A Reason to Kill

by Michael Kerr

  “But the tape. People will see it.”

  “If it’s found, then only myself and a couple of the crime team will view it.”

  Marion rubbed at her right temple with blocky, short-nailed fingers. “You reap what you sow, I suppose.”

  “So use it as a stepping stone. Don’t let life dictate, Marion. Set yourself goals and go for them. Everybody has problems.”

  Marion stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

  Beth’s thoughts turned inward to examine her own life. She was a thirty-three-year-old divorced workaholic, who may just be falling in love with a cop who might not feel the same way, or have the ability to reciprocate. Everything seemed to be linked. Gary Noon’s actions had affected a lot of people one way or another. He had shot Matt, who survived, just, minus a kidney. She had got asked to consult on the case and met the DI. It was as if so many things that had and may yet happen, could and would lead back to the wanted sociopath. There was a part of her that wondered if anything good could come out of something with such fundamentally evil origins. She had just told the distressed nurse to set goals and to use this experience as a stepping stone. Now, she was raining on her own parade. She sympathised with Marion. Could sense the woman’s emotional pain.

  “You’re right,” Marion said, now more composed. “We all have to look at the menu in front of us, make choices, and hope that what we order is palatable. I’m glad you came, Beth. I needed to talk to someone. I just didn’t know it. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”

  “Yes, tea please. I’ll make a call while you fix it.”

  The Villa Venice was a majestic Mediterranean-style house that would have graced a cliff top on Capri. Instead of being in the bay of Naples, it was situated in Essex, north and east of Cheshunt, off the A194. The estate and the twenty-five room villa at the approximate centre of the fifty acres it occupied were out of sight from the road. Frank Santini had named it after a restaurant in Cook County, north of Chicago, which had at one time been owned in part by the gangster Sam Giancana. The joint had been pure Italian; even had a river snaking through the main room, with gondoliers poling their craft through it. And Sinatra, Eddie Fisher and other headliners of the day attracted high-rollers in to use the gambling facilities.

  There was only one entrance to the Essex Villa Venice. On the inside of the massive and ornate wrought iron gates was a marble chip-covered main drive lined on both sides with mature lime trees. A secondary loop road ran through a copse of firs to the rear of the house, for tradesmen. Within the property, armed dog handlers patrolled the inside of a sixteen-foot-high electrified fence.

  Frank Santini was at home, swimming in the indoor pool when Tiny came through to him with news that immediately darkened his mood.

  “The Old Bill have just put out more details on the hitter, boss. His name is Gary Noon. He’s a bona fide nutter, and they expect to make an early arrest.”

  Frank was doing a clumsy breaststroke, head held high to keep his toupee above water. He found the non slip bottom of the pool with his feet and waded up the steps at the shallow end.

  “I don’t need this, Tiny. Get me a drink,” he said, snatching the bath towel that Tiny held out to him.

  Frank had been mellow. He had flown across the pond to the Big Apple and opened a new night club – Capo Peloro – on West 53rd Street in Midtown, just a spit from Broadway. The club was a joint venture. Benny Andretti had fifty percent of it. Benny lived out at Eastchester and, through spring and summer, conducted much of his daily business from the deep porch of the Larchmont Yacht Club, which offered a fine view of Long Island Sound. Benny had not sailed once in his sixty-seven years, but enjoyed the old money ambience and the setting of the Larchmont. And come Labor Day every year, he moved down to his Boca Raton location in Florida, to spend the late fall and winter in warmer climes.

  On his return from New York, Frank had been up. Not even the news of Dom’s meeting with the cop had dampened his spirits. Now, the sense of well-being had evaporated. It was obvious that the hitter was a certifiable head case, unstable and dangerous. That in itself was no big deal. What really concerned him was, that if the filth lifted him, he would no doubt confirm that Frank had hired him to hit Little. It was an unwelcome development.

  “If they pick him up, we can make sure he never gives evidence, boss,” Tiny said. “He can be dealt with while he’s on remand.”

