Perfect Kill

by Helen Fields

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The warehouse looked innocuous enough. It had taken a mammoth feat of organisation to locate it. Visitors had come and gone from the flats in Wester Hailes all day, and on each occasion a different, unmarked, suitably banged-up-looking police vehicle had to tail the leads. MIT had used up almost every undercover vehicle at their disposal, including motorbikes, vans and an old minibus, too wary of the network of Scalp’s men communicating to drive the same one twice. Three journeys ended up at random houses, twice the destination was a shopping centre, one was a trip to fill up with petrol and return to Wester Hailes – difficult not to get spotted following a car to a petrol station and back again – but finally some of Scalp’s muscle men had set off out of Edinburgh mid-afternoon, and led them to the right place just as Ava was starting to give up hope. Since then, they’d been tentatively moving officers into the area. A few were having a meal at a local pub and watching the road outside. Others were just driving around the area. Most were stuck, freezing, in the fields and woodland surrounding the warehouse.

  Ava disliked the distance the warehouse was from any other buildings, and the fact that all the external lights had been deliberately disengaged. Someone had been more than just diligent in researching the perfect location. It was within easy reach of the city’s outer limits, but without the need to drive directly through the area’s small villages and arouse suspicion. Set in a former industrial area that had fallen into disuse when a motor parts manufacturer had decided that South East Asia was a cheaper bet, the building was currently unoccupied. The fact that the car park tarmac was strewn with chunks of rock pushed up by insistent weeds indicated that no one had been in occupation for a very long time. Given that research had been time-limited to just that afternoon, MIT had no idea of the internal layout of the building – not that the original blueprints would necessarily have borne any resemblance to its current layout. The rural location also ensured that it was practically impossible for Police Scotland to get many vehicles into the area without making their presence known. Later on in the evening, when the car park was starting to fill up, that would be an option, but for now they’d only chanced a pass with a couple of vehicles sufficiently muddied up to appear farmer-owned. Ava herself was in army-camouflage fatigues and lying on her belly in icy dirt under the hedge of a neighbouring field, watching the main entrance through binoculars.

  The problem with the nature of the building was that it would have been easy for the fire exits to have been jammed shut and probably also barricaded from the inside. She had teams in place to try those exits, but she wasn’t holding out much hope. The main entrance was a set of metal double doors – no window glass – and there were already two men outside those with bulky enough jackets that they could be concealing anything underneath. It was no amateur operation, and she was about to send in DS Lively, alone, without a weapon. Ava offered up a silent prayer to the gods of chaos, asking them politely to take the evening off, and crawled back out of her hiding hole, running under cover to the unmarked car parked at the end of a nearby field where Lively and Tripp were hunkered down.

  ‘Tell me you’ve had a message,’ Ava demanded.

  ‘Fuck all,’ Lively said, staring at his mobile.

  ‘It’s working, right? You’ve got a signal?’ she peered over his shoulder.

  ‘Been checking it every five minutes,’ Tripp told her. ‘All the messages from my phone have come straight in.’

  ‘Damn it. Is the coffee still hot?’

  Lively poured her a cup from a flask and she wrapped her hands around it, opening up a laptop and staring at the screen that showed her where her units were positioned in the vicinity.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure Paddy didn’t tell you what time to expect the message?’

  ‘Ma’am, he said he was going to try to sort it but that he couldn’t promise anything, depends on the list and on Scalp. It doesn’t matter how many times you ask me the same question, the answer won’t change.’

  ‘We’ve got to get you in there one way or another and it’s getting pretty bloody late. Tripp, do we have eyes on Scalp?’

  ‘Yes ma’am, and a reasonable photo of his face, but no identification as yet. He’s about five minutes away. DC Monroe is in the car behind him and updating us in real time. Looks as if there’s a bit of a convoy. At least three vehicles left Wester Hailes at the same time – two cars and a van, exiting from different roads – but they’ve followed the same route since then, headed in this direction.’

