A Hunger Within

by Michael Kerr

  “If we lift the Russian and find out who they’ve put a contract out on―”

  “Give me a fucking break, Eddie. Even if we could find him, do you really think that he’d say anymore than Sunday did. I doubt he’d even speak to us in English; just act thick and wait for a lawyer to spring him. These are working criminals, not your average citizen who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. We can’t prove he made a drop off, or anything else. Without being allowed to attach crocodile clips to his balls and pass a current through them, we wouldn’t get him to tell us Lenin’s Christian name.”

  “What was Lenin’s Christian name, boss?”

  “Christ knows. Google it, on your own time.”

  It was dark when he eased the car to a stop several streets away from Hudson Court. He walked with purposeful strides, in the way that a man in a hurry to get somewhere would. He saw few people on the way, and knew that they would not remember him. He looked very average, wearing a loose, dark blue fleece zipped up to conceal the S&W that was in a shoulder holster under his left arm, solid and comforting against his ribs. The baseball cap he wore had a long bill, and hid his features in shadow. And his trainers were black, as were his cargo pants.

  There was a lane running along the rear of the side of Hudson Court that number forty-one was on. Behind that and shrouded by trees was a playing field or common. It was too dark to tell. He had enough privacy to linger awhile and take a closer look.

  He peered over the wood panel fence. The kitchen light was on. He donned gloves and tried the gate. Locked. He climbed over the fence, made his way up the side of the garden, next to another fence that partitioned the property from the house next door.

  She appeared in front of him. He could see her as plain as day, filling a kettle at the sink. No one else in view. He ducked back behind the rear of the garage. Shame it had to look like an accident. He would have to come back in the guise of someone she would not suspect. Maybe as a Gas Board official. He would have the right credentials, carry a clipboard, and tell her that they were investigating a suspected leak. It would get him in, and that would be the end of Katy. Her days of looking under stones were almost over. She would have the distinct displeasure of finding him under one.

  He was about to leave when the kitchen door opened.

  “Go on, Titch. Good boy. Do your business, and make it quick.”

  The miniature poodle sniffed him out. Came around the side of the garage and barked at him. He waved it away, but it stood its ground. Fucking dog! He would have shot it in a blink under normal circumstances.

  “What have you found, Titch, another hedgehog? Leave it alone and do what needs doing,” Katy said as she walked down the path, hugging herself against the chill, to see what had got the dog’s attention. She stopped in her tracks as Andy stepped out and pointed the gun at her.

  “If you shout out or do anything stupid, Ms. Baxendale, then I will shoot your dog in the spine. “Tell me you understand what I’m saying.”

  “I...I understand,” Katy said. “What do you want?”

  “A cup of coffee and a chat,” he said. “Let’s go inside and get warm, it’s freezing out here.”

  Titch cocked his leg against the corner of the garage, peed, and trotted back into the kitchen.

  “Close the blinds,” Andy said, not wanting to chance some neighbour walking along the lane and looking in over the fence.

  Katy complied, then made coffee. She was petrified, but found that she could somehow stifle the fear and not overreact. This was not a man who had come to shoot her. Had that been his attention, then surely he would have done so in the garden. It was not lost on her that the ugly pistol had a sound suppresser fitted to the end of the barrel. This was intimidation. Perhaps a warning to stop her investigating some particular individual criminal or organisation. She would make any promise necessary to save her and Titch from being harmed. In her line of work, she had been subject to abuse and even death threats. Once had her jaw broken by the owner of a timeshare company who made millions from properties that never got past the planning stage, and only ever existed in glossy brochures. When she had confronted him in the car park of an hotel in Lanzarote, he had punched her in the mouth, on camera. It was almost worth the fractured jaw to have him arrested. He was later found guilty of aggravated assault on her, and of serious fraud. He had been given a custodial sentence, and was still in prison.

  Andy said nothing. Just watched as the woman made coffee. She was a cool customer, acting as though being confronted by a stranger armed with a gun was as commonplace as a trip to the supermarket. He respected her for being able to keep it together. But he was still going to kill her. She was just another good pay-day.

