Part 18 (1/2)

'Nothing, thanks all the same. He fired me.'

'What? That's terrible! Mimi, I'm ...'

'Hold it there, Joe. It's OK. I've been looking for an easy escape route for a while now and they don't come any easier than getting sacked.'

'But what will you do?' said Joe, still guilt ridden. 'I mean, without a job ... and what about money ...?'

'Well, first I'll finish my margarita, then I'll do some serious work on my tan. That should take three or four days. Meanwhile I'll get back to the three or four guys who've been dangling tempting job offers in front of me for the past six months and decide if there's anything there I fancy. As for money, well, when I saw you this morning I said to myself, I don't think this guy is serious about coming to Spain. So I took the precaution of paying for my hotel room in advance with the company credit card before the Rat put a stop on it. Oh, and I hit a couple of money machines and got myself a whole hatful of euros too. So I'm fine. Hope you will be too, Joe.'

'Any reason I shouldn't be?'

'I don't know why Ratcliffe wanted you in Spain, Joe, but I do know he doesn't much care for not getting what he wants. You see Stephen Hardman coming towards you, better turn and run! In fact, maybe a little holiday abroad wouldn't be such a bad idea.'

'I'll think about it. Mimi, something you can maybe help me with. Mr King used to be in close cahoots with Sir Monty Wright. They got anything going lately?'

There was a silence long enough to get Joe apologizing again.

'Look, sorry, shouldn't have asked. Even though he's your ex-employer, I know you can't go mouthing off about your work there ...'

'No, I was just thinking. In fact, I never had any dealings with Wright-Price. No reason to, Ratcliffe was just a non-exec director, nothing hands on. But he has spent a lot of phone time talking to Sir Monty lately, don't know what about. Could be just exchanging recipes. That it, Joe? The ice is melting in my margarita.'

'Yeah. And thanks for being such a sport.'

'No sweat. Like I say, I was ready for fresh fields and pastures new. Take care, Joe.'

'No, hold on,' said Joe. He rarely got flashes of inspiration but sometimes a trigger could produce a flash. 'Pastures new, I mean New Pastures you ever hear of an outfit with that name?'

'Yes. How do you know about them, Joe? It's a landholding company that Ratcliffe set up a couple of months back.'

'Thanks, Mimi. See you around, maybe.'

'Hope so, Joe. Bye.'

The lift had arrived and Joe had stuck his foot in the door to hold it there. He now stepped inside. As the door closed he saw the swing doors of the main entrance begin to open. His first instinct was to hold the lift for the newcomer. Then he saw who it was.

Jura.s.sic George.

'Oh shoot!' cried Joe and hit the 7 b.u.t.ton. Fortunately though a long way from the smooth swift sweet-smelling elevator in ProtoVision House, the lifts on Ra.s.selas were just as far removed from the mechanically and physically dangerous mobile urinals you found on Hermsp.r.o.ng.

The door closed. The ascent began. Not even a super athlete could make it up seven flights of stairs as fast as the lift, but Joe still sprinted down the corridor. Once in his flat he locked and bolted the door. The security chain dangled uselessly from the woodwork. Joe grabbed a stout dining chair and wedged it under the handle.

'There,' said Joe. 'Let's see you get through that!'

Breathing deeply he opened the balcony window to get some air. Below him Luton slumbered in the heat. It was good slumbering weather, specially if you were lying beside a pool with some like Mimi ...

Beryl ... he corrected guiltily. He meant someone like Beryl ...

In Aunt Mirabelle's strict theology, even a fantasized infidelity deserves punishment, so she might have been unsurprised by what happened next, but Joe was figuratively as well as literally bowled over when he felt himself hit from behind and flung forward against the balcony railing.

Whoever said lightning never struck twice clearly didn't know Jura.s.sic George!

For the second time that day Joe found himself staring down at the area of paving seven floors below which was likely to be the last resting place of his scattered brains.

One part of his mind was thinking, no misnomer calling George lightning, speed he'd got here. The guy couldn't be human!

