How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (25 page)

SEVENTY-SEVEN

FERGUS

June 9th

06:30

I sleep straight through.

That’s the first full night’s sleep I’ve had in years.

Sam’s already gone.

I yawn, stretch and head into the living room. My jeans are on the floor, as part of a trail of clothes between the sofa and the bedroom. I fish my phone out of the pocket and check messages.

There’s two from Sam. Texts to my number rather than messages through vLove.

Had to go. Something’s come up. Talk later XX

And:

Last night was perfect XX.

I’ve got two voicemails. One is from the burner I gave to Alex. A woman says, ‘I think you know who this is. If you want to see Alex alive, call me.’

I have no idea who that is.

Okay. That was the shoe I was waiting to drop. Alex has messed up. Someone has him, and I have no idea what he’s told them. The woman on the phone doesn’t sound like Asma, and she certainly isn’t Joe. Maybe I can still get out of this without involving them.

The next is from Stan asking me to call him back, urgently. I start to make worried connections in my head. Has Alex already spilled too much? It’s after 1 a.m. in New York, but when he says urgent, I always take it at face value. I call his number and wait.

Usually he picks up straight away.

This time it takes a while, and he sounds sleepy.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘But your message says—’

‘Yeah, it’s cool. Listen, I thought you should know. There’s been a red flag in the UK.’

Red flag
is a code. It’s an urgent hit, open to all takers. Five hundred grand to whoever takes the target out first.

‘Stan, I’m not—’

‘I know. But this one’s in Glasgow, so I thought you might want a retirement present. Turns out you were right, there are two new hitters in town, and they’re—’

‘Cops. I know. Alan Dasho and Todd Robinson.’

‘Okay. Well, I figured you might want to collect the money before they do. The target is some woman. She’s called, hang on . . . Samantha. Samantha Ireland.’

Shit.

PART FIVE

June 9th

Takeover Day

‘Well, Sam, you certainly have a type.’

—Sam

SEVENTY-EIGHT

SAM

07:15

I’d woken up early.

Sleeping in someone else’s bed is never comfortable for me. It was unusual to have slept as well and as long as I did. I looked at Fergus for a few minutes. He’d rolled onto his side, shedding the covers. It would have looked romantic, if not for his mouth hanging open.

I decided our relationship wasn’t at the morning breath stage.

My phone was on the sofa. I padded through in my bare feet and switched it on. I had a couple of messages from a number I didn’t know, and four texts from Phil that were all variations on,
Call me. Call me urgent
.
Sam, where are you?

I didn’t want to wake Fergus up by calling Phil from there. I pulled my clothes on and took a drink of water in the kitchen. My own place was only twenty minutes’ walk; I could get a shower and brush my teeth there.

I pulled the front door closed behind me and called Phil.

That was when my world collapsed.

I don’t remember the walk the rest of the way home. I don’t recall stepping into the shower fully clothed. I know it happened, because that’s where Phil found me a few minutes later.

Crying.

For the first time in a year.

Phil didn’t say a word. He sat on the floor next to me, and put a hand out, holding mine while I let it all out beneath the warm water.

There was this jagged pain right down the middle of me. I was scooped out. If this was what I’d been holding back for all that time, I wished it had stayed buried. Fergus called me a couple times, but I didn’t answer. The phone beeped to say he he’d left voicemails. I didn’t want to call him back. The night before had been so good, I wasn’t ready to add any problems by talking about where we went next, and I didn’t want to talk to him about Hanya.

It felt wrong to load it onto him. Cheap. It was my pain to deal with, not his.

Once I stopped crying, Phil started to tell me what had happened. I knew for a fact he was talking. I could see his lips moving, I noticed his awkward hand gestures and the long pauses between words. Part of my brain was hearing the words, but they were nothing more than the background rumble of a busy road.

He stood up and left the room. I stripped out of my clothes and had a shower for real, washing off the night before. I brushed my teeth but avoided looking in the mirror. I wasn’t ready for that.

Two of the words that had leaked through to the front of my mind were
gun
and
shot.

