Portrait Of An Assassin - Richard Godwin

by Near To The Knuckle

  His blood was gathering in a thick tide, so I messed up the office a little and cleaned myself up in the police toilets.

  I grabbed my hold–all from outside and changed my clothes, then I broke the door in.

  I drove to Rossi’s, where I burned the clothes I killed him in.

  The next morning, by the time the news of another Mafia hit on a police officer reached the papers, I was on the plane back.

  IX

  I flogged my flat making a huge profit and bought another one, which again I hardly ever used. I was more used to hotel rooms.

  Martoni always called on my mobile. I would buy one every few weeks and then chuck it.

  Business was good. I honed my skills. Meanwhile the line of barbed wire stretched its way round my life like a shadow.

  ***

  My clients came from various walks of life, not all criminal.

  Usually they had some sob story, a jealous wife, a husband who’d found out his wife was screwing someone else. The whole tangle of other people’s love lives, insurance policies, twisted motives and endless self–justification was an area I put up a no entry sign to from the word go.

  I wanted professional jobs where emotions were not running high and I wouldn’t be landed with some snivelling partner piqued by a late attack of conscience after their spouse had snuffed it. Court was one place I intended to stay well away from. I turned a lot of these jobs down and soon stopped getting inquiries about them.

  One day I was called by a man who referred to himself as Mr Jones.

  It wasn’t unusual to get people wary of giving their real names and I usually found out who they were pretty quickly too.

  “I’ve been given your number in connection with a certain business.”

  The voice on the other end of the line was hesitant, nervous. He was out of his depth.

  “Yes.”

  “I believe you can take care of it for me.”

  “It depends what it is,” I said.

  I vetted everything that didn’t come direct from Martoni.

  I suggested we meet.

  The next day by the Italian pond in Hyde Park, I watched as an anxious middle–aged man in a grey raincoat paced at the other end.

  I slowly approached and suggested we walk away from the crowds.

  “Good idea,” he said, stuffing his unread paper in his coat pocket.

  Giving him a cursory glance over, I almost chuckled.

  The coat was so new it still had a label sticking out of the upturned collar. He looked like something out of an old spy movie.

  We walked and I asked him what the job was.

  “Have you heard of Pike and sons?”

  I shook my head.

  “Should I have?”

  “No reason,” he said. “They are well known in their line of business, which sort of overlaps with yours, but…”

  “Which is?”

  “What?”

  “What is their line of business?”

  “Funeral directors.”

  “Hardly the same.”

  “Yes. Of course. Well, they are a well known branch of funeral directors. Very well to do, good reputation. My family have used them for years. My grandmother was buried through them, my aunts, and more recently, my parents, and finally my wife.”

  I was beginning to mark his card as a nutter.

  “What’s the pitch?” I said.

  “The? Ah. Yes, I see. They are as I said very reputable, and may I add, very wealthy.”

  “I guess it’s a good business to be into.”

  “Yes. Well, that brings me to it, you see. They are not, or not deserving of it.”

  “Of what?”

  “Their reputation.”

  “Look, Mr–?”

  “Jones.”

  “Yeah. What is it they’ve done? Dropped a coffin? Lost someone’s ashes?”

  “Oh, far worse”, he said looking at me, “far, far worse, if it was only that, I wouldn’t be here now. No, I don’t know how to bring myself to speak of what they have done. I am not someone who has taken this step lightly, and I had great difficulty finding someone like you. But I felt that all things considered, yes, and I have considered all angles of this shocking case, that this was the only way to get justice for my dear dead wife. God knows who else, God knows who else they’ve done this to, or worse.”

  The guy was exasperating me. He’d run out of steam and stopped to catch his breath.

  “What have they done?” I said.

  He paused.

  “They have been selling organs from the corpses and burying sand. They have been leasing corpses to necrophiliacs.”

  I hadn’t seen that one coming.

  “No shit?”

  “They have probably been doing it for years, which explains the Porsches Mr Pike and his son drive around in, the villas abroad. Oh I know a good deal about them, I have done my research, I can assure you.”

  “That’s good.”

  “The black market in stolen organs is enormous, did you know? Here”, he said, passing me a newspaper clipping which read:

  Lack of organ donors is creating an underworld of traders.

  I glanced at it and handed it back to him.

  “Do you have proof?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “My wife had to be moved. The cemetery was being bulldozed. Pike was away on holiday. When the company I hired lifted her out, they dropped the coffin, a clumsy occurrence admittedly, but one for which I am grateful to them, because without it, I would never have suspected Pike. Sand fell out, and they called me.”

  “Were the police contacted?”

  “No. I knew it would lead to a dead end. I know I am an eccentric man, but I am a realist,” he said. “Kitty was everything to me, and I swore revenge from that moment on. As I stood there, in the pouring rain, staring down at the sand washing away my faith and my hope, something turned in me, I swore I would ensure that the men responsible for this atrocity were punished. But first I carried out my research.”

