Taffin on Balance Page 14

  The lights are out in the office, too. Charlotte closed up and left an hour ago. Rick has been gone for a while.

  Silence settles.

  In Mitres Well Lane, Taffin sits with his feet up, watching Charlotte’s fingers stray across her laptop and wondering when she found time to get comfortable with computers. He can see the screen over her shoulder as she manoeuvres a view of the office at Muscle Motors, switches to the workshop interior, then the forecourt.

  She turns to him. ‘Magic, wouldn’t you say, young man?’

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Yeah, but not very entertaining. I come home from work, turn on the laptop and have a lovely time watching the place I work at, except I’m not in it. You reckon we’ll ever get a visit?’

  ‘Quite likely.’

  ‘You wish, don’t you? You want to see that bloke who tried to shove me around.’

  No response. Charlotte glances at him.

  ‘How did your interview go?’

  ‘She asked questions. I answered them.’

  ‘Not all of them, I bet.’ Charlotte switches views again and they both gaze at the workshop interior for a while. ‘Do you remember in The Godfather, when the families go to the mattresses? It feels like that’s how we’re living at the moment.’

  ‘Except we ain’t gangsters.’ The blank countenance fights back a smile.

  ‘Yeah, well not everybody would agree with that, Mark Twill Taffin. Look at you – you’re never going to pass for a romantic poet.’

  ‘I don’t look like a book-keeper either – so the lady reporter said.’

  ‘Strange, that.’ Charlotte leans over and pats his midriff. ‘You need to get rid of that beer gut.’

  She switches through views of the office interior and the forecourt. All seems quiet.

  ‘How long d’you reckon we need to do this?’

  ‘We’ve got something they want. They ain’t going to stop unless they find it somewhere else, and that ain’t going to happen because we’ve got it.’

  Charlotte shakes her head. ‘It’s a lot of fuss over a shed full of old bangers.’

  ‘We make our living out of old bangers, girl – and some of the ones in that barn are worth serious money.’

  ‘The ones in that barn don’t belong to us, young man.’

  ‘No, they belong to a nice old geezer who lives in an attic. I’ll introduce you one of these days.’

  The phone rings, breaking in on their musings.

  Taffin gets up to answer it and at the same moment a shadow shifts on the screen.

  Charlotte leans forward to stare at it and shouts: ‘We’ve got company. Someone’s in the office.’

  Taffin turns to look, phone in hand, as Julia’s voice comes down the line with a single question:

  ‘Is Ed there?’

  IT WAS THE OBVIOUS PLACE TO LOOK. Taffin’s flashlight plays along the coarse grass flanking the track to Muscle Motors and picks up Ed’s recumbent form.

  A heartbeat later Taffin is on his knees checking for signs of life. A pulse; shallow breathing. Instinct says don’t try to move him. Taffin rising to his feet, searching a pocket for his phone.

  No thought for anything else in this moment.

  Unaware of two figures emerging from the trees behind him.

  The attack is swift, silent and efficient.

  Taffin half turning as locked hands club the side of his head and two punches take him in the midriff, doubling him up.

  Pain and fury taking over. Taffin bellowing rage, staggering sideways, hurling a shoulder punch into the dark, spinning into a right hook, never seeing the punch that takes him on the temple, hardly feeling impact with the ground.

  Some time later Rick Bishop’s bike swings into the lane, the headlight beam slashing across the Mustang telling him Taffin is here, somewhere.

  A moment more and Rick finds them, fumbles for his phone, makes the emergency call, then three more calls to Charlotte, Julia and Kath in quick succession as he waits twenty minutes, or an eternity, for the ambulance to turn up.

  Two paramedics manhandle two heavy men onto stretchers and into the ambulance; the clash of doors and they’re gone into the night in a swirl of blue lights heading for Stoleworth General.

  The roar of Rick’s bike mingling with the sirens as he swings round to follow.

  CHARLOTTE AND JULIA join Rick in the soulless glare of a hospital corridor. Doctor Murphy approaches. He looks as if he hasn’t slept or changed his white coat in a week.

  He wants to know about their relationships with the patients and fails to disguise his unease about people who arrive in this condition: these are not accidental injuries.

  Both men are in a stable condition, he tells them, and will be kept under observation overnight. Neither is fit to be discharged; scans are being arranged. No more information at this stage. He advises them to come back in the morning.

  Charlotte and Julia insist on staying. Rick is disinclined to leave them but they insist he should go home and look after Kath. He is more relieved than he cares to admit. Hospitals give him the creeps.

  NINETEEN

  MAURICE TAFFIN is not given to depression. He is Mo – relentlessly peaceful, good-natured and disinclined to speak ill of anyone.

  It’s been a long time since Shirley has seen him in his present mood. He left the house this morning to roam the hills around Lasherham and she hasn’t heard from him since.

  At this moment he is on the hillside by the Church with the whole village spread out beneath him. Across the valley to his left, Mill Lane winds up to join Mitres Well Lane, out of view on the far side of the hill. A mile to his right he can see the acreage belonging to the bookshop. According to the most recent change of route, StarTrack will come out there if those in charge of it get their way.

