Relentless: A Novel

by Simon Kernick

  ‘Jesus!’ cursed Kathy, dancing about on her feet.

  I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the room. Abstract paintings lined the available wallspace, great mishmashes of shapeless colour that seemed to represent nothing at all. An easel and artist’s chair were in the centre of the floor, and a half-finished effort in blue and green that looked like it had been put together by a boss-eyed chimp was mounted upon it.

  A second shot rang out, the bullet passing straight through the painting before pinging off the far wall. We kept on going, silent now, until we reached the back window that opened directly out on to the forest. I got there first and pulled the handle. It was locked. The bastard thing was locked, and I knew for sure I didn’t have a key for it. Behind me, no more than fifteen feet away, I could hear them kicking the door. It sounded like they were trying to knock it off its hinges, and with some success. We were trapped, and I had seconds to make a decision.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, break it!’ Kathy shouted, looking around for something to use. She pulled a china pot from one of the shelves and heaved it against the glass. Nothing happened. The window was new, so it probably had toughened glass.

  A third shot rang out, and I heard one of the hinges of the door go. I swung round, picked up the artist’s chair and charged it into the window with all the force I could muster. The glass cracked, a thin line in the middle. I retreated and came forward again, hitting harder this time, and the crack widened. I was panting with the exertion. As I came back to do it a third time, I saw that the door was now hanging inwards on its frame, one hinge gone, the other just about to go. Both men were partly visible in the gaps, and one was poking a gun through.

  Summoning everything I had, I smashed the chair into the window a third time, and this time the glass broke into two pieces and fell outwards with a clatter. A large shard was still poking upwards so I hammered it side-on with the chair and most of it flew off.

  Behind us there was a crash as the door flew open completely. They were in, and in the light of the room we were sitting ducks. But this time there was no way we were stopping.

  Dropping the chair, I grabbed Kathy, lifted her up (thank God she was slim) and heaved her bodily through the window before she had a chance to protest. I took three steps back and, ignoring the footfalls coming across the floor, and the strangely muffled shouts to put my hands up coming from my pursuers, ran forward and did a flying dive through the gap, experiencing a sharp, hot pain like a burn as what was left of the lower shard tore through my clothing and the skin of my stomach.

  I landed hands first, beyond the panes of glass lying on the grass, and somersaulted over, my legs hitting Kathy as she got to her feet. I was up in an instant, grabbing her by the hand and running through the soaked undergrowth, the cool air filling me with an exultant relief. She stumbled; I pulled her up. We went through a bramble bush, jumped over a fallen log, kept accelerating. Knowing that we were free. That we’d beaten the bastards. We’d actually beaten them. In those moments, nothing else mattered.

  Behind us, the shouts of our pursuers faded into the rain.

  29

  Lench jumped back onto the landing, using the bedroom door as cover, Daniels’ bullet narrowly missing him. He knew that the trap he’d set had failed. Knowing that Daniels was armed, and that a full-frontal attack would cost him men, Lench had decided to send Mantani round the back of the house to climb up onto the single-storey roof and get inside that way. Then, by simultaneously fire-bombing both ends of the house, they would drive the three either out into the open or more likely up the stairs, where Mantani had been ordered to ambush them and despatch Daniels so that the Merons would have no choice but to surrender.

  Lench had assumed that Daniels would take the lead and be the first of the three upstairs, making him a comparatively easy target, but that hadn’t happened, and now Mantani was dead, and Lench himself was having to pick up the pieces. Far better, he thought as he stood outside the bedroom door, to have simply firebombed the place and waited for them to exit the building, choking and vulnerable. In the battlefields of Croatia and Bosnia all those years ago, they’d taught him always to keep plans simple. Elaboration wasted time. Human beings, particularly civilians, were essentially cowardly creatures given to panic. Surprise and overwhelming force were all that was needed to subdue them. He’d ignored that advice tonight by trying to be clever, and now it had cost him. But the situation was redeemable. If he moved fast.

