Kiss Me Quick (31 page)

Vince drove to the address that Vaughn had given him, a good half hour’s drive east of Brighton, along the coast. He followed his brother’s directions, but he lost precious time, driving in the dark, while trying to find the unmarked, narrow country lane that led to a dirt road that accessed the house. The road wasn’t private, there being no gate, but the house was all there was at the end of it. Bumpy, with jagged flinty stones, the path was not lit up – puncture alley. The flinty road fizzled out and opened into
grassland
. And there was the house itself, standing almost at the edge of the cliff.

It was a small bungalow, no more than a chalet really, and at first sight it looked like a small farmhouse with a weatherboard facade. Seeing as there was nothing to farm here on the edge of a cliff, Vince took it as a holiday home or a little weekend
bolt-hole
. It sat all alone, no cars parked outside, and no lights inside to indicate that anyone was home.

Vince killed the engine and stepped out of the car. He heard the surf breaking, crashing on the rocks below the cliff, then
drawing
back out again, to repeat itself like some mighty perpetual drum roll. Before knocking on the door, he checked around the back and saw some large sliding glass doors. He decided that in daylight it might be worth while having a place with such a dramatic sea view. But its isolation made him nervous, thus
working
in reverse of its intention: it seemed all too obvious a place to hide out in. It almost warranted a huge neon sign
proclaiming
: Hide-Out! The glass doors were locked, and he couldn’t see anyone inside, so he went back around the front and softly knocked on the door.

‘Vince?’ came Vaughn’s hushed voice from behind the door.

‘Yeah. Open up.’

The door opened and there stood Vaughn. He led Vince through to the living room. It looked as if it hadn’t seen a lot of living in. Vaughn lit a couple of candles, not for ambience but because the light bulbs were blown. Otherwise the room was more homely than the outside suggested. An armchair and a small covered settee; a wooden rocker sitting in the corner of the room; a small
television
set in the other corner; a side table with an old black 1940s telephone resting on it; and a small wooden coffee table. On the last were some magazines: a couple of
Reader’s Digests
, a
Titbits
and a
National Geographic
. The kind of reading material you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room. And that’s exactly what it felt like – a place for waiting for something potentially unpleasant.

‘Sit down,’ said Vaughn, gesturing to the settee.

Vince sat down. Vaughn took the rocking chair in the corner, giving him a view of the room, the front door and the front windows. He sat perfectly still in it, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

‘Took a while to find,’ remarked Vince.

‘Directions no good?’

‘They were fine. It’s just the type of place that takes a while to find.’

Vaughn nodded, as if pleased with himself.

‘How did you find it, Vaughn?’

‘It’s a mate’s.’

‘A mate’s?’ Vince echoed, looking around the place,
unconvinced
. There wasn’t much to it, but what there was didn’t strike him as it might belong to the kind of company Vaughn normally kept. The magazines, the wooden mantel clock, the crocheted throw draped over the settee, the wooden rocking chair, the Home Sweet Home rug on the well-swept wooden floor, the armchair with an embroidered cushion. ‘Can you be more specific?’ Vince asked.

‘You don’t know him.’

Vince gave a nod towards the cushion on the armchair and said, ‘No, but I’m admiring his needlework.’

‘It’s his mum’s place.’

‘OK, you want to tell me about it?’

‘What’s to tell? The bogies are looking for me.’

‘That heroin, where did you get it from?’

‘I didn’t! It’s not me!’ snapped Vaughn, setting in motion the rocking chair.

‘I saw it, Vaughn – and your girl, Wendy.’

Vaughn cast his eyes downwards on hearing her name. Vince could see the pain of her loss was genuine. ‘I’m sorry about her, Vaughn. But that’s what happens when you mess with that stuff.’

Vaughn’s eyes shot up urgently. ‘I had nothing to do with that, I swear to God, I got rid of …’ His unthinking voice trailed off.

‘You got rid of the heroin?’

Vaughn, knowing he’d already said enough, gave a guarded nod.

‘Then what was a stash of it doing in your flat?’

‘What stash?’

