THE PERFECT KILL (5 page)

“Why are you sitting here?”

Again the grim smile.

“I have a flat in Pimlico, and with the interest rates what they are at the moment, I stand to lose it if I don’t find work soon. It’s all I own apart from my clapped-out Ford Fiesta.”

He looked down at the portfolio again. It had only scant personal details.

“Were you ever married?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Children?”

She nodded again. “A son.”

“How old?”

“He was eight.”

She reached for her handbag and took out a packet of cigarettes.

“Do you mind?”

“No.”

She lit up and inhaled deeply. He noticed again the nicotine stains on her fingers.

She exhaled and said, with only a trace of bitterness, “His father was a very heavy drinker…an alcoholic. He was driving him home from prep-school one afternoon, after a heavy liquid lunch. He hit the back of a container lorry on the motorway. My son died.”

“And the father?”

“He survived.”

“Where is he now?”

She shook her head. She had straight, black hair to her shoulders,

“I don’t know. I divorced him very soon after.”

There was a silence, then Creasy asked, “Do you have a drink problem?”

Again, she shook her head and said firmly, “No, and I never have. I enjoy a glass or two of wine. That’s all.”

He studied her face, then he pushed a pad and pen across the table to her and said, “I’m going to tell you what the job is, precisely. It will be easier if you don’t interrupt. Just make notes about any questions you want to ask at the end.”

He talked for fifteen minutes and when he finished she was looking down at an empty pad.

“Any questions?” he asked.

She lifted her head. “Just two. First, can you give me a thumbnail sketch of the boy?”

He thought for a moment and replied, “As I told you, he’s just seventeen years old. He’s intelligent but does not communicate too well…perhaps chooses not to. He’s been in an orphanage all his life. Although it’s a caring one it tends to make a child mentally tough and withdrawn. I doubt that he will stir any maternal instincts.”

She smiled wryly and said, “Second question, of course, is money. Harry said it would be good…how good?”

The American closed the portfolio, stood up and stretched.

“As I told you, it’s essential that you stay the full six months, not a day less. In four days, I will phone and let you know if you have the job.” He stopped and looked at her. “During those four days, I will be having you checked out…very thoroughly, and during those four days you can reconsider. If you check out and you accept the job we will go to a lawyer, of your choice, and draw up the contracts. At the same time we will post the banns at the Register Office. You will then receive three thousand pounds for expenses and I will give the lawyer a certified cheque for fifty thousand American dollars, which he will hold in escrow for you until he receives a declaration from a Gozitan notary confirming that you have spent six consecutive months in cohabitation with me in Gozo. During those six months you will receive an allowance of one thousand American dollars a month. Of course I will pay all household expenses. You will have your own car.” He smiled slightly. “Coincidentally, a not-so-clapped-out Ford Fiesta, but you will not have an independent social life.”

He could see that she was calculating the sums in her head. “Does it cover your mortgage?” he asked.

For the first time, her whole face smiled. “Yes, it does, and more besides…I hope I check out OK.”

“So do I. I’ll call you in four days, Ms Meckler.”

She wore a simple, white lace dress, slim-fitting to just above her knees. Tapered at the waist, it revealed her soft, long curves. She showed considerable beauty. He wore beige cotton trousers, teamed with a salmon-coloured polo shirt and brown suede brogues.

They stood in front of the registrar, who decided that they made a handsome couple. He also decided that this was a marriage of convenience. He had married thousands of couples and his judgement was honed. First the man had arrived without a ring. The registrar had pointed out, tartly, that although it was not a necessity, it was a nicety. The man had gone off down the King’s Road to a jeweller’s and come back with what must have been the cheapest ring in the shop. Also the registrar had to verify the various documents. The two birth certificates, her divorce papers, and his late wife’s death certificate. He had noted the date on the latter document, 21 December 1988 only six months previous. Yes, it was certainly a marriage of convenience, but the registrar couldn’t fathom what the convenience might be. Usually, it was a would-be immigrant, marrying a British girl for permanent status. They had not even brought the required two witnesses and so the registrar had drafted in a clerk and his secretary. When the brief ceremony was over they did not kiss, but they did shake hands with the registrar and the witnesses.

