Dead Pretty (28 page)

‘The duck is good, no? Some say it's too greasy, but it's an underrated fowl, I always think. Wan Sing's is the best in Amsterdam.'

Hakim opened a bottle of wine, fighting hard to control his shaking hands, and served both men. Mark wanted to duplicate Stellachi's every move. He wasn't sure why, beer and wine would hardly sharpen up his senses, but he needed to. Maybe it was a matter of honour, whatever that word meant. Luck, chance, even destiny had got him to this point. He was still alive.

Chapter Fifteen

‘The doc says he's amazed by my recovery,' Carl said. ‘Best part of me to get whacked, my head. Never was much in there.'

Carl was able to sit up now, still tubed up and plugged in, but Julie could see colour returning to his face. The worst was over. She pushed a few stray hairs away from his face, like she'd used to with Mark, when he'd been young enough to let her.

‘I hope my hair grows back over the scar,' Carl murmured. ‘At my age you can't be too sure. They say it won't be too long before I can come out, Jool, if I've got a good carer, of course. I have got one, haven't I?'

‘Looks like.'

Julie lowered her voice, but there was no one around. Carl still had a room to himself.

‘What did the police say?' she asked.

‘Just told me what happened to the car. I did my best wide-eyed bit, stuck in a lot of
good God
s.'

‘I thought they might have thought it funny, you being so hurt at the same time.'

‘They didn't seem to. Nah, they don't expect 'owt. Why should they? I'm just an old builder who happened to fall down the stairs and had his car nicked on the same day. What are the papers saying about it?'

‘It's on the front page of this one. Look.'

Julie held up the paper she'd brought. It showed the remains of the two cars, still smoking, the church looming dark behind them.

‘You read it to me, Jool. I can't focus too well, yet.'

‘Mystery of Mountain Tragedy,' it says.' They are saying no one knows who the men in the cars are, and, guess what?'

‘What?'

‘They think those bastards are the only two involved. The explosion made so much mess, they are not sure who was driving what.'

‘That's good, Jool, very good. Any word from Mark?'

‘No. He's not answering his mobile.'

Julie's eyes started to fill up and Carl managed to move a hand towards hers.

‘He's a survivor, Jool. Take my word for it, you've reared a tough 'un there.'

Carl believed this, but not enough to think that Mark really had a chance. He'd have to get better quick, Julie would need him. A nurse came in to check on the patient and it was time for Julie to go.

To kill time, Julie walked through the town to the seafront, where she sat on the driest looking bench and looked out at the sea. It was a bright, breezy day, and the sea was chopped up into small waves. Julie fixed her eyes on one grey-blue rocky point. It was better for her this way, for the sea made her restless, it being so free. She noticed that the waves broke at this same spot each time, spraying foam as they endlessly repeated their display. Far more constant than anything had been in her life. She wondered how many years they had broken at the same place, maybe it was hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Not very long ago she'd sat at a similar place with Carl, thinking ahead. She thought what had happened with Shane had been a one-off dose of disaster that was her lot to endure. Now Mark had provided another one. There was something about her first-born that seemed to make him a magnet for trouble. He'd been out of it for a long time, almost enough to give her hope that it was for ever. Almost.

Seabirds wheeled around her, twisting on air currents, free like she'd never been. Sun caught on white breasts and orange rimmed eyes checked her out as a source of food. There were different types of birds and she wished she knew the names of some of them. School had come and gone, something to be endured, and Mark had followed her example.
You've reared a tough ‘un
, Carl had said, but she'd hardly done that. Dragged up, more like, her best never much better than hopeless. An elderly couple smiled at her as they passed her bench. They had a toddler with them, blond like Shane had been, laughing as he pulled at the old man, dancing around him on wobbly legs, but in safety. Grandparents. Mark had missed out on them too. Time went on so quickly; it seemed just a short while ago that Shane was this age, even Mark. Thirty years ago, and just yesterday.

