How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (6 page)

FIFTEEN

FERGUS

18:00

Killing people and disposing of the bodies are two different skill sets. People don’t always think about that. Some people can take someone out, but are terrible at the clean-up. Others can make a body disappear, but struggle at turning a person into a corpse.

I’m at the top of the game because I’m good at both.

And I charge accordingly.

Joe has only paid me for the hit on this one. He wanted people to find Martin Mitchell. He wanted the death to make the news. So I’m halfway down a homemade burrito when Joe Pepper finally calls about the bodies. Joe is a decent guy. A good client. He always explains why the target needs to die, and most of the time he’s telling the truth. He pays my whole fee in advance, which not many people are willing to do in the present financial climate.

(It’s getting tough to be a killer in the city.)

The problem is, all clients think they know the job better than me.

Maybe that’s universal. I expect someone who hires a roofer will then stand and tell the roofer exactly how it should be done. A plumber probably has to listen to a thesis on how to connect running water from the jamoke who hired him. And so it goes for me. It doesn’t matter that I’m the guy you hire so that you don’t have to worry about the dirty work, you’ll still want to feel like I need direction.

I know Joe’s going to call me. My little mess-up changes the game. But he’s taking his time, and the idea of a burrito has been calling at me all day. My taste for them comes from the two years that I spent working in New York, when I first went freelance. But now they’re everywhere. I think there are half a dozen places within two square miles in Glasgow, and I’m not complaining.

So I’m halfway down a barbacoa, with pinto beans and guac, when I get the call.

‘Hi Joe.’

Joe doesn’t bother with a greeting. ‘Is this line good?’

Joe’s with a political party, and those guys are obsessed with the thought that the newspapers might be listening in. And, let’s be honest, they’ve got a point.

I have a contract phone in my own name, and Joe has that number, but it’s never used for business. When I’m on the job, I rotate burners, a new one for each hit. I destroy the SIMs once they’re used.

‘Aye,’ I say. ‘This one’s good, don’t worry. I’ll be switching it tonight.’

‘I’m at the flat,’ he says. ‘What the fuck?’

Joe and me have a pretty easy-going relationship. But I can hear the nerves in his voice, and this isn’t the time to make with the funny.

‘Want a hand?’

That’s a euphemism, really. Offering to help is
really
me offering to step in and clean it all up. For extra money, of course. When Joe says, yes, I tell him I’ll be there in thirty minutes.

It’s only a twenty-minute walk, but I want to finish my burrito.

Food of the gods.

SIXTEEN

ALEX

18:00

Alex still hadn’t told Kara about his plan. He’d been too self-conscious to do it before, too aware that it sounded a little bit mad. But now that he was following through, and meeting with professionals, it was time to fill her in.

She’d be important, after all. She was the one who would need to play along, grieve in public and collect the money.

Kara had been in meetings all day and hadn’t returned any of his calls, so Alex decided to turn up at her work and surprise her. He drove out to Firhill, the football stadium where she worked. It was the home of Partick Thistle, a small football club that couldn’t help being stuck in the same city as two of the biggest teams in the world.

Alex had found the location confusing when he first moved up here. Partick was farther to the south. It was part of the West End, where the students and hipsters lived. A football team based there could have been like a smaller, more Glaswegian version of Fulham, a club that aimed for some kind of hip boutique status.

Firhill wasn’t down in that part of town, though. Almost as if the people who owned the team had wanted some kind of street cred, the football club bearing Partick’s name was actually based in Maryhill. This was to the north of the city, and was much poorer and more run down.

It was fun to wind Kara up, though, so Alex still called it the West End.

Alex parked around the back of the stadium, in the staff-only area behind the Jackie Husband stand, and walked into the main reception. The young man behind the desk smiled and nodded a greeting. He had short blond hair and looked to be wearing foundation. The staff here always remembered who he was, because most of them worked for his wife and valued their jobs, but Alex could never remember their names.

‘Hi, Mr P. Looking for Kara?’

He nodded that he was.

‘She’s up in the bar,’ the young man said. ‘She’s meeting with someone, but I’m sure she won’t mind if you let her know you’re here.’

Alex mumbled a thank you and headed up the stairs. Firhill wasn’t a large stadium. Space was limited, and most rooms served multiple purposes. The main bar was used on match days for corporate hospitality and private parties, but on weekdays it was often where staff would hold meetings. Although the bar itself was officially closed during the week, there was always someone around who could serve Alex a drink and find him a seat. And he never knew their names, either.