Vince saw that his brother was genuinely surprised by this. ‘Machin found some of the junk stashed behind a cupboard in your flat. It’s bad junk that’s been doing the rounds and killing people.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Why would I lie?’ asked Vince, impatient and angry. ‘I’m here to help, you idiot!’

At that point, Vaughn pulled out the gun. It wasn’t like Bobbie’s old cannon but a sleek and lethal German 9mm Parabellum,
perfect
for up-close work.

‘Easy, Vaughn, take it easy.’

‘
You
take it easy, copper!’

Vince gave three meditative nods at this new development.

‘Who’s the idiot now?’ Vaughn sneered.

‘I guess that’ll be me.’ Vince dead-panned it. ‘Did you know it was bad junk, when you were selling it?’

‘What d’you take me for?’ Vince didn’t answer. ‘I didn’t find out till I read about it in the paper. I knew it was strong stuff, needed cutting, but not
that
bad.’

‘If you really got rid of it, Vaughn, how come Wendy got hold of it?’

‘Because she was a lying bitch!’ exclaimed Vaughn, nodding his head now as if he was hammering in nails with it. ‘She must have stolen some off me before I could unload it. She deserved what she got.’

‘You believe that?’

‘’Course, I do!’ he snapped, trying to sound as resolute as his shaky voice would allow. ‘It ain’t my fault. She lied to me! You can’t trust junkies!’

‘And who turned her into one?’

‘She knew what she was doing … She lied, she stole the junk off me, she got what she deserved.’

‘That’s the company line, is it?’

‘What company?’

Vince sighed, forgetting just what a dispiriting dumbshow
talking
to his brother could be. ‘The company you’re keeping, Vaughn. Machin found about half a pound of heroin. I was there and he showed it to me. I don’t know how much you unloaded, but you’d have known if you were that short, wouldn’t you say?’ Vaughn clearly would have known, but he didn’t say. Vince sat up and leaned in closer to the candlelight, to get a good look at his brother and make things as clear as possible.

‘You’ve been set up, Vaughn. Little Wendy didn’t steal anything off you. She didn’t inject herself with the heroin either. She was dosed, given a hot shot. The heroin was stashed behind a
cupboard
, which is one of the first places coppers would look. Also they were working off a tip. The person who stashed it there was the one who dosed her. Any ideas who that might be?’ Not
giving
Vaughn time to think or answer, he continued, ‘Then, let me tell you, it was whoever put you up to this – sticking a gun on me and getting me out the way.’

Vaughn shook his head. ‘Not true!’

Vince’s brow creased in disdain. ‘You know it’s true, because it hurts, because it shows you for what you are. Deep down, you know poor little Wendy didn’t steal that heroin. She didn’t have it in her. That wasn’t what she was about. Because she was OK – better than that, she was decent. A girl that got a tough break in life, born with that stain on her face. But little Wendy was an all-right kid. She deserved better. She deserved better than you.’ Vaughn held the gun but it was Vince who was firing the bullets. ‘But you’re
taking
the easy way out, Vaughn. You’re rewriting her sad little history to suit your own purposes. You want to believe she stole it because you’re too weak to punish the man that did it to her.’

Vaughn shook his head vigorously in denial, but it just looked as if he was trying to shake the truth out of his ears.

‘What was the easy way out, Vaughn? What deal did you make? Kill me and you get off the hook?’

‘What if it was? I owe you nothing!’

‘Maybe not, but you owe the girl. You owe Wendy – and so do I. Because she got killed in order for them to get at me. Because she was with you. You’re being used, Vaughn, and it stinks. It stinks of Henry Pierce. What did he offer you?’

Vaughn’s pallid, pockmarked skin had begun blotching and
reddening
up, tears brimming in his eyes. He cried out, ‘More than you could, copper!’

Vaughn pulled back the hammer.

Death at his own brother’s hand? It had a twist to it.

‘Not you, Vaughn. Not you.’

