A Snowball in Hell

by Christopher Brookmyre

  Maddox was ideal: mid-thirties, in good shape, attractive but not pretty, and a convincing performer. Plus he was broke, which helped, though given his profession, this hardly constituted Zal catching a lucky break.

  Zal gave him Bullet-Head’s mobile number, which Angelique had noted before returning his phone. Following Zal’s instructions, Maddox told the ex-cop that he knew where his quarry would be that evening, but it was going to cost him: a thousand in cash.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Bullet-Head asked.

  ‘I’m Angelique’s boyfriend. Or at least I thought I was until this cunt showed up. Now I don’t know quite where I stand, and she’s in a right state. I want him out the picture.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be paying me, then?’

  ‘Listen, I’m a man who pays attention during pillow-talk. I know about this guy’s history and I know what he’s worth to you, so if you want him, you fuckin’ pay us, and then I can maybe get the lass something nice to help her get over her disappointment.’

  ‘All right. You tell us where he’s gonna be, and if it leads to—’

  ‘Aye, very funny pal. I could get that offer from the polis. I’ll tell you the gen when I’ve got the cash in my hand. I’ll be in the Green Man on St Martin’s Lane for one hour. After that, who knows?’

  According to Maddox, Bullet-Head and Comb-Over turned up inside half that, bearing half the money. ‘This is all we could get at such short notice,’ Bullet-Head explained, figuring Maddox would take a bird in the hand.

  As per Zal’s instructions, he told them to fuck off.

  ‘Better get to the cash machine then, and hurry, because this information is only good for another two hours.’

  With an ultimatum added to the equation, Bullet-Head sent Comb-Over out to the street with all their bank cards and PINs. He returned in about ten minutes with another five hundred, which was when Maddox informed them that Zal was booked on to a sleeper train to Glasgow under the name Alex Harvey. ‘Going up to Angelique’s turf to lie low.’

  ‘The dog returning to his vomit,’ Comb-Over apparently opined.

  Zal parks his suitcase inside the cramped sleeper berth and quickly performs his preparations. There are two bunks in each little compartment. Zal has paid for four, an even greater extravagance when he considers that he won’t actually be going anywhere.

  He exits with haste rather than hurry, then locks himself inside the second compartment he booked, two doors along. As always, it’s all about the exit, and this time, he’s out before they’ll even arrive where they expect to find him in. And therein lies the factor that’s screwing with his thinking on Darcourt: no matter whether you want to call it ransom, extortion or whatever, what this psycho is pulling is still, in the end, a heist. You plan a heist backwards, starting with your out – but the problem is, Darcourt doesn’t need one, because he already has the biggest out imaginable, one nobody can stop him reaching. This allows him to bypass all the normal considerations. They can’t threaten the guy because he doesn’t have anything left to lose. The only thing in his world now worth caring about is the money, which the cops will be caring about a great deal less than five hostages, not to mention collaring the man himself as both a prize and an invaluable source. According to Angelique, their financial consultants are confident that the money can still be traced as long as they’ve got Darcourt in custody, with clawing it back made easier once the cancer finishes him off. They’re aware the guy must have tricks up his sleeve, but they figure it’s well worth the risk considering what’s there to be gained. Money can be recovered, but any time Darcourt has been involved, they haven’t recovered people: just bodies.

  The plus side of this deal is that Zal’s task is now simplified to spiriting Darcourt away from the cops; albeit half the cops in central London. Angelique can get him the nightclub layout and floorplans, as well as all the information he needs about the police deployment. That said, maybe the place Darcourt leads them to once he’s been apprehended might prove better for springing him. Zal wouldn’t have any advance notice of the location, but neither would the cops. Plus, as Angelique explained with some anguish, spring him too early and it leaves five people to die.

