by Michael Kerr
“Cheers,” Andy said, holding out his glass to clink against hers. “Here’s to good neighbours.”
After they had eaten, Andy washed-up, ignoring her pleas to leave the dishes in the sink. “Believe it or not, I like washing dishes,” he said.”
Gemma poured the last of the wine out, measuring an equal amount into each of their glasses.
“What do you do?” Andy said. “Something in the travel business?”
“What makes you think that?” Gemma said.
“The prints on the walls. All of exotic places.”
“I’m a relocater.”
“Of what to where?”
“People, to anywhere. If someone decides to sell up and start a new life in another country, I help cut through all the red tape, and make the transition as problem-free as possible.”
“By doing what?” Andy found this interesting, due to his own decision to start over abroad.
“By helping them obtain visas and work permits, and explaining the minefield of just what is involved. It’s different for everyone. And every country has its own peculiar bureaucracy to contend with.”
“Do you enjoy doing it?”
“Very much. Every client has different needs, and the work is never the same. Last week I relocated a family to Greece. And now I have a couple that want to live and work in Australia. I need to look at their eligibility to move down under, and to explain all the bear traps that are waiting to swallow them up.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It is, unless money is no object.”
“So if your pockets are deep enough, you can fast track.”
“Exactly. It’s the way of the world. You get what you can afford to pay for in life. What do you do for a living, Toby?”
I murder people for large amounts of tax-free money, and sometimes rape and kill for the pure pleasure of the act. “I’m a sound mixer for a music company. Boring stuff really, but it pays the bills.”
Gemma led him through to the lounge. She turned the dimmer switch until there was only a faint, soft glow from the coral-pink, opaque up lighter shades on the walls and then put a CD on: 20 Essential Love Songs, before going to where he was standing and raising her arms to loop around his neck.
“Dance with me,” she said.
Andy held her close, and they moved slowly in place to Jennifer Rush singing: The Power of Love.
Gemma felt his hardness against her stomach. When he had first arrived, she had noticed the outline of his penis under the tight denim of his jeans and knew that he was wearing nothing beneath them. She moved rhythmically against him, and he lowered his hands to grip her buttocks. They kissed urgently and began to undress each other, before sinking down to the floor, both eager and impatient.
Much later, they dressed and drank coffee. Talked about things they liked, and let the bond between them strengthen.
It was midnight when Andy left. Gemma was disappointed. She had thought he would stay over. She was not to know that the normality of the occasion had almost overwhelmed the man she believed to be Toby Carlson.
Andy took out the hazel contacts, showered and went to bed. The evening had unsettled him by unlocking an emotion within him that was new and in some way alien and threatening. Gemma was the first woman he had ever felt completely at ease with. Something about her had released a part of him that he had not known existed. He had the absurd wish to be with her, and do things he had always thought mundane. Maybe with Gemma he could allow another side of his personality to flourish. She might be a balm to soothe the constant anger and hatred he embraced for a world that had done him no favours. Could she be the beauty to tame the beast within him? Time would tell.
The creak and movement of the door prompted him into instant action. He rolled off the bed, ripped the lamp free from the top of the cabinet and threw it at the shape of a figure who was moving towards him. Heard a grunt as the heavy ceramic base made contact. He leapt forward and shouldered into the man, knocking him backwards and bowling him over.
As he raised his hand, planning to bring the edge of it down onto the intruder’s throat with all the crushing force he could muster, a fizzing sound and bright burst of white filaments stole away all thought and intention.
Georgio felt in total control of the situation as he looked at the sleeping figure laying on the bed with a sheet thrown back to his waist. He drew his gun, and was about to feel for the light switch when the man sprung up cat quick and rolled out of bed. He tracked the moving target with his gun, but lost his concentration as something struck him in the chest and knocked him back on his heels. Even as he regained his balance, the man barged into him, and he fell to the floor. For just a second, he saw the man’s face above him. There was no expression on it, and even in the dim light that penetrated the window, he saw the staring yellow eyes, that reminded him of a snake’s.
