Dark Side of the Street - Jack Higgins [49]
Youngblood turned to Chavasse excitedly. "That sounds promising, Drum. It could be the end of the line."
Chavasse nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Pentecost's face. Quite suddenly he rammed the barrel of the revolver against the man's head and thumbed back the hammer.
"You bloody liar!"
Pentecost panicked completely, his face turning grey. "It's the truth, I swear it! On my mother's grave I swear it!"
"You never had a mother," Youngblood said in disgust and he hooked away the chair with a foot so that Pentecost fell to the floor.
He lay there shaking with fear and Chavasse looked down at him coldly. There was an account to be settled here, but that would have to wait until a more appropriate time.
He slipped the revolver into his pocket and took Molly's arm. "Come on, let's get out of here."
"What about this?" Youngblood asked, stirring Pentecost with a foot.
"There's nothing he can do," Chavasse said. "If he tries to warn them we're on our way, they'll want to know how we found put where to head for in the first place. How long do you think he'd last after that?"
Pentecost looked at him over his shoulder, eyes widening as the significance of what Chavasse had said sank home and Youngblood laughed harshly.
"You've got a point there. No reason he shouldn't take a rest for a little while though," and he kicked Pentecost in the side of the head.
Pentecost rolled over, struggling for breath, aware of the clang of the door closing at the top of the steps and then he plunged into darkness.
Pain exploding in a chain reaction brought him back from darkness as someone slapped him across the face and a voice repeated his name over and over again. He opened his eyes and stared up into Simon Vaughan's pale face.
"You do look a mess, old man. Presumably they've been and gone?"
Pentecost pushed himself up on one elbow. "There were three of them," he croaked. "Not two like you said. Two men and a girl."
"So that's where she got to! Dear me, I have been careless. Unfortunately I had a little mechanical trouble with the car on the other side of Worcester. I was delayed for the best part of an hour." He helped Pentecost to his feet and sat him in a chair. "When did they leave?"
Pentecost looked at his watch and found that it was almost seven o'clock. "It can't be more than half an hour."
"I see. You told them where to go, did you? Bragg's Boatyard, Upton Magna?" Pentecost stared at him, uncertain of what to say, so confused by the pain in his head that he was unable to think straight and Vaughan sighed. "You shouldn't have done that, you know."
"I couldn't help it," Pentecost said wearily. "They'd have killed me if I hadn't told them. You could probably still catch them."
"I'm sure I can," Vaughan said. "I have two considerable advantages. A very fast car and the fact that I know exactly where I'm going. They, on the other hand, will have to stick to the backroads and check every signpost and the Dorset countryside can be very confusing at night."
Pentecost stirred uneasily as Vaughan moved round behind him. "You know your trouble, old man? You think you've got brains, but you haven't--just a certain amount of low cunning. I can't say it's been a pleasure."
His clenched right fist rose and descended in a hammer blow that splintered the bone at the base of Penetcost's skull. He gave a strange, choking cry and would have tumbled from the chair if Vaughan hadn't held him upright.
He walked round to the front of the chair quickly, dropped to one knee and then straightened, Pentecost draped across his right shoulder in the fireman's lift.
Vaughan crossed to the oven Pentecost had turned on and switched it off. As the flames died away, he opened the glass door and the seven-foot base plate rolled out smoothly on its castors. He dropped Pentecost on to it, arranging his limbs neatly, pushed the plate with its burden back inside and closed the glass door.
He paused to light