  “Put it on the table and sit down,” he said. “And Katy, don’t get stupid and cause me to do something that you would be very sorry for. I’m sure you’d like to throw that coffee in my face. Am I right?”

  “It crossed my mind,” Katy said. “But I don’t think I’d be able to get myself and Titch out of harm’s way before you recovered enough to start shooting.”

  “Good thinking. Do you know why I’m here?”

  “To give me a warning, break my legs, or kill me if the scum who sent you are on my list of people to name, shame and try to put behind bars.”

  “You need to know that the guy who is paying me, isn’t about to let some bitch reporter tip over his apple cart. These people aren’t cowboy plumbers or petty criminals. You’re way out of your depth, Katy. Now finish your coffee and let’s go upstairs.”

  She thought that he was going to rape her. Probably tie her up; do it, and then leave, threatening to come back and shoot her if she didn’t wise up.

  With the dog shut in the kitchen, scratching on the closed door, Andy followed her upstairs, keeping well back, not underestimating what she might do.

  She walked into the bedroom and waited for him to make his move.

  “I want you to pretend I’m not here, and take a bath,” Andy said.

  “Uh?”

  “Humour me, Katy. Do it.”

  Katy went through to the bathroom, turned the mixer tap on, got the temperature right and returned to the bedroom. As she undressed she could feel his eyes inspecting her body. She felt embarrassed. She had undergone radical surgery for breast cancer, and had had one removed. Dressed, with a specially made bra, the loss was unnoticeable. Nude, the scarring over the flat side of her chest was unsightly. She felt deformed, and less than a complete woman.

  With the gun pressed against her stomach, Andy ran his left thumb over the pale scar tissue. “Nice,” he said. “We all have a certain ugliness. With many it is hidden inside, invisible to the eye. Yours is external, and is fascinating in a strange way. I like imperfection...in others.”

  Katy drew back from his touch. She still had phantom sensations, in the way that someone who had lost a limb experienced. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the weight of her nonexistent breast. Sometimes put her hand up to cup it, even though she knew it had been severed from her like a fillet of steak. She wondered if it still existed, floating in a specimen jar of formaldehyde on a shelf in a laboratory at the hospital. Did student nurses and junior doctors pick the preserved tit up, to hold to the light and inspect? Was the bloodless flesh and wrinkled nipple a talking point? She hoped it had been incinerated with other body parts and contaminated material.

  “Don’t just stand there looking stupid,” Andy said. “The bath will overflow if you take much longer.”

  Going back into the bathroom, Katy turned the taps off. Climbed in the bath and sat down with her arms crossed in front of her.

  Andy picked up a bottle of herbal Radox liquid and poured a generous amount into the water. “Get on with it,” he said. “If you’re a good girl I might even wash your back.”

  Katy picked up the sponge and a bar of soap from the rack. This was insane. She could not fathom out what his intentions were.

  “Don’t get out,” Andy said. “I�
��ll be back in a second.”

  When he retreated out on to the landing, Katy fully expected him to return naked, and maybe get in the tub with her. She moved quickly, reached out with a sud-soaked hand and slid the top drawer of the cabinet next to the bath open. Found a pair of hairdressing scissors, lifted them out, closed the drawer and put the sharp instrument on the bottom of the bath between her legs. Surely he wouldn’t climb in with the gun in his hand. Her plan was simple. Pick the right moment and plunge the scissors into his throat, face or neck.

  He had seen the electric fan on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom. He reached up, grasped it and took it out on to the landing. There was a power point outside the bathroom door. He carefully, silently plugged the appliance in ,switched it on and entered the bathroom, grinning as the blades picked up speed to whir and chop through the air.

  What the hell is he doing with the fan in his hand? Katy thought. Her brain raced, did the computations, and came up with the only feasible answer.

  The fan left his hands and tumbled in the air as it fell towards her legs. She tried to lean forward and knock it away with her arm, but her bottom slipped, and as she fell back, she was hit by a bone-deep, sharp, excruciating sensation that cramped every muscle in her body.

