A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1)

by Frank Westworth

  ‘Didn’t even think about it. Was still coughing up water and crap from my lungs. The chlorine is really bad for the lungs. They’re still sore.’

  ‘Sympathy of course. Fuck of a way to go, though. Epic. You report it? What were you doing in the hotel anyway? Some jolly for the plods? Happy taxpayers buying you all a good time?’

  ‘No. A conference. All about money. I’m an accountant. A police accountant. A banker. I’m on the force because they wanted it that way.’

  ‘OK. You investigate financial crimes, is that it?’

  ‘No. I move police money around. Do you have clearance for this? Who are you anyway? I don’t know you well enough to care about you, but I’ve skimmed your short file which tells me that you’re some kind of freelance. What kind of freelance, and why?’

  ‘I bet you know what kind, and I bet you know what I do, too. I bet you pay me, or men like me. Are there limits to what you can discuss with me? What have you been told to tell me? More usefully, what have you been told you must not discuss with me? In denial lies the truth. Usually, I reckon.’

  ‘The brief was to tell you what happened. I’ve done that. Interpretation is more your game than mine.’

  ‘That is true. Most certainly true. I can’t . . . interpret without facts and background. The more facts, the better background, the better my . . . interpretation is likely to be. I’m looking for a killer. The fine lady didn’t kill you. She killed someone else. Another porker. That very night. Which is all very excellent, she will have done it for a reason. If it was indeed that lady who killed that cop. There are few lady killers. But your masters and mine seem to think that she killed another cop. What do you think?’

  ‘I think lots of things, but I’m not sharing until you tell me what you think. You show me yours, you know how it goes.’

  ‘OK. I think she was a distraction. I think she distracted you while her oppo, the real killer, went and did his dirty deeds. That’s how I would have done it. If I did such things, which of course I do not and never did.’

  ‘Nice theory. Distracting who? I was hoping to get laid, not to wander around for an hour in the nude coughing up chlorine water. And distracting me from what?’

  ‘Not you. You were the distraction, not the distracted. Although . . .’ Stoner almost smiled. Thought better of it, and hefted one of his coffee mugs as though weighing it to throw. ‘OK, then. You’ve rubbished my idea. Let’s hear yours.’

  ‘I think I was the target. I think she liked me. I think she deliberately killed someone else and let me go. I think you know that already and that you’re playing a fool or a sophisticate or something out there. I think you’re trawling for information which will help whichever investigation you think you’re investigating at the moment. I think you’re trying to mislead me, too.’

  Stoner smiled down at his coffee. Raised his eyes. ‘Why would she let you go? Professionals do not do this, otherwise they would either be dead themselves or out of work. Either way, they would no longer still be professionals. And if she could overpower a cop in his prime armed with nothing but her twat and a pair of good legs . . . she was certainly a pro. Most certainly. Did you fuck her? You carefully left that bit out.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘I have no idea. No idea about most of this, to be honest, but it all adds a little spice to the tale and its telling. Maybe if you didn’t, hey, maybe she’ll come after you for a happy ending. Maybe if you did, you were so ace that she was not only stunned into letting you go but she will come back and insist that you do it again. I am sure stranger things have happened. I still reckon that she wasn’t the killer. I reckon that if she’d been the killer then you would be one dead cop. So did you? Fuck?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Christ’s sake. Keep up. Her behaviour was bizarre. Utterly bizarre. What was your meeting, your conference, what was it about? Money, you said. You said that you move money about. What sort of money? Why do you move it? From where? To whom? You’re a decently senior plod, so it must be important. You’re at a posh hotel, so your constabulary pals must be decently senior. Just a moment. Was it all constables? Or was the guest list rammed with crims as well? A giant slush party? Handing over wads of taxpayer largesse to keep the villains under control?’

  ‘You do have a great imagination, Mr Stoner.’ Dave Reve appeared to be genuinely amused by this sudden flight of fantasy. ‘Mostly cops. Cops of one sort or another. There are several sorts of cops, as you must know, being who you are. In case you’ve not worked it out, I am the man who pays you. Sometimes. Although in the same way that you wouldn’t recognise me – I hope – I don’t usually have any contact at all with operators.’

