Hard Place

by Douglas Stewart

  Erlis Bardici had arrived even earlier but not because of nerves. He had things to do—things that prevented him going to the beach bar but which enabled him to see Kurtner arrive. Though it was Saturday evening, the car park was almost deserted. The main crowd would not arrive for a good while yet. There were just six vehicles parked randomly round the muddiness of the area following the afternoon cloudburst.

  Ruthven entered the shack with tentative steps, uncertain whether the Brit might already be here. But the bar was empty except for one couple locked in a passionate embrace in a corner. In the coolness of the evening, the swish of the overhead fans seemed a waste of electricity as he ordered a mojito and watched the bartender mix the rum, mint and lime. The youngster seemed miffed to have his enjoyment of the Dallas Cowboys game interrupted. Ruthven declined a menu but volunteered he might eat later when the joint had livened up.

  His thoughts were jumbled, reliving the night before with Cassie, who, despite her young age, seemed to have learned more than a few tricks of her profession. He wondered if Amber would be as inventive when he whisked her from Washington to his Caribbean retreat. But just as he was imagining Amber leaping astride him, his thoughts tumbled back to the meeting now only twenty minutes away. Shouldn’t take long, he reasoned. Explain to the limey about the delays and then reassure him that tomorrow we can both kick ass like it had never been invented. And, with luck, later tonight he’d find another little beauty in here, all glistening black skin and thick lips.

  He drained the last of the mojito, leaving just the ice and chopped mint in the large beaker. Moments later, he had dodged most of the puddles on the track and was in the large expanse of car park. It was precisely 8 p.m. He looked around for any sign of the stranger who was to signal his presence but there was only blackness. He wondered for a moment if the Brit would be a no-show but then he saw two flashes from the lights of a Suzuki parked toward the far edge of the area. He limped slowly toward it, regretting that his disguise made him look so feeble.

  He was almost at the car when the window on the driver’s side wound down. “Hank?”

  “That’s me,” he responded, his voice strained and throaty.

  “Jump in.” The driver leaned across and flung open the passenger door and after a pause to try to see the man’s features, the American clambered in. The limey did not sound very English. Maybe a Pole with good but accented English. “I’m Mujo. You’re right on time. I like that,” Bardici enthused.

  Lance Ruthven clattered the door shut and peered at the hulk next to him. “Hank Kurtner,” he volunteered cautiously as he offered his hand but the driver looked away. “You don’t fit my image of the typical Brit. Not the name, not the accent.” He tried to sound casual but failed miserably.

  “I was born in Montenegro. Part of former Yugoslavia. I’ve lived in London most of my life.” He offered Ruthven a cigarette and they both lit up, giving each the chance to catch a flickering glance at the other. “So where are you staying? Close by?”

  “The Marlin, not too far. Ten minutes on these roads. It’s pretty darned good.”

  “Maybe I’ll stay there if I ever have to come back. But enough of that. These black bastards here have been pissing all over you. Screwing up the entire plan. You and me, we’re going to show them tomorrow. Lamon Wilson will never again screw anybody. You got me, don’t you?” Bardici’s laugh was chilling to the listener as the message sunk in.”

  Lance Ruthven wanted to protest but the man’s tone discouraged any such action. He could envisage this limey giving the CEO a right hammering and blowing both their covers if the cops were called. “Right on. Excuses, excuses.” He paused to take a deep drag. “But I sure gave them hell last trip—final warning. Tomorrow it’s time for balls on a plate.”

  “Good, good,” murmured the listener. “I like your style, Hank. Now tell me everything—what work they’ve done, what you have seen so far. From the first visit till now.” It was his turn to pause. “And I mean everything. Every detail. This ship is one long buggeration. Any more delay could kill the whole damned operation. And if that happened.” In the darkened interior, Bardici stopped to run his finger across his throat.

  Ruthven licked his lips. “It’ll be just fine. You’ll see.” His voice sounded weak and simpering. “The refit could be over in … oh, maybe three weeks—to be safe, with Christmas and New Year, maybe five.”

