Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  ‘A Christmas holiday in Australia every few years by the looks of it. That’s when he sends the cards. Nice little trick if you don’t want the others tracking you down. I doubt he’d be impossible for New Zealand police to find though. Pretty small population, especially when you get to Victor’s age bracket.’

  The Tourist blinked in annoyance at his twitching ‘tell’. He had never been aware of it before. For the first time in his life, he wondered if he was past his best. The last couple of minutes had not gone well.

  ‘Tell me, Brook,’ he said, using the detective’s Christian name for the first time. ‘When you watched war films as a kid, did you want to be the guy who got the Nazis? Or the guy who got that guy?’

  ‘I wanted to be the guy who did the right thing.’

  ‘What a lazy answer.’

  They fell quiet as the waitress emerged from the kitchen again to clear the last of the clutter.

  ‘I was right,’ she smiled over another armful of plates and mugs. ‘Googled it. Columbo did have a glass eye.’

  Brook waited for the beads to stop swishing before seeking to capitalise on the shifting balance of power.

  ‘That bald guy claiming to be DS Beckford. What the fuck was that all about?’

  The Tourist opened his mouth to reply, then decided he had nothing useful to say.

  ‘Ex-police, maybe?’ suggested Brook. ‘He blagged it pretty well. Came close to shunting this whole thing into a siding right at the start. But all that business sabotaging the CCTV when the opening gambit didn’t work – pushing his luck a bit there, wasn’t he? And that name of a random Homicide DS for his fake warrant card…’

  Brook allowed himself a smile.

  ‘That was just picked off the e-mail system, wasn’t it? DS Chris Beckford – had to be a man, right? You lot really don’t give me much credit, do you?’

  ‘I’m sure you appreciate that not everyone is involved in every decision.’

  The implication was easy to detect – that fuck-up is on Barnes.

  ‘And the fascination with John Logie Baird? Or are you blaming that on Barnes too?’

  The Tourist hesitated, before deciding that knowledge of his Logan Baird alias was all that mattered – the reasons behind it were pure trivia.

  ‘It felt like a good fit at the time. I’d just seen a documentary on him. Television means far sight, you know? Seemed appropriate for someone making old Nazis pay for their crimes.’

  ‘So what’s your real name?’ asked Brook.

  ‘I think you’re well aware that you’ll never know that.’

  ‘And how did this little team of yours even come to exist?’

  ‘Same answer.’

  ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘Yet another thing you’ll never know.’

  ‘Then tell me how there are even enough Nazis left to keep you going?’

  ‘Oh, we’re very good at diversifying,’ replied the Tourist, sensing he was back on more comfortable ground. ‘Balkan war criminals, African warlords, the henchmen of Arab dictators… You’d be amazed how much evil is out there. How much can be wiped out in the time it takes for one show trial at The Hague. Now…’

  He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice to give the impression of earnest advice.

  ‘…You need to do what you should have done on that first night. Just walk away, DC Deelman. Have another beer. Watch some fucking sport. Let this all become an urban myth. And stop threatening to drag a brave, old war hero like Victor through a murder trial.’

  Brook reflected the earnest tone straight back.

  ‘My issue’s not with Victor. It’s with you. I couldn’t be sure until I spent some time with you. But I’m good at getting a feel for someone. And now I’m sure.’

  ‘You’re speaking in riddles again.’

  ‘Then I’ll make it simple. I’m not buying the heroic avenger bullshit. I don’t know about the rest of your team, but you’re not a man weighed down by some moral crusade. It’s the killing you like. Pure and simple. I’ve seen you on camera before and after – totally relaxed. That’s a talent, and I think you’re a man who makes the most of his talents. If you were charged and remanded for any of these murders while Interpol picked over your life, they would find bodies galore. The good, the bad and the ugly.’

  The re-appearance of the waitress allowed the Tourist to look to his left as she rounded the counter. It stopped Brook seeing the little twitch beneath his eye. The detective was right, of course. Well, half right. The jobs he did with Barnes, he did for free. He stayed in the cheap hotels, drove the cheap cars, lived a monastic life for a few days and killed people who thoroughly deserved it.

