‘Don’t even think about it, Mr Mason,’ he said.
‘I’ve got half a million pounds stashed away,’ I told him. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of rands. Let me go, and it’s yours. All of it. You could retire.’
‘It’s a tempting offer, but I’m afraid double-crossing my clients would be no good for my professional reputation.’
‘You’ll end up dead anyway. She’ll double-cross you. She’s a snake.’
‘I think you’re being unduly pessimistic. Even people in our profession have a code of conduct, and my friend here is considered very reliable.’
I looked across at The Wraith as she talked quietly on the phone with her back to me, having a conversation that would effectively decide whether I lived or died in the next few minutes. Now that it was coming to it, I was suddenly terrified.
I swallowed hard. ‘Who hired you?’ I asked Redbeard.
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why? I’m going to die anyway.’ I wanted to keep him talking, hoping he’d let his guard down for just one second, giving me a half chance to do something – anything.
The Wraith ended her call and replaced the phone in her jeans pocket, turning back to face me.
It was the moment of truth. I felt my jaw tighten and my heart beat faster. It made me recall the phrase ‘better to die on your feet than live on your knees’. I had a feeling that one was written by someone who wasn’t just about to die.
‘My client would love to spend some time making you suffer for all the inconvenience you’ve caused him but there’s no time for that. I’m afraid it’s goodbye.’
She took a step towards me, a relaxed, almost bored expression on her face, and it occurred to me then, even as she raised the gun, that a woman as strikingly attractive and undoubtedly intelligent as her could have done anything in life, and yet here she was: nothing more than a lowlife, flint-hearted murderer.
My whole body tensed. All my attention was focused on the barrel of the gun. My life didn’t even flash before me. I was simply frozen to the spot, knowing that in the next second it would all be over.
And then the shots exploded out of nowhere.
I grabbed my gun from the ground as The Wraith spun round and went down, hitting the concrete hard. At the same time, Redbeard, who instinctively seemed to know where the shots were coming from, took cover behind the van doors, already swinging his gun round towards me.
I was already running round the side of the house as I cracked off a shot at Redbeard. It missed, but it did the trick of putting him off as he fired two wild rounds at me, the sound of his bullets cracking across the night sky. Keeping low, I fired twice back, ignoring the shots being returned, and then I was sprinting along the lawn in the direction of the back gate, almost slipping on the wet grass in my haste.
The shooting that had interrupted my execution and saved my life had stopped now. In fact, all the shooting had stopped.
I took a look over my shoulder and saw Redbeard barely ten yards behind me, down on one knee ready to take a shot.
I dived to the ground, swinging round and opening fire at just the moment he started shooting at me. I felt a bullet whistle past my face, but I kept firing and a round struck him in the shoulder, knocking him backwards.
Immediately, I scrambled to my feet and dashed for the gate and freedom.
But before I got there, I heard the back door to the house open and, as I glanced back, I saw The Wraith in the doorway, unhurt and already taking aim at me. I thought she’d been hit, but if she had, she wasn’t hurt badly.
I had to give these guys their dues, they were persistent, but neither of them was as desperate as I was. I’d been a split second from death and somehow had been granted a second chance, and I wasn’t going to let it go.
The Wraith started firing immediately and I had no doubt she was aiming just in front of me so that I’d literally run straight into her bullets. Instead, I swerved, slipping over on the wet grass in the process, and fired my last two rounds in her general direction. She darted back behind the door frame and I dropped the gun, sprinted like an Olympian towards the back gate and pulled myself up and over it in one go, so that I fell head first over the other side as a round splintered the wood.
I threw out my arms, managing to break the worst of my fall, then rolled over in the dirt, jumped to my feet again, driven by pure adrenalin and the ecstatic joy of survival, and kept running through the woods in the rough direction of where I’d parked the Mercedes. I didn’t get in it though, but kept running down the lane and out onto the country road I’d originally turned off.
Headlights temporarily blinded me as a car came into view, moving fast. It screeched to a halt and I jumped in the passenger side as it accelerated away again, heading for the motorway and safety.
For a good minute neither of us spoke. I was still panting from exhaustion. Then, as I finally got my breathing under control, I turned to Tina.
‘I didn’t want you to have to do that. But thank you. You saved my life.’
She shrugged. ‘I know. If I hadn’t been there, you’d be dead by now.’
Which was absolutely true. After I fled the scene of Cem Kalaman’s killing in the Mercedes, I’d known my options were limited. As I’ve repeatedly said, I didn’t want to involve Tina, but desperate times call for desperate measures and I’d called her on the burner phone, told her about my intention to head back to the house where Lane and her colleagues had held me, and she’d offered to come as back-up. I suppose it could be argued that I’d tried to talk her out of it, but I hadn’t really tried too hard. The plan had been simple enough. Although I’d gone in alone, I’d put my phone on speaker and called Tina’s number so she could hear what was going on. She’d been positioned on the driveway, just outside the front gates, and had insisted on being armed with the gun I’d picked up from one of Kalaman’s bodyguards, even though it had only two rounds in it.
