The Damage (David Blake 2)

by Howard Linskey

  Hunter had worked for Bobby Mahoney for nigh on thirty years, starting as a teenager nicking cars, gradually working his way up the ranks until eventually he became the firm’s quartermaster. He liked to think he was just like Morgan Freeman’s character from The Shawshank Redemption; he could get you anything, could Hunter. To be fair though, the members of the firm didn’t want just anything. They nearly always wanted a gun, and the particular variety of gun would depend on the job they were about to carry out. That was where Hunter stepped in. Shotguns were good for armed robberies and close-quarter kills in isolated places, or contained spaces like the backs of cars or lifts. Hunter frowned on automatic weapons; submachine guns were really only for the movies and if you tried to fire an Uzi without any training you were just as likely to kill your partner as the person you were meant to be aiming at. Mostly he provided semi-automatic pistols, like the Glock and the Sig Sauer, or the more traditional Smith & Wesson, Colt or Browning. He always advised against the .38, not enough stopping power, or anything you’d seen James Bond use like the Walther or Beretta, which were too fussy for his tastes. Magnums were usually unnecessary too, powerful, noisy and unsubtle, and he distrusted the new eastern European imports, like the Makarov, because he doubted their build quality and, if you were ever going to pull a gun on someone, the last thing you wanted was for it to jam on you at the crucial moment. Hunter would solemnly impart these opinions to members of the crew who were sent to him for weapons and they in turn would listen, because everybody knew that Hunter knew his stuff, whether the subject was guns, or the disposal of bodies.

  Hunter couldn’t get comfortable, so he rose to his feet and took another reflective sip of his whisky, then lowered the glass till he was standing with it at chest height as he looked out at the garden beyond. It was dark, but he could still see the overgrown hedge at the back of the garden being blown around by the breeze. Mary had been on at him to cut it back.

  When the bullet came, it broke glass. First the thick glass of the conservatory window, which disintegrated on impact, leaving thousands of tiny fragments scattered all over the tiled floor. Next, the glass Hunter was holding in his hand exploded, taking two of his fingers with it as they were severed by the bullet’s trajectory. Hunter didn’t feel the pain though, for the bullet had travelled on through the tumbler and gone straight into his chest, piercing his heart. The cause of death would later be described as a severe traumatic injury to the aorta but, whatever the technical phrase, Hunter was dead before his body hit the ground.

  27

  .......................

  I had the kitchen set up just right, the way I do when I cook something nice for Sarah. There were three chopping-boards on the work-tops; one for the meat, one for the vegetables and another just in case. I had the knife block within easy reach. I’d spent more than a few bob on my Sabatier knives, but they were worth it. They were tough, durable and razor sharp and when I was wielding these babies back in Hua Hin I felt like Michel Roux. That’s why I had a second set at the Gosforth town house, a property I liked to stay in if I was in Newcastle for more than a few days.

  I had the small cast-iron pan on the stove and the oil was heating up nicely. I usually have a drink while I cook but, because I was alone, I figured I’d at least wait until my food was done before I poured myself a beer or a glass of wine. It’s too easy to drink on your own and you end up having more than you mean to. I made myself a coffee instead and put it on the work-top right by the stove.

  I put the third chopping board by the oven and watched the oil heat up as I chopped a mound of coriander. Who says men can’t multi task, I thought, and there was an answering creak from the parquet flooring in the lounge behind me. I turned up the heat in the pan and watched bubbles form in the oil, so I knew it was piping hot. I was still holding the big Sabatier, but I put that down, picked up my coffee cup instead, and took a small sip from it. As I lowered the mug I turned sharply on my heel and threw what was left of the contents right into the man’s face and he gasped, then screamed in agony.

  It was the merest creak of the wooden flooring that had given him away. If I’d had the radio on he’d have been up behind me before I could react and he would have had time to use the gun in his hand. He was tall and stocky, but I couldn’t see his face as I turned. I just knew he was there, and that was good enough for me to throw the boiling hot coffee at him. No one in my crew would be stupid enough to walk up behind me unannounced, so there was little risk I’d hurt the wrong man. His free hand was up at his eyes and he was trying to clear them of the boiling water, his face red where the liquid had burned his skin. His gun hand was waving around while he tried to recover from the shock and the pain.

  I grabbed the little iron frying pan, flicked the boiling hot oil at him too and immediately followed up with a blow that knocked the pistol from his grip. It careered into the far wall of the kitchen, but it didn’t go off. His eyes were open now. He saw me, and went for me, but he was unarmed and I still had my weapon. As he stepped towards me, I hit him a crashing blow across the side of the face with the hot pan and he fell backwards, but managed to stay on his feet. I didn’t know what level of damage I’d done but, from the gasping, blood-choked noises he was making, I was willing to bet I’d broken some bones in his face. I took a big risk and stepped towards him then. I raised the pan and swung at him again. This one was going to be the killer blow. I would finish him with it. But I didn’t move quickly enough and he reached out and grabbed the pan, trying to wrench it from my grasp. He half succeeded, then howled in pain because he had forgotten it was hot. The pan fell from my grasp and it dropped to the floor. He bent to make a grab for the handle so he could use it on me and, as he lowered his head, I saw my opportunity. I grabbed clumps of his hair in both hands and pulled with all my strength, then twisted his body to one side. He tottered off balance and fell, head first, until his forehead smashed hard into the sharp corner of the granite counter-top. There was a sickening impact, and he dropped. There was blood all over his forehead and his head was lolling groggily. He was slurring incoherently like a drunk.

