Die Twice

by Simon Kernick

  ‘What the fuck’s going on in the back there?’ came Kalinski’s muffled but frantic voice. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  Fifteen, sixteen. I cursed, then closed up the back doors, knowing I had no choice. I leant over and banged the panel twice. ‘All right, go!’

  Kalinski hit the accelerator like he had lead boots on and we were on our way in a screech of tyres.

  As we drove, I holstered my gun, wiped sweat from my brow and, with a deep breath, opened the holdall, wondering exactly what was going to be in there.

  It was full. Crammed full with tightly packed bundles of used fifty-pound notes. So Holtz had been genuine. Which begged a major fucking question.

  Why had they started shooting?

  Gallan

  I had a takeaway curry that night. Chicken tikka masala, pilau rice, two poppadoms and an accompaniment of sag aloo. I knew I wouldn’t finish it all, that’s a lot of food, but I thought I’d at least give it a try. What I couldn’t eat, I’d have cold tomorrow. I’d also purchased a four-pack of Fosters and rented a video. It might have been a Saturday night and I might have been on my own but I was determined to enjoy myself. The lounge was comfortable, the telly – a twenty-eight-inch Sony widescreen bought on hire purchase – was on, and all the worries of the world had been relegated to beyond my front door.

  I was sitting on the sofa in my dressing gown, warming up for the video by watching a Denis Nordern pastiche of out-takes and bloopers on ITV, and was just about to tuck into the food when my mobile rang. It was ten to nine. I thought about leaving it. I was hungry and I was sure it could wait, but habit got the better of me. I’ve always been the curious type. I put down my food, went over to the kitchen top, and picked it up.

  ‘John? Asif Malik here.’ He sounded breathless, and the line wasn’t too good.

  I walked out of the kitchen with the phone to my ear and back into the lounge. ‘Asif, how are you?’

  ‘Not good. I suppose you haven’t heard the news, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stefan Holtz. He’s been shot, up in Epping Forest. That’s where I am now. It looks like whoever kidnapped Krys got Stefan out of that fortified house of his, lured him here, and blew him away.’

  I was shocked but not sorry. ‘So, it looks like some sort of takeover, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Malik. ‘That’s what we think, but there’s absolutely no intelligence coming from any quarter that gives us a suggestion as to who’s behind it.’

  ‘Will his death make your job any easier?’

  Malik managed a humourless laugh. ‘I doubt it. Now they’ll all be fighting over the scraps. It means we’ve probably got to end up watching ten big villains instead of one. It never gets easier, John, you know that. Now, before I forget. This Dagmar Holdings—’

  ‘I feel bad hassling you about them when you’ve got so much else on.’

  ‘Sure you do. To be frank, I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. They are a company suspected of links with the Holtzes but no major associate of theirs sits on their board, so it’s going to be extremely difficult to connect Dagmar to individuals, unless you can lean on the board members, see what they know.’

  ‘But they won’t be inside players?’

  ‘There are three people listed as being on the board. They’ll all be known to the Holtzes, but no, as far as we’re aware they’re not inside players. But they might be worth talking to. I’ve got their addresses if you want them.’

  I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a pen and paper from one of the drawers. ‘I do. Thanks.’

  Malik read out the name and address of the chairman, then the managing director. When he said the name of the company secretary, I froze. ‘Are you sure that’s the name?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Malik.

  I took the address, thanked him, then rang off. I looked around, then found the statement of accounts on Dagmar Holdings I’d brought home the previous night. Then I checked the surnames and first initials of the board members, listed at the bottom of the first page. Malik was dead right. How the hell had I missed that?

  I looked at the address he’d given me. It might lead to nothing but I knew I was going to have to give the place a visit.

  I looked at my watch again. Too late now. I’d go in the morning.

  Iversson

  ‘Whichever way you want to read it, it was a set-up,’ I said, looking at the other three in turn.

  We were standing round the kitchen table, all grim-faced, the holdall containing the money open in front of us. There was no sign of Joe. The clock on the wall above the cooker said that it was five to nine. Outside, it was raining even harder than it had been earlier.

