by Michael Kerr
“You should have killed me, Tyler. Letting me live was a very big mistake. Georgio was my partner in every sense of the word. And you should have checked all the rooms at the factory, when you broke in and murdered Sergei and the others. I was there.”
“How did you find me?” Andy said, stalling for time and wondering if he could employ Faith as a shield, for the moment when he would attack the Russian.
“A policeman who works in the Computer Crime Section of Scotland Yard managed to download files from the machine you left in Muswell Hill. The list of women who you were setting up for sex and murder led me to Chesham. I was sure that you would be taking refuge with one of them. Fate decreed that I arrived there just before you left for the airport. I watched you check-in, then bought a ticket. I was sitting three seats behind you all the way across the Atlantic. With the cosmetic surgery I have undergone, and the blond hair, I was invisible to you.”
“What is he talking about, John?” Faith said.
“As you probably know, he is not called John,” Valentino said. “His real name is Andrew Tyler. He sells death, and has used you as he uses everyone. No doubt, given time, which he has precious little left, he would have tired of you, decided that you were of no further value, and killed you.”
Faith turned to Andy. “Tell me that’s not true,” she said.
“Of course it’s not true, babe. Everything I said, I meant.”
Valentino smiled. He was about to shoot them both, and yet they chose to spend their last seconds having what, if allowed to continue, might turn into a lovers’ tiff. He studied them. The woman was of no interest to him. Just a big-breasted, overweight female with an uncommon amount of pubic hair, that was a thicket of greying curls, growing up to her navel and spreading out onto the inside of her pale thighs. Conversely, Tyler did interest him, in a physical sense. He was slim, very muscular, and his flaccid penis looked very appetising. Ah, under different circumstances…
Andy grasped Faith by the shoulders, as if to impress on her his love and devotion. He then jerked her in front of himself and charged at the seated man.
Spotting Andy Tyler and Faith Conway on the CCTV footage did not take long, with a score of officers working back through the previous seventy-two hours worth of tapes.
Ryan made his way over to the security control room in Terminal 2 at Heathrow and watched the time-coded and dated recordings. There was no doubt that the couple were Tyler and Conway. Both of them had dyed their hair, and Tyler was moustachioed and wore glasses. But it was him. The couple had taken a flight to Miami under the aliases of Mr and Mrs. John Kelly. Phone calls to all the car rental desks at Miami International came up blank. But Ryan was undaunted. There would be a trail. Maybe video of them getting into a cab. Miami might not be Tyler’s final destination, but he would probably spend a few days in a beach hotel, chill out, and then move on.
Ryan phoned Julie at the Yard. Told her that they had a strong lead. “I think we should fly across the pond and run him down,” he said. “Can you arrange two return tickets to the Sunshine State?”
“I should think so. But we’ll have to work with the Miami police.”
“No problem. With Metro-Dade helping, we should locate Tyler a lot quicker than if we tried to go it alone.”
* * *
The Ruger coughed, and a soft-nosed bullet pierced Faith’s forehead, just below the slight widow’s peak of her hairline, to flatten out and turn a large portion of her brain to pap. She snorted and, now a dead weight, fell to the floor, out of Andy’s grasp.
“Back up a few feet, Tyler,” Valentino said. “Or you end up like her.”
Andy complied.
“Now get dressed,” Valentino said. “We are going for a drive.”
With Faith’s body in the spa bath, where Andy had been told to dump it, and the bedclothes pulled back off the foot of the bed to cover the patch of blood that had leaked from her head, they left the room, leaving a do not disturb sign on the door handle, and taking the service elevator down to the basement car park.
At no time did Andy have a fighting chance to make an escape bid or disarm the young Russian.
“You drive,” Valentino said, tossing Andy the keys to the Ford Taurus.
“Where are we going?” Andy said.
Valentino smiled. “Sightseeing. Have you ever been to the Everglades?”
Andy drove across the bay and, following instructions at gun point, took the ramp onto the North-South Expressway and was soon on the South Dixie Highway. At the town of Homestead, they struck west on State Road 27, until Valentino told Andy to make a left on to a dirt track.
“Pull over,” Valentino said after they had driven for over two miles through semi-tropical surroundings. They left the car and set off on foot along a boggy trail. Their clothing stuck to them as they walked alongside a lagoon of tea-coloured water that was home to: black racer snakes, snapping turtles, alligators, and all manner of native fauna and flora.
