Severed (5 page)

Sellman produces a sawn-off single-barrelled shotgun from the back of his cheap suit and points it at my midriff. I clutch the briefcase but don't resist as Shaven Head comes forward and gives me a rough search, quickly locating the Glock. I let him remove it, and he holds it up in the air for his boss to see.

'Pass it over here,' says the fourth man.

Shaven Head checks the internal safety mechanism and chucks the gun over to his boss, who catches it one-handed by the barrel, his hand shooting out like a snake's. 'Ah,' he says admiringly, 'a Glock Nineteen. Very nice.' He turns it over in his hands, giving it a once-over, then places it on the coffee table.

I look at him as he speaks, and I'm almost unable to believe my ears. Unless I'm very much mistaken - and I'm damn sure I'm not - I know the man in front of me. I recognize the voice. A clear, slightly West Country brogue with a confidence in it that hangs very close to arrogance. He served in the same battalion of the Parachute Regiment as me. He was a captain. I didn't know him well - I can't even
remember his last name - but we were soldiers together, and that will always count for something.

'Hello, Iain,' I say.

He tenses in his seat, then reaches over and switches on a lamp, which is when I get my confirmation. This is definitely the man from the battalion. He's looking thinner than I remember, and he's bleached his hair blond and added a thin beard-like strip of hair, which is also bleached and runs from his bottom lip to his chin, but it's still him. Beneath the look of surprise, his face is etched with knots of tension. I don't know whether to feel relieved or mightily pissed off. In the end, I plump for both.

He squints at me. 'It's Tyler, isn't it?' he says in a way that tells me he knows exactly who I am. 'Jesus, what the hell are you doing here?'

'You know exactly why I'm here,' I answer.

Like everyone else, Sellman looks surprised. 'You know him, chief?'

'Yeah, we know each other,' I say.

The captain shakes his head. 'I didn't think someone like you would be in with them, to be honest.'

'I'm not in with anyone,' I tell him. I glance at
his three bodyguards. I don't want to say too much in front of them. 'Is there anywhere we can talk?'

He looks at me distrustfully. 'You're not a cop, are you, Tyler?'

'Of course I'm not. You know that.'

'You might be working with them.'

'I'm not working with anyone.'

'But you've got what I want, right? The money?'

There's a glint in his eyes as he speaks, and I remember a story that once did the rounds that he was something of a gambler and used to lose a lot of money on the horses. The military isn't the kind of career that can sustain heavy financial losses. Considering that one of the job hazards is sudden and violent death, it's actually very poorly paid. I'm guessing that this is why the captain's started a new career, and from the amount of money I'm about to hand over to him, whatever it is is pretty lucrative.

'Have you got what I'm here for?' I ask him.

He ignores the question and addresses Shaven Head. 'Check if he's got any mobile phones on him.'

Shaven Head silently continues his pat-down
where he left off, and pulls out the one I was supplied with.

I put a hand on his wrist. 'You don't need that,' I tell him, meeting his eye.

I'm trying to be as reasonable as possible, but I'm not going to let these people take the piss out of me, and I have to hang on to this phone. At the moment, it's my lifeline. Shaven Head and I glare at each other and I tense my body, ready to strike out. If it comes to it, I'll use my free hand to take him in the pressure point just below his left ear, swing him round while he's weakened, and smash my knee into the small of his back. He's a big guy, no question, but anyone can be beaten if you know what you're doing, and I've always known what I was doing, even if, at the moment, I'm not exactly feeling my best.

'Be careful of Tyler,' the captain tells Shaven Head, with just a hint of amusement in his voice. 'He's a dangerous man when aroused. We just need the thing turned off, Tyler. For security reasons. They can do anything with mobile phones these days. Even turn them into recordable microphones. I don't want anyone listening in.'

'I told you. I'm not a cop.'

'It's not just them who can listen in,' he answers cryptically.

At this point, Shaven Head interrupts. 'Let go of my wrist,' he tells me, his tone one of barely suppressed rage, 'or I'll break your arm.' I notice then that he has an Eastern European accent.

'Let him turn it off,' says the captain, 'then you can have it back. OK?'

I release my grip on Shaven Head's wrist, knowing there's no point in forcing a confrontation. He turns off the phone and smacks it down in my hand, and I put it back in my jeans pocket.

The captain looks over at me, and I think I see confusion in his eyes. 'You actually want it, do you? What's inside this case?' He leans down behind the table and produces a burgundy briefcase smaller than the one I'm carrying, and carefully places it on the table in front of him.

'What I want is to talk to you,' I say.

'What's there to talk about?'

'Has he got the money or not?' demands Sellman. 'We need paying, chief.'

'You'll get your money, Sellman,' the captain tells him.

'I just want five minutes alone with you, that's all. I'm in trouble, sir. All right? So, for old times' sake, do me this favour.'

He doesn't say anything for a couple of seconds, and if I'm honest, he doesn't really owe me anything. We're not great mates. Christ, I still can't even remember his last name. But then he nods slowly and gets to his feet, picking up the Glock and the burgundy briefcase. 'We'll go through to the kitchen.'

'Are you sure you want to do this, chief?' demands Sellman. 'It could be a trick.'

'He's unarmed. Just keep an eye on the front door, and make sure no one comes in.'

The captain motions me to follow him through the door the man from
Miami Vice
is guarding. Miami Vice himself, who's remained utterly impassive throughout the conversation, moves aside as we pass.

As the captain switches on the overhead strip light, shutting the door behind him, I see that the kitchen is cramped and ancient, with holes and gashes in the linoleum flooring. There's a small table with two chairs squeezed into one corner, and we sit down opposite each other. I put my briefcase down by my side, and he does
the same thing. Up close, I notice he isn't looking so well. His skin is pink and blotchy, and his cotton shirt is so heavily sweat-stained that parts of it are clinging to him. It's clear he's under a lot of strain.

