‘Your man?’
‘Dead, as I would have been.’
‘Are you sure about the brakes?’
‘I am – proper job.’
He was right. It was my style. I took a drink. ‘When did you last use the vehicle?’ I wanted to estimate the killer’s time frame.
‘Early evening, same day. Probably a two-hour gap between me using it and my man taking it.’
Plenty of time. ‘Where was it parked?’
‘Here.’
Audacious, I thought. ‘Any workmen about?’ The ‘workman’ disguise was a popular ploy.
China scratched his chin. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I could check. You’re asking a lot of fucking questions.’
‘You’re making a big fucking allegation.’
‘Which you haven’t yet answered to my satisfaction.’ His stare was cold and bloodless.
‘Why would I want to kill you?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I can’t because I have no reason to harm you.’
‘You’re a hired gun. You’ll kill anyone for money.’
This had never been strictly true, but I wasn’t going to debate it now. ‘Not you. You have my word.’ I should have told him I was out of the game, but survival instinct made me hold back. I was more useful to China if he believed I was still operational.
China’s stare was without expression. To be honest, words didn’t count for much in his world. ‘You think it was a random snitch trying to muscle in?’
‘Could be,’ I said. ‘The vacuum left after Billy’s death has resulted in quite a shakedown.’
China nodded in agreement. ‘You heard about Chester?’
‘I read about it. Bad business.’
‘And Faustino?’
I did my best to stop my eyes from widening. China meant Faustino. ‘Faustino Testa?’
‘Helicopter dropped out of the sky on a nice, clear winter day.’
‘When?’
‘Last month.’ I blinked, wondering how the hell I’d managed to miss it. Had it been swallowed up by even more grim and recent news? Then it dawned on me. Faustino used a number of aliases and often travelled with a false passport. The police were probably still attempting to unravel his true identity.
‘Where?’
‘Italy, some place. One of those things, an accident, it was alleged. I heard through my contacts that someone spiked the fuel in the tank. Right up your alley, wouldn’t you say?’
I lowered my voice to impress upon China Hayes the importance of what I was telling him. ‘Since my last gig I’ve been out of commission.’
‘By last gig, you mean Billy?’
I nodded.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Someone tried to kill me on a Berlin street less than a week ago.’
China’s top lip curved in imitation of a smile. ‘Really?’
‘You can check my story. I was in a crowd at Brandenburg Gate. A man standing next to me took a bullet meant for me.’
China leant back in the seat, the leather complaining beneath him. He looked at me long and hard. I thought I saw something skitter behind his eyes. Doubt, that’s what I’d seen, as if he wanted to tell me something but wasn’t sure if the timing was right. ‘What are you trying to say, Hex?’
‘Someone is trying to roll us up.’ I didn’t need to say why. A cunning man, China could work it out for himself. He gave me another stare that managed to be level and oblique at the same time.
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘First off,’ I said, ‘take precautions. Double your protection. Skip the barber’s, or choose somewhere else. Avoid all the places you normally visit. Vary your routine.’
‘Run scared?’
‘Lay low.’
‘I have my men,’ China said. ‘They will protect me.’
‘Not against a determined killer.’
China flashed a rare smile. ‘Could you take me if you wanted to?’
‘You know I could.’ No point in lying. ‘Someone with less experience might not find it so easy, but it’s not a risk worth taking.’
China lowered his eyes, took another pull of his drink. ‘And while I’m lying low, what are you going to do?’
Search for McCallen. ‘Warn Daragh Dwyer and shake some trees.’
‘Think someone is out to avenge Billy?’
‘Looks that way. I don’t know for sure. You knew Billy better than me.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, but China was more connected to him in a business sense. ‘Was there anyone close – an associate, maybe?’
China shook his head.
‘A mistress?’ I was throwing a line, hoping it would find purchase.
‘Billy believed in family, wasn’t the kind of man to put it about elsewhere. As for Justine and the kids, they were kept right out of his dirty little deals. Last, I heard, they’d fucked off abroad.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
‘None.’
‘Back to contacts and colleagues then.’
‘You know as well as me, Hex, that at the finish there’s wasn’t a man left standing who’d defend him.’ No surprise. That’s what happens when you want to trade in ethnic-specific bioweapons.
‘What happened to his assets? I said.
‘Billy was one clever bastard. Anybody trying to get their paws on his estate would have better luck breaking into the Kremlin.’
‘Somebody must have profited,’ I pointed out.
China shrugged. ‘Nobody I know got their paws on it. ’Course, plenty have moved into the power vacuum he left behind.’
China included, I thought. ‘What about the cops?’
We exchanged glances. It was well known in our circle that the Assets Recovery Agency was slow, unfocused and cumbersome. We both knew of instances where criminals hung onto their ill-gotten gains, mostly because they had the best lawyers money could buy.
‘Had a crack at it, no doubt,’ China said. ‘Mind, you know Billy …’
‘Coppers on his payroll?’
China nodded. ‘High up the food chain.’
My mind flashed to Michael Berry, a former police officer, destined for stardom with the Met. Bent as they came, he had murdered my mother and I had murdered him. China was still talking.
