A Reason to Kill

by Michael Kerr

  The foreign maid was on her way to hospital, suffering from shock. She had begun screaming and frantically rubbing her naked body with both hands, trying to rid herself of her own and her late boss’s blood, which had turned her face and breasts pillar-box red and had run in rivulets down her legs. The more she attempted to wipe it away, the more she spread it. She’d had to be restrained as she freaked out.

  “Bingo!” Pete said, closing up the cell phone he had been talking into. “They traced the open line, boss.”

  To where?” Tom demanded.

  “Roehampton. And the provider confirms that it’s Matt’s phone.”

  “That’s where Beth Holder lives. Get a response unit rolling, Pete. And tell them to stay on standby till I arrive. Nobody goes in unless I give the word.”

  “You think Noon’s there, boss?” Pete asked as he made the call.

  “Yeah. I think the bastard was there when I spoke to Beth. And Matt wouldn’t go to these lengths just to go-a-courtin’ Mary Jane.”

  “Who?”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “Beth, you prat!”

  Pete turned his attention back to the phone and jacked up the ARU. “They’re on their way,” he said. “But why would Matt go it alone, then phone you and leave the line open? He must have done it knowing we’d trace it and head over there.”

  “That’s right. And he knows it’ll be all over by the time we show up. Noon is obviously holding Beth, which makes it even more personal to Matt. There’s no way he’d sit back and hope that we could perform a miracle.”

  “So you think Noon or Beth phoned him?”

  “That’s the only explanation. He’s going head-to-head with a sicko who has given him some sort of ultimatum. Beth’s his hostage.”

  They had been moving toward the front door as they talked. Climbing into the car, Pete belted himself in, advised Tom to do the same, and took off with every intention of making Formula 1 look positively pedestrian.

  “I want to live to see my pension,” Tom said as they hurtled through the open gates. Pete just smiled and threw the car into a tight curve at dizzying speed.

  Tom tried to light a cigarette, but found it impossible to bring the lighter’s flame and the end of the cigarette together. His DS was driving like a fucking maniac.

  There was maybe three seconds of total stillness and silence. Matt and Noon both looked sideways and up to where Kyle had now straightened and was standing less than ten feet from them. Matt instinctively knew that it was the Yank hit man. Knew that the gun held rock steady in the pro’s hand, pointing at his head, was about to belch a bullet that would no doubt blow the back of his head off and transform him into an uncaring corpse.

  “WAIT! Dominic Santini was shot dead this evening at his house,” Matt said in as clear a voice as he could muster. “His organisation is history. You won’t get paid a red cent for fulfilling a contract that died with him.”

  Kyle saw the truth of it in the cop’s eyes. He also heard the distant sirens of police cars. You win some, you lose some, he thought. It was time to go home. This was now a bummer. He could cap the two guys and the broad, or just take a powder. He pondered for a few seconds, before an internal switch clicked off. The part of him that was a killing machine was abrogated. He nodded at Matt.

  “Lose the piece, pally,” Kyle said, and waited for Matt to throw the gun out of reach. He then backed up, out of the room, covering them until he was through the door. It was clear that they had more on their minds than him. He had walked in and interrupted death in progress. No longer his problem. They could now finish what they’d started. He had a plane to catch.

  Gary Noon was the first to rejoin the battle. He brought his knee up into Matt’s stomach and scrambled out from beneath him as he was driven backwards. Attempting to retrieve the gun did not even enter his mind. The phantom voices had started up again and were backed by the real wailing and whooping of the police sirens that sounded like banshees heralding approaching doom.

  He moved fast on all fours, and Beth thought he looked more like an insect than a human being: a form of life that usually existed out of sight, deep within damp earth, shunning the light and now scurrying to find a dark crevice to hide in.

  At the apartment’s door, Gary checked that the landing was clear. He heard the lift descending, and climbing to his feet, ran for the stairs, holding his head, tears pricking his eyes as the volume of the voices reached an unprecedented level. They became a confusion of tongues. Babel. A meaningless and indecipherable din that emanated out from his brain. He thought his ear drums might be burst from the inside, such was the imagined pressure.

