Black Heart

by Mike Nicol

  PRAISE FOR MIKE NICOL

  ‘Compelling … like its predecessors in the trilogy, Black Heart paints a vivid portrait of post-apartheid society’

  MARCEL BERLINS, THE TIMES

  ‘Black Heart has a crime fiction duo worthy to be spoken of in the same breath as the late Robert Parker’s Spenser and Hawk or Robert Crais’ Cole and Pike; plus one of the best – and scariest – female villains I have had nightmares about’

  MIKE RIPLEY, SHOTS MAGAZINE

  ‘Mike Nicol’s novels have everything I love about the genre in just the right amount: shady characters, twists, turns, murder, mayhem, humour, wonderful dialogue, white-knuckle pace and lots of authentic Cape Town colour’

  DEON MEYER

  ‘Mike Nicol is one of the brightest thriller writing talents to have emerged in the last decade, and the Mace and Pylon novels are as good as any being written in the field today. They prove that the thriller, at its best, can both entertain and provoke, while tackling serious issues with the lightest of touches’

  JOHN CONNOLLY

  ‘Watch out Elmore Leonard; here comes Mike Nicol’

  SOUTHERN MAIL

  ‘A heady mix, and Nicol stirs it with vigour, inventiveness and wit … The laconic, street-smart style is so convincingly laid-back that it may blind readers to the artistry of the writing, which is taut and economical’

  INDEPENDENT (on PAYBACK)

  BLACK HEART

  MIKE NICOL

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR MIKE NICOL

  Title Page

  BLACK HEART

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also by Mike Nicol:

  Copyright

  BLACK HEART

  Wednesday, 27 July

  Grainy black-and-white CCTV footage: a man, tallish, bulked out in an anorak, a beanie covering his hair, face down, walking towards the camera along a corridor. Upmarket corridor: marble tiles on the walls and floor, three large photographs of wild beaches hanging on the right-hand side. The photographs in wall-mounted aluminium frames. On the left, two doors. On each the apartment number stencilled in black filling most of the door: 7, 8. A funky touch. At number eight, the man stops, keeping his back to the camera. His head bent forward like he was listening for movement inside the flat, except from the tremor in his shoulders he has to be working something with his hands. Forty seconds spool by, the door pops open. The man rolls down his beanie that becomes a balaclava covering his face. Looks up at the CCTV camera.

  ‘Nice touch,’ said the woman watching the footage on her laptop. Speaking aloud, smiling. She tapped the keyboard with her gloved hand to pause the image. Caught her own face reflecting on the screen: her high cheekbones, pencilled eyebrows, the plum richness of her lips. Her latte face ghosting over that of the balaclavaed man. She puckered her lips in a kiss. Putsch.

  He was good, the balaclavaed man. Only one or two people she knew could’ve done it faster. She smiled. Raised her gloved hand to touch theface. ‘Mace Bishop,’ she said. ‘Welcome to my world.’

  She clicked play. The man was in. The CCTV footage running on, showing the now empty corridor, the two closed doors. After a minute the automatic timer kicked in, switched off the lights. She waited: three minutes later the lights clicked on. There was the man closing the apartment door, not rushing, keeping his back to the camera. Walking down the corridor to the lift at the far end. Going past the lift to the stairwell, reaching up to take off the balaclava as he disappeared from the screen.

  He’d behaved exactly as she’d wanted. Couldn’t resist sniffing out her lair.

  She ejected the DVD with the CCTV footage from her laptop, the DVD a little favour courtesy of the block’s security company. She’d told them it was a friend playing the fool.

  ‘Some friend, some fool,’ the boss man at the security company had said, not making too much effort to keep his eyes off her cleavage. ‘You know people with interesting skills, Miss February.’

  ‘You better believe it,’ she’d said, sashaying out of his office in her long coat, her black hair floating above the collar.

  Sheemina February slotted another DVD into the laptop. Footage from her own surveillance system. There was the balaclavaed man in her apartment, picked up on infrared, the colours muted blues and blacks. The balaclava dark blue, the anorak black, the man wearing gloves, jeans, trainers. The uniform of anybody. Standing there, dead still, listening.

