"I promise we'll sort this out soon. Well stay here tonight and go back to London tomorrow. And I'll go to the police and they'll protect us."
She thought about this then nodded. But he had no intention of going to the police. He was going to finish this himself. He just needed a plan, an idea.
Satisfied, at least partially, Maria started to eat. Jimmy ate, too. Louise tried to splash ketchup onto her chips and got it all over her hand. She faked a noise of pain, saying she'd been cut. Maria managed a laugh, not completely forced, and helped her clean it off.
Jimmy stared at the ketchup, at her hand, and the first sparks of an idea came to him. They ate, and he thought. When the landlord came in a few moments later, something in Jimmy's mind almost clicked as the final slice of a plan slotted into place.
"Gotta pop to Filmwell to stock up for you guys. Got nothing in. Me and Albert, shop over road, had a fall out, so I don't shop with him. Guys need anything?"
Maria shook her head. Louise asked for chocolate. Jimmy said, "A Polaroid camera. Think you can get one?"
The landlord said, "Instant ones? I got me one of those. In the attic, I think. The ex-wife, she bought it, didn't trust shop people, saying they laugh at people's photos, and keep copies. I'll get that for you. Hunt it out if it's there. Anything else."
Jimmy shook his head. He was aware of Maria staring at him, but he didn't look back at her. He was still staring at the outfit now worn by the landlord.
Biker leathers.
***
Einar bought yet another goddamned ticket for a flight out of the same goddamned airport. This time he chose a flight that gave him six hours to wait, so he could take care of a final piece of business. He drove fast through the crowded London traffic, garnering a number of honks and rude gestures. It was a wise choice of God's, he thought, to not give humans the power to kill by thought alone. In his current mood, he'd be the last man left on earth before long. His face hurt like hell, and so did his pride. Outwitted again. It was turning into a joke, the way Marsh kept appearing at the last minute to foil his plans. But the anger towards the man, while bloated, didn't match his desire to get out of this country. He was leaving this evening and nothing was going to stop that. If he was at the departure lounge and he saw the entire Marsh family walk by him, he wasn't going to do a thing. He was going to write this job off and stay in that bloody queue and get on that bloody plane and land in bloody Nice three hours later and find someone to fuck and then grab a beer and settle down to enjoy the view of the Colline du Chateau from his balcony. And be content knowing that Marsh was living here in this polluted hell called London and stuck in traffic like this!
Despite his ruined suit and gored face, Einar had managed to thumb a lift way out there in the middle of nowhere. That got him all the way to Sevenoaks, where the driver worked in a cafe at Knole House, some fifteen century country manor she rambled on about constantly. Oh well, she liked her job. In Sevenoaks Einar stole a plumber's Ford Connect van and abandoned it at Knightsbridge, where he knew of a doctor who didn't mind treating the sort of people his kind were under obligation to report to the police. The NHS wouldn't pay for the twenty-eight stitches he needed to fix his face, so Einar tossed the guy a thousand pounds. Literally tossed: across the room the moment he stepped into the surgery. Two hours later he was out, his face purple and swelled like a blowfish's, his pocket full of Ibuprofen, his mind full of hate and wrath. He looked like a monster and he knew it. He also knew that he was a tinderbox waiting to explode, and traffic like this wasn't helping.
His next task was another car. A second-hand place wrapped in rusty chain-link fencing had a fifteen year-old BMW Five-Series sitting in the lot at £1999, but the guy in the office was a stickler for paperwork. Einar showed him £2500 in hard cash, and suddenly the guy wasn't such a stickler any more. Einar slammed the wad of money onto the guy's desk and caught a key in return. The car had tax and petrol and Einar was insured to drive any vehicle under his Peter Ackers persona, so he was good to go.