  But he did all that in a vain attempt to balance the scales on Judgement Day.

  In every other aspect of his life, it was only the price that mattered. No questions asked. And he had become a rich man out of killing all over the world. Very rich.

  Sure, some of the big money, no-questions-asked victims were probably bad people. He liked to tell himself that. And if he didn’t take a job, it would only go to someone else with the same end result. He liked to tell himself that too. But the law of averages said many of his victims were good people who didn’t deserve it. Political rivals, whistleblowers, embarrassing witnesses…

  Not asking questions was just part of the job. And, in turn – like a Foreign Legion recruiter – Barnes chose not to ask about the Tourist’s life beyond the role he fulfilled for him. However much he suspected.

  The waitress walked through the café to the front door, opened it, reached up and pulled a metal roller shutter two thirds of the way down before heading back.

  ‘You’ll have to duck on your way out, I’m afraid. You can have a few more minutes while we finish up in the kitchen though.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Brook, still keeping up the appearance of normality.

  The Tourist withdrew his hands from the table. Disengaging.

  ‘Well, I haven’t got time to sit here while you deal with your moral dilemmas. For what it’s worth, it’s pretty clear your case ended the moment that homeless bum in the churchyard refused to give you a statement.’

  The comment confirmed just how much Barnes was all over the investigation, relaying it all to the Tourist. It was increasingly clear that everything was an open book.

  Brook’s mind turned to the handcuffs in his jacket. The now-or-never moment was fast approaching and he was still in two minds as to whether to make the arrest. He had no desire to go into battle on behalf of old Nazis. Or against Victor Watson. But he was still a cop with a warrant card, sitting in front of a murderer… The Tourist’s voice cut through the conflicted jumble of Brook’s thoughts.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me now,’ he said, calmly.

  He stood up with that smooth action. All controlled power. Brook kept his eyes on him, waiting for something to nudge his decision-making process one way or the other.

  ‘Good luck doing the right thing, DC Deelman. Whatever that means.’

  It was a good sign-off. Dramatic. Thoughtful. Yep, the Tourist would be happy with that as a parting shot. He turned towards the front door just as the hanging beads swished again.

  ‘You off, darlin’?’ called the waitress. ‘That’s just eighty pence for the Coke then.’ She glanced at the table. ‘Even if you didn’t drink it.’

  Such small things.

  On which so much can pivot.

  Had the waitress never appeared, an undecided Brook would almost certainly have watched the Tourist open the front door, duck under the roller shutter and disappear forever. But his perfect sign-off had been spoiled. And small things can have big consequences.

  ‘Right,’ said the Tourist, patting the pockets of his unfamiliar hoodie. He found a few coins and took them out, dropping a couple on the floor.

  ‘Ninety pence, right?’ he asked, stooping to pick up one coin and giving up on the other as it rolled around on its edge.

  ‘Eighty,’ said the wait
ress.

  ‘Eighty. Right.’

  He sifted the coins in his hand, the cinematic coolness of his parting comment now very much a thing of the past. This was all very awkward. Losing face in front of Brook. At last, he stepped towards the counter, leaning in towards Brook as he passed. He couldn’t quite let the dent to his pride go – not without a clumsy attempt at restoring it.

  ‘Besides,’ he whispered. ‘Even if you got the homeless bum to make a statement, I’d make sure he never made it to court.’

  It was a comment heavy on bravado. But that didn’t make it an empty threat. Brook gave no visible reaction. The Tourist continued to the counter where the waitress didn’t appear to have registered the hushed remark. She was clattering through some old CDs, choosing which music to put on while she and the chef completed the final tasks of the day.

  ‘Ta, sweetheart,’ she said, taking the small sum of money.

  Relieved to have finally completed such a petty transaction, the Tourist turned to leave as the waitress disappeared with her chosen CD. At the counter, he was in the only public part of the café behind Brook’s table. As he took his first step, the detective’s eyes panned right in readiness for him. Then a hand landed on Brook’s shoulder.

