How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (23 page)

SIXTY-NINE

ALEX

14:13

Alex came to again. Things felt easier this time. He could remember most of what had happened. That was a good sign, right?

His legs were stretched out, and he could feel carpet beneath him. Alex opened his eyes to see he was laid out on the ground, with his back against the wall to prop him in a sitting position. His damaged leg had been wrapped up in brown parcel tape, and two of the legs from the chair he’d been sitting on were used as splints, just about visible through the layers of tape.

‘I did a day’s first aid training at school,’ Milo said. ‘So you’re welcome.’

‘And I’ve seen every episode of
ER
and most of
Grey’s Anatomy
.’ Kara was kneeling down next to Alex. ‘So I was able to supervise.’

Alex realised he couldn’t feel the taped-up leg at all. And his other leg was distant; he could feel it only through a wall of ice. His hands were bound behind his back, but he could flex them, so he focused on that.

‘You’ve lost a
lot
of blood,’ Kara said. ‘I’ll need to change the carpet.’

Alex tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t move at all. ‘Wuck wou.’

‘That’s sweet.’ Kara leaned in and kissed his forehead. She waved something in front on him. It was the burner Fergus had given him. ‘Someone keeps trying to call you,’ she said. ‘Maybe the person you were planning to share the money with?’

‘You remember what Darth Vader looked like without the makeup on?’ Milo said. He was holding a knife. ‘Well, you’ll see it in the mirror soon if you don’t start talking.’

Kara leaned in close to Milo. ‘Enough with the geek shit.’

Alex tried to turn to Kara. His movement was limited, and all he could do was turn his head. It sent pain shooting across his neck. ‘Wou won web away wib wis.’

‘I think we already have. I should thank you.’ Kara sounded different, now. Colder. ‘You trained me for this. All those friends we fucked over on the way up, cutting off my family when they didn’t like you? And you never thanked me for it. Not once. We moved up here and it was all about you. Never looked at what I was leaving behind, did you? I could be running Chelsea or Spurs by now. This is
my
money. I
earned
it.’ She took a step back from crazy into unhinged. ‘And none of this matters. It doesn’t matter what I do to you. It’s not really violence, is it? You’re not really here; you’re in a morgue somewhere.’

Milo got down on his knees and pressed the knife to Alex’s throat. ‘If I remember right, we each have eight pints, and losing more than four will kill you.’ He looked back at the carpet where Alex had been before. It looked like a swamp, with a dark stain and congealed dark goo sitting on the surface. ‘I’m not Doctor McCoy or anything, so I don’t know, pal, but I think there’s more than four over there. You need the hospital, and probably in the next few minutes. So, do you want to live, or do you want to be a dead rich man?’

‘Tell us where the money is,’ Kara said. ‘And we’ll get you to a doctor.’

Alex wanted to believe her. Still now, deep down, he wanted to trust what she said. But Kara had already given the game away. She’d said it didn’t matter what they did to him, he didn’t exist.

He had a simple choice.

Hold out, and die slowly here, but get a few more moments of life.

Or
 
–

Tell them the bank details, and die quickly.

Was there another way? Could he get a message to someone? Maybe Fergus could help. How would he be able to do that? If only his brain wasn’t wrapped in this cold water. It was taking so much effort to think.

Maybe he could tell them Fergus had the money? Then they’d call him, and need to keep Alex alive until Fergus got here. If he turned up. Would the hit man care enough to help? Alex had been pretty rude to him. Blackmailed him. Threatened his family.

Shit.

Maybe, just maybe, Alex was starting to think, it would have been a good idea to be nice to a few people.

The doorbell rang. Milo and Kara looked at each other, then toward the door.

‘Who is it?’ Milo said.

‘How should I know?’ Kara hissed.

Alex felt a small surge of hope, somewhere down in whatever part of his body was still working. While Milo and Kara were distracted, he started flexing his hands again, feeling circulation coming back.

The rope, or whatever they’d used to tie his wrists together, wasn’t as tight as it had been when he was in the chair. Maybe they’d underestimated what was needed, because of all the blood he’d lost.

That thought made him go woozy, but he needed to press on. Push that away. Flex. Pull. Work himself loose.

Kara stood and walked over to the window. She took a look out, then stepped back fast. ‘It’s one of the cops from this morning,’ she said. ‘I remember her. Perera, I think.’

‘Hanya?’ Milo’s voice rose. Alex picked up on it.

Kara turned on him, sounding jealous. ‘Friend of yours?’

‘No, no. She’s a, uh.’ Milo climbed to his feet fast. ‘Sam, you know Sam. They’re like best friends or something.’ His voice lowered. ‘She kind of hates me.’

