by Michael Kerr
Stan realised that he was in an untenable position. He wasn’t about to risk serious injury, even though he believed that they intended to harm the man they were looking for.
“The only person I know with a black Labrador is Gabriel Harris,” Stan said.
“Dat’s better,” Jay-Jay said. “Address?”
“In a book in the office next door.”
A few minutes later Carl was driving away from the bowling club. He had made a note of the name, address and phone number of the man they planned to abduct, after breaking one of the old man’s fingers as a warning, telling him to forget he’d ever had a visit from them, and keep his mouth shut unless he wanted to go for broke and meet them again.
Jay-Jay had tossed ten crisp twenty pound notes on the carpet at Stan’s feet, then gripped him by the face and said, “If you phone anyone, you’ll die. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”
Stan had got the message, loud and clear. His hand was pulsating with pain, his head hurt, and he didn’t intend to do anything that would give these two animals a reason to ever come near him again.
Carl parked outside the address that Stan had given them. They got out and walked up to the front door and Jay-Jay knocked, waited, and then knocked again.
No answer, but there was a light on. The curtains glowed from behind the double glazed windows.
They walked around the side of the bungalow. There was a garage on their left, and a large shed or workshop at the end of a lawn with a lit up window.
They walked single file along a flag stoned path that ran down the middle of the lawn to where he could hear music coming from the timber-built outbuilding. Jay-Jay reached into the side pocket of his jacket and gripped his gun, which was fitted with a short silencer.
Gabriel was sawing a length of wood. He had collected Rascal from the vet’s and decided to make a coffin and bury him in the garden, behind the garage.
The classical lament he was playing was Brahms Requiem, which in some way helped to ease the mental anguish that he felt over his dog, his illness, and the fact that the police had his name on a list of suspects. As he worked, he kept glancing at the duvet at the far end of the bench. He had laid rascal’s body on it and wrapped it up, along with two collars, lead, his bowls and a favourite rubber bone. Like an Egyptian king, Rascal would go to his resting place with the things that he had valued in life.
The door opened without a sound, and only a draught of chill air that blew wood shavings up from the floor made him look up. There were two men standing side by side, staring at him. They looked like labourers, not cops. One was black and almost as tall as the top of the doorframe, and the other was white, smaller, but had broad shoulders and looked mean. Salt and Pepper. They were a team of some sort.
“Gabriel ’Arris?” Jay-Jay said loud enough to be heard above the morbid shit that was on the radio or tape, as the man frowned at them, stopped working and put the saw down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WHERE’S your dog?” Carl asked Gabriel.
He smiled at both of them. “I’m not Gabriel Harris,” he said, answering what the first one had asked. “And I don’t own a dog. Mr Harris lives next door, and he has a black lab called Rascal.”
Jay-Jay let go of the gun in his pocket and took his hand out.
Gabriel saw the tension leave them both. They relaxed. He didn’t have a clue as to who either of the men were, but it was obvious to him that they had not come to his house at this late hour with good intentions.
Carl and Jay-Jay started to turn, ready to leave. If they were allowed to knock at Jim and Brenda Cuthbertson’s bungalow, then within minutes they would know that he had lied to them, and would come back.
“Mr Harris is spending a couple of days at his daughter’s in Chelmsford,” he said. “Would you like me to give him a message?”
They stopped and turned to face him again. Jay-Jay saw a look of malice form in the man’s eyes and knew that they had been tricked.
The police had put him on full alert. He had determined not to go anywhere without the nine-millimetre pistol. It was just inches away, between him and the hump that was Rascal in the duvet. He had been reaching for it as Salt and Pepper had turned their backs on him, and it was now in his hand.
He was approximately fifteen feet from them when he put two bullets in Salt’s chest. The man was driven back into the wall next to the open door and sank down it into a sitting position with a look of total surprise on his face. He made a feeble attempt to reach for his gun, but died in the process with bright, frothy blood spilling from his lips.
Looking at Pepper, Gabriel shook his head and aimed the gun at him as the big man froze with his hand near the pocket of his jacket.