  Almost insane, his broken nose and bitten thumb dripping blood, he made his way down two flights of stairs, and then stopped to regain a little composure and to attempt to think. Barnes would follow him, armed with a gun, and with no intention of arresting him.

  Stooping to lift his pants leg, Gary drew a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf and then eased open the door separating the stairwell from the carpeted hallway beyond. The cop would expect him to put as much distance as possible between them; to disappear into the night. But he was not about to do the obvious. He would wait, gut Barnes like a fish, and only then make good his escape.

  Matt was winded, fighting for breath as he sat up. Beth went to him.

  “Are you okay” he asked, his voice pained, wheezing.

  “I’m fine, now,” she answered, dropping to her knees next to him. “Get this tape off my wrists.”

  He reached behind her, quickly found the end of the duct tape and unwound it. Then, with Beth’s help, freed his ankles from the chair, crawled over to where his own gun lay, picked it up and got to his feet.

  “Lock the door after me,” he said, and left, hobbling along, ignoring the gnawing pain in his abdomen. He could not contemplate Noon escaping. Should he, then they would be back to square one and at constant risk from him. It had to be finished with, and now, if they were to have any peace of mind.

  Following give-away spots of blood, he reached the stairwell and started down. Even with the cast cut through, it was impossible to hurry. Combined relief and rage consumed him. That Beth was safe and had survived the ordeal was paramount. Now, he wanted revenge against the sick and malignant killer, whose only ambition was to wreak havoc on a world he did not deserve to exist in.

  It happened fast, reminding Matt of the old movie, Psycho, and in particular the scene in which the private detective – played by Martin Balsam – climbs the stairs of the old house where Anthony Perkins, dressed in his late mother’s clothes and wearing a wig, rushes out of the gloom to repeatedly stab him. The shot, from Perkins point of view, shows the shock-horror expression on Balsam’s face as he flails his arms and falls backwards. It was a spine-chilling piece of cinema; vintage Hitchcock.

  Gary burst through the door and was almost upon Matt. He was already swinging the knife down in a steep arc. It could have been a choreographed piece of theatre. Matt had seen the coin-size droplets of blood leading to the closed landing door, and anticipated the attack. He had not paused, sure that as he passed, Noon would make his move.

  Instinctively dropping back out of range, Matt turned to face his nemesis and fired the gun.

  The knife blade glinted as it fell away harmlessly from Gary’s hand as the bullet drilled into his shoulder. He spun under the impact, toppled past Matt and curled up defensively like a hedgehog, to go over the edge of the top step and roll...bump...career down the stairs, a stuttering scream echoing in the empty and acoustically receptive space, that stopped abruptly as he crashed into the railings of the first floor landing.

  Mind over matter! Gary’s singular brain came to his rescue, blocking the messages that tried to storm its neural pathways and relay his body’s discomfort. His nerve endings closed down in the same automatic fashion that a seal’s nostrils will shut when it submerges under water. The agony was dampened to a negligible level, which he could i
gnore.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he threw himself sideways – heard a second slug split the air next to his head and ricochet off the wall like an enraged hornet – and let his weight take him through the landing door. He was now functioning purely on instinct and was in full flight, determined to survive. He came up off the floor as though leaving the blocks at Crystal Palace, sprinted down the landing and angled towards an apartment door. It burst open as his undamaged shoulder crashed into it. He charged down the hall and entered a bedroom, where he found a double-glazed door fronting a small balcony.

  Janice Barker sat bolt upright, clutching the cotton sheet to her small breasts. Fear rendered her incapable of any further movement as the dark shape of a man appeared in front of her. Puzzlement amalgamated with the initial dire dread, as the interloper, paying her no attention whatsoever, rushed over to the balcony door, turned the key in the lock, pulled the door open and staggered out onto the narrow balcony.

  Leaning forward, Janice could hardly believe her eyes as the man vaulted over the balustrade and vanished into the darkness. She climbed from the bed, ventured out into the chill air and looked down to where she saw a figure crawling out from the bushes twenty feet below.

