Hit Back Harder

by Andy Maslen

  “No, you’re not. You can see me, for one thing,” Other Stella said, over her shoulder.

  Stella ignored the interruption.

  “But like I said, it’s a no from me.” Then she stood, not offering her hand. “I’ve got a cabin booked. Enjoy Madrid.”

  Callie stood, too. Plucked a sharp-cornered business card from the pocket of her blazer and held it out to Stella. Reluctantly, she took it.

  “Call me,” Callie said. “Any time.”

  6

  Outlaws

  THE REMAINING MEMBERS of Pro Patria Mori argued about what to do next. The food had been forgotten. The body of their former colleague had not.

  “Can’t we do something about Christopher?” Howarth asked Collier.

  “Leave him there, Charlie. I said I’ll call an ambulance. In the meantime, we need to agree on some basic working practices. Let’s repair to the sitting room if he’s putting you off.”

  The quartet left their former co-conspirator slumped in his oyster shells and moved through a pair of polished oak doors into another vast room lit with candles. A grand piano occupied the whole of one end, with sheet music open on its stand. A huge, white marble fireplace dominated one wall, its iron basket piled with split logs. Above it hung a gilt-framed mirror that bounced the candlelight around. The walls were hung with large modern paintings. Once again, Collier marvelled at the wealth De Bree’s family had amassed that had allowed him to buy pieces by Warhol, Hockney and, in pride of place above the piano, a small Picasso line drawing of a circus horse and ringmaster completed, it appeared, in a single, unbroken stroke.

  Collier was pleased to notice that in the absence of De Bree’s corpse, his soon-to-be subordinates were beginning to relax.

  “What do you mean, ‘working practices’?” Howarth asked, easing himself into the embrace of an iris-patterned sofa.

  “I mean how we deal with Cole,” Collier replied.

  “But surely you can just arrest her for murdering Leonard?” Hester asked.

  Collier leaned on his elbows as he spoke to the lawyer.

  “I’m going to assume you asked that as a test of my thinking, Hester. Number one, in case you had forgotten, I pulled in the favour of my career to have his death recorded as accidental. Number two, Cole would get herself lawyered up in milliseconds, and can I please ask you to confirm you know what would happen if it ever got to trial? And number three, that woman is armed and dangerous. She wants to kill me. Us! No. As far as Stella Cole is concerned, this entire operation is off the books. She’s an outlaw and so, for the moment, are we.”

  Howarth spoke next.

  “Can’t you fire her? Deprive her of access to your systems and your armoury?”

  Collier shook his head.

  “Impossible, for the same reasons. There’s a process I’d have to follow, and it would have the same result. Our activities would come out. For the time being, she remains a DI. I’ll try to limit the damage by putting out a notice that she’s back on compassionate leave. I’ll say she came back to work too soon, and it triggered a breakdown. Beyond that, we just need to get to her and silence her. Permanently.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Fieldsend asked. Her tone suggested she was giving Collier an opening, rather than a challenge, and he was happy to take it.

  “I’m going to send someone after her.”

  “Oh, what, like that pervert Moxey?” Ragib said with a snort. “Because that worked perfectly.”

  Collier slammed his fist down onto the coffee table in front of him, making the wine glasses ring and Ragib jump.

  “No! Moxey was careless. He underestimated her.”

  “Do we know where he is?” Howarth asked.

  Collier pursed his lips.

  “I made enquiries with some of my contacts. Discreet enquiries. She left Moxey for dead in a tunnel down by the Regent’s Canal. Apparently, he made it to the flat of one of his former … associates … but he died of his injuries.” He looked around the table, slowly, staring at Ragib, Fieldsend and Howarth in turn. “She stabbed him through both eye sockets. With a broken bottle.”

  “You said Moxey was undisciplined,” Fieldsend said. “Perhaps we should have anticipated a psychopath like him would have lacked, what shall we call it, rigour? So who do you have in mind?”