  The listener said nothing till he had stubbed out his cigarette. “Is this some kind of joke? Too long. Way too long.” He turned to the American and his shoulders blotted out the window behind him. “So … I want to know everything.”

  Ruthven smelled the garlic on the man’s breath. He smiled with all the forced confidence of a comedian knowing he had lost his audience. “You know about the …”

  Bardici interrupted at once. “Assume I know nothing.”

  “It’ll take a while. Let’s do this over a bite. The bar’s pretty good down at the water.”

  The Albanian shook his head. “Too early for me. Later, let’s have a beer or two.”

  It took the American over thirty-five minutes but Bardici was a good listener, rarely asking a question and if he did, it was sharply worded and to the point. As Ruthven recounted the history, using lines he had rehearsed on his flights, his confidence grew and he even managed to slip in some dry humor that was lost on his audience. A couple of cars arrived and the occupants headed noisily for the waterfront. Ruthven covered the smallest details of the work being undertaken and why the plans were behind. He concluded with items still outstanding and pen pictures of the key figures, especially Lamon Wilson. Bardici scribbled some costings but nothing more. Some young Americans arrived, already flying high on local rum but they quickly disappeared between the trees, whooping and shouting. Ruthven was just about done as they disappeared down the track to the sea.

  After a final curt question or two about security at the shipyard, Bardici was satisfied that he had what he needed. “Okay, Hank. You want that drink?”

  Ruthven’s unease about the meeting taking place in the vehicle had dissipated and he was looking forward to building a team with the man—teambonding, in Washington speak. “Sounds like a plan,” he replied as Bardici’s hands fumbled in the dark. The Albanian muttered about dropping his cigarette lighter. Suddenly, his hand shot out in front of Ruthven’s face to point into the trees.

  “Hey! Over there.” The voice was sharp, the tone guttural. “Look, in those trees! You tell anyone you was coming here? We’re being watched.”

  “Me? Never told nobody.” Ruthven turned his head sharply to get a better view through the passenger window toward the distant trees that ringed the carpark. He saw nothing. Bardici leaned across to point and Ruthven twisted to his right, straining to see who was there. “I don’t see nothing. I …”

  Lance Ruthven got no further as Bardici’s thin wire garrotte, nearly three feet long, dropped over his head and noosed his neck from front to rear. The Albanian tightened the wire, sensing it biting enjoyably deep into the long, thin neck. As the American’s head started to slump amid a torrent of gurgling sounds, his arms flailing, his legs feebly kicking forward in the well of the vehicle, Bardici went in for the kill, pressing his thumbs on the carotid artery on each side of the neck. In seconds, all life had gone.

  The Albanian smiled in satisfaction. It had been pleasing enough, though less exciting than torturing the bastard from beneath the Range Rover. He climbed out and, once sure there was nobody around, opened the passenger door and pulled out the lifeless body, disappearing with it into the tall forest of pines and cursing the occasional shrub that smacked across his face or impeded his progress. Twenty meters into the inky black surroundings, he recognized the outline of the grave he had dug earlier. The ground was heavy, clingy and wet from the earlier downpour.

  After emptying the American’s pockets, he pitched Lance Ruthven
’s corpse into the pit without ceremony. Fifteen sweaty minutes later, he had refilled the hole, covering it with branches and other vegetation so that the disturbed ground was scarcely evident. He was confident nobody would walk through there in the next fifty years. He bumped unevenly along the track back to the highway in Kurtner’s baby Kia; wearing latex gloves, he headed for the Marlin, where he parked the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. Unseen, he slipped away and strolled along the beach to the next hotel where, after grabbing a beer, he took a taxi back to the Pink Flamingo. After the taxi had gone, he leaped into his Suzuki and headed back to the Marlin. The whole process was a bit roundabout but he was too much of a professional to mind.

  Using the room key he had found in the victim’s shorts, he stripped the American’s room of a few odds and ends of clothing and the seven remaining condoms from the pack of twelve. There was no safe in the room but he found the passport in the name of Hank Kurtner and nearly six hundred dollars tucked into the waterproof section of a wash-bag. He trousered the passport and cash but bundled everything else into Ruthven’s rucksack.

