Hit Me (The Bailey Boys #2) (19 page)

Petrol followed. All over her, all around her. And then a match.

The heat was intense, the blaze spectacular.

I closed my eyes, tried to think about the girl. Something. Anything.

But I couldn’t.

Like I say, there’s always a body – a junkie, a loser who won’t be missed.

I didn’t feel anything.

I was doing a job, that was all.

I really didn’t feel anything.

§

I was with Markov when the news came through. I had to be. I’d engineered it so I was there, so I could see his reaction, assess the likelihood that I’d actually pulled off this crazy, irrational stunt.

We were at Hermanos in Puerto Libre, in one of the offices at the back where Markov liked to retreat when he’d had enough attention or when there were things to deal with.

Me, Anton and him. I’d reported back, told him that nobody was talking, and Jack and his boys were keeping a low profile.

Then Georgi came in, and leaned over the desk to mutter a stream of Bulgarian to his boss.

Markov, tipped back a little, the color draining from his features. He snapped a question, and Georgi resumed, then reached into his jacket for an envelope.

Markov took the envelope, peered inside, looked away again.

Anton and I exchanged looks, then Anton took pity on me, and said, “Georgi. He say they find her. The police.”

“Found her? Where? How is she?”

“She dead, Bailey. They find her dead.”

“Fuck.” I looked away, looked down, looked back up at Markov.

“What did they do, boss?” I asked. “Where did they find her?”

“They found her at the
finca
,” he said. “Burned. Almost unrecognizable.”

“So it might not be her?”

“They do tests,” said Georgi. “But they’re sure it’s her.”

“And
this
,” said Markov, tipping the contents of the envelope onto the desk in front of him. A necklace, and that twisted thumb ring Imelda always wore.

“From what’s left...” said Markov. “The jewelry, scraps of clothes and shoes... They know it’s her. They think she was tied. Gagged. Those
cabróns
. They think they...”

“Let’s wait, boss. Wait until we can be sure what happened.”

His look cut through me.

“Your friend–”

“Jack McGill’s no friend,” I said, hands raised.

“The English scum. I tell you, Lee Bailey, he chose that place to make a point: it’s where we took him. And now he’s done
this
. I tell you, Englishman, that
cabrón
, he’s going to wish you’d let me kill him the first time. You hear me?”

For a second then I thought I’d had it. We were all Englishmen to Markov, and so we must all share some of the blame.

Then his shoulders slumped and he turned from me, raised a hand and waved me away. “Go. Go. All of you. Leave me. I need to think.”

And so I walked out of Markov’s office, job done and open gang warfare about to break out on the streets of the Costa del Sol.

And I didn’t really care. Not any more.

I walked away. Didn’t want any more to do with it. And somehow I managed to convince myself that I might actually be able to do that.

Dick.

§

“It don’t look good, son,” said Fearless at the other end of the line. “You just walking away from the mess you’ve made. It’s a fucking bloodbath and Markov’s going to take out anyone he doesn’t like, anyone who’s even vaguely rubbed him up the wrong way. You picked the wrong time to step away from it all.”

I lay back on my recliner, on the beach at San Pedro, the New Duchess somewhere up on the seafront behind me. Developing my tan. Learning to chill.

“I don’t care,” I said into my phone. “I got back into the business, but I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t sign up for World War Three. That’s what I’ve told him, and that’s what I’ll stand by.”

I’d done what I needed to do. I’d given Imelda cover to slip away. I’d stirred up a massive distraction, turning Markov’s attentions elsewhere while she was making her escape. And, added bonus, I’d hurt Markov. Something he’d had coming for the longest time, and not just for how he’d treated Imelda.

I’m no fucking Robin Hood, but I do have standards, and Markov didn’t even come close to meeting them.

“It’s been good talking, Fearless. You take care, you hear?”

He tried to interrupt, tried to keep me talking, to work his charm so he could persuade me I was making a mistake, but I rang off, regardless.

