Ben Page 25

  The shot rang out in the hallway, and she saw Ben fall back against the wall as if pushed by some unseen opponent. He dropped the gun. It fell clattering from his useless right hand. And then, with a soundtrack that included her own scream, she saw him sliding down the wall – slowly – leaving a big smear of blood on the wall beside his head. He slid down until he was sitting against the wall, like he’d paused there to take a little rest.

  “No!”

  He looked at her like he was experiencing some kind of visitation or hallucination. His eyes seemed to see visions she could not see. His mind seemed gripped by some kind of agony she could not feel. She crouched down beside him, needing to know if he was dying. She reached out a shaking hand to touch him, trying to see where he was shot and if there was any hope at all, before the lifeblood ran out of him.

  “Get the gun,” he said. And Ben’s eyes moved slowly to the place where his gun lay. It had skittered across the downstairs hall and landed by the skirting board – barrel facing them.

  Jimmy rounded the corner and fired again – but his gun was empty. He reached into his jeans pocket for more.

  She glanced at the gun Ben had held, but she made no move towards it. She turned back to see where he was hit. His coat had a hole in it. Upper arm – almost on the shoulder. That might be survivable – as long as no one got him while he was down. But there was blood coming from the back of his right shoulder. They needed help fast.

  But Jimmy was standing at the top of the stairs, laughing at them, reloading his own gun.

  Ben said, “Layla. Get the gun.”

  She reached for it, and gave it to him. He took it with his left hand, cradling it dangerously close to his own body.

  “No,” she said.

  But he lifted it up and pointed it, shaking, at their enemy.

  “You couldn’t hit a tin can in a fair ground like that,” said Jimmy. “And you’ve already shown me you ain’t got the guts.”

  So Ben pulled the trigger and blew Jimmy’s head off. His body reeled and fell in slow motion onto the upstairs landing. He hit the ground with one hand flung out over the edge of the stairs – pointing at them like an accusation.

  This time her screams were sharp staccato sounds that pierced the ceiling and bounced off the walls and the floor – all the places where Jimmy’s blood was splattered.

  Layla helped Ben up and they ran. As fast as a wounded man and a girl in high heels can go. All the way along the muddy lane – which seemed a hell of a lot longer now that Ben was hit. They reached the car, but it was locked.

  “The keys are in my pocket,” he said, and tried to reach them. She got there first. She unlocked the car and hauled open the door. She pushed him inside on the passenger side.

  She got in and started the car. It faltered the first time and started on the second.

  “You still don’t have a licence,” he said. “I should drive.”

  “No way.” She checked the mirror and pulled away from the kerb. She drove as fast as she dared, knowing the sound of the shots would have prompted calls to the police. She turned through the lattice of London streets, turning left and left again until she reached the main road. She knew they needed to ditch the car, but she needed a moment to think.

  She sighed and glanced at him. He was pale – ghostly pale – and kept his left hand over the wound. “I ought to drive you straight to the hospital.”

  “They’d have to report the gunshot wound. It’s mandatory to report it. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “And what if you’re bleeding to death?”

  “I’m not. I’d tell you if I was.”

  “Glad you’re confident about that, doctor. But you look awful.”

  “I’m alright,” he said. “Just keep driving.”

  “I want to get out of this car. Someone will be sure to have seen it.”

  “Head for the medical centre – the car park’s hidden from the road. I could do something about this there, too. Get something for the pain.” He looked down at the place where the blood was oozing slowly between his fingers.

  “Alright. I’ll go there.”

  She slowed down, matching her speed to the traffic, wanting to avoid suspicion. She headed for the Bethnal Green road – indicating smartly before changing lanes. She wasn’t making that mistake ever again.

  “You drive well,” he said. “Who taught you?”

  “My dad taught me. So I could drive the van and he could look after the stall. Later, he said it might come in handy if I ever needed to drive a getaway car.”

