A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1)

by Frank Westworth

  He turned down into a maze of residential rows and walked on cat feet to his wheels, to his inglorious Transporter. He drove home. His home. His place. His nest. It wasn’t far. Less than an hour from the centre of the city, but in another world entirely.

  Whoever had named the Parkside Trading Estate had been possessed of a fine sense of irony. It was at the side of no park. Even car parking was at a premium, and was a constant bone of debate between the incumbents. But it was an estate . . . or it had been, once. Before it had become an estate, trading or otherwise, Parkside had been a military establishment. A long time ago. Over a half century ago. The historians told anyone sufficiently curious that it had been a military hospital. Which was true in a sense, but only in a sense. Military medicals had been based there, but their function was not exactly the repair and salvation of those damaged by the rigours of war, be they physical or mental damages. Those military medicals had been concerned with the extraction of information from individuals who were suspected of being in possession of such exciting material. Sometimes those enjoying the enforced delights of information extraction were from an opposing power. And sometimes they were not.

  Before its part in winning the Second World War for the alleged Allies, Parkside had genuinely been part of a park. Part of the park attached to a minor stately residence, inhabited by a vaguely aristocratic family. The war had not been kind to the family. Not only did all of its sons and heirs fail to return from fatally active service, but their former family home was destroyed by fire shortly after victory was confirmed, hostilities ended, and there was rejoicing throughout the lands. At Parkside, there was no rejoicing. The recently bereaved tend to make for unhappy bedfellows, company best avoided.

  The already bad situation was worsened considerably by the refusal of the family’s ancient insurers to compensate the family, their clients for centuries, for the loss of their house, and the military felt in no rush to confirm a connection between the conflagration and their employees. The records of the military medical facility had been lost in the blaze, and it was a blaze whose cause was unclear but whose effect was convenient. Except for the once faintly noble family.

  From the unlovely but functional clump of military buildings grew a small, out of the way, almost invisible and largely anonymous clutch of demobbed buildings inhabited by the recently demobbed military types who dealt in allegedly demobbed military equipment, of which there was a considerable quantity, much of it impressively lethal and much of it in demand by all sides involved in the worldwide conflicts which had failed to recognise or believe that the war was over and that it was time to give peace a chance.

  What had been a notional hospital became a notional scrapyard for military hardware, heavy and less so, where the operating equipment of several divisions of fighting men was decommissioned. There are many ways of killing people, as soldiers and their masters have always known, and many of them passed through Parkside on their way from active service with the Allied forces to . . . well, the public view was that the equipment was rendered inoperable and the metals sold for scrap. Firing pins were removed from tens of thousands of rifles, for example. Then the wooden stocks were removed and sold as waste wood, while the various metals, several of them of a high grade and much in demand, were sold off within the metal trade for eventual use in the country’s many heavy industries. Not so much swords to ploughshares, but more rifles to rebar, poured concrete for the support of.

  As it was with hand weapons, so it was with the heavier armaments. Tanks, armoured cars, Bren gun carriers, motorcycles, Jeeps, bicycles, bridge-building kit and the heavy haulage required to haul them all heavily about appeared at Parkside for disposal. And disposed is what they were. Many of them, most of the killing tackle, perhaps, took to a peaceful post-war world and contributed to its growth and development. But a lot did not. No surprises there.

  When Stoner first visited Parkside, he was on the hunt for a supply of untraceable weapons. Nothing in the mass-destructions stakes; he found himself in the market for portable killing machines. Machines intended to be transported easily by a single man and used to forcibly assist in the demise of another single man. Maybe two. Occasionally a few men.

  The range available was remarkable. Hand guns, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns. Hand grenades, gas canisters, flame throwers . . . all suitable for a military museum and entirely risible by the modern weapons standards of the day, but all untraceable, invisible and cheap. And plentiful.

  The first handgun Stoner acquired and used just the once for a swift double-tap to honour a decently paying contract had, under the terms of that contract, to be found with the body. Stoner never knew why, and the body was long past caring. The gun was duly discovered, along with the corpse, and while the newspapers failed to reveal the identity of the dead man, they did report that the gun belonged to a subaltern in a defunct regional regiment, who had failed to return to his homeland after being reported missing in action in North Africa, 1943. Much had been made of the remarkable deduction that a long-dead junior officer had returned to wreak vengeance upon some unidentified but presumably unpleasant character almost exactly four decades after his own death. Newspapers can certainly tell tall tales. And, more remarkably, newspaper readers pay to read them.

  It would be something of an exaggeration to suggest that Stoner enjoyed a giant revelation of a biblical nature after that contract, but he certainly understood that weapons issued to His Majesty’s forces for use in some long-gone conflict in a faraway land were equally effective at ending a life in the old homeland several decades later. These historical death-dealers became his weapons of choice. No need for the fashionable handguns. Sig Sauers, Berettas, Walthers and Glocks were fine for the image-conscious flaunter of fine weaponry; a Webley revolver dispensed death just as well in close quarters, cost little to buy and could be thrown away afterwards without regret.

