No Peace For The Wicked

Chapter 2

The young man in the smart suit seemed oblivious to the chill in the air as he stood on the patio watching his employer. She was kneeling on a cushion, digging the blade of a knife between the flagstones and levering out stems of couch grass, the crepe-flesh in her upper arms quivering with the effort. The knife strokes were short and vicious, as if the battle with the weeds was personal, old age against new growth.

He looked around, eyes flicking over the tree line a hundred yards away, then turned to take in the house behind him. Set in an acre of prime Buckinghamshire countryside, the house wore sweeping eyelash gables overlooking a magnificent stepped garden, and every brick and tile, each bush and shrub, echoed solid, undeniable wealth. He’d heard it was once the home of a merchant banker. He wasn’t surprised.

Inside the house a telephone warbled pleasantly, as if promising good news. The young man went into the kitchen and through to the hallway, breathing a sigh of relief once he was out of earshot of the woman. Guard duties with no danger of action had a definite downside.

He picked up the phone and listened to a brief message, then replaced the handset without comment and returned to the patio. Over the old woman’s bowed back he checked the garden for signs of movement but saw only borders and flower-beds in perfect splendour; neat, ordered and unblemished. Not that he cared for any of it, save for the fact that intruders had no place to hide. Gardening wasn’t really his forte.

The woman glanced up as his footsteps sounded on the stones, the knife hand stilled, thumb resting on the top of the blade. The way she held it reminded the young man of a combat instructor he’d once trained with. Vicious bastard liked to nick trainees with the point of his dagger, to give them a sensation they never wanted to experience again. It had worked, though. The memory still made his gut twitch.

“What is it, Gary?” she asked.

“It’s done,” he replied, hands clasped respectfully behind his back.

The woman very nearly smiled. She didn’t, much, as if she had never learned how. “Good. Thank you.” She gazed down at her handiwork. “Much better without all those horrid weeds, and I must get that back border sorted out — it’s looking quite a mess, don’t you think?”

Gary made no comment. He had learned not to. When the woman levered herself upright with a grunt, Gary made no move to help, either. Something else he’d learned not to do.

The woman was in her mid-seventies and dressed smartly as always — even for gardening. There was still a hint of the showgirl she used to be, mostly revealed by a taste for gaudy jewellery and too much makeup. Behind Dior glasses and heavily layered mascara were eyes that looked out on the world in a seemingly benevolent manner. Eyes like someone’s grandmother, which she was, although not recently. Those eyes made Gary shiver. And he didn’t shiver at much.

“Have you called Spain?” she asked, dropping the knife onto the cushion at her feet.

“No, Mrs G. I thought you might want to do that.”

Her full name was Letitia Grossman. Lottie for short. But she liked being called Mrs G; she thought it showed respect. There had been too many times when respect had been denied her, and she had a lot of ground to make up.

She reached up and patted Gary’s cheek with a wrinkled hand, one of her long fingernails trailing momentarily across his cheek. Then she walked towards the house, leaving behind a sickly trace of sweet perfume overlaid by the tang of damp soil. Like she’d been recently dug up and bought back to life, Gary thought.

For Riley Gavin, the first rays of sun in Sotogrande, on the southern coast of Spain, brought a shiver of a much more welcome kind. The day promised to be hot and still, just the way she liked it. She dropped her towel and bag by the pool and revelled as the heat rolled across her naked shoulders. The long, grey winter had dragged on like a depressing cold, and she had been waiting weeks for this moment when she could forget about the wind and rain, the slogging along grey streets back home looking for stories, and allow herself to relax for a while.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass door to a changing cubicle. My God, she thought, I’m so white I look like the blood’s been drained out of my backside. She flicked back her long, blonde hair, wondering if maybe she hadn’t also got a little soft around the chin. Too much junk food while sitting in her car watching and waiting for something to develop. Instinctively she adjusted her stance to pull in her stomach. There was no vanity in the move, simply a self-conscious need to look ‘right’, as her mother always used to say.

She lowered herself on to a lounger and looked around. Perfect. No one else about.

