Tight Lies

by Ted Denton

  We rounded the front of the house. The van was still smoking. Bodies lay dead at every turn. The scene that stretched before us depicted a sorry massacre. An animated group of villagers clustered across the road, chattering with concern and gesticulating at the carnage. Some made urgent phone calls whilst others filmed on their mobiles. Four young men, chests puffed out, were starting across the road together to take a closer look at the chaos. Ignoring them steadfastly, we continued unfazed, doggedly determined to exit the area as quickly as we could and avoid the next wave of law enforcement. I laid the Target on the bonnet of a blue Fiat Uno parked on the road. Not caring about witnesses by this point I smashed my elbow against the glass window of the passenger seat, shattering it into fragments across the inside of the vehicle. Reached inside and flipped up the plastic lock. Pulled open the door. Eased back the front car seat and laid Daniel gingerly onto the back seat before locking two seatbelts across him to hold the body in place. Sweeping broken glass away as much as possible, I clambered through the car and inserted myself into the driver seat. Less than half a minute later, the wires under the dashboard sparked a connection and the motor roared into life. Gunning the engine, we squealed away. Not a moment too soon, I reckoned, given they would probably be calling the army out to back up the decimated local police force any time now. I spun the wheel and floored it back the way we had come through the only route that wasn’t blocked out of this little linear village. The way Mickey had driven us in. Only now Mickey wasn’t leaving with us. He lay slumped in the burning wreckage of an old Spanish bakery van, riddled with so many treacherous bullets. They’d taken my friend.

  There was nothing I could do. And I can never erase that.

  As I blinked back hot tears, recalling the many times Mickey had supported me on dangerous missions, and saved my bacon from far too many unsavoury scrapes, I was reminded of Ella’s prescient words prior to the losses— painful losses— suffered on the Nigerian Embassy job. Words taken from the Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, which depicts tales of a hero of the Geats in Scandinavia who victoriously battles and overcomes both a terrible monster and its fiercesome mother in defence of the King of the Danes. Words that had since been branded into my memory:

  ‘Then Beowulf spoke, son of Ecgtheow... “Bear your grief Wise One,

  It is better for a man to avenge his friend than to refresh his sorrow.

  As we must all expect to leave our life on this Earth we must earn some renown, if we can, before death.

  Daring is the thing for a fighting man to be remembered for.”

  The Ancient arose and offered their thanks to God,

  To the Lord Almighty, for what this man had spoken.’

  I swallowed hard. This grief was going to be hard to bear indeed, but whatever else happened I knew I would walk through the fires of hell to be certain of avenging Mickey.

  Chapter 44

  ENGLAND. LONDON. WESTMINSTER.

  ‘I’m calling a motion of ‘No Confidence’ in the Chamber, Alistair. I’ve written to the 1922 Committee. The process has begun. Other letters will soon be submitted to reach the minimum threshold and force the vote. There is no way that the PM can continue to lead the Party whilst he is being investigated for criminal activity and after this monumental Rublex debacle.’

  The Minister circled his friend and trusted Whip impatiently. Alistair Worrell was an impeccable dresser. His suits, cut of the finest cloth, were always immaculately pressed and off-set by the ever-present splash of colour from one of any number of different silken handkerchiefs which would peek rakishly from his top pocket; hinting at a certain repressed creative flair bubbling under the surface. He was an intelligent man and one of some considerable discretion, a powerful attribute for a successful career in politics. He had secured a double first in classics at Cambridge and entered into politics young. He combined his ferocious intelligence with a reputation for tireless hard work and for simply getting the job done, whatever job that may be. He had grown to become the trusted aide and confidante, the right-hand man even, of one of the genuine power brokers still remaining within government. So good had he become at influencing, cajoling, leveraging toxic snippets of information and massaging egos that his boss, Big Beast as he was, had long since declared him indispensable. He would not now further progress through the party ranks. Simply because he had proven himself to be too good, too proficient in the dark arts. Not only couldn’t the Minister bear to be without such sought after skills for his own ends, but he would also not allow them to be deployed for any potential rival.

