Stolen

by Paul Finch

  The life they were embarking on would naturally entail many risks, but at least, with this memoir in their possession, they’d be insured against the region’s deadliest syndicate ever turning on them. At the first intimation that the two girls might for any reason be in their employers’ crosshairs, the memoir’s existence would be announced, with the threat that, should anything untoward happen to them, their legal rep would forward it straight to the authorities.

  They tapped on the study door and entered.

  It wasn’t as grand a room as the word ‘study’ might have implied. Originally a bedroom, it still had some of that appearance: a fitted carpet, a smallish window with a Venetian blind, and a wall of wardrobes – though these stood open to reveal a bank of TV monitors displaying live video feeds, not just from the exterior of the property and the cells downstairs, but from the back-to-back lock-ups as well. Instead of a bed there was a large desk, rather ornate, topped with smooth leather and spacious enough to accommodate not only an Anglepoise lamp and desktop computer but a mountain of foolscap sheets, on which Torgau was writing his memoirs in longhand.

  He turned in his swivel chair to face them.

  He was in his late fifties and shortish, no more than five-foot-nine, and these days rather plump, and was wearing his usual round-the-house ensemble of jersey, tracksuit trousers and white tennis shoes. He had a mop of chalk-grey hair and a drooping chalk-grey moustache. Along with his dark-brown, strangely mournful eyes, this gave him the most unthreatening demeanour possible.

  ‘You missed a target tonight,’ he said, in the low, modulated tone he reserved for business discussions, the dark jewels of his eyes fixed on them. This was one thing about Martin Torgau: his gaze. He almost never blinked, which was an unnerving experience when he was watching you, as if there was nothing you were thinking or feeling that he wouldn’t detect. On this occasion, though, he didn’t seem angry or even particularly inquisitive.

  Ivana, who’d already admitted their error by phone, nodded. ‘A police officer intervened.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘We thought it best just to get out of there.’

  He nodded. He’d heard this too, and if he had any concern that a plain-clothes cop on a motorbike was something a little different from the norm, he didn’t let it trouble him for now. There was a more important matter at hand.

  ‘We had a private delivery shortly before midnight,’ he said.

  In Torgau-speak, a ‘private delivery’ was exactly what it sounded like. A private delivery vehicle would have stopped in front of the house, and a man wearing a legitimate uniform would have pushed a package through the mail box.

  That package now lay open at the edge of the desk. As usual, it contained photographs of a certain person, taken from various angles to ensure there’d be no mistake, and printed details: that person’s name, address, workplace, the vehicles they had access to, the hours they kept, and any other essential information. At no point in the document were any terms of contract offered; these had been agreed long before. Nor was any reason given as to why the contract had been taken out; all of that was on a need-to-know basis. It was a question Torgau never asked, in any case, primarily because he didn’t care.

  The two girls shot glances at the tantalising heap of paperwork. They didn’t reach for it yet. They hoped it was for them, but they couldn’t be certain.

  ‘I should tell you both that I don’t consider your training complete,’ Torgau said. ‘Not yet. Not quite. However, here’s a chance for you to resolve that in one fell swoop.’

  He picked up the main sheet and indicated a row of letters printed along the bottom, grouped in threes. To any ordinary person it would be nothing, a typical array of meaningless computer-generated gobbledegook, but again, that was deceptive. The first three letters were ‘d’, ‘s’ and ‘U’, standing for ‘in due course’, ‘soon’ and ‘urgent’. The u being upper-case was self-explanatory.

  ‘It’s a rush job,’ Torgau said. ‘And as you two are still out and about and haven’t had a score yet tonight – for which reason you must be hungry – it seems too good an opportunity to miss. Now listen … as far as I’m concerned, the Lorna Cunningham incident was a one-off. You underestimated her, Alyssa. Killing at close quarters is a skill that needs to be mastered but going one-on-one is always a risk. That’s why I send you out together. Anyway, nothing was really lost, and the snatch itself worked. In addition to which, a cock-up like that went against the grain of your general training, which up until last Sunday has been a story of achievement. The successful hit at the gym was proof that you’re back on track – especially as you plucked it out of thin air. It wasn’t planned, and I wasn’t there to observe, so it’s difficult for me to heap you with unmitigated praise as I don’t know exactly how it went. But it was a good move: you saw a chance and went for it. And now you have another chance … a chance to completely redeem yourselves.’

