He leaned down and pulled up the handle to release the lock on the boot. He then got out, holding the sap concealed in his right hand. He made a show of tucking in his shirt and moving to a parking sign, peering, Mister Magoo-like, up at it and stepping back, checking his watch.
‘Sorry, I’m blind as a bat,’ he said over his shoulder to Beth. ‘Is this residents’ parking?’
Beth looked up from her phone and shrugged. She checked behind her, looking at the dark casting office and frowned, then went back to her phone.
Suddenly, Darryl’s phone began to ring in his pocket. He looked over, and Beth had her phone to her ear. She was trying to call Robert Baker. He scanned the road: there were no cars and no people.
Just as she looked up in confusion at Darryl’s phone ringing, he moved lightning fast, swooping over and bringing the leather sap down on the back of her head. He caught her as she crumpled, dragging her to the boot of the car. There was an awkward tussle as he tried to get it open with his foot and keep hold of her, and her phone clattered against the back of the car, swinging from its earphones. Just as he got her inside and shoved her phone in on top of her, a woman emerged further down from the main entrance of the office building and began to walk along the pavement towards him.
He’d wanted to subdue Beth, bind her wrists and her feet, but there was no time. He closed the boot. The woman was moving closer with a clip clip of heels. Darryl knew he had to keep moving, to look like part of the street furniture. With his head down, he went to the driver’s side and got in.
The woman walked past, deep in thought. She had her hands thrust deep into her trench coat; she was elegant and middle-aged with short greying hair. He relaxed a little. She hadn’t noticed him. Darryl started the engine and pulled away from the kerb.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Darryl drove through the back streets behind Southwark Bridge. He’d worked out a route he could take to avoid the CCTV cameras as much as possible, and at least making it hard for anyone to piece together his movements, but he was flustered and he saw he’d taken a wrong turn. Had that woman coming out of the office seen him? And the road he’d just pulled into, was there a bank of CCTV cameras at the end here? He took a series of turns, and office blocks and coffee shops streaked past in a blur. He found himself on London Bridge, feeling the wind from the river buffeting the car.
‘Shit!’ he cried, thumping the steering wheel. He was approaching the junction by the train station which would be chock-a-block with CCTV cameras.
He had to find somewhere quiet where he could pull over and bind her arms and legs. As he left the bridge, he saw there was a diversion where the construction was happening around the Shard, and instead of being able to turn left he was taken on a looping detour away from the train station.
He found himself sandwiched between two vans, and either side were temporary rows of plastic barriers. He had no choice but to keep driving. Several minutes went by, and the diversion took him down streets he didn’t recognise. It was all poorly lit; a building encased in scaffolding and green netting, which then turned into abandoned offices, the windows whitewashed, and then the road curved around sharply to the right, spitting him out in a shabby-looking area of houses and betting shops around Bermondsey.
He drove on, and was going to pull over onto what looked like a piece of wasteland, when a bus suddenly appeared behind him, lights blaring, and so he kept moving. The road took him past a bus depot, which again he was going to pull into but another bus rounded the corner from the opposite direction. He closed his eyes against the headlights and had to slam on his brakes as it cut him up, pulling across him and into the depot.
He sat for a moment; his hands were now shaking. He was lost. He couldn’t work out how to get back to the Old Kent Road, which would then take him on through New Cross and to the South Circular.
He put the car in gear and drove on for a couple more minutes until he approached a set of traffic lights, and his heart leapt when he saw it was signposted straight ahead for New Cross. The lights changed to amber then red, so he stopped the car and took some deep breaths. Peering through the windscreen he saw a mixture of flats and office blocks, and next to the traffic lights was a Costcutter food shop and off-licence.
A couple of people had been waiting at the crossing, and as the green man started to flash, they stepped off the kerb and began to move across the road in front of him. Something about one of the pedestrians’ gait was familiar, but he was too occupied with getting going. He looked in his rear-view mirror, scanning the road behind him, then looked down to check that he had stowed the sap back in the glove compartment. When he looked up again, he nearly yelled out in shock. Standing in the beam of his headlights, and staring through his window, was a familiar figure clutching two full carrier bags of shopping.
It was Bryony.
Chapter Sixty-Three
It was dark and cold when Beth began to regain consciousness. The rocking of the moving car reached the edge of her consciousness, along with the sounds and sensations: the tangy warm smell of engine oil, and dusty old carpet.
She lay on a lumpy hard surface, and she had a thumping headache, but her throat didn’t feel parched. Had it been a big night out? Her body still smelt freshly showered. She flexed her fingers, and her nail polish was still tacky. For a moment, she worked backwards. She was waiting outside the casting studio for Robert. He was so handsome in his photo. In his prime, Aunt Marie had described him. But something odd had happened: he’d said he’d be at the casting studios working late, but the windows had been dark. She’d phoned him. There had been a funny little man outside, making a meal of peering at a road sign. He’d asked her something…