Dead Pretty (29 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Hakim ran at Stellachi. Something glinted in his hand. Then it was in Stellachi's chest, up to its hilt, the intricate inlays winking silver as the handle quivered back and forth. There was no sign of the blade. Stellachi was pushed against the wall by the force of Hakim's thrust. He looked at the boy in amazement, and the thin smile returned to his lips. Stellachi's free hand was on the dagger, but he didn't try to pull it out. His eyes were turning glassy as they turned towards Mark.

‘Life is full of surprises, my friend.'

He levelled the gun at Mark who tensed for a bullet that didn't come. He was sure that Stellachi was still able to shoot, it only took a touch on the trigger, but the Romanian let the gun fall with a soft thud onto the white carpet that was turning red. Stellachi's white polo-neck was also turning red, a stain that spread out around the knife. He sank down slowly to sit against the wall, still looking at Hakim.

‘So, the worm turned.'

Hakim could not believe what he had done. He looked at his hands, pushed them against his face, trying to block out the sight of the man he'd killed. Now both Stellachi's hands clasped the knife, as if preparing for a position of death, yet Mark still half expected him to pull it out with a flourish, even to spring up again like some immortal devil, but no, Stellachi died, looking at the mess he was making on his floor.

Mark checked his pulse to be sure, as Hakim began a low-pitched keening to go with his shaking. The boy had sunk to his knees and was trying to hug himself.

‘You'd better make yourself scarce,' Mark said.

‘Where I go? I don't have money. He did everything, controlled everything.'

‘Up until a minute ago.'

Hakim managed to approach Stellachi's body now. He touched his head, and lightly stroked his blond hair, but in the way one would stroke a snake.

‘They'll kill me,' Hakim muttered. ‘It's Allah's will, for
I
have killed. For all the years with him, I have killed.'

Mark put the copied pages back into his pocket and checked the street. Just a few stragglers about now, pounded by the rain. Even the window girls had clocked off. Hakim looked up at Mark, with the same bewildered face Mark remembered on Daniels the glue-sniffer, snot-nosed and afraid of his own shadow, his life ending at fifteen, in fear. Hakim was equally lost, but he had another chance.

It was an instant decision, the only type Mark ever seemed to make.

‘Get some overcoats,' Mark said.

‘What?'

‘Get a coat for him, and one each for us. Stellachi must have lots of them. Come on, you want to live, don't you?'

Hakim did. His face turned from despair to eagerness. Mark knew Hakim would attach himself if he could, like a pup changing owners. Mark was not so sure if Stellachi had wanted to live. He'd go over this moment many times in his mind, but would never come up with an answer why the man hadn't used the gun. Perhaps he wanted to check out in mystery, he was vain enough. Maybe he had other reasons. There was surprise locked in Stellachi's death mask, but perhaps relief also, even admiration, in his final frozen stare. Mark put his hands over Stellachi's, and pulled out the dagger. It had gone straight through the heart. Hakim wailed softly as he did so.

‘Don't faint on me now,' Mark murmured. ‘Help me get the coat on him.'

Hakim came back with three dark and expensive coats. Mark managed to put one on Stellachi. He took Stellachi's Rolex off, and handed it to Hakim.

‘Here. These go for ten grand. You might get half of that if you sell it on. Use the money to get away.'

Looking at Hakim's wild-eyed face Mark doubted that he could get away from anything, but he owed the boy.

‘Come on. Put your coat on, we're going downstairs.'

Mark put on the other coat, then checked through his stuff in the case Stellachi had brought to the flat. He pocketed his passport and the money, which Stellachi hadn't touched. Mark didn't want anything else. They dragged Stellachi up, Mark holding the body between himself and Hakim. They'd be three drunks on a night out, it was all Mark could think of. If they could get Stellachi into a canal it might save Hakim. Whether they'd still come after him was another matter, but Mark couldn't think about that now. He was alive and Stellachi was dead. Lena's killer was dead, which meant it was over, for him. Mark shut his eyes for a moment and brought Lena back, that first radiant time he saw her. He hoped she could rest easy now. He hoped he could.