Julie checked her mobile again. Still nothing. Mark would have phoned by now, she was sure of it. He would have phoned if he could. She shivered at this thought as the wind got up and started to bite, but she stayed on the bench and went through every possibility in her head. She'd thought the old estate grim, and some of the people who lived there grimmer, but nothing like those two who'd come for her and Carl. In the main, the people she'd grown up with had been shaped by the way life had dumped on them. Life was always a matter of luck, and on the estate it had been in short supply. She'd known many decent women who'd been pulled down, their only crimes poverty and worthless men. One led to the other in an inevitable chain.

Julie watched the changing colours in the sky, it was bigger here than in the valley, more open. By the time the birds had left it had gone from blue to gold to orange. It was time to go back to the hospital, check on Carl again before going back to his place. He might be the only man left in her life.

*

Stellachi smelt like a woman. He lived in a woman's flat, and Mark was trapped in it.

‘So,' Stellachi said, ‘would you like something to round off the meal? How about brandy? I have something very special here.'

‘Why not?'

Snapped fingers made Hakim appear with two bulbous glasses. Stellachi took a bottle from the shelf behind him and poured some into a deep glass. He swirled it around, smelt it, held it up against the soft light, then pushed the glass across the table to Mark. Mark almost made his move, while Stellachi had one hand busy. He could probably have reached him, but would have a few bullets in his chest as a reward, and his grip would fall away into nothing.

‘I read you, my friend. Looking for that slightest of edges, eh, the one that will make you think you can do it. Quite a few others have thought the same.'

Stellachi poured out his own drink.

‘You need glasses this size to tease out the flavour,' he murmured, his voice dropping to such a level that he seemed to be talking to himself. ‘Some find it too warming, but I acquired the taste a long time ago, when I was working in Paris. You have been, I think?'

‘You like play-acting, don't you?' Mark waved a hand around the flat. ‘All this crap. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't change what you are.'

‘Mark, we are not going to have rough words, are we? Name calling? Surely we are above that when drinking five-star brandy?'

‘No, you are below it.'

Stellachi smiled his thin smile, but Mark saw his fingers whiten around the stem of the brandy glass.

‘… In this bleak world of random moments … I read that somewhere, in English. Do you think the world bleak, Mark? Is this a random moment?'

It had started to rain outside. Hard. It beat against Stellachi's windows, and each drop that trickled down turned red from the neon sign outside. Like blood.

‘Do you hear how it rains?' Stellachi said. ‘It's good that it comes often here. To wash the filth off the streets.'

Stellachi got up and stood by the window, gun in hand. He seemed to be dreaming, hardly aware of Mark at all. On the edge of maybe his last ever move, Mark thought back to his first real fight on the estate. It had been in weather like this, with a boy older and bigger than himself. The first time that rage really kicked in, a red blur that made actions hard to remember, and impossible to control, but he remembered the blood on his hands, and that bruised and battered kid limping his way home.
Psycho Eyes
was born that night. It had been a bit hairy for a few years after that, a succession of hard boys, then hard men looking to challenge him. All failed, until he was left alone, his reputation secure, his life anything but.

‘Sit back there,' Stellachi said, gesturing to the sofa.

Mark saw that the sofa was soft and deep, but the chair Stellachi chose was hard, and easier to spring up from. He made his move as Stellachi sat down, throwing the brandy glass in his face and following it with a dive. He was trying for Stellachi's throat but grabbed at air, and was struck across the side of the head by the Luger in Stellachi's hand. As he hit the deck he felt his old friend, blood, this time running down his cheek.

‘Quick, Hakim, get him up. No mess.'

Stellachi backed away against a wall. Lit by the lighting there, he looked like a white ghost, as he casually brushed broken glass from his suit, and clucked his tongue at the brandy stains. There was a small spot of blood on his forehead, which got bigger, like a red island. He's too good, Mark thought, too fucking good. Too fucking good for me.

Hakim pulled at Mark's shoulder, crying and shaking with fright. ‘Sorry, mate,'
Mark whispered, as he grabbed the boy by the neck and got behind him.

‘Mark, Mark, so predictable. Do you really think you can use this creature as a hostage? Do you really think that?' Stellachi levelled the gun at Hakim's heart. ‘For its time, the Luger is a remarkable piece. Its bullets are able to pass through modern stone quite easily. Hakim is not made of stone.'

