The Group, page 17
“Did she see you? Christ sake Sam, did she see you? Oh Christ, holy fuck, please tell me she never saw your face.”
Sam raised his blooded face and looked at his friend’s concerned reflection in the driver’s mirror.
“It’s okay, I’m pretty dam sure she never saw me. How the hell could she of seen me, my hands were in front of my face trying to protect myself, and a lot of fucking good that did. I think she’s broken my nose!”
“Good, that’s good. So basically then, you’re okay, well apart from the broken nose. Come on, get that bag over her head and tie her hands. Wait, maybe you’d better tie them behind her, in case she comes to and has another go at you! Hell, wait till we tell VR that we got her, and ahead of schedule, she’ll...”
Ian stopped mid-sentence and reconsidered his thoughts about VR’s reaction.
“You don’t think she will be pissed at us do you? Oh crap, she will, won’t she?”
“Christ, I hope not Ian. I don’t think I could cope with having the crap beat out of me twice in one day.”
The two friends remained silent as they made their way back to where they had left the mini bus in a small derelict car park in the Leith quarter of the city. Darkness was beginning to fall as they pulled up alongside the mini-bus. They had carefully chosen this car park because of the lack CCTV. It was an area where if you were sensible, you would not want to leave your car but a clapped out old transit could sit there quite safely.
The girl had not moved since she had been snatched, but Ian decided, after taken another look at Sam’s blooded nose, that it would be safer to tie her feet as well as her hands. As they proceeded to do this, the girl, as if to prove him right, brought her knee up to hit him in the face.
Ian groaned as he felt the blood flow from his nose. After a short, but violent encounter with the so called weaker sex, both men now looked as if they had gone ten rounds with Mohamed Ali, but at least now, she was tied, hand and foot.
“That should keep her quiet and us safe for a while, well, until we get home at least.”
It was at this point that their captive decided once more to be uncooperative and to shout for help, and by God, she could shout. In fact, if shouting from inside a rucksack had been an Olympic Sport, then she was up for gold.
“Bloody hell, mate, we’ve got to shut her up quick before someone hears! Oh for God’s sake woman, put a sock in it will you! Wait a minute, that’s it. Hold her still until I get my socks off.”
At the mere sound of this threat, the girl began to panic at what she could only imagine to be the most gross of fates that was about to be perpetrated upon her.
“Wait!” she desperately pleaded.
“I’ll shut up, honest. Just no socks, clean or otherwise, do we have a deal?”
Sam and Ian agreed, but reminded her any more rough stuff or shouting, it would be the socks, the ultimate threat.
The transfer to the mini-bus went smoothly and the girl was gently tied to one off the rear seats.
Ian resumed command.
“Right, now we have to clean the car anywhere that we may have touched it. We cannot afford to leave anything that could lead back to us.”
Armed with a couple of oily rags retrieved from the mini-bus, they quickly went over the car rubbing away any fingerprints they may have left. Satisfied at their work they returned to the bus. As they sat down and prepared to leave, they both turned to towards each other and with blooded smiles simultaneously said,
“I wonder what was in the bags.”
From the back of the mini-bus the girl groaned, and then spoke.
“Look you two morons. It’s bad enough that you grabbed me, but for God’s sake, and all that you hold dearest, don’t touch the money bags. If there’s one thing daddy loves more than life itself, then it’s his money. Do you hear me? Hello, are you there?”
But she was too late with her warning. Sam and Ian were back over at the car and in a flash the boot was popped opened, swiftly followed by the bags. They stood there, staring in awe, as the contents of each bag was revealed. Each held more cash than either man had ever seen.
The two stood there for several minutes, opened mouthed, staring, until finally, it was Sam who found his voice.
"I know that right now this looks great and I know we are not going to leave it behind, but I'm getting a real bad vibe about this. Taking this cash is going to cause us more trouble, a lot more. Perhaps we should just leave it for the bad guys. What do think, Ian?"
Ian slapped his friend on the back of the head. “Yeah and that’s going to happen. Shut up, Sam, and don't be so soft. Go get the black bin bags from the back of the mini-bus.”
Sam didn’t argue and quickly returned with the bags in hand. Within minutes they had transferred the money from the cases into the bags.
“Let’s get the hell out here now and I mean now!! Come on.”
As the mini-bus left the car park and began to slowly made its way up the street Ian spotted in his mirrors two black Range Rovers rush past them, heading straight for the abandoned car.
“Just drive! Don’t look back or do anything silly, just drive!” Ian muttered to himself.
A few minutes later they had joined the slow, nose to tail traffic heading out of Edinburgh.
“How the hell did they know where we were Ian?”
It was the girl who replied.
“The money bags have tracking devices in them stupid. The bastard always knows where his bloody money is, but what about me? Does he care that I’ve been kidnapped by a pair of incompetent buffoons. I seriously doubt it!”
“Excuse me miss, but if I feel the need to correct you there. We now happen to be a pair of rich, incompetent buffoons. Buffoons, who I’ll have you know, also had enough sense to leave the bugged bags behind.”
