The Last 10 Seconds

by Simon Kernick

  He nodded again, but more uncertainly this time.

  ‘Who’s the client, Tyrone?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘That might have worked before everyone started dying on us, but it doesn’t any more. I want to know who it is we’re up against.’

  He looked round nervously. ‘OK. But first I want to find my girl. Understand? She’s got to be in here somewhere.’

  ‘How do you know she’s not behind all this?’ I asked him.

  His expression darkened, and he brought his face close to mine. ‘You know something, Sean? She loves me. She always has done, and she always will. Now, if you want to stay on the right side of me, you won’t say nothing like that again. Understand?’

  I stared him down, making sure he knew I was no longer intimidated by his tough-guy routine. Tyrone Wolfe was definitely not a man to cross, but for the first time I wondered if his bark was actually louder than his bite. I wasn’t convinced about Lee, either. In my admittedly limited experience of Thai working girls, they’re nothing if not ruthless, and most of the western men who fall for them are naively oblivious to that. Wolfe, I was pretty certain, fell slap-bang into this category. But I wasn’t going to get into an argument about it.

  ‘Sure,’ I answered. ‘Lead the way.’

  He glared at me for a moment, his nostrils flaring, then turned back towards the door.

  Which was when I grabbed him by the collar of his boiler suit, dragged him back and, in one swift movement, put the carving knife to his throat. ‘Don’t move,’ I whispered in his ear. He tried to turn his gun arm round so that the barrel was pointing in my general direction, but the angle was too difficult and I was in too close to him. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to know who I’m dealing with here. So if you tell me who the client is, I’ll remove the knife and we can talk calmly.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ he spat, but there was a tremor in his voice.

  I increased the pressure on the knife, not wanting to draw blood, but prepared to do so if I had to. After all, this was the man who’d killed my brother.

  ‘I’ll kill you for this,’ he whispered.

  ‘Just tell me.’

  And that was when he dropped his final bombshell: ‘I don’t know.’

  Thirty-six

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ I asked incredulously, still pressing the knife against his throat.

  ‘Exactly what I say. I don’t know the name of the guy who’s paying us to do this. I just know him as Alpha. Now, can you please remove the blade from my throat?’

  I thought about demanding he give me the gun but concluded that he almost certainly wouldn’t comply. ‘As long as you promise not to put a bullet in me, and to answer my questions.’

  ‘All right, but I’ve got to find Lee. She’s out there on her own.’

  ‘And I’m prepared to help you, but first we need to get a few things clear.’ I moved the knife away from his throat, but kept it close, and didn’t release my grip on him. ‘First off, I want to know how you know this guy Alpha.’

  Wolfe took a deep breath and started talking. ‘He works on behalf of some people we’ve been importing coke and smack from. We get calls from him now and again, giving us instructions on when and where the transactions are going to take place. He also gives us tip-offs if he thinks we’re being watched.’

  ‘Is he a cop?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know anything about him. We’ve only ever spoken on the phone. But he’s always got good information, and he’s reliable. So when he phoned up last week and told me he wanted someone busted out of police custody, and was willing to pay a load of money to make sure it was done, I didn’t think there’d be a problem.’

  ‘And this was when last week?’

  ‘Friday, I think.’

  ‘But Andrew Kent was only nicked last night.’

  He craned his neck, looking at me with an angry glint of suspicion in his eyes. ‘How do you know? I never told you that.’

  ‘Tommy did,’ I lied. ‘And don’t ask me how he knew because I haven’t got a clue. But the point is, what was Alpha doing hiring you to break someone out of custody who wasn’t even in custody at that point? That’s completely illogical.’

  ‘That’s what happened. And he was paying us big time as well. Half a million for the job. I couldn’t believe it, but he sent me the key to a deposit box and there was a hundred grand in it. He called it a “golden hello”, something to seal the deal. Clarence wasn’t sure about getting involved, because we’d never done anything like that with him before, but I wanted to go for it.’

  ‘I can’t believe this. And you’re meant to be a careful operator.’

