Danut took a train from Clapham Junction to Euston and then the underground to Aldgate East and walked the rest of the way down Commercial Road to the Bucharest Club. It was shut, of course, as it was still a crime scene with police tape across the front. Forensics had been in and finished their work and the place was empty. The local council had quickly revoked the music licence, so to all intents and purposes the club was dead. The landlords had taken back the lease by court order and now it stood empty, waiting for the police to release it to the landlords.
Danut went up the side alleyway and let himself in by the side door. He sat down in Alexandru’s old office; the electricity was still on, and a bare bulb hung from the ceiling. The stain from his brother’s spilt blood showed on the desk and floor, highlighted by the forensic officer’s luminol spray. His mind had settled, but his anger had risen. The reports from Romania on the rescue of the hostage had mentioned two people, a male and female; the two at the manhole could be them, he had been too far away to notice if one was female. They had to be the same pair, but who were they? Had they killed Harry Cohen too? And now Harry’s son? The whole organisation was being brought down.
His mobile rang; it was Romania. He took the call and listened to more bad news. The club in Bucharest had been raided; his father and most of the other gang members were arrested and the cocaine bricks seized. The Bogdans were finished; he was the only family member left. If Stephan was wounded but alive, he’d surely go to prison for life. No, Danut was the one free survivor, and Danut was going to avenge his family. He needed to find out who the pair of mercenaries were, and who hired them. He broke the crime scene seal on Alexandru’s desk drawers and rummaged through. He found what he was looking for, a file with James Randall’s name on it; inside the information was in Romanian. He read it; it told him all that he wanted to know.
CHAPTER 17
‘I’m so very grateful, Mr Nevis, I really am. It’s been an awful time, and to think Harry Cohen was involved all along and must have known where Janie was all the time.’
Marcia Johnson was sitting in her lounge beside Janie and holding her daughter’s hand tightly. Clancy had deemed it was okay for them to return home now, although a police presence was being kept at the house for the time being until Danut Bogdan was found. ‘No wonder he wouldn’t let me call the police.’
‘I told you he was no good ages ago, mother, but you wouldn’t listen.’
‘Well, I knew he wasn’t a great agent, dear, but I’d been with him for so long, he was like family. Had I known he was dealing drugs and working with your late father I would have walked away, of course I would. I feel so sorry for his wife, losing a husband and a son like that.’
‘Bad apples the pair of them,’ I said. ‘Think of all the pain and misery their drugs brought to people over the years.’
Gold and I had driven out to Marcia’s house to make sure they were both okay, and happy for me to close my involvement with them. Oh, and to give Marcia my bill. It was a heavy one, what with the charter flight and hotel bills – totalled a hundred and twenty thousand, but she didn’t baulk at it. By the time I’d paid the charter and reimbursed Gold for her flights and our hotel and vehicles in Romania, we’d be left with fifty thousand each. That’s okay, but I think Marcia got a bargain for saving her daughter’s life. Nothing more I could do now: hostage back home, the Bogdans out of the picture – except for Danut, but he wasn’t in the tunnel so Clancy thought he’d be in Romania trying to rescue whatever he could of the family business. Criminals like the Bogdans use fake passports by the bucketload, so he might be in the UK, but not likely. And then there was the missing money which brought the whole thing about. It was sitting in a bank in the Isle of Man and untouchable except by Randall’s partner, whoever that was. Not my problem. My job was done. I rose to leave.
‘Well, it’s been a pleasure to be of help, Mrs Johnson. I’ll be watching Janie’s career with interest.’
Janie laughed. ‘You’ll get tickets for the West End, Mr Nevis, be assured of that – best seats in the house.’ She stood and gave me an embarrassing peck on the cheek. ‘By the way, you never did tell me, how did you become a hitman?’
I smiled and gave a little shrug. ‘Pure luck, I was first in line at the Job Centre that day.’
CHAPTER 18
Gold dropped me off at the office. I offered to take her out for a celebratory meal, but she had a wealthy client eager to part with some of his wealth for her attention. I had a bundle of mail waiting on the floor where it had been poked through the letterbox; mostly bills, no doubt, but you never know – could be a damsel in distress seeking my services amongst them. Never has been in the past, but hope springs eternal.
I picked them up and settled down to go through them when the door opened and Danut Bogdan came in, pointing a gun straight at my head. My Beretta was in the righthand desk drawer, and if I made a move for it I’d be dead. I stayed silent. He walked to the front of my desk, took an iPhone from his jacket pocket, clicked on a video and held it towards me so I could see the screen.
