Chapter 16(7594)
Kelly was in no hurry to tell them how she had been
captured, as it had happened much the same way as it had happened to Corum. When
Kelly had first arrived, she had managed to infiltrate the party, sidling in
with a group of kids that that had gone out into the garden briefly before
being called back in by their parents.
Once inside she ran around with the children, tearing
from room to room, keeping her head down and away from the adults as much as
possible.
‘Who are you?’ one of the kids had asked. ‘How come
you’re black?’
She realised then that she was the only other non-white
kid at the party besides one half-Asian boy, and that in this nest of racists
she would soon be noticed. There was no sign of Reggie though, so she had slipped
away and searched around upstairs. There wasn’t anyone up there at all though,
it had been roped off from the party guests and some of the doors were even
locked. She had gone to a window in one of the hallways and looked out across
the courtyard to a converted out-building – a creamery or something – and had
seen some lights on. She unclipped the small binoculars from her utility belt,
took a closer look and saw Price, sat at his desk, drinking alone.
Rather than going back downstairs she had opened the
window and taken to the rooftops, entered the out-building through a skylight
and skulked downstairs.
When she entered the office, he had looked up from his
glass in confusion. ‘The party isn’t in here child. Go back to the main house.’
‘I’m not here for the party,’ she replied, crossing over
to the desk.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded, knocking over his whisky
glass as he stood up.
‘I’m someone that your pal Clarence Price shot at,’
replied Kelly. ‘Do you know where he is?’
Reggie reached for phone, but Kelly kicked him in the
stomach and he fell to the floor. Kelly leaned over him and again asked, ‘where
is Price?’
‘Are you the Squirrel?’ wheezed Cunningham as he got his
breath back.
‘I’m not here to play Guess Who?’ hissed Kelly in reply
as she grabbed his wrist and put it into a painful lock. ‘Just tell me where
Price is.’
Cunningham had moaned in pain then gave up. ‘Fine… Fine.
He’s here. I’ll take you to him.’
Kelly had been surprised by that, and had allowed Cunningham
to lead her down to the wine cellar. Turning the last corner before the bunker she
had been set on by three Aryan Brotherhood goons and although she had smashed
in the faces of two of them, more kept arriving from upstairs until she was
forced into the bunker and they had shut the door on her, Reggie screaming
‘Close that fucking door!’ repeatedly all the while. He’d gotten too close
during the melee and she had fetched him a real clip on the side of his eye.
Her last sight of him was as he leaded over, as if trying not to be sick,
spitting and screaming as he clutched at his swelling face.
***
‘Sounds like we both fell for the same trick,’ said
Corum as he eased himself down onto the bottom bunk to take the weight off his
bad leg. He then gently leaned the crutch against the bed-post.
‘I should have known better,’ sighed Kelly, obviously
angry at herself. ‘I shouldn’t have let him lure me down here. What a dope.’
‘Don’t feel bad,’ said Lavius. ‘No one else in this room
is in any position to judge you. Why not Spider-man though? That would suit you
better, no?’
‘I prefer Batman,’ replied Kelly. ‘He has a utility
belt.’
‘Right,’ replied Corum with a nod, before turning to
Price. ‘What are you doing here then?’
Price didn’t say anything at first, and Corum turned to
Kelly who shrugged. After a long silence Price eventually spoke. ‘I want to do
a deal.’
Both Kelly and Corum laughed at this absurd statement.
‘Bit late for that,’ pointed out Lavius. ‘Clarence
Price, I am arresting you for the murder of Mabel Yoyuwevuto, Baxter Campbell,
Trent McBride, Hamish Joules and Mack the fucking knife. You do not have to say
anything, but…’
‘Fuck off,’ snapped Price.
Corum stopped talking and stood up again. He looked
around the low-ceilinged room, full of shadows from the candle on the table. It
was hot and airless, to Corum it felt like the candle was burning up all the
oxygen.
‘We need to find a way out of here,’ he muttered to
himself.
Kelly looked as if she was about to say something, but
when he looked at her expectantly, she shook her head, and indicated she didn’t
want to speak in front of Price. Corum shrugged and looked at Price who was
still sitting at the table, away in some distant dream. When he felt Corum’s
eyes on him he looked up blankly. Kelly kissed her teeth, jumped back onto the
top bunk and lay down.
