Kiss of Death

by Paul Finch

  ‘Planning something special for this place, is she … your boss?’ Heck said.

  ‘That’s the general idea,’ Marciano replied.

  ‘Crime that she has to. Only in Britain could somewhere like this be left to rack and ruin.’

  ‘It was only ever a luxury, this place, mate … a folly. People living like kings on money they never earned. No wonder they all lost everything eventually. Even Milena’s only acquired this place on the basis that it’ll soon pay for itself.’

  ‘And in the meantime, it gets used for other stuff, yeah?’

  ‘You’d be amazed by the variety of uses you can put to big old houses that no one wants.’

  They stopped talking as they ascended a steep flight of steps. When Heck glanced back, it was too dark to see the jetty or the boat that had brought him here. The lights of the Cornish shore looked much further away than he’d expected.

  They reached the top of the steps, and a paved path led ahead of them, straight as an arrow between smoothly mown lawns. It ran perhaps a hundred yards to the open front doors of the Victorian entrance building. On either side of these flames flickered in hanging braziers, casting dancing shadows over the great granite frontage and across the single figure awaiting them there.

  ‘The thing is,’ Heck said, as they processed forward, ‘if you’re planning to practise this new novelty version of brotherly love on … well, me, you’ll be opening the door to a whole universe of trouble.’

  ‘I agree,’ Marciano said, ‘but I’m not in charge here.’

  ‘You’re making a mistake, Ray.’

  ‘Your mistake was coming to Cornwall without any back-up.’

  ‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’

  ‘Yep. Tells me that we’ve got time.’

  The waiting figure was only thirty yards off. Quite clearly, it was female.

  ‘You don’t feel any concern for a former colleague?’ Heck asked.

  ‘You never get on in this world by looking back, Heck,’ Marciano said. ‘You can only go forward. So, there’s no such thing as a former colleague … nothing that matters, anyway.’

  ‘That’s pretty profound, Ray. I’d say write it down, so they can carve it on your gravestone. Except that people who die in prison usually get buried in unmarked graves.’

  ‘Rather an unmarked grave than wet cement, Heck.’

  And on that note, they arrived in front of the figure in the doorway. She wasn’t just female, she was a mightily impressive female. Heck had no doubt that they were finally in the presence of Milena Misanyan.

  Chapter 36

  She was taller than the average woman, perhaps just under six feet, but of statuesque proportions, an outline enhanced by her thigh-length boots, tight white trousers and white, waist-length summer jacket. She wore white silk gloves and a yellow head scarf wound under the chin and around the neck, which lent her an air of the exotic. This was especially true when Heck drew close and saw her face-to-face.

  Milena Misanyan was somewhere in her early fifties but, as he’d seen in that photo on the cover of Time, she possessed an ageless eastern beauty.

  ‘The gent I telephoned you about from the hotel, ma’am,’ Marciano said without preamble. ‘Detective Sergeant Mark Heckenburg, from the Serial Crimes Unit at Scotland Yard … oh, ex of Scotland Yard.’ He glanced at Heck. ‘They’ve swept you all out of the way into a stable block somewhere now, haven’t they? They’ll be serving straw in your canteen next. If you’ve still got one.’

  Heck shrugged. ‘They do their best … but they can’t keep good people down.’

  ‘And are you a good person, Sergeant?’ Milena Misanyan asked. Her voice was husky and carried an attractive trace of accent. But there was a chill about this woman. It wasn’t just her imperious air, it was the ice in those lovely eyes, the implacable nature she exuded.

  So Heck responded to her brazen question with one of his own. ‘Are you an evil person, Miss?’

  She seemed mildly amused, her ruby mouth curving into a half-smile, though the amusement didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Well … I suppose there are degrees of evil, just as there are degrees of good. Less commonly discussed are those degrees of provocation that might drive an individual from one side of the spectrum to the other …’

  ‘Save it,’ Heck interrupted. ‘I didn’t come all the way down to Cornwall for a sermon.’

  She cocked her head to one side, regarding him with a new level of interest. ‘No doubt you’re the sort of man who believes that women should be seen and not heard, Sergeant.’

