Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3)

by Lewis Hastings

  Ten thousand pounds a day. Not bad for men who didn’t pay tax – anywhere.

  Constantin smiled a fractured and painful smile – the taste of blood ever-present.

  “Get the little mice scuttling and the rats will surely follow.”

  Sat in the front passenger seat of the van with the heater on, he was enjoying the freedom of being able to function without being discovered and more so, the freedom from his mistress – heroin. Resembling any busy man that worked in the city he was looking forward to getting home – in his case back to the old factory, with its brambles and flaking beige walls, puddled floors and a long-forgotten sense of industry – and where he had plans that excited him.

  On the way back, mirroring the Thames, he had one more job to plan. This would involve another element of his team – three men who had been living in a cheap rental for the last few weeks, waiting for the call. Until now, they had never met. Their task was simple. Carrying it out without being identified and caught was another thing altogether. Constantin had used the same caveat with them as Alex had used with him. Get caught, you are on your own.

  He met the three men in a lay-by on the road outside the town of Bexley. One was older, ex-military but disillusioned and looking for greater financial reward, the other two, easily led.

  They swapped vehicles. Constantin left the Ford behind and headed back towards the factory in the white Mercedes Sprinter van. Now they were just another courier, another delivery driver or trades team. Now they were anonymous.

  At Scotland Yard, a red motorcycle started at the touch of a button. Its rider carried out a few pre-ride checks and accelerated away, heading home. He always enjoyed the ride home.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It got dark early in England in January. It started dark; it ended dark, by four, four thirty at the latest, it felt as if the light had faded for the day. Street lights self-started, their timers breathing life into the sodium bulbs that cast a sulphurous glow across the highways. Curtains drew, fires were lit and doors locked. Here and there a car would be covered to prevent the penetrative frost from delaying the next commute. The world closed itself off from its neighbours and the weather and shuffled about trying to get warm.

  As Constantin and his small team made their way north east to their temporary home, gathering food from a cheap supermarket where security looked to be a secondary concern, he knew that in ten or fifteen minutes his new team would strike. Later they would abandon their vehicle and be picked up by yet more associates.

  They were becoming viral. And he liked that very much.

  It was now dark. A red motorcycle negotiated traffic on the faster stretches of the road south, out of London. Its rider was at one with the machine.

  Detective Constable Steve ‘Church’ Hall had joined the police as a cadet. He’d lost count of how many years he had served, and unlike many of his colleagues, he was dreading the day he had to retire – he was counting how many pay packets he could prise out of his employer rather than how many were left.

  Married to the job and a stream of girlfriends that never became a wife, he had fashioned a life that was a mixture of singles holidays and a great social network, where he was always invited as the plus one and habitually the life of the party.

  He had a love of great wine. His favourite was a beautiful red, a Pinot Noir, the vineyard in the stunning southern reaches of New Zealand that crafted it was called Mt Difficulty – it was a great name, after a mountain, near a bluff and a stream that made going tough, back in the pioneer days when men were men and women, were glad of it, or so the tales went.

  He as good as worshipped it as a wine, better than its French counterparts, and please, don’t even mention the others. He set a plan to visit one day and sip slowly on a glass, or two, by an open fire, watching the tantalising streams of liquid rouge clinging to the glass.

  His personal favourite in their range was called Roaring Meg. His old and short-term boss, Jack Cade had told him a tale or two about it and even ordered a bottle to be delivered to Hall’s cottage, for a job well done but long forgotten. If Cade was the sommelier and Meg was the drug, then as a dealer he had got Hall hooked.

  Roaring Meg. His mind often deliberated. He liked the name as much as he liked the contents, had no idea whether it was named after a girl or a waterfall. He chose the former and wanted to meet this petite girl one day, this Meg, he imagined her to have caramel coloured hair and spirited eyes, green probably, and with a sense of adventure – fantasised that she’d like nothing more than storming down an alpine road on the back of his bike, her perfect, powerful legs wrapped around his, feeling the power of the bike beneath her.

  If Meg was his lover, then motorbikes – of which he had four, were his real mistress. He hated cars; they were for people that had never tasted the thrill of speed upon the tip of their tongues, had never smelt the anaesthesia that foretold an imminent crash on a blind bend, the shiver on the neckline, the twitch of the machine as it fought, hand in hand with its rider to prevent the latter from crossing the bridge and entering the kingdom of the born again biker.

  He had bought a rundown cottage on the edge of Bexley, a commuter town in the upper reaches of Kent, and within striking range of his work for the Metropolitan Police.

  Six foot two, broad shoulders, grey-blue eyes and as he called it, matching hair, he was a good-looking man who should have found a mate by now. Even his mother asked if he was gay – not that it mattered, of course.

  Hall had joined the police, carried out his two years’ probation, then joined the Traffic Department, where, within a few months he was fortunate enough to get a place on the motorcycle course. He had fallen for the temptation of speed and independence and never looked back. Actually, that part was untrue, Steve always looked back, and sideways. As such, his record was one hundred percent safe.