  Frank clenched his teeth. “If he’s prepared to sell me out, they won’t put him inside, dummy. He’ll be protected, same as they tried with Lester. Only difference is, they’ll do it properly with this wanker, and make sure he keeps breathin’. I doubt he’ll appear in court. They’ll set up a fuckin’ video-link from wherever he’s stashed.”

  “So what do we do, boss?”

  “Find him before the plods do. Or have somebody ready to move in and whack him when he’s picked up. I still have a cop at the Yard who’ll keep me in the picture. This has just got messy, and I like things neat, Tiny. I could do without these distractions.”

  “Who would you use to hit a hitter, boss?”

  “Another pro. Benny Andretti uses a guy based in Miami to take care of problems like this. We discussed the affair. If necessary, Benny will get him to fly over and be on standby for as long as it takes. He don’t come cheap, but he’s supposed to be as good as money can buy.”

  Tiny attempted a smile, but his face still hurt. The pained expression was more of a scowl. He held the leaded crystal glass awkwardly and cursed under his breath as he poured Frank a large Jack Daniel’s. His splinted finger throbbed. The cop, Barnes, had taken him by surprise, but Tiny had patience. Every dog has its day. He would catch up with him and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Dominic helped keep his hate for the cop as fresh as new mown grass. He wouldn’t leave it be, taking the piss by reminding Tiny that an invalid who couldn’t walk without a cane had taken him with ease. The physical injuries were far less painful than the bruising of his ego.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HE slept a lot. At times he switched on the small portable radio with the volume set very low, to keep abreast of the news. He had spare batteries, should he need them.

  By the fourth night he was out of water. It was time to replenish his supply and also empty the large plastic chemiloo. The storage unit stank like a cesspool, even though he had used plenty of strong-smelling disinfectant. He felt as though he had been incarcerated in a crypt with corpses corrupting all around him. Darkness was both friend and foe under these abnormal circumstances. He was hidden and safe, and yet his immediate surroundings gave rise to a hardly tolerable increase in horrific delusions that conspired to weaken his grip on reality. At one point he had woken up and believed himself to be in a vast graveyard. The camp bed had become a mound of damp earth. He was somehow a part of George A Romero’s seminal cult classic: Night of the Living Dead. Cannibalistic zombies broke out of their coffins to erupt mole-like from the grass. His stomach clenched. He was at once encircled by dozens of lumbering skeletal figures, their clothing was tattered shrouds, and the flesh mouldered and peeled off them like mildewed wallpaper. One leathery hand reached out, and long black fingernails gouged his cheek.

  He screamed, and the hallucinatory hell dissolved. No greater challenge could have been set him than to stay and face the fear that his own troubled mind created to terrify him. He took double the prescribed dose of antipsychotic pills to dull the demons. At times it was only the faint crack of light that seeped under the bottom of the door that provided a lifeline to the outside world, alleviating the surreal creations of his subconscious. The otherwise Delphic gloom was a canvas that his paranoia used to paint his darkest, innermost nightmares on. Why people would pay to be placed in sensory depravation tanks was unfathomable. The mind would, if deprived of outside stimuli, create another reality. It might be like a trip on acid, good or bad. Who would want to risk facing their worst fears? And he was considered to be
suffering from mental illness. Do me a favour! Everyone had bad shit in their heads. They might be able to cloak it, but they were all riddled with doubts, fears and fantasies. The three-dimensional known world was only one aspect of existence. Aliens might exist. The mild-mannered next door neighbour could quite easily be an axe murderer. He, Gary Noon, was in all probability the sanest person on the planet, surrounded by vast hordes of crazy morons, of whom only a very few had the guts to be individuals and realise their dreams and potential. Life for most of the insects was spent working in jobs they would rather not do, to pay bills and sustain them to continue at their meaningless labours. They did not have the will to break out and let their natures roam free. The masses were puppets of the few, controlled, programmed and set on a course that would eventually take them over a cliff edge. Fucking lemmings! He pushed the button on the rubber-jacketed torch and shone the beam onto the face of his wristwatch. Eleven p.m.

