Miss Take - Chapter 12(3849)

Chapter 12(3849) 

Kelly’s eyes swam back into focus. She felt like she’d been hit in the head with a brick, her forehead was throbbing and she felt like she was going to be sick. She struggled to get her hand to her head to touch where it hurt, but looking down she realised her wrists were attached to the arms of the hotel chair with tie-wraps.

As she became more aware of her surroundings, she saw that her ankles were tied too, to the chair legs of the old, but solid, hotel chair. Looking up again, trying to take everything in, she saw Price, still standing over her, presumably waiting to see if he would get any sense out of her. She saw that besides the knife, he was armed with a handgun of some kind, which stuck out of a holster worn underneath his tweet jacket. He was still holding the knife, but had stepped back, apparently to give her a moment or two to gather her thoughts.

‘Make a sound and I kill you, understand?’ he said.

She nodded and rolled her head back, trying to find somewhere to put it where the pain and nausea was at its least.

‘Such a tiny little thing,’ mused Price as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘But deadly, or so Trajan’s man told me before I killed him. Turns out you don’t work for him at all, you little fibber.’

Price paced the room, then sat down on the bed, beside the chair where Kelly was tied.

‘Well, we are both in trouble now, that’s for sure,’ he mused. ‘You might not think it, but I’m actually a very nice man. I was just trying to do a friend a favour. And who cares about the death of a drug dealer? Now look at us eh?’

Price’s voice was low and gravelly, as if his lungs were full of the gunk of a life time of smoking. Now that she could see him up close, Kelly saw that his face was deeply lined and weathered, with hollow cheeks and a large round, acne-scared nose. He had bushy unkept eyebrows and the watery eyes of an old man. He didn’t look like a killer, he didn’t even sound like one. He looked like he could have been in an advert for over-sixties life insurance.

‘Shooting the police was a big mistake,’ he went on. ‘The bastard cops, snooping about. What did they expect? That was your fault of course. Yours. I was expecting the Vampires, so when the police turned up, I was all keyed up for a fight. Christ, if only they hadn’t turned back to the house…’

‘How did you find me?’ whispered Kelly, keeping her head down.

‘A Vampire told me after I persuaded him,’ said Price holding up the knife. ‘Trajan has turned his house into a fortress, but I managed to catch one of his men. Turns out they don’t have anything on me at all. Another one of your lies. But then he started talking about this phantom, a pricolici, he called it. When he described this demon, I remembered you. He said they knew where you were hiding and planned to go get you. I decided to beat Trajan too it.’

‘Why haven’t you killed me?’

‘Why would I?’ he asked, almost as if he was shocked. ‘What possible use to me are you dead? First off, I want to know who you work for.’

Kelly was still not together enough to think of a clever lie. ‘No one,’ she said.

Price suddenly lunged at her and the knife was right at her throat. His other hand was clamped painfully around her neck, making her gasp in pain.

‘Don’t lie to me, pricolici, or whoever the fuck you are, I’ll stick this right in you.’

Kelly, again could think of nothing other than the truth.

‘I’m a cat burglar,’ she groaned. ‘I was there the night you killed Mack. I saw you. I saw you leaving the house via the annex. I don’t work for anyone.’

Price was silent for, what felt like to Kelly, an age. Eventually he sat back on the bed. Kelly watched the knife as he casually held it on his knee.

‘Huh,’ he grunted. ‘That’s interesting. So why did you turn up at my house?’

Getting some of her spirit back, Kelly found herself slipping into the defensive, cheeky persona of Gavin Newgate, almost as a way of escaping the situation Kelly Kane had found herself in.

‘Because the dibble was after me for Mack’s murder, innit? I was gonna grass you up.’

‘And how did you find me?’

‘I found your fucking picture, name and address on the fucking internet, you daft old twat!’

‘Jesus,’ hissed Price as he stood up and held his hands to his mouth.

‘Is that how the police found me?’ he asked angrily as he turned and pointed the knife at her.

‘I hadn’t got round to grassing you, they must have figured it out for themselves. Welcome to the 21^st Century granddad.’

‘You’ve got a lot of lip, young lady. Watch your fucking mouth,’ he snarled at her, but she could tell she was scoring points, whatever that was worth.

Price stood and thought for a long while. Kelly looked over her bonds again, while she had the time and tried to pull her thoughts together. Whatever happened with Price, she couldn’t see it ending well. If she could just get free, or persuade him to release her, then she stood a chance. She was a great climber, and a good fighter, but one thing she was not, was an escape artist. The tie-wraps were strong enough and tight enough that she was stuck fast.

