A Good Day To Die

by Simon Kernick

  I retreated from the room as the contestant won eight grand for getting the answer right (it was B: Kigali), and started up the staircase as quietly as possible. Two of the stairs creaked loudly as I put pressure on them, but I kept going regardless.

  At the top of the stairs a door was open. Although it was dark inside, I could see that it was a toilet, and empty too. There was still no sign of anyone.

  Two more stairs to my left led up to the second floor. I went up them into the darkness of the narrow landing. A door immediately to my right was shut.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice came from up the next set of stairs at the end of the landing. I recognized it immediately as Andrea’s. ‘Is that you, Jeff?’ she added.

  ‘No, it’s Mick Kane, Andrea,’ I called back. ‘Your front door was wide open. I need to speak to you.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, still out of sight. ‘Why’s it so quiet down there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered truthfully. ‘There’s no one in the living room. I think you must be the only person in.’

  ‘I’m not. Maz and Star are in. Or they were a few minutes ago. I heard them.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve gone out for some cigarettes or something. I just had a couple of quick questions.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you any more, and I don’t like the way you’ve just walked in our house. You weren’t invited, and it’s freaking me out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t phone you because you never gave me a number. I visited the psychiatrist who treated Ann today, Dr Madeline Cheney. She filled me in on a lot of things. I think you can, too. Please? It won’t take more than a few minutes and it’s extremely important.’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something moving, down near my feet, only just visible in the gloom.

  ‘I’m not talking to you. I’m going back to my room now, and I’m locking myself in. If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police. I mean it.’

  I looked down. A dark line had appeared beneath the door on my right. The line was getting longer, touching the threadbare carpet and forming a small pool where there was a kink.

  Blood.

  My whole body tensed, and when I spoke next my voice was loud and urgent. ‘Andrea, listen to me. You’ve got to come down, right now!’

  I could hear her retreating up the next flight of stairs, back to her room and what she thought was safety. ‘I told you,’ she shouted. ‘I’m going to call the police.’

  ‘There’s something wrong, Andrea. You’ve got to believe me!’ My voice was getting louder. There was someone else in this house; someone who shouldn’t have been here. I pushed the door and felt it come up against an obstacle. I pushed harder and it slowly opened, forcing the obstruction out of the way.

  ‘Come down here, Andrea, please!’

  I reached for the light switch inside and flicked it on.

  And saw the corpse.

  Registered the sight. Blinked. Registered it again.

  It was a young man of about twenty, with spiky, dyed-black hair and dead blue eyes. He was lying in a foetal position, blood still pouring from the huge twin gashes across his face and throat.

  Upstairs there was the sound of footfalls on the carpet as Andrea ran back to her room, then the sound of a door shutting.

  I pushed further into the room, saw the semi-naked body of a slightly built woman, about the same age, on a low futon bed. She was lying on her back, one arm draped across her breasts and belly, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. She’d had her throat cut too and the blood was beginning to dye the sheets round her a deep red.

  This time I pulled out the .45 and stepped back out of the room, pointing it into the darkness ahead.

  Once again the house was silent except for the murmur of the TV downstairs.

  ‘Andrea, if you can hear me, I want you to come down the stairs right now and leave with me. Or else call the police.’

  There was no reply. Nothing. Not even a creak.

  I could have gone. Turned round and walked. Dialled 999 from a safe distance away.

  I could have done, and I wanted to. But I didn’t. Instead, I crept down the corridor, turned at the end, and started up the flight of stairs that led to Andrea’s room, finger tight on the trigger of the gun.

  A stair creaked. Above me was almost pitch darkness. I kept going.

  When I reached the top, I stopped. I was on a small, windowless landing. There were two doors to my left, both closed, and one right in front of me, also closed.

  ‘Andrea? Are you there?’

  Silence. Not even a breath being drawn. All I could hear was the thudding of my heart in my chest.

  I fumbled round for a light switch but couldn’t see one, then stepped forward and flung open the door directly in front of me, staring straight into darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a tiled floor with a bath to my right, partly obscured by a shower curtain, and a toilet and washbasin further on. The faint glow of street light eased through the window at the end.

  I pulled back the shower curtain. Fast, in one movement.

  The bath was empty.

  So was the rest of the room.

  As I stepped back onto the landing, I heard a faint sob.

  I stopped. It was coming from one of the other rooms to my left. I knew it could be a trap so I took another step back, then turned until I was facing the two doors, unsure from which one the noise had come.

  I stayed where I was. Stock still. Waiting. Listening.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the door nearest to me opened. I held the gun outstretched in front of me, two-handed, waited for what seemed to be a very long time, my arms aching, beginning to shake.

  And then Andrea finally appeared, standing upright, staring at me. Frightened, terrified . . .

  . . . And dying.

  The blood was gushing out of the gaping wound in her neck, each pulse of her heart spurting more. It was everywhere, splattering in a series of arcs on to the carpet in front of me.

