The death of a brother made me mad… but not unhinged, which is what you are.
No.
You need help.
I need money.
I’ll get you money, if you agree to get help. You killed 12 people. 12 innocents.
They weren’t innocent. They worked for you.
12.
Just a number.
Like one is just a number, albeit 12 is eleven more than one. Eleven more.
Money, or you never get your precious business back. I’ll burn all your files… everything.
Okay. I’ll bring the money.
I’ll be waiting. Details TBC, remember?
I remember. I’ll be there.
The text conversation ended and I sank back on the bench I occupied, feeling a mixture of relief and anguish. I never would’ve taken her for a killer, let alone the sister of a gangster. Clough had a rap sheet as long as his arm. He’d been dragged in for questioning so many times, always let go of. Always. He had to have connections, he had to have made bribes, called blackmail… threatened police officers. He was the worst sort of criminal – living without fear, dodging death at every corner – causing harm to everyone he touched. No conscience. No guilt. The perfect sociopath. No doubt he and Ayda had troubled upbringings and were made from the same cloth. Maybe a mentor came along and saved them both, gave them an education… a better chance at life. But the monster remained inside them, perhaps an abusive mother or father or uncle or somebody… and the monster lived conspicuously in Jeremy, but hid inside Ayda, buried deep, until she was pushed too far… a bit like me.
I got back to the Knightsbridge house to find the alarm on, the house in darkness. I smelt the furniture polish I’d used that morning as I walked through the dark and towards the house alarm, to punch in the code.
Knowing what I’d find even before I got there, I walked upstairs anyway and into the bedroom, which had been ransacked. She’d turned drawers and cupboards inside out in her haste to pack.
Taking a deep breath, I fell heavily onto the unmade bed, which still smelt of her. Everything about this house was hers. I’d bought it for her. I adored her from the moment we met. I couldn’t help myself. She struck me with a thousands bolts of lightning and I knew I’d never be the same again.
I cried, holding her pillow to my face, sobbing into the scent she’d left behind. I didn’t blame her for going. In fact a part of me had wanted her to go… to get free. She didn’t need me.
When despair began to clutch at my throat, seizing the wind in my lungs where it was, a little symbol of hope popped into view as I spotted a folded piece of paper standing upright on her dresser.
Dante,
I’ve gone home because I don’t feel safe… and I feel scared… of you and what you are capable of… of people. Of everything. I’m bowing out, but I’m not giving up on you. I wish I could, but I could never let go of you. I’m just so scared, my heart can’t take it anymore. The people in your world will use me to get to you, so I’ve gone back to where I came from, where the river meets the sea… and when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting. I’ll be safe where I’m going. I love you, always.
C x
She was clever and I knew she would get back safe. The Porsche had disappeared from outside the house so I hoped she’d taken it and ran for the ferry, and back to her homeland.
She had to be safe, because without her, life wouldn’t be worth living.
Clutching the note in my hand, I turned from the room, left the house and took a taxi to the airport. It was time to put right a few wrongs.
***
WHEN the Swiss bank where I kept my safety deposit box opened the next morning, I walked in through the front doors precisely a minute later and headed straight for my box, opening out the contents inside a private, curtained room.
Inside my box I’d kept half a million pound sterling in cash. That alone wouldn’t be enough, though. Ayda’s price had been a million.
In my inside jacket pocket I held a USB with details on how to access an offshore account that contained another half a million. This way, I had a couple of bargaining chips. She wasn’t to know I didn’t have all the money here. I’d asked Roman to tell her that I did, but neither of them needed to know about the USB.
How would a chef even know whether a bag of cash contained half a mil’ or not, anyway? Surely she’d never held such a huge amount of cash before.
With the cash in a briefcase, I walked to a café and waited patiently for her to let me know when and where the drop was to be made.
On my third cup of coffee, my heart racing, my chest convulsing from fear and too much caffeine, a message arrived:
Kunsthaus Museum. Ten minutes. Pay entry. Leave the case in a locker. Bring the locker key to me. I’ll be somewhere near the Old Masters collection.
What about my stuff?
In a Ford van nearby. I’ll give you a key in exchange.
She definitely wasn’t a pro. I could have easily located said Ford van, broken in and stolen off with everything. That wasn’t why I was really here, though. I wanted to look into her eyes and ask, why?
I stood from my table, leaving a small pile of Swiss francs concealed beneath the bill… and left. At least if I did die today, I could say I went out having made the waiter who’d served me much better off.
On my way there, I realised I had two choices. Either I let Ayda take the money and run, or I didn’t. I still didn’t have a clue if she really was capable of this.
I needed to see her in person.
I needed this to be over already.
Nearing the art museum on foot, I was surprised to see a queue. Even museums in Zurich resembled banks and this was no different, with a pyramid roof, rows and rows of windows and a dramatic entrance using lots of glass. A Rodin piece sat outside depicting some sort of gate to Hell. I wished I had time to consider the hell I was heading for, but I didn’t. Hell, for me, had been the waiting game – for a chance to get the person who killed my team.
