The Murder Exchange Page 30

  ‘I don’t think it should be kept for him,’ said Kalinski. ‘If he ain’t here, he ain’t here. We share it out between ourselves. That’s the only way.’

  ‘I thought you were only in it for the revenge.’

  ‘Well, I ain’t got my fucking revenge, have I? The cunt’s still alive and you’re saying we should release him tomorrow. Even though he fucked your missus.’

  ‘Watch what you’re fucking saying.’

  ‘If it was me, and he’d done that to my missus, I’d have fucking killed him.’

  I took a step forward, feeling my temper boiling over. I’m a patient man, but this bastard Kalinski was pushing it big time.

  Tugger put his hand out in front of me. ‘All right, boys, calm down. Let’s all take it easy, have a drink, and talk about it again tomorrow morning. How does that sound? We’re not getting nowhere like this.’

  ‘I think I should get a bigger share of the Russell,’ said Johnny. ‘You say I didn’t have to do too much but, what with all this lot, things ain’t never going to be the same for me again.’

  I turned to him, wanting to re-establish control. ‘Bullshit. You’ve done your bit, and you’ve done it well, but nothing changes with the death of Holtz. No one knows who we are and no one’s going to be able to find us. As long as we keep calm and release Krys. I’ll hold the money until tomorrow. If Joe still isn’t here when we’re due to leave, then we’ll split his share evenly, but if he is alive, and he comes looking for it, then it’s got to be remembered that it’s his money, and it’s each bloke’s lookout if he doesn’t want to give it up. Now, let’s count this fucking stuff. Then we can divvy up.’

  The atmosphere was tense, unpleasant. No one felt much like talking, or even eating. Beers were cracked open, as per Tugger’s suggestion, but there was no celebration even though every man in the room was significantly richer. It was all there, too, every last note. Half a million pounds in fifties, just as Holtz had been instructed, and that settled it for me. There was no way he’d been accidentally shot by one of his men who was trying to put a hole in me. However many times I went over it in my mind, one thing remained certain, and that was that he’d had every intention of paying up.

  Before we retired for the night, I took some bread down to Krys and fed it to him without speaking. Eventually he asked me whether his old man had paid the ransom. He didn’t sound angry or defiant any more, just tired and uncomfortable. He’d pissed his trousers again but didn’t ask for them to be changed.

  ‘Yeah, your dad paid,’ I told him.

  ‘Are you going to let me go?’ he asked, his voice sounding strangely like a kid.

  ‘You’re going to be released tomorrow morning. Then it’ll all be over.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Krys.

  I didn’t say anything as I replaced the gag, thinking once again that I was glad we hadn’t killed him. He deserved it, no question, but you couldn’t feel too much hate for a person in his state.

  As I came out of the cellar and locked it behind me, I looked at my watch. 10.50 p.m. The others had all gone upstairs. I could hear them moving around. Yawning, I picked up the holdall from the kitchen table, checked to see that no one had tampered with it, and went up to bed, noticing for the first time that it had stopped raining.

  Today

  Iversson

  My eyes snapped open and I listened hard for a second. Nothing. It was dark in the room; the alarm clock by the bed said 2.57. Something had woken me. I was a good sleeper, usually went straight through, couldn’t remember the last time my slumber had been interrupted naturally. I could see through the gap in the door that the landing light was on, but that was how I’d left it when I’d come into the bedroom. Maybe someone had got up to go for a leak. I sat up and waited for a few moments. Still nothing. I picked up the Glock from the side of the bed and checked that it was loaded – there was a round in the chamber – then lay back down again, thinking that I was getting paranoid. No great surprise, I suppose, when you’re in a house with half a million in cash and three men with less than scrupulous backgrounds.

  I shut my eyes and thought of Joe. Joe Riggs, the man who’d been good to me down the years. The man I’d betrayed by sleeping with his missus, and now the man who was almost certainly dead as a direct result of me getting him involved in a dangerous scheme when all he’d wanted to do was run a business in peace.

