by Jan Toms
‘Never mind. All men have that problem at some time.’ She gave him a little pat, turned over and began to snore.
By morning, he made sure that he was up and dressed and ready to go to work.
‘You aren’t thinking of going to the office when you’re ill?’ She gazed at him soulfully from the bed.
‘I must. We’re short-staffed. I need to be there.’ Before she could argue, he raced down the stairs and made his escape.
Charity spent the day walking the dog and looking for clues. When Victor came home from work there was nothing about his demeanour to suggest that he had spent any part of the day carrying out another gangland killing. She dished him up a lentil surprise and grilled him closely about his activities, but learned nothing useful. Thinking of her father, she decided that perhaps she should just go home. With luck Alan may have something new to impart.
‘Are you sure that you’ll be alright?’ she asked, thinking that perhaps Victor wanted her to stay.
‘Of course I will.’ He yawned meaningfully. ‘I’m a little tired. I could do with a night’s uninterrupted sleep.’
She arched her eyebrows, then smiled. ‘Alright. I expect I can manage without you for a whole night.’
Was it her imagination, or did he look relieved?
When she got home Alan was out. She knocked up another lentil surprise and scanned the late edition of the Clarion to see if any murders or executions had taken place in the area. If they had – well then she really should tell her father of her suspicions. In the event, there was nothing of any interest.
SIXTEEN
Having made up his mind that something must be done about Vincenzo Verdi, Barry went over a list of available operatives at the office. They seemed to be very thin on the ground. He was looking for someone – anyone – whom he could trust to undertake this very important mission. He had made up his mind. He was going to send one of the Pretty Boys to bump off the hitman. For ages he thought about all the implications, all the qualities needed for this most difficult of tasks. However, he couldn’t think of one person whom he could trust with this job. An awful truth dawned on him. If it was going to happen, then he would have to do it himself.
The very thought reduced him to a jelly but there was nothing for it. He had never killed anyone before. In fact, he had never killed anything. The idea of bashing Vincent over the head or throttling him or running him through with a dagger made him feel faint. There was only one way that he would be able to do it and that was with a gun.
He went across to the drinks cabinet. He knew that the cupboard had a false back and lurking behind the panel was a selection of firearms. Fortunately, Barry had fired a gun before. When he was young his father had insisted that he should learn to shoot, and he used to go along to a firing range and eliminate numerous cardboard figures. He had been good at it too. He had enjoyed playing at soldiers, being the hero of one of his own make-believe stories, but it was just that, a game. He prided himself on having been a good shot but it was years since he had even handled a gun.
Opening the cupboard and removing the back panel, he looked at the assortment of deadly weapons in the alcove. After some deliberation, he picked out a lightweight automatic and a magazine. He wasn’t familiar with this particular model, and it took him a while to work out how to assemble it, but at last there was a satisfying click as he pushed the last component into place.
At that moment there was a knock on the door, and he scrabbled to push the gun back into the cupboard and close it.
‘Come in!’
It was Sonia.
She was wearing a very tight top that caused her boobs to wobble like two strawberry blancmanges. No wonder she had been a success at The Earthly Delights.
‘I’ve just heard from Harry,’ she said, stretching herself and almost purring at the thought.
Barry felt indignant. He was a child again competing for the attention of his eldest brother. ‘Why didn’t you put him through to me?’
‘Because he rang to speak to me.’ She threw a derisive glance at him, her mouth set in a self-satisfied smirk. He longed to wipe it off her face, but remembering the gun lurking just inside the cupboard he thought that he should get her out of the room as quickly as possible. If he wasn’t careful, he might be reduced to using her for target practice.
‘Well, what did he say?’
‘He says they’re coming back on Sunday – and that you shouldn’t do anything until then. He’ll sort everything out himself when he gets back.’
Stung by her tone, he answered, ‘There won’t be any need. It will all be settled by then.’
