Malice (Rina Walker Book 3)

by Hugh Fraser

  We get to the house outside Pedreguer and Jack opens the gate, pulls the car in and opens my door. There’s a moment when I could try something as I get out, with Jack beside me and Danny getting out of the other side of the car with the gun, but I have to know what they’ve done with Lizzie, so I don’t make a move. They take me in the front door and through to the back of the house with the gun pressed into my back. Jack opens the door to the kitchen and Sammy Neal stands up. The slimy little weasel must have followed me, seen Lizzie and told the Teales where we were. I knew he’d done some work with them in the past and I’m kicking myself for not making the connection when I saw him in Denia. At the time, I remember thinking he was probably just another face who needed a bit of distance and was holed up in Spain.

  ‘She still outside?’ says Jack.

  ‘I haven’t moved her,’ Sammy replies.

  I hope my look tells him I’m ready to rip his head off as soon as I get the chance.

  ‘Go on,’ says Jack.

  Sammy opens a door, goes out of the house and walks round the pool towards the building on the other side. I’m jabbed in the back with the gun and I follow him. He takes a key out of his pocket, but Jack tells him to wait and goes to a window. He has a look in, beckons to Danny to bring me over and I can see Lizzie sitting on a bed. She looks up, sees me and runs to the window looking so drawn and desperate that I want to put my fist through the glass, but I’m pulled away as soon as I’ve seen her, taken back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. Danny sits opposite keeping the gun on me.

  ‘Cup of coffee, Rina?’ says Jack.

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Now there’s no need to be like that girl. We just need to discuss a bit of business, that’s all.’

  Jack sits down at the table. ‘Two black coffees Sam.’ Sammy fills a kettle and opens a cupboard. Jack turns to me and puts an elbow on the table. ‘Last time we met you knocked me out.’

  ‘Shame I didn’t finish the job.’

  ‘Now there you go again with the disrespect. I could walk out of here now and blow your girlfriend’s head off and you sit there giving me lip. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I had a bad upbringing.’

  A smile flickers across his face and he looks across at Danny and then turns back to me. ‘All right. Now listen.’

  His eyes harden as he leans towards me. ‘If you want to see that girl again you’ve got to do one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Kill George.’

  I look at him, then at his brother, who could see me off just by tightening his finger on that trigger, and decide the jokes are over.

  ‘Why me?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re the best there is and you can get close.’

  Sammy puts the coffee cups on the table. Jack picks one up. ‘You go back, do the job, Lizzie’s on the next plane home and so are we. Dan Garner’s wiped the slate with you about Brindle, he takes over George’s doings, and you’re a top member of the biggest firm in the country.’

  The only thing on my mind is how to get Lizzie away from these scumbags. I need to make them believe I’m going to do George, while I try and come up with a way of springing her. I turn away, as if I’m weighing it up, then I look at him and slowly nod my head. ‘All right.’

  ‘Good,’ says Jack.

  ‘One condition.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She is not touched.’

  ‘Three meals a day and use of the pool. There’s even a TV in there.’

  ‘Anyone goes near her and you know what I’ll do.’

  ‘Understood.’

  He drains his coffee cup and puts it on the table. ‘There’s a flight at nine o’clock. If we get over to your hotel and pick up your passport, we should be in Valencia in time.’

  We go to the car and I’m put in the front seat. Jack drives and Danny’s in the back with the gun in his hand. When we get to the hotel they take me to the room and watch while I pack my things and pocket my passport and what’s left of my pesetas. I gather up Lizzie’s clothes and her passport, put them in her case and tell them to take it to her. As I’m leaving I notice Rebecca on the table between the beds so I pick it up and stuff it into Lizzie’s case, to give her something to read. When we get downstairs, the old lady is behind the desk. She takes a look at Jack and Danny, standing each side of me like a couple of jailers, and seems mighty relieved when I ask for the bill.

