The Killer

by Susan Wilkins

  As she sipped her coffee, Paul patrolled the room and fidgeted with his phone. He’d never been a patient bloke – bags of energy but little self-restraint – and, in that respect, he hadn’t changed. Kaz noticed Rafaella glancing at him, trying to subdue him with a look.

  But he wanted answers and he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to lean on her, Kaz could feel it. She wondered how insistent he would become. When would kindness and cajoling turn to arm-twisting? He was convinced that she could lead him to Joey’s money and, with the card in her pocket, maybe she could. Who was Jonathan Sullivan LLB? A lawyer? Was he the clue, the contact that Paul was looking for? Should she share this information with him?

  It would be all too easy, she decided, to be suckered by the Ackroyds’ solicitude. But Paul was no different to her brother when you scratched the surface; both were ruthless gangsters who took what they wanted. And maybe they had been business partners who’d fallen out, but did that make Paul more entitled than her to whatever assets were out there? Kaz decided not.

  Having survived one of the worst weeks of her life, she was in no mood to trust anyone. So she accepted a slice of homemade bread and jam from Rafaella with a smile while keeping a wary eye on Paul.

  His phone chirped with an incoming text. Paul scanned it and shook his head ruefully. It looked like he was having a bad day.

  But turning to Kaz he managed a grin. ‘Rafa’s right. I don’t wanna hassle you. I just gotta pop out. Bit of business. But when I get back, maybe we can make some plans. ’Cause, y’know, your mum’s gonna need somewhere when she gets out of hospital.’

  ‘Fine.’ She gave him a reassuring smile.

  Finishing her breakfast, she watched from the window as the BMW X5 roared out of the drive. He didn’t stop to shut the gate.

  Rafaella shook her head and chuckled. ‘Men! So impatient.’

  As she disappeared out of the kitchen door to close the gate behind him, Kaz made a split-second decision. Picking up the house phone, she quickly scrolled through the address book, found a number for the local taxi firm and ordered a cab.

  Then she headed upstairs to her room. She got out the down jacket Rafaella had lent her, stuffed the three bundles of cash in the inside pockets, put on her trainers and waited.

  Fifteen minutes later a taxi pulled up in the lane outside and hooted. Kaz trotted down the stairs. A puzzled Rafaella emerged from the laundry room with a basket of damp washing.

  Kaz gave her a big smile. ‘Listen, I’m gonna go round and see my cousin, Glynis.’

  ‘But you don’t need to go by cab. Paul will take you. He’ll be back any minute.’

  ‘Nah, I don’t wanna be a bother. You two have been running round after me enough.’

  ‘But is it safe? Paul will not be happy with me if I let you—’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’ Kaz pulled her into a quick hug. ‘You done enough, Rafa.’ She paused for a moment; gazing into those dark Spanish eyes she could see why Paul had fallen for this woman. A cascade of conflicting feelings surged through her: did she want Rafaella or did she simply want to be her? She smiled wistfully. ‘He’s a lucky bastard. I’ll see you later, okay.’

  ‘But—’

  Kaz was out of the front door before she could raise further objections.

  Crunching down the gravel drive, opening and closing the five-bar gate, Kaz felt a rising sense of elation. Now she had some serious money in her pocket, it gave her what she needed: options and a real chance to escape all her pursuers, not just the police and the Kemals but also Paul and Rafaella. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, but she knew one thing for certain: she wasn’t coming back.

  47

  Nicci Armstrong wandered into the offices of SBA shortly before midday. She was in an amiable mood despite having spent over two hours sitting in the Qassims’ kitchen, waiting for her charge to appear. Turki bin Qassim had been there when she’d arrived at nine a.m. and had said that his wife definitely wanted to go shopping.

  After he’d retreated to his study, Nicci had worked her way through a pot of coffee prepared by the maid. This time she’d had the foresight to bring her iPad with her. She’d surfed the Net for a while, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Tom Rivlin. It hadn’t been her intention to sleep with him. The situation had sort of evolved, she wasn’t quite sure how. Had she been drunk? Well, tipsy enough to loosen her inhibitions. But she’d still been in control. Was it something she’d wanted to happen? Definitely. If she was honest, she’d wanted it more or less the first time she met him.

