I'm not out for long, probably no more than three or four seconds. When I come round I can feel my shirt being pulled off, along with my bulletproof vest. I'm dragged to my feet by more than one pair of hands and led stumbling down the hallway, then up some more stairs, even though I didn't think there was another floor. No-one speaks.
A door appears, and I'm pushed through it. It's dark in here, and cooler than outside. I'm shoved into a chair, and I finally see who my captors are. One is the girl. The other is Rubberface, who slaps me hard across the face. There's real force in the blow, and it knocks me sideways. I kick out, catching him in the shin, and try to stand up, but he slaps me again, knocking me back down. My right cheek feels like it's on fire.
'Move again, and you get another dose of the baton,' he snarls, coming in close and showing perfect white teeth.
There's a leather restraint on the chair, which gives me a good idea what they use this room for, and which is why I'm not keen to remain in it. Rubberface pulls it round my midriff and buckles it at the back, pulling it tight. While he does this, the girl holds the stun baton against my leg. I glare at her, and she turns away. I can tell she's not really enjoying this.
'What are we going to do with him, Marco?' she asks, sounding worried.
'Forget him,' he snaps. 'And don't use my name, even in front of a dead man. OK?'
He grabs her arm roughly when he says this, and she gives him a frightened look of compliance. It's obvious she knows her place. Even after what she's done to me, and the fact that she's responsible for whatever's coming next (and Marco's kind of given the game away now), I still feel sorry for her.
He turns and gives me a contemptuous glare, then snatches the baton and thrusts it right into my groin. The pain is like nothing I've ever felt before. It literally takes my breath away. I shiver and twitch under my restraints while simultaneously gasping for air. He holds it there. The bastard holds it there, the drum-tight skin of his face forming a pathetic version of a smile.
'That's for trying to fuck me about,' he says.
I feel myself blacking out as he pulls the baton away. I fight unconsciousness, but it creeps up on me, and the world of violence that is all I've experienced today fades away like a headland in a sea mist. I hear the door shutting, then nausea rises up in me and I heave twice before throwing up all down my front. It's a horrible feeling, but it stops me from going under and brings me back to the real world with a bang, although it's debatable whether or not I actually want to be here.
I spit out the last of the vomit, sit back in my seat and take a couple of deep breaths, ignoring the foul taste in my mouth. I look around the room. It's small, with a low ceiling and bare concrete walls, and it smells of damp. The only light comes from a tiny window to my right which illuminates the thousands of dust particles floating in the stale air. The window has a long crack in it that runs left to right at a crooked angle, and the threadbare carpet is dirty and stained dark in patches. There's not much in the way of furnishings: a couple of cheap wooden chairs, and beyond them an ancient piece of machinery that I think must once have been a workman's lathe. Also, next to my chair is a rusty electric cooker. I try not to think about whether it works, and if so, what it gets used for.
The door opens again and a man in a boiler suit walks in. He's small and middle-aged, with big glasses. He shuts the door behind him, walks over to the chair opposite me and sits down. He's holding a jumbo packet of pistachio nuts, and he takes one out, flicks off the shell with an expert touch, and chucks it into his mouth. As he chews, he watches me with interest. Underneath the thick lenses of his out-size spectacles his eyes are bright with malignance, and utterly without mercy.
'What do you come back for, man?' he asks, his voice soft and lilting, his accent, like the others, Eastern European. As he speaks, he snaps the shells off another couple of nuts and tosses them onto the carpet.
Sitting here, trapped, I'm asking myself exactly the same thing. I'm also wondering how many more minutes there are left before Lucas raises the alarm.
'You told my boss that you knew the real name of the man you picked up the briefcase from. Yeah? Tell me. What is it?'
Not for the first time, I curse myself for letting this slip. 'I don't know.'
He grins. 'You think we won't get it out of you? Sure we will.' He pops another nut. 'The man you just shot is called Pero. That was real stupid, scaring our customers like that.' He shakes his head. 'Now, I got to be honest with you, man. You're going to have to die. We can't have someone forcing his way in here and killing one of our people. It's disrespectful, you know? But there are different ways of dying. Some can be pretty painless, like the bullet in the back of the head.' He makes the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger, puts it against his temple, and imitates pulling the trigger. 'One shot, and bang, it's all over. No more problems, no more hassles. Just a nice long sleep. But there are other ways too, man. Ways that aren't so nice.' He pauses again, but this time it's for effect rather than sustenance. 'Pero, the man you killed… His cousin's here, and man, he loves to hurt people. And now, after what you've done to his cousin, he really wants to work on you, too.' He gives a mock shudder. 'But I can stop him. All you have to do is tell me the real name of the man who gave you the briefcase, and anything else you know about him, and I'll make it quick. OK? Is that a deal?'
He tries to smile, and I feel a pang of real fear.
Using the end of the nail on my middle finger, I have gained some leverage on the flick-knife handle, and millimetre by millimetre I am lifting it up in the pocket. It requires immense concentration, but I can't afford to look anything other than interested in the offer that's being put to me.
'How do I know you won't let him torture me anyway?' I ask.
'You don't,' he answers with an honesty I wasn't expecting. 'But that's a risk you're going to have to take.'
I look like I'm thinking about it. The handle's exposed about a quarter of an inch now. I try to grab it with my thumb and middle finger, but can't quite get a grip.
'Don't fuck me about, man,' he snaps. 'What's his name?'
It's clear they still think Ferrie's holding something back from them, and I briefly wonder what it can be. 'OK, OK,' I say, making it sound like I've come to a decision. The end of the nail's hooked under the handle again, and I continue to try to get it out of my pocket. 'His name's Terry Douglas.' It's the first name that comes to my head. The father of my first girlfriend. An ex-boxer turned property developer who never thought I was good enough for his daughter. 'I, er…' I pause, buying time, because as soon as I give him the rest of the information I'm dead.
I try once again to get a proper grip on the handle, and this time it comes free. I feel for the button that releases the blade, and find it. I am ten seconds away from death. My torturer is looking at me expectantly, and I'm trying to work out whether or not he's armed and whether it'll be him who delivers the fatal shot. I am absolutely terrified, and it takes all my willpower to keep my hands from shaking.
'We served together in the police,' I say, more loudly than I need to so that I muffle the click of the blade opening.
'The police?' He shakes his head angrily. 'You're fucking me about, man. We know all about you. You weren't in the police.'
I've made a mistake. I should have thought of that. But I've also bought myself a few seconds of time. I use my thumb to feel for the sharp edge of the blade and touch it against the leather restraint. Slowly I start sawing, hoping that he's not going to notice that my right hand is moving ever so slightly backwards and forwards.
'No, I didn't mean the police.'
'The army? Did you serve in the army with him?'
These guys may well know a lot about me, but they don't seem to know much about the man blackmailing them, and it strikes me that I shouldn't be helping them fill in the gaps. Ferrie might be dead, but it's possible he can still provide clues. I think back to Lucas's advice, that we should concentrate on conventional detective work rather than run into the hornets' nest, all guns blazing, and I realize that he was right. If I get out of here, we're definitely going to do things his way.
'Yeah,' I answer, 'that's where I know him from.' But I say it in a relieved way so that once again he'll think I'm bullshitting.
Playing for time. I am playing for time.
He gets to his feet and turns towards the door, shouting something in Serbo-Croat. I saw frantically for three or four seconds, until he turns back.
'I've had enough of your lies, man,' he says dismissively. 'I gave you the chance. You fucked me around. Now you're really going to pay.'
He returns to his seat as the door opens, and as I catch sight of the man who comes in, my eyes widen.