  A voice boomed behind Janice. “Move! Get out of the fucking way.”

  Turning, Janice realised that she was naked, and in classic pose put her right arm up to cover her breasts and her left hand down over a timeworn, depleted triangle of salt and pepper pubic hair.

  Matt gripped the woman by an arm and swung her round, back into the bedroom, propelling her with more force than he intended to. She fell onto her back, legs wide apart and stuck up in the air to show the soles of her feet, and much more to Matt and the ceiling. Unmindful that she was almost hyperventilating at the sight of the gun in his hand, Matt looked out over the balcony and saw Noon at the same time as a convoy of vehicles streamed into the car park, blue and red lights blinking on and off on roof bars, and sirens winding down to a drawling cessation.

  As Matt took careful aim, Noon glanced back over his shoulder. Matt hesitated. Could he shoot a fleeing, unarmed man in the back? His hands began to shake and his finger remained fixed and unmoving on the trigger.

  A tight smile formed on Gary’s face. Barnes was inferior, not up to the game, unable to put aside his humanity and allow basic instinct to kick in. The dumb cop would not gun down a defenceless man. Now, he turned to face Barnes, grinning broadly, and raised his middle finger in defiance, only to crumple to the ground as his left leg was pierced by a bullet that shattered his shinbone.

  Matt had compromised, aimed low and taken the shot. Noon would not be going anywhere in a hurry.

  Clem Sherwood was the first ARU officer to exit the black Transit. He saw and recognised Barnes up on the balcony of a first floor flat and followed the line of the handgun the cop held, across to where an unknown subject was standing with his hand raised, next to cover of low, dense shrubbery. A gunshot resulted in the unsub falling to his knees.

  Matt shouted, “That’s Noon.”

  Clem shouldered his Heckler & Koch as the wounded man attempted to stand up.

  “Armed police officer,” he called out. “Lie down on the ground with your hands behind your head. DO. IT. NOW!”

  “It’s over Gary. You’ve got nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.” His mother’s voice raged loud and clear inside his head. “Are you going to let them win? To lock you up in some asylum and pump you so full of drugs that your brain will turn to jam. Is this how you want it to end? WELL, is it?”

  “Nooo!” he bellowed at the top of his voice. This was not a scenario he had ever contemplated in his wildest dreams. He was far too superior to them to even begin to accommodate the concept of defeat, humiliation and loss of liberty. He was a free spirit, and as such would not be contained, or give cretins beneath his contempt the satisfaction of outwitting him. Fuck them all. He would engineer the denouement. He was still ultimately in control of the game.

  Clem watched as the figure continued to rise up. He was about to give a further warning, but saw the man – who he now recognised as being the cop killer, Gary Noon – reach inside his jacket in a manner that left him in no doubt that Noon was about to draw a weapon.

  Two bullets crashed into Gary’s chest, snapping him backwards. He fell to the ground and flopped weakly in the shrubbery as though he were in the throws of an epileptic fit. Strange, he felt no pain, just a pressure followed by a sense of fullness. Blood welled up out of ruptured lungs, to rise like floodwater in his throat. He coughed to try and clear the blockage in his airway, but the coppery tasting deluge overwhelmed him.

  As life ebbed, his power to deny the pain evaporated. The reality of the situation struck home and froze his heart as he experienced a level of anguish and fear that was in small part commensurate for the suffering he had meted out to others. And in the last instant, that seemed a small eternity before he found escape, Gary looked up as if drawn to where Matt Barnes was still standing high above him on the balcony. He saw no absolution, pity, or even pleasure in the eyes of the man who had in effect been the end of him. There was only an expression of impassive remoteness.

  He tried to swallow against the outpouring of blood, but could not stem the flow, and died with the sound of his own liquid, guttural scream ringing in his ears.

  EPILOGUE

  IT seemed that heaven cried out in blessed relief, matching the sudden sense of deliverance Matt experienced. It was only rain, spearing down to paint every surface. But the canvas of colourful distorted reflections from the car park lights and police vehicles was in some way meaningful; symbolic.

