The man pulled out a long, polished and glinting knife and began tapping it lightly on her thigh.
“Tell me how . . .”
The dead silence of the house outside the bedroom was suddenly shattered by the sound of a doorbell, ringing long, loud and insistently. Her eyes opened wide in startlement. He saw the hope within them, and laughed.
“That’ll be Harcourt,” he said, ostensibly to the man sitting on the bed, but really to Nicole. “Go let him in. Tell him to get his gear together for the drive. And ask him if he remembered to put that bedding away. If he didn’t, the stupid cunt’s going straight back there.”
The second man got up and left the room.
“Does this make you feel like a real tough guy?” Nicole said, sniffing and staring hatred at him through her puffy eyes. “Were you bullied at school or something? Daddy interfere with you as a small b . . .?”
He slapped her with the back of his hand; not as hard as he could have, she estimated, but enough to hurt and rattle her jawbone.
“Yes,” he said with a cold smile. “All those things. Mummy too and the local scoutmaster and the village vicar. If it makes you feel better I’ll tell you I can’t get it up and that it’s really small anyway. So now I’ve answered your questions, I’d consider it polite if you answered mine.”
He pressed the end of the knife into her thigh and drew it along for a few centimetres, opening a shallow cut around which blood quickly began to collect. Nicole sucked in air as the small wound started to sting, then heard herself moan involuntarily as he pulled slightly at the skin either side of it.
“People don’t always respond to pain, Nicole,” he said, pushing her head back. “But there are other options.” He placed the tip of the blade on the skin above the collar of her T-shirt.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” she said, grudged tears dripping from her eyes, swallowing to steady her voice. “I’ll cooperate.”
“Oh I’m sure you will, but let’s not rush it.”
He pressed the stiff metal up a little, forcing her head back, and pulled her thighs a few inches apart with his other hand. She looked upwards and closed her eyes, sniffing and unable to stop herself crying. He pushed his hand in further, slowly, until his fingers were almost touching her underwear, and she opened her eyes again, looking anywhere but at this vile thing before her, looking for imaginary escape, looking for a place to hide within herself, eyes scanning the ceiling . . . the walls . . . then the doorway.
She swallowed again and looked down, reflexively clamping her thighs back together as his fingers brushed the cotton between her legs.
“It’s not a very good time to be doing that,” she told him.
“Oh that’s all right. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I don’t mind a bit of blood.”
“Is that the car you saw?” asked Parlabane, looking at the wheeled slug in the driveway of the detached, two-storey Victorian villa. The garden was cordoned off from the street and its neighbours by a low wall and high firs at the front, towering, unkempt hedges at the sides. There’s one in every upmarket neighbourhood. Place that looks like it was all but burnt down some time in the early Seventies, possibly for insurance, and has passed through a succession of anonymous owners who consistently and conspicuously failed to properly restore it, instead just repairing it to basic, well-it’s-still-standing functionality. Consequently it had the reclusive and slightly neglected air of a small convent or seat of some other equally fucked-up religious sect.
“I didn’t get the reg, but it was definitely a black Mondeo,” Sarah confirmed.
“What are these guys, killer sales reps?” asked Jenny.
“No, just killers,” Parlabane stated.
“You want me to get us some back-up? I’ve got my radio here.”
“No, Jenny, I quite definitely don’t want you to radio for backup. Remember who we’re dealing with. You put a call out for assistance at this address and you never know who might hear about it and recognise it. Could have a phone ringing in that house in one minute, letting them know we’re coming. They could have Nicole dead and stashed while you and your pals are arsing about trying to get a search warrant. We’re on our own.”
He released the magazine from the Beretta, racking the barrel to eject the shell he had chambered earlier, then popped the bullet back into the mag. Then he slammed the clip home again. Sarah gestured to Jenny with her head, indicating the gun with a can-you-believe-this-guy roll of the eyes.
“You see a gun here, Detective Dalziel?” he asked.
Jenny covered her eyes, then her ears, then made a zipping motion across her lips. Sarah shook her head. Parlabane leaned over into the back seat for his bag, pulling out ropes, gloves, his lock-picking kit and a small aluminium grappling hook.
“So just how are you planning to do this, darling?” Sarah asked acidly.
“I’m going to break in at the back while Jenny causes a distraction at the front. You can ring the bell, flash the badge, say you’re looking for a prowler,” he told Dalziel.
“What,” said Jenny, “then you swing from the chandeliers with the girl under your big manly arm, leap over the baddies and ride off into the sunset? You’ll get your fucking head blown off, Scoop. Forget it.”
“Well the clock’s ticking. You got any better ideas?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I’ll need your gloves, the knife you took from fumbletrumpet in the boot back there, and an assistant from the audience.”
Sarah arched her eyebrows. “You got it.”
Parlabane shot her a look of grave concern, and almost began the process of opening his mouth.
“Oh don’t you dare give me any crap about it being dangerous, Jack Parlabane,” Sarah snapped. “I was presumably supposed to sit here and knit while you climbed in like Spiderman, hoping you walked out alive again later. What’s the plan, Jenny?”