She turned her attention back to Price. He was walking about the small room, muttering to himself, obviously in a state of agitation. After a while he stopped and took a cheap looking mobile phone from his pocket and started to use it. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but judging by his actions and the noises it was making she guessed he was reading and sending text messages. Like all old people she knew he had not turned off any of the default sounds and each key press gave a little click.

Having sent some messages, the phone soon started making notification sounds as they were answered. This continued for some time, until Kelly felt compelled to ask about it.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Turns out you’re a popular girl,’ said Price with a sarcastic smile. ‘I put out a feeler to the Hamilton’s and Lenny got right back to me. Seems he knows exactly who you are and is very keen to meet you again.’

Kelly’s stomach dropped. ‘Why would you do this?’

‘He wants you so bad he offered to smuggle me out of the country. Thinking about it, I can blame you for Mack’s murder too.’

Price seemed to be delighted with his cleverness and Kelly began to realise he was not a smart man. A killer, certainly, but he was deluding himself if he thought the Hamiltons would help him.

‘You honestly think they’ll get you out the country?’ she couldn’t help asking.

‘They smuggle in prostitutes so they can smuggle me out. Lenny is discharging himself from the hospital right now. If he wants you so badly, he’ll give me what I want.’

‘I can’t see that working.’

Price seemed to give serious consideration to what she had said. ‘Well, I admit I’m getting desperate, but I’m running out of friends. What would you? If you think my plan is so stupid, what would you do?’

Kelly got the feeling he was genuinely hoping for an answer. Perhaps he realised, somewhere inside himself, that the situation he had put himself in was well beyond his ability to get out of.

‘Why don’t you just try your pal Sir Horace again?’ she ventured. ‘It was him that got you into this mess. Or is he mad you shot his son?’

Price gave her a baffled look. ‘Who?’

‘Nothing, forget it,’ she said dismissively, as she tried to figure out what Price’s reaction meant.

He was forming another question, but then his phone chimed again and he read the message that had just arrived. He put the phone down and was lost in thought for several moments.

‘Enough talking,’ he said sullenly after a while and sat back down on the bed.

They waited in silence for the best part of two hours. Price kept on checking his phone so much that he eventually had to plug it in to a socket by the bedside cabinet. It was four o’clock on Saturday morning when Lenny Hamilton, Two-Soups and two more of his henchmen arrived, announcing their presence with a gentle knock on the door.

Lenny had an arm in a sling, and a large white dressing over his left eye. The first thing he did was walk over to Kelly, lean over her and look her in the eyes.  

‘Jesus. You actually got him,’ he murmured.

‘Her,’ said Price casually.

‘Her?’ asked Lenny, doing a double take. ‘Fucking what? This psycho is a lassie?’

Two Soups leaned in to take a look at her as well. Lenny cuffed him back with his good hand. ‘Soups, you useless dozy twat. You were beaten up by a wee lassie.’

‘And Soft Tony…’ muttered Campbell.

‘Give me that blade,’ said Lenny as he picked up Price’s knife. ‘Anyone seen Reservoir Dogs? I can’t decide to do her ears first like in that, or go straight for the eyebrows.’

‘I’ll scream,’ warned Kelly.

‘Somebody get something to gag her with,’ said Lenny as he gently pressed the tip of the knife into her brow. Kelly tried to lean back, but had nowhere to go. She gritted her teeth, wondering when she would scream, but knowing that as soon as she did Lenny would kill her.

Nobody moved to obey Lenny’s order though, his three men simply standing around in mute confusion and Price clearly considering himself not the target of the instruction.

During the two hours they had been waiting for Lenny to show up, Kelly had been thinking what to say if she got the opportunity and while everyone paused, she poured it all out.

‘Wait,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘Lenny, wait. Did Soups tell you I came to see him a few days ago? Why would I be looking for Mack’s killer if I was Mack’s killer like Price said? He’s playing you Lenny. It was Price that killed your brother, not me.’

Lenny took the knife from Kelly’s face and turned to look back at Campbell.

‘Aye well,’ Campbell muttered. ‘He did aye. I mean she did…’

‘And when was this, you stupid cunt?’ growled Lenny.

‘Tuesday. Sorry boss, she was asking lots of questions. Said she was looking for Mack’s killer, right enough.’

Kelly, with some satisfaction, saw the alarm on Price’s face. He obviously had no idea that Kelly had visited Two-Soups or about what they had discussed.

‘This true, Price?’ said Lenny, pointing the knife at him.

‘Fuck off,’ snarled Price. ‘We made a deal. Your brother’s killer for me getting out of the country.’