  Danny keeps the gun on me as we drive to Valencia, while Jack’s silent at the wheel, with a grim look on his face. Maybe the consequences of what he’s doing are hitting home, now that he thinks George is really going out. Marlene will have been the power behind this and with her in Holloway, her little boys are on their own and throwing their lot in with a man they don’t know they can trust. Once Garner’s used them he won’t need them and he could well throw them away, but there’s no going back for them now.

  We get to the terminal, go to the BEA desk and Jack buys me a ticket for the nine o’clock flight to London. I check in, say goodbye to my suitcase, get a boarding pass and the man tells me to go to gate 12. Jack leads me to the glass wall of the terminal building and I get a view of a line of passengers boarding a plane.

  ‘If we don’t see you skipping up them steps in a bit, your lady friend might not be so comfy tonight.’

  ‘I’m doing it,’ I say.

  ‘And when you have, you call this number,’ he says, handing me a piece of paper with a Spanish number on it. I fold it and put it in my pocket.

  ‘Have a good flight,’ says Jack.

  I leave the two of them standing by the glass, go through passport control and on to the departure lounge. Ten minutes later the flight’s called and I wait in line to show my boarding pass and then go along the tunnel, round a couple of corners and onto the tarmac. We’re held for a moment while a baggage truck trundles past then we cross to the plane. As I go up the steps I look back and see the Teales watching me from the terminal building. The hostess welcomes me on board, looks at my pass and points vaguely down the cabin. I find I’ve got an aisle seat on the side of the plane facing the terminal. The other two seats are empty, so I lean over and look through the window, in time to see the Teales turn and make their way to the main doors of the terminal.

  The plane fills up and people stow bags in the lockers and sit down. I stand up to let a woman and a little girl into the seats next to mine. The woman takes the window seat and I smile at the girl as she sits beside me. When everyone’s on board the cabin door shuts with a bang, a steward starts making an announcement on the speakers and I start trembling and whimpering. The woman in the window seat looks at me and when I start blubbering, she puts her arm round the girl and pulls her close. I turn up the volume until I’m wailing and crying up a storm. Heads are turning and a stewardess is coming fast down the aisle. As she gets to me I stand up, shaking all over, ‘I can’t do this! I can’t do it! It’s going to crash!’

  She takes me by the shoulders. ‘Calm down please madam.’

  ‘It’s going to come down… It’s going to…’

  ‘Just come along with me now.’

  She takes hold of my wrist and I keep raving as she turns, drags me to the front of the plane and pulls me into the galley. The steward has a quick look at me, knocks on the door to the flight deck and goes in. I keep the shaking and the waterworks going as the stewardess tries to hold me still and calm me, while her mate pours a glass of water. The door to the flight deck opens, the captain appears and I get on my knees in front of him and start wailing. ‘Please, I can’t do this, I must get off, you’ve got to let me off.’ When I reach for the lapels of his jacket, the stewardesses pull me away from him and up on my feet and I hang my head and sob.

  ‘This woman clearly can’t fly. I’m calling the steps, ambulance and so forth. Keep her here until they come,’ says the captain, turning and going back onto the flight deck.

  I quieten down and the stewardess gives me some tissue
s, takes me to one of the crew seats beside the door, sits next to me and holds my hand. The other one brings me a glass of water and I sip it and give the odd snivel. The steward gets on the mic, apologises for the delay and explains that a passenger has unfortunately been taken ill and will be leaving the flight shortly to receive treatment. As he switches off the mic there’s the sound of an engine outside, a phone beeps somewhere above my head, the steward answers it and speaks in Spanish. They tell me to get up and go back into the galley, while they swing open the door and lock the steps into place. A woman in a medical type of uniform comes up the steps, takes a look at me and exchanges a few words of Spanish with the steward. She takes my arm and I go down the steps with her, hoping I didn’t upset the little girl who was sat next to me.

  The ambulance car takes me to a room in the terminal. The nurse takes my blood pressure, looks into my eyes, taps my knees and elbows and speaks to the airport official standing by. He speaks English and he tells me that the nurse hasn’t found anything wrong with me. I say that my dad was a fighter pilot who got shot down and killed in the war and that I’ve always been scared of flying. I thought I’d give it another try, but now I know that I really can’t do it, I’ll go home on the train. He says he understands and lets me go.

