No Kiss For The Devil

40

Ray Szulu cruised the last half mile towards Pantile House, eyes alert for problems. Traffic was light and easy this late in the evening, the same on the pavements. The fewer people the better, for what he was about to do.

He was driving a white, unmarked Ford Transit, as common as a London taxi. It offered total anonymity and had good vision front and sides. The back he wasn’t so worried about. He’d lifted the van half an hour ago from a deserted sales forecourt in Islington with a seizure notice on the front door. By the time anyone missed it, the van would be old news.

As he drew closer, he began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He couldn’t help it; he was trying to convince himself that everything was cool, that he was okay with this. He could do it, no problem. So why, a niggling little voice wheedled in his innermost ear, was he acting like a virgin on her wedding night?

He gripped the wheel to stop the drumming, to cut out the voice. This, it was saying, was the stupidest thing he’d ever agreed to. Doing the surveillance job on the men and the building was one thing; it was easy money and entailed using his eyes, that was all. But this was going up another level. This amounted to direct action, which most definitely wasn’t his thing.

He breathed deeply, forcing himself to calm down. What was he worried about, anyway? According to Palmer, Riley Gavin was the one in the fat-fryer. She’d managed to get herself lifted off the street by some Russian mafia types, and Palmer was sounding like he was ready to waste the entire north side of London to get her out. He could probably do it, too. Palmer was like a one-man search-and-rescue squad.

Szulu smiled suddenly, seeing himself as a Black Knight to Palmer’s White. Gallant characters hadn’t figured much in his upbringing, but now he thought about it, being any kind of knight felt pretty cool. And, if he had to be one, it might as well be black.

He looked down at the glove box with a sense of satisfaction. Palmer had told him he had to create a diversion at a specific time, and to use his initiative. It was an acknowledgment that he actually trusted him to do something without being told what.

‘Be creative,’ the ex-army cop had said on the phone, in that lazy way he had of speaking. But beneath the calm, his voice had been anything but lazy. He’d sounded seriously pissed, and as cold as permafrost. ‘I need a diversion, and I’m relying on you to come up with something.’ He’d paused and added, ‘Make it loud. Just don’t kill anyone. You know what collateral damage is?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

After telling Szulu precisely when he wanted it, he’d disconnected.

Szulu grinned at the memory and reached down for the length of nylon chord hanging from the glove box. He’d make it loud all right. This one was right from the Ray Szulu manual of insurance scams. The original idea had been tricky setting up, but he knew it would work because he’d used it a couple of times already. And best of all, nobody would be able to spot his handiwork. Fortunately, the mechanism was easy to put together and had taken only seconds to rig up.

He slowed his speed and checked the street either side. Palmer had said there could be watchers out, so look for anyone deliberately not doing anything. Like hard men in suits, he’d added.

Szulu shivered, in spite of himself. He knew what they looked like and didn’t want to mess with them. He was just passing one of the doorways he’d used doing a recce of the place before. The building where the Russians had their base was along on the right, set back off a corner. Behind the building was a maze of narrow cross-sections filled with residential blocks and a few commercial properties. He’d taken a stroll earlier to see what was happening, but apart from a couple of small shops, some one-man-band businesses like printers and such, and a couple of pubs, there wasn’t much activity and hardly any through-traffic. Best of all, there were plenty of dark patches between the lights. Ideal.

He drifted past the office block, ignoring it like Palmer had told him.

‘Men like that,’ Palmer had explained, although Szulu didn’t think he needed to, ‘can smell trouble. They’ve got senses most people don’t have. Like radar. They develop it because of what they do.’

Not just them, Szulu had wanted to tell him. I had that sense when I came out of the womb. It was part of the Szulu family DNA.

He glanced at his watch. Right on time. He pulled an about-turn and drove back, then turned sharp left and left again into the street behind the office block. As he did so, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and pumped it hard two or three times. The engine responded with a cough and a rattle, followed by a stutter as the fuel flow was interrupted, then did a kangaroo-hop as he repeated the process. He waved an apology to a car coming the other way and allowed the van to drift to a stop in the middle of the street. The engine stalled with a pop as he let his foot off the clutch. Simultaneously, he reached down and tugged hard at the length of nylon cord hanging from the glove box.

Under the bonnet, the other end of the cord was joined to a simple lever mechanism, then a flint and wheel from a cigarette lighter, and a cardboard Starbucks cup half filled with lighter fuel. A tug of the cord, and the flint made a spark over the fumes and splashes of petrol rising from the cup through the lid. He’d fitted a neat little spring since the last time he’d used it, so he could try again if it didn’t take first time.

He swore. Nothing happened. He tugged again and began sweating. Damned if he was going to go back to Palmer and tell him it hadn’t worked. He’d stick his head under the bonnet and strike the bloody lighter himself before that happened.

There was a whump from the front, followed by a thin plume of smoke curling out of the vent and up the windscreen like a soft lizard. He could smell lighter fuel. He counted to ten, then stamped on the accelerator. The engine flooded, as he knew it would, and he tried to re-start it. The starter motor whined noisily, but refused to catch.

