Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton [Masterton, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781781856796
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

27

They drove for about fifteen minutes, mostly uphill, which led Pat to guess that they were heading north. The acrid tobacco on the blindfold made him sneeze twice, but he had nothing to wipe his nose on except the back of his hand. The bouncer-type sitting on his right-hand side shifted uncomfortably and said, ‘Don’t be blowing any of your gulliers on me, boy, I just had this suit cleaned. Fecking twelve ninety-nine it cost me.’

It was still raining hard and the car’s windscreen wipers squeaked monotonously. The car lurched left, and then right, and then left again; then its tyres were crunching over shingle and they came to a stop. The bouncer-type took hold of Pat’s arm and helped him to climb out of the car, into the rain, and then led him across the driveway by his elbow. He tripped twice on the shingle, but each time the bouncer-type gripped his arm tighter and prevented him from falling,

‘There’s a step up here, boy, that’s it. Then another one.’

They had entered a house now. It was warm inside, although there was a musty smell of damp wallpaper and of dust that had been heated up on rarely used radiators. The front door closed behind them and the crimson-faced man said, ‘You’re all right now, Pat. Let’s take that blindfold off of you.’

He untied the knot at the back of Pat’s head and dragged the scarf away. Pat blinked and looked around. They were standing in the gloomy hallway of a large old house. The floor was covered with rumpled Indian carpets, red and blue originally, but mostly worn down to the string. There were pale rectangular patches on the yellowish walls where pictures had once hung, and the outline of a clock, too. On the opposite side of the hallway a wide staircase led up to a half-landing, dimly illuminated by a tall stained-glass window. The window had a picture of a distant grey castle on it, with rooks flying around its turrets, and a river, with bulrushes.

A side door suddenly opened and the young carroty-curled man appeared, wringing his hands together in apparent satisfaction. ‘Well, Pat, you made it, then!’ he said, in that high, throaty voice. ‘Good man yourself!’ He was wearing a speckly grey polo-neck sweater and tight black jeans that emphasized how skinny his legs were.

Behind him, Pat could see a high-ceilinged living room, sparsely furnished with an antique ottoman and two tub-like armchairs. Through the living-room windows he could see only oak trees with their wet leaves turning rusty, so it was impossible for him to tell where they were. From the time they had been driving, he guessed they were close to Watergrasshill, but he had never seen a house of this size or age around that area, only farms and bungalows. This was more like the houses you would expect to find in Montenotte or Military Hill, but they were only minutes away from the city centre.

‘He was a shade reluctant, like,’ said the crimson-faced man.

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