Buch lesen: «Kiss of Death»

Prologue

2014

‘OK … here’s how we do it. Now pay attention, Brian. Pay very close attention …’

The older one was speaking, the one who’d been so indescribably vicious all night.

It was a strange thing, but as recently as one day ago, if you’d asked Brian Kelso which of two desperate criminals you’d expect to be the most unrestrainedly violent – the older one, or the younger one – he’d have opted for the younger one every time.

But of course, the last nine hours had not just changed his views on that – it had changed everything.

‘Are you listening?’ the guttural voice wondered.

Again, the guy sounded as if he was from East Yorkshire. Again, Kelso made a mental note to remember this, so that he at least had something he could tell the police, though both he and Justine needed to survive this ordeal first.

‘Yes, I’m listening,’ he told the throwaway phone they’d supplied him with.

‘Drive out of the north end of town along Welton Road. You know it?’

‘Yes … I know it.’

‘You’ll see a bus stop at the junction with Horncastle Lane. Slow down when you get there, and stop. That’s when you’ll receive further instructions.’

‘OK.’

‘Before you set off … how much did you manage to get?’

‘Erm …’ Kelso’s mouth, already flavoured like mud after what seemed an age without even a sip of water, went fully dry. He glanced over his shoulder at the four heavy haversacks, now zipped and buckled tight on the rear seat of his Peugeot. ‘About two hundred … I think.’

There was a protracted silence.

‘Two hundred?’ came the eventual response. ‘I thought we’d agreed three at the very least?’

‘Look … I was on my own, OK? The staff were due within the next hour. I got as much as I could in the time available. Surely you understand that? It’s not like the Dunholme branch is crammed with cash anyway.’

‘I suppose it’ll have to do.’ The tone was deeply grudging. ‘But I’m not happy with you, Brian. I’m not happy at all.’

The line went dead.

‘Wait, please!’ Kelso shouted. ‘Is Justine all right?’

Only the dial tone purred back at him.

Just about managing to suppress the cry of emotional agony set to burst its way out of him like a piece of actual anatomy, he dropped the phone onto the passenger seat next to him, and slumped forward, his forehead striking the steering wheel.

Justine, whom he’d been married to for the last twelve years, had never hurt anyone in her life. She was good-natured, kind-hearted; she rarely nagged him or got crotchety, and God knows, there were times when he’d deserved that from her. Even though she’d been so grief-stricken to learn that she couldn’t have children, she’d refused to let it get her down, determinedly continuing with life, filling what might otherwise have been a yawning desolation for both of them with her bubbly personality and busy demeanour, looking after herself to the nth degree, looking after him, looking after their detached, four-bedroom house, ensuring that it was permanently like a new pin.

And now those bastards had … had …

Kelso shook his head, hot salt-tears coursing down his cheeks as he struggled to negotiate the icy surface of Market Rasen Road. Whatever the outcome today, he knew that he’d never forget the image now branded into his mind’s eye: of his lovely soulmate, stripped naked and bound X-shaped with pairs of her own tights to the lower banisters of their staircase, her head drooped, her chestnut hair unbound and hanging in long, ratty hanks, her slim, marble-white body mottled with bruises, streaked with blood.

‘You have to understand,’ the older one had said some time around three that morning, by which point Kelso sat stiff and sweat-soaked in the dining room chair they’d brought into the hall and tied him to with the hoover flex, so that he could watch. ‘We couldn’t do any of this to you. Because just before dawn, you’ve got to go down to that bank you manage with your best suit on and your keys in your pocket as if everything is normal. A bit earlier than usual of course, but not so much … and not in any kind of state that’ll make anyone who sees you suspicious. But even so, we had to make it absolutely clear what you’ll be facing if you try to fuck us over. You see, my young pal, here … he’s going to tail you down to the bank. And he’s going to park across the road till you’ve gone inside. Now, up until that moment I reckon it’s safe to say we’ll have full control over you. But we’re under no illusions: once you’re in there, things are different. There’ll be nothing to stop you picking the nearest phone up and calling the filth. Except the knowledge that we’ve still got your missus. And that nasty little question that’ll be niggling away in the back of your head … if that was the way they treated her when I hadn’t given them any grief, what in Christ’s name will it be like if I try to double-cross them?’

Kelso shuddered at the memory of those cold, reptilian eyes fixed on him from the two slits in the bright green balaclava. It was too easy to imagine that there was nothing human behind them.