  ‘No, I’m the sort of man who doesn’t need to listen to the same speech twice.’ Heck nodded at Marciano. ‘He’s already given it to me.’

  Marciano snickered. ‘He’s in character so far. I’ve never worked with Heckenburg, but I heard he’s annoyed the crap out of every fucker he’s ever served under.’

  ‘People generally don’t like being shown how to do their job properly,’ Heck replied.

  ‘Conceited bugger too. Like you can’t tell.’

  ‘I’m intrigued,’ Milena Misanyan said, ‘that you’re here in Cornwall with no support.’

  Heck shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s because I’m not actually here on company business.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m aware of the operation you’ve got going on here, and I fancy a part of it.’ He nodded at Marciano again. ‘Like miladdo here.’

  ‘Interesting. You want to work for me, but you don’t want to hear my point of view.’

  ‘I know what happened to your family,’ Heck said apologetically. ‘It stinks. My brother died a horrible death too … blamed for a series of violent burglaries he never committed. He died in prison. Committed suicide after being raped God knows how many times, while the real scumbag walked free. Trust me, my hatred for criminals is also very personal.’

  She looked at him long and hard. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Marciano.

  The ex-cop seemed unsure. ‘I heard about his brother. That’s bona fide. And by reputation, he’s a real wildcard … the kind you’d think capable of anything.’

  ‘Capable of anything. How fascinating.’

  ‘When we were on the way over here, he expressed a bit of interest in how much I earn from this. But I wouldn’t say that interest was effusive. Mainly, he’s acted like he disapproves of us …’

  ‘I believe in saving the real conversation for the engineer,’ Heck cut in, ‘not his rubbing rag.’

  ‘So is it true, Sergeant?’ Misanyan wondered. ‘You’re genuinely looking for a new job?’

  ‘If the money’s right. Blondie here wouldn’t give anything away.’

  ‘And is it mainly about money with you?’

  ‘Would you dislike me if it was?’ Heck said. ‘A lady like your good self … who’s spent her life amassing a fortune that most of us can only dream about.’

  ‘You think that’s all I am?’

  ‘I don’t much care about the rest of it.’

  ‘You should.’

  She turned on her heel and walked through the entrance door. Marciano nudged Heck with the Beretta, indicating that he should follow. Heck did so, Marciano alongside him, the two overalled escorts just behind. They strode through several tall rooms, which no doubt once had been grand; Heck caught glimpses of painted ceilings and frescoed walls, but much was now covered in scaffolding or dust sheets, or just plain old dust.

  ‘You know all about the street vermin who murdered my beautiful sisters,’ Misanyan said. ‘That much is in the public domain. But what you probably don’t know is what happened to those wretched creatures afterwards. I assume, Sergeant, that as you dream about taking revenge yourself, you won’t mind hearing this?’

  She glanced sidelong at him. Heck shrugged as he walked.

  ‘I captured all six eventually. It was several years later, but I’d never forgotten who they were. I had them bricked up. Separately, of course. Built them into living pillars. We provided food and
water through narrow plastic tubes. One of them lived that way for almost a year. Would you be capable of exacting such punishment?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I never got the chance to find out.’

  ‘Alas, it still wasn’t enough. When I finally had those pillars demolished, steamrollered to dust and pulp, I was left with a deep, burning anger that would not go away.’

  They passed outside again, through a glazed annexe, into what might once have been a small garden but now was heaped with building rubble.

  Misanyan stopped and turned to face him again.

  Heck shrugged. ‘Just because I can suppress that feeling doesn’t mean I don’t get it.’

  She glanced at Marciano. ‘Is this even vaguely conceivable? Is Sergeant Heckenburg being honest with us?’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Marciano replied. ‘He gave me some stick on the way over here.’

  ‘I’ve already said,’ Heck retorted. ‘I don’t have to like what you’re doing to be OK with it … so long as the paycheque’s good.’

