The Payback

by Simon Kernick

  But he didn’t move. ‘You won’t be able to get your revenge without me, Tina,’ he said softly.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘I’ve got leads. Real ones. You haven’t.’

  The problem for Tina was, he was right. Without O’Riordan, she had nothing. And that was the other problem. Milne was a cold-blooded murderer. Even being in the same room as him sickened her. And yet . . . In the end, the most important thing, as it had always been, was to get Wise. Even if it meant using the services of characters as unsavoury as Dennis Milne.

  She turned round to face him, curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Go on then. What leads have you got?’

  ‘One: O’Riordan’s wife. I had the keys to his house. They came from somewhere. And O’Riordan had a male lover. It looked like it was serious, which suggests it had been going on a while. So, it’s possible his wife paid him back by setting him up on behalf of Wise, or Schagel. At the very least it means she knows something. There was a report about O’Riordan’s death in the paper this morning which said that the wife had been staying with relatives just outside Manila for the weekend, which is why she wasn’t there when he was killed. And that also strikes me as very convenient. If we can track her down, then she might be able to give us some information.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I told you, I want to help.’

  ‘And why exactly should I trust you?’

  ‘Because it’s not going to take long for Schagel to realize that I haven’t killed you. And as soon as he does, he’s going to come looking for me. We’re both fugitives, Tina.’

  She considered this for a moment, again knowing that he was right, and that whatever sins he may have committed, he was risking his neck now by not killing her. ‘OK, O’Riordan’s wife is one lead, and I suppose it has potential. What else?’

  ‘O’Riordan had a meeting planned for yesterday. I’m sure it had something to do with the reason he had to die. It was scheduled for three p.m., and I had a time limit of two o’clock for killing him. I was also ordered to burn down his house, to get rid of any evidence.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of crumpled pieces of paper, which he carefully unfolded. ‘These are the actual pages from his diary. I’ve got the name of the man he was meant to be meeting. I don’t recognize it, but you might. Omar Salic?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, shaking her head, still shocked by the matter-of-fact way in which Milne was talking about O’Riordan’s murder. But she took the proffered pages. ‘I can look into it.’

  ‘How about Cheeseman? It’s there next to Salic’s name. Mean anything to you?’

  Again she shook her head. Neither name was remotely familiar to her. ‘We’re not getting far here, are we?’ She made no effort to disguise the contempt in her voice.

  If he noticed her tone, he didn’t show it. ‘There’s one more thing. I was booked into a crappy hotel on my first night here and the gun I used for the O’Riordan job was already there, under the bed in my room. Whoever put it there probably could not have done so without the hotel owner’s knowledge, which means we need to speak to him.’

  ‘What makes you think he’ll cooperate?’

  Milne fixed her with a hard stare. ‘He’ll cooperate, don’t worry about that.’

  Now Tina knew it was her turn to make a decision. Milne had made his by not pulling the trigger. Now she had to decide whether to continue her investigation alone, or throw in her lot with a wanted hitman.

  ‘You don’t have to come with me,’ he said, seeing her hesitation. ‘I can go alone, and update you later.’

  Tina gave him a grim smile and picked up the gun from the bed. ‘No thanks,’ she said, accepting what she had to do. ‘I’ll come with you. We’re fugitives together, remember?’

  Twenty-eight

  Dusk was beginning to make its presence felt, and the hawkers were still hanging round outside the guesthouse I’d been booked into when I first arrived in Manila. As Tina and I got out of the taxi on the other side of the road they immediately swarmed round us and I had to literally swot them away, but still they followed, undeterred, thrusting their fake Rolexes and packs of cigarettes under our noses as we made our way over to the gate.

  I pressed the buzzer, and after a lengthy pause the owner’s voice came over the intercom, sounding just as morose as it had when I’d first checked in. I identified myself as Robert Mercer, a guest from the previous day, and said I needed a room for the night again, confident that in a dump like this one there’d always be a room free. I was right, because he grunted an OK, and then a few seconds later I heard his slow footfalls, and the sound of the gate being unlocked from the other side. I gave Tina a look that said that for the purposes of this interview she should leave the questioning to me.

  The owner poked his head out and said something uncomplimentary to one of the hawkers in the local Tagalog dialogue, before giving us a quick once-over, his eyes lingering on Tina just a little longer than necessary. Then he let us inside.

  The narrow little yard was empty, and I didn’t hesitate, pulling the gun from beneath my jacket and thrusting it into his side. His eyes widened as he looked down, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Tina turn away.

  I fixed him with a cold glare. ‘Let’s go back to your office. We can talk there. If you do anything stupid, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, nodding frantically, and I slipped the gun back under my jacket, motioning for him to lead the way.

  We walked through the poky little lobby with the empty reception desk facing us, and into a cluttered back room that was part office, part storage area. It smelled of sweat, and the ceiling fan did little to alleviate the hot mustiness.

  The owner turned to face us as I brought the gun back out. ‘What do you want, boss? I haven’t done nothing.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  He slumped down into a creaky chair, and I took a step forward so I was standing above him, the gun pointed down towards his belly.