I knew the risks of walking away just then. Foremost among them, it might make Markov think I was involved with Jack the Knife, or what had happened to Imelda. But sometimes, if you’re going to duck out, it’s best to do so right in the thick of the action. Right now Markov was caught up in a bloody battle with Jack’s gang, and whenever anything like that happens a whole lot else kicks off: other gangs thinking of moving in and picking up the pieces, old grudges and vendettas being played out, crooked police working out where their allegiances lay, and always the bigger organizations, the Colombian
narcos
and the Mafia and all the rest.

Me? Sure, I’d pissed him off, but I wasn’t likely to figure very high up on his list of priorities.

At least, that was my best assessment of the risks.

§

“So what you going to do, bro’?”

I leaned my elbows on the bar and looked at Dean.

I liked this: working the bar, pouring pints and mixing cocktails. It was a simple life, a bit of banter with the customers, a lack of complications. And my presence gave Dean and Jess a little more security, in case Markov or anyone else ever took a shine to the Duchess again.

I shrugged, tipped my head to one side.

“You haven’t found her, have you?”

I’d had a few ideas where she might have gone, I’d put a few feelers out, but come back with nothing. She’d covered her tracks well. Which didn’t exactly surprise me: she knew she’d have to do a good job of this escape. If Markov had the slightest inkling she was still alive he would track her down.

I shook my head.

Dean wasn’t even supposed to know she was still alive, but he’d worked it out. That in itself was a worry: everything was in the bag now – there had been a formal ID, confirmed by falsified forensics on dental records and DNA. Imelda was officially dead.

The local police had kicked off for a while, more interested in this because the victim was Spanish rather than a foreigner, but when they worked out who she was involved with they backed off sharpish, either through well-judged fear or a few well-placed bribes.

“So what’s the plan, bro’? You can’t just bum around on the beach for the rest of your life. It’d drive you mad.”

He knew me so well.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe get myself a place like this. I’ve still got a bit of money put aside. Maybe it’s time for a bit of honest graft.”

Dean laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day,” he said. “The Bailey Boys gone straight. What’s the old man going to think if we ever tell him, eh?”

“Let’s not tell him, right? Just say we’re doing the occasional bank job to keep things ticking over. You know: make him proud.”

He took a drink of his beer, looked at me, and said, “You serious? You really going to walk away from it all? It’s not easy, you know.”

I didn’t know what I was going to do. Hadn’t really taken the possibility of walking away forever seriously, until I said it aloud to my brother.

But this whole thing with Imelda...

Nobody had ever got that close to me before. Seen through all the bullshit. Got me. And I don’t think I’d ever done the same to someone else: seen her,
got
her.

But I had.

I’d got her.

But now I had to move on.

Had to work out a way to not spend my days telling myself I was chilling when really I was turning everything over in my head, again and again and again.

Not just the painful stuff, but the good bits – the way we could just exchange a look and understand so much, the taste and feel of her and the way she responded to my touch, the way we could talk for hours about all kinds of shit I’d never discussed with anyone before.

And, of course, remembering the good bits just made the painful stuff so much worse.

I’d never been one to beat myself up over things that had happened. Good or bad, they’d happened, they were past, and couldn’t be changed. You can only really look forwards.

But now...

I was beating myself up every minute of the day.

Choices made. Mistakes.

Surely there had been a way?

A way not to have lost her. Not to have given her up.

Dick
.

§

Fearless called again the next day.

I was up in Puerto Libre, picking up a few things from my apartment before heading back down to San Pedro. I’d kind of moved into that spare room above the New Duchess for now, an unspoken thing between me, Dean and Jess that I was welcome for as long as I needed to sort myself the fuck out.

By coincidence, I was debating calling into Los Cojones while I was in town to see if Fearless was around – prove him wrong that I only ever called in when I needed something.

I’d just pulled up in the parking bay outside my apartment building when my phone went. It didn’t occur to me until much later that maybe I was being watched, that they knew I was here and that’s why my old friend called now.

“Hey, Fearless, how’s things?”

“Good, good. Listen, son, you had a chance to think over what we were discussing?”

Straight to the point, no questions about my old man – that wasn’t like Fearless, but it didn’t really twig just then.

