The Colour of Violence by Jeffries Roderic

Author:Jeffries, Roderic [Jeffries, Roderic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2017-02-05T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

Armitage swallowed two more aspirins with the coffee and almost immediately gagged, yet there could be little left in his stomach to vomit. Pain squeezed his head with renewed fire and he closed his eyes and slumped back in the wooden chair.

The fingers of shooting pain gradually eased away, leaving him only a pounding headache and with that he could just about cope. Desperately, he tried to think what to do, but his mind was still scrambled, as if that last blow had knocked all his senses into hopeless confusion. He forced himself to stand up, used the kitchen table to steady himself with, and slowly, like an old man, stepped out into the passage. There’d been a body there — he’d walked round it on the way to the bathroom — lying crumpled half on the cheap, time-dirtied carpet and half on the floorboards. There was dried blood on carpet and floorboards.

He stumbled into the sitting-room and virtually collapsed on to the chair by the telephone. All he had to do was dial 999 and the police would take over. But the men had claimed a contact in the local police who’d warn them. And then Patricia would be raped and murdered.

He looked across the room and his eyes focused and he saw an empty champagne bottle on the drinks cupboard. Patricia and he had finished the last two glasses of champagne with the pudding. It was unbelievable, except it was true, that the normal world could be shattered with such terrifying speed and ruthlessness. He remembered how Patricia had looked, face distorted by fear, as she lay on the floor. What in the name of God had happened to her after he’d been knocked unconscious? Where had they taken her? What was happening to her now?

He had to telephone the police to set in motion her rescue. But if he did that, the mob would immediately leam about the call and Patricia would be appallingly murdered because there was no hope the police could move quickly enough since what could he tell them other than that he’d seen two hooded men, neither of whom he could ever identify? Then he daren’t telephone the police. His head pounded more fiercely because of the turmoil in his mind.

Gradually, he recognised he had no option other than to do exactly as they’d ordered him to — nothing. There must be no alarm because then, and only then, would Patricia return, safe, unharmed. So now? He must clear up the blood in order that Amanda, the daily woman, wouldn’t notice anything. Check there were no other signs…Dudley! How in the hell could he have forgotten Dudley? When he found Patricia was missing he was going to do what any husband would, move heaven and earth to find her.

Armitage groaned. Just when there had seemed to be some chance it suddenly became clear there was none. The men had presumed he and Patricia were husband and wife, a belief he’d deliberately done

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