  Ben gave her a weak smile. “Your father thinks of everything. Turn left at the next set of lights.”

  They parked in the secluded, empty car park, behind the medical centre. In the lee of some conifer trees. They got out of the car. Her first, then him, unsteady with the pain and needing her support. She ducked under his arm and helped him. He swayed dangerously as they approached the door.

  “Got your swipe card?” she said.

  “No. You have – it’s on the key ring with the car keys.”

  She shook as she tried to swipe it. The red light stayed red as she made two attempts. She swore and tried again.

  “Give it to me,” he said, when it failed for the third time. “Maybe they’ve changed the code.”

  He swiped it and the light turned green.

  “Magic touch,” she said, and they went inside.

  “Head for my consulting room – you know where it is.”

  “Yes, Ben, I remember.” Consulting room three – where they met a month ago – maybe five weeks. They blundered into the room in the dark. She felt in the darkness along the wall. “Where’s the switch?”

  “No don’t,” he said. “Leave it dark. We don’t want to advertise the fact that we’re here.”

  “Okay,” she breathed. She could picture the room, but it all seemed unfamiliar in the darkness. He staggered towards the desk and tripped over the metal wastepaper bin. The sound set their fears jangling, and made her breathing all jagged and raw.

  “I do believe you have a touch of real asthma,” he said, with a note of amused irony in his voice.

  “Shut up. It’s you that needs help today. Jeez, Ben, I can’t do this in the dark.”

  “There’s a light on my key-ring.”

  She laughed, “What haven’t you got on there?”

  “A syringe and some morphine.”

  “Is that what you need? Morphine?” She flicked the key ring light on. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, wincing in pain.

  “No. Morphine’s too strong. It’ll put me to sleep.” He tried to shuck off his jacket, but the movement caused him so much pain that he had to stop.

  She went and tried to shine the light on the injury but his coat was black and it was difficult to see. “This is hopeless. I need more light.”

  “Then put the blinds down and put the desk lamp on.”

  She did that, and it was much easier to help him in the light of the angled lamp. She got him out of the coat, easing it down and away from his injured arm. His shirt was stained with blood – stuck to the wound and impossible to get off without hurting him.

  “Cut it,” he told her. “Scissors are in the top drawer, over there.”

  Getting the shirt off was difficult and delicate. She cut the shirt – according to his instructions – up the length of the sleeve and across the top of the shoulder. Good side first. Then the bad side. She peeled it away from the wound – while he turned his head and clenched his jaw. The sight of the injury made her tremble, but for his sake she needed to be strong. The bullet had entered his body an inch or two lower than his collar bone, gone in clean and punched straight through. She moved around to see, pulling the shirt away from his back to find a ragged-looking exit wound – a bit bigger and messier than the one on the front.

  “How is it?” he said. He tried to glance down at the wound, but even turning his head seemed to set off a wave of pain.

  “I don’t know. I
’ve never seen anyone with a bullet hole in them before.”

  “My own experience is mainly drawn from textbooks,” he admitted. “Perhaps I should have done my training in Chicago.”

  She smiled a weak smile, but she hated seeing him with that raw red hole in his chest. He got up from where he was sitting on the edge of the desk. He went over to the washbasin beside the desk. There was a mirror above it, along with a standard issue paper towel dispenser and box of latex examination gloves. She went and moved the lamp – turning it to shine on him so he could look at the injury in the mirror and assess it for himself.

  “The shoulder contains the subclavian artery, which feeds the brachial artery,” he told her. “That’s the main artery in my arm. I would be dead or dying if he’d hit that. But luckily for me, he missed. By an inch.”

  She shivered.

  “But that’s where my luck runs out.” He sighed, staring in the mirror. “The brachial plexus, the large nerve bundle that I need to move my arm. I think it’s damaged.”

  “Oh, God. It’s your right arm too.” She felt consumed with guilt. A doctor, with a dead right arm.