  ‘They won’t keep the doors open for a minute longer than is necessary once everyone’s here. Lively, how did the communications testing go?’

  ‘Wasn’t bad. Uncomfortable, but you’ll be able to hear my voice, and I’m not sure why the best option was to make the earpiece look like a hearing aid. I’ll take my mobile in too, but I’m guessing it’ll be taken off me, like it was at the flat yesterday.’

  ‘And all units are clear on the signal for police entry?’ Ava asked Tripp.

  ‘Yes ma’am, Sergeant Lively will say “epic”. We figured it was unique enough that we’d definitely hear it, but that it would make sense in the context of what they’re expecting other men’s reactions to be. Is that all right?’

  ‘Is it all right that women are going to be racing for their lives while an audience waits to watch them get killed, and the expected reaction is “epic”? No, Tripp, it’s really fucking not.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what I meant …’

  ‘I know it wasn’t,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’ll work fine, Tripp. It has to. Any word on the women yet?’

  ‘Surveillance didn’t get a good look, but the assumption is that the women are en route in the van rather than the cars, to keep them hidden from view.’

  ‘Right, I’m going back out then. How far away are our armed units?’

  ‘Spread out at various extended perimeters. Paramedics are in the nearest village, and we have fire crew on standby. Do you think we have enough backup, ma’am? Only there are going to be a lot of people inside that building. There’ll be gunfire. Scalp’s men won’t give in without a fight.’

  ‘Touch some wood, Sergeant Tripp. I’m not delivering any of my team to a hospital today. And Lively, do whatever it takes to get your arse in that building. We need eyes inside to lock these bastards up forever. Just don’t get yourself killed.’

  Ava hopped back out of the vehicle and returned to her earlier position, khaki hood up over her hair, settling in as comfortably as she could, knowing it would likely be an hour until she could move a muscle. The first car drove into the parking area just as she was established in her ditch, and newly covered with leaves. Four men disembarked, none of them the sort she’d want to share a dark alley with late at night. They laughed and joked, entirely at ease. No indication that they’d realised the police operation was on their horizon. That was a start. They greeted the men guarding the doors with shoulder punches and expletives, delivered with a side order of stupid grins. Ava grimaced. She didn’t want them to be a team. She had specifically hoped they wouldn’t be friends. Friends looked out for one another and fought back. They didn’t run at the first sign of trouble, or turn on each other at the blink of an indictment. The bouncer turned and knocked the door hard in a rhythm Ava couldn’t make out from a distance. The use of a code was basic but efficient. It was opened from the inside. No key entry from the exterior, then. They’d been too careful for that. The four newcomers disappeared inside and the door swung heavily and loudly shut behind them, proclaiming its impenetrability.

  The next car that pulled in was a Range Rover. A thug climbed out of the driving seat. Much as Ava tried not to judge by appearance, on this occasion she decided to let her prejudices rule her political correctness. He was huge, shaven-headed with a beard making up for the upper hair loss, gut spilling over the top of his black jeans, armless T-shirt in spite of the cold and encroaching evening, tattoos down his arm an actual list of previous conviction
s. Her binoculars told her he was claiming everything from robbery to bestiality. She’d seen her fair share of tattoos, but no one yet had had the audacity to set out his prior convictions in permanent ink. Then the passenger door opened, and out crawled a completely different shade of evil.

  Ava studied the man, checked her reaction to him, and looked again. There was nothing overtly visual that made her react so strongly to him. He was just a man. But that face, the sheer force of the hatred and the utter coldness of his expression, made her bed of early spring mud seem like a hot tub in comparison.

  Scalp. She didn’t need to know his real-world identity. He was made up of so many other men she’d met in her years as a police officer. He believed other people – women, in particular – were dispensable. He believed he was destined for something bigger and better. He was dangerous because he liked cruelty. She checked the weapon in its holster, pressing with painful reassurance into her ribcage. She and Scalp wouldn’t get on, and she had to make sure that her every action was born of necessity and procedure, not simply to rid the world of a man who seemed to walk in his own special patch of shadow.

