A Good Day To Die

by Simon Kernick

  On the screen, the action was building to a noisy finale, but unfortunately it was being played out without the participation of the audience, who’d all sensibly hit the decks, not wanting to get involved.

  Pulling the cap down over my face, I hurried along the seats to the aisle and ran in the direction they’d taken.

  You have to take snap decisions in a situation like this. There’s no time for thinking things through. The shooters might be waiting to ambush me in the foyer, but if I went through slowly, listening out for them, I’d risk giving them time to get away, and I couldn’t have that – not now my main lead was missing most of his brains. So I yanked open the door and charged through. To my right, the proprietor with the cardie and the big glasses was sprawled back in his seat, spindly arms hanging limply by his sides, a bullet hole slap bang in the middle of his head. Aside from him, the foyer was empty.

  I hit the street at a run, almost slipping on the pavement’s slick surface, and spotted them straight away, running out of the passageway and into Rupert Street. They rounded the corner and disappeared from view before I could fire and I ran after them, knowing that if they got away then that was it, I was back to square one.

  As I came out the end of the passageway, I saw that the trailing gunman – the one I’d hit – was clutching his shoulder, although he still had hold of his weapon. He must have heard my pursuit because he swung round, the scarf still covering his face, and saw me stride out into the road, the .45 raised to fire.

  He pulled the trigger first and I heard a loud female scream from somewhere behind me, but he was running and he was injured, and that put him at a serious disadvantage. He missed. He fired again and missed with the second bullet too, though not by so much this time.

  It’s strange to recount, but I had no time to feel fear as I stopped, took aim and pulled the trigger for the third time in less than a minute. In that sort of confrontation, when everything begins and ends at such speed, you’ve got no time for anything bar the physical actions needed to stay alive. And mine, it turned out, were more effective than his.

  He was maybe two yards from the junction with Brewer Street when the bullet hit him somewhere in the upper chest, lifting him off his feet and sending him spinning out of control.

  Blondie, now right at the corner, swung round and fired off four rounds in quick succession, moving his arm in a careful, controlled arc.

  A window shattered behind me; someone screamed again and I threw myself to the pavement, managing to get off another shot from my hip as I did so. It was inaccurate, hopelessly so, and I could tell this because it hit a garish blue-and-pink neon sign saying ‘JOE’S ADULT VIDEOS’ at least ten feet above Blondie’s head. The sign exploded in a shower of sparks and the lights went out. Blondie took this as a cue to make good his escape, disappearing onto Brewer Street, where, as far as I could see, all the pedestrians were huddled in the doorways of the various establishments, taking shelter from the battle in their midst.

  From somewhere in the distance came the inevitable sound of police sirens. Knowing that time was short, I got up and ran over to where the first assassin lay motionless, rifling through the pockets of his leather jacket with one hand while clutching the .45 with the other, trying to ignore the sound of my heart hammering in my chest.

  Nothing. Not a thing. I stopped to look around me and saw the woman from the clip joint had come out from her kiosk and was now at the bottom of the passageway, staring over at me, eyes wide. There was a big bloke in a suit with her who looked like he might be going to do something, so keeping my face as obscured as possible beneath my cap, I pointed the .45 straight at him and the two of them jumped for cover into separate doorways.

  The assassin’s scarf had come loose and hung limply round his neck. His mouth was open and a thin trail of blood was leaking out the side of it. He was young – no more than late twenties, at a guess – and wearing a plain black sweater and trousers of the same colour. I patted the trouser pockets hurriedly. Keys in the left, nothing else.

  Something in the right, though. It felt like a wallet. I pulled it out. It was.

  Thrusting it into my pocket along with the gun, I got to my feet and began to run down Rupert Street as fast as I could, in the opposite direction to Blondie, heading for Shaftesbury Avenue and the crowded safety of Piccadilly Circus.

  But if I thought that was the end of the evening’s drama, I was sorely mistaken.

  21

  Twenty-five minutes later, I called Emma Neilson from a backstreet off the King’s Road. I was exhausted. I’d run and walked a long way across the West End and by my estimations I was well over a mile from the scene of the gunfight. I wasn’t taking any chances. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about being caught in the net that the police would be throwing across the whole area; I was far more concerned about the prospect of CCTV cameras getting a decent shot of me and being able to pinpoint my route of escape. London’s teeming with CCTV cameras and I knew the police would spend dozens of man-days going through the available film in an ever-increasing circle in order to find out where I’d gone and whether I’d used a getaway car.

  Only when I was confident that I’d covered enough ground to make checking every camera a logistical impossibility for my former colleagues in the Met did I finally stop and catch my breath. It was raining hard and I was pretty sure that the street I was on – a run-down residential area in the shadow of a Sixties council block – wasn’t going to be covered by Big Brother. There wasn’t a lot worth covering and there was so little street lighting that they wouldn’t have been able to pick up anything of use anyway.

  Emma answered on the fifth ring and I could hear the TV in the background. It sounded like the Antiques Roadshow.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Emma, it’s Mick. Mick Kane, the private detective from last night.’