  He dived low into the bedroom, all the time facing the badly damaged and blood-stained bedroom window. Meron was scrambling out of one end and onto the roof while Daniels crouched a few feet away in front of the shattered middle pane. He had a gun in one hand and was using the other to pull up Mantani’s balaclava-clad corpse under the arms, trying to use him as a shield.

  Lench pulled the trigger while he was still in mid-air. So did Daniels, three times, the bullets cracking like whiplashes through the room. Each man’s shots missed the other. Lench landed on his side and the shotgun discharged again, this time accidentally, blasting a tight circle of penny-shaped holes in the ceiling above the bed. Dust and plaster sprinkled down. Daniels fired two more shots in return, both of which hit the lower part of the wall near Lench. Then there was silence. Neither man could see the other. Lench could hear Daniels shuffling along the line of the window, presumably making for the part that was open so he could make his own escape. He’d fired thirteen shots. The weapon was a Glock that Lench had supplied, which carried a fifteen-round magazine, with one in the breech. That left Daniels with three more bullets. Enough still to be dangerous. Lench only had two shells left himself, and he wasn’t carrying spares. Another lesson from the Yugoslavian war zone he’d failed to heed: always prepare for the worst-case scenario.

  But whatever faults Lench possessed, the fear of death was not one of them. In one surprisingly athletic movement for a man so large, he leaped to his feet, calculating accurately Daniels’ position, and opened fire without hesitation.

  Daniels stumbled backwards with the force of the shot, but he was crouched low behind Mantani and it was the dead man who took the force of the blast, his masked face disappearing in a cloud of blood and bone, much of which sprayed over the undercover cop. Daniels let go of Mantani’s body and pulled the trigger of the Glock wildly, cracking off two shots, neither of which went anywhere near their target, before Lench discharged the shotgun for the last time.

  The shot caught Daniels in the centre of the chest, driving him hard against the broken glass of the middle pane, the gun flying uselessly out of his hand. Mantani’s ruined corpse slipped out of view and hit the floor with a dull clump. At the same time, Daniels let out a pained gasp that filled Lench with the kind of warm, easy glow that ending a life always gave him. Daniels was unsteady on his feet, stumbling badly, but Lench wanted him conscious for these last few moments so that he could hold him close as his life ebbed away. He dropped the shotgun and with an animal howl sprang across the bed.

  But for a dying man, Daniels still had something left, and he moved to one side and avoided the full force of the attack. Lench managed to grab him with one arm, though, and pull him into the beginnings of a bearhug. Daniels fought back, a punch coming out of nowhere and catching Lench across the cheek.

  The two men struggled as Lench manoeuvred the arm to which his jet knife was attached so that it was against Daniels’ belly, close to the appendix. But as he pushed against his foe’s torso, he realized that it felt solid. The bastard was wearing a bulletproof vest. No wonder he was still fighting. Lench shifted the knife so that it was wedged in underneath Daniels’ armpit, but the other man suddenly bucked wildly, pushed himself away from the open window and grabbed the knife arm by the wrist, yanking it away from his body.

  Lench punched him hard in the face with his free hand, twice in quick succession, and flicked the wrist of the knife arm so that the six-inch blade shot out, ripping a huge gash in Daniels’ thumb and narrowly missing his neck. Da
zed, Daniels stumbled backwards, still clinging to Lench’s wrist. Lench knew that there was no point in continuing to toy with his victim. He had to make the kill. And quickly. Smoke was filling the room, and he could hear the sounds of shouting outside as the other two men gave chase to Meron and his wife. He needed to bring the situation under control, and now.

  Daniels had also grabbed his free hand by the wrist so that Lench couldn’t punch him again, so instead he shoved Daniels hard, bending him backwards over the windowsill. Using all his weight, and his advantageous position looking down on the other man, Lench tried to force the knife downwards into his throat. Daniels bent his body back through the open window in a desperate bid to avoid the blade as it inched closer and closer. His face was bloodied where he’d been hit, and his eyes were wide with nervous tension. The arm holding the knife away from him was the one that had been hit by shotgun pellets, and it was shaking wildly. Any moment now it was going to give, and then death would be inevitable. The tip of the blade was just three inches away from Daniels’ Adam’s apple, and Lench smiled down at him.