  “There’s a nice little gang war festering over in East London. Drugs, as always, but also prostitution and money laundering. The McTiernan family have owned that turf since the seventies, but old Freddie McTiernan is getting careless in his old age, and he’s allowed a new crew to make inroads. They’re Albanians. Ruthless. Took one of Freddie’s top men up to the roof of a tower block, castrated him, then threw him off with his genitals stuffed into his mouth. Their boss is a man named Tamit Ferenczy.” He pronounced it frenzy. “He’s going to do it.”

  Fieldsend had disappeared to the kitchen. She returned now with a full bottle of champagne, which she opened with a pop, and poured.

  “What does this frenzy chap get in return, Adam?” she asked, leaning over him to refill his glass.

  “I’ve promised to leave his people alone and go after the McTiernan operation instead. Give him a clear run.”

  Howarth snorted. “Hardly the PPM ethos, is it?”

  Collier turned, slowly.

  “Right now, Charlie, the ethos of Pro Patria Mori can be summed up as ‘kill or be killed.’ So unless you want to find yourself on the debit side of that little balance sheet, I’d suggest you fall into line. Once we’ve dealt with Cole, we can decide what to do about this group of ours, though frankly, I’m beginning to think it’s become more trouble than it’s worth. Now,” he said, standing, “I’m going to call for that ambulance.”

  Collier arrived home at two in the morning, slid into bed beside his slumbering wife, kissed her on the cheek just below the edge of her black velvet sleep mask, causing her to mutter crossly about “working all hours,” and was asleep within minutes. His last waking thought was Frenzy by name, frenzy by nature.

  7

  Sweating

  THE MEETING WITH Callie McDonald had rattled Stella. Far from her being a lone, rogue police officer bent on revenge, it now appeared she’d been earmarked for some under-the-radar, anti-terror unit going after PPM themselves. Jesus! Are there any coppers out there doing normal stuff like chasing down murderers or nicking burglars? Or are we all vigilantes now, offing each other and anyone who gets in our way?

  She stayed in her cabin for the rest of the trip, emerging only to grab sandwiches and drinks from the bar, all the time monitoring her surroundings for the woman Gordon Wade had sent as his recruiting sergeant. Well, recruiting detective chief inspector.

  Waking at 3.00 a.m. on the morning of their arrival at Santander, Stella ripped open a cellophane packet of ham and cheese sandwiches and munched her way through one of them, washing it down with a bottle of water. She glanced in the mirror on the other side of her cabin. Though ‘other side’ implied dimensions that might be big enough for cat-swinging, in truth, the poor moggy would barely get moving before making contact with the wall.

  “Good morning.” It was Other Stella. Sitting on the bed in the mirror and gazing hungrily at the half-empty sandwich packet. “Sleep well?”

  “What do you think? It’s three thirty in the fucking morning,” Stella said grumpily, unaware or unbothered that she was talking to a hallucination. What her grief counsellor would have called “a physical manifestation of your wounded psyche,” no doubt.

  “No need to be touchy. I am you, after all. I didn’t get any more sleep than you did.”

  “So what did you think about DCI Calpurnia McDonald and her invitation to join the anti-death-squad death squad?”

  “I think you did well to stay out of it. It was probably a line to get you onside where you couldn’t spill your guts to the media.”

  “Yeah, but what if they get to them before I do?”

  “You’ll just have to hurry then, won’t you?
Plus, I doubt they know exactly who they’re looking for.”

  “Bit extreme though, don’t you think?”

  Other Stella smiled.

  “Look at it from the politicians’ angle. Policing’s all about trust. Consent. If Joe Public discovers what Ramage and his evil little friends have been getting up to, it’ll blow a hole in that trust below the waterline. Soon, every domestic dispute’s going to end in a murder, people will be arming themselves, setting up vigilante patrols to go after paedophiles. You’d have anarchy inside a month.”

  With that troubling thought revolving like a carousel in her brain, Stella lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  At just after midday that same Saturday, Stella emerged from her cabin. The Tannoy announcement summoning passengers to the car deck had woken her from a dreamless sleep. She made her way down the steel stairway and over to her car.

