The Payback (31 page)

‘We know all about you,’ I continued. ‘We know you work for Paul Wise. We know you were involved in the abduction of thirteen-year-old Lene Haagen from a Manila hotel two and a half years ago. We also know that a briefcase containing something valuable was delivered to you on Friday night.’

‘Seems like you know everything then, doesn’t it?’

‘No. We don’t. We need to know what’s in the briefcase, where it is now, and the whereabouts of Paul Wise. You can answer all those questions.’

‘Why should I help you? You’re going to kill me anyway.’

‘I won’t lie. You’re going to die. But I’m no sadist, and if you answer my questions, I can make it quick.’ I took the Swiss Army knife from my pocket and opened it to reveal the main blade.

Heed looked at Tina. ‘Are you going to let this mass murderer
torture me, Miss Boyd? Do you, as a serving police officer, really want to be involved in that?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘I do.’

As she spoke these words I thought I saw the first flash of doubt ripple across Heed’s jaundiced features.

‘Why don’t you just talk, Mr Heed?’ I said quietly, placing the blade against the corner of his left eye, moving across his field of vision so that Tina couldn’t see what I was doing. I really didn’t like the idea of torturing the information out of him, however terrible his crimes might have been, but I’d extracted answers this way before, and sometimes it’s the only way to get them.

I put pressure on the blade, wondering if I had the mental strength to take out one of his eyes.

Heed flinched. He tried not to, but he couldn’t help it, and I could see his Adam’s apple rising like a growth as he swallowed.

‘Why are you protecting Paul Wise?’ asked Tina, coming closer, so that she could see where I was holding the knife. I didn’t move it. ‘Do you really think he gives a shit about you? He’s got a history of getting rid of his friends when they’re no longer any use to him. Particularly ones that know about the skeletons in his closet, like you. Your days are numbered anyway. Now you’ve got the chance to make sure his are too.’

I sensed a flicker of interest as Heed weighed up the possibilities.

‘Tell Mr Milne to remove the knife,’ he said as calmly as he could, ‘and perhaps we can talk.’

She looked at me, and I took the blade away, but kept it down by my side.

‘I want you to promise that you won’t kill me,’ he said, still clearly suffering from the effects of the boiling water. ‘You can leave me here and call the police if that’s what you want. You
can even tell them what happened. That way justice will be served, and I will suffer the consequences of what I’ve done in a court of law. But I want your word, Miss Boyd. That you will not kill me.’

She looked at me and I gave her a small nod in return.

‘OK,’ she said reluctantly. ‘You have my word.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘The truth. You work for Paul Wise, don’t you?’

‘I
do
work for him, yes.’

‘Is he in the country at the moment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘He owns a house south of here. On a place called Verde Island.’

Tina looked at me. ‘Isn’t that the place we passed yesterday on the way to your friend’s place?’

I nodded, surprised that Wise had property so close to where I used to live. ‘It is. But it’s also a fair-sized island.’ I turned to Heed. ‘What’s the address?’

‘The house is called Treetops,’ he said without hesitation. ‘It’s a big white place on the south-east tip.’

At one time, I’d regularly taken dive boats out to the southern tip of Verde, which was one of the best dive sites in the northern Philippines. ‘I don’t remember any houses there.’

‘I’m not lying. I have a navigation device with the exact coordinates pre-programmed into it. It’s in the bottom drawer over there.’

While I waited, Tina rummaged through the drawer until she found a small Tom Tom-style device. ‘Is this it?’ she asked him.

He nodded. ‘It’s under reference seven-five-two-three.’

Tina punched in some numbers. ‘I think I’ve found it,’ she said, coming over to me.

I looked down at the screen. There was a slightly blurred aerial Google Earth photo of the bottom section of an island that could have been Verde. Three houses were visible, set some distance apart amid the thick vegetation that ran up from the secluded rocky coastline. The one nearest the tip was big and white, and looked to be on a larger plot than the others.

Tina showed the screen to Heed, and he confirmed that it was Wise’s place.

‘Now, as I said, we know about the briefcase,’ I told him, ‘and we know it was delivered here by Tom Darke on Friday night. What’s in it?’

The big question.

‘I don’t know,’ said Heed.

My face darkened, and I immediately brought the knife back up so that it was only millimetres from his left eyeball. ‘Don’t lie.’

‘I’m not,’ he said, his voice calm. ‘It’s a large briefcase, and all I know is that whatever’s inside is valuable. It was sent here from overseas – I believe by your employer, Mr Schagel. I had to arrange its pick-up from the docks, and have it brought here. I was curious as to what was inside, but the case was very securely locked, and I was paid a great deal of money not to let my curiosity get the better of me.’

I looked around. ‘So where is it?’

‘It’s been delivered to Wise’s house on Verde. It was picked up here last night.’

‘By whom?’

‘One of Schagel’s people. A Russian. I don’t know his name. Now, will you please move that blade away from my eye?’

I did as he’d requested and exchanged looks with Tina. I was pretty sure that Heed wasn’t lying about not knowing what was in
the case, just by the way he was answering all my other questions without hesitation.

‘Why was Nick Penny murdered?’ Tina asked him.

He looked confused. ‘I don’t know any Nick Penny.’

‘He was a journalist in England murdered last week on Paul Wise’s orders. He’d been in touch with Patrick O’Riordan very recently.’

Heed shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that. I do know about O’Riordan. He was executed by Mr Milne here on the orders of Paul Wise. I don’t know the reason why he had to die. All I know is that the logistics had to be dealt with very quickly. Mrs O’Riordan supplied me with the keys to the house that you used when you executed him. She was very upset when she found out about her husband’s male lover. She also informed me when the two of you came to visit her.’

