Lesson in Betrayal

by Katsura

  “Yeah, but not to me.” Fergus lifted his chin. “He went away with the van and delivered the bags to Rasputin. That’s the only two people who were ever alone with the bags before I put them in the safe. You said yourself that Rasputin knew only too well what it would mean for him to steal from us. So that leaves Vinny.”

  “Okay.” Callum nodded and stubbed out his cigar. “Vinny it is then. So you make an example of him. You do it good and you do it tonight, understand me? You sort this fucking mess out. Or I will. When this is done, we can deal with the bitch.”

  Fergus nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  *

  Although Fergus knew that he was well over the drink drive limit he had no choice but to use Hugo’s little car to go and get Vinny the scapegoat. A few points on his license would be the least of his worries tonight. Driving while under the influence was nothing compared to assault, wrongful imprisonment and ultimately murder.

  The car was destined for the dump anyway so if any evidence was left of Vinny’s disposal, it would be lost to the crusher.

  To say that he was not sad at this moment would be a lie. He always had a grudging respect for the boy Judas had pulled from out of the gutter. Vinny had got himself straight for starters, knocked a serious drug habit on the head, and anyone who would go to prison to protect another was braver than anyone else Fergus knew.

  But still. It was Vinny or Hugo.

  It was fairly obvious to Fergus that there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that Hugo was the guilty one. The temptation to have the boy removed from his life forever was a very compelling one. But Fergus had his tattered reputation to consider.

  If Hugo had taken the cash, for whatever reason, Fergus hoped that he was smart enough to never let anyone find out. It was clear that Fergus had already fallen from being the well-respected son of the boss, to being a sly idiot in the eyes of the local hoods. If it turned out that he had been shafted by his own partner as it were, he would be a laughing stock and his dad would never let him live it down.

  There was no way Vinny was guilty but he’d gone to prison as an innocent man before and now he would die as one. He’d die at the insistence of Judas MacGregor.

  That is how Fergus was going to look at it so that he didn’t spend the rest of his life riddled with guilt. If Judas had shut up about the money, Callum would never have known anything about it and Vinny would be allowed to live out the rest of his life as a fairly well thought of guy. But no. MacGregor was a loud mouthed cunt and his most loyal ally, the guy who had done time to protect him, was going to die because of him.

  Once the dust had settled over the whole business though, Judas would die too. There would be a queue of folk eager to have the honour to pull the trigger.

  Fergus parked the car near the high rise where Vinny had stayed since his release.

  The place was a real hole and as he pondered on just how to lure the young man from the safety of his flat to the car, Fergus spied his intended victim walking down towards a lane that ran between two blocks of concrete garages.

  Perfect.

  Fergus started the car again and swiftly drove to the other end of the lane where he parked close to the entrance. As quick as he could he got out and opened the boot.

  “Hugo,” he whispered as he looked down into the cramped space, “do I even want to know what you had this stuff for?”

  There was a petrol can pressed close between the car’s spare wheel, some ropes and a cosh, that Fergus lifted and weighed in his hand. Heavy enough to knock Vinny out, but likely not enough to kill him. He would do that elsewhere anyway.

  On hearing Vinny’s footsteps Fergus leaned back against the wall, bludgeon in hand as he stared to the side to catch him is soon as he appeared.

  It was all too easy.

  Vinny took one step outside of the lane, Fergus hit him a swift whack to the back of the head that knocked him clean out.

  He caught Vinny under the arms, bundled him into the car boot then slammed it closed.

  Quick and clean.

  Fergus bore Vinny no real grudge at all so his death would be the same. Of course there were times when someone had wronged the Campbells so much that their end was the exact opposite. Like Judas’s death would be. Fergus did not enjoy torture or inflicting pain on a person. At least not in that capacity. To kill was different but the rest was just not his style. However, sometimes that is what was required and someone like Rasputin was perfect for those kinds of jobs. He could have a guy writhe in agony and remain virtually unaffected. If the person who was to die didn’t merit pain, or the honour of being eliminated by an actual Campbell hand, then Judas MacGregor usually did it. He was neat and very efficient at disposal.

