Up ahead, amongst the waterbirds, two barges lay low in the water, surrounded by reeds. The rusty hulks had long ago been abandoned and left to rot. Kal realised these were their destination and Clarence cut the engine to park close by. Then they walked a narrow track down to the water and found a dinghy concealed amongst the bushes. It was a remote spot, not suitable for most vehicles and with no public access, so not many dog walkers and joggers would come this way. A couple of bursts from the dinghy engine and they were soon alongside the second of the barges. They climbed aboard and Clarence unlocked the rusty hatch.
Raphael’s victim was in the small space of the main cabin. The man had been there almost eighteen hours but it looked like days – his skin was ashen, his face swollen to grotesque proportions, and his chest had caved on one side and was caked in black blood, weeping and oozing. Kal made certain to conceal her horror, swinging her arms casually as she leant against one of the cabinets.
‘My, what a mess,’ she said, peering into his eyes. One eye was puffed closed and he wasn’t able to focus with the other. He’d lost plenty of blood and been left without water. In the grip of dehydration, blood loss and shock, only his good physical condition was keeping him from a cardiac arrest. If he didn’t get medical help soon, he was finished.
Kal scuffed her feet against the metal flooring and noticed a small, coloured object jammed under the edge of a cabinet. It was a piece of wood painted in bright stripes, battered, about the size of her palm, with a string attached – it looked like a child’s toy. A cold tingle ran up her spine.
‘So Kal, what do you think we should do with him? He’s already confessed his guilt and he’s no use to me now, except, of course, as an example. Perhaps I should thank him for giving my team a timely reminder of my temperament?’
Kal shrugged.
‘Don’t act all high and mighty. Your father would have done the same, he always believed in making a show of his “lessons”,’ Raphael said.
Her blood ran cold. Raphael would get off by taunting her about David Khan’s brutality, and what resistance did she have? Her father was her weak point. If Raphael realised, she would stand no chance. Play Raphael at his own game, whispered the voice in her head, turn it against him. And that idea caught her attention. It was her lifeline.
Since the warehouse, she’d been robbed of her initiative and strength and now she felt it trickling back. A dangerous, new strategy played itself out in her mind. Yes, there was a chance of getting out. A chance that she could play Raphael at his own game, but the stakes would be high and it would mean she’d have to go in further before she could get out. Kal glanced down at the coloured toy and it made up her mind for her.
The man in the chair gave a sickly gulp and she eyed him dispassionately.
‘I rather hoped you’d be able to tell me more about my father,’ she said to Raphael. ‘He was my mentor. I wish I’d had chance to work alongside him as you did.’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Raphael said. ‘That’s why I thought we should have a little test. A little trial of your abilities.’
Kal raised an eyebrow. ‘What a good idea. I like challenges.’ And she smiled.
Raphael held out his hand and Clarence passed over a revolver which wasn’t a modern model, rather, it reminded her of a collector’s piece, and she imagined Raphael kept it for this type of occasion. Perhaps he had his favourite torture instruments for any number of circumstances. She noticed too, how Raphael had pulled on a pair of leather gloves before he took the gun, and that there were none for her. Raphael checked the barrel, tipped out all but one bullet and spun the barrel shut with a click. So, they were to play a game of Russian roulette. It reminded her of some old, Western movie.
‘One bullet in the chamber,’ Raphael said. ‘I saw David Khan play this game more than once.’
‘Who with?’ she asked.
‘Now, now, Kal, I’m the one asking the questions here, remember? I’m the one in charge. You simply do as I tell you.’ Raphael placed his cane to the side.
‘Who are your accomplices?’ Raphael asked the man. Raphael’s tone was almost conversational.
The man gave no reply.
‘Ladies first,’ Raphael said with a smirk.
She could see how he was enjoying this – Raphael was almost wetting himself.