Over the weekend Dodge had been considering his options and had come to the conclusion that Frenchie was the only man he could safely employ to take out Vincenzo Verdi. He considered the situation at length and there was no doubt about it. Vincent/Vincenzo had to go. If he was out of the picture then perhaps he and the Pretty Boys could negotiate a settlement, but as long as a hitman was waiting in the wings, looking for work, there was little hope of getting back to normal.
Leon leFevre had just arrived back from Paris. He had been to see his mother who lived in a retirement home for nuns. It seemed that after Leon’s birth she had seen the light, and as soon as he was old enough she had sent him off to a boarding school and taken her vows. She was now known as Sister Serenity.
In answer to Dodge’s call, Frenchie came over to see him. He was a small, dark man with a black moustache that looked as if it had been pencilled on. It twitched in time with his rather beaky nose which he a habit of wrinkling when he was concentrating. He looked like a curious mouse.
‘How was Paris?’ Dodge asked as an opening.
‘Formidable.’ Frenchie kissed his fingertips flamboyantly.
‘Good. I’m glad you’re back because I have a very important job for you. I’m trusting you not to let me down.’
Frenchie looked at Dodge with raised eyebrows. ‘Really, mon brave. What is it that you wish for me to do?’
‘I want someone disposed of, as soon as possible.’
Frenchie pulled a face. ‘That is not my line of work.’
‘I know that but it’s important – and I think you would be better at it than me.’
Frenchie shrugged, a Gallic gesture that was one of his mannerisms. ‘So oo is zis person?’
‘Vincenzo Verdi.’
‘Zut! You are serious?’
‘Very serious. Frenchie, if we get rid of him we can all get back to business. He’s the one causing all the trouble at the moment.’
Frenchie pulled another face. ‘Ow much?’ he asked.
‘Twenty grand.’
Frenchie considered. Clearly the thought of the payment was doing its work. ‘I – I will shoot but nothing else, no knife, no strangles, nothing touching.’
‘That’s fine. Do it any way you want, as long as it’s soon.’
Two days had passed without incident and Victor was beginning to feel safe again. By pleading a bad back he managed to avoid Charity’s most intimate attentions and he felt that life was really beginning to get back to normal. It was a shock, therefore, when he took Fluffy out for his evening stroll on Thursday and suddenly became aware that he was being watched.
The first thing he noticed was a man in a black beret standing in the doorway of Bicycle World. He was leaning back in the shadows and did not look in the least like the sort of man who would want to buy a bicycle. Victor tightened his grip on Fluffy’s lead and hurried on a few yards, stopping to look in the window of Mothercare. For a moment he was distracted because they had some rather nice quilted blankets that would be ideal for Fluffy and the kittens, then he remembered the man across the road. Carefully, he positioned himself in such a way so that he could see the pavement opposite reflected in the plate glass of the window. Sure enough, the man with the beret had moved down a few shops and was now staring in the electrical appliances shop window.
As Victor went to move on down towards the High Street he became aware th
at there was also somebody on his side of the road, a young fair-haired man who seemed distinctly nervous. He wore an unseasonably large raincoat and he appeared to have a spinal curvature because he was bending over to the left while his right hand was tucked into his side. Victor wondered if the poor chap was deformed.
Victor went to hurry on but Fluffy chose that moment to empty his bowels, so he was forced to a sudden halt while the dog hopped from leg to leg to find the right position, his pompom bouncing in the air. He then made a big show of scraping the ground around his deposit.
‘Fluffy, hurry up!’
The man in the beret moved away from the electrical appliances shop window and promptly dived into Wholefoods R Us. The young Quasimodo also hesitated then crossed the road, ending up on the same side as beret man.
Victor felt guilty but he didn’t stop to clear up after Fluffy. Instead, he dragged the little dog along rather faster than he wanted to go, still heading for the High Street.
As Victor walked faster, so did both men on the other side of the road. He didn’t think that they were together and neither did they seem to be aware of each other, but Victor was very aware of them both. This was a long road and the High Street still looked very distant.
