The Revenge Trail

by A A Abbott

  THE REVENGE TRAIL

  by A.A. Abbott

  Copyright © 2018 A.A. Abbott

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The excellent intellectual property lawyer Katherine Evans really exists, but has never worked for Marty Bridges, who is a fictional character.

  The Hero Couriers bomb scare really took place in Florence Street, Birmingham, the road where I chose in 2015 to set Marty’s fictional business. Although I refer to Hero Couriers, its employees and the discovery of a bomb, my descriptions are fictional.

  The London hotel where fictional characters Dee and Charles choose to marry is loosely based on a fabulous real hotel (should you work out which one, I recommend both the gin tasting and afternoon tea), but my account of it is fictional. As far as I know, the hotel has never been in lockdown and no one has been murdered there.

  Other than this, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in this book are a product of my imagination. Any other resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events, is entirely coincidental.

  A.A. Abbott, Author

  A.A. Abbott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Perfect City Press.

  This book was written by a British writer in British English.

  Kat’s craft vodka brand makes it big, but a crazed murderer’s on her trail.

  Glamorous blonde Kat White makes the best vodka in the world. At last, her craft vodka from Birmingham is going places, while the mother who abandoned her faces financial ruin.

  So does vodka salesman Marty Bridges. Kat doesn’t trust him, but she has to save his business or hers will go under too.

  That’s not her biggest problem. Crazed murderer Shaun Halloran wants to kill her, even if it means breaking out of jail to take his revenge.

  Kat dreams of love, riches and success in her life - but shouldn’t she just focus on staying alive?

  With twists, tension, secrets and suspense – “The Revenge Trail” is a gripping crime thriller that will draw you into Kat's exciting world.

  Chapter 1.

  Marty

  Marty Bridges’ head pounded in time with the thumps on his office door. Whisking his wife to Paris for her birthday weekend had been fun, but had left him with a credit card bill and a hangover.

  “Come in,” he shouted, hardly voicing the words before his son burst into the office.

  “Dad, we’re in big trouble.” Dan had visibly paled beneath his summer tan.

  “What ails you, son? Sit down.” Marty gestured to a meeting chair.

  Dan remained standing. “I’ve rejected the latest shipment of Snow Mountain vodka.”

  Marty gawped. “You’re joking. On what grounds?”

  “We took delivery this morning,” Dan said. “A hundred cases. The rest of the shipment is still in bond. I tested a bottle.”

  The procedure was usually a formality, leaving most of the bottle for the staff to sip or Dan to take home afterwards. “Go on,” Marty said.

  “There was methanol in it,” Dan said.

  “That’s not good.” Marty shook his head in disbelief. The pain in his temples intensified.

  Drinkers could go blind, or even die, if they ingested methanol. It was a by-product of the distillation process, produced right at the start. A half-competent chemical engineer would drain it away before collecting and bottling the vodka. Had Marty sold any of this consignment, he’d have been ruined.

  “Obviously, I just put it through the refractometer. I didn’t go as far as drinking any.” Dan ran his fingers through his untidy fair hair. He looked much as Marty had in his early thirties.

  It was no wonder most of Marty’s own locks had disappeared. “How could it happen? Don’t tell me – Marina Aliyeva has sent the distillery to hell in a handbasket.”

  Marty had been wary of Marina even before she’d inherited the distillery in Bazakistan from her late, unlamented husband.

  Dan shrugged, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “I guess so. I can’t say. All I know is, I’ve been here for fifteen years, and every shipment’s been clean as a whistle until now.”

  “And in the ten years before that.”

  Marty had imported Snow Mountain since the very first batch emerged from the production line. Purity and quality had been exceptional when the plant was run by Harry Aliyev and his predecessor, Sasha Belov. They were both skilled engineers and vodka enthusiasts. Each had also been married to, and outlived by, Marina.

  She’d definitely had a hand in Belov’s death, and possibly Aliyev’s too. Harry Aliyev’s illegitimate children thought so. They’d been denied a share in the distillery under Bazaki intestacy laws that gave the dead man’s assets to his widow.

  Marty shuddered, remembering the foxgloves, laburnum trees and oleander in Marina’s garden. Those were just the poisonous plants he recognised. Harry Aliyev had supposedly died of natural causes: a heart attack, whilst in his mistress’s embrace. It wouldn’t have been beyond Marina’s wit, or desire, to have helped her husband on his way.

  “Marina wouldn’t accept there was anything wrong,” Dan said, frustration knitting his brow. It was unusual for him to encounter a problem he couldn’t solve. Although his job title was import and export manager, he was Marty’s troubleshooter, and he was good at it.

  “We shouldn’t be surprised,” Marty said. “She’s never been interested in the dirty business of manufacturing, only in spending the profits.”

  “I emailed Marina to say we had to destroy the entire container-load, and wouldn’t pay for it,” Dan said. “I got a reply straight back. The gist of it was, either we pay up or she won’t supply to us again.”

  Marty whistled. She had to be bluffing. “I’ll call her,” he said. “Meanwhile, we’re out of pocket, and short of stock. We paid tax on that vodka when it came out of bond.”