She’s not the only one
, Alex thought.

‘Get him out of sight.’ Kara moved to the door. ‘I’ll get rid of her.’

The doorbell rang again. Kara stepped over to the living room door and waved her hand in a big circle, signalling for Milo to get a move on.

Milo bent down and took hold of Alex’s feet. He lifted them and started to drag Alex along the ground, through to the kitchen area. Alex felt his damaged leg for the first time since waking up. A numb, distant sensation. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. More like the time he had a tooth removed under local anaesthetic.

Except, he hadn’t been drugged.

He started to realise just how urgently he needed medical attention.

Milo let Alex slump behind the kitchen counter and knelt down over him, holding the knife to his throat. He raised a finger to his mouth in a
Ssshhhhhh
.

Out in the hallway, Alex heard the front door open.

Kara’s voice was quiet and controlled, with just the right amount of emotion being held back. The grieving widow. ‘Hi detective. How can I help?’

SEVENTY

FERGUS

13:00

‘I think they look hard to walk in,’ I say, playing it cool.

Khan laughs.

As I stand there, feeling too ridiculous to really let the fear sink in, Khan sits down on the stool and undoes each of the straps. She pulls a sleek red pair off the shelf and slips them on, then stands up slowly, wobbling a little from side to side as she tries to gauge the balance.

‘Walk with me,’ she says.

We walk up the aisle, toward a mirror. Khan pivots, and we walk back the way we came. Then we do it all over again.

‘I have a few problems,’ she says. ‘And I’m hoping you can help. Do you know Dominic Porter?’

I flinch. Just a little. I look up and see she’s watching me in the mirror as we walk toward it. ‘The councillor?’ I say. ‘I voted for him.’

We get to the mirror and turn, walk back down the aisle. At the stool, Khan sits back down, and takes the shoes off. She slips another pair on, and off we go.

‘Interesting,’ she says. Does she believe me? Does it matter? ‘Okay, I’m going to be straight with you, Fergus. I can call you Fergus? Good. I like to be straight. Too many people in the business want to hide behind bullshit or talk in code. We’re not in some shitty spy movie, are we?’

‘No,’ I say.

Her accent is a blend. I know from her background she was born in the Middle East, grew up in England, and studied in America. In each sentence that she says, the words veer off into different accents. Sometimes she has the soft Rs and Ts of England; sometimes she has the purr and roll of the Middle East. The American accent seems to be there at the start and end of everything.

‘Good. I don’t like that. And I don’t like corporate speak. Too many people running things up flagpoles, putting pins in balloons, thinking of blue skies. Fuck ’em all,’ she says. ‘If I’m going to kill you, I tell you.’ She leans into me to whisper, like a friendly aside. ‘I’m not going to kill you. I always get someone else to do it.’

I spend a second trying to figure out how to respond, but she cracks a smile. ‘I’m kidding,’ she says. ‘Not about getting other people to do it, but I don’t want to get you killed.’

‘I, uh, thanks, I think?’

‘Here’s where we’re at,’ she says. We pivot and walk the aisle again. ‘I have a big deal going through. This time tomorrow? I own this city. All of it. And I don’t trust
anyone
not to fuck it up. I got word that someone in Glasgow was moving against me, and Dominic Porter was going to find out who it was. But he’s vanished. He called me a couple of days ago, but never spoke. On the line, you know what I heard?’

‘What?’

‘Two shots. You’re the best hit man in town. Hey, that’s sexist, isn’t it? What should we call it? Hit person? Hitter?’

‘Call it whatever you like.’

‘Okay. Hitter. You’re the best. So I’m thinking, if Dominic Porter was killed, then the person who ordered it will be the person I need to know about. And, since you’re the best in town, you’re the person most likely to have pulled that trigger.’

I try the same tactic I took with Joe. ‘I wasn’t hired to kill Dominic Porter.’

She stops walking and peers up at me. Those eyes burn right in. It takes everything I have not to flinch.

‘These ones, I think.’ She looks down at her shoes, then smiles at the staff against the back wall. ‘Yes, I’ll take these. And all the ones I tried on. Thank you, girls.’

Khan turns to me again. ‘This morning, another man who worked for me got killed. Blown up. Alex Pennan. You believe that? Sky high. Just like in the movies. I hear you’d be the best person for that, too.’

‘I didn’t kill Alex Pennan.’

My party trick was starting to wear thin.

Khan puts a hand on my arm. ‘You’re telling the truth there. But there’s something you’re not saying, isn’t there?’ When I don’t answer she says. ‘Okay. I respect loyalty. Maybe if you’re as good as they say, and you’ve been paid, you don’t want to break anyone’s confidence. Look at it this way, if you
did
get paid to do it, and you
do
know anything else, then if you tell me before 1 p.m. tomorrow, I’ll let you name your fee. If you know and you
don’t
tell me? Then I’ll be making one of those calls to someone else.’