The shack was in danger of falling down. The door was missing, and only green-tinged shards of glass ringed the rotting window frames. The whole structure was leaning towards a swampy lagoon. It was isolated, surrounded by sandy islands of slash pines, marshes, large stands of dwarf cypress sprouting up from the water and muck, and giant bald cypress trees that had survived loggers’ axes, escaping a fate of being used to make boat hulls, coffins and pickle barrels, to offer refuge to nesting birds, Spanish moss, and an abundance of air plants that clung tenaciously to their aged trunks.
“Inside,” Valentino said, keeping well out of range, all too aware of how dangerous Tyler could be.
As Andy entered the shack, a bullet tore through the back of his leg and shattered his kneecap. He fell to the slimy, decaying floorboards and sucked in his breath. Hope was fading fast. He had thought there would be one golden moment when he could turn things around and get the better of the Russian. Now, he felt the encroaching weight of despair take shape and assault his senses.
As he tried to rise, Valentino shot him in the other leg. The pain was monumental. Andy withdrew into himself and found the secret place in his psyche that he had built in childhood to protect himself from the abuse his father had meted out.
Valentino used a plastic tie to secure Andy’s wrists, before swapping the gun for a knife.
Much later, and still conscious, Andy was dragged out under a setting boffo sunset; one that splits the sky with a flamingo-pink streak that seems to torch the heavens aflame in stunning reds and oranges.
Valentino used a fallen branch to slap the weed-choked water’s surface. He then put his plastered foot under Andy’s waist and levered him down the grassy bank and into the deep mire.
Andy could not support himself on his wounded legs, and his wrists were still bound. He relaxed his body and found that he could float on his back, supported in part by mangrove roots. What the hell was the Russian playing at? Did he intend to just leave him to bleed out and die in the lagoon?
Valentino sat down and waited. Just smiled at Andy, who was now snagged on some of the spiny roots that broke the surface.
After less than ten minutes, Valentino stood up and called out to Andy. “You have company, Tyler. Enjoy”.
The giant alligator was one of the oldest in the region. It measured fifteen feet from snout to tail tip, and weighed close to a thousand pounds. With sinuous sweeps of its mighty tail, it homed in on the warm-blooded prey.
Only as the huge reptile lunged at him with massive jaws gaping, did Andy accept that he was about to suffer an horrific death. That he should meet his end by way of a creature that had less emotion than himself, was ironical.
The scaly gin trap snapped closed, and the pressure exerted on his chest collapsed his lungs. The gator thrashed and spun, before slipping beneath the surface, to take its still conscious meal to wedge under a favourite sunken tree trunk, to let it drown and decompose sufficiently for it to return and more easily tear the flesh from the bones.
A clou
d of bloody bubbles erupted from Andy’s mouth and rushed up – a cluster of red pearls – in front of his eyes.. Had his hands been free, he might have been able to gouge at the creature’s eyes, but he was totally helpless. Had now become a victim. The force of the gator’s bite was stupefying. He might have been pierced back and front by thick, steel nails.
As he was taken down to the bottom of the pool, Andy fought to focus in new-found fear and wonder at an amber eye that reminded him of his own dispassionate character.
Valentino watched the spectacle of Tyler being taken. Marvelled at the unbridled power of the mighty saurian reptile, and savoured the expression of pain and disbelief that twisted Tyler’s features. He stayed until well after the surface of the water ceased to churn and returned to its former placidity.
“There, Georgio,” Valentino said, standing on the bank at the edge of the freshwater slough. “I have avenged you. Rest in peace, my love.”
After a few minutes, with tears pricking his eyes, but fostering a sense of appeasement, Valentino made his way back along the trail. It was verging on darkness when he reached the car and leisurely made the return trip to Miami.
Chapter FORTY-ONE
Julie had given Chief Superintendent Robert ‘ Baleful’ Bailey an in-depth verbal report of the state-of-play. He had, with expected hesitance and much humming and hawing, given her authorisation to fly out to Miami, accompanied by Ryan. The so-called Hitman was still most wanted on their list of current murder suspects. He was a cop killer, and his capture was a priority.
“Work with Metro-Dade,” Bailey said. “I’ll smooth the way with their Chief of Police.”
Julie went down to Ryan’s office with good news written all over her face. But her euphoria was short-lived. Ryan had taken delivery of a FedEx package, marked for his personal attention, and mailed in Miami.
“This just came,” he said, getting up and pouring them both coffee, leaving the Jiffy-bag unopened on the desktop.
“So open it,” Julie said. “I can’t stand the suspense. Who sent it?”
“Sender’s name and address is Edward McKee, 2548 S. Bayshore Drive, Miami. Pound to a penny there’s no such person or address.
Ryan opened the top drawer of his desk and rummaged around until he found a letter opener in the shape of a dagger. He then went over to a file cabinet and plucked two cellophane gloves from a cardboard box. Slipped them on, slit the top of the bag and shook out the contents.
