To Kill Or Be Killed (27 page)

Dean lay still
on the water for as long as his breath allowed him. When he raised
his head the boat was distant. Dean knew he didn’t have long in
water that cold, but Arran couldn’t be too far back. Dean swam for
his life thinking all the time of his family.

Chapter
74

Baker Street

6 p.m.

April 18th

Jaz and Shadz
had parked and walked up to the Sherlock Holmes hotel. It was their
first hotel check. They went into reception. They were greeted at
the desk by an admonished receptionist, no longer eating her
sandwich and silently fuming over the temp worker who’d dropped her
in it with the manager. She fixed a smile on her face, but
struggled to maintain it.

“Hello can I
help at all?”

Jaz pulled out
the badge and held it up for inspection along with the picture of
Mason, captured from the recent CCTV footage in the area.

“Have you seen
this man?”

The girl pushed
her face closer and squinted at the slightly fuzzy black and white
image. Recognition dawned.

“Yes I have. He
was here fifteen minutes ago dressed in kitchen staff uniform.”

“Is he still
here?” Jaz almost shouted fear suddenly tightening her stomach
muscles.

“I don’t know.
I could get someone to check.”

“No don’t.” Jaz
fast dialled the DIC contact number and spoke hurriedly. “Yeah it’s
Jaz at the Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street. Get the rest of the
teams here we’ve found Mason.”

The reply was
simple. Sit in reception, look unobtrusive and wait for the other
teams to get there. Jaz told the girl to say nothing and she and
Shadz took places at a table, seated on a small comfortable sofa,
backs to the wall.

Half a mile
away one of the DIC teams was entering reception at the Bickenhall
when they got their call to the Sherlock Holmes. The other teams
with five negatives on hotels between them turned and honed in on
their team mates on Baker Street.

Mason had spent
the fifteen minutes prowling the corridors holding a plate of
sandwiches avoiding do not disturbs and had already tried three
rooms to no avail. Everyone must have been using the self service
combination safes in the top of the wardrobes. He finally entered a
room and was about to call out ‘room service’ when the sound of the
shower indicated an occupant too busy to hear him. He didn’t close
the door, padded on the balls of his feet past the closed door to
the small bathroom and came across personal effects on a dresser.
He picked up the wallet, put down the plate of sandwiches, turned
about and was about to leave when the screech of car tyres in the
road below, heard from the slightly open window, drew him across
the room. He peeked through the edge of net curtains to see two
cars illegally parked outside and busy, hurried looking people
getting out. Security, he knew it.

The ceasing of
the shower focussed his attention, he padded quickly to the door,
lifted the fawn mackintosh and tweed hat from back of the door and
left, quietly closing it. The room’s occupant emerged a micro
second later and began drying himself, looking at himself in the
full length mirror. It was whilst putting on his pants that he
suddenly noticed the sandwiches.

Out in the
corridor Mason recalled that his clothes were in the gents’ toilet
near reception. He pulled the coat around him and sure from the map
in his mind that the lifts were opposite the toilet he took the
lift to ground floor.

DIC staff were
gathered in the foyer. The decision not to call police had been
made higher up. Shadz was given the job of watching the reception
area, others were sent to the exits and Jaz with another was to
sweep through the hotel floors. The DIC teams split to their tasks
as Mason, hat on head, emerged from the lift and went into the
toilet. Locked in a cubicle he began changing as quickly as
possible.

Shadz stood in
reception looking around, somewhat tense. He kept the image of
Mason in his head and suddenly noticed from the mental image that
Mason was dressed as a temp worker, kitchen clothes. Shadz decided
to check the toilet to see if he had changed there. Learning the
lesson from Glasgow bus station he drew his Sig as he entered only
to find himself pointing it straight at Mason’s head as he emerged
fully dressed from the cubicle.

The two stood
staring at each other and Mason grinned as he saw the slight
shaking of the hand holding the weapon and the slow gulp Shadz made
as he swallowed his nervously rising bile.

Mason tensed
his muscles, then relaxed them and took a single step towards
Shadz.