  The two girls swapped glances.

  ‘But listen to me,’ he said gravely. ‘Be under no illusions, girls … if you let me down on this, it’ll be more than just a case of relegating you back to Category B or even Category C. Do you understand? From this moment, your training is technically over. This is the real thing, and there’ll be real consequences, maybe for all of us, if you let this go belly-up.’

  ‘We won’t let you down … we’re ready,’ Ivana said.

  Torgau glanced at Alyssa, who was bright-eyed with excitement.

  ‘I can’t wait to get back out there,’ she said, to which he raised a warning finger.

  ‘Don’t approach it like that. This is the big league, Alyssa. You need to be professional at all times. Approach this thing coolly and analytically. Because this contract will test you at various levels.’ Again, his finger roved along the line of digits at the bottom. ‘All these scenarios I’ve prepared you for. So it’s vital that you remember your training.’

  The next group of three letters referred to the perceived quality of the target, consisting of ‘s’ for ‘soft’, ‘r’ for ‘potential risk’ and ‘C’, which was upper-case, for ‘carrying’, in other words, ‘armed’. Though the actual method was always up to the contractor, the next group of three requested the specific type of job required: ‘q’ for ‘quick’, ‘s’ for ‘slow’, and ‘T’, upper-case, for ‘torturous’. The final group was not unconnected to the previous one, specifying the manner of disposal: ‘v’ for ‘make him/her completely vanish’, ‘n’ for ‘no particular preference’ and lastly ‘E’, upper-case, for ‘make an example’; in other words, the body had to be found and in a manner that would create horror.

  ‘This kind of job,’ Torgau told his daughters, ‘disposing of someone in a way that sends out an unforgettable message, may seem like the most fun, but it’s the rarest kind of contract we undertake – most often the target must vanish – which makes it the biggest challenge. Enjoy yourselves, of course … that’s what this kind of work is all about …’

  They beamed at him.

  ‘But don’t take it lightly. We’re not playing games any more.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Alyssa said. ‘One thing we definitely won’t be doing, Dad, is playing.’

  In truth, Martin Torgau was not one hundred per cent certain that his daughters were ready for this. As he stood on the landing outside his study and listened to their preparation downstairs, he mulled over several concerns.

  He had no doubt that they were physically very fit and strong, and highly skilled with weapons and in hand-to-hand combat. All of this he had seen to personally over many years. They were also committed to the cause. He’d raised them in the family tradition; they knew no other way and were eager to commence their new, high-paying careers.

  But were they possibly too eager?

  Alyssa in particular was very excitable and sometimes overconfident, as the incident with the Cunningham woman had proved.

  Torgau had made it a prerequisite of their training that they successfully com
plete at least one highly challenging assignment, ‘Category A’ as he termed them, before he’d allow them to take on an actual contract. Though well planned and, for the most part, well executed, and though ultimately the target had been disposed of, the Cunningham hit had nearly gone so catastrophically wrong that it could easily have blown the roof off everything. He’d had no option but to classify it a fail. They’d made up for it since then, admittedly, with the hit at the gymnasium. It had been an on-the-spot thing, Ivana literally taking a chance that came at her out of nowhere, and from the photographic evidence he’d seen and the written report his daughters had given him, it had gone smoothly. He particularly liked it that the so-called meathead was apparently suspected by regulars at the gym of acquiring and selling illegal steroids. So there’d be plenty of blind alleys for the police to follow.

  It sounded like a bang-up job, but it still bothered Torgau a little that he hadn’t been there to see it for himself.

  Up until now, he’d nearly always gone out with them. Mainly as an observer, but also, if required, to provide back-up. He’d go out with them again tonight – to watch and, if necessary, to intervene. But was the fact that they wanted to do it tonight, so soon after the package had arrived, a little worrying in itself?