  ‘Are you all right? You sound a bit stressed.’

  ‘I’m fine, but I’ve had some trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘The kind that involves our Mr Pope. I need to see you urgently. Look, I wouldn’t ordinarily ask, but can I come over to your place? I’ve got information. Stuff I think you’ll want to hear.’

  She was silent for what felt like a long time, although anything feels like a long time when you’re standing out on a cold night street with the rain tumbling down on your head and half of central London’s cops after your blood.

  ‘I don’t know you at all,’ she said eventually, her tone uncertain. ‘You could be anyone. This could be a trap. You said yourself that people weren’t going to take kindly to the articles I’ve been writing. What if you’re one of them? Or you’re working on their behalf?’

  I could see her point. I’d have had the same suspicions in her position. Unfortunately, this wasn’t much help to me now. ‘I’m not, I promise you.’

  ‘But I don’t know that.’

  ‘No, you don’t, so all I’m going to say is this: Pope’s dead, and someone’s just tried to kill me.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘I think the people who killed him work for the man you suspect is involved in the murders of Malik and Khan. Is his name Tyndall?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but this is all getting too heavy for me. I may be a journalist but I don’t want to get involved in murder. I think you’re going to have to call the police.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just take my word for it, I can’t. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Where are you?’

  I told her the name of the street and the approximate location.

  ‘That’s only about five minutes from me.’

  ‘By foot or by car?’ I asked, hoping that didn’t mean she lived round Soho.

  ‘Car. I’m in South Kensington, near Gloucester Road Tube.’ She sighed, and I knew that she was trying to come to a decision as to what to do. It didn’t take her long. ‘Stay where you a
re and I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’ll be driving a navy blue Volkswagen Golf.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, but she’d already rung off.

  I stepped back into the doorway of a dilapidated-looking stonemasons’ offices, reached into my pocket and found the wallet I’d taken from the dead gunman. I didn’t much want to open it, since I didn’t think I’d find anything of any use. The two men who’d come into that cinema to kill Pope were professionals and weren’t likely to be carrying anything that identified themselves, which would leave me at something of a dead end, as well as being wanted on suspicion of a new murder. But you’ve always got to try to look at the positive side of things, so I offered up a silent prayer and opened it up.

  Whoever was paying him was paying him well, that was for sure. There was at least five hundred in cash, probably more; but as I suspected, not a lot else. A cheap-looking, dog-eared business card was sticking out of one of the credit-card slots and I tugged it free. Something else – another card – came out from behind it. It was impossible to read either in the dim light, so I put them in the back pocket of my jeans and kept on searching, finding nothing else bar a used dry-cleaning ticket, which I pocketed as well, along with the cash (the latter on the basis that he was no longer going to need it, and I might).

  A car – a Toyota, by the look of it – turned into the street and I sank back into the shadows as it passed, the tyres slicking over the wet surface of the road. When it was gone I stepped out again and walked over to a three-quarters-full skip about twenty yards down the street, parked outside a house that looked like it was in the early stages of renovation. The skip was full of all kinds of junk, from pieces of interior wall to a rusting pushchair, and I buried the empty wallet and the black ‘I love London’ cap under a pile of cement chippings. These days, if you’re a criminal, you really can’t be too careful. I’d bought the cap earlier that day near the Embankment, paying cash to an Eastern European stall-holder who didn’t even bother to catch my eye, so I didn’t think it would provide any of the officers examining the CCTV footage of the shooting with much in the way of clues. But I didn’t want it to still be in my possession if they released any details into the public domain, particularly if I was going to be spending any time round Emma.

  Three minutes later, a blue Golf pulled into the street and slowed down.

  When it was no more than ten yards away I stepped out into the road and waved at her. The Golf came to a halt and I strode round to the passenger door and jumped inside. Something by Coldplay was playing on the CD.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said with a weak smile, immediately pushing myself right down in the seat so that my head was level with the top of the dashboard.

  ‘Oh, God,’ repeated Emma Neilson, staring at me wide-eyed. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. What is it you’ve done? Oh shit, forget that. Don’t tell me.’

  Even from my cramped position and after the drama that had unfolded over the last couple of hours, I couldn’t help noticing how nice she looked. She was wearing the same suede jacket she’d had on the previous night, but underneath it was a pink or lilac halter-neck top that showed just enough pale midriff to be tasteful. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, accentuating her girlish appearance, and the nervous expression on her face made me want to put a reassuring arm around her and tell her not to worry, everything would be all right. Not that it was looking too promising at the moment.

  ‘I’ll explain everything when we get back to your place,’ I told her.

  ‘I’m not sure I want you to. I think I’d rather not know.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ I continued, which was one of the bigger lies I’ve told in my adult life.

  She fixed me with a suspicious expression, then turned away to concentrate on the road ahead while I continued to push myself even further down the seat and counted the seconds to our destination.

  22

  Five minutes later, Emma pulled into a parking space. ‘It’s just round the corner from here,’ she explained, ‘but I’m afraid you’re going to have to walk.’

