A Reason to Kill (30 page)

He sipped a glass of milk as Marion washed the dishes, and insight exploded like blazing neon in his brain. It came to him like an express train bursting out into the sunlight from a dark tunnel. He hated plastic because of his mother. In his mind’s eye, he pictured her standing before him. She was wearing her favourite white plastic boots, carried a gold, plastic handbag, and sported bright red plastic talons that were affixed to the bitten nails beneath them. She dressed in the manner befitting a cheap whore. Strange how he had not realised until now why he could not abide the sight of the synthetic crap. His aversion to it had its foundations in his wretched childhood.

“Are you all right?” Marion asked. She saw that his almost black-filled eyes had a faraway look. He seemed to be focusing midway between where he sat and the back door. His top incisors had bitten into his lower lip, drawing blood.

Blinking rapidly, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded. “I’m fine. I just had a bad memory and a revelation all in one. Let’s get ready and go,” he said, before standing and offering her a weak smile.

The late evening had filched the light and warmth from the day by the time they had once more made love, then dressed and returned back downstairs to the kitchen.

“I’ll go out the back door,” Gary said. “Wait half an hour, then drive over to Wood Green, park up and take a tube to Earl’s Court. I’ll meet you there, if you’re not followed.”

“Is all this really necessary, Gary? I’m not being watched anymore.”

“So the cop told you. I choose to believe my own eyes. You should know that what people say and do are two different things a lot of the time. If I were Bartlett, I’d consider all possibilities, taking into account that we had been lovers. He’d be stupid not to at least suspect that you may cover for me, and get back in touch once you were convinced that no one was monitoring your movements.”

Marion felt in a frame of mind unfamiliar to her. She was at once both extremely fearful and highly excited. She had committed herself to an uncertain future with Gary, and was uplifted and stimulated at the prospect of shedding a lifestyle that had always been so mundane and predictable. She had spent so many years unfulfilled and without direction, always wanting more, but unable to pinpoint the element that was missing, and lacking the determination to turn herself around and strive to be the person she felt was trapped inside, trying to get out. Gary had saved her from further discontent. It was as if she had been vaccinated with a drug that unlocked the reticence, to unleash her spirit and a previously unrecognised aspect of her personality. She was liberated, set free from all constraints. Now out on The Far Side, as another Gary, the cartoonist, Larson, had christened his collective work. Danger held a certain fascination. The allure of the unknown was both seductive and exhilarating.

As instructed, Marion had her passport with her, and a few small keepsakes that she cherished. Gary had pointed out that events may make it impossible for them to return to the house. She went out to the car knowing that this was the first small but monumental step in a new direction. It was a new beginning; a bridge that spanned two separate worlds. Her stomach felt alive with unfurling, fluttering wings, and her heart rate doubled and boomed in her ears.

At the station, Gary listened as the rumble increased in volume, before the train burst free from the black maw of the tunnel and rattled to a stop with a heavy sigh. He watched from behind a pillar, lurking in shadow as Marion stepped into a carriage. He studied the faces and demeanour of the other passengers who boarded, and at the last possible moment – as the doors hissed shut – he rushed forward, barely squeezing through the lessening gap. He was almost sure that she had not been tailed.

Everything was going to plan. Before the night was through, both Barnes and Beth Holder would be dead.

DOM
dumped his clothes on the black-tiled floor of the bathroom. They were wet and stank of the cop’s blood. He then showered before dressing in sweats. The cop had suffered more torture than any other person he had personally dealt with. The guy wasn’t normal. Everybody had a fucking breaking point, at which time they would sell even their mother and children out to stop the pain. Not this one. It was apparent that he had some inbuilt fortitude that could not be overcome by physical abuse. His pain threshold was unnatural. But there was always more than one way to skin a cat.

Making his way back downstairs with a
·
38 Reck Cobra in his pants pocket, Dom went into the kitchen and asked Yolande, the live-in maid, to accompany him to the basement, which was accessed by way of a door in the hallway. The teenager did not question his order. Maybe her boss needed relief, which was something she was used to providing. He was insatiable, but it was small price to pay for her new life in the UK, which she enjoyed as an illegal immigrant.

“How’s he doing?” Dom asked Tiny as he pushed the maid towards the seated and bound cop.

“He’s sayin’ nothin’, boss. Just sufferin’ in silence.”

