I Love My Smith and Wesson (24 page)

“No, he's fucking not,” said Billy.

“You'll hardly notice I'm here,” said Brando.

“What? You think I won't notice a six-foot black man sitting in my living room?”

Brando thought this was funny.

“You need someone with you,” said Rawhead.

“No, I don't,” said Billy. “I need to be on my own. When bad things happen, I don't want to see anyone; I don't want to talk. I just want to go to bed and curl up in a ball. That's what I'm going to do now.

“I'm not suicidal, if that's what you think. If I was, I'd have croaked years ago.”

Brando met Rawhead's eyes and shrugged. “The man seems to know his own mind.”

Rawhead sighed. “OK, Billy. You win. But I'm not happy.”

“Who the fuck is?” said Billy.

“Stupid people,” said Brando. “Lots of stupid people are happy.”

*   *   *

Detective Superintendent Harrop was in her office, eating a meat and potato pie and staring into space. Since smoking had been banned in the building her daily pie consumption had tripled. Hughes walked in. He was smiling, and Harrop knew right away he'd found something.

“What the fuck are you looking so happy about?” she said. “Did your fiancée take it up the shitter last night?”

Immune to Harrop's rudeness, Hughes held a glossy photograph under her nose. At first glance, it looked like a man falling out of a tree. She looked again, realized the man had no head, and shoved the picture away. “Prick! I'm having my lunch.”

“Don't you want to know what it's about?”

“Is it connected with this inquiry?”

“It might be.”

“Might isn't good enough. Is it or isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“Hughes, if you're lying, I'll twat you.”

“It's about Billy Dye.”

“Aw, Jesus.”

“This body was found in Scotland in January. Near a place called the Skene Castle Hotel.”

“So what?”

“Billy Dye stayed at the Skene Castle in January. He got married there.”

“Yeah? At the same time?”

“A week before the body was found.”

For a moment Harrop looked interested. Then her eyes glazed over. “Nah. He gets married, walks into the woods, and kills somebody to celebrate? Doesn't make sense. Any ID on the headless horseman?”

“David Brett. An unemployed laborer. Known to the police for using high-powered binoculars to gaze into women's bedrooms.”

“A fucking Peeping Tom.”

“Right.”

“So you think Billy Dye caught this guy watching the bride take off her wedding dress and taught him a lesson by hanging him upside down from a tree and chopping his head off?”

Hughes shrugged, disappointed by her reaction.

“What do the Scottish bastards think?”

“They're working on the theory that it was one of the Glasgow gangs. A kind of underworld execution.”

“Ah.” She nodded, sarcasm tickling the corners of her mouth. “So they don't think the bridegroom did it?”

“No.”

“Then why are you wasting my time with this shit?”

Hughes blushed. For some reason, the red glow of shame only colored his lower jowls. “You've always taught me to go with my instincts. That's what I'm doing. At the very least, the man's a jinx. When he's in the vicinity, people die. It may just be coincidence. But my instincts say it's more.”

Harrop cracked open a can of Coke, swallowed half of it, and let out a volcanic belch. “Fair enough.”

Hughes started smiling again. “You believe me?”

“I do
not
believe you. But because it's you and you're challenged in various debilitating ways, I'll take pity on you. You've got two days. Forty-eight hours to prove me wrong.”

*   *   *

Chef was lying in his morning bath, trying to work out how much money he had. The income from the porn and the drugs alone had probably made him close on £8 million. Then there was the skew, at rates of interest only a desperate moron would pay. Fortunately, there were enough desperate morons in Manchester to bring in another million and a half a year. Selling off stolen goods at knock-down prices brought in at least £500,000, and that was in a bad year.

Chef could have retired there and then had he not been addicted to power. He enjoyed being surrounded by tough gorillas who blushed and stammered when he called them dickless. He liked the show-business glamour of being notorious. When you were a gang boss, especially a polite gang boss who didn't break wind in female company, you got invited to fancy dinners.

