The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  ‘You worry too much,’ I told him. ‘Take the money you’re going to get, be pleased with it, and leave it at that. You never know, tomorrow might be your last day on earth. Don’t spend it crapping your pants about something that’ll probably never happen.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to say. You’ll have enough so you can fuck off wherever you want.’

  ‘Ah, stop being so fucking gutless.’

  It was Kalinski who spoke, his tone contemptuous. He was wearing a black polo-neck sweater with three thick gold chains over it, and his greying hair was slicked back. It made him look like a gangsta version of the Milk Tray man. He’d pushed his plate to one side, having eaten less than half the food he’d been given, and was puffing on a Rothmans.

  ‘You think you know fear?’ he said, pointing his cigarette at Johnny. ‘Eh?’ Johnny didn’t say anything. He looked like he was an expert in it. ‘You don’t know shit. I’ll tell you that now. Fear’s when you’re standing on the street with no fucking cover and the Filth, them bastards from SO19, are taking potshots at you with sighted rifles, and your best mate, the one you did the job with, is lying dead on the pavement in a pool of blood, inches from your feet, and you know that in two, maybe three fucking seconds you’re going to go exactly the same way.’ Kalinski stared Johnny down. ‘That, boy, is fear.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Johnny, eyes wide.

  ‘You mean, why am I still here? I took a bullet in the gut and one in the leg. I was in hospital for six weeks and the cunts still charged me afterwards. I got fourteen years for armed robbery and attempted murder, because I managed to hit one of their fucking blokes as well. My only regret about the whole thing was that I didn’t kill the bastard.’

  To be honest with you, I wouldn’t get too carried away about Kalinski’s role in the gunfight at the OK Corral. From what I’d heard, he’d only ever fired one shot in anger during his long criminal career, and that had been into a sub post office ceiling. And he wasn’t exactly Papillon either. According to what Joe had told me, he’d only ever done a couple of short stretches inside, which was another of the reasons we’d hired him. It showed he was careful. Something smelled a little fishy, and it wasn’t just Tugger’s curry.

  Johnny sighed and put his head in his hands. ‘What am I fucking doing here?’ he said to no one in particular.

  ‘Being gutless,’ snarled Kalinski.

  ‘Give him a break, Mike,’ I said. ‘The poor sod’s had a bad week. His missus is bisexual.’

  ‘What the fuck’s wrong with that?’ said Tugger. ‘Nothing better than a bit of three-in-a-bed experimentation.’

  ‘Not if the third one doesn’t want fuck all to do with you.’

  Tugger patted him on the back sympathetically. ‘Shit, Johnny, is that right? Does her lover not swing to the beat of the phallic drum?’

  ‘Look, fuck off, will you?’ said Johnny, brushing off Tugger’s hand. He turned and gave me the evil eye. ‘That was private what I was telling you, Max.’

  ‘I had a session with a couple of lesbians once,’ said Kalinski. ‘Porn stars they were, American. Candy and Brandie they was called. Brandie’s been in loads of stuff.’ He shook his head in awe. ‘They knew what they was fucking doing, I can tell you. Could have sucked ballast through a straw, both of them. Did it in a penthouse in the Savoy.’

  If Kalinski had been Pinocchio, he’d have had my fucking eye out. This bloke could bullshit for England.

  I got up from the table. ‘I’d better give Krysy boy something to eat.’

  Kalinski glared at me. ‘Fuck that, let him starve.’

  ‘I tried him this morning,’ said Joe, ‘and he told me to fuck off. So I did. We’re releasing him Sunday morning. If he wants to lose weight in the meantime, let him. He’s had some water so he won’t die.’

  ‘He’s been here nearly two days and he hasn’t touched a thing. I’ll just check on him.’

  ‘You just want a chance to give him another kicking,’ said Joe, with something close to a smile.