  Stoner spat into his empty mug, sourly.

  ‘Operators? Is that what I am? An operator.’

  He appeared decreasingly happy.

  ‘You’re a transport consultant, if memory works. You supply advice to surprisingly senior officers in the intelligence community. Advice which, excuse me if my near-death experience has muddied my thinking, generally involves senior officers or their appointees hiring your services and indeed your vehicles to carry out tasks which are somehow logistically vital to the realm but which need not be specified to a mere money-mover like me. And as my figures are checked only by secure accountants I could be viewed by persons of a depressingly suspicious nature to be acting not only as a money-mover but also as a cutout between official . . . ah . . . officers and . . . ah . . . unofficial consultants. Of which you are one. A well-paid one, although my memory could be confused, as I’ve already suggested.

  ‘It could also be of course that I am not unique in the function I provide to, say, legitimate officials, and that from time to time my colleagues and I get together to . . . well, I doubt that the reasons we might get together could be very important at the moment. You specialise in Volkswagen Transporters, I believe? You have a fleet of them. They are wonderfully versatile and can be used in a vast variety of circumstances for all manner of unspecified but nationally essential jobs. Were I a curious man, I might even have observed that the noble and selfless taxpayer would appear to have paid you rather more than the cost of a large selection of Transporters over the last several years? Presumably they wear out fast. Maybe the service they provide proves fatal for them. Maybe they find themselves cut off in their prime?’

  ‘Rather like your own position in that respect?’

  ‘Exactly so. The same thought had occurred to me. It’s an unusual notion, to find myself comparing myself to a VW van, but life can be strange.’

  ‘Transporters rarely go swimming in the middle of the night with shapely assassins, though.’

  ‘True. Being human appears to have at least one advantage over being a VW van. Even though your own VW vans appear to cost a lot more than the life of, say, your average human.’ He smiled. ‘Any chance of a glass of water?’

  ‘Almost certainly. But I’d only drink it myself if it was boiled first and then probably diluted with alcohol to maim the more resistant bugs. It is a little early for that, though, and I do have some miles to drive.’

  Reve looked up, settled back. ‘In a VW van, presumably?’

  ‘Yeah. Whatever.’ Stoner flagged down the sullen waitress, both of them failed to smile, he placed an experimental order for water.

  ‘Why are we having this meeting? Pleasant though it might be, I confess a little puzzlement at the leading up to it. You were nearly but not quite killed by a tasty lady who seduced you in a swimming pool. You have a fine theory that after failing to kill you, which she was supposed to do for some as-yet unknown reason and for another unknown reason changed her mind and instead went off and killed someone else. It’s not easy to believe this. A long series of non-coincidences. I need to ask: why was she supposed to kill you, do you think? You’re a money man, nothing useful. No offence unless you want to take some. And if you do . . . well fuck you, hey?’
/>   ‘You’re supposed to know more about this than I do, Mr Stoner.’ A tinge of irritation, steel almost, in Reve’s tone. ‘You are supposed to be asking me relevant questions, getting answers which mean something to you and thus gaining something of an understanding of whatever it is that’s going on. You are not supposed to be sitting here like a sulky teenager, being ill-humoured and tricking me into drinking some seriously unpleasant mess in a cup.’

  Stoner pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Texted the Hard Man. Who replied as though he’d been sitting waiting for the call. Stoner replaced the phone in a leg pocket of his cargo pants.

  ‘You’re clean, then. Also cleared. I can tell you anything. Impressive in one so young. Information can be fatal. Think carefully. Do you want information? Do you wish to share my thinking on this? You can say no. Wives, families, pensions and the like can get awesome vulnerable, awesome quickly.’

  Reve nodded. Stoner shrugged.

  ‘Heads. You know about the heads?’

  Reve shook his own, a puzzled look fixed to the front of it. ‘Heads?’