‘The house was rumoured to have been sold to some charity, although, for all I know, it was another of Billy’s clever ploys to keep it in the family. Wouldn’t surprise me if Justine and the kids were still living there.’
It was a question I should have put to McCallen. I felt as if I were driving I were driving a fast car down a motorway in fog. China’s eyes were like stone. I knew then that I’d failed to convince him that I had his best interests at heart. He knew I could be slippery.
‘I’ll take your advice,’ he said slowly. ‘Double up my manpower, lay low, but only for a short time. Man like me can’t afford to look soft. Brings more trouble than it’s worth. In the meantime, you do your digging – discreetly, mind.’
‘Of course.’ I made to get up. China’s dead eyes told me to stay put. I did.
‘Need to sort out another bit of bother.’
‘A bit of bother’ could only mean one thing. It seemed a poor description for a systematic regime of assassination, but I said nothing and listened.
‘I’ve got a decent bit of business going in the mule industry. You know what I’m talking about, Hex?’
I nodded. A mule meant ‘body packer’, someone who swallowed and smuggled narcotics. Mules coming into the UK often arrived from countries like Jamaica and St Lucia.
‘A human stomach can hold up to half a kilo of cocaine,’ China said, uncommonly animated, ‘a nice, neat, no-risk method of delivery.’
No risk to the importer, high risk to the mule. I didn’t trouble to point this out. Half a kilo could involve around sixty to a hundred pellets in tiny packages; one of those bursts and you’re dead. A massive heart attack is not a pretty way to die.
‘Except someone is pissing on my patch,’ China said.
Realising where this was going, I maintained a neutral expression and wiped my Fuck, I’m outta here reaction.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ he said, dull-eyed and deadly.
I didn’t respond.
‘You’re the best man to take care of it. I’ll pay you the going rate, of course.’
‘Wouldn’t my time be better spent finding out the identity of the man who tried to kill you, Mr Hayes?’ To kill McCallen and possibly me, I thought.
Light flared in his eyes. ‘A man of your obvious talents can surely combine a little detective work with a hit. I’d ask one of my own but, like you said, I need to double my protection, so I’ve no man to spare, unfortunately.’
Wily bastard. China was doing his best to deflect any possible attempt he still thought I might make on his life at the same time as getting me to do his dirty work for him. ‘What about Lester?’ – a freelancer I knew China used from time to time.
‘Lester Marriott?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Inside Belmarsh on a twenty-year stretch. Hadn’t you heard? Unlike you to take your eye off the ball.’ He frowned big time. The implication was clear. He thought I was deliberately playing dumb. Looking apologetic, I did my best to convey that I was giving his proposal serious and deliberate consideration. Another thought flittered into my mind, and as quickly flittered back out again. ‘The target, who is he?’
‘She.’
A dark memory rose up and threatened to maul me. A woman’s death had been the start of it all with Billy when an unknown client had booked me to kill a female scientist. Someone beat me to it, thank Christ, but little had I known at the time the nightmare that would ensue. It would have turned a lesser man’s guts to mush. ‘I don’t kill women. Sorry.’
‘Consider it a test of loyalty.’
I didn’t move a muscle and continued to stare him out.
China leant forward. The leather squealed. ‘Need I point out that I have three armed men a couple of metres away. One order from me and …’ He raised his arm, fashioned his hand into a gun, index finger extended, and silently mouthed ‘Bang.’
He had the bite on me, and I had no choice but to accede to his request. ‘Tell me who she is and leave the rest to me.’
‘Good boy,’ China said with an empty smile. ‘A French bint. Travels a lot. In and out of airports more times than a priest buggers a choirboy. In her spare time she runs orgies for the idle rich. Her name is Simone Fabron.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I walked out onto the street on leaden legs, no oil in the joints. Simone Fabron, sex party girl by night, drug dealer by day, a perfect combination of business and pleasure. I should have worked it out before. Foreign travel, minimal luggage, sex and drugs and rock and roll, what was I thinking? Lust had blinded me and blunted my senses. It was no coincidence at all that she’d picked me up in a cocktail bar in Cheltenham. I wondered if she had any idea that China wanted her out of the way.
To pull a fast one on a man like China Hayes was beyond dumb. Even on a brief acquaintance, Simone struck me as intelligent and streetwise. She did not fit into the usual specification of the people I had removed – nasty, ruthless players with plenty of blood on their hands. This aside, I did not know her, no more than she knew me. I had to smile. As much as I’d been eager to head her off from scrutinising me too closely, she’d been doing exactly the same. Two of a kind, we were equals and certainly more similar than I imagined. It made me wonder whether China Hayes had another more nefarious reason to want her dead.
Maybe she’d double-crossed in love. Involuntarily, I shook my head. Simone having sex with a guy like Hayes curdled my insides. If, however, she was running a drugs outfit all of her own, I needed to know if she was part of a bigger picture involving McCallen.
