Page 71 of Pressure Head
Dark had fallen by the time I parked my Fiesta halfway down Pothole Parade, and went the rest of the way to Lionel’s house on foot. One advantage of the rich liking their privacy was that the road was lined with high hedges, broken only by the entrances to long, twisting driveways, so I was reasonably certain no one saw me acting furtive. There wasn’t even any street lighting, this being a private road. I felt my way along and tried not to curse too loudly when I stumbled.
The Treadgoods’, with its wide, open-plan gravel driveway, had to be the bloody exception, of course. Even the crunching of the stones under my feet seemed louder than a pneumatic drill in the still, quiet evening. The security light came on as I approached. I’d just have to hope Lionel and Patricia were having their tea, or maybe watchingEastEndersto marvel at how the other half lived—at any rate, too busy to look out of the window and see me messing up their freshly raked gravel.
The water in the swimming pool was still messing with my spidey-senses—but there was nothing wrong with my eyes. And I reckoned the little summerhouse next to it would be pretty much perfect for stashing someone you’d, say, caught snooping around (on his own, the daft prick) and bashed over the head. If it came to a fight, Phil would beat Lionel easily, I was sure—but all Lionel would need to do would be to get behind him and catch him unawares—like he must have done to poor Melanie. He could have tied Phil up, gagged him so as not to annoy the neighbours, and left him there, ready to finish off later.
Or he could have finished him off already and stashed his body in there, of course. But I didn’t want to think about that possibility. I wondered if I’d know—if it wasn’t for the water in the swimming pool, would I know from the vibes whether the body I was searching for was living or dead? I hoped not. At a time like this, you want to keep hoping for the best as long as you can.
I’d expected the summerhouse to be locked, and it was. Good job I’d brought along a few tools. Dave could do me later for breaking and entering; right now I was all about getting in as fast as possible. I forced a flat-headed screwdriver into the lock. The surrounding wood started to give, and I tensed up, worried it would splinter with a crack and give me away, but in fact it more or less crumbled, damply and relatively quietly. The sickly sweet smell of decaying wood tickled my nose, overpowering the chlorine from the pool for a moment. Someone ought to tell Lionel to do something about the rot pronto, or he’d have the whole place tumbling down around his ears.
I was buggered if it was going to be me, though. ’Specially if it turned out he had my boyfriend hidden away in here. I smothered a nervous laugh, checked one last time there was no one sneaking up on me with a tyre iron, pushed the door open, and stepped through, closing it behind me. My hands were shaking as I flicked on my torch. Moving its pathetically weak beam of light over the interior of the summer house, I listened out with my sixth sense for anything it could tell me.
Mostly, it told me there was a shed-load of water not six feet from my back. I wasn’t having much more luck with senses one to five. The place seemed pretty bare, everything neatly packed away at the end of last summer, with just a few things, like a mop and bucket, showing signs of having been bunged in at the last minute. Where the hell was Phil? It was brass monkey weather, there in the damp chill of the summerhouse, and the sweat trickling down my back made me shiver. Was this all a bloody wild-goose chase? Wait—there. A chest. Big enough to fit even large, boneheaded private eyes. I scrambled over to kneel in front of it, got out my chisel to break it open—then realised it wasn’t even locked. My heart pounding, I flipped up the lid.
Cushions. Sodding seat cushions. Damn it. Although it was better than finding a body.
Think, Paretski.If Phil wasn’t in here—and I was getting more and more certain he wasn’t—where else might he be? In the house? No. No way was I buying Patricia being involved in any of this. The car parked out in the drive? Plenty of room in the boot of Lionel’s Range Rover to hide a body or two, but would he really have the nerve to keep something so incriminating out in front of the house like that?
Still, I’d have to look. I wouldn’t be able to break in quietly, but I reckoned I shouldn’t need to. Touching the car ought to do the trick. Using all of my senses, I took one last look around the summerhouse, then switched off my torch and headed outside.
Even the faint breeze that had blown as I’d got here had now dropped, and everything was eerily still. A tired moon lounged back in the sky, and a few stars twinkled blearily through the clouds. God, it was quiet out here. Round where I live, it’s never quiet—even in the early hours, there’s always neighbours having domestics, someone driving down a road nearby, or a bunch of lads laughing and joking on their way home from a drunken night out. But out here, the main roads were too far away for the traffic noise to carry, and all the houses had thick walls and double glazing. Not that their owners would likely dream of washing their dirty knickers in public or having the telly loud enough to disturb the neighbours.
Lionel’s Range Rover stood sentry near the front door. I crouched down to cross the treacherous gravel as quietly as I could, muttered a brief prayer to anyone who might be listening that he wouldn’t have a touch-sensitive car alarm, and put my hands on the boot to listen in.
