by Andy Remic
He rubbed weary eyes. ‘Come on, Mia, answer the phone. Just this once. Be a good girl, come on, answer answer answer...’
‘Hello, this is Mia...’
‘Mia, it’s Callaghan,’ he snapped. ‘Listen...’
‘I’m not in at the moment, but if you’d like to leave a message – hell, you know what to do.’
Callaghan stared at the handset in disgust. An answer machine? A fucking answer machine? Since when did Mia use a fucking answer machine? So much for the kick–ass rebel in–your–face dancing don’t–give–a–flying–shite–about–nobody bitch queen from New Orleans he knew and loved and mauled. So much for the damned maverick!
‘Mia, it’s Callaghan. Listen, the creep I was telling you about, he’s gone mad, killed some people, I’m caught up in the middle of it. The important thing is – DO – NOT – GO – TO – MY – PENTHOUSE. If you’ve got any problems, call this guy – DI Bronagh – he’s Met police, he’ll sort you out. I’ll try and get over to your place as soon as I can... look, just look out for yourself, take that MACE spray with you, the illegal one you brought back from Vietnam. Anybody so much as sniffs you, spray the bastard’s eyes out. OK?’
He hung up. Stared at the phone.
Guilt gnawed him.
Volos had said her name, hadn’t he? The bastard had already tagged her for future domination. Cal rubbed his temples. His whole head was awash with confusion. He no longer knew which damned way was up. Think, he told himself. Volos knew her. Used her as a threat. What had he said? Something about seeing her cavort around a pole – how it aroused him. An inherent threat, yes; a first–rate brain–job, a shafting of the tallest order. The implication was that Volos knew where to find Mia. And – why not? Why would he lie?
Now, Cal had left her a message? Yeah. Some hero. Straight to the rescue.
Cal calmed himself. Phone Jimmy. Warn Jimmy. Then ride down to Mia’s, find her, check she’s OK. Her flat was also a good place to hideout; just in case Vladimir was still on the scene and looking for a meaty slice of Callaghan pie.
He pushed more money into the slot. The phone rang. ‘Come on Jimmy, pick–up, pick–up.’
It rang. And rang. And rang.
Callaghan got a cold feeling inside. He chastised himself. Stop being a dick – only a few minutes ago Volos was behind you, slipping and sliding at a hundred miles an hour in the damned snow! He’s either crashed, is crimson spaghetti entwined with a truck’s rear diff, or even now is sitting on the hard shoulder whimpering like a baby because he couldn’t keep up. Jimmy can’t be in any danger. He just can’t be. He’s still at the pub, locked in a lock–in, pissed out of his battered old skull on the whisky he loves so well.
But still – Cal felt cold.
Plan of action: Mia, then Jimmy. Then Sophie? Shit, when did my damned life get so complicated? When you started fucking somebody else’s wife, said a little comedy demon at the back of his flapping brain. When you started pissing on territory owned by a Romanian gun–runner, and when you started playing spin the bottle with a serial killing serial killer. Need any more reasons to explain the intricate web of life and death your world has become?
Glancing nervously over his shoulder, Cal pulled on his helmet, pulled on his gloves with a wince as leather snagged fresh wounds; he fired the bike with a rumble and blat of exhaust smoke, and cut fresh lines through the now heavily falling snow.
The large black Mercedes pulled in at the kerb, engine idling. White settled on slick metal. Windscreen wipers thumped a compact of snow against the bonnet.
Vladimir walked along the pavement, one hand held against his ribs, free hand clutching a silenced pistol. His recently handsome face was a vision of agony, bruised and bloodied, his glittering dark eyes focused and brooding and intent.
A window slid down – a fraction. ‘What happened?’
Vlad grimaced. ‘Volos turned up. Killed my men. All of them. I... I almost had him. Almost...’
‘Volos? That fucker.’
‘I nearly had him.’
‘Nearly isn’t good enough, Vladimir. Get in.’
Vlad opened the door, wincing, and threw his pistol into the foot–well. He stared across at the woman – with her velvet waterfall of dark hair, her wide generous mouth, her cold opal eyes – fixed on him with pity, with scorn, with aversion, with contempt.
