Hold Still – Tim Adler #3: A Psychological Thriller

by Tim Adler

  "What do we do now?" Kate asked.

  "Come on, we've got to get going."

  He was walking away so fast that Kate struggled to keep up with him. "Shouldn't we ask the police to take us home?"

  "Trust nobody. My car's parked round the side of the nail bar."

  Stepping out into the cold, they waited for a taxi, but all had their lights off. Priest said they would have to walk. There were few cars on the road at one o'clock in the morning, and Kate felt ghostly with tiredness as they trudged past betting shops and kebab takeaways. Every nerve ending felt exposed, as if she'd turned her skin inside out. If she could just close her eyes for a moment, to try and forget what was happening to her.

  "Isn't there somebody you could call? Not everybody in the police is corrupt, you know."

  "We don't know who is and who isn't. Best get you to the safe house. We can figure out what to do once you're there."

  Her head ached with cold, which was making her slightly deaf. Her catsuit felt like tissue paper, and it was cold enough to split stones. You read about this kind of stuff happening to other people – that family shot to death in a forest, or Madeleine McCann going missing, big news stories that stayed on television for days – never thinking it could happen to you. Yet here she was caught in something ripped from the pages of the morning's tabloid. "Albanian gangsters silence grieving widow" would be the headline. She wasn't even meant to be here. I'm only thirty-three, she thought, my life has barely begun.

  The plan was to drive round to her flat and Priest would pack for her while she stayed in the car. It was too dangerous otherwise, he said. Priest turned to Kate. "You're a threat to them," he said. "They don't know you're an innocent. Do you understand?"

  Priest's car was a souped-up silver Mitsubishi Lancer with a spoiler on the back. The engine growled reassuringly as Kate buckled up in the rally-driver seat. The street almost became a blur as they accelerated, pushing her back a little. "A bit boy racer, isn't it?" she said as Priest swung a sharp right.

  Forty minutes later and they were back inside Priest's flat.

  She stood watching from the doorway as he threw down a nylon sausage bag and packed a pair of waterproof trousers and a jacket, a thick oiled-wool jumper and his toiletries. Priest packed in a hurry. They would be in a safe house for a week until they figured out what to do with her, he said, probably taking Kate back to The Hague for more questioning.

  Next she followed him into the spare bedroom, where he checked his camera feeds of her flat. There were blurry black-and-white views of the rooms of her apartment. Had he seen her getting undressed, shimmying out of her panties, studying herself in the mirror? Suddenly she didn't like the idea of John Priest rummaging through her knicker drawer.

  "I want to come with you," she said.

  "I told you. Best wait in the car. They might be watching."

  "There's things I need. You won't know where to find them." He hesitated. "For God's sake," Kate persisted. "You're telling me I've got to start a new life and you won't even let me pack? You won't know how to find my passport. It'll be quicker if I come in."

  "Okay. But you've got to be fast. In and out."

  Finally he pulled out what she guessed was her MacBook from a bottom drawer.

  "So you had it after all," she said coolly.

  "I was looking for the data, those names and addresses I told you about."

  The MacBook was the last thing he threw into his holdall.

  They ran across Fulham Palace Road to where his car was parked. A couple of minutes later they turned into her street and Priest pulled into a parking space. "Come on. Let's get going," he said, switching off the engine. Already he was out of the car, scanning left and right. Was there anybody lurking in the road? What about somebody waiting in a car? All clear.

  Her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she fumbled with her own front-door keys. Priest stood with his back to her, watching for anybody coming into the entrance hall. Eventually the right key slid in and Kate pushed her front door open.

  Priest said he would wait for her in the living room.

  "I'll go and change," Kate said, closing the bedroom door. Finally she was alone. Getting her stilettos off was a relief, and she wriggled out of her catsuit before opening her wardrobe. What do you pack for a new life? She stood there, unable to decide, seconds tightening like a noose around her neck. They could be here at any moment. This wasn't the time to think. Finally she decided on black jeans and a tee-shirt – she threw on a leather jacket and pulled her hair into a ponytail through a baseball cap. Her carry-on suitcase was in the wardrobe. She dragged some blouses off their hangers and tossed the suitcase on the bed. Underwear next, and she nearly trapped her fingers in her hurry to slam closed the chest of drawers.

