Shoot to Kill (14 page)

‘Not a great look,’ Kelly giggled as the doors closed.

‘They wear the sexiest lingerie under those things,’ Sandy breathed, scowling at the man as he shamelessly ogled her chest.

The Arabs got out on the third floor and the girls rode the rest of the way to the top in silence. When the lift opened, they found themselves in a short corridor with only one door. After taking a moment to compose herself, Kelly knocked loudly on the door and took a half-step backwards. Sticking back her shoulders, she looked her friend up and down. ‘Just follow my lead,’ she whispered. ‘Let me do the talking.’

Sandy nodded meekly.

‘Don’t worry,’ Kelly grinned. ‘If past experience is anything to go by, this is only going to take ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Then we’ll go and have a few drinks.’

At least they should have some decent vodka in the mini-bar, Sandy thought.

After a few moments, they heard the lock disengage and the door was jerked open. Giggling, they stepped inside.

Susie McCarthy gripped her mug so tightly it looked as though it might be crushed between her fingers. ‘You should think about contacting your family.’

‘Mm.’ Adrian Gasparino looked past the earnest young social worker and out across the River Thames. Sitting in the canteen of New Belvedere House, a hostel for homeless ex-servicemen in Limehouse, East London, his mind wandered back to the image of Justine on her knees on the living-room carpet. Shaking the memory from his head, he smiled sadly. ‘It’s nice here. I was lucky to find it.’

‘Yes, you were,’ Susie agreed brightly.

How old are you?
Gasparino wondered.
Older than me? What skills and experience do you have that you can use to help me with my problems?

‘The great thing about the New Belvedere,’ Susie continued, dropping into what sounded like an oft-repeated spiel, ‘is that it’s a safe environment. We are only small compared to something like the Royal British Legion, but our aim is to become the most dynamic driver when it comes to repaying the debt of honour that we owe our troops.’

‘Ah yes,’ Gasparino nodded. Suddenly the room felt very stuffy. He had an overwhelming desire to step outside and feel the wind blast his face. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’ Susie asked as he slipped his rucksack over his shoulder.

‘I just fancy a walk.’

She gestured at his bag with her mug. ‘With all your stuff?’

Gasparino shrugged. ‘I travel light.’

She looked at him doubtfully. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Not far. Maybe we could have another talk tomorrow.’

She shook her head. ‘I have a day off tomorrow.’

‘I see,’ Gasparino smiled. ‘Maybe later then.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Have a nice day off.’

‘I will,’ she said happily. ‘Thank you.’

Helen handed Carlyle a cup of green tea and then began rummaging in her bag. ‘There’s something you should see,’ she said, pulling out a copy of
The Times
.

‘Yeah?’ Sipping his tea, Carlyle waited patiently while she found the relevant page and folded the paper in half.

‘Here.’

Scanning the article, he frowned. ‘What makes parents pack their sons off to Eton?’

‘No.’ Retrieving the paper from her idiot husband, Helen pointed him to the story below the fold:
M
Y
T
EENAGER
H
ELL
. Thrusting the paper back at him, she hissed: ‘The bitch has written about Alice in her column.’

Carlyle quickly scanned the article. Helen had underlined a paragraph that said:
Jemima came for a sleepover last week. The girls just lock themselves in the bedroom and smoke dope all night. Somewhere round about two in the morning comes the not unfamiliar sound of retching from the bathroom
. He looked at the by-line. ‘Who is Lucy Pulse?’

‘It’s Andrea bloody Blackman.’ The blank look on Carlyle’s face told her that he was none the wiser. ‘Olivia’s mum.’

‘And “Jemima” is Alice?’

‘Yes. The woman has used her in one of her tawdry little columns.’

‘What does Alice think?’ Carlyle asked.

‘I think it’s bloody hilarious,’ said Alice, sticking her head round the kitchen door. ‘Olivia’s mortified, though. And she has to put up with this kind of stuff all the time.’

‘Poor kid,’ Carlyle clucked. ‘Imagine having your life turned into a newspaper column. That must be tough.’

‘But did you go over there to smoke dope and be sick?’ Helen asked.