Kara was sitting at one of the large round tables near the bar. She was talking to another woman, someone who wasn’t doing a great job of wearing a suit. It was creased and bunched up around her elbows, and Alex could smell the kind of spray deodorant in the air that he knew Kara would rather die than use. Kara turned to look at Alex as he walked in, and there was a smile that followed a few seconds later.

Kara stood up, and the young woman followed.

‘Hi babe,’ Alex said. He stepped closer and leaned in for a kiss.

Kara wrinkled her nose and then turned her cheek toward him. She’d smelled the booze on his breath. Alex knew she wouldn’t call him on it while she was in business mode, but there would be a slight dig later on.

‘Alex, this is Sam.’ Kara gestured to the young woman, who put a hand out for a shake. ‘Sam, this is my husband, Alex.’

‘Hiya,’ Sam said.

There was a light behind Sam’s eyes. One of those people who’ve got a lot going on
up there
, Alex thought, that you want to find out about over too many drinks at a bar. That is, if she wasn’t standing next to Kara. Alex had never met anyone quite like his wife. She was tall, and had poise, some kind of presence that made people notice when she walked in the room. Her parents had moved over from Kenya before she was born, and even though she was pure south London, there was always a little foreign tilt to her words that drove him nuts. And after three years in Scotland, a touch of Glaswegian had started to find its way into the mix.

‘Sam’s a private investigator,’ Kara said. ‘Isn’t that amazing?’

Alex caught both the slight patronising edge to Kara’s words and that Sam picked up on it. But all three of them moved past it and onto the next thought.

‘I’ve never met a real PI,’ Alex said. ‘It must be an interesting job.’

‘It has its moments,’ Sam nodded. ‘But mostly it’s routine stuff. I serve a lot of legal papers, take pictures of cheating husbands.’

That hung in the air for a second, and Alex couldn’t help wondering what Kara was meeting with a PI for. Was someone at the club up to no good? He turned to smile at her, and she read the question that he wasn’t asking.

‘Oh,’ she said. She paused, and looked from Alex to Sam and back again. ‘Someone’s been mailing death threats to the club. To the players, I mean. Sam’s going to look into it.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ Alex said.

Kara was lying. Alex knew that much. He didn’t know the details, but it didn’t matter. They each had secrets about their jobs. Alex had never told her where the company’s money really came from, and there were things that went on at the club that Kara didn’t talk about. That was fine. Alex had worked with enough footballers to know there’s a code of silence over certain issues. Football isn’t like a normal job. It’s show business. There are certain pieces of information that need to be controlled, and if Kara needed to bring in a detective to look into something that was going on at the club, it probably wasn’t any of Alex’s business.

There was another pause. Alex realised Kara’s meeting with Sam hadn’t finished.

‘Right, sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you kids carry on. I was just wondering,’ he touched Kara softly on the arm, ‘if you wanted to go out for dinner, maybe?’

Kara leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks, but I’ve got another couple of meetings after this. I should be home in time for us to get a good takeaway in, though. Watch a film?’

‘Sure.’ Alex managed to hold his smile in place and not look disappointed. ‘No problem.’ He put his hand up in a half wave at Sam. ‘Nice to meet you.’

On his way back down to the car, Alex smiled. The rest of his plan had just come to him. He’d seen how bad Kara had been about explaining why Sam was there. She’d fumbled, and then told a lie, and there had almost been a sign above her head announcing that she wasn’t telling the truth.

No way would she be able to go along with pretending he was dead. She’d give the game away in a second. The cops, the doctors and, especially, whoever it was that came looking for the money, they’d know something was wrong. It would be better if she believed it. Just to begin with, until the heat died down.

So. Okay. That was the plan sorted.

He needed to fake his own death.

And he couldn’t tell Kara he was doing it.

SEVENTEEN

SAM

18:00

I’d never known what to make of Kara Pennan.

The club had first hired me to look into some threatening letters sent to them. She’d been friendly and gracious to me at the time. That changed once I started fooling around with Milo. I was a threat to the business. They still wanted my services as an investigator, but she became cold and aloof, and treated me with the kind of polite contempt that I assume they teach at schools down in London.

Standing in front of me at that table, she was shifting between the two. One second, the mask would be in place, the next I’d be seeing something else, something more nervous and tender. Then the mask again. It was like she was fighting to decide which version of herself to present.

I went with the only response I could think of.

‘The little shit. What makes you think that?’

She liked that. She gave me a very real smile and then waved for me to take a seat. I pulled back a chair and sat at the round table. Kara sat down beside me. She made a show of picking up her phone and turning it off, so that I knew I was getting all of her valuable time.

