How To Kill Friends And Implicate People

by Jay Stringer

  Each member had their own page, where we could upload videos. Blogs. Links. Whatever. Hanya had been using it for a couple of months, and her page was filled with short clips of her trying to be funny and opinionated.

  My page just had the one video. The one we’d filmed here.

  I pressed the icon for the first profile. A video started to play. The guy was cute. Brown hair, stubble that looked to be carefully maintained, and a lopsided smile. He was talking about himself, telling me his name was Billy, and he was twenty-six. He looked poised. Too poised. I didn’t want someone who was going to be reading a script when he spoke to me. Even in the hypothetical world where I would follow up on these leads, I wanted it to be someone I liked the look of.

  I swiped the screen to the left, which told the dating service I didn’t want any more from Billy.

  ‘What was his username?’ Hanya was typing into her own phone. ‘I want to look him up.’

  ‘BillyAndWhizz22.’

  ‘Ah, okay, maybe I won’t.’

  The second profile loaded. A guy with a goatee trying to be way funnier than he could manage. No way. I swiped him to the left. The third person popped up. He was okay looking. Not a stud, by any measurement. Billy probably had him beat on that score. But there was something else there, something, I don’t know, hurt?

  No way, Sam.

  Not happening.

  You’re not taking on any more fixer-uppers.

  Hanya giggled, and I looked up. ‘You’ve got that look on your face,’ she said.

  ‘What look?’

  ‘The patron saint of whoever look.’

  I made a phssssst noise, and pretended not to know what she was talking about. I clicked the video again, and this time listened to the words.

  ‘Hi my name’s Fergus. I’m thirty years old, and I, ummm. This is daft, aye? Look, my sister put me up to this. I have a hard time meeting people. I like action films, I like the music I listened to when I was a teenager. I like trying to make people laugh.’

  My finger hovered over the screen.

  I paused, laughed at myself, then swiped.

  TWENTY-THREE

  FERGUS

  19:33

  My parents live in a modern house in Barrowfield Street, in the East End. Celtic Park sits at the end of the road, which is kind of funny because my old man, Ronnie, is a Rangers fan. I didn’t follow him into that faith, which is just one of the many small acts of rebellion I’ve carried out over the years.

  I’m not sure where he’d sit on the whole ‘killing people for money’ thing.

  That’s not true. I do know. It’s why I don’t tell him.

  Sometimes I think I should feel guilty for lying to my parents about what I do for a living. But my best mate is thirty years old and still hides the fact that he smokes from his mum, so I reckon I’m probably doing the right thing.

  My folks used to live in Shawlands, on the Southside, which is where I grew up. They moved to Barrowfield Street for my sister, Zoe. She has cerebral palsy, and they got a grant from the Scottish government to make some renovations to the old house for wheelchair access, but it was easier to convert this newer build. The move also put them within walking distance of the new Emirates Arena, and the council gym there has exercise programmes specifically for disabled people, so my sister is getting to have more fun these days.

  I earn enough that I could have paid for the renovations myself, but my parents refuse to take any money from me. Joke’s on them, really, because I’ve been topping up their pension payments for years and they’ve not noticed.

  I park out front and let myself in. I’ve got a key, but the door isn’t locked. I keep telling them about that. Anybody can walk in off the street. And they do, but usually for a coffee or a bottle of beer. The Fletcher household has always been an open door to people who want to drop by. My old man used to be a union leader back in the old days, and people across the Southside always knew they could drop by at any hour of the day and Ronnie or Irene Fletcher would make sure they had a drink and some food.

  These days it’s mostly people my parents’ age, pensioners who drop in for a coffee and some warm nostalgia.

  I find them out in the back garden, sat on the new patio enjoying the evening heat. Heatwaves might be rare in Glasgow, but we have that shit down. The minute the sun comes out, we’re in a garden or a field, layering on the suncream and looking for the nearest raincloud to judge whether we’ve got time to get a barbecue on the go.

