Dead Pretty (8 page)

‘Come on, Tony, we're out of here.'

Despite the weather Mark took a jacket with him, he needed it to conceal the gun.

They were on the street for less than sixty seconds, hardly time to feel the sun on their faces, when the car hit them.

Chapter Six

Mark couldn't believe he hadn't seen the Lexus in the street. It came from behind a van with Angelo at the wheel. Mark moved quicker than Tony, which saved his life. Tony took the hit full on, bouncing up over the car's bonnet to land a few yards behind it on the road, quickly turning a patch of it wet. Their eyes met for a second, but Tony's did not register anything, and were filling with blood. There was a screech of brakes from other vehicles, and a woman screamed somewhere. Mark heard others shout out and saw the Lexus speed away around the first corner. Angelo's skull had obviously not been broken.

Mark had been struck a glancing blow, just enough to push him into the gutter and make his shoulder throb. He felt for the gun and it was still in place. Traffic was stopping, people were rushing towards Tony. Someone approached Mark.

‘You okay, pal?'

‘Yes. Help my friend.'

And Mark was gone without another look back, pushing through the gathering crowd into a side street.

If they wanted Tony dead it meant they expected him to sing. They were right, but for Mark Tony hadn't said enough. Maybe he could have got more out the man. Mark realised how cheap life was for these people. They had killed two of their own very easily. A few minutes ago he thought he'd had one vital element on his side, surprise, but he was behind the game, way behind. His situation had gone from hopeless to impossible, just like Tony said. Even so, he'd keep to his plan, such as it was, and get over to that address in Greenwich. Maybe it would be an endgame waiting for him, maybe not, but at least they couldn't know where he was going and Angelo hadn't hung around long enough to know if Mark was out of action or not.

Mark took the Jubilee line and got off at the North Greenwich tube station. This wasn't a part of town he knew very well. He checked out the usual mix of summer traffic and milling people, all on a mission to get somewhere, a thousand pairs of eyes, and anyone might be looking for him. The police might want to know why the man with Tony had disappeared, but Tony's end would be put down to a hit and run, not murder. The holdall had given Mark some protection against the car; what was left of his life was inside it.

Greenwich was a large station, concrete columns reared up inside a huge underground space, and glazed blue tiles were everywhere. It had been built to impress, like the Millennium Dome nearby. This had always struck Mark about London, or any big city. They were always on the move, buildings being pulled down, springing up, projects failing with millions lost, but always others to take their place. Ever-growing stone plants. So different from his hillsides, which only changed when wedges of forestry were cut down to leave gaping, exposed spaces, naked gashes in the masses of trees. Glimpses of what the hillside were once like.

Mark looked at Tony's scribbled address. Anyone might be living there, but it did exist, for Mark found the street in a few minutes. It was in the money end of Greenwich, a million quid's worth of converted warehouse, the penthouse on the top, Tony said, which would make things even harder. Mark remembered coming here with Lena once, he'd wanted to see the Cutty Sark, Christ knows why. He'd had his bellyful of the sea in the Shetlands but it had been in one of her magazines and it was in their early days, when trips around town had been a novelty for him, especially when it didn't involve spying on someone. They'd gone on to the Observatory, where his lack of knowledge had shamed him. He couldn't answer any of Lena's questions but it didn't bother her. ‘You can read lots of books when you're an old man,' she'd said, laughing at him in that way she had, it was infectious, never mocking and made him feel so good.

Mark fixed Agani's place, as he leant against a wall a hundred yards down the road. It was overlooking the Thames, one of several warehouse blocks, new money spin offs from 80s Britain, Mark's growing up time. There'd be financial people from the City here, maybe a few soccer players, small time rock stars, conmen, and silver spoon merchants, but Agani was probably the only murderer.

Getting in was the first problem, staying alive the second. They'd have electronic entrance doors, maybe even someone manning them, but Mark had been here before, many times. There'd always been somewhere to get into, from his earliest days. He saw a pub further down the road and walked down to it. It was surprisingly full for the time of day, city types stretching out liquid lunches. He went into the toilet and tried to freshen himself up, slicking water through his short hair, putting on the jacket, and making sure the gun was secure in the inside pocket. He needed to look as if he belonged in this part of town. Mark thought about having a quick drink but thought again, it was too much like the last wish of a condemned man.