  I reached back behind me then and grabbed the knife from the chopping board. I was on him in a second, pressing the razor-sharp point right up against his neck. I put one knee onto his right arm and straddled his chest, then managed to get my other knee onto his left arm. I pressed the tip of the knife further into his neck until it pierced the flesh. He’d know that any more pressure from me and he was a dead man.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I managed to hiss, though the voice didn’t sound like mine anymore, ‘or I finish it.’

  That got me his full attention and he froze. His head was at an angle and he was looking up, his left eye staring at me. He looked frightened and completely helpless.

  ‘Who ordered this?’ I demanded. He opened his mouth to answer, but seemingly thought better of it and said nothing. His breathing was coming out fast and shallow. ‘Tell me,’ I told him, ‘you tell me who ordered this or I will finish you now.’

  His one good eye was still fixed on me and I could almost see his mind racing. He was trying to work out what he could say that would save his life. I wasn’t going to give him time.

  ‘Five seconds,’ I said, ‘or the knife goes in.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said and I could feel the knife rise a little as his throat pulsed when he uttered the word.

  ‘Four seconds,’ I said, and I pressed the knife gently down into the flesh of his neck, ‘who ordered this?’

  ‘No one,’ he said, and he could tell by my face I wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. ‘I mean, I don’t know.’ His good eye never left mine. I could tell he was terrified. ‘I don’t know who ordered it. I don’t know who paid me. You have to believe me,’ he urged.

  I looked him deep in the eye and he stared back at me like he didn’t dare to hope for anything now.

  ‘I believe you,’ I said, as I pushed the knife down hard.

  28

  .........
..............

  I stepped over the dead man in my kitchen, ignoring the blood that had spurted from the wound in his neck and covered the entire kitchen floor.

  I grabbed my mobile and dialled Palmer.

  ‘I need a housekeeper,’ I said.

  Another one of his pregnant silences.

  ‘Right away sir,’ Palmer replied eventually, like it was the most natural request in the world.

  I hung up and sat down on the sofa, then immediately stood up again. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought for a moment then, instinctively, I called Kinane. I wanted him to be here when Palmer arrived.

  Twenty minutes later, Palmer looked down at the body. It was lying in a dark pool of congealed blood now, the face red and blistered. I’d placed the gun on the counter-top and he clocked that too. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  I shrugged, ‘I heard something, I turned around and he was standing there. I threw my coffee in his face,’ and at this my voice cracked and faltered, which I put down to delayed shock. ‘I had to use the knife,’ I said and stopped. I’d intended to go into more detail but now he was here, and could see it with his own eyes, I couldn’t see the point. I was glad to be alive, and I wouldn’t have traded places with the guy on the floor, but I felt sick to my stomach. I kept thinking about the exact moment when the tip of the Sabatier pierced his skin, the desperate look he gave me while it was happening. I knew that was another image that would stay with me, to add to the ones that already kept me awake.

  Palmer put his black leather gloves on and checked the dead man’s pockets. He found nothing.

  ‘What do you make of him?’

  ‘Could be a local who is not on our radar, someone not long out of the forces perhaps, who needed the work? That’s what I’m guessing because it looks hasty, a last minute job.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You heard him,’ he said simply.

  Palmer meant that if the guy had been any good I wouldn’t have heard him, and I had to admit he was right. Maybe one day I could even pat myself on the back and say that the last man who tried to kill David Blake ended up dead. That might be a story we’d want to get round, because it wouldn’t do my reputation any harm, but I wasn’t fooling myself. I had the brains for this world, but not the brawn. If the guy with the gun had been anything more than mediocre, Palmer and Kinane would be moving my body now instead of his.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘Someone probably called him in when they realised you were here.’

  ‘I figured as much,’ I said flatly.

  ‘You going to be okay?’ Kinane asked and I realised how bad I must have looked because this was the first time he’d ever enquired after my well-being.

  ‘I’ll get over it.’

  When we were outside, Palmer asked, ‘Can I have a word?’ I nodded to Kinane and he headed for the car ahead of me.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Palmer told me.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you’re wondering how a hit man got to you when you’d only been in the place for a couple of hours. You’re thinking I was the only one you told.’

  ‘Maybe I was,’ I said. There wasn’t much point in being anything less than honest with him. That was exactly what I was thinking.

  ‘I reckon they’ve been watching the house. I think that somehow they have got hold of a list of places you stay in when you are up here and someone made a phone call when they saw your car pull in.’

  ‘And how could they have got a list of places I use except…’

  ‘…from one of our people.’ He finished the sentence for me.

  ‘There aren’t too many, are there?’

