by Gary Kittle
‘Overall we stand to become very rich men,’ Richard chuckled. ‘Me and my shadow.’
He jumped out of the Astra and grabbed the still warm Jamie by his coat collar, dragging him over towards the ditch. It was a struggle to manoeuver the body around the dead tree trunk and he was panting with the effort.
Gareth had neatly plugged Jamie through the sternum as the latter made a lunge for Gareth’s gun. Having dispatched Jamie, Gareth had turned the weapon back towards Richard, only to find Richard half way through the act of pulling the trigger of his own pistol. Richard had shot him through the right eye, the ugly red pit already starting to be turn black.
He hadn’t planned to kill Gareth, any more than he’d planned paying him, and Gareth had saved him the bother of killing Jamie, which was a bonus. But when someone pointed a gun at you and you had a gun yourself there was only going to be one outcome.
Richard used the base of his right foot to roll Jamie’s corpse into the swollen ditch, then turned his attention to Gareth. Richard laughed. Gareth would have loved the prospect of holding Jamie’s head under the stagnant water. It was the least he could do for Gareth.
With the two bodies in the ditch, he tried to heave the tree down on top of them, but the small trunk was surprisingly heavy. Richard got back behind the wheel of the Astra and lined up the front bumper with the fallen trunk. The engine whined and groaned, but the trunk slid across the mud and sent out a spray of brown water across the windscreen as it crashed down on to the bodies below. He jumped out to take a look, and seeing what looked like an arm, grabbed some dead branches and piled them on top for good measure. Everything would sink further soon enough, and the colour of the sky promised further rain.
He unzipped his fly and took a piss that stung enough to make him wince. ‘Stress,’ he decided, zipping himself back up.
Richard carefully reversed the Astra away from the ditch and in less than a minute was charging up the narrow lane again towards Devina. The dashboard clock told him he still had twenty minutes to play with as far as his deranged wife was concerned. But what he couldn’t be sure of was whether Jamie had given up the correct address of the safe house to his former employers. Once it was clear no one was going to show up at the old factory site, the SWAT team, or whatever they were called, would start following up other leads. Richard would be all right, though, so long as he got to Devina first. That had been part of the deal all along. And with Jamie and Gareth out of the equation he would not have to go through the rigmarole of setting up a bank transfer. But what if he was being set up as well?
‘You promised me the girl,’ said Richard, pressing his right foot hard to the floor as he rejoined the dual carriageway.
The Astra lurched forward as he slipped it into top gear. He flashed a mini labouring in the outside lane to move over, but his anger was directed at someone a lot more powerful than the bespectacled middle-aged man shrinking behind the wheel.
‘God damn you, Leighton!’
Chapter Thirty-One
‘What are you waiting for?’ Devina pleaded.
Dan took a deep breath and pulled down the front zipper six inches. Nothing happened.
‘You see?’
But he hesitated to go further.
‘When will you act? When you hear their boots on the stairs?’
Devina’s logic convinced him: whoever cut his restraints had done so because they knew the suicide vests were no more than delaying tactics. It was only thing that made sense. Two seconds later his suicide vest was skidding across the floor.
He turned his attention to Devina, untying her with some difficulty. She stood up, swaying a little, and practically tore the vest from off her back. Next came the veil covering her face.
Dan stood and stared at the faultless contours of her teenage face. Somehow she managed to look young and old simultaneously, like an angel smoking a fag. Dan shivered at the unwelcome thought. She was the only person in this mess that he trusted.
Somewhere outside, close to the building, Dan heard a vehicle come to a screeching halt and a second later a car door slamming shut. He looked into Devina’s wide emerald eyes as he listened to the sound of footfalls charging up through the floors of the building. But that was all he heard, a single set of banging feet; there was no shouting or banging or cries of ‘clear’.
Dan moved to stand in front of Devina just as the footsteps hit the landing outside. He picked up her chair and wielded it above his head, making the stiff muscles in his back dance with pain.