‘You.’
The video was the CCTV footage taken at the Hungarian-Romanian border; it showed Gold pulling up in the Range Rover and the carnage as she and I shot the goons and bumped over one as we left.
‘You.’
‘No, not me.’
‘Yes, you, Mr Nevis. You killed my brothers, and now I will kill you.’
I played for time. ‘Doesn’t even look like me. I’ve got a limp, that’s not me.’
He laughed. ‘You haven’t got a limp. I am not stupid, Mr Nevis. Alexandru kept a file on Randall and Cohen. I watched you at Randall’s wife’s house an hour ago. No limp. How would you like to die, Mr Nevis? I think slowly would be good – a bullet in each leg, and then each arm, and then finally the head.’
‘Why waste four bullets? One to the head will do.’ I was thinking that I would push up the desk from my side quickly towards him. If I was quick enough, any bullets he fired might lodge in it.
‘You don’t deserve to die quickly. You have five seconds to pray.’
Pray? Me? If there is a God, he gave up on me long ago.
‘Five… four…’ I tensed my arms ready to move. ‘Three… two...’
‘ONE.’ It wasn’t Danut’s voice. He turned quickly to see Gold standing in the doorway, her gun held two-handed and pointing his way. A small puff of smoke left the end of the silencer long after the bullet left a jagged exit wound in Danut Bogdan’s head. He fell sideways onto the desk, blood seeping onto my mail.
I felt I should embrace her and thank her for saving my life, but me and Gold, we don’t do embracing.
‘I thought you had business to see to?’
‘It can wait. I changed my mind about the meal – not often you buy.’
I smiled. Gold has a way of trivialising things; things like a dead body across my desk.
‘He followed us from Marcia’s,’ I explained.
‘You sure there aren’t any more Bogdan brothers likely to pop out of the woodwork?’
‘No, Clancy said there were five so he’s the last – two at the border post and three here.’ I showed her the video on Danut’s phone. ‘I need Clancy to get his mates in Romania to destroy that.’ I took the SIM card out and flushed it down the toilet. ‘Right, we’d better get rid of this body.’
I gave the twins a call.
‘You’re like the buses, Nevis – none for ages and three come at once. You’ll want wholesale rates next.’ He laughed. ‘How many this time?’
‘Just one.’
‘Ready now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give us an hour, see you there – and Nevis...’
‘I know, cash only.’
‘That’s right,’
Click.
CHAPTER 19
It was past three o’clock in the morning when we got back from the crematorium. We’d taken my car with Danut wrapped in plastic bin bags in the boot. Too late for that meal; I
did offer to take Gold for a cheeseburger on Battersea Bridge, but the offer was declined. She said she’d come round to the office in the afternoon and give me a hand breaking up the desk and taking it to the tip. I could paint it over, but you never know; evidence is what law enforcement lives on, and I never leave any.
I slept well; my mind was free, no plans buzzing round it of how to get Janie back, or what was happening with Harry Cohen – all done and dusted, case closed, job done. If Clancy wanted to chase the missing money, he was welcome to. Not my problem.
Gold turned up at the office after lunch and the desk came apart pretty easily. After throwing it into the skip at the local council tip she persuaded me to detour on the way back to Ikea and buy a new flat pack desk, which we managed to put together in half an hour. I arranged my leather blotter, the phone and the laptop on it. All very professional looking. We sat with a coffee as Gold checked her mobile trying to find an expensive restaurant to book. She was determined to get that meal out of me.
My laptop beeped, incoming mail. I checked it; an email from Marcia thanking me once more and saying my fee had been sent through. I checked my bank account; it had, all one hundred and twenty thousand was sitting in my account.
‘Marcia’s paid,’ I told Gold as I pulled up the ‘Pay Somebody or a Business’ page on my bank site and put the figure fifty thousand in. ‘What’s your account? I’ll transfer your share.’
‘I’ll do it.’ She came round the desk and tapped in her account number. ‘Not that I don’t trust you with my account number Ben, but, I don’t trust you with my account number Ben.’
I had to smile. I was about to press pay when Gold stayed my hand. ‘Now that is interesting.’
‘What is?’
‘The account Marcia Johnson sent the money from is held at an Isle of Man Bank.’
THE END
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