‘He’s been acting odd,’ Kara said. ‘He’s out all hours, and when he comes home he either smells of alcohol and nightclubs or, worse, he smells of nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

I understood what she meant, and why it was a bad sign, but sometimes it’s best to pretend. Kara liked to be in control, and I would get more out of the conversation by letting her lead it.

She fixed me with an aloof expression, putting me in my place. ‘You’re single, aren’t you?’

‘Yep.’

Excellent. That meant she was buying it.

‘Well, if he comes home smelling of nothing, at the end of a long day? After being in the office in his suit? And then wherever he’s been after that? To not smell of any of it? It means he’s had a wash. It means he’s covering something.’

‘He could just be working late, washing at the office because he doesn’t want the first thing you see of him each day to be a tired and sweaty guy.’

‘He has a phone that he thinks I don’t know about, too. A second phone. It doesn’t show up on his bank statements, so I think it’s pay-as-you-go. I’ve seen it a couple of times, it’s a small black thing, flip top. It’s got
buttons.
’

‘Wow.’

‘Right? He goes out of the room sometimes, touching the pocket that it’s in, like he’s about to take a call or answer a text. Other times, I’ve seen a big stack of mail come through the door in the morning, but later on about half of it’s gone, like he’s hiding some bank or credit card statements from me.’

Did married people spy on each other’s bank statements? Not for the first time, the whole marriage thing seemed alien to me. I’d never been with a man that I really trusted, certainly not one I’d want to share my life with, but I clung on to the idea that marriage should be to someone I
did
trust.

Kara continued. ‘He had a couple of travel brochures come through the door recently. Holiday destinations. But he never mentioned it, and the brochures disappeared.’

‘And how have you two been getting on? I mean, you’ve listed a load of stuff there that sounds bad, but it’s all in how the two of you are, aye? It could all be innocent.’

‘He’s been distant in the last couple of months. He’s always looking over his shoulder when we’re out, and he doesn’t talk much. It used to take a gag to get him to shut up, he always wanted to share his opinions.’

‘He’s from London, too, aye?’

‘Yeah. We came up for his work. He’s never liked it here. He thinks everyone’s out to get him, because he’s English. But I keep telling him, I’m English, too, and I love it here.’

There was something off in what she was saying. More to the point, it was in the way she was saying it. The confusion I’d noticed at the start, between the two different personas, had carried on. She was switching in and out, sometimes in control, sometimes nervy. The more she did it, the more it felt like a performance. Was she playing me?

The door at the far end of the room opened, and a man in a suit walked in. He looked familiar, like maybe I’d met him at a club party or something. He seemed tired, and a little empty, but he hid it all under a fake tan. He saw Kara before me, but then I couldn’t help but notice he kept looking at me more.

Kara stood up, and after a few seconds so did I.

He looked from me back to Kara. ‘Hi babe.’

When he leaned in to kiss her, I figured out he was the husband. See, I’m a detective. I pick up on clues like that. Kara offered her cheek for his lips, then turned to bring me into the conversation. ‘Alex, this is Sam. Sam, this is my husband, Alex.’

‘Hiya,’ I said.

There was alcohol in his eyes. His jawline was starting to soften with a couple of extra pounds, and he carried himself like he was in denial about it.

‘Sam’s a private investigator,’ Kara said. ‘Isn’t that amazing?’

There was a patronising edge to Kara’s words that I didn’t like. Maybe she’d not meant it. She could have been trying to mask the awkwardness of Alex coming in, but all I heard was, ‘This is Sam, she has a funny little career, isn’t that cute?’

‘I’ve never met a real PI,’ Alex said. We shared a look that told me he’d noticed the edge to Kara’s words too. For just a moment, we were on the same side. ‘It must be an interesting job.’

He looked me up and down again. I sometimes wonder; are men even aware of how often they check out our boobs? Like, is it a conscious thing, or just the way their eyes work? Kara’s tone, plus Alex’s wandering eyes, were putting me in a bad mood. I decided to play rough. ‘Mostly it’s routine stuff. I serve a lot of legal papers, take pictures of cheating husbands.’

I watched for their reactions.

Alex looked blank. He didn’t seem to be aware that there was any relevance to what I’d said. A guilty man tends to act guilty. Hit them on whatever they’re hiding, and you’ll see it in their eyes. I got nothing off him. Kara, on the other hand, shifted her feet a little, changed her stance. It was a reaction I’d been expecting off Alex, not her.

Interesting.