Final Target

by E. V. Seymour

  Next, I checked out the room, opened drawers – mostly empty aside from a set of expensive underwear and a hotel hairdryer – and ran my hand over the few clothes hanging in the wardrobe. Simone had one pair of boots and a tan brown leather shoulder bag, tear-shaped. I picked up and shook out the contents, which included a large purse with a hundred pounds in cash, credit cards in her name, a passport, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, moisturiser, tampons and a blister pack of contraceptive pills with twelve days’ use. Pushing everything back inside, I returned the bag to the bottom of the wardrobe, took off my clothes, crawled into bed and lay there, too wired to sleep.

  China Hayes had colluded in the murder of his rivals, but now he had disappeared. He’d had a connection with a German – maybe Pallenberg, maybe Benz. Why would a London crime lord be doing business with a neo-Nazi? Mathilde Brommer had attended the same parties as Benz, either at the same time, or on a separate occasion. Too much of a coincidence? Mathilde had the motive for murder and yet her outrage down the line had been strong and convincing. Titus was dead. McCallen was missing. Billy Squeeze lay at the heart of it, or at least, someone was using his name to invoke terror. However I tried to assemble the pieces, I couldn’t make the picture fit, couldn’t make it work. I seriously hoped that where I’d failed to locate McCallen the security services or the police would succeed. After that I drifted off. Clear, dreamless unconsciousness eluded me.

  When Simone returned a little after five, I pretended to be out for the count. Shoes slipped off, a rustle of clothing and then the mattress yielding as Simone’s cool, naked body climbed in beside mine. She fell asleep instantly and, some time later, I must have dozed off. Around eight, the light in the room leaden, she hooked one leg over my body and rolled me underneath her. Skin on skin.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, languidly.

  ‘Nice wake-up call.’

  She smiled, studying my arms, her brow creased. Blood had seeped through one of the bandages. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone came at me with a knife.’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ I didn’t want her fussing over me.

  ‘I worry about you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t.’

  She ran an index finger over my lips and pressed it into my mouth. ‘I don’t expect you to tell me about your work.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But you can trust me. Sometimes it helps to talk, not about specific details but –’

  ‘You know Mathilde Brommer.’

  Simone frowned at my sudden, serious tone.

  ‘She attended one of your parties in Berlin.’

  Her face lit up and she threw her head back and laughed. ‘Joe, have you any idea the number of women on my mailing list?’ As it happened, I did. She had a point, but I wasn’t smiling. All her mirth vanished. She slipped off me and grabbed a robe. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘So you get to ask the questions but I am not allowed?’ Her small nostrils flared. The pretty features instantly became a collection of sharp edges.

  ‘What about Dieter Benz?’

  At once, her face darkened. She rounded on me. ‘Dieter Benz?’

  ‘You remember him?’ I propped myself up on one elbow, felt the tingle of excitement that accompanies the thrill of the chase.

  ‘For all the wrong reasons. He’s a vile anti-Semitic thug who practically raped one of our guests.’

  She crossed the room in a theatrical fashion, swiped at her handbag and produced a pack of expensive-looking cigarettes. I didn’t know she smoked and I bet the hotel wouldn’t like it. Not that I was going to stand in the way of an angry, highly strung woman and her chosen drug. Immediately, my mind flipped back to the graveyard, the discarded pack I’d found in the grass.

  She shook out a cigarette, placed it between her lips and lit up. Plumes of thin grey smoke seeped into the atmosphere and curled up towards the ceiling. She stood erect and taut, arms crossed as though she were holding herself together in case she might shatter and fall. ‘He is blacklisted,’ she added, as if that concluded the conversation.

  ‘Who invited him?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  I looked her straight in the eye. If Benz had behaved so badly, why didn’t she remember who’d invited him? Zara had said that he ‘fucked like a bull’. She had not said that he’d almost raped a guest.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Things don’t add up.’ I slipped out of bed, reached for my clothes.

  ‘The guy in the gold mask.’

  She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and let out a terse sigh. ‘We have already been over this.’

  ‘I want to go over it again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s dead.’

  She looked astonished. ‘And you think this is connected to –’

  ‘You.’

  She stared at me as if I’d punched her hard in the stomach and winded her. When she finally composed herself, her eyes were black with rage. ‘I am not one of your spies,’ she spat, ‘or informers.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you are so defensive.’

  ‘Because you are accusing me of things I haven’t done. You are using me – first my body and now my mind.’ She glanced sideways, her gaze alighting on the laptop, making the connection. Her mouth fell open. She turned back, took several paces at speed and slapped my face so hard my fillings shifted. I reached out and grabbed her. The robe slipped off her shoulders.

  ‘You vile shit, let go of me.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Calm down.’

  ‘I will not calm down,’she bellowed. ‘You’ve been snooping. You have no right.’

  ‘I have every right,’ I shouted over her. ‘A friend of mine is missing and I’m busting my guts to find her.’

