Girl Seven (15 page)

Isaak rolled his eyes.

‘She’s right,’ the driver said. ‘If she dies, we have no need to know what she did or did not do. If she comes back, then we have little need to worry about her methods.’

I was beginning to get some sense that the driver had the most authority of the three. They all acted as though they deferred to Alexei, but I wasn’t so sure about that now. When Alexei changed his mind I found it hard to believe it was simply because he was responding to a reasoned argument.

‘So when do you want me to go in?’ I asked.

‘Tonight.’ Alexei turned to face me, looking eager to see my reaction. ‘Any problems with that?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘Are you going to tell me what I’m looking for?’

‘We’ll tell you when you leave. The less time you have to think, the better.’

Bullshit. He was going to wrangle as much control away from me as he was able.

The best I could do was act as though this didn’t bother me at all, and pack for every eventuality. It struck me that I wasn’t even entirely sure what Issa Taggart looked like.

‘Meet us outside tonight at half past eight.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Four hours enough time for you? You can wash your hair, paint your nails, whatever it is girls do.’

I looked back out at the house and didn’t think the small knife taped to my back was going to be enough after all.

‘Better take me home then,’ I said.

In a state of frenzy I emptied out a small travel bag and packed a couple of kitchen knives in addition to the one on my person, some strong tape, some socks that I could use as gags, some hairspray, cigarettes...

I realized too late that they hadn’t given me time to find a way to disguise myself. As I sat in the back of their car on the way back to Issa’s house, I realized that maybe that had been their plan all along. They knew I couldn’t take the risk that Issa might identify me later, so this was a test of loyalty. They expected me to kill him.

‘How do you feel?’ Alexei asked, grinning at me.

I am sitting on a mountaintop.

I didn’t reply, doing my best to clear my mind and meditate. I was sure there had to be a way. There had to be a way of getting in and out of the house without any death. But if there was, I couldn’t think of one.

My teeth hurt and I realized I was clenching my jaw.

‘We are expecting you to find up to sixty thousand in cash and some cocaine. Though we do not know how much of that.’ Isaak turned to me. ‘Nervous?’

I might have predicted that amount of money, but hearing it said out loud seemed ridiculous. I’d never touched even a fraction of that sort of wealth before. ‘Do you have any idea where it’s gonna be?’

‘That is for you to find out. You are the one who can find out
anything
?’

Every time Alexei spoke I wanted to kill him. It was going to take every shred of self-control I had not to shoot him as soon as I was given a gun.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Do I get a weapon?’

Isaak smirked, and handed me something that looked as though it should have become obsolete a century ago. It was barely bigger than my palm, despite being oddly heavy.

‘What the fucking fuck is
this
?’ I snapped, holding it up. ‘I’m going to want him to tell me where the money is. If I shove this in his face he’ll just laugh and offer me some fucking Lego to play with!’

‘It’s a Derringer,’ the driver said. He was still wearing sun­glasses even in the low evening light. ‘You only get one shot. You’ll only need one. We have been watching the house and his wife is out.’

‘Pilates,’ Isaak added helpfully.

I scowled at the tiny weapon.

‘We couldn’t give you enough shots for all three of us, could we?’ Alexei smiled. ‘But then, you said you could use a gun so you will have no trouble with that, I am sure.’

They wanted me to fail, just to save them the effort of killing me themselves. They didn’t think for a second that I would come back with the money.

I looked out of the window for the rest of the journey until the driver pulled over and I got out of the car without a word.

The people carrier in the driveway was gone.

Sitting on a mountaintop...

‘I won’t be more than an hour.’

Alexei might have said something but I’d already swung my bag over my shoulder and slammed the door.

I’d chosen to wear my black jeans, sexy black high-heeled Dr Martens, lace vest, leather gloves and no jacket. I’d moved the knife from my back to the inside of my boot, as a jacket would have been too restrictive. I paused to apply some dark red lipstick in my hand-mirror, took a deep breath and carried on walking.

I could feel them all watching me from the car, wondering what on earth I was going to do.

I am sitting on a mountaintop...

Oh, fuck off.

