James Craig - Shoot to Kill

‘Sounds like bollocks to me,’ Helen scoffed. Somewhat more of a liberal than her husband, she had always been rather bolshie when it came to what she considered the ‘political’ areas of Carlyle’s work.

‘They have clearly got something,’ Carlyle said gently, not wanting to have the same conversation for the millionth time.

‘But we’ll never know, will we?’ she countered.

‘We might, we might not,’ Carlyle said. ‘That’s just the way it is. These guys could be doing a great job, they could be doing a shit job – you’re right, we’ll never know. But you’re not going to put it to the test and then find some nutters from Stoke, or Bradford or Blackburn or wherever, are able to waltz down here and blow us to smithereens.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like Harry Ripley,’ Helen teased.

‘We should build a big wall round the M25 to keep all these fucking people out,’ Carlyle opined, warming to his theme.

‘You could have a word with your mate Christian Holyrod,’ his wife smirked. ‘They could deport you back to Scotland while they’re at it.’

‘Me?’ Carlyle folded his arms in mock indignation. ‘I’m as much of a Londoner as you are.’ They both knew that wasn’t true. Helen’s family had been Londoners, born and bred. Carlyle’s parents had only arrived from Glasgow in the 1950s, heading south as de-industrialization and long-term decline kicked in at home.

Helen kissed him on the head. ‘Speaking of Harry,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘I saw him a couple of days ago. He’s beginning to look really quite frail.’

Carlyle scratched his armpit. ‘That’s hardly surprising, given his age.’

‘I just hope that he can stay at home. I said I’d see about trying to get the council to give him more help.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘With the budget cuts, he’ll be lucky to keep what he’s got.’

Kicking off her shoes, Sandy dropped her bags on a chair in the corner. Ignoring Gavin Swann lying on the bed, scratching his balls, a half-empty bottle of beer in his free hand, she went straight to the mini-bar and pulled out a couple of miniatures of vodka. She waved them at Kelly, who shook her head. ‘Maybe after.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Sandy mumbled. Unscrewing both caps, she chugged them down, one after the other. In front of her, Sky Sports News was playing on the TV with the sound down. On the rolling ticker at the bottom of the screen, the news flashed up that star striker Gavin Swann was expected to be out of the game for up to a month with a groin strain. She tried to remember the name of the team he played for but the vodka had left her mind a complete blank. Football was so boring. It was unbelievable that blokes got so worked up about it; the whole thing was a joke. At the thought of it, she let out a quiet laugh.

Kelly gave her a quizzical look. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Sandy replied. Beginning to feel happily pissed, she watched Kelly crawl onto the bed. Looking like a scared kid, Swann sat up, spilling beer over his crotch in the process.

‘Mm.’ Kelly grinned. Pulling back her hair, porn-star style, she dropped her head towards his groin and began licking it off. ‘I love Beck’s . . .’

‘ What? ’ Alain Costello said irritably. How could he concentrate on Dead Space 4 when Tuco wouldn’t shut the fuck up?

‘Do you want to spend the next twenty years in prison?’ Tuco repeated in French. ‘Are you deliberately trying to get arrested?’

Alain glanced at the handset sitting next to him and shook his head.

‘Well?’ the old man demanded, his voice sounding even more pained over the speakerphone.

‘ Je vais me faire arrêter si tu me laisses ici dans cette bordelle .’

‘ Tu aurais dû être plus prudent .’ Sitting in the elegant Rococo calm of his fifth-floor duplex apartment on the Rue Frédéric Bastiat near the Champs Elysées Tuco angrily paused the DVD he was watching on his state of the art equipment. The frozen screen captured Forest Whitaker in blank close-up. Approaching the end of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai , the eponymous assassin was about to meet his inevitable fate. It was a film Tuco had seen dozens of times, but he still resented having to interrupt it in order to lecture his infuriating son. ‘The way of the Samurai,’ Tuco whispered to himself, ‘is found in death.’

‘Salvatore has disappeared,’ whined Alain. ‘Where is your man?’

The fucking boy wouldn’t even let him mumble in peace. ‘What?’

‘Your new business associate here in London – why has he not come to help me?’

Because he’s no fool , Tuco thought. He doesn’t want a moron like you dragging him down . ‘He said he would try to help.’

‘Why hasn’t he turned up, then, eh?’

‘These things take time.’

‘Have you told him about what happened to your last business partner here?’

‘ Tais toi! ’ Tuco exploded. ‘Now is not the time. Just stay where you are and I will let you know when we have a plan to get you back.’

All he got in response was a series of bleeps from Alain’s computer console. Dropping the phone, he restarted the movie. ‘Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily,’ he said grimly. ‘Every day without fail, the Samurai should consider himself as dead. This is the way of the Samurai.’

Fully erect now, Swann caught Sandy’s eye and blushed violently. Sandy was surprised by how – well, troll-like – he looked. Lots of body hair but already going bald on top; no real muscle definition, which surprised her, given that the guy was supposed to be, like, a major athlete. And a flat, featureless face that only a mother – or a hooker – could love. Yet this was a guy earning two hundred grand a week , two hundred and fifty, according to some papers. If that didn’t make you wet, well, there was no two ways about it, you were in the wrong game.

‘The Candypants girls,’ he mumbled.

Kelly let out a harsh laugh. ‘Hardly. Those slags are not in our league.’ Sitting back on her haunches, she pulled her dress over her head. Surprised to see that she was naked underneath, Sandy had another mini panic-attack about the quality of her underwear. Swann’s penis quivered in anticipation, pre-cum glistening on the tip.

‘We’re the fuck-your-brains-out girls.’ Kelly pulled her bag onto the bed. Unzipping a side pocket, she took out a Trojan Magnum, pulling open the foil wrapper with her teeth. Signalling for Sandy to join her, she carefully unrolled the condom over Swann’s penis. ‘I’d give you some more oral,’ she grinned, ‘but I don’t think you would be able to handle it.’

Swann grunted something that might have been agreement. Tossing the empty vodka miniatures in the direction of the waste bin, Sandy slipped onto the bed next to Kelly, who had lowered herself onto Swann and was moving her pelvis slowly in an anti-clockwise direction. Immediately, she felt Swann’s stubby fingers between her legs and Kelly’s tongue in her ear. She shrugged off the tongue but let the hand stay where it was.

‘So,’ Kelly laughed sexily, tickling Swann’s balls with her free hand, ‘have you ever had a threesome before?’

Sandy wouldn’t have thought that it was possible but Swann went even redder. His head looked like it had just been boiled in a pot. All he needed was an apple in his mouth and he could have been served on a platter at a banquet. ‘Er, no.’

Pulling off the Trojan, Gavin Swann knotted it and chucked it on to the carpet. According to the alarm clock on the table by the bed, he had held out for just over twelve minutes before collapsing, spent, on the bed. The whole thing had lasted about eleven minutes and twenty seconds longer than Sandy would have imagined. Kelly had called it just right.