  It was nearly 11 p.m. local and not yet dawn in London when he breezed into the bar and ordered beer and conch fritters. The bill came and copying the signature on the American’s passport, he signed for the refreshments as Hank Kurtner Room 262. Nobody in the crowded bar took any notice of him and he did not much care if they did.

  Outside, he dumped the rucksack in the back of the Suzuki beside the shovel and headed north into the poorer part of town behind the docks. Sure enough, he found empty streets lined on both sides with small timber-built chalets, all in unloved, faded colors. On the occasional porch he could see a couple or small group chatting but otherwise the streets were remarkable only in their lack of human life. From inside many of the homes came laughter and the noise of reggae or TV programmes. Only the third street in, he spotted what he wanted: a builder’s skip half full of junk, pushchairs, rubble, rotting wood and trash tipped in by countless passersby.

  He dumped the garrotte and the American’s clothes, covering them with rubble, chucked the empty rucksack into another skip. The shovel he left leaning against a cement mixer as if forgotten by a roadworker. He bet himself it would be gone within an hour of daylight.

  All that remained was Kurtner’s passport and the condoms. He would get rid of them in the morning before checking the American out of the hotel.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Clapham, South London

  “Why’s he called Ratso anyway?” enquired DC Erasmus Blyth, a new addition to the team, as they gathered in the cramped basement room. He was rewarded with the odd chuckle.

  “Anyone know—besides me?” It was Jock Strang who spoke, clearing his desk in time to catch the afternoon flight to Glasgow.

  “Cos he gets rat-arsed?” volunteered DC Giles Connors.

  “Looks like a bleedin’ rodent an all,” suggested another.

  “I’ll tell ye.” Jock leaned back on his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Way back, when he was as green as you lot, he got locked in a cellar in a derelict building down Bermondsey way and with a young woman—constable.”

  “Bet he gave her one to pass the time.”

  “Nah. He’d have wanted paying. He never gives nothing away.”

  Recalling who had paid for dinner and who always bought his round, Jock knew that was not true but he let the repartee take its course with a smile. “It wisna funny at the time, I was told. Half the Met were looking for them. They were down there for nearly a week. Nothing to eat and just damp running down the walls for water. Some bastard had tricked them into entering to check for a body, then took their radios and phones at gunpoint.”

  “And locked them in?”

  “Aye! Right enough.” Jock stood up and walked round the listeners, who were all seated at the large group of desks that dominated the centre of the room. He saw the upturned heads and eyes following him as he slowly made his way between the stacks of yellowing papers, worn trainers, empty buckets of KFC and discarded riot gear. “He cornered a rat and as it jumped at his throat, he clobbered it with a piece of wood.” Jock was enjoying himself. “He reckoned no England cricketer could have done better. On the fifth day, he killed another one … and this one, in desperation, he ate.”

  There was a stunned silence as everyone embraced the idea of eating uncooked rat.

  “Even the arsehole?” DC Connors’ grin was ear to ear.

  “The bollocks is the best bit. So they say,” suggested Nancy Petrie, a plump-faced detective constable with streaky blonde hair who enjoyed behaving and being treated as one of the boys.

  “So there ye are,” Jock concluded. “I’m told they were found on the sixth day.”

  “Mattrafact,” added Tosh Watson, “I had dinner with Ratso last year in a posh French place up West and he asked for ratatouille. I thought he wanted bleedin’ grilled rat. I didn’t know it was some weird veggie dish, did I?”

  The general laughter died as the door opened and the man himself appeared. Whether everybody was aware that he had spent the night at Charlene’s, Ratso was unsure. Jock Strang was no gossip. But if Jock had been asked the right questions, Ratso knew he would be vulnerable.

  “Morning, morning,” he shouted needlessly above the sudden silence. He felt everybody was indeed watching him closer than usual. Or am I being paranoid? He rubbed his hands, his face showing excitement. “Heard the score from Adelaide?”

  “Who cares?” The cry came from down the far end of the room.

  “Aye but Rangers lost at Ibrox.” Jock Strang looked as if he’d been hit by a truck.

