The Bone Field

by Simon Kernick

  Seeing my movement, the two goons pulled harder, and I only just managed to grab the handle in time and yank it free. Then I sat up suddenly and swung it in a short, vicious arc, slicing the shins of both goons.

  The blade was razor sharp and the cuts were deep, and they both yelped in pain and jumped backwards, giving me just enough time to turn round and leap to my feet. I ran across the coffee table, just managing to dodge the arm of one of the uninjured goons as he tried to grab my collar and yank me backwards, leaped off at the end, and then I was sprinting for the steps leading up to the bedroom.

  ‘Get him!’ I heard Kalaman yell and, to him, it must have looked like I was heading straight into a dead end. My apartment’s almost completely open-plan and it ends at the bedroom on the mezzanine floor. I could hear the one who’d tried to grab me close behind as I ran up the steps, taking them two at a time. I ran past the bed, dropping the bloodied knife, and pulled out the drawer on the bedside table, grabbing the gun inside and turning it on my pursuers.

  The nearest goon was almost on me, only a few feet away at the end of the bed. The other uninjured one was at the top of the steps. But they both stopped dead when they saw the gun. But then people always do, especially when the man holding it has the kind of confident expression I now had.

  I’ll be honest. The gun was an air pistol, but it was the perfect replica of a long-barrelled Browning and a very effective deterrent.

  ‘Everyone back away nice and slowly,’ I said.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot anyone in here,’ said the lead goon, but the tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t going to be the one to prove that theory.

  I smiled. ‘You know my record. You know how many people I’ve killed. Do you really want to take the risk? Now, get your hands in the air and walk backwards, both of you.’

  ‘You’ll pay for this,’ said the goon, but they both started retreating back down the steps just the same.

  I walked over to the top of the steps and turned the gun towards Cem Kalaman, who stood staring at me, a vaguely amused expression on his face, while the two injured goons sat on my floor looking pissed off as they tried to stop the bleeding from their leg cuts.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Kalaman. ‘I didn’t think you’d do that.’

  ‘Take the phone I just handed back to you out of your pocket, drop it on the floor, and kick it away from you.’

  Still smiling, Kalaman shook his head. ‘No. It doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘I’m the one with the gun, so I say how it works.’

  The smile disappeared, replaced by the venomous look I’d seen earlier. ‘Shoot me then.’

  I kept the gun trained on him, my hand steady.

  ‘Go on, cunt. Pull the trigger.’

  The way I was feeling I probably would have done if I’d actually had any live rounds in there, but the single pellet inside wouldn’t give him more than a nasty cut, even if I could hit him from where I was standing.

  ‘See, you ain’t got it in you, have you?’ he sneered, the north London in his accent finally coming to the fore. ‘You might talk the talk, but you’re a fucking pussy when it comes down to it.’

  ‘Why don’t you come over with that piece of lead piping and find out?’ I said, unable to resist the challenge. ‘Come on. Come over here. But keep that in your hand so when the police turn up the camera that’s currently filming you can show I acted in self-defence when I blew your fucking head off.’

  All his men were looking at him now, and for just a second I could see that the challenge had shaken him. He wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t fire. And, more importantly, he wasn’t going to risk finding out.

  For a long time we stared at each other. He didn’t move. Neither did I.

  But he was first to blink. With a snarl, he stormed over to my widescreen TV and used the piping to smash it with a single ferocious blow. Then he turned to his men. ‘Come on, move it. Let’s go.’ The two injured ones slowly got to their feet, with help from their friends, leaving blood on my floor, and slowly they filed out of the door while I continued to watch them.

  Kalaman was last out, and before he left, he turned to me one last time. He didn’t speak, but I could see the rage pulsating out of him. All the earlier presence, the menacing authority, had disappeared, and what was left was a nasty, frustrated and vengeful child in a man’s body. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. It was almost as if he was too angry to speak. But his eyes said it all.

