Paint It Black

by Mark Timlin

  From behind I heard Toby call, ‘You all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I shouted back. ‘Come up and give me cover.’

  He did just that, and I scuttled along the carpet and checked the body. Brown bread. The killing floor was getting bigger all the time.

  The hallway stretched in both directions from where I was and I heard a movement along the right-hand leg and saw a face pop round the corner. It was Tyson, and I pulled the trigger of the H & K. He ducked back and the bullets were wasted. But I remembered what D’Arbley had said, ‘Where Tyson is, Schofield is,’ and I grinned to myself, turned and beckoned to Toby and set off down the hall in pursuit.

  I chased Tyson along the corridor and up two flights of stairs. I could’ve shot the fucker in the back any time, but I didn’t. When I killed him, I wanted to be looking at his face and him at mine.

  He ran into a room, slammed the door behind him and I heard locks click shut. I shot the shit out of them with the big Winchester, buckshot ploughing into the wood of the door and frame, tearing and ripping lumps of wood away from the metal they covered, and I worked the action of the pump, once, twice, three times, before the door sagged on its hinges and I kicked it open. He was fumbling in the drawer of a bedside table and came up with a small automatic pistol. I walked through the smoke from the shotgun and slapped it out of his hands as he frantically tried to work a cartridge into the action.

  ‘You a driver?’ I demanded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Driver. You drive?’

  He nodded. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘I talk, you listen,’ I said, slamming him in the mouth with the butt of my shotgun, so that teeth broke and his gums oozed blood.

  ‘Dunstable,’ I said. ‘Last spring. A little Renault with two women inside. You wrecked the fucker. Killed them. You or someone else here.’

  ‘No. No. You’re wrong. I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said through his damaged mouth.

  ‘Bollocks,’ I said, put the shotgun up and took the automatic pistol I’d lifted from the guard in the corridor from inside the waistband of my jeans and racked the slide. It was a Glock niner. Good gun. I shot Tyson in the kneecap. He screamed and collapsed as the bone disintegrated into a mist of blood. I kicked him in the head and I sensed someone behind me. I turned and there was a woman in a white dress standing in the doorway holding a white leather handbag. She looked kind of apologetic, like she’d walked into the men’s toilet by mistake, and I gut shot her. Blood bloomed on the white material and she banged back against the doorframe and slid down into a sitting position, then keeled over on to her side. I went over and kicked her handbag down the hallway in case she was carrying. She looked up at me with a pleading expression, but I just left her where she was lying. What the fuck did I care about her? She was just another crim’s whore as far as I was concerned. Good riddance. I went back to Tyson.

  ‘Where’s your boss?’ I demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. Upstairs in the observatory, at the top of the house. He looks at the stars. He’s never hurt anyone.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  ‘I swear . . .’

  Then Toby came into the room. His face was white and drawn with pain and I could see blood trickling off the end of the fingers of his right hand. In his left he carried his .38. ‘Good, Nick. You found him,’ he said, and shot Tyson in the head.

  Minimum de blah, blah. Maximum de ya ya.

  ‘Do it quickly,’ he said. ‘If you let them talk too much, you can get too friendly to do it at all.’

  Tyson’s body lay spreadeagled on the light-coloured carpet of the room, blood puddling around his head. One down, one to go.

  ‘Who’s she?’ said Toby, gesturing back to the girl.

  I shrugged. ‘Who knows? Schofield’s upstairs in some kind of observatory.’

  ‘Let’s go find him.’

  We left Tyson where he was, ignored the wounded woman and went back into the hallway. ‘There should be more stairs down at the end,’ I said.

  There were, and they were covered by armed men. We walked straight into them. By then we must’ve been getting complacent. When we got to the foot of the stairs, we were met by a hail of bullets. One went so close by my head that I felt the draught. Toby caught one in his thigh and went down. I returned fire, then dragged him back round the corner and sat him against the wall.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘This doesn’t look like it’s going to be my year.’

  ‘I’ll get you sorted,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got to clear this lot out. There’s more guards here than we thought.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked.

  ‘Easy,’ I replied, reached inside my shirt, pulled the grenade off the thong that held it, felt the release lever fly off and I popped round the corner again and threw it underhand up the stairs.

  There were sounds of panic from above, and then the grenade went off. The building shook and I heard screams and a cloud of smoke and dust belched down the stairwell. I ran up through it, Colt Commander at the ready. There were a couple of guys lying at the head of the stairs, bleeding profusely, and I pumped bullets into them to make sure they were dead. Another geezer was dragging himself down the hallway like an injured crab and I shot him in the back. He fell forward on to his face and lay still.

  After that there was silence and I went back for Toby. He was in a bad way. He’d lost a lot of blood and he abandoned his carry weapons. I helped him up the flight of stairs to what I hoped was the top floor.

