by R J Bailey
Myles stood, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, and moved across the room, as if wanting to distance himself from us all. I could see his point.
‘Don’t go wandering off,’ warned Siobhan, brandishing the Ruger at him. ‘We aren’t done with this.’
Myles positioned himself against a pillar and began to mutter to himself. I think he had a lot to mutter about.
‘OK, Anjel, let me put it another way,’ said Siobhan. ‘Could it be true?’
‘That he is my son?’ He frowned, as if calculating dates.
I watched Siobhan’s spittle fly across the room when she yelled. ‘What I mean is, did you fuck this piece of shit?’
‘Ah, now there I’ll have to say yes. It was only on the pillow she was going to let slip how FIL was getting its money, and how we could run away and live happily ever after. And where the money would come from. Pillow talk that found its way onto little cassette tapes. Needs must.’
Siobhan shook her head in dismay. I guessed what she had thought of as solid ground was now decidedly fluid. But Anjel was hardly the first undercover man to sleep with his quarry. Nor would he be the last.
‘Look, it was the only way to get close to them. I was Eneca’s son, she was the celebrity bomb-maker. People wanted it to be a perfect match. So, yes, I did fuck her.’
‘And it didn’t occur to you that was why she wanted you dead afterwards?’ I said. ‘A woman scorned?’
Anjel turned his attention to Mrs Irwin. He didn’t have to ask the question.
‘Of course I hated you for it,’ Mrs Irwin said. ‘To feel so used.’
‘And carrying such guilt about what you had done,’ I said. She glared at me, but I ploughed on. ‘You gave him what the FIL were up to. Between the sheets. He gave it to the MI5 or whoever. In a way, you were the tout.’
She flinched at the hated word. The light in her eyes softened and she nodded. ‘Guilt and shame, too, for that, yes.’ She turned back to her old lover. ‘But for God’s sake, Anjel . . . haven’t you done enough damage? Leaving your boy an orphan? What sort of man does such a thing?’
I thought we’d already established that, but I needed to move it on. ‘I think it ends here, Anjel,’ I offered.
‘No,’ said Siobhan, sounding like she was about to cry. ‘Not like that. Like this.’
She raised the gun so quickly, I knew I couldn’t make the distance, but I had to try. I was half out of my chair when the shotgun boomed.
The sound seemed to fill the room like primeval thunder and for a few seconds it was as if someone had shoved rags in both my ears. Siobhan was still rooted to the spot, right arm out straight, pistol in hand. She slowly raised her head and looked at the hole in the ceiling, and the stream of debris spiralling down from it.
‘Put it down,’ said Anjel. ‘And stop playing the maggot.’
She took a deep breath, as if making sure she still had lungs, lowered her gun arm and slumped back into a chair. I let the tension drain from my body, just a little, and sat back down. I glanced over at Myles, who had flattened himself against the pillar, as if hoping he could disappear within it. I wondered if there was room for two in there. Disappearing seemed like a good idea.
Mrs Irwin licked her lips, very slowly, as if any sudden move might provoke Siobhan into further action. She cleared her throat before she spoke. ‘There must be another way out of this. It was a long time ago, Anjel. We were different people. I thought I loved you. It’s why the hate was so intense. We both suffered from what our families did, what they expected of us. We both rebelled, in our own ways. But now, you’re just . . . it’s the same solution every time. This is what Ronnie would have done. Not you.’
‘I tried to warn you,’ said Anjel. ‘That night at the hut when they executed Jamie Brogan. I told you to come here, to the Basque Country. I told you to get out of it there and then. But you didn’t.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘That’s the thing about the freedom fighting – easy to get into, bastard to get out of.’
Anjel stood and began to pace. He began to tell the story of the murder of an informer. Or a man that Anjel had convinced the others was an informer. ‘It was almost midnight when we got him to Marie’s cottage,’ he began.
He reloaded the empty barrel of the shotgun as he talked. We weren’t out of these deep, dark woods yet. ‘You remember how it ended?’ he asked Mrs Irwin as the tale drew to a close. ‘The two shots? “There, it’s over now,” I said. But it wasn’t was it?’