  ‘You remember me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ he said uncertainly, clearly trying to work out what answer I wanted to hear. He was sweating profusely as he stared at me, looking like he might burst into tears at any moment.

  I felt sorry for him then, but this was no time for weakness.

  ‘When I stayed here the other night, there was a gun under the bed in my room waiting for me. Who put it there?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, boss.’

  Moving fast, I grabbed his flabby chin and thrust the gun in his face, ignoring his gasp of terror. ‘Tell me. Now. Someone must have come here. Who?’

  Behind me, I could hear Tina shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot. I’d told her on the way over here that I might have to be a little rough with my interrogation techniques, and she’d acquiesced on the proviso that I didn’t hurt him. I knew I wouldn’t have to. Most people will tell you what you need to know when they’ve got a gun pointed in their face, and this guy was no exception.

  ‘A man came here the other night,’ he said hurriedly, his eyes almost crossed as he focused on the gun. ‘He said he wanted to leave a package in the room where you were going to stay.’

  I pushed the gun harder against his skin, pulling back the hammer, my eyes cold. ‘Give me a name.’

  ‘I don’t know his name. Honest, boss. He was an extranjero. He used to stay here sometimes a long time ago. That’s why I said yes. I didn’t know what was in the package, I promise.’

  I believed him. He was crying now, and I didn’t dare look back at Tina.

  ‘Tell me what he looked like,’ I said.

  ‘He was a white man. English. Your age maybe, boss. Blond hair, like your friend. And tattoos. He had tattoos. One on his neck. Like a snake or something.’ He tapped a dirty finger on his jugular to demonstrate. ‘Honest, boss. That’s all I know. Please.’

  That was when I heard the trickling sound and looked down to see a small puddl
e of urine forming on the dirty floor. Poor bastard, I thought, reholstering the gun and taking a step back.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ I said quietly. ‘And if you ever say a word to anyone about this visit, I’ll come back and I’ll kill you.’

  He didn’t reply. He was sobbing silently, urine pooling round his cheap shoes.

  I turned away, ignoring Tina’s accusing expression, and together we walked out of there in heavy silence.

  Only when we were back on the street did Tina finally speak. ‘That was horrible,’ was all she said as we walked down towards the main road, ignoring the hawkers.

  ‘It had to be done.’

  ‘Did it? I don’t see that we’re any further forward. That kind of description hardly narrows down our list of suspects.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I said, turning towards her. ‘I know exactly who he’s talking about.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My old business partner. Tomboy Darke.’

  Twenty-nine

  I’d booked us into separate rooms in a small, family-run guesthouse in one of the less touristy areas of Manila, paying in cash so we couldn’t be traced. On the way there I told Tina about how I’d fallen out with Tomboy.

  ‘He was always a rogue and a liar. But he was a character too, and I never had him down as anything more than a petty criminal with a bit more ambition than most. We were good mates as well as business partners. But when I went back to the UK to find out who killed my old colleague, I discovered a link between Tomboy and the group of paedophiles Wise was involved with. As far as I’m aware, he was never one of them, but it was Tomboy who got rid of the body of Heidi Robes. If it had been anyone else, I would have gone after him. As it was, I told him that if I ever clapped eyes on him again, he’d be a dead man.’

  ‘So he knew Wise?’

  I let out a deep breath, still thrown off-balance by what I’d just found out. ‘I guess he must have done.’

  ‘Do you think he knew it was you he was delivering the gun to?’

  I’d been wondering about that. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Otherwise I don’t think he’d have done it. But the thing is, he’s involved, which means we need to pay him a visit.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he’s based these days?’

  ‘He used to live in Mindoro. We both did. It’s about three hours south of here, so it’s as good a place to start as any.’ I looked at my watch. We were outside the guesthouse now and it was dark. ‘It’s a bit too late to go now, but do you want to take a trip down south tomorrow morning?’

  She eyed me warily, as if still unsure of my intentions. In all honesty, I couldn’t blame her. Finally, she nodded.

  I asked her if she fancied joining me for a bite to eat, keen to demonstrate that I wasn’t some kind of monster, but I wasn’t surprised when she said no.

  ‘I’m tired and jetlagged,’ she said. ‘I just need to sleep.’ As if to reinforce the point, she yawned. ‘I’ll meet you here in the morning. Make it nine. That’ll give me time to get myself together.’

  ‘Sure. And, Tina? Trust me. Please. I know it’s not easy right now, but I’m not going to do anything to harm you. I promise.’

  ‘I’m going to have to trust you, aren’t I?’ She was looking me in the eye, her face set hard. ‘Look, I appreciate the fact that you didn’t pull the trigger when you had a chance, but that doesn’t change the fact that I despise you for all the things you’ve done. And I always will. Make sure you don’t forget that.’

  And with that, she turned away and walked inside.

  I watched her go in grim, shameful silence. I was a pariah, a man who could expect sympathy from no one. It was a painful thought, but one I’d become used to; yet sometimes I still felt misunderstood. Because the fact was, I had a conscience. I’d always had one. I was no sociopathic killing machine, whatever the tally of the men who’d died by my hand might suggest. I’d been a good cop once. I still wanted to make the world a better place, even in my darkest moments. And, in the end, it was because I still cared that I found myself in the position I was in, defying the one person with the power to destroy me.

