The Payback (23 page)

Suddenly feeling terribly nervous, I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

For a few seconds there was no answer. Then I heard footsteps.

‘Who is it?’ he called out, but even as he spoke the words he was opening the door.

‘Hello, Tomboy.’

He recognized me instantly, just like I knew he would. ‘Jesus Christ, Mick,’ he said, an expression of utter disbelief on his face. He took a step backwards. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I need a favour. Can I come inside?’

He looked at me warily, and I thought that the last few years hadn’t treated him at all well. He was only in his mid-forties, a few months older than me, but his face was soft and bloated, and even the deep local’s tan couldn’t disguise the meandering network of broken blood vessels that swarmed across his upper cheeks and over a nose that had grown noticeably more bulbous. His shoulder-length blond hair was a lank, thinning, tangled mess, and his eyes were bloodshot and weary. He was dressed in a pair of shorts and a loose-fitting white singlet with food stains on it that was tightening at the gut.

‘What kind of favour?’ he asked, clearly reluctant to let me over the threshold. ‘The last time we spoke you told me to pray that you never came looking for me. Is my time up, then, Mick?’ He looked away as he spoke, remembering no doubt the reason why I’d said those things. The old swagger he used to exude was long gone. Tomboy Darke looked like a man in terminal decline, and I felt a little sorry for him in spite of myself.

‘You were my friend a long time, Tomboy. I’ve never wanted to kill you. But we do need to talk. Inside.’

He looked scared, confirming what I already knew. ‘I don’t see how I can help you. I haven’t seen you in six years.’

‘Take my word for it, you can,’ I said, and slipped the gun from the small of my back.

He looked down, saw it. Inhaled loudly. Then he took a step back and allowed me inside, never taking his eyes from the gun.

‘Turn around. Let’s talk somewhere more comfortable.’

Slowly, as if each step was physically painful, he led me through the narrow hallway, past a very messy kitchen that smelled of old fish, and into an equally messy lounge dominated by a huge plasma TV hanging from the wall. Half-open French windows led out to a sheltered patio, but even so, the air con in the room was blowing out cold air so hard you could have hung meat in there.

He turned and faced me, his shoulders already slumping. ‘Whatever I’ve done in the past, it was a long time ago, and I feel awful for it. I really do.’

‘You mean, getting rid of the body of a thirteen-year-old girl murdered by paedophiles, then framing her father for it? Because that’s what you did, isn’t it?’

His soft jowly face creased into an expression of terrible guilt, but I wasn’t fooled. Tomboy Darke had always been a good liar. It was why he’d been such a successful informant back in the day. Even the other criminals trusted him.

‘It was a long time ago, Mick. I needed the money.’

‘You’re right. It was a long time ago. But there’ve been other crimes since.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t bullshit me, Tomboy. You work for Paul Wise. You delivered a gun on his behalf to a hotel room in Manila three days ago. It was used in a hit.’

His eyes widened. ‘Jesus, Mick. Was that you?’

I nodded. ‘I work for a guy called Bertie Schagel. But his client’s Paul Wise. Wise wanted the journalist Patrick O’Riordan dead.’

Tomboy looked puzzled. ‘And you killed him, did you? I read about it in the papers.’

‘I did. But I realize now I made a mistake. I’ve got to make amends, Tomboy. And that means finding Paul Wise – the last of those bastards responsible for the death of that little girl, Heidi Robes, back in England – and putting him in the ground.’ I raised the gun so it was pointed at his head, and he flinched involuntarily. ‘So, where is he?’

‘Look, Mick, please,’ he said, putting his hands up defensively, ‘I don’t know any Paul Wise, I promise.’

I came forward fast, making him back up against the wall, and shoved the barrel of the gun in his face. A sour smell of sweat was coming off him in waves, and his bloodshot eyes were bulbous with panic.

‘Please, Mick, I’m telling the truth, I promise.’

I kept the gun where it was, knowing how effective my silence combined with the feel of cold, deadly metal on skin could be. It didn’t take long for him to start babbling.

‘I’ve heard the name Paul Wise, I’ve got to admit that, but I don’t know who, let alone where, he is. I swear it. I do my work for a man called Heed. He’s the one who told me to deliver the gun. He might work for Paul Wise, but I can’t even say that for sure. You’ve got to believe me, Mick.’

‘Where did you meet Heed?’

‘It was a long time back. He used to come down here sometimes. We got talking. I said I was always after work – it was when the dive business wasn’t doing so well – and he said he might be able to put some my way.’

I quickly made a show of looking round the room, but I never took my eyes from him. ‘It looks like this Mr Heed pays well.’

‘I don’t do stuff just for him.’

‘So, who did you kidnap that little girl for, then?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I read a report yesterday about a thirteen-year-old girl called Lene Haagen who was abducted from a hotel in Manila in the summer of 2008. The report was written by Pat O’Riordan. It said that a witness saw a western man hanging round the hotel in the days before she disappeared. The description fitted you perfectly. Overweight, long, thinning hair, red face.’ I was punting in the dark here, coming up with a theory for which I had no evidence, but something in his eyes, not guilt so much as real fear, told me I was on the right track. ‘You kidnapped a little kid from her parents on behalf of Paul Wise, knowing exactly what was going to happen to her. You’re a bastard, Tomboy. But then you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t do it,’ he whined.

I felt a wave of pure hot rage flow through me. ‘Don’t lie. It won’t save you. Nothing’s going to save you unless you tell the truth.’ I cocked the gun, the click loud in the dull silence of the room.

‘Don’t kill me, Mick. Please. I saved your life all those years ago, remember? I could have grassed you up, but I didn’t. I let you go into business with me—’

‘You did it though, didn’t you? Took that little girl from her parents?’