*
Parlabane padded silently off into the shadows, gun in belt and tail between legs. His urgency to get inside before . . . whatever . . . happened to Nicole made an angry partner mingling with his huffiness at being relegated to the sidelines, but he still enjoyed a “that’s my girls” moment of satisfaction as he watched Jenny slash the Mondeo’s tyres and Sarah smash its windscreen with a dully percussive and surprisingly quiet blow of the policewoman’s telescopic baton.
They dusted themselves free of glass fragments then proceeded directly to the front door, where Jenny rang the bell.
After a time, a tall man appeared, well built but just erring on the portly side, dressed uniformly in black but without the balaclava. He pulled the door open and was evidently surprised to see the two women before him, one of them holding up her police identification, the other with her hands behind her back, attention-style.
“Good evening, sir. I’m DS Dalziel and this is DC Jackson. We’re sorry to trouble you so late, but at least it seems you weren’t in bed, Mr . . .” Jenny scanned the door for a nameplate, but there was none to be found.
“What can I do for you?” he interrupted quickly, in a tone that implied he hoped not much.
“Well, I’m surprised you didn’t hear anything, but it was one of your neighbours who called, and luckily we were in the area. It seems someone has been vandalising cars in this street, and unfortunately we suspect your own has been a target. Is this your vehicle in the driveway, here?”
He leaned out on to the porch, looking across to where the Mondeo was slumped like a hamstrung bovine, tyres airless, shattered glass glinting in the gravel round about.
“Fucking bastard,” he grunted, brushing past them and walking towards the car as if hypnotised.
Sarah whipped out the baton to its full length again and swung it as hard as she could between his legs from behind, both hands, one-wood on a par five, into the wind. Before he could even drop to his knees, Jenny was upon him, forcing his face into the dirt and cuffing his hands behind his back while Sarah patted him down and located the inevitable handgun.
>
“You’d better fucking pray the girl’s alive, pal,” Jenny warned, as beside them Parlabane strode purposefully into the house, weapon drawn.
“No, that’s not what I meant, prick,” continued Nicole, as firmly as she could manage. The man looked up into her bloodshot eyes, slightly concerned to see the fear replaced by anger, and more concerned that it was no longer the anger of the victim, but of the avenger.
“Look,” she commanded.
He heard a clicking noise to his right, and turned to notice Parlabane in the doorway, gripping a pistol with both hands, aiming straight at his head.
“Drop the knife, arsepiece,” he ordered.
The man instead angled the knife so that it lay across Nicole’s throat, pressing it against the skin. “Put the gun down, or I’ll kill her,” he shouted, his gaze locked on Parlabane.
Parlabane, to Nicole’s astonishment, rolled his eyes. “Oh please,” he said witheringly. “Not the old ‘knife to the girl’s throat, back, back, I’ve got a hostage’ routine.”
“I mean it,” said the man, eyes flashing, his arrogant, self-satisfied calm now an incongruous memory.
“Listen, baw-hair,” resumed Parlabane more firmly. “In five seconds the knife goes on that desk or up your arse. It’s make-your-mind-up time.”
The man turned his head a couple of degrees, straining to look at the bureau, eyeing the gun sitting there, just out of reach.
“I don’t know who you think you are, mate,” he said, trying to sound confident and relaxed, then lunged for the pistol on the desk with his right hand, the movement of his torso taking the left – and more importantly the knife – a vital few centimetres back from Nicole’s neck.
Parlabane changed aim and fired with hardly a blink, bullseyeing the automatic on the desk and sending it spinning off the veneer and against the wall six feet away. “No you don’t,” he said quietly.
The man looked at him with incredulous dismay, then back at Nicole as she kicked out with both feet, tipping herself and the chair backwards on to the floor. He threw himself flat on the floor alongside her, Nicole’s body and flailing legs between him and Parlabane, then pressed the knife against her throat once more and knelt up. He couldn’t use her as a shield, just her life for a standoff.
“Look, you’ve no idea what you’re dealing with,” he warned Parlabane. “These matters don’t concern you. I work for powerful people.”
“Yeah, you work for Knight and he works for Swan.”
Nicole looked up at the man, watching his Adam’s apple bob involuntarily at the mention of the names.
“You’re going to be in a lot of trouble, mate,” he said. “I’d put the gun down if I were you. I can see to it that your life becomes a fucking nightmare if you don’t. I’ve got powerful connections.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be hard telling them about me with no head.”
“Don’t kid yourself, mate, I know you’re not going to shoot me.”
Parlabane gave a quiet but unmistakably derisive snort. The bullet hit the man in the shoulder, spinning him back and away from Nicole, who rolled herself clear.
Parlabane walked over to where the man lay, kicking the discarded knife towards the door, where Jenny and Sarah soon emerged. Sarah helped Nicole to her feet, hugging her and wrapping her jacket around her.
“Please allow me to introduce myself,” Parlabane said to his new captive. “I’m a man of stealth and haste. My name’s Jack Parlabane and this is Dr Sarah Slaughter. An associate of yours tried to kill us both tonight. He’s now residing in the boot of Dr Slaughter’s car. And your other monkey is . . .”
“In the boot of the Mondeo.” Jenny explained.
