Final Target

by E. V. Seymour

  ‘That would be good – thanks.’

  My army friend returned. ‘Anything else I can get you?’

  ‘That depends on whether you have any accommodation.’

  A wide smile cracked his face. ‘A Coke if we’re full. A pint if we’ve got room.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’

  The girl returned and said something to the landlord. He winked at me. ‘I’ll pull a pint then. Amy will sort out the paperwork later.’

  I smiled thanks, paid for my bed and beer. ‘The big house that sold up the road?’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Happen to know where the Frankes went?’

  ‘You’re a friend of the Frankes?’ He did his best to sound casual. The change of light in his eyes gave him away.

  ‘Of Justine’s. I heard what happened.’

  He looked through me. I didn’t blame him. With the story about Billy out, I could be a guy eager to call in an old debt. ‘No idea,’ he said, shut down.

  After that, he avoided me until I picked up the keys to my room.

  ‘Travelling light?’ Suspicion etched his voice.

  ‘I am.’

  The room was fine. For me, it was too much like the old days: strange beds, strange hotels and strange towns. Consequently, I slept badly, my mind seared with thoughts of Simone. Having seduced me, she’d done an excellent job of maintaining my interest. Had it all been for show, an act designed to distract me while she engaged in a rampage of murder? Had there ever been chemistry between us? Was I that dumb? I guess a part of the attraction for me was that I could identify with her free spirit. Looking back, and though I pretended otherwise, the signs were all there, her actions designed to throw me off the scent, my absences giving her the requisite time she needed to step up her plan. I’d been like an ardent cinemagoer viewing a foreign film. So busy watching the acting, I’d forgotten to read the subtitles. That she’d modelled the vicious part of herself on me did not escape my attention. On the last occasion I’d spoken to Billy, he told me how impressed he was with my killing abilities, that he admired my methods. I hadn’t realised he’d been studying them to pass on to someone else.

  The next morning it was me and Amy and a plate of bacon, sausage and egg. Not normally one for talk in the morning, I struck up a conversation. ‘No school?’

  ‘Half-term.’

  ‘Local?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re a sixth-former?’

  ‘Studying for my baccalaureate.’

  ‘Smart young lady.’

  She smiled shyly. ‘I’m not that smart. You should see some of my friends. We have a lot of kids who’ve lived abroad, kids from China, too. They’re the really clever ones.’

  ‘You must know the Franke girls.’

  Her sunny face clouded. ‘Indie was never a close friend.’

  ‘I know Justine,’ I said.

  ‘Really? It’s sad what happened. They had to leave school.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘Couldn’t afford to stay.’

  I quickly recalibrated my thinking. ‘Do you stay in touch?’

  ‘Indie never went away.’ The bridge of Amy’s nose creased. ‘Her mum and sisters moved – abroad, I think, to Mrs Franke’s parents in Spain. I see Indie from time to time. She works at the racing stables down the road, has lodgings there.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Horses with wild eyes, red shiny nostrils and sinuously muscular bodies clattered and skittered across the yard in single file, riders perched, it seemed to me, in defiance of the laws of gravity. They headed off down the road and quickly turned into a field where low winter light trickled behind a ridge of trees. I watched as they took flight, hooves lashing soft ground, soil and stone scattered beneath.

  On each side of the yard were ten empty stables, their doors open, a shovel scraping cobbles the only sound. Tracing the source, I leant inside and my mind flashed to blood in straw, equine and human remains, and one of Billy’s victims. I blinked the memory away.

  A girl around Amy’s age had her wiry back to me. She was shovelling manure and dirt and dumping it into a wheelbarrow. Engrossed, she failed to notice she had company. I cleared my throat, hoping not to startle her too much. She wheeled around with terrified eyes.

  ‘It’s okay.’ I tipped the palms of my hands up. ‘Sorry to frighten you.’