  There was a noise downstairs. Footsteps on the bare floorboards in the hall, faint but distinctly audible. Someone was moving around down there. This time I slid out of bed, pulled on trousers and a shirt, and picked up the gun. I paused and listened again. It had stopped. I decided to investigate, just in case. The holdall was under the bed but I made the decision to leave it where it was. I’d be back in a few moments. To hinder anyone who thought they could sneak in and take it, I removed the lightbulb from the main light and placed it under the pillow.

  Slowly, I unlocked the door and opened it as quietly as possible, then stepped outside, straining against the silence. The other doors on the landing were all shut, and nothing moved. Flicking the safety off the gun, I crept over to the stairs. The lights at the bottom were all extinguished, just as I’d left them, but that meant nothing. Someone had definitely been creeping about down there and, whatever the reason was, I was sure there was nothing innocent about it. Could it have been Kalinski deciding to ignore his instructions and to finish off Krys? If he had, he hadn’t come back up the stairs again, nobody had. Maybe he’d taken his share and left. But then I would have heard a car start, and I hadn’t.

  The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, the second time they’d done that in just over a fortnight. The first had been in the minutes before Tony Franks had started shooting, and sent us all down the rocky road to where we were now.

  I took a step onto one of the stairs and it creaked loudly, interrupting the night’s silence. I stood still for a moment, resisting the urge to call out the way they always do in horror films, just before they get sliced into salami by the killer. Is anyone there? If someone was, he didn’t want to be discovered. Hearing nothing, I took a second step, paused, then continued down the stairs as cautiously as possible.

  When I was at the bottom, I concentrated on trying to pick up any sound that might seem out of place. Breathing, the shuffling of feet … but the dead silence remained. My eyes scanned the gloom, the darkness almost inpenetrable, only thin shafts of half-light coming through the kitchen windows.

  I took two rapid steps forward and switched on all the lights to the hall, then turned and started. Because I spotted it immediately.

  The cellar door was half an inch ajar. I’d definitely locked it, no question, and I’d also been the last person in there. Which meant one of two things, neither very good. Either he’d escaped, or …

  I stepped forward, and pushed the door wider. It was silent, and the air smelt fetid, as it always did. Krys Holtz had been incarcerated in there for three days. He stank, no question. I put a foot on the cellar steps, took a quick look round to check there was no one behind me, and switched on the light.

  I could see Krys’s feet. So he was still there. I moved down the steps, one at a time, trying to make as little noise as possible …

  And froze.

  Krys lay back in his seat, still bound and gagged, still wearing the clothes I’d left him in, but very very dead. His throat had been sliced through deeply. The head was hanging back in the seat at such a precarious angle that only the fact that it was leaning against the wall prevented it from toppling off altogether. Blood had turned the front of his shirt a deep crimson and it had run down onto the tops of his legs. The blindfold had been removed, too, and his eyes were wide and terrified. The killer, then, had given him advance warning of what he’d intended.

  I moved closer to the body and touched the forehead. Still warm. The flow of blood had stopped and it was coagulating rapidly round the throat region, so it was unlikely he’d been killed in the last few minutes, but it
hadn’t been hours ago either.

  I hurried back up the steps, switched the light off, listened for a few moments to check that no one was waiting at the top for me, and then stepped out. I walked back into the hallway, then round to the front door. It was locked. I doubled back and checked the back door of the house, which led into the utility room. Also locked. I went back through the hallway and into the kitchen, holding the Glock tightly, and went to check on the kitchen door, the last means of entry into the house.

  It was unlocked. I couldn’t remember if I’d checked it earlier or not, but thought I had. I’d been security conscious these past few nights, even more so since we’d taken ownership of all that money, but so much had happened that I couldn’t recall anything for sure.

  I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Who knew we were here? Who wanted Krys Holtz dead? Who would have bothered to remove his blindfold before he killed him? Only someone who had a personal reason for wanting him dead. Kalinski. It had to be Kalinski. I was going to have to wake the others. I turned round.