Gradually Ian began to think about what she had just said about the money and turned to Sam.
"Quick Sam, get into the back and remove anything she has with her and dump them out of the window. For all we know she may be bugged. And Sam, you’d better check out her clothing as well.”
Sam hesitantly climbed over the seat and made his way to where the girl was tied up.
The girl turned her head in his direction as she felt him sit next to her and whispered softly
“Sam, if you as much as touch me anywhere you’re not meant to, then your nose will be the least of your worries. You do get my drift, don’t you Sam?”
Sam very gently, went about the task removing all objects from her, such as her I-Pod, necklace, shoulder bag and then even more carefully checking her clothing, finding to his surprise and delight that she wore no underwear. Sam leaned over her to reach the side window and one by one, the items were dropped out to disappear under the wheels of the traffic.
“Sam, oh Sam” the girl again said softly. “Now I take it that you know about my little secret, promise me that you will not tell anyone, it would be rather embarrassing, promise me now.”
Sam put his hand over his heart and promised.
“Not a word shall pass my lips.”
“Oh, Sam just one more thing.”
Sam, once more leaned across to hear what she had to say, but this time he only felt pain, as her knee crashed into his groin.
“You’d better bloody not, you moron.” she snarled.
Ian looked back at Sam, as he knelt on the floor with tears welling up in his eyes rubbing his groin area in the forlorn hope that the sharp pain would soon subside. Ian thought that if she was capable of doing this much damage with a bag over her head, then this could turn out to be a long and eventful trip back to Dundee.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: DUNDEE, OCTOBER 15TH, 8.00PM
VR could not believe what she was hearing and her anger just exploded.
“You pair of bloody morons!"
“That's twice today we been called that. Must look it up in the dictionary," thought Sam.
“We had a plan, don’t you remember the meeting? The one thing, we all agreed on was that we all had to stick to the plan. You were there, both of you. I definitely remember seeing you there."
Ian sat back in his chair with his arms raised in surrender and interrupted VR.
“Okay, I admit what we did wasn’t in the plan so therefore it was wrong and for that we are truly sorry. VR, we never meant to muddle up the plans, but an unexpected opportunity arose, so we used our initiative and went for it. Sure, we took a chance but it paid off. I want you to think of it this way, yeah we may have taken the girl early, but we do have a place all ready to hold her. At no time did she see either of us therefore she can't identify anyone. So, I don’t see what the problem is. No damage has been done.”
"No damage done you say! You may well be right, and she may not know what you look like, but how come she calls you both by your first names like a couple of long lost chums?"
VR was desperate to say more but Ian yet again held up his hands and continued
“I would also like to point out that while we carrying out our daring deed, which by the way if you look at it from a different view point has put us ahead of schedule, we discovered something that could count as an added bonus.”
He gestured to Sam.
“Sam, would you be good enough to fetch our trophy.”
Sam bounded from the room, only to return a moment later carrying two black bin liners. He placed them on top of the kitchen table.
Ian now took on the role of the ring master, and gestured for everyone to gather round.
“I would like you all to prepare yourselves for a bit of a surprise. Sam, would you do the honours.”
Sam right on cue emptied the contents onto the table and with a loud "Tra-la!" waited for the gasps of glee. But he was sadly disappointed. All the figures around the table fell into silence, to say stunned silence would have been a more accurate description as they stared at the bundles of cash.
“Oh my dear God, where did you get that from? What have you two done?” gasped VR.
“That’s not it all of it, there’s another bag in the mini-bus!” blurted Sam.
VR slowly sat down, her mouth was moving, but words had finally failed her.
Sam continued excitedly.
“All the bags are near enough the same with each one containing roughly £100,000. I must admit after we found the cash, I began to feel really sorry for the girl. Would you believe it, she actually told us that her father loves his money more than her. Can you imagine that? He must be a right bastard, fancy having a father like that.”
At this juncture he sat down next to Ian. Now both men were wearing smug grins and a look that said, “Didn’t we do well” written all over their faces.
Slowly, one by one the group came back into the land of the living. Some began gesturing and uttering the beginnings of sentences, but somehow failing to complete them.
“SHIT!, SHIT!, SHIT!” It was VR who was first to react.
“This is bad, really bad. I think we may have to look at the plan again after what has just gone down here.”
“Christ VR, what’s your problem now? We’ve just delivered roughly £300,000 and you look, well, disappointed!” exclaimed Sam.
“Let me try and explain something to you. The plan is still up and running. Okay, right now it seems like more of a side show compared to this, but it is still running. So I’ll have a go at trying to summarise where exactly we are at this point.”