  The van that pulled in right next to the doors diverted her attention. Scalp slapped one of the doormen on the back and said something that made the guard laugh way more than anyone naturally would. A desire to impress combined with a nasty case of being terrified would do that. The van’s rear doors were pulled open and two women climbed out, another male bringing up the rear. Ava saw no more than thirty seconds of the women, but that was enough. The first was older, walking with a stoop. She allowed herself to be helped into the building. The woman who followed behind pulled her arm away from the man who tried to guide her. Her head was up, eyes watchful and alert. Dark-haired, brown eyes, beautiful, with a jaw set that marked her resistance, Ava knew this was the Elenuta that Lively had described in so much detail in his initial report.

  Her view was obscured when a second van pulled in. Two more women disembarked, one carried over a man’s shoulder, the other dragged. Ava fed descriptions through her earpiece back to Tripp as the unloading of the vans continued. Lights were brought in, laptops, other miscellaneous computer equipment, and drones. If she’d stumbled across the activity by chance, Ava could easily have mistaken it for a reality TV set rather than the location of the world’s nastiest spectator sport. The set-up was completed twenty minutes later. The girls were there, the kit was in situ, and there was a multitude of muscle both inside and out. Ava shoved her gloved hands into her armpits to warm them up, and waited. It was 6.30 p.m. and other cars were starting to arrive.

  ‘Has Lively heard from Paddy yet?’ Ava whispered to Tripp through her headset. She heard Lively cursing in the background and knew the answer. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘They’re obviously gearing up to get started and the car park’s filling up fast. Fifteen minutes from now, we try to get Lively in there whether his name’s on the list or not. He’ll have to blag it. Make sure he’s ready.’

  By 6.45 p.m. Lively had a pocket full of used twenties, a hearing aid that he hoped like hell he’d never need in real life given the headache it was causing him, and the unshakeable feeling that something was really, really wrong. He’d been brought a car that he’d driven the three short lanes to the warehouse car park, guided by instructions from Tripp that were echoing feedback, to be met with a queue of vehicles that didn’t understand the concept of orderly parking. Still no text message, which meant he had to explain how the hell he’d found the venue before he could even start worrying about how he was going to get inside.

  What he really hadn’t been prepared for was the scale of what he was about to walk into. Warehouse – sure – it was going to be a big place. Out of town, made sense. But there were easily more than a hundred cars parked. Assuming they weren’t all single occupancy, that meant an operation that was more an out-and-out battle than a raid. In his earlier years he’d worked on the inside of football’s seedier side. Organised fights after the game. Gang-style crime within supporters’ clubs, extending to drug dealing and retaliatory violence. He’d marvelled at the scale of that, but this was something else. And on top of all that, he was winging it. Taking his time, tagging onto the end of a group of three other men, he walked towards the warehouse door, listening carefully to the men ahead of him.

  ‘Names?’ the security guard demanded.

  ‘Sam Whishaw.’

  ‘Jerry Blake.’

  ‘Barney Wheeler,’ the last one mumbled. ‘We’re on the list.’

  The guard ran his pen down a clipboard, ticking the names off.

  ‘Money?’ he held out his hand.

  Whishaw handed over a bundle, Blake counted his out in tens, and Wheeler went last, crumpled five-pound note after sticky note, most of it in a ball the guard had to flatten out, paying the last few pounds in coins. The guard gave him a look of disgust, but waved the three in.

  Lively took one final look at his mobile. Still nothing. If there were armed units hiding in the tree line at the end of the car park, he couldn’t see them. Wing and a prayer time.

  ‘Name.’

  ‘Jackie Thomson.’

  The guard checked the list once, twice, then gave Lively a look that most men would take as a cue to run.

  ‘Ah, fuck me. Is it not on there? That’s typical, that is. Is Paddy around? He can sort this out.’

  ‘He’s a bit busy right now, pal,’ the guard said. ‘Your name’s not on the list which means you’ve got no fucking business being here.’