The door crashed open, smacking against the wall.
Dan had never seen the tall man before, but the intruder definitely seemed to know him. What Dan did recognise, however, was the gun with a silencer fitted moving up in readiness to fire. But by that moment the chair was already airborne, hurtling across the dusty space between them and straight into the intruder’s face.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The tall man’s reflexes were sharp enough for him to turn his head away and raise a forearm up into a defensive posture just as the flying chair reached him. There was still a sickening crack, however, which Dan hoped was not just wooden.
The intruder shrieked and fell back against the doorframe, but the gun remained clutched in his hand. He doubled over, grunting and shaking his head. Dan saw his chance, and charging forward he picked up the chair again, and would have delivered a second, heavier blow had he not felt something pulling on his arm. He turned to see an expression on Devina’s face that implored him not to finish the other man off. Dan hesitated in confusion. Stockholm Syndrome, was the only plausible explanation. Devina’s eyes flicked right and widened in fear. Dan snapped his head round to follow her gaze and found himself staring straight down the length of the silencer.
Devina let out a despairing wail and threw her body between Dan and an imminent bullet.
‘Shit!’ The tall man jerked the gun barrel upward, away from Devina’s face. ‘Drop the chair, asshole!’ he snarled at Dan.
Dan did as he was told. The chair suddenly felt like it was made of walnut instead of cheap pine. It clattered to the floor at his feet as the intruder struggled to catch his breath.
‘Richard,’ Devina began.
A faltering smile danced across Richard’s lips. ‘I told you I’d come back,’ he said. ‘But why are you protecting him? Has he threatened you?’ The gun started to come back down.
‘No. But you don’t have to kill him.’
‘Think of it as tying up a loose end.’ His voice grated with callous determination.
Devina laid a hand on Richard’s arm. ‘I don’t want us to start out with blood on our hands.’
Richard’s posture softened instantly and he looked again into the young girl’s face. ‘He can identify both of us. Are you crazy?’
‘He’s on the run now, too, I think.’ Devina laid her head against Richard’s chest. ‘He knows too much.’
‘At least let me tie him back up with his suicide vest back on to buy us a few minutes.’
Devina stepped aside and said, ‘Just don’t hurt him, Richard. Please.’
Richard flung himself at Dan, and righting the fallen chair with his free hand, barked. ‘Sit down!’ He jogged across the room to retrieve the discarded rope and the larger suicide vest. ‘Here, put this back on.’
Dan did as he was told, and tried not to look at the half open door behind Richard’s back. In those brief moments when the only sound in the room had been Richard’s gasping, Dan had definitely heard new footsteps on the flight outside. There was someone else here, someone only he had noticed thus far.
‘Here, hold this,’ Richard said, offering Devina the gun. She took it without a word and Richard set to work tying Dan back into the chair.
As Richard concentrated on his knotting, Dan tried to attract Devina’s attention and get her to keep an eye on the doorway. She was, after all, the only one potentially capable of defending them should a heavily armed figure burst in wearing all black and a gas mas
k over his face. Dan frowned. She was staring hard at the back of Richard’s head, and the gun was leveled unwaveringly at both of them.
His task complete, Richard stood back up and held his hand out. ‘It’s OK. I’ll have the gun back now, Devina.’
The gun, however, was pointing straight into the middle of Richard’s chest. His mouth dropped open a good two inches as a realisation hit home. ‘Devina?’
From his seated position Dan concentrated hard on the soft footfalls making their way up the last few stairs. He glared again at Devina, but her gaze was fixed firmly on Richard.
‘Devina, give me the gun. Now!’
Devina’s free hand rose to support the one holding the gun.
Through the open doorway, meanwhile, Dan could clearly see something white - like lace, he thought – hovering in the shadows. ‘Change of plan, I think,’ he murmured.
Richard’s eyes looked over towards the doorway just as the new arrival stepped into the room. He gasped loudly and took a step backward, the gun pointed at him with lethal intent instantly forgotten. Devina turned to see what could have provoked such a reaction, and she too stepped back in horror.