  “This wasn’t a one–off? Some weird mistake?”

  He shook his head.

  “I am not a rash man, an accountant by profession, an accountant by nature, I love nothing better than to balance the books.”

  “What other evidence do you have?”

  “My wife’s body was offered to a necrophiliac ring. For two weeks after I buried her, she was subjected to every form of physical abuse imaginable. Then her organs were removed before the body itself, before what remained of it was cremated.”

  “I need more than your word.”

  “I know, and I can show you the evidence I have. And it’s not just my dear Kitty I suspect they did it to.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t just pick her.”

  “I’m an accountant and I have seen their books, I have seen their returns, the flow of finance doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I need more evidence.” “And I will give it to you.” We arranged to meet that evening. He would return in his car and show me what he had. “I need your help,” he said. “What Pike and sons have done to my family doesn’t bear speaking about.” Then I watched him walk off in the rain.

  ***

  That evening a car pulled up at the corner of the road I’d told him to meet me on. I was standing a few feet off, and watched him slow down.

  I looked at my watch. He was punctual.

  I got in and directed him to a deserted car park where he stopped the car and pulled a stack of papers out of a briefcase.

  There were accounts, pictures, newspaper clippings, and business receipts.

  It became clear pretty quickly that he was a thorough man, who had gone to painstaking lengths to capture enough information about Pike and sons to set them up for a good law suit. I wondered why he didn’t do that, and then watched him crying over the pictures of his dead wife, or what had been left of her when they sold off the final pieces.

  A photograph of a stiff and
formal young woman adorned the front of the file. Kitty was a throwback to the Victorian era, when wives performed their duties and husbands looked after them.

  I stared briefly at the picture of another world: two people I had no point of reference to, but who had obviously loved each other very much. I wondered what that felt like.

  “Bastard, bastards.” He was punching the upholstery with small white hands that had never hit anything bigger than a calculator. “I want him dead. Dead! Do you understand?”

  I said nothing and continued leafing through the files.

  They’d certainly chopped up someone’s body. Was it Kitty’s?

  Had Mr Jones ever been married, and what was his real name?

  The incisions looked like surgical cuts into flesh entrances in order to remove organs, sure enough, and the pictures certainly showed the crime he was claiming, but against who?

  I needed to check him out.

  The necrophiliac plot would be hard to substantiate, but organ theft could warrant the job.

  Finally, in exasperation, he cried, “What else do you need?”

  “Leave it with me a few days, Mr Jones, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “All right.”

  “And I need an address.”

  He scribbled something on a piece of paper. I would find out his real name.

  “And this will cost.”

  “My Kitty is worth any price. How much?”

  “Sixty.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “My number’s on the paper.”

  “And I’ll take these away.”

  He drove me to a main road and left me.

  The address checked out as the home of a Mr Franklin Smythe. Further checks revealed he was a widower, wife of the name of Katherine. He was an accountant, with little else to hide.

  The photographs he’d given me hadn’t been tampered with in any way, and the burden of proof against Pike and sons certainly seemed to suggest they were coining in an awful lot of cash for a funeral parlour. They had to be up to something.

  I needed to meet Mr Pike, and fast.

  X

  When I phoned the parlour, a suave and unctuous voice answered.

  “Mr Pike?”

  “Speaking.”

  “I believe there is some business you can help me with.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Me and some like–minded colleagues, if you take my meaning.”

  “Colleagues?”

  “Yes, we have a mutual friend. I trust that you are discreet as a funeral director.”

  “I understand entirely,” he said. “Discretion is critical in this line of work. Can we arrange for you to come here and discuss your needs, all in the strictest confidence?”

  I made an appointment for noon the following day in the name of Steele.

  I was conducted into a tastefully decorated funeral parlour, neutral colours, pastels, a lot of cushions and tranquil images. Music played so softly it sounded like it was coming from another room.

  Pike was a burly good–looking man in his sixties. His grey hair was still thick and he had a soft, resonant voice.

  He conducted me into a room at the back.

  Two sofas flanked the walls. A golden light created a calming atmosphere.

  “Please, sit down,” he said.

  He waited for me to open proceedings, before adding:

  “Please be assured, we are talking quite confidentially.”

  “Okay,” I said, feigning embarrassment and looking down at the floor.

  “Have we suffered a decease recently, Mr Steele?”

  “What I have come to speak to you about relates to the deceased, or rather the lack of availability, for…”

  I allowed my voice to trail away and shuffled my feet, prompting him to talk.

  “I think I understand.”

  “I have heard that you run a multifaceted business here.”

  “Oh yes,” he said, smiling. “There are many strings to our bow. Look, why don’t you take the plunge and say what it is we can help you with? You won’t be disappointed.”

