Adrian Magson - No Peace For The Wicked

“God, Palmer, that’s a stretch,” Riley pointed out. “Howie could be a nickname for all sorts of reasons. This Malcolm Howard could be an anorexic weakling with a pot-belly and flat feet — too feeble to even lift a baseball bat.”

“Unlikely,” said Palmer, “if he was in the Marines. Same with Duggan, the other one. I’d lay good money they were the two who trashed my office. They have the right background: military training, accustomed to giving orders and not frightened to chuck their weight around. On the other hand, clever enough to know when beating the crap out of me wasn’t necessary.”

Riley felt sceptical but had to concede the point. She held out her hand. “Can I see?”

Palmer looked up. “Pardon?”

“You said he came up with a few names. Can I see them?”

Palmer hesitated, then pushed the sheet of paper across the desk. “You’re really not going to like it, though. ”

John Mitcheson spent the short drive from Malaga airport to Almeria in the back seat with his eyes closed, trying to quell a looming headache. He’d already seen this stretch of coast road more than once, and with the way he was feeling, the sun was far too bright. At least the cream Mercedes had air-conditioning and floated along with barely a shudder. After being stranded at Barcelona for two hours due to air traffic problems, he knew he was in for a hard time for being late.

Gary, neat as a pin as usual, was at the wheel. He occasionally glanced at his passenger in the mirror, but apart from that spent most of the journey with his eyes on the road.

“Who’s at the villa?” asked Mitcheson. The call to his mobile the previous evening had instructed him to get on a flight to Malaga the following morning without fail. Gary would be there to meet him.

“Not sure, boss,” Gary replied. “Doug and Howie, of course… they’ve been dealing with the other bunch, getting them out of the picture.”

“Any problems?”

Gary gave a sharp grin. “Not much. Bignell tried to show some muscle by pulling in hired help from Malaga, but they didn’t amount to much. Pity, really — I was looking forward to some action.”

Mitcheson knew what he meant. After years of active service, the sudden inactivity after leaving the army was a problem many men had difficulty adjusting to. It wasn’t hard for him, but he knew men like Gary, Doug and Howie still hankered after the release of action. It was why they had been taken on: Mitcheson to do the organising and them to be the blunt face of the hammer. When that skill wasn’t used, they became restless.

Unfortunately, what had seemed a straightforward exercise in a show of strength was turning into something darker. They had all been prepared to do whatever was asked of them — disposing of McKee, Cage and the others — although Mitcheson doubted the last two had been necessary. But Lottie Grossman’s emergence as psychotic queen bee and her instructions for Bignell's disposal had changed the nature of the game.

The car slowed and turned up a side road, the surface becoming uneven as they headed inland. After two hundred yards, they passed through some orange groves and turned through an imposing gateway. A gravel drive led through a parade of trees and ended before a long, ranch-style, single-storey villa gleaming white in the morning sun. Two other vehicles, a Land Cruiser and another Mercedes, stood in the shade of some trees to one side.

As Mitcheson emerged from the car he heard a low growl and a Rottweiler padded out from the porch. It must have weighed as much as a man and he wondered how you trained such a beast not to eat your friends instead of your enemies.

“Fuck off, Bonzo,” he muttered, and stepped past the quivering animal into the front entrance. He was the only one who could get away with it, and was amazed Doug and Howie, not renowned for their tolerance, hadn’t put a bullet in the dog’s pea-sized brain by now.

The smell of air-freshener and soap assailed his senses. The aroma reminded him of a couple of military hospitals he’d stayed in. He crossed the large tiled hallway and noted a large vase of what he thought vaguely might be dahlias. He wondered if they’d been brought over from England, a touch of home garden for ex-pats. He entered the living room.

There were five men present. He knew four of them.

Doug and Howie were lounging on a settee near the window, looking tanned and fit. They nodded, Doug flicking his eyes towards the towering figure of McManus, who was standing behind a slim, swarthy individual sprawled in an armchair. This man, in his early fifties, was flashily dressed, with a heavy gold chain on one wrist. He was staring into space and blowing smoke-rings from a large cigar as if he hadn’t a care in the world, yet there was something about his manner that was entirely false.

Mitcheson looked back at Doug who shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

He was puzzled by McManus’s presence. He wondered how the man had got here; he evidently hadn’t had the same problems with flights that had affected his own journey. He looked towards the fifth occupant of the room, hunched in a chair near an open set of patio doors. Beyond was the blue glint of a swimming pool. The man’s frame indicated he had once been broad across the shoulders, and Mitcheson knew that in his younger days the man had allegedly been a dangerous person to cross. Now he was shrunken and frail, with a pallor that was sharply at odds with the hot sun outside.

“Ray,” Mitcheson said with a nod of recognition.

“Glad you could make it,” Grossman replied, his voice dry as gravel. There was something still menacing about him, in spite of his obvious incapacity, and Mitcheson knew that behind the half-closed eyelids lurked a mind that was still sharp and deadly. “Enjoy your night out, did you?” There was no mistaking the implied rebuke. One characteristic the man shared with his wife was a mania about position and respect. Mitcheson had rarely met anyone in the army so insecure, and he still found it odd that these people set so much by pecking order.

He glanced at McManus, who seemed to have found something to smile about, and decided to ignore the bait. He walked across the room and sat down in another armchair.

“I was told to take this morning’s flight,” he explained. “I ran into problems getting out here.” The last thing he wanted was to get into a war of words with Grossman. It wasn’t worth it and would only serve to give McManus an excuse to drive a wedge between them.

Gary appeared in the doorway. Behind him came the plump, heavily made-up figure of Lottie Grossman.

Mitcheson shot Gary a steely look for not warning him. The younger man ignored it, unperturbed, and set his eyes set rigidly in front. Mitcheson made a mental note to speak to him afterwards; he had an uneasy feeling Lottie had been working on his sense of duty behind Mitcheson’s back.

More interesting, however, was Ray Grossman’s reaction. He seemed to shrink into his chair with a sour expression, and there was a palpable feeling in the air of a transfer of authority.

Lottie Grossman advanced into the room while Gary shut the door and leant against it, hands crossed in front of him. The signal was clear; no one was leaving.

“Now then, Jerry,” Lottie murmured softly, as if continuing a conversation that had been interrupted earlier. The man in the armchair brought his attention back to the room and tensed, the cigar forgotten. “You don’t want to go ahead with our plan, is that right? What’s the problem — our money not good enough for you?”

A clock ticked in the silence and Mitcheson looked at Doug and Howie for a clue, but they seemed as puzzled as he was.

“I don’t- ” The man choked on his cigar smoke and sat forward, his eyes dark and angry. He looked hard at Ray Grossman, who was staring into his lap, then back at Lottie. As he moved, McManus stepped slightly closer, one hand resting on the back of the man’s armchair. “You’re robbing us blind, Lottie,” Jerry protested with a whine. His eyes flicked towards the huge man at his shoulder. “We had a good thing going, you know… it worked. You can’t just walk in and take it!”