The Payback (35 page)

‘Dead.’

‘Good. Good, good, good.’

Wise stepped forward and grabbed Tina by her hair, holding her face up to his. She struggled in Nargen’s grip, and he had to drive a knee into the small of her back and yank up her wrists to quieten her. ‘You dirty, dirty little whore,’ hissed Wise, his lips curled back in a malicious smile, like that on a child pulling wings
from a fly. Then he cleared his throat and spat full in her face. ‘You’re mine now. All fucking mine.’

‘Fuck you,’ Tina hissed back, trying to butt him with her head.

Wise’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘Get her down on her knees!’ he snapped at Nargen. ‘Now!’

Nargen didn’t like being talked to like that, client or not, but he swallowed his pride for the hundred thousand dollars on offer and kicked Tina’s legs from under her, using a gloved hand to push her head down.

‘That’s it, that’s it,’ muttered Wise, and kicked her in the face. There wasn’t a huge amount of force in the blow, but his polished black shoe connected well. ‘Keep holding on to her,’ he instructed, taking a step back and kicking her again.

This time he caught her under the chin and her head snapped back painfully. She tried to fall to the side but Nargen held her firmly in place. It looked to Wise like her nose had been broken. Blood ran out of it in twin rivulets and dripped on to the marble floor. Her resistance appeared to have ebbed away.

Wise grimaced as he saw the blood. ‘Messy bitch. Quick, bring her this way.’

Nargen hauled her to her feet and Wise led him down a brightly lit hall, stopping about halfway down, next to an ornate china vase as high as his waist, with long palm fronds jutting from its top. Carefully, he moved the vase to one side, then pressed the palm of his hand against a spot on the wall at face height. A low door concealed by the paintwork opened, and Wise bent down to step through it.

Nargen followed, only just managing to squeeze himself and Tina through it. He then had to negotiate a flight of steep steps down into a concealed, windowless but very brightly lit basement with a single steel bed in the middle. The cold, heavily conditioned
air smelled strongly of disinfectant, and all the surfaces had been scrubbed so clean that they shone. There were powerful halogen lamps suspended from the ceiling directly above the bed, as well as a case of surgical tools open on the table next to it, and it would have reminded Nargen of an operating theatre if it hadn’t been for the leather head, wrist and ankle restraints attached to chains that were strategically placed at various points on the bed.

‘Put her down here,’ said Wise, patting the hard mattress that, as he got closer, Nargen saw was dotted in places with old and faded but unmistakable flecks of blood.

As he threw her down on the bed, he noticed that, though her face was twisted in pain and covered in blood, her eyes were still alert. Wise’s thick lump of mucus and spittle still hung from her cheek, making Nargen feel vaguely nauseous. He held her in place, keeping his gun trained on her, while Wise placed the leather head restraint round her neck, buckling it more tightly than he needed to. He didn’t bother with the wrist restraints as her hands were already bound behind her back, but instead yanked her legs wide apart and fitted the ankle restraints. All the time this was going on, Tina Boyd stared up at him contemptuously, showing a bravery that he admired. She was wise enough to know that there would be no mercy, and made no attempt to search for any.

‘All right,’ said Wise, when he’d finished. ‘You can leave us now, and shut the door behind you. Call me on my mobile when our guests arrive.’

Nargen turned and mounted the steps without looking back, pleased to get away from the smell of disinfectant and someone as clearly deranged as Wise. He could never understand men like him, men who had no control of their emotions and got too carried away with killing. It was a task that always had to be
carried out carefully and methodically. That way you made fewer mistakes.

He shut the false door, noticing that it had been soundproofed, but didn’t bother replacing the vase, and walked back down the hallway, looking at his watch. Five to eight. The visitors would soon be here, and he would soon be gone. He thought about the one hundred thousand dollars he’d just earned. Added to the rest of the money Schagel owed him, his overall payment would be more than double that figure. So it had been well worth it, even if things hadn’t gone entirely smoothly, and had resulted in the loss of his right-hand man. Still, he thought as he walked out the front door, Tumanov could be replaced easily enough. There were always plenty of ex-Special Forces looking for work.