“You can live or die, you make the decision,” Gabriel said, and his voice was as steady as the weapon he held two-handed.
“Okay, man, be cool,” Jay-Jay said.
“Take your jacket off very slowly and toss it away from you. Any sudden moves and you get to join your friend.”
Jay-Jay unbuttoned the donkey jacket, removed it and threw it sideways, for it to land on the wooden handles of a pair of garden shears that were clipped onto the wall by a bracket.
“Good shot,” Gabriel said amiably. “Now reach behind you and push the door closed, then sit on the chair to your left and tell me your full name and exactly why you two came to my house. Be aware that if I don’t believe what you say, I’ll gut shoot you.”
“My name is Jay-Jay Campbell, an’ I work for Dewey Marvin. ’E wanted you lifted an’ brought to ’im.”
“How did you find me?” Gabriel said as he hunkered down next to the corpse of Carl to retrieve the gun from the shoulder holster.
“Dewey saw your car, an’ de plate number. Dat led us to de last owner, who said ’e’d recently sold it. ’E remembered dat you mentioned de bowling club, an’ dat you ’ad a dog. Carl an’ I went to de bowling club an’ got your name an’ address.”
Gabriel nodded. He’d underestimated Marvin. “And what did your boss intend to do to me?”
“Probably hurt you a lot, find out why you came at him with a gun, and then kill you.”
Jay-Jay had stopped talking like a Jamaican punk. The dis, dat, dem and dropping g’s and h’s had vanished, to be replaced with an educated voice. He wasn’t the rough diamond that he purported to be. That was for his street persona. Even Dewey had no idea that Jay-Jay’s IQ was significantly higher than his. Or that his paid muscle was fluent in French and enjoyed reading Keats and Byron. It was all about appearing to be what others expected. Life was a stage, and most of what people did on it was a performance.
“What are you supposed to do now?” Gabriel asked.
“Contact Dewey and tell him that we have you, and then drive you to a storage facility that he owns in Paddington.”
“Tell me where it is.”
Jay-Jay gave him the address, and Gabriel stepped around the bench and lifted Jay-Jay’s jacket from the shears, to take a gun from one side pocket and a mobile phone from the other. The inside pocket of the jacket held a wallet. He opened it, checked the contents and removed three hundred pounds in twenties before tossing the jacket and then the phone to his prisoner and saying, “So call him and make the arrangements, and don’t try to be smart and say something that would warn him, unless you believe he’s worth dying for.”
Jay-Jay thumbed in the number of Dewey’s mobile.
Dewey was at the Black River Bar, upstairs in his office and wearing only a smile as he got down on his knees behind Amber, one of the dancers that he frequently used when he felt the urge. She was also naked, knelt submissively with her legs apart, and her breasts hanging down for her nipples to be stimulated by the long, soft pile of the faux fur rug beneath her.
Dewey’s phone started to ring as his penis was about to enter Amber. He straightened up, reached across and plucked the mobile from the desktop, saw that the caller was Jay-Jay and accepted the call.
“Yeah, “he said, enjoying the sight of Amber’s bare nether region as he spoke.
“We got de guy,” Jay-Jay said, back talking the talk.
“Sweet. Take him to the unit. I’ll be about an hour,” Dewey said and ended the call.
The next few minutes inside Amber were enhanced by the thoughts of what he would do to the stranger that had shot at him near the canal. He was going to talk first, find out why the creep had wanted to shoot him, then blind him, open his stomach from sternum to crotch, pour petrol on his guts and set fire to them.
After Amber had mopped-up in the bathroom and slipped her gold bikini top and matching thong back on, Dewey got dressed, sipped a half inch of Jack Daniel’s from a crystal tumbler that he had pocketed while attending a function at an embassy do, and slipped a mother-of-pearl handled straight razor into the side pocket of his black leather jerkin.
