A Good Day To Die

by Simon Kernick

  All the way to my destination, I kept my eye out for anyone suspicious, but the pavements were quiet, as they always were in this part of town. Nothing much happens on the Pentonville Road, the only activity tending to be the steady flow of traffic heading between the West End and the City, and that’s because there’s really nothing on it, bar a handful of shops, the odd pub in need of refurbishment, and the occasional luxury apartment complex. It had a real windswept feel – you half expected to see a pile of tumbleweed dodging between the traffic. It suited me fine, because if anyone was following me, I’d have known about it.

  The Lantern was a shabby little place in need of a serious paint job on a quiet backstreet no more than a hundred yards from the junction of Pentonville Road and Islington’s Upper Street, and also not far from where I used to live. I got there at just before ten and walked past on the other side of the road, seeing immediately that the corner table Pope had mentioned was empty. I kept walking until I got to Chapel Market, fifty yards further on.

  The market was in full flow and crowded, another familiar sight that was vaguely comforting. It was a dry day and chilly, with a blanket of unbroken white cloud overhead, and there was also the first sniff of Christmas in the stall decorations and the excited faces of the many young kids milling around with their weary-looking parents. It was December 6th, and Asif Malik had been dead, and his wife and kids grieving, for just over five weeks.

  I turned and headed back in the direction of the café, watching the street like a hawk. Two Italian men in white tops were unloading vegetables from a van and taking them into a restaurant. Other than that, there was little to attract my attention.

  As I passed the café, however, I saw that the corner table was now taken. I didn’t get a good look at the occupant but continued on casually until I came to the door, then stepped inside. The interior was cramped, with no more than seven or eight tables. Two workmen in white hard hats and fluorescent jackets sat at one of the tables, piling into plates of sandwiches, while at the corner table sat a good-looking guy in his early forties and wearing it well, with a lean face, a full head of dyed blond hair and a very nicely tailored Italian suit. He was smiling at me with the sort of confidence that left neither of us in any doubt that he knew exactly who I was. It wasn’t an unpleasant smile either. Tomboy’s description had been basic in the extreme, and I think I’d been expecting some middle-aged, greasy individual with a lot of jewellery and bad hair. The name Les never seems to conjure up much in the way of sophistication. However, this guy was a cross between a stockbroker and a good timeshare salesman. A definite Tom or Greg.

  He stood up as I walked over. ‘Mr Kane, thanks for coming. Take a seat, please.’ The same authoritative voice I’d heard on the phone the previous night.

  We shook and his grip was tighter than it needed to be. He kept his hand there for several seconds and I think he wanted me to flinch, although he continued to give me that welcoming smile. I didn’t, and he let go.

  I sat down opposite him, noticing that he had an orange juice and a black coffee.

  ‘I’ve ordered a sandwich,’ he told me, sitting down as well. ‘Do you want something? It’s on me. They do a good ham and salad ciabatta, I’m told.’

  ‘No thanks. If the waitress comes over, I’ll have a coffee. Otherwise, forget it.’

  ‘Thanks for coming to see me. I’d just like to say, before we start, that I’m very happy with the services I’ve received from you and Mr Darke. It would be a pity to spoil it all now by getting involved in things that, frankly, don’t concern you.’ The same expression remained on his face as he spoke but the tone had changed subtly. He was telling me, not asking me.

  The waitress walked towards us. She was young and thin, with a skimpy black halter-neck top that rode up past her cute, pierced belly button. With the temperature outside struggling to stay above zero, it gave me the chills just looking at it. I ordered a large filter coffee and a mineral water, since Pope was paying.

  ‘Fine,’ I said to him when she’d turned away. ‘I understand what you’re saying. The only thing is, they do concern me.’

  ‘Why?’

  So Tomboy hadn’t told him about my relationship with Malik, which was good. I didn’t want him to make any problematic connections. ‘That’s my business, I’m afraid.’

  Pope stroked his chin thoughtfully with his thumb and forefinger, and eyed me with interest. ‘I expected a stubborn man. I suppose you’ve got to be pretty strong-willed in your line of business. Now, I could sit here and threaten you, but I don’t like that way of operating. It’s too basic. And with a stubborn man, I’m not sure it works. So I’m going to appeal to your intelligence. By the look of you, you’ve obviously been away a long time and I’m sure the climate over there suits you, but things are very different here. You’re poking your nose into affairs that are none of your business, and if you continue to do so certain people are going to get very upset.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like people who you’re never going to get to, who are so far away from the coalface that even if they order your death, the order’ll pass through at least half a dozen people before it gets to the triggerman. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr Kane? People who are untouchable. Who you’re not even an irritant to, even now. So by coming here asking questions, you’re not only risking your neck, you’re also wasting your time. Which is a pretty shitty combination, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t say anything since at least part of what he said was right. Possibly all of it.