  There was no needless suffering on his watch but obviously he was no longer on the Campbell payroll and would never have agreed to the murder of Vinny anyway.

  Fergus would have no choice but to do it himself.

  There was only one place that was ever used for such things. The act would take place in the basement of the lock-up and the body would be disposed of elsewhere.

  So Fergus got back into the driver’s seat and prepared for the relatively long and tedious journey that lay ahead of him.

  *

  Six steps from the bottom.

  That was all that Mikhail had managed and he was now in so much pain that he felt close to collapse again. He was not even half way there and realised when he did reach the door he had no reserve of energy to open it. It was dark now and the moonlight cast an eerie glow over the basement. A shadow in the corner looked frighteningly like a crouched figure and in his weakened state, Mikhail wondered if it could somehow be Hugo.

  Silent and patient.

  Would he wait until Mikhail had dragged his bruised body to the very door then casually get to his feet and haul him all the way back down again?

  A sob escaped his lips, so unexpected that it startled him. “Hugo.” Mikhail whispered. “If that is you…please let me go. All I want to do is go home. I just want my bed, my bathroom…some clean clothes to wear. Please let me go. You will never see me again, I promise you. I just want to go home…”

  He became racked with more sobs, forceful now and the trembling of his tormented body threatened to send him tumbling down the stairs again so he gripped both hands on the banister and leaned his forehead there.

  A prisoner.

  Mikhail looked like the actual prisoner that he was, but with what remained of his dignity, he raised his chin. “No. I am not going to give in. I am getting out of here and I am going to do it tonight. You can watch me, Hugo.”

  Once more, Mikhail struggled to his feet.

  *

  “Well I’m a simple city boy with stupid country tastes…” Judas mumbled the next few words of the song that blasted from the car’s speakers as he couldn’t remember them, then once more launched into a pseudo Mancunian whine, “…marry Joanna keeps that smile on me face!”

  The journey to the lock-up was a dull one and there was nothing like a good old dose of Shaun Ryder to pep up the mood, so Judas tapped his fingers against the steering wheel to the lazy Manchester beat. The thought that Hugo was probably all dressed up in his finery as he awaited his lift was also a source of some merriment.

  Hugo was insatiable.

  Without a shadow of a doubt, Judas was a bona fide sex addict.

  Or should that be boner fide?

  He laughed.

  It didn’t matter. His point was that he knew he was a horny bastard and probably clinically so, but if anything, Hugo was more desperate that he was.

  To fuck Hugo would have been the perfect training for anyone who wished to have a career in the rodeo. No bronco could match the violent jerks of the young man’s hips and Judas counted himself lucky to have come away uninjured after his unromantic interlude with him. Rough sex was fine but to fear for your neck as you bobbed about like a tennis ball in a tsunami was no fun at all. Hugo used sex as a weapon. As potentially lethal
as any sawn off shotgun and maybe even a fraction messier in the kill.

  Doubtlessly, as Judas was no more than minutes away from his destination, Hugo was limbering up in the hallway as he prepared for another bout of the fabled Judas love.

  Judas laughed again.

  What a twat Fergie was. Obviously Hugo had knicked the bag from right under his nose and stashed it at the lock-up for safe keeping. So not only was Mr Campbell’s ball and chain more than eager to fuck his arch enemy, he was also robbing him blind. If Hugo had done this, what else was he capable of?

  Of course Judas had always known that Hugo was a devious swine, well at least since the night of the robbery, but he could feel a growing admiration for the little fruit loop now.

  He had duped that arrogant bastard that he married, but he was no match for the criminal mastermind that was Judas MacGregor.