  ‘As in severed. Cut off. Sat on hotel desks and filmed. Instant movies instantly uploaded for the instant furtive delight of . . . well, I’m not sure who, really. You don’t know about these?’

  Reve shook his head again.

  ‘OK. It’s guys. Always guys. We have a number . . .’

  ‘We?’ Reve interrupted.

  ‘Me and others. You don’t know them. If you do know them, it’s better that you can’t connect them. We have a number of headless bodies. The number varies depending on who you’re talking to and where you look. These things are never as definite nor defined as in the movies.’

  Interruption again. ‘Where? How d’you mean? A body’s either a dead headless one or it isn’t. Surely?’

  ‘You would think so. But it’s not clear. At first there was no obvious pattern to a bunch of increasingly messy killings. Plod was baffled, as you’d hope and expect. No offence, officer. But the bodies were complete. Well . . . all of the bits of the body would be in the killing room. Scattered around a lot . . . increasingly a lot . . . but all there. And there was an escalation pattern. The killings were getting worse. Messier. And someone was messing with the scene. Either the killer or someone else. I can’t get my head around a lot of this, not the least because I’ve only received the bulk of the data in the last twenty-four hours or so. And no, don’t even ask. I’m under no obligation to tell you who tells me what or in what order they tell it to me. The data is trustworthy, and I need to assume that it’s accurate so I can work with it. It may not be complete. Hence the caution. Hence my reluctance to claim facts.’

  Stoner paused, Reve stared at him. Wondered aloud whether something a little more fortifying than coffee – be it ever so strong – might help. Stoner agreed that it might indeed. But what? And where?

  ‘You have a car?’ Stoner raised an eyebrow in Reve’s direction.

  Reve nodded. ‘I have a Jaguar.’

  ‘Bully for you. I have a VW van. Let’s go take a drive in it to a place I know where they might serve a quiet drink to a constable without scowling a lot. Better yet; I drive, you follow. How’s that?’

  Reve shrugged. ‘I’m a family man. I know plenty of family-friendly places. You spooks like families, right? They make you feel safe.’

  ‘You’ve been watching too much TV. Children just make a noise, pretty young mums distract the eye. I prefer quiet dirty places where they serve beer from jugs.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Reve had the air of someone who truly cared not a lot. ‘Drive on, so long as you bring me back to civilisation at some point.’

  ‘That I cannot guarantee. You adept at following? Done the police course in chasing a tail for beginners?’

  ‘Mine’s a Jag, yours a van. I should be able to keep up.’

  Stoner smiled. ‘I wonder. Where’re you parked? Outside here on the double yellows which deny convenient parking to us mere humans? No doubt with a big bright badge in the screen to ward off the wardens? That sort of thing?’

  ‘You got it. I’m not a spook. I don’t need to hide. And the job needs at least one tax-free perk.’ Reve was standing, buttoning into his coat.

  ‘Yes of course, folk just try to murder you in swimming pools. We all love the quiet life.’ Stoner moved scarily swiftly to the door, leaving a crumpled banknote on the table. ‘When the big black van comes up behind you and flashes those big German headlights, pull out and follow. It’s easy enough.’

  And he was gone.

  To reappear as stated a few minutes later, almost before Reve had fired up, belted up and called up to the office. Stoner pulled up behind the Jaguar, flashed some lights, passed and led away and out of town. To a grand old country house hotel, where the staff were welcoming and discreet and the drinking hours flexible and discreet.

  ‘So why do you think the pattern’s changed? Why did the killer – is it one or more than one? – switch from a progression, an escalation, to filming dead heads? You will have a theory, I imagine.’ Reve stared at a soft drink. Stoner ordered a bottle of vodka and a litre of chilled water to chase it. And an orange. A healthy lunch. Balanced.

  ‘Drugs.’ Stoner busied himself pouring generous measures of the spirit into two glasses. He poured water for himself, pushed one of the spirit measures to Reve, who shook his head gently. ‘I think it’s a drug thing. Escalations and unpredictabilities often go together with dopers.’