  ‘Now, I know you’ve come a long way,’ he continued, his manner polite and unhurried, ‘and I appreciate that I’m asking a lot to get you to go back to where you’ve come from less than a day after you’ve arrived, so I’m going to make things easier for you.’ He reached inside his jacket and removed an airline ticket, which he put down on the table between us. ‘It’s a business-class ticket to Manila via Singapore on Singapore Airlines. You’re confirmed on the flight at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. As soon as you’ve checked in, you’ll receive a phone call and you’ll be met by someone at the departure gates. That someone will have two thousand dollars US in cash for you to compensate you for your journey. I’m asking you to be on that flight when it takes off, Mr Kane. Because if you’re not, we’ll know about it.’

  Again, I didn’t say anything. My coffee arrived and I thanked the waitress with a smile that she didn’t return. I’d forgotten what an impolite city London could be. It concerned me that since coming off the plane yesterday, the friendliest person I’d run into was Les Pope. It wasn’t something you’d want to put in the guidebooks.

  ‘I’d also like it if you returned to your hotel and stayed there minding your own business for the next twenty-four hours. If you behave yourself, I’ll even arrange you a car to the airport.’

  ‘There’s no need to take the piss, Leslie.’

  ‘Just be on that fucking plane, Mr Kane.’ The friendly act was faltering as Mr Pope began to show me his true colours which, unlike his face, were none too pretty. This was an arrogant man who thought he was holding all the cards. In a movie, I would have told him to take his plane ticket and stick it where the sun don’t shine because I’d do whatever the hell I wanted, even if it meant stepping on the toes of him and his friends. But this wasn’t a movie, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s never to let an adversary know what you’re thinking.

  I picked up the ticket, turned it over in my hands, then put it in my pocket. After a long pause, during which he stared at me intently, I finally spoke. ‘All right, Mr Pope, you win. I’ll be on that plane. But I don’t want you to try anything in between times. If one of your buddies has a pop at me before I get to the airport, then I’ll be back, and I’ll be none too happy either.’

  I think I caught him out there, because I’m sure he’d been expecting me to start playing up. He gave me a hard stare that revealed deep frown-marks on his forehead, before the expression eased a
nd he smiled again. ‘I’m glad you’re doing the right thing, Mr Kane. And nothing will happen to you if you do me this favour. Just make sure you don’t get any second thoughts between here and Heathrow. Otherwise, things for you might suddenly take a turn for the worse.’

  ‘I’m presuming the coffee’s your treat,’ I said as I stood up. At the same time, I gave the table a bit of a nudge and half my cup’s contents slopped out, much of it missing the saucer and landing on the table. A thin line of liquid made a rapid charge for Pope’s end of the table and started dripping over the edge and onto his lap.

  He jerked back in his seat, not quite avoiding the first drops, and his eyes met mine again. They were very blue, and they burned with a hatred that I’d seen only a handful of times before, and which I knew spelt trouble.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I said, turning towards the door while he dabbed angrily at the offending stain with a tissue.

  The waitress walked over looking pissed off. She had a cloth in her hand. ‘You can clean that up,’ she snapped, thrusting it in my direction.

  I smiled and started to tell her that I was sure my colleague could manage when she lunged at me and I saw that she had a syringe in the other hand. She was aiming it at my upper leg, one of the few places on my body that wasn’t well covered by the new coat, and I stepped instinctively to one side, grabbing her by the shoulder.

  I felt the sting of the needle hitting my thigh just as I shoved her bodily into the table. More coffee spilled out of the cup, but by this time Pope was already out of his chair.

  The waitress went to jab me again but I caught the side of her face with a hasty but accurate right hook and, not being the biggest of girls, she went down on her behind, looking dazed. I would have felt guilty but there was no time for that. Pope was going for something in the back of his suit trousers and I didn’t want to wait around to find out what it was.

  As I went for the door, the nearest workman jumped to his feet and charged me, swinging a piece of piping in his hand. I grabbed the handle with one hand and used the other to pick up an empty chair that I flung at him. He knocked it aside and kept coming. I turned away and yanked at the door. It was halfway open and I was wriggling through what gap there was when I was sent reeling by a ferocious blow to the side of the head. My vision blurred and I struggled to keep my balance, knowing that if I fell down here, then I was finished. I had to get outside. In front of witnesses. Across the street, I could see a young couple walking past with a pram. I kept pushing myself through the gap in the door, but the workman, or whoever the hell he was, wasn’t going to let me go that easily. A brawny hand slammed against the door’s glass, trapping me halfway through. At the same time, he went to smack me again with the piping.

  But he didn’t get the chance. I gave an almighty push and the next second I was stumbling out into the cold air, and freedom.

  A silver car pulled up just outside the café, blocking my view of the couple and their pram. Through the fuzz of my vision, I saw a man jumping out, although there was no way I could have described him.

  I opened my mouth, started to say something.

