And Then You're Dead

by Dan Latus

  Besides, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to use the money. Some of it, for necessities, perhaps. Just to get him started. But no more. He didn’t want to start feeling like a retired crime boss living on dirty money. He had never been overly scrupulous, but he had always had an instinctive feel for decent ethical standards and had tried to keep to them.

  And he did need to do something with his life. He wanted to work and earn, just as he always had done. So self-respect came into it, along with personal honour. Idleness didn’t appeal very much at all, once he had got the first few weeks out of his system. He needed, craved, a sense of purpose.

  Redundancy and enforced idleness, after being made redundant from a branch of military intelligence, was why he had gone to work for Viktor Sirko in the first place. Well, that and a craving for something new, and for the chance to explore a country he had never visited.

  Viktor had not found him difficult to persuade when they had bumped into each other on a holiday in Montenegro. Both mountain lovers, they had taken to each other instantly, and the rest had followed as easily as night follows day. Two good and hard years he’d had with Viktor until the barbarians had arrived from the east, in the traditional way.

  So for some time he had thought long and hard about what to do now, without coming up with anything very appealing. The answer only came with his discovery of the old ruined house.

  He asked in the village pub who owned it, as the landlord seemed to know everything and everybody.

  ‘Down by the river? That old cottage, you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Danny!’ the landlord said, turning round. ‘Bloke here wants to know who owns that ruined cottage of yours.’

  A man along at the other end of the bar turned, looked surprised for a moment and then chuckled. ‘Primrose Cottage? Thinking of buying it, is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask him yourself.’

  John grinned, entering into the spirit of things, and moved along the bar. ‘I was just asking who owns it,’ he said. ‘So it’s yours, is it?’

  ‘If it’s the same one. Along the river, near where the beck comes in?’

  John nodded.

  ‘Well, I suppose I do own it, such as it is. It was my granny’s cottage. Mind you, she wouldn’t recognize it now. It’s fallen to bits over the past half century.’

  ‘It’s a pity. It’s a lovely location.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing. Danny Nelson, by the way,’ the man added, holding out a hand.

  ‘John Tait.’

  ‘Looking for somewhere to live, are you?’ Danny asked with a grin. ‘I don’t think that would be much good to you.’

  ‘No, not really. I’ve got a house in the village. But I was thinking somebody would enjoy living there again, if it was done up a bit.’

  ‘Aye, well. One day, maybe. If someone offers me money for it, I’ll grab their hand off. I will!’

  John thought about that. He thought about it a lot. The ruin became something of an obsession with him, probably because he had little else to do. He could imagine how it used to be, and how it could be again – if only someone with interest, and the money to back it up, came on the scene.

  Finally, he went back to Danny Nelson and asked him how much he would want for it. Twenty grand was the answer. Done!

  That was how it all started.

  He arranged to pay Danny Nelson in cash, part in advance and part in monthly instalments over the next several years – or until such time as the purchase price could be paid in full, in one go. He made similar arrangements with an architect in Alnwick and a builder from up the valley who was short of work.

  Paying in small amounts at a time, he could pay cash. That suited everyone, himself most of all. It was as if the money was coming from his revenue stream, rather than a storage unit in Wallsend.

  When the cottage was habitable again, he put it on the market. A couple of months later it sold for nearly £200,000, and he could pay off his debts in one go.

  At that point, he announced to the local branch of his bank that he was a business start-up, and wanted to open a business account alongside his personal account. What kind of business? Property development. The bank was delighted to oblige.

  Then he looked for another property to restore, using the profit from the sale of the first one to part-finance another purchase. It was the start of a continuing process that he found rewarding, both financially and personally.

  By the time Vlasta came on the scene, he had a nice little business going, one that satisfied his need to be usefully employed, and one that he hoped might even appeal to Vlasta. It did.

  ‘That’s your big idea?’ Vlasta said with a smile.

  ‘It is. What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s wonderful, John! Buy old houses, repair them and then sell them again?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘And we do this together?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve made a start, but together we could do more. I thought you might like to become the interior design partner.’

  She laughed. ‘That would be a challenge. But, yes, I like the idea. How clever you are to have started all this!’

  ‘Well, having the money helped.’

  Her face fell. ‘Ah! The money. What happens to that now? Will we need to use it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not now. The business generates its own money now it’s got going. I’ve scarcely touched it.’

  ‘So what will we do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘For now, at least, let’s just do as you suggested, and leave it where it is – in storage.’

  Vlasta agreed. ‘That will be best, I think. This is a simple village. We will not need such a lot of money to live well here.’

  ‘So you want to stay?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said sharply. ‘To be with you. It is why I came here. Did you doubt me?’

  ‘No, no!’ he said with relief, and with a smile. ‘I just wanted to be sure.’

  ‘Now you can be,’ she said sternly.

  A few months later, they obtained a mortgage that enabled them to buy the first home of their own, and they left the rented cottage where John had first found refuge and that had served them both so well.

  It was at that time that Vlasta told John she believed it would be better for her, and for them, if she took an English name. Her own name made her feel too conspicuous. He began to argue, and then stopped himself.