It took him a second to spot the hunched figure propped up against the balustrade facing the door, holding the gun unsteadily out in front of him with both hands. A few feet away from him, lying sprawled out on the veranda’s deck in a pool of blood, was the body of the Filipino, Rico.

Nargen was a man of swift reactions. He brought his own gun up in one fluid movement.

But he was too late. Dennis Milne had already pulled the trigger, the force of the .45 round from the police revolver lifting Nargen completely off his feet and sending him flying back into the house.

He just had time to curse himself for not finishing Milne off with a headshot when he’d had the chance, and then everything went black.

As soon as I pulled the trigger, I knew I’d got him with a good shot, but I didn’t have the strength to hold up either the gun or myself after that and I slid down the balustrade on to my behind.

He’d got me with a couple of good shots earlier, and now my shirt was completely drenched in blood and my vision was blurring. The bullets had smashed several of my ribs and done God knows what to my internal organs. I’d never been shot before, which I guess in my line of business is something of a bonus. There was no pain, just a spreading, numb shock, and the feeling of my strength steadily sapping away.

The stagger up to the house was the hardest walk I’d ever done. When I’d first gone down, I’d wanted just to lie there and let death do its work, but the need to see this through had forced me first to my knees, then finally to my feet. Each and every step had made me wince, but I’ve always been determined when I’ve put my mind to it. And the need for vengeance was driving me on.

There was a guy with a shotgun on the veranda, but he’d had his back to me, and I’d managed to crawl up the steps without him hearing me. I’d had no choice but to put a bullet in him, knowing
that it would alert everyone else to my presence, although incredibly, the man I’d just shot had stepped out of the villa as if he hadn’t heard anything, which was the kind of stroke of luck I desperately needed right now.

I felt something gurgling up in my throat, and I choked on a mouthful of blood, before spitting it out. I could make out the man I’d just shot lying on his back, just inside the door. He wasn’t moving. The interior of the house was silent and I wondered what had happened to Tina. Through the trees, I’d watched her being brought up here a few minutes earlier, so she had to be in the house somewhere. I knew I had to help her. I owed Tina Boyd. I’d come very close to killing her on behalf of Schagel, and even though I’d saved her life the previous night, I still didn’t feel the debt was repaid. And I wanted her to live. Desperately. She was fundamentally a decent person, on the side of the good guys. Even if it was the last thing I did – and I was beginning to realize that it probably would be – I had to make sure she got out of this place.

But my strength was ebbing away fast now, and my breath was coming in painful gasps.

I rolled over on to my side, fingers finding the handle of the revolver. Three rounds left. More than enough. With a huge effort, I clambered to my feet and half stumbled, half staggered across the veranda and through the open front door.

It felt like walking into a fridge, and I swayed, almost losing my balance. I grabbed the wall for support, momentarily overcome by a fit of shivering, which I knew was the onset of shock.

I took a couple of deep, rasping breaths and forced myself to rise above the pain.

Slowly, I looked round the grand hallway. It was very bright, and very white, and very clean. And totally impersonal. Aside from a large canvas of something abstract – a series of jagged
lines in various shades of what I think was blue, although it was difficult to tell in my current condition – there was nothing to give even a hint about the sort of person who lived here. No photographs. No nothing. It was bland and cold – which, though I’d never met him, probably described Paul Wise perfectly.

And still there was no sound coming from anywhere.

Trying as hard as possible both to ignore the growing pain in my chest and to keep my wits about me in case of an ambush, I took a few careful steps forward. And that’s when I saw the heavy drops of blood on the floor. They were fresh, but there weren’t enough of them to suggest that whoever had spilled them was badly hurt.

