by Luis Samways
Everything was about to change forever.
Demi opened her eyes suddenly. She was on her back, in her bed. The covers were half on and half off. The smell of fresh linen lingered in the air. She twitched her nose and stopped herself from sneezing. She sometimes had a reaction to the fabric softener she used for her bedding. But she liked the smell so much that she decided to tough it out. After all, it was only a sniffle here and a cough there. She’d been through much worse. It would take a lot more than a cold to break her spirits.
But then there was a knock on her apartment door. It sounded like an official knock. A bailiff, maybe. Or even the police. She’d grown accustomed to distinguishing between a friendly knock and a possible hostile one.
She heard the door rattle once again. She yawned and got up. Looking at the time, she saw it was 11 a.m. It was late by her standards, but sometimes on a Sunday she’d find herself sleeping in. The wooden floorboards underneath her feet felt cold. A shiver ran down her leg, but she shook it off and walked down the hallway. She looked down and saw she was wearing a rather revealing nightgown. It was laced and barely hung onto her petite yet strong shoulders. She shrugged and made her way to the door. Demi felt as if she didn’t have time to indulge decency. Whoever was on the other side of the door was going to get a nice view.
She opened her door slowly and peeked around the crack. She saw two uniformed officers standing in her hallway. The door behind them closed. They must have been knocking on every door. Looked like they were there because of the burning car in the car park. It didn’t take a genius to work it out.
“Miss Reynolds, is it?” the female officer asked. The male officer smiled.
Demi gave a smile in return and opened the door. The expression on the male officer’s face was priceless. The female officer looked uptight and didn’t appreciate the view.
“May I help you?” Demi asked, sticking her right leg out a little. The nightgown barely reached her thigh, so her perfectly toned legs really stuck out. Both the male and female officer gave Demi a look. It was one of humor. They found what she was doing to be a little funny. Demi, on the other hand, didn’t, and decided to act normally. There was a time and a place for seduction, and unfortunately for her, the police weren’t really into that sort of thing.
“Do you mind if we come in, Miss Reynolds?” the female officer asked, still looking rather stern.
“As a matter of fact, I do. What is this all about? You arresting me for something?”
The male officer smiled again. “Being beautiful isn’t a crime,” he said, rather shyly.
His colleague pulled a face. It was obviously a joke, but, judging by her facial expression, jokes weren’t allowed in her presence.
“We need to talk to you regarding an incident that occurred last night,” the male officer began to say, this time in a much more professional manner. Demi could tell that it pleased the female officer somewhat, now that her colleague was being more attentive to the situation. Demi enjoyed reading people’s body language and sometimes got caught up in it all. She would go in a zone and spectate.
“Miss Reynolds?” the female officer said.
“Oh, sorry. I just woke up. You’ll have to excuse my lack of energy.”
Both officers nodded, and Demi stepped aside to let them in. They strolled past her. The female officer came in first and the male afterward. Demi brushed her hand against him as he squeezed past. It was harmless fun on her part. She liked to see men squirm at her actions. It was cute and got her through the boring parts of her day.
“Take a seat in the front room. I’m just going to get into something less — ”
Demi was interrupted before she could finish. “Less revealing?” the female officer asked, sitting down on her sofa. Demi immediately hated the woman. She couldn’t stand women who were intimidated or jealous of beauty.
“Yeah. We can’t all look like our grandmas,” Demi offered back, and made her way to the bedroom. She could hear the officers talking in hushed voices as she left. From what she could tell, the male officer was telling his colleague to stop with the personal comments. Demi smiled as she reached her bedroom door and shut it behind her.
She always got her own way, whether it was getting what she wanted whenever she pleased, or playing two police officers off each other for fun.
She always got what she wanted.
Four minutes later, Demi Reynolds came out of her bedroom dressed in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of Levi jeans. She made her way around the coffee table and sat on her two-seater sofa, which was placed opposite the police officers. They were sitting on a larger four-seater, facing her. She hadn’t taken long in her bedroom, so they picked up the conversation pretty much immediately.
“You aware that somebody was murdered around these parts last night?” the male officer asked.
“Nope, I wasn’t. Who died?” Demi asked, trying to look as if the news came as a shock.
“The identity of the victim is being withheld at the moment,” the female officer interjected.
“In other words, you don’t know who he is?” Demi asked.
There was a sight pause, and the room went silent. Demi could hear her stomach rumbling. She was hungry.
“We were wondering if you knew anything about it?” the female officer asked.
“Um, why would I?”
“Because we know that you work for Donny the Hat,” the male officer said.
Demi was caught off guard by the comment. She didn’t think anybody knew who she worked for. If anything, she tried to keep her private life…private. But for some strange reason, the police knew who she associated with. Demi knew deep down that the police knew something was off with her. She’d always get visits from the local nick. Sometimes they’d mask it up by stating they were asking for witnesses to a crime. But Demi felt as if they were always sizing her up. As if they wanted to get a better feel on her. Like they knew something but weren’t quite prepared to go in for the kill. It bothered her that they were sniffing around her affairs, so much so that she had been contemplating whether or not to disappear. That was usually the safer option when it came to evading prosecution.
