The Hawk Is Dead

87

Wednesday 29 November 2023

Rose Cadoret had come in early. She wanted to be here when there weren’t many people around, and before the workmen had started. Not that there would be any workmen in this part of the Palace, the south-west wing, today, nor for at least another month.

Her ribs were hurting less today than they had yesterday. Smoke had told her she should go and see the Palace doctor, but she knew there was nothing you could do about bruised ribs, you just had to ride the pain out, avoid coughing, sneezing and laughing. And sleep on your back — easier said than done.

She was tired and tetchy after a restless night and annoyed Smoke wasn’t here. He was on the night shift, due to finish at 7 a.m., which was five minutes ago, and just perfect timing for her plan. She stood, high on a corner some feet below the former footmen’s floor, on the steep, narrow wooden staircase, which she’d climbed two days ago with Smoke. It had been easier then, it hadn’t been so uncomfortable.

She decided to go on, and wait for him higher up. She ducked under the strip of red and yellow tape carrying the warning sign EXTREME DANGER — KEEP OUT! Then she continued on to the top and stood, getting her breath back, sustained by the knowledge that in just two days’ time she would be on a plane, that gorgeous Airbus 380, it was called. Smoke had told her that you got your own private cabin, and there was a shower room big enough to swing a substantial animal in.

Too bad he wouldn’t be joining her.

She heard footsteps clumping up the stairs. Police boots. Then he came into view, all kitted up, with his weapons and his Kevlar vest and all the rest of his clobber. He was sweating and looked tired. Well, he had been up all night, and he’d told her many times that it wasn’t the late hours that got you, it was the boredom that dulled your brain.

How dulled was it now? Very, she hoped.

‘Hey babe!’ His breath was rancid as he pecked her on the cheek. He smelled like unwashed laundry.

As they had on Monday, they stood in front of the jagged, unguarded opening that had been bashed through the wall of the light shaft, with the grimy ceiling above them. Rose turned away from him, placed her hands either side of the opening, leaned in, and looked down. Checking.

In the weak light, she could see at the very bottom the six thin steel spikes rising vertically several feet. The workmen from the lift company would be returning in a month or so when the renovations, under the guidance of Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey, began in earnest on this wing.

Until then it was all sealed off. But not forgotten. Certainly not by Rose Cadoret.

‘Why’ve you brought me up here again, babe?’ He looked at her expectantly, signalling he remembered they’d had sex here two days previously. ‘Cos you want me again?’

She stepped back. ‘I read the highest distance onto a hard surface that a human can survive is a forty-foot drop,’ she said.

‘OK.’ He gave her a puzzled frown.

‘We have a big problem with Lorraine McKnight — as I’ve told you.’

‘It’s Exeat in two days. We’ll all be gone. Larging it in the sun. Rum sours for lunch. G&Ts and Negronis at sunset. Lorraine McKnight will be history. It’ll all be history. Their history, our future!’

‘You don’t seriously think Lorraine McKnight is simply going to go away, Jon? You were happy enough to off Geoffrey Bailey, who was a minnow, now you’re baulking at offing McKnight who is a Great White in comparison. Just tell me what you think — if I lured her up here and pushed her into the shaft, could we be one hundred per cent sure it would kill her? Like, is it high enough?’ she said.

‘Wouldn’t killing her just compound our problems?’

‘Like killing Geoffrey Bailey didn’t?’

‘Touché!’

‘This isn’t a fucking game, Jon, this is our future. All our futures. Which you’ve done your very best to screw.’

‘Hey!’

‘The footings for the lift shaft were done a month ago. It will be at least another month before work starts on the lift itself. If Lorraine were to accidentally plunge down it, there’s a pretty good chance no one’s going to find her for at least a week or two — by which time we’ll be long, long gone.’

He looked at her.

‘So tell me, Mr Crackshot Sniper. Tell me if you think the drop down the shaft is long enough to kill her — for sure?’

He turned and, just as she had done, placed a hand on each wall, leaned in and looked down. ‘Difficult to see. Hang on.’ He pushed himself upright, removed his phone from his pocket and switched on the torch, then leaned in again, holding on with one hand and shining the torch with the other.

‘So you really think that drop would kill her?’

‘It would kill anyone.’

‘Good!’ she said. Then she slammed the heel of her palm into the underside of his chin with all her strength, snatching his phone from his hand at the same time as he lurched sideways trying to grasp at anything. Her own cry of pain drowned out his feeble yelp of surprise as he tumbled into the void.

An instant later she heard a faint thud, like a sack of potatoes.

Then she stood still for a moment, a little dizzy with surprise.

He was gone.

Actually gone.

She leaned in, cautiously, warily, just in case he was hanging on a few inches below the top and might grab her. But he wasn’t.

She shone the torch down the shaft, and saw him.

He lay on his back at a strange angle. One of the steel spikes was sticking up through his neck, with blood pooling around. Another was through his right thigh.

He looked bloated, as if he had put on thirty or forty pounds since falling. Then she realized, one of the spikes must have pierced his midriff before coming up against his Kevlar vest, which it was raising, grotesquely.

He was still alive, she realized, to her horror. He was blinking, and his mouth was opening and closing, like a fish.

Then it closed and didn’t open again.

His eyes stopped blinking. They remained open. And stayed open.

Silence. Beautiful silence.

Thanks for the ride, pal. It was fun, really it was.

She looked at his phone, which she held in her hand. She knew the code because she’d watched him, countless times, tapping it in. But far more importantly, inside the phone was his Bitcoin wallet app. And his thirty-five digit code inside that.

She smiled. In the past couple of minutes, she’d gotten rid of the group’s liability. And massively increased her net worth.

What was not to like?