  Her passport was in the sitting room, in the right-hand drawer of a table she'd inherited from her grandmother. There were photographs on the table and she paused to look at one of them: she and Paul standing beneath the tree in Bishop's Park on their wedding day. It had felt like the start of a great adventure; there had been no doubt in her mind that she and Paul were going to be married for a very long time. Till death us do part. Kate peered more closely at Paul's face. Whatever Priest had said about him being blackmailed, he'd allowed himself to be their pawn and had taken their dirty money. He could have gone to the police; there was always a choice. By now she was so close she could make out individual dots on the photograph. There was something not quite right about it; some of the pixels on Paul's face were differently coloured.

  Taking the magnifying glass from a pencil pot on the desk, she looked even more closely. Yes, there was no doubt about it, some of the flesh tones were wrong. Kate tapped the magnifying glass ruminatively against her teeth.

  "Could you get a move on?" said Priest. He was standing in the doorway.

  "Here. Come and look at this."

  "Jesus, Kate, we need to get out of here."

  "Wait. This is important. There's something wrong with this photo."

  Priest sighed and took the magnifying glass. "What am I meant to be looking at?"

  "Look at the flesh tones on Paul's face. Some of them aren't the right colour. Like he's got acne."

  Priest peered at the photo with her. "Where's the original? Do you still have it on your laptop?"

  "I think so. Why, what are you thinking?"

  "We'll need to get it from my car. Give me your keys. You draw the curtains."

  She watched Priest cross the road before pulling the curtains closed. The odd car shushed past up the street. What had he spotted that was so important? A black van turned into their road and she had that feeling again, as if somebody had walked over her grave. The vehicle looked as alien and menacing as an insect. Hurry up, John, and get back here. She let the curtain fall and found her passport, slipping it into the leather jacket.

  She was thinking about taking some food for wherever they were going when she heard keys in the door. Her heart thumped against her chest. "They're microdots. Or rather they act like microdots," Priest said, letting himself in. "Here. Show me your wedding photographs."

  The buffering laptop seemed to take forever to start up. "I was looking for Bitcoin codes. I thought Paul might have kept them on the computer."

  "What's a Bitcoin code?"

  "It's a unique key that unlocks money. Criminals love it. That's what the Albanians were using to pay off the police. It's untraceable."

  The folder where she kept their wedding photographs was spread out before them. Priest double-clicked on the one they'd had framed. They compared the two.

  "Look, see how it's different. Do you have TOR on this machine?"

  "I don't know. What's that?"

  "It's a browser. We use it for pulling stuff off the Dark Web." He paused and turned to her. "You really have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" He might as well have been explaining hang-gliding to a mole. Priest shook his head. "All this time I was searching for Bitcoin and here it was, right
under my nose. I'll need to download some software. I can run a decryption program."

  An arrow pulsed as Priest downloaded the software he needed. The sound of the front door shutting floated upstairs. When would she next see this flat? How would she explain to mum and all the others who knew her? You don't just disappear; you can't just walk out on your old life and start somewhere else. She pictured a hot Australian street in the middle of the Outback somewhere and shook her head. No, that was not going to happen. She wasn't going to let them bully her into being somebody else. Suddenly she was very tired. All her brain capacity was used up, and she felt drained. If only she could close her eyes, just for one second. She'd had enough of today.

  She must have fallen asleep, just for a millisecond, because when she opened her eyes Priest was staring at a grey bar scrolling across the screen… 75 per cent … 80 per cent … nearly there. "Won't be long now," he said. The software was scanning the files agonisingly slowly, trying millions of different combinations to unlock the photo. "Come on, come on," he said quietly.

  There was a knock on the door.