Was it the weapon we’d found at Paula’s place? Hanya had been heading round to the Pennans’ either way, but if she’d been killed by something she found because of me
. . .

I wrapped myself in my bathrobe and walked through to the living room.

Phil met me from the kitchen with a warm coffee. I took it and sat down. I tried to say
thanks
but it was a croaked noise.

‘So they haven’t found her yet,’ Phil said. ‘Hanya’s boss was clear that we were to stay out of it, but—’

‘Wait,’ I said. My voice was raw, but it was working. ‘Go back. Who haven’t they found?’

‘Okay, so at the, the scene, they found Hanya and Milo. And a load of blood that they think must have been someone else, but they haven’t tested it yet.’

‘Right.’

Alex was dead. Milo was dead. Hanya—

Was dead.

Wait. Milo? Why was—

Of course.
Kara hadn’t warned me off Milo because our relationship was bad for the team. She’d chased me away because she wanted him. That made everything else slip into place all too easily. She’d been cheating on Alex, so she wanted proof Alex was doing the dirty, too, for the divorce.

So, okay, Hanya and Milo were at the house. That left Kara. ‘Kara’s the one who’s missing?’

‘Yep, there’s no gun at the scene, and Kara’s car has gone.’

‘And they said we should stay out of it?’

‘Well, yes.’ Phil was thinking about his words carefully. ‘But I think maybe it was one of those things, like he was telling me the opposite of what he meant. I mean, Hanya’s name isn’t on the news yet. No details are. But he calls us to let us know. And he’s telling me the car’s gone, and his words just felt, you know, like—’

‘Yeah.’ I’ve played that game a couple of times. They have to tell us not to get involved, but there’s a way of doing it that is really saying,
Give us a hand, eh?

Wait.

Wait.

‘Phil, did we ever take the GPS tracker off Kara’s car?’

‘No, we never got round to it.’

He grinned. I saw the flash in his eyes. I knew it well. The thrill of the hunt. He’d finally caught the bug. He’d found whatever part of our father was buried away deep down. Seeing it on his face, I was caught by how bad it was. I wished we could roll back, and I could stop him falling for it.

Phil picked his laptop out of the bag on the floor and loaded it up. He clicked a few buttons, and our GPS app filled the screen.

There was one tracker active.

The one on Kara’s car.

It flashed away in the Merchant City.

SEVENTY-NINE

FERGUS

07:15

The red flag attached to Sam’s name means I need to get to her, fast. The problem with Kara and Alex Pennan needs fixing, too, but it can wait. It’s only my own neck on the block for that one, I need to help Sam first.

I need to explain. Tell her what’s going on. That’s also going to entail letting her in on how
I
know about it.

She won’t see me the same way after that.

I’ll lose her.

But that’s something I’m just going to have to deal with. Tell Sam the truth and keep her alive, or keep lying to her and watch her die? That’s not even a choice.

I try calling her, but she doesn’t answer.

I try again, and leave a voicemail. ‘Sam, call me, it’s urgent.’

Next up I send a text, same message.

I start calling a third time, thinking at the very least I could leave a warning to let her know she’s in danger. Then I realise what I’m doing, and how it’s going to look. She’s been on two dates with a guy, slept with him and now he’s sending her weird needy messages.
You’re in danger, don’t leave the house.
Yeah, right. There’s no way that won’t sound like a threat.

I look up the address of her office online. It wouldn’t be too hard for me to find where she lives, I know she’s already said it’s not far from me. This feels creepy, but it’s better than the alternative, right?

While I’m searching for her details online, Google starts to throw news stories back at me. Sam’s way more than a bike messenger. I wonder if she was ever planning to tell me any of this?

Yeah, right, because
her
lies are the bad ones in all of this.

My phone goes off and I answer it out of reflex, not even checking who it is.

‘Fergus?’ It’s my dad. He sounds weird. ‘We just had a call. On the house phone.’

My blood runs cold. I remember that Alex had my parents’ details, and I know where this is going even before he says it.

