Assassin

by Tom Cain

  ‘Storms, innit? They had, like, force ten winds in the North Sea. Blew a dozen of the bastard containers right into the water. One of ’em was ours.’

  ‘This is the cargo from Hamburg?’

  ‘The Chinkies, yeah.’

  Tyzack leaned forward, putting a hand over the receiver to hide his mouth, and hissed, ‘Are you telling me that seventy of our little yellow friends are currently sitting on the bottom of the North Sea?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’

  ‘They’re not going to pick much fruit down there, are they?’

  ‘Nah…’

  ‘So what do you plan to do about that? When I get a couple of extremely irate gangmasters on my hands, wondering where all their farm labour’s gone, what am I going to tell them?’

  ‘We can cover it, guv. We got them Somalis down Plaistow, yeah? That’s twenty-odd right there. Couple of trucks coming in from Bulgaria this week, pikey scum, obviously, but we can knock them out to the farms ’cause there’s piss-all for them to do on the building sites. Bring in a few others we got lyin’ around. No worries.’

  The waitress, Agnieszka, had discreetly sidled up to the table and placed Tyzack’s food in front of him, along with the juice and coffee. He gave her a flickering smile of acknowledgement, took a forkful of egg and salmon and went on with his conversation.

  ‘Well, I certainly hope not, Foster. I’m supposed to be getting on a plane for America in less than four hours’ time. I have important work to take care of and I don’t want any distractions. Which reminds me, those Pakis up in Bradford, were you able to explain that they really could not be allowed to operate in our market?’

  ‘Oh yeah, me and a few of the lads went up north, gave ’em a proper kicking. Happy days.’

  ‘And the merchandise?’

  ‘Yeah, we took the slappers, obviously. Stuck ’em in our places. Got ’em workin’ the same night.’

  ‘Excellent. Glad we got that sorted, at least. Now, piss off and replace the seventy Chinese. Chop-chop!’

  Tyzack hung up. Foster Lafferty was a shaven-headed thug from the East London end of Essex, but dealing with him was really no different to maintaining control over a stroppy, rather insolent sergeant-major. In fact, running a criminal gang, Tyzack had discovered, was very much like being in the forces: the fact that he’d been killing people for drug-runners and traffickers rather than Her Majesty was really just a technicality. His success had, over time, enabled him to start up his own small firm, much like a platoon. This had grown in size and power so that he could now regard himself as the colonel of his own private regiment.

  There were, of course, still more senior men from whom he took orders and for whom he carried out assignments. They were hardly the kind of individuals for whom he would have chosen to work, all things being equal, but at least there was always the professional satisfaction of a job well done. By poisoning Dey, for example, he had both removed a competitor and framed an enemy. And the cocktail cherry, that had been a sweet touch. After that, putting a bullet through the back of the pimp’s head had been the perfect way to round off the evening.

  As he sipped at his espresso, Tyzack wondered whether Carver felt the same way. Was it a pleasure to him, too? Deep down, perhaps, but a man that obsessed with his own righteousness would never admit it. Tyzack had gone to considerable trouble and expense to compile a detailed dossier on his old enemy’s activities. He’d pulled a few strings, called in some favours and found his way to Percy Wake, the pompous old poof who’d run the Consortium, the secret group of wealthy, powerful individuals who’d given Carver most of his jobs and by doing so made him rich. Wake was living down in the country now, in disgrace, missing the old days, bored out of his mind and longing for some malice and intrigue to brighten up his life. When Tyzack had asked for his help to get at Samuel Carver, Wake had been only too happy to help. He’d spilled the beans about Carver’s old operations and working methods. He’d even done a spot of recruiting on Tyzack’s behalf. It had all worked out very nicely.

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’ The waitress had returned to the table.

  ‘How kind of you to ask, Agnieszka. Just the bill, thanks.’

