Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (20 page)

They drove through rundown areas looking worse for the night and rain. Rubbish bags were piled up near lamp posts, graffiti covered walls and bus stops were vandalised. High streets consisted of betting shops and 99p stores and a multitude of fast-food outlets.

The café Victor selected was open all night and had the red-and-white bands of the Polish flag in the signage. The air inside seemed thick with the smell of grease and loud with an argument in the kitchen that flowed through the fly strips hanging down over an open doorway.

Victor took a seat so his back was against the far wall and stopped Gisele when she went to sit down opposite him.

‘That one,’ he said, pointing to the chair next to her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the large plate-glass window at the front of the café and didn’t comment as she took it. He liked that she understood without being told that he wanted a clear view of the street outside. She was no professional, but she was a fast learner.

Victor ordered the soup of the day and a coffee and wouldn’t allow Gisele to just have the tap water she asked for.

‘She’ll have a Coke,’ he said for her.

When the waiter had gone, she said, ‘Don’t do that again.’

‘Do what?’

‘Order for me. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t have.’

‘You need the sugar, Gisele. It’ll help calm you down.’

She studied him. ‘Then say that. Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.’

He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not used to having to explain myself.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s okay. I can see you’re not good with people.’

He didn’t respond to that. They waited in silence for a moment.

Gisele said, ‘I have a friend from uni days. She lives in Chiswick. We could stay with her.’

‘No,’ the man said. ‘Now they’ve lost us they could be watching people you know, expecting you to seek refuge.’

‘Shit,’ she said.

‘It’s okay. It helps us.’

She nodded, understanding. ‘So they’ll be spread thin.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Then I wish I had more friends.’ She sighed and stood. ‘I have to use the bathroom,’ then added when she saw his look: ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and sneak off again. Lesson learned and all that.’

‘The thought never occurred to me.’

He watched her walk to the bathroom.

The soup and the Coke arrived while Gisele was in the bathroom. The soup was Polish tomato and it was served hot enough to make an excellent projectile weapon, should it come to it. Victor ordered a second bowl of it and a ham sandwich for Gisele, figuring she’d gain her appetite when she saw it.

‘Don’t be thinking I’m eating that,’ she said as she sat down. ‘I have a rule about not putting anything in my mouth that had four legs and a face. Or two legs. Or fins. Anything that was alive, basically.’

He looked at her.

Before he could respond, she snapped, ‘Don’t give me any shit about it or I’ll tear your head off. I kid you not.’

‘I can tell, and I assure you I wasn’t going to give you any…’ he left a pause, ‘about it. I respect your self-discipline.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, really. Any wilful sacrifice is worthy of respect.’

‘Why do I feel like you’re trying to take the piss?’

‘I don’t know why you feel like that. Maybe I’m not very good at giving out compliments or you’re not good at receiving them.’

Gisele’s face softened and she said, ‘Probably both.’ She popped the tab of the can of Coke and took a gulp. She burped. ‘Sorry.’

Victor ate his soup while keeping his gaze on the passing foot and vehicular traffic. There was only one other customer – an old guy in a huge trench coat who dipped biscuits into a mug of tea. The argument in the kitchen flared up intermittently. Victor’s Polish was rusty, but he got the gist of it. The new hiring wasn’t working hard enough but didn’t much like being told so. Victor guessed they were members of the same family.

‘Good?’ Gisele asked.

‘The soup?’

‘Yeah, the soup.’

He nodded. ‘Make sure you drink all of that Coke.’

‘Yes, Dad. What’s next?’

‘We’ll ditch the car and take public transport. The more we vary our route and our mode of transportation, the harder we’ll be to track. A moving target is a hard target.’

She sighed. He saw that the enormity of the predicament was weighing on her so asked, ‘How long have you lived in London?’

‘Half my life, I guess.’ The distraction worked. She relaxed a little. ‘I used to board in a private school in Buckinghamshire. My mother had been taught there and wanted me to have the education she’d had. I don’t know why. She grew up to marry a gangster. Great use of her education there, right? Maybe she wanted me to reach the same lofty heights. In the holidays I would go back to Russia. Within a few years it didn’t feel like home any more. I always hated Alex and couldn’t wait to come back to England. Then, when Mum died I stopped flying back in the holidays and stayed with friends. I barely heard from Alex and made no effort to contact him. He carried on putting money in my bank account every month, and I even hated him for that. I still spent it, of course. I figured he owed me for what he put me and my mother through. Now, I feel like a hypocrite for taking his money when I know how he made it. I put the deposit down on my flat with his money. I intend to pay it back eventually, when I’m actually earning a real wage.’