Thicker smoke began seeping from under the bonnet, and he saw a faint flicker of orange in a gap in the bodywork. He checked his watch. Palmer must be counting, too, waiting for the bang.

The smoke became black and oily, snaking lazily out from all sides and lifting into the air. It billowed across the narrow street, gusting in the faint breeze and clinging to the sides of the buildings. Szulu could smell it now, hot and choking, making his eyes water. A voice shouted nearby, and someone laughed.

He jumped out of the van, leaving the door swinging open, and popped the bonnet. The heat surged out fierce and instantaneous, followed by a blast of flame and a curl of black smoke which seemed to reach for him like an angry monster. He dodged sideways and tried to locate where his fire-starter was lodged. If he could get the device out, all the better. There’d be nothing for any nosy accident inspector to find, should they come looking. But one look told him that his little plan had worked too well. The cup and lighter were gone, consumed by the flames. If he got any closer, he’d be roast meat. Best if he bailed out and left it to burn. With a quick check to see nobody else was close enough to try any heroics, he turned and ran.

He was only fifteen yards away when the van exploded. A gust of hot air touched the back of his neck and something whizzed past his left ear and clanged off a Renault parked at the kerb. Glass smashed as something went through a nearby window.

Szulu stumbled, his legs going weak, and hit the ground, his knees burning on the tarmac. He felt a momentary panic, enlivened by a sense of achievement. Was that impressive or what? He scrambled to his feet and turned to watch the van burn, the flames stained blacker than the night air as oil joined the mix. He checked the pavement again for pedestrians; Palmer didn’t want anyone hurt by this. But there was nobody to warn away, the few onlookers still some fifty yards away at the end of the street.

He stood for a moment shaking his head, hoping to preserve the image of a distraught driver with his livelihood going up in flames before him. He rubbed smoke from his eyes, and grinned to himself. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care what anyone thought. He’d done what he’d set out to do.

Up on the fourth floor, in the windowless washroom, the sound of the explosion barely registered, a dull crump above the noise of the extractor fan. Fedorov, always acutely alert for unusual sounds, glanced towards the door.

Riley heard it, too, and strained desperately against the tape holding her in place, hoping against hope that it would weaken enough for her to get free. Her face was already smarting painfully from the splash burns, and she was trying not to imagine the results if Fedorov did what he had threatened, and what effect the bleach would have on her skin, her hair. Her eyes.

She almost gave in and screamed, but she knew Fedorov would be onto her before the first sound was out.

‘What do you want from me?’ she demanded, coughing and heaving against the smell. A distant part of her brain was dredging up the constituent parts of bleach, recognised from the kitchen at home, the useless details filed away in her subconscious: Sodium Hydroxide and Sodium Hypochlorite. The words were almost harmless when she thought about them; mere chemical words to warn the domestic masses. To be washed off immediately and kept out of the reach of children. In case of contact with eyes, seek medical help.

‘Who says I want anything?’ Fedorov bent over and breathed in the fumes for a few seconds, as if relishing the purity and headiness of a fine wine. He turned his head and smiled, and she felt a cold chill run through her body. It was like coming under the gaze of a killer shark. She began to shiver violently and gritted her teeth, determined that this monster wasn’t going to have the pleasure of seeing her grovel.

Then footsteps approached and Fedorov straightened.

The door burst open and slammed back against the wall. The noise echoed around the room, followed by the sound of a wall tile hitting the floor under the impact of the handle. A tall figure stood in the doorway.

For a split second, Riley felt elation as she recognised Richard Varley. Then, behind him, a vaguely familiar figure. This man had a vivid mark across his face. She realised with a sinking feeling that he was the one she had hit with Palmer’s baton.

Varley looked stunned when he saw her. The colour drained from his face as he surveyed the scene, and he stared at Fedorov as if he didn’t recognise the man.

He shouted something, the words making no sense to Riley, although the tone was full of anger. But the language reminded her that he was really a former Russian soldier named Vasiliyev, and any fleeting thoughts she might have harboured about him being here to help her turned to dust.

The outburst continued in a torrent, harsh and uncompromising, his eyes blazing. The veins stood out on his neck as he gesticulated at Riley and the sink filled with water; the smell of bleach in the air and the empty bottle amid the fragments of porcelain on the floor.

When he finally stopped, Fedorov replied. It was in English and addressed to the second man. ‘Olek. That noise outside. See what it is.’

Olek nodded and disappeared. In the following silence, they could all hear distant shouting and a car alarm going off. There was no movement from Fedorov or Vasiliyev, who stared at each other as if they were figures in a ghastly silent tableau.

Moments later, Olek was back. He grinned nastily and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘It looks like a delivery van caught fire in the street. The driver’s running around like a headless chicken. It’s nothing to worry about.’

Fedorov nodded, then turned to Vasiliyev. When he spoke, his anger was quieter, more restrained, yet to Riley, even though he had reverted to Russian, so much more obvious. And menacing. As he finished speaking, he made a brief gesture.

And Olek, still in the background, produced a handgun and placed the tip of the barrel against Vasiliyev’s head.

Riley sucked in her breath and closed her eyes, waiting in dread for the inevitable. When she opened them again several seconds later, she was alone.