He walked quickly back to the warehouse block, his eyes trying to check everywhere at once. There was not much traffic about and no sign of the Lexus. They probably had it off the road by now, fixing the mess Tony had made.

It was a question of hanging around until someone went into the apartment block. That might be Agani himself, for Mark had no idea what the man looked like. He could not afford to stay outside for long, there was little cover in the modern design of the place, old streets were much better, full of the nooks and crannies of his trade, but his luck was in. A car pulled up outside, he saw a man in a suit kiss the woman driver, get out and go towards the entrance. If it was possible to move fast nonchalantly Mark achieved it, a lifetime of experience served him well and he got close to the man as he punched numbers on the door's security system.

‘Nice to see summer's arrived,' Mark said, in the best voice he could muster.

‘Yes,' the man answered, ‘better late than never.'

He did not pay Mark much attention, he was still smiling back at his girlfriend. Mark let him go ahead into the lift near the entrance, then took the stairs, which were discreetly positioned behind a service door. He left the holdall at the foot of the stairs, if it was gone when he came down it was gone. If he came back down.

For a big man he'd always trod softly, and he did so now, making barely a sound on the stairs. It was four flights up to the penthouse. He got to the top floor and looked for a way up to the roof. He wasn't sure what good this would do him but it was worth checking out. Always know your ground, one of his golden rules. The door to the roof was locked but it didn't matter, for someone was coming up in the lift. There was just enough angle in the corridor to hide himself. Two men got out of the lift, talking in a language he didn't recognise. One was very large, and the other was Angelo.

It was an instinctive action, he'd always acted like this when the chips were down. Mark came behind the men very quickly and put the gun against the large man's head. He froze, but did not make a sound. A pro, Mark thought, like me. Angelo turned to recognise him and cursed under his breath.

‘That's right, mate, still alive,' Mark whispered. ‘I'll take his head off. We're going inside, quiet and easy.'

Angelo found his English.

‘You're a madman, coming here. What the fuck you think you gonna do?'

‘I could kill you, for a start. I should have last night.'

Angelo rubbed the back of his head in memory. He wanted to get his hands on Mark, to punish with his fists, to kill him with his hands.

These might be the men who had killed Lena. Mark felt the adrenaline kick in again, he was surfing on its rush, not sure himself what he might do, but if he was going down in the next few minutes these two were coming with him, he was certain of this. It was impossible to search them without losing his edge. One yes, but two was too dangerous. He'd assume they were carrying.

‘Open the door,' Mark said. ‘If either of you make a sound, or speak a word that's not English I'll kill you.'

‘He don' speak English much,' Angelo said.

‘Tell him what I said.'

Mark kept the gun hard against the big man's neck. He'd held one or two before but had never used one. It was not complicated. Pull a small piece of metal and someone died. Angelo turned a key in the door and Mark nudged them in. Very quietly.

It was a large room, more than thirty foot long, and one other man was in it. He sat at a desk by the window, smoking, and talking on the phone, in Dutch. Mark recognised it from his one job in Amsterdam. The man had a dressing gown on that looked like a woman's, a reddish pink colour, almost like another layer of flesh. He was small, very dark, about fifty years old, and wore glasses with heavy frames. This must be Agani, but he was not what Mark was expecting. This guy looked like a cross between an accountant and the doorman of a clip joint. Agani said something to the men without turning around, and continued to talk animatedly into the phone. If there was anyone else in the flat Mark knew the odds would lengthen. Not that they could be much longer.

Mark gestured to Angelo and his friend to sit down. Agani finished his phone call, looked at something on his desk and stood up, stretching and looking down onto the street. Only then did he turn to see Mark and the pointing gun.

