Scott Mariani - The Doomsday Prophecy

With the two bodies piled up next to him in the moonlight, he kneeled in the sand and dug a shallow hole in the crook of the two dunes. He rolled them in one at a time with his foot. Kaplan flopped in first, and Hudson sprawled in on top of her with a meaty sound as their heads collided.

Ben filled the hole back in with sand. They were food for crabs now.

Searching around, he found the barnacled carcass of an old rowing boat and hauled it across the sand. He laid it over the shallow grave and walked away towards the water’s edge. Retracing his footsteps he kicked over the tracks in the sand to hide them. Then he stripped the two pistols and threw the bits into the sea.

Dawn was creeping up on the horizon by the time he finished cleaning up at the house. He showered and changed, burned the bloodstained jeans and shirt on the beach, and stamped the ashes into the sand. He left five hundred euros on the table and a note to apologise for breaking a lamp and damaging a doorframe, saying he’d drunk too much of the fine wine Spiro and Christina had left for him.

Then as the sun was breaking free of the sea, he left the house and started walking towards town. He took a taxi to the airport, careful that he wasn’t being followed. The last thing he needed now was for Stephanides’ men to grab him just as he was about to leave Greece. He’d be in America long before they even noticed he was gone.

At the airport he retrieved his passport from the locker, and used his return ticket to board an early flight to Athens. At midday, Greek time, he was sipping whisky on the rocks in the half-empty business class section of a 747 heading for Atlanta.

He didn’t know what awaited him in the USA. But he was going to find Zoë Bradbury, dead or alive.

And then, someone, somewhere, was going to pay.

Georgia, USA

The thirteenth day

Georgia wasn’t any noticeably hotter than Corfu, but it was about twice as humid. Ben’s shirt was stuck to his back within fifteen minutes of stepping off the plane at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

He adjusted his watch to US time. The zone shift meant that he was arriving pretty much the same time he’d left Greece, and the sun was high overhead. He hired a big silver Chrysler at the airport and drove the long distance to Savannah with the windows down and the wind in his hair.

It was late afternoon by the time he got there. Savannah was rich and verdant with picture-perfect colonial homes that looked as though they hadn’t changed since Civil War times. The first thing he did was to phone the number on Steve McClusky’s business card. But when he tried it, all he got was a message to say the number had been cut off. There was no landline number, and there was no S. McClusky, Attorney, listed in Yellow Pages. But he still had the address. He checked his map and turned the big Chrysler round.

He found McClusky’s building on the edge of town, far away from the opulence of the old houses and the tree-lined streets. He’d been expecting some kind of proper law firm offices, either an imposing glass-fronted modern building or some elegant old colonial-style place with columns and steps leading up to the front door. What he found instead was a little old barber’s shop in the middle of a crumbling block. There was a small parking space outside, with yellowed weeds growing though the cracks in the concrete. He looked twice at the address on the card. It was the right place.

A bell tinkled overhead as he walked in the door. It was cool inside, air conditioning working full blast. He glanced quickly around him. The fittings were straight out of the fifties, and the old barbers themselves looked as though they’d been there at least as long. One of them was busy cutting the hair of the single customer in the place. The other was perched up on a stool, sipping a can of lite beer. He was stooped and white and looked like an iguana. A young guy of about eighteen in an apron was sweeping up bits of snipped hair from the tiles.

The old barber with the beer turned towards the newcomer. ‘What can we do for you, mister? Haircut or a shave?’

‘Neither,’ Ben said. ‘Where can I find Steve McClusky?’

‘That would be Skid you’re looking for.’

‘The name on the card is Steve McClusky.’

The old man nodded. ‘That’s him. Skid McClusky.’

‘Why do they call him that?’

The barber grinned. He had no front teeth. ‘Well, some folks say it’s the way he drives that Corvette of his. Others say Skid Row’s the place he’ll wind up, if he ain’t there already.’

‘His card says his offices are at this address.’

‘Right there.’ The old barber pointed a scraggy finger at a door in the corner. ‘Up the stairs, turn left. Ain’t much to look at, though.’

‘Thanks.’ Ben headed towards the door.

‘Save yourself the trouble, mister. You won’t find Skid there.’ The barber grinned again, flashing pale gums. ‘No, sir.’

‘So where is he? I need to talk to him.’

They all laughed. ‘Get in line, mister,’ the old man said. ‘There’s a bunch of us who’d like to talk to that sonofabitch. Skipped out of here without paying his rent. Been gone more’n two weeks.’

‘So you don’t know where he is?’

‘’Fraid I can’t help you there.’

He’d come a long way and this wasn’t a great start. ‘Thanks anyway.’ Ben turned and pushed back through the door. The bell tinkled again. He walked out into the hot sun and made his way towards the car, bleeping the locks as he approached. He yanked open the driver’s door and was about to climb in when he heard running footsteps come up behind him.

He turned. It was the young guy from the barber’s shop. The apron was gone, under it a faded Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. ‘Mister,’ he said. ‘Wait a minute.’ The teenager was looking over his shoulder back at the place as though he was scared they might be watching him from inside. Must have slipped out the back way, Ben thought.

The teenager looked anxious and sincere. Whatever he was about to say, Ben believed it.

‘Skid’s in some kind of trouble, mister.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Don’t know for sure. Something real bad. That’s why he’s gone.’ He paused. ‘Skid’s always been good to me. Loaned me money when I needed it.’

‘If Skid’s in trouble, I might be able to help him,’ Ben said. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

The kid shook his head. ‘I know someone who might.’

‘Can you pass on a message to them?’

The kid threw another jittery glance back at the barber’s shop. He looked back at Ben and nodded.

‘Tell them a friend of Zoë Bradbury, from England, needs to talk to Skid. It’s important and urgent. Got that?’

‘Zoë Bradbury,’ the kid repeated.

‘If Skid gets the message he’ll understand. He needs to call this number.’ Ben scrawled it on a piece of paper and handed it to the kid together with a twenty-dollar bill. The young guy nodded, turned and ran back towards the rear of the barber’s shop.

It was about an hour later, as Ben was driving back towards the middle of town, looking around for a hotel, that his phone buzzed on the dashboard. He picked it up.

‘Who I am talking to?’ said a man’s voice, nervy, aggressive.

Ben didn’t like the challenging approach but he bit his tongue. ‘I’m Ben Hope. Who’s this?’

‘Never mind who I am,’ the voice said harshly. The tone of someone working hard to cover up their fear. Someone clearly under a lot of strain. He gave Ben the name of a bar near a place called Hinesville, a few miles southwest of Savannah, and some rough directions to find the place. ‘Be there tonight at seven thirty.’ Then he hung up.