Dead Pretty (25 page)

‘Hakim.'

Mark didn't respond, and kept the knife pressed to the boy's face. It loosened Hakim's tongue more.

‘Hakim, I'm the houseboy. I cook, clean, for Mr Stellachi. He's good to me.'

‘Aye, I bet. That's why you're pissing your pants with fear. You're more afraid of him than me, even though I'm standing over you with a blade.'

Hakim's blood was running onto the knife, making it looked used. Mark wiped it on the leather which made the boy wince. He put it away and let Hakim sit up straight.

‘Where?'

‘He went out early, before I am awake. I don't know where, but he'll be back soon. Any minute.'

‘You were watching me from the window,' Mark said. ‘You've been phoning people.'

‘I always watch from the window. Mr Stellachi does not like me to go out without him. I didn't know who you are. Many people come here. Lots of them look like you.'

‘The stairs down, where do they lead to?'

‘You can go into the club or out onto the street. Mr Stellachi never goes into the club. He hates it.'

Hakim stopped and coughed into his hand. There was a gap in his top teeth and the remains of one in his palm. Hakim looked at it tragically.

‘You can get a gold one,' Mark said.

‘You don't understand, Mr Stellachi, he doesn't like …'

‘If I were you I'd be more interested in what
I'd
like. Who's in the club now?'

‘Only the cleaners. Everyone else will be in bed.'

‘How come you are up so early?'

‘Sometimes I don't sleep so well.'

‘How old are you?'

Hakim shrugged, and was cut off by a ringing phone.

‘Leave it,' Mark said.

‘But …'

‘
Leave
it.'

The phone stopped after fifteen rings. It was probably Stellachi.

‘I must always be here. I must always answer,' Hakim said. ‘He will be angry.'

It was a pity about the phone. Mark might have stayed otherwise, try to kill Stellachi, here and now, but the Romanian would be alerted. He'd guess there was only one reason why little Hakim couldn't answer. Time to go. Time to find another plan. Another ghost.

Mark dipped a finger in Hakim's blood and wrote
call me
on the suite, adding his mobile number. The congealing blood stuck to the leather quite well, and he liked the effect. Then he ripped out two of the pages he'd copied from the notebook and gave them to Hakim.

‘Give these to your boyfriend,' Mark said. ‘Don't get them messed up.'

Mark almost felt sorry for Hakim, he was just another lost kid, fetched up in the wrong place, with definitely the wrong man.

What Mark had already seen here made all the stuff back home tame, and the estate just a playground for mouthy, disaffected punks. Here he was amongst something else entirely, the real thing; if the real thing meant depraved crazies, all out to make their smear on life. And wedged in between were the Hakims, the girls, the junkies, and all the punters who fed this world. Mark felt dirty.

‘Where's your mobile?' he asked Hakim.

The boy pointed to the desk. There were two there, Mark took them both, then cut the cord of the landline. Time to get out, before the cavalry arrived. He left the apartment and went out the front way, past the old sweeper, who, if he was surprised, didn't show it. Mark glanced up at Stellachi's window as he walked down the street. Hakim was standing there, holding his face. He was grateful to still be alive, but he was definitely more worried about Stellachi's return. You should have stayed home, kid, Mark thought, better ripping off tourists in the marketplace than being ripped by a brute like Stellachi.

Mark's journey back across town was a mixture of care and abandon. His eyes were on constant alert but he made no attempt to conceal himself now. There was no point, Hakim would have been down those stairs to the club as soon as he left, spilling the beans.

He passed the Old Church. Someone was playing the huge organ inside, heavy sounds that seemed to rumble deep from the guts of the building and stay in his head as he skirted the Hash Museum and was back on the edge of The Dam. He went into the first brown café he saw. Although outside the smoking district, its air was still full of dope, but Mark couldn't be bothered to go anywhere else. Maybe it would help calm him down. He sat at a table near the door and watched his hands shake, veins standing out like blue ropes. A few students were at the back, giggling and already well gone, and an old black guy drooled over a hookah by the toilet doors. His face was carved ebony, and in the hazy light it looked like he was kissing a snake. It would always be murky in here, even on a sunny midday. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom a good-looking girl appeared at his table. She was tall, slim-thin, with button breasts in a tight top. The girl looked very fit, and after his short, sweet time in Sexland this was a figure that shone with health. Mark smiled back at her, and ordered soup, beer and a veggie-burger. Best eat now, when he could. Strange how he could still smile, how the lips formed one of their own accord, despite the torment up top.

Mark checked the mobile again. This time Julie was there.
Am in a B & B near to the hospital. Carl holding his own. Should be OK. X
The oversized X was the best she could do, Mark knew that. Julie wasn't able to ask him to get in touch, she couldn't afford to take the risk.