“Don’t move
Mason! Put your hands in the air!” Shadz spoke nervously.

“Or what?”
Mason’s reply came with a wry smile.

“I’ll shoot. I
swear I’ll kill you.”

“Shoot an
unarmed man? You don’t have the balls.”

Mason stepped
towards Shadz and made a scissor movement with both hands, sweeping
them into Shadz’ gun holding wrist. The impact knocked the Sig from
his hand and Mason followed with a forward kick to the stomach.
Shadz folded exhaling through his teeth. Mason grabbed his head,
rammed it down onto his up coming knee, rocking Shadz with a
powerful blow and smashing his nose. Mason swept his hand under
Shadz’ head, tilted his chin up and broke his jaw with a ram rod
downward blow. Shadz crumpled. Mason watched the body slump, picked
up the Sig, slid it into his belt below his coat, checked his
reflection and walked straight out. There was no-one to be seen. He
walked out of the hotel and hailed a passing taxi.

Time for that
rest and relaxation he thought to himself as the taxi drove away in
the direction of Camden.

Back in the
hotel on the second floor Jaz found a man standing outside his door
holding a plate of sandwiches and talking to a member of the
waiting staff.

“… gone and my
coat and my hat and these were on the table. I want the manager,
now!”

Jaz pulled out
her badge.

“What’s going
on?” She asked.

The man was
half way through his story when Jaz connected the theft, the temp
worker at reception, the sandwiches, the man’s words as she
approached and the flash image of a man in a coat and hat entering
the toilet from the lifts just as she left the foyer. She pulled
out her phone and called Shadz on fast dial; it rang twice before
she leapt to the stairs and tumbled down them into reception.

She dashed
across to the toilet door, drew her Sig, off safety, and entered
the toilet. Shadz lay in a pool of blood on the floor. Jaz nearly
cried out and pulling herself together and holding his wrist felt a
flood of relief feeling the weak, but regular pulse. Once more on
the phone she called an ambulance and then the rest of the DIC
team. Then she checked Shadz. He was unconscious, damaged, but
clearly alive.

She waited with
him and called DIC centre. The check on CCTV was stepped up. A
trace on the taxi was begun too.

Chapter
75

Claridge’s Hotel
Mayfair London

6 – 15 p.m.

April 18th

Claridge’s
hotel in Mayfair was just what the doctor ordered for Cobb. The
contact had dropped Cobb off at the grandiose entrance and had the
porter pull a glossy set of luggage from the boot of the Honda.
Cobb out of place in his rough looking clothes, carrying the lumpy
black bag with weapons in it, drew disparaging looks from the
severe receptionist until his reservation under a diplomatic
booking, no less than first class and a suite at that, quickly
changed her mind.

Cobb’s luggage
was carried ahead of him into the lift and onward into the well
designed and impressive one bedroom Claridge’s suite.

Cobb tipped the
porter, though not too generously and waited for the man to leave.
He took a turn around the rooms, found the mini bar and poured some
Bourbon into a glass and dropped some ice in. He took a long drawn
out swallow from the drink to feel the ice rest against his top lip
before it dropped back into the glass.

He smiled
almost manically.

The first class
treatment suited him well. To the victor the spoils he now knew to
be true. He unpacked the black leather cases to find full sets of
clothes, which he unpacked and put away. There were two suits, one
dinner suit and a black single breasted wool rich suit. He briefly
checked the sizes and was impressed at the accuracy. There were
clean cotton socks and boxer shorts in plain sober colours and the
shirts were well made and comfortable looking. There was a
stainless steel Rolex Oyster in its box, white gold cufflinks and
Cobb’s favourite after shave, Calvin Klein Contradiction. There was
a set of Gillette’s best disposables and every other type of
bathroom self grooming product. There was also an envelope with
five hundred pounds in notes and change, all used. Finally to his
great joy there was a carton of Lucky Strike and a stainless steel
Zippo, already primed and fuelled.

