She stood in front of him, tall and naked with long blonde hair that hung loosely above her small but perfectly formed breasts. She had a nipped in waist, a smooth, flat stomach with a small round diamond that twinkled shyly in her belly-button. Further down sat an inch wide strip of neatly trimmed hair that led enticingly down to her womanhood. Her legs were long, shapely and toned. She was the ultimate distraction but Peter was not yet of a mind to be distracted.
“What’s the matter baby?” She said, squatting down between his legs.
“Nothing.” Peter managed a smile. “Just tired. A long day.”
“My poor baby,” said the girl, reaching up and loosening his tie before expertly popping the top button. Peter felt the irritation prickle again but remained outwardly cool with a lop-sided smile on his face as the girl moved her hand down and began rubbing his crotch. Despite his irritation, Peter stiffened. “That’s better, isn’t it, baby?” Miss Bulgaria said as she felt him grow magically under her touch. “You like that, don’t you?”
Her voice was whiny, her accent grating and Peter was already annoyed by the lack of news about the diamonds. Miss Bulgaria was making it worse, but he couldn’t help himself react to her touch as she undid his belt and unzipped his fly.
Peter had not been properly satisfied sexually since that night at his Berkshire home five years earlier with the high-class whore in the green satin lingerie. He could still not get it out of his mind, the brutality of it, the powerful, all-conquering feeling that it gave him. He still remembered how the girl cowered under his touch and the raw, unbridled pleasure he derived from it. He had tried to put those memories to the back of his mind but every so often, during sex with one of his wives or girlfriends, when they were engaged in one mundane act or another, he would fantasize about the girl in green and what he did to her. Peter realised though that these fantasies were dangerous, particularly for a man in his position, and had resisted the urge to act on them for fear of where they might lead.
Yet this girl tonight, this Miss Bulgaria, with her whiny voice and annoying accent, was somehow causing those fantasies to flare up again and as she worked on him with her mouth, he suddenly became stiffer, more sexually charged than he had since that night with the girl in green.
Unable to stop himself, Bearing roughly grabbed a handful of hair at the back of Miss Bulgaria’s head and pushed her head down hard into his crotch whilst repeatedly thrusting himself forcefully down her throat. Immediately the girl started to gag and choke but Peter did not stop even as her teeth bit down on him he just thrust harder. The act of choking was preventing her from biting him properly as she desperately tried to free herself to draw breath.
Peter, so highly aroused, climaxed quickly but Miss Bulgaria had already turned blue and her eyes had rolled upwards in their sockets, showing only the whites as she began to suffocate. But then it was over as Peter, fully spent, pushed her head away and she sprawled on the floor, choking, grasping deep lungfuls of air as she vomited repeatedly on the hard wooden floor, heaving until nothing came up but clear bile.
Bearing eyed her curiously, but without a care for her wellbeing.
His annoyance slowly subsiding, the years of sexual frustration slowly abating. He had confirmed how he must now achieve his release and he knew that it could perhaps lead to difficulties ahead. But that was a problem for a different day.
Miss Bulgaria had recovered enough to sit up. She wiped her mouth and looked directly at him, her expression unreadable. “So, you like to play rough,” she said in a flat tone.
“So it would seem,” said Peter, his voice equally steady. Again the girl regarded him for a long moment, evaluating him, her eyes never leaving his.
“Good,” she finally replied. “Me too. Now, unless you intend to fuck me on this floor, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, baby.” With that, she stood up, kissed him on the forehead and returned unhurriedly to the bedroom.
Peter couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Miss Bulgaria was not so annoying after all.
He drained the remnants of his whiskey. The distraction had turned out to be a welcome one, but now his thoughts inevitably returned to Charles Khan and the diamonds. Something had happened, Peter felt sure of it in his gut. Charles would have called, found some way to get in touch even if the weather was terrible.
Bearing, normally so controlled, so confident, so famously calm, felt just the first stirrings of dread. His diamonds better turn up soon because they represented Peter’s future and no one was going to steal that away from him. No one.
Chapter 7
Arthur Khan, sat in bed aimlessly flicking through channels on his big screen TV with his remote. There was nothing on that appealed to him - God knows how many channels there were now and all there was to watch were movies aimed at teenagers, chat shows hosted by gay comedians or reality TV shows featuring teenagers and gays getting drunk. What in the hell had happened to proper TV?
But Arthur wasn’t really concerned about that tonight as his mind was elsewhere, still pondering the whereabouts of his brother. He was unsettled by the conversation with Peter, knowing that he was right. As usual.
Bearing was the boss, always had been, even though he had always been smaller, weedier than the two brothers it was Peter’s brain that had always got them through. And brains meant power, particularly when money was involved.
Arthur and Charles were close, separated by just eighteen months. They took care of each other, shared everything, watched each others backs. Fought together, played together, worked together. They owned matching black Range Rovers and matching chrome-plated pistols; Desert Eagle .357 Magnums, the most powerful handguns in the world.