But the other and larger part, that devoted to self-interest and survival, was instructing his voice to scream, 'George, George, my man, no need for this, I thought we got it all settled, you seen my girl, you seen my Beryl, I got eyes for n.o.body else, man!'

In view of his recent lascivious fantasy about Mimi, this wasn't strictly true, but while Jura.s.sic might have superhuman physical powers, not all the hard training in the world could make him telepathic.

The one improvement on his earlier experience was that this time, rather than being dangled over the balcony, he was folded across the rail on his stomach and he had instinctively taken a vice-like grip of the metal bar. Also his attacker seemed more interested in dragging him back than pus.h.i.+ng him over; but as his preferred method of doing this was to heave at Joe's personal parts while simultaneously punching him in the kidneys, it did not appear that his motives were altogether benevolent, and now Joe found himself hanging on to prevent being dumped on the balcony floor rather then being dropped to the entrance paving stones.

The hand between his legs twisted viciously and Joe, who'd always envied the ability of the solo tenor in the Boyling Corner Chapel Choir to soar effortlessly towards his top-C's, now found himself hitting notes even a coloratura soprano might have balked at. Just as the agony brought him to the point of fainting, there was some kind of disturbance behind him and suddenly the grip on his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es relaxed. But this blessed relief seemed likely to be counterproductive. Weakened and barely conscious, he slumped over the rail like a sack of potatoes and hardly registered that gravity was pulling him inexorably down towards the waiting paving stone.

Too late he recognized his peril. His fingers clawed once more at the balcony railings but he could draw on no strength to get a grip. Then he was falling ... falling ...

Then something grasped his legs and dragged him upwards and backwards and bore him through the balcony door and deposited him on his own sofa.

He opened his eyes, blinking away the tears which the pain had started there, and as his sight cleared he saw looming over him the terrifying features of Jura.s.sic George.

Now to the sound range which he'd never expected to reach was added a whimper. He would have declared with some force that whatever else he might be he wasn't the whimpering type, but there was no other word to describe the noise he heard himself make in antic.i.p.ation of George's renewed a.s.sault.

And now that monstrous face was coming closer, so close that he could feel the hot breath as the boxer uttered words Joe could not understand but which he knew must be his death knell.

Frozen Broccoli.

In his detective career Joe had formulated many a hypothesis which proved so far from the truth that it would have taken a fully equipped inter-galactic s.p.a.ce expedition to traverse the distance between. This time he felt he understood the truth beyond hypothesizing. George had made such a ham-fisted effort at reconciliation with Eloise that he'd provoked her into saying something like, Yeah, that Joe's quite tasty and you're dead right, he really fancies me and I wouldn't mind getting something going there.

The only problem was, as the sounds issuing from the boxer's mouth stretched into syllables and then joined together to form words, something was going wrong with the script.

What he seemed to be hearing was, 'Hey, Joe, my man, are you OK? Take your time, man. Breathe deep. Here, try to sit up, get your head between your legs, long breaths, that's it, yeah, you keep doing that, I'll get you some water ...'

Then George vanished into the kitchen.

Persuaded that he was orally hallucinating, Joe glanced desperately towards the door. What he saw there drained any little strength he had remaining. The frame around the lock was splintered like matchwood ... the wooden chair he'd wedged under the handle had snapped in half like a breadstick ...

In any case George was back.

'Drink this. Hey man, how are your goolies? Thought that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was going to pull them right off. My corner man say, anything an ice-pack can't cure, you need surgery, so let's try this.'

Joe found himself looking at a packet of frozen broccoli as, with remarkably delicacy, Jura.s.sic's banana-bunch fingers unfastened his trouser belt, slid down the fly zip and pressed the packet against his crotch.

After the initial cold shock, it felt great, and as his injured parts stopped demanding ninety-nine per cent of his attention, it started getting through to him that either George had a serious schizoid condition, or he wasn't in fact the attacker.

He gasped, 'George ... why you here, man?'