I KILL

by Lex Lander

  Conditions outside were near-blizzard, and I immediately slipped on the fluffy new snow that had collected on the older packed stuff, losing my hold on the Ithaca. I was on my knees, grubbing in the snow for it, when the red Rolls I had seen earlier entered the street, sliding a little, headlights swinging, pinning me like ballet dancer under a spotlight. Engine howling at top revs in low gear, it mounted the curb and came straight for me. I launched myself into the middle of the road. Something glanced off my foot and tossed me aside, then I was rolling crazily, snow filling my mouth, my nostrils, my eyes. Eventually I came to rest sitting up. Semi-stunned but with all parts still functioning.

  The Rolls had slewed sideways, and was now stationary. The wheels were spinning as they sought purchase in the slush. The face of a man in the front passenger seat was turned towards me – de Bruin!

  At this range I could have taken him out with a single bullet. I had the Korth free of the holster and was lining it up when a siren’s lament floated over the rooftops. It stayed my hand just long enough for the Rolls’ tyres to find purchase. A stiff-fingered goodbye from de Bruin and it shot away, rear end fishtailing from side to side, tyres clawing for grip. Leaving me with a gun in my fist and nobody to shoot at.

  Thirty

  Without thinking, I was up and running for the Porsche – hobbling actually, since my left ankle had been bruised by that glancing blow from the Rolls. As I ran I scooped up the Ithaca from the snow.

  Rolls-Royces are few and far between in Holland, and red ones as rare as cuckoos at Christmas. In daylight it would have stood out like a beacon in the middle of the Atlantic and, given the Porsche’s superior pace and roadholding, sticking with it would have been a pushover. But it was night and as I accelerated after it, all I had to sight on was a pair of tail lights, already dwindling fast, flicking past slower vehicles, snaking a little in the slush. De Bruin’s chauffeur had either no nerves or no sense.

  We scorched across the Nieuw Markt square as if coupled, the speedo hitting the 100 kph mark, and into a ruler-straight stretch alongside a canal. The snow seemed to form an endless, swirling tunnel in the headlights, blotting out the high buildings on the right. The Rolls slowed suddenly. A flickering blue light washed across the windscreen. Police! Even as I braked, gritting my teeth against the shooting pain in my ankle, the oncoming police car ripped past, going too fast and too single-mindedly to heed a pair of speeding motorists.

  The Rolls was already leaping away again, nipping through the gap between a bus and a turning car, and crossing a set of lights at amber. The same lights were red when I bored past. A small car emerging from the intersection wasn’t prepared to concede force majeure. My bumper clipped his and when last seen through my mirror he was facing in the opposite direction.

  I hunched over the wheel, eyes only for the fleeing red dots ahead. Nose-to-tail we crossed a minor canal, then it was down through the gears for a sharp right-hander, taking us into a broad and busy thoroughfare. The Porsche’s wheels thumped over tramlines. The traffic was much denser here, and the road surface consequently free of snow. Ahead, at barely reduced speed, the Rolls weaved in and out of the stream of vehicles, collecting blasts of indignation, redoubled for me when I followed through. Some drivers made an attempt to cut me up, but their hearts weren’t really in it. The trams were the worst: stolid and unyielding, their garish yellow paintwork seeming to shout “you can’t shift me!” And they were right, you couldn’t.

  Then we were clear of the tramlines and into another straight, our speed passing the 120kph mark. Here the Rolls pulled away, the driver taking chances that I, even in my temporary madness, was unwilling to emulate. The Rolls’ brake lights didn’t glow once. In front of the Central Station more traffic lights, amber changing to red as ever. De Bruin was through, and this time the heavy flow of traffic prevented me from following. I sat and fumed and fretted, glaring past the flip-flopping wipers at the cortège trudging across the intersection.

  Red winked to green and I was off, gunning through the gearbox, challenging the maker’s acceleration figures. As I swept into a turn, using the horn to clear a path, the rear end slid away, forcing me to decelerate. But all the speed in the world would make no difference now. I had lost my quarry.