  Which was partly true, I did. Krys, like Johnny, had been a pain in the arse from the start. When we’d dragged him out of the van and into the farmhouse on the first night, he’d gone absolutely apeshit, kicking like a donkey and screaming all sorts of uncalled-for insults. Me and Kalinski had been forced to give him the beating of his life, just rewards for past wrongs, Kalinski taking particular pleasure in stamping repeatedly on his bollocks until Joe pulled us both off, fearful we’d kill him. When I’d tried to feed him the following morning, he’d spat in my face and told me I was a dead man, which had been a pretty fucking stupid move on his part and had cost him a broken nose, but he still resisted any effort at co-operation and in those increasingly rare moments when his gag was removed he was full of bluster and threats. In the end, I had no choice but to award him a grudging respect. He was a champion arsehole and about as pleasant as a skidmark, but he was no coward. It made me think, too, that this was a much better way of dealing with him than shooting him outright. This way we broke him down, humiliated him, but we didn’t kill him in cold blood. I’m not a bad lad, to be honest with you, and I don’t think I’m capable of just executing someone outright without them having a chance to fight back. Plus, this way we made money out of it, so it seemed to me to be a pretty decent sort of revenge all round, really.

  ‘At the moment, Joe, he’s the most valuable thing we’ve got and it’s in all our interests to keep him that way. At least if we give him back alive, one day the Holtzes’ll forget about what happened. If he turns up dead, we’ll have them on our backs for ever.’ I picked up a couple of pieces of bread from the kitchen top. ‘Look, I’m not exactly giving him the lavish stuff.’

  I went out of the room, through the hallway, and over to the door under the stairs that led down to the cellar. I unlocked it, switched on the light, and walked slowly down the wooden steps.

  Krys was strapped to a chair which was in turn secured to the bare brick wall. He was wearing a shirt and piss-stained trousers with nothing on his feet. He had a black blindfold round his eyes and masking tape securing his mouth, and his face was covered in bruises. Dried blood had formed a crusty trail running from his nostrils, where I’d delivered the nose-breaking blow, down to his neck. Another badly healed cut wound its way across his forehead. Basically, he looked a mess.

  His head turned as he heard my approach. I stopped and picked up a jug of water, filled a dirty cup, then leant over and pulled the masking tape away from his mouth. Usually this was the cue for a burst of swearing, but instead he just coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I think some of my ribs are broken,’ he said quietly, ‘and I need to change these trousers.’

  ‘If you’re looking for sympathy, you’ve come to the wrong place,’ I told him. ‘Now, open your mouth, I’m going to feed you some bread.’

  Krys did as he was told and I ripped off bitesized pieces and placed them in his mouth. He chewed hungrily and finished off both slices quickly. ‘Have you got any more?’

  ‘That’s your lot. Now, I’m going to give you some water.’ I put the cup to his mouth and held it there. He gulped it down, drinking about half of it before turning his head away.

  I put the cup back down by the jug and thought that I could almost feel sorry for Krys Holtz, tied up and stewing in his own urine. But then I thought of what he’d done to Elaine, and to Kalinski’s brother, and that soon put a stop to it. What he was going through now was certainly no less than he deserved, and far more temporary.

  ‘I’ve got money,’ said Krys. ‘Plenty of it. If you help me get out of here, I’ll make it more than worth your while. How much do you want?’

  ‘Sorry, Krys, no can do.’

  ‘A hundred grand, hundred and fifty. I could get that for you. Honest.’ His voice had suddenly taken on a whining quality which didn’t improve my opinion of him.

  ‘We’re going to be picking up a lot more off your old man tomorrow.’

  ‘He’ll kill you, you know.’ T
his time his voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it. He believed what he was saying. ‘It doesn’t matter where you hide. He’ll find you and he’ll kill you.’ I started to replace the masking tape and Krys’s tone immediately changed. ‘Please change these trousers. Please.’

  I ignored his request and finished what I was doing. Krys struggled violently in the seat for a few moments until his strength deserted him. ‘In the morning,’ I told him. ‘We’ll change them in the morning.’

  Then, wondering if I really was being too sadistic, I turned and walked back up the steps, switching off the light when I reached the top.

  Yesterday

  Iversson

  I got the call at 6.26 p.m. ‘He’s here,’ growled Kalinski into the phone. ‘Just pulled in now. Driving a matt-black Merc.’

  ‘Does it look like he’s alone?’

  ‘I can’t see anyone else.’

  ‘No one’s pulled in behind him or anything?’

  ‘No one. He’s definitely on his own.’

  ‘All right. I’ll talk to you shortly.’

  I rang off and pulled the cap down over my head. It was raining hard again, and you had to think the gods were smiling on us as far as the weather was concerned. Usually there were plenty of walkers in Epping Forest, the only serious stretch of woodland this close to London, but tonight I had the feeling that most would be staying away. Tugger and I had taken up position at the edge of the treeline looking down across a slightly inclined grass clearing about a hundred yards long and fifty wide. It led down to more woodland from which Stefan Holtz would emerge, once we guided him to the spot. There was no one else in the vicinity that we’d seen, and I was confident the transaction could be made without fuss.

