Kiss Me When I'm Dead

by Dominic Piper

  Raleigh walks over to Viola, strokes her hair and places his hands on her shoulders. I feel a chill run through me. I wonder if he takes her for a stroll down the road in that wheelchair when the weather’s nice.

  ‘But Viola – Viola was all my own work,’ he continues. ‘I took my time, Mr Beckett. It was done with love. A father’s love. I’m sure that Mr Drasche would have been proud of me. Admittedly, there was some damage that I was not skilled enough to repair, but I don’t think it’s too bad. I think if her face had been damaged, I might have requested his presence once more, but I think things turned out very well. She is as beautiful in death as she was in life. She is perfect. Have you ever embalmed anyone, Mr Beckett?’

  ‘You know, Nathan, someone was asking me that just the other day.’

  Another nod, another punch. Same side again. Ouch. I’m wondering whether I can claim my dental expenses from Raleigh. Probably not.

  ‘I don’t think you’re taking me seriously, Mr Beckett. Embalming is not a science, as far as I am concerned. It is an art. Viola was stiff when we got her back here. I had to massage her body to break the rigor mortis.’

  ‘I’ll bet anything you enjoyed that, you old perv, you.’

  Another nod. This time, Fisher savagely punches me in the stomach. I compartmentalise the pain and act as if it was nothing, but I’ve thrown up slightly into my mouth and can taste the tempura oysters and wasabi. This makes me think of Natalie. I hope those security folk didn’t discover who she was or where she lived. I swallow the vomit. Raleigh is gearing himself up for more self-deluding bullshit.

  ‘You’re very funny, aren’t you, Mr Beckett. And you really have no idea. You look at Rosabel and Viola there and you think this is some sort of freak show. Some mad old man with an unusual, offbeat hobby. Someone who needs psychiatric treatment.’

  ‘That would be about right. Especially the last bit.’

  ‘But it’s to do with love, Mr Beckett, love and loss. I couldn’t bear the thought of life without Rosabel. She was a troubled woman and she took her own life, it’s true, but she is still mine, and she will always be mine. No one I love leaves me, Mr Beckett. I’m not going to watch them being lowered into the ground or turned to ash. They’re still mine. They’re still my possessions, as they were in life, to do with as I wish.’

  I take a quick look at Fisher. He’s beginning to get tears in his eyes from this insane crap. Oh fuck.

  ‘The same goes for Viola. I could have given her a life of quality, adulation and luxury. I would have done absolutely anything for her. I was prepared to get her off drugs. I was prepared to overlook the way she sold her body. Can you imagine the pain I was in from all that she got up to in her life? All the men that had had her? All the women? When she should have been safely in my arms?’

  ‘Well this is all very interesting, Nathan, but I’m kind of tuning out now. I have some other patients to see. Perhaps you could book another session with my secretary. I think we’ve made good progress today.’

  Fisher gets another nod and I get another punch. At least this one was on the other side of my face, though it was still pretty hard. I’m starting to get a bit of a headache now and my scratches from Eleanor are on fire again. Raleigh drags himself away from Viola’s chair and walks towards me. He seems pretty calm. I don’t think I like that. He takes hold of his chair again and sits down close to me. He’s smiling.

  ‘Listen, Nathan,’ I say. ‘Obviously this is heading for some sort of climax, so if you can cut out all the self-aggrandising deviant bullshit and get on with it, I’d be extremely grateful as I’m getting bored now. By the way, I take it your wife shot herself because she knew what you’d been up to with Viola since she was a little kid. Would that be an accurate assessment? I mean, let’s face it, they’re both dead because of you, aren’t they. Because you’re a major freak asshole.’

  He really doesn’t like this one bit. His face is going red and he’s clenching his fists. He walks over to me, and for a moment, I think he’s going to hit me himself, but Fisher gets another nod and I get another punch. This one is so hard that my chair and I get knocked to the floor. The back of the chair crushes the side of my bicep as I land and it hurts like a bastard. I wonder if I’m still going to get paid for this. I decide to find out, even though I’m on the floor and on my side.