Valentino lashed out from the side and brought the barrel and silencer of his pistol scything through the air to connect with the naked man’s left temple. The shock of the impact ran up his arm to his shoulder, and the renegade hitman crashed to the floor onto his side, and became still.
Andy came to with a splitting headache. His head was hung forward, and he knew that he was seated, and that his arms and feet were bound. He did not open his eyes, move a muscle, or make a sound. Just listened to the voices.
“What if I hit him too hard? He might have brain damage.”
“He’ll live, Valentino. Savino’s men will have to treat his injury, if he is to be kept alive for the Italian to deal with personally. As long as he is breathing, then we have done our work. Get some cold water and try to bring him round. We do not want to be seen carrying him out of here to the car.”
Andy put it together. These were Gorchev’s men. The thick, Russian accents told him that. And they were not here to kill him. This was an abduction. Savino and Gorchev were in bed together, and the Russian was doing Savino a favour. Topping the wop’s daughter had obviously pissed him off big-time.
When the cold water hit his face, he began to moan, slowly opened his eyes, and manufactured an expression of shock and fright.
“W...What do you want?” he said, looking back and forth between the two goons. “Who are you?”
“No questions” Georgio said. “You need to know that if you attempt to escape, or do not do exactly as you are told, my friend here will shoot you in the head.”
“I’ll do anything you say,” Andy said. “Please don’t hurt me anymore.”
Valentino stepped forward and punched Andy hard in the stomach. Telegraphed it. Andy tensed his stomach muscles and hardly felt the blow, but doubled over and groaned.
“For a professional killer, you are a coward,” Valentino said, taking a brass-handled flick knife from his pocket and pressing a stud. The blade snapped out and locked. He reached down and severed the tape that pinioned Andy’s ankles together, and then stepped behind the chair and freed his hands.
“Go into the bedroom and get dressed,” Georgio said. He stood well back and levelled his gun at Andy’s chest. “Do it very slowly.”
Valentino checked the pockets of the jeans, patted the T-shirt and fleece, and put his hands inside the trainers that Andy elected to wear.
“It is time to leave,” Georgio said after Valentino had once more taped Andy’s wrists together. “We will go out to the road. You will get in the back of the car and sit perfectly still. Do you understand?”
Andy nodded. “Yes. How did you find me?”
Valentino grinned. “I was at the cemetery when you picked up your blood money. I watched you go through the fence, and phoned Georgio to give your location, so that he could follow you. And later, when you were busy at the journalist’s house, I fitted a transponder to your car. You are not as clever as you thought.”
Staggering a little for effect, Andy walked out to the Skoda. He almost fell down, and had to be assisted by an arm at his elbow. He got in the rear of the car with the older of the two
Russians, and acted cowed as the muzzle of the silencer was pushed hard into his ribs.
“This is a hair-trigger, my friend,” Georgio said. “If you make any sudden movement, then it will be your last.”
Valentino drove. He made a call on his mobile phone to Mickey Rondelli.
“We have the package you want,” he said.
“Sweet,” Mickey replied. “Where are you?”
“Snaresbrook.”
“You know where the old Churchill sand pits are?”
“Yes. They are not far from here.”
“The main gates will be open.”
“We should be there in ten minutes.”
Andy felt a little pressure. It concentrated him. He did not have a lot of time to act. It was doubtful that Savino’s men would be as easy to deal with as these two idiots. The Russians believed that he was hurt, probably concussed, and that he was too scared to be of any threat to them. They had seriously underestimated his capabilities. Had they been more professional, then he would be hog-tied, gagged and in the boot, not in the car with them, with his hands bound in front of him.
After travelling for only two or three minutes, Andy started breathing deeply, and exhaling loudly. “I...I’m going to thr..throw up,” he rasped, and blew his cheeks out and acted as though he was fighting to hold back the inevitable.