  “We can get the excise duty back,” Dan assured him. “Stock levels are more of a problem, but I can manage customers’ expectations as long as I know when the next shipment’s coming.”

  “Leave it with me,” Marty said. He checked his watch as Dan left. It was nearly lunchtime in Bazakistan. Marina might well have stopped work for the day, to visit an exclusive boutique or have a beauty treatment before clubbing in the centre of Kireniat with her latest lover. He didn’t care. Her staff knew he was their biggest customer, and they’d track her down for him. She might try to fob Dan off, but it wouldn’t work on Marty. He rang the Snow Mountain switchboard.

  As expected, he was connected to Marina within minutes.

  “Marty, what’s this nonsense I hear from your boy?” The distillery owner was clearly uninterested in small talk.

  “I could ask you the same,” Marty said. “Letting methanol into your product is a serious breach of quality control. It could be fatal to the Snow Mountain brand, to your business, and most of all, to consumers.”

  Marina sneered. “Obviously,” she said. “But this is merely your ploy to avoid paying me, isn’t it? You’re trying to get the shipment for free.”

  “If only that were true,” Marty said. “Will you believe me when I send the paperwork proving the shipment’s been destroyed? I need all that anyway for the UK customs and excise.”

  Marina laughed. “Documents can be faked.”

  Marty was losing patience. “Well then, send one of your engineers over here, and they can see for themselves. They can test as many bottles as they want. And before you make ridiculous allegations about tampering, I can get another case straight out of bond for them to sample.”

  “Grigor will be on the first flight from Kireniat to Heathrow tomorrow morning,” Marina said. “If I find out you’re cheating me, I
’m getting another distributor.”

  “I own the brand,” Marty said. “There is no one else who can distribute Snow Mountain. But let’s be clear, if you send any more rubbish my way, I’ll get another supplier. Clean up your act, or your business will go down the toilet.”

  “Enough,” Marina snapped. “We’ll see what Grigor has to say. He’s my chief engineer, and you won’t fool him.”

  Marty left it at that. There was more he could have said. Marina had, after all, mounted a legal challenge to his ownership of the worldwide brand rights for Snow Mountain. He was defending his intellectual property, but the product contamination could be an attempt to discourage him. If so, it was a risky strategy on her part. There was a strong chance she’d destroy the brand’s reputation in the process, and what good would it do her then?

  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Bazakistan had built an economy from mineral rights and agriculture, but products like Snow Mountain vodka were still perceived as valuable exports by the nation’s ageing President. Would Marina, a self-styled patriot, escape official censure if those exports vanished overnight, whether by scheming or carelessness? Marty thought not.

  The most plausible explanation was that Marina’s production team had cut corners. They’d have let the methanol through in a bid to squeeze more output from the plant. It was an amateurish mistake. Kat, her daughter, would never have done that. Even when Kat had made vodka in a small cellar with a Heath Robinson-type tangle of pipes, the spirit had been exceptionally pure.

  Marty’s lips tightened. Tim, his eldest son, had persuaded him to invest in Kat’s new vodka brand. She was about to begin production in premises on the other side of the city centre. With a little more time, he could have asked Kat to make Snow Mountain for him. Whatever Marina thought, he owned the brand. Still, vodka produced in Birmingham would be perceived differently by consumers than a spirit crafted in the tree-lined hills of Bazakistan.

  Anyway, who knew whether Kat would agree? And how trustworthy was she? Like her father, Sasha Belov, she could make the best vodka in the world. But what devious genes had Kat inherited from Marina? He should have kept well away from Marina’s daughter and made sure Tim did the same.

  Somehow, he had to resolve this supply problem, and soon. Snow Mountain was the bedrock of his drinks business, accounting for ten per cent of East West Bridges’ sales, but half of its profit. It didn’t just underpin his own lifestyle, but that of his employees, including three of his four children.

  That wasn’t all. Marty relied on East West Bridges to fund a cancer research joint venture. A high six figure payment was required to start more clinical trials soon. Where would he find it if income from Snow Mountain took a dive?

  “I’m taking an early lunch, Tanya. Hair of the dog,” he told his PA. His temples throbbed. Caffeine and sugar had merely nibbled at the edges of the headache. A pint of bitter and a pork pie at the Craven Arms would restore him.

  Sweating, despite leaving his suit jacket behind, he strode into the sunshine. Viewed from outside, the single storey office was as unlovely as the old warehouse behind it. He’d bought the premises cheaply, though; while Florence Street was a short walk from the centre of Birmingham, it was in a crumbling industrial enclave.

  As usual, little disturbed the hot summer air. Marty barely noticed the rhythmic thud of a small workshop’s machines down the road, and the clatter of a courier firm’s metal shutter opposite.

  Lost in thought, he crossed the street. Suddenly, he turned at the loud rattle of a diesel engine. One of the courier’s vans was heading straight towards him. Instinct raised his hands to shield his head, while desperation sent him leaping to one side. Still, the white van bore down.

  The vehicle screeched to a halt, its tyres smoking. An acrid smell of burnt rubber filled the air. It had missed him by inches.

  “Use your eyes,” he yelled, as the driver waved a tanned hand and sped off around the corner.

