False Report Read online

  Jeremy didn’t take offence, which was one of the lovable things about him. He laughed and shook his head at her. ‘It’s all right. You go out with whoever. I know the way.’

  ‘Hold on, Jeremy. You haven’t a key to get back in with.’

  He was halfway out of the front door, whistling Josie’s tune to himself. And not listening to Bea.

  Bea said, ‘Look, Piers. I’ll ring you back later, if I may. Or . . . no, it’s getting late, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not having you wander the streets at night by yourself, especially now there’s a killer loose in your area. Tell me where you’re going, and I’ll meet you there.’

  She told him and rang off. Seizing her handbag, she ran down the steps and into the street after Jeremy. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d set off in the wrong direction. But no, he was trundling along at a cracking pace towards Church Street.

  She wished she’d thought to slip into some low-heeled shoes before she set off after him. The lights turned red at the bottom of the hill, the traffic stopped, and he crossed the main road without breaking his stride. The lights turned green, and the traffic moved off as Bea reached the same place. A bus blocked Bea’s view of Jeremy. Well, she knew where he was heading, didn’t she?

  She crossed the street as the lights changed again, but couldn’t see him. She followed in his footsteps and turned into the next street – it was little more than a lane, a narrow road with a narrow pavement on one side and no pavement at all on the other. There were parked cars sporting residents’ parking tickets down the right-hand side, allowing just enough space for a single lane of traffic to pass through. One way only.

  The street was lined with terraced housing which had once been workers’ cottages but were now priced out of any workman’s reach. It was something of a surprise to find the road surface was tarmacked instead of cobbled. She’d heard that in some old London streets they’d left the cobbles and tarmacked over them.

  There was the café on the corner of the next intersection. Shut. There was a light on inside it, but no one there.

  And no Jeremy.

  There was a light on in the room above the café. That must be where his flat had been, and he must have gone up there to meet with his landlord. She wished Maggie had come with her, because Maggie would know where the door to his flat might be.

  She could hear someone thumping. A dull thump. A van parked in the road outside the café shook in time with the thumps.

  What on earth . . .?

  There was someone in the driver’s seat, probably drunk. How disgusting! The night was closing in and making it hard to see . . .

  The driver fell away from her, back across the passenger seat, even as someone big and bulky slipped out of the van through the far door. She only had the fleetest of sightings . . . someone in dark clothing? A man, probably, but she could hardly be sure of that, even. He or she ran away from her down the road, barely making any sound. Wearing trainers?

  She looked around. She didn’t understand what was happening, but feared . . . she didn’t know what. Was that Jeremy sliding down in the driver’s seat? No. The driver was a bigger man, wearing a baseball cap.

  Probably nothing to do with her, or Jeremy.

  The driver was drunk, probably. Too drunk to stay upright.

  Another quick glance around. There was no one else in sight.

  Absurd to think Jeremy might be in trouble. He’d gone up to his old flat, and if she could only find the door . . .

  Despite herself, fear crept down her backbone.

  She reached in her handbag for her mobile phone – which she must have left at home. She wished the people inside the van would stop thumping. Were they having sex there, while the driver was . . .? No, it wasn’t Jeremy in the front of the van. It couldn’t be. Anyway, why would Jeremy be lying down on the front seat of a van in this deserted street?

  She rapped on the window of the van. ‘Are you all right?’

  She was a tall woman, but she had to stand on tiptoe to see inside the van. The driver had fallen down till his head was against the far door, his knees under the wheel. She couldn’t make out his face properly.

  His mouth moved. Did it?

  Could he possibly be dead? No, no. Ridiculous. He was obviously drunk.

  Except that someone had killed Josie not a hundred yards from where they were. And someone had left the van by the opposite door in a hurry.

  The driver had been wearing a baseball cap, which had ended up over his face. Was his head shaven? Yes, it might be. He was much too big to be Jeremy. Whoever he was, he had fallen into an uncomfortable position and wasn’t moving.

  Perhaps whoever was banging away in the van could help him. She slapped on the side of the van. ‘Help there! Someone, help me!’ The thumping stopped, and there was a listening silence. If anyone had heard her, they were not going to interfere.

