by Michael Kerr
“And guess what, Santini?” Tom added, taking over smoothly from Matt. “Your dearly departed dad had been shot in the head. So I think it safe to say he was dead before the impromptu cremation.”
“You both think this is highly amusing,” Dom seethed. “I wonder if you’ll still be smirking when I...” He bit his lip.
“Was that going to be a threat, Dom?” Matt asked. “Or are you just lost for words at this sad time?”
“Get the fuck off my property, now. I have nothing else to say to you two morons.”
“You’re next, Dom,” Matt continued. “Gary Noon will get round to you when he’s ready. And nowhere is safe. The boy’s good at what he does.”
“Gary who?” Dom quizzed.
“The shooter who hit Lester Little for your father,” Tom said. “I think you must have done or said something to get on his wrong side.”
“I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. But if you think you know the identity of my father’s murderer, then do your job and lift him.”
“No rush. This way we save a lot of taxpayers’ money,” Tom said. “Noon can do what we’ve been trying to for years; make London a Santini-free zone.”
Dom took two paces towards Tom, then stopped and reined in his anger.
Tom nodded. “Wise move, you piece of shit. Without a gun in your hand, I’d break you in two.”
As prearranged, Tom turned on his heel and made his way back through the house to the front door. Matt stayed.
“Between you and me, Dom, Noon is gunning for both of us,” Matt said. “He shot your old man here at the house. Don’t bother to deny it. Point is, he was giving a demonstration. If you know how to contact him, or anything about him we don’t, get in touch. I’ll be back at my own house today, and my number’s in the book.”
“Why would I phone you, cop?”
“Because on this we should work together. I appreciate how dangerous he is, and so do you, now. The sooner he gets his, the better. Every minute he’s on the loose we’re both at risk.”
“It might not be in my best interest for you lot to pick him up. And after what he’s just done, he doesn’t get his day in court. He’s mine.”
“That’s fine by me. I had no intention of trying to arrest him.”
Dom smiled. “You won’t get the chance to. I’ll find him and make him wish he’d been stillborn. I might send you his head as a consolation prize. And be advised that if you don’t stay out of my face, you could easily wind up the same way. Don’t try to be a fucking hero, Barnes. I have ears and eyes everywhere. If I’d given the nod, you would’ve been hit at that crummy hotel in Tottenham, where you’ve been lying low.”
Matt left. He had been taken aback to be told that Dom knew where he was staying. If he’d been followed, then the tail was much better than just good.
“You think we ruffled his feathers?” Tom said as they headed back to town.
“Yeah. We won’t get through those gates again without a warrant,” Matt answered. “And he knew where I was staying, Tom. I was a sitting duck and didn’t know it.”
“You’ll be covered back at your place. And now that Nick is tight with them, whatever junior plans to do we have a good chance of finding out about.”
“We need hard evidence, Tom. Knowing he’s dirty and proving it is poles apart. His type doesn’t stay in business by letting any shit stick to them. Look how long it took us to pick up Little and cut a deal. And then we lost him. None of Santini’s mob will talk after seeing what happened to him. They’d rather do a long stretch and keep breathing.”
“You’re sounding defeatist.”
“Just saying it how it is, Tom. Remember, he still has a cop on his payroll; most likely a few. We don’t know who we can trust.”
Jack McClane called Tom, Matt and Beth to his office. They were indulging in more doughnuts and coffee when he phoned down and told them to report to him. A working breakfast was becoming the norm.
“Sit,” Jack said as they filed in. He kept his back to them for a minute, just watching his fish angle up to gulp down the food he had sprinkled on the water’s surface. When he turned away from the tank, he took a deep breath and slumped down on his chair.
“You first, Tom,” he said. “Apart from bodies, what else have we got?”
“We’ve got a renegade shooter who has now taken out Frank Santini and two of his men. He’s doing our job for us, till we close him down. Or until Dominic Santini finds him.”