  They both froze. It was two o'clock in the morning, so this wasn't just any casual passer-by. Kate thought about the black van and how it had been parked outside her flat for days. They both had the same unspoken thought.

  "Don't answer it," said Kate.

  Right at that moment, the decryption completed and Priest double-clicked on what was now an Excel spreadsheet: hundreds of names and addresses, columns of figures.

  "Clever boy. Everybody's names are right here." He looked closer. "Not just here but all over Europe. He could always blow the whistle on them. This was your husband's insurance policy."

  "An insurance policy he never got to cash in."

  "Have you got a memory stick?"

  The knocking started again. More insistent this time.

  "No, I don't think so … wait, there's a memory card in my camera."

  "Here, you save it."

  She heard Charles Lazenby's papery voice from the hall.

  "Who the hell's that?"

  "It's all right. He's my downstairs neighbour. The one in the square that night."

  "What does he want? It's past two in the morning."

  "It might be important," Kate said reluctantly.

  "I'll go and check. You've got a spy hole."

  Her old DSR was in the bottom drawer of the desk, and she popped the memory card out while Priest peered through the fish-eye lens. She heard him say "Who is it?" as she dragged the Excel file onto the memory card. Priest could give it to Europol or whoever he wanted; she never wanted to see that wedding photograph again. Maybe trying to protect her hadn't been the same as lying, but she still felt violated. Kate heard Charles Lazenby's voice from the hall once more.

  Suddenly the front door crashed open and there was a commotion. Shouting. In her panic, Kate deleted the original from the MacBook as Lazenby was thrown into the room. The sitting room door shuddered. Kate's neighbour fell over the sofa looking old and frightened. A man she had never seen before stood in the doorway: he was tough looking, dressed in a nylon bomber jacket and camouflage trousers. What was odd about him was his face. There was a teardrop tattooed beneath one eye, as if he'd done something he was sorry about. She remembered Phuong drawing a line under her eye.

  So this was them. The men who had killed her husband.

  Kate stood defiantly in front of the man, shielding the laptop. "Please don't hurt me," Lazenby whimpered from the sofa. "Where is computer?" said the thug. Kate stood with her hands behind her back, rigid with fright. At the same time, her fingers searched for the memory card slot. This was what they wanted, she was sure of it. The tattooed thug stepped closer and she shrank back. The memory card popped out and she closed her fist around it.

  The thug, who had a sensitive, almost melancholy face, pulled out a Stanley knife and dropped down onto the sofa, digging his knee into Lazenby. The thug held the knife against the old man; it pressed white against his cheek. "You want me to cut him? Please, I am not fucking you. Where is computer?" Lazenby let out a strangulated moan. Kate stood to one side, revealing the laptop, and Teardrop got up, pulling her away. She fell against Paul's favourite armchair. Teardrop grinned as he held the MacBook, revealing an ugly row of horse's teeth. Clearly, he had what he wanted.

  A second man pushed Priest into the room. This accomplice was small and baby-faced, almost a dwarf. His close-cropped hair and bug-eyed sunglasses made him look even more sinister. He also had a gun pointed at Priest's head. Kate remembered somebody telling her once that the small bouncer was the one you had to watch out for on a nightclub door. He was the vicious one.

  "Who are you, and what do you want?" said Kate.

  "She say what do we want?" said Teardrop.

  The dwarf snickered. "I dunno. What do we want?"

  "Lady, why don't you tell us why we're here?"

  "Look," Kate said. "We don't want any trouble. I think you'd better leave."

  "I think you'd better lee-eave," mimicked the short one in a high, camp voice.

  "Who the fuck are you?" said Teardrop. "I'm a neighbour," Priest replied. The little thug took a running kick at Priest, putting his boot in the back of his leg. Priest crashed down onto both knees. The dwarf then rested the gun against the back of Priest's head. Kate was so frightened she felt a drop of pee running down her inside leg. Teardrop pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket and stalked into the hall. Lazenby was still sprawled on the sofa.