  He dismisses the thought. StarTrack is not on his mind today. Matters closer to home are more pressing and he is doing as he always does, letting nature put him at ease. His pipe is burning evenly, matt-black and peaceful. Wisps of smoke snatch away on a gentle wind. He is in a calm place. In spite of which he cannot dismiss alien stirrings of outrage directed at anyone who means harm to his family.

  Mo began to sense all was not as it should be when his brother’s business went quiet and Charlotte couldn’t conceal her anxiety.

  To a countryman, tuned to the music of every day, a wrong note crept in at that point and a clanging discord left echoes of a time he thought was firmly buried in the past.

  He knows his brother has often stood on this very spot, reflecting on whatever it is he turns over in that impenetrable mind of his. Now he, Mo, is doing the same, but with no hard facts to chew on.

  No point brooding. He feels the need for company and sets off down the hill towards the High Street, the White Lion and sanity.

  Ashley Gunn is leaning on the bar when he gets there and Mo joins him without a word. Meg pours him a pint and waves away his offered payment.

  ‘You don’t look yourself, love,’ she remarks. ‘That’s on the house.’

  Ashley Gunn nods approval and Mo is suddenly aware that here, at least, problems can be shared.

  Ashley says, ‘I hear your brother discharged himself from A and E. Have you seen him?’

  Mo shakes his head. ‘Charlotte says he don’t want to talk to anyone. You know how he gets.’

  ‘He’s a quiet one,’ Meg moves closer, mopping imaginary beer from the bar.

  Ashley watches Mo solemnly. ‘Is he going to be alright, d’you think?’

  Mo shrugs. ‘They patched him up in the hospital and wanted to keep him in overnight at least, but he didn’t fancy staying there and I don’t blame him. He walked out as soon as he could. Charlotte’s looking after him now.’

  Meg keeps mopping, more slowly. ‘What abo
ut Ed Pentecost? How’s he doing?’

  ‘They don’t tell you anything, do they? Charlotte reckons they think he might have a skull fracture.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘Someone really laid into the pair of them.’

  ‘Any idea who it was yet?’

  ‘You tell me.’ Mo dips to his beer. ‘It’s been a long time since we had anything like this. Something ain’t right.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Ashley Gunn speaks without looking at either of them.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Mo glances at him. ‘You know my brother as well as anyone. Someone don’t want him around and I’d give a lot to know who it is.’

  Ashley shakes his head. ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘You could if you had a mind to, though.’ Mo finishes his pint and signals Meg for two more. ‘You know I keep well clear of my brother’s business, Ashley, always have. I ain’t got the kind of mind for what he does, anyone’ll tell you that – but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I know when there’s something people ain’t telling me.’

  RICK BISHOP takes a handful of throttle and hunches up against the blast of cold air, his view of the rising sun sloping left, right and left again as he launches the Fireblade into the bends towards Stoleworth.

  Fury and guilt are driving today. Fury at himself for not being there when the attack took place; guilt, for the same reason.

  Kath managed to calm him down last night, arguing that he had no way of knowing what was about to happen and probably wouldn’t have come out of it any better than the other two. They’re no walk-overs, she pointed out; someone must have got to them before they knew what was happening.

  The ride absorbs some of this morning’s adrenalin but Rick is still highly charged as he walks into Stoleworth General.

  Doctor Murphy is still on duty.

  ‘Mister Taffin discharged himself last night, against my advice.’ The doctor refers to a clipboard without looking at Rick, whose presence he finds at least as unsettling as the two who were brought in at the start of his shift.

  ‘Is Mister Pentecost here?’

  ‘He is –’ more reference to the clipboard – ‘are you a relative?’

  Rick is about to say no, but says ‘Yes’.

  The Doctor doesn’t believe him but hesitates. Saying no to this hard-breathing leather-clad person is likely to spark off a scene he doesn’t need. He directs Rick to the ward and leaves it to the nursing staff.

  Julia is at Ed’s bedside and gets up as Rick approaches.

  ‘He’s sleeping now,’ she tells him. ‘They thought it was a skull fracture but it turns out not to be, thank God. He’s got a couple of cracked ribs and bruising everywhere and they say he’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up.’

  ‘I should’ve been there.’ Rick still has a wild look in his eye.

  Julia looks him over. ‘No one saw this coming – not like this, anyway. Don’t beat yourself up.’

  ‘I hear The Boss discharged himself.’

  ‘He wasn’t in great shape, either, but no one felt like giving him an argument and Charlotte took him home.’

  Rick takes a close look at his long-time friend and colleague in the bed and turns to Julia.

  ‘You reckon he’ll be alright?’

  ‘He’ll do. I’ll let you know if there’s any change. Off you go, Rick – you don’t look happy in places like this.’

  Rick puts a hand on her shoulder – an attempt at the reassuring gesture he’s seen Taffin use many times – and marches out.

  The Fireblade gives him comfort again and a while later he pulls up outside the house in Mitres Well Lane.

