by Conrad Jones
That was how it had been and still was. She never tired of him physically and never bored of his conversation. When they were together, there was no one else in the room. She had been a pole dancer and more when she couldn’t pay the rent but Ivor didn’t care about her past. His was hardly full of rainbows and unicorns. She had no idea if they would feel the same in five years time and she didn’t care. They loved each other dearly now and now was all that mattered. Her only regret was not having a family. She wanted a child but Ivor wouldn’t think about it. He said that his life was too violent to bring children into it. He said that children would be deemed as a weakness by his enemies. ‘If we can’t kill Ivor Markevica, then kill his children.’ The thought terrified her and she had never talked about it again but now they had to disappear for a few years things could be different. Maybe fate was taking a hand in things. Maybe he would consider having a child now... maybe.
She took out her tablet and swiped the screen to bring it life. Searching for flights that would leave Manchester in the next twenty-four hours, she booked flights for each imaginary couple using different debit cards each time so as not to spark a security alert with the airlines. One flight was to Bangkok and the other to Singapore; they could decide which to take when Ivor returned. If they needed more time, they could change the flights to a later date. Then she booked taxi transfers to the airport, four in total all from different hotels in the vicinity. No one could discover their getaway strategy; they didn’t know which one they would use themselves yet.
She spent half an hour transferring American dollars into prepaid cash passport accounts and bought 30 day visas that meant they could stay in Thailand for a month before they had to leave. She checked out flights to Indonesia and the Philippines. They could disappear amongst the islands for years if necessary. She was almost excited about the prospect. It was a part of the world that she had always wanted to visit. Every cloud has a silver lining etc. She repacked the case and cleared her search history to prevent prying eyes from seeing their travel plans.
There was a knock on the door. Marika jumped and turned down the music. She walked to the door and looked through the security glass. Her driver was standing in the hallway. She guessed that Ivor had sent for her. Her heart fluttered a little at the thought of months in the sunshine with him all to herself. She opened the door.
“I’ll just grab my coat,” she said smiling. Her smile vanished when the driver fell through the doorway. He fell facedown, arms and legs splayed like a flying angel. “What the fuck...” Marika began to say. Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“Victor Karpov sends his regards,” a man said as he stepped into the room. He closed the door behind him and aimed a silenced Tokarev at the driver’s head. The pistol hissed three times and then he turned it towards Marika. She stood open mouthed, frozen to the spot; she couldn’t even scream. The gun bucked in his hands six times before he stopped firing. The white bed linen was soaked in blood, the walls splattered from floor to ceiling. He ejected the empty magazine, clicked in a fresh one and then emptied the entire clip into her already dead body.
CHAPTER 57
Alec climbed into a white paper suit and ducked beneath the crime scene tape. He pulled on latex gloves and walked down the corridor to room 808. Detective Maxwell walked alongside him. They had been quiet all the way to the scene. Neither man felt like making small talk while Stirling was critical and Annie was missing. As they approached, the familiar smells of death met them, subtle at first but quickly becoming stomach churning. The metallic odour of blood mingled with the victims’ bodily fluids; a mix of vomit, urine and excrement drifted in the air. It was a thick cloying mixture that clung to back of their throats, made their eyes water and their stomachs churn regardless of how many times they experienced it. Crime scenes were always gloomy sad places but this one had something else attached to it. It felt oppressive. Alec had a terrible sense of foreboding. This wasn’t the end. There was definitely more violence to come. The angst was suffocating.
