by Tom Wood
Then, just the leader with the knife. No threat at all. Victor could execute him or order him to drop the weapon.
All over.
Three or four seconds, total.
Victor sat and let it happen.
He had no skin in this game and every reason to let it play out as nature intended. If he stopped the robbery there was no way he was slipping out of town unnoticed. Those same investigating officers all set to ignore him would be poring over the CCTV footage and extracting every scrap of information from the girl, from the staff, from the customers about the man in the suit and the simple ease with which he had brought the incident to a fast, bloody conclusion.
Mossad, ever watchful, would be on his trail within hours, or perhaps minutes. He might reach the border only to be ordered into another waiting vehicle, with another kidon or the remnants of the first burning with vengeful intent.
And if not Mossad, he had many other enemies keen to pick up his scent should he needlessly leave it behind for them to detect.
Besides, he just didn’t care. A little over two minutes and the four robbers were heading to the door. Hurrying, but not rushing. None of the quartet so much as glancing Victor’s way.
All over.
Except it wasn’t, because the girl stood up before Victor knew what was happening—he hadn’t been paying her enough attention—and she was calling after the four robbers before he could stop her. She had ceased shaking, not because the anger had dissipated, but because she had decided what to do with it.
“How dare you,” she called out to them. “How can you do this? What is wrong with you? You’ve terrified all these people. You didn’t need to do that, did you? You chose to. How could you? And for what, for a little money you could have earned if only you weren’t so greedy, so lazy, so pathetic. How dare you.”
Despite the huge pupils, she was clear, she was articulate. A short, impassioned speech that had a tangible effect, that made a difference. The words hit home, Victor could see it in the robbers’ eyes.
It made them stop. Consider.
Then the leader took the handgun from the calm brother and killed her with it.
Four
A single shot that hit her between the eyes, between the huge pupils. Instant death. Not enough time to understand the flash, to hear the bang, to feel. No pain. No anything. Perfect way to go.
Victor sat still and watched it happen.
She had taken him by surprise in the same way she had taken them. There was a moment in which he could have intervened. He could have grabbed her arm while she spoke, wrenched her back down to the booth, but he had listened instead. Her words had stalled him, affected him as they had her killers.
He blinked, because the mist of blood from the exit wound swirled his way. Warm on his face. He tasted iron on his lips.
When he had wiped his eyes clean again, the robbers were gone.
The girl lay on the floor tiles, twitching in a lake of blood. People were screaming. Others were crying. The manager vaulted the counter and rushed to give her mouth-to-mouth. There was no point, but he either didn’t know or wouldn’t accept the reality. A decent human being, refusing to give up hope, desperate to beat lottery-level odds, praying for a miracle.
Victor sat and watched.
He was still sat when the paramedics arrived within a few minutes, when, moments after, the police arrived.
Not smart. Not smart at all, but there was an immovable weight holding Victor in place, an exhaustion that will alone could not overcome.
“What was her name?”
The responding officers were competent and efficient, controlling the scene and talking to witnesses and singling Victor out within seconds as the person who could help the most.
“You came with her, yes?”
He shook his head. I did.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t know.”
The officer was female, older than the dead girl but younger than Victor. She had a kind face and a stern tone. She introduced herself as Officer Stoyanova.
“How do you not know her name?”
Victor used as much truth as he could afford, because the dead girl deserved that. He told the officer about the bus, about falling asleep, about the high girl who latched onto him for inexplicable reasons. He only lied about where he was going, what he had been doing, and every detail related to who he was. Simple lies. Effortless lies. Yet they felt a betrayal.
He wasn’t asked about why he hadn’t ended the robbery. Stoyanova didn’t know Victor could have stopped it whenever he so wished. The cop didn’t know he had elected to sit and let it happen instead.
The paramedics had covered the girl with a sheet. Victor couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to those impossibly huge pupils. Would they remain the same in death? Did they shrink? Who was she when she wasn’t high?
He said, “How many times have they done this?”
Officer Stoyanova didn’t look up from the notes she was making. “How many times has who done what?”
“The criminals, the four guys. It wasn’t their first time.”
“How do you know that?”
“It would have gone flawlessly had she not stood up,” he said. “I can’t imagine many armed robbers are so efficient their first time.”
She accepted the explanation. A civilian could think like that. “This is the fifth.”
“First fatality?”
“Yes,” was her answer. “We’re going to need an official statement.”
“Sure,” Victor said. “Now or in the morning?”
“We’d prefer now. At least, soon. Once the detectives have arrived.”
“Can I get some air first?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
He stood. “Has anyone left yet?”
“No one’s allowed to leave.” She regarded him with suspicion. “You’re not planning on going anywhere, are you?”
Gone by dawn, whatever happened.