Kal weighed the gun in her hand. ‘It’s far from my usual model of choice, looks like an antique. If you’d have told me, I could have brought my own.’ And then, she thought, she’d have more chance of guessing if it would be a blank or not. When you know your own as well as she did, the weighting of it in your hand could suggest if a lone bullet was in the chamber. Kal took aim. She would have to make it a miss, but convincing enough. Don’t hesitate, make it realistic.
Bam.
Kal fired at the man’s shoulder. It was a blank and she felt the wave of relief, even though, if it had been the bullet, it wouldn’t have taken the man’s life. She handed the gun to Raphael and he gave her a shrewd look.
‘Shoot to kill or you’ll be the one with the bullet in your head,’ he said softly. Kal flicked her hair back and put her hand on her hip, not giving him a verbal answer.
Raphael raised the gun, aiming at the man’s head.
Bam.
Another blank. Kal realised she’d been holding her breath and she mustn’t do that because Raphael or Clarence would notice. They might notice too that her legs had started to shake. No, she must play for time and goad Raphael down the direction she wanted him to go in.
‘My father wasn’t as much of a sick bastard as you,’ she said.
‘Yes, he was. You saw him through rose-tinted glasses.’
‘Is that how you see your own father?’
She felt a frisson of fury run through Raphael, and was it her imagination or had Clarence twitched? Good.
‘My father… my father…’ Raphael wagged his finger in her face and she knew finger wagging was one of Raphael’s giveaways. Good again.
Your father what? Come on, spit it out. I’m running out of time.
‘… believes in me.’
Bingo – it told Kal that his father’s belief was exactly the thing Raphael craved and didn’t have. This would be the key to her way out.
Kal took a deep breath and let it go quietly. Raphael wanted his father’s approval. And he didn’t have it. He wanted his father to believe in him. See him as a success. Wonderful.
Raphael handed the gun back to her and she looked down at it, ran her finger along the barrel. ‘You and I could make a great team, don’t you think?’ she said slowly. ‘My father taught me everything he knew. Wouldn’t that be an asset to your operation?’
‘Let’s finish off the business at hand. I really don’t think you’ve got anything I want.’
‘You might be surprised about that,’ Kal said. ‘My father’s techniques are known only to me. Perhaps I might just be the one to give you the edge against your competitors. To push you to the very top of the pyramid. King of London noir. King of the world. That would be impressive, wouldn’t it?’
Raphael licked his lips. That had got his attention. Got him salivating.
‘Shoot to kill, and we can talk later,’ he said.
Clarence brought his gun up to aim at Kal’s head. She couldn’t stall it and, this time, she couldn’t fake it. The gun felt as if it weighed two tonnes as she sighted on the man’s chest. Only two blank chances left out of three, and those were odds she didn’t want to take. Kal controlled the shake in her arm as sweat ran down her temple. Come on, Spinks, where the hell are you? Her finger curled against the tension in the trigger. She strained for any warning shouts outside, or the sound of a motor boat. The man’s chest was moving in time to his rapid breathing and she focused on his left nipple. She could feel Raphael’s excitement and his scrutiny of her. She would squeeze in the space between two of her own breaths. Could she gauge it to perfection and miss the man’s vital organs yet still pierce his chest cavity? She thought she c
ould do it. But what if she got it wrong? The slightest error and the man would die. How would she live with that on her conscience? But if she didn’t take the risk she would die herself, she was sure of it – Clarence would shoot her. A chest shot was her only chance. Or should she spin at the last minute and take out Raphael? Surely he would have anticipated that? Or was he too arrogant to consider it? Then, as Kal prepared to fire, she heard the screech of tyres at the bank.
‘Police,’ Clarence said, dead pan. Pulling around his semi-automatic in one fluid motion, he made for the hatch, firing as soon as he exited.
‘Fuckers!’ screamed Raphael. He didn’t hesitate and followed behind Clarence, his own weapon firing in bursts.
Kal crouched behind the cabinets. She pulled the toy out with her fingernail and held it by the string – it looked hand-made, fashioned from a block of wood to resemble a mouse, though its eyes and ears were long gone.