  He bestowed another one of his smiles upon her, wondering if it was worth slipping the manager half a dozen fifties and taking her away right now. He looked at his watch as she put his card through the machine. No, he really ought to be on the way to Heathrow. He had one man to kill, another one to screw up. So he tapped out his pin-number on the keypad, left the girl a generous tip and walked off down the Fulham Road.

  Work, work, work, thought Damon Tyzack. I deserve a nice break.

  13

  The first morning at the ranch, Carver woke up with something tangled round his right foot. He reached down and felt a length of satin ribbon attached to a sliver of silk and lace. He remembered pulling that ribbon and its twin, and a sleepy grin crossed his face.

  He was alone in the bed. Carver reached for his watch and was startled to see it was gone ten in the morning. He brushed his teeth, put on his jeans and wandered downstairs, expecting to find Maddy, but the kitchen and living-room were empty. The previous day she’d given him the guided tour of the house and its outbuildings. It struck him she might be out at the stable, tending to her horses, so he fixed himself a coffee, grabbed a pair of dark glasses and went outside.

  The air was already warm, well on the way from the relative cool of early morning to the pure, dry heat of midday, and the sun was bright enough to make him glad of the shades. He stopped for a second to look at the forest-covered mountains ringing the horizon, their jagged peaks stabbing into the cloudless blue sky. Carver lived in Geneva, he was used to a spectacular backdrop, but that didn’t make this one any less impressive.

  The stables were empty, but as Carver came back outside he heard country music coming from the open-fronted, three-bay garage nearby, so he ambled across the compound till he came to a radio, left on a concrete floor next to a plastic bottle of mineral water and an open toolkit. Maddy’s German Shepherd, Buster, was lying asleep beside them. Her open-top, metallic champagne Ford Bronco truck was lifted up on jacks just beyond him.

  A pair of feet in battered old workboots poked out from underneath the truck, attached to legs encased in oily blue dungarees. Carver took a sip of coffee, put down his cup and peered under the Bronco with an inquisitive frown on his face.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was a muffled, high-pitched ‘Shit!’ then the boot-heels pushed down on the concrete and pulled their owner out from under the truck on a low mechanic’s trolley.

  Maddy got to her feet. One hand held a wrench, the other was making a futile effort to neaten the hair pinned up on the back of her head. Rebellious dark brown strands had escaped and fallen either side of her face, which was bare of make-up, other than a few smears of motor-oil. The top of her dungarees was tied around her waist. All she was wearing above that was a cap-sleeved white T-shirt with the words ‘[semi]sweet’ written across the chest. The shirt was lightly speckled in dust and grime, as was the strip of flat, caramel-tanned tummy peeking out beneath it.

  ‘Shit!’ she repeated. ‘I was hoping to get this done before you got up. Figured you’d be out for hours, the way you were lying there, snoring like a big ol’ hog.’

  She stopped for a moment and looked at Carver. He suddenly realized he was grinning like a village idiot.

  ‘Yeah, go ahead, laugh,’ she said. ‘I know I look like crap.’

  ‘No, you don’t, you don’t at all,’ he said, slowly shaking his head, but still unable to take the smile off his face. ‘You look great.’

  ‘I do?’

  Now she was smiling too and the way she was looking at him had changed. Carver was suddenly uncomfortably aware that not only had he not bothered to shave before he came looking for her, he had not brushed his hair or even put on a shirt.

  Maddy pulled off her gloves and ran a single finger down Carver’s che
st. ‘Well, you don’t look so bad yourself, Mr Six-Pack. Couldn’t resist showing it off, huh?’

  Her finger was still moving down.

  He reached out for her backside and pulled her towards him.

  ‘We can’t!’ she said, giggling. ‘Not in front of Buster!’

  ‘He’s asleep,’ he said, and kissed her bare neck. ‘How about the back of the truck – reckon the jacks’ll hold us?’

  Carver started nibbling Maddy’s ear. She squirmed with pleasure and whispered, ‘You’d have to take it real slow and gentle. Think you can manage that?’

  ‘I can try,’ he said.

  He let go of her for a moment, clambered up into the back of the Bronco, then turned to give her a hand as she climbed up to join him.