“In the boot of your car,” he continued. He knelt beside the man, patting him down and removing some keys that were attached to a belt-loop. He threw them to Jenny, who uncuffed Nicole. “DS Dalziel, would you do your thing, read him his rights, etcetera?”
Parlabane stood up and walked over to Nicole as Jenny handcuffed the bleeding prisoner. “You have the right to a quality kicking from Ms Carrow here, when she feels up to it,” she told him. “You have the right to some extremely slipshod surgery on that wound. You have the right to have Dr Slaughter supervise your anaesthetic management. And afterwards, you have the right to remain in jail for a very long time.”
Nicole put her arms around Parlabane, sobbing, sniffing, squeezing.
“Thank you,” she said throatily. “Thank you.”
“De nada,” he said.
“I thought you were dead, both of you.”
“So did he,” Parlabane said with a nod. “You can call for backup now if you like, Jen.”
“Well I’d disappear that gun before they get here, Scoop.”
He bent down and picked up the two spent shells from the carpet, sliding them into a pocket in his jeans. Then he retrieved the automatic that was lying by the wall and ejected two slugs from it, pocketing them as well. He tucked the Beretta into the back of his jeans, under his polo-neck, and placed the other gun on the desk.
“What gun?” he said. “I don’t have a gun. I shot him with his own weapon, but I don’t know where the shell-casings have gone, so I’m afraid you won’t be able to get a match.”
“Aw, that’s gonna be too bad,” Jenny said, smiling at the man on the floor. “See, we can do conspiracy too.”
“Guns,” Nicole mumbled, now seated on the bed, Sarah tending to the cut on her thigh with some bandaging she had found in the bathroom, Parlabane leaning on the desk and Jenny frogmarching her arrest down the stairs.
“Huh?”
She jiggled her head briefly, as if shaking herself out of a small trance. “It’s what I heard in the car,” she explained. “They’ve got big problems – well obviously – but . . . hang on.” She took a few breaths, relaxing herself and ordering her thoughts. “We weren’t the only targets tonight. They had two men up north who were supposed to kill Thomas McInnes and the other fugitives. When they were driving me here, the guy you shot kept guard on me in the back seat. Morgan, his name was. The other one drove. Morgan called him Adds, which could be short for something. The guy who was sent to kill you was called Harcourt. Anyway, it looked like Morgan was in charge. He made a phone call to someone – his boss, presumably,”
“Knight,” said Parlabane.
“That was it, Knight. Telling him they had me, mission accomplished sort of thing. After that he didn’t say much. Knight was doing the talking. When he hung up, Morgan told Adds to pack his bags as he and Harcourt would be going up to Strathgair right away. He said . . . I think ‘Paddy and Bowes’ . . . had fucked it up. They’d got themselves arrested, which seemed to astonish everyone concerned. In Morgan’s words, ‘the targets kicked their fucking heads in and left them for the local plods’.”
“So it was a public execution,” said Parlabane. “Staged manhunt and death penalty while the nation wanks, sorry watches. But their hitmen were almost as good as the losers down here.”
“Evidently. Adds asked if the targets had taken their guns, but Morgan said no, they’d left those for the plods as well, which meant word would be getting out that the fugitives were no longer armed. Adds said it wouldn’t matter, they could still plant something, make out leaving the guns had been a double bluff. But what Morgan said the fugitives had taken was their field-phone, as he called it.”
Parlabane’s eyes widened. He reached behind and picked up the state-of-the-art mobile that had been lying on the desk, flipping the cover open.
“Don’t suppose Morgan or his buddies would give us the number if we asked politely. Maybe if I stood on his bullet-wound. Have you seen Dirty Harry?”
“You won’t need it,” Nicole said. “Morgan only pressed about two buttons to call Knight. A shortcode. If they’re operating as a team, then all their portables might be programmed in.”
“Very clever, young lady,” he said. “And if so, it would constitute hard, electronic proof that they’re all working together. K
night and these guys here tonight, Knight and the two goons in Strathgair . . . Let’s see.” He pressed the memory dial button on the sleek but weighty plastic device, then hit the number 1. The LCD read “1?” Parlabane cancelled, hit M again, then 01. A sequence of numbers arrayed across the LCD panel and a ringing tone purred from the earpiece. It rang once more.
“Yeah, Knight, who is it?” said a voice, irritated, a low, white-noise buzz in the background suggesting he was in a car, and moving.
Parlabane arched his eyebrows, looking across at Sarah and Nicole, then hung up. “Exhibit A, your honour,” he said, holding the phone aloft.
He pressed M again, then dialled 02. A few seconds later they heard an electronic chime from somewhere downstairs in the house. He hung up again.
M.03.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ri . . . “Hello?” said an uncertain, quiet voice, youthful, Scottish. “Yes, hello, sorry to disturb you,” said Parlabane, “but could I speak to Mr Thomas McInnes, please?”
Parlabane heard what sounded rather bizarrely like splashing noises, then an older voice spoke, defensive, accusatory.
“This is Tam McInnes. Who are you?”
“My name is Jack Parlabane, Mr McInnes. We’ve got representatives in your area just now and I was wondering if you were interested in any double glazing.”
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