  There was an argument that the elderly ammunition for the elderly guns could be less than reliable, but service revolvers rarely jam and are extremely robust. Stoner had been amused to learn that the national police forces developed a considerable file on the mysterious gang of killers who preferred to use obsolete weapons, and more than one crime journalist sold stories of considerable imagination and no factual base developing a handsome theory that a lost legion of World War II warriors had returned to seek out and destroy those who had somehow and in some mysterious and impenetrable way betrayed them. They even developed a nickname for the deadly band, but he couldn’t remember it. And in any case, the gang was a gang of one.

  All good things come an end, however careful are the participants, and Stoner was not particularly surprised when his arms dealer decided to sell the truth to a tabloid. The world of the contract killer is a small world, known almost exclusively to its inhabitants, and Stoner got the word before his dealer sold his own revelatory words, and paid an unadvertised, unannounced visit to Parkside.

  Reasonably brutal conversation with the dealer resulted in his explaining to Stoner that he had dealt with the reporter entirely via the telephone, that he had arranged to meet that reporter within a few days of Stoner’s visit to share the full delight of the newspaper’s largesse and the full facts of the story behind the gang of obsolete but deadly gun fans.

  Stoner was delighted by the symmetry of the arrangement, removed the dealer from the scene and kept the appointment with the reporter himself. It proved to be a beneficial meeting. The reporter paid Stoner a relatively small sum of money for the information that the dealer was the killer, with the promise that more money would follow with further corroboration.

  Stoner was subsequently sad and distressed when he was forced to reveal that unhappily the killer had himself been killed. He supplied photographic evidence of this; the dead dealer lying in a bloody akimbo and with an ancient Webley clutched in his hand. By way of corroboration, the historic weapons murders ceased at the same time as the dealer’s demise, remarkably. The newspape
r was naturally delighted and somehow Stoner found himself paid for his misinformation, while coincidentally understanding that he had acquired unobtrusive premises at Parkside. He had watched the place for an age or two after offing the loquacious amateur arms dealer and would-be scoop seller, but no one claimed it, so he took it as his own. Life can move in strange ways, if you let it.

  And over the years, apparently legitimate ownership of the industrial units on the Parkside firmed up, became legal. The scrapyard dogs were replaced by burglar alarms and Volvo estate cars. Roofs were retiled and brickwork repointed. A curious air of respectability descended. Along with quiet, peace and a peculiarly studied indifference to much of the less than legal trading activity which remained the unsung speciality of the trading estate. All of which suited Stoner perfectly.

  He drove the heavy Transporter over the first of several decayed speed humps, pulled over to the side of the disastrously surfaced road and switched off. Engine and lights. Parkside’s dark side lay before him. Few lights were visible, no signs of activity. All exactly as it should be. Stoner contemplated the smoking of an imaginary cigarette. He had never actually taken to smoking, failing as he did to understand the purpose, but accepted without question that there were perfect moments for the smoking of a straight cigarette. This was one of them. The length of time demanded by the smoking of a king-sized cigarette would have been the exact length of time required for anyone concerned about being followed to observe whether they actually were being followed or whether a little justifiable paranoia was rearing its wise old head.

  Stoner slid from driver’s to passenger’s seat and opened the door, pretty much silently. He had plenty of practice at being silent. He dropped to the floor, rested the door against its lock while he took a stroll. All was quiet. He knew he was being watched, but he expected that. He did not appear to have grown a tail. He would have been surprised if he had. But relatively few folk died by being excessively cautious, and Stoner had absolutely no wish to lead any of the uninvited to his quiet place.

  He walked into the dark, listening for the familiar sounds of night-time Parkside. Strains of music, distantly through the breeze. The hum of electrical power and the murmur of nature. He walked on. Familiar ground. His home from home for many years now. His buildings were silent. A light burned somewhere distantly inside. Telltales shone dimly, suggesting security and cameras. He walked on.

  Back to the Transporter. Which was as he had left it. He climbed back in, started the engine, left off the lights and drove towards his units, his own buildings. As he approached he pressed the remote which unlocked the roller doors to the central unit, waited for a count of ten, reversed the VW into its space and switched off, the door rolling quietly closed before him. He took another non-smoking notional cigarette break. Listening. Dropped from the driver’s door to the clean concrete of the floor and wondered how many of the estate’s band of ferocious feline fighters would be waiting, watching him, as is their enviable and inspirational way. He occasionally considered that if he could watch and wait like a decently feral cat then he would live to see retirement.

  As well as being surprisingly clean, the unit was surprisingly spacious. Apart from the Transporter he’d parked, two other VWs, seemingly identical, sat within.

  So his house, his own private home, was a garage. As well as the Transporters, the building contained a workshop, complete with tools and ramps, engine hoists and an inspection pit. In short, it looked like the vans’ home rather than his. An uninvited casual visitor (there had been none of those in several years) or a slightly less casual but miraculously talented burglar (there had also been none of those) would have observed that the business which described itself as the Transportation Station was indeed a business centred around VW’s finest vannery.

