Becky decided to play a little game for the sake of Harry. He wasn’t too far away and she could see him by the double doors that opened onto the garden.
“So, Alex, what do you do when you’re not whizzing around gathering up investors for your high risk schemes?”
“Schemes,” he laughed a little at this. “It’s risky for sure but I like risk. It suits my nature but I also like to make sure I’m doing it right.”
“And are you doing it right Alex? Do you have the right technique?” Alex, taking a sip of his wine, spluttered a bit into his glass.
He wiped his mouth, “Excuse me?”
Harry had caught the two of them looking very cosy and decided to run off to pick up another drink. For one moment he felt a little jealous that someone was moving in on his girl, but how could he even think that way with a wife back at home planning his next holiday.
He fumbled in his pocket and pressed the button on the mysterious device she had given him.
“What I mean to say is …” she leaned into him a little and looked over to where Harry had been standing and couldn’t see him. A musical ring like a mobile phone started up in her suit jacket.
“Oh God, Harry,” she gasped and pushed past the expectant Alex and into the grand hall.
“Harry, have you seen Harry?” she asked no one in particular. With a worried look on her face she turned around to face a sniggering man leaning up against a table with the pager held high in his hand.
She shot him a look of disgust but understood why he had pressed it; her little game had worked and it left Alex to carry on staring out into the evening light.
“You sod Harry, I was worried about you,” she said with a hint of anger in her voice.
“Just checking it worked, you never know …” Harry was feeling quite light headed by now and he was also getting to the limit of telling tales to everyone.
“It’s been a lovely evening Becky hasn’t it, let’s head over to the hotel for a nightcap. Busy day tomorrow.” He didn’t want to sound too obvious.
“You’re right Harry, it’s been good though. Tomorrow’s deal breaker day and I fancy an Amaretto on ice, haven’t had one of those in a while.”
“Mine’s a Black Russian, let’s get a cab.”
They ventured out into the lovely evening air and hailed a passing black cab. Becky wondered what possibilities awaited them back at the hotel?
Over the road, parked with sidelights on, was a small silver hatchback. The two scruffy occupants were watching the venue intently to see who would be popping out. They saw their quarry leave and pulled sneakily out of the layby to follow the black cab.
“I’m knackered mate, could do with an early night,” said AJ. He was thoroughly bored at sitting in the pokey motor for such a tortuous journey with only one CD and a broken radio for company. Hobbs didn’t seem tired by it all as he had played the tracks over and over again.
“Early night mate, you’re joking aren’t you. Did you catch some of the birds walking around here?, boots up to their thighs and mini-skirts. We’re gonna have some fun after the job’s done and we’ll get it over and done with as quickly as we can.”
AJ groaned. He had smoked too much skunk today but Hobbs had some magic pills and, with the Red Bull he had bought earlier, he would hopefully be buzzing till the early hours.
The cab was winding its way quickly through the streets. Harry and Becky were laughing in the back enjoying each other’s company, totally oblivious to the fact someone was following them. How could they know anyway? How did anyone know their world was about to be turned upside down in an instant?
The cab pulled into the oval driveway that fronted the Radisson Hotel and the doorman hurried over to open the door for the occupants. The silver car drove slowly past and shot down the side road towards the tradesman’s entrance. Vic had gotten it all planned out, he had connections, even this far north, and had arranged a little reception committee for them.
They parked up and knocked at the side door usually reserved for delivery drivers. A foreign sounding man beckoned them in, possibly eastern European. He didn’t smile but motioned them to a store room where he quickly opened a bag to reveal a couple of waiters outfits. It was a busy night in Edinburgh, the conference had made sure the hotel was fully booked and a couple more staff wouldn’t be noticed by the resident managers.
Harry and Becky headed to the bar and ordered the drinks they had promised themselves earlier. It was quite busy but Harry picked out a few familiar faces and nodded greetings to them. All parties, it seemed, had had enough of mingling and were enveloped in their own respective worlds to bother coming over to start chatting again.
“So Harry, how’s your head?” Becky asked, more of an icebreaker than a question.
“Fine, fine, I’ve been truthful with you all along these past few days. Nothing at all, I’m quite relieved. I expected a knock at the door at any hour if you know what I mean, but it never came.” Harry looked happy and more contented than usual.
“That’s good. This Amaretto is going down a treat. How has Suzy been?”
Becky wanted to cross examine Harry. It was obvious she had feelings for him but with Suzy in the frame, her nemesis of late, she wanted to see how he felt about her.
“Suzy,” he tried to find the words to sum up the woman he had been married to for quite some time. They had spent a large part of their lives together and to Harry, it went beyond everyday domestic togetherness, however brief in the evenings.
He knew Becky was probing and he tried to come up with a strong argument in her favour but considering the leading nature of her question he ended up with a weak reply.
“Suzy has been my wife for a long time, I honestly don’t know how I feel about her now. She’s beautiful and lively but …”
“But what?”
Harry paused; he felt like he was selling her down the river.