  A10 ZAANDAM ALKMAAR the overhead sign announced. Freeway ahead; autosnelweg in Dutch. Was that where he was headed? Forget the guesswork and apply some logic. I slammed on the brake and dragged the Porsche over into a bus stop bay, earning resentful stares from the waiting passengers huddled under the meagre shelter.

  The GPS was focused on Amsterdam centre. I tapped at the minus button and reduced the scale. Now the city appeared as a grey-shaded area. Slicing through the west side of it was the A10, jinking north-west, forking at Zaandam to join up with the A9, which serves Haarlem to the south and Alkmaar to the north. A third freeway, the A7, meandered true north to cross the long dike at the mouth of the Ijsselmeer, the vast lake that was created when they sealed off the North Sea back in the thirties.

  Reducing the scale some more, I traced the freeway as far as the north shore of the ljsselmeer, where it veered off east towards Groningen. I swore softly. It was hopeless. Who’s to say de Bruin was headed north anyway? Again I bent over the map, looking for inspiration amidst the red and yellow zigzags. The engine throbbed gently. It was warm and snug in the car. An insidious weariness lulled me. The madness was receding. Why bother? Why not just forget de Bruin, go back to Andorra? Re-start my life.

  My fingertip still rested at the northern end of the great dike, an inch below the town of Harlingen.

  Harlingen? Inside my brain a cell stirred. Harlingen. Jean-Guy Magnol’s words came hammering back at me: ‘… they use some place in the north of the country, close to Harlingen …’

  That was enough for me. Foot down, rubber slithering on wet snow then biting on the asphalt beneath, hurling the Porsche forward inches ahead of a passing bus. Now I drove as if possessed, headlights on full beam, daring anyone to block my path. Miraculously I encountered no prowling police vehicles. I clubbed a hole through the traffic as far as the freeway. There I flayed more tread from the tyres with a savage right turn into the on-ramp, bottoming the nearside suspension and momentarily, frighteningly, inducing a front-wheel skid that took some fancy twirling of the wheel to correct.

  The freeway was clear of snow if not of users. I bullied my way in and out of the fast-moving cars and the occasional thundering truck girded with spray. I drove by the seat of my pants. Suicidally. A direction sign loomed: ZAANDAM CENTRUM, A7 PURMEREND, HOORN, 1000m. That was my cue. The off-ramp came up. I filtered into it, barely slowing. The snow was falling faster here, assaulting the car as if to push it back.

  Onto the A7. Traffic much thinner, more slush on the road. Couldn’t be helped. I edged my speed up past the 150kph mark: 160 … 170 … 180 … Plenty in reserve. Roadholding was the problem, not speed. No need to use the wipers now, not with a wedge of displaced air pushing ahead of the car. Tail lights sparkled in the murk. Too slow to be de Bruin. I whipped past a people carrier as if it were parked. The road was whitening, the snow laying its deadly mulch, too few vehicles now passing to disperse it. Once, twice, I experienced the dreaded twitch from the rear that spelled loss of adhesion. Still I pushed on down the cone of tumbling fat flakes. Only death could stop me. It almost did, in the shape of a another Porsche, a white 911, entering the freeway in a high speed drift, its rear fog lamps flooding my windscreen red. I was doing over 200 kph. I gasped at its nearness. Too late I hit the brakes, so close our bumpers actually nudged. The other car reeled away, brake lights blooming accusingly, to skitter across the hard shoulder and up the embankment that bordered it. That made two notches on my car. Yet it ran on, smooth as ever, no vital organs harmed.

  That was my last clash. Presently I came to the start of the Afsluitdijk Barrier Dam, the causeway that crosses twenty miles of sea to connect south and north Holland. The Ijsselmeer, the lake created by the building of the dam, edg
ed into view to my right, inky-black, merging with the night. On the other side of the dike, screened by high protective earthworks, lay the North Sea. I passed the turrets of some sluice gates, spectral in the milling snowflakes. Then it was just me and the car and the long white ribbon unwinding beneath my wheels.

  If de Bruin had taken this route he was trapped on the dike for the next twenty miles. I had to catch him before he reached the far shore. If I didn’t make visual contact before then, I might lose him for good. The thought made me push the pedal down, the needle soaring again beyond the magic double century. A southbound car went past with a slam of turbulence that was like a physical blow.

