James Craig - Shoot to Kill

‘But the police . . .’

‘There are no police,’ Alain scoffed. ‘Everyone thinks I have left the country.’

Salvatore looked doubtful. ‘Hold on,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Feeling weary, Adrian Gasparino turned into the driveway of number 47 Hobart Street and walked down the side of the house. Placing his rucksack against the wall, he gently pressed down on the handle and pushed open the back door. Stepping into the kitchen, he gazed upon the pile of dirty plates in the sink and breathed in the familiar, stale cooking smells that always filled the tiny space. Closing his eyes he tried to feel something. Over the ticking of the clock on the wall came the sound of children laughing from the garden next door.

The door that led into the living room was ajar. From behind it he heard a noise – a grunt – followed by what sounded like a slap and an indistinct male voice. Gasparino stepped carefully to the door and pushed it open another couple of inches. His eyes moved to the large mirror hanging on the far wall, which gave him a view of the end of the L-shaped room. Biting his lip, he watched Justine, naked, on her hands and knees, her bump almost touching the carpet, move her legs apart for a man he had never seen before. Equally naked, the man slipped his engorged penis between her buttocks and thrust vigorously.

Justine fell forwards on to the carpet, passing wind noisily as she did so. ‘Hey!’ she complained over her shoulder. ‘Not there! That’s the wrong hole!’

Laughing, the man slapped her on the arse and pulled her back up into a kneeling position.

Gasparino was amazed by the size of her breasts. They were twice as large as he remembered them, hanging either side of her belly, blue veins standing out against her off-white skin.

‘Take it gently,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t hurt me.’

Moving back inside her, the man grasped her by the hips and began grinding slowly against her rear. Gasparino waited for him to look up and see that he was being watched, but, concentrating hard on the matter in hand, he never did.

He noticed a large blue teddy bear sitting on the sofa, watching the engaged pair with an air of amused detachment.

Maybe it’s a boy , thought Gasparino.

The man’s thrusts got faster.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Justine groaned.

Stepping back into the kitchen, Gasparino slipped out of the back door. Picking up his bag, he moved quietly out of the drive and began walking back down the road in the direction he had come.

Roche sat at the first-floor window of an empty house on the other side of St Paul Street, sipping a cup of tea that she’d bought from a café round the corner. She hated surveillance work and would far rather have gone straight in and searched the place that Carlyle had been told Alain Costello was hiding out in. But the powers-that-be had decided they should wait. Two weeks earlier, the Met had mistakenly raided a wedding party in Bethnal Green, thinking it was a terrorist cell. There could be no more fuck-ups, for a while at least. Finishing her tea, she tossed the polystyrene cup into the corner of the room as two men came out of the target address. Both were wearing hoodies under their jackets, obscuring their faces.

The radio burst into life. ‘ Do we engage? ’

‘Shit!’ Roche grabbed the Vanguard binoculars at her feet. But the pair were on the street now, walking away from her. Then she saw the PSP console in the hand of the guy nearest to her. ‘It’s him,’ she mumbled to herself.

‘ Do we engage? ’

Ignoring the radio, Roche grabbed her Glock 26 and raced down the stairs. Out on the street she checked in both directions. Apart from the two hoodies and the two constables in an unmarked Range Rover twenty yards away, it was empty. Her targets were moving slowly down the far side of the street. In a couple of minutes, they would be on a busy main road and things would be far harder to control. Roche knew that she had to act now. Slipping between a couple of parked cars, she began jogging down the middle of the road, her gun at her side. They were less than fifteen yards in front of her now and she was closing quickly. Stepping on to the pavement, feeling her heart pounding in her chest, she raised the Glock.

‘Stop! Police! I am armed and I have the authority to shoot.’

Flicking an imaginary piece of lint from the sleeve of her blouse, Sandy Carroll took another mouthful of Verdicchio and wondered if they should order another bottle. She was beginning to feel pleasantly light-headed but knew that it would take a couple more glasses before she was getting the full effect of the alcohol. Putting the glass back on the table, she picked listlessly at her pollo pancetta . She didn’t normally eat this early and her appetite was lacking. The clock over the front door edged towards five fifteen. The Pizza Express just up from the Royal Opera House was already noisily full. Indeed, a queue of people waiting for a table was beginning to snake down the street; the usual collection of families, pre-theatre diners and tourists exhausted by a day spent trudging around Covent Garden’s crowded, tacky piazza.

Sandy watched the waiters and waitresses flit from table to table, trying to get the current occupants served and out of the door as quickly as possible in order to accommodate those hovering outside. It crossed her mind that there must be dozens, if not hundreds, of other restaurants within a five- or ten-minute walk of Bow Street. For that matter, there were probably quite a few other Pizza Express restaurants nearby as well. Why stand on the pavement waiting to get into this one? Sandy wouldn’t be seen dead queuing to get into anywhere, never mind a pizza restaurant.

A waiter, a small, thin bearded bloke who looked Italian, or maybe Turkish, swooped on their table, picked up the bottle of wine and refilled her glass. Sandy gave him a curt nod, refusing to return his cheeky smile. She had just completed a tough afternoon’s shopping and wanted to get pissed without anyone hitting on or otherwise hassling her.

‘How is your food?’ the waiter asked in lightly accented English.

‘It’s fine,’ Sandy mumbled, carefully avoiding any kind of eye-contact that might be misconstrued. Waiters were most definitely not her type. ‘Thank you,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

‘Excellent – enjoy!’ Still smiling, the waiter placed the three-quarters empty bottle on the table and danced off. Must make your mouth hurt, that job , Sandy thought, what with having to smile all the bloody time .

Over the general hubbub of the restaurant, the oh-so-familiar sound of ‘Parachute’ by the nation’s former sweetheart, Cheryl Cole, started bubbling up from under the table. With a squawk of delight, Sandy’s dining companion, Kelly Kellaway, reached down and pulled her iPhone from her tote bag. Taking another mouthful of wine, Sandy watched as Kelly opened a text message and, cackling with glee, quickly tapped in a reply.

‘Who was that?’

‘Drink up,’ Kelly ordered, signalling to the waiter for the bill. ‘I’ll get this. We’re off.’

Sandy frowned. It wasn’t like Kelly to pay the whole bill. ‘Where are we going?’

Without saying anything, Kelly handed Sandy the iPhone. Then, taking her purse from the bag, she fished out two twenties and a ten and dropped them on the table with a flourish.

Sandy stared at the message on the screen. The texter’s ID just said Gavin . The message read, I’m at the Garden Hotel. Come on over . She looked at her friend and asked, ‘Who’s Gavin?’

Kelly snorted with laughter. ‘Are you kidding?’ The waiter appeared with the bill, scooped up the cash and scuttled off to get some change. Dumping the last of the wine into her glass, Kelly drained it in one. ‘Come on,’ she said, getting to her feet, smoothing down the front of her Markus Lupfer camouflage knitted dress, a purchase from their most recent trip to Harvey Nichols the week before. ‘Let’s get going.’