When Spinks and his team poured through the hatch, Kal stood slowly with her hands in the air and Spinks read her her rights and arrested her, giving no sign that they knew each other, so that her cover stayed intact. The man in the chair and anyone else in the vicinity would never be alerted to the fact she was an informant.
Chapter Forty
Sophie pressed her fists to her temples, grinding her knuckles in until it hurt. She knew soon the pain inside would build, mushrooming to enormous proportions, the nightmare images crowding her into a corner. Hadn’t she known this would happen if she went back to Lilac Mansions without the protection of medication? Yes, she’d suspected. Only she hadn’t known for sure. Perhaps Marty would uncover the past at Melrose and perhaps she wouldn’t. Either way, Sophie needed to take one last step because it wasn’t yet time for other people to know the truth.
From the window, Sophie watched Kal cross the road, and she continued watching as Kal strode along Wimbledon Parkside, her back becoming smaller and smaller until she became a vertical mark blending into the landscape. Sophie pulled her hand away from the pane and it left a sweaty mark.
Pain flashed deep inside Sophie’s head. This time, it would overwhelm her. This time she wouldn’t have any drugs to dull it down and wash it away, leaving her in a stupor. This time she’d face it. Sophie dug her nails into her palms and screwed her eyes shut. With her back to the wall, she slid to the floor and then crawled to the corner and her safe barricade behind the settee. Except it wasn’t safe, was it? Nowhere was. And she wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready. Wait. Hadn’t Kal shown her she could do it? That she could step out of the shadows? That she was strong enough? Sophie pressed her fists harder into her head. Do it, she told herself, just do it. She curled into a ball and she was so frightened she cried. Part of her had always known she’d need to be alone when this moment came. That being alone was at the same time the best and the worst thing. The best, because how could she ever open that red, raw wound that engulfed her soul and show it to another human being? And the worst, because Sophie knew the dark pit of suicide that would open up and that only Eliza or Penny or Kal, who loved her, could save her from. Sophie bit down on her knuckles. Do it. Go back to the house, she told herself. Go back and walk down to the fifteenth step. In her mind’s eye, Sophie counted off each stair – one, two, three… eleven, twelve. She shook so hard, her head banged against the floor. Thirteen, fourteen. And, in her mind’s eye, on the fifteenth step, Sophie sat down and she let herself remember.
It was a big house and Sophie was quiet on her feet. This wasn’t the first time she’d sneaked to listen to adult conversations when she shouldn’t. And it gave her such a thrill when she got away with it, so that the thrill had become as much a temptation as the listening itself. Sophie sniffed the sprig of rosemary and tossed it back on her pillow, then swung her legs quietly to the floor. This wasn’t an ordinary conversation between her mother and father. It was some kind of argument. That made it even more daring, since her parents rarely raised their voices, and it spiked Sophie’s curiosity.
Her father’s sweeping staircase was lushly carpeted in red. Sophie loved its elegant curve and polished balustrade and she had her very own special place half way down – a little landing, fifteen steps from the bottom and fifteen steps from the top, right where the staircase curved. In bare feet, she crept along the top landing and started her descent.
Her father was becoming angrier and it sent a shiver up her back. She could hear her mother too, speaking quietly and in a strange way. It was only once she’d made it to her special spot that Sophie put a name to the tone in her mother’s voice – pleading – and that’s when Sophie started to wish she’d stayed in bed.
She sat down and rested her head against the balustrade. Her body felt glued to the carpet and she shivered, though not from the temperature because it was a warm evening, no, it was the violence she could hear which made her tremble. And then – Bang. It was the loudest noise she’d ever heard and she jumped so hard she hit her head on the balustrade. Everything went quiet.
After a while, her mother’s pleading started again and then this too stopped, and Sophie heard instead her mother’s bloodcurdling screams. The little girl clutched the balustrade. She screwed herself as small as possible. She squeezed shut her eyes. But she couldn’t block out the horrible sounds.