  Unless, of course, there’s some way of getting Darcourt to lead Angelique and Zal to the hostages before taking him to trade for her parents. Unfortunately, the problem with that would be the same one the cops can’t figure: even if they make it to where the hostages are being held, Darcourt has an unseen card to play that guarantees they can’t stiff him. Zal’s guess is it must be a means of stopping the gas and releasing the prisoners, which somehow only he can execute. A code? A password? No. It’s a black-bag job. He might be dying, but with five lives at stake and no public knowledge of this operation, the cops could torture him in any way they can imagine in order to get that information. Darcourt knows this, so he must have some other safeguard, but what?

  Zal’s musings are interrupted by the sound of Bullet-Head and Comb-Over knocking on ‘Alex Harvey’s’ door, just down the corridor. They’ll have asked the guard on the platform, or maybe the train’s purser, which compartment Mr Harvey is berthed in, maybe even flashing fake or expired ID if necessary. They give it a couple of shots, one putting on a different accent and claiming to be the ticket inspector. With Mr Harvey proving extremely reluctant to answer the door, they resort to barging it. Zal hears a crash, which proves more immediately efficacious than its proponent probably expected, but then the asshole should maybe have tried just turning the handle first.

  Once inside, Zal knows they will find his suitcase on one of the bunks and a brown envelope, addressed to himself, sitting on top of it. ‘Where the fuck is he?’ he hears Bullet-Head ask through the card-thin walls.

  ‘Maybe he’s in the fuckin’ suitcase. I dunno. Probably gone to the bog.’

  ‘Let’s see who’s been writing to him, eh? Oh, fuck...’

  There ensues an outbreak of coughing and spluttering, as whoever opened the booby-trapped envelope released a cloud of chemical irritant that will have engulfed both men inside such a restricted space. Fortunately, there are two bottles of water sitting handily on the narrow shelf-cum-table built into the wall opposite the bunks. Less fortunately, both bottles are laced with fast-acting sedative.

  Zal hears the thumps about thirty seconds later, and makes his way back along the corridor. He removes gags and plastic restraints from his suitcase, then sets about securing the now sleeping ex-cops to the bunks. It’s a bit of a heft getting Comb-Over on to the top one, but Zal manages it. He gags them and ties them with their faces turned to the wall, then drapes the blankets over each. If the purser sticks his head around the door, he’ll find them both sleeping peacefully, their tickets – to the train’s final destination – lying out for inspection on the table by way of saying ‘Do Not Disturb’.

  Zal closes the door gently and alights from the train. He stays on the platform until it pulls away, making sure nobody gets off. He hopes they enjoy Inverness.

  He walks back towards the station entrance, allowing himself a moment’s satisfaction at his night’s work, with the thought of a far greater task looming ever closer on the horizon. Maddox sold it well, a truly convincing performance, though the selling part itself was what guaranteed its success. Not leaving until he had that full thousand had been Zal’s most emphatic instruction. He didn’t just need to get them to pay for the tip-off, he needed to get them to pay dearly for it. It was one of the most enduring truths of human deception: the harder it is to come by certain information, the more credibility you attribute it.

  Reflecting upon this, he is suddenly struck by something that stops him dead on the platform.

  ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ he says out loud.

  Angelique catches a glimpse at her watch as she climbs the stairs to the serviced apartment, and it makes her head hurt just that bit more to see that it’s after eleven. What time was it when Shaw woke her this morning? She’s too tired to do the arithmetic and wor
k out how long she’s been on duty. Fatigue is good, she tells herself. If she’s sufficiently exhausted, she thinks, maybe it’ll help her sleep, but shit, who’s she kidding? Nitrous oxide wouldn’t help her sleep right now. It’s like she’s got so many things to worry about, she can barely decide which one to concentrate on, so there’s just this chaotic, mobbing assault like her fears are birds and she’s Tippi Hedren.

  The one that alights for a brief peck as she acknowledges the hour is that Zal never got back to her. It was largely moot, as she hadn’t got free until forty minutes ago, but that he didn’t get in touch provokes fears that Holland’s goons have got him, to say nothing of Shaw’s own threat. Could be he has just been playing it safe and didn’t want to call her on her mobile. Maybe he left a message on her machine.