Next he had rented a cheap Bed and Breakfast room and settled down, without settling. He cleaned his pistol, he watched the B&W TV, and he paced up and down. He was tempted to go and burn Marsh's house and workplace to the ground, but knew that would achieve nothing. So he rode out the night, tried to get his mind off James Marsh and where he might be hiding with his family, and finally slept. Friday morning he woke to find he had tossed and turned in the night and loosened the bandage and a few stitches, and blood had stuck his face to the pillow. That should have set the tinderbox alight, but he saw the funny side of it and calmed down. Peeled away the pillow, which felt strangely nice as it sucked at his face, then showered, dressed in a pale suit he had bought en route to the B&B, replaced the bandage and applied concealer to the parts of his face that looked like a tomato. He stayed calm until the painkillers started to wear off. There were periods of calm after that - as he went for breakfast and thought about what to do today - but mostly there was simmering rage, and again, this bloody traffic wasn't helping.
He rammed his horn. A guy in the car in front, who'd stopped to pick up someone he recognised at a bus stop, got out and stood by his door and threw his arms wide as if to say, What?
Einar wound down his window and stuck his arm out. He showed the guy his butterfly knife. Flicked it open right in front of him with a magician's flair. He might as well have cocked a gun. The guy sharply got back in his car.
Once traffic was moving at a decent speed again, Einar yanked his mobile and dialled a recent number. The call went to voicemail and a mechanical lady asked him to leave a message.
"Something has come up and I must leave the country. The job is, unfortunately, unfulfilled. But you owe me for Chopper and my time. I'll let you decide on a fair amount. And no lockers this time. I want a face-to face. Call me back the moment you get this."
Einar hung up and drove in search of a cafe. He sat outside, close to a wall, keeping the injured side of his face facing the brickwork so as few people as possible could see the thick bandage. Goddamned James Marsh. Einar knew he'd have a lifelong scar, but that wasn't what bothered him right now. The bandage was. It drew attention. He'd probably already showed his face to a million CCTV cameras in this heavily watched city, and now he was wearing something that made him stand out to everyone else. It was making him paranoid. He couldn't shake the feeling that things were going to go bad for him, soon. The police were out there, tying things together, closing in on him. He'd done a million things wrong today, taken a billion risks. Showing his face at Marsh's workplace, letting the receptionist at the service station hotel live, abandoning the Audi on a main road with his gear in the back - these and a host of others, any single one of which might end this for him. His face and DNA were not in any databanks anywhere in the world, and he was in this country under one of many aliases, but if he got arrested, the evidence would be there. Because of those risks and mistakes. He had been in this game for over a decade and never before put a foot wrong. Nobody who mattered had seen his face, he'd left no prints, and he was never in a place for more than a day or two. Sixteen professional kills and he was still a ghost. Until now. Was he losing his skills? Was his target so good that he was forcing Einar to make mistakes? Did Einar just not care anymore? Was Fate deciding that it was time for him to pay for his crimes with a long prison sentence?
If the police swooped right now, he could probably handle that. But arrest would sting more the closer he got to getting out of here. If they descended on him while he was boarding his plane, or when he got off at the other end, well, that would just about finish him off. Instant insanity. They'd cart away a blubbering wreck.
He smiled and sipped his latte. That wasn't going to happen. Despite the risks he was taking, despite playing out-of-character, he was still good at being invisible. The police knew nothing. They might get hold of a decent description from one of the many people he'd showed his face to, but hey -
His phone rang.
r /> "Why would you want to meet me, Einar?" the Paymaster said. There was a hint of concern in his voice, as if he feared Einar were plotting against him.
"I just want to meet the man paying me. I always meet the people I work for. I might need to remember your face in future, if things go wrong for me. And I want to meet at a place you work at or own."
Employers were people who knew things about Einar. Never much, probably not enough to cause any damage, but you never knew. So it helped to know about them, too. A face and a place to commit to memory.
A pause. "Of course, Einar. But you can trust me, I promise you." He gave a location and Einar picked a time. Four p.m., so he could get to the airport for his five o'clock flight.
He ordered another drink and a meal and tried to calm down. But his sliced face wouldn't stop stinging.
***
Jimmy parked the van in the building's underground car park. He went into the back and knelt next to the guy tied up and gagged and laying amongst his own parcels.
