A Snowball in Hell

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘Watch,’ I say, and reach for a thigh pocket. It’s awkward with the handcuffs, and even more so that I have to use my left hand rather than my right, but I get hold of the remote and point it at my invisibility machine.

  ‘How far do you think we’d get in a stolen police car?’ I ask her, as the cylindrical rear of the truck swings open, revealing it to be cavernously hollow, and a ramp automatically descends to the ground.

  I had it made in Estonia so that it wasn’t traceable. It’s wider than normal cleansing trucks, but the design and liveries are sufficiently accurate that you’d need to see a real one right next to it to notice. It accommodates a Mercedes limo, an Escort van or indeed a police car, with just room enough to squeeze out round the sides. The brushes and suction pipes don’t work, but there’s a reservoir for the hose so that it drips water authentically, a timer releasing a volume every ten minutes so that it always looks like it’s recently been in use.

  ‘Appropriate, don’t you think?’ I ask her. ‘For cleansing the place of detritus.’

  ‘Except the shite usually goes in the back, not the driver’s seat.’

  De Xavia gets out and I drive the police car up inside. I reach into another pocket and turn my phone off silent before climbing out of the car. She keeps a careful eye – not to mention the gun – trained on me throughout as I shuffle my way along the side of the vehicle and down out of the truck.

  ‘It’s a stick-shift,’ I inform her as I open the cab, indicating my handcuffs.

  ‘Need to make sure you don’t crash when you’re changing gear, then,’ she responds.

  We climb in and I start the engine. I put it into first and pull away. Back on Kingsland Road, I manage the first gear-change with a minimum of swerve, taking both hands off the steering wheel as briefly as I can. I just hope we don’t hit too many red lights.

  De Xavia gets her phone out again, resuming what she was working on before our detour.

  ‘Who you texting?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ll find out,’ she grumbles darkly. She presses the Send key and folds the phone shut.

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ I remark, turning my head so that she doesn’t see my face.

  There’s a red light ahead. I have to stop. It means I’ll have to struggle all the way up the gears again, but it will be worth it, because it lets me take my eyes off the road and look at her expression when the sound of an incoming text chimes from my left thigh pocket.

  It takes a while for the penny to drop. Christ, and I thought the woman was a detective. I can see the connections being made, the possibility presenting itself, being ruled out, ruled back in. I see incredulity, horror and, finally, appalled, gaping-mouthed acceptance.

  ‘Inform us once you have acquired the target, then your contact will make himself known to you,’ I say, quoting my final text to her, sent only a few hours ago. ‘So, this is your contact making himself known to you. Hello,’ I add cheerfully.

  ‘You,’ she breathes.

  ‘Take it as a compliment. I needed someone capable of getting me out of police custody, someone who would risk everything and stop at nothing to pull it off. I chose well, it seems, other than you mangling my fucking hand.’

  ‘If I’d known, it would have been your balls.’

  ‘Oh, dry your eyes, it’s simpler this way. You said it yourself: the deal is the same. You get the hostages, including your folks, and I get the money. You just don’t get me for a trophy. Sorry to short-change the constabulary, but I never fancied HMP as a provider of palliative care.’

  We drive the rest of the way in silence, de Xavia sitting there numbed as she contemplates the humiliating enormity of what a mug she’s been taken for. It’s just a pity she won’t live to relate this embarrassment to her erstwhile brother-in-arms, Larry the Little Drummer Boy. I’ll have to live without avenging myself on that little cock-stain, however. I’ve put too much time and effort – not to mention every last penny – into this, and once it’s done I won’t be risking what I’ve built for anything so insignificant.

  Three years I’ve been working on this: planning, surveying, constructing, purchasing, learning new skills, researching, reconnoitring, patiently putting all of the elements in place. That’s right, three years. It was the idea that germinated and grew on those visits to see my son: The idea that didn’t go away; the sense of untapped power and possibilities that grew and grew, while only the price never changed. What seemed inescapable was that identifying myself as the author of my deeds would be at the cost of my own life. Then one day I realised there was a way of paying that price with a dud cheque.