The burger was good. He remembered how Shane had quickly got a taste for the meat version, hanging around the table on tottering legs, like a bloody penguin, waiting for whatever Mark offered. Julie used to get annoyed. He's too young for that junk, she'd cry, as if they had healthy futures mapped out, as if they had
any
futures mapped out.

The loss of Shane was like an anvil on his back. Now he too was close to disappearing for good, maybe going down to a watery grave like Lena, and Julie would have the rest of her life to wonder what had happened. He'd given her plenty of stuff to make images with in the last few days, there was no mystery with him, just your everyday tale of murder, mayhem and revenge.
Retribution
, a big word he learned the meaning of recently. It had been in one of Lena's magazines and he'd looked it up behind her back, then shown off with his knowledge. A suitable return, that's how it was explained, especially for an evil act. There'd been a lot of them in the last few days. Was he here looking for a suitable return, or just bloody-minded selfish revenge? The type that had almost got Julie and Carl killed. Maybe Agani should have been enough, and the brothers a bonus for Kelly, but it was too late now. He'd started a bloody ball rolling, and was running with it in the heart of Amsterdam. Eating healthy food. Stellachi would have goons looking all over for him now, cursing them for missing him at the ferry ports. Then he'd see the blood on that sofa and start on Hakim.
I have flown
, Mark thought. I did it. He could hardly believe it, and trembled with the memory now. Lena had been worth that, but he doubted if anyone would be again.

Mark drank the last of the beer, holding onto the bottle tightly, trying to regain control of his hands. The slim-thin girl was watching him wistfully, he had enough of his senses left to notice that. He nodded to her and left.

Outside a pale sun was being overhauled by yesterday's cloud. It was mid-afternoon, and it looked like it would be foggy again by nightfall. In ten minutes he'd tracked back to Anton's and was opening his front door. Anton wasn't around. He'd left the TV on though, an English channel, the volume just loud enough for Mark to hear some idiot going on about houses. Mark wanted another shower. He needed one. This was foremost in his mind as he trudged up Anton's Everest stairs and pushed his bedroom door open.

There was a blur of movement in the washroom mirror and Mark grabbed at his knife. Too slow, much too slow. He was on the floor, looking at it sideways, his nose crushed. Even at this angle he recognised Stellachi. Sitting on the bed and taking off white leather gloves.

Chapter Fourteen

Julie agonised over Mark's text. She wanted to say more, the need to know he was all right made her feel cold and her stomach tighten up, she was on the verge of throwing up all the time. When she'd seen him standing on the doorstep of her flat all the old emotions had come back. Joy at the sight of him, immediately laced with suspicion. Last night she'd slept fitfully, in short snatches, jerked back to life with flashbacks of the churchyard business. That ape grabbing at her, the cars exploding, Carl lying amongst the trees, looking very dead. She'd been sure they'd killed him. At least that hadn't happened, but she was feeding off crumbs. Small windows of light in the dark passageway that was Mark's world.

Julie stood by the window in her nightie, watching dawn appear. How often had she seen Mark do this, scratching his arse and staring blankly out at the hillside, as if it might have answers. In his own private, locked-door world, and oblivious to her presence. Sometimes, when he was late back from a job, she'd come downstairs and find him like this. They were the only times she'd see him up that early, mostly he'd surface mid-afternoon, full of sleep and foul mood. Again Julie wondered if she should have gone to the police, but it was too late now. Mark was gone. Chasing a finish. He'd been doing that since he was fifteen. It
must
be her fault. After Shane vanished she'd had a lot of support from the social worker, but she couldn't call it help because there was no real help, not for something like that. Shane is not your fault, the woman said, and you can't keep taking responsibility for Mark. The woman kept saying that none of it was her fault, but Julie had never really believed it. Every time she'd gone down to Cardiff, seen the shops, and what was in them, what other people could afford to buy, she felt it was her fault. Every time she blew it with a new man, usually some tosser who couldn't provide the time of day, let alone anything else, it was her fault. Mark hadn't had a chance, so she thought that Shane was her punishment. Now all this had happened. Maybe the punishment wasn't over.

The B & B had a nice garden. Julie watched early morning birds flit around, a robin shouting the odds at bigger birds. It was one of the few she could name. It hopped around on the wall outside her window, puffing out its red chest like something from a Christmas card. She imagined herself owning a place like this. A garden, near the sea, a man coming home at the same time every night. A routine. Happiness for her would be something unchanging, even uneventful, but safe, and always there. She'd love every boring minute of it. It was starting to be a little like this before Mark knocked on the door. Having somewhere to go five days a week, even if it was work in a factory, then meeting Carl. He'd made the weekends less of a trial. Carl was a good bloke. No angel, but not useless either, an ordinary kind of man,
normal
, that word the Richards had never done. Not that Carl's actions this weekend had been anything like normal, but that's what happened when people met Mark   even after one bloody day.