‘So … you won’t try anything stupid, will you?’

‘I swear it,’ the captive had said. ‘Please … just don’t hurt her any more.’

‘You know … I actually think I trust you, Brian.’ This might have sounded more convincing had the older one’s pistol not been jammed so hard into Kelso’s right temple that his entire head was crooked painfully to the left. ‘Just don’t give me any fucking reason to regret that judgement, yeah? Because if you do, what happens after that will be un-fucking-imaginable.’

By the time he was on Welton Road, it was past eight, and the veils of frozen fog were thinning and clearing. The two hoodlums would like that, because, as they’d continually reminded him, they’d be watching his progress and keeping a sharp lookout for any anomalies, like so-called members of the public displaying unusual interest in his activities or maybe a helicopter hovering in the near distance. Not that there was any possibility of this, because Kelso, though he’d been tempted on entering the bank, had eventually made no phone call. What would have been the point? In the short time available before the villains became suspicious, the police wouldn’t have been able to mount any kind of response other than sending uniformed officers scrambling to the house and the bank – which would have achieved nothing, because the older villain was unlikely to still be at the former location, and though the younger one had tailed Kelso down here, he’d vanished after that, presumably secreting himself somewhere nearby, to watch. Both of them would have been able to get away relatively easily, maybe taking Justine with them, which would have been the end for her.

So, Kelso had complied.

Naturally he’d complied.

But he still had no idea what to expect next.

As he approached the junction with Horncastle Lane, he saw the bus stop in question, though nobody was waiting there. Rush hour was now upon them, as indicated by the increasingly heavy traffic, but this was a rural area, and the few commuters living in the villages round here were more likely to travel by car.

Before Kelso had set out that morning, they’d searched his vehicle for a tracker, and had even advised him that, when he got to the handover site, he’d be searched again, just in case he’d somehow managed to fit a wire and had been feeding covert info to the police all along. If that was the case, he’d never see his wife again, or anything in fact, because he’d be shot on the spot. The older one’s preferred method, or so he’d boasted, was a slug through the back of the neck.

Kelso would have laughed had the predicament not been so critical. A tracker? A hidden wire? They clearly overestimated the facilities available to modern-day bank managers, but the implicit message was clear: they weren’t taking any chances and no untoward behaviour on his part would be tolerated even for a second.

Trying not to think about that, he pulled into the layby opposite the bus stop, switched off his engine and sat waiting. As the seconds ticked by, he grew increasingly nervous.

He wasn’t on a time clock here, but he’d assumed that they wouldn’t want this thing dragged out, and that the longer it took, the twitchier and more dangerous they’d become. But what was supposed to happen? Surely someone should have shown up by now? The younger one who’d followed him to the bank, maybe – though perhaps he now had another role to play in the scheme. With the engine off, the interior of the car was cooling fast. Kelso pulled on his leather driving-gloves and zipped his anorak over his dishevelled suit. He’d tried to dress the part this morning, but it had been impossible to do a proper job.

Outside, a police traffic patrol eased past in the sluggish flow of vehicles. Kelso shrank down, only just resisting the urge to duck out of sight altogether, gabbling prayers that they wouldn’t swing around and park behind him to see what the trouble was. If one of the gang was observing and they spotted that, they’d never believe it a coincidence.

Thankfully that didn’t happen, though the mere sight of the police Range Rover with its hi-vis blue and yellow chequerboard flanks had touched Kelso with a new sense of despair. He’d been a bank manager for fifteen years, but he had no clue how his actions would be viewed when this was all over. Surely people would understand that he’d acted under duress? But the fact would remain that he’d robbed his own bank of £200,000. And if the hoodlums got clean away, how would people know that he hadn’t been in cahoots with them? The brutalising of Justine wouldn’t disprove that on its own. So, he’d be a suspect at the very least.

He sat up straight and pivoted around, to see if there was anything he ought to have responded to that he’d failed to notice.

On his left there was a stile, and beyond that a farm field, which, now that the mist had cleared, lay flat and white. Across the road, behind the bus stop shelter, stood a clutch of trees, their leafless boughs feathered with frost.

His eyes roved across the bus stop itself – and that was when he saw something.

