Killing With Confidence (23 page)

She looked at him
with pure venom in her eyes, then hawked up something from the
deepest regions of her throat and spat in Osiris’s face. ‘Aye,
that’s the cunt, alright.’

Osiris needed to
focus. What would his self-help guru say now? ‘Evaluate the
situation then rise above your problems. Only then will everything
come clearly into focus.’ But everything was already clearly in
focus, and Osiris didn’t like what he saw. He could not turn his
head far enough to the side to see the slabs of muscle holding him
upright. For whenever he tried to move, they tightened their grip.
He knew any notion of escape was futile. Even if he managed to
break free they’d zap him with that Taser again.

Then, a much smaller
figure emerged from the shadows, his face partially illuminated by
the cigarette burning in his mouth. Although around half the size
of the men who were gripping Osiris with their shovel-sized hands,
the man who approached looked somehow more intimidating. Osiris’s
deep animal instincts could sense danger.

The mysterious figure
got so close Osiris could feel his hot breath on his cheeks. Then
he spoke, ‘So you’re the guy who murdered my sister?’

Osiris gave an
involuntary shrug. It could be any number of victims this cool
customer was talking about.

Colin Harris said,
‘Not too bothered? Oh, you will be. The thing is, you may have been
able to give the cops and the reporters the slip, but not me, pal.
Takes a killer to know a killer.’

Harris produced a
knife, and held it glinting in the moonlight.

Just the sight of it
made Osiris Vance, mass murderer, terroriser and killer of women
the length and breadth of Britain, copiously urinate himself. This
was true fear. He could feel the same panic he used to see in his
victims’ faces.

He was dragged to a
waiting car and sandwiched in the back seat between the two
gorillas.

Harris threw his
cigarette butt into the bushes and took his place in the driver’s
seat, joined in the front by the girl. He calmly handed the
prostitute a thick envelope and said, ‘That’s £100,000. Enough
money for you to get clean, off the streets and start a new life
with your kid, okay?’ A part of Colin Harris genuinely wished she
would start afresh, but he knew it was more likely she’d waste it
all on heroin, bought from his suppliers, and probably be dead
within weeks.

That was the last
humanitarian thought Harris would have that night. His mind turned
to much darker matters as he glanced towards Osiris in his rear
view mirror.

47

Busted Flush

Osiris
decided to use the only trump card he had left. ‘I know who killed
that rich bitch, Selina Seth.’

Harris scoffed,
‘What, poor Martin? No wonder he killed her, she was screwing
anything that moved. Tormented him over it, too. I told him he
should just admit it. He’d easily have got a diminished
responsibility rap. Seven years for manslaughter. Out in three and
a half. Then the daft bastard killed himself … or was it made
to look like suicide?’

A thought suddenly
occurred to Harris, ‘Maybe you had a hand in that too? Probably
thought you were onto a good thing, eh? Maybe you decided to
blackmail him so you’d end up on the company payroll? That well and
truly fucked up one of my better business plans, so that’s
something else I owe you.’

‘No, not him. It
wasn’t Martin who killed Selina,’ Osiris protested.

Harris was silent for
a long time, as he listened to what Osiris had to say. Eventually
he said, ‘Interesting, very interesting,’ his mind already whirring
at the possibilities of how best to use this new crucial
information.

Sensing a bargaining
tool, Osiris continued, ‘He’s crazy. I’ve seen him in action. He
set about that rich cow like a maniac.’

Harris scoffed, ‘At
least he’s smarter than you. You’ve just shown your hand. Cashed in
your chips, buddy. You have nothing else in the kitty.’

The colour drained
from Osiris face as the realisation set in – he’d blown it. He
should have bargained for his life with the only piece of
information he had left. Instead, he’d given it up all too
willingly. It was only then that Osiris realised his self-help
gurus had been a complete waste of his time and money.

They did nothing but
spout clichés, bluff and hot air, and only benefited the gurus
themselves. Like leaders of some religious cult they sold ideas to
the needy and the weak-minded, like snake oil salesmen of old.