Standing in line, I had a moment to think and it occurred to me Ayda was unlikely to be working alone. She needed backup. So, who did she have working for her, or with her?
A boyfriend, or another brother, one still alive?
Did Ayda have a hacker on her books, like I had? Or a dozen…
Looking around, I searched for someone watching me as I waited in line to pay the entrance fee, but no one suspicious stood nearby. There were tourists and students and an elderly couple I should’ve let go ahead of me in the queue, but I was in a hurry.
I paid my entrance and used a locker for my briefcase, which one of the museum staff regarded with suspicion. Dressed and acting the way I was, it was no wonder. However, I spoke to them in bad German about meeting a date and they waved me away, all smiles.
I wandered with a map of the gallery in hand and found the Masters collection she had referred to. Sitting down at a bench, I stared at Pellegrini’s Venus with Satyr for no more than thirty seconds before I felt a figure approach behind me.
“Place the key on the bench beside you.”
I knew the voice, but didn’t.
It sounded like her but her tone had changed, revealing her to be less subservient and more hard and unyielding in reality. When she’d worked for me, she’d seemed calm and hardworking, and soft… motherly even.
“You first,” I said.
“Just be warned, I do have a gun.” She dug something hard into my back and I didn’t doubt she was carrying.
“I’m just here to get my stuff.”
“Yeah… right. Now… I’m placing mine down as a show of good faith, so you show me yours.”
I looked to my side and saw the key she carried, a car key for a Ford vehicle as promised, its metal shining against the overhead lights in the gallery.
“Here,” I mumbled, showing her the locker key.
Ayda never wanted my business, she just wanted me to squirm… and pay. She couldn’t run the sort of business I
had, she wouldn’t have the staying power for it… nor the nervous energy that forever fuelled me. A middle-aged woman, she nonetheless stood behind me breathing steadily, her feet still. She wasn’t afraid, wasn’t scared. She wanted repayment. She wanted to get free. She wanted…
Me.
And she wanted me dead.
We exchanged keys in a split second and after it was done, I rose to my feet slowly, turning on my heel.
She looked just the same, except the only difference was instead of a chef’s tunic, she now wore black trousers, black t-shirt and a leather jacket. Black boots. A St Christopher sat around her neck I had never noticed before and I judged it might have belonged to her brother, otherwise why would I never have seen it before?
“Twelve souls,” I reminded her.
“I have somewhere to be, so unless you have any better parting words, I have a lot of money to spend. The Ford is in the museum car park. You won’t miss it.”
She brandished the locker key at me and I knew I could first use that to put her off course.
“How do you know that’s the right locker key? Or that I even put the money in the case?”
“I know,” she said, “because you love your business even more than you love Ciara. Otherwise why would you let her leave?”
“You watched her go?”
“I had someone watch her… and we let her go. She deserves better than you.”
We…
She wasn’t working alone.
“An authority on morality are you, now?”
“Maybe.”
“You know, I didn’t suspect you for a minute. You could’ve got away with this if you weren’t so eager to take off with a big bag of money.”
“Ciara’s better off, wherever she is, as long as she’s away from you.”
I saw a flicker of self-doubt and a tell when her eye twitched slightly. That told me she’d chased Ciara but my fiancée being who she was had known she was being tailed and had outran whoever it was working with Ayda.
“Where’s Sexton?” I asked, pre-empting her next strike. “Where’ve you got him? I haven’t heard from him in days.”
She smiled smarmily before producing her phone, showing me a live stream of him tied up somewhere, the time stamp in GMT.
“He’s back in London and he’s in a little bit of a pickle.”
“What do you really want?” I demanded.
“Why do you assume my motive is want. Perhaps this is about need.”
“What do you want?” I almost barked, checking myself. There were other people floating around the gallery and none of them stood loitering like us. It’d be mere minutes before security began hovering around.
“I want reassurance you’re giving me all the money. When I get it all, you’ll have your friend back. Then I’ll be gone.”
“How do I know you won’t come back for more?”
“You don’t.”
I reached for my inside pocket and she hopped on her feet a moment, before I swiftly produced the USB.
“This contains details of my offshore account. There’s half in the case, half on here once you get to a PC.”
“Good… and it’s untraceable?”
“Am I me?”
“I wish I could say this has been nice, but… no,” she said, screwing up her face, her hand still buried in her jacket pocket where she was making suggestions of hiding a gun.
“One thing…”
“What?” She grinned.
“Why?”
“Why does anyone do anything, Sinclair? I’ll tell you why. Life takes them on a journey and my journey, it just so happened to bring me to you. I watched the life you led and the lifestyle you were accustomed to and add vengeance to a healthy dose of envy and it created a massive amount of greed which I had to satisfy. The added bonus is, your business is in ruins, and it will never be the same again.”