  ‘Oh, and Nathan – I found Viola for you. There she is, over there on that chair next to her mum. I was wondering if I could buy the portrait of Rosabel with the twenty thousand you owe me.’

  Fisher drags me and the chair up to a sitting position again. I’m waiting for yet another punch, but it doesn’t come. Raleigh is trying to compose himself, but he’s still red-faced and shaking. I don’t know why I’m doing this, really. Part of me thinks that I could get Fisher to hit me so hard that it’ll break the chair, but then I’d still have the problem of the wrist ties, but that wouldn’t be insurmountable.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve worked out, Mr Beckett, that we need some information from you. That is why you are here – that is why we allowed you to be here – and that is why Miss York is over there, tied to that chair.’

  ‘Celia Valentine,’ says Fisher, speaking rather than punching for a change.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve surmised that that is why we hired you, Mr Beckett,’ says Raleigh. ‘Celia was the only witness; the only one who knew what had happened in the hotel. Initially, we had fears about her contacting the police, but as I had hoped, she was too scared. Besides, who would believe the word of a common prostitute?’

  ‘She was hardly common at those prices, Nathan.’

  ‘When she ran away that night, we couldn’t do much about it. That was why we hired you, of course, as I have already said. And I have to say you did it very well. Things were going very smoothly right up until the last moment. We almost had her and we almost had the other whore, too, for good measure.’

  They know Sakura was there. One of the goons must have been in touch and they must have heard me tell her that I was on my way over here. That’s why I’m in this situation now. Damn. How careless of me. Well, at least they still don’t know Eleanor’s real name, which is something. If I never get out of here she still might have a chance of escaping these lunatics.

  ‘And what were you going to do to Celia, Nathan? What was going to happen to her?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ barks Fisher. ‘You just tell us where the whore is and nothing will happen to young Anjukka there.’

  ‘Really? I don’t believe you. I don’t believe either of you. You’ve really fucked this up. Too many people know what happened. It’s a mess, isn’t it, Nathan. You and your bitch here don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, do you.’

  Fisher’s face goes into meltdown at the mention of the b-word. His nostrils flare as he looks at Raleigh and silently beseeches him for permission to wallop me for it. Raleigh gives him the nod and I brace myself as well as I can. There’s an element of fear that comes from total helplessness, but you just have to store it in one of the spare rooms in your brain and not let it get to you. I just keep telling myself that something will happen and the situation I currently find myself in will stop. After all, it can’t literally go on forever.

  It comes from above and lands on my cheekbone with such force that it rocks my head downwards and could easily have broken my neck. For a moment the chair tips backwards and I get ready to land on my back, but then it veers to the left on one of the back legs and I land on my side again, the impact knocking the air out of my lungs with a grunt. I hear Anjukka scream and then sob as well as she can with that gaffer tape across her mouth. I start thinking about her mouth and I think about kissing it. I don’t look at her, though. That would make me too angry and I’m angry enough as it is.

  Fisher picks me and the chair up again, but he does it roughly for my maximum discomfort, and I can feel my brain shudder in my head as I’m plonked back into position. The plastic wrist tie is still in place and as tight as ever.


  I try as well as I can to act as if that didn’t just happen. It’s difficult.

  ‘What are you going to do to Anjukka if I don’t tell you where Celia is? Are you going to kill her? That is, of course, assuming that I know where Celia is, which I don’t. That was your last chance back at her house. Your two Neanderthals had a chance to grab her, but they fucked it up.

  ‘You’re not thinking straight, Nathan. You think you can get me to tell you where Celia is and in return you’ll let me and Anjukka go? With all that we now have in our heads? You have to kill us. Because if we walk out of here, we’re going straight to the police. I realise you haven’t had much time to formulate some brilliant plan, but you really are a pair of dimwits, aren’t you. And I would stop getting your monkey to hit me so much. If he kills me accidentally, you’re both screwed. But you’re screwed anyway. There’s no way out of this for either of you.’

  I may have just signed our death warrants.