‘And Vladimir?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t get any fucking blood on the seats,’ said Sophie.
It’s like a game. Cat and mouse. Snakes and ladders. Pitfall. All life is a game. Life and death. Love and religion. Hunter and hunted. Killer and killed. And that’s me, standing in the snow, silent, motionless, waiting. I am The Hunter. One of The Hunters. But... Once, a long time ago before the reversal – I was the hunted. I shiver at distant memories. Remember the savage beatings. Continual attempts to kill me. They cut my throat. Smashed out my teeth. Slit my wrists. Set me on fire. They said I was different. A freak. A devil. Abomination... an abomination under God. I laughed at that; it was their fucking God, not mine. So how could I be an abomination?
I watch the snowfall. It gives me peace.
London is silent, blanketed, muffled. Behind me, the bike ticks softly as metal cools. I glance back, frown at scratches and dents from when I threw the bike at Vladimir’s men. But I... had to. Had to keep him alive. Had to help make him... strong.
Callaghan. Your destiny lies with me!
Laughter echoes across the road – now an inch deep in snow, and still falling. The lights of the pub are bright through frosted windows despite this late hour. I can see silhouettes moving behind glass. The lock–in revellers are doing little to disguise their illegal drinking; but then, what sensible policeman is out in this?
I lean against the wall, old Victorian red–brick rasping against my long leather coat. I wrap the coat more tightly about me; it is my armour, my protector, my shield. Tiredness is flooding my veins, pounding softly at my head. The headaches don’t come as much as they used to; but when they do, they crucify me into a pit of catalepsy.
A glass smashes. Shouting. More laughter.
I wait. I am patient like that.
I have always been patient. Sometimes, it is the way it has to be.
I think about Callaghan; poor poor Callaghan. His destiny, his fate, it is sealed. And the poor man doesn’t see it; cannot see it. And yet it’s there – for him to understand, as clear as the sun is bright, his future mapped out as readily as any cast–iron rock–solid certainty. It’s there in his dreams. When She comes to him. When She helps him.
Yes.
I smile. The snow continues to fall.
It was necessary to leave him, back on the motorway slip–road. I had served my purpose, halted Vladimir, stopped him murdering my helpless little infant, my weak–willed spineless protégé. And Vladimir would have killed; without a doubt. He would have sliced Callaghan up good. Because... now he knows. Before, it was suspicion. Now, it is fact.
Damn him. Vladimir has long been a thorn in my side. A thistle in my paw. A fly in my ointment. But soon – soon I will take out the time to hunt him down... I will smear him into a fucking paste and watch him burn on a pyre built from his own etched bones.
Soon.
The door across the road opens, slams shut against the frame making glass rattle. A man staggers free of an alcoholic womb, stands for a moment swaying, looking around, then moves to a darkened doorway and urinates, one hand leaning against the brickwork with a smoking cigarette, plumes of steam rising around him as he quietly sings an old Scottish drinking anthem. He steps back, farts, and staggers off down the street.
I move carefully from shadows, long coat wrapped around me, and with my head bowed against the snow I follow Jimmy through the silent winter wonderland.
Jimmy took a drag on his narrow cigarette, and realised in annoyance that the home–rolled specimen had gone out. He stopped, swaying, frowning, and dug for his lighter through kipple–filled pockets
.
‘Y’basturt.’
Lighting the weed with a struggle, Jimmy looked back over his shoulder; a twitch of paranoia. The snow fell thickly, a white veil suffocating the city. Jimmy reached up, pressed at his bruised and cut face, touched once more the damaged nose; then staggered off through the fall.
‘Jumped by ten of ‘em!’ he muttered. ‘Sent ‘em all packing! You think I look bad? Jeez! You should have seen their fuckin’ mushes!’ He stopped again, urinated against a wall for a second time. Zipped himself up cursing dribbles of piss on his pants and boots.
‘Y’basturt, ye. Don’t buy it, ye rent it!’