  Alistair spoke, ‘You were instrumental in uncovering the seedy underbelly of this deal with Golich, Minister. Instrumental in undermining the PM on the day of his big announcement. We orchestrated the public humiliation. It’s an act of out and out rebellion and a dangerous path we tread, if I may say so, sir. The PM didn’t get where he is today without being a calculating, ruthless bastard. He has many supporters who are capable of some pretty nasty and effective stuff, as you rightly know. You won’t have an easy ride of it I can assure you.’

  ‘Alistair, I need to know you can generate the support required to elicit a full-scale change in the leadership of the party and bring the vote to bear.’

  ‘I shall have the appropriate words in the appropriate ears as ever, Minister. I can make no promises and even if we think that we have the commitment of the necessary votes, one can never be certain until the final ballots are cast.’

  ‘Let the chips, then, fall where they may.’

  Derek Hemmings sat hunched up facing the window in his office from which, if he really strained his neck, he could just about see onto the corner of Whitehall lit up by the street lamps. He fixated on a tiny chip in the corner of the heavy glass pane. Pale and drawn, his legs jigged up and down uncontrollably. Bony fingers worried at a fraying corner of material on his suit jacket, making it decidedly worse. Things had just got very real and rather serious indeed.

  Six minutes earlier, he had taken a brief phone call at his desk. And Lord God Almighty, whilst he, Derek Sinjon Hemmings, remained in the sanctity and security of his office, pretending to be working long hours alone on an intense project in adherence to the Minister’s advice, there had been a break-in at his home. A back window smashed. His little Alice alone and vulnerable. Soaking in her regular pre-bed lavender bubble bath. Dear Alice, unaware of the danger that her own husband had so selfishly placed her in. The danger that he had been unable to warn her about.

  Her blood-curdling screams had apparently alerted Phil Manning to the situation. Charles Hand’s man had been provided as an additional security measure to protect the property should the imminent threat on Derek’s life come to fruition. What the dickens Her Majesty’s ‘Finest’ constabulary were doing at the time, Heaven only knows. They were supposed to be guarding the family, so thank goodness for that bloody man Hand after all. The Hand of God they called him. Now Derek knew why. And good for Alice too. His wife, always so buttoned-up and fastidious. She could scream the bloody house down when it served her purpose.

  A smartly dressed young man had been found inside the house apparently. The trained killer sent to remove Derek Hemmings, the thorn in Golich’s paw. Manning had ordered him to stop. To surrender his weapon. Request ignored. Gun raised to shoot. Armed. Resisting apprehension. Civilian endangerment. No second warning. Shot down where he stood. Shot down inside the Hemmings’s family home. Blood pooling over their new cream carpets at the top of the staircase, carpets that Alice had thus far not permitted the sole of a single outdoor shoe to meet. And a body, there lying prostrate, lifeless where it had fallen. Alice screaming blue murder. God help us.

  So the order to suppress Derek Hemmings had been given. To maim and to murder. Boris Golich’s traitorous sleeper cell inside the British Government had been awakened

  And there inside his erstwhile mentor’s home, Alexandrov Gontlemoon lay dead.

  Pacing around the snug at Chequers, his Buckinghamshire country retreat
, nursing a cut glass tumbler of finest Napoléon brandy, the Prime Minister was lost deeply within his own thoughts. He was in a veritably atrocious mood. A fact to which one member of the household staff at least could attest. His interview at Scotland Yard had lasted for five straight hours. It centred predominantly on the alleged impropriety of his relationship with one Boris Golich, the Russian oligarch and international businessman. To his mind, the Prime Minister had been paraded like a common criminal, certainly not afforded the courtesies deserved of the leader of the country. His finest hour had been usurped and turned into a mockery in full view of the world’s media who were now baying for his blood. He reflected on the precipice walked between success and failure, how he had so narrowly missed out on the chance to become immortalised as a national hero through creating seven thousand well needed jobs for the nation following the hitherto cold, abstemious years of bitter recession, austerity and European-exiting trauma. He also lamented the lost chance to amass great personal wealth which had so tantalisingly been promised. Certainly Mr Golich’s exotic incentive scheme which accompanied the, now defunct, gas exploration deal was capable of holding one’s attention.