  Minutes and miles unrolled. So long as the road remained dead straight I could hold the Porsche at two hundred, but I dared go no faster. And still no tail lights broke the monotony of blackness and whiteness.

  A bridge spanning the freeway jumped into the headlight beams, and to the right of it a tower of some sort. Lights from this artificial oasis glowed palely through the snow. My foot came off the accelerator pedal as details sharpened. The tower was mostly glass with an internal winding staircase, like a helter-skelter slide. In the parking lot of the narrow forecourt a monster container-truck made toys of the dozen or so private cars. Not much activity. And no red Roller … No, wait … last in the line of cars, partly screened by the container truck. Red paintwork at any rate, and big.

  I throttled back to cruising speed as the red car came fully into view, tail on, carelessly parked, patently a Rolls.

  ‘Got you, you bastard!’ My gamble had come good.

  I was coming up to the end of the barrier that separated the highway from the parking zone. I braked to perform a definitely illegal U-turn against the directional arrows painted on the exit road. My luck held out, and I met no oncoming vehicles. On sidelights I crept past the Rolls and the container truck. About halfway down the forecourt I found a slot, and reversed into it, positioned for instant getaway. I hopped out. Snow settled on me, slithered chillingly down inside my collar. I patted the gun under my coat. Now to blood it.

  Behind the steamed up windows the first floor of the tower appeared to be a bar or restaurant. At any rate people were sitting at tables, blurry figures eating and drinking. It was the only place de Bruin and his driver could be, apart from the top of the tower which, as far as I could tell, was purely for viewing purposes. I was hobbling to the entrance at my best sprained-ankle pace, heart hammering against my ribs, when half the double door opened and a man in a brown suit with a coat draped over his arm came out, jingling change.

  To him I was a man in search of refreshment, nothing more. To me he was a familiar face, last seen lounging in a chair in the viewing room at No 2 Korte Hoekssteeg.

  Any confederate of Rik de Bruin’s was an enemy of the public. I shot him in both legs without forethought as he held the door for me. The magnum slugs passing clean through him and the glass door, throwing out a fountain of blood and glass behind him and ricocheting off to inflict more damage on shelves of merchandise. He went down as if hit by a bus, arms flung out backstroke-style. Coins spun and tinkled on the concrete.

  Behind the steamy windows, sudden movement as people were drawn by the gunshots to abandon their gastronomic pleasures. A face peeped warily around the door. I let off a single shot, harmlessly into the snow-pocked sky and the face went into instant reverse, as if tugged by hidden strings. Further along the building, an emergency exit door crashed open, and a figure burst out and went at a fast clip down the line of cars.

  ‘De Bruin!’ I bawled after him. Not that I expected him to stop just like that. I wasn’t even sure I wanted it that easy. I hopped off in his wake on my disapproving ankle, too late and too slow. As I rounded the cab of the container-truck de Bruin was wrenching open the Rolls’ door.

  ‘De Bruin!’ I yelled again. He glanced over his shoulder. No fear there, only defiance.

  ‘Fuck you, Melville!’

  ‘Don’t move!’ I stopped to aim two-handedly. Though I’d have preferred him alive, I’d shoot to kill sooner than let him slip away a second time.

  He didn’t even pause in his scramble to get behind the wheel. Maybe the key fob was with the man I had shot, maybe not. I wasn’t prepared to gamble on it, so I fired, while the door was still open, and was rewarded by the smack of lead meeting flesh. De Bruin’s yelp of pain was for me orgasmic. He clutched at his arm, cursing me. I was confidently advancing on him when the Rolls’ engine coughed into life and, door swinging open, it reversed in a ragged loop, grazing a rear wing against the truck. I fired once, twice, striking metal with both shots. Then the car was streaking away, flinging gouts of slush from its wheels, the open door slammed shut by the wind force from its rapid acceleration. I got off a last round, caving in the rear windscreen, before the car hit the exit road and was out of range.

  Venting a series of curses, I hastened lop-sidedly back to the Porsche. Still warm from its recent exertions the engine was instantly responsive to the accelerator. When I hit the highway, whipping round a trailer tanker, the Rolls was still well in sight. The snow had eased a little, becoming more powdery, and I could make out the lights of the north shore mirrored in the waters of the Ijsselmeer. I hit the gas harder than ever, was rewarded by a significant closing of the gap. Less than a hundred yards now separated us.