  Bertie Schagel not only knew my true identity, it was he who’d created my fake one as well. He knew what I looked like, and on more than one occasion he’d suggested that he’d had photos taken of me at our meetings that could easily be released to the police if he wanted them to be. I suspected he also tracked my movements through the ID, which wouldn’t have been that hard, and meant that he knew I lived in Luang Prabang. In short, he owned me, and without his help or the fake ID I was effectively trapped in the Philippines.

  My only hope was that he wouldn’t want to betray me to the police, just in case it somehow backfired on him. That said, he would certainly want me out of the way, and the best way to do that would be to kill me. I knew I wasn’t the only killer on his books, and certainly not the cruellest. The decapitated Russian woman in Kuala Lumpur was a perfect illustration of that. If I were Schagel, I would send someone else to kill Tina, then me as well.

  All this meant we had to move fast. But as I checked the phone I’d bought the previous day, I saw that I had three missed calls from blocked numbers, which meant Schagel had been calling me, no doubt hunting for an update on Tina’s status. I’d had the phone on silent, because I’d been putting off talking to him for as long as possible, but I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. It was only a matter of time before he found out that I’d gone over to the other side.

  Before I called him, I went to an internet café across the street and got online. It had always been a habit of mine, since I’d begun to work for Schagel, not to read anything about the individuals I’d killed once the job was done, because I never liked to know too much about those whose lives I’d ended. But tonight I was making an exception. I needed to reassure myself that, by sparing Tina’s life and effectively destroying any hope of a comfortable retirement in the rolling hills of Laos, I’d made the right decision.

  I Googled O’Riordan’s name and read everything I could about him, concentrating particularly on the articles that, if Tina was to be believed, had ended up getting him killed. He’d written three on the disappearance of the thirteen-year-old Danish girl, Lene Haagen, from her Manila hotel room in 2008, all within a month of her disappearance. A photo of Lene appeared in one of them. She was pretty, with lots of blonde curly hair, and had a big gap-toothed smile. Although no trace of her had ever been found, O’Riordan stated in his two later articles that she’d almost certainly been snatched to order on behalf of a western paedophile gang with strong connections to establishment figures within the Philippine judiciary. He provided a number of pieces of evidence to back up his claims, including the disappearance of two local girls of the same age in the previous eighteen months. Most damning of all was the death, five days after Lene’s disappearance, of the nightwatchman at the hotel from where she’d gone missing – a man O’Riordan claimed police sources had told him was a prime suspect in the case – who’d been shot dead outside his home during an apparent robbery. It looked a hell of a lot like O’Riordan was on the right track. But then the articles stopped, just like that, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t find anything more that he’d written about Lene. It was as if the world and O’Riordan had simply decided it was time to move on. I guessed that he’d been warned off by someone.

  Finally, after close to half an hour on the PC, I logged out, feeling sick about what I’d done to Patrick O’Riordan. I’d murdered a decent man. I remembered Tina’s parting words, the hardness in her voice as she’d said how much she despised me, and thought once again how badly my life had gone wrong.

  When I got back up to my room, I called Bertie Schagel’s number and left a message.

  He was back on the phone in the space of a minute. ‘News?’ he demanded tersely.

  I kept the hatred I felt for him firmly under control. ‘I’ve lost her.’

  ‘How?’

  I explained that when I’
d got to Tina’s room, she wasn’t there. ‘I must have missed her on the elevators. I stayed inside her room for the best part of the last six hours, but she still hasn’t come back.’

  Schagel cursed. ‘This I do not need. Where are you now?’

  ‘In the hotel lobby. That’s why I’m talking quietly.’

  ‘OK, here is the deal. If you want to retire, make sure you find her before midday tomorrow and eliminate her. Otherwise I will use someone who can, and our deal will be off. Call me the minute it’s done.’

  He cut the connection and I stood staring at the phone for a long time, knowing I’d now burned all my bridges, and wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. It even crossed my mind, for just a split second, to go down to Tina’s room and do what Schagel was paying me to do. But I recognized the feeling for what it was: a moment of weakness. This wasn’t the time for regrets. For the first time in a long time, it felt like I was doing the right thing.

  I switched off the phone and removed the SIM before throwing it in the bin. I had no further use for it now. Then I opened the window, bent the SIM in half, and sent it fluttering into the warm night air. I stood there looking out over the vast cluster of low-rise buildings, interspersed with the occasional tower block, that was the Manila skyline. It was an uninspiring sight that only added to my sense of utter loneliness.

  In truth, I’d been upset that Tina wouldn’t join me for a meal. It had been months since I’d had female company for dinner, the last person being a middle-aged German woman called Ilsa who was on a year off following a messy divorce. She’d stayed in Luang Prabang for a month and during that time we’d had an uneasy, rather unsatisfying fling. Both of us were in need of some kind of physical closeness, and were going for the nearest available option, but there were no tears, and only the briefest of goodbyes, when she moved on to her next destination. Other than that, there’d been no one since Emma.