“This is Yolande,” Dom said to Nick, grasping his face in a vicelike grip and forcing his head up. “She doesn’t exist in the legal sense. She has no paperwork, so is just a piece of pussy whose death wouldn’t be an issue. Do you get my drift?”

Nick was ahead of Dom. The girl appeared to be sixteen, max. She was agitated; her dark eyes wide with fear as she stared at him and took in the bloody state that Santini had reduced him to. The gangster was making it vividly clear that as an undocumented person, who he had no doubt smuggled into the country, she would not be missed.

“Take off your clothes and kneel on the floor,” Dom said to the now whimpering girl.

She obeyed, removing her maid’s uniform, bra and panties with shaking hands, before hunkering down on top of the discarded garments.

“She has a twelve-month old daughter,” Dom continued as he drew his pistol and pressed the muzzle up against the sobbing girl’s right ear. “I’m going to count to three, then blow her fucking brains out if you don’t start talking. And if you still want to play dumb, I’ll fetch the kid down and wrap cling film round its head. What you have to decide is, how many innocent individuals are you prepared to watch stack up on the floor? It’s time to examine your conscience, cop, and to weigh up whether what little you know is worth more than just your own worthless life.”

“You rotten bastard!” Nick hissed through swollen lips.

Dom grinned. “Whatever it takes. Start by telling me the name of your handler.”

Nick gritted his teeth, glanced up to look at Tiny, then met Dom’s gaze but remained silent.

Dom lashed out with the pistol, catching the girl across the face with the barrel. She fell back, cupping her mouth as blood and fragments of broken teeth erupted from split lips.

“You should know that I don’t bluff, you piece of shit,” Dom said to Nick, a smile on his face. “One...Two...”

The sound of the shot was deafening in the windowless basement. The thunderous report had nowhere to go and reverberated off the walls, ceiling and floor.

Dom staggered backwards with an expression of dumbfounded surprise on his face. Dropping the Reck from limp fingers and falling to his knees, he reached up to clasp the seat of pain in his chest. He coughed once and expelled a bright, frothy torrent of blood, as he somehow found the strength to climb to his feet. The second bullet drilled through his forehead, high up against his receding hairline, and he was blown back by the impact, to half-turn and fall as his legs twisted and buckled under him.

Nick smiled as Santini’s face slammed onto the concrete floor with a sickening thud of finality. A gargling sound came from his open mouth. Both of his hands clenched, then relaxed as life deserted him.

“Thanks,” Nick said as Tiny moved forward, knelt next to the corpse and felt the neck for a pulse. The artery was inert beneath his fingertips. “You made the right decision,” Nick added as the big man rose to his feet.

Tiny glared. “Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, but don’t thank me, cop. I’m tryin’ to save my own skin, is all.”

“So untie me, and
¯”

The wall phone rang, and Nick, Tiny and the maid turned to stare at it, as if it was a three-headed dog.

Tiny went over and picked up. “Yeah?”

“What the fuck’s happening down there? I just heard shots,” Carlo Falco said.

“The boss just offed the cop. I need you to help me move the body,” Tiny said in a clear, controlled voice.

“I’m on my way,” Carlo replied.

Before he reached the bottom of the stairs, Carlo took in the scene. The man who he had believed to be Ray Lansky was tied to a chair, bloody but still alive. The maid was sitting on the floor, naked, her arms clasped over her mouth. Her breasts and stomach were streaked crimson. And he saw that Dom was face down in a spreading pool of blood. The most disturbing turn of events was that Tiny was holding a gun, two-handed, and it was pointing directly at him.

The loyal lieutenant dropped to his right knee and reached under his jacket to grip the butt of his own semiautomatic. He was fast, but had not even cleared leather when the first bullet crashed into him.

Carlo grunted, tipple-tailed down the remaining steps, rolled across the floor and came to a sudden stop up against the breeze block wall. He was still alive, facing Tiny, and made to raise his gun. Tiny fired again, and Carlo slumped back. Tiny didn’t even bother to go over and check him out. The hole above Carlo’s right eyebrow, and the splash of blood and brains on the wall negated any need to.

Had there been a CCTV camera in the basement, then Carlo would have no doubt observed the preceding events and would not have fallen foul of Tiny’s trap. The basement and attics of the house were the only areas not under surveillance.

“That’s it, man,” Tiny said to Nick. “It’s over. The rest of the men will do what I say.”

“Cut me loose and help me over to the phone,” Nick said. “I’ve got to make a call.”

