“Put the phone down please, it won’t work.”
Yusuf pushed the third nine and placed it to his ear. There was no ringing tone.
“Now, I just want to ask you why you employed someone to conduct surveillance on a young lady in Chichester, which if you didn’t know is in West Sussex?”
“What I do is up to me. I am a lawyer. I am not going to tell a burglar anything.”
“That is your choice. I will tell you she suffered horrendously because of what you arranged. Therefore, it is only fair don’t you think that you should suffer as well.”
“What?”
Simon took out of his trouser waistband the gun that he’d used previously and taking a quick aim, shot Yusuf in his right thigh. It shattered immediately as the bullet broke into fragments destroying the bone and sending small chards out of the back of his leg through a gaping hole that had opened up. The explosion of the bullet from the gun made a blinding flash and a deafening noise in the enclosure of the room, matched within a second by a piecing scream. Yusuf was lying on the floor in a slowly growing pool of dark blood. He was breathing heavily and could feel the pulse in his leg which was a new experience for him.
At the front door of the house, Greg’s index finger was inches away from pressing the doorbell when the retort of the gun sounded. Instinct caused him to dive to his right rolling as he pulled his own handgun. No bullet had passed him and he concluded instantly that he was not the target. His adversary had got to Yusef before he could warn him. His next thought was it had to be Simon shooting Yusef, but he didn’t care who was killed as long as it wasn’t him. Greg realised that Simon must have broken in as he didn’t believe he would have gone to the front door, so he began to look for his point of entry.
“If that is treated in hospital, you may walk again with the aid of a stick. I’ll ask again. Why? If you don’t answer you will need a wheelchair for the rest of your pitiful life.”
“You are a dead man. You don’t know who you’re dealing with” was the screamed reply.
Another explosion erupted as the gun recoiled and another scream.
“You are now probably a cripple no matter how good the NHS is. The next bullet will shatter your right arm and you will have to wipe your arse with your left hand as well as eat with it. Answer the question.”
“I was told to arrange it by Richard Davies.”
Greg had found the open window and believed he now had the advantage. Should he stay outside or go in. The sound of the second shot meant Simon was still with Yusef, so he climbed through into the store room. Simon had left the door wide open, and extraneous light from the TV room just penetrated the gloom like a weak night light. It was just enough for him to see objects to avoid. He could just make out Simon’s muffled voice. At the door, he saw he had a clear view of anyone moving in the hall and they would probably be backlit slightly from the lit TV room. He pulled the door closed leaving a gap of a foot where he could aim through without leaving himself too vulnerable. Now all he needed to do was wait.
“I will tell you why you are lying. I have recently left his bedroom. He has not left his bed for years and is basically ga ga. Who told you?”
“Mercedes, his daughter.”
“She is dead. Who?” and he started to take aim at Yusef.
He screamed, “Both her and Jackie told me to do it. I swear.”
“On whose behalf was she acting?”
“Someone in London.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I swear it.”
“Does one of the phones in the office out there connect to them?”
“Yes. Yes. The second from the left. For pity’s sake call an ambulance.”
“Is there a set time to call?”
“After five.”
Yusef felt groggy. He knew he hadn’t long.
“I hope you get to hospital” and Simon walked out of the room as Yusuf screamed after him to call an ambulance. He fell unconscious and would never come round.
142
Monday 20th June 2011
As soon as Simon entered the hall, he noticed the store room door was not as he had left it. It hadn’t swung freely when he had passed through it before, so why would it do it now? Someone had moved it. He dropped to the floor and rolled as he felt the bullet graze his side. It had been aimed directly at the centre of his chest and would have killed him instantly had he not reacted. Instead, as he dropped, Greg had tried to compensate and the bullet went through his clothing and scorched his ribs. Painful for Simon but not debilitating. He had replaced his gun into his waistband as he had left Yusef, but had it out and back ready in his hand.
Firing at the gap in the door, the noise was like a cannon in the cavernous hall. Simon’s ears were still ringing from the noise it had made in the TV room. The bullet struck the edge of the door flinging it wide open. Greg stepped back for cover behind the wall. Simon took his chance and dived behind a solid looking wooden hall table. Greg cursed his luck. He didn’t want to engage in a gun fight he might lose, and decided to run again. His problem was the open door would let Simon see him moving and he would present an easy target. He hated him. How he wanted to kill him.
As he flattened himself against the wall to consider how to move, he stood on a broom. At last some luck. With the broom, he pulled the door to and shut it. If Simon put a spray of bullets through the door, it was unlikely he would be hit if he kept to one side. Most professionals would not waste bullets by firing randomly in the hope of hitting somebody, and Greg considered Simon a professional of some standing. He confidently moved to the window and out of the house. No gunshots or bullets followed through the door. Then he ran a zig zag route through the garden and away.
Simon worked out swiftly what Greg was going to do and decided to let him go as he had more pressing matters. He ran into the office and ducked to the side of the window and watched the zig zagging runner. Making sure he’d left the grounds completely before running into the store room to collect his bag. Caution being his watchword tonight.