  Fisher leans forwards and puts his face right next to mine. His breath is terrible. ‘Who the fuck are you, Beckett? Do you want to know why we hired you?’

  ‘Well, I assume it was because Mr Raleigh there wanted tips on how to pick up women who were still alive.’

  ‘Your recommendation from Italy seemed kosher enough. Then we checked to see if you held an SIA licence. Everyone in your line of work has to have them now. Private investigators, bodyguards, even bloody security van drivers have to have them. But you don’t have one. Why is that, Mr Beckett?’

  ‘The forms were too difficult to fill in.’

  ‘Was it the criminality checks? Was it the documentation that was needed? It isn’t difficult to get one as long as you’ve got all the info they need. So why would you avoid getting one? In your fucking line of business, with all the money you must make and all the jobs you must get. Why would you risk blowing it? I’ll tell you why. You’re bent, Beckett. I don’t know in what way. I don’t know where you come from, but as soon as I tried checking you out in any depth, I came to a dead end every fucking time. It’s like I’m standing here talking to you but you don’t really exist. Now what sort of person would that be?’

  ‘A mysterious and enigmatic person.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I sent two of my best boys to pick up the whore. One of them is in intensive care. He may not live. He used to be a major in the Welsh Guards. He’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever worked with. And my other boy. He’s a veteran of the 601st Special Forces Group.’

  ‘Really? What the hell’s that?’

  ‘Czechoslovakian army. When he rang me, I asked him how he was. He said he felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He bit half his tongue off when you used the stun baton on him. He said you knew what you were doing.’

  ‘I’m flattered. Was he difficult to understand on the phone?’

  Raleigh drags his chair closer to me and sits down again. Perhaps he’s getting fatigued. ‘Hi, Nathan,’ I say, in as friendly a way as I can manage. ‘How’re things?’

  ‘You must have realised that once you found out what was really going on, we couldn’t have you walking around telling everyone or going to the police,’ says Raleigh. ‘We suspected that you were expendable and we were right. You were just the sort of person we needed. No one will miss you, will they? You’re some sort of non-person. We’ll make it quick for you if you tell us where the whore is.’

  ‘Oh, well now you’ve really hurt my feelings, Nathan. I really looked up to you. But does the same apply to Anjukka? Is she a non-person, too? Do you think you can get away with making her disappear and nobody will notice? Oh, Nathan. They’re going to take Rosabel and Viola away from you. I don’t think they’re going to let them share your prison cell. They’re quite strict about things like that.’

  As I’m saying this, the enormity of it hits me. I’m just trying to bullshit him and make him rattled, but I’m worried about Anjukka. She’s fucked, basically. I think about Natalie and the chance Anjukka may have had for a new job at her company. All gone. Is it all my fault?

  My mind is racing to find a way out of all of this, but the bottom line is I’m tied to this fucking chair and I can’t escape from it. I try to think of something to say that will turn Raleigh against Fisher, but nothing comes. I just decide to keep digging a big hole for myself.

  ‘What’s the body count going to be like at the end of this, Nathan? Me, Anjukka, Celia Valentine, Mrs Bianchi? Where’s it going to stop? You won’t get any real peace of mind until you’ve got hold of Abigail Gastrell and killed her too. That’ll be five murders. Not to mention the manslaughter of Viola under pretty awful circumstances. When the police get hold of you – and they fucking will – they’re going to be throwing away the key. Same goes for your poodle here. You’ll be a mass murderer, Nathan. Good work.’

  Raleigh seems to drift away for a moment. He looks over his shoulder at Viola, stares adoringly at her, and then turns back to me.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Beckett. You have no idea of what can be done if I want it to be done.’

  ‘You want this all to disappear. You think you can get hold of Celia Valentine and kill her so your pathetic rich man’s life can go on as if nothing has happened and your latest big billion dollar deal can go through next week without a hitch. It’s not going to happen. When is the weak link in all of this going to appear? Who’s it going to be?’