Harris’s car came to
a halt in a darkened street. Moments later the goons hauled Osiris
from the back seat. ‘Fancy a drink?’ Harris said with a sinister
smile as Osiris was frogmarched through the entrance of the Portman
bar. The trap door to the cellar was already open, and the last of
the regulars were stumbling out at closing time. No one even gave
Harris and his men a second look. They knew better.

The gruff barmaid was
collecting the last of the glasses. She asked Harris if he wanted a
glass of his usual Chablis.

‘Aye, better make it
the whole bottle, darling. And my blowtorch too, honey. It’s going
to be a long night.’ He gave her a friendly wink.

Harris turned to face
Osiris and lit the nozzle of the blowtorch with a lighter,
adjusting the sputtering yellow flame to an angry-looking blue
point. ‘Now, how do you like your genitals? Well done? Or burnt to
a crisp? I think we’ll go for the latter, shall we?’

48

Carry On Living

April could
hear the voices in her head. Barely audible at first, they were
growing louder and louder, and they were talking about
her.

‘The big yin’ll be
raging she’s missed her breakfast again.’

‘Aye, she’s fading
away tae a mountain.’

She didn’t recognise
her mockers. Who were they? And more to the point where the hell
was she? She managed to open her eyes for a brief moment.

One of the voices
spoke again. ‘She’s awake, better get the nurse.’

Nurse. Hospital.
Wards. April’s mind wandered. She thought of her favourite
Carry
On
film: Kenneth Williams fending off the attentions of Hattie
Jacques, an even larger lady than herself, and a craggy-faced Sid
James in constant pursuit of sexy nurse Barbara Windsor. April
remembered getting into a heated argument with her friend Flo,
who’d insisted the films were nothing but sexist old drivel and
complained that the Royal College of Nursing was still trying to
rid itself of Barbara’s image forty years on.

Why did people have
to dissect everything? April wondered. And why was she in
hospital? She remembered speaking to Detective Crosbie, then
pulling on clothes which were far too tight for her and finally
Connor wishing her luck. But wishing her luck for what?

April broke out in a
cold sweat and her heart began to race, sounding off some alarm by
the side of her bed. Another voice filled her head that made her
jump: ‘I’m going to fuck you and kill you.’ Her arms flayed wildly
and she let out a long, anguished scream.

‘You’re all right,
Miss Lavender, you’re safe now. You’re safe.’

April opened her
tear-filled eyes to see a sweet, young nurse smiling down at her.
‘Am I . . . did he . . .’ she stuttered, before breaking down in
gut-wrenching sobs.

‘I’ll get the doctor
to speak to you,’ the nurse said before she whispered in April’s
ear, ‘but, no, he didn’t. You had a lucky escape.’

It was all April
wanted to know. Whoever he was had beaten her badly but by some
miracle hadn’t raped her. Lucky escape? April pondered. There was
no way she could have escaped given the state she’d been in. She
shut her eyes tightly and thought hard. Plastic ties had been
around her wrists. She remembered the searing pain of being
repeatedly punched in the face, the smell of coffee and stale
cigarettes on her attacker’s breath, and his powerful hands ripping
at her clothes before tightening around her throat. Then there had
been a jolt, like an electric shock. Voices. Different voices. And
that was all she could recall.

‘Good morning, April.
I’m Doctor Crawford.’

April looked up to
see another fresh-faced young woman who wouldn’t have looked out of
place in a school uniform.

‘You know you’re
getting old when the doctors and nurses look so young,’ April
croaked.

‘Well, it’s nice to
finally meet you,’ the doctor said, pulling up a chair. ‘You’ve
been staying with us for a couple of nights, so it’s good to hear
you talk, however you sound.’

‘I sound bloody
awful,’ April said. ‘Like I’ve smoked a thousand fags.’

‘I’m not surprised.
You’ve had a fair bit of trauma to your head and neck. There’s
still quite a lot of bruising, so you might not want to enter any
beauty pageants for a while.’

April liked this
doctor. ‘Do you know what happened? And where am I,
incidentally?’

Doctor Crawford
apologised. ‘Sorry, I should’ve said. You’re in the Royal
Infirmary. But as for what happened we don’t really know a lot yet.
You came in as an emergency. Someone called 999 and you were found
in a car. That’s the sum of my knowledge, I’m afraid. But the
police can tell you more.’ The doctor glanced towards the door.