  True to form, my folks have a barbecue on the go.

  Dad greets me with a handshake; then his attention goes back to the meat on the grill. Blackened sausages and a couple of burgers that are heading in the same direction. They smell great, but they’ll taste like arse. Their version of a barbecue is just old-school British grilling: stick some meat on a grill and cook until black, then cover with red or brown sauce and some bread. The taste, and smell, of summer.

  ‘Grab yersel’ a beer, son,’ Dad says, in his croaky old voice. ‘Plenty in the fridge.’

  Mum’s sat in a folding lounger, reading a book. There’s no sign of my sister.

  ‘Where’s Zoe?’

  Mum doesn’t even look up from her book. Must be a good one. ‘She’s up the gym,’ she says. ‘Her club’s got a special night on tonight, Olympics theme.’

  ‘She liking it there?’

  Dad answers without looking up. ‘Aye. Course. But you know Zoe, she has to pretend like it’s a chore. We see her smile, though, right enough.’

  He hands me a hot dog. The sausage is buried in sauce. I haven’t got the heart to tell him I’ve already eaten. Besides, what kind of idiot says no to a hot dog? I bite into it, squirting sauce across the patio floor, and start to chew my way through the layer of charcoal.

  I look down at the book my mum’s reading. Girl Meets Boy on a Crime Spree, by A.N. Smith. It’s the one everyone’s talking about on the TV. ‘Any good?’

  She shuts the book, with her thumb pressed between the pages to keep her place. ‘Don’t know, do I? Someone just stopped me reading it.’ She waits for my smile before carrying on. ‘It’s good, aye. Too much swearing, but that’s just the way now. Like on the telly.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. Mostly about house-cleaning so far. I think she’s got some dark secret, and she doesn’t like her husband. It’s part of a series, they were all on display in the shop. This girl, she gets trains, has tattoos, kicks things, all sorts.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a series, Mum. They just call all books the same thing now.’

  ‘Like you’re the expert on reading, all of a sudden?’ Dad comes and sits on the empty lounger next to Mum. He hands me an open bottle of beer, and mumbles about me being too lazy to get one myself.

  ‘I’ve read whole books,’ I say, a little too defensively.

  Dad smiles and bends down to pick up his own book from beneath the chair. It’s a biography of Leon Trotsky. I half expect it to be called The Girl Who Met The Revolutionary.

  My phone goes. My real one, the contract in my name. It’s a text message from Alex Pennan.

  I didn’t give him my real number.

  What the hell?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ALEX

  20:40

  ‘How did you get my number?’

  Fergus, who had given his name to Alex as Ross Douglas, sat down at the bar. Alex had arranged to meet him at a small place just under a mile from the house, somewhere he could walk to, without bringing Fergus too close to his home patch.

  As Fergus sat down, Alex noticed a small blotch of ketchup on the guy’s T-shirt. An extra little humanising detail that helped take the edge off the first impression. Alex wasn’t scared of this guy now.

  ‘That’s not important, Fergus.’ Alex smiled. He watched as it registered across the prick’s face that Alex knew his real name. ‘What does matter is that I have it. And your address. And your parents’.’

  Fergus leane
d in close. He smelled of charcoal. ‘You think it’s a good idea to threaten someone in my line of work?’

  Alex nodded, raised his pint in a mock salute. ‘It’s your line of work that means I can threaten you. All I’m asking is that you do this job for me. And I’m offering you your usual going rate. But if you don’t, and I have to get someone else to do the job, I might give him a few extra hits to carry out. Real ones. Or maybe I’ll be nice, and just let the cops and press know what you do for a living.’

  Alex had found out about Fergus by accident.

  While he’d been following the trails of money that didn’t exist, and working out how much of it could easily not exist in his own bank account, he started to notice who his clients were paying money to. It didn’t take much to figure out what some of those payments were for. Once he accepted that he was working for criminals, well, it didn’t take much to figure out what kind of people they would be paying.