  Andy stepped back and watched. Katy began to shake so violently that the watery scene made him think of a piranha attack without blood. The foam, and her flailing arms, legs and head, conspired to create an awesome sight. The noise she made was a high-pitched, stuttering whistle.

  The fuse blew. He went downstairs, found the box on the wall at the back of a kitchen cabinet, pressed the protruding button and reset the flow of electricity to the cut circuit.

  The poodle ran upstairs in front of him, into the bedroom, where it jumped up on to the bed and curled up. Must be its bedtime, he thought.

  It was impossible to tell if it had been the electric shock or drowning that had finished Katy off. She was no longer moving, just laying motionless on the bottom of the bath. Her hands were clawed, her eyes were staring up through the water, and her mouth was stretched wide open. A large, silvery bubble formed in it and rolled out, up over her top lip, to wobble up to the surface and burst. A beautiful, poignant moment, Andy thought.

  He used water from one of the hand basin’s taps to splash a few drops on the top of the cabinet next to the bath. It would appear that Katy had taken the fan into the bathroom and placed it there. How it got into the bath would be a matter of conjecture and speculation. Maybe she reached out to alter the setting. Or perhaps the poodle had jumped up, caught the fan with its paws and inadvertently electrocuted her. Whatever. Killer poodle on death row at vet’s after murdering owner! Andy chuckled. That would be an hysterical headline.

  A stream of pea-sized bubbles broke free from the corpse’s left nostril and rushed up to plink out of existence. And a rash of smaller bubbles seemed to be breeding in the wiry bush at her crotch. Ah, well, the show was over and it was time to go.

  After finding a spare back door key hanging from one of several hooks screwed onto an oval piece of polished elm on the wall near the telephone, he placed the original on the hook, and used the spare to lock the door from the outside. He would stop next to a kerbside runoff drain and drop it in. The scene was set to convince anyone that Katy had suffered accidental death. There was nothing to arouse undue suspicion. The house was locked-up; no forced entry. Her clothes had been taken off and hung up or folded, and she had seemingly been taking a bath when tragedy struck. There was no sign of a struggle or any other injuries. He had not touched her, apart from fingering the scar on her chest. And only the narrow top window in the bathroom was open a couple of inches to allow the steam egress. Just another accident in the home. The police would believe that the silly cow should have had more sense than to take the fan into the bathroom. It had, to Andy’s way of thinking, been a perfect murder. End of story.

  Once clear of the house, Andy removed his gloves, balled them up and stuffed them in a pocket of his cargo pants. He took a slow walk back to the car, and headed home. Before reaching Snaresbrook, he pulled across the road, stopped, opened the door and dropped his latest victim’s house key down a drain.

  Valentino drove by without slowing or looking across to the man in the Toyota. He had no need to follow him any longer. After the hitman had left his car in a side street and gone off on foot, Valentino quickly placed a magnetised transponder on the chassis. He had stretched under the side of the vehicle, used a graphite spray to clean the dirt and grease from a small area, dried it, and attached the tracking device. Georgio had told him that the resulting radio signal would be received within a two-mile radius. It worked. They had no need to keep the man who now called himself Toby Carlson, or his car, in sight, and risk being seen. When it was confirmed that the female journalist was dead, then he and Georgio would, when given authorisation by Sergei, abduct and deliver the man to Savino’s people.

  Chapter TWENTY-SIX

  It was after one p.m. the next day when Sonia Purvis called round at Katy’s.

  Sonia was Katy’s best friend, and had been since their schooldays at Roedean. They went out for lunch together once a week, and had done for years. Today it was Sonia’s turn to pick Katy up.

  There was no answer to the doors, back or front, and Katy’s car was still parked in the drive. Titch could be heard howling like a banshee. Sonia called out, then tried to contact Katy by mobile phone. Standing outside the kitchen door, she could hear her friend’s phone ringing. Something was wrong. Katy took pills for high blood pressure. What if she had been taken ill, or was laying unconscious in bed? All sorts of terrible scenarios formed in Sonia’s mind, each worse than the one before. Stroke! Heart attack! She had to do something, and immediately.

