by Jake Cross
‘Better for the interrogation.’
‘Bullshit. Better for the torture and murder.’
She took a step to one side so she wasn’t blocking the moonlight and could read his eyes. Drugged, he was sure, but still displaying his thoughts. His suspicions.
‘We let them go,’ she said, ‘and they regroup and come back. Like warts if you don’t clip the roots. That’s what these people are. Warts. How many times do you want to capture the same people? How many times do you want the same bad guys shooting at us?’
He shook his head. ‘Bullshit, Toni. I know what’s going on. I picture you as an old lady in a nursing home many years from now. Vacant-eyed and unresponsive. The staff think it’s dementia, but it isn’t. Insanity. From knowing that no matter how many men you killed way back, you might have missed the one. That special one who actually drew the knife across Damar’s throat. Insanity at knowing he might still be out there, laughing and fucking and sleeping and all fine in his life because he’s not haunted at all by the memories of the guy he butchered so long ago.’
That got her. Her face turned angry and he saw her fists clench down by her sides. The cold wind and the silence and the dark all seemed to intensify, as if to try to remind him that he was out in the middle of nowhere with a killer who might still be his enemy. Who had planned to kill and bury him in the woods. He took a step back, and she saw it, and he knew she knew what he was thinking. That seemed to settle her. At least it helped her to leash the rage trying to burst out from within.
‘They killed your brother,’ she said. ‘You want that to go unpunished?’
‘Justice is perfectly fine in the form of a prison sentence.’
‘Prison? That’s punishment? Do you think these people are fraudulent bankers? People like this will thrive in prison. They’ll make friends and have a laugh and plan new crimes for the day they get out. That’s not happening. Walk away if you don’t like it. You’re wondering where the other man is, right?’
‘Not anymore. I know he’s dead and buried in these woods.’ He tossed the wet dirt from his cheek against her jacket.
‘That’s right.’ She jerked a thumb at the dead man against the fence. ‘Guess this guy’s future.’
He said nothing. Her finger jabbed at the guy slumped against the ambulance. ‘Guess his.’
‘And the next guy we meet on the ladder?’
‘Dead. Buried. And the guy above, and the guy above him. All of them, Nate. It’s called revenge. I hope you clear your name, but that’s not why I’m here, and I’m surprised you’re not after the same thing. That was your brother, and they killed him. I picture you in that same nursing home, going insane because of a memory where you had your brother’s murderer on his knees in front of you, and you let him go.’
‘If I find the man who arranged Pete’s murder and he’s kneeling before me and I have a gun in my hand, I’ll kill him without a thought. But that doesn’t help me if I go to prison, does it? So, I’m going to try to clear my name. I don’t fancy a life on the run. I guess I’m picky like that.’
She pulled another weapon from inside her jacket. The knife he’d stolen from the guest house. He took another step back, but she turned the knife and offered him the handle.
‘So interrogate this guy,’ she said. ‘Take this, because I don’t think the threat of a Chinese burn will make the guy talk.’
She approached Black Hair and lifted his head. His eyes were open but glazed. Maybe concussed. Certainly beaten. Nate saw puffy eyes, a split lip. She slapped his cheek to jolt him fully awake. ‘You will answer this man’s questions, okay?’ To Nate: ‘Go.’
Nate stood before the guy, but the knife stayed down by his side. He didn’t know how to begin. He started with the ultimate question, in the hope this could all be resolved in two seconds: ‘Who set all this up?’
‘Set what up?’ the guy croaked.
‘Who hired you?’
The man said, ‘Cube.’
‘There you go,’ Toni said. ‘A job well done. You’re a natural interrogator, Nate. Cube. Now you have a name to chase in your name-clearing quest.’
Nate didn’t know what to say. So, he said, ‘I don’t know anyone called Cube.’
‘Well, I doubt Cube’s the name on his birth certificate, unless his parents are weirdos. Carry on. Milk the guy for all he’s worth.’