The weather helped. Rain slashed at them as soon as they got outside. There was still music coming from the club, but it echoed onto an empty street. The doorman was sheltering somewhere.

‘Walk,' Mark whispered to Hakim, and they stumbled along the street.

If any of Stellachi's goons appeared now it was all over, but Mark didn't think they would. All the luck missing from his life was arriving now. It had gone into overdrive. It didn't make any sense that he was alive, it didn't make any sense he'd survived in the valley churchyard, but he had. Now he'd been saved by a terrified Arab rent-boy, but one whose fear had been conquered by hatred. Stellachi had talked about its power, and it had killed him.

Mark feared Hakim would lose it any moment, and bolt, leaving him propping up a dead man, so he tried to hold on to him as well as Stellachi. The Romanian still looked elegant, even with a leaking hole in his heart. They staggered into the alleyway that fringed the warehouse which had been Mark's prison. A brothel on the corner was shutting up shop. Its door opened and Mark was looking down at a dwarf, being shown out by a woman twice his size. She patted his head as if she was sending a small child to school. It was an amazing sight, but it fitted into this night. Anything could happen, anything was possible. The dwarf saw them.

‘All right?' he shouted, in an English accent, his eyes still gleaming with adventure. ‘I see you three have had a good night.'

Mark smiled and nodded, holding on tight to Hakim. The dwarf hung around for a moment, but when no one answered him he wandered back out into the main street, whistling tunelessly to himself, not minding the rain as he jauntily picked his way over the cobblestones.

Leaning Stellachi against a wall, Mark noticed that his face was no more ashen in death than in life, but the stare was unchanging now. He closed Stellachi's eyes with his spare hand. Stellachi's thin smile was frozen on his lips, it was the last thing Mark saw as he tumbled him into the black water. The body went down quickly in the heavy coat. On your way to hell, mate, I hope, Mark thought. You'll be at home there.

Hakim slumped against the wall and started to whimper again, Mark did not think the kid quite knew what he'd done. No one else would ever believe he'd managed to kill Stellachi either, which might be his salvation. Hakim tried to sit on the ground but Mark held him up.

‘You'll have to pull yourself together. Go back and clean up that place. Do a good job   you're used to it now. Keep the watch hidden and use it when you can. When others ask, say Stellachi went out to find me. That's all you know.
He went out to find me.
'

‘I can't … I can't.'

‘You
can
. You're going to have to, if you want to stay alive. Right, off you go.'

Mark pushed him firmly away, then caught hold of him again, for a second.

‘Oh, I almost forgot, thanks.'

Hakim was gone, scuttling away, head down into the driving rain. If the luck hadn't played itself out Hakim would get back and get to work on the mess before anyone came calling. Mark couldn't afford to think any more about the boy – he needed to get away himself, he needed to get home. If he disappeared now, and Stellachi didn't surface for a time, or not at all, maybe his masters would be satisfied. Maybe they would let it go now. It was a lot of maybes.

The notebook could stay under the floorboards in Anton's doss house, he wasn't going back there. If he was found and he had it on him, it would be worthless. It was almost three in the morning. No one was around, his only company was the odd neon light still on, red, blue, yellow, one a stuttering pink, lost without its punters.

Mark wouldn't fly again, that would remain a one-off. He tried to see the layout of the city in his head, he'd walked around it enough the first time he was here. He needed to get out to the suburbs, get a train from there, away from the airport, the ferry ports and the main stations.

Paris. The name came to him, then images of the place, Lena's face plastered all over the memories. Pain came back with it. It had been crushed out by action, but now it crept back into him. He stopped to rest his back against a wall for a moment, to fight against exhaustion. It was a good move, for Stellachi's two goons cruised past in a Volvo, Adam sitting like a rock in the passenger seat. They didn't see him, but might have done if he hadn't stopped. ‘Thanks, Lena,' he muttered.

As he left the district Mark wiped the dagger handle clean of prints, then stabbed it into a wooden alleyway door. He stabbed it in with all his force, shooting pain through his battered hand.

