A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1) (14 page)

A lap. Just over a mile. Steady pace, settling into the stride, the running rhythm. Common time. Guitar music howled unbidden and exuberant in his head. Other runners wore headphones. Stoner’s internal system provided more entertainment than he would ever need. Clyde the Slide’s grunting intro to ‘Bayou Teche’ scratched and clawed again and again through his inner ear. His feet hit the beat exactly, as did those of his follower. No slacking.

A second lap.

The problems of transposing slide guitar music to conventionally fretted finger-playing are always a challenge, and challenges are what make things rewarding. So Clyde the Slide slid the heavy glass bottleneck which wrapped his left-hand little finger to make the shrill scream, while letting the open strings play chords behind it. This is less than easy on a conventionally-tuned guitar. The music echoed and howled; patterns formed in Stoner’s innermost ear and his left-hand fingers flexed. He could feel and hear how the chords and solo notes played out on the fretboard of his own Stratocaster.

A third lap.

Well into the third mile. The feet pounding in synch to Stoner’s own grew no louder, no softer. He was unworried; unhurried. The finger positioning of the song’s structure became clearer in his mind; the fingers of his left hand sketched the notes into the
air. A joy rose in his heart. Cajun rhythms could do that. But so indeed could many others.

Parkside was deserted at first glance. It was early. The regular residents would still be deep in their pits, either in the strange land of domestic suburbia or, as in Stoner’s case, tucked away in a private hideaway, invisibly close to where they earned an equally private dollar or two. It was a land for night-owls, not for early risers. Which suited Stoner just fine. An unpopulated world was a world without problems, without strains. Over the four-footed pounding, the rasp of chill air whistling through his lungs, the solid double rhythm of his heart and the internal soaring of his incessant guitar soloing, he could hear the singing of the birds. An island of industry surrounded by waves of birdsong should always be unthreatening. He had based heavyweight decisions upon such lightweight thinking before. And running is a great leveller of men. The more he ran, the more tired his muscles became, so it would be worse for his invisible companion. Unless that hidden runner was in fact as much a runner as Stoner himself, in which case . . . well, they would both be enjoying a shared pleasure. Where’s the harm?

A fourth lap.

Curtains, shutters, blinds, windows and some doors were opening. Life was returning to the strange wasteland that was Parkside. Coffee was calling. Stoner ran on, heading for base. He stretched his stride, raising his pace without altering his rhythm. The gentle interference pattern of the following feet remained steady. His companion was as fit, as tireless as he. He passed his own units and ran on. A door slammed. The second set of footfalls was gone, suddenly. Stoner ran on. At the half-lap he slowed, stopped, stretched and gazed around him. Smell of bacon on the crisp air. He turned and walked through the park’s buildings, approaching his own from the rear.

‘Shard.’

Stoner nodded and grunted his greeting to the big man sitting still and silent on the wall which flanked the rear of the old buildings. That individual continued to watch, to observe, as he had been doing for some time. Since Stoner had started his morning’s running. He appeared no more distressed by the encounter, or by the activity, than did Stoner himself. He waved an arm.

‘Head filled with flowers and birdsong, JJ? You are one slow and unrewarding fucker to run with.’

Stoner smiled. One of those quiet mornings.

‘Coffee? Bacon? Muesli? Sacrificial goat?’

He let them into the unit, reset some alarms, locked some locks. Revitalised the coffee maker, waved at the fridge and sat down in front of his email. More, ever more of the same thing. Nothing significant, nothing too new. The same message: go look at this murderous website. In time. In time.

‘Always a pleasure.’

Stoner was cautious. Shard was a master of his old profession, and although he had once claimed to be as inactive professionally as Stoner claimed to be, the latter had doubts in his mind. But that was nothing new. And Shard did not live locally.

‘You moved? Are we neighbours now?’

A friendly enough query, but answers were called for.

Shard pulled his shirt over his head and draped it over a chair-back. He was military-standard man, just like Stoner himself. Bigger at the shoulder, narrower at the waist, but not by much. And he was a decorated man. Not only in the military sense, although his time in the military had developed the decorations. His pants followed the shirt onto the furniture and he strode into the shower, ignoring social norms and domestic per missions in the barrack-room way. Water rushed. A cleaner man emerged.

