A Good Day To Die

by Simon Kernick

  ‘If the police had seen you lying on the pavement, they would have taken you in. Perhaps connected you to that house. Perhaps even connected you to other things. Who knows?’

  Our eyes met and I held his gaze. There was something very unnerving in it. I felt that if you kept looking, you’d unearth grim secrets that you’d far rather not see. Behind him, the flickering shadows partly illuminated a tapestry of a man with a scythe in one hand and what looked like a sack of bones in the other.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ I asked at last, not at all sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘You’ve been observed asking questions,’ he said, emphasizing the word ‘observed’. ‘Questions about the shooting of Asif Malik and Jason Khan. In fact, yesterday you threatened two of my men with a gun when you went round to visit Khan’s brother, Jamie.’

  ‘I didn’t threaten them. I asked them to leave the premises.’

  He smiled. ‘No matter. They weren’t being careful enough, and they were caught out. They’ll learn their lesson. The fact is, Mr Kane ... That is your name, isn’t it?’ There was a hint of laughter in his eyes when he said this, as if he knew damn well it wasn’t. But I didn’t rise to the bait.

  ‘Well, the fact is, Mr Kane, the shooting of Messrs Malik and Khan has caused me a great deal of trouble. A lot of people – your friend Miss Neilson of the North London Echo included – seem to think that I had something to do with it. Since you’ve been asking questions in an unofficial capacity, and working, so far as I can see, a lot harder than the police, you must have your own ideas about who’s responsible. Do you think it’s something to do with me?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’

  He took a deep breath that seemed to make him grow larger in the room, and his expression suddenly became very serious. ‘Good, and by saying that you’ve answered your own question. The reason I had you brought here is because this whole thing is nothing – I repeat, nothing – to do with me. Jason Khan did some work for some people who know some other people who do some work for me, but I never met him when he was alive and consequently had no interest in seeing him dead. As for Malik, he was no danger to me. He had been involved in investigating my business affairs in the past, but as far as I’m aware that all ceased when he joined the National Crime Squad some months ago. And why would I want to kill a police officer, especially one who was such a high-profile target as Malik was? It would just put undue pressure on my business affairs, which is something I obviously don’t want. I’m not interested in making enemies of the law, Mr Kane, but it seems that I have done, and that’s why the focus of this police investigation is aimed at my associates and me, which is a state of affairs that I do not want to continue. The trouble is, everyone thinks I did it, which suits the true perpetrators of the crime just fine. However, if they could be uncovered, then the pressure on me would ease, would it not?’

  ‘I guess it would,’ I said, finishing my cigarette and stubbing it out in a cast-iron ashtray shaped like a hand, which was resting on the side of the sofa.

  ‘And this is why I want to hire your services.’

  For a moment, I was taken aback, but then it struck me that it seemed a logical request.

  ‘How close are you to identifying the perpetrators?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m getting there.’ I thought about the missing-girl lead I’d got from Dr Cheney. ‘I’ve got something I want to follow up tomorrow, which may well get me a lot closer.’

  ‘I see you carry a gun. A high-calibre one, too. But it only contains two bullets. Have you got any more?’

  I told him I didn’t.

  ‘There are some dangerous adversaries out there. I can supply you with another gun, and some ammunition, plus a flak jacket. They may go some way to helping you survive.’

  ‘I could do with some transport as well,’ I said, thinking that a car might come in useful in the days ahead.

  Tyndall nodded. ‘That can be arranged. I’ll also pay you five thousand cash. Another five if you unmask the people involved in killing Malik and Khan and gather the evidence needed to get the law off my back. Does that sound fair to you?’

  I could have told him that I didn’t work for anyone, that I was my own man, but in this game you’ve got to be a realist. Like I said, he was the sort of bloke it was best to stay on the right side of, and it wasn’t going to make a great deal of difference to my investigation whether he was paying me or not. At least with him as my employer, I had someone backing me up.

  ‘Yeah, it sounds fair. I’ll take the job, but I want you to call the dogs off Emma Neilson. No more voodoo dolls through her letterbox or threats in the street.’

  ‘I don’t like upsetting women,’ said Tyndall, sounding like he meant it, ‘but that girl has caused me no end of problems. If you can get her to stop writing libellous articles, I’ll leave her be.’

  ‘You’ve got my word,’ I told him. ‘She’s heading out of town tomorrow and she won’t be back for a while. By the time she returns, this’ll all be over.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Tyndall leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable. ‘I hear you’ve also had a lot of trouble from people who want you out of the way.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘I think I might have alleviated it somewhat.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘What do you mean?’

  He smiled, and this time it was the smile of a predator. Then he leaned down and picked something up from behind the chair. It was the transparent mask worn by the killer of Andrea Bloom and her housemates, complete with black, protruding mouthpiece for breathing. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that it was still attached to the killer’s head – the exposed white neckbone jutting out from underneath the plastic.