  Was it another indication of over-enthusiasm?

  As Torgau stood on the landing and listened to their happy chatter, he wondered if he had too much of a blind spot where his girls were concerned. All his life, he’d been the coldest of professionals, and even at home a stern disciplinarian, though he was sure that both Ivana and Alyssa would counter that argument by saying that yes, he’d been hard sometimes, but that also he’d been fair.

  But was he giving them too much leeway here?

  Was it a mistake letting them react to this new development so spontaneously, without thinking it through thoroughly?

  On one hand, it felt as if a lot more planning was required. But on the other, Ivana had already proved that she could think on the hoof. And on yet another, this particular job was marked ‘Urgent’, so it had to be done in the next day or so anyway.

  If Torgau pressed himself, he’d have to admit that any reservations he held were only slight. The girls had done all he’d asked; they’d successfully performed numerous Category C assignments, which was mainly household pets, several Category Bs, non-threatening human specimens, such as pensioners, tramps and the like, and now a Category A, which spoke for itself. In addition to that, there’d been a specific instruction attached to the main file tonight, which he had not revealed to his daughters. Partly, this was because he didn’t like the idea of them learning that he too received orders, but also because this one had come from the very top – and orders from the top even Martin Torgau disobeyed at his peril.

  ‘You know, urgent doesn’t necessarily mean tonight … not if we’re too tired to do it,’ Alyssa said, on the far side of the kitchen, where she was scanning the documentation relating to their first official target.

  Ivana, who was busy spooning coffee into a pair of mugs, was amused to hear her sister’s attempted cool-headed approach. Alyssa was perfect for this line of work, her enthusiasm bubbling over constantly – but that had led her to make mistakes. The Lorna Cunningham thing, for example. Alyssa had insisted that she was past doing Category Bs – indeed, the previous one they’d brought in, that old Hopkins guy, she’d refused to touch, saying Ivana could take care of him herself, with her neck-wire. Alyssa had wanted a real challenge. And then, of course, she’d tried to finish the athlete off alone …

  Even then, though, Ivana felt a special kind of warmth towards Alyssa, not just because they were twins, but because Alyssa was so in awe of her slightly older other half.

  In Alyssa’s mind, Ivana wasn’t just the prudent planner, she could do amazing things at the drop of a hat. Like the meathead. She’d known they’d needed another Category A to impress the old man. And though that would normally take some careful prep, this opportunity had come from nowhere, and she’d planned it all in a matter of minutes. The 10mg of haloperidol they’d hit Cunningham with had needed to be carefully sourced, but ever-ready Ivana always carried lesser drugs around with her – like diazepam, for example. Even then, she’d winged it, instructing Alyssa to bring the van and meet her in the church’s car park rather than at the gym, because she was guessing it would have fewer cameras (in fact, it had turned out to have none). She’d also gambled that they’d be able to lure their target round to the back of the holy building. And yet again, because it was Ivana’s gig, things seemed to have fallen for them. They hadn’t expected to find the pitchfork, or that the church’s rear porch would be open, and it was pure fluke that Alyssa’s voluminous old cagoule had doubled in the darkness for a monkish habit.

  Fluke maybe, fortuitous even … but then fortune often favoured the bold. That was something else about Ivana – at least in Alyssa’s eyes: she was bold, daring. Little wonder the younger girl was so happily led by her – which was why it wasn’t just amusing to see Alyssa adopting the cautious approach now, it was also charming. Because she wasn’t trying to impress her older sister by displaying restraint, she was trying to emulate her.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Alyssa glanced up. ‘We don’t need to do this one straight away, if you don’t want to. It’s very late and we won’t be at our best.’

  Ivana shook her head as she poured the kettle. ‘Nah … we’re dressed, we’re awake. We’ll go out again tonight. Even if it’s just to sus the lay of the land. You never know, an opportunity might arise there and then.’

  Alyssa looked unsure. ‘That might have worked at the gym for the meathead, but this one –’ she waved a fistful of photos ‘– this one’s different.’