Although Chef appreciated the attention of women, he only fucked prostitutes. Unlike wives, stinks were actually grateful when you only took thirty seconds to come.

On the whole, life was good.

The only downside of being in charge was that sooner or later someone always thought they could send you to the Blue Swoon. That was why whenever Chef took a bath, there was a gun sitting next to the soap dish. Just in case some opportunistic little cunt was angling for instant promotion.

So when the bathroom door opened and Boner walked in, Chef sat up suddenly, sploshing water everywhere as he groped for his weapon.

Boner, a gaunt young Asian, bore the racial slurs of his fellow gangsters with good-natured fortitude. Usually nothing ruffled him. But when he saw that Chef was pointing an automatic at him, he danced an excitable little jig. “Fuck! Fuck! What the fuck are you doing?”

“What the fuck are
you
doing?”

“Sorry, boss. I was bringing you this.” Boner held out a cordless phone. “There's a call from you. From a woman.”

“What woman?”

“She wouldn't say. She just said that if I said, ‘Death awaits us all,' you'd understand.”

Grudgingly Chef accepted the call. “In future, knock.”

“Sorry, boss.”

As soon as Chef held the phone to his ear, the Spirit spoke. Her voice sounded husky and tired. “I'm at his house. No sign of him yet, but he's been here recently.”

“How do you know?”

“I found a dying man in his cellar.”

“Who was he?”

“I didn't find out. He was too far gone.”

There was a silence. She started to say something, then thought better of it.

“What's on your mind?” said Chef.

“It's probably nothing.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Just that I asked this guy … I asked him who shot him.”

“And?”

“I got a very strange answer. He named the author of this book I'd been looking at five minutes before.”

Chef was listening intently. “What book?”

“
Dracula.
It's by Bram Stoker.”

“I know,” said Chef impatiently. “I can read, too, you know. So he said Bram Stoker put him in the cellar?”

“No. He said he'd been put there by
Abraham
Stoker. That was Bram Stoker's real name.”

Chef felt his heart speeding up. “Jesus Christ.”

“What is it?”

Now Chef was sweating so much he needed a second bath. “It's also the name of a tool who works for Little Malc.”

In a flood of recall, Chef saw the skull ring on Stoker's finger. He realized now why the ring had made him uneasy. He had seen that same ring on Billy Dye's finger.

“This Stoker. You wouldn't happen to know where he is right now?” asked the Spirit.

*   *   *

Rawhead waited until it was dark. He approached the vicarage from the east, coming over the fields as the night scent rose from the hedgerows and the first stars appeared in the sky. He knew in his heart that a great enemy was waiting and that he might not survive the encounter. Paradoxically, the idea of his own death gave him a certain peace. He had lived without fear and would die without fear. How many could say the same?

He crossed the churchyard, entering his garden via the gap in the hedge. The house looked as empty and desolate as always. It was uncared for, but not because he did not care for it. He yearned for its shadows, its aura of decay. A house that was clean, bright, and smartly furnished would not be a fit place for ghosts.

Rawhead drew his Ruger, knocked off the safety catch, and unlocked the kitchen door. He turned the knob and kicked the door open. There was no one in the kitchen. The cellar door was locked. Rawhead was curious about the cellar but knew he had to secure the house first. So he walked from room to room, searching for signs of an intruder.

In his bedroom, there was that fragrance again. The smell of violets. He scoured the room, sniffing in every corner, until he traced the smell to his pillow. Rawhead was stunned. Who had been sleeping in his bed? The sheets hadn't been changed for years. Who would
want
to sleep in his bed?

In the library, he noticed a gap on the shelf reserved for his most precious first editions. With a start, he realized
Dracula
was missing.

He went down to the cellar. As a precaution, he left both doors open and put the keys in his pocket. Then, head bowed, he walked down the passage to the gap in the wall and surveyed the dead faces below.