She was playing with him, but he ignored her. Getting answers was the important thing here. He said to Black Hair, ‘Lazar, you know that name?’
‘Good question, Nate,’ Toni said. ‘I would never have thought of that.’
Good question, but it achieved nothing. The guy’s groggy head took time to understand the question, before shaking.
Nate waved the knife now, and felt awkward doing it. He hoped the guy didn’t call his bluff. ‘Achala Kaushal. You must know that name. A young Indian woman.’
Something in his eyes. Recognition. Nate caught it before the guy looked at Toni, who was standing by like a security guard, arms folded. Nate understood. ‘He’s already answered these questions,’ he said to her. ‘You already know.’
She shrugged. ‘You wanted to play a role. So now you’ve got an input.’
‘I don’t need an ego boost,’ he snapped, turning away, striding away, towards the fence. He was within three feet of the dead guy against that fence before he realised it, and turned again to face the road through the trees. He heard Toni’s footsteps come up behind him, but didn’t turn around.
‘You think I just parked here and started cutting people like a maniac, Nate? While you were dreaming of elves and treasure, I was asking questions. I want to know the truth, too. I had a long chat with him before you woke up, and I got what we need. He has no phone, no ID, no paperwork of any kind, but we needed information. You were dreaming of sheep and I’m good at getting information from people, so what was I to do? Next time I’ll play solitaire until you wake up so you can do all the threats and torture to get what we need.’
‘Piss off.’
She spun him to face Black Hair.
‘So let me tell you what I learned. This man’s a contract killer, Nate. Apparently good. Sounding off about himself before you woke up. Apparently he’s going to kill my bloodline. I’m going to wish my great grandfather lost his testicles as a child. And I’m going to scream and beg to be killed. Strangely stopped all that hullabaloo when I cut his pal’s throat right in front of him. Eager to talk after that.
‘Lazar. He genuinely doesn’t know that name. Cube, now he’s some kind of gangster. I’m picturing gold teeth and tinted car windows. Cube hired this guy after you escaped from Damar and me. This hitman called a couple of lowlifes he keeps on speed-dial for snatch jobs and all three of them came for me at the hospital. The hospital aspect was a sweet bonus for them because these two just happen to be legitimate paramedics. So they came to interrogate me to find out where you are. Then to bury me, of course.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘At the Enfield warehouse, right next to Damar.’
Nate was still woozy. ‘A hitman? That’s… extreme.’
‘Get James Bond films out of your head. It isn’t as if you need a degree. Hitman is just a word for someone who’s willing to kill people for money.’
‘So what does he know? Does he know why all this is happening?’
‘Says not, and I believe him. He was given a description of you and me, told he’d find me at the hospital, and told to take me to the warehouse in Enfield, and that was, according to him, all he needed or wanted. All he knows is Cube wants us dead, but not why. This guy was working for Cube on a couple of jobs and then he got the call for this little side mission. Side mission! Like taking out the trash.
‘Nate, listen carefully. Of the two jobs this guy was hired for, one was a hit on some guy in America, and the other was to dispose of a body here. A body that turns your theory about all of this into dog poo. That body was your Achala Kaushal.’
Nate tried to let that sink in. It wouldn’t.
‘He did
not know the name, but he recalls the body was that of a young Indian woman. He did not kill her. I believe him. He arranged for her body to be dumped in a lake up north somewhere, but he doesn’t know which one because his people didn’t give him that information. Apparently he doesn’t need all the details.’
Nate couldn’t speak. This thing was getting too convoluted and his woozy brain was not yet up to the task.
‘Understand, Nate? This is a breakthrough. Kaushal’s not the enemy here: she’s another victim.’
‘Great. So we strike one name off the vast list of who it could be trying to fuck me over. That gets us no closer.’
‘It gives us a clue, moron. Someone who used to work for you was also killed. So this might have something to do with your security company. That information puts us a step closer, even if you don’t see it. And we have a name, Cube, even though that means nothing so far. So now you need to think of some reason why this Cube would want you and your brother, and this Kaushal, dead.’