  Suppose the driver had been attacked by his passenger, but was still alive? Suppose he’d had a heart attack and needed medical help? She dithered. Should she ring for an ambulance?

  They wouldn’t be best pleased to be called out for a drunk sleeping it off in his van, would they? And, she had forgotten her mobile phone.

  She set her teeth. She must check before she yelled for help.

  She tugged at the handle of the van door, and it opened. The driver never moved, but there was an aroma in the air . . . sweetish. She sniffed. Couldn’t place it.

  She leaned across him. The man was a stranger. He was warm to touch. Under the shadow of his cap, his eyes looked unnatural. A trick of the light, of course. But it did look as if they were bulging out of his head. His tongue, too.

  She tugged on his sleeve, located a hand. It felt floppy. She couldn’t feel any pulse. Was she holding his wrist in the right place? She wished she knew some first aid.

  Someone or something erupted from the back of the van, shaking it hard. She abandoned her search for the driver’s pulse and stood back. ‘Your friend . . .’

  She recognized him, despite – or perhaps because of – the toupee.

  TWELVE

  Saturday evening

  The man with the toupee recognized her, too. ‘What? How . . .?’

  Was he going to attack her? Bea took an involuntary step backwards. ‘I think the driver may be . . . A man got out of the passenger seat as I came along. He ran off down the road.’ She pointed.

  ‘What . . .?’ He glanced that way, glanced back. Thrust her aside to lean into the cab. He pushed the driver’s cap away, felt for a pulse.

  ‘Strangled, do you think?’ Her voice went high on her.

  He nodded, his throat working, eyes wide with shock.

  The van shook under another assault from inside.

  Now she guessed what was making the van shake. ‘You’ve got Jeremy in the back?’

  ‘He killed Josie. He’s got to pay for it.’ A plea for understanding.

  She tried to bring her voice down from panic stations. ‘Idiot! Jeremy couldn’t have killed her, any more than he could have killed your driver. You were busy in the van with Jeremy when I saw this other man run off.’

  He stared at her, in shock. ‘Jeremy killed Josie . . . with an accomplice.’

  She snapped at him. ‘That’s ridiculous, and you know it.’

  He took a step towards her, and she quailed. Was he going to hit her?

  The van shuddered, the back doors flew open, and to a stream of curses, a strangely shaped bundle caterpillared its way over the tail and fell out on to the road, where it rolled over and over. Two denim-clad legs waved in the air.

  Jeremy? Well, it was someone about his size with a plastic sack over his head which had been fastened around his hips with heavy-duty tape. Only his legs were showing. He had lost one of his shoes and wasn’t wearing socks. By the sound of it, he was having a two-year-old’s tantrum. But, thought Bea, who could blame him?

  At least he was still alive. And complaining.

  She said, ‘You’ve
kidnapped the wrong person.’

  From somewhere nearby came the sound of a police siren carving its way through traffic. Someone must have seen or heard what was going on and alerted the police.

  The man in the toupee heard it, too. He thrust Bea away from the van. She staggered and almost fell, only to see him clamber into the driving seat, pushing his accomplice further over. The keys were still in the ignition. He turned the key and, cool as you please, drove off.

  Bea told herself to make a note of the licence number as the van disappeared, but someone had taken the precaution of dirtying the plate. Her hands were shaking too much for her to use a pen, anyway. It was a plain white van, no markings on it.

  The police siren came nearer. The bundle that was Jeremy tried to sit up, squawking.

  And Piers came strolling along.

  ‘About time, too,’ she said, getting down on her hands and knees beside Jeremy and trying to control her shakes. ‘Keep still, Jeremy. Let me see how to get this tape off.’ She tried to get a fingernail under the tape, which refused to budge. ‘Piers, you don’t happen to have a penknife on you?’

  Jeremy was spluttering and swearing inside his plastic bag. He wasn’t going to run out of air and suffocate, was he?

  Piers squatted beside her, viewing the wriggling, cursing bundle that was Jeremy. ‘Who or what is this? And why is he trussed up in a plastic sack? Of course I don’t carry a knife. No one does, nowadays. At least, not if they don’t want to be arrested for carrying an offensive weapon. Would a pair of nail scissors do?’