Hakim was trying to scream but just a whimper came from him. He managed to mouth something in Arabic and Stellachi answered in the same tongue.

‘He's begging for his life,' Stellachi murmured, his voice getting even quieter. ‘Such a guttural language, full of whining complaint. I tired of it long ago. Let him tend to you, Mark, you are bleeding all over my floor. Perhaps we can talk about the notebook after all.'

Mark let the Arab boy go. There was not much point in doing otherwise. More language was exchanged between master and slave and Hakim left the room, to come back with a moist towel. Mark saw that the boy had wet himself too, his silk trousers stuck to his groin but Stellachi did not seem to notice. Perhaps it was a regular occurrence. Hakim dabbed at the side of Mark's head, trying to cry as quietly as he could.

Stellachi went to his desk and picked up a small bag. ‘Here are your things Mark, passport, not much money. A photograph of Lena.
L…e…n…a.
'

Stellachi said her name slowly, teasing out each letter as he twisted the photograph in his fingers. Stellachi stopped playing with the photograph and placed it back carefully inside the passport.

‘Where's the notebook, Mark? Maybe it can save you. It's not important to me whether you live or die. I can even forgive your intrusion here. I could arrange for you to disappear. If I say you are dead, no one will check, I can assure you of that. They know me too well. You know, I rather like you. You remind me of my rougher self, the one I left behind on the streets of Bucharest. You are in good shape, I like that in a man. No unnecessary flesh, like the fat pigs who wander this city.'

Stellachi's face had softened. It made him look even madder. Mark knew there was not the slightest chance Stellachi would let him go. No matter how important the book was, it was more important for the Romanian to kill him. This junkie of death could never let a fix go. He was just talking. Doing whatever his crazy mind told him to, and enjoying the show.

At least he'd been right about the notebook, it was keeping him alive. Mark couldn't believe they hadn't given the hotel room more of a going over. If he'd found the hiding place for Angelo's book, so could they. Stellachi's thinking was loose because he was unhinged, in love with his own power, and the people who worked for him were governed by fear. He'd cut up Lena on a whim. Thank Christ he'd gone back to Amsterdam straight after, or Julie and Carl would be dead now.

The last week hadn't been one of ideas, or real plans, just gut reaction, and desperation. Mark felt he didn't have anything else to try. Maybe he should go back to his first thought, being blown away trying to smash Stellachi's face. To see the Romanian's jaw busted before he went down, and everything faded to black. It was not much of a payback for Lena, but his senses were wasted, stripped bare by the last few days. His head was beating him up, there was nowhere else to go and the nerve knew it. It joined forces with Stellachi to drum at the side of his head. He felt the vein flex against his temple, it was insistent, wanting him to make another move.

‘Well, we've had a good meal, drank superior brandy, even if some went over me. So, what do you say?'

‘You're wrong about the hate,' Mark said. ‘I only have it for you. Yours covers the whole world. Even this poor sod.'

Mark waved a hand at Hakim, who stood against the other wall, his eyes showing white as he tried to lose himself in shadow.

‘Ah, you are trying to philosophise, Mark. Don't go there. You are not cut out for it.'

‘The notebook is a long way from here.'

‘I don't doubt it.'

‘So what are you saying? That you'll keep me alive until I produce it, then let me go. If you think I'd believe that you are crazier than you look. And you look pretty crazy.'

‘You are trying to rile me. Not possible, Mark. Come on, what else can you do? How do you say it in English – you've given it your good shot?'

‘Best shot.'

‘So.'

Mark sat back on the sofa. He was so tired. Of all of it. At sixteen he'd stood on his hilltop,
his
hilltop, looking down on familiar territory, knackered territory most of it, littered with the remains of industry that had been first forced upon it, then stolen away again. Where he came from and where he belonged, despite no father, no money and no prospects. Back then he still thought he was alive, and that life felt real. Before Shane. Before Lena.

Mark closed his eyes, aware that Stellachi was still talking but not listening to him. Then his senses were jerked back into life, stretched out again, like an elastic band about to snap, thrown into a scene that topped everything that had come before in this hellish week.