  ‘Time to die, my friend,’ he whispered gently. ‘Time to spill some blood.’ His voice was thick with gloating.

  Then, suddenly, he gasped in shock as Daniels drove a knee up into his groin. Lench felt his whole body go slack, and before he could right himself Daniels had slammed his knife arm against the window frame, risen up from his supine position and headbutted him on his upturned chin. Lench lost his footing and Daniels shoved him away, managing to put a couple of feet of space between them, then turned and slid out of the window onto the single-storey roof. Lench grabbed wildly for one of his legs, ignoring the pain in his groin, but Daniels kicked the hand away and began crawling along the ridgeline, making for the edge.

  Thin lines of smoke seeped through the gaps in the roof’s tiles, and Lench realized that it was going to collapse at any moment. But he couldn’t let his quarry get away. Clambering up onto the window ledge, he leaped through the air, landing on Daniels’ back, knees first. There was a loud crack beneath them as the badly weakened roof buckled under the strain, but Lench ignored it and pulled Daniels’ head back by the hair, the knife raised ready to slash his throat. Something else cracked.

  But Daniels was a formidable opponent who didn’t seem to know when he was beaten, and he shifted violently onto his side, bucking like a donkey and knocking Lench off balance. The two men rolled down to the guttering, and suddenly they were falling through the air.

  They landed hard, Daniels on top. Lench exhaled violently, winded by the fall, but still had the presence of mind to lash out with the knife, the blade narrowly missing his opponent’s cheek. But Daniels was already struggling free, and he ducked away from the second slash of the knife and jumped unsteadily to his feet.

  He started running towards the bushes, but then abruptly changed direction as two of Lench’s men emerged from the timber-framed summerhouse ahead of him, and instead made for the wooden fence that separated the back garden from the driveway. He jumped up, grabbed the top with both hands, and used his arms to lift himself up and over.

  Lench watched him negotiate the fence, realizing not only that it was possible the Merons were escaping, but so was this bastard, Daniels. A man who was his own responsibility. This couldn’t be. Failure was not possible. Not tonight.

  One of the two men coming out of the summerhouse made a gesture at Lench to let him know that their quarry had escaped. Lench cursed, slid the blade of his knife back into the handle, then ran over and grabbed the pistol of the nearest man.

  ‘Where the hell have they gone?’ he demanded.

  ‘Into the woods,’ answered the one whose pistol he’d taken, managing to keep his voice free of nerves. He was afraid of Lench, as all who knew him were, but was also aware that he needed both of them right now, so he wouldn’t do anything rash. ‘There’s no way we’re going to get them out there. They’ve got fifty yards on us, probably more.’

  Lench told them to wait where they were, then ran over and vaulted onto the fence. He sat astride it and spotted Daniels through the rain running unsteadily across the driveway, ten yards short of the 4×4, the keys to it in his hand. He took aim carefully, squinting as he sighted his eye down the barrel. The distance was fifteen yards. Handguns are notoriously inaccurate over distance, but Lench was an excellent shot. He’d learned to shoot pistols in Croatia in 1991, and had practised regularly ever since, often travelling to a shooting range in Normandy where he made use of his wide collection of licensed firearms. The Glock 17 he was holding now was one of them, brought back into the UK illegally amid a shipment of computer chips some months earlier. He picked out the back of Daniels’ head and held the position. His quarry seemed unaware that he was being targeted. Lench’s arm was perfectly steady. The distance between Daniels and the Lexus decreased to eight yards, then seven. Lench pulled the trigger. A second later, Daniels pitched forward and fell flat on his face on the gravel, arms spreadeagled.

  Lench allowed himself a small triumphant smile. Another to add to the list of his kills. He remembered all his victims individually, could bring up a picture in his mind of every one of them, as well as the circumstances of how they’d died. Sometimes, when it was possible, he took a trophy. He still kept a lock of thick, raven-black hair spun through a small gold wedding band in a drawer beside his bed, a constant reminder of his single most enjoyable encounter to date – a stunningly attractive, newly-wed Muslim girl of barely eighteen with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. He’d invaded her home in a village near the Bosnian border town of Banic in the winter of 1992, and had snuffed out her existence in a bloody bout of sexual ecstasy that had probably lasted only a couple of hours but which had felt like a whole joyous lifetime.

