How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (3 page)

SIX

FERGUS

15:10

I’m halfway down my beer when Martin cums. And he doesn’t do it in silence. I hear a loud grunt, almost like he’s been surprised by something. Then he starts to announce what’s happening. ‘I’m cumming,’ he says. Then he repeats it several times, as though she didn’t believe him before. Given all the build-up, the actual end is disappointing. I just hear a long soft whimper, barely above a child’s strangled cry, and he says, ‘Yeah.’

I drain the beer and slip the empty bottle into a jacket pocket. I pull out my Ruger.

There’s a muffled conversation, and Martin steps out into the hallway. I move away from the fridge and over to the sink, out of sight. He wobbles past the kitchen door and into the next room over. He moves on unsteady legs, like he’s just run a marathon. I hear a cough, and then the sound of him pissing into a toilet. Then I hear him start up a shower without flushing.

The bedroom door opens again, and the woman comes out. She lights up a smoke, a cheap-looking brand, and doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going. I hope she’s just going to leave straight away, but she walks into the kitchen. She squints against the sunlight, then let’s out a small yelp when she sees me. It’s not loud enough for Martin to have heard. I put a finger to my lips and raise the gun; she stares at it and stays quiet.

She’s got dusty brown eyes, and her short black hair is slicked down close to her scalp. There’s another tattoo winding up her front, but this one is some kind of dragon, with grey wings that spread out over her breasts.

She’s a lass with a dragon—

Never mind.

‘You professional?’ I say.

She nods.

‘You been paid?’

She nods again.

‘Then pretend you never saw me, and get out of here.’

She doesn’t move straight away. Maybe she’s not used to people being nice to her. I nod my head to the side, indicating again that she can go. She mouths a silent
Thank you
, then turns on her naked heels and heads back into the bedroom. Just over a minute later she walks, still naked but holding her clothes and a purse in a bundle, out the front door.

I head into the hallway when I hear the shower stop, and push open the bathroom door with my foot.

Martin is stood next to the bathtub, with one foot up on the edge, rubbing his cock with a towel. It’s bright red and stood to attention, flapping up and down a little as if there’s a passing breeze. He must be popped up on Viagra. He looks up at me and his eyes go wide. I’m used to that. Most people who spend their last seconds looking at me are surprised when it happens. Not because they don’t deserve it, but because their egos make them think it’ll never happen.

‘Hang on, wait,’ he says. He puts both hands out toward me, palms out, and the towel falls to the floor. ‘I’m not worth it.’

‘Probably not.’

I raise the gun.

He does something I don’t expect. He gets angry. Indignant. He balls his hands into fists and puts them to his hips, looking like a child having a tantrum.

‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he says.

‘Of course I do, ya fud. Joe Pepper sends his regards.’

I fire twice. The gun sounds like a metal bolt slamming home on a heavy door, and my hand recoils between each, but I’m used to it. The first shot cuts through his throat. Insurance that his body doesn’t let out a yell before noticing that his brain has stopped talking. The second puts a small red dot on his forehead, and a larger red dot on the mirror behind him.

I wait while he hits the deck. Sometimes I’m paid to make a hit look like something else. For a little extra, I’ll even frame a specific person. But for this one the client wants it to look like a hit. He’s sending a message.

I walk back out into the hallway, and hear movement in the bedroom.

Shit.

There’s someone else in the flat.

How did I miss that?

I stride into the bedroom. There’s a blind spot. Behind the door, a whole side of the room that I didn’t check out. Basic fucking stuff. A real schoolboy error. I must be losing my edge. In that blind spot, slumped in a chair facing the bed, is a fat guy wearing nothing but a dog collar, and I don’t mean he’s a priest.

He’s got a mobile phone in his hand, and I can hear it dialling out. Whoever he’s calling, they’ll pick up any second now, and then this whole thing will be out of control.

The fat guy is staring up at me. He’s drugged up to his eyeballs, and his reactions are slow, but he’s seen me and his brain is trying to figure out what facial expression is appropriate. He looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him. And right now, that doesn’t matter. He’s a witness. I don’t like killing people if I don’t have to. Usually, if there are bystanders nearby, I walk away from a job and try again later, or figure out a way to do it without being seen.

But I’ve fucked up on this one.

Like I said, you’re only as good as your most recent kill, and my record is getting fucking embarrassing.