  30

  Before I leave the terminal, I go to the restaurant and sit at a table. When the waitress comes, I tell her I’m waiting for someone. As she walks away, I slip a table knife in my pocket and leave. When I get out of the terminal, I go round to the back of the building and make for a row of bins near the far corner. As I get near them I see a discarded table fan with a broken blade lying on the ground. I pick it up and use the knife to cut a length of single wire, about four inches long, out of the flex attached to it and put it in my pocket. I walk to the car park and check that there’s no attendants about, then I head for a row of motorbikes in a bay at the far end and pick on a nice looking BMW 250. I check there’s no one watching and sit astride it. I push back the cover of the ignition key socket, find the wires coming out of the back of it and follow them to the plastic connector under the fuel tank. I pull the connector open, stick each end of my bit of wire into the sockets and feel the bike switch on. I swing out the kick starter, bring my full weight down on it and the bike roars into life. I pull in the clutch, kick it into gear and head for the gate.

  I find my way to the coast road and enjoy the warm wind whipping my hair back and caressing my body, while the moonlight glistens on the sea. The bike’s got plenty of muscle but I keep it down to about sixty and a couple of hours later I’m entering Denia, and getting some looks from the lads out on the town. A boy on a moped comes alongside me, grinning and saying something I don’t understand so I twist the throttle and leave him behind.

  As I come out of Pedreguer, I’m wondering how I can find a tool of some kind. I get off the bike among the white houses at the bottom of the hill, where there are a few parked cars. I walk along past them, seeing if any boots or tailgates are open, in case there’s a tyre iron I can lift, but they’re all locked and it’s not worth trying to force them as it could be noisy. I go further along the road until I see a house with no lights on, no car out front and a cover over the pool. It’s got a big well stocked garden and a shed at the back of the house. I park the bike, shin up and over the wall and stay low behind it as I lope along to the shed. There’s a dead latch lock on the door and a leaded window next to it. I break the pane nearest the lock, nip round the back of the shed and wait. When I don’t hear anything, I come out, reach through the window, turn the lock handle and open the door. The first thing I see on the bench in front of me is a pair of secateurs. I put them in my back pocket and have a look at the rest of the tools. They’re mostly too big to be any use, except for a small fork that’s quite sharp on the points of the blades. I slide it in behind my belt, close the shed door as I leave and hop over the wall. I look up at the Teale’s place above and reckon it’s about half a mile away. I decide to leave the bike where it is and walk it.

  The hill is quite steep and when I get to the house I wait a moment while my breathing slows down before I climb the wall and drop down into the garden. There are no lights on and the car is parked inside the gate. I creep slowly past the house and round the pool to the building where Lizzie was. The moon’s on the wrong side for me to see anything through the window and there’s not a sound, so she must be asleep if she’s in there. I go to the door and have a look. There’s a mortice lock that I could open in two minutes, if I had my picks, but all I’ve got is a pair of secateurs and a gardening fork. I take out the secateurs, open the blades, and gently push one of them between the door and the frame. The wood’s quite soft and I’m thinking that I might just be able to prise the door open, when I hear a faint noise from inside.

  I steal across to the window and stand back so that the moonlight catches my face. When Lizzie sees me, she clasps her hands and puts them to her lips. I kiss the glass, point towards the door and go back to it. I kneel down and push one blade of the secateurs in between the door and the frame. I lever it back and forth and gouge enough wood out until I can see the latch. I close the secateurs and push both blades in behind it. As I stand and put my weight against the handles, to force the door open, I hear a noise behind me. I turn and see two figures running round the one side of the pool and another coming the other way. I drop the secateurs, take the fork out of my belt and swing it at the head of the first one to reach me. He dodges sideways and as I launch a kick at him, I’m grabbed from behind and wrenched backwards. I get a blow to the head and black out.

