The Last 10 Seconds: A Novel

by Simon Kernick

  A flimsy chainlink fence surrounded the plot with a Keep Out sign on the unlocked and open gate, and an estate agent’s For Sale sign next to it.

  ‘Looks like Lee’s already here,’ said Haddock as he drove through the gate and up what was left of the gravel driveway before pulling up outside the front door. ‘Right,’ he growled, turning round in his seat, ‘let’s get this filthy scumbag out of here.’

  He and Wolfe jumped out and strode round opposite sides of the van, pulled open the double doors at the back and dragged a struggling Kent out by his ankles, helped by Tommy, who was still holding the gun he’d put against my head, a cheap-looking snub-nosed revolver.

  As I watched, Wolfe yanked Kent to his feet by his hair and punched him hard in the gut. He fell backwards into Haddock, who delivered a short sharp kidney punch that sent him collapsing to his knees with a muffled shriek of pain from behind the gag. With his hands taped behind his back, the poor bastard could offer no resistance as Wolfe kicked him in the solar plexus, a malevolent glare in his eyes, the force of the blow knocking Kent sideways so that he temporarily disappeared from view.

  What I was seeing sickened me. It was nothing more than bullying. Whatever someone’s done, you don’t hit them when they’re helpless and can’t fight back, as Wolfe was doing. And enjoying it too, by the look of things.

  Then he turned to me. ‘Get out of the van, you, and make yourself useful. Help get this piece of shit inside.’

  As I clambered out of the back of the van, wiping congealing blood from my face with my shirtsleeve, Wolfe pulled Kent back up and shoved him in my direction. He was already collapsing again, and as I took his full weight I was surprised at how light he was.

  ‘Tommy, you introduced this bastard to the team,’ Wolfe continued, squinting angrily at me. ‘You can help him with Kent.’

  Tommy grabbed one of Kent’s arms while I held on to the other, and together we hauled him towards the front door, while he dragged his feet and made terrified moaning noises beneath the gag.

  A second later, the door opened, and a wiry-looking, dark-skinned Thai girl dressed in jeans, a white singlet with a garish pink butterfly on it, and a pair of killer stilettos appeared. She was attractive, but in a hard, showy way, with false breasts that sprang out aggressively, elaborate tattoos covering both arms from elbow to shoulder, and the kind of stony expression that suggested she’d had to fight tooth and nail for everything she’d ever got in life. This was Wolfe’s girlfriend, Lee, and she fitted Tommy’s description of ‘a dirty-looking cage fighter’ perfectly.

  She was also blocking our way, forcing us to stop.

  ‘Hey, Lee, baby,’ I heard Wolfe call from behind me. ‘You got the power on, then?’

  ‘Sure I did,’ she answered in heavily accented English. ‘It’s not hard.’ Then, seeing Kent for the first time, and clearly knowing his history and the crimes he was accused of, her eyes darkened. ‘Is this him?’

  ‘Don’t hurt him, baby,’ said Wolfe with a chuckle. ‘The client wants him in one piece.’

  ‘He’s a dirty cocksucker,’ she said, leaning forward and spitting full in his face, before grabbing him by the crotch and giving his balls a vicious twist.

  Kent made the kind of noise any of us would have made in similar circumstances, and he struggled in our grip as she cursed him in Thai. Finally, she let go, cursed him one more time, then strode casually past us and into the arms of her lover, letting out a squeal of delight that was about as natural as her bust.

  Kent slumped in our arms, saliva running down his face, and once again I found myself feeling sorry for him.

  ‘Take him in there,’ snapped Haddock, looming up beside me.

  Together, Tommy and I manoeuvred Kent through the door and into a surprisingly large foyer, with doors going off on three sides, and a dilapidated wooden staircase at the end. There was an old pine reception desk with an anarchy sign daubed in black paint on the front, along with more garbled graffiti. A couple of psychedelic posters covered the walls, making me think that this place had been a squat for a while. The carpet, dark and stained, was rotting in places, and cobwebs had formed, net-like, across the corners of the ceiling. The place reminded me of the vampires’ lair in the classic 1980s movie The Lost Boys, and the smell of damp, earthy decay stuck in my nostrils. If you were going to torture and kill someone, you’d be hard pushed to find a better place to do it in.