  Queueing to get through the Spanish immigration point, she noticed one of the uniformed cops working his way back down the queue. He was leaning in to the driver’s window of a car three in front, a nondescript grey saloon, and pointing with his free hand at the rear of the car. His pistol was clearly visible in a polished, black leather belt holster. The driver clambered out and walked with the cop to the back of the car. He blipped the fob at the boot lid before lifting it up for the cop.

  Oh, shit! I thought they only checked white transit vans for too much alcohol and tobacco on the way back in.

  Other Stella spoke.

  “Relax. Smile sweetly and undo another button on your blouse. It worked before, didn’t it? If flashing your tits fails, flash your warrant card instead. Know any Spanish?”

  “Not enough to convince a cop. I can ask for dos sangrias, por favor, but that’s about it.”

  The saloon driver was getting waved through by the cop when Stella looked up again. Next was a people carrier stuffed with kids and bags, even a duvet squashed into the back and blocking the rear window. She’d had to wait for them to climb in before she could get to her own car in the ferry.

  They were waved through.

  Next, a low-slung silver BMW sports car. A biker by inclination, Stella wouldn’t have recognised it from the shape, but it did have the familiar blue-and-white badge to give the game away.

  Again, the cop asked the driver to step out and open the boot.

  Again he waved the driver on.

  Then it was Stella’s turn.

  Her heart was racing and she tried to breathe slowly and deeply. Not easy when her boot was stuffed with firearms.

  “Why’d you bring them, then?” Other Stella asked.

  “I thought I’d need them, didn’t I? Now shut up and let me concentrate.”

  She flipped the second button open on her blouse and spread the sides to expose as much of her cleavage as she thought was decent. She slid her leather-bound warrant card out of her jacket and held it loosely in her left hand.

  She buzzed her window down, looked up at the tanned and moustachioed immigration cop and flashed her biggest smile.

  “Buenos días!” she said. Too much, Stel. Way too much. Calm down.

  “Good afternoon,” the cop said in English, a small smile lifting his moustache – thick, black, square-ended – a fraction. “Passport?”

  “Yes. I’ve got one.”

  “May I see it please?”

  “Oh, sorry. Of course. I mean, I thought because we’re all in Europe, you know, that you didn’t need … I’ll just get it. Hold on.”

  Aware she was sweating, she rummaged through her messenger bag. She found the passport and was just about to present it to the cop when she realised it was the one bearing the name of her fake ID – Jennifer Stadden. The shit would hit the fan if she needed to show him her warrant card and the names didn’t match. She gave him a queasy smile and closed her fingers on her own passport, fishing it out just as she thought she’d explode from guilt.

  He spent a few seconds flipping to the photo page and then glanced down at her. She was pleased to see his gaze dropped to her chest before returning to her face.

  “Thank you, Miss Cole. A holiday?”

  This is it. Do I go along with it or do I hit him with the “police business” line? She saw him glance at the rear of the car. Maybe they were looking for something. Or someone. Could be some kind of sweep trying to find people traffickers or kidnappers for all she knew.

  Something made her look to her left. Looking back at her was Callie McDonald. She held her right hand to her ear, thumb and little finger extended. Mouthed, “Call me.”

  Stella made up her mind.

  She held up her warrant card.

  “I’m with the Metropolitan Police. Undercover. Heading down to the Costa del Sol.”

  Suddenly he was all business. Yes! Good call. He scrutinised the ID then straightened his tie and leaned in.

  “Very good. Many British criminals down south. Good luck.”

  He stood straight, virtually to attention, and banged twice on the roof. Then he yelled something in Spanish to the cops manning the barrier. Two of them marched over and waved Stella out of the queue, beckoning her forward and holding their hands out, palm forward to prevent anyone else following her.