  And I knew then that, whatever happened going forward, I was going to have to kill this man, because otherwise he would kill me, even if it cost him the whole world.

  Forty-three

  It was a sunny early evening and Ramon was standing on the street just outside his block as Junior pulled up in his 4×4. The death of Anton Walters the previous night, and the meeting earlier with Dan the Pig and his friend, and the way the friend had wanted to know about missing girls, had got Ramon very jittery. Things were running completely out of his control, and he had a very bad feeling the whole situation wasn’t going to end well. So he was nervous as he got into Junior’s car, half expecting someone in the back seat to put a bullet in his head, like they’d done in one of his favourite all-time movies, The Godfather.

  Junior pulled away without speaking, or looking at him, and Ramon stared at him, trying to gauge his mood.

  ‘Are you all right, bruv?’

  ‘I’m jumpy, bruv,’ Junior replied. ‘That boy that got killed last night in Hackney, he was one of ours, and everyone wants to know why the Feds went for him. Everything’s just a bit hectic right now.’

  Ramon bristled. ‘Shit, man. Seriously? I heard they had a bit of a riot over there last night.’

  ‘Yeah. People are fucking angry, man. Anton was a good boy.’

  ‘Any ideas why the Feds went for him?’

  Junior snorted. ‘None you need to know about.’

  ‘Why not? Don’t you trust me or something?’

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ramon regretted them. Junior looked at him, and something in his eyes didn’t seem right.

  ‘Yeah, course I do,’ he said. ‘But I told you before, Ramon. You ask too many questions. Just keep quiet for a bit. I need to think.’

  Ramon wanted to say something else but he decided it was probably best not to, and they drove in silence. They crossed over the North Circular heading north on the A10 towards Edmonton. It wasn’t an area Ramon knew, even though he’d been brought up a couple of miles away, but then he’d never been one to travel widely.

  It must have been ten minutes before Junior spoke again, which wasn’t like him at all. Usually you couldn’t shut the bastard up. ‘Put these on,’ he said, reaching down behind the driver’s seat and throwing a plastic bag on to Ramon’s lap.

  Ramon looked inside. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.

  ‘You need to put on the blindfold and the sunglasses. Just do it, OK? I’ve been told you’re not allowed to see where we’re going.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’re not a part of Jonas’s crew yet. When you are, you won’t have to wear them.’

  Ramon didn’t like this. It meant he still wasn’t one of them. They were stopped at a set of lights and it occurred to him to jump out of the car and make a bolt for it.

  But he didn’t. He’d learned a long time ago that you never back down under pressure. You ride with it. In Ramon’s world, weakness had always meant defeat.

  ‘This is all fucked up,’ he said, putting on the stuff with an angry grunt. ‘Happy now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Junior. ‘That’s better.’ He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘Look, don’t worry about nothing, all right? It’s going to be fine. You’re going to get introduced to the crew, and maybe if you’re real lucky you’ll get initiated. Then you’ll be properly on the inside.’

  Sitting there in the darkness caused by the blindfold, Ramon was glad he had the tracker Dan the Pig had given him tuc
ked into his sock. At least that way if anything did happen the cops would know where he was, and would eventually send some sort of help. He hadn’t brought the two recording devices they’d given him though. That would have been way too risky, and he wasn’t going to be taking any more big risks any time soon. His plan had simply been to get introduced to the crew and go with the flow then report back to Dan the Pig afterwards, but now he was beginning to regret coming along with Junior at all.

  The 4×4 took a few turnings, one after the other, and the sound of traffic outside grew quieter. Finally they stopped, and Junior switched off the engine.

  Ramon reached for the blindfold but Junior put up a hand to stop him. ‘Not yet, mate. Stay there for a second.’

  Ramon stayed where he was while Junior came round the passenger side and helped him out.

  ‘No speaking, OK? Not until the blindfold’s off.’