Finishing constructing the coffin and burying Rascal was now on hold. Gabriel told Jay-Jay to place the mobile on the bench, and to clasp his hands behind his head. He then took the time to tell the big black about his day: that his dog had died, and that the police had paid him a visit, due to the fact that he was a suspect in The Clown killings. “As you can imagine I’m pretty pissed off,” he said. “You need to know before you decide to do anything silly, that I am The Clown, and that I’ve got cancer and don’t have a lot of time left. Truth is, I don’t really give a fuck anymore. But if you do what I tell you, the only other person that will be hurt tonight is your boss.”
Jay-Jay did what he was told to. Wrapped up Carl’s body in a dust sheet and placed it on the grass outside the workshop, then locked the door and tossed Gabriel the key. He picked up the body again and folded it over his shoulder as if it was a rolled carpet, and walked around the side of the bungalow to the van. Gabriel opened one of the doors, so that Jay-Jay could shrug Carl off inside, before he moved forward and got in behind the wheel.
Gabriel climbed in the rear with the wrapped corpse, keeping the gun pointed at Jay-Jay as he sat down on a folded tarp behind him.
“So far so good,” he said. “Keep to the speed limits and don’t brake suddenly or I’m likely to start shooting,”
They arrived at the facility before Dewey. Jay-Jay drove down the second aisle and parked at an angle in front of number forty-three, then got out, opened the door to the unit and lit the lamp, then, following instructions at gunpoint he returned to the van to heave Carl’s body out and drag it into the unit, where he removed the sheet, rolling the body out onto the floor. He quickly stripped it of clothes and sat it in the chair, taping it by the arms and legs so that it appeared to be slumped unconscious, facing the rear wall, so that it could not immediately be recognised as being the late Carl Lincoln. After bundling the clothing up and dumping it in a corner, Jay-Jay left the unit, pulled the door back down, but didn’t close it to. He then climbed back in the driver’s seat.
“When he arrives, get out and tell him that I’m in the unit,” Gabriel said. “Say that Carl is round the back taking a leak. After that, just open the door and walk in. The gun will be on you every second.”
It was fifteen minutes later when Dewey arrived. He had left the Merc outside as usual and walked in. As he strolled along the aisle, Jay-Jay got out of the van and raised his hand in greeting.
“Everything okay?” Dewey asked.
Jay-Jay nodded. “I just stepped out for some fresh air. The guy shit ’imself when Carl softened ’im up for you.”
“Is he conscious?”
“Wide awake an’ taped to a chair, boss.”
Dewey grinned. Sex and sadism in one evening was a good combo. He pulled the straight razor from his pocket and opened it.
“Where’s Carl, inside?” Dewey asked as Jay-Jay bent down to pull the door up.
“He needed to piss. ’E’s round de side of the unit offloadin’.”
Dewey saw what he expected to see. The guy was bound in a chair with his head hung down between his shoulders, facing away from him.
“Shut the fucking door,” he said to Jay-Jay as he walked up to the chair and rounded it to get a good look at his prisoner.
Realisation was immediate. The figure taped to the chair was Carl, and he was obviously dead. There was blood on his mouth and chin and neck, and his eyes were partly open but unseeing. And there were two red-rimmed bullet holes just an inch apart next to his left nipple.
This was a setup.
Dewey spun round to see an expression of guilt and apology on Jay-Jay’s now sweating face, for behind him, standing at the still open door was the man who’d attempted to kill him in Teddington, holding a gun and smiling.
He took two strides towards Jay-Jay, lashed out with the razor and cut his traitorous employee’s face open from forehead to mouth at an angle that sliced through his left eye, split his nose open and parted his top lip, before lodging in the gum between two of his bottom teeth.
Jay-Jay jerked backwards so fast that Dewey lost his grip on the razor, and just watched as the man he had trusted backed away from him with the now blood-covered implement sticking out of his mouth as if he was a fairground sword swallower.
Jay-Jay turned, wrenching the razor from his mouth and advanced on Gabriel, who took careful aim and shot him once through his already blinded eye.
There was no sensation of pain, and as the bullet exited the back of his skull in a mist of blood and brain and blood fragments, Jay-Jay was already dead, and his massive frame lost all motor function and dropped to the floor like a marionette that had had its strings cut.