  The last words she said before his mouth covered hers were, ‘Remember, slow and gentle…’

  A while later they walked back up to the house, arm in arm, with Buster bounding along beside them, wagging his tail so hard it was making circles in the air. He didn’t seem too traumatized. They took a shower that seemed to take a little longer than the business of getting clean necessarily required. Then Carver sat on the edge of the bed and watched Maddy dry and brush the tumbling mane that fell halfway down her back.

  She looked at him over her shoulder and said, ‘So, you freaked out by a girl who does her own auto-mechanics?’

  ‘Not at all. I respect all forms of competence. I like people who are good at things.’

  There was just the hint of a dirty undertone in his voice as he said that.

  ‘I agree, skill is very important,’ she said with impeccably ladylike cool.

  Carver wasn’t sure he had the strength to take that thought any further, so he took the conversation on to safer ground: ‘Seriously, how did you learn all that stuff?’

  ‘I was an only child. I guess Dad didn’t have anyone else to pass on his knowledge to, so he took me hunting every season for deer, pheasants and grouse. I learned how to shoot, how to keep a weapon properly maintained, how to service his truck. Maybe he thought I could be the boy he never had…’

  ‘Not too much like a boy, thank God.’

  Maddy was silent for a few moments, brushing her hair, her mind elsewhere.

  ‘Suits you, being single,’ he said. ‘You look more relaxed, like you’re a real woman, not someone’s prize possession.’

  Maddy gave her hair one last brushstroke, ran her hands through it to get precisely the right degree of artless tumble, then got up from her dressing table.

  ‘Feel like some brunch?’ she said.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Carver, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  14

  Bill Selsey was sitting at his desk at the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, at Vauxhall Cross, London. If he got up and walked to the windows looking out on to the river Thames he could see the Gothic towers and spires of the Houses of Parliament across the water, a few hundred yards downstream. He had given his entire working life to this agency, protecting the values that parliament embodied. Now he was about to betray it all. True, it wasn’t as terrible a deception as those of some of the traitors who had gone before him. He wasn’t working for enemies bent on his country’s destruction: he was just doing favours for a gangster. But in a way, that pettiness only made it worse. He couldn’t claim he was working for any great cause. He was simply selling out.

  It had all begun with Sir Perceval Wake. Selsey had helped destroy Wake’s Consortium and consign him to an enforced, ignominious retirement, deep in the Shropshire countryside. But the old man had always been a compulsive networker and the love of intrigue had never left him. He had enticed Selsey down to his modest farmhouse with the promise of new revelations about the Consortium’s activities. Wake had thrown Selsey a few titbits of useful information, just so that he did not return to his superiors empty-handed. That task accomplished, it had proved simple – surprisingly so, to both men – to persuade Selsey to carry out a few straightforward orders for which he would be rewarded on a scale that far outstripped his modest government salary.

  Money, of course, has always been a motive for treachery. As Selsey well knew, it provided the ‘M’ in ‘MICE’, the intelligence-business acronym that described the four motivations through which undercover spies could be recruited: the other three being ‘ideology’, ‘coercion’ and ‘ego’. Neither ideology nor coercion applied to Selsey. But ego, he admitted to himself, yes, that might have had something to do with it.

  For years, Selsey had been a loyal second-in-command to Jack Grantham, a younger but more brilliant, more driven man. Selsey had always told himself, and anyone else who asked, that he was happy to leave the heavy lifting to someone else. Let Grantham suffer the stresses of leadership and the poison of inter-departmental politics: Selsey was happy to do a good day’s work, then head home to a quiet life in the south London suburbs. But much like a loyal spouse, too long taken for granted, Selsey had begun to harbour feelings of bitterness and an urge to upset the status quo. When he was offered the chance to go behind Grantham’s back, to withhold secrets and to mislead him with false information, it was as enticing as a pretty young woman offering the promise of an affair.