  A shadow suddenly filled the doorway. I started, then brought up the gun instinctively, finger tensing on the trigger.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

  It was Tugger. I felt myself relaxing. ‘Something very fucking bad,’ I said, approaching him.

  Tugger retreated, and I saw that he too was holding a gun by his side, though where he’d got it from I didn’t have a clue. He lifted it so it was pointing in my direction. ‘Hold on, stop there. What are you talking about?’

  I stopped. ‘I think Kalinski’s snuffed Krys. I heard some movement down here; it woke me up. I came down, saw that the cellar door was open, and went to take a look.’

  Tugger didn’t move. ‘Where were you going just now?’

  ‘I was checking the doors to see whether they were locked.’

  ‘And are they?’

  ‘That one isn’t,’ I said, motioning towards the kitchen door. ‘Look, you can put the gun down now, Tugger. I’m not the one who’s offed Krys.’

  ‘You put yours down, then.’

  I did. ‘Look, Tug, how long have we known each other? A long time, right? I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t believe me, take a look. Krys is dead and there’s no way I’d want to kill him.’

  He stepped over to the cellar door, and peered down, switching on the light as he did so. He watched me carefully out of the corner of his eye as he put his foot on the first step. It was funny what a lot of money did to people’s personalities.

  ‘I’m going to check on Kalinski,’ I said. ‘See if he’s done a runner.’

  At that moment, the sound of a car starting came from out front. Tugger jumped back through the cellar door. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Go see who it is,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll see if Kalinski’s gone.’

  Once again, he gave me a suspicious look, then turned and hurried out to the kitchen door. I ran up the stairs, wondering why Johnny hadn’t surfaced by now, and tried Kalinski’s door. It opened immediately and I knew he’d gone, an assumption that lasted as long as it took me to reach for the light switch and flick it on.

  Kalinski lay on his back under the covers of his bed, his eyes open and staring at the beamed ceiling. The pale sheets covering him were stained with blood around the chest area, and he didn’t seem to have made any attempt at a struggle. I stepped forward and pulled them back. Three deep knife wounds an inch to the right of his left nipple suggested that death had been instantaneous, the result of stab wounds to the heart. Whoever had killed him had known what he was doing. But then, I already knew that, because he’d left two people dead with hardly a sound. My bedroom was right next door to Kalinski’s, and I’d been lying no more than ten feet away from him while the knife was going in. And I hadn’t heard a fucking thing. My luck was still holding, but only just. Whoever was trying to kill me – to kill us all – was getting closer and closer.

  I thought I heard a shout from outside and it was at that point that I made a decision: something had gone badly wrong and I needed to get out of there with the money, and fast. I flung the sheets back over Kalinski, turned and ran back to my own room, knocking on Johnny’s door as I passed but not bothering to wait around for an answer. I wondered whether the Holtzes had the place surrounded and who among us was the one feeding information to the other side.

  I pulled on some shoes, grabbed the holdall from under the bed, and went back out onto the landing. Johnny wasn’t responding. I knocked again, then opened the door. Even in the gloom, I could see that the bed was empty. What the fuck did that mean? Was Johnny the traitor? All kinds of thoughts were flying through my mind, clouding an issue that was already as murky as a peat bog. But there was no time to stand around and analyse, so I ran down the stairs and pulled open the front door.

  The van we’d used for the ransom pick-up was about ten yards away in the middle of the driveway. It was in the exact spot where Kalinski had parked it earlier but the lights were on and the engine was idling. I stepped outside and looked for Tugger, but he was nowhere to be seen. The thick walls of trees on both sides of the driveway were silent and empty, but who knew what or who was behind them.

  Clutching the gun in one hand and the holdall in the other, I jogged up to the driver’s side of the van, keeping my head down and turning round every so often, just to check I wasn’t being followed, and pulled open the door.