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ I could see Billy in her straight away. She had the same look, the one that could nail a guy to the floor. Fortunately, the rest of her features resembled her mother’s. She didn’t have Billy’s darker colouring.

  ‘Indie, I –’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ She drew the shovel towards her, tightened her grip. She looked like she was prepared to wield it. A tiny bird of a girl, I didn’t doubt that, if provoked, she was capable.

  I smiled. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk? It’s pretty cold here.’

  ‘What are you suggesting, that we sit in your car?’ The suspicious sneer on her face was Billy’s too.

  ‘No. Don’t you have somewhere to take a break – a tack room or something?’

  She sniffed and wiped her nose with the side of her hand, not very ladylike. ‘Why would I want to talk to you? I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘People call me Joe, Joe Nathan.’

  ‘Are you alone?’ Her eyes lifted to a point beyond my right shoulder.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So, Joe Nathan, why are you here?’

  ‘Because I can help you.’ This wasn’t strictly true. If pushed, I might say things that would further devastate her.

  She didn’t soften, although her grip on the shovel appeared less intense. ‘I don’t want your help and, by the way, the guys will be back soon from the gallops.’

  ‘Then we should press on. Want a hand?’ I took a step towards her.

  She took a step back and pointed the spade head at me. ‘No.’

  ‘Fair enough. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, I’ll go.’ I turned on my heel. ‘Have a nice day.’

  ‘Wait.’ I turned back. Her eyes met mine. ‘I’ll talk to my boss’s wife and see if it’s all right for us to talk in the house.’ I didn’t like that idea. The woman might snarl things up. From Indie’s point of view it was a good move. ‘Meet me in five minutes,’ she said.

  I did as she asked. Five minutes was all they needed to call the police. In ten, I could be picked up and taken away. Twenty minutes later and, in spite of calling in a favour from McCallen, I’d be cooling my heels while the cops danced through a number of bureaucratic hurdles and, if I were fortunate, signed off the paperwork. I stayed because I had no choice.

  My phone rang: Jat.

  ‘If you were a woman, I’d expect sex.’

  I let out a laugh, quite something given the mood I was in. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Your man left a coded message. It’s taken me all this time to work it out.’

  ‘Spare me the technical stuff, what is it?’

  ‘Simone Fabron is an anagram.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Simon O.N. Faber. That’s how your man China corresponded with Simone Fabron. It’s all there in the draft folder.’

  I didn’t understand this, but that wasn’t important to me. ‘What did they communicate about?’

  ‘Everything. It reads like a criminal Who’s Who. Details of drugs deals, including a guy called Dieter Benz who seemed to act like a go-between. Remember the list of names I pulled off?’ I told him I did. ‘Well, under each name, China supplied information about the subject’s address, close relatives, routines, times they went out, the vehicles they drove, you name it. Simone pretty much wore China’s balls for earrings.’ And when China got sick and tired of it, he tried to hire me to eliminate her. Made sense.

  ‘There’s more,’ Jat said, in full spate now. ‘I did some online detective work and discovered that Simon Faber is a charity. It buys up properties on the cheap, often from counci
ls, does them up and rents them out at reasonable rates to people who’d otherwise find it difficult to find a cheap place to live, what with the economy tits up.’

  ‘All very laudable. There’s a “but” coming.’

  ‘Damn right, the charity is a front. Out of a hundred homes bought, only two have gone back into the rental market. The rest have been flogged off for a fat profit. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.’

  ‘A method to launder money?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  ‘And the property in Cheltenham?’

  ‘You got it. It’s owned indirectly by Simon Faber.’

  ‘Indirectly?’

  ‘There are a number of holding companies. Simon Faber is buried in the mix.’

  ‘Anything connecting Simone Fabron to Billy Franke?’

  ‘Billy Franke,’ he repeated, articulating the syllables.

  I held my breath.

  ‘No,’ Jat said, ‘the name isn’t here, sorry.’