‘It’s just…’ mused Lenny, the wheels turning in his head, ‘If she came to Soups asking questions, like she was looking for Mack’s killer. That’s an odd thing to do, if she was the one that killed him, aye?’

Price’s lips moved, but he evidently had no answer to give.

‘So clear that up for me cop-killer,’ went on Lenny, addressing Price. ‘Cuz right now it looks like I can rip the eyes brows off that wee fucker now, and get a reward for handing you in to the dibble on top of it later. It’s up to two hundred now, right Soups?’

‘Fuck’s sake!’ cried Price as he drew his gun and shot Campbell twice in the chest, then two more shots into the man beside him.

Campbell’s body fell on top of Kelly, knocking her over onto the floor, while the other man crumpled onto the bed. Campbell’s head fell beside hers, and his last breath he ever took wheezed out into her ear, while the blood of his two bullet wounds poured out over her.

Kelly tried to see what was going on, but could only see a little of the room between her right leg and the side of the bed. She saw Lenny draw a gun and shoot at Price who had presumably ducked into the bathroom. Lenny fired three more shots wildly in Price’s direction, then opened the door of the room and was gone. The last of Lenny’s men had a gun drawn, but had so far not fired it. Kelly tried to move her head but could only see his legs. Two more shots were fired and the man fell to his knees. He then crumpled, groaning and clutching his chest. Price walked past, shooting him in the head as he went out the door, seeming to have forgotten about Kelly in the confusion or assuming she was dead.

Kelly choked and gasped as she tried to escape the chair, but she was stuck fast under Campbell’s body. She looked for the knife, but couldn’t see it anywhere. She tried to collect her thoughts, think of what to do next, but Campbell’s dead eyes were right there beside her. All she could do was breath and try not to freak out. She was stuck, there was no way she could get free of her bonds, but she couldn’t just wait for the police to show up either.

She shouted for help, then continued shouting until she heard the door across the hall open. The drunk looking man who came out, sobered up pretty quickly when he saw all the bodies littering the floor of her room. Stood in confusion and astonishment, he was wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts.

‘Please!’ she yelled again. ‘They’ve all gone. I’m tied to a chair and trapped under this dead guy!’

The man seemed to want to go back into his own room, but Kelly the woman’s voice as she pushed him into the corridor, urging him to go and help.

‘Hey mister,’ Kelly begged. ‘I’m just a kid. All the baddies are gone! Help me!’

The man nervously entered her room, tiptoeing around the pools of blood in his bare feet.

Kelly could hear the sound of police sirens. Trying not to panic, she said, ‘there’s a knife over there.’

The man gingerly pushed Campbell’s body off of her and with terror in his eyes cut away all the tie wraps.

‘Thanks!’ she gasped, rubbing her wrists. She could hear the door opening and the rush of multiple heavy footsteps on the stairs. As quickly as she could, she grabbed Price’s phone from the bedside cabinet and put it in her pocket. Next, she opened the window and climbed out, just as the police entered the room, shouting at her rescuer to put his hands on his head.

She walked casually around the hotel and watched from a distance as four more police cars and two ambulances arrived to join the ones already there.

She didn’t linger, and darted off into the night as the police started to cordon off the area. She’d had to leave behind her bag of loot. It was annoying her, but it had been the right decision, she had not had the time to haul it out of its hiding place, so she didn’t have a single penny to her name and was covered in blood. There was only one place she could go.

***

It’s a long walk from Portobello to the Gyle, but it was still dark when she arrived at her old home at Craigs Park. It was after six in the morning when she knocked on the door. Niles was still awake, as it was the weekend, he was doing what he normally did, which was watch TV and drink single malt whiskey until the first post.  

‘You’re covered in blood!’ he exclaimed as she entered the house.

‘It’s not mine,’ she replied wearily. ‘Is there any hot water?’

Niles ushered her through to the bathroom and she shut the door before stripping off all her dirty clothes and running herself a bath.

‘What’s happened?’ Niles asked anxiously from the other side of the door.

‘I’ll tell you later, dad,’ she called back as she looked at her tired face in the steamed-up mirror over the sink. She tried to control her wild hair but gave up, it was matted with blood and she’d have to wash it all out.

Kelly eased herself into the hot water and tried to calm her thinking. She didn’t feel panicked or scared, so that was something, in fact, she felt strangely calm. Calm, but with an iron resolve to do whatever it took to deal with Price. The man was a psycho, he’d killed three people in her hotel room like he had been swatting at flies.