  ‘You did well, officer,’ said the Tourist. ‘But you’re out of your depth.’

  Still trying to reclaim that lost pride.

  Brook raised his left hand from the table and brought it down over the patronising palm on his shoulder, his fingers wrapping tightly around the thick, well-trained wrist. The Tourist tried to wrench his hand upwards, but Brook was expecting it – and his coiled muscles were in a stronger position than the Tourist’s straight arm. The hand lifted an inch or two before the detective managed to reverse the movement, slamming the Tourist’s hand down flat on the table.

  Both men silently recognised they had just passed the point of no return.

  It was a whole different ball game now…

  Chapter 48

  ‘You really need to think about this,’ said the Tourist.

  Brook responded with the clear authority of someone who had gone through the formalities a thousand times before. Albeit never quite like this.

  ‘I’m arresting you for the murders of Karl Friedrich von Eberstein and Harry Wilson…’

  ‘Walk away, detective.’

  ‘…You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence…’

  ‘Walk…’

  ‘…if you do not mention when questioned…’

  ‘Away…’

  ‘…something which you later rely on in court…’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘…Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  For a moment neither man spoke or moved, frozen in a strange sculpture.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Brook, nodding at the seat opposite. His voice was firm, flat, indifferent. The universal don’t-fuck-with-me tone of cops the world over. His mind was moving on from moral dilemmas to physical practicalities – getting the handcuffs from his inner jacket pocket onto the Tourist’s wrists.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said again, tone and volume identical to the original instruction. The Tourist stayed still. Thinking. All those times he had ignored Barnes. All that stuff about dealing with this on his own. It was never meant to get messy.

  A static crackle came over the café’s four ageing corner speakers – the waitress in the kitchen clearly oblivious to the new developments as she hit ‘Play’… Then Benny Andersson dragged a finger down a keyboard and the opening bars to Dancing Queen filled the air.

  If the two men had any reaction to their new ABBA soundtrack, they hid it well. With his left hand still pinned flat to the table, the Tourist took a half step towards the stool in front of him and began to flex his knees as if to sit down. As instructed. Compliant. Brook silently urged him to keep going.

  His inner voice hadn’t quite finished the second word when he realised the Tourist was spinning the other way, pivoting around his trapped left hand and flashing his free elbow towards Brook’s temple. With so little time to react, the detective’s only defence was to duck his head and lift a shoulder.

  The block was only partial but probably prevented an instant KO – the lightning-fast strike deflecting upward off the shoulder and delivering a glancing blow to the corner of Brook’s forehead. No more phoney war. This was on. Twenty years of close combat military training versus 230 pounds of blunt force and will-to-win. ABBA signalled their approval of the fight with ‘You can dance. You can jive…’

  The elbow had barely finished cracking open the skin of his forehead when Brook gave up his prize of the Tourist’s wrist and surged up from his seat like an unleashed rodeo bull. His shoulder crashed into the other man’s sternum as he drove him back at speed, crossing the open space down the middle of the café and slamming him into a table on the far side. The combined mass and momentum was more than the fixtures could take as the table ripped itself free of both floor and wall, throwing up plaster and broken tiles.

  Brook kept driving his opponent back, the detached table clattering towards the one behind it. Off balance and unable to resist Brook’s barrelling progress, the Tourist switched tactics, going with the direction of movement then pushing off from the ground to launch himself out of Brook’s grasp. He skidded across both tables on his back before executing a neat backward roll and landing deftly on the far side.

  Brook could feel the blood from his split forehead beginning to pool above his eyebrow and run down the side of his face. He moved down the centre space to cut off the escape route from the Tourist’s new position and pointed straight at him.

  ‘Hands on your head! Hands on your fuckin’ head NOW!’

  Over the speakers, Agnetha and Frida were nonplussed by the commotion.

  The Tourist gave no hint of complying as his eyes flickered over the bloodied officer, formulating an attack strategy. He closed the gap between them quickly.