  220kph registered on the speedometer, yet with the Rolls travelling only slightly more slowly it seemed no more than a crawl. A saving grace was that the road surface here was free of snow. The gap between us closed to a bare car’s length. I swung the Porsche out into the overtaking lane, and the Rolls immediately swung with me. Bumpers jostled. I dragged the wheel over to get clear, and squashed the pedal down to the floor. The Porsche gave a little surge, then we were neck and neck. I mashed my front wing into his, held it there in the hope of forcing him off the road. The steering wheel juddered in my hands and metal screeched.

  It was a bad tactic. His car was a lot heavier than mine. All he had to do was hold a straight line and all the huffing and puffing in the world wouldn’t budge him. Again I swiped the Rolls’ wing with mine. Again the jarring impact, the scrunch of steel, a flirt of sparks. We swept on side by side like a pair of grappling galleons. Stalemate. Until de Bruin turned the tables on me by using his car’s near-ton weight advantage to bully me inexorably leftwards, towards the central barrier.

  But for the motorcyclist it might have been all up with me. He was where he had no right to be, riding the white line, crouched over the handlebars, displaying that all-too-common youthful disdain of danger. His rear light was a joke. I didn’t see him until we were almost on top of him, when de Bruin peeled away to avoid a collision, zigzagging, losing co-ordination. I chose to hold my course and rely on my brakes to keep me out of trouble. This meant another pounding for my ankle, but my car ran straight and true, unlike de Bruin’s, which struck the central barrier at a tangent and glanced off it into my path. By then my speed was down to around 120, still fast enough to be lethal if I hit a solid object. Missing me by millimetres, the Rolls veered back across the highway to brush the barrier a second time. By now I had dropped back. I glimpsed de Bruin fighting the wheel with his good arm. Fighting to stay alive.

  A third bounce and, out of control finally, the Rolls ripped through the barrier like a chain saw through a sapling. Both headlights went out and the car blundered across the southbound lane and up the great grassy ramp that holds back the North Sea. The incline didn’t slow it at all. On reaching the crest, it continued on down the far side, the rear lights wiped abruptly from sight. De Bruin was in for a ducking.

  I brought the Porsche to a standstill. Ahead, the motorcyclist buzzed on in ignorance of the havoc he had caused. A big hunk of my gratitude went with him.

  I reversed the short distance to the gash in the barrier, switched off the engine, and set the hazard winkers. A car passed, reduced speed, then had second thoughts about playing Samaritan and accelerated away. Close on its tail c
ame the trailer tanker I had overtaken a few miles back. No alteration of pace at all. The sound of its engine faded. I crossed the freeway at a painful hobble, following de Bruin’s trail through the torn metal. The grassy slope was slippery with wet snow, and I made hard going of my ascent. From the top it was forty feet or so of 1-in-3 gradient to where the black abyss of the North Sea began. Twin parallel grooves ran straight as railway tracks down to the water’s edge. The red Rolls was gone, as utterly and completely as if it had never been. With that broken rear screen it would have sunk faster than a gold brick.

  The wind sighed across the sea’s oily surface. The snow fell all around with a faint rustling sound, like dead leaves blowing across an empty courtyard. Wavelets, pushed by that sighing wind, lapped at the foreshore. I stood there awhile, getting my breath back. Snow tickled my cheeks, dusted my shoulders. A truck growled past on the road. I listened intently for other noises, of cries for help, of splashing. No sound, no movement. At last I accepted it as fact: Rik de Bruin was dead. Either killed on impact with the barrier, or drowned. Dead anyway. Out of my life, out of this world.

  Where did his death leave me? Revenged, yes, but that was the sum total of it. Lizzy was no nearer salvation, notwithstanding that she might be held prisoner less than an hour’s drive from this spot. Unless I went in search of that “house near Harlingen”. How fruitful was that likely to be? How near was near? Five kilometres? Fifty? What was the house called, who officially owned it, and what did it look like? And even if I found it, which might take weeks, what were the chances of Lizzy still being there?