The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “What’s going on?”

  He passed her the papers. “Terrorist, they reckon. Bloke from Colombia. He’s used this ID before – it was noted when the IRA three were over there. It’s fake. Why the hell he didn’t get something new before taking off . . .”

  “Perhaps no time?” She frowned as she absorbed the description of the man.

  “He was with FARC, the terrorists who control the country out towards Venezuela,” Paul said. He shivered. This was the kind of incident he had feared. “They were trained by the IRA in new bombs and mortars. This Escobar was a cousin of one of the cartel leaders from Medellìn, and he escaped the crack down when his cousin was killed. He made it to Panama originally, then turned up back in Colombia with FARC. Now he’s coming here.”

  “Why?”

  “Jesus! I don’t know, all right?” he snapped. “All we have to do is find him and watch, just like we always do. And when we see him, we go live on radio in case we have to call in the shooters.”

  Jeannie nodded, and he saw a small smile of satisfaction on her face – she liked to needle him. There was a reasonably fresh brew of coffee in the jug. She poured, added a good slug of milk, and sipped it easily, walking from the room out to the main hall again, leaving him alone with his fears.

  He should have been honest about his education, but when he was interviewed, he assumed that they’d never want him for active duties. He’d said he was good with languages, because that was what his mate said they wanted, but it never occurred to him that he’d be needed. God – the nearest he’d got to languages was a smattering of Bantu and Ndebelele when he took a gap year to study anthropology in Botswana.

  Anyway, when he wrote out his CV, no one had seemed remotely interested. There’d been no time for checks. Perhaps someone would spot his lying later, when they went back through the CVs they’d collected in the last years since 9/11. Probably not, though. Human Resources had been reduced as they increased the Watchers – if you spend in one area you have to cut a budget elsewhere – and now there weren’t the HR people to check all the new staff, let alone trawl through existing ones.

  At his interview they were more keen on his post as a prefect at school. Responsible character, they’d said. No one had guessed he’d lied about that as well.

  His eyes were drawn back to the sheet of paper, to the words that were highlighted: Paul Jeffries to keep close. Spanish essential.

  Shit!

  The H&K was soon made ready again. The mag slammed into the gun and smacked with the palm of his hand to seat it. He pulled the cocking lever back and let it drive forward, stripping the first round from the magazine and leaving the gun cocked and ready. He switched on the safety, keeping his finger well away from the trigger. In the last few years more police officers had been wounded because of negligent discharges than by criminals. He had enough on his plate without that, sod it.

  Jack was waiting at the door. “Shit of a day to leave the Glock behind, eh?”

  “Fuck it!” Andy hissed. They both walked out together, their guns across their chests, fingers clear, and they turned their radios on as they entered the thronging main hall.

  The man who called himself Ramón knew a fair amount about Bogotà, but only from reading. Not many people went to the city unless they had to. The bombs, the bullets, the murdering, the kidnapping and ransoming all dissuaded tourists, not only foreign ones. Locals were as unlikely to travel there. Anyone could be stopped and kidnapped, and a man like him, with a price on his head, would be best served keeping off the roads. Travel was very dangerous. Just like home. Except here the terrorists and guerillas were better armed than the police, whereas back home only the police and army had guns. And the President’s friends.

  Bogotà was beautiful. Ringed by the high, dark peaks, the place had an atmosphere all of its own. He had thought that, sitting in the Parc de Periodistas, waiting for the man to arrive with the new passport. There was a smell of thick smog in the air, and he could see the coal smoke rising from several chimneys in the tower blocks nearby. A sulphurous odour that caught in his throat, and yet the buildings were typical Spanish colonial in so many areas of the city, especially the older parts where the emeralds were sold for so little. Spanish, American, there were so many influences. It was a lovely country.

  His contact was a scrawny man, with a sallow, pock-marked complexion and a thatch of filthy brown hair. He spoke English only haltingly, and that suited Ramón. Neither wanted to know much about the other, and Ramón had been assured he was safe. He’d paid well for the advice.