  Tyndall held the head by the neckbone and with his other hand removed the mask. Blondie – my nemesis since I’d arrived here four days ago (Jesus, was it only four days?) - stared dully across the room at me, his mouth slightly open, his face splattered with blood where they’d severed the head. Tyndall relinquished his grip on the bone and held the head up by its hair.

  ‘When people fuck around with me,’ he said, ‘I fuck them around one hell of a lot worse. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  I looked at him, then at the head, then back at him. ‘I think I’m beginning to get the picture.’

  ‘Good.’ He returned the head to the floor, out of sight. ‘Before he died, this dog told us that he’d received his orders to go to the house tonight from a man called Theo Morris, who was apparently his employer. Does this man’s name mean anything to you?’

  ‘It does. He works for a company called Thadeus Holdings.’ I motioned in the direction of where he’d put the head. ‘Did he say why he didn’t try to kill me tonight?’

  Tyndall seemed surprised by that. ‘I thought he did try to kill you.’

  I shook my head. ‘He tried to beat me up a bit and knock me out, then he deliberately dropped the murder weapon next to me. I’m assuming he wanted me and it found by the police at the scene so I could be set up for the killings.’

  Tyndall shrugged. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘I’ll find out,’ I said. ‘I’m going to be questioning Theo Morris in the next couple of days. I’d appreciate a clear run at him.’ There was a heartbeat’s pause while we looked at each other. ‘In other words, I don’t need any help.’

  ‘All right. However, I expect to hear from you every day with progress on how you’re doing. What’s your phone number?’

  I told him. He nodded but made no effort to write it down.

  ‘When you leave here tonight you’ll be supplied with an encrypted email address. Send your progress reports to that address. If we need to get hold of you, we will. Now, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Good,’ I said, touching my head. ‘Surprisingly good. What kind of medicine did your friend give me downstairs?’

 
Tyndall’s smile was amused this time. ‘Have you ever heard of Muti, Mr Kane? It’s a form of African medicine, and those who follow it believe that if you remove the body parts of a person as they die, those parts can be used to make some very potent medicine. When taken, they can give the recipient untold strength. Particularly when the body parts belong to a fallen enemy.’ The smile grew wider and I looked away, hoping he was joking. ‘Claude, can you show Mr Kane out? And make sure we get a car brought round. One that can’t be traced.’

  Tyndall stood up. So did I, but with a little less conviction than I’d displayed when I’d got out of bed a few minutes earlier. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m a little tired tonight. It was good to meet you.’

  He put out a hand – the one that had been holding Blondie’s head by the neckbone – and because I was still wearing my gloves, I reluctantly shook it.

  ‘I wish I could say the same,’ I answered, turning round and following the guy with the sunglasses out of there.

  I was led back along the corridor, past the room I’d been in and round the corner to a lift. There, the man who’d given me the medicine appeared, and with his customary smile placed a silk blindfold over my eyes. I was taken down to the ground floor, where I was kept standing in silence for a few minutes. Finally I was ushered through a door and out onto the street. A car pulled up and I was helped into the front passenger seat and informed not to remove the blindfold until I was told. Then the car pulled away.

  Ten minutes later, permission was given. I took the blindfold off and opened my eyes. I was being driven by a young white man I didn’t recognize along the Euston Road past St Pancras Station.

  ‘Where do you want dropping off?’ he asked.

  I told him Paddington, and he continued driving in silence through the bare night streets before pulling up outside the station fifteen minutes later.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ he said, getting out of the car and leaving the engine running. ‘There’s a holdall in the boot with all the stuff you’ve been promised.’ He shut the door and walked round the back, jumping into another vehicle that had stopped behind us.

  I clambered across into the driver’s seat and watched as they pulled away, turned left and disappeared from sight, leaving me wondering whether the whole night had been some strange and terrible dream.

  Part Three

  THE HUNTERS

  36

  I thought I would have woken up late the next morning after all the activity of the night before, but at just after nine I opened my eyes and realized that the last thing that had passed my lips had almost certainly been a cupful of someone else’s blood. I was sure I could still taste it in my mouth. What was worse was that it appeared to have done me a lot more good than harm. My head was clear, and when I removed the bandage round it in front of the bathroom mirror, the injuries looked to have partly healed. For some reason, my next thought was of Blondie. I wondered how much they’d tortured him before he died. I also wondered whether they’d removed any of his organs, and whether they would have been used for a specific ritual. Then I stopped wondering, because I was beginning to feel sorry for the man who the previous night had slaughtered four people and who’d done his utmost to kill me.

  The world is a hard, dark place. It’s inhabited by some brutal people. I’d met a disproportionate number of them in the past few days, although I had a feeling that none was more brutal than the man I was now effectively working for. But then I was pretty sure he hadn’t killed my friend. Someone else had, and I knew I was getting steadily closer to finding out who.

  But I was also riding my luck. When I’d come in the previous night, the guy on the desk had seen the bandage I was wearing and had given me a strange look. Someone might have seen me at Andrea Bloom’s house. The footage from the CCTV in Soho would be released soon and might give a better picture of me than I’d bargained for. Whichever way I looked at it, pretty soon my second chances were going to run out. If I wanted to find out who was behind the murder of my friend, then I was going to have to hurry.