  ‘You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘I would like to be called Samantha,’ she said. ‘Sam, for short, I believe?’

  He nodded and grinned. ‘So I have another new woman in my life?’

  ‘No, no!’ she said. ‘The same old one.’

  Three years later, when Kyle was born, he believed they had it all now. Life was good. Vlasta – or Sam, as he was used to calling her by then – smiled and agreed. Their course was set. Her homeland was a long way behind them both. Or so they thought.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The English Borders, Northumberland, 10 September 2014

  George Riley had never been to Northern England before. He had been to London many times, and to smaller towns in Kent and the Thames Valley. He had been to Edinburgh, too. But Northern England was terra incognito so far as he was concerned. His view from the window of the plane as it came into land at Newcastle Airport suggested that what he had heard about this part of the country was pretty accurate. Cold, cloudy and wet summed it up very well.

  He picked up a four-wheel drive Toyota from the Hertz depot at the airport and headed up country. He knew where he was going. Ted had given him the address, and he had a couple of maps. He was headed for a village in a valley, where he had booked himself a room in a hotel. Not far. Less than an hour’s drive, probably.

  The King’s Arms wasn’t too bad, he decided. He could live with it. His room was basic, but it had what he needed. The restaurant was OK, too. Maybe th
e steaks were a little on the small and thin side, but that was good for him. He’d been putting on weight the past year or two. So it was OK here. He’d been in plenty worse places than this.

  The landlord said, ‘We get a lot of you people through here.’

  ‘That right?’

  The comment made him wonder what kind of people he was. It disappointed him, as well. He didn’t like being noticed when he was on a job.

  ‘Yanks. Americans. They come for the history mostly. Castles and battlefields. Things like that. They certainly don’t come for the weather!’

  Riley smiled agreeably and made a suitable comment. He was standing at the bar, waiting for the landlord to complete pumping him a glass of English beer. Just then, he was the only customer. Early evening, too.

  ‘None here tonight, though?’

  The landlord pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘No Germans, either. We get a lot of them as well. Nobody else here at all, in fact. It’s quiet during the week, especially at this time of year. In fact,’ he added, ‘it’s pretty quiet most of the time these days. The drink driving campaign and the ban on smoking have seen to that. The supermarkets haven’t helped, either, the prices they charge for beer. Country pubs don’t have much future, in my opinion. Not unless they can build a good food trade, which not all of them can do.’

  ‘Bad as that, is it?’

  The landlord nodded. ‘Mind you,’ he went on, ‘the villages don’t have a lot of anything these days. Used to be the case that a village would have a garage, a pub, a post office, a couple of shops. Nowadays plenty of villages have nothing at all. Even the churches are closing down.’

  ‘What about this village?’

  ‘Oh, this one isn’t so bad. We’ve still got a village shop, as well as this pub. The shop sells pretty much everything. Although, there isn’t a post office any more.’

  Riley nodded thoughtfully, as if he cared, and sat himself down on a bar stool. He could learn stuff here, but it looked like being a long night.

  He spent a couple of days familiarizing himself with the village and the surrounding area. It was a small village, surrounded by open moorland – as he understood they called the heather-clad hills in the area – and little copses of Scots pine that provided shelter for deer and game birds. The handful of farms within a five-mile radius were all hill sheep farms, the sheep roaming wild over the moors most of the year.

  The village itself was mostly in the valley, on both sides of the river, with a few houses spreading along a couple of roads up the valley sides. The address he had been given was on one of those roads, on the north side of the river. It was a pleasant looking detached house with a lot of garden. Maybe a hundred years old. Built of local stone. Not big, but big enough for a small family.

  That was what seemed to live in the house: a small family. There was a woman and a young boy, as well as the man. That seemed to be it.

  Well, Riley thought philosophically, the woman was going to have to find another man, and the kid another dad. This one had had his card marked. Too bad.

  The thought didn’t bother him for a moment. He’d been too long in the saddle for that. All he was concerned with was the guy, and completing the mission. Then he would be out of here, never to return. Back to the woods he knew so well.

  But first he had checks to make. He had to make sure this was the right guy.

  Tait. John Tait. That was his name.

  He was nothing special to look at. Medium height and build, medium coloured hair – medium everything, in fact. Late thirties, probably. Fit enough, seemingly, but nothing special. Just ordinary. Like the best of the Special Forces guys, he just looked ordinary.

  Riley had seen the type often enough. He knew what guys who looked like this could do. He wasn’t fooled by appearances. But as he watched the Tait household for a couple of days, he became puzzled. This wasn’t what he had expected. He needed to take his time, and be careful. He needed to get it right.

  He could see Tait as Jack Olsson’s killer, all right. That wasn’t a problem. But for a guy who had strolled off with $10,000,000 afterwards, he didn’t exactly live in style. His house was OK, but nothing special, like him.

