London Calling - James Craig [66]
‘I see you’ve started without me,’ said an amused voice.
‘Well …’ Hogarth gasped as a cold hand gently grasped his still exposed member.
‘Leave the talking to me. Just sit back, eyes front.’
He did as he was told, bringing his breathing under control as the hand was replaced by something else. Hogarth let his mind wander, relaxing completely as he was gently brought back to life.
Several minutes later, the oral ministrations came to an abrupt end. He opened his eyes, but found it hard to focus.
‘Get out of the car.’
Slowly he did as he was told.
‘Face the windscreen. Hands on the bonnet. Spread your legs.’
Hogarth moved around the front of the car, watching his reflection in the cool Galway Green paintwork. From behind, he felt a pair of hands roughly undo his belt buckle and push his trousers to the floor. His underpants quickly followed. A hand came up between his legs, caressing his balls. Something cool tickled his anus. He was completely hard again now, and poised to explode. Don’t rush it, he thought. Slow down.
When the explosion came, however, it was at the base of his neck, rather than in his groin. He tried to push himself up off the car, but instead found his head being smashed back on to the bonnet. His nose exploded, and blood mixed with the tears welling in his eyes. Dazed, he felt his legs buckle. His vision blurred and then there was darkness.
‘Wakey, wakey!’
Hogarth regained consciousness as a bottle of water was poured over his head. Confused, with a throbbing ache behind his eyes, he took a moment to remember what had happened. Slowly, the world stopped spinning around him. He was lying face down, on the car bonnet, with his arms raised as if in surrender. The bonnet still felt warm, suggesting he hadn’t been unconscious for long, and there was a sickly smell in his nostrils. Grunting, he tried to push himself up, but to no avail.
He was stuck.
Literally.
‘Don’t struggle, or you’ll do yourself some serious damage.’
As his eyes regained focus, he saw the knife resting on the windshield. Next to it was a small photograph. Unable to move his head, it was hard to make it out clearly – but he could guess. A hand snatched up the blade and Hogarth clenched his whole body, in anticipation of the imminent blow.
‘Help me,’ he whispered, but only so that he could hear the sound of his own voice one last time. ‘Please, help me.’
Hopping from foot to foot to try to stay awake, Carlyle stood as far away from the body as he reasonably could without looking too much like a wimp. He fiddled with his BlackBerry and looked over at Joe Szyszkowski, who was talking to one of the other policemen attending the scene. Even at this distance, the smell was appalling. He could feel the bile rising in his throat and he was only glad that his stomach was empty.
It was ten to five in the morning and he felt like shit. Those bastard students who rented the flat below him in Winter Garden House had woken him up at two a.m. with their bloody computer war games. It was the third or fourth time this had happened in recent weeks. They would stay up all night playing Mercenaries: World in Flames or Call of Duty: World at War. The first time it had happened, Carlyle literally thought that a bomb had gone off inside the building. It wasn’t much better once he realised that it was only a game. There would be stretches of silence and then a monumental explosion. It was like World War III was taking place right under his fucking bed. Every time Carlyle went to complain, they would sheepishly apologise and call it a night. Then a few days later they’d start again. The fact that he was a policeman didn’t seem to concern them in the slightest. He started giving serious consideration to having the little fuckers arrested for something. Better still, he would ask Dominic Silver to send someone round to trash their games consoles and break their fingers.
Carlyle really needed his sleep: anything less than seven hours and he was in bad shape for the next day. In the event, he had managed to grab