I moved on and poked my head round a half-open door, looking into an immense living room the size of an apartment. It was empty, so I retreated and began a slow, unsteady stagger down a long white corridor with doors on one side and windows on the other. I used the wall for support, the gun heavy in my free hand, knowing that I had to keep going until I found Tina.

But then a terrible wave of nausea hit me, and even though I leaned into the wall with my shoulder, trying desperately to keep my balance, I wasn’t able to stop myself falling to the floor.

I lay where I’d landed, the gun still in my hand, my head resting against the wall. A four-foot-high china vase, the only ornament I’d seen in here, stood nearby and I tried to focus on it to stop myself from losing consciousness. I had no strength left. Nothing. I was finished.

I shut my eyes, feeling an overwhelming fatigue that seemed to envelop all other thoughts, and I knew it was over. The end of a bloody, wasted life.

And then I heard it. Coming from somewhere behind the wall. Faint yet unmistakable.

A woman’s scream.

The fear kept coming in intense, gut-churning waves as Tina lay bound and helpless on the bed, knowing that she was at the mercy of the one person who wanted her dead more than anyone else.

Wise was grinning at her, his hairless, almost childlike face full of a terrible sadistic glee. ‘Do you know something?’ he said, slapping her face hard. ‘I’ve waited years for this moment, and by God, I’m going to savour it.’ He slapped her face again. ‘I’m going to hurt you so, so badly, you’re going to be begging for me to finish you off.’ Slap. ‘Do you understand that, you little bitch? Do you?’

Tina worked hard not to rise to the bait. The fear was debilitating, but now there was a new emotion: pure hatred for this abomination who’d done so much harm in the world, and who deserved so much to die.

For a few precious seconds, it gave her strength.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach down and produce a thin, sharp scalpel that shone in the bright lights of the overhead lamp, and the raw fear returned with a vengeance.

He saw her reaction to the scalpel and smiled. ‘I’m going to cut you nice and slowly with this. Just because I can. Then I’m going to fuck you. Even though you’re not my type. Far too old, I’m afraid,’ he said with a wink. ‘I like them nice and fresh. But I want to violate you. Humiliate you. And then, when I finally grow bored, and your
famous
spirit finally breaks, you’re going to disappear, just like all the others.’

She met his eye, knowing that whatever happened, there was no point begging for mercy because that would only give him satisfaction. The bastard was turned on enough as it was. She wasn’t going to play along for him.

‘You cowardly bastard,’ she said, before she could stop herself, a pitying look on her face. ‘Is this how you killed those little girls? When they were helpless? I bet that makes you feel a real big man, doesn’t it.’

‘Slut!’ he hissed, his face contorting with rage as he lashed out with the scalpel.

She felt a hot, sharp pain on her cheek and let out an involuntary scream.

Wise came closer so her view was completely dominated by his face, and she could smell his breath. ‘I’m going to cut you to pieces, you whore. You had your chance to walk away. To live. Instead you try to take me on. You’ve been an annoying little fly for a long time now, and now it’s time to make you pay.’

She ignored the warm sensation of the blood flowing down her face, the rage returning to her as she struggled in her bonds.

‘Sorry, my dear, but I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Are you?’ He reached down and grabbed her roughly between the legs, pinching her through the material of the shorts. Grinning at her.

‘You cowardly little runt,’ she snarled back at him. ‘You can’t
do anything unless your victims can’t fight back. You’re absolutely pathetic.’

He slapped her hard round the face. ‘How dare you talk to me like that? I’m a fighter, do you understand that? A fighter. That’s how I got to where I am today. To all this. I’ve got more money than you’ll ever have.’ He released his grip and gave her a dismissive sneer. ‘You’re nothing. Nothing at all. And soon you’re going to be buried in my garden along with the others, in a place where no one can ever mourn you. Where you’ll be mine for ever, and where I can piss on your bones every single bloody night.’