  She puts her key in the lock but it doesn’t turn. She gives it another twist, feeling just too bloody tired to be doing with this. It’s the one last crappy, insignificant thing that could nonetheless tip her over into pathetic, sobbing helplessness. However, this danger is rapidly dispersed amid the adrenaline sharpness that accompanies her noticing light through the keyhole when she pulls it clear of the lock ahead of a fresh try. She came out in a rush this morning, she reminds herself, could have left a light on in her hurry. She honestly can’t remember, but either way, the sharpness gives her the clarity to realise why the key wouldn’t turn: the door is already unlocked.

  Now, she may have been in a rush, and she may even have left a light on, but she definitely wouldn’t leave without locking up, especially not in this town.

  She pushes open the door and takes a step back into a defensive stance. It’s the hall light that’s on, and looking along it she can see that the living room is lit too. A human shadow is visible on one wall, the silhouette distinct enough to answer all her questions.

  She closes the door and locks it, then proceeds to the living room. Zal is seated at the apartment’s tiny dining table, a pack of cards before him, cut into two piles. The other chair is positioned directly opposite. He gestures to her to take a seat, his hands poised over the split deck.

  ‘Zal. I won’t ask how you got in, but I have to inquire, what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I said we’d talk someplace safe. I figured this place was as safe as any.’

  ‘Are you kidding? What about Holland’s numpties? They know I live here.’

  ‘Yeah, they could be a big threat, whenever they get back from their trip to the highlands.’

  He grins, the same grin he gave her five years ago, hinting at mischief and schemes and secrets that it is in his gift to divulge or withhold. It could be her own desperation, could even just be that she’s too damn tired to consider the glass half-empty, but she detects there’s more to this smile than mere pride at having dispatched two more bumbling pursuers.

  She sits down, facing him across the table. ‘So let’s talk,’ she says.

  Zal picks up both halves of the deck and riffle-shuffles the cards, then places the complete pack face-down on the table. He taps the back of the top card twice, then turns it over. It is the eight of diamonds. She smiles in patient acknowledgement, looking him in the eye. It’s their card.

  ‘There’s a number of card tricks performed using a technique known among magicians as the Invisible Pass,’ he says. ‘It’s a standard sleight that secretly cuts the deck, but you gotta do it amidst a bit of distraction for the audience, because it’s hard to conceal if their attention is focused directly on the pack. Conventional wisdom dictates that you can’t – or at least you shouldn’t – do it close up like this, what’s known as table magic. Now, when my dad was learning the trade, in Glasgow variety theatres way back in the day, his greatest mentor was a guy who could do the Invisible Pass as close as we are now: one-on-one, just a table and a pack and no distractions. He taught my dad, and my dad taught me, but the lesson to be learned is not the technique.’

  Zal cuts the deck and places the eight back in the pack, then taps the new top card, revealing it to be the two of clubs.

  Zal tugs back his cuffs and flexes his fingers, bending his head over the table.

  ‘I will now bring the eight of diamonds back to the top using the Invisible Pass. Do not take your eyes off the deck.’

  Angelique focuses on the blue-backed stack, trying not to be distracted by albeit minor movements of Zal’s fingers just either side. With a sudden deliberateness, he waves his right hand over the pack, briefly concealing it from view but not close enough to touch it. Then he lifts his head and smiles.

  ‘Did you spot it?’ he asks.

  Angelique looks up at him and blurts out an involuntary laugh. The words ‘No fucking way’ leap to mind. Zal’s eyes direct her gaze back to the table, where he lifts the top card, confirming it to now be the eight of diamonds.

  ‘How the hell did you do that?’

  ‘I told you, the lesson is not about the technique.’

  ‘So what is the lesson?’

  ‘One you need to understand for yourself rather than have spelled out. But if I was to give you a hint, it would be that your question should not have been how did I do that, but when did I do that.’

  She gets it.

  ‘You did it when I laughed, thinking the trick was done.’

  ‘You make your move on the offbeat, always.’

