by Chris Ewan
Two men had dragged Patrick out from behind the dumpsters at the back of a department store where he’d bedded down for the night. The men had punched and kicked him, then bundled him into the back of a windowless van where one of them had gagged him with a foul-smelling rag and pinned him down while his companion climbed into the cab and accelerated away.
If Patrick was scared during the journey, his fear spiked when the van came to a halt and he was thrown out on to the ground in a fenced-off construction site on the edge of the city.
In the small hours of the morning, the site was completely deserted. There were shadowy diggers and dump trucks abandoned at all kinds of angles. There were concrete mixers, pneumatic drills and I-shaped metal girders everywhere he looked.
Without saying a word, the two men bound Patrick’s ankles together, wrapping them over and over, first with bandages and then with metal chains. After that, the older of the two men – the fat, balding one in the crumpled suit and tie who’d driven the van – walked to the tower at the base of a giant crane. The man opened a door and stepped inside a caged elevator, punched a button and straightened his tie, and Patrick watched the elevator zip up into the sky towards the distant operator’s cab.
Patrick had begun to moan then. He’d started to thrash and grapple with his ankle bindings until the second man walked over and squatted next to him. He was short and muscular with a thick, square head and mangled boxer’s ears. His lightless grey eyes were wide-set, creeping towards the sides of his skull, reminding Patrick of a hammerhead shark.
The man wore a shiny blue tracksuit and pristine white training shoes. He raised a finger to his lips and shook his head in a no-nonsense warning, which, coming from this guy, was enough to make Patrick stay almost completely still as the big metal hook was lowered all the way down from the end of the jib, where it was secured to the chains coiled around his ankles before the mechanism was reversed and the hook was winched up and Patrick was dragged into the air until he was suspended the wrong way round with his blood rushing to his head, just beyond reach of the tower and the cab and any remote chance of safety.
Patrick kept willing himself to pass out but he remained stubbornly conscious as the little elevator shuttled downwards then whirred back up again, whereupon the man in the tracksuit hauled back the caged door and climbed nimbly and confidently between some railings until he was clinging to the outside of the tower, reaching for the flapping hood attached to Patrick’s sweater.
Patrick moaned from behind his gag, and kept moaning even as the man yanked him towards him and shook him vigorously, even as the older man in the suit leaned out of a window on the operator’s cab and told him to shut the hell up.
‘Do you know who we are?’ the older man shouted.
Patrick assumed the question was rhetorical. There was no way he could talk around the gag, even supposing his sweater wasn’t crushing his throat.
‘Do you know who sent us?’
Patrick nodded and swallowed hard, which was a strange sensation, being upside down and half throttled.
‘So then you know why we’re here. You’ve probably heard of my colleague. People have probably warned you about him.’
People had warned Patrick about a lot of things. But nothing specific. And certainly not this.
Why hadn’t he listened to those people? Why did he never listen to good advice?
‘They call my colleague the Hypnotist. Know why? I’ll tell you, Patrick. It’s because he has this rare ability to persuade anyone he wants to do anything he likes. But there’s one big difference between my colleague and a stage hypnotist. He doesn’t have a pocket watch to swing before your eyes. But that’s OK. He doesn’t need one.’
The guy in the tracksuit let go of Patrick’s hood and clutched at his face, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of his cheeks. He pulled Patrick close to him – so close that Patrick could see the crazed glimmer in his eyes – then shoved him away fast and hard.
‘You’re the watch,’ the older man shouted, as Patrick swooped through the air.
Chapter Three
Miller found the body in the bedroom. The man was dead, no question. But it almost hadn’t turned out that way. He must have gotten very close to fulfilling his contract. He’d fallen on to his back right next to the bed, toppling the lamp on the nearside cabinet.
There was blood on the duvet. Blood on the pillows and the walls. Kate had shot the man through the throat, close quarters, and Miller guessed he must have been leaning over her at the time. Perhaps she’d been keeping the gun under one of her pillows. Maybe she’d faked being asleep and had waited until the very last moment to shoot.
Impressive, if so.
The guy was dressed all in black. Black trousers, a black gilet over a black cable-knit jumper, black gloves and a black balaclava. His automatic pistol was fitted with a suppressor.
Miller shone his torch into the sightless eyes behind the balaclava. Was this the man he’d vowed to kill four years ago?
He squatted and peeled back the ski mask, revealing a male in his early thirties, well-groomed and clean-shaven. He had no scars or signs of a troubled life or distinguishing marks whatsoever.
Aside from the ugly wound that had killed him.
Miller removed a glove and fished his smartphone out of his pocket – his own phone, not the disposable device Kate had contacted him on – and held it low to the man’s face. He took a photograph and attached the image in an email to Hanson.
He didn’t pat the man down. No killer hired by Connor Lane for this particular assignment would be amateurish enough to carry ID. Besides which, Hanson was capable of finding out more about the dead man from the hasty mug shot Miller had sent him than any trawl through his wallet might reveal.