  I stood, utterly shaken by my lack of discretion. Seconds rolled by like days. To my surprise, a tear rolled down her cheek. I let her go. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and drew me towards her, kissed my forehead, my cheeks, like a mother kissing a child better, then she kissed my mouth, softly at first, the rest a blur of desire, angry sex and passion.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I arrived at the café late. I’d had to travel back to the hotel, grab China’s laptop and then trek back to Kensington. Fortunately, the hotel extended my checkout time so that was one less thing to concern me.

  Jat was already seated. He still had his trademark dark hair and sideburns. He did a double take when he saw me.

  ‘I apologise for my clothes,’ I said, getting in first.

  ‘Don’t tell me – an all-nighter and you got mugged on the way home?’

  ‘Something like that.’ I ordered a double espresso and handed him the laptop.

  ‘Want me to open it now?’

  I looked around the café. Mums with young kids, teenagers, a couple of old folk. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘I can do anything,’ he flashed.

  ‘Cocky sod.’

  As it turned out, he couldn’t. He tapped keys, chased from one window to another, muttered something about lockdowns and case-sensitive passwords and a host of other stuff I didn’t understand.

  ‘With time, could you open it?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How long do you need?’

  ‘Days, a week, who knows?’

  This was not the answer I wanted. ‘Are you busy right now?’

  Jat’s face lit up. ‘Got quite a workload.’

  ‘It pays well?’

  ‘Sure does.’

  ‘I’ll triple it if you put my job ahead of everything else.’

  He let out a big ‘whoa’ and then a ‘yay’. I have never understood the popularity of these phrases, which translated mean ‘goodness’ and ‘yes’, but it was a welcome response.

  Jat didn’t need a sign of good faith. He knew I was all right for the money. I drained my espresso and stood up. �
��I’ll phone you in a few days.’ Before I left I asked a question that had been nagging me for the past year.

  ‘Your little brother, is he behaving himself?’

  A smile sprang to Jat’s lips, warmth in his eyes. ‘Found himself a nice girl with a wicked sense of humour.’

  I was glad. ‘He’s seen the light then.’

  The edges of his smile faded a little. ‘Yeah. It was touch and go for a while. You know he never talks about it but something bad happened, something really freaked him.’ He looked at me with a questioning expression.

  People got killed, including the men he was mixing with. I shook my head in a ‘don’t ask’ gesture. ‘He’s fine, that’s all that matters.’

  * * *

  I walked to the nearest Tube station. The sky was dull and the perishing east wind made me shiver in my party gear. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut in my exchange with Simone. My momentary loss of control was a bad sign. I guess I was taken aback that a woman, who seemed so self-possessed and cool, had cared enough to want to comfort me. It had been a long time since that had happened.

  About to cross into the Underground, I spotted a newspaper hoarding: ‘MAN’S BODY FOUND IN THAMES NEAR LUXURY DEVELOPMENT’. I stopped, picked up a Metro and read it while crushed between an Italian guy talking non-stop on a phone and an Eastern European woman with a small, unsettled baby. The piece was patchy, not particularly informative, but the time frame matched China’s missing status. It did not say how the man died but death by drowning was the clear inference. In a population of millions, it could have been anyone in the drink. In my bones, I knew it was Hayes. You reap what you sow. Whatever China had intended for me was lying dead on the mortuary slab with him. It didn’t mean I was out of danger. Now China’s killer, whoever he was, would be gunning for me.

  I returned to the hotel, showered and changed, packed and checked out. I didn’t return to the lock-up. I went straight to Paddington to catch the train back to Cheltenham. Before heading for the main station, I stayed on the Underground, tracing the route of my last journey over a year before on the day that Billy died. I stood on the same platform in roughly the same position, imagined him standing up ahead and close to the tracks, unaware of my presence. Closing my eyes, I remembered how I’d moved forward, the way he’d turned, the frozen shock on his face at the grim realisation that what goes around comes around.

  I visualised the faces of those nearby, mouths open in horror at the tumbling man, women screaming, men reaching for mobile phones, some standing mute, fists pressed into their mouths. Not one had stood out from the crowd. On that fateful day, my single purpose had been to get away, to escape. I had – yet I had not.

  I returned to the main concourse from where I boarded my train. Going back would be tough. My hometown now the focus of the enquiry, the place would be thick with police and security services. Most would be on the lookout for McCallen, the rest, if they could be spared, on the hunt for me. They were not my greatest fear. Someone was jerking my chain and I had a sense that in the game that lay ahead there were only two players.

  Him and me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  My mobile rang as I walked through the front door. It was unlikely to be Simone. She’d mentioned that she had to meet with her accountant and visit her solicitor about an inheritance from an elderly aunt, and would try and sort out a time to meet soon afterwards. I squinted at the unknown number and pressed receive. An electronically distorted voice came on the line, electronic, low and alien. It said my name – not Joshua Thane, not Joe Nathan, but my criminal soubriquet, ‘Hex’.

  I killed the surprise in my reaction. Mentally, I was in a good place. The call meant we were in play. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I have your girl.’

  Which girl? Shock made me dull-witted. ‘Simone?’

  The voice laughed. ‘Simone? I thought you’d taken care of her. Looks like I’ll have to deal with it myself.’

