by Paul Finch
Nayka hooted with mirth. ‘You think we need Vic Ship’s permission? Vic Ship … I say Vic Shit! I hunt him next, da?’
‘What?’ Heck tried to sound scornful, but nonchalant though the Russian’s attitude was, Heck could tell the guy was being absolutely serious. After all, Nayka could hardly go home without some kind of result. He was another who’d finish up in the River Neva – if he was lucky.
‘English gangster fags!’ Nayka laughed. ‘Pansy chickenshit fucks. I hunt them too. Whole Vic Shit gang! You think they stop me? You think cops stop me? You not know Nayka. But – you will, da?’
And flamethrower still in hand, he came yomping up the slope.
Stumbling back down the passage, Heck was half-minded to duck inside the church. There were several semi-loaded firearms lying around in there, but – and he paused briefly at the sacristy door – his uncle was in there too, only half out of sight behind the altar screens. The cavalry ought to be arriving soon; if he could find somewhere else to hide … so he stumbled on past the open door, towards the rear of the church.
The graveyard back there was no longer in use. It hadn’t been used for almost a century, and it looked the part, the forest of decrepit tombstones still possessing an eerie atmosphere.
Heck blundered to the edge of it, glancing left to right.
Jumbled ranks of rotted stone ranged away on all sides: eroded statues, leaning crosses, Victorian obelisks. He fled blindly into it, veering crazily through the ranks of monuments, until he planted his left foot on the flat top of a rain-wet tombstone and skated across it, pulling the splits as he landed hard on his back.
The wind was jolted from his lungs.
Heck gasped aloud, and for a second was in so much pain that he briefly wondered if he’d be able to get up again. But now his sixth sense kicked in, telling him to man up, to lie still. So he bit down on his agony and held his breath, staring dumbly at a sky of glacial black, stars spangled across it where the rain-clouds had broken apart.
He listened intently.
But suddenly there was silence.
Stealthily, he turned onto his front and wormed his way along a narrow path between the headstones. OK, Nayka might not be able to see him … but now Heck couldn’t see Nayka either, which might not be completely to his advantage. Keeping as low as he could, he crawled leftward from the path before lying still again, listening, hearing in lieu of the storm only a steady dripping and trickling from branches and stonework. Long seconds passed, the chill of the wet ground seeping through his already sodden clothes. He was unsure whereabouts in the graveyard he was. Directly in front, the decayed statues of two children in Dickensian clothing stood on a pedestal, the taller figure of an angel with folded wings behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders. When Heck tried to slide forward towards this, the level ground underneath him gave a hollow thud. He was lying on the grave itself, he realised; probably one of those nineteenth-century tombs, the dead laid to rest directly beneath its eroded concrete lid.
Warily, he shifted off it onto a firmer base of gravel – just as the Russian’s voice came floating across the burial ground towards him.
‘You find your last resting place, English cop. That good. No need for funeral, uh?’
Heck glanced left to right, but from this prone position it was impossible to tell which direction the voice was coming from.
‘Some say I let you live, yeah?’ the Russian teased. ‘You bring all Shaughnessy’s pigs to me … to their slaughter. But I think no … you fuck my plan. And more bad still, you fuck with me. You crack my head, you put gun to me.’
He fell silent again.
Heck lay perfectly still. It was too easy to imagine the maniac skulking towards him.
A soft thud sounded in the darkness behind. Heck spun around, but still saw nothing.
After an ear-straining moment, he rose to his knees, seeing more crosses, more leaning obelisks. But no movement. When he heard another thud – a footfall maybe – this time to his left, he spun again – and briefly was transfixed by the sight of a figure standing some fifteen yards away. With relief, he recognised it as a traditional death-statue. The Grim Reaper: hooded, only the lower part of its face visible, scabrous and grey with age.
At least … this was what Heck thought.
Until he spotted an orange glint of flame at its midriff and realised that it was pointing a flamethrower at him. Those terrible grey features split apart in that familiar grin.
‘No one do that to Nayka.’