Richard’s words seemed to be squeezed through his vocal cords rather than spoken naturally: ‘Oh my God, Fiona! No!’
She stopped hobbling forward when she was midway across the room, eyes burning with jealousy. ‘I knew it!’
Her face, or what was left of it, was fully exposed; the lacy white veil that should have covered it had been pulled back over her head. The nose and chin had almost rotted away completely. The shoulders, collar bones and arms were also exposed. Their multicoloured degeneration contrasted sharply with the virginal white of the wedding dress.
‘Remember this, Richard?’
In her right hand was a small glass bottle. As she stood, one eye nearly closed by an ugly red lump, she slowly unscrewed the lid and let it fall to the floor with a clunk.
‘We made a vow, Richard; a sacred vow.’
Richard tried to speak but only a choked splutter came out of his mouth. Fiona raised a twisted, misshapen finger to her swollen lips and hushed him quiet. As she did so, Richard noticed that she was clutching something with the other fingers of that hand. He stared harder and as he recognised it finally, his wife slowly nodded her head.
‘That’s right. I’ve found you out this time.’ And with an insane laugh she threw the opened packet of condoms at his feet. The name ‘Jamie!’ leapt into his mind but his mouth was given no time to articulate it.
‘Till death do us part,’ she rasped, and clenching the glass bottle she came lurching at Devina. A wisp of what looked like thin white smoke escaped the mouth of the glass bottle as Fiona readied herself to discharge its deadly liquid contents.
‘I do!’ she screamed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘No!’ Richard bellowed, trying to grab Fiona’s wrists.
The glass bottle jerked, sending a few droplets airborne. When they hit the floor there was the sizzling sound of timber being eaten into. Small tendrils of smoke began rising from the wood.
‘Shit, acid!’ gasped Dan.
‘Stay back!’ Devina yelled, waving her gun.
Richard finally got hold of his wife’s arms; their slimy surfaces and the lumps and bumps he could feel under his fingertips, some of which moved beneath the skin, sending his stomach into a sudden spasm.
‘What the hell are you trying to do?’ Richard choked, taken aback by his wife’s strength.
‘Evening the score,’ Fiona hissed, and made a fresh lunge at her target.
More acid fell to the floor, this time perilously close to Richard’s feet. ‘Fiona, stop!’
‘Why?’ she cried, looking into his face. ‘So you can think up with some fresh lies!’
‘This is why I’ve kept you in the dark, you silly cow! You’ve got it all wrong! Now calm the fuck down!’
Fiona wavered, but only for a second. ‘No, no, no! I know what you’ve been up to, Richard; you and this tart!’
‘What! What do you know?’ Richard shouted, shaking Fiona so roughly that bits of diseased skin dropped off her arms and back. The remains of her nose had started to ooze blood, too.
‘They were in the bathroom she uses,’ Fiona screamed back. ‘In the bathroom cabinet. They’re yours, aren’t they? Go on, deny it!’
Dan, meanwhile, was staring back at the doorway. To his amazement he was sure he had just heard the creak of wood on the staircase outside. With all the shouting and wrestling in the room it was hard to be certain, but he just couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone else was about to make their presence felt.
‘Of course I deny it! It must have been either Gareth or Jamie.’
‘Let’s ask them, then, shall we? Where are they?’
‘They’re not around,’ Richard said with an odd-sounding snort. ‘I ditched them.’
Fiona’s reply was cut short by Devina’s softly-spoken disclosure: ‘Actually,’ she said from behind the gun. ‘He’s telling the truth for once.’
‘Devina!’
‘Don’t you know?’ A cruel smile stole across her youthful features as she stared deep into Fiona’s blazing eyes. ‘You must know?’
‘Devina, this isn’t helping!’
The young immigrant’s smile broadened. ‘Richard doesn’t like using condoms.’