There was no means of escape, it didn’t take Corum long
to work that out, and it wasn’t long before he too was stretched out on a bunk,
awaiting his fate.
Hours passed. Corum started to need to pee.
‘There is a bucket over there,’ grunted Price, pointing
to a covered pot in the corner.
Just as Corum was finishing his business, there was a
creaking sound as the door was opened and several figures, silhouetted from the
harsh strip-light in the other room, crowded at the doorway. Corum turned, winced
and tried to make them out. It was Reggie, Trajan and two of his men. Trajan
was holding a gun.
‘Stay where you are, don’t get up,’ said Trajan as he
pointed the gun first at Price then at Corum. ‘Where is pricolici?’
‘She’s in there somewhere,’ said Cunningham, then with a
shrill giggle added, ‘unless they’ve eaten her!’
‘A million for Price and a million for the policeman.
The pricolici I throw in for free,’ said Trajan, eyeing them up as if bidding
for cattle.
‘Deal!’ said Cunningham instantly.
‘What are going to do with us?’ asked Kelly as she moved
to look out from the top bunk.
Trajan shrugged. ‘These two, we put bullet in head and
dump bodies in the sea. You, pricolici, I plan something special.’
Corum stood up from the bunk, despite Trajan’s warning
and looked Cunningham in the eyes. ‘Seriously Reggie? You’ve tried to murderer
your way out of your problems twice already. You think this will work?’
Cunningham was soaked with sweat. His right eye was
swollen shut. He licked his lips nervously, but didn’t speak.
‘I have people coming, bad people,’ Kelly abruptly
blurted out. ‘Reggie, let us go and I can call them off.’
Reggie went white in the face and looked at Trajan
nervously. The Romanian seemed to consider Kelly’s threat for a moment or two,
but then eventually said, ‘The Pricolici has no people. I checked.’
‘No!’ cried Kelly as she jumped down from the bunk.
‘Lenny and his men are coming… oh…’
She stopped talking as the door was shut and locked.
‘That true?’ asked Corum once the grinding of the wheel
stopped.
‘It maybe doesn’t matter now, and probably nothing will come
of it,’ she replied, ‘but I told Niles to call Lenny if he didn’t hear from me
after midnight.’
‘Jesus, and send them here?’
‘Yeah,’ Kelly shrugged. ‘I told Niles to tell them that Mack’s killer
was here.’
They both turned to look at Price, who gazed back at
them blankly. ‘What?’ he asked.
An hour later, Price was still sat at the table, and
Kelly and Corum were going through what she had on her utility belt. Reggie’s
men had not been able to get it off her, no one had dared to try, so besides
the plastic toys the belt had originally contained they still had her two knifes,
her smoke bombs and all the other tools of her trade, all the way down to a zip
lock bag of bacon. Corum ate it as they talked in whispers.
‘That’s for the dogs,’ she chided.
‘What dogs?’ he asked as he popped the last bit into his
mouth and chewed it.
They also both still had their mobile phones, but there
was no signal so deep underground.
There was a bang upstairs, like a gunshot, distant, but
distinctive. They all stood up. There was a very distant and muffled scream.
More violent noises followed.
‘The Hamiltons are here,’ said Corum.
Corum and Kelly moved to stand either side of the door.
They had already decided that the next time the door opened they were going to
try and make a break for it. They heard shouting, bangs, sounds of fighting.
Then a scream from right outside the door.
The wheel turned and the door slowly opened.
Lenny Hamilton, still battered and bruised about the
face from his first encounter with Kelly, but with no more dressing over his
eye was stood silhouetted against the bright light of the room outside, holding
Reggie by the scruff of the neck with his left hand, while brandishing a gun in
the other. He scanned the room and saw Clarence Price, his brother’s killer,
stood by the table.