Heck made a dash for it, a jet of fire spurting after him, only to trip over the rim of another Victorian tomb, and fall headlong across it, striking the flimsy lid with such force that it boomed like a massive drum, the six-foot obelisk of engraved stone at one end of it juddering violently.
Though winded, Heck threw himself over onto his back and tried to crab-crawl away.
The ash-grey figure grinned again as it advanced until it was about ten yards short, at which point it lifted its device to chest-height, training it on him squarely.
‘This part where I offer you job, English cop?’ Nayka wondered. ‘Come, work for us, I say. Earn easy money, yes?’ He chuckled, shook his head. ‘Nah … this part where I kill you.’ And he yanked back on his flamethrower trigger.
But nothing happened.
There was a clunk, but no flame burst from the muzzle. In fact, the tiny starter-flame at the end of it had also gone out.
‘Ahhh …’ Nayka sighed with mock frustration. ‘Fuel gone. No matter.’
He casually unbuckled his harness, the petrol tank sliding off his back, and discarded the flamethrower. Among the various items on his tool-belt, Heck spotted a pistol, a Walther P5. But the Russian didn’t go for that. Instead, he drew that big, guard-hilted fighting-knife that Heck thought he’d divested him of in Longsight.
‘So … I fillet you like taxi guy,’ Nayka said. ‘Like fish in market.’
Heck scrambled to his feet, backing off as the Russian came at him, knife at chest-height, shoulder turned – the classic combat posture.
It was probably too much to expect that Nayka didn’t at least have some kind of military training; he’d handled the flamethrower with aplomb, after all. In addition, Heck was out on his feet; still dazed from the earlier beating, wet through and cold. The best he could do was try to keep moving, playing for time, hoping to God that at some point a support unit would show up, though of course, how they would know he was back here in the depths of this forgotten necropolis was anyone’s guess.
He stumbled left, trying to keep the six-foot obelisk between them. It again shifted on its base, from which age and weathering had clearly loosened it.
Nayka grinned, catlike, as he circled around it.
‘Not so tough now, uh?’ he gloated.
‘You drop that blade, pal,’ Heck said. ‘We’ll see who the tough guy is.’
‘Hah! You want I give up advantage? Sure … why not? This sport, after all, not real thing.’
Nayka lunged, steel flashing as it swept at Heck’s throat. Heck ducked backward, again circling the obelisk, feet drumming on the hollow tombstone.
‘Truth is … Nayka like Heckenburg. You got balls, my friend … so I take them as trophy.’
He lunged again. For all that he was encumbered by his heavy, flame-retardant coveralls, he moved in a blur of speed. Heck only just evaded the thrusting blade, and half-tripped, tottering. Sensing that his foe was weakening, Nayka leapt forward again, seeking to grapple with Heck if not stab him, and landing hard with both feet on the tomb’s rotted lid – which collapsed beneath him. As Heck stumbled away, Nayka crashed down into the recess below, a cloud of dust and decay exploding upward.
He cursed volubly in Russian. He’d only dropped six feet or so, but aware that he’d lost the advantage, he threw his knife away and drew his Walther. Heck ducked behind the obelisk as the first shots rang out, two slugs caroming from one side of it, blowing off chunks of aged stone.
‘
Soo-keen sihn!’ Nayka screamed, shooting again as he attempted to climb out, both slugs again ricocheting into the night.
Heck could have taken his chance and run for it. But he hadn’t come all this way for that.
Instead, he put his shoulder to the obelisk that was loosened from its foundation.
It wasn’t an easy decision to do that.
Not much it wasn’t.
He gave it everything he had left, straining every muscle.
Already undermined, a half-ton of carved granite now toppled remorselessly forward. Nayka shrieked, shooting madly up at it, as if that would do any good – before it landed full length in the grave, crushing him downward with a huge and reverberating CRUMP.
Still vaguely dazed, Heck limped around the pit as the dust floated.
It was too dark to see much, but the obelisk, despite fracturing in at least two places, completely filled the rectangular hole. Nothing stirred underneath it.
