Christopher Brookmyre (32 page)

she assured, nodding her head. She'd no idea where the place was, nor did it matter. What did was that the big eejit climbed in and she was able to get going, Bett's A6 pulling away swiftly at her tail.

There was an almost giddy air of self-congratulation about them as they stretched across the back seats and guzzled the Cava. Connelly in particular was enjoying the chance to demonstrate how such complimentary luxury reflected upon his status and acumen.

'It's turning into a very successful wee trip,' he observed. 'Have to fancy our chances the night, the way everythin' else has been goin'.'

'Too right,' Big Chick agreed.

'Noo and again you get these wee gifts from the gods, but they mean fuck-all unless you're sharp enough to make the most of them.'

'Opens doors for the future as well.'

'Aye, you're tootin' there, Charlie. Wee touch of class fae that Felipe, sendin'

this. It's aw aboot respect. Two days ago, we'd never heard of each other. But we do business, we deliver what we say we will, and he recognises he's dealin' with the real thing. We baith knew the boy was worth a sight mair tae him than he was payin', but we also baith knew he was worth fuck-all tae me otherwise. I could have asked for more, he could have offered less. Respect, Charlie. Nae need for him tae dae some-thin' like this efter the deal's done. Touch o' class. And if he's ever in Glesga, we put the boat oot for him.'

'He's got his ain boat, but.'

'Figure of speech, ya tube.'

The restaurant they had pointed out would only have been five or ten minutes away in light traffic had they been driven there, but they were well into their second bottle of fizz before Connelly began paying any concerned notice to what was passing outside the windows. They were speeding along a broad dual carriageway, medium-rise apartment blocks lining the route. In just about any city in the world, even after a few drinks, it would be clear that they were heading away from the centre.

He tapped on the thick glass partition and spoke through the narrow gap behind Jane's head. His mounting anxiety prevented him from deferring the task this time.

'Haw, Senora, where we gaun? This isnae right. We're away the wrang way.'

'
No hablo ingles, Senor
,' Jane told him.

'We are going the wrong way,' he enunciated. 'Restaurant, remember?'

'Restaurant,
mapa, si
,' she responded.

'Naw, baud on. Stop.'

'
Pardon, Senor. No hablo ingles.
'

He slammed the glass angrily with his hand.

'I says stop. Stop the fuckin' car,' he shouted.

Jane reached back and slammed home the sliding glass panel behind her head, locking it with her free hand while the other remained guiding the steering wheel. She briefly turned her hazard lights on and off, a signal to Bett that Connelly now knew something was up. She'd been briefed to pull over if it got hairy, at which point Bett would board the limo armed with a pistol, but she was only minutes from their goal. She was also enjoying the look on the bastard's face when she glanced in her rear-view. It got even more satisfying when he tried the handle, Jane having engaged the child-locks before she shut them in so that the rear doors could only be opened from the outside. She could see the growing panic, the smug words about Felipe and his touch of class turning to ashes as he realised how credulously he'd walked into a trap. Both of them began hammering at the glass partition, no longer to get her attention but trying to break it. It was a desperate act. Connelly wouldn't be able to fit through the gap, never mind his big pal, nor would they be able to reach forward far enough to even tug Jane's hair. It didn't deter them, though, and they kept at it until Big Chick finally succeeded in putting a foot through the pane. Unhappily for him, this coincided with Jane swinging the limo hard right around the final corner, sending him sprawling sideways into Connelly so that the pair of them ended their journey in a heap on the vehicle's rear floor. Jane brought the car to a stop beneath the canopy of the disused petrol station that Nuno had appointed their destination, Bett's car rolling immediately into place alongside.

Connelly and his minder disentangled themselves and looked up hesitantly as the figure of Bett approached the limo. He pulled open the door and stepped back, Nuno standing behind him with his arms folded. The disused petrol station was on the outer edge of a run-down and largely derelict industrial estate, the kind of place Jane would normally drive through at high speed and with the doors locked. On this occasion, however, she knew the people on her side were far scarier than anything she'd ever feared meeting on such darkened straits in the past.