  With the empty water containers and the stinking, overflowing portable loo next to him, he raised the door just far enough to be able to reach out and remove the padlock. He then eased the door up a few more inches, and lying flat, looked out to check that the coast was clear. It was, and he rolled out into the cool, night air. Took great gulps of it, until he felt dizzy.

  There was no need to leave the storage facility. There was a water tap bracketed to the wall at the end of the row. He filled his containers, left them, and went across to the perimeter fence to empty his waste into thigh-high weeds and grass that had grown through the wire mesh and been allowed to proliferate.

  Back in the unit, he settled on the camp bed. Another day or two would be prudent. The news coverage of the hunt for him was encouraging. They had found the Mondeo at Heathrow, and as the days went by, were considering it a likely probability that he had left the country using a fake passport. It amazed him that so many members of the public had reported seeing him in locations as far apart as Inverness and Portsmouth. There had also been one sighting in Spain, and another in Thailand. It all helped his cause.

  He chuckled in the darkness. The police had no idea. He was like a hibernating animal in its den, under their noses but invisible to them. When the time felt right, he would emerge. That brought Simon to mind. His pet mygalomorph grew by moulting. The spider would stop eating for a week or so, lie on its back and split off its old exoskeleton, then flip back right side up, bigger and more resplendent in a new and fully hardened outer covering. The thought of Barnes putting his foot on Simon and grinding him into the carpet, was almost unbearable. He couldn’t cry, but felt his throat constrict with something akin to emotion. The cop would not enjoy a quick and clean death. When the time came, Barnes would have to face a prolonged and agonising end. Imagining the various acts he looked forward to committing was heart-warming. Ultimately, anyone who wished him harm or knew him for what he was would be dealt with. He thought of his intentions as a quest; a crusade against his enemies.

  No mention of him on the latest news. It was all about yet more floods. If anything, people were more stupid than insects, courting havoc and death by living in areas that were known to be in flood plains, and then having the cheek to moan when disaster struck. The same could be said of idiots who lived in the proximity of active volcanoes, or the inhabitants of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, who knew all too well that the big quake was going to happen, but stuck their heads in the sand and waited for tragedy to strike. In the main, people deserved everything they got. In parts of Africa, a child was dying of thirst or disease every three seconds, and no one really gave a shit. And yet the odd life he took was taken out of all proportion and given unwarranted gravitas.

  Turning over onto his side, calmed by the drugs, Gary thought good thoughts and slept like a baby.

  Matt inserted a translucent, shatter resistant ruler down the top of his cast and manoeuvred it round to the spot on his thigh that was itching.

  “Aahh, yes!” he said, finding the offending patch of skin and working the ruler up and down over it.

  Beth tapped on the open office door.

  “Morning,” Tom said. “What’ve you got there?”

  Beth entered waving a brown paper bag in the air, smiling at Matt as he removed the ruler in the manner of a musketeer drawing his sword from its scabbard.

  “I thought you guys might not say no to some doughnuts,” she said, placing the bag on Tom’s desk, atop the mound of files that covered it.

  They drank coffee and ate the pastries, licking the sugar from their fingers and lips before speaking.

  “That took me back,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together.

  “To where?” Beth asked, as she passed Matt and Tom tissues.

  “The summer of sixty-nine,” Tom said, wiping his mouth and hands. “I used to meet up with two pals every morning; Johnny Leach and Julie Cracknell. One day in the tree house in Johnny’s back garden, Julie turned up with doughnuts. We drank orangeade, passing the bottle to each other, not even wiping the top of it. This was almost a replay. Same finger licking after scoffing the cakes. I sometimes think that it was the best summer of my life. So much happened during those six weeks off school. It was perfect, and yet I didn’t know it, not then. If there was a way of going back to those days and stopping time, I think I’d do it.”

  “Nostalgia. A sentimental yearning for the past,” Beth mused. “I think everyone has a favourite memory of a time gone by that they would like to return to.”