“Stop the car, Valentino,” Georgio said. He didn’t want the vehicle stinking of vomit. Or worse, to be covered in it.
It all happened in less than five seconds. As Valentino signalled, changed gear and parked at the side of the road, Andy struck. He groaned, drew his head back, and snapped it sideways in the way a striker would attempt to put a cross into the back of the net.
Georgio felt the bone around his eye socket shatter under the impact of Andy’s forehead. He had one more fleeting view of those vacant yellow eyes, and knew, too late, that he should have known how dangerous this man was. The head whipped forward again and knocked him senseless.
Andy snatched up the gun. Put two bullets into the unconscious man’s side, and then rammed the extended barrel into the back of the driver’s seat.
“Here’s the new deal, Valentino,” he said. “You use your thumb and finger to take out your gun and drop it in the passenger side foot well. Do it. Or you get a slug in your spine.”
Valentino obeyed. The man’s voice was now strong and full of authority. He had fooled them, and Valentino knew that it had cost Georgio his life. He needed to live, to avenge his lover.
“Good boy,” Andy said as the gun bounced on the rubber floor mat. “Now turn this piece of shit round and take me back home.”
He used his teeth to rip the tape, and pulled his wrists free as the Russian followed his instruction.
Back in the house, out on the landing, Andy put a well-placed bullet through the door jamb next to the lock. The low bark of the suppressed report did not disturb the other tenants.
“Inside,” he said to the young gangster, and followed him into the flat and pushed the door to. Ordered him to take a reel of silver duct tape out of a kitchen drawer, and to rip three sheets of quilted paper towel from the holder, crumple it up and put it in his mouth.
“Work it out, Valentino. What do you suppose I want you to do next?”
Valentino picked the end of the tape free and played it out as he wrapped it around his head, over his mouth to gag himself.
“Well done,” Andy said. “Who said Ruskies were slow on the uptake?. Or is that the Poles? You’re all the fucking same to me. Use your knife to cut it.”
Valentino drew his knife. Thumbed the button and sliced through the tape. The reel fell to the floor. He wanted to rush his captor; put the honed blade deep into his guts and work it around, before sitting back to watch him die a slow and painful death.
Andy could almost read the man’s mind. He smiled, before putting a bullet through the Russian’s shinbone, just below the knee.
Valentino dropped to the floor, screaming against the kitchen towel and tape. The noise was minimal. The flick-knife fell from his hand, and Andy stepped forward, picked it up, closed it, and pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans.
He used the tape to securely bind his prisoner’s hands and feet. Wrapped the last of it around his neck and tethered him to the pipe running out from the back of a radiator.
Andy was relieved and very angry. He and Gemma could have been something special together. Now, whatever might have transpired between them was just so much straw in the wind. He had to run again, sooner than he had intended to. He filled a holdall with all his fake documentation and a few spare items of clothing and his bathroom kit. Took the time to put a pair of his contact lenses in, and went back through to the kitchen to kneel down next to his captive, avoiding the pool of blood that was spreading around his injured leg.
“I’m not going to kill you, Valentino. I want you to have to face Gorchev and try to explain to him how you and that other dickhead fucked up. Impress upon him that I always get back. Handing me over to Savino’s mob was probably the worst idea he has ever had. Remind him that nobody is safe from me. I’ve never failed to fulfil a contract on anyone, and now I’ve taken one out, on him. He’s on borrowed time.”
Back outside at the Skoda, Andy now had three guns, a flick-knife, and two mobile phones. He dragged the dead man out of the back seat and transferred him to the boot of the Toyota, and then drove off in the Skoda and parked it a mile away from an Astra that he broke into and hot-wired. Once he had swapped plates with a Vauxhall in a wreckers’ yard in Forest Gate, he began to relax. Stopping again, he took an address book from his holdall, found the telephone number he wanted and used one of the Russians’ phones to make the call.
