In the Evil Day

11

…LONDON…

Niemand opened his eyes, out of sleep instantly, disturbed by something, some irregularity, some change in the background noise he’d listened to as he drifted away on the too-soft bed.

Listening. Just the night-city sounds: wails, growls, whines, grates, squeals.

It had been a sound from inside the hotel. Close by.

Listening. Thinking: a hard sound, metallic, like a hammer strike. What could make a harsh metal-on-metal sound?

He knew, threw the sheet and blanket aside, was out of bed, wearing just his watch and running shorts.

Someone had opened the fire-escape door.

He was at the back of the building, last room in the corridor, a door away from the short passage that led to the fire-escape exit. Someone had pushed on the lever of the steel fire-escape door, found it reluctant to come out of the latch, applied more force, too much. It had come out, hit the restraining pin above it hard. That was the sound, a ringing, metallic sound.

Someone inside the hotel had opened the fire-escape door to let someone else in.

More than one?

He looked at his watch. 1.15 a.m.

If they’re coming for me about the tape, he thought, there’ll be a big one to break open the door, then they’ll want to be finished in seconds, down the fire escape inside a minute.

He pulled the bed covers straight, they’d look there, that might give him a second, they were hardly rumpled by his few hours of sleep. He looked around for anything useful-the chair, a flimsy thing, better than nothing.

Stand behind the door? His instinct said: No, see what I’m up against, don’t get slammed against the wall by a door shoulder-charged by a gorilla.

He stepped across the worn carpet and stood to the left of the door, back against the wall, holding the chair by a leg in his left hand.

Waiting in the dark room, wall icy against his shoulderblades, listening, all the city sounds amplified now. Calm, he said to himself, breathe deeply, icy calm.

No sound came to his ears from the passage.

Wrong. He was wrong. Too jumpy, the fire-escape latch just an invention of a mind looking to explain something, something in a dream probably. They couldn’t have found him. How could they find him, they didn’t even have a name? He dropped his head, felt tension leave his neck and shoulders.

The door came off its hinges.

A huge man, shaven-headed, came with it, went three steps across the room with the door on his right shoulder, his back to Niemand.

Close behind him was a tall, slim man with a silenced pistol in both hands, arms outstretched, combat style. He saw Niemand out of the corner of his eye, started to swing his arms and his body.

Niemand hit him in the head and chest with the chair before he had half swung, broke the chair back to pieces, hit him again with the back of the seat, more solid, caught him under the nose, knocked his head back.

The man stepped two paces back, his knees bending, one hand coming off the pistol.

The big man had turned, stood frozen, hands up, hands the size of tennis racquets.

Niemand threw the remains of the chair at him, stepped over, grabbed the gunman’s right hand as he sank to the floor, blood running down his face, got the pistol, pulled it away, pointed it at the big man.

‘Fuck, no,’ said the big man, he didn’t want to die.

Maori, maybe, thought Niemand, Samoan. He shot him in each thigh, no more sound than two claps with cupped hands.

‘Fuck,’ said the man. He didn’t fall down, just looked down at his legs in the black tracksuit pants. Then he sat on the bed, slowly, sat awkwardly, he was fat around the middle. ‘Fuck,’ he said again. ‘Didn’t have to do that.’

The gunman was on his knees, lower face black with blood. He had long hair and it had fallen forward, hung over his eyes, strands came down to his lips. Niemand walked around him, pushed him to the carpet with his bare foot. There was no resistance. He knelt on the base of the man’s spine, put the fat silencer muzzle into the nape of his neck.

‘Don’t even twitch,’ Niemand said. He found a wallet, a slim nylon thing, in the right side pocket of the leather jacket. Took the mobile phone too. In the left pocket were car keys and a full magazine, fifteen rounds. That’s excessive for taking out one man, Niemand thought. He stood up.

‘Scare, mate,’ the gunman said. ‘That’s all, mate, scare.’

It was hard to pick the accent through the blood and the carpet but Niemand thought it was Australian. An all-Pacific team.

‘How’d you find me?’

The man turned his head. He had a strong profile. ‘Just the messenger here, mate. Bloke gave me the room number.’

‘What’s your car?’

‘What?’

Niemand ran the pistol over the man’s scalp. ‘Car. Where?’

‘Impreza, the Subaru, at the lane.’

‘Don’t move.’

Niemand went to the doorway, now a hole in the wall, looked down the dim corridor. Nothing, no sounds. The room next door was empty, he’d seen the whiteboard in the reception office.

He went back. ‘Unlucky room number,’ he said to the man on the floor and, from close range, shot him in the backs of his knees. Clap, clap.

While the man keened, thin sounds, demanding, Niemand dressed, stuffed his things in his bag. The big man was lying back on the bed now, feet on the ground, making small grunting noises. If he wanted to, Niemand thought, he could have a go at me, just flesh wounds, like cutting your finger with a kitchen knife. But he doesn’t want to, why should he? He’s just the battering ram, the paid muscle.

Like me, all I’ve ever been, just the paid muscle. And always stupid enough to have a go.

‘Give me your mobile,’ he said to the big man.

The man shook his head. ‘No mobile.’

Niemand went down the fire escape, not hurrying, walked down the alley, saw the car, pressed the button to unlock the driver’s door. He drove to Notting Hill, light traffic, rain misting the windscreen, feeling the nausea, the tiredness, not too bad this time. He’d never driven in London but he knew the inner city from his runs, from the map. Near the Notting Hill Gate underground, he parked illegally, left the car unlocked with the keys in it, Three youths were nearby, laughing, one pissing against a car, he saw the joint change hands. With luck, they’d steal the Subaru.

On the underground platform, just him, two drunks and a woman who was probably a transvestite, he took out the gunman’s mobile, flipped it open, pressed the numbers.

‘Yes.’ Hollis.

‘Not a complete success to report,’ Niemand said. ‘Those boys you sent, one’s too fat, one’s too slow. I had to punish them. And I’m going to have to punish you too, Mr Hollis.’

‘Hold on,’ said Hollis. ‘There’s some…’ ‘Goodbye.’

Niemand put the mobile away. One of the drunks was approaching, silly slack-jawed smile.

‘Smoke, mate?’ he said.

Glasgow. Niemand knew what people from Glasgow sounded like, he’d spent time with men from Glasgow. He turned side-on to the man, moved his shoulders. ‘Fuckoff, throw you under the fucking train,’ he said in his Scottish accent.

The man put up his hands placatingly, walked backwards for several steps, turned and went back to his companion.