  A police car drew to a halt behind them.

  Bea tore a fingernail, but still couldn’t release Jeremy. ‘Oh dear. We’re blocking the road. I do hope Jeremy has enough air in there.’

  ‘Hold him as still as you can.’ Piers produced his nail scissors and cut a small hole in the top of the plastic bag. ‘Careful does it.’

  Jeremy continued to thrash around and scream.

  ‘Calm down, Jeremy,’ said Bea. ‘You’re only making matters worse by wriggling.’

  ‘Hello, hello. What’s all this, then? Someone had too much to drink? Been playing a prank that went wrong?’ A braying laugh. A policeman who fancied himself as a comic. Couldn’t he see they were trying to rescue someone tied up in a plastic sack?

  Bea asked the policeman, ‘Have you got a knife?’ He was in uniform and equipped with the latest technology, but didn’t seem to have the brains to match. His mate – a woman – stayed in the police car, talking to someone on her phone.

  ‘Knife? What would I be doing with . . . Ah, someone’s been messing around, here, have they? Kids, was it?’

  ‘Attempted kidnapping and murder,’ said Bea, trying to enlarge the tiny hole Piers had made. Unfortunately, Jeremy kept wriggling and mewing, and the plastic was so old and thick that it resisted her efforts. The bag was strong. It reminded her of something. Sacks that were used for garden compost?

  The policeman was still laughing as he turned in his report on his walkie-talkie. ‘Got it. Disturbance in the street. Man in a body bag. Well, sort of. Neighbours attending. A right pair of jokers here. A prank that’s gone wrong, looks like.’

  ‘Let me have a go.’ A bass voice. Bea looked up to see a very large man with a ponytail. He must be fifteen stone or thereabouts and bulged with muscle, not fat. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and denims. A long, well-honed knife appeared at Bea’s side. ‘You sit on his legs, missus, and you, my man, you hold him tight. I’ll carve because I’m the chef, right?’

  His knife ripped down the side of the bag, and Jeremy’s head popped out, eyelids swollen shut, skin a deep scarlet. He was incoherent, spitting with rage and pain.

  ‘Water,’ said the big man, producing a large bottle from his back pocket. ‘Hold his hands away from his face. Keep his head steady and pour the water on his face, especially his eyes.’

  ‘What?’ That was Piers.

  ‘Mace,’ said the big man. ‘Sprayed into his eyes. Makes them swell up. Needs washing off, sharpish.’

  Bea seized the bottle and started pouring, while Piers held Jeremy’s body firmly against himself.

  The big man continued, ‘We was watching from the flat above, the one what used to be the little man’s, right? We see him coming along the road, lickety-split, and then this other man steps out in front of him and sprays him in the face with a can of mace. Little chap goes down, screaming. You don’t see action like that every day in our street, do you? That’s when I rang for the police and an ambulance.’

  ‘We certainly need an ambulance,’ said Bea. ‘His eyes!’

  The policeman was laughing, amused by what he took to be a joke gone wrong. ‘If it’s mace, he won’t be able to see straight for hours.’

  The big man ripped away at the bag, trying to free Jeremy. ‘The name’s Jason. Of Jason’s Place. That’s my caff. Keep pouring, missus. Slurp, slurp; that’s the ticket. Over and over.’

  Bea obeyed. Jeremy howled.

  The policeman got out his notebook. ‘You called for an ambulance, right? Assault, was it? Does he want to press charges? And you; what are you doing, carrying a knife in the street? Don’t you know it’s illegal?’

  ‘Idiot!’ No one could be sure whether Bea meant Jeremy or the policeman, but the knife disappeared.

  Jason continued to smile. ‘That’s it, missus. Keep pouring. It’s the only thing that will help. No, officer; you must be mistaken. I haven’t any knife. This passer-by must have cut the sack open with his little scissors. Are you going to charge him for that?’