A strong male voice from the doorway behind her cut off any reply Fiona might have made. Dan’s hunch had been right. They all turned to look towards the doorway just as the gun the new arrival held discharged its first bullet. The sound of the shot was muffled by the silencer attached to the barrel.
A hole instantly appeared in the fabric of Devina’s burqa, just near the top of the arm holding her own weapon. She let out a breath with a sound not unlike that which had emanated from the silencer a tenth of a second before. Her whole body seemed to sag to one side. Gritting her teeth, Devina tried to bring the arm and the gun back up but the pain would not let her.
‘Trust me, my dear, I’m an expert shot,’ said the new arrival. ‘The next one will put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.
Dan’s mouth dropped open. ‘Trevor. How the hell did you find me?’
‘I’m sorry, Dan. But I haven’t found you. I’ve found her.’
‘Trevor?’ Richard interrupted. ‘Who the hell’s Trevor? I know that voice and it doesn’t belong to anyone called Trevor.’
Dan looked from one man to the other. Devina, meanwhile had sensibly decided to keep Richard’s pistol at her side, as a trickle of blood started running from her sleeve. She managed to keep her finger looped through the trigger guard, however.
‘Maybe you should put that down, my dear?’ The new arrival took a glance at Fiona and immediately averted his eyes again. ‘And maybe this ‘thing’ should put something on.’
‘Trevor?’ whispered Dan, leaning forward against his restraints.
‘I still don’t think you understand, Dan.’ The man he knew as Trevor Jenkins turned his gun on him. ‘Best if you sit still and have a long hard think about it.’
‘I know who you are,’ Richard persisted, the struggling Fiona still in his grasp. ‘We’ve only spoken on the phone once but I say I know you.’
‘You only know what I want you both to know,’ he began calmly. ‘No more, no less. To Dan there I am, and always have been, Trevor Jenkins. But to Richard I’m someone else completely. Unfortunately, the only person that matters to me is called Devina.’
‘It is you,’ Richard declared, shaking his head. ‘I knew it!’
‘Yes, yes. It’s me,’ Trevor Jenkins agreed, sounding bored. ‘Congratulations.’
Richard’s face hardened as the man facing him turned his gun back in the direction of his wife. When he spoke again Richard almost spat the man’s name out into the room, as if it had a nasty taste.
‘Leighton.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Outside they could all hear it, a sound that grew fr
om a low hum to the roar of several racing engines. Trevor Jenkins kept silent, as if he were thinking several steps ahead. Dan strained against the ropes binding him to the chair but Richard had done a good job in such a short time. There was a screeching of brakes, followed by the sound of van doors sliding open and the rumble of boots hitting the ground.
‘Damn it,’ Jenkins cursed under his breath.
‘They’re here,’ Richard added. ‘And we’re trapped.’ He glared at the man he knew as Leighton. ‘Some deal this, hey?’
‘What about the fire escape?’ shouted Dan.
‘There isn’t one. This place was condemned years ago.’ Fiona seemed to have lost her fight. Richard felt his fingers starting to sink into her unstable flesh and let go of her arms. ‘There’s only one way out.’
Fiona started to sob.
‘Actually,’ Trevor Jenkins said, waving his gun at them. ‘You were right the first time. You’re trapped. These men are here for me and the girl.’
‘My treatment! Richard, what about my treatment?’ Fiona wailed.
Jenkins sniffed dismissively: ‘There’s no treatment for what you have.’
‘Switzerland,’ Fiona howled.
‘What? Who told you that? There’s a reason the rest of Europe has quarantined us, woman.’
Fiona stopped crying to glare at her husband. ‘You knew this, didn’t you?’
‘He’s lying, Fiona! There’s a clinic there. I swear!’
Jenkins laughed.
Downstairs they could hear banging and shouting, a human storm making its way steadily towards them like rising flood water; their only defence, two pistols.
‘I locked the doors where I could, but that won’t keep them out for long,’ Jenkins told them. ‘Which just gives you time to say your goodbyes.’