  He was too far away, but in his mind he could see the silvered raindrops rebounding as small explosions of spray from the glazing black orbs that were Noon’s unseeing eyes. The summer storm was a cleansing interlude; a hiatus to indelibly mark a moment between two points; before and after, or then and now, denoting a significant happening.

  Matt felt drained, without an ounce of energy. All the strength had been sucked from him as the adrenaline withdrew from his muscles. This was how he could imagine anybody snatched from the closing jaws of death at the last second must feel. The Yank had appeared from nowhere, got the drop on him, and could have shot them all. Being a true pro, and believing, rightly so, that his contractor was void, he had spared them, not out of any compassion, but because it was no longer a viable venture to conclude.

  “Are y...you a policeman?” Janice Barker asked, and he spun round to face her. She had picked herself up, pulled on a robe, and was now standing at the bedroom door, undecided as to whether she should run for her life, or not.

  “Uh!” Matt stepped back into the room, gun now held loosely at his side.

  Janice swallowed hard. “I said, are you a policeman?”

  He nodded. “Yes, love. Sorry if I was a bit rough, but...” He shrugged and walked past her, out of the flat and onto the landing. He went to the lift, pressed the call button and waited. He needed to be with Beth. Everything else was now immaterial.

  Tom knocked once and entered the office without waiting to be invited. Jack was standing next to his aquarium, almost silhouetted by sunlight shining through the window. He had his back to the door and was tapping food flakes from a canister. The fancy fishes swam up to the surface. They relied on him for their continued existence within the glass-walled universe they inhabited. Tom saw that it was a control thing. The man enjoyed the power he could exert, even over a tank full of poxy guppies.

  Jack turned to face him. “You look tense, Tom. No wonder you’ve got a bloody ulcer and a dodgy ticker. Lighten up, for God’s sake. We just got one hell of a result. How are Barnes and the cop you had on the inside?”

  “Barnes is fine. And Nick Marino is stable, but might be in a wheelchair for six months,” Tom said stonily.

  “He’ll be well looked after, and he’s earned a promotion if he doesn’t take medical retirement and walk. Sit d
own, Tom, you’re making me nervous just standing there and looking like you’ve got a funeral to go to. It’s over. We brought Santini’s firm down, and he, his son and the cop killer are history.”

  Tom remained standing. “There are some loose ends, Jack. You know that,” Tom said, flipping a flash drive onto his boss’s desk.

  Jack frowned. “What’s that?” But he knew. Could see the accusatory look in Tom’s eyes.

  “It’s a copy of stuff that was on a disk we lifted from Santini’s place. A list of names, dates, offshore bank account details, and a breakdown of services rendered. Frank kept everything on file.”

  “Spit it out, Tom. Get it off your chest before it chokes you,” Jack said, walking across to the windows and looking out at the sun-kissed city skyline as he spoke.

  “You’re scum, McLane,” Tom replied in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone of voice. “You’re worse than the lowlife we try to scrape off the streets. At least with the Santinis’, what you saw was what you got. You sold out your own. It’s arseholes like you and Vic Pender that are our worst enemies. But now it’s over. We’ve got enough to put you and a few other bent cops and politicians away for a long time. And being a cop in Belmarsh won’t be a picnic.”

  Jack was a pragmatist. He hadn’t got to be chief superintendent without possessing the ability to assess facts, understand their significance, make hard decisions if need be, and act on them. It would serve no practical purpose to say anything. It had been many years ago that he had withheld some damning evidence against Frank Santini, at a time when ten grand was too much to pass up for a DC with a family to support and a mortgage that was crippling him. It was not as if he had actively colluded in the commission of a crime with the gangster. He’d just sat on a few facts, taken the money, and the rest was history. Call it his private pension fund. Greed is a powerful stimulant. One thing had led to another over time, and he’d got in way above his head. Santini had owned him. When he had – early on – attempted to walk away from it, he’d been told that not only would he go down, but that his wife and children would suffer fatal accidents if he didn’t play ball. Once you’d taken the first few coins of Judas’ silver, there was no turning back.