Tiny nodded, set Nick free, then handed the cop his firearm before putting an arm around his waist and carrying him across the room as though he weighed no more than a sack of straw.

“Ms. Holder? It’s Marion Peterson.”

“Uh, yes, Marion,” Beth said. She felt a stab of disappointment at the call not being from Matt, but also a sense of curiosity. Why would Marion phone her at home?

“I know it’s late. I’m sorry to bother you at this time of night, but I needed to talk to someone. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

It was almost eleven. Beth rarely turned-in before midnight; had in fact just poured herself a glass of liebfraumilch, and was about to finish a report on a patient when the phone rang. She could hear the barely controlled distress in Marion’s voice.

“Where are you, Marion? At home?”

“No. I’ve been driving around for hours. I’m parked-up somewhere in Wandsworth.”

“Where did you get my number?”

“You’re listed in the phone book. I shouldn’t have phoned. I
¯”

“It’s all right, Marion. You’d better come over and help me drink the bottle of plonk I’ve just opened, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Thanks...Beth.”

Beth was about to inquire as to the nature of Marion’s problem, but the line went dead. She shrugged. The nurse was understandably stressed out following the traumatic experience of her recent association with Noon. She probably needed to off load her anxiety onto someone who knew the details of her ill-fated affair. The least she could do was lend a shoulder for the woman to cry on. She could sense the loneliness, vulnerability and desperation that Marion carried like a laden yoke. She would doubtless be suffering a total loss of self-esteem, and feel a certain amount of shame after acting so unprofessionally. She had been foolhardy. The killer had recognised Marion’s fragility and taken full advantage of her. As a psychiatric nurse, she should have known better than to be duped, but love had been a powerful ally in aiding Noon to compromise her. He was skilled at manipulating people.

Beth sipped her wine, then froze with the sudden realisation of a detail which had not crossed her mind, until now; her name and address were in the bloody phone book. She should be ex-directory; would change her number the next day, even though her address would still be in the public domain.

The intercom buzzed. She looked at the wall clock. Over half an hour had slipped by as she had considered selling the apartment, to move elsewhere and regain her privacy. The sense of being at risk was now monumental. How did Matt cope with the constant pressure of his current situation? What must it be like to know that someone who was hell-bent on killing him, knew where he lived?

She got up, went over to the door and answered the intercom. “Marion?”

“Yes.”

“Come on up.”

Marion pushed open the door as the lock was released. She walked across the foyer to the lift and thumbed the button to summon it. Gary held her hand, and kissed her on the neck as they waited. His hot breath, soft lips and darting tongue made her feel weak at the knees. The guilt she felt at tricking Beth was overshadowed by the pact that she had entered into with Gary. It was too late to change anything now. All that mattered was their future together. Whatever he did, she would get past, assimilate, and put behind her. It was time to think solely of her personal happiness. And Gary had promised that he would not hurt Beth. She was just a tool to use in the pursuance of drawing out the cop, Barnes.

Kyle Macy set the flask lid full of coffee down and reached for his binoculars as the couple exited the van and strolled across the car park to the well-lit doorway of the apartment block. After a few seconds, he sighed, tossed the glasses onto the passenger seat and reached down to retrieve his coffee from where it stood in the moulded cup holder behind the gear shift. Just a slim, bearded man and his overweight wife or girlfriend. They entered the building and vanished in the direction of the elevator, or lift, which Kyle thought a quaint UK term. Lifts, to him, were stacked heels on shoes, to give extra height.

He sipped the coffee and settled back to continue his vigil. Time was dragging, wearing him down. He was getting old. And it wasn’t just the mirror that reflected that fact each and every morning when he shaved off the greying stubble, but also his body. He tried to keep fit, but time always wins out. He hadn’t got the stamina any more. His back and neck were aching, and he was tired. He had to admit to himself that the passing years had dulled his concentration and love of the hunt. He was like an old knife that had lost its edge. He wasn’t as bright or sharp anymore. And if he didn’t get lucky soon, he was in danger of missing Janice’s twenty-first. That was something he didn’t even want to contemplate. Maybe it was time to quit while he was ahead. Make this his last job.