  Their business was soon completed, an envelope with much of Ramón’s remaining cash, all in US dollars, was passed over, and in exchange a fake passport, driving licence, and some local identification cards. With these Ramón was safe. With these he could fly from the country and not be turned away at British immigration. It was too easy for asylum-seekers to be refused now, unless they had applied before leaving their homes, but he couldn’t apply back home, and no one would help in Colombia. They had other things to worry about: terrorists and drug-dealers.

  The jerk of the wheels hitting tarmac brought him back to the present. In his bag in the hold there was the explosive material, and soon he would be in a position to light the touch-paper, he told himself.

  Paul’s first warning was the nod from immigration. There was no need for a buzzer or pager to call when a watcher was present. Only if there was an immediate danger did they “hit the tit” for the armed fuzz. Otherwise everything had to be managed silently, with a minimum of fuss to alert the bad guys that they were being followed.

  At the carousel Paul stood back, watching his mark. Not tall, but well muscled, and a face that spoke of a warmer climate than Britain in November. Yes, he was the one, all right. There were plenty of Spaniard types on the place, but this one definitely fitted the photo and profile best. Jeannie was down in the carousel hall, and they had a dummy bag for her to collect. She stood near the mark, and grabbed her bag as it came round.

  Paul took a deep breath, shivering with expectation. Then he walked out through the customs tunnel, walking through the red channel and waiting with his own small luggage bag in case the target came this way. Jeannie would wait until he had left, then go through green no matter what.

  The customs officer was a slim blonde girl, and she waited with Paul patiently until he had the signal from another officer. Then Paul hurried through the channel and out into the main hall.

  Jack and Andy were waiting idly when the call came through.

  “He’s in the main hall now. Following him out.”

  Andy beckoned with his head and wandered over to the main arrivals corridor. There was a family, then a couple of teens with backpacks, long fair hair straggling. A gap, a long gap. Andy felt his palms begin to sweat. He took his pistol hand away from the H&K and wiped it down his trousers, willing himself to look a little away from the corridor, but unable to obey. The bright fluorescent glow of the arrival tunnel transfixed him. He saw the tall figure appear.

  Ramòn. Ramòn. Not Jean-Jacques Bressonard. He had to remember his new name until he could get his package delivered, but the officials on all sides petrified him. There was a young brunette watching him, and he forced himself to blink slowly, smiling through his exhaustion, looking away innocently and striding on determinedly, through the wide corridor, turning right at the end, passing through the crowds. He was safe.

  There were two policemen in armour ahead of him, and he hardly glanced at them. He was thinking about his ancestors. They had fled from the terror in France, first arriving here in England, then making the long and dangerous journey to Africa. There they had thrived until the independence, until the new regime.

  Over the centuries, England had remained their homeland. They owed their existence to the British who welcomed his Huguenot forebears. His grandfather volunteered and died in the trenches of the first war, his father nearly died in the Battle of Britain as a Hurricane pilot. Yes, Ramón was
coming home.

  In his own land he had ceased to exist. When his ID card was confiscated, he became a non-person. A man with no ID was nothing. He had no rights.

  He smiled and nodded to the police, but then a chill entered his blood as he took in their faces: dead; cold, inhuman. Just like at home.

  Walking more swiftly, he went right, avoiding them. Ahead of him was a beautiful woman, just like his lovely Miranda, and he felt a pang in his breast at the thought. He missed his family so much . . . but hopefully he could have them rescued too. They could come here to this cold, grey country.

  For a moment he thought he could hear Miranda calling to him: “Good morning!” just one instant before he saw the gun, realized it was flashing, felt the slugs hit his breast, and collapsed slowly, sinking to his knees even as the police emptied their H&Ks into him.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  Andy shivered, his finger still tight on the trigger as he stood over the body.