“But she lacks warmth. She spends her days thinking about gifts and grand gestures and I should be grateful for her efforts. But I remember the days when it was the simple things in life that mattered.”
Harry sighed a little.
He was taken by surprise when Becky placed her hand over his and felt an electric shock pass through his body. She caught his gaze but he felt very amateur at all of this, it had been so long since he had felt the simple joys of romance.
“Simple things matter Harry, it sounds like you’ve written a play with the very same monotonous dialogue you have had to repeat every day and you can’t change anything.”
He hadn’t expected her to say anything quite like that but he imagined for the next ten years it would indeed be the same. He wondered how famous West End actresses managed to perform their duties over a whole season. It felt very much like Groundhog Day.
“I feel I can’t laugh with her, be silly with her and strive for things because we have everything we want already.”
“But nothing that you really need, eh Harry?”
Becky had hit a nerve and he felt uncomfortable. He didn’t want to continue anymore with the psychology doctor sitting right opposite him. He didn’t come back with anything and Becky guessed his mood.
“Look Harry, it’s late and I’ve been wearing this outfit all day. I’ll order some champagne and after a freshen up, we can continue this in your room?”
This was another side of Becky he wasn’t quite aware of. She was acting very mature about the whole thing and he felt like a little boy again; he felt rusty.
Becky got up from her seat and giving him quite a knowing look, marched off to the lifts. He just sat there; the sheer thought of it, it felt very adventurous and mixed with the alcohol he’d consumed, too strong a feeling to let go.
He ordered a brandy as a nightcap and quickly downed it before heading off himself. He felt very guilty but also ignorant at the same time. Becky was an entirely different person; she was warm, flirty, fun and playful as well as her usual role of organised professional. He’d seen a different side to her over the last week and he quite liked it.
Becky came out of the lift on the eighth floor and saw a waiter in the hall. She called to him and he came hurriedly over to her. He looked strangely familiar somehow but she had never been to Edinburgh before. A bit scruffy for a waiter but he must have been coming to the end of his shift.
“Yes madam, can I help you?” He had a heavy East London accent; he was quite far from home like herself.
“Can you bring some champagne on ice please, two bottles, room 802.”
“Certainly Madam.”
“It’s a silly question but don’t I know you? I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before?”
“Can’t say I do Madam,” came the reply. He looked like he was pondering the question.
“Strange, oh well bring them up as soon as you can, thank you.” She let herself into her room.
It was a close call and the waiter grinned. He loved risks, he was glad he hadn’t had to pace up and down the same hall for hours while they finished their drinks. He wondered where AJ was, probably poncing about downstairs no doubt checking out the women.
Harry let himself into his suite. Becky had made a choice pick, it was the usual standard with a king size bed, a wide living room with an equally wide television. He took a shower and wondered whether he should stay in his bathrobe or get dressed into something more comfortable; he opted for the latter. He was going to take time to enjoy the experience.
Becky, it seemed, was an alcoholic. She had ordered red wine, already corked at his bedside. Her attention to detail was amazing, a true professional. He poured himself a large glass and gulping it down, awaited her arrival.
Becky had changed into a sexy little black number. This was her chance to shine; she had admired Harry from a distance for far too long, always acting as second best when Suzy was around. She wondered how he had never noticed her subtle clues to how she really felt about him but they were probably far too subtle out of a fear of rejection.
There was a knock at the door, was it Harry? Blimey he was eager.
“Room service,” came the gruff London accent at the door.
She ran over to the door to receive the champagne and saw two waiters standing there grinning. They didn’t need two people to carry bottles up?
It all happened in a split second with the two of them standing there. She couldn’t recall where she had seen the first one before but now it suddenly hit her. The accident, the car, the attack, it was them!, the same menacing look on their faces as they pushed themselves through the door and trapped their prey with no hope of escape.
She was about to scream but Hobbs stifled it with his heavy hand. She bit it but he felt no pain, he was high on pills and getting a rush from the excitement and violence of it all.
AJ panicked, pulled some duct tape out of his bag and was ripping a strip off to place over her mouth. They threw her onto the bed but she managed to grab the plastic pager from the side table and press it before they bound up her hands with the strong tape. Hobbs, being no gentleman, punched her hard in the stomach, winding her. She sucked for breath through her nose convulsing with the pain, her frightened eyes were wide open and darting about as her brain took in the whole enormity of what was happening. There really was no escape.
Harry, meanwhile, was feeling rather drowsy. Could the day’s events suddenly have caught up with him? He was still on doctor’s orders and lay down on the bed. He found it hard to keep his eyes open and stared at the bedside cabinet where the wine glass sat, emptied of its contents.
A mobile phone chime began to ring. It wasn’t his phone he thought but he found he couldn’t move to pull it out of his pocket. It must be the pager, Becky had probably changed plans and was calling him to come to her room instead. Drifting in and out of sleep unable to fight it, he thought of what could have been and how disappointingly it had ended but he could do nothing about it.
Hobbs pulled out a knife from the holdall.