  She crawled along behind them as they strutted to the front of the queue, opened a secondary gate wide enough for a vehicle and snapped off two of the smartest salutes she’d even seen. Feeling that something was required in return, she bent her arm at the elbow, hand straight – Oh, yes! Nothing like a fascist salute to please the Spanish, you nitwit – and she was through.

  After half a mile or so, her pulse returned to normal and the adrenaline that had set her left leg jittering metabolised into her bloodstream. She pulled in at the side of the road and got out her cigarettes. Leaning against the rear of the car she drew the smoke deep into her lungs then tipped her head back and blew it out in a plume that hung in the still, warm air.

  Stubbing the butt out under her boot, she climbed back in, started the car and pulled away. Fifteen minutes later, she was heading out of Santander on the wide tarmac of the S10 highway, passing car showrooms and huge, shed-like retail outlets selling furniture and garden machinery. Her destination, Marbella, lay almost ten hours to the south.

  8

  The Lady of the Lake

  TWO HUNDRED MILES into her drive south, Stella took a detour along a country road, little more than a rutted, red-earth track that led west into the hills through scrubby vegetation decorated with yellow and pale-purple flowers. She was looking for a particular body of water. The map she’d bought at a service station showed a small lake about three miles farther up the road. She was hoping the track wouldn’t peter out in a wash of gravel before she reached the lake. The sun was beating down like a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil of the earth. The car’s display said it was thirty-three Celsius. No aircon in the little shitheap, though, so why the manufacturers had spent money installing a thermometer when there was no way of mitigating the heat was beyond her. She turned the fan on full, although its main function appeared to be to make a racket and move the muggy air around inside the cabin.

  “Christ, you’re a useless pile of junk!” she shouted. She decided the hot air from outside would be preferable to the miasma building up inside the car and buzzed the windows down. “Electric windows but no bloody aircon! Why?”

  Keeping the car bowling along as fast as she dared over the irregular road surface, she managed to get a passable breeze blowing in, though she could feel the sweat sticking her back to the seat.

  Ahead, she caught a brighter patch of light in the centre of the shimmering mirage floating above the road as it met the pale-blue sky of the horizon. She urged the car faster and then let out a cry of delight as she crested a rise. There it was. A long, narrow lake, maybe half a mile long by four hundred yards across. The water was pale green at the edge, but it turned a darker, petrol-blue within twenty feet of the bank.

  She brought the car skidding to a halt on the loos
e, brick-red gravel scattered over the road where it joined a broad, circular turnaround. Forgetting where the clutch pedal was for a second, she stalled it. In the silence, she could hear the sizzle of millions of insects advertising for mates or warning off competitors. She eased herself away from the warm embrace of the vinyl-covered seat and climbed out. Then she stretched, bending over backwards as far as she could, hands on her buttocks. High above her, alone in the unbroken blue, she could see some kind of bird soaring in slow circles. It looked like an easy life, though she supposed it had a mate somewhere, maybe chicks to feed. She blew her cheeks out and wandered round to the back of the car.

  Her bag had shifted during the journey, and it lay across the two long guns as if trying to shield them from view. God only knew what would have happened if the immigration cop had asked her to let him take a look.

  She picked up the rifle. It was heavier than she remembered. But then, the last time she’d picked it up, she had so much anger surging through her system she could probably have lifted it with her little finger. She pulled it into her shoulder. It felt good, resting her cheek against the wooden stock. As she looked through the telescopic sight, her awareness of the sweat on her face evaporated. The heat of the sun on the top of her head disappeared. Even the chittering of the crickets faded into silence.

  Centred in the reticle stood a man. A tall, dark-haired, handsome man. A man in the full, black-and-silver dress uniform of a detective chief superintendent. Adam Collier. The man who had broken the news to her that her husband had been mown down by a hit-and-run driver. Who’d held her while she wailed out her anguish like a wounded animal. And then another part of the puzzle clicked into place. He must have told her that Lola had been killed, too. But somehow she’d either not heard him, or her brain had refused to process his words. For nearly a year, she’d convinced herself that Lola was not only alive, but living with her, being looked after by her Polish nanny, Kristina.