  Also, he had a job, some sort of business. He was a builder, for chrissake! The guy fixed up old houses. Hard work, and not a lot of money in it. If he had $10,000,000, why do it?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Riley walked on the moor above the north side of the village, deep in thought. This Tait guy, he just didn’t look right somehow. Was he really the one who had whacked Jack Olsson? It was hard to see it.

  This guy just didn’t seem like someone who – admittedly ten years ago – had been a hitman on the loose in Slovakia and Ukraine. His life wasn’t like that. Not now, at least. It might have been once, he supposed, but … really? Tait?

  The evidence trail had led Ted Pearson to Tait, but Riley still felt he needed more than that. He wanted confirmation based on other evidence before he blew the guy away. He needed to do due diligence on him. Ted would expect that, too.

  While he was here, Ted had also suggested, it would be good if he could find out what had happened to the money. Maybe even recover some of it. Fat chance! He’d seen nothing to suggest it was here. This Tait guy was working his butt off just to feed his family. He wasn’t living out of a money bag taken from Jack Olsson.

  A quarter of a mile away there was a slope covered in gorse. From there, you had a good view of the Tait house. Riley had been up there once or twice before, watching, getting a feel for the movement pattern of the Tait household. He headed there now, making his way through deep heather.

  The ground was sodden, and the heather dripping with drizzle and condensation. A stream would have taken some of the surplus water away, but there were no streams up here on the moor. They didn’t start until springs erupted from the ground halfway down the hillside. But once started, they tumbled their way rapidly down to the valley, and a river that was already at bank-full stage. It was wet country, now at least.

  Cold and wet, and gloomy as it was up here, Riley could cope. He was used to hunting in the woods, and where he lived conditions were not much different to this in the fall. Colder, if anything. There was no sign of snow here, but back home it could well be happening already. So he knew how to dress and equip himself for these conditions. The story he’d put out in The King’s Arms was that he was a bird watcher, here for the autumn migrations. That meant no-one raised an eyebrow about his wet weather gear.

  The Tait household, so far at least, had stuck to a pretty regular routine. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. They stirred shortly before seven in the morning. Lights went on. Shadows moved behind closed drapes. Mum and Dad were busy.

  Soon after seven, Tait would take himself off in his truck, a battered old Ford that had seen better days, and head out to a house he was working on a few miles away. Riley knew where he was going because he had followed him there a couple of times. In his opinion the guy had taken on a lot of work.

  Sometimes Tait was joined by a couple of other guys, depending on what stage the work was at, and if he needed to bring in specialist skills. Mostly, though, he was there all day long, just himself – working like a fucking trojan! Working like a guy who didn’t have $10,000,000 in the bank.

  Around 8.30, the woman took the kid to school. If it was fine, and they were in good time, they walked. Once or twice, when the weather was piss poor or somebody hadn’t been able to get out of bed that morning, she took him in her little car. Responsible behaviour. Looking after the boy. Doing what mums did the world over, every day of their fucking lives.

  Once junior was in school, the woman sometimes headed to the village shop. Occasionally, she got in her car and kept going, out to the nearest big town, a few miles away, where they had supermarkets. Or she might call in to see the guy – her husband, or whatever he was – to encourage him, share a laugh, eat a lunchtime sandwich. Nothing special going on, so far as Riley could see.

&
nbsp; After supper they would usually be at home. Tait would no doubt count the money he’d taken from Jack Olsson all over again. Maybe. What the fuck had he done with it? Had he really got it? Was it really him even?

  This was doing his head in. If Tait ever had been an operator in Eastern Europe, he certainly wasn’t now. He could see no connection at all. The hitman, if that was what he had been, was retired. Hell of a retirement, though. Working harder than ever.

  Still, retired or not, according to Ted Pearson, this was the guy who killed Jack Olsson. So he had to go. Better get on with it. He’d seen all there was to see. He’d done due diligence, and found no big surprises. Just little ones. Nothing to say this wasn’t the right guy, even if he didn’t seem to fit very well.

  Time to get the job done, and get back home. He’d just have to tell Ted the money must have been spent long ago. There was no sign of it now.

  Hell, $10,000,000? What was that anyway? Not worth even thinking about, back there in DC. Every time they fired off a cruise missile, or another drone strike on some foreign fellows wearing sandals, that was another million dollars spent. And, God knew, there had been enough of them things launched in the past few years.

  This particular morning, Riley settled into his position amongst the gorse. He could take the guy out from here, and would do it soon with the rifle Ted had got to him by special courier. Nothing to it. Easy shot. And he was just about ready to go.

  No need to get up any closer. Well, not unless he was going to ask Tait why he’d killed Jack Olsson, and what he’d done with the money. Hell, if he was going to do that, he might as well ask him what he’d been doing in Slovakia in the first place! Before he shot him, that is.

  But his heart wasn’t really in this job any more. He wasn’t in investigative mode. He just wanted to get it done, and then get home. He didn’t believe Ted was that concerned about the money. Petty cash, in Washington terms. It would have been marked off and forgotten long ago. Miscellaneous expenditure. If there was any still hidden away somewhere, the woman could keep it for herself and the kid. They would need it.