Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

“Are you going?”

“Yeah. I have to move on. “The shower stopped and he stepped out and towelled himself. She went downstairs and he heard the kettle boiling. He was quickly dressed and when he got to the kitchen she stood arms folded by two cups of coffee on the kitchen side. She had lit a cigarette. He held the stolen Sig 220 in his hand.

“Those things will kill you.” He said waving the weapon at her cigarette.

“Ditto tough guy.” Her smoke waved at the gun barrel.

He tucked the pistol in the back of his waist band and picked up his coffee. He broke a short silence between them.

“Look I’m in the UK to do this one job. It’s a big job and a lot of money. After that I have to head for a non extradition country, like South America or something…” He trailed off. He'd never before wanted to say what was on his mind at that moment, but the feeling he got when he looked at her was strong.

“If you’d like to hook up… I could contact you… I mean…” Again he trailed off and she moved towards him, dropping her cigarette in her freshly made cup of coffee. She put her arms around him and held him tight.

“I’d like that. I had a feeling about you. It’s got stronger now.” She ended the embrace and put her face close to his, kissed him gently, twice on the lips. “Do your job, get out and call me I’ll come running, really I will.”

“Listen,” his face became serious, “The people after me are good, really good, so they will get here sooner or later. Tell them nothing. Tell them we met, you cut my hair, we arranged to meet and we spent the night together. Tell them nothing else. I’m not a bad man ‘Leash’, I just kill for a living. The people I kill have generally done something bad so it’s like pest control. Thousands of people are killed in accidents every year, through doctors’ negligence, company health and safety lapses, you name it. I was a soldier once and I killed on government orders, so killing isn’t so bad if there’s money or a reason behind it. They’ll tell you I’m evil, that I’m a murderer, but they’ll kill me on sight if they see me and say it’s in the interests of national security. Don’t believe what they tell you about me. When we get together again I’ll tell you all about me and my life and you can decide. I wish I had time now. I’ve wanted to share my story with someone for years, now you’ve come along I’ve got to go…”

‘Leash’ touched his face gently. “It’s okay Marc I understand.” Mason suddenly laughed.

“My name is Mason, Peter Mason, sorry I forget sometimes.” ‘Leash’ laughed too and held out her hand to shake.

“How do you do Peter Mason I’m Aliesha Jones.”

They laughed and embraced. They said goodbye quickly and from the open doorway she watched him walk away. Tired she went back to bed, able to smell him on the sheets. She smiled and early morning day dreams of life on a tropical beach in South America filled her head.

Mason went to the motorbike, wheeled it into the road and started it up. He followed the map in his head back to the Bickenhall Hotel. He kept to back roads, twisting and turning through an indirect route, not just because of those giving chase, but because he had no helmet and he didn’t want the police to stop him. Two or three times on the short winding journey his mind turned to ‘Leash’, but he shook her out of his head. He had to be serious and clear headed, no time for school boy romance now.

He rode up to within fifty metres of the hotel, parked the bike and dropped the key down a drain. He walked past the hotel and saw an open window, two floors up. Each window on the white frontage had a ledge above the old sash window. The first floor windows had a balcony and rails. Mason jumped, scrabbled and made a route up to the open window as if the hotel front was a climbing wall. Finally standing on the narrow window ledge he slowly and carefully wiggled in a limbo movement inside. There was nothing beneath the window and he was inside kneeling in the half light in a double room. A bald man he had seen check in was lying in bed, covers half off, snoring. Mason saw keys and personal effects on the bedside table. He padded over, took them, including a wallet, and silently exited the room. He walked through the dark corridors, into the stair well and up a floor to his room.

His key pass worked and he gathered his things, especially his pistol from the self locking safe. He quickly and carefully checked the room to make sure there was nothing personal and opened his window. His room was at the back. He took a length of twine from his bag of tricks and lowered his bag. He followed the bag down, using the climbing wall style again to get down and at ground level grabbed his bag.

The key fob was VW. It took him an annoying half an hour to find the white VW Beetle. It was in a car park on the corner of Gloucester Place and the Marylebone Road. The ticket was in the wallet. He adjusted the seat, started the car, cleared the punch ticket barrier and turned the car for Vauxhall. It was three in the morning, traffic was light and sparse and it didn’t take him long to get there. He parked up two streets away from the Priory Arms, tilted back the passenger seat and settled down. It would be ages before the pub opened and he could meet the contact.

Albany Street Police Station London

3 a.m.

April 19th

It had taken much less time than Tony Deany had expected to get through the interviews at The Underworld Night Club. They had worked through a hundred or so club goers. They showed Mason’s photograph and asked a set pattern of questions.

“Do you recognise this man?”

“Did you see this man in the club?”

“Did you see this man talking to anyone in the club?”

A number of ‘are you sure?’ questions were added. If they had seen him the ‘where?’, ‘what was he doing?’ and other related questions were added. Trained in observation the DIC duty team members, tired as they were, applied their full training to the task, checking body language and tone of voice at various points.

They came up blank. He had been seen and with a girl, but none of the people interviewed knew her.

“Well that’s that.” Deany said wearily. “I can’t believe that we didn’t get a single link or lead.”

“Time to get back and get some rest.” Ellie yawned.

“Oh no. We’ve to go to the police station and interview the people they arrested. They’ve had a hard time containing them as it goes.” Liam said, he was logged into his laptop.

“Didn’t another duty team go?” Deany was tetchy and tired.

“No. DIC are at full stretch right now.” Liam replied.

“I take it they checked the CCTV here?” Deany asked exasperated.

“Yeah. Tape went over when we started. Look.” Deany and Ellie looked over his shoulder at the isolated footage on the laptop screen. The footage showed Mason arriving, the next clip showed the girl arriving with friends, the short conversation and the walk to the band room, the final clips were of their return to the bar a little later, their quick leave taking and lastly Mason leaving with a jacket.”

“Well for one we need to find the thin guy and the fat girl. Second he started the fight to get the jacket, but dropped it. What did he take?”

“Keys!” Ellie shouted then added, “ Bike keys it’s a heavy metal club. He took a motorbike.”

Liam tapped in a message, check tube station footage for motorbike for Mason’s leaving time. The reply was swift, Easy, we have Mason and girl on motorbike leaving. Registration PN07 GYP. Will have camera checks on road CCTV for last hours run through. Good Luck. Diane.

“We’d better get going to Albany Street.” Liam said.