  I’m made up in latex right now, distorting and disguising my features to a quite unrecognisable extent. It takes a bit of preparation, but it’s mandatory. I’ve worn the same face on all my recent excursions around celebrity-land. More significantly, I also wore it when I photographed myself for the plastic-surgery headshots I secreted in Lydon Matlock’s medical file – along with those forged hospital documents containing the sad, sad news about the big C.

  The truck has a bit of a wobble as I change down in order to turn right, about a mile outside Marfleet docks in Essex. De Xavia comes out of her fug to look askance as I direct us towards what appears to be a rusty corrugated-iron fence. I push a button on the dashboard and a section of the fence slides inside behind another, opening a gap wide enough to let the truck pass through. From there, it’s a quarter of a mile down the single-track approach road to where my operations base sits in dry dock, a rusty old hulk of a container vessel. It’s in no shape to face the high seas, but it will play its part in my sailing off into the sunset nonetheless.

  It won’t be cancer, but I will die tonight, much the same as I died over Stavanger. I won’t be able to sink all of the evidence in the depths of a fjord this time, but there will be too many half-incinerated body parts to make individual identification remotely possible, including whatever is left of Nick Foster, Four Play, Darren McDade, Wilson Gartside and the sad homeless fucker I selected because his age and build were a close enough match to my own. Simon Darcourt will die in a massive explosion, along with Angelique de Xavia, her parents and all the over-celebrated oxygen-thieves in the cells adjacent to them. All that will survive will be the farewell video I upload to the web before hitting the detonator. But just before the fireball engulfs the ship, a solitary figure will invisibly slip away. A new man, a reborn man. (Albeit reborn minus two fucking fingers.) Most importantly, though, a very, very rich man, able to provide handsomely for his dependents, as well as financing an extremely comfortable retirement.

  The one that got away

  The drape in front of Zal’s face has bunched a little on the left-hand side, so he only has a clear view out of his right eyehole, but as he merely has to follow the figure in front, it doesn’t matter so much. He sees the front doors ahead, being hurriedly held open by cops, the red carpet of the covered walkway beckoning beyond. It’s pissing with rain, water pouring off the sides of the awning on to the hard-core of rubberneckers and paparazzi, who are being swiftly urged back by more police.

  There’s two cop cars slewed half on, half off the pavement at the end of the carpet, but beyond them on the road is a dark blue Ford Galaxy with blacked-out windows. Only the wind-screen is transparent, enough for Zal to see another ridiculous Rank Bajin grin behind the steering wheel. Zal overtakes the handcuffed couple and slides open the vehicle’s door, stepping clear as Shaw and his captor climb inside. Then Zal hops up into the seat behind them and the vehicle pulls away before he has even slid the door closed again.

  Zal tumbles back in his seat from the lurch of sudden forward movement, his headgear slipping halfway off in recoil at the impact. He shakes it clear then reaches forward with his cuffed hands and pulls Shaw’s hat off too.

  ‘Reckon he bought it?’ Zal asks him.

  ‘Well, if he’s got any doubts at all, Angelique will fairly dispel them when she shoots Steve Payton.’

  ‘Will he be okay?’
asks Angelique’s body-double, DC Ishtar Mitra.

  ‘He’s got two layers of Kevlar under those blood sacs. We tested it, he was fine. Won’t stop the bastard putting in for sick leave, though.’

  The Galaxy accelerates into the London night, a caravan of police cars drawn along in its wake. After a few minutes, it descends into an underpass, where it pulls in, allowing an identical dark blue Galaxy with matched plates to take over leading the convoy. The final two police cars in the trailing procession stop alongside as the others ascend out of the tunnel.

  ‘At least that should keep the fuckin’ media out of our hair for the rest of the night,’ Shaw says, sliding open the door.

  Officers emerge from both of the squad cars as the Galaxy disgorges its passengers on to the tarmac.