  ‘It had to be a set-up. How the fuck did Holtz get all those people to the drop point without some sort of inside knowledge that it was going to be where it was? There were at least three other shooters there, minimum, and probably more, because somehow they managed to take out Joe as well. So someone fucking talked.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Tugger. ‘They could have put a tracking device on his car, something that helped them locate it.’

  ‘No way. They were on us within minutes of Holtz arriving. If they’d been tracking the car they’d never have had a chance of getting into position in that length of time. I don’t care what anyone says, they were already there. And the way Holtz was talking to me, it sounded like he knew his men were in the vicinity. He was way too cocky for a man delivering a ransom.’

  ‘Yeah, but you said yourself he was shocked when the shooting started,’ said Tugger. ‘I mean, Christ, they shot him, didn’t they?’

  ‘But it was you who fired first.’

  ‘There was some fucking bloke creeping up on me with a gun! What the fuck was I supposed to do? Wave to him?’

  ‘Shit,’ said Johnny, who was having difficulty keeping his eyes off the money. ‘I can’t fucking believe this. Do you think they popped him by accident when they were trying to shoot you?’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’ I turned to Kalinski. ‘No-one followed him into the car park, right?’ He glared at me, then shook his head firmly. ‘And you drove out when he left and no-one was following him then?’

  ‘I’m no fucking fool,’ he snarled. ‘I know what I’m doing. I followed him and there was no other car, and no other people with him. When he turned off the main road, he turned off on his own.’

  ‘Well then, they were already there. There’s no other explanation, is there?’

  ‘No-one fucking talked,’ said Kalinski firmly.

  ‘Then you’re going to have to explain how the shooters got there that fast. So far, you haven’t.’

  ‘I don’t have to explain nothing.’

  ‘Fuck it, Max,’ said Tugger in exasperation. ‘It could have happened. Of course it could. It doesn’t take a huge great battle plan to arrive, advance up both sides of a clearing so they’re flanking their boss, and confront us. And what’s the alternative? That one of us was talking to them? Who? It wasn’t Joe. Christ knows what’s happened to him, but it doesn’t look good. It wasn’t me. I’d never even heard of Stefan fucking Holtz before last week. And Kalinski here … hardly. Holtz’s people murdered his brother.’ Kalinski grunted in agreement. ‘And Johnny. You had to virtually pressgang him to get him involved. If someone talked, that only leaves you.’

  ‘Or your missus,’ said Kalinski.

  ‘She didn’t know any of the details,’ I snapped. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Tugger sounded suspicious.

  ‘Of course I’m fucking sure. I never told her anything about the drop-off, where it was going to be, how we were going to do it. So leave her out of it.’

  ‘She might have overheard you talking,’ said Kalinski accusingly. ‘You know what women are like. I had a bird once—’

  ‘No way. No fucking way. You’re right up the wrong tree. I was always careful to keep her out of all the
planning, and that’s the God’s honest truth.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t leave us with anyone, does it?’ said Tugger.

  I stopped and exhaled loudly. Tugger was right, of course, there wasn’t really anyone who could have talked, but I still wasn’t convinced. Something had happened out there, something that hadn’t been planned for either by us or Stefan Holtz, and somebody somewhere knew a lot more than they were letting on. I looked at them each in turn, trying to keep the deep suspicion I felt off my face. They all looked back with various expressions: Kalinski glowering; Johnny nervous; Tugger calm but concerned.

  ‘We may as well finish off the boy downstairs,’ said Kalinski. ‘He’s no use to us or anyone now.’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘This whole thing’s been fucked up enough as it is without us adding another reason for the Holtzes or the cops to come after us. He can’t recognize anyone, we’ve got the money, so we keep our side of the bargain. That means we stay the night here, wait to see if Joe turns up, and release Krys and go our separate ways in the morning. Just like we originally planned.’

  ‘Joe ain’t going to turn up now,’ said Kalinski.