“I only really came here to see into your eyes and to ask the person who did this, why? That’s the only reason I’m here today.”
“Greed… vengeance… and wrath.”
“So, now I know.”
“Now you know.”
“I’d like if I could, however to tell you a little story. If I may, with your permission?” I laid the smarmy charm on thick.
“If you must.”
“You may be taking my money, but that’s not all I’ve got. I know a dozen different ways to kill a man without guns, knives or any sort of blunt object. I know how to hunt, and by that, I mean I know how to trap, to kill slowly while exacting the most pain, also to torture if needs must. I can flip a switch in my mind and take myself back to the day Daltrey died. Can you do the same?”
“Yes,” she whispered, now nervous. Finally.
“Except, while you only have money to walk away with, maybe even a gun or two, an accomplice perhaps even… I have experience. I have skills. I have an invisibility suit I bought off the CIA. I could stalk you in the night and you’d never even know I was there. I could pounce… and kill. I can kill anyone I want. My brother died too, like yours, killed in cold blooded murder… but why don’t I kill just anyone I want to Ayda? Why do I pick them especially? Whereas you, you kill anyone. Even twelve innocent people helping other people to fight for justice, to fight for what’s right in a world of corruption and pain, a world which gives people like your brother Jeremy the ability to get away with murder. Tell me how you sleep at night, I’d rather like to know.”
“I sleep fine.”
“Will you sleep fine, knowing I could find you at any time, anywhere, and slice your throat open quietly and carefully as you sleep, so that you never even know it’s coming?”
Blood drained from her face and she regarded me with icy hatred.
“I could have them killed. Sexton… Ciara.” Her face froze in nothingness, in blind hate, testing my resolve.
“She won’t be found. Where she’s going, they only just got fucking postcodes. She’ll be protected by the people of her world, you’ll never get close.”
“I’ll take my chances against you. You won’t come for me. Deep down, you’re a chicken shit.”
“Funny, because that’s actually what I think you really are. If you weren’t scared, you would have continued trying to bribe that bunch of footballers… or maybe an oligarch or two. Instead you’ve relented to take money from me, someone you know, someone who deep down you know isn’t a bad person. You know that, right? Ayda? I’m not wicked. You know that.”
“Whatever,” she tried to convince me. “I only chose you because you’re like me, you are beyond the law. You don’t trust the law. The others might involve the law, in fact I know they did. Roman especially.”
“That got you scared, given your previous convictions?”
“I’m not going back to jail, no way.”
“Killing twelve people. Way to go trying to stay out of jail.”
“We both know, those people of yours didn’t exist. Nobody knew them. The police still have them all listed as Jane and John Does. I was just eliminating numbers, not people. People don’t live the lives they did, people don’t not exist, only robots or battery hens exist but aren’t counted.”
Taking a deep breath, I counted to three in my head. “You better go before I kill you, Ayda. Go now.”
She smiled with all the guts of a three year old child pushing their luck, so sure Mummy wouldn’t slap his or her bum, not again.
As I watched her walk away, I looked down at the key to the Ford in my hand.
I knew I wouldn’t find anything in the vehicle; I knew this was about crippling me.
This was about extortion.
Control.
And retribution.
I also had more than an inkling Ayda hadn’t been working alone and now I’d just given her a blank USB, I had to hope it would bring me face to face with her accomplice, if indeed this was all about greed and not so much about vengeance…
Ayda wasn’t any kind of soldier at all, but a puppet.
So who was the puppet master?
Twenty
I WALKED TO THE MUSEUM car park, finding the vehicle she’d said would be there. A Ford van in Switzerland with a British number plate wasn’t difficult to spot. She must have driven it all the way over.
Opening the back door of the Transit van, I cringed when I saw it was empty – aside from a note left behind:
Better luck next time.
Ciara had warned me about this and I should have listened to her. This was a waking nightmare and I was never going to win.
Leaving the empty vehicle behind, I walked around Zurich for a while, trying to get my head together. I ended up in the botanical gardens and I just sat, numb and in shock, but not scared. Just confused. So many questions… and not enough answers.
“Who would do this?”
I booted up my old phone, the one I used as the fixer, and re-watched the security tape of the night my twelve people got killed.
I replayed it again and again and still, it looked like Shay, not Ayda. My former chef was slight too, but with wider shoulders and slightly taller than Shay had been. There was no mistaking the gunman – it had been Shay.
But maybe… the recordings had been tampered with.
That still begged the question… why?
This had all been too carefully choreographed.
Even with every ounce of my being screaming for reunion with Ciara, desperate to have her in my arms again, I couldn’t risk her safety. I couldn’t promise her I would give up this life to be safe with her; because in my heart, I knew it was unlikely I could say goodbye to a career which helped keep my own demons at bay. I couldn’t make any promises at the best of times, and certainly not when twelve people I’d employed had been murdered while in my care.
The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2) Page 19