Nothing. Nothing at all. So where the hell did that leave me? Bloody frustrated, that’s where. Then it occurred to me—living out here, in a big posh house, just how likely was it Lionel and Patricia had only one car? Actually, come to think of it, where the hell wasPhil’scar? I had to assume he’d driven here.
Oh God . . . My stomach churned as I realised there could be another reason for missing cars. Lionel could be out in one right now, about to get rid of Phil. Permanently. I crouched down behind the Range Rover and leaned against one thickly treaded tyre to take a couple of steadying breaths. I couldn’t focus on all the what-ifs. I just had to carry on hoping.
There was a driveway running between the house and the swimming pool—more of that gravel. Lionel had to have bought up half a quarry’s worth. There must be a garage down there—there certainly wasn’t one up here, and this wasn’t the sort of house that left your expensive cars to shiver outside in the cold and the weather. I peered cautiously around the side of the car, and when I saw the coast was clear, edged around the house.
Lionel and Patricia weren’t big on closing their curtains after dusk, it seemed; light spilled from the large bay windows and onto the vast, sunken lawn at the back of the house. Flood-plaining, I guessed; the river ran along the bottom of the garden. I could feel it, a reassuring, constantly changing vibe, nothing like the flat, dead noise of the swimming pool.
A figure moved in front of the window, and I froze, but Patricia just reached up and drew the curtains, and I breathed again. It was darker than ever now as I crept through the shadows towards a low, white building that had clearly been built with more than one car in mind. It was on the same raised ground as the path, which made sense, obviously, cars and flooded rivers not tending to be a match made in heaven.
When I got to the garage, I felt horribly exposed against the bright-white paint and slipped around to the side farthest from the house. It turned out to be a good move; I’d been wondering how the hell I’d get through the metal drive-through door at the front, but here at the back was a normal, people-sized door.
I reached for the handle, all my senses alert—and my knees buckled and nearly dropped me to the ground. Phil was here. Thank God. I could feel him, all tied up in tangles of fear and hate and anger. And a sense of something unfinished, which I clung to desperately.
I really didn’t want Phil to be finished.
The door was locked, of course, but it was no match for my trusty screwdriver. Which was not to say it went down quietly. My heart racing, I winced at the loud cracking sound—why the hell couldn’t this door have been rotten too?—and despite my desperation to get inside, I held my breath as long as I could, listening for any outcry from the house.
There was nothing, so I opened the door, flicked on my torch, and stepped inside.
“Phil,” I whispered urgently, as loudly as I dared. “Phil, it’s me. Tom.” My torch lit on two cars parked side by side. I’d been right: one of them was Phil’s Golf. I scrambled over to it, put my hands on the boot. Result. I barely managed to stop myself pounding on the hatch, desperate for some sign from Phil that he was still there, still alive. I hefted my chisel—then thought to try the lock. It opened, and I threw up the hatch.
He was there. Tied in some kind of tarpaulin. “Phil, it’s me,” I repeated, struggling with the knots in the thick cord that bound him. He wasn’t moving. Christ, he wasn’t moving. “Phil, it’s Tom. I’m getting you out.” I finally got the tarpaulin unwound. Shone my torch on his face. Phil’s eyes were closed. Was that good? Dead people didn’t close their own eyes, did they? I fumbled at his throat, my hand shaking. Where thefuckwas his pulse? He was still warm, so that was good, wasn’t it—except didn’t they say you’re not dead until you’re warm and dead? “Don’t you fucking dare be dead, you bastard,” I muttered. He’d been gagged with a tea towel. I loosened the knot and yanked it off. There was blood on it—from a head wound?
Phil groaned.
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed. “Phil, can you hear me? It’s Tom.” His eyelids fluttered open, then screwed shut against the light of my torch. He didn’t look all that with it. “Phil, you’ve got to wake up. I’m going to get you out of here but you’ve got to bloody well wake up, all right? I’m going to untie you.” My fingers were numb with cold and clumsy with nerves as I worked at the cord binding his hands behind his back. It was slippery and broad—a tie, I realised. It was like something out ofThe Dangerous Book for Boys—“How to incapacitate an enemy using stuff you find around the house.” The tie was soaking wet—as were the rest of Phil’s clothes—making the knot much harder to undo. God, it was a wonder Phil hadn’t frozen to death out here. That tarpaulin had probably saved his life.
“Nearly there,” I panted. Damn it, I had half a dozen blunt instruments on me—why the hell hadn’t I thought to bring a knife? If I kept talking, maybe Phil would stay with me. “Just got to . . . There! Done it.” I dropped the tie on the floor and moved to check Phil’s ankles—
Light flooded the room, and a low, commanding voice said, “Stop right there.”
I was paralysed for what felt like a hundred years, not even my heart beating. When I could, I turned slowly. Lionel was standing in the doorway.
With a shotgun.