Slowly, he made his way to his home, a small terraced house down an innocuous cloned street. He stopped a couple of times, unease pricking through his drunken stupor; glanced around. But the snow was a shroud; a fog of war. It hid everything within a ten feet radius. Muffled the world into a silent coffin.
Jim dropped his key on the doorstep. Crawled around for a while on his hands and knees, singing again, then levered himself up and fumbled with the lock. For some reason, the key had a rubber mind of its own and it took great willpower to get this simple operation operating. With a click the door fell inwards, Jimmy close behind, and he lay there for a while with snow drifting in through the open portal. He snored, snorted, opened his eyes as his legs became covered in snow and grew cold. With a start he came awake, kicked shut the door, and somehow made it on hands and knees up the stairs.
‘Want some chips,’ he muttered, but deep down knew he was too drunk to light the gas, to find the chip pan, to deep–fry the chips. On three previous occasions he had set fire to his kitchen. On two of those occasions, he had burned down his house. With beer inside him, he could be that sort of idiot.
Jimmy fell into his bed, fully clothed.
He managed to kick off one boot...
Then he was lost to a symphony of snoring.
‘Chips?’
Jimmy’s eyes opened and he became – instantly – awake. The room was dark, incredibly cold; pins and needles rioted through his right arm where it lay trapped beneath his stagnant bulk.
Despite the pain, Jim did not move. His nostrils twitched. Something was wrong. Out of place. A smell. A smell that prickled through waves of inebriation to tell him... tell him everything wasn’t all right in the world. Something was seriously out of joint. Jimmy’s eyes wandered the room. Everything seemed in its right place – nothing had moved.
He could smell himself, of course. Beer, sweat, piss. But the other smell, the new smell cut through these odours with a tangy, piercing, scalpel quality. What was it? What the hell was it?
Petrol.
Jimmy moved fast, sitting up with danger signals flaring but something flashed before him, a blur, slammed his face and knocked him back against the bed and he was instantly down and out. He swam through a black oil lake. It went on for a long time, and when he gradually surfaced through ripples of consciousness, darkness eased back from his eyes into an atmosphere of... pain. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the gloom. In sudden terror, he realised his arms and legs were tied.
Again, the figure moved and Jimmy flinched, realising with an injection of pure raw fear that it was Volos, the killer, the murderer, and he had invaded Jimmy’s bedroom and tied him up and Mary mother of God, what was he doing?
Volos held a plastic can. He shook it, a strange smile on his face.
‘Recognise this?’
‘What ye want?’ Jimmy slurred.
Volos unscrewed the cap with long, taloned fingers, and started to pour the petrol over Jimmy. It sloshed over him, soaked his clothes and he began to shout, to thrash, to struggle. The petrol burned his skin, splashed his eyes and he screamed, blinded, thrashing madly now, kicking out with his clamped feet but Volos stepped back and bent, placing the now empty can on the carpeted floor. He produced a Zippo lighter.
Jimmy’s thrashing halted, red–rimmed eyes fixed on that lighter. His mouth hung open, gasping, choking on petrol fumes. But he focused. Now, his voice had clarity. Alcohol evaporated from his system.
‘What do you want?’ he said.
Volos snapped open the Zippo. Ignited the flame. Jimmy cringed, pushing himself backwards, an unwilling victim on a roller coaster ride to oblivion. The flame reflected dancing demons, deep in his dark eyes.
‘You acknowledge that you are soaked in petrol. You understand this?’
Jimmy nodded.
‘Your friend, Callaghan, is playing games with me. He’s not being a good little boy. He keeps running away when all I want to do is help him. Well, it’s time for our first journey together. And you are going to help me.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You are going to speak to him.’
‘I am?’
Volos nodded, holding the lighter steady. Jimmy tried to ignore the burning in his eyes. His mouth was drier than desert. He felt piss trickle down his leg.
‘I think, Jimmy–boy, that Callaghan will listen to you this time. He’ll certainly take note of what you have to say. After all... all this time you’ve been deceiving our little Callaghan, haven’t you?’
Jimmy’s eyes remained locked to Volos. His lips were a tight line.
He said nothing.