“What were we discussing, Fearless?” I wasn’t in the mood for this conversation again. I knew Fearless thought he was doing the right thing, looking out for my interests, but I was a grown man and I didn’t need nannying.

“Mr Markov–”

And now the alarm bells started to ring: that ‘Mr’.

“–he wants you back, Lee. He knows quality when he sees it. He’s got a job for you. Listen, I’m here with him now. He wants to speak. Face to face. You come up to his place, yes? The penthouse at Casa Alto? All that shit, it’s blown over now. Everything back to normal, yeah?”

My mind was racing. Trying to work out what was going on. The ‘Mr’ could simply be that Fearless was there with Markov and he was being deferential, just as I’d always taken the trouble to call that worthless human stain ‘boss’.

Or it could be that my dad’s old partner in crime was in trouble, maybe hauled into all this because Markov felt he had some unfinished business with me.

There’s no way I could turn away from that.

Like I say, I have standards, principles, and turning my back on one of the oldest and most faithful friends my family has known would break every single one of those.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m in Puerto Libre right now if that works? Give me half an hour, okay?”

 §

I’d been to the roof terrace of Markov’s penthouse apartment a few times.

He liked to flash it around – the pool, the bar, the casual luxury of every last fitting – all a very visible marker of his success since he’d come to the Costa.

Now, I emerged at the shoulder of Georgi, who’d come down to let me in.

The sun was briefly dazzling. When my eyes adjusted, I spotted Markov on a recliner at the far side of the pool, Fearless standing awkwardly to one side. Markov was in pale trousers, white shirt, those damned shades over his eyes but I knew he was surveying me.

Georgi had already taken my Glock. I’d known that would happen, but I’d had to bring it anyway, on principle.

“Fearless,” I said, giving him a nod. “Mr Markov.”

Closer to, the Bulgarian looked even paler than usual – how did he maintain that pallor, living somewhere like the Costa? Thinner, too. I bet there were dark shadows under his eyes, as well, hidden behind those shades. It was nice to think he’d been suffering.

Fearless wouldn’t meet my look.

He’d never been like that before, and that’s when I knew.

I knew that
he
knew. Markov.

The Bulgarian knew I’d double-crossed him, set him up.

And now he smiled.

“Englishman,” he said. Then he turned to one side, clicked his fingers, and she appeared from another doorway.

Killer shoes on needle heels. A black skirt that was slit all the way up to her chin, or so it seemed. A pale silk top, sleeveless, cut deep at the front and as she moved revealing that it was cut even deeper at the back. Glossy black hair pinned up on the crown of her head. Lips painted the same vivid red as her nails, and eyes that were smudged with mascara from where she’d been crying.

Imelda.

Even now, even in circumstances like these, she completely stole my breath.

Obediently, she walked across and stood at Markov’s left, one hand on his shoulder.

I kept my face impassive, said nothing.

“Your friend Jack, he tell me everything,” said Markov. He raised a hand, sharply to cut off my protests. “I know, I know. He’s no friend of yours, as you have told me repeatedly. But friend or not, he talk. Didn’t you, Jack?”

And then Jack the Knife emerged from that same doorway, a cocky sneer on his face, a look of triumph.

“He tell me you arrange for him to kidnap Imelda. Says he had no choice. Is that right, Englishman? Is that how it was?”

I remained silent.

I hadn’t told Jack Imelda was behind the ‘abduction’. Maybe Markov hadn’t worked that bit out, maybe he thought she was happy to be back. Or maybe he was just resolutely blinding himself to the ugly truths of the matter.

But either way, if I said nothing, perhaps Imelda would be safe.

I stared at Jack. He’d clearly held her as insurance when he was supposed to have sent her on her way, and now he’d traded her as part of a truce between the two gangs. He’d assessed the risks and decided he had more to fear from Markov than from me.

Bastard still had a lot to learn.

I nodded towards him, and said to Markov, “So what’s it to be? Which dodgy Englishman do you believe?”

Markov shook his head, still grinning. “You do not get it, do you? Still, you do not get it. I don’t have to believe either of you. I have Fearless. Good old faithful Fearless Lloyd.”