  Ivana smiled as she sipped her coffee. ‘I don’t know, doll. A lot of these guys … they all turn out to be meatheads in the end.’

  Alyssa glanced back through the documentation, pursing her lips in thoughtful, grown-up fashion. Ivana smiled again and placed her coffee on the worktop alongside a folded newspaper. It was that day’s edition of the Manchester Evening News.

  Immediately, something on its front page caught her attention.

  She stiffened where she stood, and then grabbed it up.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Alyssa asked.

  Ivana blew out long and slow, mightily relieved that their father tended to have the paper delivered out of habit these days, rather than because he was always in a rush to read it. The story she’d noticed was contained in a box and inset into the bottom left-hand corner of the front page, which explained why he probably hadn’t seen it yet.

  Whatever happened now, he couldn’t be allowed to. Ever.

  ‘Vana, I said, what’s—’

  Ivana offered the paper, one finger indicating the story in question. ‘We have to go out tonight, Lyssa, whatever the circs. Even if we only scope out the target and do nothing else there, we must take care of this.’

  Alyssa read the inset story and shrugged. ‘We can look. But it’s probably nothing.’

  ‘Probably. But we don’t take chances, do we?’

  ‘Suppose not.’

  Ivana turned back to the kettle. ‘Make sure you drink all that coffee, while I make us another one. It’s going to be a long night.’

  Alyssa grinned. ‘No rest for the wicked, eh?’

  Chapter 30

  ‘So … what’s the prognosis?’ Shallicker asked, taking random turns down empty Crowley streets. They’d been driving this way for what seemed like several minutes now, crazily, haphazardly, and this was the first time he’d spoken.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ Lucy said. ‘I’m not a doctor.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Lucy! I just saw you and Cora coming out. I was waiting for you.’

  Her eyes remained locked on the residential roads spooling out in front of them. ‘I’ve been delivering an assault victim to A&E. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Look …’ He’d been chomping a hu
ge wad of peppermint-scented gum, and now bared it, along with several teeth, his massive neck muscles standing out, his sweaty, shovel-like hands gripped on the wheel so tightly that his tendons showed like white bands. ‘Look …’ Apparently, it required an immense, nut-busting effort just to put voice to whatever it was he was trying to say. ‘Look … I might be a scumbag criminal to you, but Frank’s my mate, okay? I’m not just his lackey. We’ve been together for the last twenty-five years. We’ve been through thick and thin … we’ve had each other’s backs in every kind of scrape. Even if you hate me because of my profession, at least fucking respect me as a human being. I’ll ask you one more time … how is he?’

  Ultimately, Lucy didn’t see any value in saying nothing. It was nice to see a bastard like Mick Shallicker squirming, but he was the kind of huge fish, who, when he squirmed could do some serious damage – she knew because she’d seen it for herself.

  ‘He’ll be okay,’ she said. ‘Looks like the bullet bounced off his collar-bone. That’s broken, obviously. But otherwise he’s unhurt.’

  Shallicker almost sagged where he sat. His relief was clearly sincere.

  ‘I’m less sure about Charlie,’ Lucy added. ‘She was undergoing emergency surgery when I left. Whoever it was, they shot her in the left lung.’

  ‘Fuck …’ he breathed.

  ‘It didn’t help that you dumped them on the hospital forecourt like sacks of empties!’

  ‘What the fuck else was I supposed to do?’ He swerved left with shrieking tyres, to avoid sitting at a red light. ‘Call an ambulance? Give a statement? You think Wild Bill would be happy with that?’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll be happy that you took them to the hospital at all. Don’t you have your own doctors for this kind of thing?’

  Shallicker grimaced, as if this was something he’d been wondering about. ‘Yeah … sure. But that’s not something you can arrange on the hoof. And the way Frank and Blondie were bleeding so badly …’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Panicked, didn’t I! Felt sure they were both goners. Only just had time to get them into a disposable vehicle. After that, well … St Winifred’s was only around the corner. Even then, I didn’t think they were going to make it. To answer your question … I’ll still get a bollocking.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘It may be worse than that.’