by Seb Kirby
Heller waited. He sat in the lobby and watched as they cleared the breakfast area and the staff prepared to leave the hotel at the end of their early morning shift. He followed the fat chef out into the heat of the day, through the pre-noon haze to the apartment where the chef lived. He gave him a few minutes before entering the building, observing from the street the telltale movement of the window blinds on the second floor as the chef made himself at home.
It wasn’t difficult to gain entry. The main entrance door was left open to allow circulation of whatever air was available on this hottest of days. Inside, he removed the folded white protective suit he’d carried in his pocket and pulled it on. He pulled on elasticated shoe covers, a hair cover and thin polymer gloves. He would leave no DNA trace. On the second floor, the chef’s door was also unlocked. Heller was in and on him before he had time to cry for help. He forced open the mouth and yanked out the tongue. “This your idea of being polite?”
Heller released the tongue and waited for a reply.
The fat chef began to cry. Real tears. “Please, sir. I know it was wrong. But please don’t do this.”
Wolfgang had the hunting knife out. He frog-marched the fat chef to the shower. He slit the fat chef’s nose, cut off his ears and forced them into his mouth. It was his way of saying that the mistake they had made wasn’t just being impolite but it was the crime of not respecting the privacy of his breakfast conversation. It was a pathetic, bloody sight. The chef’s eyes pleading to be let go. His blood staining his white chef’s outfit and spattering Heller’s protective suit.
He cut off the chef’s clothing to leave him naked before him. As was always the case when faced with such sudden and arbitrary violence the chef was now mute. No need to be concerned any longer about his alerting anyone. Heller made one more cut with the knife, a long deep gash beneath the chef’s sagging breasts and the man passed out. Heller began filleting him as if he were a side of meat, cutting deep into the bulbous flesh.
It was best to finish it. He’d made his point, after all. Heller thrust the knife into the chef’s heart and then withdrew it. The chef jerked back to life and began convulsing. In five minutes he would be dead. There was justice in this world.
Another citizen, maybe many more, had been protected from the antisocial behavior of men like this. It made Wolfgang feel good, as any responsible person would.
It was time to clean up. He turned on the shower and watched the water turn red as it played over the dead chef’s body. He severed the arms and legs with the hunting knife and then cut off the head.
In fifteen minutes the water stopped turning red. By then, Heller had pulled back the faded carpet in the adjoining room and had prised up the floorboards. Yes, there was enough space between this floor and the floor beneath to contain a dismembered body. He lined the space with rubbish sacks he took from the chef’s tiny kitchen and transferred the body parts from the shower one by one before replacing the floorboards and the carpet. Heller was pleased with this and allowed himself a smile. In all probability, the body would not be discovered for weeks.
He had work to do this day and, in any case, he couldn’t have followed them both. Soon enough, he would follow the young blonde waitress home and deal with her impoliteness.
Downstairs, he removed the blood-spattered protective suit, the hat and the shoes and placed them, together with the knife, in another of the plastic sacks he’d removed from the chef’s kitchen. He walked five blocks and disposed of it in one of the waste bins in an alley close to nearby restaurants.
* * *
Luiz Reyas had followed the German to Austin. The tracker that Velasquez used to bug Heller’s phone was working well.
Reyas watched as the German left the apartment and walked away along the street. He wondered why Senor Heller had spent so much time in that downtown apartment but knew better than to approach it too soon.
Chapter 16
Miles waited at Charing Cross station for two hours.
He made sure he covered all the possibilities. He checked both the Villiers Street and Strand entrances and checked each every twenty minutes in case James was coming in from the street. He checked the arrivals area in case he was coming in by train. Miles now sat in the coffee place near the Strand exit and tried to work out what had gone wrong.
He checked James’ message again. It was clear. Meet at Charing Cross in an hour. Miles had arrived in half an hour and two hours had now elapsed. Something had detained James.
Miles tried to convince himself there was a mundane solution. James had never intended the email to be taken literally. Then why had he sent it? The message was meant for someone else and for another day and it had somehow appeared in his inbox. But James had no other brother. Something routine had happened that meant he couldn’t keep the appointment. Then, why had he not sent another message? No, it was inescapable. James was in trouble and whatever it was had caught up with him before he could make his way to Charing Cross.
He needed to find from where James had sent the message. Knowing that Julia was nearing full term, it was a certainty they had been together when the message was sent. The location was unlikely to be Weymouth. James would not have been able to make it to the station in an hour from there. They must be on the move. That, in itself, was further fuel to the idea that they were in trouble. Julia would have wanted to limit any trips to an absolute minimum at this time.
It might be possible to find their location from the email. The email address in itself would not help. It was one of those anonymous handles that James must have adopted to save using his normal address in case it was being monitored. Yet there was a chance the location the message was sent from could be discovered from the encoding in the message and he knew someone who might be able to help.