Agani's face was quizzical, not frightened, but he glared at Angelo for a second before the mask came back. It said, you can't harm me, you are nobody. This was the man who'd ordered Lena's death and these were the men who'd carried it out. Mark saw her on that bloody bed and wanted to pull the trigger. He wanted it badly. A quick pull on the trigger, just increase the pressure of his curled finger a fraction. Agani first, one round in the head, quickly, before the others could react, then just empty the gun into them as they came for him. He was breathing very hard, trying to stop the shake in his hand. An inner voice talked to him.

It won't do, you stupid bastard, you'll find nothing else out. You'll spend the rest of your life behind fucking bars, never knowing what really happened, never knowing who Lena really was.

‘What's the trouble, my friend?' Agani asked.

That almost did it. Mark fought hard to control himself and everyone in the room knew it. Angelo and the big man were weighing up their chances but they did not step between Agani and the gun. They wanted to live, maybe at the expense of their boss. Any real loyalty and they would have been at him before this, chancing that one of them would survive.

‘Don't do anything stupid,' Agani said, ‘we can work this out.'

His voice was soft, lacking the flamboyance of Tony, but there was more of an accent in it, and it was used to giving orders, having its own way. Mark found his own voice at last and hoped it didn't come out as a desperate shout.

‘Do you know who I am?' Mark said.

Mark cocked the gun. Its click seemed to make the room jump a little.

‘Don't do it, man,' Angelo said. ‘You are out of your depth.'

‘And you are close to dying. All of you are.'

Agani looked at Angelo.

‘This is the man, the Mark Richards.'

‘I thought maybe so.'

‘Sit back down,' Mark said to Agani. ‘I want you all to put your hands on your knees. Dig into them. I want to see your hands go white. If they don't, or you move, I will kill you all.'

‘Can I tell him?' Angelo asked, pointing to the big man.

Mark nodded.

I want to kill you. I want it so bad I can smell it. Taste it. If it's revenge, it tastes like iron, like blood. My throat is dry and bitter with it. I have retribution in my hand and I want to use it. Anything to take the pain away.

Agani was a cool bastard, Mark had to give him that. The man knew his life hung by a thread but faced up to him like he was a business contact, with a proposition. Mark knew it hadn't always been like this. Agani had learned to do it. Even if the guy looked like a ponce in a men's clothes shop, Mark recognised a fellow traveller, someone born piss-poor and hating it, not so much from the wrong end of the tracks as beyond them altogether. Agani would have started with small time thieving, then built up, until success was plucked from his mean life. He'd probably done his own killing in the early days, maybe there were others like Lena in his past. This was an Albanian version of a scally from the old estate, but for ripping off motors read drug shipments, for fists and boots in the streets read throat slitting, for getting your girl pregnant read selling them. For a finale read cutting up a woman.

‘Well,' Agani said, ‘we might as well talk.'

‘Did Angelo tell you I was dead?' Mark said. ‘That I went the same way as Tony? Or did you think I'd just crawl under a rock? Go away somewhere and blank Lena from my mind?'

Angelo's hands tightened further on his knees. Maybe he
had
thought Mark was dead. He would only have had time to see him spin into the gutter.

‘Never mind, mate' Mark said, ‘at least you got one out of two.'

‘Mr Richards,' Agani said, ‘you're upset. Not thinking straight at all. It's understandable. Such a pity you came back to your flat when you did. All this … unpleasantness could have been avoided. And Flut … Lena, she was such a silly girl. She had a good life here. She was a British citizen. Why is it that some always want more?'

Mark rushed forward and clubbed Agani to the side of the head, knocking him onto the floor. Angelo and the big man thought of doing something but the gun was back on them in seconds. Agani moaned, and spat out a string of foreign words with his blood.

‘Shut up,' Mark shouted. ‘I only want to hear English. Get back in your chair.'

Agani did so, but was groggy. He almost said something else in his own tongue but stopped himself.

‘Can I get a handkerchief from my gown?' he managed to ask.

Mark nodded. Agani was bleeding freely. He dabbed at his wound gingerly. Mark had also caught his cheek with the gun butt. It was turning purple.

‘I haven't been hit for twenty years,' Agani said quietly. ‘I'd almost forgotten about such things.'