No Peace For The Wicked

Chapter 45

Mitcheson swayed against the rolling of the taxi as it passed under the M4, watching Doug and Howie on the back seat. He guessed they were probably dreaming about how they were going to spend all the money Lottie Grossman had promised them. Whatever they were thinking, they seemed uneasy in his presence, like kids meeting up with a former teacher and not quite knowing whether to call him Sir or not.

He glanced through the side window at the familiar landscape. They were passing the Holiday Inn, the road curving north through landscaped banks and artificially created gardens.

They were nearly at their destination.

He felt a thudding in his chest and came as close to praying as he had done in years. It wouldn’t have been a traditional prayer, but it would have amounted to the same thing. Save Palmer, save himself. Keep Riley safe. Amen.

Not that Doug and Howie would give a toss about saving anyone. To them, wasting Palmer was just another job. He guessed Gary would do it. He didn’t turn a hair — never had done. Killing was what he did. No problems.

He wondered if Palmer had discovered the knife yet.

He glanced at his watch. By now Lottie Grossman would be on her way to Jordans, her husband’s body trundling somewhere else in the back of a funeral van. Unless everything had gone pear-shaped.

He wondered if the drugs had got through. Unless the police were waiting it would take a brave official to question the arrival of a coffin and insist on a search. Lottie Grossman had detailed Gary to do that job and told Mitcheson and the others to get on with cleaning up the villa and making sure the Moroccans weren’t around. He stopped thinking about it when the taxi turned into a commercial estate. The place was nearly deserted at this time of day, with just a few cars parked in front of some units, lights burning against the falling gloom.

They swung into a small cul-de-sac and Doug told the driver to stop in front of a row of three small workshops with oval glass panels set into roller doors. Two of the units had name-plates. The third, in the middle, was blank. Nearby stood a skip full of twisted car body parts and scrap metal.

The workshops were dark. They waited for the taxi to turn the corner before unlocking the small personnel door in the middle unit.

Riley hurried across to the taxi rank, scanning the area in case Mitcheson or the others should appear. She gave the driver the address of the unit Mitcheson had mentioned and sat back, heart pounding, willing the traffic to keep moving.

As they emerged from the tunnel and split into the feeder lanes to the A4 and M4 link roads, Riley dialled Brask’s number again. “Any news?” she asked.

“Psychic child,” he breathed down the line at her. “I’ve just had a call from a detective sergeant in the drugs squad. He was asked to have a look at the Cessna out at Rickmansworth, but it was too late. Everyone bar the pilot had gone.”

“What?” Riley exploded, causing the taxi driver to look anxiously in his mirror. “Of course they’ve left… how could they be so bloody incompetent?”

“It happens,” he said calmly. “I hope you’re not going to do anything silly, sweetie. I’ve got other jobs lined up for you already. Leave the rest to the police.”

“I can’t,” she retorted. “Anyway, I wouldn’t miss this for anything. I owe Palmer for getting him into this in the first place. You’d better tell the editor what’s happening. This is going to explode tomorrow morning and I don’t want the editor thinking he’s been scooped out of a story. The details behind this aren’t going to be known by anyone else, so I don’t want him going into a panic.”

“Will do, sweetie. Take care.”

As she switched off her mobile, the cab pulled into the commercial estate and coasted past the rows of near-empty buildings. The driver slid the glass back.

“I think number twenty-four’s down a side road somewhere. You sure you want dropping here — there’s not many people about.”

Riley handed him a note with a fat tip. “Don’t worry,” she said, grateful for his concern. “There’ll be someone else along shortly.”

When he’d gone, she walked along the road until she reached a turning into a small cul-de-sac. On her left a high brick wall bordered a van-hire depot. To her right stood an unkempt shrubbery, before the road opened out in front of three small workshop units with roller doors. There were no cars in sight but she could see a light in the middle unit. She slipped into the bushes, pushing through dense laurel until she arrived at the wall of the nearest workshop.

The brickwork was cold and damp from a recent downpour. There was no sound from within. She slid along the wall to check for a back entrance, but found it blocked off by a high fence.

Riley headed towards the front and poked her head round the corner. Whoever was in the middle building was being very quiet, and she doubted there was any work going on inside.

Just across from the units was a rubbish skip. It was a perfect observation point but getting in there unseen might be a problem. She took a deep breath, ready to sprint across the road.

The air inside the workshop was musty. A pile of junk mail lay scattered by the door. The floor was empty except for some tea-chests and a heavy bench set against one wall. On the top lay a jumble of hand-tools, a kettle and jars of coffee and sugar.

Howie plugged in the kettle and spooned coffee and sugar into polystyrene cups. The drone of the water heating sounded loud in the empty space.

Mitcheson cast an eye over the tools on the bench. Home handyman stuff mostly, with screwdrivers, pliers, hammer, a hand-drill, and a selection of screws and nails in plastic boxes.

He pulled up a tea chest and sat down, watching Howie drum a spoon on the coffee jar while Doug stood by the roller door keeping watch through the viewing panel.

Howie handed out the coffee and they stood sipping, glad of something to do. Now would have been the time to talk about future plans and hopes… what any group of men did when about to split up and pass on. But it wasn’t going to happen. Their positions had shifted over the last few days, and Mitcheson was aware that he’d been kidding himself about any kind of bond existing between them. There might have been once, when the bullets were flying and they were screaming down a narrow, mine-infested road near Bihac; or out by the airport at Sarajevo in a white APC, hoping there were no Serbs with rocket launchers trained on them. But not any longer. The promise of easy money had seen to that. And maybe a growing desperation to make something, anything, of their lives rather than face life as a security guard in a shopping centre, growing soft and fat and being the object of scorn from kids with nothing better to do.

Twin lights blazed across the garden area as a van turned into the cul-de-sac and stopped outside the middle unit. The driver got out and looked around, then went to the passenger door and opened it. Riley heard him grunting as he helped someone out. As they stepped into the pool of light spilling from the observation panels, she recognised Frank Palmer. He looked pale and drawn. The man holding him was Gary.

A single access door opened alongside the roller door, and a face showed briefly before retreating inside. As soon as the door slammed shut, Riley was on her feet and running over to the rubbish skip, where she took cover behind its comforting bulk. Her nose twitched involuntarily at the strong smell of paint, burned metal and petrol.

She breathed deeply, recalling Mitcheson’s comment about how once they had no need for Palmer they would do away with him. She had to do something… But what? She had no weapons and if she waited for the police to come, Palmer would be beyond caring.

She rubbed her nose as the sharp smell of petrol aggravated her nostrils.

“Jesus!” Doug snorted, and stepped back at the sight of Palmer’s vomit-stained clothing as Gary pushed him inside. The investigator sank to the floor, his face slack and pale under the lights.

“Think yourselves lucky,” Gary muttered. “I had to put up with the stink all the way from Malaga.” He glared at Palmer as if he had been ill deliberately, and dragged him to his feet again, grunting with the weight. Then he slapped him twice across the face; hard, solid blows which echoed in the empty space above their heads.

Mitcheson recognised what Gary was doing. He wasn’t merely being brutal; he was psyching himself up to carry out the next task. Pump up enough hatred or disgust for the victim and it made the killing so much easier.

Mitcheson slipped his hand in his pocket and felt for the screwdriver he’d taken off the bench. As a weapon it was about par with the plan he hadn’t got to get out of here with Palmer’s life intact. But it would have to do for now.

With Palmer upright against the wall, Gary produced a knife and flicked it open. He turned to Doug with a cold smile. “I need a hand with this.”