  ‘He’s certainly been at the sharp end,’ Marciano added. ‘Seen a lot of shit, which might have pushed him towards our corner. But that’ll be difficult to judge until it comes down to it. The fact he’s alone is no guarantee. He’s well known for going rogue while he’s on the job. He could easily be working the case right now. He may not have sent the message back yet, or maybe he has and he’s playing for time.’

  She sighed. ‘You see, even if I believed you, Sergeant, there’d be so much we’d need to discuss. Such as how you think you could actually assist us. We already have everything we need. On the disposal front, my men are as professional as they come. When it comes to the hunt itself, I couldn’t do any better.’

  Heck glanced at Marciano. ‘Why don’t you put him and me in a room together? We’ll see whether you think you need to hire someone else ten minutes later.’

  Marciano laughed.

  Misanyan ignored the comment. ‘There are also some questions that must be answered even if we decide you’re a friend and not a foe. Such as how you located us in the first place. How you discovered what we are doing here.’

  Heck shook his head. ‘My lips are sealed till I get some kind of deal.’

  Rodent, standing behind, drove a fist into his right kidney. Heck cringed at the intense pain but kept his feet.

  ‘No more of that,’ Misanyan said. ‘I really doubt it would achieve anything. In fact, cut Sergeant Heckenburg loose. There’s nowhere for him to run to anyway.’

  Flat-Top opened a lock-knife and severed Heck’s remaining bonds. Heck rubbed at the welts on his wrists. Still nauseated by the blow to his side, it was a relief to at least feel the blood flowing back into his hands.

  ‘You need to understand, Sergeant,’ Misanyan said, ‘whatever’s going on in that head of yours, whatever people are planning – even if they’re on their way to this place right now – I have the means to leave directly.’

  Heck remembered hearing that the first thing they’d constructed on the uppermost roof of Trevallick Hall was a helipad.

  ‘Even if the worst happens,’ she added, ‘I can be over international waters within a very few minutes, where a range of luxury transportation is available to me. All, of course, registered in countries whose interests, shall we say, align with my own. Though I’ve recently made my home in the United Kingdom, nothing lost here will be irreplaceable.’

  ‘But I’m guessing you’d rather not lose it,’ Heck wheezed.

  ‘Of course I’d rather not.’

  ‘We’re telling you this, Heck,’ Marciano cut in, ‘just so you know that you aren’t going to win.’

  ‘Unless I sign on,’ Heck corrected him. ‘And find myself working for a law enforcement system that isn’t skint and which allows me to bring these shitheads in to someone who really knows how to deal with them. Oh … and allows me to earn some proper money in the process. I’d call that a win.’

  ‘I dearly wish I could believe you,’ Misanyan said. ‘But I’m afraid it’s too big a risk.’

  ‘And probably for minimal gain,’ Marciano added. ‘You’re too ill-disciplined, Heck. No one could trust you for long.’

  ‘Yeah, if only I was the solid, steadfast type that you proved to be, eh?’

  ‘The job’s taken, pal.’

  ‘Only as long as you’re breathing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t keep pressing that button too hard,’ Marciano said. ‘You’re really not in a position to be chucking your weight around.’

  ‘And you still have some answers to provide,’ Misanyan said. ‘Follow me, please.’

  They moved on, Heck with hands free but walking at gunpoint. They passed under a stone arch and into a building which, from the chill and damp of it, was the medieval part of Trevallick Hall, the keep, though even this was undergoing renovation. After descending a narrow stair, they took a stone corridor, passing numerous open doors, beyond which lay stacks of bricks and wooden boards, heaps of cable, light fittings, electrical tools.

  ‘We have a certain driver in our employment who seems to have gone absent without leave,’ Misanyan said, as they strode. ‘With one of our vehicles, no less.’

  ‘Have you reported it as theft?’ Heck replied.

  ‘Not yet. He is not the most reliable man at the best of times. He never really took to life in the UK, or to the restraint and loyalty I require. He came to us from a criminal background, rather than the Armenian military, which is where we normally recruit … and we have long suspected that he’s looking for an opportunity to go back there. We wouldn’t be happy about that, as you can imagine.’

