Dead Man's Gift and Other Stories

by Simon Kernick

  Bale swung the gun round as Scope broke cover from behind the staircase, but Scope was already firing. He emptied out all three rounds, at least one of which struck Bale in the upper body. As Bale stumbled and banged into the wall, he got off a round that flew past Scope’s head. At the same time Max, who’d been standing stock-still, finally reacted, diving to the floor as Scope jumped over him and charged Bale, throwing the .22 at his head.

  The gun hit Bale full in the face, making him cry out in pain, but he still had the presence of mind to point his pistol at Scope, who had to dive the last few feet, his arm managing to knock the gun aside so that the bullet flew wildly.

  The momentum of Scope’s attack sent both men crashing to the floor. Bale gasped, winded by the fall, but desperation drove him on, and as Scope grabbed the wrist of his gun hand, trying to make him let go, Bale made a last-ditch attempt to throw him off. Scope hung on, but Bale managed to force his gun arm from the floor, the end of the suppressor swinging perilously close to Scope’s face. The gun went off, and Scope actually felt the heat from the bullet as it passed by, which was when he made a sudden push on Bale’s gun arm with everything he had. Bale was already pulling the trigger a second time as Scope drove his arm down hard so that the end of the suppressor was actually touching the folds of flesh beneath Bale’s chin.

  The bullet ripped through Bale’s head, exiting his skull in a cloud of blood and bone. His body immediately went slack and Scope sat back up, exhaling with relief.

  Which was when he heard Max cry out from behind him.

  Grabbing Bale’s gun from the dead man’s hand, he swung round and saw the woman he’d thought was dead grabbing Max in a choke-hold and pressing a knife against his gut. Her face was a mask of sheer venom as she stared down Scope.

  ‘Drop the gun and throw it over here,’ she hissed, crouching down beside Max, using him as cover. ‘Otherwise I kill him. Right here. Right now.’

  Scope could hear the excitement in her voice. She actually wanted to kill Max. She’d almost certainly kill them both if he let her have the gun. She also looked unhurt, which meant she had to be wearing a bulletproof vest to have withstood the earlier gunshot.

  ‘I said, fucking drop it. Do you want me to start cutting him? Because I will. I’ll tear him into little fucking pieces.’

  Scope aimed the gun just above the arm that held Max in the choke-hold, so it was pointed directly at the woman’s right eye. His arm was steady even though the tension was tearing at his insides. ‘If you let Max go, I’ll let you walk out of here. If you hurt him, I’ll kill you. I know you’re wearing a vest, but I’m a good shot, and I can take you in the head. You want to die, like Frank here?’

  A flash of doubt crossed her face but disappeared just as quickly. ‘I’m going to give you one last chance. Drop the fucking gun, or I gut the kid right now.’ She crouched down even further behind him, so she was almost out of sight. ‘Right fucking now!’

  He sighed. A head shot was almost impossible. ‘Okay, I’m going to do as you say. Don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘No fucking tricks.’

  He lowered the gun three inches and pulled the trigger, shooting her in the forearm. She screamed in pain and teetered backwards, letting go of Max, who dived out of the way as Scope took aim a second time and shot her in the face.

  For a long second she stared at him in shock, still crouched on her haunches, the blood pouring down over her mouth and onto her chin, before finally she fell slowly onto her side and lay there unmoving.

  Scope got to his feet and helped Max up. His nephew was weeping silently and Scope held him close. ‘It’s all right now,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all over.’ He led Max out onto the doorstep and asked him to wait a moment, then went back inside. Crouching down, he placed the pistol in Frank Bale’s hand, before picking up the .22 revolver and putting it beside the woman’s body. When the police arrived, it would look like the two of them had shot at each other, and that Frank had come out on top, killing her, before turning the gun on himself. It wasn’t exactly foolproof, but it was going to have to do.

  When he was done, he went back outside and put an arm round Max, who looked up at him with a mixture of shock and relief. He even managed a small smile. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  It had been five years since Scope had set eyes on his nephew, so it was no surprise that Max didn’t remember him.

  In a way the lack of recognition hurt, but Scope knew it was a lot easier this way. ‘I’m just a man who likes to help people. I’m going to take you back to your mum now, but could you do me a little favour?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t tell the police about me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They might not understand that I had to shoot those people.’

  ‘Why not? They were very bad. They deserved it.’

  ‘That they did, but sometimes the police don’t see it like that.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Max. ‘I won’t say anything.’ He looked up at Scope with wide, innocent eyes that had seen far too much these past twenty-four hours. ‘Can I go home now?’

  Scope smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Sure you can.’

  28

  The man shook his head silently, the anger building inside him as he stared at the TV screen. All that planning and they’d failed. It would all have been so perfect as well. Everyone would have blamed the Asian gambling syndicates for the explosion at such a high-profile hearing into football match-fixing, when the real target had been sitting only five feet away from Tim Horton the whole time.