Back in the office cum communications room he took out of the bag a folded up piece of paper that he had picked up in his hotel. It was a sheet of twelve individual sticky labels that he had already written a sequential number on. He stuck the numbers on the phones starting from the left as seen from the seat behind the desk. Then disconnecting all the phones with their chargers, he put them into his bag. There were three, four gang extension leads that the phones’ chargers had been connected to which Simon detached from the wall sockets and put into his bag. Without the extensions and phones, the room now looked like a simple home office.
There was a sudden short indecipherable noise from within the house. Simon with gun in hand moved to the door and peeked into the hallway. Nothing moving that he could see. He knew he would have to check. Opening the door wide he waited for a gunshot. Nothing. Running back to the hall table he ducked down. Still nothing. The house appeared to Simon’s senses as being empty yet there had been a definite noise. He was apprehensive that Greg may have snuck back in and was laying in ambush for him. It was time he didn’t have.
Running in a crouch, he went into the TV room. A contorted part image was flashing on the smashed TV. Yusef was lying in a pool of his own congealing blood which had stopped flowing as his heart had slowly wound down and stopped pumping it out. Then Simon heard it again, and it emanated from the TV. It was a short burst of distorted noise of the crowd cheering. Swearing under his breath he ran back to recover his bag and then exited via the store room window pushing it tightly closed before he jogged back to the Audi.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, he flung his bag onto the back seat before driving to the cul-de-sac by the sentry box. Still empty. Manoeuvring past the Saab which was parked at an awkward angle, he entered RD’s drive. Knowing the Saab was previously driven by Greg he would have been expecting trouble if it had only just appeared. He drove as close as he could get to the front door. Running around to the k
itchen door, he found it open as he had left it and went inside. Then he stopped. His senses were kicking in and telling him someone else was in the house. ‘Why tonight?’ Everything was going haywire.
The gentle noise of very slow movement was coming from upstairs. He had to take a risk there was no one downstairs, so running up one of the staircases, he flattened himself against the wall. The noise was from the back of the house. Moving furtively, he arrived at the entrance to the bedroom and heard the noise from within. Simon knew Mercedes and the doctor were dead as dodos but that left RD. To all intents and purposes, he should also have been dead. It had to be him.
Simon went into the bedroom through the dressing area. RD was on the floor as was the drip stand and pump. He was trying to crawl to the dressing room and out to the hall and beyond. He’d only made about three feet and was dragging half his bedding as well as the medical bits behind him. RD was seeing nothing. His eyes were closed. How he’d made it three feet astounded Simon, but he didn’t mind where he went or how far. It would only enhance his plans. Satisfied, he ran back downstairs to the front door and slipped his balaclava on as he stepped out to the Audi.
Now he had to get the man out of the boot. When he opened it, he saw the man was fast asleep and snoring intermittently through his stuffed up nose. He cut the plasticuff off his feet and the man woke with a start as his legs seemed to break free. His hands were still locked behind his back, but they weren’t being pulled now and feeling was rapidly coming back to his limbs.
“Your choice, I can carry and drag you which will be very painful, or you can walk.”
To get out of the boot, the man would do anything. He swung his legs over the lip and tried to stand but couldn’t.
Simon pulled him up by his suit jacket and the man wobbled as he seemed to be learning again how to use his legs. He started to walk as guided through the front door and towards the stairs.
“I’ll be right behind you and you won’t fall back down.”
The man climbed warily to the top hanging onto the banister with both bound hands for support and Simon directed him to RD’s bedroom. They passed through the dressing area and fear drew across the man’s face and sweat started to form below his hairline. He’d seen RD on the floor pulling all his paraphernalia first and then the dead doctor. The outline of a human form beneath the sheet did not bode well and he assumed correctly that it was another body.
“Sit anywhere you like.”
The man tottered to the closest chair and dropped into it. Sweat was now dripping from all over his face and terror was etched across it.
“I’ll tell you this. I am not going to kill you, so you do not need to panic.”
If the man believed him it didn’t seem to stop the sweat. Simon ripped the tape from the man’s mouth and he gulped air as though mimicking a goldfish.
“Who sent you looking for me?”
“Greg.”
“How were you to let him know if you found me?”
“The phone number in my top pocket.”
Simon put two fingers into the suit jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather folder and a piece of paper with a phone number on.
The folder bore the crest of what Simon believed was Birmingham. Flipping it open, Simon saw the picture of the man on one side and a badge stating he was Detective Inspector Beadle from the West Midlands Police Force on the other.
“You really are a Policeman! What were you doing here? Moonlighting?”
After a pause.
“Yes.”
Simon went behind Beadle who felt a sharp prick in his forearm.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sedative. Nothing to fret about. I had a quarter of the mixture and it did me no real harm. Makes you dizzy and feel a bit sick and knocks you scatty for a while.”
Beadle’s head lolled forward as he became numb and started to lapse into unconsciousness.