  No visible gun.

  Meant he wasn’t expecting her to be home. He was scoping the terrain. Cautious Mace. Predictable Mace. Curious Mace. Exactly what she’d anticipated. Lure him in for the kill shot. It was almost too easy.

  On screen the man moving into her open plan lounge by torchlight. Running his fingers along the back of her white sofa, walking across her white flokatis to her desk, opening drawers, fidgeting among her papers, moving on, sliding the beam too quickly over the pictures on the walls to take them in. But stopping at the box of cut-throat razors mounted above her desk.

  Blades that had once shaved famous men. Blades she’d tracked down, paid top dollar for. A blade that’d belonged to Cecil Rhodes. Another to a killer called Joe Silver. Had his name engraved on it. A man some historian had fingered as Jack the Ripper. She liked that, the posthumous fame of the gold rush pimp and trafficker, Joe Silver.

  Each of the six blades she’d collected had a story. Except there were only five there now. The missing one, her grandfather’s, had been used to cut the throat of Mace Bishop’s wife. Before that, quarter of a century before that, her grandfather had used it to slit his wrists. Rather die than be turfed out of his house. In a way, Sheemina believed, that particular cut-throat was an instrument of history: destiny manifest. Pity to lose a family heirloom but it couldn’t be helped. The razor probably lying in some evidence box waiting for the autopsy hearing. No worries. There were ways she reckoned she could get it back.

  She snapped again on Mace Bishop, Mace Bishop focusing on the empty space in her cut-throat collection. Realising that the blade used to kill his wife had once been an ornament on her wall. How’d that make him feel? Rise the rage in him? Bring up the red pulse? What was he thinking, this man, Mace Bishop? This man in her white lair, among her things. This man intent on killing her. Fired by revenge. Did he even begin to figure out why she wanted to hurt him? Why she wanted to ruin him? Wreck his life? He would. By the time she’d finished, he would.

  She watched him, as she’d done so many times since he’d broken in, watched him leave the lounge, enter her bedroom. This was the part that got her agitated, excited. Brought up her heart rate. Sent a tingle through the fingers of her broken hand. The hand he’d smashed with a mallet. Back in the day. She crossed her legs.

  There he was in her bedroom. Shining the torch over her bed, the bedside table with the digital clock, 04:20, the landline phone on its recharger, the photograph in a silver frame. The only photograph in the apartment. A photograph of Mace Bishop in his Speedo after a swimming session at the gym pool. One of a number she’d taken on the sly. Put it there hoping it would push him over the top.

  But he didn’t look closely, swept the beam to her built-in cupboards, the light reflecting off her mirror, for a moment whiting out the image. Then he was visible again, reaching to open the doors on her dresses, slacks, jackets, glancing at the racks of shoes stacked at the bottom. She watched him run his hand over one of her evening dresses. Imagined she was wearing it, his hand gliding down her back. Sometimes she thought of him like that. His hands hard against her breasts, hard on her buttocks pulling her into him. She shook her head to throw the thought. Flushed by the thrill of it.

  There was the man she wanted to kill with his hands in her underwear, coming out with one of her thongs, satin, red, holding it up, c
rushing it into his fist. He threw it back into the drawer. Sat on the edge of her bed, bounced like he was testing the comfort factor. Fell backwards against the pillows, his hand sliding underneath, finding a black negligee. Holding it up. Silky. His torch beam sliding from it to the photograph on her bedside table. Pity she couldn’t see his expression.

  He dropped the negligee, grabbed the photograph for a closer look. Brought the torch up to the glass. Stared at himself: that strong body dripping water, that small costume. Then put the photograph back on the table, carefully. Shot off the bed fast, closed the drawers in the cupboard, shut the doors. Buried the negligee in his anorak pocket, heading out the apartment. The screen darkened, the camera switched off.

  Sheemina February fetched a white wine from the fridge, took her time drawing the cork, thinking, he’d aroused her taking the underwear. Something secretive about it. Exciting. Lustful. Sex and death.