‘Commendable of you.’

‘Maybe. It seems to me I have to work twice as hard to be a good person because of who he is. Not that it makes any sense.’

‘Is that why you want to be a lawyer?’

‘I guess so. I originally wanted to be a lawyer so I could go after Alex.’ She laughed. ‘I’ll put that down to teen angst though. Now, I’ve calmed down a little and I don’t want to use the law against people but for them. I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this when you’re a criminal like him.’

‘I’m nothing like him.’

Her forehead creased. ‘Yeah, right. How are you so very different then?’

He thought for a moment. ‘I keep my word. I would never betray an ally.’

She studied him. ‘So Alex betrayed you?’

He nodded.

‘Then why are you helping him?’

‘I told you: I’m not doing it for him.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, I remember. It’s all for my wonderful mother. I hope I’m as great as her one day.’ She looked away and finished the can of Coke, then tapped her nails against it. ‘Last night, I saw this moth with only one wing, trying to fly. It made me so sad.’

Victor had no idea how to respond.

London was a twenty-four-hour city. Taxis and buses flowed along its arterial streets all through the night. The bus’s route wasn’t important. After leaving the café they had taken the first that had arrived at the stop. Victor paid cash for his ticket while Gisele had a prepaid travel card she touched against the reader. The driver was an old Jamaican with two thick strips of white hair above his ears. He didn’t hide his annoyance at having to pick up the handful of coins Victor had paid with. A few tired souls occupied seats on the bottom level, all sitting as far away from one another as the seating arrangement would let them. A woman in a green coat looked up from her book at Victor as he passed her.

He directed Gisele to the back of the bus where they sat down near a man in work boots and a padded jacket, enjoying the extra warmth generated by the bus’s engine. When the man alighted two stops later, Victor took his seat so he was next to the emergency exit. He gestured for Gisele to follow him.

‘Precaution,’ he explained and she nodded.

He liked that she didn’t ask him to explain his actions any more than he had to. A group of rowdy young guys boarded and stood in the centre of the bus. They had the loud voices and exaggerated movements of inebriation. They laughed and joked about their evening so far and were expecting more fun when they reached their next destination. One looked Gisele’s way and Victor smelled the trouble in the air as easily as he could smell the alcohol and cologne. Even a drunk man could see that Victor and Gisele were no couple with the age gap and lack of intimacy. He was tall and well built with perfectly styled hair, shiny tanned skin and shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in elaborate ink. He took a step forward, swaying under the bus’s movements, holding on to a bar for support.

No
, Victor mouthed.

The young guy stopped, doing a double take, not quite understanding the situation initially but his lizard brain knew danger when it saw it despite the alcohol and he snapped his eyes away. Gisele glanced across at Victor but said nothing.

In part to hide his embarrassment and in part on the hunt for further amusement, the young guy with the perfect hair turned his attention to the nearest available alternative: the woman in a green coat who sat near him, reading a paperback book, doing her best not to attract the attention of the group.

He lifted it from her hands, asking, ‘What you got there, darlin’?’

She stiffened under the sudden violation of her personal space and property. The fear in her eyes was as obvious as the menace had been in Victor’s. She pushed herself back in her seat to create space between her and the man with the forearm tattoos.

‘Men can be such idiots,’ Gisele said. ‘Can’t he see he’s frightening her?’

Victor said nothing. He watched the scene before them.

The woman in the green coat didn’t answer. The young guy flicked through the book, saying, ‘Haven’t read one of these since school. Any good?’

Undeterred by her silence, he took the seat next to her. She recoiled and tried to stand up to get past him.

‘Hey, don’t be like that. I’m trying to be friendly here.’

He grabbed her by the wrist to pull her back on to the seat and she slapped him.

‘
Shit
,’ he hissed.

The slap and his reaction stunned the rest of the bus, including his friends, into silence.

‘Give me my book and leave me alone,’ she said.

One of the friends said, ‘You didn’t have to hit him.’

‘Don’t be such a prick-tease,’ another added.

‘This is going to get bad,’ Gisele said to Victor. ‘Do something.’

