Twist Page 3

  She walked back down the steps and stared up at the house and the crescent moon in the glass. Perhaps the pimp DJ had got it wrong. Perhaps the house’s occupants had moved on or found God. But she didn’t believe it and she waited, thinking that at half past ten at night someone was bound to come or go eventually.

  And her patience bore fruit half an hour later. A midnight-blue Mercedes purred to a standstill thirty yards further down the road and she watched an early middle-aged Asian man step out, cross the street, turn left, pass in front of her then turn right and climb the steps, two at a time, as if he was in a hurry.

  ‘My boyfriend left something,’ she started from the foot of the steps behind him. ‘He’s in the middle of an important business dinner so he asked me to pick it up for him.’

  The man turned and smiled but looked surprised when she produced the card. When she climbed the steps he took it from her, studied it then turned and wiped it in a vertical then horizontal motion across the door’s surface. A pale glow illuminated his face and she looked up and saw a beam of light coming from a tiny hole in the top right-hand corner of the porch. Then there was a click and a whirring sound as the mechanism within the door engaged and heavy bolts slid back and the door opened.

  The Asian man stepped across the threshold and placed his back to the wall, holding out the card to her as she stepped past him into a dark candlelit hallway. She had modified her expectations when she’d seen the Mercedes, but the deep crimson carpet and the original oil paintings on the walls still took her by surprise.

  She heard the door close and the bolts slide back into their housings. She felt the man’s presence behind her as she slipped off her red overcoat to reveal her dress. It was Dior, basic black, and she had stolen it by isolating the paint capsule in the tamper-proof tag with a special tool that FBoss had given her for Christmas.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said as the man took her coat.

  ‘It goes with your hair,’ he commented.

  She followed his gaze to the floor and she saw it was true. The carpet was the same auburn red as her hair. She stepped forwards and touched his forearm and he turned and led her up to the first-floor landing in silence.

  ‘You must have a unique relationship,’ he said as they climbed.

  ‘My boyfriend is very open-minded,’ she replied.

  When they reached the first landing they were met by a pair of large black doors with brass handles.

  ‘Go through these doors and you’ll find yourself in a waiting room,’ he said, handing her the coat. ‘Ring the bell and then ask for Luna. She will help you find what you are looking for.’

  She watched him stiffen and without replying he motioned with his hand to the double doors behind her.

  ‘Have a pleasant evening,’ he said.

  Then she watched him turn and begin to climb again. Two steps at a time once more, springing up on the balls of his feet like a man half his age, disappearing around the next half-landing. She was left uninvited and unaccompanied in a large house which a pimp pretending to be a DJ had told her not to visit alone.

  She pulled on the doors and they felt heavy in her hands. She leant against one and pushed, listening to the sucking sound as it opened to reveal a pair of thick crimson curtains. She reached to push the curtains back but something stopped her and she just stood there in the darkness as the door closed behind her, hands raised, fingertips barely touching the thick velvet in front of her.

  She felt a vibration against her and she pulled out the phone and looked at the screen. It was a message from Batesy. Four letters on the screen …

  GTFO

  It was the code that had reached Harry too late. Too late for him to get the fuck out of the White Cube.

  She hit speed dial then switched to Wassup so she could text while he talked.

  B. I can’t talk but I can listen, she typed, listening to the click as he picked up the line at the other end.

  ‘That card you’ve got. It’s bad news. Ditch it and don’t go there.’

  Why? she texted back.

  ‘I’m not alone here,’ came the reply. ‘… And I don’t know where you are. We never spoke.’

  The line went dead and all she was left with was the pulse of blood in her veins and the card which was cold in her hand.

  She put the phone back in her coat pocket and reached up to touch the curtains. They were quarter-inch-thick fire curtains that theatres used to make silent scene changes but she imagined them being used for something different. She felt pressure mounting at her temples, the edge of panic as she imagined someone with large muscular hands using the curtains to silence her.

  4

  Shipwrecked sailors clinging to a rock, a bronze muscleman wrestling a constrictor and a dog with mad eyes flashed past him, the questions tumbling and jostling for position as he ran. How long had he been asleep for? And why had the gallery guide told him about the window?

  A guard appeared, filling the doorway in front of him, and with the shock he found himself yelling: ‘Aaaaaarrgggh!’

  Fifteen, ten, five feet and closing, still screaming until he saw the man flinch and turn to look back for support. That was his mistake as Twist sidestepped in the opposite direction, boosting off the door frame into the space beyond.

  ‘It’s him! The little shit! Stop him!’

  The words were high-pitched and nasal, snapping at his heels as the footsteps came booming behind them. He reached the high portico and took the corner in a skid into a group of French students who stood unwashed and reeking at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Putain! Merde! ’

  He silenced their cries by vaulting up onto the flat, polished stone of the wide banister, sliding down beneath their teacher who flapped at him with her guide book. As he gained momentum, bursting between the queue for the cloakroom and ticket sales, a question came to him. The guide in the gallery had mentioned a window in a toilet but hadn’t said which one … the Ladies or the Gents? Or both?

  Stop! Think! What do they expect you to do?