The brothers came from good stock, Egyptian father, English mother, they were well-educated and always given what they wanted. But they were nothing more than thugs. The only person they ever backed down to was Peter Bearing, who held this mystical power over them. They respected him, loved him like they would a smarter brother who had done well for himself. And Bearing regularly exploited that.
Arthur and Charles Khan met Peter when they were all up at Oxford together. They had much in common; wealthy parents, privileged lifestyle, abundant ambition and a lust for power. They also shared a cruel streak and were a perfect match right from the start. But even though their friendship remained strong, destiny separated them.
Whereas Peter’s glittering path led him from academic success to business triumph, culminating in his remarkable take-over of Wallace Bearing from his cancer ridden father at just twenty-eight, the Khan brothers’ path led them in a totally different direction.
After being expelled from Oxford for possession of drugs and subsequently being disinherited by their diplomat father, the brothers joined the army. After stints with the parachute regiment and then the SAS, the Khan’s eventually branched out on their own as soldiers for hire. They fought together in Chechnya, Georgia, Mozambique, Somalia, Angola, Uganda and Sierra Leone using South Africa as their base. They dabbled in a variety of criminal activities but drugs and people trafficking soon became their businesses of choice. From that, after cultivating lucrative connections in Sierra Leone and South Africa, their path led them at last to the illegal diamond trade.
Conflict diamonds funded many military actions in Africa, particularly in the late nineties, and the Khan’s were responsible for much of the bartering, smuggling and general slaughter involved in obtaining and trading these blood-soaked gems. It was dangerous, exhilarating and highly illegal work but the brothers not only survived but thrived on that. It was what they were born for. And Peter Bearing financed it all.
Arthur knew this particular shipment was important to Peter. It was important to him and Charles too as it was their last one. Their retirement plan.
For many years, on Bearing’s orders, the Khan’s had been hand-picking the best diamonds. The largest stones of the highest quality and value. Then usin
g their own cutters, they had them transformed into gems of the finest cut, clarity, colour and weight. They represented the mother load. The best of the best. A horde worth tens of millions. The brothers had been saving these particular stones for years, keeping them for the right time when they would be of most use to them.
The Khans had put the briefcase full of diamonds in the container themselves, hidden inside the crate of Chardonnay marked P.B. and en-route to Peter Bearing. Then they had flown on ahead to
London for a reunion meal with their friend and business partner to toast this, their most lucrative venture.
Over a month later their ship had quite literally come in and Charles had driven up to Liverpool to collect the stones. The text message from Charles confirmed that he had collected them, but where was he now? He had been due back four hours ago but Charles had still not arrived.
Arthur was seriously worried now and becoming more convinced that Charles had had some kind of accident as it just wasn’t like his brother not to call in. He thought about getting in the car and going out to look for him but the conditions were atrocious. Charles may have been forced to take an alternative route or to hold up somewhere for the night; a motorway services maybe or perhaps just a lay by. That would be the more likely of the two seeing that there had been no contact - and if Charles’ phone was dead then that would explain it. But Arthur had a niggling feeling, a brother’s intuition. Something had happened, he felt almost sure of it and the consequences of that he just didn’t want to contemplate.
Chapter 8
In Northamptonshire, the following morning, the snow had turned to heavy rain and the previously clogged, near impassable roads had turned to a sludgy but drivable icy mess.
The bridge was on a quiet country road crossing over a dual carriageway, which had been in darkness the night before due to scheduled repair work, although the blizzard had prevented that.
The upside down Range Rover had been discovered by a gritter truck driver in the early hours and was now surrounded by a whole gaggle of people and vehicles. Uniformed policemen, a forensics unit, accident inspectors, firemen and CID officers.
The body had already been removed and the car had been minutely inspected as had the surrounding area, even though the conditions were horrendous.
The dead man had been identified as Charles Khan, whose name popped up on the police database. It transpired that The Metropolitan Police had been keeping an eye on Charles for many years even though he was never in the country long enough for them to convict him of anything. Usually just a couple of days at a time, sometimes slightly longer. But, according to the database, he was a known mercenary, one of the top dogs, and London was where he and his brother apparently did much of their recruiting.
A weapon had been found at the scene, a .357 calibre. Large, powerful, showy and unlicensed.
Also, a diamond had been found. A big one. Not in the vehicle, but on the road several feet away from it. Close enough for it to be linked with Khan, perhaps, who, according to the records, was known to be based in South Africa - the source of many of the world’s most valuable stones.
The Officer in Charge, Detective Inspector Jeff Grainy, was a tall but slender man with lank hair, a big nose and a perpetual cold but he was a good cop with good instincts. He was a Londoner who had started his career with The Metropolitan Police until family commitments forced him to move a little further North, first to Cambridge and then onto Northampton, where he had finally settled. Now as a father of three, he was glad of the less hectic pace but occasionally he got a pang to work on something bigger.
He had been at the scene since a little after eight that morning. Now, two hours later, he was wet, cold and desperate for the cup of coffee and bacon sandwich that his sergeant had just brought him back from Northampton.