He shook his head. ‘We don’t draw attention to ourselves.’

The young guy with the perfect hair and shiny tanned skin stood and the woman backed away from him, but into his friends. They didn’t restrain her, but they didn’t get out of her way either. He rubbed his cheek and threw the book to the floor.

‘How would you like it if I slapped you?’ he asked.

‘What’s going on back there?’ the bus driver shouted.

‘Do something,’ Gisele said again. ‘You can stop this.’

Victor didn’t respond.

The woman said, ‘Just leave me alone. I didn’t ask you to sit next to me.’

‘I was trying to be friendly,’ the young guy responded. ‘And you fuckin’ slapped me.’

‘You scared me.’

‘Do I look like a scary bloke to you?’ he asked, stepping forward until he was inches from her face, then leaning closer, using his height and size to best advantage, threatening by proximity, making her recoil down and away.

‘Stop that, you dickhead,’ Gisele said, and stood. ‘Leave her alone.’

She took Victor by surprise and he wasn’t fast enough to stop her. She’d already taken a step forward before his hand had grabbed her coat.

The young guy turned towards Gisele. ‘Stay out of it.’

‘What exactly is your problem?’ she said in response. ‘Are you that pathetic you have to feel like a man by intimidating women?’

Victor tried to pull her back but she resisted. ‘Let go of me.’

‘No.’

The young guy, seeing the chance to distract from the insult, saw this and laughed. ‘Looks like this is the party bus tonight, boys.’

His friends joined in the laughter.

Gisele turned to face Victor. ‘Let go of me right now or this is nothing to the amount of attention I will bring on us.’

He saw the strength of will in her eyes and released her coat. He knew better than anyone that some battles could not be won by force alone.

She turned back and approached the young guy with perfect hair. ‘Get off at the next stop and teach yourself some basic manners. You’ll thank me in the morning.’

‘You don’t get to tell me what to do. Who the fuck do you think you are?’

Victor stood and moved closer, keeping out of the way in respect for Gisele’s wishes, but close enough to intervene should it prove necessary. Including the tanned guy with the tattoos, there were five. They were young and fit; the latter because they went to the gym to look good, not for health, but building muscle to attract women built strength too. A reasonable level of endurance could be expected, based on age if nothing else, but no fighting experience beyond the occasional street brawl that was over in a punch or two. They didn’t yet know how exhausting real combat could be. They wouldn’t find out either, if it came to it, because it would be over long before they tired.

Gisele said, ‘I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what you should do.’

He frowned, confused and insulted and embarrassed in front of his friends. ‘Ah, fuck off,’ he said and shoved Gisele.

Victor was already moving but she snapped out her hand, grabbing the guy’s fist, her thumb across his knuckle line, twisting clockwise, rolling the fist and wrist and elbow until the arm was pointing up and locked and all the pressure was in his shoulder, trying to torque the joint past where the socket would let it go. Her free hand pushing down against the guy’s up-turned elbow increased the pressure and forced him down until he was on his knees, grunting and wailing.

The speed and violence of the move stunned his friends, but only for a second. One stepped forward. Then another. The others would soon follow.

Victor said to them, ‘Of all the times in your life that you need to make the right decision, this is the most important.’

One said, ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’m giving you all the chance to go home tonight without a detour to the hospital. Take it.’

They hesitated. He stared each one in the eye, seeing each fighting the internal battle between courage and fear and showing them that in turn he fought none.

‘
Let go of me
,’ the young guy with the tattoos yelled at Gisele.

‘Once you’ve apologised to her.’

The woman in the green coat, wide-eyed, said, ‘That’s… that’s really not necessary.’

Gisele applied extra pressure to the lock and the young guy yelled, ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry.’

‘And you’ll get off at the next stop?’ Gisele asked.

‘
Yes
.’

Victor used a knuckle to ring the bell and the bus came to a stop a moment later. The doors hissed open and Gisele released the hold. The young guy with the no-longer perfect hair struggled to his feet with the help of his friends and they disembarked. Victor didn’t take his gaze from them until the doors had hissed closed again and they were throwing insults from the safety of the pavement outside.

‘Are you okay?’ Gisele asked the woman in the green coat.

She nodded with enthusiasm. ‘You totally kicked his ass. Thank you.’

Gisele smiled in response. ‘You’re welcome.’

Victor touched her on the shoulder. ‘We have to get off this bus.’