Alice stepped into the kitchen. Not for the first time, she had borrowed his Clash T-shirt. ‘Nah. We only smoked a little. No one puked up. Olivia’s mum has to exaggerate things to make her stories more interesting.’

‘What will they say at school?’

‘For God’s sake, Mum,’ Alice pouted, ‘no one pays any attention to that rubbish.’ She gave her dad a shameless wink. ‘Anyway, my grades have been really good recently.’

‘Yes,’ Helen admitted, ‘but—’

Alice cut her off. ‘Even the Headmaster said “well done” the other day.’

‘Long may it continue,’ said Carlyle with feeling. A couple of years earlier, Carlyle and Helen had been summoned to Dr Terence Myers’s office after Alice had been suspended for possession of cannabis. At the time, Carlyle had been both surprised and relieved that his daughter had only got a suspension. All the same, he was in no hurry to repeat the experience.

‘
And,
’ Alice squealed, ‘I’m giving up the drugs. It’s all getting a bit boring.’

Giving them up?
Carlyle thought suspiciously. ‘I hadn’t even started them at your age,’ he grumbled.

‘It’s a different world today, Dad,’ Alice told him. ‘Kids grow up quicker. I’m probably already as mature as you were when you were nineteen, or even twenty.’

Fucking hell
, thought Carlyle,
that’s a result. Let’s just hope she doesn’t change her mind again next week
.

‘I’d say you’re already more mature than he was when he was thirty,’ Helen grinned, giving Carlyle a dig in the ribs, ‘at least.’

‘As if.’ He gave them both a hurt look.

Alice did a little jig of delight. ‘Face facts, old man.’

‘Old man?’ Carlyle echoed. ‘In that case, maybe you can let me have my T-shirt back.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Alice said, beating a hasty retreat towards the safety of her bedroom.

‘Thank you,
Jemima
,’ he shouted after her. ‘Make sure it’s washed and ironed – inside out – when you’re finished with it.’

‘Leave the kid alone,’ Helen admonished him. ‘You don’t need to iron a T-shirt.’

‘But it is The Clash,’ Carlyle reminded her. ‘You have to show some respect.’

Helen, always more of a Paul Weller devotee, was less than convinced. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘Seriously. That T-shirt is vintage.’

‘Just like you,’ Helen couldn’t resist saying.

‘It cost me a tenner from Camden market thirty years ago.’

‘And the rest.’

‘Anyway. It’s irreplaceable. It needs to be properly looked after.’

‘It’s just a bloody T-shirt. You can probably get a new one on the internet.’ With that, Helen padded off into the living room. After adding some more hot water to his tea, Carlyle followed her. Lowering himself onto the sofa, he rested his head on her shoulder and lifted his feet on to the coffee table.

On the TV was a story about the arrest of a dozen men on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism in the UK. A serious-looking blonde reporter Carlyle didn’t recognize stood in front of a fluttering police tape on a suburban South London street and began speaking live to camera: ‘Searches at several London properties began after the arrests, with detectives and forensics experts looking for any scientific evidence of materials that could be used to make explosives. The counter-terrorism operation targeting some of those arrested had been under way for some time,
and is described as “significant”. At least some of those arrested are believed to have been under surveillance.’

‘That doesn’t tell you much, does it?’ Carlyle mused.

A familiar face appeared next to the blonde. Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Quentin Collymore was the country’s leading anti-terrorism officer. He began explaining how the raids were launched to take action in order to protect the public. ‘This,’ he said carefully, ‘is a large-scale, pre-planned and intelligence-led operation involving several forces. The operation is in its early stages, so we are unable to go into detail at this time about the suspected offences. We know we face a real and serious threat from terrorism and I would like to thank the police and security service for working to keep our country safe.’

‘Sounds like bollocks to me,’ Helen scoffed. Somewhat more of a liberal than her husband, she had always been rather bolshie when it came to what she considered the ‘political’ areas of Carlyle’s work.

‘They have clearly got something,’ Carlyle said gently, not wanting to have the same conversation for the millionth time.

‘But we’ll never know, will we?’ she countered.

‘We might, we might not,’ Carlyle said. ‘That’s just the way it is. These guys could be doing a great job, they could be doing a shit job – you’re right, we’ll never know. But you’re not going to put it to the test and then find some nutters from Stoke, or Bradford or Blackburn or wherever, are able to waltz down here and blow us to smithereens.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like Harry Ripley,’ Helen teased.