Julie showered and dressed. The taxi was picking her up at nine. She'd become one of the guy's regulars now, his next customer after the school run. She wanted to spend as much time with Carl as she could. It was what normal people did.

*

‘Get him up.'

Stellachi's voice was quite high. He sounded more like the owner of a boutique than a killer. Mark thought Angelo had come back from the dead, for the man who dragged him up looked remarkably like him. Three men were in the room. One stood against the wall behind the door with an automatic in his hand. Not much of the wall was left because this man was almost as wide as it.

‘Put him in the chair.'

Blood was pouring onto Mark's shirt and he tried to blink clear his vision. He hated shots to the nose, it was impossible to control the eyes.
You stupid, stupid bastard
, he mouthed to himself. He should have been more careful about this place, and about Anton. Stellachi was ahead of him, and deserved to be.

‘I've just had a call from Hakim,' Stellachi said. ‘I hope you left the apartment in good order. So you
flew
in. That was hard for you, wasn't it? I'm quite impressed, Mr Richards, phobias are hard to dismiss. You must want me very badly.'

This guy's English was better than Mark's own. Just the faint trace of an accent. ‘I think I will call you Mark,' Stellachi said. ‘It's a nice name, very Biblical. Mark, did you really think you could come so far, and not be taken? True, we did not expect you to fly, and if you could have flown into my apartment maybe you might have had a chance. But you had to take a train, and you were seen.'

Stellachi threw a photograph towards him. Mark recognised it. One from the early days with Lena. He remembered Kelly taking it outside the Queen's Head, his boozers hands fiddling with the camera, telling them to say
cheese
in his best Irish accent for Lena.

‘We had many of these printed, just like the police do. For us, you are famous, my friend. You didn't really have a chance, did you, Mr Mark Richards?'

Stellachi was on his feet now, walking around like a model. Charcoal Armani suit, white polo neck, matching gloves. Mark almost expected him to be carrying a cane. Stellachi nodded towards the man by the door.

‘That's Adam,
my
first man. He laughs at my gloves, thinks they are a woman's things, but not to my face, of course.'

Stellachi folded the gloves and placed them on the bedroom table, checking it carefully first, and flicking something from its surface.

‘Pigsty,' he muttered to himself.

Mark didn't see it coming. The Romanian had great eye-to-hand co-ordination, and special timing. The punch flicked into his head like a wasp sting, it didn't seem to have much force but it rocked Mark back in the chair and closed his right eye. He felt Stellachi's ring imprint itself on his cheekbone. Mark thought of getting up but wall-man Adam had got close to him now, and had the gun sticking in his back.

Maybe I have only seconds to live,
Mark thought
. Then it will be all over. Thirty strange years end here, in some poxy Dutch hovel, surrounded by evil arseholes. My glorious exit from a glorious world. But doesn't part of me want it? To be out of it all. No more struggle. The big sleep. Who knows, the way some call it, I might be meeting up with Lena again, even Shane. Living in happy land. No mysteries. No pain.

Stellachi was watching him closely. He beckoned to the other man who stepped forward and handed Mark a towel.

‘Clean yourself up,' Stellachi said.

Stellachi walked around the room. Mark expected another blow at any moment, or a bullet in the back of the head.

‘So, this is interesting,' Stellachi said. ‘I've killed men face to face, and they all showed fear. Sometimes it was masked by anger, by
their
attempts to kill me, but it was always there. You are different, Mark, aren't you. I can see it in your eyes. You are ready.'

Stellachi came closer and Mark felt the gun push deeper into his shoulders. A flicker of Stellachi's eyes and he'd be dead. Stellachi's voice dropped to a whisper, and Mark could smell his sweet breath. Some drink he couldn't place.

‘Don't give up so easily, Mark. Give me a little pleasure. How do you say in English – we are fellow travellers. A pity about the girl, and what she has caused. It might have been good to get to know you.'

Mark lunged at Stellachi's throat. He thought he was quick, but Stellachi was quicker. Mark grabbed at air, then plunged down into darkness.

‘Don't kill him,' Stellachi shouted.

Adam stood over Mark, the gun bloody in his head.

‘Don't kill him,' Stellachi repeated, more softly. ‘Oh no, Mr Mark Richards, nothing so easy for you. Bring him.'

Stellachi put on his gloves, straightened his suit and left them to it. Downstairs he beckoned to Anton, who was doing his best to make himself invisible in a doorway. Stellachi pushed a few hundred euros into his hand, taking care not to touch the man. He pointed to his tongue.

‘Wag that and I'll come back, cut it out and make you eat it. You know I will, don't you?'

Anton nodded, so hard, drops of sweat flew from his forehead. Stellachi stepped out of the way quickly, then was gone. Mark followed, supported down the stairs by Adam, the other man carrying Mark's case.