  “Cease firing! Cease firing! Cease firing!”

  The terrorist was down, bullet wounds weeping all over his torso. An eye was punctured, and wept jelly, and Andy could only stare, too shocked even to feel sick yet. That would come later.

  “Andy. Andy! Get a fucking grip. Secure the place! Come on!”

  “Why’d he do that? Why’d he fire?”

  Paul had been hit twice that he knew of. He had been behind the target when he saw the man’s body jerk and collapse, saw the bullets strike from the police guns, saw the body suddenly lifeless like a dummy, arms flailing as he was thrown to the side.

  “No need for Spanish after all!” he said, almost giggling with reaction.

  At his side a young girl was weeping, sprawled, a bloody mess on her back to show the exit wound. Near her a man was still and silent, an elderly woman was slumped by the wall, staring with surprise at a bloody hole in her belly, while her husband stood beside her with an expression of spaniel-like hurt and confusion. Paul gazed about him at them all, and tried to stand, but couldn’t. All he could do was sit and watch as the police bellowed at the people in the area to get clear. Dazed, he looked up at the policeman with the sub-machinegun when he approached, and began to wonder what he might do. He’d just seen the man empty his magazine into a crowd.

  “There’s an ambulance on its way,” Jack said. He stood behind Andy. “You all right?”

  “I’m hit.”

  “I can see that.”

  Paul shook his head, tasted bile. “Why did she say that? Why did she call to him and shoot him?”

  Jack sighed and walked off. Andy frowned. “Who did?”

  “Jeannie,” Paul said. He choked a little on the phlegm that had materialised in his throat. “My partner. Where is she?”

  It was late when Andy returned to the gun room. He sat on the bench, exhausted. Jack walked in a few minutes later to unload his weapon.

  “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Unload, then. Come on, Andy! Unload.”

  Andy stood and fumbled with the cocking lever, but there was nothing to do. His magazine was empty. Instead he pulled the mag free and stared at it dumbly.

  Jack eyed him, then unloaded his own weapon. It was unfired. He set it in the safe, and as he did so, his foot kicked something under the bench. “Shit, Andy – is that your gun? You didn’t lock it in the safe, you prick!”

  Andy jerked awake from his nightmare and gazed at Jack dumbly. Seeing the direction of his pointing finger, he reached down and took up the Glock in its holster. He hefted it in his hand, pulled it free. It had been fired. He could smell the powder in the barrel. And when he looked closer, the serial number on the side was one he knew all too well.

  His hand began to tremble.

  Paul took the advice from the ambulance driver, still shivering slightly as the needle went in and he watched the clear liquid pushed into his arm. The wounds were small: one bullet had winged his shoulder, which was already as sore as hell, and a second had caught his rib, running around the outside of it, and ending up in his back after running around underneath his skin. The medic had offered to cut it loose, but he refused the offer.

  “You’ll need it taken out soon,” the medic said. He didn’t bother to add that Paul would have to have the entire bullet’s track opened and cleaned to remove all the bits of material and burned powder, or risk septicaemia.

  “Davie? Where is she?”

  “Who? Jeannie? I told her to go home. She was in shock.”

  Paul shivered. Davie looked at him sympathetically. “Look, Paul, you need to rest, mate. Get on home.”

  “She murdered the guy.”

  “What?”

  “She had a handgun. I saw her. She shouted something and opened fire. The cops started shooting as soon as she started. She started it, though. I saw her.”

  “What did she shout? Spanish?”

  “Lotjhani – in Ndebele it means ‘Hello’.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The files in the bags were exhaustive. Details of murders, of officially sanctioned brutality. Paul shivered as he took in pictures of bodies in streets, strewn in fields, punctured with gunshots, or slashed with pangas, and he felt the sickness in his belly.

  “Who is he?” Dave muttered.