Volos nodded. The killer smiled, teeth glinting like needles of bone in the light from that single flame. He wafted the lighter gently from left to right, then back again, as if exploring an underground cavern.
‘Yes. He’ll listen to you... betrayer.’
‘Fuck you, Volos.’
‘And he’ll especially listen to you... if you’re on fire.’
CHAPTER NINE
TIGER, TIGER
DI BRONAGH WAS dog–tired and aching as he captained his Volvo up the long gravel drive, parked in the darkness and glanced at the welcoming lights of the double–fronted red–brick Victorian house. Behind, iron gates clanged shut like jaws giving him the secure environment he craved... away from the public, the diseased, dirty, filthy public and their warped and twisted acceptance of all shit unholy. Bronagh smiled in the gloom of the interior. He lit a cigarette, savouring smoke and composing scattered thoughts.
Callaghan. Volos. Mia. Vladimir. Sophie. Bronagh shook his head, thinking back to one of his Detectives – Bevalaqua – proudly scattering the sheaf of grainy photos across the DI’s desk. ‘Found her,’ Bevalaqua had said with a narrow smile. ‘Sophie. Wife of a big bastard called Vladimir, naughty East European schoolboy suspected of gun–running and other dodgy crimes against humanity. Our boy Callaghan has been dipping his little willy in places he shouldn’t. This, then, links us back to the incident near Stratford; that farmer shot dead in the road along with two suited “heavies” – also, coincidentally – from Vladimir’s homeland, Romania.’
‘Well done,’ Bronagh said through curls of smoke. ‘You did well, Bev.’
Bevalaqua saluted crookedly. ‘Just doing my job, sir.’
‘Go get some sleep, boy–o. You’ve earned it.’
Now, Bronagh stared down at the photos of Sophie in his lap. She was beautiful. Stunning, in fact. Bronagh shook his head. Callaghan. What have you been getting yourself into?
Bronagh crunched up the drive, yellow light from four large bay windows spilling out like honey to soften his harsh features. He opened the door – and she was there, little Donna, ‘Daddy!’ with a squeal and stomping stampede, leaping into his arms and nuzzling under his unshaved chin.
‘Hiya, little one,’ he kissed the top of her head. ‘You been a good girl for mummy?’
‘Daddy!’ she chastised. ‘You know I’m never a good girl for mummy! We’ve been baking, making gingerbread men do you want to try one I think you should try one we made a really funny one and mummy said it looked like you but we gave it to Bruno and he ate it all up.’ She beamed, gasping for breath.
‘Busy day, huh?’ He lifted her to the floor, groaning as his back creaked. ‘You’re getting too heavy to be jumping on me, you monkey. You’re turning into
a right little porker!’
‘Dad! That’s awful.’
He dropped his briefcase by the foot of the stairs and Donna dragged him through to the kitchen.
‘Hi love.’
Bronagh crossed to Beth, gave her a kiss and a hug round the waist. ‘What’s cooking?’
‘Beef stew.’
‘Yummy.’ He nibbled her ear. ‘I missed you.’
‘Get off, you big oaf. I’m covered in flour.’
‘Flour, hmm?’ He swung her round the kitchen. ‘I love it when you cover yourself in that filth. Makes me want to rip off your clothes and put you in the bath.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Mummy says you were drinking dirty beer again last night,’ tutted Donna, from where she’d crossed to check on her cooking gingerbread. ‘I think policemen shouldn’t be allowed to drink dirty beer.’
‘Why not, you cheeky little donkey?’ Bronagh grinned at the sincere look on his six–year–old’s face.
‘Because I think it makes you do all silly things like that time you fell in the swimming pool in Florida and couldn’t get out again and mummy had to get Uncle Bill to help.’
‘OK, OK,’ Bronagh held his hands up. ‘Guilty as charged. No more dirty beer for this good, honest policeman.’ His eyes met with Beth’s, a sliver of seriousness, which passed, and she kissed him.
‘There’s a present for you,’ said Beth,
‘For me?’
‘Yeah. Down in the cellar. In your workshop.’
‘Ahh, arrived at last. Excellent. Did my present cause any problems?’