  China, I thought, wrong-footed – had to be. He must have faked his own death. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Irrelevant.’

  I wanted to punch holes in the walls. I wanted to call him a scheming, double-dealing bastard. Losing my temper would not extend her life, however, so I said, ‘You have McCallen?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘She’s alive?’ Blood pumped through my temple until I thought my brain would burst.

  ‘You didn’t really think she was dead, did you?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘All in good time.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To make you suffer.’ The mocking tone vanished.

  I didn’t go into why he was doing it, no point. ‘This has nothing to do with McCallen.’

  ‘It has everything to do with McCallen. You were quite a duo.’

  ‘It was nothing more than a straight business transaction. I did her a favour. She helped me out. As did you, if you remember, or have you forgotten how you helped me to nail Billy Squeeze?’ China’s precise motivation now eluded me.

  ‘I have not forgotten.’

  ‘Why Titus?’ I said.

  ‘Collateral damage, and he had blood on his hands.’

  Seemed I was wrong about the extent of China’s knowledge. He’d obviously done his homework.

  Then another thought occurred to me.

  ‘What’s with the special effects? Why aren’t you talking directly to me?’

  He let out a laugh. ‘All part of the plan, Hex. China Hayes is dead. I faked my own death.’

  ‘How do I know that McCallen is alive, that this isn’t a trick?’

  ‘You want proof of life?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You’d like me to send a picture?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘How about a scream?’

  Before I could answer, I heard a woman’s voice shouting no, followed by such an agonising cry of pain I almost dropped the phone. Was it McCallen’s voice? Anguished, I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t prepared to take the gamble. I wanted to tell him to stop hurting her, yet I knew that it would imply an emotional connection, which would make me weak. Uber-cool, I didn’t react.

  ‘Convinced?’

  ‘Yes. Take me and let her go.’

  ‘I’d hoped you might say that.’

  ‘Do we have a deal?’ I knew that there would be no trade, that this psycho wanted us both dead. He was simply having fun with me.

  ‘I think we might.’

  ‘Might isn’t good enough. Tell me where she is now.’

  Silence.

  It was as if the clocks had stopped turning and time had come to a shuddering halt. She was alive, I kept telling myself, which was good. What state she was in as China’s prisoner I dreaded to consider. China was a heartless man. In common with his kind, he enjoyed abusing women. He liked hearing them scream. The sound of her pain ripped through me with such exquisite intensity I had to exert every effort to concentrate.

  ‘I won’t contact the police or security services,’ I assured him.

  ‘Of course you won’t. They’ll ask too many uncomfortable questions about the man you killed and dumped in the quarry.’

  I clamped my teeth together to prevent a response. I hadn’t disclosed that level of detail. How did he know? Was I seen? Did he have others watching me? Automatically, my eyes flicked to the window. An empty street apart from a stray cat. I was in danger of allowing paranoia to make my thinking sloppy.

  With a first-class honours degree in cunning, China knew my methods. He had an approximate grasp on how I ticked. I felt a partial sense of relief because now I was dealing with a known quantity even if it meant doing business with a vicious and ruthless bastard. The whole Billy Squeeze story had been nothing more than a ruse to destabilise me. It wasn’t working. I had to keep him talking. The fact I had his laptop provided no consolation. I wondered if he knew I’d stolen it.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’
r />   ‘When? Tell me now.’

  ‘You’re in no position to call the shots, Hex.’

  He was right. I swallowed hard.

  ‘You’ll hear from me in twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours and then what?’

  He hung up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I phoned Simone.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I told you, with my solicitor. Excuse me,’ I heard her say to someone, ‘I have to take this call.’ Next, the sound of high heels on wood in a hollow, empty space. ‘What is it?’ Her voice sounded low and a little tetchy.

  ‘Where are you going afterwards?’

  ‘Why?’ she brightened. ‘Are you still here in London?’

  ‘No. Look, there’s no easy way to put this, China Hayes is gunning for you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wants you dead. I’m serious. Your life is in danger, Simone.’

  ‘But you said it would be all right.’

  I didn’t remember saying this. ‘It’s has nothing to do with the drug mules. It’s a complicated story and I don’t have time to explain.’

  ‘Shall I come to you?’ I heard the catch in her voice.

  ‘You must stay away.’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’

  ‘Listen to me. Don’t go to a friend. Don’t visit favourite haunts. Book yourself into a cheap hotel and stay there. You don’t surface for anything. Keep your phone switched on but only answer if I call. I’ll come to you as soon as I can. It might take a couple of days.’

  Her voice soared. ‘Forty-eight hours, why?’

  ‘I need to take care of something here first. Trust me. Can you do that?’ It was a big ask for a woman whose trust was as limited as my own.

  ‘I have no choice?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘D’accord. I will do as you say.’

  Relieved, I phoned Jat. ‘Have you made a start?’

  ‘I have a day job, remember?’

  I’d forgotten. ‘Look, things have changed. I really need as much information as you can pull off as soon as possible and as quickly as possible.’