Without stopping to check whether the man was dead or merely unconscious, Sandra edged towards the nearest of the open doors. Trevor hesitated as he looked over to the second doorway and took a deep breath to try and calm the enthusiastic excesses of the Japanese drummers in his chest. Then, holding the can of pepper spray outstretched in front of him, he sidled over to what seemed to him to be the gateway of hell itself.
As he drew closer, however, he recognised that it was in fact the entrance to a rather shabbily equipped bathroom. Three feet from the threshold, he came to an abrupt halt when he caught sight of a face staring back at him from the opposite wall. He aimed the aerosol and was about to press down on the button when he saw that the other guy was doing exactly the same thing. He adjusted his focus and realised he’d been on the point of macing his own reflection. The terrified eyes which studied him from the mirror above a chipped enamel sink were his. He averted his gaze, unable to bear the sight of his own fear, and as he did so, the reflected image of the open door came into view. There was no-one lurking in the shadowy corner behind it, nobody ready to pounce on him as soon as he set foot through the doorway.
By moving his head from side to side, he was able to examine every part of the bathroom in the mirror except for the bath itself. This was almost completely obscured by a yellow and white striped shower curtain which fell to within a few inches of the floor. Trevor took a step forward to bring the whole of the curtain within his direct field of vision. He narrowed his eyes and squinted hard at the mildew stained plastic, but the light was too dim to make out whether there was anyone behind it or not. Noticing there was an unshaded bulb hanging above the bath, he reached round the upright of the door frame for a switch, and his hand brushed against a nylon cord. He gave it a sharp pull, not sure if this was a good idea or not, but all it produced was a loud clicking sound.
Given the position of the light bulb, he had hoped it would instantly reveal whether anyone was standing in the bath by silhouetting their shape against the curtain – or rather, he had hoped that it wouldn’t. When the expected illumination failed to materialise, Trevor knew there was only one course of action left open to him. He would simply have to bite the bullet and— Then it occurred to him that there might be a second option. He could wait until Sandra came, and she could blast hell out of the shower curtain with her gun. He was beginning to ponder the distinct advantages of this approach when the image of the Dreamhome Megastores mouseman flashed into his mind once again, but this time he was alternately chewing on a lump of cheese and a bullet.
‘Oh come on, you wuss. Get on with it,’ he said to himself and shook his head to clear it of the grinning rodent in the black and orange uniform.
Wishing that he hadn’t watched quite so many serial killer movies, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and tightened his grip on the pepper spray. He reached the bath in two strides and tore open the shower curtain. Without waiting to see if anyone was behind it, he pressed down on the aerosol button and released a jet of gas in every direction. He just had time to register that there was no-one either standing or lying in the bath before his eyes closed instinctively to shield themselves from the needles of pain being fired into them by the mist of pepper spray.
‘It’s not bloody air freshener, you know.’
Trevor was scarcely aware of Sandra’s voice from the doorway behind him and even less so of the amusement in her tone. His lungs heaved with the effort of fighting for breath, and her words were almost inaudible over the din of his relentless coughing. Nor did he hear the clatter of the aerosol can as he dropped to his knees and let it fall from his fingers into the empty bath. Supporting himself by gripping the rim of the tub with one hand, he clutched at his pumping chest with the other. He blinked repeatedly to try and cool the infernos that blazed beneath his eyelids, but it brought him little relief.
‘Now you know why it’s illegal,’ said Sandra, and he felt her arms slide under his armpits.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You need to wash some of this crap off.’
With Sandra’s help and by pushing downwards on the edge of the bath, Trevor managed to get to his feet and, still half blinded, allowed himself to be guided to the wash basin. He heard the rush of water as she turned on the tap, and only then did it occur to him that he wasn’t actually dead.
CHAPTER FORTY
Statham turned into a narrow side street and eased the Skoda to a halt behind the unmarked police car.
‘I guess this is it then,’ said Patterson, opening the passenger door, his relief that the white knuckle ride was finally over immediately subsumed by a growing anxiety as to what they might be about to discover. If it was bad, his job could be at stake. If it was very bad, his life might be.