Straightening now, Miller stalked around the bed, probing left and right with his torch until he found the pistol he’d armed Kate with poking out from just beneath the cotton valance. He stowed it in his backpack and cast his torch around the rest of the room, flinching when the beam was jabbed back at him by a mirrored wardrobe.
He leaned his head to one side, pausing for a moment to consider his reflection – this dishevelled, oversized wanderer, almost a stranger to him now, who was capable of walking into a house where someone had been shot with the intention of concealing evidence and spiriting the killer away. The man Miller had used to be wouldn’t have been able to hold his gaze. But the man Miller had used to be hadn’t understood how rules and laws could mean nothing to some men. He hadn’t known that to beat them you had to become them. Or sometimes, something even worse.
He slid aside the wardrobe doors and scanned the garments in front of him. There were items here that reminded him of the type of clothes Sarah might once have worn. His wife had liked to dress simply. Most days it was jeans and a blouse or a T-shirt, but every now and again, for a special occasion, she would dazzle him with a black cocktail dress like the one his gloved fingers had settled on. He clenched the silky material and could almost conjure up the feel of Sarah’s body beneath it. The swell of her hip. The warmth of her skin. He could almost imagine her batting his hand away, smiling over her shoulder, telling him that now really wasn’t the time.
Which it expressly wasn’t.
Miller released the dress and took out his phone, firing off several flash photographs. When he was done, his eyes settled on a navy fleece jacket on a shelf to the right. He slipped his phone away and tucked the fleece under his arm, thinking how it wouldn’t be wise for Kate to be seen with blood on her clothes on the walk down to the beach.
He was just turning to go – the beam from his torch settling over the doorway that connected with the hall, his mind still snagged by those treacherous thoughts of Sarah and the pain and regret that had led him here – when he heard a low insect hum coming from the dead man. A soft blue light pulsed from behind a chest pocket on his gilet: the light fading, then blooming again, like an alien heart.
Miller knelt and dipped his h
and inside the man’s pocket, removing a mobile phone between his finger and thumb.
CALLER UNKNOWN.
He held the phone in his gloved palm, the buzz passing up his arm, jangling his nerves. He had a sudden urge to answer the call. He could picture himself raising the phone to his ear, listening to the expectant breathing on the other end of the line.
There were so many things he wanted to say.
*
Mike Renner, the balding man in the suit and tie, leaned back from the open window of the crane operator’s cab and stared out at the glinting cityscape with his phone pressed to his ear.
Renner hadn’t wanted to place this call. He never wanted to place these calls. But he’d anticipated receiving an important text message more than twenty minutes ago. The message should have been something short and vaguely cryptic. Job done. Contract completed.
Renner had received a number of similar confirmations during the thirty-plus years in which he’d worked for the Lane family, though the method of sending them had changed over time.
Except not tonight. Because no text had reached him. Which meant one of two things: either there’d been an unexpected delay, or the man he’d hired had failed in some way.
Delay seemed the most likely explanation. The intel Renner had paid for on their target’s location and security had been comprehensive, and the killer he’d contracted had an excellent track record. But if the alternative scenario was in play and he’d failed, for whatever reason, then Renner needed to know immediately. Because while it was true that Aaron Wade – the borderline psychotic who was at this very moment hanging off the tower of the crane, pawing at his traumatised victim – was highly adept at persuading people not to talk, or to confess absolutely everything to him, depending on Renner’s whim, it was also true that whatever was happening right now on the Isle of Man, or had already happened, would determine the fate of the unfortunate young man currently swinging by his ankles below him, no matter how positively he responded to Wade’s particular brand of torture.
So Renner listened very hard to the ringing of his phone. He clamped his free hand over his ear in order to block out, as much as possible, the noise of Wade’s jeering taunts and the young man’s increasingly desperate whines.
But all he heard was the drone of an unanswered call until eventually he gave up and powered down his phone, stripping out the SIM and pocketing the component parts for safe disposal at a suitable time and place in the future.
He leaned out of the cab, his tie flapping in the breeze, and looked down at Wade, gripping the tower in his fist, a crazed grin on his face.
Renner couldn’t say he liked Wade. He was always on edge in his company – the same way, he imagined, a lion tamer could never entirely relax when he took the stage with one of his animals. But he absolutely trusted Wade to carry out his instructions, no matter how extreme or unpleasant those instructions might be, and no matter how much Renner wished he didn’t have to issue them.
Because despite his experience and his uncompromising reputation, the truth was that Mike Renner didn’t like killing people. Not because he felt guilty – if somebody posed a threat to the Lane family, then they also posed a corresponding threat to Renner’s livelihood and the well-being of his own wife and two precious daughters – but because killing someone always carried with it the risk of being caught.
Which was why, when he called Wade’s name, with a voice that sounded to him oddly strained, and when Wade looked up, eagerly, and Renner shook his head at the young man swinging from the hook, he couldn’t escape a feeling of sickly dread as he cleared his throat and said, ‘It’s over. Kid has to drop.’
Chapter Four
Miller shepherded Kate to the bottom of the cliff path. She’d refused to put on the fleece he’d fetched for her and he was trying hard not to show how much it rankled him.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, from behind. ‘It’s OK to freak out. You just shot a man.’
