The Final Minute (13 page)

In a single flash of movement, she’d raked the broken bottle down his face, splitting open his flesh as if it was a ripe watermelon, before slicing off the top half of his left ear, absorbing the delicious sound of his screams, revelling in the pain she was inflicting.

She could have killed him then. She’d wanted to desperately. All it would have taken was a single deep slash across the throat and that would have been the end of his pathetic, hollow life. But Pen was no fool. She knew that it might not be looked upon as justifiable homicide by a judge, and that she could end up spending years in prison, and he wasn’t worth sacrificing a part of her life for. So she’d thrown the bottle in the trash and left the bastard bleeding on the floor while she called her mom at work to tell her what had happened.

Foolishly, Pen had thought her mom would understand, but the stupid weak bitch was so much in his thrall that she’d driven straight home, taken one look at her husband’s ruined face and burst into tears as she cradled him in her arms. She’d called an ambulance, tried everything to clean up his wounds, and when Pen had tried to explain what had happened and why, her mom had screamed that she was no daughter of hers, that she was the spawn of the Devil and she never wanted to speak to her again.

As soon as he’d recovered, her father pressed charges like the piece of shit he was, and Pen had been arrested. At her trial for assault and battery, her own mother had backed up her father’s story that he’d never laid a finger on his daughter, that she was making up her stories of abuse. The judge, a sour-faced old man who probably wore ladies’ underwear under his robes, had told Pen she was a cold, sadistic young woman with anger issues and had sentenced her to five years in juvenile prison. It was the second of the many betrayals perpetrated on her by men, but those were other stories, not to be dwelt upon right now. And anyway, now she’d found Tank. He was the only man she cared about, because he was so different from all the rest. They were soulmates; they understood everything about each other; they were one.

Pen was still getting over the fact that she’d come close to losing him the previous night when she and Tank walked over to where a middle-aged man in a suit stood next to his car, holding a briefcase. They were in the middle of a disused airstrip west of London, and it was drizzling with rain.

‘What happened last night?’ demanded the man in the suit, not bothering with any introductions, even though this was the first time the three of them had met. ‘I hear the target got away. That’s not what my client’s paying you for.’ He addressed Tank as he spoke, but the sleazy bastard couldn’t help molesting Pen with his eyes.

Both she and Tank had been expecting exactly this kind of question, and had prepared accordingly, but it was Pen who answered, staring down the man in the suit as she spoke. ‘I don’t know how, but he must have known we were coming. He wasn’t in the house when we arrived. We found out from the two looking after him that he’d gone absent without leave late that afternoon, and they didn’t know where he was. They also told us that they’d been using a hypnotherapist to try to get the location of the bodies from him but they’d had no success. Apparently the target’s suffering from acute amnesia.’

The man in the suit grunted. ‘But he’s got enough sense to escape from you two.’

‘He didn’t come back in the house. We heard him stealing a car from the garage, attempted to stop him, but weren’t able to.’

‘So you’re saying it’s not your fault?’

Pen remained coolly impassive. ‘No, it’s not our fault. First of all, it was a rush job, and they’re always the riskiest kind. Secondly, the target knew something was wrong before we arrived. There was no way we could have planned for that. So we neutralized the two witnesses and burned the place down.’

The man in the suit nodded slowly as he digested this information, unable to resist another glance at Pen’s chest. ‘We need the target killed urgently. I don’t care how you find him, but find him. Don’t bother with the interrogation. We’ve moved beyond that now, and if he’s still suffering from amnesia, he won’t divulge anything to anyone else. Just kill him, and kill him fast.’

‘We don’t have enough information about him,’ said Pen, ‘and we’re operating in a foreign country. It’s not going to be easy.’

The man in the suit reached into his briefcase, removed a slim A4 card folder, and handed it to Pen. ‘I’ve got a full dossier on the target’s background in there. His real name’s Sean Egan and we’ll be using all our contacts to help you track him down. But it’s essential that he dies before he has a chance to impart the information he’s holding.’