Mark walked the three miles to Rai station before dawn. Orange light was squashing out the night and the rain had stopped. He could have been picked off easily by a passing car but the Volvo didn't show up again. No one tried to stop him, no one got in his way.

From Rai he connected to Schiphol but never left the railway platform. In the way he'd perfected in the valleys, he made his large frame as inconspicuous as possible. No one gave him a second glance. They would all be looking for Mark the flyer. His luck held and he was in Paris the next night. His money was almost gone but his credit card, the one Lena had insisted he had, got him there. Stellachi's coat was his entry card into the hotel, the same one he'd shared with Lena. People only looked at the outside, and the coat was rich. He hid his hands as much as possible and had washed on the train. Mark thought about phoning Julie from the hotel, but decided against it. He didn't want her to hear his voice until he was with her. Just in case.

In his room Mark sat under the shower, checking out his array of bruising, and wincing as the water softened his smashed fingers. Drying off, he looked in the mirror at the face of a killer. It would always be the face of a killer but nothing unusual stared back at him. His face showed relief more than anything. He was too tired to care if he was truly safe. He had some food sent up to the room, ate it, then slept for twelve hours.

The way Mark approached Julie on the hospital concourse was almost normal.

‘How is he, then?' a voice behind her said.

Julie turned, and had to blink hard at the man silhouetted by the sun.

‘Oh my God, I thought I was hearing things.'

Julie looked up at Mark for some time, as if not daring to believe he was actually there. Then she looked around nervously.

‘It's all right, Mam. I haven't brought trouble this time.'

Julie buried her head in Mark's chest. Hesitantly, he ran a hand over her hair but no words came to him. She didn't need any.

In Paris Mark had sat in the café at the top of the Eiffel Tower, drinking coffee and checking out a city washed by warm autumn, sun. Lena was everywhere, and it was necessary that she was. This was the best he could do in memory of her. When he'd left the city, he felt cleaner, able to remember the good things.

Mark took the Eurostar to Waterloo and a train straight down to Swansea. He slept fitfully, and faces of the dead looked in on him. Kelly shuffled up the street, bad teeth, bad smells, but a decent eagerness. Tony bounced through the air, his gelled-up hair still in place. Agani clutched at his separating head with jewelled hands, and the two brothers burnt. Yet Stellachi was absent. He, truly, had been rubbed out, even if Mark still wore the man's overcoat. Underneath it his clothes were foul, though he'd bought a shaving kit and had used it.

‘Jesus, look at the state of your hands,' Julie said.

Mark tried to hide them in his pockets. ‘No worries. They're a sign that it's over.'

‘Is it? Is it, really? What the hell's been happening? God, I got so much to ask you.'

‘Not now, Mam. You don't want to know, really, and you haven't answered
my
question.'

‘What?'

‘Carl, how is he?'

‘Oh, he's good. He's making real progress.'

‘Did they ask anything awkward?'

‘Not really. We stuck to the story. I'll be starting to believe it myself soon.'

‘What about our adventure at the church?'

‘That's died down in the papers. They think there was one man in each car but they can't identify them. Carl says he'll even get insurance money for his Mercedes.'

The tears came now. Mark was surprised she'd held off for so long.

He felt her body rise and fall against his. People scuttled past them, slightly embarrassed. They'll think we've had terrible news, Mark thought, but it's all good.

‘Come on, take me in to see him.'

Carl woke up as Mark pressed a hand to his shoulder.

‘Bloody hell, it is you, Mark?' Carl blinked, and looked around the room.

‘I thought I'd croaked, and you were there to meet me. So, you made it, then? Hey, there's no one on your tail, is there? I'm in no state to …'

‘No, relax. It's over.'

Julie sat the other side of the bed and Carl held them both by the hand. His eyes started to water.

‘Fuck it, this is all a bit too much, this is.'

‘He's back, Carl,' Julie whispered.

‘Aye. I can see that.'

‘You must be a tough old geezer,' Mark murmured.

‘Not like you, son. Not like you.'

‘Stop it, you'll start me off again,' Julie said.

They sat with Carl without anything else being said. When Carl fell asleep, Julie touched his face lightly.