Could he have been wrong in his deliberations? Misgivings were beginning to form in his mind. Maybe the young shooter would not use Beth Holder to get to Barnes. No one remotely resembling Noon had entered or left the apartment block since he had staked it out. Although the slim guy who had just entered with a broad was the right height and build. Minus the beard, he could have been worth a second look at.
Jesus H Christ! He was losing his touch
? The beard, baseball cap pulled low to shade his face, and the female companion. It could all have been window-dressing. Closing his eyes, Kyle brought back the image he had seen through the binoculars to perfect clarity. The guy had kept his head low between his shoulders, and had looked ill at ease as he rocked from one foot to the other waiting for the door to open. The glimpsed features were right. Twin flashes of light in dark eyes that looked furtively...yes, furtively about. It
was
Noon. Clever boy! He, or the piece of skirt, had somehow persuaded the psychologist to open up. Was the dumpy broad someone she knew? Maybe being used by Noon as a way to gain entry?

Kyle’s scalp prickled. He was on the money; had just rolled the dice and thrown lucky seven. The only missing piece of the jigsaw was Barnes. And it was no stretch to deduce what would go down. Beth Holder would be coerced into calling the cop and ensuring that he visit, alone. They say that love is blind. Kyle agreed. It was an emotion that fucked-up perfectly good brain cells and played havoc with commonsense. Being pierced by Cupid’s arrow could be a blessing or a curse; it had been the ruin of many men and women. Barnes would walk straight into deep shit, and be brought down by the power of love, and Noon.

It was turning out to be a turkey shoot. He would wait for lover boy to arrive, let Noon take care of business, then lift the hitter when he left the building. Sometimes everything came together just right. Then again, it didn’t pay to be too brash. There was a flaw in his reasoning. He had personally never left the scene of a hit by the same route. Noon might also be good enough to cover all the bases. Surely his paranoid personality put him in an elite category. He would not discount any possible area of danger. Capping the mark was always only half of it. The job wasn’t a done deal until you were home free.

Kyle decided that only by being on site and in total control of the unravelling chain of impending events, could he be sure of the outcome. It all rested on Barnes showing up. If he did, then Kyle would be able to gate crash the soiree and bring things to a satisfactory conclusion.

* * *

There was already one casualty inside Hawksworth House. Kyle had followed an elderly woman into the building the previous evening, slipping through the door before it could self-lock.

Violet Fuller had survived World War Two, outlived three husbands, and was – despite chronic angina – still self-reliant and mobile at the age of eighty-eight.

Violet shared her flat with three cats: Charity, Mrs. Beeton and Tabitha. And although not without a tidy sum of money (untouched and accruing interest in the local branch of the Nationwide), she was thrifty, using teabags several times before disposing of them, and regularly feeding herself with the same cheap, canned meat that she put down to her pets, having determined that if it was good enough for her babies, it was good enough for her. An austere upbringing had patterned Violet’s frugal nature. She had been born and raised within earshot of Bow bells, and was proud to be what she considered pure cockney. Harold Barnes, her father, had been a slaughterman; her mother, Constance, a skivvy to a local doctor. The only surviving child of eleven siblings, Violet had long since come to terms with the frangible nature of life. Knowing that she was on the last knockings of her tenure on God’s good earth was of little concern to her. Death was not an issue that she was unduly preoccupied with. She lived from one breath to the next, made no plans, and was reconciled to the fact that, as her late and only friend of recent years, Gladys Chalmers, (who had lived next door to her on the fourth floor) she would no doubt be the next tenant to be carried out in a box. My, they thought of everything, she mused. The lower section of the back wall in the lift had a hatch that could be unlocked and opened to facilitate a coffin being removed from the building in a dignified manner.

All that concerned Violet was her beloved cats. She had made it clear in her will that they should be put to sleep after her passing. Mrs. Beeton was nineteen, a little arthritic, and slow to get going in the morning. Tabitha was only fourteen, but had a heart murmur. And Charity, the baby at ten, was highly strung, pining if Violet was away from home for more than an hour or two.

Violet did not recognise the man who followed her into the lift. He was smartly dressed, middle-aged, and gave her a warm smile.

“Which floor?” he asked.

“Four, please, luv,” Violet answered, recognising the man’s accent as being American. Her first husband, Grant, had been an American from Monfort Heights, a district of Cincinnati in southern Ohio. Grant had been tall and good looking, especially in his uniform. For a few seconds, she was transported back to the forties, to the Tower Ballroom in Shoreditch. As many young women at the time, she had been fascinated by the Yanks, who all appeared to be so outgoing, full of confidence, and in possession of an endless supplies of milk chocolate and nylon stockings.