‘Some woman,’ he continues. ‘
Kara
, she said. She’s shouting about money, said if you don’t take it to her she’ll, Fergie, she threatened us. Yer maw. Zoe.’

Kara?

Kara Pennan?

He gives me the address. As I expected, it’s the flat I broke into yesterday. Okay. This changes things. I need to get to Sam, but now my family are involved. I wish I’d killed Alex for real. This is way out of hand now.

‘Son, are you in trouble?’

‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m sorry she threatened you.’

I heard something that sounded almost like a laugh. ‘I’m a union leader, been threatened my whole life. If I didnae back down from Thatcher, I’m no’ backing down from this lass. But are
you
in trouble? You need me, just say.’

‘I’ve got it, Dad, but thanks.’

I’ve spent years keeping my family out of my real life, terrified of what they’d say. First hint of trouble, and my dad’s first question isn’t,
What the hell have you been doing?
but,
How can I help?

I leave a message on the answering service at Sam’s office number. I give a little more detail this time.
I know this sounds weird, but it’s important. Call me.

I want to get to Sam, but first I need to take my family out of the firing line.

EIGHTY

ALEX

07:15

Alex blinked.

Had he been asleep?

He wasn’t sure.

He did this sometimes. He’d been complaining for years of having insomnia. Kara had bought him a Fitbit to monitor his sleep, and the stupid little thing said he slept five to six hours a night.

He just never remembered any of it.

Only one of his eyes would open. What was with that?

And why did his head hurt?

He looked around. Hey, he was in Kara’s car. He hated this thing. It was too small, and an automatic. The seats were uncomfortable and she always had her own music on.

Kara was behind the wheel. She looked pissed off.

Where were they going?

Alex tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled whine. His mouth wouldn’t open all the way.

What?

And why was he so sleepy?

Alex blinked.

Had he been asleep?

He wasn’t sure.

He did this sometimes. He’d been complaining for years about having insomnia. Kara had bought him a Fitbit to monitor his sleep
. . .
hang on, hadn’t he already been thinking about that?

They were in a room. Alex was on a sofa. It was, wait a minute, he knew this place. It was his bed. His new sofa. The apartment. There was something important about this place, he just couldn’t quite
. . .

. . . the cupboard under the stairs. There was something about the cupboard under the stairs
. . .

And when did he and Kara move in? He didn’t remember telling her about this place. It was his secret.

Why was it his secret?

Alex blinked.

Had he been asleep?

He wasn’t sure.

He did this sometimes. He’d been complaining for years of having insomnia.

Kara had bought him, wait
. . .

Kara? He can hear her. She’s talking into a phone.

‘
Okay, I don’t care about that,
’ she says. ‘
Just tell him to get here, and bring the money
,
otherwise I’ll come find you
.’

Money.

Job.

Wait
. . .

MONEY.

Alex remembered. The money. He’d shown Kara the laptop, with all the info, including Fergus’s details. He gets a hot flash of memories all at once. Holy shit, she’s tortured the shit out of him, and he still hasn’t told her the money is in here with them.

Is it really worth all of this pain?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Alex’s body feels distant. He can barely move.

His arms, yes.

He can move his arms.

He can pull himself along the cushions. He can pull himself up, using the back of the sofa for support.

Kara’s sitting on the end. She’s facing away, talking into the phone, barking orders.

The gun.

Where did that gun come from, again?

Oh yeah, the cop.

They killed a cop.

None of this was supposed to—

Stop. Wait. Alex is getting drowsy. He can’t let this— He has to—

He lurches forward and grabs the gun.

Kara turns, her face pissed off. She panics, then, in the second before Alex squeezes the trigger, she wears her
Oh, seriously?
expression.

The gunshot takes Alex off balance. He falls forward off the sofa. The floor rushes up.

Alex blinks.

Had he been asleep?

He wasn’t sure.

No, he couldn’t have been. He’s standing at the altar. Kara’s walking down the aisle. She smiles as she draws level with him. A shy smile, despite being the most perfect looking thing in the room.

Alex has hit the jackpot.

Alex blinks.