  “It’s the haggis wotdunit, Jock,” retorted Ratso. “You should support our cricketers. We’re stuffing the Aussies something rotten.” With his loping stride, he dodged through the clutter that surrounded every desk, every filing cabinet and filled every shelf or spare inch of floor. All eyes were on him as he studied the whiteboard, taking in the crisscross of leads, connections, contacts, photos.

  Several lines on the board pointed to Erlis Bardici. Ratso’s face puckered into a scowl as he took in Bardici’s rounded visage, lined forehead, receding hairline and dark eyes set beneath prominent black eyebrows. He looked all of his late thirty years. But the lines on the board stopped there. Worse still, too many other lines, like the vague suggestion of a Crawley connection, came to dead ends where the investigation had run dry. “You’ve seen the paper today? “His question was accompanied by his eyes sweeping round as he flourished the freebie newspaper.

  He saw a couple of nods but mainly blank faces.

  “Trouble is you lot only read the Sports Section or Page 3 of the Sun.” He pulled a cutting from his pocket and pinned it to the board while reading it out. “The body found early yesterday in Hammersmith has been identified as Neil Shalford, aged 49. He lived in Kingston-on-Thames. Detective Chief Inspector Alex Caldwell, who is leading the investigation, refused to comment on suggestions that the victim was known in South London to have gangland connections. However, Caldwell did confirm that the victim had been murdered and that enquiries were continuing. An inquest will be opened shortly.” He turned to the gathering. “Tosh? Jock? Comments?”

  Jock sensed precisely what to say. “Gangland connections? That would be Dan and Jerry Hogan.” Tosh moved his chair noisily as he nodded agreement. “But ye knew him well, boss. One gang taking it out on another?”

  “Makes sense.” Ratso looked thoughtful. “But sometimes, he was used as a snout.” Ratso took care to avoid mentioning the actual job Neil had been doing. “Big question: was he murdered because someone out there discovered he was a snout, because something leaked?” He paused for a couple of beats. “Because someone leaked.” If he expected to see anyone look away, lower their eyes, or look embarrassed, he was disappointed. Only Tosh and Jock had known and that had been only in desperation this past w
eek. Surely neither of them would have leaked or let anything slip to one of the younger DCs, who then leaked to gangland? He let the topic drop as he continued. “Forensics are going over what’s left of the Range Rover. Nothing yet.” He sniffed dismissively. “Waste of time. Anything else, Jock?”

  “The Beamer we, er, tried to catch was stolen and was traced and found in Kennington. Forensics are taking a look. Nothing on Klodian Skela. As you said, no record, nothing known. But we’ll find him. I’ve several leads.” The sergeant lifted a mug of strong brown tea. “What about getting a warrant to listen in? You said he used a regular line to report the vehicle stolen.”

  Ratso looked thoughtful. You could waste hours listening in to conversations more boring than BBC Radio Three. “Best used sparingly, Jock. Klodian’s nothing—wet-fart territory. We’ll be listening to his wife’s shite about the price of cabbages or cheap flights from Luton to Tirana.”

  “So?” Jock and Tosh glanced at each other, waiting for the steer from the boss.

  “Find and interview Skela. Scare the shit out of him. If it’s the guy I saw, he’s in a lose-lose position.” He raised two fingers to emphasise the options, counting them off one by one. “We either do him for thieving, for reporting it stolen when he knew it was not, or he admits he drove it away and burned it. Whichever, we have his bollocks in our fist.” Ratso’s grin revealed his enthusiasm. “Jock, you’ll be away but Tosh, you and me—we’ll scare the bugger till his scrotum shrinks to the size of a prune.”

  Jock Strang laughed. “Easier to hold that way, boss. Give me an hour. I’ll find him”

  “Sightings of Erlis Bardici?”

  Nancy Petrie was quick to respond. “Negative. Not seen in any of his usual haunts.”

  “Lying low, then. What about Zandro?”

  “Zilch,” replied Tosh. “Nothing unusual. Pub lunch in Hampstead. The cinema in Swiss Cottage with that bint of his and a dinner party at his house last night.”