  And it was, after all, such a little thing that had been asked of him. At some point, as yet to be determined, a mechanism would be set in motion that would end in Samuel Carver’s death. Selsey had no particular reason to feel any loyalty to Carver. Nor would he be responsible for any harm that Carver suffered. He would just be one cog in a much bigger machine, one step on a long road, and for this small favour he would receive a total of two hundred thousand pounds, tax-free, in a Cayman Islands account.

  The first fifty thousand was already sitting there, enough to enable Selsey to think, I’ve earned more than you this year, old boy, whenever Grantham’s casual arrogance became more than usually irritating. The second instalment would soon follow. For Selsey had just received his first instructions.

  He was ordered to investigate the poisoning of an Indian people-trafficker called Tiger Dey. To help him in this task, he was advised to examine the passenger manifests of an Emirates Airlines flight from London to Dubai, and to check relevant CCTV footage at both Dubai and Heathrow airports. He was also given a contact in the Dubai police, who would provide him with access to the official investigation of Dey’s murder – an investigation that had, unusually, begun while its subject was still, just, alive. Finally, he was supplied with the number of a recently opened account at a Zurich bank, and the name of a former prostitute who would be able to assist in his inquiries.

  Taken together, he was assured, these leads would provide a great deal of information. All he had to do, for now at any rate, was to use this information to arouse Jack Grantham’s interest, and persuade him that Samuel Carver had started killing again. From then on, events would take care of themselves.

  Selsey had assigned a junior agent to do the donkey work. Provided with the passenger list he had quickly spotted the name ‘James Conway Murray’ and recognized it at once as one of Carver’s known aliases. He had the relevant footage pulled from Heathrow Terminal Three’s cameras. As always, the footage was infuriatingly indistinct, but there certainly was a man who answered to Carver’s general description, carefully keeping his face away from any direct exposure to the cameras with a skill that only an experienced professional would possess.

  Selsey asked for any records of further flights by Murray and was rewarded with a BA ticket to San Francisco, leaving three days after the Dubai job. There was no flight yet between Dubai and London – he would have to keep looking for that. Meanwhile Murray had gone to the States. That would be a lead worth following in due course.

  He put in a call to Dubai, beginning the negotiations that would get him the police reports. The local detectives had already concluded that Dey’s killer must have been the Englishman who had sat with him at the Karama Pearl Hotel. They had interviewed Dey’s bodyguards withou
t success: they would not squeal to the police, not even on their boss’s killer. But Selsey’s call made the Dubaians suspect that someone in London knew who the man was. So the deal was obvious: the reports in exchange for the name. Selsey told them he would think about it.

  He also had to start the process of extracting information from the Swiss bank. With any luck the people there would be cooperative: the Swiss were far more open than they used to be. Otherwise he’d have to use more underhand methods. He also needed a way into that refuge where the prostitute was hiding. All that would require resources, and for that he needed Grantham’s approval. It was time to approach his boss… and start lying in his face.

  Jack Grantham sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, trying to ease his tension and fatigue. He let out a long slow exhalation, then leaned forward and looked at Selsey standing on the far side of his desk.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill, but I just don’t buy it. The last I heard, Carver was doing high-end security work. He tells nervous billionaires and politicians how to keep themselves safe. He even does dummy attacks, just to test their protection. The pay’s good. There’s no danger. He doesn’t feel like shit thinking about what he’s done. Why would he want to go back to wet jobs?’

  ‘Maybe he’s strapped for cash. Plenty of people are these days. I don’t really know why he’s done it. I’m just looking at a pile of evidence that says he has.’

  ‘Well, how did we get dragged into this anyway?’

  ‘A private call from Dubai,’ said Selsey, pleased that he could now stick to something that had a grain of truth. ‘The authorities there already know that Dey’s killer is British. They think it would be good for the continued friendship between our two peoples if we helped identify him.’

  ‘Forget it. We’re not going to do their bloody plod-work for them. If they arrest a suspect and he happens to be British, it’s a straightforward Foreign Office matter, nothing to do with us.’