  She poured a glass: De Grendel sauvignon blanc, tasted it, let the wine lie in the bowl of her mouth before she swallowed. Got herself settled. Thing was, why had he treated the photograph like it didn’t matter? She’d expected some violence. Wanted some violence, the glass smashed, the picture ripped out. Which was why she’d set it up. Instead he went Mr Ice. She sat again at her desk, replayed the disc.

  Halfway through, her cellphone rang.

  ‘Mart,’ she said.

  ‘Just checking in,’ said Mart Velaze against a background of music, voices. Mart the government man. National Intelligence Agency. Who’d called her out of the blue, given her the heads-up on a deal that’d gone down even better than she’d hoped. A deal that’d done for Mace Bishop. Mart who’d handled matters in recent days like he couldn’t put a foot wrong. Efficient Mart, looking after her interests. The man with the wide white smile. Except you never knew, was it a smile as in friendly, or a smile as in deadly? The only black man Sheemina February had encountered who’d never pulled a move on her. Which made her wonder: why not? ‘Keeping an eye out,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘Part of the service.’

  ‘Not on this score.’ Giving him the back-off but holding her voice light all the same. ‘Where’re you?’

  ‘Not far away. In a cafe opposite the beach. I can come over.’

  ‘Best if you don’t.’

  ‘In case something goes wrong.’

  ‘Nothing’ll go wrong.’

  ‘You can’t be sure in a situation like this.’

  ‘You can’t be sure ever, Mart, but you can load the dice.’

  ‘He’s going to be focused. In the kill zone.’

  ‘You think I’m not?’

  Sheemina February waited for his answer. Heard the cafe music, Tina Turner doing the only Tina Turner anyone played, Simply the Best.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ she said. ‘As we agreed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just get in first, okay. Don’t give him a chance.’

  ‘I’m a big girl, Mart. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I’m not going to freak out.’

  A pause while Tina Turner had her say.

  ‘Till later.’

  Mart said, ‘Right.’

  She thumbed him off. Useful guy.

  He’d got her the gun. The .38 Smith & Wesson. The revolver lying beside the laptop. The gun that would be within reach every moment of the next six, seven, eight hours, however long it was before Mace Bishop rocked up.

  Sheemina February took her wine onto the balcony. Stared out over the ocean, a flat glassy sea sliding against the rocks below to break with a crack. The sun lowering, its warmth gone. Tomorrow when it came up everything would be different.

  Between then and now all she had to do was wait for him. Mace Bishop. But she was good at waiting.

  Tuesday, 12 July

  1

  No one knew where he was.

  He’d been careful.

  He was in a pension in Berlin, on Knesebeckstrasse, off the Kurfurstendamm, registered under a false name, J Richter. One of those family hotels.

  Pension Savigny. Entered through an unpretentious door on the street, up a flight of stairs. No lift.

  The proprietor apologised for the room. If Herr Richter had phoned earlier to make a reservation he could have had a better room. In the summer the hotel was always full. Would have been full had it not been for a cancellation. Herr Richter was very fortunate.

  The room was long and narrow. A window into the branches of a plane tree. He couldn’t see the street.

  He stood at the window. Over the city a thunderstorm crashed, jags of lightning revealing the buildings in white relief. He closed the curtains, eased off his shoes, lay down.

  He was on the run. A pity. Another two days he would’ve been away, off the radar again. What had tipped them off? His mother’s death. Of course. He should’ve been more careful. Should’ve anticipated that they’d find out. He was careful. Had been careful.

  Aka J Richter rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep. Nor was there any point to working out what he’d done wrong. It didn’t matter. They’d found him, he was on the run. At worst an inconvenience that required a plan. Tomorrow he’d come up with a plan. A way of getting away. He had time on his side.

  He could feel the drowsiness dragging behind his eyes. Being on the run had never troubled his sleep. Not then, not now. He closed his eyes. Fully clothed he drifted off.