‘You let him be murdered,’ she said.
‘Him or me. As I said, just another casualty of war. Soooooo . . .’ He drew the word out like Elsa the masseuse. ‘There might be a way out of this, keep everyone happy. And alive.’
I was suddenly all ears.
‘How much is in that account in Luxembourg?’ he asked, finally sitting down once more.
Siobhan’s head snapped up. ‘Anjel!’
‘Shush. How much?’
‘Several million,’ she answered.
‘Really? What about Corrigan’s share? And Logan’s?’
She cleared her throat, as if signalling the truth was coming this time. ‘Eleven.’
He nodded as if satisfied. ‘We want five million each. Siobhan and me. That leaves you a million there and however much you have legit back in the States. I wouldn’t want you to starve.’
‘Fuck your money,’ said Siobhan, eyes downcast. ‘It wasn’t about the fuckin’ money.’ Her gaze flicked up to Anjel and I was glad I wasn’t on the receiving end. ‘Was it?’
Anjel gave a little shrug, as if he was certain his dead wife’s sister would come round to his way of thinking. Judging by the black cloud of an expression she was still wearing, I wasn’t so sure. But then, someone dumping five million in front of you can be like the sun coming out. Although, I reminded myself, five million wasn’t what it once was. Would barely keep Kubera afloat for a year.
‘I can get you that,’ said Mrs Irwin – or, more accurately, Marie Ronan – quietly. ‘No problem.’
‘We keep the boy until you do,’ Anjel said.
She went to protest, but realised it was inevitable. They wanted collateral. Myles was the best they could get.
‘This sucks,’ said Myles. ‘Mom, don’t do this.’
‘I have no choice.’ Her voice was laced with defeat. Then, to Anjel: ‘Do I?’
‘I could leave you alone with Siobhan for five minutes. That’s a choice.’
Siobhan’s face brightened and her shoulders went back at the thought. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this. Half my life. The five million doesn’t even begin to cover it.’
‘It’ll have to do.’ Anjel began offering travel advice like some RAC operator. ‘You take the Peugeot. There’s cash in the glove compartment. Go back over the border. There’s a TGV station at Tarbes. Leave the car with the keys on one of the tyres. You go to Paris and switch to a TGV to Luxembourg City. Take nine, maybe ten hours.’ He placed a card on the table. ‘Phone this number, I’ll tell you where to transfer the money. Once it is done we’ll put Myles on another TGV to France.’
‘What about the Red Notice and the EAW?’ I asked.
‘What Red Notice?’ he smirked. ‘She’s not wanted for anything.’
I wasn’t sure what to believe now. The Red Notice and the European Arrest Warrant had been fabrications? But how do you fuck with Europol and Interpol? That bothered me. Something didn’t quite chime.
I stood. ‘I should go with her.’
‘Why?’ asked Mrs Irwin, her voice taking on a mocking tone. ‘Because you did such a bang-up job of protecting me last time? I’ll be fine.’
She probably would be. After all, we knew who the opposition was now. He was standing right in front of us.
‘Did you pick us up near Bayonne?’ I asked Anjel. ‘Is there a second team out there?’
‘No second unit,’ he said. ‘We didn’t need one. You came to us, remember? You must have been imagining things.’
&n
bsp; All that driving in reverse, causing motorway chaos, all for nothing. I’d have to double-check the veracity of those infallible instincts of mine from now on.
‘Undo her,’ Anjel ordered Siobhan who, as sullen as a teenager, walked over and freed Marie Ronan from the chair.
She picked up the card from the table. I wanted to tell her not to run a thumb over it, but I guessed it wasn’t one of those. He had no intention of drugging her. She pocketed it and held out her hand for the Peugeot keys. Anjel fished them from his pocket and tossed them over.
‘I’ll be in touch.’ She walked over and kissed Myles on the cheek, then whispered something into his ear. His eyes glistened and his lower lip trembled.
As she left she threw me what I guess you’d call a withering look.
Five million isn’t what it was.
I felt a strange sense of dislocation, like I was Alice down the rabbit hole. Nothing made sense here. Five million? Anjel, a man who had spent twenty years systematically tracking down and killing the men and the woman who had murdered his wife rolls over for five million after five minutes? And could look so relaxed about it?