Back on the pavement of the King’s Road, Creasy looked at his watch and said, “I have to grab a cab and head for Heathrow.”

She nodded solemnly.

“When will you call?”

“In about a week.”

She noticed the impatience on his face but said stubbornly,

“When will we leave for Gozo? I need to know. If I can let my flat, it will help with the mortgage over the next six months.”

He answered, “Between two and three weeks from now…I’ll call you.”

He turned away and walked down the street.

She stood on the crowded pavement, watching him, with his strange walk, weave through the pedestrians. The sides of his feet seemed to come into contact with the ground first.

She looked down at her dress and her new shoes and felt somehow used. She looked up. He was walking back. He came close to her. “How much remains on your mortgage?”

“Thirteen thousand four hundred and twenty pounds and fifty-seven pence.”

“How much interest do you pay?”

“Seventeen and a half per cent.”

For half a minute he calculated. Then he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a thick roll of hundred dollar bills. He counted off several, put them in her hand and said, “That will take care of the interest for the next six months…I’ll call you.”

She stood, clutching the money, watching him walk away. He hailed a cab and ducked in. She turned and walked down the road, until she came to a wine bar. She went straight to the ladies’ room, counted the money and made her own calculation. It was at least a hundred dollars more than she needed.

She checked her face in the mirror and walked out to the bar. “What’s the most expensive vintage champagne you have?”

“Dom Perignon, “59.”

“I’ll have a bottle.”

He served her the bottle of champagne in an ice bucket at a table in the corner.

An hour later the bartender watched as she drained the last drop. Then she took a handkerchief from her handbag and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

Joe Rawlings had paid top money, and when he paid top money he expected the best, the very best. He was in a suite at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes. That was certainly the best, but the girl under him was not the best, and he had paid top money.

“Turn over,” he muttered. She turned over. He tried to force himself into her rectum. She muttered something in French, and pulled away.

“Dammit,” he snarled, “I gave you five hundred bucks up front.”

“For that it’s another five hundred,” she said flatly.

He cursed and then said, “OK bitch.”

He tried again, and again she writhed away.

“Five hundred in my hand,” she said.

Another curse. He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom. A minute later he came out holding five hundred-dollar bills. She was lying on her stomach, her bottom raised, her left hand open. He put the bills into her hand. She pulled them in front of her face and studied them all carefully, just as she had the first five.

“All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”

It was brutal, but it didn’t last long. There was not a shred of gentleness in him. When it was over, he rolled off with a satisfied grunt.

Within seconds she had gathered her clothes and her large handbag and disappeared into the bathroom. Within five minutes she came back out fully dressed. She did not look at him, just walked out into the lounge and then into the corridor; the door slammed behind her.

“Bitch,” he thought, but then all his thoughts were frozen. The heavy maroon curtains opening onto the balcony had parted and a man was standing there.

Joe Rawlings always liked to have sex with the lights full on. He recognised the man instantly and his heart turned to ice. The man, dressed in black trousers and a black long-sleeved polo neck shirt, walked over and stood looking down at him.

“Hello Joe,” he said. “Or should I say hello Creasy?”

The man held a black bag in his right hand, the kind of bag that doctors carry around. It was a full minute before Joe Rawlings moved. He edged himself up on the bed into a half sitting position.

“Go and get it, Joe.”

Joe Rawlings’s eyes were those of a cornered snake looking into the eyes of a mongoose. His voice was a croak. “Get what?”

“The money, Joe, what’s left of it…go get the money…it’s in the bathroom.”

Again a croak, “What money?”

“The money Senator James S. Grainger gave you, Joe…the sodomy money, Joe. Go get it, and if you leave as much as a single dime, I’ll cut your prick off…and Joe, if I do that the girl who just left would give me the whole damn thousand back.”

Joe Rawlings very slowly, very carefully rolled off the bed. He moved to the chair on which his clothes were draped.

“No, Joe. Go into that bathroom naked.”