Cobb opened the
carton slit open a new soft pack, flicked a cigarette out, did a
neat trick lighting the Zippo with a finger click, drew in and
pushed out the smoke in a heady sigh and went back to the mini bar.
After having poured and drunk another glass of Bourbon he began to
try and book a table in the restaurant only to find that it had
already been done. Having also established that there was a Casino
nearby he headed for the bathroom.

It was half an
hour later that he emerged and dressed himself in the dinner suit.
He checked his reflection. He’d made a few small changes to his
appearance, not much, but enough to make the ‘search pictures’
vaguely inaccurate. He checked the time with the speaking clock and
set the Rolex, slipping the expanding strap comfortably over his
thick wrist.

He sat for a
moment with the PSS pistol laying on a hand towel. He took it apart
and cleaned it. He had only four rounds left, but he did have the
black bag with the sub machine gun under the bed, there were three
clips of ammunition too. Cobb put the silent PSS pistol into the
waist band at the back of his trousers and turned his reflection in
the full length mirror this way and that. Sure that he looked great
and that the pistol didn’t show he picked up the cash and his key
and walked to the lift.

The Gordon
Ramsey restaurant was expensively low key and Cobb was amused that
they’d booked him a reservation, that couldn’t have been easy. Cobb
knew that the cost of the dinner would go with the room and someone
else was picking up the bill. It was all gravy from there and he
felt sure he’d make the hit and take the million. With the
hardships of the last days in mind, like Mason, he set his heart on
some rest and recreation. He settled down in the 1930’s style
restaurant, plush red chairs and bright white linen creating a
blood stain contrast, the irony of which was not lost on him. When
the food was drifted in by waves of waiters it was exquisite, as
was the well chosen wine.

Chapter
76

Kildonan

Isle of Arran

7 p.m.

April 18th

Kevan Dean was
cold, shivering and shaking, and dripping water as he crawled onto
the rain spattered ground at Kildonan. It was getting dark and
there were lights on behind curtains in nearby houses. He plodded
heavily over rocks and up to the road. A short, but heavily walked
distance down the road he reached the nearest house and leg muscles
giving out as he got there entered the garden got to the door and
rang the bell.

There was a
long pause after he heard the bell ring inside the house. Dean
rehearsed what he was going to say to have most impact. A big man
opened the door.

“What do you
want?”

“My name is
Kevan Dean, I’ve escaped from a boat where I witnessed a
murder.”

“What?”

“Please help
me. I’ve swum for miles. I’ve witnessed a murder and escaped with
my life.”

“You’d better
come in. I’m George Hudson. I’m a member of the Arran Police force.
It’s good fortune you’ve come my way.”

Dean was
welcomed into the house. He had a quick image of a dinner table,
two children and a woman before he was bustled up the stairs,
stripped and stood under the hot water of an electric shower over a
bath. Given ten minutes under the hot pressured water stream he
first felt pain in his muscles then warmth and relief spread
through him. Being dressed in some thick dry pyjamas and a dressing
gown helped Dean felt better. Better still sat in front of a fire
and sipping whisky laced coffee he finally felt safer. George
Hudson sent his two young children upstairs, in spite of their
protests, and gave the man time to warm and recover. Whilst he
waited he called the station; they were surprised to hear from him
on his night off. A car was being sent down the A841 from
Lamlash.

Hudson came and
sat in his lounge opposite Dean.

“There’s a car
on the way. What happened?”

Dean told his
story and began shivering again, but not with cold. Tears ran down
his face. Hudson looked at his wife in a meaningful way. She left
the room and bustled in the kitchen.

“I need to
contact my wife.”

“They’ll let
you call from the station. This man on the boat he said he was one
of the men from Perth?” Hudson probed.

“That’s right.”
Dean took a sip from the coffee.

There was a
knock at the door. Hudson left the room and returned with two men
equally as large as him, made bulkier by their uniforms, knife
vests and loaded belts. All three men filled the room.

“This is Kevan
Dean. Says he escaped a boat hijacked by the escaped Perth killer.
Apparently the hijacker killed a man who was keen on buying his
boat.” Hudson explained.

The shorter and
stockier of the two policemen squatted down by Dean.