He hadn’t gone and inspected the car, I realised. Every time we went near that Peugeot, he had gone under the bonnet, under the dash . . . but why would he think it was booby-trapped? After all, he was the bad guys. He’d know it wasn’t rigged to blow.
Unless it was.
Anjel watched in detached bemusement as I leaped up and ran for the door, the blanket falling away behind me. ‘Mrs Irwin. Marie! Marie! It’s wired.’
He hadn’t been looking for bombs when he was pulling that charade. He knew there was one in the car. He’d been making certain the one he installed was set to off. That was why the delivery driver died, perhaps. He had forgotten something and come back, only to find ‘Konrad’ wiring a bomb.
‘Marie! Elizabeth! Ruth!’ Too many names, too many lies.
I had reached the door when the room was filled with a pure, rinsed light, as if someone had switched on a battery of klieg lamps beyond the windows. I felt the blast wave hit the door, which bulged and creaked, but held. There was the pinging of metal and glass as debris hit the frontage like buckshot. The old stones shivered under the blast, windowpanes cracked with a sharp detonation and a fine rain of dust fell from the ceiling. But the building held. Then the sound of the fuel going up, like the roar of an angry giant.
I turned to Anjel. There was something wet on my lip. I touched my fingertips to it. They were bright red. My voice sounded like it came from another room. ‘You sick fucker.’
‘It was a nice try. But he’s not my son,’ he said flatly. ‘Not a fuckin’ chance.’
As if that made it all right.
But from the smug look on Siobhan’s face I knew I had just witnessed a performance designed simply to get Marie Ronan to walk out to the car and blow herself up. Just like Andrea, all that time ago.
‘I put a few seconds’ delay on the timer. Just enough so she could hear it click. I mean, she’s a bomb-maker. She would know exactly what was coming. But she wouldn’t have enough time to get out before the detonation. There’s some kind of poetic justice in there, somewhere.’
‘No! No! No!’
The accompanying crack of the pistol seemed small and insignificant after the storm caused by the petrol detonation. The second seemed louder, the third louder still.
I watched Anjel fly backwards, still in his chair. He landed with a bone-jarring crash. He managed to get his head up and look down at his chest. It was spurting a small arc of blood, rising higher with each heartbeat. ‘Je-sus,’ he mouthed, but no words came.
Then Siobhan shot the shooter. Two rounds, spinning Myles away from the pillar and sending the gun skittering over the floor. Away from me.
I seemed to be the only one in the room without a weapon, but even before the bark of Siobhan’s pistol had died I knew I had a window of opportunity. Her shot was a complete reflex. There would be a second or two while she would process what she had done. That was my time. My only chance before she shot me, just so she had the full set.
I was already on my feet, so I kicked off from the door behind me, running at her as fast and as low as I could, head down, ignoring the gun that was doubtless turning on me. I hit her hard and together we sprawled back into the chairs and across the table. She grabbed my hair with her left hand and pulled and my scalp became electrified with pain. I had to ignore that. I pinned her gun hand down on the table and punched her, hard, in the face, feeling something in my hand crack. As she went limp, I found the nerve in her wrist and pressed. The fingers went into spasm. I twisted the gun out of her hand. Then I slapped it across her face. It made a satisfying crunch.
‘What have you done with Freddie?’
‘In the boot of the car.’ She smiled and there was blood on her teeth.
That’s when I shot her. It seemed to be the fashionable thing to do in that part of the world.
It was only in the upper arm and I think I missed the bone. But it would hurt like fuck and I can’t say I wasn’t gratified when I saw her eyes roll to the whites as she screamed.
‘You get up from there and the next bullet will leave you like Anjel. Understood?’ My voice was coming from underwater. The sound of the gunshots had battered my ears into submission. There was a thumping pain behind my eyes, but I ignored it. ‘Do you understand?’ I repeated at some volume.
She managed to nod. Her cheeks had taken on a bluish tinge and I turned her on her side, good arm downwards. I retrieved my T-shirt and wrapped one of the sleeves around the wound. She let out a tiny cry, like a baby’s. Siobhan was out of the game. I pushed up a sleeve of her hoodie and unclipped the Omega.