I pull the phone from his drugged-up hands. He puts one up to ward off what’s coming. I fire the same one-two pattern I used on Martin. Shut him up vocally, followed by permanently. I look down at the number on the phone.

It’s not 999.

Someone picks up at the other end. A female voice. Maybe a slight accent. I break the connection and pocket the phone. I’ll dump it in the Clyde on the way to my next appointment.

His clothes are on the floor by the chair. I go through the suit trousers and find a wallet. Credit cards. Photo IDs. Dominic Porter.

Shit.

I know the name. I can place him now. My local councillor in the East End. He’s a member of a different party to Marxist Martin. They’re pretty much rivals. I think I even voted for the daft cunt at the last election. You’d think he had better things to be doing at twenty-past three in the afternoon. Like, say, running a city?

Killing a city councillor was not part of the plan.

Time to get out. Draw a line under this one. The target is dead, and the collateral damage can’t be helped.

I’m a professional, though. Even if my current record doesn’t make it look that way. I was hired to do a job, and, though I’ve done it, there were some complications. I need to tell my client. In this game, you’re always thinking about the next job, always maintaining good working relationships.

I call my client from my current burner. When he doesn’t answer, I leave a voicemail, in a code that I hope he can figure out.

‘Joe. It’s me. Dropped your passenger off, but there was a problem. Someone else was along for the ride, had to make an extra drop. Call me.’

I step out of the flat and pull the door closed behind me. I pause for a second, listening for any movement around me, or on the floors above and below. Nobody in the building seems to have noticed, and there are no sirens yet.

I take the stairs two at a time on the way down, then walk out onto the street into the sun. I check the time. Perfect. I’ve got an appointment to meet another customer at four. I blend into the crowded street behind three hot young women in tight clothes, each loaded down with shopping bags. I slip off my rubber gloves and drop them into the nearest of the bags.

I pull sunglasses from my pocket and put them on.

That’s two botched jobs in a row, but maybe I can get back on track with the next one.

Please, let it go smooth.

SEVEN

CAL

17:00

Well, this is a fucking mess.

I’m in Marxist Martin’s bedroom. Or, his ex-bedroom. Is it still really
his
room, now that he’s dead? Or is it just
a
room? Martin’s in the bathroom. He’s face down in his own blood.

I was glad to find him face down, because it meant I didn’t have to see his nuddie little pecker. But then I walk in here, and there’s Dom Porter dead on the floor, his brains sprayed across the wall, and his own Steamboat Willie glaring at me through one dead eye.

What the hell happened here?

And where’s Paula?

My first sign of trouble wuz when I checked my stash, and saw she’d taken all of my proof. Everything. Then, when she didn’t call me by four-thirty, like we’d fuckin’ agreed, I came round here.

Getting in was easy, really. My da owns the building, so I’ve got a key to every door in the place. I’m pretty sure the tenants aren’t told that when they sign the lease. That’d be a fun clause for them to agree to. I’m not actually sure my da knows, either. Me and him don’t talk these days.

It’s a long story.

Well, not that long.

I killed his favourite koi, years ago. I got high, and wanted to talk to the fish. Wanted to ask him how he stopped his skin from going all wrinkly. I mean, look, I’m in the bath for thirty minutes and I look like a fucking prune. This fish? He’s in there all the time, looks great.

Well, not great, because he looks like a fish.

But I have nothing against fish.

I wouldn’t fuck one, but—

(Well, look, that was just the one time, and for a bet.)

Anyway. So I accidentally killed the fucking fish. He drowned in the air. So my old mate Joe Pepper, he turned up and tried to fix things for me before my da got home. First we tried stealing another one that looked the same, but that didnae work. Then we said, Hold on, why not just make it look like a break-in, steal some stuff from the house, and kill the other fish, too?

Then my da would think that some fuckers had broken into the house, and killed his pets on the way out.

And it worked, too, until we all went out for a drink to celebrate Joe’s graduation, and I got drunk and started telling stories about all the crazy shit we’d done down the years.

Haw, howsabout that time I killed yer fish, and the bigyin here covered it up?

Look, we were telling funny stories, and I thought it was a good ’un, okay?

Live and learn, that’s what I say.

That’s why I have to try pulling jobs like this, find my own Babycham. I got cut off over a fish, you believe that? But now there’s two dead bodies, and a load of blood, and I have no idea where my fake hooker has got to.

If only Joe was here.