‘Are you sure he has the information you think he has?’

‘Oh, he’s got it. The accident may have made him forget it temporarily but his memory will come back at some point, and when it does he’ll realize the importance of what he knows. Kill him, and my client’s prepared to pay you an extra half a million dollars, on top of the generous sum he’s already paying for the job. But fail and he’ll be …’ He paused, as if searching for the right words. ‘Very upset indeed.’ He let the words hang in the air, so that they were in no doubt of their meaning.

Pen knew the identity of the client. Not only was he a ruthless killer himself but he had immense wealth and resources to back him up. It was she who’d accepted the job, and it was she who took responsibility for it now. ‘We’ll find him,’ she said simply. She nodded to Tank and they turned and walked back to their car in silence. They were taking a big risk agreeing to find a man on the run, but Pen was already thinking about the extra money and the possibility of finally retiring with her lover and living out the rest of their days in a state of bliss.

Kill Sean Egan, and that dream came a whole lot closer. It was all the motivation she needed.

As they got back in the car, Pen squeezed Tank’s arm and kissed his massive shoulder through the material of his jacket. ‘It’s time to hunt, baby,’ she whispered, feeling a frisson of excitement.

Sixteen

When I woke up I was in darkness. From the sound of the engine, and the fact that I was crouched in the foetal position and being banged about a fair amount, it didn’t take me long to work out that I was in a car boot. My head felt heavy and thick and I experienced a rush of panic as I remembered what had happened to me. I was in the hands of the two men who were meant to be cops but who clearly weren’t, and wherever they were taking me, it wasn’t going to be good.

I also found out something else about myself that I didn’t know: I was claustrophobic. I experienced an immediate rush of sweat-inducing panic as I lay there in the darkness. My hands were still secured behind my back, and I could hardly move. I wanted to cry out but stopped myself. I had to calm down. It was pitch black in the boot and it smelled of dirt and oil, but sooner or later they were going to let me out, and until that time I had to concentrate on thinking of a way out.

The car was moving erratically, with plenty of slowing down and speeding up and going round sharp bends, so I guessed we were out in the country somewhere. I had no idea how long I’d been out for. It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours – it was impossible to tell. I wondered how they’d tracked me down to the hospital. The fact they weren’t legitimate cops meant Tina had had nothing to do with it, and no one else could possibly have known where I was.

But these guys, whoever they were, had known.

It struck me then that maybe at some point during my stay at the house in Wales I’d been fitted with a tracking device similar to the one Tina had given me. That would also explain the fact that Tom had seemed to know where to look for me the previous day. I realized with a sinking feeling that it was probably in my watch. I could feel through the cuffs that I was still wearing it, but when I turned over and managed to lie on my front I could no longer feel the mobile Tina had given me in my front pocket. So they’d clearly searched me, and now they had a phone and a load of articles about my past history that I was going to have to try to explain away without involving Tina.

There was one thing in my favour though, and that was the fact that the tracker Tina had given me had been well hidden in my sock. I was almost certain they wouldn’t have searched me there, which meant there was a chance she could still find me if she decided to look. It wasn’t much to cling to, of course, but then beggars can’t be choosers.

For the next half an hour or so I concentrated on breathing slowly, ignoring my nausea and the fact that I was lying trapped in darkness, as the car continued its meandering journey. I thought about my brother, John. A good man who’d been murdered for trying to do the right thing. I focused on trying to remember more about growing up with him. It was hard, but slowly, very slowly, tiny video clips of memories popped up in my consciousness. John and me fishing at the side of a narrow river as kids; John teaching me to ride a bike on the road outside a vaguely familiar family house; John in his army uniform with the woman I believed to be my mother kissing him on the cheek while I looked on, feeling incredibly happy and proud.

My brother. The man I’d forgotten. The man who’d been dead twenty years.

A conflicting mix of emotions swirled through me. Happiness that my memories were coming back, but a sense of gloom and frustration that the people I most cared about were long gone, and that no one had replaced them. And fear too, because I had no idea what was going to happen next.

