Chapter 23 #2
She walked towards the door and opened it for me with a smile. “What a beautiful day.” She let me pass as if the last time we’d met, she hadn’t threatened me with a stun gun. “Why do you have Sonia’s phone?” I asked. Something was very, very wrong.
I came inside, knowing it was the wrong choice. She bolted the door after me. That’s when I saw the knife.
“Why don’t you leave that dog of yours in the toilet?” she asked, gesturing her head towards a door. Kenny whimpered and backed away.
“Okay, easy, easy,” I said as she flicked the knife in the toilet’s direction.
With her other hand, she grabbed my phone from me and put it in her pocket.
I dragged Kenny to the bathrooms. “C’mon, boy, it’ll be okay.
” I led him into the small room and then gave him a kiss atop his snout.
“Good boy, stay calm, and this will all be over soon,” I told him.
He whimpered again. My hands were shaking.
I backed out of the room. Instantly, Kennedy launched himself at the closed door and started howling for me.
Dhapinder still had the knife aimed at me.
Could I take her? She was small, only a few inches above five feet.
I’m no giant, but I was still male and bigger.
However, that knife looked very sharp. It was a normal kitchen knife, the kind everyone makes as an investment purchase.
The ‘good’ knife. I was glad that at least it wasn’t bloody and looking like it had already been used.
“Where’s Sonia?” I asked, hating the tremor in my voice. Dhapinder was sweating; the hairspray she’d used liberally to keep her estate agent helmet in place was clinging on by its fingernails. Her ’do was beginning to droop. She had scuff marks on her legs and shoes.
“She’s in the staff kitchen. Why don’t you go and join her?” She gestured with the knife, and I walked slowly, edging against the wall towards the kitchen. Kennedy was still howling in the bathroom.
So, this was how I died. In an estate agent’s. At the hands of a crazy woman. Oh, well, I had got to live for a few more months after Tarquin had tried it. At least no one was framing me for murder this time.
My heart thundering, I eventually made it to the kitchen under Dhapinder’s gaze. She had lost it. I opened the door and fell into the room.
Sonia was on a chair in the middle of it. Her wrists were tied to the chair legs. She was conscious but gagged at the mouth. Searching the room for help. When she saw me, her eyes went wide, and she strained against her ties. At least she was unhurt. For now.
Beside her, on the floor, his head in his hands, was Trevor Bliss. He looked up at me as we came in. His eyes were red, his face tear-stained, and a big glob of snot hung from his nose. “It was never supposed to be like this,” he told me.
“Oh, Trevor, what have you done?” I asked.
“Be quiet,” said Dhapinder, and the knife prodded me in the back, a tiny nip, but it was enough to make me yelp and jump forward.
“Tie him up,” she barked at her husband.
Trevor fell into a new barrage of sobs.
“Dhapinder, this is madness,” I told her.
“He’s right, babe.” Trevor ran a piece of rope through his hands. “We’re going to prison for so long. This is all crazy.”
“DO IT!” she yelled. Sonia looked at me desperately. Her eyes wide with terror.
Trevor shuffled over, still sobbing and weeping. “Sorry, Arden,” he whispered as he manhandled me over to another chair and plonked me down.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “How are you going to explain it? There’s no way all of this is worth it for whatever amount of money you’ve stolen.”
Trevor looked dazed. “How did you know about …”
“Stop talking, Trevor, and tie him up,” Dhapinder yelled. “Let me think.”
He did as he was told. “This has all gotten out of hand, hasn’t it, Dhapinder?
” I asked. Kennedy was still making a racket.
Maybe someone in one of the shops next door would hear him and come to investigate?
“Let me get this straight. You kidnapped Sonia and held her at knifepoint, and now a second person, also at knifepoint, which, by the way, is like an automatic custodial sentence in this country, without a plan?”
I looked at Trevor. “Custodial means prison, if you didn’t know.” He gulped, but I kept going. Dhapinder was pacing. People and their fucking pacing.
“You know, prison, like where Tarquin ended up after he killed Arabella. You know about that, cos you were fucking her, so the police suspected you, like all the other guys who had a go.” I turned to Dhapinder.
“Is that what started this off? When you found out that Trevor had been dipping his candle in other wicks? Humiliating you, and all the while, you weren’t even given your share of the business when Daddy Bliss retired? ”
“Shut up!” she snarled.
“Listen, Dhapinder, I know how it feels. When someone you love betrays you like that. It hurts so much, but this is stupid.”