  For a moment I was too stunned to move, then suddenly she came flying bodily in my direction. I tried to dodge her but she hit me head on, her mouth opening and shutting and making this horrible gasping sound as we both fell back against the top banister in a wet and bloody embrace. I pushed her out of the way, catching sight of the killer as he came towards me, an iron bar raised above his head, dressed in a transparent waterproof jacket and mask, looking like something out of a chemical warfare film. Andrea staggered and fell, still trying to grab hold of me with one hand while the other worked vainly at stemming the tidal flow of blood.

  The blow caught me on the side of the head as I raised the gun to fire and I was momentarily stunned. My grip on the gun eased and it dropped from my hand as I grabbed at the banister for balance. He hit me again across the side of the face and this time I went down hard, landing on top of Andrea before rolling off her and trying to get myself into a protective ball. His next blow was a kick that caught me in the guts and made me want to vomit, the one after that connecting with my face. I could hear him grunting with exertion, and the obscene crinkling of his suit as he moved back and forth.

  And then he did a strange thing. He stopped and dropped the open cut-throat razor he’d been carrying in his other hand onto the carpet near my head. Blood dripped from it.

  As I tried to focus, he stepped back to kick me again. Two feet away, Andrea Bloom lay sprawled and fading on the floor, the blood continuing to flow out of her at a terrifying rate, the carpet now awash with it, but still she watched me with dark, beautiful eyes that pleaded for one last chance to live.

  ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’

  I recognized the voice. It was Andrea’s boyfriend, Grant, and he was coming up the stairs.

  The killer paused, then kicked again, but this time I was ready for it. I got hold of his leg and pushed him away with my last remaining strength. He fell back against the wall, then pulled free and turned and ran past me, lashing out with the bar as he di
d so and catching me across the arm. I fell back to the floor, my vision becoming fuzzy and my head aching like mad for the second time in a few days. I wanted to lie down, to go to sleep. I could hear the killer running down the stairs, heard him confront the boyfriend, heard Grant cry out as he came off worst, and knew without a doubt that if I stayed where I was and gave in to the temptation to close my eyes, then not only would I go to prison for the murders I was wanted for from three years ago, but I’d also go down for the ones in here. Because I was the one left with the murder weapon and a houseful of corpses.

  Using the banister for support, I got to my knees, and then my feet. Andrea had stopped gasping now and her eyes had closed. It was possible she was still alive, but if she was, it was purely academic. Even in the gloom I could see the blood everywhere; could smell the sour, inevitable approach of death. There was no hope. She was gone.

  But there was no time to ponder the injustice of her murder. I had to get the hell out of there. I looked round for the .45 but couldn’t see it. I squinted, finally spotted it in the corner of the landing, and staggered over to retrieve it. My head did some sort of internal somersault as I bent down and picked it up and I had to steady myself against the wall to stop myself from fainting. I wanted to puke. Badly. But vomit leaves DNA, and I couldn’t have that.

  I swallowed, made for the stairs, staggered down them, the darkness ebbing and flowing in front of me. Made my way along the hallway towards the second set of stairs, holding the gun unsteadily in preparation for any last-ditch ambush by the killer.

  Grant’s body was sprawled backwards on the staircase, his right leg bent at an awkward angle, one foot propped against the banister. His face was a mask of blood, his hair thick and matted with it where he’d been bludgeoned with the iron bar. A slither of white was showing where his skull had been exposed and flecks of blood dotted the bare wall behind him.

  That could have been me. But no, he’d wanted me alive. Wanted me set up for these murders. Which meant . . .

  The Lord alone knew what it meant. I swallowed, resisting once again the urge to vomit, and tried to step over Grant’s body, stumbling as I did so and tripping over his leg.

  I fell down four stairs, my head pounding like someone was using a pneumatic drill on it, which they may as well have been, forced myself back to my feet, and made for the door.

  I banged against it harder than I’d been expecting, and fumbled for the handle, finding it after a couple of seconds and giving it a hard yank.

  A welcome blast of icy London air smacked me right in the face, and my vision seemed to clear a little as I made my way down the steps and started off down the street, trying to stay upright, trying to put as much distance between myself and the murder scene as possible. Four people dead, just to keep one mouth shut. I was getting close. I had to be.

  When I got to the main road, I fell onto one knee, jarred it, tried to get up, saw the whole world melt in front of me, and vomited ferociously.

  I vaguely recall a car pulling up and being lifted to my feet and pushed into the back of it. I vaguely recall there being two men in the front as it pulled away.

  Then I lost consciousness.

  35

  I was in a darkened room, lying on my back on a single bed. The bed smelled clean. My jacket and shoes had been removed and a light duvet covered me. I tried to sit up, but the effort made me dizzy and I lay back down again. I felt my head. It had been expertly bandaged, but I didn’t think I was in a hospital. There were no monitors beside the bed, no wires or drips, nothing like that. Just a plastic chair, which my jacket was neatly folded over, and a second wooden chair near the door. I looked at my watch. Ten past three in the morning. The curtains weren’t pulled and outside the night was dark. I wondered where I was, and whether whoever had picked me up on the street earlier had seen the gun I was carrying, or informed the police.