  I knew Kalinski was pretty much on the button there, but I didn’t need to hear it from him. ‘He may, he may not. We don’t know. Anyway, we stay here. Now, let’s count this fucking money. We’ll divvy up each man his due and I’ll look after Joe’s share.’

  ‘I don’t think it should be kept for him,’ said Kalinski. ‘If he ain’t here, he ain’t here. We share it out between ourselves. That’s the only way.’

  ‘I thought you were only in it for the revenge.’

  ‘Well, I ain’t got my fucking revenge, have I? The cunt’s still alive and you’re saying we should release him tomorrow. Even though he fucked your missus.’

  ‘Watch what you’re fucking saying.’

  ‘If it was me, and he’d done that to my missus, I’d have fucking killed him.’

  I took a step forward, feeling my temper boiling over. I’m a patient man, but this bastard Kalinski was pushing it big time.

  Tugger put his hand out in front of me. ‘All right, boys, calm down. Let’s all take it easy, have a drink, and talk about it again tomorrow morning. How does that sound? We’re not getting nowhere like this.’

  ‘I think I should get a bigger share of the Russell,’ said Johnny. ‘You say I didn’t have to do too much but, what with all this lot, things ain’t never going to be the same for me again.’

  I turned to him, wanting to re-establish control. ‘Bullshit. You’ve done your bit, and you’ve done it well, but nothing changes with the death of Holtz. No-one knows who we are and no-one’s going to be able to find us. As long as we keep calm and release Krys. I’ll hold the money until tomorrow. If Joe still isn’t here when we’re due to leave, then we’ll split his share evenly, but if he is alive, and he comes looking for it, then it’s got to be remembered that it’s his money, and it’s each bloke’s lookout if he doesn’t want to give it up. Now, let’s count this fucking stuff. Then we can divvy up.’

  The atmosphere was tense, unpleasant. No-one felt much like talking, or even eating. Beers were cracked open, as per Tugger’s suggestion, but there was no celebration even though every man in the room was significantly richer. It was all there, too, every last note. Half a million pounds in fifties, just as Holtz had been instructed, and that settled it for me. There was no way he’d been accidentally shot by one of his men who was trying to put a hole in me. However many times I went over it in my mind, one thing remained certain, and that was that he’d had every intention of paying up.

  Before we retired for the night, I took some bread down to Krys and fed it to him without speaking. Eventually he asked me whether his old man had paid the ransom. He didn’t sound angry or defiant any more, just tired and uncomfortable. He’d pissed his trousers again but didn’t ask for them to be changed.

  ‘Yeah, your dad paid,’ I told him.

  ‘Are you going to let me go?’ he asked, his voice sounding strangely like a kid.

  ‘You’re going to be released tomorrow morning. Then it’ll all be over.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Krys.

  I didn’t say anything as I replaced the gag, thinking once again that I was glad we hadn’t killed him. He deserved it, no question, but you couldn’t feel too much hate for a person in his state.

  As I came out of the cellar and locked it behind me, I looked at my watch. 10.50 p.m. The others had all gone upstairs. I could hear them moving around. Yawning, I picked up the holdall from the kitchen table, checked to see that no-one had tampered with it, and went up to bed, noticing for the first time that it had stopped raining.

  Today

  Iversson

  My eyes snapped open and I listened hard for a second. Nothing. It was dark in the room; the alarm clock by the bed said 2.57. Something had woken me. I was a good sleeper, usually went straight through, couldn’t remember the last time my slumber had been interrupted naturally. I could see through the gap in the door that the landing light was on, but that was how I’d left it when I’d come into the bedroom. Maybe someone had got up to go for a leak. I sat up and waited for a few moments. Still nothing. I picked up the Glock from the side of the bed and checked that it was loaded – there was a round in the chamber – then lay back down again, thinking that I was getting paranoid. No great surprise, I suppose, when you’re in a house with half a million in cash and three men with less than scrupulous backgrounds.