  And plainly, as was often the way, the proprietor slept above the shop. Or in it, maybe. Stoner was home safe. The heavy Transporter ticked as it cooled and he walked through the workshop, patting a black Harley-Davidson on its black saddle as he passed it, heading through another pair of locked doors – mighty strong locked doors – into a wide and comfortable set of living rooms.

  Home.

  Safe.

  13

  THE RED HOUSE

  There is a famous saying that things look better in the morning. Like most famous sayings, it’s only true when it’s true. Which could easily be a famous saying in itself; Stoner was unsure. Although like all practising musicians he carried an endless store of lyrics around in his head and was wont to produce them, either vocally or silently, at unwanted and unappreciated moments, he recognised pretty sayings for what they were . . . pretty sayings.

  This particular dawn looked no more comfortable than the night which had preceded it. He had slept well enough by his own poor standards; Parkside was quiet by night, and its inhabitants maintained that quiet with as much intensity and ferocity as might be required. And Stoner’s premises were secure. In the main, his reasons for occasionally sleeping badly revolved around levels of discomfort. Like most practising motorcyclists he carried his share of accidental batterings, ancient and modern, and they would from time to time intrude sufficiently upon his physical wellbeing to interrupt his sleep, but that was not a common occurrence. Others who shared his means of gainful employment occasionally enquired about his sleeping habits, which was a minor strangeness in itself, given that theirs was an occupation not much given to the sharing of confidences and the revelation of personal details, but those few he had known well had almost always complained of poor sleep.

  Stoner slept well. Mostly. But for a decent depth of sleep, the sleep which restores and refreshes as well as merely recharging the cells, Stoner had grown to depend on the dirty blonde. Lying next to her he experienced a peace and a relaxation unique in his world. It was mysterious to him, strangely precious, and he preferred to refuse any sensible analysis of its mystery. The effect itself was sufficient.

  His regular and reliable night-time awakenings were brought about by his inability to stop thinking. Unlike most men of his acquaintance, who appeared to think only rarely, and then about matters which he found mostly incomprehensible, Stoner was rarely able to stop or even to sensibly direct the mental churnings which made him so proficient at solving problems. Those problems and puzzles took many forms, and solving them was evidently something of profound importance to some centre, some core, of his being. He had never really figured it out, but knew well enough how to manage it.

  The secret was being able to set his mostly unconscious mind a task of sublime unimportance. This distracted it from anything painful or profound, and provided a decently rewarding return of its own. It was quite a buzz to scramble from the twisted sheets and before the eyes of a delighted night-time companion, kick up an amplifier and play a piece of excellent guitar chording which had, only a few hours previously, been impenetrably elusive. At such moments, it was always a fine idea to suggest that the private acts of the night before had provided the inspiration – although that was rarely true – thus ensuring that those delights were repeated.

  Had the night been suitably shared but basically unrewarding, it was also always possible to sit entranced playing the same riff over and over until the lady in question recognised her folly in going home with such a self-centred idiot and left. Then of course the day’s play could really begin.

  Stoner had hoped that after his slightly strange evening with the Hard Man and its subsequent perambulations, he would have understood a little more about the murders in hand. This was not the case. Instead, and this was a minor surprise in itself, he had remembered the identity of a man who had borrowed a tool from his workshop. Not that he needed the tool. In fact he had never used it, which was probably why he agreed to its loaning, but he had noticed its absence when looking for something else, as is so often the way.

  Draping a sad-for-itself, huge and ancient pullover over his own warm body, he padded across the sanded and scarred wooden floors and booted up the co
mputer in the unlit corner where it lived. While it loaded and performed its morning rituals, shaking hands with its remote digital brethren, Stoner performed morning rites of his own. Coffee machine loaded with solids and liquids destined to perform their awakening magic, a first indecisive glance into the food cupboards to see whether anything tempted more than morning muesli. He dredged out his cell phones, observed that among the chatter were three text communications from the Hard Man, several others irrelevant but vaguely interesting from the musical crew, two voicemail messages from the Hard Man, and nothing at all from the dirty blonde. But it was early in the day for her. He felt her distance less forcefully in the light of day.

  Stoner dropped the last phone into its charging dock without acknowledging any of the messages. They would all wait. And for reasons all its own, the phone – a very smart phone indeed – began playing music for him. Stoner stopped dead in his tracks. He had not programmed the device to perform anything, and was puzzled and a little unnerved by it. Could a distant someone cajole his own phone into playing music unrequested? But then he smiled, recognising Jimi Hendrix’s characteristic stretched Stratocaster, playing a long, loud, live take on a short, quiet track from his Are You Experienced? album. One of Stoner’s favourites, although it was not an album he played much. It was always worth a listen. Genius is always worth recognition. Amusing that his cell phone felt the same way. All on its mysterious own. Maybe.

  Sufficient coffee had filtered into the glass jug for the day to officially start, and with a self-amusing air of reverence Stoner carried the first cup over to the workstation, where he sat sipping and flicking through his email accounts. Where once there were letters and a postman, there were now secretive deliveries through the ethers. There was much to be said for this. Where once the peace was endlessly shattered by the shrilling of the telephone, messages now arrived in silence. Without shock. Bad news, good news; they arrived with identical quiet.