‘I couldn’t see what was going on from behind the gates,’ she said, ‘but I could hear it all, so I started shooting. I couldn’t even see what I was aiming at.’
‘I managed to hit the guy, but I don’t think the woman was hurt.’
‘It sounded like you knew her.’
‘She’s the one I’ve told you about – The Wraith.’
‘The one who killed your friend Chris?’
I nodded. ‘She didn’t actually pull the trigger but she organized his killing, so I hold her responsible. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again after she got away last time.’
‘So, who’s her client now?’
‘It’s got to be Alastair Sheridan. Cem Kalaman knew all his secrets. He would have always been a threat, especially now that Sheridan’s got his eyes on the PM’s job. With him out of the way, there’s no one with any evidence of the things he’s done. I’ve got to hand it to him, he’s a cunning bastard. Kill Kalaman. Frame me for it. Then sit back and watch while the police hunt me down and kill me.’ I shook my head. ‘I reckon Lane was part of the plan too, working for Sheridan rather than the security services, and he decided to get rid of her as well.’
Tina slowed the car down, then took the gun I’d given her out from under her jacket and threw it into a hedge.
‘You’ll need somewhere to stay tonight,’ she said, turning back to me.
I took a deep breath, the adrenalin fading now. ‘I know. I’ve got a fake passport on order. It’ll be ready tomorrow. I’ll pick it up and then try to get out of the country with the cash I’ve got left.’
The car fell silent as we came onto the M25, heading anti-clockwise in the direction of Tina’s house. The wound in my belly that I’d got from the prison knife fight with Troy Ramone was hurting, and when I inspected it, I saw that it was bleeding a little. It was going to need dressing again.
‘Come back to mine,’ Tina said eventually, ‘but after tonight you’ll have to leave.’
‘I don’t want to put you at risk.’
She laughed. ‘You’ve
already put me at risk a few times over, but I wanted to help you. And you know what? It felt good tonight, seeing some action again. But now that I’ve had my dose of it and got away in one piece, I’m happy to go back to my normal life.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I want to think of you living to a ripe old age.’ I smiled at her. ‘Maybe marry a nice, handsome accountant, even have a couple of kids.’
‘I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen but I guess you never know. And by the way, you can only stay with me on one condition.’
I looked at her. ‘What’s that?’
‘No trying anything. I know you’ve been in jail a long time, but you’re going to need to keep your hands to yourself. Do you think you can do that?’
‘After what’s happened tonight, that’s the last thing on my mind,’ I lied.
17
Jane Kelman hadn’t always been a killer. Years ago, she’d been a married mother of two who’d never even been in a fight, let alone murdered anyone. But life has a way of changing things, and the truth was, Jane had enjoyed killing the first time she’d done it. The act itself had been exciting. It had given her a sense of power she’d never experienced before and it didn’t take her long to understand why serial killers found murder addictive. The victims too had deserved it. One had been the loan shark she’d been forced to sleep with to help pay off her husband’s debts, a low-level gangster and a slimy piece of dirt called Frank Mellon. Another had been his bodyguard. And the third had been her husband himself, set up to make it look like he’d killed Mellon and the bodyguard in a fit of jealous rage.
Three dead men in one night. What had surprised Jane though was her lack of shock or remorse afterwards. And when you’ve killed once, it becomes easier every time. Some of her victims over the years had deserved their fate, but plenty hadn’t, and, as time passed and the bodies started piling up, she stopped giving any of them a second thought.
In fact, aside from a short period when she became interested in the study of psychopaths in an effort to ascertain if she was one or not (she wasn’t surprised when she scored very highly on the test), she spent very little time contemplating what she did for a career. She carried out the tasks she was paid to do, and moved on. It was one of the reasons why she was so good at it. Another was that she was a woman and therefore men never seemed to suspect her.
But now she’d failed to kill Ray Mason not once but twice. Admittedly he wasn’t supposed to have been there tonight but, even so, it ate at her confidence. She wasn’t going to be truly happy until he was dead.
She also had an added complication. Her partner on this job, Voorhess, a fellow South African killer she’d worked with several times before, and who was also her occasional lover, was hurt.
‘How bad is it?’ she asked as she helped him into the van’s passenger seat.
He’d taken a bullet to the shoulder and was pressing a kitchen towel they’d got from inside the house to the wound. ‘It hurts,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘but it looks like it’s gone straight through. I know a doctor in London who can patch it up for the flight home.’
‘Let’s get over there now then,’ she said, taking a last look round. All three bodies were in the back of the van now and the house had been cleaned up so that it would be impossible to tell that anyone had been murdered there.
It was raining hard as Jane shut the van’s rear doors and ran round to the driver’s side, climbing inside and starting the engine.
‘What’s your doctor’s address?’
‘I need to check,’ said Voorhess, wincing with pain as he pulled out his phone.
Jane drove slowly forward and the front gates opened automatically. At the same time she brought her pistol up from down by her side and shot Voorhess in the side of the head, the bullet passing out through the open window.