  ‘Cute, Zal,’ she concedes. ‘But you’ll have to elaborate a bit with regards to how this principle applies to the matter in hand. You know: the one about vanishing Simon Darcourt from underneath the gazes of about a hundred police officers, many of them armed with semi-automatics.’

  Zal assumes an expression of butter-wouldn’t-melt sincerity.

  ‘Have you thought of just asking them real politely?’

  Angelique resists the temptation to pick up the deck and throw it at him, an impulse made easier to restrain by the assumption that his taking the piss indicates he’s happy about something.

  ‘Just working on the improbable hypothesis that your ingenious first suggestion has an infinitesimally tiny flaw, would you by any chance have a Plan B?’

  None of his trinkets wanting

  And now, the end is neah...

  Can’t get that fucking song out of my head at the moment, and to make it worse, I mean the Sid version, boasting the quite unsurpassed crassness of rhyming those immortal opening words with the line: You cunt, I’m not a queeah! God almighty, make it stop. I can’t let that be the internal soundtrack to my farewell performance.

  Understandable that it should be something theatrical and hammy, I suppose. Here I am, after all, sitting in front of the mirror, putting my face on while I wait for the Final Act Beginners call. It’s odd, though, that I should feel so nervous, as it’s many long years since opening night for this old-stager. Maybe all the veteran thesps feel the butterflies returning when they know it’s their last ever show. The pressure for it to be perfect is all the greater because there can be no making up for it if it goes wrong, and though it may not be the show they remember you for, you want to tell yourself you were still able to give your best, even at the end. I want to give it my best. I want it to be very special, as befits the task in hand: that of executing the one, ultra-high-profile death warrant that really did come in a manila folder.

  That’s why I’ve been double and triple checking everything for hours: timers, sensors, triggers, gas levels, engines, fuel, batteries, phones, computers. After so much planning, so much painstaking and meticulously executed work, I’m getting cumulatively jumpy about the possibility of a single oversight or act of forgetfulness making it all for nothing.

  It’s only nerves, though. I’ve been methodical and thorough. My systems are in order, my prisoners secure in their holding cells, all having succumbed to the sleep agent I have deployed in case anybody might get boisterous and deduce from my lack of a response that the cat’s away.

  There remains but one final duty. I have to record my parting-message video, as every good suicide bomber must
. It’s the only thing I haven’t fully thought through, as even this close I remain unsure what to say. Penitence would be appropriate, much as it might stick in the throat, but I have to remind myself that it’s about what I intend to leave behind, not how I feel right now. I have to give them some kind of closure. I owe them that much. I have to remember that every act of contrition, every gesture of amelioration, while gall to my lips, may prove balm to the son I will never know, but who will unavoidably one day know me.

  My make-up complete, I take a last look in the mirror, the final time I will see this face. Then I turn my seat so that I am facing directly into the video camera, and I set it recording.

  Standing in the musty half-light of his old lock-up, Albert turns the nightstick in his grasp, his fingers reacquainting themselves with its touch, like he’s shaking the hand of an old friend he hasn’t seen in years.

  ‘Well, Mr Spank,’ he says, ‘can you also be coaxed out of retirement for one last ride?’

  Though he hasn’t been inside it for Lord knows how long, the lock-up smells of the same things it always did: dry dust, old paper, WD40. As these fill his nostrils, they unlock so many memories: some that bring a wicked smile to his face, others a wince, and one or two that would have his cheeks burning with regret were he to dwell on them. Memories of past deeds, memories of a person he once was and hadn’t thought he could be again. However, the lady had been very persuasive.

  ‘Let me talk to you in a language I know you understand,’ she had said.

  She even came to see him. He liked that. No high-handed summons to her office. A person of rank and importance yet she knew you had to be humble when in need, especially given what lay in the past.

  It wasn’t purely about the money, either. She appealed to his sense of obligation too. He was a man of civic responsibility these days, weren’t he? Who was he to refuse a respectable woman, one of some standing, in her attempts to catch a bank robber?