‘Oh Jesus.’ His voice was degenerating into sobs, his whole body shaking with emotion. ‘I know I did wrong, but Heed made me do it.’

‘Don’t bullshit me. You could have said no. Why did you do it? Money, or are you one of them too? Are you a child rapist, Tomboy?’

‘Course I’m not,’ he howled with indignation, as if this
somehow made his actions justifiable. ‘I was broke. Totally. Heed offered me fifty grand to do it.’

My finger trembled on the trigger. I was still finding it difficult to take in what he was telling me because it meant that Tomboy, my old friend, was a monster. The anger burned inside me.

‘Where do I find Heed?’

‘He owns a nightclub in Manila, the Juicy Peach.’

‘And you delivered Lene Haagen to him?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I did.’ He looked at me, and his eyes were full of tears. ‘I’m sorry, Mick, I really am. There’s not a night I don’t think about what I’ve done.’

‘Is that right? While you’re sitting in your nice big house paid for with her blood. You’ve got to stop lying, Tomboy, you really have.’

I stepped away from him, wanting to get his sour, terrified stink out of my nostrils, but kept the gun pointed at his head.

But now that I’d got Tomboy talking, he wouldn’t shut up. ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ he continued, ‘I swear. But I’d been doing other stuff for Heed, getting young girls for clients down here, and he said he’d grass me up to the law if I didn’t do what he told me. You know what it’s like. You get dragged in.’

I did know. But even so, I’d never been dragged in that deep. And the problem was, Tomboy had form. He hadn’t been corrupted. He was corrupt already.

I glared at him. ‘Tell me everything you know about Heed.’

‘He’s an Aussie in his fifties. I don’t even know his first name. He’s lived in Manila for years, and been involved in the under-age sex trade for most of that time. He’s scum, Mick. A horrible-looking bloke. He stinks of death.’

‘I’m sure he’s just as complimentary about you. Where else does he frequent?’

‘He doesn’t these days. He just hangs about the Juicy Peach like some kind of vampire. He lives in the basement, in a place with no windows. You reach it through a door in the club.’

‘Give me the address.’

He reeled it out by heart. I memorized it.

‘Turn round and face the wall.’

‘Mick, please don’t kill me.’

‘Turn round.’

Slowly, very slowly, he did as instructed, until he had his back to me. I could see his knees trembling, and I felt sick, even though I knew what I had to do. If I left him alive, there was a good chance he’d tell Heed I was coming for him, and I couldn’t have that. Time was running out. For me, and for Tomboy too. Although right now, his was running out faster.

‘Oh God, Mick, no . . .’ His voice was a low, cracked wail that seemed to echo round the room. He craned his neck so he could see me, willing me not to pull the trigger.

I snapped at him to face the wall, hearing the tension in my voice as I took the suppressor from where I’d been storing it beneath my shirt and screwed it on to the end of the pistol.

Which was a mistake.

Men will act in very different ways when they’re waiting to die. Most will beg; some will accept their fate in stoic, dignified silence; very few will overcome the torpor of fear and fight back. I didn’t think Tomboy would be one of the latter group, but unfortunately he was. And his desperation made him fast.

He launched himself at me with a ferocious bellow and was on me in a second, punching and kicking, his weight and momentum sending me crashing to the floor. The suppressor flew out of my hand, but I kept hold of the gun, my finger tense on the trigger, and it went off with a deafening retort.

Tomboy wasn’t hit, though, and he launched a punch into my face before scrambling over me and running for the French windows, with very little coordination but plenty of speed.

I knew I had to move fast. Ignoring the pain from where he’d hit me – the second time I’d been laid into in little more than twenty-four hours – I jumped up and ran after him.

As he crossed the patio, making for the low wall at the end, he snatched a look behind him, saw me coming, and let out a little yelp of fear. He jumped the wall, caught his foot and rolled over, then scrambled to his feet again.

But I was gaining, and we both knew it.

He raced through the trees, but suddenly they opened up into a rocky clearing with a single bench on it looking out to sea, and beyond that, the edge of the cliff. It was the end of the line, and this time he realized it.

He stopped and turned round to face me, the breeze whipping up his thin, straggly hair.

For a few seconds, neither of us spoke, each lost in his own thoughts. I was thinking about the old days when we were friends; the drinks we’d shared together; the laughs we’d had. I think he was hoping that was what I was thinking, so that I might finally let my emotions get the better of me, and not pull the trigger.

But he was wrong. He deserved to die far more than many other people I’d killed.

I raised the gun, and he took a step backwards, coming perilously close to the cliff edge.

Then his expression changed. It became calmer. As if he was accepting the inevitable.

‘Are you going after Heed?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘And Wise. I’m not going to stop until they’re all dead.’

‘Make sure you get them.’

‘I will.’

‘I picked up a package for Heed the other night and delivered it to the Juicy Peach. It was a big briefcase hidden in a box that came from Manila docks, and it was bloody heavy. I have no idea what was in it, but I know it was valuable. Very valuable. And illegal. Heed was taking delivery of it on behalf of someone else.’

‘Wise?’

‘I don’t know. But I’d ask Heed about it before you kill him. And tell him that it was me who gave you the information, and that I did it willingly.’

‘I will. Thanks.’

He sighed. ‘It’s not enough to save me, is it?’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.

‘Please, Mick. Come on. I’ve given you something here. Something that you can use. I won’t say a word to any of them, I promise. For old times’ sake. Please.’

Again, I didn’t speak. Keeping the gun steady.

He swallowed. ‘I wasn’t always a low-life, you know.’

‘I know. Neither was I.’

‘What happened to us, Mick?’

‘We made the easy choices, Tomboy. Now it’s time to make the hard ones.’

He just had time to see the tears in my eyes, and then I pulled the trigger, sending him hurtling over the edge and into oblivion.