Chapter 11 Special Branch
Having eaten and drunk his coffee by candle light, all of a sudden he felt sleepy and just managed to reach his bed and collapsed, half on and half off and went out like a light, just as a hand reached out and a finger and thumb enclosed round the candle flame and snuffed out the candle and smoke spiraled towards the ceiling and the acrid smell of burning filled the two men’s nostrils who stood in the kitchen. One of them spoke, ‘How many sleeping tablets did you put in his coffee?’ ‘Just one as instructed.’ said the other man, ‘We better go and straighten him out on the bed.’ After placing Roland in a more comfortable position, one of them peered out of the window and said ‘Those two guys are still there!’ We’ll deal with them later, come on we might as well finish off his Chinese dinner, I’m starving, these late nights looking after other people don’t do my indigestion any good, but needs must when the devil drives as the saying goes or something like that.’ ‘Eating that won’t do you any favours.’ said his partner. The two men had each received a telephone call to “Babysit!” a term used in Special Branch circles.
‘I don’t think this Roland guy knows what he has got mixed up in, must think he’s James Bond.’ ‘By all accounts he’s been thrown out of a window, his flat window and landed on the flag pole one floor down.’ ‘Lucky man – perhaps he is James Bond after all.’ ‘He should be protecting us – perhaps we should do something about those guys, are they are still hanging around?’ ‘Okay make the call, tell them no sirens?
Shortly afterwards two cars pulled up and the plain clothes team got out and arrested the two men waiting outside the café. One of the men, Mike leaned out of the flat window and hoped he would be seen. Gerald, his partner put on the lights of the flat and it seemed to blaze out like a neon sign – Mike made a gesture by putting his thumb up to signify a job well done and although there was a fair distance between Roland’s flat and the street corner, the police on the ground were able to distinguish the two men in the flat and were able to see Mike and Gerald. The police bundled the two men into their cars and off they went with sirens blaring.
Mike and Gerald made themselves as comfortable as they could and slept till eight in the morning.
Mike said, ‘Sleeping in one’s suit doesn’t do it much good, it’s creased like blazes.’ Gerald yawned and stretched out his limbs, ‘Too true – let’s see how the sleeping beauty is?’ ‘He was alright at 4am – I checked.’ Gerald opened the door of Roland’s bedroom and he appeared to be still asleep. Gerald said he would go and do some shopping, eggs, bacon, bread and butter, he also said he would get a newspaper and three cups of coffee from the café round the corner. He was gone half an hour.
Roland woke to the aroma of bacon and eggs and coffee and with some caution opened the door of his bedroom and peered in and saw two men with that certain bulge under their jackets. Mike turned round on hearing the door and said, ‘Come in and sit down, we’ve cooked breakfast for you. Roland was going to yield to these two men as he still felt exhausted and had a nasty taste in his mouth. Charlie must have sent round another two thugs to finish him off, but couldn’t understand why they had cooked breakfast, was it the condemned man’s last meal? He shuffled towards the table, his face aching like the devil. Mike got up and Roland flinched and held an arm up in a defensive stance. Mike said, ‘Don’t worry, we are not here to harm you – we are from Scotland Yard. We’ve come to protect you.’ Roland relaxed and thought they had left it a bit late as he felt his jaw. Mike said, ‘After breakfast we’ll get the doctor to attend to your face.’
Breakfast over Roland was given a medical by, he assumed a medical practitioner from the police force. The doctor seemed agitated by something as if someone was holding a gun to his head. He said in a quiet voice to the two men in the room, ‘Would you mind waiting in the other room?’ The two men from Special Branch went out of the room, but left the door wide open.
‘Open wide, that’s the ticket,’ and shoved a thermometer into Roland’s mouth, he also palmed a piece of paper into Roland’s hand. ‘Temperature is normal – good! Would you please lie on the bed and relax, just want to check your eyes. The doctor asked Roland to look at the tiny light and whispered, ‘You must get out of this flat, you are in danger. One of the men came in and leaned over the bed, ‘How you getting on, doctor?’ ‘A lot better if you wouldn’t mind leaving as I asked you!’ The man walked away and stood by the open door. Doctor said, ‘Let’s check the other eye?’ After a brief moment the doctor declared Roland as fit as he could be, especially after the treatment he had received over the past few days. The doctor turned and spoke to the two men and said ‘He’s okay!’ The two men said a few words to the doctor, which Roland was unable to hear and he left.
Roland said he would have a shower and get dressed. He showered quickly and got dressed in casual gear. Luckily the shower was en suite to the small bedroom. Roland collected his passport, wallet and keys to the flat. He turned on the shower, shouting out – ‘Forgot to do my hair, won’t be a moment,’ and disappeared down the laundry chute.
Chapter 12 Out and About
The first thing on Roland’s mind, who were the two men in his flat, were they really from Special Branch or were they part of Charlie crew? They couldn’t have been, because of the doctor, or maybe he was part of the team and took pity on him, he just didn’t know what to think. His thoughts turned towards Joanna and wondered whether she was going to be safe. Having a policeman on duty was no guarantee that all would be well. Roland was desperate and he wanted to see her badly, just to put his mind at rest, but things being what they were, Charlie and his men could be waiting for him as well as the other group and of course the two men who said they were part of Scotland Yard.
Roland decided that he needed a place to make notes and decided to chance a café. There weren’t many customers when he walked in – but soon the café began to fill up. He ordered a pot of tea and a buttered scone with raspberry jam and asked for some note paper. The waiter gave him the back of a blank till payment chit and Roland began his listing of incidents. It appeared that as far as he was concerned, four lots of people were after him and of course he didn’t know why. There was the oriental gentleman with the baseball bat clutched between his legs and the cheese wire round his throat who had apparently followed him. There was the Mafia boss, Charlie and his men, the two men in a boat and the police in the guise of Special Branch, none of which made much sense. The only thing that Roland could think of, was a chance remark when one of Charlie’s men said that he looked the spitting image of, what was his name, Roland was trying to step back in time, American Presidents came to his mind and soon the name came to him. It was John Hoover who was now nursing a broken nose and Roland realised that one of the two men who said they were from the police, sported a pink plaster on the bridge of his nose, so that’s why the Doctor had said get out of his flat as quickly as possible. Roland drank his third cup of tea and was just finishing his scone and jam when the door of the café opened and there appeared Charlie and some of his men followed by John Hoover and the other man, who having recognised Charlie decided to do an about turn and left the café. Roland felt the presence of Charlie as he and his men surrounded him. ‘Look what I’ve found? What shall we do?’ Roland decided that this time, he was going to make a gallant effort and escape and with a graceful gesture he raised his half finished cup of tea and threw the contents into one of the gang’s men and at the same time pushed his chair backwards into the groin area of the man behind and at the same shoved the table towards the others. It was like a slow motion ballet of movement. As everybody fell about, Roland made a dash for the rear exit slinging a five pound note for his tea and scone and shouted ‘Keep the change.’ He last glimpsed Charlie arguing with another customer, who had fallen across their table and had the remains of someone’s all day breakfast on the back of his jacket.
Roland hid in the store room at the back, because he knew that Charlie would soon follow, and also he suspected that John Hoover and his mate would be lurking there. He did the right thing, as shortly Charlie and his group of five rushed passed the door and slap bang into the other two men and there followed a fight, a short lived fight as John Hoover had produced a gun and fired into the air. Roland decided to leg it and passed the bewildered owner of the café shouting ‘Better call the police! Someone has just fired a gun!’ Roland disappeared from view and decided there and then to visit Scotland Yard and see if he could make any sense out of the mess he had got himself in and if they could come up with some advice.