Rawlings crept to the bathroom door. He had matted black hair on his back. As he reached the door the voice stopped him. The voice that was so soft, so gentle.

“Joe, also bring the gun, the little Beretta the one you always leave with your stash. And Joe, when you come out of that bathroom door, you will be carrying the bucks in your right hand and holding the Beretta in your left holding it by the end of the barrel between your thumb and forefinger.”

Rawlings was about to move, but the voice came again, as soft as silk, “On the other hand, Joe, if you want to hold it by the butt you do just that.”

The snake moved into the bathroom. The mongoose dropped the black bag on the floor, spread his legs and slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket.

A minute later the snake came out of the bathroom. In his right hand he held a thick wad of hundred dollar bills. In his left, a small blackgun. He held it by the end of the barrel, between his thumb and forefinger.

Creasy said, “Toss them both onto the bed, Joe.” The money and the gun thumped onto the bed.

Creasy reached down, picked up the black bag and gestured at the door to the lounge.

The left index finger came off easily, but then the instrument was a surgeon’s saw, and Creasy was a powerful man. He had used only a heavy local anaesthetic, the rest of Joe Rawlings’s hand and left arm would be numb and senseless for twenty-four hours. They sat side by side. On the table in front of them were the twelve inch square wooden block, the small silvery surgeon’s saw, the syringe, the electric cauterising iron, the gauze and the bandages. Creasy worked swiftly and with great expertise. He laid the severed finger on the block, cauterised the bleeding stump, applied some ointment and gauze, and then bandaged the whole hand.

Fromthe black bag he took out a small heavy metal box and opened it. A white vapour erupted. He placed the finger into the box pushing it down into the dry ice and closed it tight. As he packed everything away he continued in the same low silky voice.

“You ever use my name again, Joe, I know where to find you…every hole, every pit, every sleazy little swamp, even if you are paying a thousand bucks a night for it.”

The snake sat totally immobile, looking down at his bandaged hand. He said, “I thought you were dead…everyone thought you were dead.”

“I am, Joe, and if anyone ever finds out differently you will be also.”

He walked into the bedroom and came back out carrying the wad of money. The snake had not moved a millimetre. Creasy counted off a hundred of the bills and laid them in front of Rawlings.

“Ten thousand bucks, Joe…Tap City Money, Joe…next time play in a different poker game.”

Creasy picked up the bag and let himself out into the corridor.

Michael Said explored the house. He roamed around it as though he owned it. It was a very special feeling. He knew that it had been designed by Creasy’s wife Nadia and that for two years she had overseen the construction of the new wing and the reconstruction of the old part. All the rooms were large with high, arched ceilings. Creasy was a man who liked space.

Although the construction was in the old manner using huge limestone slabs cut from the local quarry, the windows were not usual. They were rectangular and very large and from every room a different vista opened up over the island.

He walked across a small patio into a bedroom. It had its own bathroom and from its windows he could see the lighthouse at Ghasri and out across the open sea. He knew that in about eight weeks it would be the place where he would sleep.

On the wall hung two portraits painted in oil. One was of Nadia, the other of Julia aged about two. Creasy had shown him the two paintings and had said, “The woman who’s coming only represents a practicality and a convenience. Nadia and Julia will be your family.”

He stood looking at the paintings for a long time, then he walked into the bathroom. It was also overly large; in one corner was a shower with a huge old copper showerhead. In another corner was a high wooden bathtub. The toilet was in a separate cubicle.

He remembered during one of his conversations with Creasy how the man had told him of his first visit to Japan. He had been with a Japanese woman in a typical country inn. She had filled the wooden bathtub while he undressed. He had walked into the bathroom and climbed into the tub. The girl had been horrified.

“How come you wash in your own dirt?” she asked him. “A tub is only for soaking afterwards,” and she had made him climb out and sit on a small wooden stool. She had emptied and refilled the tub, and while it filled she had poured small buckets of water over him and washed him as he sat on the stool and shampooed his hair. Then they had both climbed into the steaming tub and soaked for half an hour.