  He was always thinking about safety. As he swerved to avoid a white van that pulled into his path, in the dark on that weekday evening it was at the forefront of his acute mind. He hit the brakes hard, balancing them expertly, no time to sound the horn, yelling a muffled ‘wanker’ and raising a left hand in defiance was all he could do.

  He could stop and remonstrate, but what was the point? The driver looked foreign. Probably didn’t have insurance either. Bastard. He should, but he couldn’t be bothered. Tomorrow was another day, and he was tired. Operation Orion was taking it out of him.

  Orion, a computer generated name from the police system, was perfect for their task of hunting down criminals, however its long hours and little success had begun to take their toll. Working for Jason Roberts was always fun though, and getting to his stage in his police career and still having fun was worth celebrating.

  ‘Wanker’ he said again, subdued by the insulation of his Shoei helmet. He indicated and turned right onto Stable Lane, towards a small hamlet, out into the countryside that joined it to the town. He was gently winding down, thinking about work, watching the road.

  The new operation was at least interesting. They had some new people arriving each day, and Roberts had enthused about Cade and Daniel arriving back in the city. Things were looking up and with the Home Secretary herself signing the cheques it rarely got better.

  Catching the team before they struck was their goal, and Hall wanted to be at the forefront. His boss DS Bridie McGee was a saint. A naturally lovely person – the only woman he had actually fancied, probably truly loved in years – she allowed Hall a sense of leeway that few others achieved. But then few others worked the hours he did, or showed the level of commitment he did. She loved him too. But not in that way.

  His new focus of affection was a Honda Fireblade or CBR1000RR, to be precise. Bright red. He wanted the black but knew he was better off visible than dead.

  As road bikes went, and he’d had a few, it was his favourite. Ultra-responsive, super reliable and those brakes, as responsive as a high-class hooker on cocaine. He always said they could stop him before he started. And
they just had back in the town where he only ever went for a few groceries and an occasional pint of beer.

  He accelerated, loved to hear the sound of the bike, exhaust sounds ricocheting off the trees that stood guard either side of the road.

  They were ready. The wire was tied around one tree. Rigid. The other end was loose enough to manipulate, waiting for the sound of the bike – just as they had on two previous nights. Their target was a creature of habit, started early, worked late. Died, middle-aged.

  Bright lights. Fiercely bright. ‘Turn them off, you arsehole!’

  He shook his head twice, and that was the last thing he ever did.

  The blackened wire had come up, quick, well-rehearsed. At sixty-five miles an hour Hall was hardly breaking the sound barrier, but when the wire collided with his collar bones it was enough, it catapulted him backwards, in a vicious decelerative move causing him to resemble a rag doll, thrown around by its owner, the Pitbull.

  Instead of thinking about Bridie McGee or Roaring Meg, or even his dear old mum, or his new bike, or England’s green and pleasant land, his last word was arsehole. What a bloody awful ending. He would find the bastard that did this and if he somehow ever defrauded his way into heaven, he’d break his bloody neck too.

  The worker looked up, then along the road. She left the van, running, called his name, panicked, unsure whether to remove his helmet, felt for a pulse, scrabbled for a sign of life, looked around, pointlessly, fumbled in her pocket for a phone that wasn’t there, then ran back to the stables, leaving her van in situ, hoping that it would act as a beacon.

  As she ran back up the dark lane, the only sign of life was the rhythmic flash of amber from her hazard lights.

  He’d have spent hours recounting the story, how his bike was so well balanced. The glistening red machine had continued upright for almost eighty metres. Then it began its own descent into chaos, drifting side to side, swaying, slowing and then pulling left into the hedgerow, through it and out the other side, crashing into saplings and finally coming to rest next to a larger tree, one that was always going to win the battle.

  The Honda fared well with minor frontal damage. Its back wheel was still rotating moments later, long after its rider had left this world. For ‘Church’ it wasn’t a case of by the time he hit the road he was dead. He was dead whilst still in the air.

  Steve Hall ended his days on his left side, head down onto the road, almost perversely in the recovery position. There was no exhalation, no final resistance, no blood contusions around his neck and shoulders, but no blood. His leathers and gloves bore the hallmarks of a short-lived fight with nature, and his ending was equally brief.

  The sorrow at his loss would be much more sustained.

  Leather against the road surface, hands grazing tarmac. Machine versus tree. Neither the victor, nor the spoils.

  ‘And I never passed a cry for help.

  Though at times I shook with fear.’

  The initial investigation would struggle to find a reason for the crash. The three-man team had done their job and done it well. Their payment was continuing employment with Alex Stefanescu and respect among their peers.

  Within five minutes they had removed the wire, rubbed soil into the wound that told the tale of a blunt and brutal trauma, a cable that had dug half an inch into the fresh bark and provided the only possible clue to his demise.

  It would take an extensive daylight search by an accident investigation unit to find it. But they would. They were the best, no stone or leaf would remain unturned. Each tree, each bush, every mark on the road surface, plotted, mapped, marked. Their search was wide, expanding in eccentric circles. They figured out how. Now they needed to know why.