  He drained his glass and hurled it in disgust, smashing it inside the wastepaper bin to the side of his desk. The bitter taste of betrayal still lingered in his mouth. They had gone for the jugular all right. No holding back in seeking to finish his long and distinguished political career.

  So, the Minister sought to out-manoeuvre the arch political strategist himself and remove him from office once and for all. But this leader of men had clung to the rocks of power for far too long to be finished yet. Not by a long shot.

  Composing himself as he lifted the ornate bone handled telephone receiver sitting upon his leather-topped writing bureau, the Prime Minister made a rapid succession of calls. He spoke fluidly and animatedly, relishing the emergence of a newfound energy as he beseeched, bullied, and cajoled. And by the time telephone receiver was settled back in its cradle for good, cages had been rattled, loyalties divided, and a calculated plan had been set in motion.

  Chapter 45

  SPAIN. NEAR ESTANYOL. VILOBI D’ONYAR.

  Slowing as we turned a tight corner at the exit to the village, a figure stepped off the curb in the periphery of my vision. The passenger door flew open and Sergei Krostanov hurled himself into the seat thrusting an old fashioned Colt revolver into my face.

  ‘Keep your hands on the steering wheel and continue driving please. Retain a steady pace. These mountain roads can still be dangerous even at this time of year,’ he offered dryly, hovering the gun a few inches from my temple.

  We drove in silence for a few miles, passing at one point a fleet of four polished white police cars driving at high speed, lights flashing and sirens blaring as they sped back in the direction of the village. Finally he spoke. Measured tones.

  ‘Your ingenuity has impressed me. I also wished to avoid these new police given how you have spoilt all of our plans. I appreciate the lift.’ He smiled to himself, glancing into the back of the car at Daniel. ‘I’m still going to need that tablet, you little traitor,’ he snapped, momentarily losing the veneer of polished decorum worn as such a practiced mask.

  ‘He’s half-dead. He can’t help you. He can’t even speak. I’m taking him to hospital in Barcelona. If he makes it there you might get your precious tablet. You’ll never get it if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Do you think you give the orders here? I don’t see you holding a gun any more big man, do you?’

  I kept my eyes fixed on the road, ignoring him assiduously. Struggling to keep my cool. Hands gripping the wheel. Knuckles white. And then the Russian began to roll the bottoms of his suit trousers up. ‘Do you see these, big man?’ he asked drawing my eyes towards the large eight pointed stars tattooed onto each of his knees. ‘You know these? It means I am a boss. ‘Avtorityet’. I kneel to no man. I am a brigadier of the family. It means respect. It means that a pig like you does what I say.’

  ‘Vory,’ I growled in response.

  ‘Yes Vor. The Bratva. Mafia. Crime lords. Thief-in-Law. Whatever you want to call us. We are all powerful. We buy the police so they do our bidding. They work for us now. We will never obey their laws. The governments of countries from around the world fear our wrath. We have always operated outside of society by our lifelong vow, but society now bends to our will. I have even made your quaint little game of golf dance like a puppet to our tune so we can run Rublex oil through Europe! This gives me the greatest of pleasures. The whole of Europe has always viewed mighty Russia as some feral mongrel cousin. We even spoke French at court for three hundred years instead of our beautiful mother tongue, so ashamed was our disgusting nobility by our lack of sophistication in eyes of the world. I came from dirt. I saw the privileged take this game of golf in summer. It was not for boys like me. I knew they played it in rich countries. I hated those people and I hated those countries. I wanted very much back then to destroy everything they stood for, to destroy this game of the rich. And now we run the game and it is so. You must listen carefully and understand me ‘big man’, even you proud Englishmen now bow to the Vory.’ He rattled the gun and his free hand against the dashboard in front of him in a theatrical drum roll. An announcement of fact.