Maybe it was just because she was tired, but she no longer felt much of anything. She certainly no longer felt like the terrified little girl that had baulked at the corpses of Mack and Treacle, back when all this had started. She no longer felt like hiding under the bed after a run in with the lowlifes of Edinburgh either, if anything she felt contempt. Everything she’d been through, all the blood and violence, all she wanted to do now was get them. Beat them. Beat them all to a pulp and hand over whatever was left to Lavius.

All these stupid macho idiots going around with their swagger and their guns, not caring who they hurt and the lives that they wrecked. Price, Trajan, Lenny. She’d make sure they never bothered her again.

Her eyes half shut, she slipped into a day-dream of her catching Price and getting the bounty on his head. The reward would more than make up for all the loot she had lost at the hotel. She had is phone, there must be some way…

She stopped for a while to think about how she felt about casually planning something that would probably wind up with either Price or herself dead. There person she had been even just a month ago would be concerned, to say the least, with her current thought processes. Was she turning into one of them?

Don’t think like that, she told herself. One way or another it will all be over soon, and then she could think about getting her head straight. Right now, the lack of feeling, the cold calculation, was probably a good thing.

She nodded off.

Unsure about how much time had passed she was woken by a knock on the door. ‘You OK in there, love?’ asked her father.

She woke with a start, then realising the water was cold, clambered stiffly out of the bath.

‘Yes dad,’ she mumbled as she wrapped herself in a towel.

She opened the door to see Niles standing in the hall, his head hanging in concern.

‘Err… Sorry to sell you out,’ he said, ‘But that lad of yours called. He sounded so worried, said he wasn’t going to arrest you or anything. Just wanted to know if you were safe…’

Kelly scowled at Niles. ‘What did you do?’

The bedroom door on the landing swung open and Lavius stepped out, a crutch under his arm. Kelly raised her fists, which let her towel drop to the floor.

‘Woah!’ cried Lavius, averting his eyes. ‘No violence ok, hot stuff?’

‘What do you want?’ she snarled at him, snatching up her towel and barging past him into the bedroom.

As she put on some of her old clothes, Corum talked, with his back to her.

‘What do I want?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Three dead bodies in a Portobello guesthouse. Poor Soups is one of them. Someone matching your description seen fleeing the scene. Want to tell me what happened?’

‘It was Price,’ she snapped back. ‘He found me and wanted to give me to the Hamiltons. It was him that killed them.’

Lavius let out a long breath. ‘Phew, oh boy. Let me guess - the handover didn’t go to plan?’

‘No,’ said Kelly as she pulled on a pink jumper with a teddy bear pattern. ‘He probably killed one of Trajan’s men too.’

‘Jesus yes,’ said Lavius as he turned to look at her. ‘Thanks for clearing that one up then. One of the Vampires was found dead in Holyrood Park two nights ago. That colour suits you by the way.’

Kelly rounded on him, having lost all patience. ‘Fucking deadbeat cops, man. Is that all I am to you? An informant? Well I hope you get a pay-rise for that one.’

‘Hey, that’s not what I meant,’ said Lavius with a calmness that she found infuriating.

‘Fuck you. I was nearly killed last night,’ she snarled. ‘And because I was following a lead that you gave me. Doing your dirty work.’

She knew her anger was not fully justified and that she sounded unreasonable, but at the same time she was enjoying letting off some steam.

‘Cool it Kelly, all right?’ snapped Lavius, who had also reached the limit of his patience. ‘You got yourself into this mess with all your crime-ing. And if you want to trade sad stories then look at this.’

He leaned against the doorframe and held up his crutch. Kelly had the decency to look down and say nothing.

‘I’m here to help, ok?’ said Lavius.

‘Here to help?’ scoffed Kelly and she nearly blurted out everything that she knew about Sir Horace, but then her long-held mistrust of the police and people in general made her bite her tongue. Right now, Corum was playing at being her friend. How would he react if he found out what she knew? He’d arrest her at least; she was sure of that. Perhaps he would deny it all, but then plot her demise, send her into a trap or hand her over the Hamilton’s, just like Price had tried to do.

She calmed down. She was being paranoid, she knew that, but perhaps a little bit of paranoia was a good thing in the circumstances. She took a deep breath and then let it out. Finally, she gave Lavius a weak smile and hoped he didn’t guess at all the things that had just gone through her head.

‘Right good,’ said Lavius with a sigh. ‘Now, when you’ve finished up here you lunatic, meet me in the kitchen for a nice cup of tea. I bring news of my own.’

‘For fuck’s sake, what now?’

‘I know who hired Price to kill Mack the Knife.’

Kelly’s jaw dropped, but before she could speak, Lavius turned and with a grimace, hobbled down the stairs.