  I shut my eyes and thought of Joe. Joe Riggs, the man who’d been good to me down the years. The man I’d betrayed by sleeping with his missus, and now the man who was almost certainly dead as a direct result of me getting him involved in a dangerous scheme when all he’d wanted to do was run a business in peace.

  There was a noise downstairs. Footsteps on the bare floorboards in the hall, faint but distinctly audible. Someone was moving around down there. This time I slid out of bed, pulled on trousers and a shirt, and picked up the gun. I paused and listened again. It had stopped. I decided to investigate, just in case. The holdall was under the bed but I made the decision to leave it where it was. I’d be back in a few moments. To hinder anyone who thought they could sneak in and take it, I removed the light-bulb from the main light and placed it under the pillow.

  Slowly, I unlocked the door and opened it as quietly as possible, then stepped outside, straining against the silence. The other doors on the landing were all shut, and nothing moved. Flicking the safety off the gun, I crept over to the stairs. The lights at the bottom were all extinguished, just as I’d left them, but that meant nothing. Someone had definitely been creeping about down there and, whatever the reason was, I was sure there was nothing innocent about it. Could it have been Kalinski deciding to ignore his instructions and to finish off Krys? If he had, he hadn’t come back up the stairs again, nobody had. Maybe he’d taken his share and left. But then I would have heard a car start, and I hadn’t.

  The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, the second time they’d done that in just over a fortnight. The first had been in the minutes before Tony Franks had started shooting, and sent us all down the rocky road to where we were now.

  I took a step onto one of the stairs and it creaked loudly, interrupting the night’s silence. I stood still for a moment, resisting the urge to call out the way they always do in horror films, just before they get sliced into salami by the killer. Is anyone there? If someone was, he didn’t want to be discovered. Hearing nothing, I took a second step, paused, then continued down the stairs as cautiously as possible.

  When I was at the bottom, I concentrated on trying to pick up any sound that might seem out of place. Breathing, the shuffling of feet … but the dead silence remained. My eyes scanned the gloom, the darkness almost inpenetrable, only thin shafts of half-light coming through the kitchen windows.

  I took two rapid steps forward and switched on all the lights to the hall, then turned and started. Because I spotted it
immediately.

  The cellar door was half an inch ajar. I’d definitely locked it, no question, and I’d also been the last person in there. Which meant one of two things, neither very good. Either he’d escaped, or …

  I stepped forward, and pushed the door wider. It was silent, and the air smelt fetid, as it always did. Krys Holtz had been incarcerated in there for three days. He stank, no question. I put a foot on the cellar steps, took a quick look round to check there was no-one behind me, and switched on the light.

  I could see Krys’s feet. So he was still there. I moved down the steps, one at a time, trying to make as little noise as possible …

  And froze.

  Krys lay back in his seat, still bound and gagged, still wearing the clothes I’d left him in, but very very dead. His throat had been sliced through deeply. The head was hanging back in the seat at such a precarious angle that only the fact that it was leaning against the wall prevented it from toppling off altogether. Blood had turned the front of his shirt a deep crimson and it had run down onto the tops of his legs. The blindfold had been removed, too, and his eyes were wide and terrified. The killer, then, had given him advance warning of what he’d intended.

  I moved closer to the body and touched the forehead. Still warm. The flow of blood had stopped and it was coagulating rapidly round the throat region, so it was unlikely he’d been killed in the last few minutes, but it hadn’t been hours ago either.

  I hurried back up the steps, switched the light off, listened for a few moments to check that no-one was waiting at the top for me, and then stepped out. I walked back into the hallway, then round to the front door. It was locked. I doubled back and checked the back door of the house, which led into the utility room. Also locked. I went back through the hallway and into the kitchen, holding the Glock tightly, and went to check on the kitchen door, the last means of entry into the house.

  It was unlocked. I couldn’t remember if I’d checked it earlier or not, but thought I had. I’d been security conscious these past few nights, even more so since we’d taken ownership of all that money, but so much had happened that I couldn’t recall anything for sure.