  Junior took off the shades, then led Ramon by the arm for a few yards before stopping and knocking on a door. It opened straight away and Ramon was led inside. No one was saying anything at all and Ramon could hear his heart beating in his chest. It felt like he was being led into a large room. His footsteps were making a noise on the floor and he could smell a mixture of sweat and cleaning products, which immediately reminded him of prison. And right then, Ramon wished he was back there. At least he’d been safe inside and he’d always known what was going on.

  Junior brought him to a halt, and for a few seconds Ramon stood there in the darkness. He heard footfalls moving away from him, followed by silence.

  ‘How are you doing?’ came a voice a few feet away, loud in the room.

  Ramon recognized it straight away as belonging to Jonas. ‘I’d be a lot happier with this blindfold off.’

  ‘You heard about last night, yeah? The guy who got killed on the Ridgeway Estate?’

  Ramon could hear Jonas coming closer as he spoke. ‘Yeah, I saw it on the news.’

  ‘He was one of ours. He was also in the car with you and me yesterday.’

  Ramon could feel his stomach churn and he had a sudden vision of the scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci walks into the room thinking he’s going to become a made man and gets a bullet in the back of the head instead. Ramon felt like he was going to shit his pants but he didn’t show it. He knew that if he did, he was dead. It was that simple.

  Instead he forced himself to speak and to stay confident. You always had to stay confident. ‘Shit, man. Your driver? That’s bad news.’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ said Jonas, who was only inches away now.

  ‘So what’s that got to do with me?’

  There was a silence. Ramon counted in his head. One. Two. Three.

  If it was going to happen, it was going to happen now.

  Four. Five.

  ‘You ain’t a snitch are you, Ramon?’

  Ramon felt a desperate desire to run but he knew he wouldn’t get five feet before they killed him. He was going to have to stand his ground.

  ‘What the fuck you talking about, man?’ he demanded. ‘Course I’m not. I never talked to a Fed in my life and anyone says otherwise better show his face right now because I’m going to kill the fucker.’

  Silence again. Ramon restarted the count. Six. Seven.

  He felt someone else come in very close, could hear their breathing, knew it wasn’t Junior because the breath didn’t stink … and then, a second later, the blindfold was yanked off and he was blinking against the light.

  It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, and then he looked around. He was in a big, bare room with concrete floors and walls. Some chains hung down from one of the walls and there was a big dark stain on the floor below them that looked a lot like blood. There were three other men in the room. One was Junior. The second was Jonas.

  And, standing away from them, was the third man. He was dressed in a dark suit and hat, and he was older, maybe in his sixties, with slicked-back grey hair and pale skin. His face was ordinary enough – it was almost blank-looking and hard to describe – but straight away Ramon could tell that he was the man in charge. It was the way he held himself, and the way the other two seemed wary of him as he walked over, especially Junior, who’d gone even paler than normal and was standing off to one side, looking down at the ground.

  The old man was watching Ramon like a cat watches a mouse, a slight smile on his face, like he knew all of Ramon’s secrets. He stopped directly in front of Ramon, looking up into his eyes. He smelled bad, like mouldy clothes, and Ramon’s nostrils twitched. Something about this man made him want to look away, but he forced himself to meet his gaze.

  ‘My name’s Mr Bone,’ said the man, putting out a long, thin hand bulging with veins.

  Reluctantly, Ramon took the man’s hand, forcing himself to retain eye contact. The hand felt warm and slick in his, and he found himself breathing faster, his own body getting colder, as if the energy was being sucked out of it.

  ‘I’m Ramon,’ he said, conscious that he sounded like a kid talking to a grown-up.

  ‘I know,’ said the man, holding the grip for a long moment, before finally letting go and turning away. ‘And you’re Junior, aren’t you?’ he said, walking over to where Junior stood, looking terrified. ‘I’ve heard your name before.’

  Junior nodded and shook the hand that was offered to him.