I waited for a moment, then rang the doorbell, hoping that an adrenalin kick would carry me through.

A tall silhouette appeared behind the glass.

When the door opened I saw that he had no need to put the safety latch on. Issa Taggart was a huge black man in his early thirties, with a friendly face and the biggest hands I’d ever seen; hands that looked as though they could wrap around my skull and crush it.

‘Hi,’ I said with a professional smile. ‘Mr Taggart?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Noel Braben sent me.’ I looked up coyly from beneath a sweep of my hair, playing up the submissive Japanese stereo­type as much as my urge to vomit would allow. ‘As a thank you for all your hard work for him. A gift, free of charge.’

I figured it could only work to my favour if I spoke a little like English was my second language. It made most men speak to me as though I was mentally retarded.

Issa Taggart scanned his road over the top of my head, decided that no one could see us and stood aside to let me in.

I bowed my head to him and did as he indicated.

His house had the appearance of one that was in the midst of the awkward transition from home to a young rebellious couple to family haven. Ornaments and cheap-looking nude oil prints were all jam-packed into high places while the stairs were shielded by a child-gate.

He led me into his living room, which looked as though it wanted to be messy but had been forced into a state of unnatural cleanliness, namely by shoving all items into the corners of the room or stacking them under chairs and coffee tables to hide them from sight.

There was a derelict fireplace that had obviously never been used, but there was a holder full of pokers and tongs next to a flayed leather sofa.

‘My, um... wife will be back in two hours.’

I put my bag down without much noise. ‘I will only stay for as much time as would please you, sir.’

He seemed to relax a little the more he stared at me.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked.

‘Whatever you would like.’

He smiled. ‘I like Asian chicks like you. I’ll bring you wine. Where are you from, Thailand?’

I gritted my teeth as he left the room to go to his kitchen, and silently moved one of the pokers from its holder to slide it down behind one of the sofa cushions.

There were a couple of photos of his young wife and new­born baby above the fireplace. His wife was extremely pretty; about the same size as me.

‘Japan, sir,’ I said.

‘Ain’t no woman called me “sir” for a long time!’ he called. ‘You can come again! Bet I’m too broke to afford a chick like you every day though. Am I right?’ He laughed to himself.

It never ceased to amaze me how stupid men could become when they were offered sex. I couldn’t imagine any woman letting a stranger into her house on the promise of being able to come multiple times within an hour.

I waited for him to come back through to the living room.

He handed me a glass of red and I pretended to sip it, even though the smell alone was almost enough to make me gag.

I was starting to seriously doubt my ability to knock him out and restrain him. He was so fucking big. It would be like hitting a shed. If I was a second too slow he would smash me to pieces.

Taggart sat down on his sofa with his wine and appraised me.

‘Noel ain’t never done nothing like this for me and mine before,’ he said, baring a set of distractingly white teeth.

‘Mr Braben is very selective.’

‘So you’re here for as long as I want? You do whatever I want? Really?’

I nodded, malleable as snow.

‘Take something off,’ he said with a glance at his watch.

I pulled the lace vest over my head.

I wasn’t wearing a bra.

‘Come here.’

He put his wine to one side and beckoned me forwards.

I approached him, took both vast hands in mine and strad­dled him. What felt like paralysing fear to me would probably just look like sexual arousal.

‘Close your eyes, sir,’ I said, undoing his belt and pulling at the buttons on his jeans.

With a last wistful look at my tits he did as he was asked, with this big stupid grin on his face.

I took the heavy iron poker out from behind the cushions and stepped back and out of his grasp. Before he opened his eyes I gripped it tight in both hands and brought it crashing downwards and sideways, as if I were swinging a baseball bat, into the side of his head.

There was a sound like someone dropping a melon.

He made a dull protest, flattening against the sofa as a trickle of blood ran down his jaw.

His eyes were half open.

Holding my breath, I swung the poker again. Not quite as hard, but hard enough.

His eyes closed.