  Tugger sat on a thick branch, his feet resting on a log, an M-16 in his hands. Purely precautionary, but always worth keeping, just in case. ‘He’s there, then?’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s there.’ I pressed the button to dial Holtz’s mobile and waited while it rang.

  He answered with an angry grunt.

  ‘Mr Holtz, I’m glad you made it.’

  ‘Where’s my son?’

  ‘He’s safe and he’s well.’

  ‘How do I know that?’

  ‘Listen to this.’

  I flicked on the short tape we’d got Krys to make that morning in exchange for changing his trousers and allowing him to use the toilet in privacy. It was short and to the point: he gave the date and the time, and said that he was OK and was being treated well. He hadn’t wanted to add this last bit but I’d suggested that he ought to unless he wanted Kalinski to stamp on his bollocks again. Krys might have been no coward but he was no fool either, and had done what he’d been told.

  I switched off the tape. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘He’d fucking better be all right.’

  ‘Don’t threaten me, Mr Holtz,’ I told him coldly. ‘You really haven’t got much of a bargaining position. Now, have you got the money?’ Holtz grunted that he had. ‘Good. Now, when we finish this conversation, drive out of the car park and turn right, crossing the M25.’ I then gave him a short set of further instructions, about where he should turn off the main road and how he should proceed from there. ‘When you get to the sign that says “No Tipping”, stop and park up the car on the bank. That whole journey should take you fifteen minutes. I’ll call you then. Let me tell you something else as well, something very important. Do not bring anyone else with you. When you park the car, you’re going to be watched. If anyone else is with you, the whole thing’s off, and that’ll be the last you hear from your boy.’

  Holtz started shouting something but I rang off. I wasn’t prepared to listen to threats.

  ‘Christ, Max,’ said Tugger with a laugh. ‘You were almost scaring me then. You’d make a great film villain, I tell you.’

  ‘Alan Rickman’s got nothing on me, mate. Anyway, you’ve got to be harsh, haven’t you? I don’t want him thinking he’s dealing with amateurs.’

  I called Kalinski back and told him to be at the rendezvous point at 6.45 sharp, then phoned down to Joe. ‘I’ve made contact,’ I told him. ‘He’s driving a black Merc and he’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Joe. ‘If there’s anyone else with him, I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll follow him up, then peel off when it’s sorted, and meet you at the rendezvous.’

  The call ended. Everyone knew what they were doing. Now it was simply a matter of waiting.

  ‘It’s a long time since I’ve used one of these,’ said Tugger, stroking the rifle like it was some sort of cuddly toy. It was one Joe had brought back from the Gulf War in ’91. ‘I think Bosnia was probably the last time, and, Christ, that was years back. A good weapon, though. I can see why the Yanks like it.’

  ‘I think I prefer the AK if I was to be given the choice. Less prone to jamming.’

  ‘You know, Max,’ he said, loading and unloading the rifle’s magazine, ‘I do like chefing, and I reckon I could make a lot of money out of it, especially if I can afford to open up my own place.’

  ‘You make a mean Thai fish curry, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Aye, I know, but …’ He thought about it for a minute, at the same time putting the stock to his shoulder and aiming at an imaginary target among the trees. ‘But it can never give you quite the same sort of buzz as a job of violence does. You know what I mean? You don’t get that sort of excitement out in the normal world.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, remembering the mad adrenalin rush I’d had when I’d been standing in the stairwell of Heavenly Girls, ripping holes out of Fitz and Big Mick. ‘Maybe you don’t.’

  At 6.44 my mobile rang. It was Joe, and he was whispering. ‘He’s here. Looks like he’s alone.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I rang off, then dialled Holtz’s number. It was answered immediately. ‘Stand facing the “No Tipping” sign, five feet away from it.’

  ‘How do I know what’s five feet?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘Just do it. Now turn ninety degrees to the left and start walking, keeping in a straight line. You’ll see the outlines of a path in front of you. Follow it.’

  ‘Where’s my son?’

  ‘I told you, he’s safe and he’s well. Are you on the path?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m on the path. When am I going to see my boy?’

  ‘If the money’s all there, you’ll see him first thing tomorrow morning. He’ll be dropped off somewhere in London, reasonably close to a telephone box.’