I could see that Heed was trying to drive a wedge between Tina and me. His whole demeanour had changed, as he tried to appear reasonable and cooperative, while at the same time he was trying to make me look like just another ruthless hitman. From the cold expression on Tina’s face, it didn’t look like he was succeeding.

‘O’Riordan knew about the young girls, didn’t he?’ said Tina. ‘The girls you’ve been sourcing for Paul Wise over the years. Including Lene Haagen. And don’t bother lying about it, because we know.’

Heed was silent for a long moment before answering. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I’ve supplied girls to Wise. O’Riordan did find something out about it, but he was warned off. Lene was a mistake. Wise wanted a western girl. He preferred them. He’d had one before in England, and one in Cambodia too.’

‘Letitia McDonald,’ Tina cut in, her expression darkening.

‘If you say so,’ Heed said.

‘She was just twelve years old.’

‘Yes, well, I tried to persuade him that it was a foolish move—’

‘But you did it all the same.’

‘Yes. I did it all the same.’

‘And where are the girls now?’

He sighed, no trace of his earlier arrogance now. ‘They went to Wise’s home on Verde Island and they never came back.’

The room fell silent as we digested this information. But, tragic though it was, it still left unanswered questions. And one in particular was bothering me.

‘You said O’Riordan was warned off from writing about the disappearance of the girls, and I know from the archives that he did stop writing about it. So, why did he have to die now, two and a half years later?’

‘As I said, I don’t know.’

I raised the knife again. ‘Take a wild guess.’

Heed’s eyes focused on the blade, and for the first time I could see fear in them. ‘I can only assume he found out something about the package,’ he said quietly. ‘But what it was I honestly don’t know.’

‘Do the names Cheeseman and Omar Salic mean anything to you? O’Riordan had a meeting planned with them on the day he died.’

Heed shook his head. ‘The names are unfamiliar.’

I felt my frustration growing, and wondered if he was deliberately holding back information, purely out of malice. I looked at him for any sign that he was playing with us, but could see nothing in his expression to suggest he was.

‘Think,’ I told him. ‘It may save your eye.’

‘I don’t know those names. I promise you.’

‘Then I don’t have any more questions.’

I looked at Tina. I could tell that she was frustrated as well.

‘I don’t have any either,’ she said.

Heed fidgeted beneath his bonds, the dry skin of his face stretched into an expression of uncertainty. ‘I’ve kept my side of the bargain,’ he said, opening and closing his hands, the long fingernails scratching the material of his ancient suit. ‘It’s time for you to keep yours.’

I turned to Tina. ‘You might want to wait outside.’

‘But you promised me, Miss Boyd,’ said Heed, his voice rising as the first signs of panic began to set in. ‘You gave your word that you wouldn’t let him do this. It’s murder. Pure and simple. Call the police if you have to, but this is wrong.’

‘If we let him live, he’ll escape justice,’ I told her. ‘Remember what he’s just done. He killed that little girl.’

‘You killed her, Milne. It was you who shot her, not me. It was him, Miss Boyd. He did it, I promise you that.’

Tina took a deep breath, and looked at us both in turn.

‘Stop him,’ pleaded Heed. ‘Don’t let him kill me. Please. You’re a police officer.’

She stood there for two, maybe three seconds, and then, without a word, she turned and walked out of the room.

I raised the gun, fighting down the nausea I was feeling. ‘It’s time to go to hell, Mr Heed.’

‘Don’t do it,’ he said through gritted teeth, the sweat running down his face in streams as he writhed in the seat, his fish-grey eyes wide with a terrible mix of fear and pleading as all his cruel bravado evaporated in the face of his impending death.

But I did do it.

Paul Wise paced the front veranda of his villa, ignoring the intense heat of the mid-afternoon sun that was barely tempered by the breeze coming up from the sea. For the first time that he could remember, he was genuinely worried.

Thanks to the incompetence of Bertie Schagel’s men, Tina Boyd was still alive and at large in Manila. By all accounts she was even teamed up with the man Schagel had sent to kill her, whom Wise had now found out was the former police officer Dennis Milne. If he’d had a clue that Schagel was using someone like Milne, he’d have forbidden his involvement. Milne was a vigilante, the kind of man who liked to think he was above everyone else. A judge, jury and executioner righting supposed wrongs, and who was probably looking for him even now. There was a certain grim irony in that. A hitman turning on the client who was paying his wages for reasons of morality.

But at that moment, Wise had bigger fish to fry. In a few hours’ time he had a meeting that could be life-changing. A group of men were coming to buy a highly valuable and very illegal
briefcase from him. If the sale was successful, he would end up a very rich man. However, if anything went wrong, and the sale didn’t happen, then he was as good as finished. The stakes were that high, and the problem was, he didn’t trust the men who were buying it. They were also coming here to his beloved island retreat. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but Wise no longer had what he felt was the necessary level of security to deter his visitors from trying to take the case without paying for it.

He’d been promised two of Schagel’s men to provide protection, but one had been killed in the previous night’s botched operation against Boyd and Milne, and the one who had turned up was less than impressive. Balding and middle-aged, with cheap spectacles and even cheaper clothes, he looked more like a down-at-heel accountant than a professional assassin. Schagel had even had the temerity to describe him as one of the best in his field – a veteran of Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces – but so far he’d failed to kill Tina Boyd on two separate occasions and had also been unable to take out Heed when they’d been alone the previous night. Nor did Wise have anyone else who could protect him. He didn’t trust the bodyguard who’d travelled to the Philippines with him, and had lately become paranoid that the man might be working for the British government, so he’d sent him home to northern Cyprus. He did have a couple of trusted locals who acted as security at the villa, and who carried legally held guns, but he doubted they’d be much use if things turned nasty.