“Now bitch, I saw this film once where this bloke had taken off his mask to reveal himself and she knew there and then it was the end for her.”
Becky was hyperventilating and couldn’t scream. Where was Harry? Surely he had heard the chime and would be knocking at the door anytime now. Please Harry, please come, please save me Harry.
But there was no response from Harry; he was out cold on the bed with his arm flopped over the edge. It didn’t look like he was about to wake up for a long time.
AJ saw the knife and he shouted over to Hobbs, “Mate we don’t need this, I thought we were only supposed to drug her first then you beat the crap out of her pretty face later on, make it look like domestic violence mate?.”
Hobbs was drooling at the moment, he was enjoying this. He got off on the power of a helpless victim lying there pleading for their very existence.
“Don’t be a mug AJ, how’s that going to work now? She wakes up and spills the beans on the whole thing, she bloody well knows who we are mate!”
AJ couldn’t take it in, Hobbs had the instructions which he didn’t reveal as he liked to be in charge. It suddenly dawned on him what was about to transpire.
“Look mate, you’re better at this than I am. I saw what you did do that chauffer, I just like roughing up from time to time but not women.”
Hobbs was studying the blade and taking sick pleasure in Becky’s reactions to seeing it too.
She didn’t even have time to pray or say goodbye to everyone she loved, it just wasn’t fair, she didn’t even understand why it was happening.
AJ let go of his restraint on Becky but she was too winded to move anyway. “Look mate, do what you want. I’m going to check on the old geezer.”
Hobbs treated it as a matter of fact and with a coldness within him he simply said, “I hate an audience when I’m working anyway AJ, cheers.”
AJ walked out of the room away from Hobbs’ wicked sniggering. He turned down the hall and headed to Harry’s room. He had been given the key earlier and the drugs would have worked their magic by now. He knocked on the door a couple of times; there was no answer so the signs were good. He saw Harry lying there on the bed flat out.
AJ had to get rid of the wine and its contents but he decided to mess the room up a bit to look like a struggle had ensued. He rifled through Harry’s trouser pockets and pulled out a fold of fifties. With a satisfied look he stuffed them into his pocket; nice, “Thanks Mister”.
Hobbs would be finished by now and he walked further down the hall to throw the wine and glass out the window into the empty area by the bins, both shattered on impact but no one heard the sound. Grabbing a cleaner’s towel trolley parked nearby he wheeled it back casually towards Becky’s room.
Hobbs was still brandishing his knife with Becky gasping for air and her life. Maybe he’d had second thoughts; it was a woman after all, not like beating up a bloke for his car.
They picked Becky up and threw her into the trolley. She was wriggling so violently that Hobbs smashed her with his fist and knocked her out. He was an evil man AJ thought. When he was psyched up and drugged up he was so out of control it scared the living daylights out of AJ, he was a nutter.
They wheeled Becky out of the room as if they had just performed late night room service.
The evening was winding its way down and Dr Hancox was still at his practice going over the fine detail of his final diagnosis on Harry. The phone rang in the starkly lit room and he picked it up to find it was Jack.
“Hello Nick, Jack here, how’s the statement coming along?”
“Jack, it’s all in place, I’m just dotting the i’s and crossing t’s at the moment. You’ll be able to review it tomorrow. It’s quite good, one of my best I think.”
“Good, good,” came the slithery reply. “I knew I could count on you. After all of this I should think you’ll be heading off to the Bahamas and enjoying the tropical sun.”
“Your right Jack, to be honest I’m sick of whining patients coming around complaining of their self induced ailments. It’s a living but it just doesn’t get me as close to the goal as I’d like to be.”
“It will come soon enough my friend. I’ve made a deposit into your numbered account in Zurich. The final stage payment will be made quite soon after we play our last scene.”
“Thank you Jack. I’m surprised it’s all performed exactly like clockwork, all down to careful planning I daresay.”
“You’ll be well cared for, especially for your loyalty,” said Jack. He had known Nick for a while, they played golf together and even with different professions, they were like peas in a pod, they both shared the decadent life at all costs.
“Thank you Jack.”
Loyalty, thought Nick, it was only money that was important after all. He would do the same for Harry if the situation was reversed.
Dr Hancox stopped writing and stored the diagnosis in his case file. A shape appeared in the doorway and he looked over to see who it was.
Trixie, his ever attentive nurse was standing there with the loosest buttons imaginable. She’d need a new nurses outfit if it was ever going to stay on her. He hoped she didn’t expect overtime; she gave him a wink and held out a bottle of wine to share.
Back at the hotel, Hobbs and AJ had finished their work. The sleeping tablet would work it’s magic off in a couple of hours, just enough time for them to get away from there and call the police.
They walked nonchalantly down the stairs to the kitchens and pushed their way through the double doors. The man who had let them in at the outset was standing there to see them out. Hobbs handed him an envelope of cash and patted him on the shoulder. He noticed a speck of blood smeared on his lapel but didn’t ask any questions; he’d just change into something new.