  He heard the words of his new best friend in his ear.

  Now do the opposite!

  He slowed, took a deep breath, pulled up his hood and pushed open the door. A middle-aged woman, possibly Italian, was stood, leaning over the washbasin, puckering her lips. Twist slipped past her to the cubicles. There were two of them but he saw the light reflected on the ceiling was brighter on the right side. He pushed the door open and looked up at a tiny pane of frosted glass.

  It was sealed shut. He was trapped.

  ‘Check the Gents!’ He heard the guards outside.

  He stepped up onto the toilet seat and examined the window. Even if he could kick out the glass, it would be a miracle if he could squeeze through.

  Resting his hands and elbows on the tops of the cubicle walls, he lifted his knees to his chest, drawing his legs back like a spring. Bam!

  He felt the impact in his spine. He took a deep breath then kicked once more. Again it held firm.

  ‘Che cosa fai? ’ the woman screeched.

  Twist hammered again, once, twice, each time focusing his heels at the centre of the glass. As he drew back for the fourth strike he heard the door open and the Italian woman screaming for help. He kicked again, the toilet walls juddering as the guards burst into the room. The metal frame gave out a fraction as the big guard, whose voice he recognised from the gallery, began pounding on the cubicle door.

  ‘The police are already here, son. They’re waiting for you outside.’

  Bam! Bam! Bam! His legs became a steam press until finally he felt the metal frame give and cold air on his ankles and stomach as he wormed his way out. Thoughts rushed into his mind now that he had stopped moving. He saw his tattoo. It was the same as his tag. The tag that he’d sprayed on the back wall of the gallery …

  He was suspended now, halfway in, halfway out of the window, arms flailing inside the cubicle, pinioned by his chest.

  ‘Kick it in!’ a guard screamed, and
Twist struggled like a contortionist, raking his armpits against the window frames and turning his head sideways, legs scrabbling in thin air on the far side of the wall.

  As he saw the screws on the lock strain and pop he stopped wriggling and instead took a shallow breath then exhaled, steadily, feeling his diaphragm contract as the weight of his body took him and he slid out from the window.

  The roof was wet. When he rolled onto his back he could see the big red face of the guard, head and one shoulder stuck in the window. There were no police but there was a wall, some twenty feet high, and at its foot was a garden square, red-brick houses dominated by a Victorian church that stood alone in its centre. And a drainpipe, the piping plastic but with fixtures that held. Within seconds he was climbing down and had his feet on the ground again and found them leading him across the road towards the rose garden and the sanctuary of the church.

  5

  She pushed back the curtain and it opened to reveal a small, wood-panelled room with a thick green rug and a wood fire burning in a large open fireplace at the far end.

  A single black leather armchair on the left of the room sat facing a black door on the wall to her right. She walked over to the door and tried the handle but it was locked. She glanced around, looking for a clue, fingering the card in her pocket as she heard a key turn in the lock and she stood back, fists bunched in her pockets as a tiny, middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway, smiling as if she had been expecting her.

  The woman’s face bore the hallmarks of having been surgically altered, the skin stretched tight across strong, prominent cheekbones so that a frown would be indistinguishable from her smile as she looked back at Red, eyes quizzical beneath arched pencil lines and the red and gold patterned silk scarf she wore upon her head.

  The effect was disorientating and somewhat sinister. She was larger than life. Somewhere between a fairy godmother and a fortune teller, her face masking her intentions as she turned the tables on Red, who felt naked under her intense gaze.

  ‘Can I help you, my dear?’ the woman asked.

  ‘My boyfriend left something, he asked me to come and pick it up for him,’ Red replied, watching the woman think about her statement then nod her head, appearing to accept it.

  ‘His name is Richard Bruce. He’s American. He’s stuck in a business dinner. He asked me to collect his coat on the way home from work.’

  The woman didn’t nod this time but the thin skin on her cheeks drew tighter as her smile widened into a rictus grin.

  ‘I’m afraid I cannot recall that name, my dear,’ she said.

  ‘But he gave me his card. Here.’ Red held it out to her.

  ‘I’m afraid we have very strict rules governing entrance, Miss …’

  ‘Kennedy. Miss Ja … net Kennedy.’

  The woman stared back at her.

  ‘Well, Miss Kennedy,’ she said, stepping closer to her, watching her face, ‘it’s dark outside but you must be forgiven for not seeing the sign because there isn’t one, because we like to protect our members’ right to anonymity. And even if your Mr Bruce were a member, I’m afraid I would not be able to fulfil his request because we don’t allow women to enter unaccompanied by a member. So I’m terribly sorry for your trouble and I can assure you I will contact him directly, but all I can offer you now is a lift home. There is a car waiting outside. It’s a ghastly night and we wouldn’t want you to get lost in the dark now, would we?’

  Red watched the woman turn and push back the curtain. She was stronger than she looked and she moved well, stepping lightly as she escorted Red to the front door and what felt like a lucky escape. Red thanked her at the door and skipped down the steps into the sleet, turning when she got to the bottom to look back once at the smiling plastic-faced woman on the top step.