Vince had a hunch he would have to make his move before a car, Henry Pierce’s black Cadillac, drove down that flinty dirt lane and parked outside. Because by that time it would be too late …

Vince had dropped Bobbie off at the Blue Orchid. She didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to leave the flat. There was still a large part of her that was in denial, holding on to the idea that no harm would come to her because of Jack. Vince understood all too well how that kind of patronage from a powerful man like Jack could become addictive, and hard to break free of. But he also knew that nothing stays the same in this game, and the world was littered with corpses of those who had held on to a
delusional
and deadly belief that it could. But Vince had insisted. He’d originally wanted her to go somewhere public, like to the pictures where they were showing a double bill. But she had refused, and settled on going to the club, as there she would at least know some people. He dropped her off at the bottom of Oriental Place and promised her that, as soon as he was finished with Vaughn, he would call by and pick her up. He would only be a couple of hours, at the most.

The first sign that all wasn’t right was the actual sign itself. The neon sign that read ‘The Blue Orchid’ above the entrance wasn’t switched on. And the door was locked. She rang the bell; there was no answer. Gino, the manager, should have been there by now to open up. She had given him firm instructions: it was business as usual until further notice. She fished around in her handbag and hooked out the keys, turned them in the brass lock and the door opened. It was dark and silent inside. She threw on the lights and saw the place was empty. She went into the back office and
discovered
the safe open – nothing had been taken, as no money was kept there, just some legal documents – and drawers had been searched. She felt spooked and went straight back home.

Once inside the flat, she went to call Gino and find out what was going on. The address book was a novelty one: red Bakelite with a silver dial. She put her finger in the ‘G’ slot for Gino – and was thrown into darkness as the lights suddenly went out. They had gone out in the whole building. She started going downstairs to check, but heard someone climbing the stairs and ran back inside, bolted and double-locked the door. She tried to call the police but, as soon as she put the receiver to her ear, she realized the line was dead. With a waxing moon and the street lights
outside
, Bobbie soon adjusted to loss of light inside the flat, and clearly saw, and heard, the front door handle turning quickly.

A pause. Someone, moving back from the door. Not to walk away from it, but to enable a run-up. Then a forceful weight against the door, the dull but powerful thud of someone trying to shoulder his way in. A second, harder, attempt indicated the intruder really getting into his stride. Under its impact, the whole wall groaned, joists screamed and paint cracked. As strong as the door was, as new and secure as the locks were, Bobbie was losing faith in them holding out. She could now see movement: the door buckling under the force. Such was its power that she imagined a charging rhinoceros outside.

She went over to the heavy black-lacquered bureau, the one Vince had slid across the door before there was a lock. It
was
heavy, however; just as heavy as it looked. She put all her weight behind it, which wasn’t a lot, and tried to push it over to the door, to act as a barricade. The next onslaught on the door saw wood splitting along the frame. Inching the heavy bureau across the parquet flooring of the front-door entrance, she was filled with a sense of dread and impending doom that sapped her strength. On the next muscular ram from the rhino, the doorknob flew off. With a good four feet still to go, Bobbie gave up on her makeshift barricade, ran to the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled out a carving knife. Then she remembered the gun that Vince had stashed away in the heavy black bureau. She also remembered Vince’s advice about never firing it, and knew this was no time for props that might blow up in her face. If she had to have a weapon, she wanted one that at least worked. There was a heavy torch in the cupboard under the sink, so she picked it up, too.

Gripping the torch and the carving knife in either hand, she went back out to the living room; and took an intake of breath that hit the back of her throat like a blast of freezing air. The door was wide open.
The rhino was in the room
. She turned on the torch, her hands shaking, and shone the beam of light erratically. Slashes of light tore through the dark until the beam settled on
something
unfamiliar. In one corner of the room, a closed eye. With its complex of scar tissue, it looked like a small plate of spaghetti. The eye then opened. Milky, marbled and dead. Henry Pierce was standing in the corner of the room. Not expecting the torch to pick him out amongst the heavy black shapes of the furniture in the room, his plan to locate his prey and then pounce was now foiled. But no matter.

‘Hello, my dear.’

He’d always referred to Bobbie in such terms as
My dear
, and it always made her skin crawl. He reminded her of some
benevolent
old uncle who would always turn nasty once the parents were away and the lights were out. And now they were. And now he was about to start.