He teetered there, before slapping absently at his pocket and trying to remember where exactly Kemp’s phone had gone – and so was barely prepared for the metallic click behind him. He sagged with disbelief, but not before a massive blow, delivered with a hard, angular object, struck him on the right side of his neck and his right shoulder.
Stunned, he slumped down to his knees, the world spinning, before tilting over and falling sideways next to the rubble-filled grave. At first he was so stupefied by pain that he could barely see the ragged figure circling around into view, let alone work out who it was.
There was a low cackle – a crazy but familiar sound.
It was Shaughnessy, though he looked distinctly the worse for wear.
No longer the elf prince thanks to the congealed blood streaked down his face from a gash across his forehead, he was now more a demonic goblin, especially when his V-shaped smile exposed a mouth full of broken, bloody teeth. His left arm hung gory and useless at his side, but his right was fine; and in his right hand he clutched his bejewelled Ruger pistol, which he trained squarely down at Heck.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘I should be far away by now, eh? It’s all gone. My friends dead, my gang kaput. Well …’ he shrugged, ‘I am thinking about leaving town … but if I’m gonna start somewhere else, I have to salvage a bit of rep. And what would that be worth, eh, without getting at least some payback to brag about?’
Heck was so groggy that he couldn’t even move, let alone respond.
Shaughnessy cackled again, cocked his firearm, took careful, one-handed aim – and then ripped the air with an astounding, ear-splitting shriek.
Heck watched through bleary, confused eyes as a third party grabbed Shaughnessy from behind, looped one arm around his throat and yanked his head backwards, at the same time giving something that he’d already stuck into the middle of the young gangster’s back a savage twist.
This third party wore gloves and a heavy anorak, its hood pulled up, thin breath issuing from it, along with a penetrating ray of light. Shaughnessy’s scream dwindled to a bizarre, non-human gurgle as he sank to his knees. His one good arm rigidified; the Ruger fired off two harmless shots before dropping from nerveless fingers.
Almost gently, the newcomer lowered him to the ground and laid him flat.
Heck was still too stupefied to work out what was happening. Until he heard the voice: low, relaxed, neutral – Middle England all through – and yet eerily sibilant.
‘Wondering why you can’t move, Mr Shaughnessy?’ it whispered.
The figure knelt down alongside the young hoodlum. Heck saw that whoever he was, he carried an open haversack on his left hip, into which he placed something: a blade that glinted red.
‘That’s because I’ve just severed your spine below the fifth cervical vertebra … which means you are completely paralysed from the neck down. Though you are still able to breathe, have a pulse and are fully aware of everything around you, you’re basically just a living head. In the past, I’ve left certain individuals at this stage, the future looking pretty bleak for them, of course. But alas that isn’t in the contract where you’re concerned.’
The figure rummaged in his haversack.
Heck tried to move, but managed no more than a few helpless twitches.
‘The good news, Mr Shaughnessy, is that you’ll no longer feel pain from the neck down,’ the newcomer said matter-of-factly. ‘None at all. The bad news is that I intend to go from the neck up.’ He produced his next tool, which looked like a hacksaw, and placed it crosswise at Shaughnessy’s throat. ‘In fact … I intend to remove you from the neck up. And I’m in no hurry to get it done quickly.’
Terrified gargles emitted from Shaughnessy’s inert form.
‘It’s also part of the deal that I make you a film star in the process.’
The figure drew back his hood, revealing that underneath it he wore a small helmet-cam strapped around his forehead, from which the beam of torchlight issued, but also, more crucially – to Heck at least – revealing a very familiar face.
His hair was now black, and his glasses square-lensed and horn-rimmed, but there was no mistaking John Sagan.
Shaughnessy’s gurgling wail rose again, with one last huge effort transforming itself to an horrendous, beseeching shriek. ‘HECKENBURG!’
Using everything he had, Heck managed to croak a response: ‘Sagan … wait …’
Sagan looked sharply up, spearing his torchlight towards Heck’s prone form.