  ‘That know where you stay when you are over here?’ he exhaled, ‘there are a few. I mean it’s not exactly top secret, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted, ‘maybe it should have been.’ In hindsight, I’d been sloppy. It was a minor detail but it almost got me killed.

  ‘I don’t see how it could be anybody from outside the firm. I think we have a leak.’

  ‘Then those tracking devices should come in handy.’

  ‘If anyone has been anywhere they shouldn’t have been lately I’ll know about it. Someone’s selling us out and I’ll find him.’

  ‘You could be right,’ I admitted.

  ‘But you’re still not sure.’ He meant I still suspected him.

  I shrugged. As far as I was concerned everyone in my crew was guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around.

  ‘There’s something I need to show you,’ and he jerked his head toward his car. It was parked a few metres away. I followed him over even though I’d reached the stage where I had no idea who to trust any more. Palmer looked round, popped the boot and held it half open, just enough so I could see inside. There was a man in there. He wasn’t moving. I was no expert but, if I’d been forced to offer a diagnosis, I’d have said he had a broken neck.

  ‘They came after me too,’ Palmer told me.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I came home,’ he explained, ‘this guy was waiting for me, in the house.’

  ‘How did you spot him?’

  ‘I mark my door,’ he was evasive, ‘if someone’s in there I know about it.’ It seemed that was all the explanation I was going to get from him. I’d heard about people putting blocks or indistinguishable signs on their front doors and checking them when they came home each night but it was all a bit John Le Carré and I was wondering how a former solider had picked up the habit.

  ‘Figured I’d get rid of them both at the same time.’ It seemed there was still a lot I didn’t know about Palmer but, wherever he’d picked up his skills, it was clear he’d been too good for the bloke in the boot of his car.

  I wasn’t really listening because a thought had struck me. Someone had been sent to kill me and another man to kill Palmer, at the same time, on the same night. Kinane hadn’t been home so they’d not been able to get to him, but what about the others?

  ‘Get on the phones to everyone,’ I said, ‘make sure no one else has had a visitor tonight.’ I picked up my own phone and dialled Danny. No answer. Where the hell was he?

  It didn’t take long before we got the news. I was in Kinane’s car a few minutes later when my phone rang. It was Sharp, he sounded panicky. ‘Are you okay? Has something happened?’

  ‘You could say that,’ I answered, ‘but yes, I am okay. Why? What have you heard?’ I was wondering how Sharp could have known about this latest attempt on my life.

  ‘All hell’s broken loose. It’s like the Night of the fucking Long Knives. Someone got to Hunter. He’s dead.’

  ‘Hunter? Oh Christ, no.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Hunter had been part of Bobby’s crew since anyone could remember and now he was gone. I felt like our world was caving in around us.

  ‘There’s more,’ he told me, as if Hunter dying was the least of our worries, ‘it’s your brother, he’s been shot.’

  29

  .......................

  I should have known we wouldn’t get anywhere near him. The Police were down at the hospital already, a couple of uniforms making their presence felt, ensuring they were visible in case anyone tried to finish my brother off, but they let me talk to the guy on the desk about Danny. He told me my brother was having emergency surgery and it was unlikely there would be any news for some time. I would have to prepare myself for a long wait. I told him I didn’t mind. He also told me that my brother had been very seriously injured. He didn’t add that I should prepare myself for the worst. He didn’t have to.

  I turned away from the desk to find DI Carlton facing me. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your brother,’ he said.

  ‘Like fuck you are.’

  ‘I am,’ he said calmly, ‘seriously. I’ve had a word with the docs because I thought you’d want to know. He’s been shot three times, back and arm, it doesn’t look good, even if he pulls through,’ which I took to mean that
Danny would be permanently fucked up. I had a sudden urge to throw up.

  I managed to walk over to the row of bright red plastic chairs at the opposite end of the room. My brain was picking out little insignificant details, presumably as a coping mechanism, like the fact that all of the red chairs were screwed onto one large metal frame, which in turn was cemented to the floor. I surmised it was safer than having individual chairs that could be picked up and thrown about by Saturday night casualties who were still fighting drunk. It would be heaving in here on a weekend, full of people who’d been stabbed, slashed or glassed, but it was quiet tonight. I sat down heavily, put my elbows on my knees and brought my hands up to my face to rub my eyes. It looked like I’d be here all night.

  I’d killed a man less than an hour ago. Now I was waiting for news of my brother’s death or, if I was exceptionally lucky, they would come out and tell me he was paralysed or brain dead.

  I realised DI Carlton had sat down next to me. ‘You know that whoever did this to Danny is not going to stop, right?’ he told me, in what he must have considered his most reasonable tone. ‘They are going to keep on coming after you. It’ll be you next,’ he said.

  I took my hands away from my eyes and sat up, but said nothing.

  ‘Tell us who’s behind this and we can stop it,’ he assured me, which was a crock of shit. Even if I had a theory there’d be no proof, no evidence and nothing to go on. ‘Let us protect you,’ Carlton urged. ‘It won’t do you any good, this false code of silence, there’s no such thing as Omertà in Geordieland, you know. Tell me what you know now and I can help you. That’s the best offer you are going to get this century. You know that.’