  Kate could hear Teardrop in the corridor speaking in what she guessed was Albanian. The skinhead smirked as he held the gun against Priest's head – he behaved as if this was one enormous joke. Priest looked shaken.

  Teardrop didn't look too happy when he came back in. "You. Where is sheets?" He jerked his head for Kate to follow him. They walked down the hall to a wardrobe where she kept bed linen. Her fingers trembled as she turned the knob. "You have what you wanted. Why can't you leave us alone?" Teardrop pulled sheets down into a billowing heap and then picked up two pillowcases. All he said was "Move".

  Priest was kneeling now, with his hands behind his head. "I've got some shirts to do while you're at it," he quipped. The runty one stepped forward and smashed Priest across the back of the head. What shocked Kate was how casual and unexpected the violence was. Priest toppled sideways onto the carpet. "My God, you've killed him," Kate said. Teardrop extracted what looked like a nylon cord from his pocket, the kind you use on an electric light-pull, knelt down and roughly tied Priest's hands together. He yanked hard and Priest groaned. "You next," he said. Kate held her hands out and Teardrop turned her around. Up close he smelled really bad, a strong goatish smell, and the way he looked at her made her fear she might be raped. The tight nylon dug into her wrists, and she circled her hands to keep the blood flowing.

  "Can't you leave the old man alone?" she said. "He's done nothing to you." Teardrop told Lazenby to lie face down on the sofa while he hogtied his hands together as well. Next he pulled a roll of duct tape out of his pocket and sliced off a strip, slapping it crudely across the old man's mouth. "Zogaj say no witnesses," his accomplice said. Teardrop ignored him and did something curious: he adjusted the cushion beneath Lazenby's head, trying to make him more comfortable.

  Teardrop hauled Priest up by the scruff of his neck and got him to stand. Priest was unsteady on his feet, as if he didn't know where he was. A trickle of blood ran down his temple. Teardrop pulled a pillowcase over Priest's head, shrouding him. For a moment it reminded Kate of a lynching in the Deep South, except the black man was the one wearing the hood. Priest stumbled again on his way out; the blow to the head must have really affected him.

  Now it was Kate's turn.

  Teardrop yanked the pillowcase over her head and everything went dark. Her breath felt hot inside the cotton as Teardrop pushed her towards the door. She was frightened she might trip over something. The thug steered her into the hall and she smelled his body odour again. Please, God, l
et a neighbour come out and see us. For once Kate wanted the nosy woman who lived across the hall to wonder what was going on. Teardrop steered her carefully but she stumbled over the threshold. The entrance door clicked open, and then they were out in the night air. This is it, she thought, the moment of no return.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A van door scraped open and Teardrop told Kate to climb inside. She was shaking as he lifted her in, although she wasn't sure whether it was from cold or fear. The icy interior had a sharp, acrid smell that she couldn't put her finger on. Of course: this was the van that had so freaked her out a couple of days ago, the one with the dildo on the dashboard. All this time they must have been watching her, seeing where she went and who she met. Teardrop led Kate to the back of the van and pushed her down. She sensed Priest beside her. They were both sitting on what felt like a small wooden box. Teardrop leaned down and whispered in her ear: "You fuck with me, I kill you."

  His boots rang out on the metal floor and then he jumped down. The van doors slammed shut. They were finally alone. That was when Kate became aware that another person was in the van. She heard the snuffling sound of somebody crying.

  "Phuong, is that you?"

  "They going to kill us," she said. Her voice trembled on the edge of hysteria.

  "Listen to me. They are not going to kill you. You're worth too much to them." Phuong let out a surprisingly deep moan. "You must believe me."

  "I'm sorry, I should never have got you into this," Priest said. His words were muffled through the pillowcase.

  "It's okay. I think they'd been watching me for days. Why do they need us now they've got the laptop?"

  "We can identify them. We know what they look like." There was an uncomfortable silence as he let the implications sink in. They both knew what that meant.

  "I don't know anything. You know that."