1 p.m. tomorrow.

There’s the deadline.

I can throw Joe under the bus right here. I know he’s plotting to move on her, and I know who at least two of his accomplices are. But I don’t. I’ve known Joe longer than I’ve known Khan, and I’m not looking to take sides. Let them do whatever they want. All I need to do is keep my head down and stay out of it. And now I know how long I need to lay low for.

And it’s not just me.

This mess has already taken a lot of people. Dominic Porter. Cal. Paula. If I tell Asma what’s really going on, that might lead to Baz and Nazi Steve getting involved, and I kinda liked them.

The only person who knows I killed Dominic is Joe. And he won’t betray me to Asma, because that would be turning himself in, too. If I can keep Joe from finding out about Alex, I can come out of this clean.

Walk away.

Kahn slips out of the shoes and gets a couple inches shorter. She nods at the door, where Long Hair is waiting. ‘He can go,’ she says.

Long Hair hands me my phone on the way out and says, ‘Goodbye,’ all polite, like this was just a normal everyday event.

I guess for him it is.

SEVENTY-ONE

ALEX

14:28

Milo pressed down on Alex.

They could both hear conversation coming through from the hall in small chunks. Some words were clear, others muffled. Kara was doing her best to keep the cop out there, and her answers were short and polite.

Alex could hear the evasion in Kara’s voice, but he was listening for it. He hoped the cop would pick up on it.

‘. . . sent the others away,’ Alex heard the cop say. ‘But I just need to ask a few more things.’

Her voice came closer. She was just on the other side of the door now. Kara’s act wasn’t working, and the cop wanted to stick around. She intended a longer visit than a quick hello on the doorstep.

The living room door opened. Alex heard the two of them walk in. They were less than fifteen feet away. Would the cop notice the blood? He tried the ropes behind his back. Being dragged along the floor had loosened them. Alex continued twisting his wrists back and forth. He just needed a few more seconds.

‘So, there are just a few things we need to follow up on,’ the cop said.

‘Really?’ Kara was playing her role to perfection, trying to sound calm and upset at the same time. ‘What is it you need, detective?’

The cop’s tone softened, going for friendly. ‘Call me Hanya. I just need to go over a few things we didn’t get to this morning. Nothing serious.’

Alex heard pages being flipped in a notebook.

‘Do—do we really need to be doing this now? Today, I mean? My husband only just—’ There was a wobble to Kara’s words now, and Alex could picture her starting to tear up. He’d never noticed before, but from the other side of her affections he could see what an actor she could be.

Alex thought about making a noise. Calling out.

It wouldn’t do much. He couldn’t move his mouth, his throat hurt when he spoke and Milo’s hand was pressed tight over his lips. But he knew Milo’s knife was a bluff. They needed him alive, and they couldn’t risk killing him while the cop was there.

He sucked in some air through his nose and braced himself.

Milo must have sensed what he was doing, and pressed the knife into the flesh of Alex’s throat. It didn’t quite break the surface, but it would only take one more push. Alex breathed out, showing Milo he was going to behave.

The movement had helped his wrists. They were almost free.

Just a couple more twists
. . .

Kara and the cop
 
– Hanya, he remembered
 
– had stopped talking. Was Alex imagining there was a tension in the room? Things felt frozen. Tight.

‘Is that blood?’ Hanya said.

Yes.

Milo stood up. He ran around the side of the counter, raising the knife in his hand. Alex heard an impact, a heavy blow like two people colliding. There were a few grunts.

Hanya shouted, ‘Milo? What the fuck?’

Alex pulled his hands free and started to crawl along the floor. It was slow going at first. Hell, it stayed slow, but he grew more confident as he moved. His bound leg was a dead weight, dragged behind him, but he had just enough strength in his arms and the other leg to shuffle forward.

As his head cleared the kitchen counter, he looked up to see what was going on in the living room. Kara and Milo were both on the floor. Hanya was standing over them with a gun switching from one target to the next. Milo was putting his hands over his face as cover from the weapon, and Kara was breathing heavily and wincing.

Alex’s first thought was,
I’m saved.

His second was,
I’ve seen her somewhere before.

His third,
Shit, she was the woman talking to Joe at the café.

Then he looked at the gun again, and it dawned on him that Glasgow cops didn’t carry. Shit. Joe had sent one of his crooked cops to take them all out. This wasn’t a rescue. He needed to think fast.

If only his brain would play along.