It was one of the advantages of working as an investigative journalist that you got to know people who could find their way round the system. Adam Weston was the kind of geek you needed to know in this profession. Yet care was needed in working with people like Adam. When did the legitimate need to know get trumped by the claim that it was a criminal act to invade privacy? It was getting this narrow distinction right that was success or failure in Miles’ world.
He forwarded the message to Weston with the simple message: Location?
He would know what to do. The RIM technology in use on his phone meant that even if Miles’ phone was under surveillance, this communication would be safe. No wonder governments complained.
All he could do was wait.
Chapter 17
Twelve-year-old Jenny Ravitz couldn’t understand why they’d been forced to move. It wasn’t fair.
It had been hard to fit in on Mission Bay and now, when she had real friends for the first time, her mother had told her she would have to leave them behind in San Diego. When she’d asked why, the answer had been too pat. “Your father’s political interests require him to be in Texas. We’re a family that stays together. Real close.”
She was old enough to know this was an excuse, adult-speak for not letting her know the real reason why they had to move so suddenly to Austin. “And you don’t care if I lose all my friends?”
“Of course I do, dear. But you’ll make new ones. A smart and pretty girl like you.”
Jenny had gone to her room and cried. She’d moped all the way to Austin. Now, in her bedroom in the apartment overlooking Town Lake, it was no better. A new school to face when term started, if they ever let her leave the house. She would be back to zero in the pecking order.
Something was wrong, though. Her father had never looked this worried. If she’d been asked, she’d have said that both her parents looked scared but no one was asking her. Because they wouldn’t let her know what was happening she could only listen and guess.
She could hear them arguing. It was nothing unusual. Her mother and father had been rowing ever since she could remember. Jenny cupped her ear to the wall and listened.
It was her mother. “If your famil
y had never bought it, none of this would have happened.”
Her father shouted back. “Let’s not go back over all that again. It happened. It brought shame to our family but we lived through it. It’s what’s happening now that we need to set our minds on.”
“And that was enough to mean we had to leave Mission Bay?”
“We’re being given the best protection. When they say we’re in danger, you have to believe it.”
“And what makes you think we’re any safer here?”
Her father spoke more softly. Jenny strained to hear. “This place has been chosen carefully. It’s a gated compound with high-level security. And we have a couple of extra men watching over us twenty-four seven. Nowhere could be safer.”
“So, we can’t go out?”
“Not for a while. Just be assured we’re not sitting ducks here. I have men out there working to stop this thing before it can get started.”
Jenny lay back on the bed. There was so much that her parents were not telling her.
Chapter 18
Wolfgang Heller was back at the Gambit Hotel watching the late morning routine unfold. It was better to have returned. He’d hidden the body well and cleaned up professionally but if news of the chef’s death broke they would be looking for anyone making sudden movements. In any case, he had one more piece of urgent business to attend to here and he wouldn’t move until it was completed.
He wasn’t concerned that someone might have seen him. In all the incidents like this in which he’d been involved that was never the issue. He’d learned that the on-site CCTV coverage in most towns took days to process and was of such poor quality that by the time any images were made public he would be gone and would have changed his appearance and the ID he used for travel. He also knew if anyone had seen him their ability to recall his appearance was limited and the computer generated mug shots the police would produce would not look enough like him. It was the on-site evidence – the weapon and the DNA traces – on which modern policing depended and he’d taken care of that.
There was a commotion around the reception desk as the hotel manager struggled with the knowledge that the fat chef had not returned for work.
The blonde waitress was in full flow. “Send someone round to his apartment. He’s probably sleeping.”
“OK. Open the restaurant for lunch. Serve cold stuff.”
“They’re not going to like it. I don’t want to have to deal with the complainers.”
“I’ll put up a notice. They’ll have to accept it.”
Heller shook his head. There it was again – the absence of civility that blighted this town.
He went back to his room and lay on the bed. He’d not forgotten the blonde waitress and her role in what had happened that morning. There had been more than one person’s sputum. He couldn’t forget that.
He went down to the dining room and read the sign.
Due to unforeseen circumstances. A limited midday service.
Some of the guests were complaining. The blonde waitress was telling them to take it to the manager. When they went to reception they were told he couldn’t be found.
Heller didn’t complain. He read the notice without comment. He took his seat in the room and ate the cold food. He smiled at the waitress and exchanged a few words with her. He had a polite conversation with the English visitor who told him the visit to the university was a great success.
He knew when the shift ended. He waited for the blonde waitress on her walk home and pushed her into an alley. He broke her neck with a swift movement and let her drop to the floor.
She deserved a quick death. He brought this to all his female victims.