DI Grainy had sent his sergeant into the town to get the diamond valued and the jeweller had given him a conservative estimate of at least thirty-thousand pounds.
The stone in Grainy’s wife’s engagement ring cost nearly five hundred pounds and he thought that was expensive but the diamond that had been found on the bridge was huge by comparison and the valuation staggering.
Grainy knew this was a potentially big case, that the diamond had probably been in Khan’s possession and was most likely stolen, but he simply did not have the time, manpower or resources to investigate it fully. Besides, Khan was under investigation by Scotland Yard so by rights he knew it was their case. Grainy looked at the name on the case notes of The Met’s Officer in Charge and smiled. It belonged to an old friend, another good cop. If anyone could get to the bottom of it, he could.
Grainy finished his bacon sarnie, drained his coffee, then took out his phone and gave his old friend a call. Today was one of those very rare days that he wished he had stayed at Scotland Yard.
Chapter 9
The ferry was not busy, just some holiday makers and a few truckers and, after changing the wad of stolen notes for just six hundred euros at the Bureau de Change, Jake managed to easily find a seat alone. He sat down in a comfortable faux leather armchair with a frothy latte looking out of the tall rain splashed windows onto the choppy, grey English Channel, still caught up in the euphoria of salvation.
There was no going back now, at least not for a while and strangely he felt exhilarated by this, liberated. For the moment he was still rapt up in the madness of the situation, he was excited by it and had still not given any real thought about the consequences. All he was focussing on was paying off his debts and trying to win Angie back, even though she was now with someone else. If he returned to England rich, debt free and with no more worries then maybe, just maybe he could get her to come back to him. However, had he been thinking rationally, he would have known that ship had sailed long ago. But, as his actions of the last few hours proved, he was far from rational at present.
The briefcase was stowed safely between his feet as he had not wished to leave it unattended in the rented BMW parked three decks below. He was tired now, after his long journey down to Dover. It had taken him five and a half hours to drive the hundred and fifty miles, much of it through heavy snow, blocked roads and extremely hazardous conditions. However, as night turned slowly to day, the snow turned to sleet and eventually to heavy rain which quickly began washing at least the main roads clean. By the time Jake hit the coast there were only a few snow patches left on the ground as rain swept in diagonal rods across the stark white cliffs.
Jake took a sip of the latte which was warm and comforting as he watched England slip further away and tried to organise his thoughts to formulate some sort of a plan.
He was thinking clearly enough to know that the dead man in the Range Rover was probably someone of dubious nature. The gun told him that much. He also knew that he did not want to be traced and for that many diamonds, someone was bound to come looking.
So that became Jake’s immediate priority; to make himself as untraceable as possible. He took out his beloved iPhone, the only thing of non-necessity he had bought for himself in several years. Stored within its memory were all his contacts, his diary, his emails and pretty much his whole life. But now it was a possible liability. Jake was no expert in technology but he had seen enough movies to know that phones could be traced - whether that was hard fact or just Hollywood fiction he could not be certain, but he did not want to take that chance. So, after downing the last warming remnants of his latte, Jake left the comfort of the lounge and went outside onto the rain lashed deck, the briefcase gripped firmly in one hand, his iPhone held tightly in the other. He forced himself into the driving wind, staggering uneasily in the blustery conditions, the ferry rocking to and fro as he made his way precariously to the rail.
Once there, he stood for a second contemplating his next move. By ridding himself of the phone he would not only be limiting the ability of anyone to trace his whereabouts but also eliminating the possibility of his ki
ds being able to call him whenever they wanted to. But he knew they were safe with Angie and he would be returning to them soon enough. When next he saw them he would be worry free, debt free and financially secure. He could be the father he so desperately wanted to be without all the baggage he had carried with him over the last few years. Surely that had to be worth it.
Next time he spoke to his kids and to Angie he wanted it to be as a new man, someone who they would all want to be with, a winner, and the thing he was about to do was the first step towards that goal. This was the beginning of his regeneration, the beginning of the new Jake.
In that instant of irrational, stress induced madness, that moment of false clarity, he threw the iPhone far out over the rail, watching it arc high up into the angry grey sky then slowly fall and plop insignificantly into a giant dark swell rising ominously out of the cold, unforgiving sea. Soon he’d be able to buy as many new iPhone’s as he wanted.
Two hours later, Jake was feeling exhilarated, excited and ready for the adventure ahead as he drove off the ferry at Calais and headed inland.
Even though he had not slept now for over twenty-four hours, Jake drove for six straight hours. He had been tired on the ferry as a result of his snowy drive down to Dover but that had passed now and he felt almost refreshed as if in the grip of some euphoric trance that had him driving through a land where problems just melted away, his thoughts full of triumphant family reunions and a happy-ever-after future.
He stopped only twice to refuel, aiming west, by-passing Paris and taking the clear, congestion free toll road through Le Mans and Tours until finally, by late afternoon he reached Poitiers. Jake knew this area well as he and Angie had holidayed here several times in happier years.
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