  ‘I thought it was kosher. And you try and turn down that much money when it’s there in front of you. It ain’t easy. Anyway, Alpha told us all the details, except the name of the prisoner. He said we’d get that later. In the meantime, he wanted us to set everything up.’

  ‘Who organized this place?’

  ‘He did. The instructions were to bring Kent back here, get him down into the basement, and make sure he wasn’t roughed up too much. Then wait for him to turn up. We were going to meet him for the first time when he gave us the rest of the money.’

  ‘Did you ask what he wanted Kent for?’

  ‘He told me I didn’t need to know.’

  ‘So all that stuff about us doing it on behalf of a relative of the victim was bullshit?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And you weren’t suspicious it was a set-up?’

  ‘Why should I be? We did what we were paid to do. There was no reason why he wouldn’t give us the rest of the money.’

  I sighed. Wolfe was right. The problem was, it was clear he wasn’t going to. Instead, he seemed to want to make sure that everyone involved in the Kent snatch ended up dead.

  Feeling confused and exhausted, I relinquished my grip on Wolfe and took a step back. He turned to face me, making a great play of rubbing his throat, an angry look on his face. ‘When we get out of here . . .’ he growled.

  ‘When we get out of here, Wolfe, we’re quits. But first we’ve got to make it out.’

  ‘With Lee.’

  I nodded, knowing that I was going to have to give her the benefit of the doubt, since if she was innocent, I owed her big time. ‘With Lee.’

  ‘Come on,’ he ordered. ‘And watch my back this time.’

  I followed him as he moved back out into the darkened foyer and stopped, looking round anxiously. ‘She can’t have got far,’ he whispered, before calling her name, his voice reverberating through the silence of the house.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Maybe she’s outside somewhere,’ I said. ‘She could have made a run for it.’

  ‘You should have stayed with her, you arsehole.’

  I felt like arguing the point, but didn’t bother. It didn’t matter what Wolfe thought. As soon as we were out of here, I was going to get him nicked, using the evidence I’d got on the recording device in my watch. And I was going to make sure he knew who’d done it as well.

  The bump was faint but audible, and it came from somewhere up on the next floor.

  We both stopped and listened. It came again, sounding like movement. Then it stopped.

  Wolfe called Lee’s name for a second time. For a second time, there was no answer.

  ‘You know the layout upstairs, don’t you?’ I said quietly.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. Me and Clarence came here a few days ago to check the place out. There are about a dozen empty rooms up there, but the floor’s pretty flimsy in places so you’ve got to be careful where you tread. Do you think it’s Lee making the noise?’

  He suddenly seemed vulnerable and, in spite of myself, I found myself feeling sorry for him, just like I’d felt sorry for Kent earlier when he was being kicked and beaten all the way down into that claustrophobic basement, and I had to remind myself what he’d done to my brother.

  ‘I’m guessing as soon as she
heard me fighting in the basement, she made a run for it. She’s probably halfway to London by now.’

  ‘I’d try her on her mobile but there’s no bloody reception here.’

  ‘It’s probably why the place was picked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So that we couldn’t call for help.’

  Wolfe shook his head. ‘No way. You’re getting paranoid.’

  ‘Look, two men are dead in here, the man we abducted is missing, and someone – and I’ve got no idea who it was – just tried to kill me as well. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Lee’s up there. I think she ran.’

  ‘But what if she is? What if the bloke who just tried to kill you’s got her and she can’t answer?’ He paused. ‘I’m going up. Are you coming?’

  I looked up into the darkness. ‘OK,’ I said at last. ‘You’ve got the gun. Lead the way.’

  Our progress up the staircase was slow and comparatively noisy, each step creaking precariously underfoot. Wolfe stopped at the top and looked both ways. To our right were two doors, both closed. To our left, a long corridor stretched the length of the building with a number of doors, all closed, on either side – including the one that had been used to imprison me – and a large window at the end.

  Wolfe started to turn right. Then he stopped. He’d heard something. Coming from down the corridor to the left.