No concealing modesty here. Shard flexed his tattoos, jumped for a rafter and offered a minor display of gymnastics to heat
his muscles and dry his skin. Stoner, who’d seen it all before, prepared breakfast, accepting that his guest was unarmed. Unwired. A cell phone buzzed. He ignored it. Set out two plates of bacon, a rough loaf and a bowl of fruit. Two settings. Facing each other. Opposing.

Shard opened the negotiation. ‘On headlessness.’

An unusual gambit to start a conversation, but the occasionally taciturn Shard did possess a noted sense of the oblique. And a sense of humour, black as coffee, black as befitted his calling.

‘I take it that you’re not referring to the Douglas Traherne Harding poetry?’ Stoner could do oblique right back. He’d been OK with cryptic crosswords as a youth. ‘“When I was born, I had no head. My eye was single . . .” that kind of thing?’

Shard smiled over his food, shook his cropped and decorated head.

‘Nope. Nice try, though. Your master’s voice, more like. You’ve got a body with no head. And a head with no body.’ It was not a question. ‘And so have I. It could be that they match. Do you have hands?’

Stoner’s cell was once more flashing and buzzing in a mindlessly encouraging way.

Stoner smiled. ‘No hands.’

Shard smiled back. There was no humour, shared or otherwise. There may have been mutual respect. A respect tinted with caution.

Shard was a serious killer. He had killed for contractual reasons for a long time. Originally he had worn a uniform and killed out there in the open, as and when his military masters demanded it. No argument, no conscience, no hesitation. He killed whoever, whenever, wherever, with speed and efficiency and with no discernible trauma or emotion. Occasionally . . . very occasionally . . . Stoner had been on the same team. When Stoner had been a military man, Shard had too. When Stoner became once
more a civilian, Shard remained military, although he stopped wearing a uniform and a uniform haircut at the same moment that this sartorial transformation also gripped Stoner. The difference was that Stoner left the military’s sheltering machine, preferring to ply his trade in his own way, his own selection, his own man, so far as he could. Shard had never cared about the niceties, the subtleties; he was ordered to kill, so he did. He was the perfect military machine, a predictable and reliable asset. He was always happy to serve his country and to take his country’s shilling.

The last time their paths had crossed had been an odd event. It was Stoner’s last, but probably not his final, kill. While he was setting up the hit, which was contracted to appear as an accident, at least for the media-viewing public, Stoner became convinced that he was being followed. Shadowed. At no point could he achieve the sense of solitude he preferred when undertaking the considerably serious business of removing someone’s life.

But although he set traps and baited them, waiting for his follower to make mistakes and to reveal himself, no one was there. Until, quite suddenly, there he was. Shard. Again, Shard.

Stoner had returned from a day of sighting and observation, cementing the fictitious accident which would take the life from his victim. The day had passed well. Plans were laid, tripwires set. Stoner had returned to an anonymous lodge to sleep, to prepare for the victim’s last day. He habitually employed anonymous lodges, anonymous locations far enough away from the termination to make his identification improbable at best. He travelled between them, setting up a pattern of movement which would appear unsuspicious to any subsequent investigating officers of the law. He rarely stayed at the same motel twice while setting up a job, and never more than that. Modern hotel monitoring
systems are efficient, but relatively risk-free for anyone aware of their procedures.

He had checked in at the desk, been allocated a room. Had been promised a good, sound night’s sleep and invited to dine at the character-free restaurant next door. He had declined. Politely. Shard had been sitting waiting for him in his room. Shard’s gun had been resting in his lap. As Stoner had turned from closing the door he had been aware of the gun first. Aware that a gun was being raised to point at him. Aware that he was unarmed. This is how it will end. This is how it will end for just about all contract killers.

‘Sloppy, JJ.’

Stoner recognised the voice, immediately accepted the futility of resistance, the pointlessness of heroism, and raised his gaze from the gun to the eyes of his better. Because better he was; Shard had demonstrated this simply by being there.

‘Sloppy. Bang. Bang. Double tap. You’re gone. Hey there, dead man, welcome back. I’ve booked us a table at eight.’

‘That is just so subtle. You want to kill me with kindness? Or poisoning by grease?’

