Phil Kurthausen - The Silent Pool

Malcolm had slapped backs and, even at the end there, made a rather good speech, so he thought, about teamwork and success. He had sent them all home and told them if he saw anyone in before midday on Monday they would be sacked.

Now the office was empty and Malcolm was alone, surrounded by empty pizza boxes, coffee cups and boxes of files. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small crystal topped vial. He poured out a generous line and snorted it in triumph. He poured himself a large Balvenie from the bottle on his desk and then sat back in his chair and soaked up the view from the top of the city.

He considered whether he should go home to Steph and the kids or whether he should use this opportunity to visit Katrina. He checked his watch. Too late to call home and he wouldn't want to wake Steph. Yes, he could tell her the deal completed late on and he had to sleep in his office. It was never too late to call Katrina in her dockland flat and even if she was asleep, so what, he was the client and, as he told his staff, what the client wants the clients always fucking gets. He began to get aroused at the thought of a sleepy Katrina and how maybe she would need a bit of the rough stuff to wake her up. Just the ticket , he thought.

He didn't hear the lift door open and a man step out into the reception area of the Grantham & Lucky Partnership.

Malcolm closed his eyes savouring the peaty taste of the whisky his thoughts skipping ahead to the next hour or so of bliss with Katrina.

‘Hello Malcolm,’ said a voice.

Malcolm swung his chair around.

‘Who said that?’ he shouted with all the Colombian confidence that was buoying up his neuro-receptors.

At the end of the corridor leading to the lift a man appeared. Tall, dark and angular, he wore a black jacket with a hood that covered the top half of his face.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

The man said nothing but stood there, silent and still. Malcolm could see the lower right half of his face was exposed, revealing a white scar the sight of which made his guts twist and turn. For a second he thought he recognised the man but no, it was impossible, and he didn't know anybody with such a disfigurement. It wasn't the type of thing you would forget easily.

‘I'm calling security!’ Malcolm picked up the phone: the line was dead. Slowly, he put the receiver down.

‘What do you want, money? I've got money.’

The man moved closer.

‘Well, what do you want? I tell you what you need! You could do with seeing a good dermatologist I see. I have the number of an excellent consultant. He could sort you right out, you know.’

The man said nothing.

Malcolm put his hands behind his head and pushed back his chair. He had been surprised, maybe even a little frightened if the truth be told, but now he was back in charge. It was the natural order of things: winners and losers, and this man, this apparition, he was a loser.

‘You see, you come up here trying to frighten me but what are you going to do? You're just another of life's little losers, Scarface.’

The man dared to come in here, at his moment of triumph and threaten him. Who was he? Some tramp? A wronged client? He was a nobody and he was going to get the full Malcolm Ford treatment. Malcolm was beginning to enjoy this now.

The man was standing a foot away from the front of his desk.

‘People like you are scum. What is it? A heroin habit? Did Mummy not give you enough teat? Did Daddy touch you so now you have to go around taking other people's, successful people's property. Eh, so which is it?’

He remained silent and impassive.

‘So, either tell me what you want or just fuck off!’

‘Do you believe?’

In that moment Malcolm's world disappeared. His house, his cars, his mistress, his kids, all were gone, replaced by a bloody void and a memory buried as deep as a corpse.

From a million miles away Malcolm could hear a voice, monotone and expressionless.

‘Do you believe?’

The scream in Malcolm's throat never made it to his lips because with a movement so quick that he didn't even see where it came from, the man slipped a leather rope around his neck and pulled it tight, cutting off Malcolm's supply of air.

He tried to scream but he couldn't produce a sound. He passed out.

He had no idea how long he was out. When he awoke he was woozy, his vision blurry. But then he recognised where he was, the corridor outside his office. There was an agonising pain from his neck where it had been crushed by the rope. He tried to move and then quickly realised his hands were bound to the arms of the chair with rolls of sticky tape and his legs were tied together with a plastic tie. He could taste blood in his mouth. He could hear breathing behind him and then closer until there was hot breath on his ear.

‘Do you believe?’

‘Listen,’ said Malcolm. ‘Whatever you want I'll give it to you. Money? I've got money, I won't say a word.’

The man laughed.

‘Are my children OK?’

‘First the money and only now you ask about your children. You'll never know whether they are alive or dead.’

‘You bastard. If you've touched them I'll…’ He began to sob.

The man spun the chair round so Malcolm was looking directly into his eyes.

‘You'll do what, Malcolm Ford, kill me?’

Malcolm's chair was spun again and then pushed, accelerating hard down the corridor towards the window and then the hands pushing the chair pulled away as the chair gained speed.

But Malcolm knew he would just bounce off, these windows were made of toughened safety glass. He might break his nose though. He steeled himself for the blow.

The sound of the gun was dampened by the silencer fitted on the muzzle. However, the sound of the bullet was deafening as it tore through the air above Malcolm's head, breaking the sound barrier with a crack. It slammed into the window causing a starfish pattern of cracks to splinter across its surface.

In the split second before he hit the window, Malcolm knew he was going to die and the realisation caused him to howl like a beast, a sound cut off as the glass tore open his cheeks from jaw to ear as he hit the window.

The glass gave way as it shredded his body and then Malcolm Ford, father, husband, lawyer and deal-maker plunged twenty-three stories in 4 seconds before hitting the concrete below and ceasing to exist.

CHAPTER 11

Monday morning had never sat well with Erasmus. Even during his time in the Army when the days of the week were made redundant by the all-encompassing military routine, he reserved a special loathing for Monday morning and reckoned that it always brought with it that extra little dose of fear and loathing.

He had read that suicides and heart attacks peaked at around 9.30 a.m. on a Monday morning, something to do with the release of the stress hormone cortisol. Erasmus thought that Mondays were just plain evil and today was just proving the point.

The problem today was that the strikes had been called off and the teachers and other council workers were back in work. The city was in funds and the school runs were back on, clogging up the roads and making him late for work.

His office was two rooms, an office and an antechamber in an old shipping building off Water Street. Back before the war, the building had housed the headquarters of one of the world's largest mineral and ore shippers. Now the grand offices were carved up with stud walls, and microbusinesses operated from the cells formed.

Next door to Erasmus’ office was a tooth whitening operation run by Katy, a fortysomething ex-stripper with a permanent tan and eyebrows as thick as carpet swatches. Through the thin walls Erasmus could hear the low hum of the infrared lamps she had purchased off eBay as they bleached her seemingly never-ending queue of customers.