  Jason picked Jeremy up under his arms and shook him out of the sack. And laid him down again on the road. ‘You haven’t seen any knife, have you, missus?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Bea. ‘Now, officer; would you care to take charge of the bag, which may reveal some clues as to the attack on my friend here?’

  A large stomach insinuated itself between Bea and the policeman. ‘If I can get a word in edgeways. Officer, arrest this man!’

  ‘Which man?’ asked the policeman. ‘Is this another joke?’

  ‘No joke!’ The landlord bent over Jeremy to shout, ‘Did you arrange this to get out of paying what you owe me? Because if so; it didn’t work!’

  Jeremy spluttered and cursed.

  The policeman looked amused. ‘So who am I to charge with assault, then? What’s your name, sir?’

  Bea said, ‘You need the man in the van.’

  The policeman looked around. ‘What van?’

  Indeed, what van!

  ‘There was a van, a white van,’ said Bea. ‘No markings. Number plate obscured. Two men came in it. The one who jumped our friend here—’

  ‘Popped this sack over him, neat as can be,’ said Jason. ‘We was watching upstairs, waiting for him. And there he was, being picked up like a roll of carpet and dumped into the van. That’s when we called for the police, just as a law-abiding citizen should.’

  Was Jason a law-abiding citizen? For some reason Bea doubted it. He’d stowed the knife away somewhere, probably in a back pocket, and was standing with his bare arms crossed, enjoying himself. Tattoos on both arms, and one on his neck. Hearts and serpents and patterned bracelets.

  ‘Better than TV,’ he said.

  ‘What I want to know is,’ said the Stomach, ‘how he’s going to pay for what he’s done to my flat.’

  A paramedic’s car drew up behind the police.

  ‘What I think,’ said Bea, ‘is that we should get Mr Waite to hospital as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said the policeman. ‘Is he or is he not responsible for the damage to this man’s flat?’

  ‘Yes,’ from the Stomach.

  ‘No,’ from Bea.

  ‘Well, then. Who’s responsible for his condition now? You, missus?’

  ‘Person or persons unknown,’ said Piers. ‘Let’s get Mr Waite the medical attention he needs, and then we’ll answer any questions you may have.’

  The voice of authority usually car
ries the day, but in this case the policeman was getting annoyed and so was disinclined to let them go. ‘Not so fast. I’m taking all your names and addresses. I’ll want statements—’

  ‘Contact Detective Inspector Durrell,’ said Bea, beckoning to the paramedics to attend to Jeremy. ‘Tell him there was another attempt to kidnap Mr Waite. He can take it from there. Here’s my card, if you need to contact me, though the inspector knows where I live.’ And to the paramedics, ‘A mace attack. We’ve been pouring water on his eyes.’

  ‘Right,’ said the larger of the paramedics. ‘Give us some space, will you?’

  Piers made to pick up the remains of the sack, but Jason took it off him, holding it by one corner. ‘I’ll keep that safe for you, if you’re going to the hospital with the little man.’

  Bea said, ‘Thank you. You’ve been most helpful. Here, take one of my cards, too, in case you need to get in touch.’

  The paramedics seemed to know what they were doing. One of them swabbed away at Jeremy’s eyes, while the other brought a wheelchair down out of the ambulance.

  The police car inched forward, reminding them to move out of the way. The driver leaned out of the window. ‘Are we done here? We’ve got another shout. Ruckus in the High Street.’

  The policeman said, ‘In a minute.’ He turned his attention to the Stomach.

  ‘Now, then; your name and address if you please.’

  ‘It’s not me you should be charging . . .!’

  Jeremy was strapped into the wheelchair and transferred to the ambulance. Bea and Piers climbed in after him. As the doors shut behind them, Bea spotted Jason disappearing into the coffee shop.

  She looked at her watch. ‘Piers, have you your mobile on you? I think we ought to let Maggie and Oliver know what’s happened.’

  Jeremy was discharged soon after midnight. He’d stopped cursing by that time. His eyelids were still inflamed, but he could see, after a fashion, and the nurse in the Accident and Emergency department said his sight wasn’t permanently damaged. What the attack had done to his confidence was another matter. The only thing he said in the taxi on the way home was, ‘I’ve got to make a will.’