  He looked in the mirror and then he turned. Looking at the wound as best he could. “It’s okay,” he said calmly. “I can tell you what to do.”

  To him, it was just an injury. And injuries have to be dealt with. Each one in a certain way. He unlocked the medicine cabinet and chose a vial of pethidine for pain relief.

  “I want you to inject this into my upper left buttock,” he said.

  She hesitated. “Your upper left buttock? Are you sure you want it there?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s where it works best. Come on, Layla. Don’t be shy.”

  She took the vial and the needle, and he taught her how to draw it up. “Good girl,” he said. “You’re a fast learner.”

  He turned around and with his left hand, he undid the buckle on his belt. He let his trousers slip to half-mast, underwear and all. “Go on, then.”

  She jabbed him with the needle, and let the medication in. “First time I’ve seen you with your pants down, doctor.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Afterwards they made a plan. Ditch the car. Walk to the high street. Hail a cab. Disappear into a busy part of London. Find a room. Spend the night.

  “And after that?”

  “We’ll get out of London somehow. We may need help.” Ben told her about the blank prescription pad and how helpful Glenn Hallam had been.

  She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Then she gave a strange kind of laugh. “Maybe it’s not just me that’s a fast learner.” She hesitated. Thinking. They’d done very well so far. But problems surfaced thick and fast. “What about clothes? You can’t hail a cab in the high street with no shirt on, Ben. People will see the hole in your chest.”

  “Ah, Layla. That small detail is easily solved.” He was slurring his words. The pethidine was doing its work.

  “Don’t you pass out on me,” she warned. “You do that, and we’re really up the creek.”

  “Everything shunder control…” he said, staggering slightly. “Thish what we’re going to do.”

  They crept into the clinic director’s room, and borrowed Jonathan’s raincoat. It was hanging, where he always kept it, on an old fashioned hat-and-coat stand in the corner of the room. It had been there during the meeting that morning. The meeting to talk about Ben’s relationship with Layla.

  Get a Room

  They got the room. In a cheap hotel near Whitechapel. Dingy little place.

  They went up to the desk as a couple. Ben lolled over her like he was drunk, partly acting, partly genuine. Hard to tell how much of each. Layla supported him under his good arm and forced herself to act like a tart.

  She offered the man on the desk the money. In cash. Ben had cash. He’d thought that out on the plane, and drawn most of Morrie’s last five grand out of the bank at the airport.

  Up in the room they didn’t have to pretend anymore. Ben limped over to the bed. He took off Jonathan’s raincoat and checked the dressing. Still holding okay. He sat down, swung his legs up onto the bed, wincing, and leaned gratefully back against the headboard, finding it easier to cope with the pain in his shoulder if he braced his upper body against something. No sudden movements. He still had another vial of pethidine, but he was saving that for during the night. These things usually got worse before they got better. He refused to think about the severity of the injury in any kind of objective way. He’d get by. They’d go to Scotland tomorrow and maybe he could see someone there. Maybe even Barrymore – the old Scottish doctor owed him a favour for dropping him into all of this. Or maybe he owed Barrymore a favour, for leading him to Layla.

  She came and sat down near him on the edge of the bed. “Look at you,” she said, and touched his naked chest. “So pale and smooth.”

  He gave a half-smile, and glanced down at his own bare chest. “Probably paler than I should be.”

  The dressing on his shoulder showed a dark stain of blood coming through to the plastic backing. But it was a slow ooze; he wasn’t losing blood in any quantity now, and that was very reassuring.

  “You should see a doctor,” she said gently.

  “I am a doctor,” he said, “and in my professional opinion, I’m going to be fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Thanks. And here I was thinking you found me irresistible.”

  “I do. But I can see that you need a doctor.”

  “Perhaps I do. But we can’t. I think by the morning, it’ll start to feel better.”

  She nodded, absentmindedly stroking his upper arm – the good one. “I hope so.”