  Haddock moved in ahead of us, holding his shotgun one-handed, and strode over to the far door, pushing it open and motioning for us to follow. It led through to a large empty room with more graffiti on the walls.

  ‘Down here,’ he said, unbolting another door in one corner, and switching on a light.

  A flight of concrete steps led down to a dank-looking cellar that smelled of urine and decay, and as we reached the top of them, Kent started struggling and moaning. He must have known that when he went down those steps he’d never be coming up them again.

  Without a word, Haddock moved round behind him and drove a heavy boot into the small of his back, sending him flying forward. He cracked his head on the overhead beam, then rolled down the steps in a tangle of legs before landing on his back at the bottom. He looked in pain but was still conscious and didn’t seem to have broken anything, but I hated the way he gazed up at us, with that terrified expression in his eyes.

  He knew what was coming. That’s what got me. He knew.

  Haddock waved to Tommy, who started down the steps after Kent, then turned to me. ‘Get out of my sight, we don’t need you any more,’ he said, before adding ominously, ‘We’ll talk later.’

  He followed Tommy down the steps, closing the door behind him.

  According to Wolfe, no one was meant to hurt Kent, but since I couldn’t see what else they’d be going down there for, I put my ear to the door and listened.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Wolfe had come into the room and was right behind me, the Sig stuffed in the front of his waistband with just the handle showing.

  One thing I’ve learned in life is, when you’re caught red-handed always go on the offensive. ‘I wanted to hear if they were torturing him or not,’ I said, walking past him. ‘Now, if you’ve got the rest of my money, I won’t hang around any longer.’

  ‘You’ll get it when the client arrives,’ he answered, following me back into the foyer.

  Lee was standing by the old reception desk, smoking a cigarette and looking nervous. She gave me only the barest of glances.

  I turned to face him. ‘And when’s that going to be?’

  For the first time, I saw that his expression was uncertain. ‘I don’t know. He should be here by now.’

  ‘Why don’t you phone him?’

  It was Lee who answered, her voice annoyed. ‘Because there’s no mobile phone reception here, that’s why. No reception. No nothing. I want my money too, you know.’

  ‘Are you sure none of them can get a signal?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you let me try mine?’

  ‘I have tried it. And both of mine. It’s totally dead on all of them.’

  ‘How did you leave things with your client?’ I asked, lighting a cigarette of my own and taking a much-needed drag.

  ‘That he’d be here tonight. Before midnight.’

  ‘And is he reliable?’

  ‘Course he is,’ he said, but something in his voice suggested he wasn’t totally sure.

  This was when I realized that maybe Wolfe didn’t know his client all that well, which surprised me, given his reputation for being so careful about who he dealt with.

  I could hear Haddock and Tommy talking as they came out of the cellar and decided that now was the right time to make a break for it and raise the alarm. I didn’t think they’d panic and disappear with Kent if I suddenly took off, because they were still waiting for their money.

  ‘I need a piss,’ I said with an irritated sigh, and turned away from Wolfe, starting for the front door.

  ‘Sure,
’ he answered, and I was so busy making for the exit and freedom that I never even saw him take the gun from his waistband.

  The first I knew about it was when I felt the sudden, explosive pain as the butt of the Sig caught me in the back of my head. My vision blurred and I felt my legs give way, then I was hitting the filthy carpet with a painful bang, only just managing to get out a hand to break my fall.

  ‘I think we’ve got some unfinished business, Seany boy,’ I heard him say, his voice sounding far away. ‘Don’t you?’

  Then another voice came from somewhere behind him, and that’s when I knew I was in real trouble.

  ‘I want this dog’s head,’ said Clarence Haddock.

  Twenty-nine

  My head spun and I could feel the blood leaking out from the wound where I’d been struck, but luckily I still had the presence of mind to roll myself into a tight ball and put my hands over my head as the kicks rained in on me.