‘What’s that in your hand?’ Pierce asked.

‘What do you want?’ A stupid question. And one he didn’t bother answering.

‘I’ve got one of those, too. Sharp and pointy.’

‘One of what?’

‘One of’ –
swooosh
‘– these!’

Pierce held up the sword stick that he had drawn from its white wooden sheath. The ruse walking stick that hid a much darker and deadlier purpose.

Bobbie moved backwards, hoping to circumnavigate this
nightmare
and make it to safety downstairs.

‘Stay right there – right where I can
see
you.’

She froze, never having expected to hear those words come out of Pierce’s mouth. Then she realized that his black glasses were off. She slowly sidled to the left, then to the right, but his one good eye, like an annoying portrait, continued following her around the room. His bad eye was frightening her even more.

‘You’re not really …
blind
?’

‘None so blind as those who cannot see.’

He moved out from the corner and loped over to the heavy black wooden bureau, and with just one hand he pushed it up against the doorway, as if it was a mock-up, movie-set prop fashioned out of balsa wood.

Bobbie now knew she was in for a long and painful night.

Vaughn sat back in the rocking chair, the gun still trained on his brother.

‘Now what?’ asked Vince.

‘We wait.’

‘Whilst we’re waiting, d’you mind if I run a few things by you? Just for my own curiosity.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like who gave you the heroin?’

Vaughn gave a sour smile. ‘Guess.’

‘The stuff comes from Jack Regent, brought in by Max Vogel, is my guess. But you wouldn’t be dealing with either of those two – no offence, Vaughn, but you’re too far down the pecking order.’

Vaughn’s sour smile curdled and then died on his face.

‘So, that leaves Henry Pierce. Why would he give it to
you
?’

‘I did some work for him.’

‘Driving?’

‘And other stuff.’ Eager to impress now. ‘Wanna know?’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘The body on the beach, that was me.’

Vince didn’t move a muscle, involuntarily or otherwise. It seemed that the age of great surprises was over for him. This was the time for twisted ironies.

Vaughn, back with the smirk, proud of his job. ‘I chopped its head and hands off and dumped it.’

‘That makes sense. The job was botched.’

‘I followed Henry’s instructions, to the letter.’

‘The blind leading the blind.’

‘Henry ain’t blind. It’s just an act to keep the coppers off his back. Who’s gonna mess with a blind man?’

All Vince’s hunches were coming to pass. The intruder in Bobbie’s flat could only have been Pierce. That wasn’t the work of a blind man stumbling around in the dark. ‘The body was meant to be found then, because the job was meant to be botched. That makes sense. If you want a botch job, you’re the man to do it, Vaughn. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t even botch the botch job by doing it right and never having the body
turning
up.’

Vaughn took a few moments to work out that it was an insult, then he spat out, ‘Shut your mouth!’

‘Do you know who killed the man you buried?’

Vaughn nodded, savouring his gangster moment. ‘Top London boys. We picked up the stiff in Soho.’

Vince feigned impressed. ‘Friends of yours?’

Vaughn took a cigarette out of his coat pocket, lit it from one of the candles on the table, then took a long, satisfied and noisy drag. He left that question hanging in the air for Vince to answer.

Vince answered it silently, but didn’t share it. Because it wasn’t the answer Vaughn would want to hear. Because Vince knew that his brother was strictly a ‘wait in the car’ man. So Vaughn would never have met Duval and Tobin. They wouldn’t have wanted to meet him. Vaughn was the kind of low-level hood that a smart cookie like Duval would have insulated himself from. It would have all gone through Pierce.

So Duval and Tobin would never have made the connection that Vaughn was Vince’s brother.

Instead, Vince said, ‘The stiff you got rid of, you picked him up in Wardour Street, at a club called the Peek-A-Boo? You did the driving for Pierce, using an ice-cream van.’

Vaughn felt a chill at the memory: Mister Whippy. Henry Pierce had made him wear the white uniform with the cardboard hat, just in case they got pulled over. The blood on his coat looked conveniently like raspberry sauce.