Connelly, despite having demanded the car stop and having made such desperate efforts to escape its confines, was no longer in any great hurry to get out, though not from any apparent fear. Jane eyed his expression in the rearview mirror: anger and defiance burned beneath the surface, but he was determined to present an air of control. He wasn't jumping out of the door on anybody's cue.

Big Chick had fewer layers to his countenance. He looked psyched and aggressive, ready to bring his considerable weight to bear upon whoever incurred his boss's displeasure. Connelly waited a measured few moments, then announced: 'Let's see what these cunts want.'

He had Chick step out first, bristling with underlying hostility, taking position, arms folded, then Connelly followed him on to the crumbling tarmac. Connelly looked Bett and Nuno up and down, waiting for them to say something, or perhaps make a move. They didn't.

'Can I help you?' Connelly eventually asked, his tone exaggeratedly weary, like this was all a big yawn to him.

Nuno looked to Bett, who nodded. Nuno then began babbling in Spanish, asking incomprehensible questions, his tone increasingly aggressive.

'
No hablo espanol
,' Connelly stated flatly. 'We only speak English.
Compren-
des
? Now tell us what it is you want or fuck off. You understand that?'

Nuno renewed his bitter inquisition, still entirely in Spanish, and stepped forward, prodding a finger just short of Connelly's chest.

'Fuck this,' he muttered. 'Charlie, let's do these cunts.'

With that, he picked up a bottle of Cava he'd left just inside the door and smashed it against the wheel-arch, while Big Chick produced a stiletto blade with a brass-knuckle grip from inside his jacket. Jane watched anxiously through the window, expecting Bett and Nuno to draw pistols, or perhaps Rebekah to emerge armed from the Audi. Instead, Nuno tutted - she actually heard him tut - and shook his head just before Connelly came swinging at him, Big Chick towards Bett.

The expertise with which Bett and Nuno disarmed and dispatched their opponents was clinical; the ruthlessness with which they persisted coldly sickening. Jane winced as she watched Bett pick the big man from the floor again only to expertly inflict further damage. He and Nuno had guns, and the plan was to take the pair below, to the petrol station's disused underground reservoir, so why hadn't they just commanded their prisoners' cooperation that way?

As she watched the two beaten figures cower on the floor, utterly helpless in the face of further assault, she understood. Bett wanted them broken, wanted them to know they were hopelessly mismatched, not merely coerced by the advantage of weapons.

He signalled to her and to Rebekah to come forward from their cars. It was time to take them below. Once again, Jane was grateful for the sunglasses, which hid the revulsion she couldn't keep from her eyes. She held her mouth closed and her lips tightly pressed, and from the outside she must have looked coolly indifferent. Inside, she was concentrating on not throwing up. She watched Connelly climb to his knees, trembling in fear that it was only the prelude to another kick or punch. Blood was pouring from his nose, spluttering from his mouth as he coughed, doubled over in pain. She remembered her remarks of the previous night:
Just give me five minutes with the bastard
. What she'd witnessed hadn't even lasted one, and it was more than enough to turn her anger into disgust.

Then she remembered why she was here. The disgust remained, but it would not, could not, turn to pity.

Now Nuno drew a gun, Rebekah likewise, and gestured the two prisoners towards the petrol station's dilapidated office. There they would be led downstairs through a maintenance passage to the aluminium chamber where the fuel used to be stored. Jane had been taken down herself earlier so that it didn't freak her out when the time came. Despite its volume, it had looked pressingly claustrophobic in the low light of a single wire-muzzled bulb on an untidily snaking extension lead. What the chamber would look like with two bloodied casualties trussed up inside was something she was in no hurry to discover, but she suspected the view would be a lot worse from where they were sitting.

Bett waited for her to catch up as Nuno and Rebekah forged ahead.

'I'm guessing you're not so sure about having five minutes alone with him now,' he stated quietly.

'Correct,' she admitted, looking away before he could read any more of her thoughts. She gazed at the floor without focusing, just somewhere to direct her eyes.

'You're doing fine,' he assured her.

'I think I'm going to be sick.'