  Reve sipped the mysterious fruit drink he’d ordered, twitched a little at its bite and shook his head. ‘A drugs thing? You reckon this whole business is about drugs? I don’t think I’m payman for any drugs ops. The paperwork I get is all national security, very occasional organised crime, very rarely political. Drugs, though. Don’t recall any drugs. Except maybe incidentally.’

  ‘No. The chopping of heads is a drug thing with the cartels of Mexico and parts of the States. It’s a way of attracting attention. Dunno whether they also film them, but they certainly leave heads lying around to make a point. I gather they also deliver them to the person they’re making a point to. Sending messages is important. You can see that it would have an impact.’

  ‘Would certainly wake me up!’

  Reve reached for the spirit bottle and poured.

  ‘Yes. I could be completely wrong, but . . .’ He ground to a slow stop.

  Reve prompted, waved his glass a little. ‘But? But?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard of a serial, an escalating killer, who suddenly shifts MO.’

  ‘OK.’ Reve pulled an encouraging face.

  ‘Can I show you something?’ Stoner stood, pulled a wallet from a pocket, pulled banknotes from the wallet. Reve lost his encouraging face, replaced it with a more honestly bewildered expression.

  ‘We’re dealing with the same thing, but you don’t actually understand, comprehend, recognise that thing.’ Stoner spoke with an air of decision; Reve responded only with blank confusion.

  ‘Grab your coat, grab your hat, we’re going somewhere quiet.’

  Reve’s air of wonder coagulated into an almost physical cloud of confusion. ‘We’re leaving? We just got here. I was just getting used to the idea of getting wrecked at the expense of the noble taxpayer, a worrying notion for public servants, as you know.’

  He made no move to leave. Stoner towered over him.

  ‘Come on. I want to show you something. Something which will increase your bean-counter’s appreciation of the realities of what’s going down.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Reve stood, only a little unsteadily.

  ‘What proper policemen call a body of evidence, I think.’ Stoner smiled a distantly grim smile. ‘It’s all in the van. The other van,’ he added, attempting to clarify a point which had quite plainly become lost somewhere in translation between them. ‘It’s not far. And we can share that drink immediately afterwards. C’mon; you might learn something today.’


  They piled into the heavy Transporter, leaving Reve’s smart car where it was, and headed out. Reve, in an excellent alcohol-fuelled humour, demanded to know what they were going to view. Stoner’s companionable silence was companionable enough, but it was also silent.

  As they swung through a complex traffic interchange, Stoner pulled into a faster lane to clear a dawdler, impressing an impressionably cheerful Reve with the sheer performance of the heavy Transporter, so Stoner glowered from driver mirror to passenger mirror, to central mirror and back to the driver mirror again.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he growled, mainly to himself.

  ‘Say what?’ Reve stared around, lost in the van’s lack of rear windows.

  ‘Some prat on a motorcycle.’

  Stoner accelerated the Transporter past the slower car, started to change lanes to allow an overtake, when a large, loud and very fast motorcycle stormed through an invisible gap between the Transporter and the car it had passed. The rider – or the passenger – banged gloved fist and booted foot against the van’s side and door as they screamed through a gap which was visible only to them. Stoner gave them no more room, continuing to change lanes, to close the gap between the motorcycle and the Transporter.

  Then the bike was clear and accelerating away, rider and passengers both gesticulating their disapproval of Stoner’s driving with a series of lurid gestures. The girl perched on the tiny rear seat, Lycra-clad knees held high, and clamped to the rider’s sides, demonstrated her view that Stoner’s virility may be a feeble thing, if a thing at all. Stoner watched, but did nothing, held to the speed limit as the bike accelerated away.

  ‘Stupid. Why pull that crap?’

  The bike had pulled off the carriageway and had parked up with a clump of other machines and their riders. The passenger climbed down and joined the rider and his companions; much vigorous gesticulation as the Transporter reached them. Dave Reve raised two fingers in salute as they passed. Stoner’s sigh was long and loud.

  ‘Dear, dear, the posturing policeman; now you’ll inflame their egos, prod their manhood, expect noise and bad riding.’