  He was far shyer than his arrogance had led her to believe. To begin with, he’d been polite, asking her several times, as he unbuttoned her shirt, if this was okay. She’d replied by dragging him into the bedroom and shoving him on the bed. After that, they’d both relaxed and giggled a lot. His playfulness surprised her – even more so when it turned to full-blown passion. It had felt so easy just to allow herself to be swept up in the moment; it had been a very long time since anything this exciting had happened to her.

  But when she awoke in the morning he was gone. And as she stood in the shower, washing the smell of him from her skin, she knew that she needed to rein in her expectations or she could end up getting seriously hurt. It had been a one-night stand following a pleasant dinner, a dinner that, for Rivlin, would’ve had a purely professional purpose.

  She wasn’t his type, of that she was fairly certain. She imagined him with someone younger and unscathed: a gym bunny, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, who could run a marathon and had a good sense of humour. Nicci had been through the emotional wringer; a vitriolic divorce and a dead child had squeezed the optimism out of her. She felt old and used up before her time. Rivlin clearly liked sex as much as the next man, but he also had a certain pragmatism about him. She couldn’t see him embarking on a relationship with a woman like her, a lonely woman hollowed out by grief.

  When Turki bin Qassim eventually wandered into the kitchen, he’d seemed surprised that Nicci was still there. He had informed her, in his usual off-hand manner, that Ayisha had changed her mind. Nicci couldn’t be bothered to be annoyed. She’d simply headed back to the office.

  Walking into the reception area at SBA the first thing she saw was an enormous bouquet of red roses sitting on the end of Alicia’s desk. She gave the receptionist a nod. ‘Nice. New boyfriend?’

  ‘You tell me. They’re for you.’

  This stopped Nicci in her tracks. She stared at the flowers: a dozen tight scarlet buds nestling in green leaves and wrapped in cellophane with a matching bow. It was absurd. What kind of bloke sent roses nowadays?

  ‘Is there a card?’

  Alicia shook her head.

  Pascale drifted over from the coffee station and gave Nicci a teasing nudge. ‘I guess you took my advice.’

  Nicci scowled. She hated her private life being exposed. ‘Just put them somewhere, Alicia. Maybe in the conference room? I got no space on my desk.’

  Pascale and Alicia exchanged looks, which Nicci ignored. She was striding quickly away to the safety of her own corner when she heard Blake’s voice.

  ‘Nic, you got a minute?’ He was standing in his office doorway.

  Turning, she headed his way. She couldn’t help noticing he looked weary and worn down. He gave her a tepid smile as she followed him into the office. Sprawled in the leather armchair, right ankle balanced on his left knee, was a bald-headed bloke with a beard. All he needed was a ring in his ear and he would’ve looked like a pirate. He got up.

  Blake made the introductions. ‘Nicci Armstrong. Craig Naylor, our new head of security.’

  A second surprise of the morning and she’d only been there five minutes.

  Naylor offered a firm handshake and a smile. ‘I’m wondering if our paths might’ve crossed back in the day. I was a DS and also a Federation rep for ten years.’

  Nicci looked him up and down; the suit, the manner, the handshake; he reminded her of most of the old-school, middle-rank, ca
n’t-be-arsed detectives she’d ever met.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Didn’t have the beard when I was in the job. Once I retired I thought, well, why not?’ He chuckled as he stroked his chin, but the eyes remained chilly.

  Nicci glanced at Blake. He seemed decidedly uncomfortable, jiggling the change in his trouser pocket. She wondered what was going on. This new appointment hadn’t even been mentioned; it was, to say the least, precipitous.

  Naylor, in contrast, was totally at ease. ‘We’ve been going through the client list. Simon tells me you’ve been helping out, looking after Turki bin Qassim’s wife.’

  ‘I’ve been to the house, hung around. But I haven’t actually met her yet. She hasn’t come out of her room.’

  ‘What do you make of him?’

  ‘Treats me like the hired help, which I guess is what I am.’

  Naylor gave her a wry smile. ‘Yeah, Simon said you’re not keen on security work.’