  I couldn’t see who was doing the kicking. All I could hear was heavy breathing as they worked on trying to cause me the maximum injury possible. There was no pain – there never is when you’re in a fight, even one as one-sided and brutal as this. The huge surge of adrenalin puts paid to that. All I felt was a series of jarring shocks as I was knocked about the floor. One of them – I think it was that bastard Haddock – was aiming his blows at my kidneys, but they weren’t that accurate, and I was fairly certain that neither of them had done me any permanent damage yet.

  But I knew that this was only the beginning. I’d managed to make both Wolfe and Haddock lose face, which was some achievement considering I’d only known them roughly twelve hours, and hugely stupid given their history of violence. The only thing counting in my favour was that the other two people in the room were trying to calm them down.

  ‘Ty! Stop! Stop!’ Lee was crying in a voice so shrill it could have shattered glass. ‘What are you doing?’

  Tommy was also telling them to leave me alone, that what they were doing was madness, but the tone of his voice was hopeful rather than confident, and he wasn’t making any move to intervene.

  The kicking continued. Fast and furious, carried out largely in silence.

  Then, just as quickly, it stopped, as they finally grew bored.

  At least that’s what I thought, but as I lay there unmoving, the pain finally beginning to make its presence felt, I heard Haddock snarl and rumble out a low, angry curse. The next second Lee screamed, and I opened my eyes and saw him standing over me, legs apart, the Remington raised above his head like a club, the butt aimed directly at my face. There was a glint of madness in his eyes as he stood there stock-still, and then, with a roar that temporarily drowned out everything else in the room, he brought it flying down.

  Instinctively, I rolled over and it bounced off my shoulder and smashed into the carpet with such force that the stock broke in two, sending a piece flying across the room in a cloud of dust. If it had made contact with my head, as it was meant to do, it would almost certainly have killed me, and I felt a rush of relief even as he lifted what was left of it above his head again, to have another go.

  ‘I’m going to have you, you dog,’ he snarled, and lunged forward, smashing it down again.

  This time I rolled into him and he missed completely.

  Seeing my chance, I grabbed one of his legs with both hands, hoping to knock him off balance, but it was like trying to uproot a tree trunk, and he shook me off easily, catching me in the midriff with a frustrated final whack of the battered Remington, the angle too low to do any real harm.

  ‘All right, Clarence!’ barked Wolfe, still panting after his exertions. ‘Leave it. He’s had enough.’

  I rolled over on to my back, every movement seeming stiff and painful. It felt like I might have a couple of cracked ribs. ‘I haven’t done anything,’ I whispered, the very act of speaking hurting me. ‘All I did was ask you what we were doing here.’

  ‘You pointed a fucking gun at me,’ said Wolfe.

  ‘And you pointed one at me. So now we’re even.’

  ‘I don’t see why we don’t just get rid of him,’ muttered Haddock. ‘We don’t need him and we can take his share of the cash.’

  ‘Hey, boys, come on,’ said Tommy. ‘Let’s be careful what we say here.’

  Haddock shook his head. ‘I don’t trust him. All he does is ask questions.’

  ‘All I want to know is why the hell we kidnapped Kent. I still do.’

  ‘Because he’s a dirty rapist,’ put in Lee, striding over, her heels clacking on the mouldy floor.

  ‘Look,’ I said desperately, trying to appeal to anyone who might listen, ‘there’s something wrong with this whole thing.’ I turned towards Wolfe. ‘I mean, if your client’s a relative of one of Kent’s victims, then how did he manage to set all this up so fast? Kent was only arrested yesterday. When did you get hired? Because if it was before then, then this whole vigilante story’s bullshit.’

  Lee looked at Wolfe. ‘Is this right?’

  ‘The client’s a relative,’ Wolfe replied defensively. ‘Maybe he had some inside knowledge. Who else would want a nonce like Kent?’

  ‘We can’t let this dog leave here,’ said Haddock, prodding me with the barrel of the ruined Remington. ‘He knows too much. And we don’t know nothing about him.’

  ‘I vouched for him,’ said Tommy, ‘and I still do.’ But there was something half-hearted in his tone, as if he himself wasn’t sure of me any more.