He seemed to rock in his seat and she wondered whether she’d have to shoot him again. But then he toppled sideways against the passenger door, his head lolling out of the window. He was dead.
She yanked him back in and closed the window, contemplating putting him in the back of the van with the others but quickly dismissing the idea. He was too much of a dead weight, and he looked quite peaceful where he was, as if he was asleep, her .22 bullet having not left a lot of blood.
Her next port of call was a farm some forty miles away in rural Suffolk. It was run by a farmer with links to several London crime gangs who offered the occasionally indispensable service of getting rid of inconvenient corpses by feeding them to his pigs. Over the years the pigs had developed a real taste for human flesh and bones, and could be relied upon to leave nothing behind – except teeth, which were gathered up for the incinerator. Jane had got to hear about him through her own underworld contacts (she’d long ago discovered that the black market offered every kind of service imaginable), and had used his services twice before. Because of the risks involved, it wasn’t cheap. The farmer charged £10,000 a corpse and, although the client had covered the costs of the three people they’d been sent to kill, Jane was going to have to stump up ten grand of her own money to offload Voorhess. It was another reason to finish the job on Ray Mason.
Ten minutes later, when she was far enough away from the crime scene, she called the client again.
Alastair Sheridan answered on the third ring.
Jane didn’t usually know the names of her clients. That wasn’t how her business worked. She tended to operate through a middleman who acted as a necessary buffer between her and the person paying the bill, but Sheridan had come to her directly with an offer of a great deal of money. She’d done some work for a close associate of his, Cem Kalaman – he’d commissioned her to get rid of a troublesome witness the previous year – and Sheridan had been impressed enough to want her for this job. It didn’t surprise her that a politician would be involved in murder. It happened all the time, including in the supposedly enlightened democracies.
‘Is the deed done?’ asked Sheridan.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Mason got away.’
‘But you just told me you had him.’
‘He had armed help. We were ambushed, and he managed to escape. I was lucky not to get hurt myself. But what the hell was he doing there? I was contracted to take out three targets, which I did. You never said anything about Mason. My colleague died because of him.’
‘I didn’t expect him to be there either,’ said Sheridan. ‘Look, I’ll increase the pay by a hundred thousand dollars to compensate for this. It’ll be in your account by Monday morning.’
Jane didn’t like complicated jobs, as this one was becoming, but she did like money. ‘That’s suitable compensation,’ she said at last.
‘And I want Mason dead.’
‘That’ll cost you another hundred thousand. It’ll be a risky kill.’
‘I can go with that,’ said Sheridan reluctantly. ‘Did you get a look at the people helping him?’
‘There was only one of them and no, we never saw him. He was firing from behind a gate. Do you know who it could have been?’
There was a long silence down the other end of the line. ‘There’s only one person I can think of who would help him on something like this. Her name’s Tina Boyd. She’s Mason’s former lover, and she knows how to handle a gun.’
This was promising. ‘Do you want me to do anything about her?’
‘Nothing yet. Let me think, but remain on standby.’
He ended the call, and Jane put the phone away. She was suddenly feeling better. Another $200,000 would be a major boost to her retirement fund, and now she had a lead back to Mason.
Whatever happened, she was going to get him this time.
Part Three
* * *
18
For the first time in what felt like years I woke up slowly, wondering at first where I was as light shone in through the edges of the curtains, then it came back to me. I was in Tina’s bed. Her side was empty but I could hear her moving about downstairs.
It had been long gone midnight when we’d arrived back at her place, one of a row of pretty terraced cottages in a quiet village close to the M25. By then I was utterly exhausted after the events of the evening. I’d told Tina I didn’t mind where I slept, but she’d let me stay in her bed. I remembered grabbing a shower, putting fresh dressing on the belly wound, and then climbing into bed beside her, where she was already asleep, or pretending to be. I’d kissed her head, smelling the softness of her hair, and that was pretty much the last thing I remembered until now.
I stretched under the sheets and sat up in bed as Tina came back into the room, already dressed. She was wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt, and her feet were bare, the nails painted red. She looked beautiful and I wanted to pull her into bed with me, but the look on her face suggested this wasn’t an option. She had a cup of tea in each hand and she handed me one and sat down at the end of the bed.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ she said. ‘The police have already named you as a suspect in the Cem Kalaman killing.’
I thought about this. ‘They must have had some sort of tip-off. I was wearing a balaclava the whole time.’
‘The thing is, you’re not just an escaped prisoner any more. You’re now the chief suspect in a shooting during which three people died.’
‘I didn’t shoot the woman. She was hit by one of Kalaman’s bodyguards.’
Tina shrugged. ‘But you had motive, so whatever happens they’re going to pin this on you.’
I sat back in the bed. ‘I suppose I should have been expecting this.’
‘And guess who they’ve had on the news talking about how the government has got to get a grip on crime and the prisons, and that your case is just an example of the lawlessness that seems to be sweeping the country?’
I had to laugh. ‘Sheridan. Jesus, he knows how to turn a situation to his advantage. You’ve almost got to admire him.’
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