It was difficult to concentrate on this violent crime wave when Annie was intrinsically wrapped up in it. Instead of leading the investigation, she had become a victim of it. She was in dire trouble, suffering, or already dead. He couldn’t bring himself to focus on anything else. He had come a long way down the road to recovery since Gail’s death. Losing Gail and Will simultaneously had been a hammer blow to his emotions, despite their betrayal. He was obviously still fragile but he hadn’t realised how fragile until he saw the smouldering ruins of Annie’s house. Nothing else seemed to matter. The hopeless search for Annie was chipping away at his soul. Where do you start looking? He didn’t know the answer and he was in charge so what hope was there? Wherever she was, she would know that too. She would be only too aware of how helpless she was. There was no way of knowing where they had taken her, no way of rescuing her from the jaws of death like in the movies and no way to take away her pain before they finally killed her. Alec wished that he could swap places with her but such wishes fall on deaf ears. No one was listening; no one could help. Barring a miracle, Annie Jones was gone from his life too and he didn’t know how he would cope with that. In fact, he didn’t know if he could. ‘I wish I could have told you, in the living years...’ He didn’t tell Gail how he felt when she was alive. Some people never learn. He had done the same thing with Annie, always waiting for the right time. Now it was too late.
A uniformed officer nodded a greeting as he reached the room. The CSI photographer was leaving. He half smiled a hello but Alec could sense that he couldn’t get away quickly enough. He took a breath before he stepped into the room. Kathy Brooks was knelt over a man’s body, her auburn hair tied tightly at the back of her head.
“Alec,” she said in greeting. “Max.”
“Hello, Kathy,” Alec mumbled. His mind was already analysing the carnage. “First impressions?”
“We have a male, mid to late thirties with three gunshot wounds to the back of the head and over there is a female. By the look of her body I am guessing mid twenties to early forties. If you take a look at her face, you will understand why I can’t be more specific.” Alec moved closer and looked at the body, which was wedged down the side of the bed against the wall. The face was a bloody mess with no distinguishing features. “I think our shooter emptied an entire clip into her face.”
“Gangland revenge shooting?” Alec mused. “Do as much damage to the face as possible to degrade the victim. They certainly achieved that.”
“I would say so,” Kathy agreed. “She has expensive clothes, breast implants and her teeth have veneers. This fellah is scruffy and unkempt. His nails are dirty, his teeth are stained and badly decayed and his clothes are cheap; they’re not a couple.”
“Minder?” Alec guessed.
“Not a good one,” Max added. He looked around and saw the fake passports, one Estonian and one Lithuanian. Both countries bordered Latvia. He handed them to Alec. “Any other ID on them?”
“On the dressing table there’s a driving licence but it’s fake.”
“What about their mobile phones?” Max asked.
“I haven’t found any, which is odd.”
“The killer took them,” Alec said. “There will be others on his hit list and their details might be in those phones.” He studied the passports. The man’s photograph was familiar. There was a distinct likeness to the pictures he had seen of Andris Markevica driving the Range Rover that killed Dalton Sykes. “Are you Ivor Markevica?” Alec asked no one in particular. He thought that he probably was. “In which case you must be Mrs Markevica.” He looked at the congealing mass that used to be a woman’s face. “I wonder if he knows that you’re dead yet,” Alec muttered.
“There will be hell to pay when he does,” Max mumbled.
“What are you thinking?” Kathy asked.
“I think the Karpovs have come to settle a few old scores.”
“That isn’t good is it?”
“Ask he
r,” Alec gestured to the dead woman. “She knows just how ‘not’ good it is.”
CHAPTER 58
Ivor Markevica looked at the Holiday Inn through binoculars. There were police cars parked on the pavements and uniformed officers were buzzing around outside. He had called the reception and pretended to be a concerned guest. They said that there had been a suspicious death in the building but the hotel was operating as normal apart from the fourth floor. Marika was dead. He knew she was. Neither Marika nor her driver, were answering their phones. There was no sign of an ambulance, which was a bad sign. An ambulance is no good to dead people. He knew that the police or the Karpovs would now be in possession of the mobile phones that Marika and the driver had used. That compromised all the phones that had had contact with them. He ordered that everyone should destroy their existing phones. The numbers logged in the captured mobiles could be tracked and he didn’t want that.