Dewey didn’t move a muscle. There was nowhere to go. The only way in or out of the unit was through the doorway, and that was covered by the man pointing a silenced gun at him. He needed to talk his way out of this, so said, “Who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Gabriel Harris, Dewey. Do you find time to watch TV or listen to the radio?”
Dewey nodded.
“Then you will have no doubt heard of the so-called serial killer that has been given the sobriquet of The Clown.”
“What’s a sobriquet?”
“A nickname.”
“And you’re this vigilante clown character?”
“Correct.”
“So why are you targeting me?”
“Because you’re responsible for so much suffering and death. You have people killed, peddle child porn and deal in drugs, prostitution and human trafficking.”
“What’s your angle? What do you want from me?”
“Contrition, Dewey. I want to come to know that you are truly sorry for the evil things that you have done.”
“I’ll do whatever you want. And I can pay you a lot of money.”
“Good. For starters I want you to take your jacket off nice and easy and throw it over here, then turn round in a circle.”
Dewey did as he was told. He wasn’t carrying a gun.
“Okay, don’t move a muscle,” Gabriel said as he searched the pockets of Dewey’s leather jacket and removed a set of car keys, a wallet and a mobile phone. He opened the wallet and removed the money and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, then said, “When I’m outside, follow me, close the door behind you and walk to wherever you parked your car. I expect you to try and run or disarm me. Just be aware that I’ll be ten feet behind you, and will shoot if you make any sudden moves.”
Without taking his eyes off Dewey, Gabriel knelt and picked up the razor, folded the blade back into the handle and backed out of the unit as he pocketed it.
“There’s no need for this,” Dewey said. “I can make a call and have a lot of money here in half an hour.”
“And a few gun-toting goons to make sure I don’t survive to spend it. No, we’ll do it my way. Turn the lamp off and move.”
When they reached the Merc, Gabriel used the remote to unlock it. “Open the boot and climb in,” he said.
Dewey smiled to himself. The guy was not covering all the bases. There was a release handle inside the boot. When the car slowed d
own, or preferably stopped for traffic lights on red, he would be able to pull the handle, hop out and duck down a side street. By the time Harris got out of the car he would be in the wind.
It was as Dewey climbed in that Gabriel darted forward and caught him off balance with one foot on the ground, the other in the boot, and his head low. He reversed the gun as he moved, to bring the butt down at an angle with all his force. There was no need to hit Dewey again, he was out cold.
The derelict area afforded total privacy. Dewey had fallen into the boot with his legs outside it, up in the air.
Quickly withdrawing a reel of duct tape from his pocket, Gabriel bound the gangster’s ankles together, then folded him into the boot and wrapped the tape around his wrists, securing them behind his back.
The Merc was a joy to drive. He drove back home with mixed feelings. He was still totally distraught over Rascal, but at least he now had the bastard that had caused his death.
Dewey Marvin was going to pay a high price for every evil act that he had committed throughout his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MATT and Beth were up early. Dawn broke late in March, and it was still dark outside. Matt sat and sipped black coffee as Beth put a fresh bandage on his arm. The deep punctures looked like small volcanic craters with pools of red magma within the rims. And his whole arm seemed to thud with pain in time to his heartbeat. The pit bull’s bite had been like being caught in the steel teeth-edged jaws of a gin trap. Being killed by a dog was something he had never considered, but now knew was something that could happen. Had he been unarmed, then he knew that he would not have been able to defend himself against it. That reminded him of Robin Fewlass, a PC he had pounded the beat with after he’d finished his training at Hendon and been let loose on the streets of London to uphold law and order.
Robin had made sergeant, and was making a house call at a maisonette in Putney to investigate a report of domestic violence. When a man dressed only in underpants answered the door and told him and the constable with him to piss off, Robin had noticed lacerations to the knuckles of the man’s right hand, which he believed could have been suffered through coming into contact with teeth. He demanded to enter the house, but the irate man took a swing, and Robin had restrained him, only to be attacked by a German shepherd that came out of the lounge like a runaway train. Robin had put his arm up in defence, and the powerful dog had bitten him, not once but several times in rapid succession.