“You said two of his men,” Jack said. “I thought there was only one man with him in the car.”
“I’ve got an officer undercover on the inside. He gave me a bell. Told me that Noon shot Frank, then two of his men and a guard dog as he made his escape. Dominic arranged for it to look as though the hit on Frank was done at the quarry, and then had the corpses of the other two men taken over to the coast and dumped at sea.”
“You mean you replaced Joey Demaris without my permission?”
“It was the only way to go. Joey got iced because a cop, probably Vic Pender, gave him up. I needed somebody on the inside, and chose to tell no one who I was putting in. I didn’t want to lose another officer.”
“Out of order, Tom. I’m in overall charge of this squad, and don’t appreciate being kept in the fucking dark. We’ll discuss it later. How close are you to lifting Noon?”
“We know he’ll try to hit Matt, and probably Santini Juniot. I’ve got men sticking like glue to Santini. And Matt is going high profile again to lure Noon in.”
“What are your thoughts on it?” Jack said, putting the question to Beth.
“I agree with Tom,” she said. “Noon will almost certainly target Matt first, knowing that Santini is on full alert. He may even decide to back off for a while. But I have the feeling that he won’t. He’ll expect us to think that. And he won’t be stupid enough to make his move against Matt at home.” Beth shut her eyes and attempted to think herself into the killer’s mind. “He’ll avoid any scenario that we plan for. The obvious time and place for him to hit Matt is at night and at his house. So he’ll do the opposite. During daylight. And surroundings that wouldn’t be considered high risk will be his choice. The truth is, he has the upper hand. The attempt – when it takes place – could be made from a car pulling alongside at traffic lights. The possibilities are endless. Matt is very unsafe anywhere outside of here or his home.”
“You could be way off, Beth,” Jack said. “That sounds off the wall; pure guesswork.”
“He is by his very nature, cunning. He doesn’t approach anything without careful planning,” Beth replied. “Look at the murders that he has committed; the way he stayed next door to the safe house and used Jerry Page’s clothes and the pet dog as props to get to the witness. And the assault through the roof to kill Penny. He won’t be caught by using logical thought. He doesn’t work that way. Think of the most unlikely form of attack, and it will probably be the one he will adopt.”
“You could be giving him credit where none’s due.”
“A Hungarian biochemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who won the Nobel prize back in the late thirties for isolating vitamin C, once said, ‘discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought’. I took that to heart when I started out as a criminal psychologist, and it usually pays off. Gary Noon’s unpredictability in some ways makes him predictable. Don’t forget that he is paranoid and displays schizophrenic symptoms. He looks for traps in every shadow.”
“You make him sound unstoppable, Beth,” Matt said. “Should I make a will today?”
“No, that that would be tempting what is already probable fate.”
Jack tugged impatiently at the cuffs of his Jacket’s sleeves. “I still don’t understand this character,” he said. “Most contract killers are pros. They don’t get emotionally involved. They carry out the hit and vanish back into the woodwork. This guy is getting personal.”
&
nbsp; “You can’t classify him in that way,” Beth said. “I believe his sentience is very different to that of most people’s. He would be treated as a member of a separate and alien species if his difference was physical rather than neurological. His mind is genetically flawed. The information in his chromosomes is malformed, setting him apart. In essence, he’s human, but possesses characteristics which render him psychopathic and homicidal. He is a predator within society, driven by bloodlust, feeding off the fear, anguish and the pain he generates. Accept that he is sneaky, very resourceful, and is devoid of compassion or the ability to feel guilt. He has the arrogance to believe himself singularly immune to any form of retribution for his actions.”
“That bad, huh?” Tom said.
“Yes. Mental illness can make people less or more than human. Gary Noon is the embodiment of the monster that most kids at one time or another believe live in their wardrobes or under their beds at night.”
“You stay at home, Barnes,” Jack said. “We can control the situation there. He’ll wait, see that you’re staying put, and lose patience. I believe he’ll eventually be drawn out and make his play.”