The car slowed and turned down a bumpy track. It hit a pothole and I banged my head on the boot lid. A minute later, the car turned again, then stopped. One of the doors opened and I heard the faint clatter of gates being opened, then we were moving again, but only for a few seconds this time before the car came to a halt and I heard the engine being turned off.

I closed my eyes, deciding that for the moment feigning sleep was my best bet to avoid answering any awkward questions.

The lid flew open and I was manhandled out. I kept my body floppy and fell on to my side, eyes still shut.

‘Listen, you fuck, get up. We know you’re awake.’ The voice belonged to Blackbeard, and he sounded angry.

I didn’t respond, and it was Combover who spoke next, his voice calmer: ‘Come on, Sean. We only gave you a very small amount of anaesthetic. The effects would have worn off a while ago, so play-acting’s not going to help you.’

Again I saw no advantage in responding, so I didn’t.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bad move because a couple of seconds later I felt an excruciating pain as one of them – I strongly suspected it was Blackbeard – kicked me very hard right in the balls.

My eyes shot open and I was unable to stop myself from crying out. The pain was horrible, and I rolled round on the hard gravel surface, wanting to clutch the affected area but unable to, with my hands cuffed behind my back. I also got my first glimpse of where I was. I could see the bottom of a large wooden building about twenty yards away, with trees and greenery beyond. Birds sang and the sun had even managed to fight its way through the clouds, which somehow made the whole thing far worse.

‘I told you the fucker was bluffing,’ said Blackbeard, and the next second I saw his foot come hurtling towards me. He caught me right in the gut. The blow hurt, but it was nothing compared to my nuts, which felt like they’d been driven back into my bladder and were now permanently jammed in there.

It was a bit late to continue feigning sleep now so I manoeuvred myself into the foetal position, bringing up my knees and lowering my head to make myself as small a target as possible, as Blackbeard brought his foot back to deliver another kick.

‘All right, that’ll do,’ said Combover. ‘He’s softened up enough. Now, get up, Sean.’ He leaned down and hauled me up by the scruff of my neck.

I didn’t bother resisting this time and managed to clamber unsteadily to my feet, seeing my surroundings properly for the first time. The building I’d seen while I was lying on the ground was an old pitched-timber barn that backed on to open fields. Opposite it across the dusty, lightly gravelled yard was a dilapidated building that might have been a workshop or farmhouse but had clearly been empty for some time. A further outbuilding stood next to it, and behind that was a wall of mature oak trees, blocking any further view. The place was deserted and, aside from the birdsong and the faint hum of traffic in the distance, there were no sounds at all. Even if I screamed my head off, no one would hear me. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

The sun was starting to set and there was a slight chill in the air. I guessed the time was between six and seven, and as the two of them frogmarched me across the yard to the barn, I wondered when, or indeed if, I was ever going to see the sun again.

Combover used a key to unlock the heavy padlock on the barn’s double doors, and as they opened and I was led inside, I caught a very distinct smell of something stale and unpleasant.

There was nothing in the barn but a few empty diesel barrels lined up against one wall and a metal chair in the middle of the room, which looked like it had been clamped to the floor. Two chains about six inches long, with metal restraints attached, hung from each arm; two further sets of chains and restraints were coiled by the chair’s front legs. An orange plastic bucket sat next to the chair and I noticed that there was a thin trail of something dark and dried running down the bucket to the concrete floor, and several dark stains dotted about the chair in an irregular pattern. It wasn’t hard to guess what the stains were, or what this contraption was used for, and I temporarily forgot the pain in my balls as I realized with an injection of adrenalin and fear that I was here to be tortured.

‘Christ, it stinks in here,’ grunted Blackbeard as they removed the restraints they’d put me in back at the hospital and shoved me down in the chair.

For a split second I thought about making a break for it before they had a chance to strap me in, but the thought disappeared as Combover produced a small revolver from somewhere inside his suit and pointed it at my head. ‘Don’t even think about it, Sean,’ he said with a smile that created laughter lines around his amused blue eyes.