  Garth Crossman, the charismatic government minister with the common touch, tipped for the top in the Conservative Party, should have been dead by now. Instead, his handsome features were filling the TV screen as he gave an account of the dramatic events inside the hearing that morning. He was still dressed in the suit he’d been wearing earlier and his well-coiffed head of silver hair looked perfect. His voice was deep and steady as he spoke, proving once again to his growing army of supporters that he was exactly the kind of man you looked up to in a crisis. The irony was that this attack was going to leave him far stronger.

  Frank Bale’s boss knew a lot about Garth Crossman, and much of it was unpleasant. If his supporters had any idea what Crossman was really like, they’d desert him in droves. But they didn’t, and they were unlikely to, either. He was far too clever for that. The problem was it also meant he’d realize very quickly that he’d been the target this morning, and not the sports agent, and it wouldn’t take long to work out who’d been behind it.

  Frank’s boss took a sip of the whisky in his hand and sighed. There was going to be trouble ahead. Too much was riding on this whole thing.

  It was best he prepared for it.

  29

  They met inside the tiny car park of a deserted nature reserve a couple of miles north of Henley-on-Thames.

  As soon as Diane saw Scope pull up next to her, she was out of her car in an instant. With a cry of relief, Max ran into her arms. Scope watched them hold each other, feeling a strange mixture of joy and melancholy. He remembered holding his daughter like that a long time ago. Not wanting to encroach, he stayed in the car and turned away from the scene. His engine was still running and he was just about to pull away, when there was a tap on the window.

  Diane stared down at him, her eyes alight with relief and gratitude. She was clutching Max to her side and his face was buried in her coat.

  He let down the window and smiled up at her.

  ‘Thank you, Scope,’ she said, her voice still a little unsteady. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. That goes for when you talk to the police too. I’d appreciate it if my name didn’t get mentioned.’

  ‘It won’t. I promise.’ She leaned down so her face was close to his. Her skin was puffy and red, and the stress of the last twenty-four hours was etched deeply into it. ‘And are we safe now?’ she whispered.
>
  He nodded. ‘You won’t be bothered by those people again. It’s over. You go back and look after your son. He needs you now.’

  She stared at him for a couple of seconds, and it was difficult to read what she was thinking, but he had a feeling that, amidst the genuine gratitude, a part of her was scared of him and what he was capable of. He was sure that she’d never want to see him again, either, because he would always be a reminder of the most terrible experience of her life. Fair enough. He understood that.

  Finally she turned away and walked with Max back to her car.

  Scope watched them both get in, then reversed out of the spot and away from their permanently changed lives. He didn’t want to go back home, so instead he wound his way through the back roads that dotted this part of the Chiltern Hills until he finally found himself on the M40, heading north. He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. He just felt a need to get away.

  He was almost at the Lake District when he heard confirmation on the radio that Tim Horton was the sole fatality in the select-committee hearing explosion. It had now been confirmed that it had been caused by a bomb, and the media were finally beginning to report that Tim might have been the man in possession of it. Because he’d been running for the door at the time of the explosion, the force of the blast had been directed against the main wall and away from those inside the room. The result was that the only other reported casualty was a nearby security guard, who was currently in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

  In the end, Tim had shown a bravery that Scope wouldn’t have expected of him. He’d sacrificed his life for his son, but he’d done it in a way that had avoided taking many innocent lives. That took real guts, and it made Scope proud of him. It also made him glad that he’d helped save Max, even though he’d had to kill three people in the process. It was possible that the police would find out about his involvement and come after him, although there was nothing he could do about that now. And anyway, that was the risk you took when you involved yourself in other people’s battles, and Scope had never been able to resist a cry for help.

  He thought for a few moments about whether he regretted sticking his life and his liberty on the line like that. But a few moments was all it took. As he looked out of the car window to where the sun was beginning to set in a fiery gold blaze above the rolling hills to the west, he knew he’d done the right thing, and it pleased him.

  One By One

  Part One

  Before

  Prologue

  As he parked the car and walked down the narrow path to the deserted jetty, breathing in the crisp sea air, Charlie Williams should have been a supremely happy individual. At forty-two, he had everything a man could want: an attractive wife eight years his junior, who doted on him; two extremely photogenic young children – one of each; several million pounds in the bank, as a result of a number of successful business decisions; and now a stratospheric career in politics that had already seen him rise to the rank of junior minister in the current government, with the Westminster gossip suggesting that he could be PM one day.

  But as he approached the boat that was going to take him out to the island – his island – he felt a deep sense of foreboding. Dark clouds were gathering and if he didn’t act decisively, he risked being enveloped by them entirely.

  Pat was already standing at the wheel – grim-faced and stoic as ever, dressed like he should have been working the nets on a fishing trawler. He turned, gave a grunted ‘Hello, sir’ and helped Charlie aboard.

  ‘Hello, Pat. Good to see you,’ Charlie lied. He always found himself slightly uncomfortable with Pat, unless the two of them had been drinking together, which had happened a few times over the years. Even so, there was little familiarity between them. Frankly, Pat gave him the creeps. It was his eyes. They were totally expressionless. He was ex-army and had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, where clearly he’d done, or at least seen, things that had affected him deeply, and of which he would never talk. Still, he’d worked for Charlie as the island’s caretaker for more than three years, and in that time he’d always been completely reliable.