  ‘Apology isn’t necessary. I owe you.’

  ‘Although Franke Holdings is one of the shroud companies,’ Jat said. ‘Does that help?’

  Five long minutes had passed. Time to move it.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  The trainer’s house had seen better days. I guessed every pound went into the stables. Indie let me in through a veranda masquerading as a conservatory and into a quarry-tiled kitchen with an ancient Rayburn that whacked out more heat than looked feasible. She sat down opposite me at a large kitchen table.

  Her eyes fastened on mine. ‘You said you could help.’

  It would be easy to dish out a string of lies, easy to exploit her vulnerability and manipulate her. I decided to play it straight because I sensed she’d had a rough time and deserved better than that. ‘I am not here to frighten or cause you grief. It’s important you know this,’ I began.

  ‘’kay,’ she said slowly, one finger tracing a line around a gouge in the tabletop.

  ‘I knew your father. I knew what he did and how he made his money.’

  ‘Then you knew him better than me.’ Hurt then fear flashed across her features. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am not a police officer or private detective or one of your father’s cronies,’ I assured her.

  ‘That doesn’t leave too many pleasant alternatives.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m someone who believes you’ve had a raw deal and I want to put it right.’

  ‘Who do you think you are, Superman?’ The accompanying laugh was hard-edged for a girl so young.

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you lied to me, but did your mum know?’ I’d always believed that Justine, a pleasant, family-minded woman, was in the dark about Billy’s dealings.

  ‘About what? My father’s criminality? Of course, we didn’t know. We found out when he died. It’s so, so unfair. Like, we had this really nice life and now it’s all disappeared.’

  ‘That’s tough.’

  Her eyes were shot through with anger. ‘We’ve had to pay tons of money back to all sorts of people. My mother is practically destitute. You know what, I’m glad he fell under a train. I hope it fucking well hurt and ripped him to pieces.’

  She tipped back in the seat, crossed her arms in front of her small breasts, defying me to disagree. Rage came off her in waves.

  I paused, hoped she’d calm down a little, knowing I’d yet to deliver the hammer blow. ‘When I asked the question, I wasn’t referring to what your dad did for a living. I meant your father’s lover.’

  She practically leapt across the table. ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You really didn’t know?’

  She shook her head vigorously. ‘But it explains a lot.’ A light went on in Indie’s eyes. ‘So that’s why my father split his time, although,’ she laughed with black humour, ‘I guess running a drugs empire eats into the average day. Who is this fucking woman?’

  ‘A French national.’ I didn’t know for certain. Simone dealt in half-truths. She had lost her mother like me but I doubted her mother was British. Had she been, she’d have been easy to trace.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Simone Fabron.’

  Indie sat back, her clever mind processing the information. I could practically see the electrical connections her brain was making. ‘You know he left the house to a charity?’

  China had mentioned it, I remembered. ‘I’d heard a rumour but how does that work?’ I said. ‘Surely, the police would have sequestered it?’

  Indie shook her head. ‘The deeds of the house were transferred seven years earlier.’

  ‘Seven years?’ I said, taken aback.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, with a grim expression. ‘Imagine how my mum felt.’

  Pissed off beyond belief, I thought. Premeditated, and a brilliant move on Billy’s part to protect his asset, it displayed a degree of cunning that was entirely in character.

  ‘Simon Faber, by any chance?’

  Her jaw went slack. She looked at me in astonishment. ‘How did you know?’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  I rolled off a wad of twenties and tried to hand it to Indie. She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s your money and I don’t know you.’ She gave a nervous little laugh.

  ‘Take it.’ I stretched across the table and pressed it into her hand. ‘You’ve given me information and I’m paying you for it, a straight business transaction.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Didn’t your mum contest it?’

  ‘To contest, you need a lawyer. She couldn’t afford it.’

  ‘Didn’t she have jewellery to sell?’