  ‘Keep your hair on! It’s a fuck-up for me, too. Paddy was going to get my name on the list – he’ll get it sorted. Could you no’ just give him a shout so I can have a chat with him?’

  The guard stared at him, slipping a hand into his pocket, his fingers bulging around a shape of some sort. Lively didn’t want to think too hard about what sort of weapon he was holding.

  ‘I’ll call Paddy, then you’ve got sixty seconds to get this straightened out. Don’t you friggin’ move a step.’ He hammered the door in a rapid sequence, and it opened from the inside. ‘Get Paddy out here now. There’s some bloke thinks his name should be on the list. If Paddy doesn’t vouch for him, I’m going to have to tell the boss.’

  An impatient groan from beyond the door, then footsteps walking away. Lively waited a couple of minutes before the door opened again, and Paddy’s face appeared. Thunderous didn’t do it justice.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he demanded before Lively could greet him.

  ‘Aye, aye, I know.’ Lively put his hands in the air. ‘Let me just explain.’

  Paddy took him by the arm and pulled him thirty metres away behind the first row of parked cars.

  ‘You want to explain to me how I’m seeing your fucking face when I didn’t text you the details?’

  ‘Just a misunderstanding,’ Lively smiled. ‘Honest to God, give me a minute.’

  There was a gun in Paddy’s hand that Lively hadn’t seen coming.

  ‘I don’t like this. You’re fuckin’ up to something.’ Paddy was keeping his voice low, and Lively realised he could make that work. Paddy was just as scared of anyone finding out that he might have fucked up as he was angry at Lively for turning up without an invitation.

  ‘Listen, I followed Barney Wheeler here. Fat fuck was in our local pub a couple of hours ago. I was in there waiting to get the text from you. I recognised him coming out of the flats last night, same time as me. Must have been visiting the whores on a different floor, I guess. I knew he was a client so when I saw him in the pub, I listened in on his conversation. He was showing off about how he was going to fuck you all over with some funny money. Said he’d got hold of a load of counterfeit fivers. Good artwork, he reckoned, but the texture’s a bit crap so he was planning to mess them all up before he handed them over. Go ask your man over there if you don’t believe me. Anyway, I was so sure I’d get the message from you about tonight that I decided to follow him and make sure I was in the vicinity. I know I shouldn’t have
done, but …’

  ‘Stay there and don’t you say a bloody word till I get back,’ Paddy said.

  He walked back to the doorman, had a few words, then they began inspecting the mass of screwed-up five-pound notes Barney Wheeler had handed over. Paddy returned.

  ‘You still shouldn’t have come. Scalp said no late additions to the list.’

  ‘I get it. Bad decision on my part. I’ll go. At least you can give that wee wanker Wheeler what he deserves.’

  ‘Aye, the boss won’t like it if he’s been given dodgy notes.’

  ‘All right. Well, maybe that’ll make up for me fucking up. You’re a busy man. I’ll be off.’

  Paddy sighed.

  ‘You got the cash on you?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yeah, what’s due on the door and what I said I’d give as a thank you. Man of my word.’

  ‘Ah, fuck. Come on. I never liked that little cunt Wheeler. Now you’re here, you might as well come in. Boss won’t like it if anyone leaves the area before it’s all over, anyway. Not a frigging word to anyone else though.’

  Lively slid his hand in his right pocket and drew out the cash, holding Paddy’s share of it low enough that no one else was going to see the transaction. Paddy snatched it away, shoving it into his pocket, and motioning for Lively to get moving.

  ‘I owe you one,’ Lively said quietly.

  ‘Just keep your head down in there. Tonight’s supposed to run like clockwork, so no more surprises, right?’

  ‘Quiet as a mouse.’ Lively clapped him on the back. ‘You won’t even know I’m there.’

  ‘I’d better not.’ They walked to the door together. ‘Put his name on the bottom of the list. My fault. I’d sent him the message but forgotten to do the paperwork.’ Paddy disappeared through the door as the guard held his hand out for the entry fee, then let Lively through.