  ‘Is everything ready?’ Charlie asked him.

  ‘All done, sir, as per your instructions.’

  Charlie had given up telling Pat to stop calling him ‘sir’ and use his first name instead. The man was a law unto himself and sometimes it was best just to leave things. He took a seat as the boat pulled away from the dock. The sea was relatively calm for this stretch of the coastline, which meant that the journey to the island would take no more than fifteen minutes. He looked at his watch. 11 a.m. Still early. The others would arrive in dribs and drabs during the course of the day. All but one of them were coming from London, which was a good four hours’ journey away, but Charlie had told them to get to the jetty by 6.30 p.m. at the latest, so they didn’t have to make the crossing in the dark. He was banking on the fact that they all had too much to lose not to come, but you could never tell, even though every one of them had responded to his invitation with a yes. Still, he’d be a lot happier when they were all together behind closed doors. Then, finally, they could discuss murder.

  The island loomed up in front of them – a ten-acre sloping rock jutting out of the sea a mile and a half out from the long, deserted stretch of bay that it partially protected. It had once belonged to an eccentric English lord who, having returned from the horrors of the First World War, wished to cut himself off as much as possible from civilization. He’d built a large, rambling house tucked into the lee of the rock, facing back towards the mainland that he wished to escape from, and planted a small pine wood on the gentle incline that ran down to the water. Charlie had spotted the island for sale in Country Life magazine five years earlier and, wanting to find a place in which he could truly escape from the pressures of work, he’d bought it outright for the bargain price of nine hundred grand. Diane had been mortified. She too had wanted a second home, but had her hopes set on Provence or Umbria, not a windswept rock off the coast of west Wales. But Charlie had been insistent, which was something he was very good at, and he’d never regretted the purchase, even though he knew it would be a bugger to sell. This was his place, and its isolation would serve him well this weekend.

  The boat slowed as it approached the tiny wooden dock that stuck out from the narrow stretch of sandy beach where Freddie and Tamsin liked to play when the family came here in the summer, and Pat cut the engine as they pulled alongside.

  Charlie stood up, grabbing the side rail for support, and climbed out of the boat. He turned to go over the instructions with Pat one more time, but the caretaker was already turning the boat round. Charlie wasn’t concerned. Pat would know what to do. You only needed to tell him something once. He was efficient and, more importantly, discreet. Charlie knew that Pat could ruin him if he wanted to, which was why he paid him double what he was worth to look after the house, but he also knew that one day there might have to be some kind of reckoning between them.

  With a deep breath, he headed for the path that wound through the thick wall of pines up to the house. As far as the world knew, he was here alone for the weekend to work on his memoirs. If anyone – family, friends or, God forbid, colleagues – had any idea what the real reason was, it would shock them to the core.

  Karen Thompson had hoped this day would never come. She was a firm believer in karma, and that whole concept of divine justice, but felt that she’d been punished enough already for that one terrible mistake in her youth. In truth, she’d been paying for it for the past twenty-one years.

  Karen had always been a worrier. It was a legacy from her mother, who’d spent her entire life incapable of seeing the bright side of anything. But over time she’d learned to manage her fears, as well as the guilt. She’d built a decent career for herself in the Department of Transport, had finally got married to a nice guy after several less-than-ideal long-term relationships, had given birth to a daughter wh
o’d been her world, and then – bang, just like that – it had all been taken away from her. In a way, it was the punishment that a part of her had always expected – perhaps even hoped for – as a means of expunging her sins.

  It had taken her a long time to get some semblance of her life back together after Lily’s sudden death and, even now, just thinking about her daughter could reduce her to tears in a second. Surely, God, it had been punishment enough.

  And yet it hadn’t been, because now the past looked like it might finally be catching up with all of them.

  With a deep sigh, she picked up her overnight bag and looked in the mirror. The woman who stared back at her was thin and exhausted, with deep bags under her eyes. There were still a few vestiges of the looks that had turned heads all those years back, but it was clear they were facing inevitable defeat against the worry-lines that seemed to grow deeper every day.

  Bastards, she thought. Why did I ever get involved with them?

  Well, you did, said the voice that always lurked in the back of her mind. And now you’ve got to stay calm and deal with it. Because if you don’t …

  She shuddered, knowing only too well the consequences of failure, as she headed out into the dangers of the outside world.

  ‘Listen, John, I’m going to be uncontactable from lunchtime until Sunday afternoon, period. So you’re just going to have to run the meeting yourself, okay? You’ve got all the relevant figures and you’re a big boy, so sort it, then mail me the good news.’

  Marla Folgado ended the call without waiting for his response. John was one of her best sales consultants and could easily close the deal on his own, but a lot of the time he acted like a puppy round her, always wanting her input. Her approval. Even at forty-two, Marla was still able to use her sexuality with devastating effect. Most of the time it was a power she loved wielding. Occasionally though, like today, it was just plain annoying.