Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

‘Sure I did,’ she answered in heavily accented English. ‘It’s not hard.’ Then, seeing Kent for the first time, and clearly knowing his history and the crimes he was accused of, her eyes darkened. ‘Is this him?’

‘Don’t hurt him, baby,’ said Wolfe with a chuckle. ‘The client wants him in one piece.’

‘He’s a dirty cocksucker,’ she said, leaning forward and spitting full in his face, before grabbing him by the crotch and giving his balls a vicious twist.

Kent made the kind of noise any of us would have made in similar circumstances, and he struggled in our grip as she cursed him in Thai. Finally, she let go, cursed him one more time, then strode casually past us and into the arms of her lover, letting out a squeal of delight that was about as natural as her bust.

Kent slumped in our arms, saliva running down his face, and once again I found myself feeling sorry for him.

‘Take him in there,’ snapped Haddock, looming up beside me.

Together, Tommy and I manoeuvred Kent through the door and into a surprisingly large foyer, with doors going off on three sides, and a dilapidated wooden staircase at the end. There was an old pine reception desk with an anarchy sign daubed in black paint on the front, along with more garbled graffiti. A couple of psychedelic posters covered the walls, making me think that this place had been a squat for a while. The carpet, dark and stained, was rotting in places, and cobwebs had formed, net-like, across the corners of the ceiling. The place reminded me of the vampires’ lair in the classic 1980s movie The Lost Boys , and the smell of damp, earthy decay stuck in my nostrils. If you were going to torture and kill someone, you’d be hard pushed to find a better place to do it in.

Haddock moved in ahead of us, holding his shotgun one-handed, and strode over to the far door, pushing it open and motioning for us to follow. It led through to a large empty room with more graffiti on the walls.

‘Down here,’ he said, unbolting another door in one corner, and switching on a light.

A flight of concrete steps led down to a dank-looking cellar that smelled of urine and decay, and as we reached the top of them, Kent started struggling and moaning. He must have known that when he went down those steps he’d never be coming up them again.

Without a word, Haddock moved round behind him and drove a heavy boot into the small of his back, sending him flying forward. He cracked his head on the overhead beam, then rolled down the steps in a tangle of legs before landing on his back at the bottom. He looked in pain but was still conscious and didn’t seem to have broken anything, but I hated the way he gazed up at us, with that terrified expression in his eyes.

He knew what was coming. That’s what got me. He knew.

Haddock waved to Tommy, who started down the steps after Kent, then turned to me. ‘Get out of my sight, we don’t need you any more,’ he said, before adding ominously, ‘We’ll talk later.’

He followed Tommy down the steps, closing the door behind him.

According to Wolfe, no one was meant to hurt Kent, but since I couldn’t see what else they’d be going down there for, I put my ear to the door and listened.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Wolfe had come into the room and was right behind me, the Sig stuffed in the front of his waistband with just the handle showing.

One thing I’ve learned in life is, when you’re caught red-handed always go on the offensive. ‘I wanted to hear if they were torturing him or not,’ I said, walking past him. ‘Now, if you’ve got the rest of my money, I won’t hang around any longer.’

‘You’ll get it when the client arrives,’ he answered, following me back into the foyer.

Lee was standing by the old reception desk, smoking a cigarette and looking nervous. She gave me only the barest of glances.

I turned to face him. ‘And when’s that going to be?’

For the first time, I saw that his expression was uncertain. ‘I don’t know. He should be here by now.’

‘Why don’t you phone him?’

It was Lee who answered, her voice annoyed. ‘Because there’s no mobile phone reception here, that’s why. No reception. No nothing. I want my money too, you know.’

‘Are you sure none of them can get a signal?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you let me try mine?’

‘I have tried it. And both of mine. It’s totally dead on all of them.’

‘How did you leave things with your client?’ I asked, lighting a cigarette of my own and taking a much-needed drag.

‘That he’d be here tonight. Before midnight.’

‘And is he reliable?’

‘Course he is,’ he said, but something in his voice suggested he wasn’t totally sure.

This was when I realized that maybe Wolfe didn’t know his client all that well, which surprised me, given his reputation for being so careful about who he dealt with.

I could hear Haddock and Tommy talking as they came out of the cellar and decided that now was the right time to make a break for it and raise the alarm. I didn’t think they’d panic and disappear with Kent if I suddenly took off, because they were still waiting for their money.

‘I need a piss,’ I said with an irritated sigh, and turned away from Wolfe, starting for the front door.

‘Sure,’ he answered, and I was so busy making for the exit and freedom that I never even saw him take the gun from his waistband.

The first I knew about it was when I felt the sudden, explosive pain as the butt of the Sig caught me in the back of my head. My vision blurred and I felt my legs give way, then I was hitting the filthy carpet with a painful bang, only just managing to get out a hand to break my fall.

‘I think we’ve got some unfinished business, Seany boy,’ I heard him say, his voice sounding far away. ‘Don’t you?’

Then another voice came from somewhere behind him, and that’s when I knew I was in real trouble.

‘I want this dog’s head,’ said Clarence Haddock.

My head spun and I could feel the blood leaking out from the wound where I’d been struck, but luckily I still had the presence of mind to roll myself into a tight ball and put my hands over my head as the kicks rained in on me.

I couldn’t see who was doing the kicking. All I could hear was heavy breathing as they worked on trying to cause me the maximum injury possible. There was no pain — there never is when you’re in a fight, even one as one-sided and brutal as this. The huge surge of adrenalin puts paid to that. All I felt was a series of jarring shocks as I was knocked about the floor. One of them — I think it was that bastard Haddock — was aiming his blows at my kidneys, but they weren’t that accurate, and I was fairly certain that neither of them had done me any permanent damage yet.

But I knew that this was only the beginning. I’d managed to make both Wolfe and Haddock lose face, which was some achievement considering I’d only known them roughly twelve hours, and hugely stupid given their history of violence. The only thing counting in my favour was that the other two people in the room were trying to calm them down.

‘Ty! Stop! Stop!’ Lee was crying in a voice so shrill it could have shattered glass. ‘What are you doing?’

Tommy was also telling them to leave me alone, that what they were doing was madness, but the tone of his voice was hopeful rather than confident, and he wasn’t making any move to intervene.

The kicking continued. Fast and furious, carried out largely in silence.

Then, just as quickly, it stopped, as they finally grew bored.

At least that’s what I thought, but as I lay there unmoving, the pain finally beginning to make its presence felt, I heard Haddock snarl and rumble out a low, angry curse. The next second Lee screamed, and I opened my eyes and saw him standing over me, legs apart, the Remington raised above his head like a club, the butt aimed directly at my face. There was a glint of madness in his eyes as he stood there stock-still, and then, with a roar that temporarily drowned out everything else in the room, he brought it flying down.