*

‘How you feeling, luv?'

‘Not too bad. Got the mother and father of all headaches though.'

Julie touched Carl's forehead gently.

‘Hardly surprising. Just imagine you've been on a bender.'

‘Well I have, in a way. We all have.'

‘Aye.'

‘Any news?'

‘I don't expect any. Not from Mark. He'll be following Shane now, vanishing into thin air.'

Julie pushed at her eyes with the backs of her fingers and was quiet for a minute or so.

‘I'm surprised you still want me around.'

‘Don't be daft. After what we been through? What else we got,
who
else have we got?'

‘You got two kids.'

‘Aye, thousands of miles away, and they always followed their mother anyway. I didn't even have a birthday card off either of them. Look, Jool, I'll need you to look after me, wait on me hand and foot, do my every bidding. The doc says you might have to do it for the rest of my life. It'll be a bloody first from any woman I've known.'

‘Oh aye? I've just spoken to him. He say you'll be up and on your feet in a few weeks. Maybe back working in a few months.'

‘Oh well, worth a try. Working, why doesn't that thrill me?'

Julie smiled.

‘See, Jool, you can still do that.'

Carl did the same.

‘Christ, it's good to have that tube out,' he murmured. ‘The hole in my throat will heal up on its own, apparently. I'm not used to talking in a whisper. We were meant to survive, Jool. We'll get through this.'

‘I don't know if I
can
go on, Carl. How much more am I expected to take?'

‘Look, I can't change anything that's happened, but I
can
be here for you, right now. I know a knackered old soldier is not much of a substitute for losing a son, and maybe another, but …'

‘You should have come along twenty years ago.'

‘Well I'm here now. Look, I do need you, Jool, I realised that when the ex came to see me. There was nothing there any more, for either of us. I think she thought I was going to croak and that there might be a bit of money around.'

‘I saw her in the corridor.'

‘Oh. You spoke, like?'

‘Just a few words. No problems.'

‘You must have surprised her, good-looking woman like you. I don't think she thought I'd ever hook up with anyone again.'

‘Good-looking woman! Those bastards after Mark put twenty years on me.'

‘I don't see no sign of it.'

‘Even on your bloody back you're a charmer.'

‘Aye, for you. So, are we going to stick it out?'

Julie placed a hand over Carl's. As she traced the veins and the drip going in, she could sense the strength still in the man. Strength that had saved her and Mark. Strength that had never been offered her before, and which she needed.

‘Jool?'

‘Yeah, I s'pose. Give it a try.'

*

Adam had not told Stellachi about Hakim's phone call. He'd been too afraid, as Hakim had been too afraid to phone Stellachi direct. Stellachi felt the type of rage that had always made him sick. It started in the pit of his stomach, then rushed to his head, where it collided with many images. Old demons reared up at him, and there was only one way to still them. He flicked open his own phone, jet black against his gloves, and pressed the chrome numbers.

This Richards was interesting. A pity that he had been taken so easily. That was the trouble with hate, it clouded your judgement, especially if you were not used to it. If you were born with it, that was another matter. It became an ally that allowed any action. It became an excuse that set you free.

So, Mark Richards had got to the apartment. Hakim told him, his voice small and distant, afraid of every syllable it uttered.

‘And he has papers, from a small book.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Papers. Lots of names, the big people. Your name, phone numbers, figures, our address.'

‘
Our
address?'

‘Yes, here. I couldn't stop him. He was powerful, like you.'

‘Hakim, Hakim, I don't keep you to
stop
people and he's not powerful now, is he? And the apartment?'

Hakim was quiet for twelve seconds. Stellachi counted each one.

‘Speak to me, Hakim.'

‘He hit me. I bled. I'm cleaning.'

Stellachi turned off his phone. He imagined his furnishings soiled, the place turned into an abattoir. He felt sick again, and need rose up in him.

‘Take him to the usual place,' Stellachi said to Adam, ‘and be careful with this one.'

Stellachi kicked Mark, hard to the head.

‘That will help you sleep, my friend. Rest while you can.'

Hakim stood by the window, watching for Stellachi. The tourists were out in force now, as the light was fading. Like the creatures of prey they were, Hakim thought. This had been his world since the age of ten. It was hard to remember anything else, before Stellachi. He had images of being amongst many children and of the mother who gave him away, but they had faded, and were getting harder and harder to recall. Better not to now. He remembered the hunger though, first in the belly, then the mind, hunger for everything, but most of all kindness.

Even the summers were cold here. He hated the water all around, and could not understand why so many came to see the boring lines of inky liquid. Canals made the city hard to move around, and, in winter, they brought down the fog that was cloaking them now. Sometimes they froze over, to lie like bloated, grey veins across the city.