‘Price,’ growled Lenny and pulled the trigger. At the
same time, Corum’s crutch came scything down on Lenny’s arm, making him howl in
pain and collapse to the floor. Violent confusion erupted as two of Lenny’s men
tried to get their boss out of the way and swing the door shut. Corum’s ears
were ringing from the shot as he started swinging wildly with the crutch,
pushing them away from the door. The room and the corridor beyond started to
fill with smoke, from the bombs that Kelly had tossed from the bunker. He
spotted Reggie running down the tunnel and made to go after him, but ducked out
of the way as more of Lenny’s men arrived. One swung at him with a club, but
then flew back, collapsing as Kelly’s knife flew through the smoke and hit him
in the chest.
He could see Kelly moving through the smoke, a
ridiculous black caped figure with pointy ears, lashing out crippling punches
and kicks to anyone stupid enough to come near her. Lenny’s men scattered,
running back to the wine cellars. Corum pursued them, swinging his crutch and
screaming like a mad man.
Kelly made it to the cellar first and stopped when Corum
came limping up behind her. ‘Stop!’ he gasped. ‘Just wait. Someone must have
called the police by now. They’ll be here soon.’
‘We just wait here then?’ she asked, puzzled, jumping
from one foot from the other with excitement.
‘No, just wait for me, I’ll go first,’ he panted.
‘Upstairs is full of Nazi’s, gangsters and God knows what. I need to go arrest
the lot of them.’
Kelly snorted derisively, but did as he asked, and
together the made their way up the stairs and into the kitchen. There was a man
lying face down under the table. Corum went to check him.
‘Alive,’ he said. ‘One of Reggie’s Aryan Brothers.’
The continued on into the main hall, following the
shouting. Three of Lenny’s men, dressed in black and armed with clubs and
knives were fighting half a dozen Nazis. The Aryan Brothers were throwing
chairs at the Hamiltons and whatever else they could find, none of them were
fighters though and they were giving ground.
They also had their backs to Kelly, who flew into them,
knocking one flying with a round-house kick to the back of the head. She landed,
turned and delivered an uppercut to another of Reggie’s men before they knew
what was going on. The others fled up the stairs, and were pursued by the
Hamiltons. One of them turned to Kelly and asked, ‘who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m on your side,’ she gasped. ‘I’m the one that called
you.’
The man shrugged and followed his companions upstairs.
‘Kelly!’ yelled Corum as more Aryan Brothers arrived
from through the main door, men who had been roused from their sleep in the converted
stables across the driveway. They looked like tougher army types, and did not
see Kelly as a threat.
‘Where’s your mum?’ one of them asked.
By way of reply Kelly drew out her knife and stabbed him
in the thigh.
‘Jesus fuck!’ he screamed as he toppled to the floor,
clutching his leg.
The other three men dropped into fighting stances.
Corum was about to join the fray when he heard screaming
coming from the library. The screams continued and he decided that he’d
probably only get in Kelly’s way anyway and that he’d better go and investigate.
He went to the door and glanced back at Kelly. She seemed to be doing fine, if
he was honest, a diminutive Batman, ducking and weaving between the larger
combatants, slashing out with her knife at anyone that got too close.
He opened the door and entered the library. The women
and kids were huddled in one corner as two of the Hamiltons menaced them with baseball
bats. Corum got to them as fast as he could and felled one with a strong swing
to the side of the head, the man falling to the floor like a sack of flour.
The other man, startled, swung wildly with his club,
tripped, and fell bodily onto Corum. Corum was off balance and they both
tumbled to the floor. The man recovered himself quickly and pressed the bat
down onto Corum’s neck. Corum squirmed and struggled, but the Hamilton was
stronger than him and he started to choke as the wood pressed down on his
throat.
There was a smash, and a shower of broken glass. The man
slumped and Corum pushed him to one side.
‘Oof! Thanks Auntie Bella,’ he groaned as she helped him
up. ‘I hope that wasn’t valuable.’
‘This is all his fault isn’t it?’ she cried. ‘What has
that idiot husband of mine done? Who are all these people?’
‘Has anyone called the police?’ he asked as he took his
phone from his pocket.
Bella nodded, then burst into tears.
‘It’s ok,’ he said as reassuringly as he could manage. ‘The
police are on their way. We’ll just stay here until they arrive, ok?’
***
Kelly glanced over her shoulder. Where had Corum gone?
The three men she was now facing were ex-army. Tough, strong and used to taking
punches. She was armed with a knife though and that was holding them off, that
and the fact that they couldn’t quite believe who it was they were fighting.