“No,” Victor said.
Outside, he looked at the parked cars. He had counted seven earlier. There were still seven, police vehicles and ambulances excluded. He walked the car park, looking for fresh tire marks. There weren’t any. There were no baseball caps fallen off in a hurry to get away. No anything.
A detective found Victor a few minutes later. Two arrived in an unmarked car and went inside the restaurant. Not long afterward one emerged with Officer Stoyanova, who pointed Victor out.
The detective went through the same questions and Victor gave the same answers. The detective lit a cigarette at the end and asked Victor if he minded. Victor shook his head to say it was okay.
“I’m told you asked how many times they’d done this before.”
Victor said, “That’s right.”
“Why?”
“You’re not going to ask me how I know it wasn’t their first time.”
The detective exhaled smoke. “You’re a man who notices things. That doesn’t require further explanation. But I’d like to know why a man who notices things wants to know about other things.”
“They’re related, isn’t that enough?”
“For most people. Not men like you, or me.”
Victor said, “She was a nice young woman. She didn’t deserve to die like that, killed by thieves who’d robbed before.” He paused. “Who should have been caught before.”
The detective took it on the chin with little reaction. “Are you so very perfect at your job?”
“No,” Victor answered with complete honesty.
“So why do you care? You didn’t care enough to know her name.”
Victor remained silent.
“You want to know it?” the detective asked through the haze of smoke. “She had ID in her pocket.”
Victor hesitated.
He wasn’t sure he deserved to know. The detective didn’t press the matter.
“Yes,” the detective answered to a question Victor hadn’t asked. “I am perfect at my job. If there’s evidence, I’ll find it. If there’s a way to get a criminal, I’ll find that too.” His tone bore no arrogance, only realism. “But it’s not always so simple. There’s not always a way.”
Something in his tone.
“You know who they are,” Victor said. "You just can't prove it."
The cigarette had over half left but the detective dropped it to the asphalt and stubbed it out with the sole of his shoe. “You can go,” he said. “We’re done here.”
I’m not, Victor thought.
Five
The detective’s name was Todorov and he spent a lot of time at the crime scene. Hours, in fact. Victor knew because he waited in a faded old Volkswagen that he stole from behind one of the tower blocks and drove back to the café, parking on the far side of the traffic island, on a side street where he could sit behind the wheel and see the glowing sign of the establishment and the car park before it and the cops going about their business.
He knew enough about law enforcement to predict the next few hours, the next few days. The only thing he couldn’t predict was: would Todorov have the four suspects dragged down to the station for questioning or would he go to them?
Neither, at least at first, because Todorov went home. An hour’s sleep, Victor assumed, then a shower, a change of clothes, a thermos of coffee. Victor waited. It was still night, but not for long. Not long left until dawn, until he had to be gone, one way or another.
He knew he was tired but there were no yawns, no drooping eyelids. He had been awake for days on end in the past. Worse than any torture he had endured, but he could and would do it again if he needed. The pain from his head, from his ear, had muted to a constant hum of discomfort. It should have been sutured by now. It should be healing. It was, but not in the right way. Every minute left to its own devices meant more scarring, more procedures to correct the scarring, more expense, more time out of action, more time drawing attention, more danger.
Victor sat and let it happen.
Todorov spent a few minutes on his phone and sipping coffee in the driver’s seat of his Citroën before he went to bang on doors. Two doors in total. The first was deeper into the town and led to a flat above a betting shop. Victor had to keep his distance and couldn’t see who answered, but he scaled the exterior of the bar on the opposite side of the street and from his vantage point on the roof made out four men talking in the flat. He couldn’t make out faces, just shapes, but of those four shapes one had Todorov’s bulk. Of the other three two were almost the same height and weight and the third couldn’t keep still.
The next door Todorov banged on thirty minutes later was opened by a young man who had to be the leader who had held the knife, who had shot and killed the girl. He answered the door wearing only boxer shorts, pretending to have recently awoken from the way he yawned and rubbed his hair. Or maybe it wasn’t an act. Maybe he had killed the girl and gone home and slept without trouble, with ease.
Todorov and the leader went inside after an exchange on the doorstep and Victor put the stolen Volkswagen in gear and drove back to the betting shop.
A short drive. Made quicker than the last because he knew the route.
Not professionals, but if they had a shotgun and pistols at the restaurant they could be armed now. Little chance of the same weapons, because they were evidence and Todorov had been unable to find evidence of their guilt for the four previous robberies. A few hours to survey and put together a plan would be enough, but dawn wasn’t going to hold off just for Victor, so Victor skipped the recon, he skipped the plan.
He kicked in the door.
It didn’t rebound because it thumped so hard into the interior wall the brass handle buried itself in the plasterboard and the door came to an immediate stop.