I wipe sweat from my own forehead. The kitchen is windowless and stuffy, and the overhead light is making an annoying buzzing sound.

'So, what's there to talk about, Tyler?' he asks.

'I need your help,' I tell him. 'My girlfriend's been murdered and I've been set up for it.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'I need to find out who's behind it.'

He shakes his head. 'I can't help you.'

'What's in the case you're selling?'

His expression changes, as if a shadow is passing across his face. 'Something you don't ever want to see, I promise you.'

'I know I don't want to see it. I just want to know what it is.'

He sighs. 'Listen, Tyler, I always liked you,' he begins, although I don't think he ever did particularly, 'but I'm in a lot of trouble too, and I don't know who it is who's setting you up. All I was told was that somebody would be
coming here today to pick up this case, and they'd have a hundred and fifty grand in cash. Have you got that?'

'You're not helping me, Iain.'

'I told you, I can't.'

'If you're in trouble, maybe I can help you.'

He smiles, but it comes out looking close to a sneer. 'No, mate, you can't help me. No-one can. That's why I need that money. I'm finished here, completely. And I'm a marked man.'

'What have you done?'

He crosses and uncrosses his hands on the table in front of him. Drops of sweat run down his cheek, and there is a hint of something painful - is it shame? - in his expression. 'I've got something on someone,' he says quietly, his eyes moving about but not quite settling on anything. 'Something bad. Something that'll ruin him. Rather than ruin his life, I've thrown him a lifeline. In exchange for some money, he can have that something back.'

'You're blackmailing him?'

He pulls a pack of Marlboro out of the pocket of his cotton shirt and lights a cigarette with hands that aren't quite steady. 'You could call it that.'

'That's what I am calling it. Who is he?'

'A businessman. Someone who won't have been involved in your girlfriend's death. He's not that type of person. He's the sort who keeps well away from the dirty work.'

'How can you be so sure?'

He takes two short, angry drags on the cigarette. 'Because I am, all right? Listen, you remember Maxwell and Spann?'

I nod. They were members of my platoon before moving eventually into the shadowy world of security work. Everyone remembered Maxwell and Spann.

'You heard what happened to them?'

'They got killed doing some bodyguard op, didn't they?'

'That's right. Three years back, in a Paris hotel. They were guarding some big-shot Russian mafia man in the penthouse suite. He was only meant to be in the country for a couple of days to sign some contracts, but he was the kind of guy who made a lot of enemies, and word was that one of them had put a contract out on him. The idea was that it was better to hit him in Europe because he'd have less security here than he'd have in Moscow, but because
word got out, the guy panicked and made sure he had security to the hilt. He travelled to his meetings in a bombproof car with a police escort, and the hotel was sewn up tighter than a drum. Him and his entourage had the whole of the top floor, with cameras in every lift and stairway, and the local gendarmerie all over the building. There was no way a hitman could get through.'

'But someone did.'

'That's right. The next morning, the cleaner found the Russian dead in bed with his throat slit from ear to ear. Outside his bedroom door, they found Spann. He'd had his throat cut as well, the wound so deep it almost severed his head. His gun was still in his hand. It hadn't been fired. Maxwell was out in the hallway. Also armed, also killed the same way. No sign of a struggle from any of them. They'd been taken completely by surprise, one by one, and it seemed the first each of them knew about it was when the knife was crossing their throats.' He pauses and takes another short, urgent drag on the cigarette. 'And Maxwell and Spann . . . well, they were pros.'

'I know,' I say, recalling them as a pair of
hard-nosed bastards who wouldn't easily have been caught off guard.

'The thing about the Russian killing', the captain continues, 'was that the hitman didn't leave a single clue. Nothing. He spirits into the place and right back out again, past all the security and the surveillance cameras, and no-one hears or sees a thing. So, you know what? They start calling him the Vampire in police circles, because it's almost as if he's got some sort of supernatural powers. Apparently, they've linked him to contract killings all over Europe, and his modus operandi's almost always the same: cuts his victims' throats from ear to ear. He even got hired by the Iranians a year or so back to kill an Israeli diplomat and his family, as revenge for an Israeli air raid in Lebanon that killed a couple of their Revolutionary Guards. He cut the throats of all of them, even the kids. Nobody knows who the Vampire is, or what he looks like. He's invisible. Like something out of a nightmare.'

I'm beginning to lose patience. His story reminds me of Leah and the butchery that was done to her in that stifling, blood-drenched room with the chintz curtains.

'Why the hell are you telling me this?' I demand.

'Because I'm hearing that this guy I'm selling the briefcase to . . .' He pauses a moment, and our eyes meet through the smoke. His are grey and haunted, and I know what he's going to say even before he says it. 'I'm hearing he's hired the Vampire to come after me.'

'Well,' I say at last, 'I'm no vampire.'

He leans over and grabs an ashtray from the sideboard, stubbing his cigarette out in it. 'I know you're not him. At least, I'm pretty sure you're not. But sooner or later he's going to come knocking. That's why I've got an insurance policy.'

'What's that?'

He picks up the burgundy briefcase and lays it on the table so that the handle's facing me. 'If anyone tries to get into this thing without the right code, it'll blow into a million pieces. Same if anyone tries to force it open. There's a nice big lump of PETN plastic explosive wired up to the case's locking mechanism on the inside. See
this?' He points to a tiny flashing red light attached to a thumbnail-sized black stand next to the lock. 'This tells you that the bomb's armed. Now, I'm not going to phone the guy I'm dealing with and give him the access code until half past two, so I figure I've got' - he looks at his watch - 'about two hours to get the hell out of here. After that I'm the walking dead.'