Overnight Fabron had risen to number one spot in the suspect stakes with regard to the pot shot at me, McCallen’s mysterious disappearance and now the attempt on China’s life, but how she fitted and why still escaped me. Besides, on the evening the brakes were tampered with and China’s car hit a tree, Simone was preparing for the party, or was with me in another part of the country. If involved – and it was a fairly big ‘if’ – in the vengeance-for-Billy scenario, she had to be an accomplice with someone else jerking her strings. But that didn’t make sense either. Fabron did not strike me as the kind of girl who got pushed about by anyone. Moreover, she’d had ample opportunity to entrap me and yet, apart from a few bruises in the throes of passion, I’d escaped unscathed.
Whichever way I viewed my current predicament, it left me with a headache. I had no intention of killing her, or anyone else. That way lay the road to certain destruction.
Unless McCallen was dead and Simone instrumental in her demise.
I headed towards the Tube station, intending to take the circuitous route to Kilburn where Daragh Dwyer hung out. The air smelt of old snow and dampness. Light fast faded in barren-looking streets. People skidded and scurried through the cold, eager to get inside and into the warm. It probably explained why I noticed the two guys walking towards me, heads down, collars up, hands in pockets. They might have been office workers, but the way they walked, beat time together, flagged up that they were not. About to cross quickly to the other side, my boot slipped in the slush. As I stumbled, they came at me as one.
From my crouched position, I punched upwards into the nearest guy’s solar plexus, felt the breath surge out of him as he collapsed in agony. The other guy, big and mean, grabbed hold of my jacket. Both his arms encircled me, pinning mine to my sides. I grunted and strained upwards and out, lashing my head back, trying to break his hold. His grip was like iron. I bent my knees, curved my body forward, hoping to throw him off balance. I weighed heavier than I used to, over two hundred pounds, but almost collapsed under his weight. Thinking I might hit the deck and roll him, I heard a man’s shout and footsteps. Next, a scuffle, and I was abruptly released and thrown clear. Hands flat to the pavement, face in the dirt, soaked through with wet snow, I lifted my head to thank my rescuer. It gave him enough time to slip a sharp into my neck and empty the contents of a full syringe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As I came to, I feared the worst.
I was in a small windowless room, walls the colour of dried putty, strip light running down the centre of the ceiling, table anchored to the middle of the floor. The upright chair on which I sat had wrist restraints and I could not move. Drool slid down from the corner of my mouth and into the collar of my shirt. My head felt like it was full of foam rubber and my eyes had difficulty focussing. I had a thirst like a guy who has popped too many E’s at a rave.
Someone pushed a plastic beaker to my lips and told me to drink. Water, pure and clear, trickled down my throat and I was grateful. I was also glad not to be suspended from a hook in the ceiling. Things could be worse.
I shook my head to clear my brain, rolled my eyes, and narrowed them against the yellow artificial glow. One man perched on the table in front of me, close enough to intimidate, not near enough for me to raise my legs and kick him hard in the groin. As my brain processed his face, recognition dawned. He had piloted McCallen that last time I’d seen her in London. The memory of our conversation flooded back as if it were yesterday.
‘Not sure how I’m going to explain you away.’ She gave an awkward glance back towards the pilot.
I turned to go. ‘You’ll think of something.’
But she hadn’t. She’d told him, and now I was here. This was not my only problem.
‘My name is Titus,’ he said. ‘I’m an intelligence officer for MI5.’
‘I know. I remember.’
Pleasantries over, he said, ‘Where’s McCallen?’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t piss me about. Where is she?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘You deny having any connection to her disappea
rance?’
‘I do.’
‘But you were the last to see her alive.’
‘Who said she was dead?’
Titus cleared his throat. ‘All right, if you must split hairs –’
‘It’s a pretty big hair to split.’ If they wrote her off that easily she stood no chance.
‘You were seen at a party several nights ago.’
‘So were you,’ I said.
He mostly looked unfazed. It’s difficult to mask natural physical responses. Titus was good, I’d give him that, but not that good. I pressed home my advantage. ‘Why would an intelligence officer go to a sex party?’
‘To keep my eye on scum like you.’
Inside I sneered. Outside, I remained impassive. ‘Screwing a stranger in the line of duty? What an interesting and varied job you have.’ Busy considering whether McCallen also involved herself in sex parties, I nearly missed the next question.
‘Where did you go after you left?’
‘You’re the spook. You tell me.’
The blow powered through my jaw and loosened a tooth. I spat blood onto his shoes and felt better for it. He didn’t even glance down, his piercing eyes suggesting that it was all in a day’s work. ‘Let’s try again, shall we?’
I gave him a suits me look. ‘I took a cab home.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Cheltenham.’
‘Be more precise.’
‘St Paul’s,’ I lied.
‘Not Montpellier?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘Positive.’
‘Funny, because McCallen was last seen going into an apartment there.’ He reeled off the address of the rental. Something crawled across my skin. Must have showed in my expression. ‘Your property, I think.’
‘And you’re bluffing.’
‘You deny she was there?’
‘I know nothing about it.’ Which was true.
‘When was the last time you saw McCallen?’
‘A year or more ago.’
This time the blow came with a double slap. ‘If you know the answer, why ask the question?’ I complained.
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