  Something inside me snapped. The road ahead bled from single carriage way into a main road with multiple lanes. As we approached the turning I stepped down on the accelerator. ‘What are you doing? Slow down now,’ Krostanov screamed. We came up towards the apex fast and I quickly slotted my seat belt into place. ‘Stop now. I order it,’ he screamed at me waving the gun furiously.

  The threats meant nothing. I was resolute. Committed. Metres from the junction, I pulled down hard onto the steering wheel and swerved off the road. The scene played out as if in fragments of a dream. The bonnet of the Fiat Uno crunched into the metal sign post at sixty kilometres an hour. It crumpled on impact. The inside of the car was filled with unintelligible shouts and cries. Daniel and I were thrown forward and jolted hard against the protective belts. But we remained in our seats. Shaken. Rattled. The force of the crash tore the seat belt into my shoulder with such force it felt as if the wound had been flushed with a red hot poker. When I eventually looked to my side I found the front windscreen had been smashed right through by the flying body of my uninvited passenger.

  Seconds felt like years as my brain stretched the elasticity of the linear temporal continuum on which perception exists, scrambling and fighting to compute millions of tiny pieces of information as to the state of my body, the external environment and the exposure to near and current danger following the shock of the crash. This biological response explains why trauma victims often hold and replay vivid recollections of minute and seemingly insignificant fragments of their experiences. Why I was still haunted by the flashbacks.

  Slowly I unbuckled the seatbelt. I managed to lever my body and pivot to kick open the twisted metal of the door. I staggered from the car. Took a drawn out moment and steadied myself, savouring the feeling of my feet being on solid ground as I lumbered slowly away from the concertinaed motor. Two cars had pulled over some way behind us and the drivers were getting out to see how they could try and help. They called out to me as they jogged over but there was only one thought in my mind. My first consideration was not for my injuries or even to rescue the Target from the wreckage. Instead I was myopic in my dreadful purpose.

  At the front of the crash site, I located the man responsible for Mickey’s death. Lying on his back upon the grass verge. His forehead was badly cut, sliced open to the skull. The contours of his face were mapped with a network of tiny lacerations. By the odd angle his body was positioned in, it looked as if he had broken both arms, shoulder blade, and collar bone. A bitter scowl twisted with pain, fixed across his face. The Vor was conscious.

  I stood over him, looking down with unblinking eyes, as he writhed in agony beneath me. ‘Help me. Help me please,’ he rasped. Held his gaze, then viciously
stamped my boot heel down onto his knee cap shattering the patella bone and rupturing the conjoined cartilage with cruel and scientific precision. The quiet moan of pain emanated from deep inside him. I shifted my weight and brought the boot down again, this time onto his second knee cap, smashing it beyond all repair. That noise again. He tried to twist away in pathetic desperation.

  ‘Now you couldn’t kneel again if you wanted to, you worthless motherfucker.’ I hocked up a globule of phlegm from the back of my throat and spat it into Sergei Krostanov’s beleaguered face. ‘That’s for Mickey.’

  But his eyes still flashed with indignation, a futile last act of defiance. I knelt beside him on the grass. Our stares collided, an unflinching channel of emotional intensity between us as I placed my hand firmly over his mouth and nose. He wheezed, twisted hard and then spluttered as he fought desperately for oxygen. A protruding blue vein pulsed prominently down the centre of his forehead, his face red and blotchy. Finally the fight left him and, submitting to the inevitable, his eyes once again locked onto mine but now in a sad embrace of human fragility. I watched remorselessly, his life fading as he suffocated within my grip.

  One of the passers-by who had stopped his car at the roadside to help with the accident was now gingerly picking at pieces of metal and trying to reach inside. He looked very stressed. The other man had reached me as I finished with the Vor.

  ‘Tú lo mataste’ he said quietly at me in disbelief. He was shaking. I ignored it and kept walking. ‘You kill him’ he said louder in English after me.