‘This the one?’ asked the tallest of the men. ‘The one
Reggie mentioned? The Squirrel?’
‘Must be,’ growled the one that looked the oldest. ‘Get
the fucking knife off him…’
He yelped as the blade came flashing past his nose,
making him stagger back. The third man lunged at her wrist, but she flicked the
knife around in time to catch him on the finger.
‘Bastard!’ he cried as he put the bleeding digit into
his mouth.
Kelly was being forced back up against the rear wall of
the hall. Each time they went to grab at her she swung with the knife, but they
were too quick to let anything land. Glancing over her shoulder again, she only
had a couple of paces left before she was pinned to the wall and it would all
be over. In a split-second decision, as the tall man swung a punch she pulled
back her arm and threw the knife at him. It went in under his armpit, making
him stagger back and fall over.
Using that moment, she turned and jumped onto the
windowsill, then leapt into the air to catch onto the cornicing around the top
of the wall. She heaved her feet up and then crawled along it like a squirrel
along a clothes line. From there she reached a beam in the centre of the room
and then was up into the middle of the three chandeliers that hung from the
ceiling.
‘Fucking get me an ambulance,’ groaned the man with the
knife in him from down below as he lay on the wooden tiles bleeding.
The younger man leaned down to look at the hilt of the
knife.
‘Don’t fucking touch it!’ cried the tall man, squirming
out of the way.
The young man stood back up, stepped back with his hands
held up. ‘No worries, Jimmy.’
The older man reached into his jacket and took out a
phone. He gave it to the younger man.
‘Call 999, and go back to the block and get my gun. It’s
in my bedside cabinet.’
The young man nodded and ran off with the phone to his
ear. ‘Righto, Ken.’
When they were effectively alone Ken, pacing around
under the chandelier, looked up and called up at her. ‘Just you wait, ya wee
squirrely cunt.’
‘Fuck off,’ Kelly shouted back.
‘I’m going to put a bullet in you,’ Ken growled back.
‘Then I’m going to skin you. Fuck!’
He swore when a bit of glass from the chandelier Kelly
had thrown caught him on the cheek. He held his hand up to the wound and swore
up at her. ‘You wee fucker! Just you wait! Fuck!’
Kelly began to swing the chandelier, hoping that the
chain that was holding it wouldn’t break. Ken looked up in confusion. To him it
looked like she had nowhere to go, the other chandeliers were well out of reach
and the fall from so high up could easily break a leg.
Kelly wasn’t aiming for the other chandeliers though;
she was aiming for Jimmy. On the last largest upswing she let herself down by
the arms and tumbled down onto the tall man’s body. She felt his ribs break with
a sickening crunching sound as her feet and knees landed on his chest. Ken
snarled and rushed at her and as he bore down on her, she yanked the knife out
of Jimmy’s armpit and threw it at him. It stuck him right in the stomach and he
doubled over, landing on his forehead with a loud crack.
With shaky legs Kelly stood up and took a
few steps. She’s injured her knees, not badly, but they would be swollen up
soon and she’d be barely able to walk. Both of her assailants were now motionless
and leaking blood over the freshly polished tiles.
She limped out of the hall and towards a door that lead
out into the courtyard, wondering if she’d just killed two men.
Leaning against the exterior wall for a moment to get
her breath back she looked out towards Cunningham’s office. The lights were on
and she could see him stuffing his pockets from items taken out of his desk
drawers. He then ran out of a side door and towards the vegetable gardens at
the back of the house. He was already halfway through it by the time Kelly
decided to give chase. Wincing at the pain in her knees she stumbled after him.
As she got more out into the open, she could here police
sirens, and off to her left she saw Trajan and his two goons piling into an
expensive looking van and speeding off down the drive as fast as they could,
sending the gravel flying.
Cunningham was old and not fast, but Kelly was no runner
either and in pain from her fall. She followed him doggedly down through a
copse of trees and out onto a hiker’s path that lead through an overgrown
meadow. It was dark and overcast, but the faint orange light of nearby housing
schemes provided just enough illumination to see the path in front of her.
She could here him panting, shouting into his phone,
begging with Trajan to come and pick him up.