  We moved cautiously along the corridor. At the end were another set of double doors. I tried the handle of one. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and found the observatory. It was dimly lit and packed with antique furniture and telescopes that ranged from what looked like the first one ever made, up to the latest hi-tech, state-of-the-art instruments. The ceiling was made of glass and obviously rolled back when the weather was more clement. Tonight it was closed. The room stank of smoke, and inside was a man I recognised as Schofield from the photograph I’d seen. His identity was confirmed by the fancy ruby and diamond ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand. He was standing by a refectory table and looked at the pair of us calmly. He too was dressed in evening clothes and was unarmed. I helped Toby inside the room, closed the door behind us and turned the key in the lock.

  ‘So you made it,’ Schofield said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ve been expecting something like this for some time.’

  ‘Hence your private army.’

  ‘Exactly. You did well.’

  ‘We had the element of surprise on our side.’

  ‘We had the force of numbers.’

  ‘But we were motivated.’

  ‘By what? Money?’

  ‘Hardly. Though there is money involved. No. It goes deeper than that.’

  ‘Shoot him, Nick,’ said Toby from where he was leaning against the wall, blood dripping from his hand and leg and forming a small pool on the floor.

  ‘Plenty of time, Toby,’ I said. ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for months.’

  ‘Do it,’ Toby insisted. ‘Then we can get out of here. I need a doctor.’

  ‘You’ll be all right, don’t worry.’

  ‘Do you really think you’ll get out of here alive?’ asked Schofield.

  ‘We got in,’ I said. ‘And shot your security to shit. I dare say we’ll get out too. But you won’t.’

  ‘Your friend doesn’t look like he’s going to get very far, whatever happens,’ said Schofield.

  ‘He’ll survive,’ I said. ‘Like I said, he’s motivated by more than cash.’

  ‘By what though?’

  ‘By the fact that his wife is dead because of you.’

  Schofield looked long and hard at Toby. ‘And mine too,’ I added.

  Schofield’s eyes came back to me. ‘I very much doubt that,’ he said. ‘I’m just a businessma
n after all.’

  ‘Dodgy business.’

  ‘Commodities. We all have to make a living.’

  ‘But such commodities.’

  ‘Oil, comestibles, pharmaceuticals. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Pharmaceuticals. That’s a good word for them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  He looked confused. ‘Yes. Medicines. Why shouldn’t I help with relieving the world’s pain?’

  ‘You certainly have a way with words,’ I said. ‘The world’s pain. That’s a nice way to put it.’

  ‘But it’s true.’

  ‘What? Killing kids with dope?’

  ‘No,’ said Schofield. ‘No. Helping them survive.’

  ‘Do it,’ hissed Toby. ‘Quickly.’

  ‘All right, Toby,’ I said, then brought my gun up in Schofield’s direction and said, ‘You’re dead, Mr Schofield.’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Schofield,’ I replied. ‘What should I call you?’

  He almost laughed. ‘You bloody fool,’ he said. ‘You should call me by my name. D’Arbley. Jason Alexander D’Arbley. Now I know exactly what this is all about.’

  I stood stock still, the gun still aimed at his body. ‘D’Arbley,’ I repeated. ‘No.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ said Toby, pushing himself away from the wall and reaching for the .38 under his arm, his movements slow and awkward because of his injured right shoulder. ‘For Christ’s sake, do it. If you won’t, I will.’

  I turned my pistol on him. ‘Leave the gun alone and stay right where you are, Toby,’ I said. Then to the man I’d been told was Schofield: ‘Prove it. Prove you are who you say you are.’

  He walked slowly over to the desk that stood in one corner of the room and made as if to open the top drawer.

  ‘Stand back,’ I ordered.

  He did as he was told, and covering both him and Toby, I opened the drawer myself. Inside was a birth certificate in D’Arbley’s name, a death certificate for his wife Jennifer from 1992, and birth and death certificates for his daughter Susan. She’d been eighteen when she died, in the spring of last year as it was now. Cause of death – drug overdose. And there were hundreds of photos of him with a girl, who matured from babyhood to teenage in them. It was not the same girl as in the photographs I’d seen at the office in Bloomsbury. In the earlier ones they were with a woman I took to be his wife and the girl’s mother. Exactly as the other one had told me. And I’d swallowed it whole. All lies. Bastard.

  I looked at them for a minute, then let them run through my fingers back into the drawer and closed it quietly.

  He said, ‘Let me take something from my pocket.’

  ‘Go on then. But slowly.’

  Gingerly he extracted the clincher. A British passport in the name of D’Arbley with his photo on page three.

  ‘Oh, Toby,’ I said. ‘You fucker. You conned me. Both of you.’

  ‘No. He’s lying.’

  ‘No, man. You’re lying.’

  Toby said nothing in reply.

  I took it as an affirmative. ‘All along, you bastard. Why?’ I’d known there was something going on. Why didn’t I do anything about it?

  ‘You wanted to be conned. It was easy.’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was all lies?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So that guy . . .’ I felt sick. ‘The one who hired us for this. He was . . .’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘Schofield,’ interrupted D’Arbley.

  ‘You know him?’ I said.

  ‘I should. He was my partner for years. Until I caught him doing exactly what you’ve accused me of.’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Using your company.’

  ‘Our company.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘That’s why I have such heavy security. I had him put away. He promised revenge.’

  ‘You’ve just seen it,’ I said.

  ‘So I gathered.’