  That explained quite a bit, Heck thought. The gun-toting Narek Sarafian had been selling snuff-type movies now augmented with some exceedingly rare gladiatorial footage which he’d stolen from here, to build himself a lump sum that he could use to buy his way back into the Armenian mob. That paperwork they’d found in the van was his shield. The moment he got loose, he’d likely have emailed the threat back to his former boss, along with the necessary photographic evidence.

  ‘It’s not impossible that he’s done a runner, as the English say,’ Misanyan added. ‘But then … rather worryingly, we hear about this mysterious shooting incident in East London.’

  Heck was briefly distracted. They’d descended a second flight of steps and turned left along another bare passage, at the end of which a narrow archway admitted them into the upper section of a vast, cavernous space, where it looked as if two or three levels of basement had been removed. Here, they proceeded out onto a gantry made of planks and scaffolding. It felt solid, but nevertheless had an air of the temporary, shuddering and creaking as they halted in the middle of it.

  All kinds of arc and spotlights were suspended from the stone arches overhead, while there were several on the gantry itself, fitted to a waist-high barrier on the right-hand side. A small camera stood there too; a simple thing, something you could buy from any high street store. But with a tripod attachment, it was positioned against the barrier and angled downward. Heck knew what he was going to see down there even before he looked.

  The arena: a roughly circular fighting pit, some sixty feet in diameter, completely enclosed by a single encircling wall of corrugated steel, which was about ten feet in height, its upper parapet maybe fifteen feet below the gantry. The floor of the arena also looked to have been made from steel and was a dull blue/grey in texture, but even so it was possible to pick out the dabbles of dried blood covering it from one side to the next. There were two doors that Heck could identify, at opposite ends. Because all the lighting was trained into the pit itself, everything beyond the encircling wall lay in shadow, so it was difficult to see what these doors connected to. But when he leaned over the barrier to look properly, the one on his right had a small wrought-iron table positioned alongside it. Even though he was a good twenty feet above, Heck could clearly see that various home-made weapons had been left on the table: a section of crudely sawn-off lead piping
, perhaps three feet in length; a darkly stained meat cleaver; a claw hammer; a well-used baseball bat, its hilt bound with gorilla tape.

  ‘Nothing to say?’ Misanyan wondered, drawing him back to their previous conversation.

  ‘Shooting incident?’ Heck feigned puzzlement. ‘You mean that terrorist thing at Newham?’

  The woman regarded him blankly. ‘But is it a terrorist thing? There has been very little information leaked to the press so far. And you see, it’s only since then that we’ve failed to hear from our errant driver.’

  ‘You’re saying you think it was him? Is he armed? Why would he have got into a shoot-out with the police?’

  She scrutinised him carefully.

  ‘Coincidences sometimes happen,’ Marciano put in. ‘We could conceivably buy it, if it was proved to us that another bunch of home-grown jihadis had gone all out for their moment of glory, and that maybe our pal, Henrikh, decided to run off and start his new life at exactly the same time. But what doesn’t happen is that no one talks about it.’

  ‘Talks?’ Heck purposely didn’t respond to the name, ‘Henrikh’, which he knew to be incorrect. That was clearly an attempt to trip him up. He shrugged. ‘You been on the dope, Ray? You are aware we’re in a state of ultra-high security at present?’

  ‘Which means jack shit to people like me, Heck. I may be out of the job now, but I’ve got more contacts in the Met than Jimmy Savile had warts on his genitals. Nothing happens in London without me knowing someone who’ll happily tell all. Until now. For some reason, this particular so-called terrorist incident has had the Seal of Satan put on it.’

  ‘And would an incident involving your man … Henrikh, be subject to the same secrecy? You said he’s just a driver.’

  ‘That all depends on what he got himself into, doesn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t like losing people and possessions, Sergeant,’ Misanyan said. ‘But what we really don’t like is not knowing how and why. Mr Marciano particularly doesn’t … to such a degree that, when he found out that none of his old contacts in the police could tell him anything at all about Wednesday night’s incident, he came rushing down here to Cornwall to speak to me in person.’