  Before long they found the track that led to an adjacent lane, through the woods, tyre marks that eventually aligned to a mid-1990s’ Ford van were located and casts taken – evidence of a vehicle that they would never find.

  It had been ten minutes before ‘Church’ was found by Liz Stevenson, an apprentice from the nearby stables.

  Having left work early she had been sat in the work van, headlights on full beam, engine ticking over as she swept left and right trying to find a mate for the night. So engrossed in her potential choices, she hadn’t even heard the collision.

  ‘Church’ was a just watchman now, guarding his spirit, ensuring it made it to where it belonged. His body lay in black and white leathers, an angel face down on the road with only the feint glow of headlights in the woods marking the last resting place of his bike, his beloved red machine – that he also called Roaring Meg.

  He never heard the quietly spoken words of the stable girl, the pleas for him to live, or the sound of sirens, not even the random patter of raindrops around him.

  He was no longer there.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Steve Hall had spent the night on a cold metal shelf along with every other body in the local morgue. That was the only thing they had in common. His spirit was very much alive. He joked that he didn’t care much for his body anyway, broken as it was.

  ‘What was that smell?’

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘Who is that next to me? Do I even know you?’

  It had been a quiet night, no conversation. No one seemed interested, so he counted the holes in the slab above him until he slept.

  He woke moments later. It was a dream. People grabbing him from the side, below, above.

  ‘Please, just leave me. Leave me alone.’

  He had them, often. He’d be fine by the morning, coffee, a quick bowl of something that was probably bad for him, then a chilly ride back into work where he knew he still made a difference.

  ‘But you are dead, Steve. It’s how it is. You need to realise this, and the sooner you do, the sooner you will learn to cope. You can then enjoy life again.’

  His crime was being part of a team that had poked the bear, shaken the tree or whatever the phrase was. His punishment was an instant and violent death, one that that the doctors told his few relatives had been quick, and painless. But how did they really know?

  It was a punishment that did not fit the crime.

  Steve’s issue, like so many, was that he was far from ready to leave, and that caused a few problems for those that managed the spirit world. He’d just have to learn to live with it.

  DS Bridie McGee had taken the call late that night – Steve Hall’s next of kin was ‘Scotland Yard’ and a phone number. He had done this deliberately to avoid upsetting his elderly mother, who he adored.

  “Boss, it’s Trev. Sorry to wake you.” He wasn’t. It was just something that police staff said as an icebreaker.

  “Just had a call from Kent Police. There’s been an RTA.”

  She tried to figure out why a road traffic accident would warrant a phone call, late at night, to her.

  “Who?” McGee was rubbing her eyes, switching on a bedside light.

  “Church.” One word. He didn’t need to add anything.

  She exhaled, sat up now, swinging her legs out of bed, already unbuttoning her pyjama top – never wore the bottoms.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Where to, boss?”

  It was a rational question. She laughed – it was a release.

  “Good point, sorry Trev, I’ve just woken up. Give me a second.”

  He waited.

  She blew away the metaphorical cobwebs, stood up and spoke normally as there was no one to disturb in her flat. It was at times like this that she wished there was.

  “OK, let’s start again. Where did this happen? How? Injuries? Anyone with him?”

  Trev Meakin was old school, and sometimes old school said it how it was, bluntly. It didn’t make him a lesser person; it was just how his generation of police officers coped.

  “Boss the injuries were fatal.” The sentence hung in the air until it slowly entangled her and started to crush the air from her lungs. She sensed an immediate change, almost a panic. All she could say was, “
Where is he?”

  Meakin filled in the gaps and apologised again.

  “It’s OK, Trev. Thanks for the call. I’m heading there now. Can you let DCI Roberts know? In fact, no, I’ll do that. Can you get a message out to the team? With the exception of late shift, I want everyone in the office tomorrow morning. No excuses.”

  “Absolutely boss. You take care.” Meakin, like everyone else on the team, knew that McGee and Hall were close. No one knew how close, but they had often added two to itself and come up with the wrong answer.

  Less than ten minutes later – despite the fact there was no rush – McGee was dressed and heading south east. Her black de-striped Mini Cooper moved quickly and efficiently across country. She parked in a police bay at the hospital, threw a business card in the dash and made her way to the most sterile looking part of the building. Beige walls, white interior, bright lights, subtle smell of something she couldn’t quite identify. Find that building in a hospital you’ve found the morgue.

  She held her warrant card up against a camera and was allowed in. Half an hour later she was back in her car, sitting silently, window down, wishing she smoked, or drank, or had a vice of some kind.

  His face was perfect. She wanted a look at those eyes once more, but they were closed – thank God. So instead she lowered herself down to him and gently kissed his cheek. His skin was icy, but somehow he looked peaceful. The dichotomy with how he had died did not escape her.

  “He’s far too quiet,” she said, but the mortician was busy doing something else. She went to pull the cover back across his face but couldn’t. She’d leave that for someone else to do. It was incredibly final.

  The Mortician had heard her. He had just learned over the years to let loved ones and visitors do what they needed to do, say what they needed to say, even if it was nonsense, a special phrase or a private joke – he’d even heard confessions.