However, there was a way that he could use the stolen phones to his advantage. He was counting on the fact that whoever had the mobiles, hadn’t switched them off. If they were still searching the logs for information, they would be on. If they were on, he could find them. He scanned the surrounding area again. The hotel was situated at the south corner of the Albert Docks. It was busy with tourists and the car parks nearby were full. He focused on the multi-storey to his right and scanned it with the binoculars. The chances were that the Karpovs would be waiting for him to return to the hotel and if they were, the multi-storey offered the best vantage point. He took out his phone and dialled.
“Letva,” Ivor said. “Check the spyware for Marika’s phone. If it is still on, we can trace it using the SIM cards. I want to know where it is.”
“I’ll do it right away. Anything else?”
“Yes. Send four men into that multi-storey car park opposite the Holiday Inn,” Ivor added. “Tell them to look for someone watching the hotel. If the Karpovs are still here, that is where they will be.”
“Got it.”
“If you find anyone, bring them to me alive. I will be at the plant.”
“No problem.”
“One more thing and this is very important, Letva. Find Gary Powell and bring him to me.”
“Yes, Ivor,” Letva agreed enthusiastically. “He has a number of properties around town. We’ll have them watched. He’ll turn up.”
“Good. Make it the priority.”
“I won’t let you down this time.”
“You had better not.” Ivor hung up and leaned his head back against the seat. Marika was dead. The only woman that he had truly felt a connection with was gone, ripped from him by an enemy. He was angrier than he had ever been before. His heart was racing and he was certain that he was going to vomit. He was desperate to go into the hotel and see Marika for himself. How did they kill her? Did she suffer? Was she raped before they killed her? His head was spinning around with terrible scenarios of what had happened. The more he thought, the more his guts twisted. Marika was dead. The obvious kept jumping to the forefront of his mind. She was dead. He had loved her. She knew that he loved her even though he didn’t tell her enough. Every time she walked in the room, he wanted her. Every time she smiled at him, he wanted her. When she laughed, his heart skipped a beat. She was truly beautiful in a way that no one had been before. He felt empty inside. The thought of laying low without her was unbearable. He would end up drinking himself into a stupor, crying into his beer about the love he had lost. She couldn’t be replaced. He had been with a thousand women and not one had come close to Marika. He had heard the saying that you meet the love of your life once if you’re lucky. He had and she had been stolen from him. Marika was dead. She was dead. Someone would pay dearly for it. They would pay a terrible price and they would wish that they had never set eyes on his Marika. If it was that last thing that he ever did, they would pay.
CHAPTER 59
24 Hours Later
Gary Powell woke up with a throbbing head. His eyes were sticky and he couldn’t open them at first. He felt dizzy and his brain felt as if it was about to explode. He couldn’t remember much. The last thing he could recall was putting the key into the front door and then everything was black. It was a blank. He could hear someone moaning nearby and then he felt someone knocking his arms, legs and back. It was as if he was being slapped. He tried to sit up but couldn’t and his body jerked violently. There was a gurgling sound like a man trying to talk with a mouthful of custard. His limbs were knocked and he moved jerkily again. The movement was completely involuntarily and he couldn’t fathom what was happening. His legs and ankles were in agony. The blood supply had been cut off and the numbness was crippling. As consciousness beckoned, he opened his eyes. The world began to spin and the nauseous feeling intensified. He tried to move his head and right himself but he could do neither. His blood was running to his head and the pressure behind his eyes was excruciating. He felt that they might pop out of his skull.
Suddenly, his brain clicked and he realised where he was. He was hanging upside down, his legs and ankles bound tightly. The blows to his limbs were from another man, who was in a similar position. He was a metre or so away from him, suspended from something. Gary writhed in pain and tried to look behind him but all he could see was the man’s dark hair and an ear. As his vision cleared, he could see skips full of bottles, newspapers stacked to the ceiling and blurred faces. Some faces were staring at him. Some were standing and some seated like an audience. Beneath him was a concrete floor. The dust was heavily stained with a dark liquid that looked like blood. He felt himself being lifted higher. A diesel engine chugged away and he could smell the exhaust fumes. As he was lifted, he turned on the rope. His ankles ached as the fibres cut into his flesh. He saw a yellow machine and realised that he was dangling from a forklift truck. The forks were extended as far as they could go. Gary was upside down, four metres from the ground. The man behind him was moaning in pain, his body twitched and writhed. Each movement sent bolts of pain through Gary.