“But¯” Beth began.
“That’s it,” Jack said. “Adopt a siege mentality. We’ll wait him out and bring him down. Go and make it happen.”
As they left the super’s office, Jack called Tom back and asked Matt to close the door on leaving.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing holding out on me, Tom? You have no right to run an operation without my knowledge and permission,” he barked.
“I used initiative, Jack. After Joey Demaris vanished, and we knew there was probably a mole, the only cop I could fully trust was myself. I put an out-of-town officer in Santini’s firm and kept a lid on it. Vic Pender wasn’t the only bent cop. Santini still has someone close to us feeding him with what we do. I’ve hand-picked officers to watch Matt’s back, and just hope and pray that one of them isn’t on the wop’s payroll.”
Jack thought long and hard over what his DCI had said. “Okay, Tom. I suppose it’s what I would have done. Let’s hope your man on the inside gets the cop’s name. We’re compromised, and we can’t be efficient under these circumstances.”
“There have always been cops on the take, Jack.”
“Yeah, but this is a lot more serious than some vice cop taking a few quid from a pimp and turning a blind eye. People are dying because of this turncoat.”
“When we nail Santini, and we will, he’ll sell his contacts out for a cell with a view. There’s no such thing as honour among scum.”
Jack sighed. “I hope you’re right, Tom. To date we’ve lost every round against Santini.”
“Not true, Jack. Frank’s dead, and his ape of a son hasn’t got the old man’s brains. He’s a minor player in comparison. He’ll be easier to bring down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
GARY was sleeping like a baby, enjoying a dream. In it, he was driving a classic bright red Porsche 911 Cabriolet, with the top down. The car was his idea of perfection, with its five-spoke light alloy wheels and distinctive ‘whale tail’. He sped through rolling green hills. The sun sparked off the Porsche’s bonnet, and a warm breeze caressed his tanned face and arms. The radio was cranked up, and sixties rock was zinging from the speakers: Del Shannon singing Runaway. He felt so relaxed, so fine…So fucking alive. This was an idealised world in which his mother was still alive; married, and living in a chocolate box-lid cottage in the Chilterns. Tracy Noon baked, pottered about in the rose garden, and was an active member of the WI. And Gary had a father to be proud of. A kind, honest-as-the-day-is-long, decent, hardworking man; a pillar of the community.
Gary’s dream fast forwarded. He pulled to a stop outside the white picket fence, got out of the car and walked to the gate. The guy next door was out front, mowing the lawn, walking slowly up and down, the engine of his lawnmower roaring like an outboard motor, rudely drowning out the sound of birdsong, and the laughter of several children who were out in the lane with skipping-ropes, combining exercise with pleasure.
Gary knew that Jim Patterson always cut the grass on a Saturday morning. It was a long-term habit, as regular as Big Ben’s chimes, or a cow’s bowels. He waved, but Jim either didn’t see him or ignored him. He shrugged and walked up the path to his parents’ house.
The front door was locked. There was no answer to his insistent pounding on it. Around back was the same, but the kitchen door gave under the solid impact of a Timberland boot sole, to fly back and rebound off the rubber doorstop that was screwed into the floor.
His ‘dad’ was sitting at the table, head hanging back, a revolver clenched in his hand. House flies fed in droves from his mouth, the ragged hole that the bullet had forged through the back of his skull, and on the gore that spattered the wall behind him in rose madder and candy pink, with the added texture of bone fragments and drying brains. An almost empty bottle of Grant’s whisky and a shot glass stood on the kitchen table in front of the corpse.
Gary found his mother upstairs, slumped face up on the bed, her throat deeply cut and hanging open from ear to ear in semblance of a wide-mouthed grin. The sheets were awash with blood that had escaped her severed arteries, and a single fat, iridescent bluebottle roamed over the surface of her open left eye. The vile, choking stench of defecation combined with the coppery scent of blood made him gag and swallow hard to prevent himself from adding to the mess. He ran from the bedroom, back down the stairs and out into the open air. Sitting in the car, which was no longer a Porsche, but a rusted old banger with slashed tyres and a cracked windscreen, he lit a cigarette and looked back towards the cottage. It was gone, replaced by the terrace house he had grown up in.