It was as he had expected. There was a fresh body down there. A middle-aged female traffic warden in full uniform, her hat at a jaunty angle, face staring upward in cold disapproval. She had been shot in the heart.

Rawhead was amazed. The corpse was so perfectly positioned that it might have been his own work. He, the stalker, was being stalked. It was now obvious to him that he could not leave the house. He must stay here, keeping vigil, until his enemy returned.

As this thought occurred to him, Rawhead heard a quiet bump behind him. He glanced round and saw that the door at the end was now closed.

Holding the Ruger steady, he crept down the passage toward the door.

*   *   *

On the other side of the door, the Spirit waited, crouching low, the Sig resting on her left knee. Not in front of the door, but slightly to one side. There was a full minute of silence; then three shots ripped through the door, spraying splintered oak over the floor, blasting down dust and gossamer from the ceiling.

The Spirit had expected this.

Moving muscle by muscle, inching sideways with excruciating care, the Spirit crept round until she was in front of the door. And then she waited, eyes fixed on the wooden doorknob. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Her knees and thighs began to ache. She placed her left hand on the floor to take some of the weight.

Not daring to breathe or move. Because she knew what was coming.

Once or twice, she thought she could hear him breathing. A floorboard creaked overhead and she almost fired but held on, knowing she must not act until she saw the door handle move. In the end, she was not prompted to act by any visual warning. The door to the passage tremored. That was enough. The Spirit loosed all seven rounds, aiming at where she guessed Rawhead's chest would be.

When the sound of the shots died away, the silence returned.

Then she waited for a great deal longer, listening out for telltale moans or sighs. There was nothing. The Spirit knew it must be over, but still she lingered. In the end, it was sheer boredom that brought her to her feet. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes with her scarf, then bound it tightly over her mouth and nostrils. After reloading the Sig, she reached for the handle and opened the door.

*   *   *

All things considered, Chef didn't think this woman appreciated the subtle dynamics of their business relationship. He was her employer; it wasn't the other way around. He could have been doing anything that evening. He could have been setting up a business deal with the heads of all the New York families. OK, so maybe he wasn't.

The point was, Chef called the shots, no one else.

Because of this, Chef contemplated not traveling to Dudloe at all. If he kept an appointment that she'd called, surely that would compound her view that she held the upper hand? Conversely, not turning up might lead that surly bitch to assume he was scared. In the end, he came up with an excellent compromise.

He was accompanied by Boner, the Philosopher, Bryan, and Average. All five men were packing. Chef was carrying a Derringer, just the kind of dainty little weapon to shoot a woman with.

As the Rolls pulled up outside the dark vicarage, Chef's mobile rang. It was her. “Is that your car outside?” she said.

“Yes, it's my car,” he said. Then he hung up.

“What the fuck is going on, Boss?” said the Philosopher.

“You see that house?” said Chef. “You're going to go inside it.”

“Why me?”

“You know Stoker? The guy that works for Little Malc? The one who told you to go fuck yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to know if he's in there.”

“You setting me up?”

“No,” said Chef. “The guy can't hurt you. He's swooned. I just want you to identify the body.”

“Why me?”

“Because I trust you. Because you're my number two.”

“Oh, fuck,” said the Philosopher.

“Just go to the front door,” said Chef. “A woman's going to meet you.”

“What woman?”

“You don't need to know. Just go in; view the body; come out again.”

The other tools sat in stark silence, relieved that none of them was Chef's number two. Boner peered at the house and thought he saw a ghostly light flitting from window to window.

Chef patted the Philosopher's shoulder. “If you're sure it's Stoker, hundred percent sure, tell the woman four working days.”

“Who is she?”

“Nobody. A go-between. OK?”

“OK.”

The Philosopher opened the door and got out of the car. “And make sure you don't fucking drive away.”

Average laughed.

“Hey, man,” said Boner. “Be careful. Don't get yourself boxed.”