  Johnny Hexham’s body tipped out unceremoniously and I had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

  ‘For Jesus’s sake …’

  Johnny stared blankly up at me, glassy-eyed and dead, his throat, like Krys’s, cut from ear to ear. But this time the wound was fresh and bubbling, the blood still dripping down onto his shirt. Blood dribbled out of the sides of his mouth like something out of a horror film. For a moment I couldn’t move, so stunned was I by the turn of events. I’d been set up, and set up beautifully, and I still didn’t have a clue why, or by who. Johnny lay dead in front of me, probably murdered only a couple of minutes ago, if that, and his killer was almost certainly still in the vicinity. And where the fuck was Tugger? Had he taken out Krys and been coming after me when I’d turned round and spotted him? But there’d been no blood on his clothes. Still, that didn’t mean anything. He could have changed. Could have stood out of the way of the blood’s trajectory as it spurted from the wound. And what had he been doing creeping around down there?

  I chucked the holdall across the driver’s side and onto the passenger seat of the van, then went to jump in.

  Which was when I saw the front tyre. A deep slash ran all the way down it. I looked at the back tyre. The same. Set up perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I’d never been in a situation like this, one where I was so alone, so utterly out-thought, facing an enemy I couldn’t see, let alone identify, and who seemed to know every step I’d take before I’d even taken it. At that moment in time I was the most frightened I’d ever been in my life, and the most certain that this was a situation I wasn’t going to get out of alive.

  I stopped for a few moments to compose myself, to calm down so I could take stock of the situation. But Johnny’s dead eyes continued to stare up at me like something out of some murderous, madness-inducing dream and I was forced to use every ounce of self-discipline to stop myself from falling into a blind panic.

  Then I heard movement over by the side of the house. Turning round, trigger finger tensed, I saw Tugger coming back round. Shoot him, my instincts screamed. Shoot the bastard now! Except he was staggering drunkenly, not seeming to focus on anything. He stumbled, then fell to his knees, eyes making contact with mine, surprise in them, blood dribbling down his chin.

  Instinctively, I started to run towards him, and that was when I saw the knife sticking straight out of his back, only an inch of blade still visible, and there was something in his eyes, and his mouth was opening in a desperate effort to speak. It looked like he was trying to warn me of something.

  And then I hear
d footsteps coming round fast from behind the van, and the next thing I knew something smashed hard into my face, knocking me completely off balance. I felt the gun drop from my hand and I fell to my knees, my vision blurring into watery colours. Someone was standing above me and whoever it was had what looked like a sharpened spade in his hand. He hit me again, this time in the side of the head, and I felt my face smack against the concrete drive.

  I was still conscious but couldn’t seem to move. Vaguely, I heard my assailant walk over and pick up my gun, and I knew that this was it. The end. Strangely the blows seemed to have knocked all the fear out of me as well. My head ached ferociously and I was still having difficulty focusing, but slowly, I rolled over and lifted my head up, wanting to at least take a look at the man who was about to kill me.

  ‘How are you feeling, Max?’ asked a smiling Joe Riggs, the shovel in his hands.

  Even in my dazed state, I felt the shock surge through me. ‘Joe,’ I managed to say, through split and bloody lips, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Getting payback, Max. Getting payback.’

  I spat blood out of my mouth and managed to sit up. I still couldn’t believe that it was Joe who’d killed Krys and the others. ‘Why? What for? I thought you were dead. I kept your share. I was waiting here for you.’

  ‘I know you were,’ he said. ‘I was watching. In fact, I was back here before you were.’

  My whole world seemed like it was as blurred as my vision. ‘Why?’ I managed to ask again.

  Joe stared down at me grimly. There was no humanity in his eyes, just a quiet intensity. I’d already come round to the fact that I was going to die but couldn’t work out whether the bang on the head was causing me to see things or whether it really was true that my friend and business partner was going to be the one doing the killing. ‘Why these blokes? Because it’s business. They mean nothing to me. Not your friend, Hexham, who’s a fucking coward, not Kalinski, not even Tugger Lewis. He was an OK bloke but nothing special, and I remember once he fucked me over in a game of cards. Cheated, and took money off me that wasn’t his. I don’t forget things like that.’