She paused momentarily in an attempt to compose herself and then continued,
“At this precise moment in time, we have in the cellar of this house two of Scotland’s most evil and feared killers securely strapped to their beds, both of them by the way are also wearing nappies. I would imagine that these same two gentlemen would want to do nothing else right now, other than to kill us. I also believe that they would not only take their time over it, but would also take a great deal of sadistic pleasure from that act. ”
“Now also due to an earlier breach in the plan, this time thanks to Phil, we have staying upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms, now a believe that these are her actual words, the mad butcher’s daughter, who also wants to kill someone, but lucky for us this time, it’s her dad she wants dead and not us. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, she hates him so much, that she has decided that she wants to help us, and is now a fully paid up member of the gang. Everyone okay so far, you still with me? Good, then I’ll continue. Also upstairs, in the other spare bedroom, being watched by the same said new member, we now have, all tied up, and best of all, still with a duffle bag stuffed over her head, the daughter of Edinburgh’s top mobster. A man who by all accounts who would appear to be the equal to our guests downstairs. This is also the same man that Sam has now informed us, loves his money more than his own daughter, and speaking of money, we have in front of us £300,000 of stolen money belonging to the same man. So, to sum up folks, our house on the hill is rapidly turning into a house of horror!”
Sam had now started to see the problem and said meekly.
“Well, I suppose when you put it that way, I have to admit that it doesn’t sound so good. So, what do we do now then?”
It was Ben, who replied,
“It’s really quite simple Sam, because we don’t have any other choice but to carry on. Once we grabbed Stewart, then we crossed a line and the point of no return. The money from Edinburgh is an added bonus. So basically the plan’s still in place, there is nothing too dramatically different, well apart from the cash and the girls. We have to stick to the plan but now we have to try and make the Edinburgh mob think that Stewart just got lucky with the money, when he was kidnapping the girl. Now, if Stewart really did have her, then they will be expecting a ransom demand. While on the other hand, VR is of course right, we do appear to have a house full of psycho’s, so we will have to be extra careful and stay on guard. But there mustn’t be any more taking crazy chances.”
VR continued where Ben left off.
“I agree with Ben, we’ve come this far and it’s too late to let this cash influence us, or change our minds. Let’s face it we can’t just let them all go because now we have literally bags of cash and say sorry, no offence meant. So, do we all agree? Are we are still on?”
She looked around the table and acknowledged the nodding heads.
“Then, that’s it. We’ll stash the money away but keep back five grand as we can do with a working float.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
In the upstairs bedroom a weepy Jacqui Kowalski sat on the bed with her back against the headboard and surveyed her surroundings. Thankfully, they had now removed the bag from her head. The smell of tuna sandwiches emitting from it was beginning to make her feel ill. Her left wrist was handcuffed to a chain, which in turn was shackled to a fixing on the wall. The chain was of sufficient length that she could walk around the bed before the chain went taut. At the foot of the bed lay an old enamelled bed pot. She picked it up and weighed it in her hand.
“Someone will be wearing that before I’m finished,” she thought.
The room had large bay windows which had all been boarded up and the only light came from the low energy lamp hanging from the ceiling.
“Well, at least they are green.”
Next to the bed was a small table, which going by the large enamelled floral basin and matching water jug was intended for her to use as a wash station. Once again she lifted the jug to get a feel of its weight.
She was rapidly coming to the same assumption of her captures as Katie.
“Well this lot are definitely not professionals, I would have used plastic. It would do less damage.”
The room itself was old, old wallpaper, old carpet square, old lino below the carpet, old paint, but at least the bed was new or nearly new and reasonable comfy.
As she looked around the room she began to mentally to get a grip on her situation.
“Strange sort of kidnapping, everyone so far seems to be quite friendly, especially the blonde girl, she’s quite tasty! Whoa there girl! Behave yourself and remember you’re the victim here.”
She began to wonder how long it would take “Daddy” to find her this time. The last time she disappeared, it was only a matter of days before the limo arrived and took her home. She recalled the way some of dads so called associates had dealt with her friends. It didn’t matter to them if they were male or female, they left them just conscious enough to understand that their friendship with Jacqui wasn’t to be continued, and it would not be a good idea to contact her again, or else they would receive another visit, a final one.
Dear daddy only allowed her to have the type of friends that he personally approved of.
He knew her sexual preferences lay with other women, which in his book was unholy and unnatural. It was simple, in his world women went out with men, they married and had kids. End of story. He was a man who was determined to save her from herself and her perverse ways. He would thrust what he called eminent boyfriends, at her at every opportunity, in the furlong hope that she would marry one of them, and the right husband could shag her lesbian ways right out of her. His ‘darling dyke’ he would call her, in the misguided hope, that the humiliation of name calling would change her back to men.
As these memories flashed through her head, she felt the tears well up, and stream down her face. She lay back on the bed and wept, but just why, she was not sure. Was it her father or her situation?
Downstairs VR was sitting alone in the kitchen sipping a glass of red wine. She was so totally lost in thought as she tried to make sense of the events of the last few days, that she did not hear Ian walk in until he spoke.
“I’ll give you a penny for them. You know the old saying. A worry shared is a worry halved or at least something like that anyway.”
She looked up at him and smiled.
“Oh, it’s nothing really. I’m trying to keep a grip on what’s happening. Everything seems to be in place, well perhaps not the way it was planned, but it is in place. But, I feel so lonely, so very alone.”