If it was possible for that bland, unemotional face to smile, it did so now – albeit fleetingly.
‘Conscious after all, Sergeant Heckenburg?’ Sagan raised his voice so that Heck could hear him properly. ‘I don’t suppose I should be surprised. Quite the badass down in Peckham, weren’t you? And you’ve certainly had a fun time up here. But this changes things, of course.’ He glanced down again. ‘Seems we haven’t got as much time as we thought, Mr Shaughnessy … fortunately for you. This is compliments of Mr Ship, by the way.’
With two deft but purposeful strokes of the hacksaw, its steel teeth grinding through gristle, he sliced the paralysed hoodlum’s oesophagus wide open, gouts of dark, claret-coloured blood venting out.
As the mangled, dying victim choked and gagged, Sagan stood, shoved his saw back into his haversack, strode across the graveyard and produced another item, this from his coat pocket. It was the inevitable pistol, but a huge thing, with a big, triangular barrel and massive muzzle. A Desert Eagle 50-calibre semi-automatic, no doubt loaded with hollow-points for an even more spectacular killing effect.
‘It doesn’t have to be as nasty in your case, Sergeant.’ Sagan stopped about five yards away and removed the safety. ‘As I say, you gave me a shitty time in London, but I’m strictly a pro. I do what I’m paid for and nothing more. For you it’s a simple case of lights out.’
He cocked the weapon and made to lift it – but the shot that tore the night came from somewhere else entirely.
Sagan jumped violently, taken by surprise. And then froze rigid.
Heck craned his neck around, though it hurt to do so. A fourth party was advancing from the direction of the church, framed against a swirling blue light now filling the sacristy passage. This one too was armed with a pistol, and having fired a warning shot in the air, was now levelling that pistol squarely at Sagan.
‘Raise that shooter another inch, you sadistic fuckhead, and I blow your brains out.’
It was DI Hayes. She wove up through the gravestones towards them. ‘You alive, Heck?’
‘Just about,’ he groaned, levering himself painfully onto one arm. ‘Be careful.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ Her eyes never left the target. ‘John Sagan!’
‘Talking to me, officer?’ he asked quietly. He was about twenty yards to the left of her.
‘I mean it, my man … I’ve got you dead.’ She clasped the pistol in her right hand, the left cradling it training-school fashion. It was a Taurus 9mm; not police-issue, so she’d probably lifted it
from one of the corpses inside the church. ‘I’ll give you a count of three, and if you don’t drop that weapon, I’ll drop you. One … two …’
Sagan’s gloved hand opened, and the Desert Eagle fell.
‘You’re under arrest for murder,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you don’t mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. That’s just so no one can say we aren’t doing things textbook …’
‘As if anyone would,’ Sagan replied. He looked amused as she approached, gunsight fixed on his chest.
‘Just be careful,’ Heck said again.
It was all too familiar: Shawna McCluskey advancing on Sagan, pistol in hand, thinking she had him, but getting an inch too close, her attention slipping for half a fatal second.
‘Hands where I can see them!’ Hayes barked.
Sagan raised them obediently, spreading them out wide – just like the last time.
She was now only two or three yards from him. ‘Oh, and get that stupid helmet-cam off. You look like a fucking cyberman.’
Sagan’s smile faded. ‘My helmet-cam?’
‘Get it off!’ she hissed. ‘Now!’
Puzzled, he reached up with his left hand, hooked his fingers under the strap and tugged it loose.
‘Throw it!’ she said.
He did as instructed, tossing it into the darkness.
‘Good man.’ And then she flew at him, like a cat.
Her first punch thudded into the side of his jaw. Sagan looked startled rather than hurt, but the second one was under his chin, an uppercut wallop that echoed through the night. His glasses flew off and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, but remained conscious – just about. She dropped to her knees alongside him and jammed the gun muzzle hard into his throat.
‘Don’t look too despondent, John,’ she said. ‘At least I didn’t use a knuckleduster.’ She risked a glance over her shoulder. ‘You all right, Heck?’