  ‘He fucking better be.’

  ‘Keep walking and stop speaking.’

  From his vantage point in the undergrowth, Joe watched as Stefan Holtz turned away and began walking up the wooded incline in the direction of Max and Tugger. Holtz had a mobile to his ear and a large holdall slung over his shoulder. Within a minute he’d disappeared from view, and the forest was silent once again, except for the steady crackle of rain hitting the trees, and the distant hum of traffic. No one else had turned up to follow him and the car he’d been driving, the Merc, was empty.

  He kept listening for a few moments, then, satisfied that Holtz had come alone, he slipped slowly and carefully out of his hiding place, crossed the track from which the Merc had appeared, and started up the path after Holtz, keeping as far back as possible.

  Too late, he heard the noise behind him. The rustle of bushes, the sound of heavy footfalls on muddy ground, and then the terminal, gut-wrenching sensation of the hard metal gun barrel being pushed into the back of his head.

  I saw Holtz emerge from the trees at the bottom of the slope, carrying the holdall. He was about a hundred and fifty yards away. ‘All right, keep walking,’ I told him, and switched off the mobile.

  I turned to Tugger. ‘Here he comes.’ Tugger nodded, and we both pulled on balaclavas. I checked the Glock, gave Holtz another thirty seconds to get nearer, then pushed my way out of the bushes. Fifty yards now separated us.

  Holtz saw me but didn’t quicken his pace, and we clo
sed in on each other as casually as a couple of early-evening strollers. When we were ten feet apart, we both stopped. Holtz looked pissed off. The rain, which was pouring down now, had flattened his iron-grey hair and it was running freely down his grizzled, lined face and onto his khaki raincoat. I’d never seen a picture of him before (Holtz senior, like all his close cohorts, was very camera shy), but thought that he looked a lot like Karl Malden, the veteran actor from seventies cop show The Streets of San Francisco, even down to the bulbous round nose.

  ‘You’ve made a big fucking mistake doing this to me,’ he growled, making no effort to hand over the holdall.

  ‘And you made a big fucking mistake trying to kill me,’ I said, unable to resist letting him know who’d done this to him, even though it effectively meant exiling myself for life. Sometimes you just had to show that you hadn’t been intimidated.

  ‘I don’t even know who the fuck you are behind that poxy mask, so what makes you think I’ve been trying to have you killed? I’ll tell you something, though, you cunt. If I want someone dead, that’s how they end up. Dead. No fucker ever escapes from me.’

  I thought about lifting my balaclava, but that really would have been stupid. But then it struck me that maybe he didn’t know who I was. Maybe I was that insignificant. ‘That holdall looks very heavy,’ I told him. ‘Why don’t I take it off your hands?’

  Holtz managed the beginnings of a smile for the first time. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. ‘No, mate, it ain’t as easy as that. Before you get this cash, I want to see my son. So, get on the phone to whichever cunt’s holding him and get him to drive him down here. Now. Then we’ll see if it’s worth a trade.’

  ‘I don’t want to have to take that bag off you by force, Mr Holtz, but, believe me, I will.’

  ‘No you won’t, son,’ said Holtz, shaking his head. ‘No, you fucking won’t.’

  Tugger had the rifle to his shoulder, the barrel pointing through a gap in a large evergreen bush towards Stefan Holtz. He could see him and Max talking, but Max was making no move to take the holdall. They used to say that Tugger Lewis had a nose for danger, could sense when something bad was going to happen. One time, years back in County Down, five of them had been patrolling in a Land Rover down remote country back roads when they’d seen a car parked in a layby up ahead. Afterwards, he’d said it was just something about the angle it was parked in, slightly skewed with the bonnet pointed towards the road, like someone had abandoned it too quickly, that had caught his attention. But it wasn’t that. He’d just felt it, known that something was going to happen. He’d told the driver to stop and turn round even though he’d only been a private and the driver was a lance corporal, and the road had been so narrow that any turn was going to require some serious manoeuvring, but something in his tone – the desperation, the sure-fire knowledge that they were driving straight towards their doom – convinced the driver to do what he said. Ten seconds later, while they were still turning round, the IRA man with the remote control, seeing that his targets were escaping, detonated the bomb in the car’s boot. Two of the men in the jeep had been slightly injured, but no one was complaining. If they’d been driving past it, the impact of the blast would have killed them all.