  And then I felt a second blow, this time to the back of my head. My legs buckled, and I remember hoping as I hit the ground that my brain was OK because it felt like it had been uprooted and sent flying round my skull like a pinball. I was vaguely aware of being lifted back to my feet, but before there was any time to wonder how the hell this was going to end, I blacked out.

  10

  I awoke in noisy blackness. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t work out whether this was because I was still unable to see properly, or because I was in a dark space. The cramped feeling in my legs and back soon confirmed it was the latter. I was hunched up in the boot of a car, travelling over very bumpy ground. My head thumped ferociously from the blow I’d received and there was a terrible pain behind my eyes.

  I willed myself to remain calm and assess the situation – no easy feat when you’ve been kidnapped, locked up, and suffer from claustrophobia, but I figured I didn’t have a lot of choice. I could hear voices – very faint – in the front. I listened for a moment, and concluded that there were probably two men. Next, I moved my hands and feet. They weren’t tied. This meant they almost certainly hadn’t managed to get me back into the café. They must have simply picked me up and chucked me straight in the boot. They probably hadn’t searched me, either. And it was that which gave me a chance.

  My fingers touched the top of my head. There was a lot of semi-coagulated blood, and the skin felt extremely tender. I probed round and located a large, angry lump. The guy with the piping had certainly given me a couple of decent whacks, but not quite decent enough. I could move every part of my body, including the extremities, and my eyes were now becoming accustomed to the gloom. I was pretty sure I wasn’t concussed, which was the good news. The bad news was that I was going to have to improve my survival skills substantially if I was going to get out of this situation intact.

  I moved my hand down to the inside pocket of my jacket. The airline ticket was still there, but I wasn’t interested in that. Instead, I reached in further and located a small aerosol can. CS gel. It’s freely available in Manila as a legitimate defence against the street robbers who plague the poorer districts, and the gel’s better than the gas because it’s more accurate and only affects the person being sprayed, not the sprayer or anyone else close by. The cans can easily be smuggled in the cargo holds of planes, where they show up on the X-ray machines as innocuous spray-action toiletries. That’s why I’d brought three of them with me, and why I was carrying two now.

  The car went into a very large Puerta Galera-style pothole, jarring my whole body and giving me an even bigger headache. But we were slowing down rapidly and I got the feeling that we were nearing our destination. Wherever that was. I wondered whether I was going to get a beating – a warning perhaps that my adversaries and erstwhile employers weren’t messing around – or whether it was going to be more than this: a loose end being tied up.

  Pope’s trap had been a sweet one, I had to give him that. He’d lured me into the open, to a supposedly neutral venue, pretending to make a reasoned approach, so that I would let my guard down, before striking just as I was pondering over what he’d said. Apart from her incompetence at the end, that waitress had been an inspired choice of attacker. There was no way I’d have ever suspected her. Even when plan A had gone wrong, Pope still had a B and a C. I was clearly dealing with someone who was well organized as well as ruthless.

  I pulled the can of CS gel loose from my pocket, and placed my thumb over the release button as the car hit another pothole before slowing to a halt. A couple of seconds later the boot flew open, and daylight came rushing in. A hand grabbed me roughly by the collar and pulled me upwards. My headache intensified and my vision blurred again as I moved properly for the first time since the blow.

  I made out a white hard hat, and vaguely recognized its wearer as the man who’d attacked me with the piping. I could see through the fuzz that he was grinning and that there was a crooked, glassing scar round his lip. He pulled me closer and started to say something. His breath smelt of eggs and bad coffee, and I wrinkled my nose while simultaneously raising my arm and pushing down on the can’s release button, the action automatically breaking the security seal. A line of white gel shot out and got him right in the eyes.

  The effect was immediate and incredibly satisfying. He staggered backwards, screaming and slapping at his eyes, and while he was otherwise occupied I hauled myself out of the boot, looking round for any further assailants.

  Unfortunately, I’d been wrong about the numbers. There were three men altogether, and the other two were coming towards me from either side of the car. The one to my left was the other workman from the café, a stocky guy with a long head and a small moustache. Those were the only details I got, because I was too busy concentrating on the black baseball bat swinging casually from one hand. From the other side of the car and
out of vision, I heard number three shout that I had gas.

  Time’s of the essence in these sort of situations. I sprayed the gel again, aiming at Moustache, but he turned his head to one side and I only managed an indirect hit. He rubbed at one eye and cursed. I’d stopped him, but he wasn’t going to be out of the equation for long.

  I swung round, the effort making my vision blur again, and tried to aim at number three through the fuzz. I sprayed wildly as he came towards me but I think I missed, and then I was pressing the button and nothing was happening. The gel had run out. I’d been told you didn’t get much for your money. One or two sprays and that was that.

  I turned to run as assailant number three’s baseball bat came into view. He was holding it two-handed, and seemed to know what he was doing. He lashed out, striking me hard on the back of my legs before I could get out of range, the force of the blow sending me stumbling to the ground. I fell forwards into mud, fumbled momentarily in my pockets, then rolled round so I could see what my chances were.