  The CD ended its violent little ditty as Judas parked his car to the side of the lockup. It was a freezing night so he lit a cigarette and sat back to smoke it before he would even consider the frosty trudge over to the ruined building. If walls could talk that shack would have many a tale to tell. Folk had fought there, died there, pleaded for their lives there. Not a nice place to slip off this mortal coil. If Judas was unlucky enough to ever face death in this dump, he would vigorously resist this. Obviously he wouldn’t want to die, but especially not somewhere like here. He remembered the draughty barn where he got close to blowing his own brains out. What had possessed him? At least die somewhere warm if you have a choice.

  Judas finished his cigarette and shook the unexpectedly morbid thoughts from his head. Tonight was a happy one and it was with a more chipper air that he climbed out of his car. He slapped his hands together against the cold and blew into his palms before he unlocked the door, the loud creak of the wood echoing out across the night.

  Mikhail had just reached the cellar door when he heard a loud sound from somewhere close by and he stiffened, his eyes wide with sheer terror.

  Hugo was back.

  “Oh God, no…” he gasped helplessly and pressed his head against the door. Even if he wanted to, there was no way that he could make it down the stairs again. He fumbled in his pocket and clasped his fingers around the razor, although he knew that more than likely, he would have neither the courage nor the energy to use it.

  Outside he could hear footsteps and Hugo’s apparently cheerful whistle. Only a person who was completely insane could come to a place to no doubt kill someone, and whistle so callously.

  With his fingers trembling so much that they were almost useless, he opened the razor and held it as tightly as his hand would allow. The noise of a scuffle of boots came from right outside of the door. All that separated Mikhail from Hugo was a bit of filthy wood and whatever lock held it in place.

  Mikhail knew that he was a coward. Conflict was not in his nature but he had to at least try to make a bid for escape. Hugo must have driven here. He had to have his car parked outside. Mikhail’s only hope was to overpower him somehow, get the keys off him and make is way out as fast as his injuries would let him. He heard before that people in extreme stress could find an excess of energy, some normally hidden source that only peril unlocked the path to.

  He prayed that this was true.

  The door began to open. Mikhail took a few rapid breaths and gripped the dangerously sharp steel as though his life depended on it.

  He knew in his pounding heart, that it actually did.

  The next few seconds felt like years. The door swung open, at a crawling pace it seemed but at last Mikhail caught a shadowy sight of Hugo. He swiped the blade at the only thing that he could reach. The ankles of that swine who had imprisoned him.

  Hugo cried out, “Fuck!” and fell backwards onto the dirt floor and Mikhail, without even bothering to look back to check the extent of Hugo’s injuries, began to crawl as fast as he could towards the other door.

  “Please let me make it, please let me make it…” he muttered over and over again.

  Suddenly a strong hand gripped his ankle, not his injured one but still a wave of pain coursed through him and he slumped against the ground. “Just let me go…please let me go…”

  He turned his face and stared back miserably at his assailant.

  Judas stared back at him with a look of shocked bewilderment. “Mikhail?” He sounded completely astonished. “What the fuck? Mikhail is that you?”

  Mikhail’s mouth fell open and he let out a groan of relief. “Judas!” he gasped as tears began to flood freely down his face. “Oh my God, Judas it is you! Oh thank God!”

  The blade fell from his hand as he covered his face and wept into his dirt caked palms. He felt strong arms slide around his shoulder and attempt to haul him up a fraction.

  “Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?” Judas pulled Mikhail’s hands away from his face, not roughly but with enough force that Mikhail had no choice but to allow him to. “What happened to you? For fuck sake…you look like…”

  “Oh, don’t!” Mikhail interrupted him and his wrists quivered in Judas’s grasp. “I know what I must look like. Please, Judas. You have to get me away from here. I don’t know how long I have been here…I…I…lost track. Please…”

  Judas’s face filled with a look of disbelief. He nodded his head slowly. “You are the thing of no value at all.” His voice sounded bitter and Mikhail couldn’t think what he meant by this statement but Judas didn’t look murderous. He didn’t look as though Hugo had sent him here to finish Mikhail off. He looked as though he was incredulous about something.

  “Will you help me, Judas?” Mikhail’s stared at him imploringly. “I just want to get away…before he comes back.”