‘You shouldn’t have that?’ Kara said. Halfway between a question and a statement. ‘You shouldn’t have a gun.’

Hanya hadn’t noticed Alex yet. She turned to answer Kara. ‘Clearly, you’re the brains of the operation. Because wonder-boy here just tried to threaten me with a butter knife.’

‘It’s still a fucking knife,’ Milo said. Alex heard the tremor in his voice.

Alex laughed. In spite of everything. Milo and Kara were both panicking. They were amateurs, and everything about this situation was spiralling out of control. Except for this cop. Hanya. She was cool. She was calm. She was cracking jokes.

The laughter drew her attention and she turned, bringing the gun around expecting a third attacker. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Alex, and she mumbled a vague, ‘Whaaat?’

She was surprised to see him.

That gave Alex hope. That meant she hadn’t been sent to kill him. He mumbled something that he hoped sounded like, ‘Help.’

She pulled out her mobile with her spare hand and started taking a few steps toward him. She typed a number into the keypad, and while her attention was split so many ways, Kara had taken the chance to grab Alex’s golf club. She jumped up from the floor and swung it in a wild attack. Hanya sensed the move and, with a precision and strength that Alex would frankly have found hot if his libido wasn’t buried under seven layers of pain, she dropped the phone and caught Kara’s wrist, pivoted, and threw her across the room and into the coffee table.

Milo grabbed the knife off the floor and again tried to rush Hanya with it. The cop sidestepped Milo again, and used the gun in place of her fist, hitting him full in the face. He flopped backward. And crashed into the bar. Bottles of scotch and vodka rocked, then toppled forward onto him.

‘Wait.’ Kara had risen to her knees. She was favouring her back where it had hit the table, and her words came in jagged gasps. ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’

‘I don’t
know
what this looks like,’ Hanya said. ‘
He
blew up this morning, but it looks like you’ve been torturing him, and
he
is a footballer who has no reason to be here. Why don’t you start telling me what this looks like?’

Milo rose up behind Hanya with a full bottle of Talisker and swung it hard into the back of her head. The sound bounced around Alex’s skull. Hanya staggered forward and dropped the firearm. She blinked a few times, and her head seemed to shake in slow motion, like a wrestler trying to sell a big blow. Milo brought the bottle down again. Hanya turned to block it, but wasn’t working at full speed, so she only deflected the worst of it, taking the second hit on the shoulder. The bottle fell to the floor and Milo slipped his arm around Hanya’s throat from behind, trying to get her into a chokehold.

Kara picked up the gun. She climbed to her feet and aimed, one-handed, at Hanya. She smiled and pulled the trigger. The recoil jerked Kara’s hand back, and she yelped in pain. Or at least, Alex assumed she yelped. He saw her face contort and her mouth move. He didn’t hear anything, and he realised he wasn’t hearing anything at all. The scene remained completely silent at first, then a tinny ringing seeped in through his ears. Thunder rolled in shortly afterwards.

Hanya had sagged, becoming a weight in Milo’s grip. Alex watched her push a hand to a wound in her side. Kara aimed again, and this time she planted her feet squarely and gripped the weapon with both hands.

She fired two more shots. Alex heard both of them. Hanya made grunting noises, but so did Milo behind her. They both fell to the floor.

‘Y
nnn . . .
you shot me—’ Milo called out. He sounded like a hurt cat.

Kara stepped over to them. She looked down at the cop first. Hanya was moving slowly, trying to turn onto her side. Alex saw a glassy look in her eyes, like a UFC fighter who’d taken a big hit. She was moving on instinct. Reaching for the phone. Kara raised the gun to shoot again, but Hanya’s movements slowed down, then stopped. The fingers of her right hand twitched in the direction of the phone. She let out a heavy breath. She mumbled something. It wasn’t quite a word. It sounded like she was saying,
It’s okay
, but Alex couldn’t tell if it was directed at him, or at herself. Then her body sagged. One minute she was there, the next she wasn’t.

Alex had never seen anybody die before.

He didn’t like it.

Kara turned to Milo. He was crying. Alex found the tears more pathetic than anything else. ‘You shot me,’ Milo said again, through the blood and waterfall.

‘At least you won’t have to see the next season of
The X Files
.’ Kara fired one last bullet, shutting him up.

She turned to level the gun at Alex.

‘Now.
Now.
Listen. This?’ She waved at the two bodies. ‘
This
is your fault. You’ve done this. And now we’re probably going to have police here any minute. So. So. What we’re going to do is we’re going to go for a ride in my car. You’re going to tell me where this money is, and we’re going to go get it.’

Alex nodded.

Enough.

He had no fight left.