  The precast concrete garden gnome proved too much for the double-glazed kitchen window. Sonia threw it with all her strength, turning away as the glass shattered. She carefully reached through the gaping hole and unfastened the window. Brushed the shards of glass off the windowsill with her handbag and heaved herself up and into the house. If Katy had drunk too much gin the night before, and was in a deep, alcohol-induced sleep, then so be it. Sonia would pay for a replacement window.

  Titch came back into the kitchen from the hall. He was trembling. Sonia bent down, lifted him up and fussed him.

  “Where’s your mummy, Titch?. And don’t tell me that she just popped out to post a letter, or I’m in deep shit.”

  Titch licked her face and whined plaintively.

  “Katy!” Sonia shouted. No reply. A quick look in the through lounge. Up the stairs, slowly, breath held, dreading what she might find.

  The bathroom door was open. A length of electrical flex snaked from where it

  was plugged-in on the landing, into the bathroom.

  Sonia put Titch down and, heart in mouth, peered around the edge of the door. Oh, Jesus, no! She rushed over, almost plunged her hands into the water, but somehow stopped herself. The flex. The fan in the bath. She backed out, flipped off the switch, yanked the plug out, and then rushed back in and heaved-dragged-rolled Katy out onto the tiled floor.

  There was nothing she could do. It didn’t take a doctor to certify that Katy was beyond any help. Her skin was bluish white, and wrinkled from being submerged in the now cold water.

  Titch ran in and started licking Katy’s cheek and mouth. Sonia picked him up again, left the bathroom and closed the door. She went downstairs and called the Emergency Services. Not that there was an emergency for them to respond to.

  Sonia sat at the kitchen table, crying, stroking Titch, and waited for someone to arrive.

  Eddie got a call at three o’clock that afternoon.

  “I hear your squad are interested in Sergei Gorchev,” DS John Sanford of CID said.

  “You heard right, John. What have you got?”

  “A woman’s body in West Ealing. She was Katy Baxendale, a freelance investigative journalist, who was on some sort of crusade against the
bad guys. She had Gorchev in her sights, and now she’s dead.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “COD Looks like an accident. The house was locked up, with her in it alone, apart from a pet pooch. She was found in the bath with an electric fan for company. A close friend couldn’t raise her, so broke a window and went in.”

  “Are Crime Scene still there?”

  “Yeah, Eddie. You want to take a look. Body is still in-situ.”

  “On my way, John. What’s the address?”

  Eddie found Ryan in his office drinking coffee. In a changing world, some things never change.

  “You want to go look at a body that got electrocuted in a bath, boss?” Eddie said.

  “Not particularly. Why would I do that? I can go down the morgue and look at bodies if I feel the need.”

  “You heard of a Katy Baxendale?”

  “Yeah, she did a Roger Cook-type TV series. Dug up the dirt on lowlife. Helped put a few of the bastards out of business.”

  “It’s her who got fried, boss. And get this. She was looking at the Russian Mafia, and in particular, our friend Gorchev.”

  “So let’s go give it the once over. You drive.”

  There were two cop cars on the street, and an old Honda that Ryan recognised as belonging to Bob Cutler, a Home Office pathologist.

  Bob had finished up with the body and was waiting for Ryan as a courtesy.

  “How’re you doing, Bob?” Ryan said to the stooped man, whose thinning hair was like a light fall of snow over his pink scalp. Bob was coming up to retirement and was more than ready to go and live in the sun, and only use his skills with a knife to cut Sunday joints.

  “Great, Ryan,” he said sardonically. “I like nice, fresh cadavers like this, that aren’t full of maggots and stinking up the place.”

  “You reckon it was an accident?” Ryan said.

  “No evidence of a struggle, or rape. No contusions or marks on her wrists or ankles to suggest that she had been bound.”