April narrowed her
eyes, attempting to focus without the aid of her glasses. She could
make out a uniformed policeman standing outside her room. ‘I take
it my attacker hasn’t been caught?’ she asked gloomily.

The doctor shrugged.
‘I don’t know. What I can tell you for certain is you’re going to
be all right. You’ve been through the wringer, but the X-rays show
nothing’s broken. And there are no signs of sexual assault.’

‘Not for a long
time,’ April joked, trying to bluff her obvious relief. Her eyes
settled on a nearby table festooned with Get Well Soon cards and
bouquets of flowers. She reached out and picked up the nearest one,
recognising Connor’s scrawl. ‘Being choked half to death is no
excuse for not filing your copy on time.’

‘Cheeky bastard, but
he does make me smile,’ April said.

The policeman opened
the door to announce, ‘You have a visitor, Miss Lavender.’

‘Talk of the devil,’
April croaked.

‘My, what a lovely
singing voice you have!’ Connor quipped, placing a
tinfoil-covered plate on the table beside her. ‘I thought I
better buy you something from Peccadillos. They’ve nearly gone out
of business since you’ve been in here.’

The doctor excused
herself.

Connor slumped into
the chair and moaned, ‘Jeez, between you and Badger, I feel like
I’m never away from hospitals.’

‘How is he?’ April
asked.

‘Ach, not great.
Rita’s been texting me, but he could go at any minute. With all
that’s happened I haven’t really had a chance to see him again,’
Connor said quietly.

‘He’d understand more
than anyone – the story always comes first,’ April assured him.

‘Anyway, how are you
feeling?’ Connor said.

‘I’m fine. Just
pleased to be here.’

‘Jayne’s practically
been keeping a bedside vigil, but you’ve been out of it, snoring
your head off as usual. And everyone at work has been asking for
you.’ Connor smiled.

Not everyone, I bet,
April thought to herself, with the mere mention of work blackening
her mood. She shuddered at the humiliation of being suspended by
the Weasel. ‘Just look at the state of me, Connor. Beaten to a pulp
trying to save my job. And where did it get me? A hospital bed and
police protection from some lunatic trying to bump me off.’

‘Actually, I’ve just
heard some news on that front. Our killer’s bumping-off days are
firmly behind him.’

But the news of
Osiris’s death fell on deaf ears. ‘I’ll be out of work shortly and
probably dead a few years after that and I’ll ask myself, What the
hell was all that about? Soon no one will even remember me. Maybe a
great-great-grandchild will be a writer one day and her
parents won’t even know it was in her DNA. And even if someone does
recall me, what’s my legacy? A trail of broken marriages. Oh, and a
serial killer almost strangled her to death. Big wow, huh?’

‘Come on, April,
you’ve had an incredible career. And it was your bravery that
helped to catch the crazy bastard. And what about Jayne? What
about your grandkid? You’re lucky to have a legacy like them to
leave behind.’

But April was having
none of it. ‘And as for newspapers, they’re doomed –
yesterday’s news printed on dead trees. Soon people won’t even
believe they were bought in their millions every day. They’re
finished, Connor. The internet wins. And I’m finished, too. It’s
someone else’s turn to toil.’

Connor let her get
the rant out of her system, before appealing to the part of
April he knew he could get through to – her stomach. ‘So, are you
going to eat this or what?’ he said peeling back the tinfoil from
the plate. ‘I asked Martel to make you the lunchtime special. Two
Scotch pies and beans, especially for you.’

April’s mood
instantly lightened. ‘Well . . . it does smell marvellous.’

Connor watched with
morbid fascination as she tucked into the pies. ‘It’s just gone
nine and here you are having lunch. You’re as happy as a pig in
shit, aren’t you?’

His words went off
like a firecracker in April’s head, forcing her to drop her
knife and fork on the table. ‘Nine o’clock? Lunch? That
bastard didn’t meet her for lunch the day before she was murdered.
He met her the morning she
was
murdered.’

Connor knew April
well enough to expect the unexpected, but the sudden outburst even
wrong-footed him. He looked puzzled.

‘Don’t you know what
this means?’ April asked rhetorically, her voice growing in volume
and confidence. ‘It means I’m not the one who’s finished. He
is.’