  I thought of all the people we’d hurt. Killed. Mutilated. The woman in the white dress who I’d shot down in cold blood.

  I’d wanted my pound of flesh so badly that I hadn’t done my research properly. I’d gone along with the big lie like a kid who believed in Father Christmas. I should’ve asked Chas if he knew D’Arbley himself. I should’ve done a lot of things. Then it’s possible none of this mess would’ve happened.

  ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘What have we done?’

  I heard Toby snicker and turned the gun back on him again. ‘And there was only ever going to be one of us going to meet D’Arbley, I mean Schofield, at the airfield tonight – you.’

  ‘You’re getting it.’

  ‘And what’s the betting you even told me lies about that?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘So where is the meet?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘Shit.’ I suddenly thought of something else. ‘So what did happen to Jackie?’ I asked.

  ‘She killed herself, just like I said.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember I told you about the place we bought being a natural harbour for smuggling?’

  My turn to nod.

  ‘I did go along with the deal. Jackie didn’t. She couldn’t cope.’

  ‘Schofield’s deal?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You cunt.’

  ‘It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘Yes it is. She was my friend and I put you two together.’

  He shrugged yet again and I shot him. I emptied the last bullets from the magazine of the Glock into his chest and he fell on to the hard floor and lay still.

  I looked over at the real D’Arbley. ‘Who was the young kid?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’ he said back.

  ‘They said his name was Tyson.’

  ‘It is. He works for me. I’ve got him on the trail of Schofield. He’s a private detective. Works for an agency.’

  ‘Was,’ I corrected him. ‘He’s dead. He must’ve got too close. That was what was behind all this I imagine. You were after Schofield because of what happened to your daughter. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s a big-time drug importer. She died of a drug overdose. Two and two makes four. Yeah? So you were after him and he was after you too? That’s why you said you’d been expecting someone. Right?’

  ‘Right again.’

  ‘Shit. And he needed a mug punter to do his dirty work for him. And somehow he found out about me. And that I knew him . . .’ I gestured towards Toby’s body. ‘And that I’d trust him because of what we’d been through before. And then he tells me that you’re the one behind my wife’s death. Shit. Jesus, I don’t believe I fell for it so easily.’

  ‘You messed this one up, didn’t you?’ D’Arbley said.

  ‘Sort of.’

  From behind the double doors I heard movement, and the phone on the refectory table rang. He made a move towards it, and I dropped the empty gun I was holding and dragged the Colt Commander from the holster slung around my waist. ‘Not so fucking fast,’ I said. ‘You’re not talking to anyone.’

  ‘It’s only an internal phone,’ he said. And I remembered that Toby had cut the landlines.

  ‘Wait,’ I said.

  ‘Give up. You’re finished,’ said D’Arbley.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘The real Schofield’s somewhere close. I know it. Are there any small airfields round here?’

  ‘Half a dozen or more.’

  ‘Shit.’ The phone kept ringing. It was getting on my nerves. ‘Answer that for Christ’s sake,’ I said. ‘And don’t get clever.’ I needed time to think.

  He did as he was told. ‘Everything’s under control,’ he said to whoever was at the other end, after a moment.

  I looked at my watch. Twelve-twenty-five. It seemed like hours since the truck had blown and it had been less than thirty minutes. I won
dered how long the real Schofield would wait.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ D’Arbley said into the phone. ‘On no account try and get in here. I’ll call you back.’ And he put down the receiver.

  ‘I’ve bought you some time,’ he said.

  ‘And yourself.’

  ‘You’re not going to hurt me.’

  ‘Your people don’t know that.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now I go and find the real Schofield.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Christ knows.’

  ‘I’ll send some of my men with you.’

  What’s left of them, I thought. ‘I’m going on my own.’

  ‘You’re going nowhere.’

  ‘Then he gets away. If you’re anything like the fake D’Arbley pretended to be, you’re not into torture. So you’ll never know where he is.’

  ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘Free passage out of here. I haven’t exactly enamoured myself to what’s left of your security force. They’d as soon shoot me out of hand I expect. They’re not going to like me walking away, but that’s how it’s got to be. I’ll start looking where he –’ I gestured at Toby’s still body again – ‘told me Schofield was going to be. I’ll find him somehow.’

  I saw the emotions on D’Arbley’s face as he thought about it.

  ‘OK,’ he said after a minute. ‘You win.’

  ‘Use the phone. Tell your people we’re coming out together, and that I’m to be allowed to leave unharmed. Tell them to be cool. I’m armed, and I’ll kill you if anyone tries to stop me.’

  He nodded, picked up the phone and tapped out a three digit number.

  Car keys, I thought, as he did so. I needed the keys to the Jag. Still keeping my gun on him, I went over to Toby’s body and went through the pockets of his leather jacket. The keys were in the right-hand one. There was a piece of paper in there too, folded into quarters. It was dog-eared and dirty and as D’Arbley spoke on the telephone I unfolded it. It was a simple map, showing A- and B-roads. At one end of the route was doodled a house like the one we were in, at the other, a crude aeroplane. That was it. That was where Schofield was waiting. ‘You should’ve destroyed it, Toby,’ I whispered.