  I managed to squeeze myself out of the seat and onto the road, putting on my glasses at the same time. Having also lost the cap, I was now looking significantly different than I’d been during the shootout. It always amazes me what a couple of props can do.

  We were on a typical Kensington street. Wide, grand and very well lit, with immaculately kept, five-storey whitewashed Georgian townhouses on either side. London for the millionaires and the tourists.

  ‘You don’t live in one of these, do you?’ I asked, following her through the rain.

  ‘Not quite,’ she answered, without turning round.

  I pulled out the business cards I’d retrieved from the wallet and examined them in the light of the street lamps. I raised my eyebrows. A clue. It wasn’t a lot, but it might be something.

  I put the cards back in my pocket.

  After a minute or so, Emma turned into a narrow, cobbled cul-de-sac of pretty, painted mews houses. She walked up to the second one on the left (it was painted a deep red colour) and unlocked the front door. Feeling sheepish and more than a little unwelcome, I followed her in.

  The front door opened straight into the living room. It was a striking place, like something out of an MTV video. The walls were a soothing pale orange; the furniture (the sofa, two chairs and a footrest) a brighter orange; and the carpet, along with the dining table and chairs on the far side of the room, were a matt black. It sounds awful, particularly when the fact that it was a mess was taken into account (there were books, CDs and two fullish ashtrays hanging about, none of which were orange or black), but somehow it worked. I liked it, in spite of my better judgement. Maybe it was because it demanded attention. A flight of well-polished wooden stairs at the far end of the room led up to the top floor.

  ‘Nice house,’ I commented, but she ignored me as she pulled off her jacket and picked up a half-glass of red wine that was on the floor by one of the chairs.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked without looking at me.

  ‘Please,’ I said, realizing suddenly that I was very thirsty.

  ‘There’s beer in the fridge.’ She nodded towards an open door that led off from the right of the living room. ‘Or there’s wine on the top. The glasses are in the cupboard above the sink.’

  I walked through without bothering to remove my coat or gloves. Somehow I didn’t think she’d be too pleased if I made myself at home. I heard her phone ring in the living room.

  The kitchen was small and modern, with appliances that looked brand new. Evidently they’d upped reporters’ wages since the last time I’d been round these parts. I poured myself a glass of water and drank it in one, repeated the process, then finally filled the glass from the bottle of red wine sitting on the worktop. An Australian Shiraz from the Barossa Valley. I took a sip, felt myself relax, then walked back into the living room, where Emma was still standing.

  Only this time she was pointing a gun at me – the second one in less than two hours. London, it seemed, was getting more dangerous than Manila.

  The gun was a small-calibre revolver, a .22 or a .32, and she was holding it as if she knew what she was doing. Not the most lethal weapon in the world, but more than enough to bring down a fully grown man at close range, particularly one who’d been through what I had in the past couple of days.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded, looking and sounding significantly less girlish and vulnerable than she had done a few minutes ago. Her soft elfin features were suddenly taut and focused, the big round eyes narrowed to slits.

  I told her that I was exactly who I said I was. Mick Kane. The expression I adopted was one of righteous indignation, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t convincing her.

  ‘What’s the name of Asif Malik’s uncle?’ she continued, without relaxing her grip on the gun. ‘The one who’s supposed to have employed you to find his killer?’

  ‘Mohammed,’ I said reflexively, ‘and he�
�s not his actual uncle. He’s his second cousin or something. They just call him uncle.’

  She shook her head dismissively. ‘You’re lying. I just took a call from one of my sources. There’s no private investigator in the whole of South-east England called Mick Kane. I think you’d better try again.’

  I suddenly had a huge and terrible desire to unburden myself, to tell her exactly who I was and why I was here. And I almost did it. Almost.

  But not quite.

  ‘My name’s Mick Kane and your source is wrong.’ I nodded towards the gun. ‘And aren’t those things illegal round here?’

  ‘Very much so. And it’s illegal to shoot people, too, but if you try a bloody thing on me, I’ll be breaking two laws rather than just the one. And I’m not bluffing, either.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘And in case you’re in any doubt, this is real. It’s a Colt Diamondback LR. A limited edition. It was a gift from my father for my eighteenth birthday.’

  ‘Shit, and I only got a pair of jeans and a V-neck jumper.’

  ‘Don’t try to be funny. I know how to use this thing. I grew up on a farm and I could fire a gun before I could count to twenty. I shot competitively right up to the day they made it illegal. I even go to France sometimes for a bit of target practice. That means I won’t miss. Understand?’

  ‘I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot here. I came to you because I needed your help. I still need it. And I’ve got no intention of hurting you.’

  ‘Who are you working for?’

  ‘I’m not working for anyone.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ She was about to add something else, but at that moment the lights went out. All of them.

  Everything fell silent. The curtains were drawn and only the faintest glow filtered in. We were only ten feet apart, but I could barely see her in the gloom.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she said, ‘I’m still pointing this thing at you.’