D. Mitchell - The King of Terrors

‘You want a share, is that it?’ said Muller. ‘We can work something out.’

If Gareth had any lingering doubts then they were swept away by Muller’s statement. ‘What the fuck is it with you guys?’ he fired angrily. ‘I’m not a piece of meat to be bought and sold, to be bounced from one set of weirdos to another! Give me some fucking answers!’ he demanded.

They both looked at him. ‘How much have you told him?’ the woman asked.

‘Jack shit.’

She shrugged. ‘Might be for the best, for now,’ she conceded.

‘I’m going to phone the police right now!’ he said. ‘The fucking real ones!’ They watched silently as he went over to the old phone and lifted the receiver. He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘The line’s dead,’ he said flatly.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Now sit down, Gareth, and be a good boy.’ She motioned with the gun and he looked at it warily, quietly going back to his place on the sofa.

This time it was his turn to mull over options, and none of them looked good. He felt totally helpless, a piece others were moving around a board in a game he couldn’t fathom.

‘So who is paying you?’ Muller asked.

Her stony expression didn’t waver. ‘I’m doing it for love,’ she said.

‘Yeah, so you are. What’s your price?’

‘Not everyone’s like you, Muller,’ she said. ‘Let’s say I’m motivated by other things. I know you’ve already been in contact with Tremain, when you made the call in the service station car park. You made him an offer. How did he take it?’

‘He’ll come round when he sees he hasn’t got a choice,’ said Muller.

‘What he wouldn’t give to know your whereabouts right now, eh, Muller?’

Alarm fired up in his eyes. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘Let me put you out of your misery. I’ve told Tremain I have Davies and I have you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘By my reckoning we have a couple of hours before they get here.’

‘You crazy bitch!’ he said, terror leaching colour from his face. ‘You gotta be kidding!’

‘I don’t do humour,’ she returned.

‘What do you want? Half? It’s yours.’

‘I don’t do money either. This way, Muller,’ she pointed to the door to the next room. ‘We’re going to put you down in the cellar. I hope the bed’s comfy.’

‘Tremain will kill me!’ he protested. ‘He’ll kill you too!’

‘Comes with the territory,’ she said, and waved for him to get a move on. Reluctantly he led the way through the door. They paused by another door in the corner of the room. ‘Go on, Muller, open it.’ He did so. It opened out onto a series of stone steps leading down into a darkened basement. He made one last attempt to reason with her but she prodded the barrel of the gun between his shoulder blades and he clumped downstairs. There was a door at the bottom with a shining new padlock on it. ‘Inside, Muller,’ she said. He went quietly inside the room and she closed the door on him, snapping the padlock in place. She heard him cursing her from the other side.

When she came back up the stairs Gareth was waiting for her. He’d picked up Muller’s gun. ‘I’m betting this one is loaded,’ he said, pointing it at her.

She ignored him. ‘I’m famished,’ she said, walking over to the fridge. ‘What have we got to eat?’ She opened the fridge door. ‘What is it with men and empty fridges?’ she opined.

‘I mean it; I’ll use this thing if I have to. I want some answers. Talk.’

‘So now you want to listen to me? If you’d have done that before it would have saved us both a lot of trouble.’ She pointed to the case Muller had brought from the car. ‘Open it, Gareth, if you don’t believe me.’

He went over to the black case, the gun trained on her still. He snapped open the gold fasteners. There were many documents inside, including a variety of passports and plane tickets. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said.

‘As soon as you’d been handed over he was planning on making a quick getaway and losing himself somewhere exotic and far away.’ She nodded at his hands. ‘It could have been far worse than a few pinpricks.’ She removed her leather jacket. She wore a tight-fitting T-shirt that emphasised her slender torso, her small breasts. ‘Camael wants you dead; Lambert-Chide wants you alive — it’s all a matter of taste, I guess.’

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘Like I said, I don’t do humour.’

‘Enough of the mind games. Who are you?’

‘Caroline Cody.’

‘And who exactly is Caroline Cody?’

‘Someone sent to help save you.’

‘I’ve been told that once before and I’m not about to fall for it again.’

She gave a careless shrug. ‘Suit yourself, but I’m all you’ve got between people like Muller and Camael. She opened a cupboard door. ‘We’ve got bread. You like bread?’

Gareth ran a hand through his hair, his hand trembling. ‘This is complete and utter madness. I have to get out of here.’ He lowered the gun, then dropped it onto the sofa as if it were something dirty and offensive.

‘Sure you do. You go out there and you won’t last more than a couple of days. One or the other will get you. And don’t even think of going to the police. That’s a shortcut to your funeral. Like I said before, life is never going to be the same again for you. Gareth Davies? Forget him. As far as you’re concerned he doesn’t exist anymore, not if you want to stay alive.’ She began to hum the Bee Gees’ song Staying Alive. ‘Great, we have crab paste,’ she said. ‘You like crab paste?’

Gareth rubbed his tired eyes. ‘How did I ever get into this mess? One day I’m going quietly about my business, the next thing I know a sister I never knew I had throws herself in front of my car, and then I’m on the run for my life not knowing who to trust, and best of all not knowing why.’

Caroline took the lid off the crab paste and sniffed it. She threw it back in the cupboard. ‘You’ll know soon enough. Look, I don’t mean to sound so vague, but right now is not a good time to hit you with the full story. Trust me, it will either freak you rigid or you’ll think me crazy.’ She angled her head. ‘Crazier,’ she said. ‘Or both, which is the most likely scenario.’ She nodded at his bandaged hands. ‘How are the hands and feet?’

‘Sore but I’ll survive.’

‘That’s my little soldier,’ she said.

They heard a dull rumbling from down below as Muller pummelled the cellar door. ‘Is he going to be OK?’ Gareth asked.

‘Only until Tremain gets here.’

‘You really believe Tremain is capable of killing someone?’

Her face steeled. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘From personal experience.’

Detective Chief Inspector Stafford stepped out of the car, his expression as sullen as the Derbyshire weather. He buttoned up his coat. There was a distinct chill in the air, the sky busy with an armada of angry, grey clouds urged on by a brisk, biting wind. Massive hills towered all round, like the backs of washed-up humpback whales, enclosing them in a solemn embrace. The road shone like wet leather.

‘Cold, sir?’ asked Styles. He carried a cardboard folder under his arm.

‘I must have been up north the best part of twenty years, and in all that time it’s never warmed up,’ he returned, scowling.

‘Maybe southerners are just too soft,’ said Styles.

Stafford groused something disparaging into the pulled-up lapels of his coat. He nodded towards the house, half-hidden by fir trees in need of a haircut. ‘This the one, Nobby?’

Styles sighed. ‘I wish you’d not call me that.’

‘What? Nobby?’