He couldn’t. After she left the job, Kaushal had not been part of Nate’s life, or Pete’s – as far as he knew. Four years. He hadn’t seen her, or heard a thing about her, in all that time. Four years.
‘I don’t know. But what about this Cube and Lazar? How are they connected?’
‘Well, I imagine Lazar’s a henchman. Like the other goons. We don’t concentrate on them. Cube’s the boss. So we need to find Cube, whoever he is.’
‘How can you be sure that this hitman isn’t holding back? Or feeding us bullshit?’
She pulled something else from her pocket. A regular magician, this girl. It was a fob with a single key hanging from it. ‘I have that covered. I know where the guy’s staying. There must be more clues there. It’s not exactly down the road, but I don’t have any pressing plans. Do you? We’ll go there after you’ve helped me kill this guy and bury him and the other one.’
‘No way,’ he said. No damn way. No more killings. ‘I’m trying to clear my name for my brother’s death. What the hell is the point of that if the cops just say, “Sure, yeah, wasn’t you, but you’re under arrest for being an accomplice in ten other murders”?’
She looked at him carefully. ‘Remember what I said about warts? We leave this guy alive, he comes back at us. How many times do you want to keep capturing him and letting him go?’
‘No more killings, dammit. You might be a psycho, but I’m not.’
‘So make your damn decision, because I’m leaving in ten minutes.’
Nate cycled through his massive array of options – both of them. They could tie the hitman up, but come morning the guys building the Toby Carvery would release him back into the mix. Or they could take him prisoner, but that would bring about all sorts of problems. Of course, there was always that other option…
As if reading his mind, Toni reached into her magician’s jacket again, and then held out the tranquilliser gun in one hand and cable ties in the other. As if giving him a choice. Like a toddler spotting a better toy, Nate dropped the knife in the dirt and ignored the cable ties and grabbed the gun.
Toni said, ‘Fine. So he’s luggage. Your luggage. So you take care of him.’
To pause would be to think, and that might allow his mind to freeze. So he stepped forward and aimed the gun and put a dart in Black Hair’s shoulder, and watched as he fell limp and slid over onto his face.
‘Now you need to manhandle him into the van.’
She clearly wasn’t going to help. It took three minutes and the guy slipped from his grasp twice as Nate was feeding him into the ambulance, and hit the dirt again. Eventually the guy was on the stretcher. Nate tied him with bandages. Toni watched from the back of the vehicle, offering no help.
But she expected help of her own once Nate had finished. ‘Now the other guy. We bury him, or do you want to carry him along, too?’
‘He’s your luggage,’ he said, like a petulant kid.
He thought it was a smart comment, but it elicited only a grin. ‘He manhandled you, Nate. DNA. You’re not going to clear your name if the cops find his body. Best hope for you, he’s the last to die and his body’s never found.’
He knew she was right. The guy was already dead, and now posed a problem to be solved. Abhorrent, but the only way. They had to bury him.
‘Look on the bright side,’ she said, ‘at least I already dug the hole.’
When it was done, they got in the van. Nate took the passenger seat and rubbed his face. He had performed the burial service quite well, he thought. Meaning he hadn’t vomited or thrown a seizure due to shock. But that didn’t mean he would erase the memories anytime within the rest of his life. Actually, he thought he might recall them during sweaty, screaming nights over the next fifty years.
He had the knife in his hand, resting in his lap but pointing at her. She couldn’t miss it.
‘Hey, I’m sorry for lying when I said I’d dated one of them. But I needed to convince you they were real paramedics. So you’d relax. It was to help you, that was all.’
He said nothing.
‘No more trust?’
‘You just stay away from me, okay? There’s something badly wrong with your head. You’re a bomb, and I don’t want you going off in my face.’
She seemed hurt. ‘Get the hell out and go your own way, then. Go.’
He didn’t move.
‘Exactly. You need me, remember. Now put that away.’