He’d registered it on first arriving here but had barely thought about it. From across the road, it was a simple sheet of paper inserted into a ragged plastic envelope and taped to the bus stop post. He’d assumed it a reference to some proposed development in the area, a request for viewpoints from the local community, or similar. But now he clambered from his car, and crossed the road, weaving through the slow-moving vehicles. When he reached the bus stop, he saw that the paper bore a message composed from snipped-out newspaper lettering:

GO NORTH UP HORNCASTLE LANE

THAT IS OPEN COUNTRY

SO WE’LL BE WATCHING

ANY SIGN YOU HAVE COMPANY

YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS

BRING THIS NOTE AND THE PLASTIC

Kelso ripped the envelope down, and scampered back to his car, jumping in behind the wheel and, at the first opportunity, pulling into the traffic. He swerved onto Horncastle Lane and headed north. As directions went, these were vague, but he felt absurdly relieved, almost as if this whole tribulation had suddenly been resolved for him.

As he’d been advised, and already knew, this was a big agricultural area, expansive acres of farmland rolling away to every horizon under their coat of winter white. The sun was now up and sitting low in the east, a pale, ash-grey orb, while the sky itself was clear of cloud, but, in that eerie way of raw January days, was bleached of all colour. Suddenly, Kelso felt as if he was away from the hubbub; there were few, if any, fellow road-users on this quieter route.

The phone began to ring, and he slammed it to his ear.

‘This is Kelso.’

‘I know it’s you,’ that familiar, confident voice replied. ‘So far you’ve been a good boy. Looks like we’re really going to do business, doesn’t it?’

‘I hope so. Please can you tell me … where’s Justine? Is she all right?’

‘It’s good that you care about your wife, Brian. I always knew you would. That’s why this plan was foolproof from the start. You don’t need to worry, pal. You’ll see her again. Just continue to do exactly as you’re told, and we’ll be fine.’

‘All right, well … please, let’s just get this over with.’

‘Take your next left.’

That, in itself, was unnerving. It meant they really were watching him. Who knew where from – they could be standing on a barn roof, using binoculars, for all Kelso was aware. Whatever it was, they were bloody well organised.

‘And where will that bring me to?’ he asked.

‘Oh, no …’ the voice hardened. ‘Now don’t spoil it by asking stupid questions. I thought we’d already established that once we hook up again, we’ll be searching you … just to make sure that, by some miracle, you and your friendly neighbourhood PC Plod didn’t get a chance to secrete some kind of communication device on you.’

‘I haven’t done that!’ Kelso blurted. ‘Come on … I was only in the bank ten minutes. How could anything like that have been arranged? You were watching anyway, weren’t you? You’d have seen if a police officer had arrived there.’

There was a long, judgemental silence, and then: ‘Like I said … take your next left.’

The line went dead.

Kelso shuddered, briefly feeling as if he needed to vomit, but instead he slammed his foot to the floor, accelerating from forty miles an hour to fifty. As instructed, he took a left-hand turn, but at reckless speed. It was a few seconds later, when common sense kicked in and he slowed right down again. It might seem quiet along here, but the last thing he wanted was to catch the eye of some lazy copper idling around in the back-country hoping to bag some boy-racers.

He pressed on more cautiously for perhaps another three or so miles, passing a farmhouse on his right, though it was boarded up. Fleetingly, he was taut with anticipation, recognising this as a possible spot for the handover. But he’d soon bypassed the old farm, driving steadily north, and still there was no call.

‘Come on, come on,’ he said under his breath, frantic and frustrated at the same time. ‘Please … soon, good Lord in Heaven, let this be over soon.’

The phone buzzed. He snatched it up, and saw that he’d received a text:

Next right

The car was warming up again, but the sweat on his brow owed nothing to the temperature.

When a right-hand turn approached, he swung around it, paying almost no heed to the conditions. The Peugeot slithered sideways across a road so slick with ice that it might have been double-glazed. He now found himself following a single-track lane, which hadn’t even been tarmacked, his wheels jolting amid rock-hard tractor ruts. It was a terrifying thought that he was being lured further and further from civilisation, but that had probably been the appeal of the Dunholme branch in the first place; he was nobody – just an everyday bank manager, but his bank was located on the edge of extensive countryside, from where it would be quick and simple for the robbers to vanish into the sticks. Yet more evidence of how well planned this whole thing had been. But none of that mattered right now. His overwhelming desire to feel Justine in his arms again – no doubt shivering and whimpering, teeth chattering from the cold, numb with shock, but at last safe – rendered any qualms about how isolated he was null and void.