  ‘Where is she?’ Shaw asks the first cop.

  ‘Left the building less than a minute ago, sir. Heading east.’

  ‘How’s the tracking signal?’

  ‘Strong and clear.’

  Mitra detaches herself from Shaw then undoes his remaining handcuff. Zal holds his own hands up expectantly, but Shaw takes the keys from her and sticks them in his pocket.

  ‘You son of a bitch,’ Zal says, more in anger than surprise.

  ‘Sorry, son. Just doing my duty.’

  ‘This isn’t over,’ Zal reminds him. ‘You gotta take me with you. I need to know she’s all right.’

  Shaw stares at Zal, each man finding his impenetrability reflected back.

  ‘We both know what each other is,’ Shaw says. ‘And we both understand what each of us has to do.’

  Shaw turns to Mitra.

  ‘Ishtar, you go with DS Thistlethwaite. Mr Innez and I will travel with DC Michaels.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Shaw opens the rear door for Zal then climbs in alongside him. There’s another cop at the wheel: Hewitt, Shaw calls him. Michaels holds up a small gizmo like a sat-nav device, a red blip flashing in its centre.

  ‘Just turned into Theobald’s Road, sir.’

  ‘Let’s move.’

  The police car pulls away, the tug of its acceleration hinting at untapped power but its driver eschewing any conspicuous display of urgency. This would be a pursuit by stealth and patience, not haste. Zal’s plan had gifted them that much.

  ‘Have you thought of just asking them real politely?’ he asks Angelique.

  ‘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?’ is her indulgent but impatient response.

  ‘No, because asking real politely is gonna work just fine.’

  She stares intently at him, conveying that the jokey prelude part is now over, but Zal returns a look of insistent seriousness.

  ‘Zal, you’re freaking me out.’

  ‘No, not yet I ain’t. But it’s coming, so you better hold on to that seat.’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘What I couldn’t get past was that Darcourt didn’t need an out. He’s giving himself up in exchange for the money, and that threw off how I was looking at it. But then tonight it hit me after I had sold a dummy to those two bums working for Holland. I got them to pay a guy a grand to find out where I’d be. The reason they call it ‘selling a dummy’ is that you don’t get people to merely accept a falsehood – you get them to invest in it. And the more they invest, the more it costs them to get that information, the more faith they will place in it. Now, you tell me, what did it take to get hold of that medical file?’

  ‘More than a polite please,’ she says, before it sinks in. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Simon Darcourt does not have cancer,’ Zal assures her. ‘And he doesn’t want to trade his last few deteriorating months of freedom for a hundred million pounds. It’s a heist. He wants to get away with a hundred million pounds, which means he does need an out. And I’m looking at it, detective.’

  ‘Fuck me.’

  ‘Believe me, if we didn’t have a lot of work to do...’

  ‘That sleekit fucking bastard. He’s got my parents.’

  ‘Guaranteeing him not only someone who’ll pull out all the stops to deliver him from the police when the time comes, but also providing him with a source right at the heart of the investigation.’

  ‘Jesus. Sources who do not even know they are sources. He asked for regular updates, and I gave them to him. That’s where the tip-off about Bouviere came from too.’

  ‘Leading you to the crucial piece of information he needed the police to discover for themselves. The murder and break-in wasn’t to remove files – it was to place them. Bouviere may never even have worked on Darcourt: the important thing was he was crooked, which meant it was plausible he had, as well as making it inevitable the files got impounded. And the greater the lengths you have to go in order retrieve them...’

  ‘The more valuable you believe the information to be,’ Angelique completes.

  ‘Which doesn’t just go for the cancer documents. That picture in there was left by him too, so it’s a cert he looks nothing like it. However, it’s also a cert he’ll be looking exactly like it when he shows up at the Tivoli.’

  Angelique then gets out her mobile and makes some calls. The first is to her parents’ neighbour, who can’t remember the precise model, but is pretty sure that when they left for their big trip, they were picked up in a black Mercedes.