  He had a file on his hard drive full of the contact details for the businesses, private contractors and ‘consultants’ that money was sent to. He’d noticed one particular insurance firm received payments from more than half of his clients, always in multiples of five grand. Joe Pepper had made payments a number of times recently. The real kicker was when he found payments going from a company that had been set up for Asma Khan. It was a small investment firm on paper, but in reality it was a way for Khan to pay people quickly and quietly.

  A quick check with Companies House down in London also confirmed that the insurance firm itself was clearly a front. But it was easy to follow the trail. Alex pulled on the thread, and it led right back to a small security firm in Glasgow. There were three board members, and two of them had the same surname. Fletcher.

  One other bolt of inspiration had struck Alex as he looked at all of this information. He checked the dates of the payments, and then started searching the news in internet caches. Newspapers, Google, the BBC.

  People died around those dates.

  Some of the names were famous, some were nobodies. Some had been found dead, some had never been found at all. Khan had made a number of payments all around the same time, the previous summer. Alex remembered there had been a local gang war around then, triggered when a detective had gained fifteen minutes of fame and uncovered an arson scam that most of the old guard had been in on.

  Holy shit.

  This guy was a hit man.

  A real life, bona fide, hit man.

  Like in the movies.

  That was when Alex had known he could make off with the money. And the perfect guy to help him do it. Now the hit man was sitting next to Alex at the bar, slumping in his seat, and caving in.

  ‘Okay. So, I’m going to kill you. And you don’t want to know where, and you don’t want to know when, or even how. And you don’t want me to actually kill you.’

  ‘Well, I suppose—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve always wanted to go out with a bang. Something big. A death that makes people wonder how well the guy lived. You know, like if I was given an hour to live, I’d love to get absolutely loaded on drink or drugs. Get an absolute skinful of all the things you’re too scared to take normally. Then, I think, get in a car and drive. Really go for it.’

  Alex liked that. Hell, maybe someone would make a film about it. Or a TV movie, at least. And the best thing? He’d be able to watch it.

  ‘Car explosion,’ Fergus said. ‘Easy enough.’

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ Wait, there was something else. ‘Oh, and nobody can know about this.’

  Fergus gave him a No shit, Sherlock look. ‘I had assumed that.’

  ‘Yeah, of course. No. Um. What I mean is my wife can’t know. Not until afterwards.’

  ‘And are you sure you can trust her?’

  Wait, what?

  ‘Wait, what?’

  Fergus leaned back and smiled. His anger and nerves had gone. ‘Well, let’s be honest. We both know you’re stealing from some very rich people. I assume you’ve got accounts ready. If you’re technically dead, all of your money belongs to her. Are you sure she’ll share it with you, once you’re dead?’

  That hung in the air for a while. Alex knew Fergus was just messing with him. Fighting to regain a little control. Fuck him. Kara was his rock. She’d own all of his public money. The life insurance and the house. But she didn’t know about his real reserves. The money he’d been stealing. And she wouldn’t mess him about when her told her. Sure, she’d be pissed at him for lying, for not letting her in on the plan. But once she calmed down, she’d be golden.

  Fergus smiled again, and Alex got a bad feeling. ‘Your other problem,’ Fergus said, ‘is that if you did try and expose me to the press, or the cops, then you’d be selling yourself out, too. Because the obvious question would be, why were you having business dealings with a hit man?’

  Alex tried a bluff. ‘I’ve been recording our conversations. I can just say it was a sting, that I was leading you on in order to get a confession on tape. Besides—’ He was thinking on his feet, but his voice got stronger, he was sure he had the winning hand now. ‘What would they try and get me on? I’m hiring you to not kill me.’