  Daniels didn’t move. He was dead, of that there was little doubt. Now he could do no further damage. But the problem was, the people who could do real damage – Tom and Kathy Meron – had somehow got away again.

  Lench looked up towards the leaden sky. It was as if he was sniffing the wet night air. In the distance he could hear the sound of sirens, and he knew they were coming here. The house was now completely ablaze, flames licking the brickwork, their heat spreading in thick, comforting waves. The fire, coupled with the gunshots, would have been more than enough to attract the attention of anyone living within a half-mile radius.

  He slid down the fence and jogged over to the other two men. The Merons, he knew, were lost to them for the moment.

  It was time to up the ante. It was time to call Dorriel Graham.

  30

  Mike Bolt had a theory about detective work, and it was this: the detective could never explain everything. He might have a good overall idea about a criminal’s motivations, but rarely, if ever, did he have the full picture. It was the same with the circumstances of a crime. Sometimes things happened that defied logic. Like a woman in a university library murdered with a knife that held the prints of a work colleague who several hours earlier had been ten miles away at the home of a man who was murdered in entirely different circumstances, almost certainly by different people, in a case that may or may not have been connected. The way forward in something like this was not to rack your brains trying to come up with theories, but to get hold of live witnesses who could fill in the gaps for you. And this meant finding the Merons.

  They stopped at the HQ and picked up Bolt’s car, saying their goodbyes at just before eleven o’clock.

  ‘I’m sorry I messed up your night,’ Bolt told Mo as he got out of the car.

  Mo smiled. ‘You didn’t. It’s everyone else. If they weren’t dying in mysterious circumstances and leaving behind secret pasts, I’d be tucked up at home with a beer in front of Match of the Day.’

  ‘Well, go home now, get some rest. I’ll call you in the morning.’

  ‘Sure. Are you going to put out a bulletin on the Merons?’

  ‘I’ll put a call in on the way home.’

  Bolt shut the car door and watc
hed as Mo drove away. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up in the orange-tinted night sky. He was exhausted. This was a case like no other he’d investigated, with wildly disparate pieces appearing all the time, and events moving at breakneck speed. Bolt was more used to cases lasting months, involving a long, patient build-up of evidence against elusive and very careful targets, not a sudden and explosive series of crimes that might be linked to individuals right at the very heart of the establishment, and where suspects and victims alike appeared, on the face of it, to be ordinary, hard-working people.

  Bolt wondered if the key to this set of events was the man whose apparent suicide they were currently investigating. One thing was certain: if Parnham-Jones had indeed been part of a ruthless paedophile gang there would be some record of his hobby somewhere. Most likely on his computer.

  As he walked over to the Ford Orion he was driving these days and opened the door, he put in another call to Matt Turner. For the second time, it went straight to message. Once again he left a voicemail asking him to call back, whatever time it was.

  He flicked off the phone and started the car. His stomach growled but he no longer felt hungry. He’d gone beyond that stage. Now he just felt empty. Empty and tired.

  He put the car in gear and pulled away.

  31

  The forest ran uninterrupted for more than a mile behind our cottage before giving way to agricultural land. We ran through the rain and undergrowth for what seemed like hours, battered, exhausted and shocked by the events of this bloody day, ignoring the tight coils of brambles that ripped at our clothes and exposed skin, knowing that in order to survive we had to keep going. Because for the first time in our lives, there were people out there who wanted to kill us.

  Finally we reached the edge of the forest and sank to our knees in the darkness, just inside the treeline. Beyond it was a quiet country road, little more than a track, and then a huge wheat field that ran in a dip along a quarter-mile stretch to where the trees started again. We’d walked here a few times before with the kids in happier times, and I knew that there were storage sheds hidden away from the road on the other side of the field. The sound of our heavy breathing seemed to fill the air along with the constant pattering of the rain and the faint noise of sirens somewhere in the distance behind us.