The safer option being moving away and ceasing the activities for which the police want you locked up for. That usually did the trick. But not right then. Right then, they were fishing for something. Something bigger than her. They wouldn’t have approached her if they thought she did it. But something was off. Something they weren’t divulging.
“I don’t know who you are talking about,” Demi finally said.
“Is that so?” the female officer asked. The male officer was tapping his fingers on his leg nervously. The faint sound of his skin hitting the fibres of his trousers reverberated off the atmosphere.
“I’d like you to leave,” Demi said out of the blue.
The officers stood up.
“Sure. But don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back today,” the male officer said.
“And why would you do that when I told you to leave? Don’t you get it? I don’t want you here. I have things to do.”
“We don’t really care about your private life, Miss Reynolds. We’ll be back. Whether you have a million and one things to do, we’ll be knocking on that door anytime today, with a search warrant and some backup. Then we’ll haul your arse off down to the nick and process you for some bogus charges. We’ll call these charges aiding and abetting and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm. You’ll get sent down for ten to fifteen years. And all because you know Don the Hat,” the female officer said.
“You can’t arrest me for knowing somebody.”
The two officers nodded.
“Oh, so you do know Donny the Hat?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Well, we thought that, seeing you know Donny the Hat, you’d know his brother, Nathan Richards,” the female officer said.
Demi stood there. She could feel her face go pale. The realization of what the woman had just
said hit her like a sucker punch from Lennox Lewis in his prime.
“Donny has a brother?” was all Demi could muster.
“Yeah, he had a brother, and he was last seen with you. And then we find Donny’s brothers’ car outside your gaff, burnt out with his body missing. Seems a bit suspect to me.”
“Missing?” Demi said, feeling as if the rug was being pulled from under her.
“Yeah,” the female officer reiterated, and made her way to the door.
Her male colleague followed and turned to face Demi before leaving. “You seem surprised that his body is missing,” he said.
Demi stood there in the middle of her front room, staring at the hallway that led to her front door. She watched as both officers left and closed the door behind them. The sound of the heavy wood sucking back shut made Demi feel sick.
“Missing?” she repeated under her breath.
Six
Demi had been alone for an hour. She’d been sitting in her front room, contemplating the whereabouts of Nathan Richards. It was making her feel rather nauseous. People didn’t just go missing. So when somebody did, it was a shock to the system. Especially when the last time she’d seen Nathan, his brain had been leaking from his skull and his car was on fire.
Dead people don’t go missing.
She stood up abruptly and started pacing her living room. Her feet were sinking into her carpet. It was good carpet. The sort of stuff you buy at an extortionate rate per meter, and then realize you don’t have enough and have to spend extra for a triangle-shaped hole in the corner of the room.
“He can’t be missing,” Demi found herself confessing into the silence. The sound of her satellite box clicking its hard drive startled her. It did that a lot. As if every now and then it was gasping for air. It didn’t like being turned off. Neither did Demi. She didn’t like feeling like she was gasping for air. On standby until someone turned her back on. It was a nasty feeling. It suffocated her. She needed to talk to somebody. So she reached into her jeans back pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. She slid her finger across the screen, unlocking it, and quickly tapped on her phone call list. She found the person she was after and clicked on their name. A little arrow sat beside the person’s name. It was pointing outward and was green, signifying that she had called that number last, and not the other way around. It had been eight days since she last called that number. And now she was breathing heavily as she held the phone to her ear after pressing down on it again.
A ring tone buzzed in her ear. Two seconds passed, and a voice said hello on the other end.
“It’s me,” Demi managed to say, even though her voice box was fighting against her. She cleared her throat and said it again.
“I know it’s you. My phone can see caller IDs as well. Wonderful technology, isn’t it?” the man said.
Demi broke into an unexpected smile. The fact that she was smiling at all was a miracle. She knew she wouldn’t be smiling long. Not if her worst fears were about to be realized.
“I killed somebody I shouldn’t have,” she said, still pacing around her living room at a few steps every ten seconds. It was as if she wasn’t comfortable where she stood and had to get rid of her jitters by moving.
“I know you killed somebody,” the guy said, sounding a little impatient.
“Not that one, a new one. Last night. Actually, this morning, to be precise.”
The voice on the other end went silent. She could hear the man thinking.
“Who?” he finally asked.
Demi paced once again. Two steps, and then she stopped dead. “Nathan Richards,” she croaked.
“God blimey,” the man responded.
There was a deathly silence for a few seconds. It was as if the situation was being marinated so it tasted a little better and went down a little easier. But try as they might, there wasn’t any way to take this sort of situation. It was what it was, and the quicker they came to terms with what was happening, the easier it would be in the long run.
“I need to get out of London before Donny finds out,” Demi said, breaking the silence.
There was no answer from the other end of the phone. Just a slight crackle in the speakers. As if somebody was breathing into them. Shallow and sparse.