  Charlotte opens the door and leads him into the kitchen. ‘I’m glad you’re here. He wants to see you. Kath said you’d gone back to A and E. How’s Ed?’

  ‘He’s pretty beat up but they reckon he hasn’t got a fractured skull. Julia’s with him.’

  ‘That’s a load off, anyway. Himself’s in the shed. Go and say hello.’

  Rick goes round to the back of the house, taps on the door of the shed and eases it open. Taffin is sitting on the table by the window, a broad silhouette against the light. Dark glasses slip into place.

  ‘Sit down, Rick.’

  Rick finds a chair and sits down, searching Taffin’s face against the glare for signs of damage.

  ‘You alright?’

  ‘I took a beating, son. Never saw it coming. I must be slipping.’

  ‘Nah – not you.’

  A hint of amusement touches the highlit profile.

  ‘Not just me, Rick. We all have to watch our backs at the moment.’

  ‘We know who we’re looking out for now, at least.’

  ‘We know some of them. I doubt if we’ve met the whole crew. Someone’s pulling the strings and I still don’t know who or why.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘You and Kath should keep your heads down until I can see things clearer. That’s not up for discussion, Rick –’ Taffin moves a hand against the objection – ‘I’m thinking of Kath, and so should you.’

  ‘What about the business?’

  ‘The business keeps running. I’ll be there, so will Charlotte. Everything normal on the face of it, except you’ll be keeping an eye on us with Kath’s magic cameras.’

  ‘What about Ed and Julia?’

  ‘Ed ain’t fit for much right now. When he recovers, the same goes for them.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘That’s how it’s going to be anyway.’

  ‘You mean, you’re just going to sit there at Muscle Motors waiting for someone to turn up and take another pop at you – and maybe Charlotte this time?’

  ‘I won’t be sitting around, son – nor will Charlotte. Someone’s playing games and I need to stay ahead of them. That means working out how they think and what they want.’

  ‘They want us out of business.’

  ‘No one would argue with that. So they start by hijacking you and Ed, leaving me short of skilled men. It don’t work because you guys won’t play ball and they was never going to pay anyway – you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘We worked it out. They didn’t own the cars we worked on, so they were gambling on the paperwork turning up.’

  ‘Which you obligingly found for us.’

  ‘And I was going to have a bonfire with it if Ed hadn’t worked out what it was.’

  ‘Team work. Balance of skills – you get it?’

  ‘Sure. I still don’t like leaving you to run the place without us there.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. They won’t catch us on the hop a second time. I’m working on adjusting the balance in our favour.’

  GORDON GLENNAN stands at his study window gazing out over his garden. It looks good in the failing light and he finds himself wishing he had time for it. Life is too full of other things. His wife hired a gardener years ago and Glennan tries to remember the man’s name. Bill, he thinks, but he probably wouldn’t recognise him in the street.

  Janice is off somewhere again; he has no idea where she is this evening and it occurs to him that there is no real contact between them any more. A married man with all the trimmings, but no marriage.

  This would be as good a time as any to commune with nature, smell the freshness of mown grass and stroll along the herbaceous borders wondering what the various plants are called.

  The lawn feels good underfoot and he ambles along clean-cut borders, breathing deeply, making a conscious effort to clear his mind of everything but the present. Rooks settle in the treetops, making harsh remarks to each other. Or are they crows? Some sort of language among them, he feels. Nothing makes that much noise without a reason. Except, possibly, The House of Commons.<
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  At the foot of a dense hedge he finds a wrought iron bench and sits down, wishing he had thought to bring a cigar.

  The phone ringing in the house. A distant jangle, easily ignored. If he were in his study he would monitor it and call back later if necessary. Right now he has no inclination to stir himself. Let it ring.

  When it stops, he relaxes, surprised to find how easy it was to resist the intrusion.

  It rings again. This time he lets his gaze wander over the twilit garden.

  ‘You have reached Gordon Glennan’s private line. Please leave a message.’

  Glennan smiles at the imagined sound of his own, calm voice, keeping callers at bay.

  A moment to register that the voice was not in his head, but real. How could that be possible?

  ‘You really don’t want to talk, do you?’

  A new voice, soft grit, inches from his ear.

  A snatch of breath as Glennan’s scalp seems to freeze and contract. A certain numbness.

  A beefy hand holds a phone where he can see it.

  ‘D’you want to leave yourself a message?’

  Glennan struggling for words, half turning. A dark form moves behind him and the bench shifts under the weight of a man who takes up more than his share of the space available.

  ‘Settle down, Mister Glennan. You have nothing to fear from me.’ Taffin makes himself comfortable, watching the pencil-black pattern of trees against pale evening light.

  Glennan feels weakness in every limb. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I promised we’d talk again.’

  ‘We have nothing to talk about. You scared me, I admit, but I can’t react to threats – my hands are tied.’

  ‘I understand that, Mister Glennan. I’m not the person you need to worry about. You won’t believe this but I’m here to help.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t believe it. How can you possibly help me?’

  ‘Maybe we can help each other.’

  ‘Mister Taffin, I’m a Minister of the Crown with responsibilities and pressures you can’t even imagine.’