  The second, once she has sourced the number, is to Ruth Baker, who swears on her children’s lives that it wasn’t her who informed the police her husband had information on Darcourt.

  ‘My guess is he spoofed an email address from her company,’ Angelique says. ‘He wanted us to hear about his vigilante job, get us to join a few dots regarding his feelings for his son, his new-found but still fucked-up sense of morality. Make us believe he was doing this because he didn’t have long left and wanted to pass on a legacy. And I guess that means the Baker sketch might be more accurate than I thought.’

  ‘Not that that would worry him,’ Zal suggests.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because nobody’s going to be looking for him if they believe he’s dead.’

  Albert follows the convoy from a few cars back, a practised method of keeping his pursuit inconspicuous. It dips down into an underpass, then the traffic slows up, leaving him stationary at the top of the approach. He can see the dark blue people carrier emerge at the top on the other side, the cops in procession behind it. He’s about to try something that would make a taxi driver blush so that he can skip the snarl-up and flank the pursuit from a parallel road, but then he catches a glimpse of a flashing light from down in the tunnel and reckons, nah, hold up a sec. If there’s one thing he’s learned with this guy, it’s that you need always be ready to assume things ain’t what they seem.

  The traffic starts moving again, and he rolls at a gentle pace into the underpass. He sees an identical people carrier pulled in on the left, two squad cars flanking it, a cop waving to urge the traffic through, and on the pavement, in the midst of a little pow-wow, stands the long-sought Mr Innez.

  Oh yes, called that one right. Another act of legerdemain from the slipperiest mark he ever chased, but this last dodge hadn’t fooled Albert. Seen the show once too often, mate. You live and learn.

  He proceeds out of the underpass and finds a spot to pull in on the other side of the next junction, throwing a U first so he can monitor the exit. Patience, he tells himself. It’s taken five years but it won’t be long now. Good things come, and all that. Once upon a time, this geezer had altered Albert’s whole destiny, and tonight was when Albert was going to forever alter his.

  Michaels’ gizmo tracks the signal out to Essex, unmarked cars criss-crossing the route to provide visual updates on the progress of what is now known to be an oversize cleansing truck. There’s upwards of a dozen police vehicles within a half-mile radius of the thing at all times, two choppers in a holding pattern out of visual range. And Zal’s sitting in the middle of it, handcuffed i
nside a police car.

  The journey ends outside Marfleet, at the concealed entrance to a disused dry dock. Maps are consulted and alternative entrances sought, in case Darcourt has any early alert systems that would be triggered by tampering with his camouflaged gate. Cars are slewed across both lanes, roadblocks established a quarter-mile back in either direction to prevent any traffic in or out. From the radio chatter, Zal has heard that there are also two police launches on their way along the Thames.

  A section of fence is removed about a hundred yards from the concealed gate, allowing six of the police cars to pass through. They proceed at a little above walking pace, to prevent engine noise. The vehicles stop in a wide arc fifty yards from the edge of the dock, where an ancient container vessel dominates the landscape in its inglorious decay. There are two gangways: one wide enough for vehicles, and a second for traversing by foot.

  Cops silently swarm from their cars, most of them gripping pistols, some toting HK carbines. Zal allows himself a wry smile, knowing bullets will not be Darcourt’s undoing.

  Shaw leans across and produces the keys to the cuffs. He undoes the left one, but then threads it through the purpose-installed steel retaining loop between the front seats and secures Zal’s hand once again. Shaw and Michaels climb out, leaving Zal chained in the rear while Hewitt remains at the wheel. Shaw then casts a glance back inside the vehicle.

  ‘Officer Hewitt,’ he says. ‘We’re going to need all hands.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I stay with the prisoner?’ Hewitt inquires.

  ‘No, as long as he’s cuffed to that loop, he won’t be going anywhere.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Shaw leans inside and whispers as Hewitt exits the car.

  ‘As I said, Mr Innez, we both understand what each of us has to do.’

  Zal nods. ‘Thanks,’ he says.