“You there?” she asked.
Still no answer.
“Please, you’ve got to help me. I can’t fight this on my own.”
The sound of indifferent laughter came from the other end of the phone. “Oh, Demi, there isn’t any fighting this. You’ve gone and fucked up good and proper.”
“But I need your help!” she cried, tears beginning to run down her face. You knew It was a grave situation when Demi Reynolds began to cry.
“Listen, he already knows,” the man said on the other end. “Who do you think took the body?”
“What? How does he know?”
“I’m not sure, but trust me on this, he definitely knows. I’m certain of it, in fact! He rang me a few hours ago, putting some feelers out. He was testing the waters. He was asking weird questions.”
Demi sat down. She wasn’t pacing anymore. “Like what? What did he ask?”
“He mentioned your name. He asked where you were. Like I was supposed to know! I told him that I had no idea and it was best if he rang you.”
Demi quickly checked her phone’s top bar. There were no icons on the left side. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.
“He didn’t call!” she said, her hands shaking a little.
“Of course he didn’t call. He’s not like that. He knows you did it. He’s coming for you, Demi. You need to get out of there as quick as you can. Don’t waste any time. No bags. Nothing. Just your passport, plastic, and a ticket to somewhere-the-fuck-away from here!”
She nodded her head and then realized the man on the phone wouldn’t have seen her do it. She was just about to say something when the mobile went dead. He had hung up. Her facial expression changed. A pang of urgency ran through her core. And then the sound of muffled voices. She looked around her living room, as if they were coming from somewhere near her. But then she questioned whether they were in her head. It didn’t take long for her to realize where they were coming from. The hairs on her arms stood up and a cold shiver ran down her back.
Her front door came off its hinges. She stood there, watching, amazed at what she saw. At who she saw. Two men walked into her flat. One of them was holding an axe. The other was holding a large cylinder-shaped battering ram.
“The boss wants to see you,” the man with the axe said, motioning her to follow them. She did as they asked.
“And this is in regard to what?” she inquired, feeling a little cheeky for asking. She knew exactly what was happening and why it was happening. But it never hurt to play dumb to some things in her line of work.
“This is in regard to you killing the boss’s brother. He’s funny like that. Proper gets wound up about trivial things. I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll find out soon anyway,” the one with the battering ram offered her in response. He grabbed her by her left arm. The man with the axe grabbed her right arm, and they escorted her off the premises.
The police were long gone, so there was no stopping the two men. She was a trained contract killer, but she wasn’t any miracle worker. The two guys who had her by the arms weren’t pushovers. There was nothing she could do about it.
They shoved her into the back seat of their Peugeot. They got into the front. The car reversed and sped off. She watched her apartment block disappear from the back of the car. She got one last glimpse of freedom before it too disappeared.
Seven
Donny the Hat was sitting down behind his desk, at his office. Documents were strewn all over the place. Database printouts. A few Polaroid’s of clients who needed dealing with. A number written on a piece of yellow sticky paper sat in the middle of the mess. It was a mobile number. The first three numbers were staring at Donny as he sat in his office chair, motionless, nearly breathless. But he
breathed in deep and exhaled. His chest rose up and then back down. He was a beast of a man. A man who didn’t take shit from anybody. And right at that minute, he was seething with anger. Somebody had to pay for his brother’s death. It was a blemish on his reputation as an underworld boss. He couldn’t just let it slide. Somebody would need to pay dearly, and publicly at that. The city of London would need to know that Donny the Hat Harrison was no pushover. He wasn’t the type of man to turn a blind eye to something. He was the type of man to make people pay for their sins.
It was all about respect in his world. You learned fast in his game that showing anything but respect would garner you an early ticket to the meat wagon. Before you knew it, you were brown bread, and nobody likes wholemeal.
“I’ve decided,” Donny said under his breath.
The slight smell of vodka from last night prickled at his senses. First his tongue and then his nose. He felt sick. Last night was a heavy night of drinking and lots of sex. It was a celebration of a good day’s work. He had finally come to some sort of arrangement with the South London crime syndicate. They were no longer at each other’s throats. Peace was shared between the two firms. But now…now his brother was dead. And it was a sign of weakness on his part if nothing came of it. If it stayed the way it was, he would be forced out. The South London crime boss would see him as a disgrace. The peace would be over, and he’d have to answer to a lot of people. They’d probably let him walk, but he’d be dead inside. Nobody would remember the good that he’d done. The work he’d put in. They’d only remember what he didn’t do. And that was avenge his brother’s death.
“I’ve decided,” he said once again, repeating himself for no apparent reason. He was the only person in his office. He was thinking out loud.
He reached for his phone and put the receiver to his right ear. The cord dangled across his desk, displacing some of his paperwork as he pulled the receiver nearer. He dialed the number that was on the yellow sticky note in front of him. He mouthed the first three numbers out loud. They meant something to him. He just didn’t know what. He heard the dial tone punch in and change to a ringing tone. He waited for a few seconds, and then a voice answered.