  ‘Yeah, but it went nowhere. Have you any idea how much money was owed?’ She ran a grubby hand through her hair. ‘Honestly, it’s so hard to remember everything. None of us were thinking straight. Overnight, the money ran out. Everything was tied up in offshore accounts and stuff she couldn’t get her hands on. She had to sell what she had to live. All kinds of people, bad people, came knocking at our door.’

  I could imagine exactly the type of vultures circling. ‘And you say she’s in Spain?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you have an address, a contact number for her?’

  ‘Whoa, I’m not sure about that.’ Suspicion darkened her eyes. One question too many and in a couple of seconds I’d smashed the fragile trust between us.

  ‘All right, do you have a pen and paper?’

  ‘I guess.’ She twisted around, snatched a pad and biro from a work surface and pushed them across to me.

  ‘When you next talk to her, tell her I called and, if she wants to contact me, this is my number. No pressure.’ I scraped back the chair and stood up.

  ‘Is that it?’ she said.

  ‘What were you expecting, a box of chocolates too?’

  She gave me an odd look and smiled. We were friends again. As I walked back across the yard, I felt her gaze scored into my back. She was a smart kid. All the time I was there I hadn’t heard a floorboard squeak or the sound of human activity. Thinking fast, Indie had told me a lie to protect herself. The only decent legacy bequeathed by her father.

  I climbed back into the car. Next stop: the family seat. If it all panned out, Simone would be hiding out there.

  The pub where I’d spent the night was on my way. In the twilight zone between breakfast and morning coffee, the car park would be quiet – a couple of staff vehicles, max. I was wrong. Sharply indicating right, I made a cartoon-like swerve and pitched up immediately outside the entrance. Mystified, my thoughts turbo-charged, I slipped my gun into my jacket and walked inside.

  I saw her before she saw me. She sat close to the open fire, hunched over, warming herself. She wore an elegant long coat, jeans and boots. When she looked up she had the strained eyes of a fugitive. It reminded me so much of Billy’s last stand.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said, throwing herself at me.

  I stood, r
ooted. If Simone was about to hand herself in, it rated as the fastest and easiest takedown in history. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘You are still suspicious.’

  Damn right, but I did my best not to show how much. What I said next was a perfectly reasonable statement. ‘It’s a hell of a coincidence that you pull into a pub in the middle of nowhere when I happen to be driving past.’

  ‘Maybe you followed me.’ There was a sour tone to her voice.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Then I followed you. It’s true,’ she said, exasperated.

  ‘Followed me from where, exactly?’

  She led off on a rambling tale of driving back to London, spotting my car and shadowing me. ‘I slept overnight in the car park,’ she said with feeling. ‘I was so cold.’

  ‘Then why not wake me?’

  ‘I thought you would be angry. You were so mad when I left London against your wishes.’

  I unclamped her arms from around my neck and pushed her down into the nearest seat. I was gentle, no point in making a bad situation worse. I asked if she wanted something to drink.

  ‘Coffee and, if possible, brandy.’ She was the most submissive I’d ever seen her. I thought it an omen.

  I went in search of someone to take the order, found Amy and returned to Simone. I made sure I sat opposite where I could see her hands. I didn’t ask how she found me. I pitched straight in.

  ‘You have one hell of a lot of explaining to do. Why did you do it, Simone?’

  She looked at me with shocked, hurt eyes. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t,’ I spat. ‘We both know what we’re talking about – abduction, torture of intelligence officers, murder, drugs deals, assassination.’ I left myself out of it. I was relatively unscathed.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘It’s not true, I tell you. You have to believe me.’

  The coffee and single brandy arrived. Amy darted a look from Simone to me. An encouraging smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. She clearly thought that Simone was confessing to infidelity. In a sense, Amy was not far from the truth.

  Simone took a deep swallow of brandy. I splashed coffee into two cups, dumped two sugars in mine, and sat back. Time to get specific. ‘The guy with the tropical shirt, who was he?’