  I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to come to terms with my predicament. Who’d known that I was going to see Andrea Bloom? Emma had; so had Jamie Delly. I’d asked Emma not to say anything to Barron, but it was possible she’d let slip something. It was also possible that someone was bugging her phone. Theo Morris of Thadeus Holdings? Nicholas Tyndall? The list of suspects was still too long, but it was narrowing. Unfortunately, so were my options.

  There was movement on the other side of the door and it opened. A slightly built black man in his sixties came in. He had a kindly face and I knew straight away that he wasn’t going to give me trouble.

  He smiled when he saw I was awake. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said in a quiet voice. The accent was West African. I’d worked with a Nigerian guy back in the late Eighties and he’d sounded very similar.

  As he approached the bed, I saw that he was holding a small, horn-shaped flask made of some kind of wood. It had a metal lid on it, and looked old. With surprising strength, he lifted me up by the back of the head and propped me against the pillow. ‘Drink this,’ he whispered and placed the flask to my mouth, removing the lid.

  I was thirsty and my mouth was dry, so I did as he said. The taste was unfamiliar but not unpleasant. Vaguely salty, like weak Bovril, but with an underlying sweetness as well. I glugged the whole lot down, and he removed the flask.

  He stood there watching me for a few seconds. ‘Do you start to feel better?’ he asked at last.

  I sat up further in the bed. ‘Do you know what? I think I do.’ And I did. The thickness in my head was dissipating fast and I suddenly felt far more alert. ‘What is that stuff?’

  ‘Medicine,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a lot more effective than paracetamol. You ought to market it to the drugs companies.’

  He continued to smile. ‘Are you ready to get up? There is someone who would like to see you. He is in one of the other rooms.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked, slipping out of the bed and grabbing my shoes, but he ignored the question and opened the door, waiting while I pulled them on.

  ‘Your jacket and gun will be safe in here,’ he said, and beckoned me to follow.

  Intrigued, and feeling better and better as the medicine or whatever the hell it was kicked in, I stood up and followed him out of the room, the dizziness slipping effortlessly away.

  We were in a long corridor with expensive parquet flooring and doors to the left. To my right, a single long window offered a panoramic view of the blue darkness and occasional lights of the sleeping city at night. In the near distance were two tower blocks, surrounded by a carpet of low-rise buildings. I guessed that we were at least six floors above the ground ourselves. I tried to get my bearings, but I didn’t recognize the view. I was somewhere in London, but that was about all I could tell you.

  I walked along the corridor behind my new friend to another door. He knocked slowly three times, as if it was some sort of signal, and the door was opened by a tall, grim-faced black man who wore sunglasses even though the room behind him was only dimly lit. The man stood to one side, out of view, and my guide turned and beckoned me to follow him inside. I knew then, of course, who I was going to see and I wasn’t sure whether I should have been thankful or petrified. Probably the latter, but I followed him into the room anyway, figuring that I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.

  The room was huge, with windows on three sides, although black drapes had been pulled down to shut out the city’s light. Candles on ornate holders of varying sizes had been lit all round the room, bathing it in a flickering glow. Shadows ran and jumped across the walls, from which strange, tribal masks and the heads of exotic animals stared out menacingly at all those who entered. Low futon-style sofas and large patterned cushions were scattered about the room, and at the far end, sitting on a low wicker chair with a high back like a throne, was a well-built and handsome black man somewhere in his early thirties, drinking what looked like a coffee and smoking a cigarette. Sitting like grim guardians on either side of the chair were two dolls, much larger than but very similar to the
one that had been left on Emma’s bed, which told me something I already knew.

  The man in the chair smiled and motioned to one of the sofas next to him. At the same time, my guide left the room, shutting the door behind him, while the man in the sunglasses melted effortlessly into the shadows somewhere to my right.

  I walked over to the sofa and slowly sat down on it. The man in the chair waited until I’d got myself comfortable before speaking.

  ‘I’m going to assume you know who I am,’ he announced in a pleasantly resonant North London accent.

  ‘I think I can take a guess,’ I answered, reaching into my shirt pocket for my cigarettes. They weren’t there.

  ‘Please, have one of these,’ said Nicholas Tyndall, removing a pack of Marlboro Lights from the pocket of his own shirt – a black silk number – and lighting one for me. ‘You might want to know why I had you brought here,’ he suggested.

  I said it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  ‘You were in a bad way when my men picked you up. If we’d left you there, you would have been picked up by God knows who, and that may not have been such a good thing.’ He paused for a moment while he took a drag on his cigarette, watching me with a playful expression. This was a man who oozed natural charisma. And menace, too. There was real menace emanating from where he was sitting. You knew that if you crossed this man, you were in a lot of trouble. Although maybe I was stating the obvious since any man who sits in a cavernous candlelit room surrounded by voodoo-like ornaments is going to be someone you’ll want to stay on the right side of.

  ‘As I heard it,’ he continued, ‘you’d just left a house containing a lot of dead bodies. People – innocent, I understand – who’d been murdered very recently. Their throats slit. Their heads bashed in.’

  Not for the first time that day, I could hear my heart thumping. I cursed the fact that I’d left my gun in the other room.