  • • •

  I can hear a faint chattering sound and see a fuzzy blurred shape in front of me. I try to move but I can’t. The shape slowly firms up until it’s a light bulb and the chattering slows down, gets deeper and becomes a man’s voice. I’m on the floor of the kitchen, my ankles are bound, my wrists are tied in front of me, there’s a crushing pain in my head and Danny and Jack Teale are sitting at the table with a bottle between them.

  ‘We’ll never be able to go back if we waste them, you fucking idiot!’ says Danny.

  ‘So what d’you want to do, let them walk and wait to be knocked off? She’s a fucking demon and I want to stay alive,’ says Jack, picking up the bottle.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘I wish Mum was here.’

  ‘So do I.’

  I look across and see Lizzie trussed up next to me. Her eyes are open and she turns her head and looks at me. Jack sees her moving. ‘Hey brother, the ladies are with us.’

  I roll onto my back and Jack gets up, picks up a gun off the table, stands at my feet looking down at me and pointing the gun. ‘Couldn’t stay away could you?’

  ‘Just let her go and you can have me,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, that’s it, yeah, so she can tell everyone we did it.’

  When he looks round at his brother, I lift my legs and kick at his knees with everything I’ve got. He goes over, catches his head on the side of the table and grunts as he hits the floor. The gun lands beside me and I roll over and grab it. Danny gets up from the table as I’m trying to get a grip of the gun with my hands tied and he’s on me and ripping it away before I can fire a shot. He stands over me pointing the gun at my head, takes a few deep breaths, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, then he pulls back the hammer and looks me in the eye.

  ‘Go on then, for fuck’s sake!’ says Jack, from the floor.

  I see Danny’s finger tighten round the trigger, and I close my eyes and hope he does it clean. There’s a bang, but I’m still here. I open my eyes and see a hole in the wall above me.

  ‘You missed, you stupid fucking cunt!’ says Jack, getting up on one elbow.

  Danny turns away. ‘I can’t do it,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ mumbles Jack, moaning with pain as he tries to hoist himself up off the floor.

  ‘Not to a woman,’ says Danny, putting the gun on the table.<
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  ‘I’ve done my fucking back,’ says Jack, crawling to a chair and levering himself onto it, gasping with pain. He grabs the bottle and takes a mighty swig. Danny takes it from him and does the same. Jack leans forward. ‘You’re a fucking wally, you know that? Can’t off a bit of skirt?’

  ‘Let’s see you do it then.’

  ‘I would if I could stand up.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Get the boy.’

  ‘You think he can?’

  ‘Just get him!’

  Danny looks at Jack, picks up the gun from the table and goes to the door.

  ‘Tell him to bring my piece,’ says Jack.

  Danny opens the door, shouts for Sammy and relays his brother’s order.

  I hear footsteps on the stairs and Sammy comes in, looking scared and sheepish, and offers the gun to Jack, who shakes his head. ‘You’re going to use it to plug these two.’

  ‘No fucking way,’ says Sammy, stepping back.

  Danny moves behind him and presses the muzzle of his gun into the back of his head. ‘If you don’t boy, I will blow your fucking brains out!’

  Sammy’s rigid with fear as he’s pushed slowly forward and round the table to stand in front of Lizzie and me. I try to engage his eyes as they flick between us but he won’t connect.

  ‘Do it boy, unless you want to die, right now,’ says Danny, pressing the barrel into him and pulling back the hammer.

  Sammy’s sweating and breathing heavily as he slowly raises the gun. He brings his left hand up to steady his right and his finger closes round the trigger.

  ‘Wait a minute Sammy,’ I say.

  He looks me in the eye, and for a moment I can see the boy I used to know, as he lowers the gun. Danny moves to the side of him and puts the gun barrel against his temple. ‘Fucking do it!’

  Sammy turns on him like lightening, slaps the gun away, kicks him hard in the bollocks and Danny cries out and grabs his crotch as Sammy makes a dash for the back door. As he’s unlocking it, Danny dives at him, turns him round, punches him on the jaw and Sammy hits the deck.