  She pulled the collars of her coat up to protect her face as the frozen rain lashed her exposed calves and saw the rear window of the Mercedes open and the driver’s black leather glove beckon her into the warm interior.

  It was tempting, very tempting, but she had learnt long ago never to accept lifts from strangers, especially men who worked for places like this.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir, but I think I’ll walk,’ she said, suddenly aware of a blond, pinch-faced man in a black ski jacket standing blocking her way, his left hand pointing towards the back door of the car which was opened on cue by a bearded man wearing a Russian wolfskin hat.

  ‘Get into the back of the car, bitch,’ the bearded man said.

  She smiled and nodded back at him, pretending not to have heard him as she dipped into a crouch, making as if she was going to get in, then taking two fast steps forwards and stepping up onto the back rear bumper, using her hands to boost herself up onto the roof. Then she felt a vice-like grip tighten on her ankle, pull her off her feet and drag her kicking and punching from the roof to the pavement.

  She gripped the top of the door but the man was too strong. He was bigger than the man in the ski jacket and she could feel the strength in his massive hands as he prised her fingers off the door frame, pinioned her arms to her chest and pushed her inside.

  As the car pulled out into the road she straightened up off the back seat and looked back at the house, but the porch was empty and the woman had gone.

  6

  Twist vaulted the eight-foot flint wall at the rear of the church and fell into brambles. He liked to look before he leapt but the guards had spilled out of the gallery like wasps from a nest, their torches searching the darker recesses of the square.

  Like most decisions made hanging upside down, his decision to hide in the church grounds had been made quickly. He was relieved that he’d fought the temptation to run. By now the local patrols would have been alerted and every CCTV camera within a half-mile radius would be being scrutinised by surveillance teams, keen to be the first to catch sight of the Tate Britain vandal.

  His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. The internal wall he had seen from above separated the garden of the church’s annexe from the main church grounds and he was relieved to see there was no door in it. His best hope was that the guards fell back on protocol and stop to knock on the church’s main door before scaling the walls and clambering in after him.

  He crept forwards on all fours, hugging the shadows, aiming for a narrow gap between an old shed and the side wall of the annexe. He found an overgrown path, its paving stones green and wet beneath his knees. They led him to the shed door where he stood and slipped silently into the foot-wide gap beside it.

  The glass of the window was dirty but not so dirty that he could not make out a faint orange glow inside. He spat on the tip of his index finger and rubbed it, clockwise against the glass, then placed his eye to the circle and peered in. The room inside was murky but not entirely without light. A thin sliver of amber spread fanlike from beneath the door of what appeared to be the larder. He scanned it quickly, conjuring a mental picture of the annexe’s occupant as he traversed the rows of tins, pulses and condiments stacked neatly on clean wooden shelves. It was conventional convenience food. Pasta sauce was as exotic as it got. He imagined a small man, a vicar, some seventy years old with a bald head, wire spectacles and the appetite of a sparrow.

  He reviewed his position. Any moment now a guard would knock on the front door of the church and rouse the old boy who would most likely invite the guard in to search the grounds. This left Twist with three options. He could bolt now and run the gauntlet with the guards and the police patrols, stay where he was or find a new hiding place.

  Opting for option three he edged back towards the garden. It was barren. Thorny tendrils sprung from rose bushes frozen into submission and offering little in the way of cover. Looking beyond them into the dark corners of the garden gave him more hope. The prevailing wind from the river had blown the leaves of the elm trees that stood like sentinels around the church grounds.

  He crept out and dashed across to the pile of leaves. It rose to some four feet where it met the corner walls and s
pread out into the garden some six or seven feet, far enough to cover his entire body even at full stretch. He plunged his hands into the mound, palms up like tiny shovels and grimaced as they sliced into dense, ice-cold mulch.

  Withdrawing them, he turned and fell backwards onto the pile of leaves using his hands to scoop those at the top of the pile on top of himself, wriggling down into the wet, cold mound until only his face was visible. He peered up at the wall of the annexe as a white torchlight scanned it from left to right, hopelessly restricted by the wall of the church grounds.

  He lowered his gaze as a light went on in the room at the rear of the annexe and he felt his hand reach instinctively for the knife in his pocket. It fitted snugly in his palm but the voice inside him telling him to bury it in the leaves was cut short by a sight that surprised him.

  The vicar was older than he’d imagined, but he was alone. Twist waited, watching to see if a guard appeared but none did. Instead the old churchman opened the back door and stepped out into the garden. He was eighty-five if he was a day, his hair a thick white thatch framed by the black of his vicar’s shirt.

  He advanced into the garden supported by a walking stick and brandishing a small red torch at chest height as if he were about to poke a fire with it. Just as Twist was about to sink down into the leaves he saw the old man turn and shine the torch into the space beside the shed. Confident that no one was behind him he advanced down the path towards the centre of the garden, not ten feet from where Twist was using tiny sideways movements of his head to draw leaves across his face.

  ‘I don’t think your friends from the gallery appreciated my lecture on sanctuary,’ the old man said, ‘so I won’t repeat it, but please, do come out from under those leaves and join me inside for a restorative cup of tea.’