  “I don’t,” Matt said. “I kid myself that the best is yet to come. I can have good thoughts about isolated incidents. But it wouldn’t be the same to revisit them. You couldn’t recapture the magic. I think that memory tricks us into believing things were better than they really were. I’d only want to go back if I could alter the bad and sad stuff that I knew was going to happen.”

  The conversation meandered like a lazy river, before eventually turning to the ongoing case.

  “I take it we’ve still got nothing,” Beth said.

  “Another match on bullets from the gun,” Tom said, sifting through a drift of paper and picking up a printout. “That’s four other unrelated killings committed with Noon’s nine millimetre, so far.”

  “Who was the latest?” Beth asked.

  “Before the hit at Finchley, an investigative journalist, Tony Cameron. He was digging into illegal immigration. He obviously got too close to some scumbag on the other side of the channel that was organising one way trips to the UK in the backs of lorries. The French police found Cameron floating in a Calais dock, covered in shrimps and jellyfish. He’d been shot twice in the back of the head. That was four months ago.”

  “We know everything about Noon,” Matt said. “Even that his mother was a whore, who supposedly fell down the stairs and broke her neck.”

  “Supposedly?” Beth said.

  Matt nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he gave her a helping hand.”

  “But he would only have been a young boy.”

  “Not that young, Beth. A teenager. There’s no record of a father, who was most likely a punter. Noon got old enough to realise just what his mother was, and that he was a bastard; maybe the result of a quickie in a dark alley. My guess is he hated her for it. The coroner’s verdict was misadventure while under the influence of alcohol. I choose to believe that Tracy Noon was the first victim of a youth who was already mentally disturbed, as well as being ashamed of and angry at his mother. He got away with her murder and reckoned that not only was it easy to dispose of someone, but enjoyable. The kid got hooked. He’s basically a thrill killer.”

  “How do you suppose he got into doing it professionally?” Beth asked.

  “I would imagine he was violent and ruthless. A young man who had a lot of aggression to get out of his system. It wouldn’t have taken long for him to gain the reputation of being someone prepared to hurt people for a few quid. Murder would just be a natural progression for someone like him.”

>   “Do you believe he’s done a bunk and left the country?” Tom asked.

  Matt shook his head. “I doubt he’d feel safe in strange surroundings. My guess is he’s holed-up and waiting for the heat to die down.”

  “What about his car being found at Heathrow?” Beth asked.

  “Just a move to throw us off the scent. There’s an outside chance he took a flight. The CCTV footage from one of the cameras shows someone who could have been him entering Terminal two. But that doesn’t prove he got on a plane. There was no other footage of him, and there would have been.”

  “He did what he set out to,” Tom said. “We’ve had to use a lot of man hours checking flight lists and eliminating all men flying alone. The task is monumental. And none of the sightings have checked out. It’s over a week now, and it’s as though the earth opened up and swallowed him.”

  “What do you think, Beth?” Matt asked.

  “I do all the extrapolation, use all the regular methodology, and then go with instinct, Matt. He no doubt blames you and the Santinis’ for the predicament he’s in. Especially you. He might even add Marion Peterson to his list of least favourite people. He will have decided that she shopped him after seeing the television coverage. If he does plan on moving away from the city to start a new life, it won’t be until he feels he has settled the score. I have to assume that you’re still at risk. He will definitely want you dead.”

  He looked a few years older. A week’s growth of beard and the loss of a few pounds in weight had transformed him. His cheekbones were more pronounced, and his eyes had a slightly sunken look to them.

  Wearing a green open neck sport shirt, grey cargo pants, trainers, and a lightweight windbreaker, he felt clean and refreshed as he parked the stolen Rover at the front of E. Parker Electrical Contractors, which was located under a railway arch in Poplar. The storefront was drab, and the plate glass windows were filthy with a build-up of grime that had been fostered over many years, making it all but impossible to see through them. The paint work of the frames and door was crazed, peeling in places. He rapped hard on the glass with his fist.