  I’d heard it too. A terrible rasping sound that sounded like someone trying desperately to breathe while their mouth, nose and throat steadily filled up with liquid.

  Wolfe looked at me, the fear in his eyes obvious, because he knew, just like I knew, that it was the sound of a person dying.

  Thirty-seven

  Wolfe ran down the corridor, shouting Lee’s name, losing all sense of danger as he tried to locate her.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’ I called after him, but he wasn’t listening.

  He paused by a door about halfway along and, without hesitation, flung it open.

  ‘Oh God! Lee, baby!’ His words came out in a tortured wail as he ran inside.

  I was five yards behind him, moving far more cautiously, but as he disappeared from view, I ran forward, knowing I needed to cover his back. Knowing too that if Lee was the victim then it was almost certain the killer was still up here because he wouldn’t have had a chance to leave.

  My fears were confirmed before I reached the door. Wolfe let out a sharp grunt of pain, then stumbled backwards into view, putting out his free hand to support himself on the opposite door, the hilt of a knife jutting out of his ribcage, a thick dark stain already visible against the blue of the boiler suit. He stared at me, his eyes wide with fear and confusion, as if he couldn’t accept what was happening to him, and the Sig fell from his hand and clattered on to the floor. He took another step back, trying in vain to steady himself, before falling slowly to one knee, his eyes still locked on mine, mouth silently opening and closing as if he was trying desperately to say something.

  He was two yards away from me. The gun was lying on the floor just outside the room from where that terrible rasping sound, much louder now, was coming.

  Instinctively I went for it, reaching down to pull it up from the floor.

  But I never made it. A shadow appeared in the doorway and a hand shot out and grabbed me by the material of the boiler suit, yanking me upwards with worrying strength. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure beyond my attacker, lying with its head propped up against the far wall. I couldn’t see the face because it was a black mask of blood, but the pink butterfly on the singlet told me immediately it was Lee.

  I was still holding the knife and I lashed out with it, but my attacker was already pulling me away from the gun and with the momentum I already had I went flying forward without making contact. I tripped over Wolfe and went down on my side, rolling over several times and losing my grip on the knife. Ignoring the pain in my ribs, I scrambled to my feet, unable to resist a glance back.

  My attacker was standing facing me in the corridor, while Wolfe lay sprawled on his back at his feet. He had a claw hammer in one hand and Wolfe’s Sig in the other. The hammer was stained dark with blood, and as I watched, a drop formed on one edge of the claw before dripping on to the floor. Even in the dim light, I could see who it was. He might have had cuts to his face and head, including what looked like a deep gash in his cheek, but there was still no doubt that it was Andrew Kent. Except this time he no longer looked like the baby-faced young man we’d taken earlier, who’d pleaded his innocence in the back of the van. Now he struck a confident pose, legs apart, the gun pointed towards me, the bloodstained hammer tapping idly against one of his legs, an expression of cold indifference in his eyes.

  He pulled the trigger before I had a chance to move, and the corridor exploded with noise. But he was also a little too casual and misjudged the gun’s recoil, so that when it kicked in his hand, the bullet went wide.

  This was my cue. I ran straight at the nearest door and, keeping as low as possible, yanked the handle before diving inside as a second bullet whistled past close to my head.

  My ears rang from the noise but I could still hear his footfalls behind me. I was back up in an instant, racing across the empty room in the direction of a newish-looking double-glazed window with a handle-opening system, praying it wasn’t locked, because there was no sign of a key. But when I pulled the handle, it didn’t budge. I was trapped.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures, but only if you’ve got the nerve, and thankfully I had. I turned and charged back at the door as he came into view, keeping low and bellowing like a bull, hoping to catch him off guard.

  It worked. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and by the time the gun went off a third time I’d already slammed into him with all my strength and knocked his gun hand wide, managing to grab it by the wrist. My momentum sent us both flying back across the corridor and straight through the door into the room opposite. I felt the hammer strike me in the small of the back but he couldn’t get enough behind the blow to do me any real damage. The gun went off again as I continued to drive backwards towards the opposite wall, but once again the shot was wide.