Stoner’s voice did not tremble. He was as unafraid as he appeared to be. His imagination was dormant. He swung his luggage, a pair of motorcycle pannier bags, onto the bed. Sat down next to them, heavily. If Shard had wished him dead, dead is what he would already be. The understanding acquired in that moment had remained with Stoner ever since. He occasionally decided that if he was destined to die a violent death, the hands delivering it should be Shard’s hands. It would be quick, because that was Shard’s way, and Stoner could allow himself to feel grateful for that.

He had been impressed by the ease with which Shard had located him. Stoner had booked the room online that same morning, using an email account created less than a month before.
Shard plainly enjoyed some serious access if he could trace and identify such a short booking. In turn, Stoner thought he knew the access route, not least because he used it himself to extract information from the digital highways.

Dinner had been a peculiarly pleasant affair. Shard was witty, intelligent and interested in many things. But they were there because of a killing. An as-yet unfulfilled contract killing. That subject raised itself finally. Shard had quite suddenly lost all of his animation, his amusement. His eyes had fixed themselves upon Stoner’s. A gaze intended to intimidate.

‘We’re looking at the same mark.’ A flat, straightforward statement. ‘When do you intend to complete?’

Stoner drank, untroubled. ‘Tomorrow. Before noon. Is there a problem? Do we have a conflict? Are you his protector?’

Shard had maintained his flat stare.

‘No,’ he said. Paused for thought. ‘And no again. Go ahead. Let’s do coffee.’

Which they did. Then Shard had excused himself, heading for the rest room, from which he did not return. He’d settled the bill, too, as Stoner discovered a little later. An unsettling experience. Stoner finished the job, made the hit, fulfilled the contract and was duly paid for it. Of Shard there had been no further sign. Until now.

Stoner’s cell phone buzzed and flashed its idiot message. He continued to ignore it. Drank coffee. Offered more coffee to his guest, who sat, still naked, gleaming across the table from him.

The nakedness was a display, as it so often is. A demonstration of total confidence. Of unconcern. A reminder of shared times in a barracks. In the field. In faraway lands. Over distant oceans and under strange skies. As well as the disingenuous, disarming, unarmed innocence, nakedness was a distraction. Stoner was undistracted. He had seen it all before. And he understood
that Shard was his match in close combat, if not more than a match.

Asking questions revealed more about the knowledge of the person doing the asking than it was likely to uncover, so Stoner poured more, sat back and smiled. There were no threats.

‘Do we do small talk now, you and me?’ Shard smiled right back at him, amused innocence on prominent display. ‘Here I am, wearing just Brut and charisma, and you’re going crazy with the wonder of it all. Penis envy is a marvellous thing. You’re still stuck on that handsome tart of yours.’

It was not a question. It was a provocation, a gentle one. Stoner was unprovoked. Men’s bodies were no mystery and held little interest. Shard was very fit, very strong, very deadly. Phones sang out. Several of them. For the briefest of moments, Shard’s attention wandered. Stoner was encouraged. He could have taken Shard at that point. He smiled.

‘Hidden your cell in a private space? Should I look away?’

Shard smiled right back.

‘That will be everyone trying to catch both of us. Your friend will be warning you that I’m on the loose and my friend will be telling me that you’re nowhere near that club. Or we’ve both won the lotto. Wouldn’t that be fine?’

Stoner sat. Shard sat. Cell phones sang a conflicting chorus, as harmonising as their owners. The phones went quiet. Then another called, a different signature tune this time.

‘JJ, delightful though it is to drop by and share your hyper-activity brew, we do need to talk about our bodies.’

‘Yours is exquisite. You should be proud of it. I would be. So would your mother, bless her and all who came in her. It is a tribute to the power of mindless exercise.’ Stoner smiled a crocodile smile. An air of assumed weariness settled like a predictable cloud over Shard’s features, but relax he did not.

‘Thank you. Thank you. Peer approval is always welcome. We
both have a body. Well, to be less imprecise, I have a body and your pet plods have another. Cheerless Charlie – your best mate at the moment, I believe – wants you to find out who’s offed yours. We may have a problem. We may have a conflict of interests. Or we may not. Either way, these things deserve a resolution. I am, JJ, offering a co-operative approach to this.’