Vaughn, incredulous, demanded, ‘How do you know that?’

‘I’m guessing you weren’t introduced to the men involved, but one was a grey-haired smooth-looking fella, goes by name of Lionel Duval. He owns that club, the Peek-A-Boo. Owns a lot of Soho, for that matter. The other man, stockier, older, red-faced, looks like an ex-pug. His name’s Eddie Tobin, my ex-beat
partner
in Vice.’

Vaughn gave an imperceptible and involuntary nod of
acknowledgement
to these facts.

‘
You
know who killed the stiff?’ Vaughn sat there, his mouth gaping in ignorance.

Vince couldn’t help the wicked grin that waxed around his mouth, as he told him, ‘It was me. I did it.’

Vaughn sat bolt upright, stirring the rocking chair into motion. He quickly steadied it with his feet, scared that Vince would take this opportunity of jumping him and snatching the gun. Vaughn was under no illusion that, if he got jumped, he would end up with nothing in his hands and it would be Vince pointing the gun. He rubbed his left eye quickly with his balled fist, as if he couldn’t believe what was laid in front of him. ‘You …?’

Vince nodded, calm as you like. ‘That’s what I’ve been told, but of course, I don’t remember a thing about it. And deep down I don’t think I did do it, but they say they have a film of me that proves otherwise. So, you see, I’m just as fucked as you. Even more so, I’d say. Let’s be honest, Vaughn, nothing much was ever expected from you, and you didn’t disappoint. But me turning bad? Well, I’ve got further to fall. One thing we do have in
common
, Vaughn, is that we’re both being stitched up. So, wise up, put the gun away and let’s work out a way to get out of this. We never did do much together as brothers and this could be our big chance.’

Vaughn picked up on the sarcasm. ‘Fuck you. I’ve got a way out.’

‘Henry Pierce?’

A quick, unsure nod from Vaughn.

Vince laughed. ‘For dumping the stiff, Henry Pierce paid you in bad junk, hoping that you’d take it and kill yourself.’ Vince now saw that Vaughn really hadn’t worked that one out.

A candle fizzed and spat like a cheap firework, and seemed to burn brighter, throwing an unforgiving light on to Vaughn’s face. He had nowhere to hide. Not even when behind a gun.

Vince, notching it up, knowing he had to make his move soon, continued. ‘And you trust him, you mug?’

‘I’m no mug! I’ve got stuff on Pierce!’ barked Vaughn, setting the rocking chair off again.

‘You’re disposable, Vaughn, always have been. Now put the gun—’

‘Bastard!’ Vaughn screamed, jumping to his feet. The gun was held in two trembling, intertwined hands, two twig-like fingers on the trigger. His expression was glowering, the skin of his face almost rippling with rage.

Vince had intended to rile him, to get him off balance, but he didn’t want to receive a bullet. He slowly raised his hands in the surrender position.

‘Put the gun down. You’re not going to shoot me.’

‘Don’t bank on it, copper.’

Vince shot out of the chair, one hand on the gun, the other hand around his brother’s throat. He smashed Vaughn into the wall, then threw him to the floor with such force that he seemed to slide along the polished wood.

Vaughn lifted his head, dazed, eyes popping, but still clutching the gun. He lifted both arms to take aim. Vince dropped to the floor, snuffing out the candle with his hand on the way down. Vaughn squeezed off a shot.
Bang!

Vince distinctly felt the cold slipstream of where the bullet had passed. He clamped his hand to the right side of his head, felt blood. But it was a glancing impact that had just grazed his ear. Close enough, though, for Vince to mouth a silent
Fuck!
and to know what he had to do next.

Vaughn called out, ‘Vince! You OK?’

Vince didn’t answer, remained down behind the coffee table, playing possum. Bullet-in-the-brain dead. He could see Vaughn get up on one knee, but couldn’t still see the gun. Then he heard the click of the hammer being pulled back. That sound annulled any brotherly love that may have been felt in Vaughn’s last
utterance
. His brother was just checking his status as a corpse, and was now about to finish the job by putting a fresh bullet in him.