  “An asylum seeker. We killed an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe,” Paul spat. The pain was washing through him now as he stared at the sheet of paper, and he could feel a cold sweat run over his spine. Nausea roiled in his belly. “And Jeannie murdered him.”

  Perhaps, he wondered, the HR team hadn’t only cocked up with his application?

  The woman he had known as Jeannie climbed out of the car with the diplomatic plates, and walked in through the guarded doors into the High Commission as the car purred round to the parking space. The lift took her up, and soon she was seated, waiting for the debriefing, running the events through her mind once more.

  It had been perfect. The theft of the policeman’s firearm was a calculated risk, but when she had seen the changed rotas, it seemed a good bet. All the police took their guns home occasionally, even though it was officially disapproved of, and when a man had to travel far to his next shift, it made sense for him to keep his gun nearby. And the gamble paid off.

  She had waited for the man this morning, and he had passed her the Glock at the airport entrance. The theft had gone without a hitch. The fool was too exhausted to hear the two as they rifled his clothing and bags. After that all she had to do was wait until she saw Bressonard while the policeman was present. Shoot, and run. They’d said that the police expected a terrorist, so they’d shoot as soon as they heard shots, and they’d been right. They always saw what they expected, or what they feared. No one would suspect her, a “spook”.

  So the enemy of the country was dead. He had been led carefully down a route preplanned for him. A contact with FARC had agreed to provide obvious ID for him, and then they had known which aircraft he would take to Britain, and now he was dead. Well, now the world would see what a safe country Britain was for asylum seekers. Like the Brazilian, a white farmer had been removed, and the police were guilty of his homicide. Either the machine gun or the pistol had killed him, and both were one officer’s weapons.

  The woman who had been called Jeannie removed her ID and placed it carefully before her on a glass-topped table. She wouldn’t need these again. No. She was looking forward to returning to her own name. Her real one.

  And returning to the glorious Zimbabwe sun, of course. Perhaps she could buy a small farm. Maybe even take Bressonard’s?

  Life was good.

  THE DEATH OF JEFFERS

  Kevin Wignall

  Heg the Peg was the end of it. Marty had known from the start which creek he was up; this was just the confirmation on the whereabouts of the paddle. If it had won, he’d have been in the clear, or as near as made any difference.

  True to its name though, the first race had finished five minutes ago and Heg the Peg was still running.
So much for Bob and his cast-iron tips, straight from the stable, the whole crowd of them laying money on it like it was the only horse in the race. If there was any cast-iron, it was in Heg the Peg’s saddle.

  So now Marty had two choices. First was finding some other way of raising two thousand euros by the end of the month – and frankly, that was looking about as likely as the stewards disqualifying every other horse in the last race. Second was borrowing the money off Hennessey and paying back the interest for the rest of his life.

  Three choices – he could tell McKeon to sing for the money, leave Dublin, leave Ireland, and find a monastery in Bhutan that was recruiting. Four choices – his next fare could be some crazy American on his first trip to Dublin, wanting to hire him for the whole week, money no object. You never knew with the airport.

  The door opened and Marty turned off the radio.

  “Wynn’s Hotel, please.” English, in a suit, overnight bag; no big tip here. The fare leaned over and handed him a piece of paper with an address on it. “Could you stop here on the way? I’ll give you a good tip.”

  Marty glanced at the address. It wasn’t far out of the way.

  “No problem. First time in Dublin?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Marty pulled away. He could probably take the guy around the houses and he wouldn’t be any the wiser. He found himself taking the direct route though; that was why he ended up in positions like this in the first place, because he was too honest for his own good.

  He looked in the rear-view. The fare looked like a civil servant, or someone who worked in life insurance, nondescript, late thirties, the kind of guy who was born to make up the numbers and get lost in the crowd. But he’d still offer him the same old patter.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting to sample some of the good stuff while you’re here?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Guinness.”

  “Oh.” The fare smiled like it was something he wasn’t used to. “Actually, I don’t drink. Very rarely, anyway.”