"I'm leaving now and I won't be back. You're safe. You're still in London. I'll phone the police and tell them where you are. You'll be free in an hour and then you'll get a couple of weeks off on full pay for emotional distress."
The guy nodded, his eyes full of fear.
Jimmy exited the DHL van. He was wearing the delivery driver's brown outfit and cap. He locked the van and tossed the keys on the roof. He scanned the area. Nobody seemed to be around. It was half-past four.
Seventy minutes earlier he had been on an industrial estate three miles away, having spotted and followed the van. The driver got out and took a parcel to into a building. He came back two minutes later and got in the van, only to have Jimmy rise up from the back and press the potato peeler he'd stolen into his neck.
"Drive to the end and stop."
At the end of the road was a turnaround. Jimmy made the driver strip, then tied him with masking tape ripped off some of the parcels on the shelves. He put the driver's outfit on and drove away.
Now, he exited the underground car park, carrying a small package, went across the road and turned to face the tall building.
The Chalet Tower, in the business district of Canary Wharf, was modern looking in glass and steel but bland and forgettable amongst the edifices surrounding it, especially the 42-floor HSBC tower that cast an early evening shadow across it, as if to tell workers it was almost clocking out time. Jimmy had already checked the building out online while researching the name that Davey had given him. The ground floor was a restaurant with a high roof that occupied three storeys, so the building proper started at floor four. The next thirteen floors were occupied by businesses. Jimmy wanted floor nine: Dalisay Foodstuff Co.
DFC, he'd read, was a Philippine supplier of tinned fruits with a London office. He vaguely recognised the name. Davey had told Jimmy that the man who approached him worked for DFC as some sort of clerk. Some guy Davey knew through a five-a-side football team that played every few Sundays. So here he was.
Jimmy didn't know what connected him to some international food company, but whatever it was, it was enough for someone, maybe someone up there right now, to want him dead. He didn't know who - the clerk was just a go-between lackey, according to Davey - but figured the guy had to sit high up the ladder to have the sort of clout and money needed to find and secure the services of a hitman like Einar. According to a companies index he'd scoured on the Internet, DFC's London Office's Export Manager was one Victor Hartbauer. In an import/export business, Export Manager had to be a pretty high rung. So Victor would do.
Jimmy approached the entrance, a pair of glass doors with the companies' names printed on them. The foot traffic was heavy and that was good. Jimmy joined the throng entering the building. Most went ahead and through another set of doors into the restaurant, while Jimmy cut left and made for the lifts. There was a camera above each, but he kept his head low. In his cap and brown outfit, and carrying a parcel, he knew he would not look out of place. Just some delivery guy delivering. Happened a thousand times a day in a thousand other businesses that also recorded it on camera. So long as he didn't go in there and slit ten throats, no one would review the camera footage and no one would remember him.
As he waited for the lift to descend, he clutched the package in his hand. Passers-by might think he was delivering a wrapped CD, but it wasn't a CD. It was a Polaroid photograph with a phone number written on it.
The landlord of the Red Lion Inn had found his old camera in the attic and gotten it working. Jimmy had thanked him, then asked for one more favour. Could he borrow the man's biker jacket and helmet for five minutes? While the landlord had suspiciously gone off to fetch both, Jimmy had nipped into the dining room and slipped the jar of tomato ketchup into his pocket. Two minutes later he was upstairs, and outlining his plan to Maria, whose face was one of shock. But she accepted that his plan might work, and took the helmet and jacket from him and put them on. Then Jimmy sent Louise into the bathroom to use the toilet, even though she protested that she didn't need to go. He closed the bedroom door and extracted the ketchup from his pocket. Six minutes later he exited and used the shower. When he returned to the bedroom, Maria was still sitting on the bed where he had left her. Still staring at the product of his plan.
A single photograph. Now, he clutched that photograph hard in his hands, as if fearful that a sharp breeze might snatch it away. It was just paper and ink, but it held - he hoped - the end of his problems.