Greg had a gravely, sexy voice, and the looks of Clark Gable, with his clipped moustache and strong features. She had been lost in his arms, with the local band – The Jimmy Dwyer Orchestra – playing Glen Miller music as the multifaceted, mirrored globe sparkled above them, revolving, casting magical dots of light on all below it.

Violet had become part of the mini exodus of British girls who married GI Joes, to leave Blighty and start a new life across the Atlantic. Only after Grant had died from lung cancer in sixty-eight, after having smoked three packs of Salem a day for thirty-two of his forty-nine years, had Violet realised that, without children – which she was unable to bear due to an anomaly in her internal plumbing that could not be rectified – there was nothing to keep her in America. She sold up and returned, back to her roots, where she was to meet Charlie Palmer and settle to a more humble life as a shipping clerk’s wife. Charlie had handled his mid-life crisis badly, and was to fly the coop in nineteen-seventy-five with a waitress from a Kardomah coffee shop, that had – to her way of thinking – been a superior precursor of the modern-day Starbucks and the like.

As Violet brought her last husband, Gerald, to mind, the familiar sound of the bell broke her reverie. The lift door slid open and she walked the ten paces to her flat’s door, to withdraw her key, insert it in the lock and open up, unaware of the American who was just a step behind her.

As the door opened, Kyle gently manoeuvred the elderly woman through it and quickly closed it behind them. His only interest was in procuring her key card to the entrance door, though the theft would necessitate unavoidable collateral damage, by way of silencing its lawful holder.

Deep pleats formed in a heavy frown on Violet’s mottled brow as she turned to face the intruder. “What do you want? Are you going to rob me?” she asked.

Kyle gave her a reassuring smile, fighting the impulse to grimace as the acidic stench of cats’ piss assaulted him. The soles of his wingtips were sticking to the matted carpet. “What’s your name, lady?” he asked.

“Violet,” she answered.

The fishy smell of her breath backed him up two feet. “Well, Violet,” he said, after swallowing hard. “I’m not here to rob or harm you. I just need to borrow your key card to the outside door.”

“So that you can burgle other residents?” Violet said, adopting a recalcitrant pose with her hands on her hips and her chin pushed up and out in defiance. “I don’t think so, young man.”

“Jesus, lady! I was trying to do this in a civilised manner,” Kyle said, grasping her by a fleshy upper arm and bundling her through the apartment and into a bedroom.

Violet felt bright anger blossom, which was replaced by fear as she was pushed roughly onto the bed. Charity and Mrs. Beeton growled, leapt down from the duvet and fled the room. Was he going to rape her? She was a very old woman, surely safe from sexual assault. But only last week there had been a report on the news of a pensioner in Romford – supposedly in secure, sheltered accommodation – being raped, then strangled.

“Do you live here alone?” Kyle asked.

Violet did not reply, but the look in her eyes was answer enough. That was all he needed to know. He had chosen wisely. It might be weeks before this reclusive old broad was found. He moved fast, straddling her, pulling a pillow down from the top of the bed to cover her face. He then drew his silenced gun, pressed it firmly up against the feather-filled linen covering and fired twice, putting two low-powered, soft-nosed slugs through her head.

Violet jerked beneath him as though she had been plugged into an electric socket, and then went limp.

He worked quickly, and within ten minutes had left the building with the means to re-enter safely stashed in his wallet behind the photograph of his wife’s and daughters’ smiling faces.

Violet could not have imagined in her wildest dreams of how her life would end. After dispatching her, Kyle had used two large, black garbage bags to encapsulate the body, taping them together to form an airtight covering, before placing the corpse into the chest freezer in the kitchen. The three cats were on top of their late owner, also bagged-up, their necks broken. He quite liked cats, but could not risk leaving them alive to howl and attract attention.

Now, waiting for the cop to arrive, or for the man he believed to be Noon to leave, Kyle allowed himself to think of his family. He was a self-made man, who through his own enterprise and endeavour had become extremely wealthy; able to care for his wife and daughters in a manner that gave him a great deal of satisfaction. He was the consummate hunter; a provider without equal in his chosen profession. He offered a service, and in common with Noon, had always delivered the goods. Pride supposedly cometh before a fall, but he could not help but feel a certain degree of amour propre. Had there been an official ranking system for contract killers, as there was for golfers, tennis players and the like, then he had no doubt whatsoever that he would have been at the very top of the list. Number one seed.