  Hajji, the young gopher at Hero Couriers, emerged from behind the shutter. “Sorry, Mr Bridges,” he said. “He’s new. I’ll get the boss to have a word with him.”

  “Get him to watch where he’s going,” Marty said. His racing heart had quieted now. “Look, I know time is money for your guys, okay? Just apply some common sense. And tell your boss he owes me a discount.”

  The pub’s siren call lured him even more strongly. When he discovered there had been no delivery of pork pies that day, he was reminded of the adage that troubles come in threes. Unlike the vodka contamination or the over-enthusiastic courier, this setback was easy to address. Marty ordered an extra pint of beer. Briefly, all was well with the world.

  Chapter 2.

  Kat

  A horn sounded as Kat White entered the three-storey redbrick building. It was one of the properties Marty appeared to keep, like cards in his pocket, dotted around the fringes of the city centre. The alarm system was a recent addition, installed to protect her precious Starshine vodka. Its noise ceased when she tapped a combination into a pad.

  The air was heavy with a sweet, cloying smell, halfway between a brewery and a chip shop. This was the aroma of fermented potatoes. When Kat had first used them for vodka, the odour had made her gag. Those days were well past, along with the demijohns employed in her initial experiments. Marty’s money had bought professional distilling equipment, including huge stainless steel tanks. One of these contained the rough brew. Having lain in the tank for six days, it was ready for its first distillation this morning.

  Kat had been a daddy’s girl, following her father around his distillery as a small child. It meant she had complete faith that the dirt-coloured alcoholic broth could be turned into a pure, clean spirit.

  Humming, she flicked a switch to send the soupy liquid down a pipe into the stripper. This was a column made of steel, with a boiler beneath it, stretching up for two storeys. Marty and his sons had reconfigured the building, knocking the ceilings through at one end and installing ladders. The full height of the property was required for the stripper and its big brother, the rectification column, which Kat would use later.

  The boiler thrummed into life. As the lumpy soup bubbled, its alcohol evaporated, travelling to the top of the stripper for collection in a condenser. This cooled the gas into a liquid again. The distillate was too strong to drink, and anyway, it was rougher than the worst moonshine. Kat didn’t plan to dip a finger in it. Instead, she sent the raw spirit travelling through another pipe to Sasha.

  Her face flushed with pride as she turned her attention to the polished copper still. Had she followed tradition in the industry, it would have had a female name. Kat, however, had christened hers after her late father. Alexander Belov had always been Sasha to his family and friends.

  This Sasha was thirsty, demanding plenty of water for the second distillation. Kat had been delighted to find that Birmingham’s water came from the Welsh mountains. Its softness and purity were superior even to the stream from which Alexander Belov had drawn his supplies.

  Sasha’s alchemy transformed moonshine and water into something magical. Only the final rectification was required now: the third distillation in a column seventy feet high. For the next couple of hours, Kat concentrated on this. She drew away the first vapours to emerge. These were the heads, containing deadly methanol.

  Next, she allowed the hearts, the vodka she wanted to keep, to flow into the maturation tank. Every twenty minutes or so, she tasted a sample to be sure it was still clean and creamy.

  Her finely-tuned palate told her when the hearts were coming to an end. Immediately, Kat switched outflow pipes, sending the rest of the production run down the drain. This was the tails: not poisonous, but unpleasant to drink.

  In two weeks, she’d be emptying the maturation tank into Starshine vodka bottles for the very first time. Excitement sustained her as she worked without a break until mid-afternoon. Only then did she realise how uncomfortably warm the room had become. Kat shrugged off her lab coat. Stopping for
a quick shot of instant coffee, she spent the rest of the day cleaning the equipment.

  She was still high on adrenaline as she walked home. For most of her twenty-six years, she’d dreamed of running a high-end vodka business. Thanks to Tim, it was starting to happen.

  Although Marty had driven a hard bargain when he invested in the Starshine joint venture, he wouldn’t have considered it all without his son to win him over. Kat thanked fate for sending Tim on a Snow Mountain sales call to the casino where she’d been working. The romance it had sparked had turned into something even more life-changing.

  She marched quickly, determined to arrive home and make a start decorating before Tim visited. The crumbling Victorian redbrick semi near the Edgbaston Reservoir had seen better days. While she couldn’t change its shabby exterior, she’d decided to give her rented bedsit a facelift.

  His sporty gold Subaru drew alongside just as she rounded a corner and the grungy house, its front garden thick with weeds, came into view.

  He wound down the window and grinned, a summer breeze teasing his waxed fair hair. “Thought I’d stop by early and give you a hand. Does that meet with your approval, Katya Belova?”

  “It does, Timothy Bridges.” She looked away, wincing, her hand trembling as she unlocked the peeling grey front door. Nobody used her birth name anymore. She was a British citizen now, her surname changed by deed poll. If she counted her time at the posh boarding school she’d been forced to leave at sixteen, she’d lived in England for more than half her life.

  She might preserve memories of her dead father, but there were other fragments of the past she preferred to forget.

  Tim put a hand on her shoulder. “Have I spoken out of turn?” he asked softly.