CHAPTER 43
Hank ‘The Tank’ Turner had taken on board the eccentric instructions relayed to him by Darren the day guard. It was all the same to him, in fact quite a relief not to be expected to patrol this big building room by room, since all the internal doors were to be kept locked.
Darren, after briefing Hank, had locked the swing doors leading from the foyer to the lifts, toilets and basement stairs, had given Hank the bunch of keys, and had told him to keep a low profile until the boss-guy in the white suit escorted the visitor from the premises.
Hank settled down in a conveniently dimly lit corner by the doors to the main hall and prepared to catch up on some sleep. He had had a large curry washed down with a few pints with mates in the pub before coming on duty and was feeling drowsy. It was as well, he thought, that he had the gift of being able to sleep in any corner – an essential talent for a man condemned to night work.
But even a man accustomed to sleep through anything could not ignore the alarm call of a groaning bowel and overloaded bladder. Half-asleep and muttering under his breath with annoyance, he left his corner, took out his bunch of keys and identified the one which opened the swing doors to the toilets.
The doors were sticking a bit. Mr Kane would have to get somebody to fix them, Hank thought, applying his elbow to them now. They didn't swing shut properly and then required a bit of effort to push them open.
He unfolded his newspaper as he went through the door of the Gents, anticipating a long session in the john, but the curry went through him like a dose of salts, leaving him gasping with the force of evacuation, and also slightly hungry since his entire supper had apparently deserted him in ten seconds.
Sauntering out of the toilet, zipping his capacious trousers with one hand, extracting a mega-pack of Mars bars from the pocket of his jacket with the other, his eyes were focused on the photo of a well-upholstered model in the newspaper he had tucked between his elbow and his muscle-armoured ribcage.
The Mars bar proved tricky to release from its multipack. He held the end of the plastic wrapper in his teeth and tugged. With no hands free, and those hard-to-shift swing doors ahead of him, now bowed inwards towards him, he applied the full force of his bulky frame, shoulder first, and crashed them open.
It was not his fault, as he kept repeating afterwards. He couldn’t have foreseen that the Healing Place’s last guest of the evening would take it into his head to crash the doors in the opposite direction at the very same instant. Boy, nobody could be that desperate to go to the toilet!
It wasn’t his fault. And it was just his luck that a simple mistake like that should be witnessed by a whole pigpen of bloody police on the warpath. It just was not his night.
His mother was right. This nightshift business was bad for his health, and his wife would just have to do without the new range cooker with its totally unnecessary hood thing she wanted; no extra pay was worth the hassle of finding you’d knocked some guy unconscious in front of the world’s most uncompromising witnesses. The boss in the white suit was the only one not watching him. He was turning round as if to talk to someone.
Franz turned to see the reaction of the person, presumably one of the police officers, who was still standing with his hand on his shoulder, patting it comfortingly. They must be giving policemen empathy training or something nowadays, Franz thought. He was interested to see the man's face. He turned and found himself looking at empty space. There was no one. He could still feel the warmth of the hand.
He turned full circle, incredulously. At the very last instant, before his focus returned to the inert form of Leroy on the floor, overshadowed by five policemen and Hank, he had a very quick glimpse of a face with a wide mouth and uneven eyebrows, engulfed in smiles. It faded as quickly as it had flashed on his vision.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ he said softly.
Franz left the police hauling him upright and escorting him, handcuffed, to the waiting car outside. He shook hands with Hank and assured him there would be no adverse report to his employers, and slipped the astonished guard a twenty- pound note.
‘A token of appreciation for exceptional service to mankind,’ Franz told him.
Hank had known the white-suit dude was weird. For the first time he considered that weird might be good. Maybe he’d stick with the nightshifts after all, at least till the wife had her new cooker and flue.
Standing outside watching Hank locking the main doors behind them all, Franz rang Sharma.
‘They’ve got him,’ he said.
‘They’ve got the boys too,’ Sharma told him. ‘Leroy’s wife came out of the back door into the basement area to have a cigarette, and the police held her and gained access to the flat without even having to break the door. There were three men in a back room, undressed, and the boys were locked in a bedroom. They were hiding under the bed.’
‘What state are they in?’
‘Alive. Very shocked. They screamed and fought as the police tried to reach them. The men had to stand back and let the policewomen stay with them till the ambulance arrived. Their parents have been notified. They’re going straight to the hospital.’
‘Are you all right, Sharma?’
There was a quivering intake of breath. ‘I’m all right. Relieved it’s over. Franz – they found torture implements.’
Franz swore.
‘They stormed the Ladbroke Grove address as well,’ Sharma told him. ‘They arrested six more men and confiscated a computer and a stack of material. Franz, where are you now? I’m going back to Phil’s. Ella is there.’
‘Is she? Okay, I’ll see you there. Or d’you want me to walk round and meet you?’
‘No, I’m fine. See you in five minutes.’
Franz dialled Ella’s mobile. She answered it immediately.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, without waiting for the question. He could hear her crying on the phone. ‘I’ll be with you in five minutes. Keep a hug for me.’
But she couldn’t keep it for so long, he saw, walking down the street. She was running towards him, long hair flying, long skirt with its embroidered mirror fragments glinting in the street lights and passing car headlights. She flew headlong towards the perennial gang of boys outside the gaming arcade, who parted in shock to allow this speeding missile of a woman to cut a path through their ranks.
The moment before she caught him, he was aware of an unfamiliar feeling in his heart, and identified it as joy.