Up ahead, he could see trees: not exactly a wood, more like a copse. The narrow lane bisected it through the middle, running on straight as a ribbon.

Maybe that would be the place? It was the first change of scenery Kelso had encountered on this drear landscape in the last few minutes. In that respect, it surely signified something. And indeed, as he passed into and among the trees, he couldn’t resist accelerating again, bouncing and rocking on the ridged, hard-frozen surface – and, as such, almost crashing head-on into the white-painted pole with the red, circular signpost at the top, which stood in a concrete base and had been planted in the dead-centre of the thoroughfare.

When the Peugeot finally halted, having slid nearly twenty yards, the signpost stood directly in front of him, only its circular red plate visible over the top of his bonnet. A single word was stencilled in black lettering in the middle of it:

STOP

Kelso climbed out and stood beside the car, his breath pluming in the frigid air.

Initially, there was no sound. He glanced left and right and saw to his surprise that he’d halted on a narrow bridge. He’d been so focused on the stop sign that he hadn’t noticed the rotted, flimsy barriers to either side of him. Not that it was much of a bridge. By the looks of it, it didn’t lead anywhere in particular; it was probably for the use of livestock.

‘Kelso!’ a harsh voice shouted.

He turned full circle.

‘Kelso!’ the voice shouted again, and, realising where it was coming from, he scrambled around the front of his Peugeot to the left-hand barrier.

Some twenty feet below, he saw what he took to be a derelict railway cutting, except that this also had been adapted into a farm track, because, almost directly underneath him, a flatbed truck was waiting. Its driver, the younger of the two hoodlums, a taller, leaner figure than the older one, but mainly identifiable because, instead of a green balaclava, he was wearing a black one, had climbed from the cab.

‘Throw the cash down!’ he called up. ‘Do it now!’

‘Where’s my wife?’ Kelso shouted back.

‘Throw it now, or you’ll never see her again.’

‘All right, for God’s sake!’

Kelso returned to his car and, one by one, humped the loaded haversacks to the barrier, dropping them over. Each one landed with a shuddering crash, bouncing the truck on its shocks. From twenty feet up, fifty grand in used banknotes made quite an impact. The younger hoodlum had clearly anticipated this, because he stood well back in case one went astray. However, when all four had landed, he hurriedly lowered the tailgate and jumped on board, opening the zips on two of them to check their contents, before climbing back down and scuttling to the driving cab.

‘Hey!’ Kelso shouted. ‘Hey … what about my wife?’

The guy never once looked back. The door slammed behind him, the vehicle juddering to life, before roaring off along the cutting, frosted leaves and clumps of frozen earth flying behind it.

‘What the …’ Kelso’s voice almost broke. ‘Good … good God almighty!’

‘Hey,’ someone behind him said.

He spun around, and almost collapsed in gratitude at the sight of the older villain, who had evidently sidled out of the trees beyond the signpost and now approached along the lane.

As before, he wore overalls, heavy gloves and a green balaclava.

Also as before, his pistol was drawn.

‘I’ve done as you asked.’ Kelso limped towards him, arms spread. ‘You saw me.’

The hoodlum pointed the gun at his chest. ‘Yeah, you’ve done as we asked.’

Kelso stumbled to a halt. ‘OK … please let’s not play this game any more. Just let me have Justine?’

‘Worried about your wife, eh?’

Despite his best efforts, Kelso’s voice took on a whining, agonised tone. ‘Please don’t do this. Just tell me where she is.’

‘Where she was before. Back at your house. Why would we bring her with us?’

‘OK … so … is that it, then?’

‘Yeah, that’s it.’ But the hoodlum didn’t lower his firearm.

Kelso was confused. ‘So … I can go?’

‘Eager to see her again, eh?’

‘What do you think? Just let me go, and I’ll drive back.’

‘Nah. I can send you to her a quicker way.’

‘What …?’ After a night of extreme horrors, Kelso, who’d thought he’d be rendered immune to this sort of thing for the rest of his life, now felt a deeper, more gnawing chill than ever before. ‘What do you mean?’

The gaze of those terrible eyes intensified. He imagined the bastard grinning under his balaclava; crazily, maniacally, a living jack-o’-lantern.

‘Oh, no …’ Kelso simpered under his breath. ‘Oh no, please nooo …’

‘Oh, yes,’ the hoodlum chuckled, firing twice into the bank manager’s chest.