He’d know what to do.

Hey, that’s what I need
. . .
I’m in a mess here. My Babycham has gone all tits up. I’ll call Joe Pepper.

We haven’t spoken in years, but he can fix it.

EIGHT

CAL

17:10

The buzzer goes, and when I press the intercom I hear Joe’s voice. I click the button to unlock the front door and wait for him to come upstairs. He looks tired. He’s dressed all smart, in a suit that looks like someone pressed it around him. He’s no’ shaved in a couple days and, man, he looks stressed.

‘That was fast,’ I say.

‘I was nearby.’ Joe sounds pissed off. But he was never happy. I think he’ll enjoy this. Me calling him now. It’s just like old times. I’m bringing a bit of fun back to his life.

We go way back.

Joe’s parents died when he was a wean, and my da pretty much raised him. Joe was always cleverer than me, so it was his job to keep me out of shite. And I kept pushing that as far as I could. It was like a game, see how much trouble I could cause, and still have Joe to fix it.

Before that thing with the fish.

That was right after Joe had finished a law degree. We’d helped him through it, paid for extra tutors, bribed teachers, all the stuff that families do, aye? He was going to be our guy on the inside, until I fucked it up, and my da cut both of us off.

Joe landed on his feet though. Big time.

He’s high up in the local Labour Party now, behind the scenes. He’s the guy who pulls the strings, like. Arranges things, sets up meetings, cleans up messes. And he does practise law sometimes, too. Usually it’s free jobs he takes.

What’s that phrase? Like the lead singer of U2? Summat Bonio?

Well, that’s what he does. Because it looks good, and it makes people think he’s a good guy. But I know the truth. He’ll kill yer fuckin’ fish as soon as look at you. Which is why he’s my kinda guy.

‘How’s the lawyering?’ I say.

He sighs. ‘Busy.’

‘Still doing that bonio work?’

‘Pro bono. You make it sound like a dog biscuit.’

‘That’s the badger.’

‘Yeah, still doing it.’

‘And the politics shite?’

‘Yeah.’

Joe walks past me and into the flat. He stops in the doorway to the bathroom, and looks down at Martin. He grunts. It’s not quite a surprised noise, more like he’s saying,
Here we go again.

‘Anything else?’ he says.

He looks at me with tired eyes. I thought he’d enjoy this, but no. His expression makes it feel like I’ve just walked into his office at the end of the day and put another pile of legal stuff on his desk.

I nod toward the bedroom and he goes to take a look. Even his walk looks fed up, he moves slow, with a great weight pressing down on him. I follow in. He bends down in front of Dom Porter. He’s not fazed by seeing the fat fucker’s pecker, but then, I reckon Joe likes a bit of cock.

‘He wasn’t supposed to be here,’ he says. He doesn’t turn to face me. He’s still staring at the dead body. ‘Neither were you.’

‘It was going to be my fucking Babycham, bro.’ Then it hits me and I add, ‘What do you mean,
he wasn’t supposed to be here
?’

He turns and looks up at me now. ‘Your
what
?’

‘You know, my big job. My masterpiece. Cal’s big score.’

‘
Babycham
?’

‘Aye. Pure classy.’

Joe looks at me like I’ve got a screw loose. Maybe the Babycham is too expensive for all those secret lawyer clubs he must go to. Whatever. Fuck it.

I carry on. ‘But now Paula’s missing, and these guys are, well, spoiler alert an’ aw that, but they’re deid.’

He stands up and laughs. ‘Spoiler alert an aw’ that.’ Then shakes his head and looks at me again. For just a second, I can see the old Joe in there, the one who used to like listening to my banter.

I hear someone behind me, and turn around. There’s a big guy there. Looks like a bouncer, maybe. Has a beard and a flat cap, but he’s dressed smart, in a suit. I didn’t hear him come in. How didn’t I hear him come in?

This isnae good.

I look back at Joe and try again. ‘Joe, what did you mean, about him not being here? And who’s this guy?’

Joe looks past me to the big guy, and nods. He says, ‘Todd,’ but it’s more in greeting to him than answering me.

I turn to look at this Todd guy. He’s wearing black gloves.

‘I sorted the other problem,’ he says.

I’m all, like,
What the fuck? Is this a code?

Todd reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out a gun. The last thing that goes through my brain, before the bullet, is to wonder how he managed to have that in his pocket without ruining the line of his sui—