  ‘Aye.’ Fergus shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe you’d skate on that, if they overlooked the whole conspiracy to commit fraud. But even still, you’d have a bigger problem than that. Whatever it is, this thing you’ve got planned, the pay-out you’re looking for, you wouldn’t be able to do it. Selling me out would ruin whatever you’ve got cooking.’ Fergus paused. Scratched his nose slowly. Easy. Letting Alex know he was in charge again, just like the last meeting. ‘But I tell you what. I’m interested in this now. And even if it’s just to shut you up, I’ll take the job. But I’m charging double. And you’re paying me up front.’ He stood up to leave. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  As Fergus turned to leave, Alex got the urge to get the last word in.

  He pointed at Fergus’s T-shirt. ‘You’ve got ketchup on you.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  FERGUS

  22:10

  I get home and change my T-shirt. Sauce all down it. It’s almost embarrassing that it had to be Alex who pointed it out, but I don’t care what he thinks, so it doesn’t quite sting.

  It’s going to be a pleasure, not killing him.

  I know the broad strokes of how I’m going to do it, but there are some things to set up first. I’m going to need a spare body. Someone fresh. Within a few hours of Alex’s fake death.

  I need another job, and fast.

  The thought of the next job, though? My hands shake a little. That’s a new thing. I don’t get guilty about what I do. I’m an atheist, so I don’t worry about heaven or hell, and I don’t need redemption. And yet, right now, I’m feeling—

  I don’t know.

  I can’t describe it.

  Fuck it. Stop being a wee pussy, Fergus.

  I take a couple of beta blockers to numb whatever this crap is, and then call my agent. Yes, hit men have agents. Of course we do. We’re not in a profession that demands high interpersonal skills. We need someone else to do all the nicey-nice stuff.

  There are a few agencies around the world. Most pros who go into my job, at the serious level, do it after stints in intelligence or the military. The agencies have scouts who spot good talent and hook them up with steady work. I first went professional in New York, and I’ve stayed with the agency that first spotted me. I work with Stan Decker at the Hit List. They were the best team to be with in the States, and the geek in me just likes having a business card with a Manhattan address on it.

  Stan answers on the fifth ring. It’s not until he says hello that I bother to check the time. The East Coast of America is five hours behind Glasgow, putting it at a little after 5 p.m. over there. The truth is, agents have their phones surgically attached to their hands. It doesn’t matter what time you call, they’ll answer.

  ‘Hey,’ he says.

  He sounds a little out of breath. I can hear
just the edge of a pant through the words, and there’s a distant sound to his voice, like the phone’s not held to his ear.

  ‘Are you, Stan, are you running ?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m at the gym.’

  ‘So, the Mitchell job went a bit tits up.’ I push on past the whole gym thing. I hate them. I love running, but out in the real world, not on a machine. ‘I dropped an extra package, and had to do some of the cleaning up out of my own pocket.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard,’ Stan says. ‘These things happen, though, right? I wouldn’t worry about it.’

  ‘Yeah, I dunno.’ I leave that hanging there.

  Truth is I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. I think back to the small mistakes I made today. To the bigger ones on the previous job. When I take a longer view, I can see my work has been getting sloppy for a while now. Since I came home to Glasgow. I had a couple gigs last summer that I almost ballsed up completely, but nobody saw it so I hadn’t mentioned the mistakes. If I was a footballer, people might say I was out of form. In a slump. But can people in my line of work afford to hit a bad streak?

  My hand starts to shake, making the phone wobble at my ear.

  Even through the pills, I was jittery.

  What the fuck?

  Stan can hear something in my voice, or maybe in my pauses. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Stan, do you ever see people get burned out on this?’

  Stan doesn’t answer straight away. When he does, his tone’s changed a little. He’s still upbeat, but I can hear the effort that’s going into it. ‘Hey, everyone goes through a slump sometimes. Happens to the best. Have you started shaking?’

  ‘No,’ I lie.

  ‘Then you’re okay,’ he says. ‘You just need a break. It’s only if you start to get things like shakes or blackouts that you need to worry, that’s the time to get out.’