“I’m glad you’re with us, Gary,” Ivor’s voice registered in his brain. “We have all been waiting for you join us.”
“Ivor,” Gary recognised his voice immediately and fear shot through him like a white hot knife. Ivor Markevica had him trussed beneath a forklift truck. That was bad, very bad indeed. He tried his best to think of a way to escape his situation. “Whatever this is about, we can sort it out,” Gary said in a panic. He realised there probably wasn’t any way of sorting it out but self preservation had taken over. Ivor Markevica was pissed off about something, very pissed off. Gary had a good idea what it might be. He prayed that it wasn’t what he suspected it was. “Please, Ivor. Let me down. We can sort this out.”
“Sort it out.” Ivor repeated slowly. “Sort it out, hmm,” Ivor looked thoughtful. “I don’t think that we can sort it out, as you say. Where is Victor Karpov?”
“Let me down from here and I’ll tell you anything that you want to know.” Gary tried to negotiate. His head was spinning. “We can’t talk like this.”
Ivor walked towards the forklift and kicked at a pinkish lump on the floor. It tumbled across the concrete and landed beneath Gary. One end was a bloody lump of vein filled muscle. The other was tapered and pale.
“That is what your friend said. He asked to be let down so that we could talk,” Ivor gestured towards the man behind Gary. “He lost his tongue. We ripped it out with pliers.”
“Please, Ivor.”
“Have you ever seen a man having his tongue ripped out?”
“Ivor, whatever I have done, we can sort it out. Please talk to me...let me down, please!”
“Your friend screamed for a long time. It must be incredibly painful don’t you think?”
“He is not my friend. I have never seen him before in my life,” Gary closed his eyes and began to sob. He was in dreadful pain and the realisation of how dire his dilemma was, was sinking in quickly. “I never let you down. I thought we worked well together.”
&n
bsp; “You didn’t let me down?” Ivor repeated. “Oh you let me down alright.”
“What did I do?”
“You followed Marika from the handover and you told the Karpovs where she was staying. They sent the man behind you and he shot her,” Ivor paused and cocked his head slightly. Gary closed his eyes in despair. The news made him sick to the core. “That pig shot my wife.”
“I am so sorry, Ivor. I didn’t know they would do that.”
Ivor ignored him. “Before we cut his tongue out we showed him a video of his wife and daughter back at home in Moscow.” Ivor held up a tablet and clicked the start tab on a video. The mother and daughter were tied to chairs. A man walked behind them and poured petrol over them. Gary cringed at their faces. The expression of sheer terror was etched into them as they were set alight and left to burn. “I take no pleasure from killing a mother and her child like this but then they have no one to blame but that piece of shit there, do they?” Ivor pointed at the other man. He grabbed the Russian’s hair and punched him in the face. The man gurgled and spat blood onto the floor. Tears streamed from his eyes. Gary had never seen a human being that colour. His face was totally purple, almost blue. “We showed the video to your parents too,” Ivor gestured with his head to a place behind Gary. “They were very upset by it, especially your mother.”
“What are you talking about?” Gary wriggled and tried to turn around. As the rope twisted, he focused on the blurred faces that he had noticed before, the faces of the people who were seated. He had to look hard. His parents were sitting next to each other, bound and gagged. His father had dried blood beneath his nostrils and his eyes were black and swollen as if he had put up a fight. His mother was staring at him, eyes pouring with tears, pleading him, begging him to help them. “No, no, no, no, no!” Gary bellowed. Panic gripped him. “Ivor please let them go. They have nothing to do with this. Let them go, Ivor. I’m begging you, please.”