‘Oh, I am freaking out. But not about that. He came to kill me. Just like you said.’
‘What then?’
She stopped and spun to face him. Miller lifted the holdall she’d packed and used it to motion towards the Audi estate he’d parked at the end of the seafront. They needed to keep moving but she wasn’t going anywhere yet.
‘It’s this.’ Kate spread her arms. ‘It’s you.’
‘Me?’
‘I keep thinking I’m making a terrible mistake.’
‘The mistake would have been lying there and getting shot.’
‘I should have called the emergency number I was given. I should have dialled my handler instead of you.’
Miller stared at her a moment, her vest clinging to her skin where it was speckled with blood. The nearest street lamp flickered dimly. There was nobody around.
‘You just killed someone, Kate. Think about that for a moment.’
‘It was self-defence.’
‘Fine, so go ahead and call them. Explain what happened. Here.’ Miller dropped the holdall and freed his backpack from his shoulders, thrusting a hand inside for the prepaid phone Kate had contacted him on. ‘But if you think Lane is done now, you’re wrong. He’ll just send someone else. He’ll find you the same way he found you tonight. Except it’ll be even easier the second time round. Because you’ll be in custody. The police will hold you until they can clear this mess up.’
Kate looked down at the phone and Miller could tell that she was asking herself if she should make the call. And he could understand why, in so many ways, it might seem like the easier, more rational move to make.
‘Listen to me – Lane already knows something went wrong tonight. He’ll have been expecting confirmation of the kill, and without it, he’ll send someone to find out what happened. Maybe he already has a backup in place on the island. Maybe someone is heading here right now. Come with me. Believe in me.’
‘You have to convince me this isn’t the craziest thing I’ll ever do.’
But how could he persuade her when he had doubts himself? Hanson had told him this wasn’t anything he should get involved in. Becca had said the same thing. But Miller had insisted on making the approach anyway. And now? The truth was he didn’t know what to think any more, but the part that bothered him most was whether he could still trust his motives. They’d become muddied ever since he’d first set eyes on Kate. Not because she was beautiful – although she was that and more – but because she was fierce and stubborn and committed. She reminded him so much of Sarah in that way. In a lot of ways. None of which helped.
‘Seriously? Saving your life isn’t enough?’
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She just stared at him, waiting.
Miller glanced away towards the sea. He was going to have to do this. He couldn’t see that he had a choice.
‘Miller’s not my real name. Everyone calls me Miller, nowadays. I prefer it that way. But my real name is Adams. Nick Adams.’
A puff of misted air escaped Kate’s mouth. The name meant something to her. More than something, he was sure.
‘You and I, we have something more than fake identities in common. We share the same enemy. Four years ago, Connor Lane sent a man to kill my wife and daughter. I couldn’t save them.’
‘But you saved me.’
Miller’s throat had closed up. He turned away again and blinked hard. He’d learned many years ago that tears were not a good look on a big man like him. Especially when you were trying to convince someone how strong and dependable you could be.
‘I still have to testify,’ Kate said. ‘That’s non-negotiable.’
‘We’ll talk about it.’
‘No. We find a way or I don’t go with you. Helen wasn’t just a colleague to me. She was a friend. I want her killer to face justice.’
‘Terrific, so you’ll testify. Maybe you’ll get killed while you’re at it, too.’ He shook his head, undone by the earnest way she was searching his face. ‘Look, we’ll try and figu
re something out. OK?’
He didn’t believe it. Not then. But he had no problem lying. He was prepared to do or say whatever it took to protect Kate. Even if that meant saving her from herself.
And later, when the time came, he’d explain how things really worked. He’d let her know what they could, and couldn’t, hope to achieve. If the past few years had taught him anything, it was that a form of justice inside the law wasn’t always possible. Not where men like Connor Lane were concerned.
Kate stooped to pick up her holdall and Miller followed her to the Audi, popping the boot. There were two suitcases inside and he threw back both lids so she could see the opening he’d carved out of them where the cases touched.
‘For the ferry crossing,’ he explained. ‘The next boat doesn’t leave the island until after 7 a.m. They could be searching for you by then. You’ll have a small oxygen canister. Some water. Food, if you like.’
Kate looked down into the boot at the rigged suitcases. Her first taste of life on the run, the way Miller handled things. It wasn’t a lifestyle that was comfortable or pretty. It was rudimentary and crude.
But it worked.
Only Kate didn’t know that yet. Not for sure. He studied her reaction – the way she was sucking on her bottom lip – and he felt he had a pretty reasonable idea of what she must be asking herself.
Would it be a mistake to climb into the boot, or was this just one small component part of a much bigger, much more catastrophic error she was making by trusting him in the first place?
*
Many hours later, Miller leaned against the railings at the stern of the ferry to Liverpool, watching the humped outline of the island blur and fade from view.
The Audi was parked two decks below with Kate inside the doctored suitcases. She was reliant on him now and Miller felt the burden of his responsibility like a spiked weight in the pit of his stomach.