  “Romantic, or, shall I say, sexual predilections, are often strange but usually don’t involve hurting other people.”

  I was trying to be as vague as possible while casting enough hints to get a hook into him.

  “Of course.”

  “And, if someone is dead, what can they know of what is happening to them?”

  “Indeed, that is why many people prefer cremation.”

  For a minute I thought I was losing him.

  “The word necro has a lot of uses, and is after all only a prefix,” I said.

  He leaned forward.

  “Let us go into the back,” he said.

  To the rear of the building was a remote office, jam–packed with files, ledgers, papers and directories.

  “This is an unusual route. You have not come through the usual network.”

  Smythe had supplied a couple of names connected to the necro ring. One of them had recently died. In dropping his name I saw Pike relax.

  He nodded.

  “Of course. You knew him. I needed to be sure.”

  “So, can you help me?”

  “Are you interested in male or female?”

  “Both.”

  “For yourself or a group?”

  “A group.”

  “I will need to meet them.”

  “Of course.”

  “We have at present a woman, fairly attractive, large breasts, recently deceased, so there are no dangers of cracking while the act is performed, and a young man in his twenties.”

  “Good.”

  “Or next week, an old lady, apparently a virgin, which is very popular, and a middle aged man.”

  “Will they be intact?”

  “Oh yes, but you only have a few days, you understand.”

  I figured he stressed this because then he sold the organs and no one would want to fuck them after that.

  “Who will you and your friends want?”

  “The old lady and the middle aged man.”

  “Very well, then. I need to meet your colleagues before we arrange anything.”

  “I’ll get in touch.”

  “Only speak to me,” he said, handing me a card. “This is my direct line.”

  “I’m glad I came. I can see you are a consummate professional.”

  “Oh, I’ve been doing this for years,” he said with a smile that made me want to cringe.

  I left feeling like I needed to rinse my mouth out. There was a smell in the parlour that stuck in your throat.

  I went into a pub on my way back and ordered a double whisky. Then I went over what I knew.

  Scythe’s analysis of Pike’s accounts was pretty comprehensive. It would appear that he had acted as his accountant in the past. The books didn’t add up, and there was certainly another line of income behind the transparent one.

  I didn’t believe that the necrophiliac aspect of it could be enough to create such a level of wealth, so I figured that he was doing everything Smythe had accused him of at our first meeting. He’d given me enough. I didn’t need to dig into the organ scam as well.

  By going for the second group of corpses I’d bought myself enough time to carry out the hit as well as saving myself from having to meet the guy again.

  I rang Smythe that evening.

  “The job’s on. I need half up front.”

  “Excellent, excellent!” he said. “I can get it for you in two days.”

  “Fine.”

  “I will call you then.”

  The guy sounded elated.

  I started planning the hit.

  ***

  From what I could gather, Pike’s son, Mervyn worked with him and was involved in all aspects of the business. Albert Pike had fathered two boys by wife Mildred, deceased, buried through Pike and sons, and the youngest one, Wilfred, was the black sheep of the family.

  Albert
had set up the business and name before they were born, and when he found out Wilfred was more into gambling and fast women effectively cut him out of his will.

  Mervyn was moulded in his father’s image, and even looked like him. He’d worshipped him from a small boy and did everything he told him.

  Smythe had given me enough information to show that Pike himself was not averse to a little corpse fucking. Interestingly, Mildred had keeled over from a massive heart attack while visiting the parlour one day. Apparently, she’d gone into one of the embalming rooms and seen something.

  Albert had inducted Mervyn, when of suitable age, into the sexual perks of the business and they worked side by side, employing only a part–time secretary and a team of pall–bearers who had little to do with the parlour.

  I wanted to avoid a second meeting with Pike, so I conducted my surveillance at his house, a large bookmaker’s place in St John’s Wood. He worked hard and was rarely there, which helped me ascertain the best method of entry.

  I’m good at disabling alarm systems and security. On one visit, I found a back window open. Climbing in easily, I inspected the premises for its vulnerability to a hit.

  It was a comfortable house, decorated in terrible taste. Thick shag piles cushioned every room, and Pike had some odd tastes. He loved cheap oil paintings, the kind you find lining Piccadilly Circus. He also loved four bar electric fires. In addition to the central heating, there was an electric heater in most of the rooms.

  A couple of locks at the back were loose and would be easy to force on a return visit. I just needed him there on his own. Mervyn lived with him, but was often out in the evenings.

  Smythe delivered the thirty thousand as arranged, glowing with excitement at the prospect of his enemy’s demise.

  “May I ask,” he asked. “How you are planning to do it?”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s done.”

  He let me get on with the job.

  I received a call from Pike while I prepared his hit. He was obviously keen to get me and my group of associates, as he put it, lined up for the next corpses.

  “Would next Wednesday be suitable for us all to meet? We can make introductions to the goods then, if you so wish.”