He lifted her up and disposed of her in one of the dozen waste bins crowded together in the alley.
Wolfgang went back to his room and packed the few items he traveled with. Now was the time to move. Urgent business was yet to be done.
He checked out.
He would need a new hotel in a new name. He had the paperwork for that.
Chapter 19
Julia knew something was wrong.
She should never have let James go. He’d been away for more than three hours, leaving her alone in the hotel room.
She tried to find ways to make the time pass. TV made matters worse and the twenty-four hour news reminded her all over again that things were very wrong. There was no mention of a killing in Weymouth let alone the reporting of the death of an FBI man, as she would have expected. She turned the set off.
James. Where are you?
She tried not to think the worst. What if James didn’t come back? What if someone discovered she was here and came after her? How would she defend herself?
Being pregnant did not mean she couldn’t fight but it would limit what resistance she could make since the overriding need was to protect their child. Nothing could be done that imperiled their son.
She searched the room for a weapon. The best she could find was the pair of nail scissors brought with them on the journey here. It wasn’t much of a weapon against anyone determined to harm her.
She could attempt to leave the room, to try to find something in the hotel kitchen that might do a better job but she would be seen long before she could get back to the room and lock herself in.
Or she could do what any sensible person would do and phone the police.
Jim had been so convinced this should not happen. It would be a betrayal of him, she knew, but she was here now alone and she had to think only of the baby.
She stared at the in-room phone. It was old-fashioned and sinister but she knew she had to make the emergency call, no matter how much James would have been telling her not to do it.
As she was about to pick up the receiver and dial, the phone rang. She shot back in terror.
The phone continued to ring.
Who knew this number? It could be someone from the hotel with news about James in which case she knew she had to answer it. What if someone had followed them from Weymouth and they were checking to see if she was here? She couldn’t decide what to do.
If there was a chance of finding out what had happened to James, she knew she had to take the call.
Julia picked up the phone.
It was Miles. “Julia. Don’t put the phone down. We need to talk.”
Miles was the last person she wanted to speak to.
Julia was blocking out the memory of what happened in Florence, she knew that. She was keeping out how she’d suffered at the hands of Alfieri Lando, the disgust she’d felt, the self-loathing on feeling his breath close to her face, the feeling of shame as he touched her, the determination to deny him any sign of response. She was denying the pain that came with each memory, the feelings of dread she knew she must now face.
Was this was the price she had to pay to re-engage, to step off the long, slow slope of recovery and cross over into the immediate uncertainty of recognizing the truth of all that had happened in Florence? It was the steepest of climbs back to reality.
It wasn’t just the memory of Alfieri Lando. His was an evil so debased and lacking in humanity and, had she not experienced it, she would not have believed its existence. Yet she had to overcome the still-present call of her addiction, inviting her now to sink back into its arms, to luxuriate in its nothingness, to embrace non-being once more. The addiction Lando had forced upon her would remain for the rest of her life as that pale voice whispering to her the necessity of weakness, a demon she had to overcome every bit as terrible as the despair that Lando had brought into her life. She felt she was like her own child to be, bound to emerge yet not wanting to be thrust into the cold, painful light of this cruel day.
Cruel because she knew without having to be told that James was in trouble, not just because it had been so long since she’d heard from him but because she knew deep inside this awful truth was real.
He’d known she was in trouble all those years back and had not failed in his faith in her. Just as he’d found a way to sa
ve her, so she must now find a way to save him.
She would be strong and face these demons of her past. This was no longer a matter of choice but of necessity.
She would find the strength to face the threat to herself and her family, to overcome it and get James back.
She lay back on the bed and cried. She told herself, “Julia. You hear me? That’s the last time you cry.”
Yes, Miles was the last person she wanted to speak to.
“Julia, are you still there?”
These terrible feelings at what had happened in Florence had returned just at the sound of his voice, yet he might know something. “Are you with James?”
There was a pause, too long a pause, before Miles answered. “I waited at Charing Cross but he didn’t show. I thought he must be with you.”
“He’s been gone over three hours. Miles, I’m really worried.”
“Then, let’s talk.”
“How did you get this number?”
“I got someone to hack it for me from the email Jim sent. That’s not important. Give me the word and I’ll come in.”
“OK.” Julia could think of nothing else that made sense. With James missing, Miles was her only source of help, no matter how distressing it would be to meet him again.
He was knocking on the door in five minutes. When she let him in he looked older than she recalled. The three years since they’d last sat in a room together hadn’t been kind to him. There were lines where the guilt of what had happened in Florence peeped through the untroubled face she remembered.
He spoke first. “I hoped it was going to be easier than this when we met again.”
Julia knew it was never going to be easy. But this was worse than she could have imagined. “Tell me about Jim?”