'That's normal. Go ahead. Just get it over with before you go downstairs to face them.'

'I'm not sure I can.'

'Well, like I said, he's not going to tell us over a quiet drink. But if you're feeling a little queasy, just consider how long it took him to decide to sell out your son when your husband came to him for help.'

Now Jane looked up, her insides turning to steel.

'My liberal estimate would be a heartbeat,' she said.

She waited outside the chamber, as instructed, after telling Bett what she'd overheard in the limo. From inside, she could hear Nuno continuing to rant in Spanish, intended to maximise their fear that there was nothing they could say, never mind do, to improve their situation.

Bett went in first. She heard him conferring with Nuno in an ostensibly private discussion that was in fact entirely for the benefit of Connelly and friend. Following this, Nuno withdrew, emerging from the chamber and thus providing her cue. He also provided her with Big Chick's chib, the bladecum-knuckleduster, as a prop. She took it delicately, letting it hang from her index finger by one of the loops. This was initially because she was reluctant to take proper hold of the ugly thing, but as she stepped through the low hatchway and righted herself again, she realised it gave the appearance of a nonchalance that was far removed from what she was feeling. The shades helped too. Their affectation rating was now off the scale, but she had her orders.

She stopped just inside and surveyed the scene. Connelly and Chick were tied to two sturdy tubular aluminium chairs, secured by their feet, arms and necks with fine but strong cord. The muzzle-framed lamp hung from above, taped to the metal ceiling, the lead dangling limply to the floor, where it was plugged into an extension socket. Bett leaned casually against a wall, arms folded, gun tucked into his waistband. He looked so slovenly and unprofessional that she knew it had to be part of the script. Rebekah was putting on less of an act, Jane guessed, standing vigilantly to attention behind the two prisoners, feet slightly apart, pistol in right hand, pointed down, left thumb over the safety catch.

Nuno had done well. Connelly looked anything but defiant now: trying to hide his fear, but unable to conceal his confusion. Chick was less concerned with appearances. A big hard-case unused to being on the losing team, he looked like he was on the verge of tears. They both glanced anxiously at her immediately as she entered the chamber. She walked towards them very slowly, the blade still dangling from her finger, then she took a firm grip, feeding her digits through the rings before stroking the side of the blade with her left hand.

All four captive eyes remained fixed upon her, and in particular the knife, as she continued her sadistically slow progress. Connelly looked pathetic, even his attempt to put on a blankly neutral expression faltering with each inch she drew nearer. She'd moved forward slowly at first out of her own reluctance and apprehension, but as she observed the effect on him, she grew in confidence with every measured step.

When she was only a couple of feet from their chairs, she stopped and stood still, saying nothing for a moment, just looking back and forth between them with slightly exaggerated movements of the head. Now they were looking anywhere but at her, neither wanting to meet her shaded eyes lest they be chosen first for whatever was about to follow.

She sighed, tiredly, then reached up and slowly removed the peaked cap, her hair spilling untidily from it. Turning away, she brushed the strands from her face with her left hand, then very gently and deliberately took off the sunglasses, placing them inside the hat and holding it out with her right hand. Bett stepped away from the wall obediently and took it without a word. Then she turned back and faced them.

'Anthony,' she said quietly, the walls absorbing and muting the sound. Connelly's face registered puzzlement at first, the beginnings of recognition still scrappy while they awaited the more crucial details of why she was familiar and where he knew her from.

'I'd have thought you of all people ought to recognise a driver,' she said, helping him along. 'Though these days I'm less picky about dropping off wee bags of shite.'

And then, with a look of true shock and even greater confusion, he got it. She could see the processes whirring in his calculating little head, connecting points here, overlapping there, until he reached a verdict that ultimately appeared to give him some comfort. Now that he knew what this was about, or thought he knew what it was about, he could start to consider his odds, plan his strategies, evaluate the true nature of what he faced. He even managed a smirk. It was a you-got-me smirk, but it was a smirk nonetheless. And as such, a very expensive self-indulgence.

'You sold out my son and my husband to this Felipe character,' she said. 'A wee bit of business. A quick deal. That's all it was to you.'