After putting my top back on I dragged Taggart’s vast bulk to the floor and set about wrapping him in so much masking tape that I was on the verge of mummifying him. Once I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to move either his arms or his legs, I stood up, sweating, and called the Russians to let them know that I had Taggart under control and I was going to find the money.

‘OK.’ Alexei sounded surprised, but sceptical. ‘Call when you do.’

I rang off, muttering, ‘Well fuck you very much, dickwad.’

Putting a cautionary piece of tape over Taggart’s mouth, in case he regained consciousness while I was absent, I started walking from room to room, trying to put myself in the mind­set of someone who had a lethal sum of money to hide.

I stared at the kitchen and opened and closed a few cup­boards.

It was fruitless; I could tell already. The money wasn’t going to be put in any old place. Chances are he had a concealed cabinet, a loose floorboard, a cupboard with the top and back removed, or a hole in the wall behind a bookcase. Fuck, it could have been in the baby’s room.

There were dirty clothes slung over the banisters and some socks had fallen down on to the stairs. I surveyed the land­ing and put my head around the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms. There was an attic too, situated ominously over the stairs, with no visible way of reaching it.

I sat down on the master bed for a while, hugging a cushion. I thought I’d feel more shaken by having to bash the man’s head in, but I didn’t feel much at all. I had become strangely accustomed to that.

There was a book on physics on their bedside table called
Parallel Worlds
, by Michio Kaku.

I took it downstairs with me and put it in my bag.

Sighing, I knelt beside Taggart and gave him a small shake. When he didn’t respond I got his glass of wine and poured a little over his face. After a few seconds his eyes flew open.

I stood up and leapt backwards as if he was going to grab me, and remembered that he couldn’t.

The eyes widened, refocused on me, narrowed, and then he began shouting from behind the tape.

I walked away, breathless, and retrieved the stubby little gun from my bag.

‘Look,’ I said, returning to where he could see me clearly. ‘Look, this is nothing personal. I don’t know you. I’m work­ing for someone else. Just tell me where the money is. I have these... I have these knives in my bag and if you start scream­ing and stuff when I take that tape off your mouth I’m gonna take a finger or something, OK? So just don’t do it... Because I really don’t want to do that. It’ll be really fucking gross. OK?’

I leant down and ripped the tape off.

‘Who the fuck
are
you?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Now can you just tell me where the money is? Because if I don’t have it when your wife gets back, and your baby, I’ll kill them.’

I wasn’t sure if I meant it.

He seemed pretty sure, spluttering, ‘Fuck! Fuck, this is fucked-up!
Fuck
...’ while blood dried on his face.

‘Hey!’ I snapped, waving the gun at him. ‘Money! Now!’

‘If I tell you, you gonna kill me anyway.’

‘Maybe, but... You know what, I probably will because now you’ve seen my face and stuff, since I didn’t have time to bring a goddamn fucking wig, I’m gonna have to so that you don’t rat me out to Noel.’ I spread my hands. ‘But I promise I won’t kill your wife and kid. I won’t if you just tell me where the money is.’

‘
Fuck...
’

‘You think
you’re
fucked? I didn’t want to do this! I’m not...’ My voice was getting shrill. ‘I’m not a bad person, OK? I’m not a fucking psychopath!’

‘You are psycho bitch!’

‘I’m not, I...’ I stopped and sighed, my face in my hand. ‘I’m not. I’ve just got to do this. So tell me where the money is and I won’t kill your family.’

He was breathing unnaturally fast. ‘You gonna kill me, fuck... Please... Please!’

I felt the tears rising in my throat but I forced them down. ‘It’s you or me. Now where’s the money?’

No answer, just breathing.

‘Where is it?’ I shouted.

Nothing.

I put the gun down, took the kitchen knife out of my boot and rammed it into one of his exposed fingers.

He howled.

I dropped the bloodied knife, stood up again and kicked him. ‘Where the fuck is it?’

‘Please please please...’

‘I’ll cut your fingers off, I fucking promise I will!’

Nothing. He just screwed his eyes tight shut, thrashing on the floor and shaking his head from side to side. For a moment I was worried that the tape wouldn’t hold, then the energy left my legs and I sat down on the carpet.