  This confirmed for me, if I hadn’t known it already, that I was now arguing for my life. And that if I failed, I was dead. It was as simple as that. ‘Listen,’ I said, clutching my injured ribs, ‘you’ve had your fun with me. You’ve given me a kicking, and you’ve made your point. You can keep the rest of your money. In fact, keep the stuff you gave me if you want,’ I added, remembering that I’d left it in the minibus. ‘I just want out.’

  ‘He put a gun in your face, Ty man,’ snapped Haddock, interrupting my flow. ‘What the hell will it do for your rep if you let him walk out of here?’

  I caught Lee’s eye, remembering how Wolfe had eased up when she’d started shouting, and knowing she was my best chance of getting him to let me go.

  She looked away quickly, then turned to Wolfe. ‘Don’t kill him, Ty. It’s not worth it.’

  A troubled look crossed Wolfe’s face, and I thought he was wavering, but then he saw the way Haddock was staring at him, and his expression darkened. ‘Shut the fuck up! This bastard wanted to kill me earlier.’

  I started to protest, but he gave me a kick to the gut that I wasn’t expecting, and I doubled up, trying to catch my breath.

  He pulled the Sig out of his waistband and yanked me to my feet by the shirt collar. ‘Right, let’s get him upstairs.’

  Lee put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t kill him, Ty. Please. You’re no killer.’

  He brushed it aside, then swung me round and shoved the gun into my side while Haddock twisted my right arm behind my back with such force it made me cry out involuntarily.

  I looked towards Tommy, my eyes watering with the pain, but he’d already turned his back to me, as had Lee, and I realized with a grim finality that I was on my own as Wolfe and Haddock marched me over to the staircase and began pushing me towards the darkness above.

  Thirty

  I craned my neck and asked Wolfe not to kill me, even though I hated myself for begging to the man who’d murdered my brother. But that’s what the instinct for self-preservation does to you. You’ll say most things to stay alive. But he said nothing in return, and Haddock yanked my arm upwards again, and this time I almost passed out with the pain.

  Somehow the arm didn’t break as I was manhandled up the last of the stairs and down a dark corridor, the floor creaking pre cariously beneath my feet.

  ‘In here,’ said Wolfe, stopping at a door about halfway along. ‘It’s got a bolt.’ He pulled it open and together they threw me inside.

  I stumbled forward in the darkness, rea
lizing I was in some sort of cramped, windowless store cupboard, then deliberately fell to the floor, wanting to show them I was being as passive and unthreatening as possible. Every part of my body ached, my ribs were killing me, and the back of my head and my nose were still bleeding from where I’d been hit earlier with the two different guns. In short, I was a mess. Probably the most battered I’d ever been in my life.

  The two of them stood in the doorway, silhouettes in the gloom, looking down at me. Then the door shut and I heard a bolt being pulled across, followed by hushed words from out in the corridor.

  ‘He’s got to go, Ty,’ I heard Haddock say in a whisper that was so loud it had to be deliberate. ‘But my gun’s fucked. You’re going to need to do him.’

  ‘I need something to muffle the sound,’ was Wolfe’s response, quieter but still audible.

  I heard footsteps moving away from the door. Then silence.

  It’s difficult to describe what I was feeling at that point. It wasn’t fear exactly. I was too bruised and exhausted for that. It was closer to resignation. A knowledge that I’d tried to go it alone, for the best of reasons, but that ultimately my plan had been found wanting, and I’d failed.

  And now I was the last one of us left, and my life too was about to end, with the grim irony that it was going to be at the hands of the man who’d set so many of the events that had destroyed the Egan family in motion.

  The footsteps returned, and I took a deep breath that made me wince. I couldn’t die like a coward. Not after all the effort I’d put into bringing Tyrone Wolfe to justice. Maybe somewhere up there they were all watching, willing me to at least go down fighting. I had to do something to make them proud.

  I pictured John then, as he was just before he went off to join the army. A big smile on his face. Full of jokes, as always. My dad clapping him on the back, the pride in his eyes. The three of us having a last game of football in the garden. John letting me score through his legs.