  Then somehow he managed to pull his gun hand free and dig his heels into the floor, bringing me to a halt. I felt him bring the gun round so it was pointed at my side, but I knocked it away again before he could pull the trigger and, with a final push, tried to knock him off balance.

  We took a step back together in a tight, vicious dance, which was when there was a loud crack beneath our feet and, without warning, the floor gave way, sending us flailing through the air.

  We hit the floor beneath with a loud thud in a cloud of dust. I landed on top of Kent, the force of the impact sending me flying back off him so that we ended up lying next to each other among pieces of ceiling plaster. Kent wasn’t moving, although the claw hammer still hung loosely from his hand. I could see bits of torn flesh sticking to it, and knew they belonged to the woman I was supposed to be protecting. But there was no time to think about that now. More important was the fact that Kent was no longer holding the gun.

  I clambered to my feet and looked round desperately for it in the darkness. It was only a few feet away, but just as I stepped forward to get it there was a roar from behind me and Kent rose from the floor and drove the hammer down at my foot.

  I managed to jump out of the way just in time but tripped on a piece of plaster. I fell to my knees but jerked myself round so I was facing him as he leaped on me, a maniacal grin on his savage little baby face, the hammer raised above his head.

  He knocked me on to my back and sat astride me, pinning my right arm with his leg as he tried to get into the optimum position for landing a hammer blow. ‘Gonna die now, fuck!’ he hissed, his eyes widening with a sadistic joy.

  But I could still move my left arm enough to grab a palm-sized piece of plaster, and before he could bring the hammer down, I threw it in his face.

  He reeled back, and
I saw that he’d got dust in one of his eyes. Seizing my opportunity, I thrashed around under him with enough force to knock him half off me, then scrambled towards the gun, grabbing it by the barrel just as he righted himself and raised the hammer again.

  In one movement, I smashed the butt into his cheek with a loud crack, just as he caught me across the chin with a glancing blow from the hammer.

  He fell off me and rolled over, howling in pain. ‘Bastard!’ he screamed, the word sounding stilted, as if he was trying to shout it through pursed lips.

  And then, as I stood up and turned the gun on him, he got on to his hands and knees, and the maniacal look disappeared, replaced by a look of injured innocence that was almost angelic. ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ he whispered, the words clearer now. ‘Please. Not in cold blood. I need help for what I’ve done. I can’t help it.’

  I was a police officer. How could I kill a man in cold blood? How would I be able to live with myself afterwards? Those were the questions racing through my head as I stood looking down at him, holding the Sig two-handed.

  There was a long silence. He looked at me imploringly. I looked back at him. Intensely. Thinking.

  And then he sprang at me like an animal, the hammer still in hand, and I pulled the trigger. Again and again, sending him dancing backwards through the gloom, until finally the gun was empty, and Andrew Kent, the Night Creeper, lay dead at my feet.

  I stood looking down at him, feeling no satisfaction, simply a sense of relief that it was all over, before letting the empty gun fall from my fingers.

  There was one thing still left to do, so I walked over to the staircase and climbed it for the third time that night.

  Tyrone Wolfe was lying on his back where I’d last seen him. A large pool of blood had formed beneath his torso where the knife was buried up to the hilt, and his face was pale, almost luminescent in the darkness. But his eyes were open and he was still breathing.

  ‘Lee. Help her, Sean. Please.’

  I forced myself to walk inside the room where Kent had assaulted her, and the first thing I noticed was that her breathing had stopped. My jaw tightened as I looked down at her torn and ruined face. Only a true savage could have inflicted those kinds of injuries on a defenceless woman, and a savage was exactly what the Night Creeper had been. Standing in that filthy room with only the smell of blood and death and grime for company, I felt no satisfaction for killing Kent. I just felt numb, and even though I knew it would be no good, I bent down and checked Lee’s wrist for a pulse, almost relieved that there was nothing there.