Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

I moved closer to the body and touched the forehead. Still warm. The flow of blood had stopped and it was coagulating rapidly round the throat region, so it was unlikely he’d been killed in the last few minutes, but it hadn’t been hours ago either.

I hurried back up the steps, switched the light off, listened for a few moments to check that no one was waiting at the top for me, and then stepped out. I walked back into the hallway, then round to the front door. It was locked. I doubled back and checked the back door of the house, which led into the utility room. Also locked. I went back through the hallway and into the kitchen, holding the Glock tightly, and went to check on the kitchen door, the last means of entry into the house.

It was unlocked. I couldn’t remember if I’d checked it earlier or not, but thought I had. I’d been security conscious these past few nights, even more so since we’d taken ownership of all that money, but so much had happened that I couldn’t recall anything for sure.

I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Who knew we were here? Who wanted Krys Holtz dead? Who would have bothered to remove his blindfold before he killed him? Only someone who had a personal reason for wanting him dead. Kalinski. It had to be Kalinski. I was going to have to wake the others. I turned round.

A shadow suddenly filled the doorway. I started, then brought up the gun instinctively, finger tensing on the trigger.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

It was Tugger. I felt myself relaxing. ‘Something very fucking bad,’ I said, approaching him.

Tugger retreated, and I saw that he too was holding a gun by his side, though where he’d got it from I didn’t have a clue. He lifted it so it was pointing in my direction. ‘Hold on, stop there. What are you talking about?’

I stopped. ‘I think Kalinski’s snuffed Krys. I heard some movement down here; it woke me up. I came down, saw that the cellar door was open, and went to take a look.’

Tugger didn’t move. ‘Where were you going just now?’

‘I was checking the doors to see whether they were locked.’

‘And are they?’

‘That one isn’t,’ I said, motioning towards the kitchen door. ‘Look, you can put the gun down now, Tugger. I’m not the one who’s offed Krys.’

‘You put yours down, then.’

I did. ‘Look, Tug, how long have we known each other? A long time, right? I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t believe me, take a look. Krys is dead and there’s no way I’d want to kill him.’

He stepped over to the cellar door, and peered down, switching on the light as he did so. He watched me carefully out of the corner of his eye as he put his foot on the first step. It was funny what a lot of money did to people’s personalities.

‘I’m going to check on Kalinski,’ I said. ‘See if he’s done a runner.’

At that moment, the sound of a car starting came from out front. Tugger jumped back through the cellar door. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Go see who it is,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll see if Kalinski’s gone.’

Once again, he gave me a suspicious look, then turned and hurried out to the kitchen door. I ran up the stairs, wondering why Johnny hadn’t surfaced by now, and tried Kalinski’s door. It opened immediately and I knew he’d gone, an assumption that lasted as long as it took me to reach for the light switch and flick it on.

Kalinski lay on his back under the covers of his bed, his eyes open and staring at the beamed ceiling. The pale sheets covering him were stained with blood around the chest area, and he didn’t seem to have made any attempt at a struggle. I stepped forward and pulled them back. Three deep knife wounds an inch to the right of his left nipple suggested that death had been instantaneous, the result of stab wounds to the heart. Whoever had killed him had known what he was doing. But then, I already knew that, because he’d left two people dead with hardly a sound. My bedroom was right next door to Kalinski’s, and I’d been lying no more than ten feet away from him while the knife was going in. And I hadn’t heard a fucking thing. My luck was still holding, but only just. Whoever was trying to kill me — to kill us all — was getting closer and closer.

I thought I heard a shout from outside and it was at that point that I made a decision: something had gone badly wrong and I needed to get out of there with the money, and fast. I flung the sheets back over Kalinski, turned and ran back to my own room, knocking on Johnny’s door as I passed but not bothering to wait around for an answer. I wondered whether the Holtzes had the place surrounded and who among us was the one feeding information to the other side.

I pulled on some shoes, grabbed the holdall from under the bed, and went back out onto the landing. Johnny wasn’t responding. I knocked again, then opened the door. Even in the gloom, I could see that the bed was empty. What the fuck did that mean? Was Johnny the traitor? All kinds of thoughts were flying through my mind, clouding an issue that was already as murky as a peat bog. But there was no time to stand around and analyse, so I ran down the stairs and pulled open the front door.

The van we’d used for the ransom pick-up was about ten yards away in the middle of the driveway. It was in the exact spot where Kalinski had parked it earlier but the lights were on and the engine was idling. I stepped outside and looked for Tugger, but he was nowhere to be seen. The thick walls of trees on both sides of the driveway were silent and empty, but who knew what or who was behind them.

Clutching the gun in one hand and the holdall in the other, I jogged up to the driver’s side of the van, keeping my head down and turning round every so often, just to check I wasn’t being followed, and pulled open the door.

Johnny Hexham’s body tipped out unceremoniously and I had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

‘For Jesus’s sake …’

Johnny stared blankly up at me, glassy-eyed and dead, his throat, like Krys’s, cut from ear to ear. But this time the wound was fresh and bubbling, the blood still dripping down onto his shirt. Blood dribbled out of the sides of his mouth like something out of a horror film. For a moment I couldn’t move, so stunned was I by the turn of events. I’d been set up, and set up beautifully, and I still didn’t have a clue why, or by who. Johnny lay dead in front of me, probably murdered only a couple of minutes ago, if that, and his killer was almost certainly still in the vicinity. And where the fuck was Tugger? Had he taken out Krys and been coming after me when I’d turned round and spotted him? But there’d been no blood on his clothes. Still, that didn’t mean anything. He could have changed. Could have stood out of the way of the blood’s trajectory as it spurted from the wound. And what had he been doing creeping around down there?

I chucked the holdall across the driver’s side and onto the passenger seat of the van, then went to jump in.

Which was when I saw the front tyre. A deep slash ran all the way down it. I looked at the back tyre. The same. Set up perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I’d never been in a situation like this, one where I was so alone, so utterly out-thought, facing an enemy I couldn’t see, let alone identify, and who seemed to know every step I’d take before I’d even taken it. At that moment in time I was the most frightened I’d ever been in my life, and the most certain that this was a situation I wasn’t going to get out of alive.

I stopped for a few moments to compose myself, to calm down so I could take stock of the situation. But Johnny’s dead eyes continued to stare up at me like something out of some murderous, madness-inducing dream and I was forced to use every ounce of self-discipline to stop myself from falling into a blind panic.