  I went for breakfast at the Italian place. They knew me there now and the woman behind the counter greeted me with a smile and hello, which I thought was a nice touch. I plumped for more traditional fare that day and ate a full English breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and chips while I read the paper. There was no mention of the events of the previous night. By the time I’d finished, I felt heartily refreshed and the imaginary taste of blood in my mouth was gone. I paid my bill, told the woman to have a nice day, and went outside to phone Emma.

  She answered on the third ring.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Better than I did last night. I’m leaving as soon as I’ve finished packing. How did it go with the girl?’

  ‘Not good. They beat me to it.’

  ‘Is she ...?’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah, she is.’ I didn’t add that her housemates were dead too. ‘Did you say anything to Barron about her?’

  ‘No, of course not. You asked me not to.’

  ‘Because I’m wondering how the hell they knew about her.’

  ‘Hold on. You’re not accusing me of anything here, are you? You don’t think I’m anything to do with this?’

  ‘Of course not, but I’m beginning to get worried about the quality of information the people we’re up against are getting hold of, that’s all. I’m thinking they may be bugging your phone. They may even be listening now.’

  ‘Shit, Dennis. This is getting far too heavy. I’m going to hang up and leave right away. And I think you’d better get out, too.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me – worry about yourself. How are you getting to your parents’ place?’

  ‘Driving. It’s a lot easier than the train, and once I’m out of London it’ll be a lot quicker, too. I’ll be honest, I’m really glad to be going now. If I never hear another word about this case I’ll be happy. I wish I’d never written a word about it. And if you’re listening, whoever you are, I’m not going to write another word about it, either.’

  ‘Just lie low for a while and it’ll blow over,’ I told her. I thought about adding that I’d probably got rid of her harassers, but decided against it. It was better for her if she didn’t know. Maybe better for me, too, since I’d resigned myself now to the fact that this was it between us, a feeling that was confirmed when there was a pause down the other end of the phone, which seemed to suggest that she wasn’t sure what else to say to me. I remembered Christine, the Australian girl, being similarly lost for words when we’d parted at the port of Larena in Siquijor. What do you say?

  I said, ‘Take care.’

  She said, ‘You too.’

  Even now, months later, I wish that those were the last words to each other we ever spoke.

  37

  Seven years ago, a young girl had allegedly lost her life during a sadomasochistic orgy, during which she was brutally murdered at the hands of a number of men. Five participants had been there that night, according to Dr Cheney. One had been Richard Blacklip. And perhaps one had been Pope, but I didn’t even know that for sure. What I did know, however, was that if it had happened as Ann had said (and I believed it had), then the girl in question would almost certainly have been reported missing by someone. It was just a matter of finding out who.

  Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, I cast my mind back seven years. I have a good memory for heinous crimes. For instance, I can remember the time when three children were murdered by strangers over the course of a weekend, in two separate incidents. The summer of 1994, it had been. I woke up to the news on Capital Radio on a sunny Monday morning. Three kids dead. It made me think that the world really was going mad, and all my efforts as a copper were for nothing if there were still people out there capable of that sort of outrage.

  But it’s also rare, and seven years ago I could think of no specific case, certainly nothing that was unsolved. It was possible, of course, that one of
the paedophiles had sacrificed his own daughter. For most people that’s a thought too shocking to contemplate, but, believe it or not, there are people out there who’ve actually done such things. The thing is, though, they’ve usually been caught. Kill a young family member and, even if you don’t report them missing, someone somewhere’s usually going to notice that they’re no longer around. Which left me with the conclusion that there was going to be a record of this girl’s disappearance somewhere. If I looked hard enough, I’d find it.

  My first port of call was a cyber café on the Edgware Road. I bought a coffee, went online and looked up the National Missing Persons Helpline.

  The National Missing Persons Helpline is a registered charity that deals with the thousands of people who go missing every year in the UK. They include a hundred thousand children under the age of eighteen. That’s a lot of kids out on the streets. Thankfully, the vast majority just disappear for a day or two and then come back home, but I remember a representative of the charity telling me a few years back, when she’d come to the station to give a talk, that even if 99.9 per cent of the cases were solved and the kids found, that still left one hundred children completely unaccounted for. It wasn’t a thought I wanted to dwell on.

  I found the number for general enquiries, logged off and phoned it.

  The woman who answered was busy (with a hundred thousand people disappearing every year, it’d be difficult not to be), but helpful, too. I explained that I was a private detective working for the legal team representing a young man who was on remand for murder. Part of his defence was that he’d been abused as a boy by a paedophile ring, and that he claimed to have seen a female child murdered during one incident. The woman at the other end, who sounded in her sixties and was probably a volunteer, gasped when I said this, and I immediately felt guilty.

  ‘To be honest with you, madam,’ I said by way of explanation, ‘it’s not likely that the story’s true, but I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t follow it up.’