‘Mine, I think.’
I walked over and picked up the shotgun that Anjel had dropped. The walls were glowing from the residual fire that was burning in the Peugeot and the stench of burnt plastic, leather and flesh felt like it was leaking through the stone. Anjel was still alive, just, but in my army days I had never known anyone survive the kind of sucking noises coming out of his chest. He wasn’t going to be the exception. Not even a SAM chest seal – which I didn’t carry – could save him.
I crossed over to Myles. He was clutching his side and groaning. I knelt down and pulled the blanket away. One of Siobhan’s shots must have missed because he only had a single wound, but it had messed up his ribs. His breathing was shallow and clearly painful. There was a deep gouge and bone was showing through, along with strings of tendon, a slice of muscle that had lifted away and the white of freshly exposed cartilage. I touched the area around it and blood welled from the wound, but not in alarming quantities. Not alarming to me, that is.
‘Myles, listen, you’ll live. It’s bad but not fatal. Just don’t look at it. It’s better than it looks.’ Which wouldn’t be difficult.
He strung together every profanity he knew into one long, freeform sentence. I went to the kitchen and found a clean cloth.
‘Press that against the wound,’ I instructed him. ‘Not too hard.’
Myles grimaced as he did so, then looked up at me. ‘He wasn’t. Was he? My father, I mean?’
The enormity of what he might have done was sinking in even as his blood leaked out. Had he killed his own dad? In truth, I didn’t know, so I changed the subject.
‘Where did you get the gun?’
‘From the bag in the car. When we pulled up behind the BMW and you got out. I . . .’ Sweat broke out on his upper lip with the effort of talking. But I needed to hear this.
‘Go on.’
‘I put it down my jeans.’
‘Where?’
‘In the crotch.’
I’d never understood the point of low-slung jeans before. Maybe I’d just found it.
‘You did well. They were going to kill us, like they did Freddie.’ Hard words to say, even harder to process. But I was convinced we wouldn’t have got out alive. Sooner or later Anjel would have realised we were loose ends. Su
rplus to requirements, as he so cogently put it. It would have been the logical thing to do, murder all of us and go and get on with the rest of his life.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered, but whether that was at the pain or the thought of how close we came to being the ones lying dead on the floor, I couldn’t be certain. I knew there was a voice screaming in horror somewhere deep inside me, too, but I pretended to be deaf to that. Given the racket going on in my ears that wasn’t much of a challenge.
‘I am going to phone for help, OK? Using one of their mobiles.’ If I could get a signal in that godforsaken place. ‘But I have to do something first. OK?’
‘What? What are you doing that’s more important than fixing me up?’
I didn’t answer.
‘I thought you were a medic.’
‘I was. Once.’ These days I seemed to inflict pain just as much as alleviate it. I picked up his discarded Sig – I was rapidly becoming a one-woman arsenal – and headed for my clothes. I pulled on my jeans and slipped the jacket on over my bra. For some reason I was no longer cold.
‘Hey. Ow. Fuck, this still hurts. You going to do something?’
‘I said I’ll get to you in a minute. I’ll find my first-aid kit. It’ll be around here somewhere. But like I said, I have to do something first.’
‘You are a selfish bitch.’
I couldn’t argue with that. A tired, pissed-off, selfish bitch whose mouth tasted like metal. My period was starting. It was one of my warning signs. That and, usually at least, a craving for chocolate. Maybe that would come later. It certainly wasn’t the time or the place to be thinking about Dairy Milk. I headed for the door.
‘Hey. Sam. Sam.’ He waited until I had turned. ‘You know, he was right. I did feel your tits. They were pretty nice.’ There was a sneer and a swagger in the words and it wasn’t just pain distorting his features. ‘For an old lady.’
I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. When, exactly, had he done it? It was possible he was just trying to piss me off. Well if so, he’d succeeded and I was now in no hurry to tend to that wound of his. Let him sweat. And if it was true, if he groped me while I was under, I might just break the little fucker’s fingers.