  “Hugo?” Judas said the name quietly, but there was an edge to his voice.

  Mikhail nodded. He gasped as more tears of relief tumbled copiously down his already wet cheeks. Judas reached into his pocket and produced a tissue and Mikhail took it gratefully. It smelled strongly of aftershave, but it was clean and a small luxury for Mikhail to be able to wipe his face with it.

  “What a fucking bastard.” The corners of Judas’s mouth turned down. “He brought you here and left you?”

  Mikhail nodded as he continued to wipe his cheek. “He did, but really…” Mikhail tried to sit up more, but still found it too painful. “I can’t…I can’t do anything about this…I just want to be away from here. You have to get me away from here.”

  “Naw. He is not getting away with it. Not this time.” Judas stood up and Mikhail could see a large slice through the man’s trouser fabric, a few inches below his knee.

  Blood had begun to trickle a dark path down towards his shoe. “When Fergie finds out, he will gut him alive…”

  “Fergus can’t find out!” Mikhail reached up his hand and Judas took it gently. “You just…you just have to trust me, please.”

  Mikhail allowed Judas to help him to his feet and slide one strong arm around his waist. He put an arm around Judas’s shoulder, grateful to have the support. “Oh Judas, I hurt you. I am so sorry. I thought that you were him.” He leaned his head against Judas’s chest as they made their way slowly towards the door.

  “It’s nothing.” Judas’s voice sounded a little flat. “I’ll live. But I don’t understand.

  You can’t protect him, Mikhail. He is a fucking nutcase. Excuse my language.”

  Despite everything, Mikhail was touched by Judas’s manners. He’d probably done things that went completely against Mikhail’s principles, but it was sweet that he showed this courtesy. Something that he had always done since the day that Mikhail had first met him.

  “Judas?” Mikhail turned so that he could look at Judas’s face. He looked handsome, even in the darkness. Mikhail’s rescuing hero. Tall and attractive, a shaft of moonlight illuminating the concern in his blue eyes. “You know that thing…this…honour that you have? No, what would you call it…loyalty?”

  “Yeah?” Judas pulled the door open and a breeze blew
over their faces. “I know what loyalty means.”

  “I know you do.” Mikhail nodded and took in a lungful of the gloriously fresh air.

  “Your Vinny, he has such loyalty and…well it can sometimes make what you do…seem odd to others. Don’t you think?”

  Judas continued to help Mikhail as they made slow progress towards the Red E-Type parked just a few metres away. “Well yeah, I guess. But Mikhail you can’t honestly tell me that you have some loyalty to Hugo. For fuck sake he’s kept you a prisoner!” Judas slowed his steps a fraction and Mikhail was appreciative as his ankle throbbed in agony.

  “No,” Mikhail shook his head and stood still to catch his breath. “Not to him. I have no loyalty to him, but I do have for someone else. And if you could just please trust me, as I know this will seem so…foolish to you. Will you, Judas? Please will you trust me?”

  “Fergus.” Judas looked directly into Mikhail’s eyes. “Your loyalty is to him. If that’s the case, he’ll want to know.”

  “Please, Judas? Can I trust you?” Mikhail sighed with exhaustion. Judas slipped both hands to hold him gently by his upper arms. “You must please promise me no matter how this seems to you, you must not tell that it was Hugo.”

  Judas nodded. “I think you are crazy.” He breathed in deeply. “But, okay. For now I’ll do what you say.”

  “Thank you,” Mikhail closed his eyes in relief.

  All of sudden they found themselves bathed in car headlights. Judas turned and lifted one hand to shield his eyes from the glare. Without his support, Mikhail slipped down onto his knees, not falling fully though, as Judas still had a hold of his other arm.

  Fergus’s eyes widened at the sight that was illuminated by his car’s high beam.

  A figure, bedraggled and wretched, kneeled before that bastard, Judas MacGregor.

  Judas’s hand was raised as though just about to strike the man who was on the ground before him.

  Something about the kneeling figure’s attire made Fergus flinch. The white clothes.