He began to jog and, glancing over his shoulder, he saw beret man shuffling along faster than before. The younger man was also gathering speed, despite his awkward gait. He seemed to be encumbered by a large object under his raincoat and Victor wondered if he might wear some complicated brace – or maybe he had bought something from the furniture shop on the corner and was struggling to get it home.
Apart from the two men there was no one else in the road. He was alone with two potential attackers. Losing his nerve, Victor hoisted Fluffy into his arms and began to run for the junction and the traffic lights.
Behind him he heard two sets of echoing footsteps increasing in speed. Now, blind panic set in and, racing for the main road, he hurled himself across the pedestrian crossing. Fortunately the traffic light was red, although just as he stepped off it the amber light began to flash. Without stopping to look back he turned left, preparing to dive into the first pub or café he came to. Before he had gone two yards he heard an unholy screeching of breaks and, behind him, a sickening thud and gasps from people walking nearby.
Resolutely he kept walking, longing to know what had happened but not daring to look round. At last he came to the Bear and Biscuit and pushed the door open with a trembling hand.
Inside the public house it was quite busy but he saw a table over in the corner. Buying himself a large gin at the bar, he hurried across to lose himself among the drinkers. Fluffy was in danger of being trampled by the evening drinkers and took refuge under the table, whimpering to himself.
A few moments later a couple came in. The man was holding the girl by the arm, reassuring her. To the bartender he said, ‘Nasty accident up at the lights. Some bloke ran straight out under a lorry. Bit of a mess.’ He patted the girl on the arm and ordered her a brandy. ‘We didn’t stop to see what happened,’ he continued. ‘There were plenty of witnesses and Sandra here is upset.’ He gave her a reassuring squeeze and they sat at a table a little way away. Victor could not quite hear what they were saying. He took a large gulp of his gin and his overriding thought was to wonder what had become of the second man.
For perhaps half an hour he sat and stared at the door, hardly daring to blink in case he spotted one of his followers, but no one remotely resembling either of them came in. Victor risked getting himself a second gin, and as it did its work he began to rethink the situation. Had the men been following him? Buoyed up with Dutch courage it seemed much less clear. Perhaps it was his imagination. Perhaps when he started to run the men had hurried for quite separate reasons of their own. Calmer now, he decided that he would not mention this to anyone. After all, he could hardly ask for police protection, could he? The more he thought about it the more unlikely the whole thing seemed. Best to go home and get a good night’s sleep. A little unsteadily, he got to his feet and tucked Fluffy under his arm, just as the dog had spotted an inviting ankle. Deprived of his fun, Fluffy weed down Victor’s jacket.
Further down the road, Barry Hickman walked shakily into the Tub and Thumper and ordered a large whisky. He was shaking so much that he could barely stand.
‘You alright mate?’ The bartender gave him a curious look.
‘Just saw someone run over on the crossing,’ Barry blurted out. ‘Lots of people saw it. I – I felt sick so I didn’t stop.’
‘Poor sod,’ the bartender said. ‘It never pays to jump the lights.’
Barry struggled to get some change out of his pocket, being encumbered by the automatic rifle tucked beneath his jacket. He had quickly realised that this was not the weapon of choice if you were stalking someone in a busy street. Somehow he doled out the right money and picked up his whisky. He needed to sit somewhere quiet, where no one would notice him, but the place was quite crowded. He managed to slide onto the end of a bench, the rifle jabbing him in the thigh. He had a sudden panic in case it accidentally went off, and he couldn’t remember actually assembling it. Perhaps it wouldn’t fire at all. If Vincenzo Verdi had turned on him then he wouldn’t have had a chance to get a shot in first, not with the gun stuffed down inside his jacket.