  ‘I would say it is good to meet you both,’ said the man, taking a couple of steps back and looking at them both in turn, ‘but the reason you’re here is that we have a problem within our organization. A leak has appeared. Someone is talking to the police and telling them our secrets.’ He paused, his eyes narrowing. ‘And I think it’s one of you two.’

  Ramon and Junior both started to speak, eager to get their defences in while they still could, but the man raised a hand to stop them. At the same time, Jonas pulled a huge pistol from the back of his jeans and began screwing a silencer on to the end of it.

  Ramon heard movement behind him. He turned his head and saw that two more men had appeared in the doorway. They both had guns with silencers attached too. His legs felt weak, the sweat cold on his forehead. He’d been in bad situations before, but nothing had felt as bad as this. The life he’d led had been a pretty crap one so far, but the one thing he knew for certain was that he wanted to carry on living it.

  ‘Hold on, can I speak? Please?’ said Junior. ‘I thought this was about him, not me. I’ve been a part of the outfit for years. I’ve paid my dues.’ He nodded towards Ramon. ‘He’s been here a few months. Jonas, you told me this was a set-up this morning. That we were going to do him.’

  Ramon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Junior, his so-called mate, had brought him here to be killed. Ramon started towards him, furious, wanting to rip his throat out, but Jonas pointed the gun at him.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered, his words echoing off the bare stone walls. ‘Move another inch and I’ll put a bullet in your gut.’

  Ramon froze. Jonas looked serious.

  The man in the suit, Mr Bone, stared at Ramon. ‘I hear you killed someone when you were a young man,’ he said.

  Ramon controlled his breathing, fought the anger and the fear he felt. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How long did you serve in prison?’

  ‘Fourteen years.’

  ‘Did you cooperate with the authorities at all?’

  ‘Never.’

  The man nodded slowly, then walked over to Junior. ‘And what about you? How many years have you spent in prison?’

  ‘I’ve been in—’

  The man’s hand flew up from his side so fast all Ramon saw was a glint of metal, even though he was watching the two of them intently, and then Junior’s whole face seemed to open up. For a second the flesh seemed to hang there in the air, leaving behind a huge, perfectly straight gash, and then the blood came pouring down.

  With a wail of shock and pain, Junior grabbed at his ruined face with both hands, stumbling round like a drunk man as the blood sp
lashed on the floor. He didn’t see Jonas come striding towards him, gun outstretched, and shoot him in the foot.

  Junior shrieked, hopping backwards on his good foot before falling to the floor, still clutching his face in both hands.

  ‘You’re a fucking loudmouth, Junior, you always have been,’ said Jonas, standing above him. He launched a kick into Junior’s back that moved him a good two feet along the floor. ‘That’s for Anton, you piece of shit.’

  Jonas turned and strode over to Ramon, his eyes dark and wild.

  Ramon had seen that look before plenty of times. The joy of violence.

  ‘You want to be one of us?’ he demanded, getting right up close, his nostrils flaring. ‘Do you?’

  Some deep-down instinct told Ramon the danger had passed. That he was safe tonight. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I do.’

  Jonas thrust the gun into his right hand. ‘Then kill this backstabbing bitch.’

  On the floor, Junior was whimpering with pain. Ramon walked over and stood over him, conscious that Jonas and Mr Bone were both watching him intently. The knife Mr Bone had used on Junior was still in his hand. Blood dripped from the blade on to the cement floor.

  Ramon took a deep breath. The gun felt good in his hand. It gave him power. He pointed it down at Junior’s head. Junior looked up at him from behind his bloodied hands, his eyes wide with fear.

  Ramon knew that if he didn’t kill him, he probably wouldn’t get out of there alive himself. The two men on the door had their guns raised ready to fire and they were only a few yards away. They wouldn’t miss. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jonas take something out of his pocket and point it towards him.

  It was a phone. Jonas was going to film the killing.

  If he shot Junior, Jonas and his crew would have him, and it wouldn’t take long for Dan the Pig and his Fed friends to find out what had happened and they’d have him back in prison like a shot.