  Brook tried to grab a handful of hoodie, but a swift backhand to his outstretched arm made him lose his grip, leaving him upright and exposed. The Tourist was on him, blasting a flat right palm into the centre of his chest that removed all the air from Brook’s lungs.

  The aggressor withdrew the same right hand and followed up with a forearm smash to the throat. It was half an inch too low, the fearsome impact taken partly on the collarbones rather than fully on the throat. Even so, it knocked Brook backwards, prolonging the struggle for breath. The Tourist closed the gap again.

  In an act of instinctive defence, the doubled-over officer managed to raise his left hand into the hitman’s face to fend him off – pawing, pushing, reopening some of the gap between them. As a partial gulp of air reached Brook’s lungs, he threw everything into a straight right. Once again, the Tourist was too quick, leaning smartly to one side as the fist sailed harmlessly by.

  With Brook overbalancing, his opponent snapped a bladed hand into the bridge of his nose, flattening the bone a little more where a stray rugby boot had laid the groundwork years earlier. Capillaries burst in the skin around Brook’s eyes and he saw nothing but white, followed by a dream-like falling sensation.

  Somewhere deep inside his spinning mind, some piece of consciousness endured. A safe house in the white-out. Aware that his knees had buckled and he was falling to the ground, it sent out a counter-intuitive message to any muscles still receiving… Head-butt the table.

  Whether the instruction had any effect or not, Brook’s cheek slammed into a stool on the way down. The fresh jolt had the effect of bringing him round, albeit with the side-effect of opening up a new cut beneath his left eye. It started to bleed at a similar rate to the forehead. He was conscious again. But down. And taking damage.

  Brook had always been good at taking damage.

  Head still bowed, he gathered his limbs beneath him, blood from his injuries seeking out the lowest points of his face. A whole carrier of police officers may have been just fifty yards away, but the roller shutte
r and music ensured no-one was coming to Brook’s aid. Raising an arm to one of the fixed stools, he dragged himself round so he was at least facing the Tourist – even if he was still on his hands and knees.

  ‘I told you to walk out the door,’ said the unscathed man.

  Brook spat out some blood.

  ‘I will when I’m dragging you in cuffs.’

  The Tourist was standing a little more flat-footed than before. He had mentally checked out of fight mode and the springy alertness that came with it. Understandable, when the other guy was a bloodied mess. For good measure, he swung a parting ‘stay down’ kick into Brook’s midriff, just in case he thought about coming after him when he left the café.

  The strike was delivered without the snap of his earlier actions – a bullying sense of punishment replacing any respect for his opponent. It was only a ten to twenty percent drop in standards, but enough for Brook to see it coming. He tensed his stomach muscles as the kick hit home, instantly wrapping two vice-like arms around the ankle before ignoring every ache to spring to his feet.

  The Tourist’s eyes betrayed a flash of panic. He was definitely back in fight mode now.

  ‘Hold tight,’ said Brook, not quite finishing the words before throwing everything into forward momentum. Propelled back by his captured leg, the Tourist could only manage a couple of desperate hops before becoming totally airborne and slamming into his second table of the fight.

  Thanks to Brook’s standing start the momentum was even greater this time. He couldn’t tell which part of the other guy made contact with the table first. Back? Hip? Arse? He didn’t much care. Once again, the fittings blew apart; wall cracks spreading even further now. The table hit the one behind with such force that the explosive process was nearly repeated – stressed mountings creating rivulets of damage in the plaster.

  This time there was no wriggling free and fancy backflip as Brook gripped handfuls of the grey hoodie and slammed the Tourist onto the table top, his left arm pinning him like a felled tree as he finally got a punch in. What the haymaker lacked in precision it made up for in power, somehow managing to strike eyebrow, cheek and nose as it smashed into the Tourist’s face. The effect on the leathery skin was less than Brook might have hoped – and the muscular neck seemed to cushion the impact like a column of industrial rubber – but the eyes still lost focus for a moment. A result. However small.