“Love?” she spat out. She turned to Trevor, the sobbing, slumped wreck of a man beside her, who had been a walking wet dream but now looked too pathetic to elicit as much as a passing tingle.
“I don’t love him!” she said, pointing at Trevor. “He used me and only wanted me because that blond whore turned him down!” She paced some more. “Getting the money was the least he could do after treating me as second best.”
Trevor wept some more. She shook her head at him. “Pathetic,” she whispered.
“So, you don’t love him? Do you hear that, Trevor – she hates you,” I said. Sonia’s eyes were going so wide. Kennedy was still howling.
There was a banging at the front door. Oh, thank God. A voice came through the room. It was muffled but sounded like it was filled with urgency. Trevor’s head shot up. “Mum?” he called.
Dhapinder whipped around. “Gag him or something,” she ordered Trevor, meaning me. “I’ll go deal with them and that bloody dog.”
Deal with my dog? Deal? Did-did she … Oh, hell no.
“Are you gonna let her talk to you like that, Trevor? You’re the man here.
This harpy wants your family’s money. She doesn’t even like you.
She thinks you’re stupid. She’d have divorced you after she found out about Arabella, but she wanted that money more.
Are you going to let her destroy your family like this? ”
Dhapinder whirled at me. “Shut up!” she screamed. At that moment, another voice came from the door at the back end of the room. It sounded male and authoritative. “Is anyone in there?” he asked. “Sonia? Trev?”
Sonia had managed to get the gag out of her mouth.
“Dad?” Sonia called out. “Dad, is that you – help, Dhapinder and Trevor have gone nuts―”
Dhapinder pushed Sonia’s chair back. She toppled onto the floor and let out a scream.
“Sonia!” I yelled. “Trevor, you worthless dumb shit, do something!” My strategy was changing by the second. Dhapinder’s eyes flew to her man-child husband. His tear-stained face was now white with anger.
“She hates you, Trevor! She thinks you’re weak and stupid.”
Trevor’s fists clenched. The pounding on the door continued. “What’s happening? I’ve called the police!” Mr Bliss yelled.
“Have you met him?” Dhapinder said – to me – defending herself in the middle of all this. “He is weak and stupid! He’s a fucking moron.”
I mean, she had a point. The Brain of Britain, Trevor was not.
But he did act now and again. He grabbed his wife’s hand and twisted her arm until she yelped. “Drop the knife, Dhapinder,” he growled.
Her face twisted in anger. “Weak!” she hissed and slashed at him with the knife.
It sunk into his arm, and a crimson streak instantly seeped through his shirt.
But it was only superficial. Trevor grabbed her other wrist with his injured arm and crushed her hand until she dropped the knife.
“It’s over,” he said. He took the knife and opened the door to his father.
Mr Bliss took in the scene, and his jaw dropped. Dhapinder collapsed onto the floor and put her head in her hands. Trevor approached his father.
Sonia was lying prostrate on the floor, her hair over her face. She was sobbing. Still, Kennedy howled.
“Dad, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his sobs starting again. Mr Bliss pushed him away as he approached us. “Trevor, what have you done?”
Adebayo and Lauren arrived two minutes later, along with Mrs Bliss, who took Sonia in her arms and sobbed.
Mr Bliss handed the knife he’d taken from Trevor to the police.
Adebayo tried his best to act professionally, but his eyes were only for Sonia, and eventually, he stopped pretending he could do his job at this moment and flew to her side.
Desperately checking her arms and face for any wounds.
“Are you really okay?” he asked her for the millionth time.
Ade kissed her head and held her as tightly as he could, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “It’s alright, baby, it’s alright.”
More police arrived. Dhapinder and Trevor were cuffed and led away.
A surprisingly strong Sonia had a blanket put over her and was led outside.
I was allowed to grab Kennedy, who was delirious with joy at being let out.
“Oh, my good boy, I am so glad she didn’t hurt you,” I said as I kneeled on the floor and let him lick me.
At least no one could say my face was wet because I’d been crying now.
We made our way onto the street where the entire village had seemingly congregated to find out why several police cars had arrived, and the respectable estate agents (pah!) were being led out by the cops.
An SUV pulled up, and a person I hadn’t expected to see came running towards us as we were led to the cop cars.
Nigella’s black hair shone in the sun as she bundled Sonia up in a hug, and then me.
“This is all my fault!” she whispered in my ear.
“I really am a stupid old gossipy woman like Matteo said.”
“What? No, what nonsense,” I said. “How is this your fault?”