The lift arrived and Jimmy stepped on, squeezing between two women in suits who got off chattering. He leaned against the mirrored back wall after pressing the button for floor nine. The doors started to close, and then opened again as a caramel-coloured hand at the end of a pale suit darted in and activated the proximity sensor.
Jimmy stiffened as the doors slid apart to reveal Einar.
***
Jimmy put his head low as Einar entered the tiny confines of the lift. Einar also turned his head, and raised a hand to cover the bandage on his face where Jimmy had slashed him. Both men faced away from each other, didn't speak as the lift rode upwards.
Jimmy thought about taking him out. Einar was slightly ahead, to his right. Jimmy could pull out a pen and drive it hard into Einar's neck. But he didn't fancy his chances of escaping the building afterwards. And such an action wouldn't exactly convince Victor Hartbauer, if he was the paymaster, to give up his hunt for Jimmy.
The lift stopped on floor nine and Einar stepped out. Jimmy fell into step behind him as they walked down an ornate corridor with a blue carpet and framed canvases on the walls. If not for the marring effect of fire extinguishers placed at intervals, you could almost believe you'd been whisked back in time a hundred years.
Einar stopped at the double doors at the end. A plaque held the name of the company, and the Export Manager's name below. He turned slightly, noting that the guy in the DHL uniform had also stopped. Jimmy kept his head at such an angle that he could see Einar's chin from under his cap's peak but nothing above. Enough to let him know what the man was doing, without exposing his own face.
"You want this room?" Einar said.
"Uh-hu," Jimmy grunted. Einar held out a hand. "I'll take it in."
Jimmy paused. Perfect, because he didn't really want to go in there, in case someone saw his face and realised the truth. So he slapped the little package into the other man's hand, grumbled a "Cheers," and turned to leave. At the lift, he turned back. Einar had his back to him. Hadn't suspected a thing. The double doors opened and Einar went in. And Jimmy rode the lift down, hoping that he had set rolling the wheel that would bring all this to an end.
***
Einar left the timely decor of the corridor and stepped into a clinical waiting room. There was a steel desk with a computer and a fax machine and a plump woman behind, typing away. She had her coat on, her bag slung over a shoulder, as if about to leave for the day. The floor was fake wood, the walls shiny blue. There was another door, framed by tall
plastic plants in pots like sentries. And a black leather sofa with some woman's magazine on each arm. Very business-like. Very uncomfortable. He wouldn't want to be a job applicant waiting out here for his moment in that next room with the boss.
The woman looked up as Einar approached. She kept her face neutral, but he saw the shock in her eyes at the sight of his bandage and puffed cheek. She didn't stop typing as she said, "Our office is closing soon. Can I help?"
"I would imagine so, being the receptionist and all," Einar said. "Mr. Hartbauer's expecting me."
"Well, he's going home soon, too. What time was your appointment?"
"Soon as I got here. Tell him Einar is here." He tossed the package on the desk. "That's his."
His tone made her move quickly. He sat on the sofa and waited. He had patience at the moment, but only because his flight wasn't for another hour or so. He looked at a calendar on the wall and noted that some of the dates in later months were circled. How he would hate to have a normal job, knowing you were going to be in the same place day after day, using the same toilet, doing the same routines. He felt sorry for the receptionist.
He opened a magazine and tried to find a story of interest, but page after page seemed to be full adverts for hair products and other women's things. He tossed the magazine down and sat back. Tried to empty his mind, but all that did was focus his brain on the throb from his ruined face.
***
Victor Hartbauer was vastly overweight and part of the reason was a chocolate bar vending machine right there in his office. There was that, his big wooden desk with a phone and computer, a file cabinet, and a large whiteboard filled with scrawls, and that was it. When his secretary entered, he was behind the desk with his coat on, facing a young man in a suit on the other side. This guy was a personal assistant named Jeremy, who would have worked part time for any typical boss. But Victor was a lazy man and the extra hours Jeremy put in were mostly spent running around like a dogsbody. He was also a bodyguard who had once been a firearms officer with S019 and knew how to use the gun in a holster at his chest.