‘We should build a big wall round the M25 to keep all these fucking people out,’ Carlyle opined, warming to his theme.

‘You could have a word with your mate Christian Holyrod,’ his wife smirked. ‘They could deport you back to Scotland while they’re at it.’

‘Me?’ Carlyle folded his arms in mock indignation. ‘I’m as much of a Londoner as you are.’ They both knew that wasn’t true. Helen’s family had been Londoners, born and bred. Carlyle’s parents had only arrived from Glasgow in the 1950s, heading south as de-industrialization and long-term decline kicked in at home.

Helen kissed him on the head. ‘Speaking of Harry,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘I saw him a couple of days ago. He’s beginning to look really quite frail.’

Carlyle scratched his armpit. ‘That’s hardly surprising, given his age.’

‘I just hope that he can stay at home. I said I’d see about trying to get the council to give him more help.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘With the budget cuts, he’ll be lucky to keep what he’s got.’

Kicking off her shoes, Sandy dropped her bags on a chair in the corner. Ignoring Gavin Swann lying on the bed, scratching his balls, a half-empty bottle of beer in his free hand, she went straight to the mini-bar and pulled out a couple of miniatures of vodka. She waved them at Kelly, who shook her head. ‘Maybe after.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Sandy mumbled. Unscrewing both caps, she chugged them down, one after the other. In front of her, Sky Sports News was playing on the TV with the sound down. On the rolling ticker at the bottom of the screen, the news flashed up that star striker Gavin Swann was expected to be out of the game for up to a month with a groin strain. She tried to remember the name of the team he played for but the vodka had left her mind a complete blank. Football was so boring. It was unbelievable that blokes got so worked up about it; the whole thing was a joke. At the thought of it, she let out a quiet laugh.

Kelly gave her a quizzical look. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Sandy replied. Beginning to feel happily pissed, she watched Kelly crawl onto the bed. Looking like a scared kid, Swann sat up, spilling beer over his crotch in the process.

‘Mm.’ Kelly grinned. Pulling back her hair, porn-star style, she dropped her head towards his groin and began licking it off. ‘I love Beck’s . . .’

‘
What?
’ Alain Costello said irritably. How could he concentrate on
Dead Space 4
when Tuco wouldn’t shut the fuck up?

‘Do you want to spend the next twenty years in prison?’ Tuco repeated in French. ‘Are you deliberately trying to get arrested?’

Alain glanced at the handset sitting next to him and shook his head.

‘Well?’ the old man demanded, his voice sounding even more pained over the speakerphone.

‘
Je vais me faire arrêter si tu me laisses ici dans cette bordelle
.’

‘
Tu aurais dû être plus prudent
.’ Sitting in the elegant Rococo calm of his fifth-floor duplex apartment on the Rue Frédéric Bastiat near the Champs Elysées Tuco angrily paused the DVD he was watching on his state of the art equipment. The frozen screen captured Forest Whitaker in blank close-up. Approaching the end of
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
, the eponymous assassin was about to meet his inevitable fate. It was a film Tuco had seen dozens of times, but he still resented having to interrupt it in order to lecture his infuriating son. ‘The way of the Samurai,’ Tuco whispered to himself, ‘is found in death.’

‘Salvatore has disappeared,’ whined Alain. ‘Where is your man?’

The fucking boy wouldn’t even let him mumble in peace. ‘What?’

‘Your new business associate here in London – why has he not come to help me?’

Because he’s no fool
, Tuco thought.
He doesn’t want a moron like you dragging him down
. ‘He said he would try to help.’

‘Why hasn’t he turned up, then, eh?’

‘These things take time.’

‘Have you told him about what happened to your last business partner here?’

‘
Tais toi!
’ Tuco exploded. ‘Now is not the time. Just stay where you are and I will let you know when we have a plan to get you back.’

All he got in response was a series of bleeps from Alain’s computer console. Dropping the phone, he restarted the movie. ‘Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily,’ he said grimly. ‘Every day without fail, the Samurai should consider himself as dead.
This
is the way of the Samurai.’