Vincenzo had been something of a shock. Barry had been expecting someone lithe yet muscular, moving with an easy grace and blending easily into the shadows. This had been a little runt of a man with floppy hair and accompanied by a ridiculous looking poodle. At the thought of the poodle, he suddenly remembered Gruesome. He had had a dog like that, a sort of crazy trademark. Hadn’t they called it the Angel of Death? Coming back to what had happened to that guy at the crossing, something cold and dark seemed to envelop him. Supposing it was the dog that had the power, some demonic ability to bring about the destruction of his enemies? Fortunately he had been behind that other guy, the one who had copped it. He wondered briefly who he was, probably some innocent bystander. Strange the way Fate picked out its victims. If Barry had been in front… at the thought, he shook so much that his teeth began to chatter. Getting rid of Vincenzo Verdi was going to be a mammoth task.
SEVENTEEN
Alan was called to a road traffic accident in the centre of town. Some chap had jumped the lights at a pedestrian crossing with lethal consequences. He hated these sorts of cases, a moment’s misjudgement and a tragedy of enormous proportions.
The lorry driver who had hit him was in a bit of a state. Someone had found him a chair and he was sitting by the side of the road with a blanket around his shoulders. The victim was also covered with a blanket, stretched out diagonally several yards from the crossing where he had been thrown by the impact. One of Alan’s colleagues was turning the traffic back and a bottleneck was fast building up.
The driver, whose name was Arthur, kept trying to explain. ‘The lights had changed, I’m certain they had. I started to move forward and he just jumped into the road.’ He looked around him for support. To Alan, he said, ‘D’you think it might have been suicide?’
Young Isabelle Peters, a new constable, was on duty with him and rather than give her the job of touching the body he sent her to take statements from the bystanders. Girding himself up for the unpleasantness of the task, he bent down and eased the blanket back.
He wasn’t much of a specimen, this victim. His eyes and mouth were still open, as if at the last moment he had been aware of the lorry and was about to emit a shriek of alarm. He looked as if he had put his hands up to ward off the impact, realising too late what was happening, and his arms were still raised up towards his face. Apart from a trickle of blood around his left ear, there were no signs of injury.
Alan carefully inserted his hand into the victim’s coat pocket and managed to extricate a wallet and some other pieces of paper. The writing on them was all in French. Taking in the man’s appearance, it seemed indeed likely that he was from across the Channel. The thought came to him
that at least he wouldn’t be the one to have to break the bad news. He eased the man a fraction so that he could reach his other pocket, running his hand down his side. He felt something bulky and solid at his hip. Pulling it half out of the pocket, he found himself holding the butt of a pistol. Quickly he shoved it back again. His job was only to see if there was a next of kin he could contact. Guns were something else.
Alan turned back to the crowd. The man who was comforting the driver said, ‘I got the impression he was chasing someone. There was a little chap racing up the road ahead of him and he just caught the lights.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He just kept going. We were all too shocked by what happened to pay him much attention.’ As an afterthought, he said, ‘Perhaps he didn’t realise what happened.’
‘What did he look like?’
The comforter thought. ‘Little, skinny, a bit pansy-ish really. He had a titchy little dog with him.’
‘What – what colour was it?’ Alan felt his throat grow dry.
‘A little white poodle thing.’
Alan’s heart seemed to plummet in his chest. This was just too much of a coincidence. What the hell was going on? To the witness, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sir, but we might need you to come to the station to make a statement. What you saw may be significant.’ To himself, he added very significant indeed.
Dodge had stayed at the office. Before Frenchie set out on his mission, he said to him, ‘Make sure and let me know how it went, won’t you?’ He was having second thoughts about the whole thing. It was alright in the films but in real life, killing someone wasn’t so easy. Supposing Vincenzo Verdi got in first and shot Frenchie? All they would have achieved was to put the hitman on his guard and make it even more difficult to get him out of the way.
The evening dragged and he heard nothing so at last he decided to go home. As he drove towards his neighbourhood, he saw that there was a large diversion sign down by the High Street and a Police Accident notice. Cursing, he turned off and faced a convoluted journey just to get on the other side of the main road. People really should drive more carefully.