It rang for a long time before she picked up. She had obviously been asleep. It was almost three a.m.
“Hello.” A sleepy, husky voice.
“Hi, Julie, It’s Andy Tyler. Did I wake you up?”
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
Julie was lost for words.
“Cat got your tongue, sweetheart? Wondering how to get on another phone and have this traced? Don’t bother. I’m on a stolen mobile that I’ll dump as soon as I end the call.”
“What do you want? How do you know my number?”
“I want to bring you up to date, because I’ve had one hell of a night. And I got your number from the computer at the Yard. Among other things, I happen to be a Guru, or Wizard, which in computer jargon means I’m fucking amazing; a real genius at breaking into systems. I like to browse through personnel files. I know all about you, Julie.”
Julie felt anger boil up.
“Hello. Earth to Julie, are you receiving? Over.”
“I’m still here,” she said. “So who have you murdered tonight?”
“Am I that predictable?”
“Yes, Tyler. Some people save lives. You take them. Do you―”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I really don’t have time to get into this. We all dance to a different drum, Julie. That’s what makes this world such a wonderful and interesting place. I called to let you know that Savino did a deal with Gorchev. He wanted the Russian to have me lifted and handed over to his boys. I don’t think he took Gina’s death too well. These dagos have no sense of humour. He can hand it out, but can’t take it. Anyway, the point is they came for me tonight at my new hideaway in Snaresbrook. I killed one. His body is in the boot of a Toyota at the front door. And the other might need an ambulance. He was bleeding heavily from a leg wound when I left him trussed up for you lot to have a word with. Don’t expect too much, though. These Ruskies are a tight-lipped bunch. He’ll be more scared of Gorchev than of you or Ryan.
“The main reason I phoned was to gloat, I suppose. You won’t hear of or from me again. I plan to start afresh, somewhere far away, with a new identity. Killing has become rather tedious. I think I’ve worked it out of my system. Maybe I’ll just play with computers from now on; rob a few multinationals, sit back and live the life of Riley. Got
a pen and paper, Julie?”
“Yes.”
He gave her the Snaresbrook address, hung up and threw the phone into the canal he was parked next to.
He should have been tired, but was wide awake. His brain was racing, replaying the events that had taken place over the last few hours. He had wined and dined and made love with a young woman who could have been a part of his future, before the surprise visit from Gorchev’s equivalent of Ant and Dec. Now, he was homeless, and was not exactly sure where to go or what to do. He needed inspiration. It was too soon to risk trying to leave the country. Every airport and ferry terminal would no doubt have flyers, picturing him in a variety of guises.
He drove for an hour, and found himself south of the river approaching Croydon. While he was planning how to start afresh as John Kelly, he might as well take advantage of the activity that his phone call to the cop would generate, and kill his mother. It would be one less on his list to worry about.
* * *
Angie Duke was watching some third-rate cop movie on SKY. It was not thrilling, there was no one in it that she had ever heard of before, and the acting was wooden. But the guy playing the Yank detective was quite dishy-looking, so she didn’t channel hop.
She needed a pee, before taking more black coffee on board. It was past four in the morning, and she was tired and becoming pissed off with baby-sitting Ruby Tyler, who was upstairs snoring like an asthmatic pig. This was like being with Witness Protection. The first few shifts had been okay. She had thought that the woman’s son might try to break in and kill her. But with everything that was going down, he wouldn’t come anywhere near the place. His photo was in all the papers and on TV, and whatever else he was, he was not stupid enough to walk into a trap. She went upstairs, had a leak, and flushed the toilet, just as...
...Andy unlocked the back door with the spare key that his mother had always left under the planter next to the step. He had been surprised to find it still there. She had probably forgotten about it, but he hadn’t.
As he closed the door, he heard the toilet flush. He moved quickly, holding the SIG Sauer that had belonged to one of the Russians.