  Fourteen hours earlier, the man, aka Herr J Richter, had returned from his morning jog to be attacked at the entrance to his mother’s apartment block. Two men trying to hustle him into a white Audi. Except a neighbour with a broom came to his rescue, beating at the men. A wild violence that brought others out. The men gave up and drove off. To Richter’s surprise they hadn’t waved guns around. Usually the Albanians weren’t so polite.

  ‘Criminals,’ said his neighbour. ‘Russians most probably. They want ransom money. Anything. Even a few hundred euros.’ He offered tea. Said they should call the police.

  The man, aka Herr J Richter, said, no, it wasn’t necessary. He would go later to report it. Right now he needed to calm down. Get his breath back. Steady his shaking hands.

  ‘Tea with three sugars,’ said the neighbour. ‘And some schnapps.’

  Upstairs aka Richter found the apartment trashed. At first wandered around in the chaos panting from the shock, the attack, the hour’s jogging. Control, he kept telling himself. Stay alert. Clear-headed. Think about this carefully. They want you to run.

  He didn’t, wouldn’t run blindly. Next time they’d be brutal.

  He cleared up the mess, put everything to rights. Packed his suitcase and an overnight bag. Decided he would wait till dark. Do not panic, he told himself.

  The hours of the morning passed minute by minute, sometimes he watched the second hand go round on the grandfather clock, thuk, thuk, thuk in the quiet. The chimes on the quarter hour. Sitting there waiting. He tried to read. Fetched the book beside his bed, settled in his mother’s armchair. Found his place: chapter thirty-one. ‘He knew he was dreaming, knew he couldn’t stop.’ Carried on to the end of the chapter: ‘Ed changed and taped his spare key to the door. He left a light burning.’ What had happened in between he couldn’t say. His eyes sliding over the words like there wasn’t a story in them. He put the book aside. He needed activity.

  Richter sat down at the piano. His fingers flat on the keys. The deformed little finger of his left hand, too short to touch the ivory. But he’d learnt to compensate. He could play a jazz tune and fool most everyone. He started in on Gershwin, Summertime. Only it’d been a long while since he’d played. Too long. The notes cracking, off-key. The phrases impossible, taunting him, out of reach. He kept running through the phrases again and again until he slammed the lid down. Sat there staring at the blur of his body in the varnished wood. For half an hour he didn’t move. Eventually he got up, went to the window, checked the street. The car hadn’t moved. Throughout the afternoon he checked the street.

  The white Audi
parked a hundred metres down towards the river didn’t leave all day.

  They wanted him to make a move. Run scared. Make their job easier to pluck him off the street. To have him disappear.

  On a Thursday like any other in Frankfurt an der Oder.

  He watched the street: pedestrians, pensioners pulling shopping baskets, boys on skateboards, girls in skimpy clothes with cellphones. Traffic. A van offloaded vegetables, fruit, crates of milk at the supermarket. Municipal men repaired a water main. At the small cafe opposite, the pavement tables filled during lunchtime. Come four-thirty the owner shut up shop.

  He thought about making a phone call. Throughout the day he’d thought about making a phone call. The landline would be tapped. His cellphone too. There was his mother’s cellphone, he could use that. An old model. A brick. Pay as you go. But it would be unexpected. Short and sweet might be too fast for them.

  He hoped there was airtime.

  He put through the call. In English said, ‘Quickly. They have found me. I will need help later.’ He disconnected. Switched off the phone.

  He doubted the men in the Audi were scanning the building but you never knew. It didn’t take much equipment. If they picked up the call they would pick up the destination too. Not a happy thought. Perhaps it had been a mistake to phone. But he’d needed to. Needed to talk. Even a few words.

  He told himself to calm down. He walked around the apartment touching objects. The brass candlesticks. The carriage clock. Ornamental art deco figurines. Small busts of composers. His father’s pipes on a wooden stand. The cushions his mother embroidered. The family photographs in silver frames on a silver tray with bone handles. His father, aged twenty-five, twenty-six, holding a bunch of fish. His mother, about the same age, wearing a nurse’s uniform. The young family on a beach when he and his sister were children in the 1960s. His graduation day.