The scene shifted. Even in sleep, there was no respite from a certain wretchedness that dogged him. Now, lying on the top of his sleeping bag in the loft space of the timber-built outbuilding, he put the cross hairs of the night scope on Santini’s forehead and eased back the trigger. There was just a loud, metallic click that seemed to be a signal for a multitude of rats to swarm over him. He lashed out at the stinking, shrieking abundance of vermin as they blanketed him and tore at his flesh with needle-sharp teeth and hooked claws.
“Gary. Wake up. Wake up!” Marion pleaded, shaking him as he thrashed and moaned next to her.
The images lost form and evaporated. He scrabbled back, pushed himself up into a sitting position and rested against the headboard with his feet drawn up, knees tucked under his chin.
“I had a bad dream,” he said. “All my dreams turn to nightmares.”
“Poor baby,” Marion said. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”
“Yes. But leave the lights off.”
They went downstairs to the kitchen. Bright moonlight illuminated their naked bodies as they drank coffee. Gary told Marion of his dream. Of how he sometimes conjured up a better mother, and even a father.
“You subconsciously wish that your childhood had been different, so create an alternative life.”
“But it’s never right.”
“That’s because you can’t fool yourself. On some level, even in sleep, you know it’s not real, that it’s just wishful thinking.”
“I feel better for having you to talk things through with, Marion.”
“Good. We have a lot of living to do. And a lot of new memories to make together.”
Dom felt safe at the service, and afterwards at the cemetery. It was now two weeks since Frank had been capped, and Dom didn’t move an inch without at least four armed guards shielding him from possible attack. He had doubled the patrols on the estate, and had ordered a new Mercedes with armour-plated bodywork and bullet-proof windows. He also avoided patterns, kept away from Rocco’s, and only left Villa Venice when absolutely necessary. The funeral had been one such occasion. The cemetery and surrounding area had been searched, and his men ringed it. There was no high ground for a shooter to set up a shot, bar the church tower, which was man
ned by two of his people.
The only other excursion Dom made was to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow, to meet with the Yank hitman that Benny Andretti had connected his father with. Dom sat at a corner table in the bar and waited. It was fifteen minutes before he was paged to a house phone.
“Dominic Santini?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on up to room 108. And leave the muscle at the bar. Okay?”
“I’m on my way,” Dom said.
He reached the room, paused and raised his hand to knock. Before he could, the door to 107 opened. He looked sideways.
“In here,” a slim guy with collar-length steel-grey hair said, giving him a thin smile. It was the same American drawl he had heard over the phone.
“You said 108,” Dom said.
“I lied. You can’t be too careful.”
Kyle Macy, AKA Maurice Wilde, William Akins and Alan Roberts among many other aliases, reminded Dom of a younger, chisel-faced Charles Bronson, back before the late hard man actor had got old and a bit podgy-looking. Macy was the type of man who exuded lethal potential without saying a word or altering his expression. It was just a built-in quality that could not be manufactured. Some people had ‘presence’. Macy had it in abundance.
“Take a seat,” Kyle said. “And tell me everything you know about the mark.”
Dom perched on the edge of a mushroom coloured faux-leather easy chair and took newspaper cuttings including pictures of Noon from his pocket, along with typed-out details of the recent killings he knew the psycho had carried out, starting with Lester Little and ending with Frank and the guards. He had also included the address of the hotel Barnes had stayed at, the cop’s home address and the name and address of the psychologist, Beth Holder.
Kyle appeared to flip almost casually through the information, but had the ability to pick out the pertinent points without being bogged down with irrelevant data. “Where does the broad fit in this?” he asked.