  “Can you get me some water?” he said. “It would be good to keep the fluids up. You should have something too. Lemonade or sweet tea. Something for the shock.”

  “Why do you think I’ll have shock when it was you that got shot?”

  “I told you, I never get sick.”

  She smiled and got up to get him the water. “Honestly, Ben. I’ve heard that doctors are always the last to admit there’s anything wrong. Now I’ve witnessed it. Talk about stubborn.”

  He watched as she went over to a narrow table near the wall on his side of the room. There was a tray set out with all the things that the average hotel guest might need – tea bags, instant coffee in little sachets, and a kettle with the flex coiled around its neck so tight that it would be quite a challenge to make a cup of tea in the morning. She picked up a drinking mug and ignored the rest. She filled it with water from the bathroom and came back and watched while he drank it.

  “That’s better,” he said. And put the cup down on the bedside table.

  “There are condoms in the bathroom,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “What?”

  “An intimacy kit – they call it – just in case we didn’t remember to pack any.”

  “We didn’t,” he said.

  There was a deepening, blushing silence. A naked kind of honesty seemed to grow in the silence between them.

  Finally she said it. “I don’t want to be a virgin anymore, Ben. It’s too dangerous. Will you do it?”

  He took her hand. “Oh, Layla, I’d love to. But I honestly don’t think I can,” he gave her a weak smile. Feeling useless.

  She smiled and glanced away, shyly. “Sorry. Don’t know why I said that.”

  “I want to – really – but if we try, there’s a definite possibility I’ll pass out.”

  She smiled. “All that blood rushing from one place to another?”

  He nodded. “The doctor’s take on intimacy after injury. Sorry.”

  There was another long pause, while she thought about it. She looked soulful and lonely all of a sudden. So, he touched her hand, gently, and then, gazing at her, he brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers, softly. Very softly. Then he took a risk and started sucking them, one by one.

  She trembled, but she let him continue.
Softly, provocatively, he sucked her fingers, moving his tongue in swirls around the tip, as he rather wished she’d do for him one day. If not today.

  Then all of a rush, she came and sat astride him on the bed. “Kiss me.”

  “Oh, baby…” he murmured, gathering her close to him with his good arm. She kissed him, hungrily, and he responded at once, feeling the familiar stir of arousal as he touched her and tasted her.

  “Are you sure we couldn’t?” she said.

  He was beginning to feel that he possessed new strength, as her kisses fanned the need inside him. He left a dozen kisses on her pale soft skin – right there along the sweet curve of her neck. “Maybe we could.”

  She laughed, and kissed him some more, making him moan softly – pleasure from the kiss and pain from the shoulder all mixed up into a heady cocktail of desire and sensation.

  He wanted to kiss her breasts but she was still wearing her t-shirt. “Take this off.”

  She dragged it over her head and tossed it on the floor.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, and lowered his head to kiss her fantastic, melon-shaped breasts. He’d like to kiss those forever. He could hardly tear himself away to lift up his head and say to her, “Okay. Get the intimacy kit.”

  “Yes. Good idea.”

  She detached herself from his embrace and got up and went into the bathroom, flicking the switch and flooding the room with a shaft of bright light. Ben screwed up his eyes against the assault of light. He could hardly believe it. She wanted to. Now.

  She must have taken the rest of her clothes off while she was in there, because when she came back to the bed she was naked. She’d left the bathroom door just slightly ajar, so a chink of light came through and into the bedroom. Enough for him to enjoy the view without getting blinded. Wow. The curve of her generous breasts, the flare of her hips, the dark promise of a sensational time between her legs.

  “Where were we?” he said, pulling her down towards him again, but she resisted.

  “Here’s the kit.”

  He took the zip-up bag and started investigating the contents. It was all in plain white packets - no brand names – with a description of the contents printed in silver lettering. “A sachet of rose petals,” he read out, “Not particularly helpful.”