There was a sheet of writing paper, headed: the Loews Hotel, Miami Beach. An elastic band held it attached to a plastic re-sealable bag that had at one time held a block of Kraft mature cheddar cheese.
Ryan read the short typewritten note:
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR RYAN,
I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW OF TYLER’S FATE.
I SHOT HIM IN BOTH LEGS, SPENT SOME TIME TORTURING HIM, AND REMOVED THIS, WHICH IS ALL THAT THE ALLIGATOR I FED HIM TO DID NOT GET.
I LEFT THE WOMAN HE WAS TRAVELLING WITH – FAITH CONWAY – IN THE SUITE THEY HAD BOOKED INTO AS MR AND MRS JOHN KELLY.
The note was signed, Valentino Pavlovka.
Ryan opened the Kraft bag and was hit by the smell of sour blood, and meat that had gone off. The thick slice of skin and attached fat was roughly four inches square. It was tinged green. And apart from a few hairs and a small pimple, was embellished with an intricately designed Celtic cross.”
“There goes our trip,” Julie said. “Unless we incinerate this and pretend you never received it.”
Ryan knew that she was kidding. “Maybe it’s a ruse,” he said. “Tyler could have removed this himself. It would be a clever way to stop us looking for him.”
“Do you think that’s a possibility?”
“No. He will have believed he was home-free.”
“That means we got a result.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. Don’t ask me why, but I feel cheated.”
“You can’t always have nice neat endings and make the collar yourself, Ryan.”
It was verified later in the day that Faith Conway had been found in the bathroom of an eighteenth-floor suite of the Loews Hotel. A faxed photograph of Faith was confirmed as being the woman who had been shot in the head. The Miami-Dade police were looking for a young, blond man with a limp, who had also been staying at the hotel, registered as one Jan Khorkova.
Life returned to what passed for normality. Jessica Ryan went home, once a DNA test between the fragment of tattooed flesh and a sample from Tyler’s mother’s cadaver confirmed genetically that the flesh had come from Andrew Tyler.
Jessica made the decision to sell the house, and told Ryan that she was going to live in Crete, get a tan, and paint every day.
Emily Simmons began to relax. She and Harold Palmer were now an item. He had cleaned up his act, put his binoculars away, and was losing weight, having cut out the beer. They took Benson for long walks, made love every night, and were seriously considering tying the knot.
Eddie had phoned Michele Avery at her dress shop and asked her out for a meal, and she had accepted his invitation. He thought that she might be ‘The One’. He was an eternal optimist when it came to women.
Mid June.
A fantasy was in the process of coming true.
It was a dream machine: glossy black and fire engine-red, with dazzling chrome that reflected the world around it.
Ryan turned the key, and the Harley Softtail’s engine purred into life between his thighs. Julie was wearing black leathers. She put her arms around his waist and interlocked her fingers.
They had both taken three weeks’ leave. This was to be an abridged version of Ryan’s dream. Instead of flying to New York, they had opted to cut out the east. They were in Dallas, Texas. The loose plan was to head west, through New Mexico, Arizona and California.
For a few weeks they were suspending all harsh reality, to put aside the misery and death that went hand-in-glove with their chosen profession. Their universe was what lay ahead on the open road. Where to stop, eat, sleep and make love were the only decisions and considerations that they had any intention of entertaining.
“I could do this forever,” Ryan said as he put the bike into gear and pulled away from the rest area they had stopped at.
“No you couldn’t,” Julie said, leaning forward to be heard above the warm breeze and engine noise. “You’d start to get restless without having someone to hunt.”
* * * *
About The Author
Michael Kerr is the pseudonym of Mike Smail the author of several crime thrillers and two children’s novels. He lives and writes in the Yorkshire Wolds, and has won, been runner-up, and short listed on numerous occasions for short story competitions with Writing Magazine and Writers’ News.
After a career of more than twenty years in the Prison Service, Mike now uses his experience in that area to write original, hard-hitting crime novels.
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Other Books By Michael Kerr
DI Matt Barnes Series
1 - A Reason To Kill
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2 - Lethal Intent
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3 - A Need To Kill
Amazon US Amazon UK
The Joe Logan Series
1 - ‘A Reacher Kind of Guy’ – Aftermath
Amazon US Amazon UK
&nb
sp; 2 - Atonement
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Other Crime Thrillers
Deadly Reprisal
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Deadly Requital
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Black Rock Bay
Amazon US Amazon UK
Children’s Fiction
Adventures in Otherworld – Part One – The Chalice of Hope
Amazon US Amazon UK