How much later she opened her eyes, she couldn’t say, and she really wished she’d kept them shut. A man stood at the bottom of the stairs and he looked up at her. Dressed in black, with a horrible, dark balaclava pulled over his face, all she could see was his eyes. Sophie wished hard that she’d disappear except it didn’t happen. She wished the man would disappear and that didn’t happen either. He was heading up the stairs. She began whimpering, staring at the carpet and the man’s black shoes, one of which had two spots of blood on its shiny surface. He stopped in front of her, and Sophie’s heart almost burst with terror when he reached out his gloved hand and placed his fingers under her chin. He tilted her head up. Sophie dare not look at his eyes. She stared at the skin between his glove and sleeve, inches from her nose so that her quick breaths seemed to bounce off his white wrist, and she could smell his skin and from it came the distinct fragrance of oranges. Blind terror and death and blood mingled together in her head. She knew her parents were dead. And this man would kill her.
Something snapped and Sophie died. Not in the same way as her parents. In a different way, so that part of her sanity was lost, and she ran away to hide in a small space in her mind where she would forever lock away the terror. And with it, she locked away her memories.
By the time the man let go her chin and walked away, part of Sophie had gone. Gone away to protect her, and the Sophie that was left could remember nothing.
Sophie awoke alongside a pool of her own vomit. Now she understood everything – the shouting from downstairs, her descent, the noises of death and murder, her mother’s last screams, and the man who’d killed them. And she remembered that terrible smell – the smell of oranges. Sophie closed her eyes and she cried for the loss of her parents and, for the first time, cried for herself as the little girl who’d been left alone. Yes, she had gone over the edge that night. That’s why she smashed things and didn’t know why. That’s why she stabbed people and couldn’t remember anything about it afterwards – she’d stabbed a school teacher, more than one of the nurses at Melrose, Eliza, Kal. And she knew she’d done those terrible things to make sense of the trapped feelings and to try to get them out – feelings that could never be understood without the memory of that night. Murderous feelings that welled up from her core, that came from anguish and pain and torment.
Sophie sat up, and it wasn’t until the whole day passed that she went to the bathroom where she splashed her face with cold water and then stared at herself in the mirror. Her legs no longer trembled and her almond eyes looked steadily back at her. Now Sophie understood why the headaches had started at Melrose earlier this year – it was because her memories were trying to push through. Perhaps that’s what they’d b
een trying to do all along, and the drugs had stopped it and then Mr Connell’s arrival had tipped the balance. Mr Connell had never mentioned Charlotte directly, but he often drew similarities between Sophie’s art work and that of her mother, letting Sophie know how very similar the two of them had been.
Yes, it was all clear to her now – how those around her had manipulated her. Sophie felt a hot, unfamiliar sensation in her chest and she knew what it was – rage. A rage that had lain dormant underneath layers of fear and panic and confusion. That must be why she felt so different – goodness, she even looked different. When Kal came back, she’d tell her everything and they’d make a plan together.
Sophie sat on the floor hugging her knees and she waited long into the night. Except Kal didn’t return.
Chapter Forty-one
‘Good morning, Marty. Are you feeling better today?’
‘Yes, thank you doctor, much better.’
‘Oh,’ said Kaufman, ‘what happened to your drip?’
‘I pulled it over going to the bathroom this morning. The nurse said not to worry since it was finished and I’d be getting a new one later today.’
Kaufman nodded his head and Marty kept still with what she hoped was a fazed-out expression, and not one that was too stupid. Of course, some people still assumed any black person was an idiot or mentally deficient, and if her luck were in, Kaufman’s views might be in line with that. Good, because she needed all the help she could get to cover over her poor acting skills. Marty closed her eyes.
‘I’ve decided to move you to another facility.’
Marty stared blankly at his white coat and the grey shirt underneath. He must have been home to change last night.
‘Am I ready to go back to my apartment? That’s a relief.’
‘Not your apartment yet, no, but I think the new facility will be more suited to your needs,’ Kaufman said smoothly.
London Noir: A gripping crime suspense thriller (Kal Medi Book 2) Page 18