143
Monday 20th June 2011
Simon ran to the kitchen and outside the door to where he had left Greg’s rifle. Holding it by the barrel, he scampered back upstairs and into the bedroom. Opening a window, he went to Beadle and cut the plasticuffs off freeing his hands. He pulled his right arm forward and placed the rifle stock against his chest and put his right index finger on the trigger. Making sure the gun was aimed through the open window, Simon pulled the trigger over Beadle’s finger. That would put some residue on his crumpled suit and a fingerprint or two on the gun. Within a minute, Simon had laid the rifle on the bed in the summer house pointing directly towards the hole in the window of RD’s bedroom.
Then it was his faithful liberated Lithuanian’s gun. Same procedure as before but a couple of shots through the open window. Then the gun discarded on the floor directly from where Simon had killed the doctor. Pulling Beadle forward out of his chair, he dropped him on the floor just by the gun. He put the spare five rounds into one of Beadle’s side pockets. Simon was satisfied with his handiwork and picked up the plasticuffs and the empty syringe and did a check of the room for any signs of his presence. He saw RD was now laying still and had stopped moving completely. Closing the window, he left the bedroom. and went out of the front door and to his appropriated Audi.
He drove to the car park where he joined three other vehicles. Picking one of the mobile phones out of the bag, he put a handkerchief over the phone and dialled nine, nine, nine.
“Emergency. Which service do you require?”
“Police.”
“Connecting you now.”
“There’s been a lot of shooting of guns over the last couple of nights round here. I saw a Policeman I know called Beadle go into a lawyer’s house tonight. I think his name is Yusef Benozin. Then there was some shooting. I am so scared. The Policeman ran out about an hour ago with a rifle and I watched him go to RD’s house. There was a lot more shooting. I think he may be dead. You need to get there quickly to help him. Get an ambulance.”
Simon hung up and took the battery out of the phone.
Picking out another mobile, he phoned the Birmingham Gazette. The midnight receptionist who was half asleep with his feet on a desk reluctantly set the recorder before answering the ringing phone.
“Hello. Birmingham Gazette news desk. How can I help you?”
“A Policeman, Detective Inspector Beadle has shot and killed a lawyer called Yusef Benozin and has killed a couple of people at the criminal Richard Davies’ house. Now the Chief Constable and his force are trying to cover it all up. They are going to move dead bodies trying to hide them before the press get wind of anything. You need to get people there now with cameras.”
The receptionist’s feet shot off the desk.
“Who are you, how do you know all this?”
“My name is not important. Consider me a whistle blower. I’m in the know, and don’t like what is happening.”
Then Simon hung up and again took the battery out of the phone.
The receptionist was efficient when he had something of note to get stuck into. Within minutes he had spoken to his roaming night team and they were dispatched to Richard Davies’s house. They knew who he was and had been desperate for several years to get something on him or his organisation. Their editor had always seemed to have had a reason not to publish though. The driver took a chance and broke every speed limit. Several Police vehicles overtook him on blue lights which only made him drive faster. The receptionist was busy waking the two best journalists and harrying them to get up and out. Photo journalists were mobilised and knew a good picture would increase their standing with the paper and may mean a large bonus.
The roaming team arrived at the entrance to the cul-de-sac and found a Police car blocking the road. Tape was being strung across it and uniform officers were running about in RD’s drive. Jumping out of their van, the photographer was taking pictures before his feet had hit the tarmac. A uniform officer told the driver to move the van and the journalist stuck a tape recorder in the officer’s face.
“Just move along.”
“So you are trying to cover it up. You don’t want us to see anything.”
The officer did not like being misquoted.
“Turn that contraption off.”
The journalist obliged, because he had another recorder working in his pocket.
Looking around to make sure he was not being overheard, the officer said, “I can’t say on the record, but you are right. Detective Inspector Beadle is in the house and there are two dead bodies. They have found a gun that may be the murder weapon. Davies is close to death and the ambulance is on way. That’s all I know at the moment.”
“What about Yusef Benozin? Is he dead or alive?”
“I haven’t heard.”
Then the officer was called away. The journalist saw promotion looming on the horizon and called the BBC news room in Birmingham.
A photo journalist who lived close by was the first press man to arrive at Yusef’s house. He photographed the Police from the road trying to get into the premises. Seeing where the wall dipped, he climbed onto the top to get a better shot. Then realising he could get into the garden, he dropped down. Creeping forward, he took some great pictures. He photographed the Police ringing the doorbell then breaking a window and climbing in. His best shots were of two officers exiting the front door to throw up. Staying where he was, he continued to get ameliorating shots of the ambulance arriving and then leaving empty.
The road in front of Yusef’s house was cordoned off by the Police and all the others from the press pack were kept at a distance. From his premier position in the garden he watched the window of the TV room being flung open wide and an officer lean out to gulp fresh air. When he had withdrawn inside leaving the window wide and the lights still on, the photographer knew this was his Pulitzer moment. There were no Police in the gardens, so he ran forward to the window and peered in. He caught the vomit as it rose in his throat and forced it back down. His camera clicked and clicked as he took one digital image after another. Then he turned his camera onto video record.
An Urgent Murder Page 46