Hallway. No one. One interior door open to a bathroom that he cleared with a glance. Fast steps took him into an open-plan lounge and kitchen. A mess. Empty of two brothers and their nervous flatmate. A sofa bed had a duvet and pillow, so Victor knew the last door led to the flat’s only bedroom. Two single beds. Empty as well.
Mugs in the sink were a little warm from the hot beverages they had until recently contained.
Where would they go at this hour? Why would they go anywhere?
First fatality? Victor had asked.
Yes, Stoyanova had answered.
New territory for them. Perhaps they were panicking, perhaps Todorov had scared them in a way they hadn’t been scared before. Maybe the nervous guy had been freaking out. Maybe the brothers didn’t know what to do.
So, what would they do?
Call the leader, giving him a heads-up that Todorov was on the way and on the warpath, then they made coffee. Left.
Victor hurried back to the Volkswagen, drove fast back to the leader’s abode, arriving in time to see Todorov leave after a long, wearing conversation. He was shaking his head, exhaling hard. Angry. Frustrated.
Victor waited as Todorov returned to his little Citroën and drove away.
The leader waited a few minutes to make sure Todorov had indeed gone, then left himself, getting behind the wheel of a gray Subaru.
Victor followed.
Six
Dawn was coming. Unavoidable. Inescapable.
Blue was creeping into the blackness of the eastern sky. Still time, but not enough of it. Never enough of it. The leader drove at a snail’s pace. He didn’t want to take even the slightest chance of getting picked up by a speed camera. Victor kept his distance because there were so few cars on the road.
The leader stopped on a long, narrow strip of wasteland that bordered a motorway. Demolished factories, Victor assumed. There was a temporary fence and big signs announcing twenty-four-hour security, razor wire and dogs, but they were just for show to scare away delinquents and the homeless, so no trespassing kid hurt themselves, so no construction was halted by rough sleepers who wouldn’t move when they were told. The signs didn’t stop the robbers and they didn’t stop Victor.
A skeleton of a building remained on the other side of the fence. Concrete. Rebar. Low and long, the concrete pillars and posts covered in graffiti. Exposed rebar was bright orange with rust, even in the dark. That dark was fading fast, now only an aerosol of charcoal muting everything that an hour ago had been pure black.
Visibility was limited, but their voices were enough to pinpoint where they stood. They weren’t whispering. They thought they were all alone. They were discussing the robbery, the dead girl, Todorov’s visit. Victor only needed to implement a little stealth to come right up to them.
They formed a tight square, all facing inwards at one another. The nervous guy was restless, animated. The calm brother was stationary. The weak brother looked tired. The leader was telling them what to do, what not to do. They were going to get away with it as they had every other time.
“Why?” the nervous guy was asking, hands in his hair. “Why did you have to kill her?”
The leader shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Insurance,” he explained. “For the next time. We let one girl give us crap and the next time some meathead thinks to intervene because he wants to be a hero.” He shrugged again. “We tell people to sit down and shut up or else. We’re not joking. We’re not bluffing.” He held his hand out, fingers posed like a pistol. “That was the ‘or else.’”
“It’s done now,” the calm brother said. “Right or wrong, we can’t take it back. We let it go. Continue as normal.”
The nervous guy was not convinced. “We’ll be a priority now. The cops will be under pressure to bust us. They’ll always be watching. It’s over. We can’t ever do this again. No way.”
The leader said, “Look around. No one’s watching. We’re not w
orth their time. We know that for a fact.”
“Will you listen to yourself? You’re deluded. That was then. That was when we were only stealing. Now you’re a killer.”
The leader said, “Now we’re killers.”
“No. No,” the nervous guy insisted. “I’m not. That’s not what I signed up for. I need the money. I’ve got debts. I don’t want to hurt anyone. We never said we would actually hurt anyone.”
The weaker brother hadn’t spoken until now, and said, “Your gun was loaded, same as mine.”
“In case we had no choice. I wouldn’t have killed some girl for mouthing off.” He was shaking his head, lost and unable to find a way out. “We should run. We should split now and never see each other again.”
“No,” the leader said.
“We should run now while we have the chance.”
The calm brother said, “Maybe some quiet time is the right call.”
The leader was surprised by this reaction.
“A break,” the calm one explained. “Let the heat die down.”
“There is no heat,” the leader insisted. “We do what we do. Nothing changes. Nothing needs to change. Nothing has changed.”
The other three were silent.
“What else are we going to do? Get jobs? Go to school? It’s too late for any of that. People like us don’t get to choose. This is our life. We didn’t choose it but here we are.”
The leader smiled a little in reassurance. He put his hands on the nervous guy’s shoulders. “Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t enjoyed all this.”
The nervous guy didn’t respond.