  I turn to Fisher, who is clenching and unclenching his fists. It’s been a few minutes since he’s hit me and he must be getting withdrawal symptoms. ‘I tell you, Fisher. If I was this scumbag here,’ I nod at Raleigh so he understands who I’m talking about, ‘I’d be thinking about getting rid of you. Think about it. You could bring the whole thing crashing down. You know too much. You could blackmail your boss. You could make a fortune from this. He’s been thinking about getting rid of you for a while. You were head of security here when that kidnapping attempt happened. He’s always looked down on you because of that. He thinks you’re a fool.’

  Raleigh and Fisher start laughing. Well, it was worth a try.

  ‘Shut this idiot up, Fisher. I need to think.’

  Fisher doesn’t need asking twice. He punches me in the stomach once more and then gives me a terrific backhander under the chin. I think I actually lost consciousness for a couple of seconds there. Well, at least they haven’t killed me yet. They still must think that I can lead them to Eleanor. I also think that all that I’ve said has bought me some time, or not, as the case may be.

  I hear the noise before they do. It’s like a muffled click. It sounds vaguely familiar, as far as muffled clicks go, but I can’t quite place it. Raleigh picks up on it before Fisher does.

  ‘Did you hear something then, James?’

  I raise my head to watch what Fisher does or says. He tilts his head to one side, listening. ‘Nothing, Mr Raleigh. Just house noises.’

  Raleigh purses his lips together and exhales impatiently through his nostrils. ‘Go and have a look, will you? I heard something then. Sounded like a door closing. It was definitely on this floor.’

  Fisher gives him an obedient nod and leaves the room. Normally, I’d try and say something smart to irritate Raleigh, but I’m feeling too fucked. I watch as Raleigh gets up and approaches his embalmed family again. I think again about all of the clothes in those wardrobes, not to mention the lingerie and perfume. Does Raleigh dress Rosabel and Viola up? I really can’t imagine what he gets up to with them. Well, I can, but I’d prefer not to think about it.

  He starts to tidy up Viola’s hair, then frowns and produced a comb from his pocket. The look on his face as he combs her hair is priceless. It’s a combination of lust, subservience and simple-mindedness. I suppose Rosabel’s hair would fall out if he tried combing it after all this time.

  I catch Anjukka’s eye and smile at her as well as I can. God knows what my face must look like. I mouth ‘It’s OK’ at her and get a faint nod of the head in return. I don’t know if it is OK, t
hough. It probably isn’t, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Raleigh walks back over to me, places his hands on his hips and stares meaningfully at Anjukka. ‘Mr Fisher could do some very bad things to this young lady if you don’t give us what we want, Beckett. Very bad things that you would have to witness.’

  ‘I’ve been invited to this crazy party next Halloween, Nathan. I was wondering if I could take your girls with me.’

  I can see Fisher coming through the door. Something’s wrong. His face is grim and pale. Then I see why. There’s a gun pointed at the back of his head and Sakura is holding it.

  25

  CHOKE-OUT

  It’s a Bersa Thunder 380 pistol with a silencer attached. It’s made in Argentina, fires 9mm rounds, and is used by the police and by civilians. My information may be out of date, but I didn’t know you could get silencers for these. Silencer or no, if Sakura pulls the trigger that close to Fisher’s head, his face will be all over the wall on the other side of the room.

  Her arm is outstretched, which is good. There’s a danger he could spin around and take the gun off her, but as she’s standing at arm’s length behind him like that, he could make a fatal mistake. Having said that, I’ve no doubt that his entire focus is on getting the gun in his hand and not hers.

  Raleigh looks astonished, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. I have to remind myself that he’s never met Sakura and will have no idea who she is. As she and Fisher enter the room, she turns briefly and gives me a wink. I manage a brief, involuntary laugh at her panache.

  ‘That’s one of my guns,’ says Raleigh. ‘Where did you get that from?’

  ‘Shut up,’ she replies, waving the gun briefly in his direction. Well that’s a good start, anyway. Any minute now she’s going to see Rosabel and Viola and I don’t want her to get freaked out. Fisher is trembling with rage and Raleigh has gone as white as a sheet.