  ‘I don’t mind the work. I’m not so keen on some of the clients.’

  ‘HNWIs can be tricky. Nice to meet you, Nicci. I’m sure we’ll work well together.’

  The dismissal was abrupt. Nicci glanced at Blake, who avoided her gaze and continued to stare out of the window. She walked out of the office and crossed the open-plan room towards her own workstation. Her easy mood had evaporated. What the hell was going on?

  Eddie Lunt was lounging at his desk, sipping coffee from his outsized thermal mug. ‘Met the new gaffer then?’

  Nicci shot him a look. ‘Head of security.’

  Eddie shrugged.

  ‘What is going on, Eddie?’ It annoyed her that he always seemed to know far more than her.

  ‘Hasn’t Simon talked to you?’

  ‘Clearly not.’

  He took another slug of coffee and Nicci noticed that his usual cheerful demeanour was missing.

  Naylor’s attitude was certainly confident and he hadn’t shown Blake the deference she would’ve expected. ‘You saying he’s not just head of security, he’s more than that?’

  Eddie inhaled and placed his mug on the desk in front of him. ‘I’m not saying anything. It’s not my place—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Well, after he rocked up this morning, I done a bit of digging. Contact of mine knows a lot of ex-cops in the security business. He reckons Naylor used to be a bodyguard for an old friend of ours.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Viktor Pudovkin.’

  Their eyes met. A shiver of dread ran up Nicci’s spine. ‘Does Simon know this?’

  ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t.’

  48

  The taxi had dropped Kaz at Chelmsford station. She boarded a London-bound train, settled in a window seat and, as she watched the swathes of Essex countryside flashing by, she considered her situation. Since her brother’s funeral she’d been shot at, burnt out of her family home and almost kidnapped by a scummy Turkish gangster who seemed to want to teach her some kind of lesson. However, the lesson she’d learnt was that she only had herself to rely on – more so now than ever. Everyone else had their own agenda and the safest policy was to trust no one.

  As trees and fields gave way to bricks and flyovers she wondered what she should do next. For the first time in the long and difficult weeks since Joey’s death she was completely alone and free. She’d escaped them all and that filled her with a sense of euphoria. Even the knowledge that she was being hunted couldn’t puncture her mood. The police were still looking for her. The Kemals were unlikely to give up, and now Paul Ackroyd would probably be joining her list of pursuers. But as the train sped her on her way, none of that seemed to matter. She had no firm plan but she realized that could work to her advantage. The more random her behaviour, the less likely it was that any of them would catch up with her.

  The train pulled into Stratford station, the last stop before Liverpool Street, and Kaz found herself gazing out at the vast edifice of the Westfield shopping centre as it slid into view with its tantalizing electronic billboards and the Olympic Park beyond. Seized by an impulse, she jumped up from her seat, grabbed her jacket and slipped through the sliding doors just as they were closing. She walked along the platform, up the stairs and crossed the bridge into this retail mecca. Built whilst she was in jail, she’d never visited the place before. But with money in her pocket, the first thing she wanted was to feel comfortable in her own skin again, not a ragamuffin in borrowed threads.

  She spent the next two hours blitzing her way from one upmarket boutique to the next. She bought jeans from Armani, underwear from Calvin Klein, several shirts from a snotty shop assistant who looked her up and down as if she were a tramp, a cashmere jumper, an eight-hundred-quid leather jacket, a pair of snaky ankle boots and Ray-Bans with tortoiseshell frames. With a small suitcase on wheels to carry her new wardrobe and a canvas satchel from Fossil, she finally stopped for a cappuccino.

  Scanning the sea of passing faces, she felt safely anonymous. London was home to every tribe and ethnicity. Odd snatches of incomprehensible languages drifted her way as she relaxed and let the human shoal wash around and past her.

  Taking the dove-grey business card from her pocket, she considered her next move. Finding a public telephone proved a challenge, but with some advice from the information desk she eventually tracked one down to a hidden nook on a wall next to the toilets.

  Inserting a fifty-pence coin – it was all the change she had – she dialled the number on the card and waited. It rang three times.

  ‘Yeah, hello.’ The tone was brisk.

  ‘Is that Jonathan Sullivan?’