He slid the knife out of sight, but kept it in his hand. ‘Let’s just get where we’re going quick. The sooner this is over, the better.’
She drove. In silence. He calmed down, seeing her normal like this. He reminded himself that she’d lost her good friend. Not that it excused her behaviour. Her violence. Ten minutes later, he was staring out the window, at the road rushing by, trying to think of nothing. But all he could think about was, not his brother, or Lazar, or contract killers, but her. That he was sitting beside a vicious killer and she seemed so normal. This was the world he’d entered. Peopled by monsters in human skin. He–
‘Penny for the thoughts?’ she said, cutting into those thoughts.
He continued to stare at the night road. ‘I was just thinking, “Congratulations. It’s been a couple of hours since you last threatened my life”.’
‘Out loud,’ she said, and winked. He caught it out of the corner of his eye, which meant she knew he could see her peripherally.
‘And I’m thinking you seem very robotic. Not jerky movements, of course. More the lack of human compassion in any way. You sit there humming like we’re actually going on holiday. You were born in Turkey, right? I’m thinking the woods. Brought up by wolves until you were about eighteen. Do you laugh when children trip and hurt themselves?’
She laughed now. But said nothing. Continued to drive through the night.
He put his head back and closed his eyes.
His eyes jerked open as the van hit a bump. Shockingly, the dashboard clock said nineteen minutes had passed. Toni was still driving, but had her phone in her hand. She saw him looking.
‘I thought I’d check you out online. Seems there’s no bigger news story today.’
She tossed the phone into his lap. He picked it up and saw an image. Saw his own face. His passport photo, which made him look like a fugitive. It was a still from a news video. He could see the news program’s logo in the corner of the screen.
And a ticker along the bottom that said:
Missing fugitive was investigated for robbery murder
And there it was. The HyperX thing, back to bite him on the ass. ‘Christ,’ he muttered, allowing his head to drop back. ‘This is all looking so much worse now.’
‘Play it, bad boy.’
He did. The video was just a series of still pictures, with a voiceover: ‘Nathan Barke, the man wanted by police in relation to an arson attack on his home that claimed the life of his brother, Peter Barke, was questioned by police about a garage robbery in which one of the perpetrators–’
He paused the video. It was a story he knew well, of course. ‘That’s nothing,’ he said. But she didn’t look convinced. A grin. She reached over and pressed play.
The reporter went on, his tinny voice filling the van. Now he was talking about how he’d failed to get a response on the robbery thing from the cops, but through his own brilliance had learned that two of the three-strong team of Acorn Security guards had all served time for violent offences and robberies…
The third member being Achala Kaushal, Nate thought. ‘Violent’ criminal was an unfair description of Carl Webber, who had made one mistake years earlier and whose conviction was spent by the time Nate hired him. Jon Agar was a vastly different animal. Kaushal, however, had been squeaky clean. Hired as a trainee accountant, she had expressed a willingness to dive into the deep end, get her hands dirty, do some hard graft. And here came her name again. Missing. Now presumed to be in danger. But the police were still unsure as to why this girl might pose a problem to Nate Barke. A hint that her lack of a criminal past could be a reason. Nate wondered about that. Did the cops assume that Acorn Security, with its complement of ex-cons, was up to no good and that the law-abiding young Indian woman had threatened to expose something, which had prompted Nate to… do something to her?
Sure they did. It was all part of the effort to frame him. The cops believed Nate had hurt Kaushal, and he was getting the feeling that her body, when found, was going to scream evidence that Nate was the culprit. Set-up for two killings now. An insurmountable wall to climb. He could only hope that the hitman had been lying for some reason, or that the woman he’d buried in a lake wasn’t Kaushal. He needed her to be found alive and well so the police would realise they’d been wrong about him, because maybe that would help him convince them they’d been wrong about his involvement in the house fire and the death of…
He shut that thought down. He didn’t want Pete in his head. It was hard to think of him without picturing a burned corpse.
Nate became aware of Toni looking at him. Staring.