The complex was a real find. Small and exclusive, the only other residents were a few golfers too busy playing the local courses to have any interest in the pool. Casual visitors were politely turned away, and there was little to attract families. The small flat was hers for a week and she didn’t intend straying far from where she was right now. Riley reached up behind and pulled at the thin cords of her pink bikini top. The unaccustomed heat, as well as the sudden exposure in the open air, brought an instant tingle to her sensitive skin, and a brief shiver ran the length of her body. Oh, yes, she thought. I’m in Heaven…

She lay back and sighed, wondering why she didn’t do this more often. Money is why, you silly bitch, she reminded herself, and stretched her legs out before her. Money and the thrill of it all. The chase.

Well, the chase could go hang itself for a while as she recharged her batteries. She hadn’t taken a decent holiday since last August and she deserved one more than usual. God knows, she’d worked her little tush off for it. Her last assignment had been long and wearing, chasing up an investment scam perpetrated on a flock of churchgoers in the Midlands who had put their trust in a self-styled Christian Broker. The fact that thirty per cent was an unusually high return and the proposed ‘opportunity’ was a land development fund in Colombia, home of coffee and cocaine but rarely top land deals, had failed to ring alarm bells among the virgin investors. It wasn’t long before phone calls by the church’s pastor to the broker received nothing but the disconnected tone. It had taken Riley two months to track down the culprit, hiding behind another front company, this time in the retirement homes business. By then she had gathered enough information on his activities to put together a fireproof story that made the front pages of at least three dailies. Her research, someone else’s by-line, but what the hell. The main thing was that the ‘Broker’ would shortly be appearing in front of a jury and later, ripped-off investors and court willing, be in a home of another kind altogether.

Warmed by the sun, she slipped into a shallow sleep. Gone were thoughts of work and earning a living. Time enough for that next week.

Half an eternity later there was a click at the side gate and a faint splash as someone entered the pool. She opened her eyes and looked. A dark head of hair and strong brown shoulders slipped smoothly through the blue water. A man, probably young. He turned and swam back to the other end, a smooth, uncluttered crawl. Mmm… Masculine and tidy. Now there’s a rarity.

After three lengths the swimmer pulled himself smoothly from the water and sat on the side of the pool, shaking droplets from his head. He reached for a towel and a packet of cigarettes.

A few years over thirty, Riley guessed, a bit gaunt in a hungry sort of way. Good muscles, but not cover-boy six-pack. She felt a stirring of interest and looked him over some more, enjoying the secretiveness of her survey. Nice, she thought. Can’t see his buns, which is a pity.

As the man blew smoke into the air, he seemed to notice her for the first time and nodded. Riley nodded back, inadvertently revealing that she was looking at him. She also remembered she wore no bikini top. Oh, what the hell, she thought. He’s seen me — it would be crass to go all girlish and cover up now.

She allowed herself to drift away again. What will happen will happen.

Moments later she sensed a presence nearby. It may have been the sudden coolness as his body cut off the sun, or the faint hint of aftershave against the background smell of chlorine.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked. His voice was pleasant with a faint accent. French? Spanish? Maybe he’s rich and-

Riley snapped her eyes open. It was the waiter, Rafael. He was looking down at her with tactfully unseeing eyes, a drinks menu in one hand, a silver tray in the other. Across the pool, the swimmer was gone, a hint of smoke hanging in the air behind him.

Riley scooped up her bikini top and shook her head, embarrassed and irritated. “Nothing, thanks,” she said, and waited for Rafael to leave before settling back to sleep, her thoughts on the strong shoulders and the sleek, black hair of the man across the pool. She hoped he got sunburn.

The following day the pool was deserted. Riley shrugged off her bikini top, poured liberal amounts of Ambre Solaire into her palm and massaged it gently into her body, concentrating on where her skin was most tender. She was enjoying the sensation of the warm lotion when the gate clicked and the waiter entered. He stopped in front of her and lowered his silver tray. It held a cordless telephone.

“Call for you, Miss Gavin. Urgent, the man says.”

Riley sighed. “Did he give a name?” Who in hell knew she was here?

“Mr Brask, madam.”

Damn, she thought. But she took the phone anyway.