  ‘Yep, who’s this?’

  ‘Karen Phelps.’

  There was a deafening silence on the line.

  ‘I’m Joey’s sister.’

  ‘Yeah, I know who you are. Listen,’ he sighed, the annoyance in his voice unmistakable, ‘we can’t talk on the phone. You must know that.’

  ‘Can we meet?’

  Another long pause.

  ‘You in London?’

  ‘I can be.’

  ‘Okay,’ he huffed. ‘Say tomorrow morning, ten a.m. at Liverpool Street station, outside the ticket office.’

  ‘How will I—’

  ‘I’ll recognize you.’

  The line went dead; he’d hung up. Kaz glanced around her. Two women loaded with shopping bags wandered into the nearby toilets; they seemed harmless enough, but at the sight of them her buoyant mood crashed. Somehow they filled her with an eerie sense of foreboding. Here she was, lost in a sea of strangers, and men were trying to kill her. This contact of Joey’s, who the hell was he? It was obvious she’d taken him by surprise. Would he even turn up, or was the arrangement a brush-off? Worse still, had she been set up? Would she be standing outside the ticket office with a target on her back?

  Although she fought it, she could feel herself spiralling into paranoia. The elation of her escape was gone. Her brother may have left her a lifeline but it was tenuous, to say the least. And if this lawyer had expected a call from anyone, it would’ve been Natalie. But, he knew who she was, which was something.

  Struggling to pull herself together, Kaz meandered around but the crowds and the shops brimming with glittery goods had begun to oppress her. All of a sudden she was bone-weary. She felt like a refugee, banished from her own land, forced to keep moving, but with no safe haven in sight.

  She’d thought about finding a hotel when she was on the train. But that carried risks. The problem was, could she do it and remain under the radar? There was only one way to find out.

  Squaring her shoulders, she strolled into the foyer of the Holiday Inn with as much insouciance as she could muster. She chose it because it was there, right in the shopping centre, and it was big, which improved her chances of anonymity.

  The receptionist was a fresh-faced young man with a goatee beard and a wide professional smile. ‘Can I help you, madam?’

  ‘I’d like a room. Two nights.’ Kaz lifted the Ray-Bans and
rested them on top of her head. Her hair was still singed from the fire, but she hoped that with her new purchases she looked like any well-heeled tourist.

  ‘We have both standard and executive rooms available.’

  ‘What do I get for executive?’

  ‘Basically a king-sized bed. Free Wi-Fi, flat-screen TV and twenty-four-hour room service are all standard.’

  ‘Okay, the executive. I’ll be paying cash.’

  ‘Absolutely fine, madam. Provided you can show us some ID. Either a passport or credit card.’

  He blinked at her, the smile fixed in place. Kaz delved into her satchel. This was the moment of truth. She knew they’d ask her for ID so she had to take the risk. She pulled out a credit card.

  The receptionist took it and glanced at it. ‘Rafaella – that’s my sister’s name.’

  Kaz met his gaze directly. ‘My mother was Spanish.’

  What would he do next? It was only a confirmation of her ID, so in theory there was no need for him to put it through the system or ask for a PIN. But what if it was the hotel’s policy to check?

  He grinned and simply handed the card back. ‘Lindo nombre.’

  Kaz smiled. ‘Sadly, I never learnt to speak it. My dad was a bit funny about all that.’

  He shrugged and glanced at his screen. ‘Two nights will be two hundred and ninety pounds.’

  Reaching into the pocket of her brand-new jeans, Kaz extracted a small wedge of folded notes. She peeled off six fifties. The receptionist took the money, gave her change, a receipt and a magnetized key card.

  ‘Room 91, third floor. Do you need help with any luggage?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘The lifts are over there. Enjoy your stay, Mrs Ackroyd.’

  As she slipped the Ray-Bans back on her nose it felt, at least in that moment, as though she really was Mrs Ackroyd. For a second time the impersonation had worked. And as she walked to the lifts she wondered idly if it was more than just a mask to hide behind. It was a different form of escape, one which enabled her to stop thinking about who she really was: Kaz Phelps, a miserable slag on the run, alone, friendless and hunted.