‘Just get here! I’ll give you anything,’ he gasped. ‘Meet
you at the fucking horses, alright?’
The path continued between the two villages, or whatever
they were, and as they turned a corner, the Kelpies came into view again.
Cunningham was slowing down, gasping and choking for air, and Kelly was slowly gaining
on him. He knew she was there, he kept on looking over his shoulder to check on
her, and her presence behind him, a dark winged shadow, spurred him on despite
his exhaustion. Cunningham, still dressed as Dracula, loosened and threw of his
cloak, then his collar and cravat, fighting for breath as he staggered on.
Finally, the path lead through some woods, which then
opened up and lead down to a canal. The two massive horse’s heads, lit up with
blue up-lighters, loomed over them, ancient mythical Celtic creatures come to
life. Cunningham kept running, past the car park and visitor centre until he
reached the canal that ran between the two heads and turned. There nowhere else
to go.
Kelly slowed down to a walking pace. Reggie was trapped,
with water on all sides, he held up his hands and tried to speak, but he was
too spent to do anything other than gasp for air, his clothes dishevelled and
dirty, with white makeup running in rivers of sweat down his face. His eye was
so large and swollen now, it looked like a squashed tomato. He turned his head
to try and focus his one remaining good eye on her. ‘No, no, wait…’ he finally
manged to gasp.
‘After everything you’ve put me through, I should drown
you in the canal,’ threatened Kelly as she slowly moved closer to him. In reality
though, she realised she didn’t know what she was going to do next. She had no
plan.
‘Who are you?’ he groaned. ‘The Squirrel? The Pricolici?
Who?’
‘I’m Batman.’
Cunningham managed to stammer out a laugh. ‘Listen,
whatever you think… you think I did to you… I’ve got… I’ve got money…’
There was the roar of an engine and a crash over where
the main road was, noises that made them both turn to look. A van came crashing
down from the dual carriage way and barrelled down the bank to come to a halt
not far from where Kelly was standing.
The side door slid open and Trajan stepped out.
He started walking towards Cunningham, two of his men joined
him, coming up from behind on either side.
‘We not fight the pricolici again,’ Trajan called out. ‘He is
demon.’
‘A million!’ gasped Cunningham. ‘A million if you do.’
‘You and your millions,’ replied Trajan, in a relaxed tone. ‘So far
I have not seen them.’
Cunningham desperately yanked two rings from his hand, and pulled a
chain from his neck.
‘Here!’ he cried. ‘Here! The rings are twenty thousand
each. The necklace is ten. I’ve got fifty thousand pounds here in my pocket.’
Cunningham dropped and then stooped to pick up one of
the rings. He then handed it all up to Trajan, making his pathetic offerings
from his knees. Trajan nodded to one of his men, who pulled a green Asda bag
from his pocket and held it open. Cunningham placed all his loot into it.
‘Very good,’ said Trajan who then took a gun from his
pocket and looked around. The area they were in, right under the horse’s heads
was well lit up, but there was no sign of the Pricolici.
‘Spread out,’ he growled at his men. ‘She is here
somewhere.’
***
The Scottish Aryan Brotherhood were a spent
force. All the tough ones had been beaten to a pulp and the weaker ones had fled.
Lenny, considering his mission accomplished was leading his men in smashing the
place up prior to his departure.
Every crash that echoed through the house
made the women gasp and the children cry. Corum did his best to calm them, but
the police seemed to be taking their time getting to the house. There probably
wasn’t enough of them and they were calling in reinforcements, or perhaps they
were too busy dealing with fleeing Nazis, he had no idea.
He could hear the sirens though, and opened
the full-length curtains to see how far away the police cars were. He could see
distant blue and red lights flashing between the trees at the bottom of the
drive. Down there behind the thick hedgerow was the main gate he had driven
through earlier that evening.
There was a noise in the hallway outside the library
door and a grunt of pain. Corum opened it a crack and saw Price stumbling
towards the door, one hand clutching his side, blood seeping through his
fingers and the other holding a gun while also resting against the wall.
Corum quietly stepped through into the hall.
‘It’s over Price,’ said Corum, making the old man look
up. ‘Give up. Give me the gun.’
Price still had some fight left in him though. ‘Get me
out of here copper,’ he whispered through tight lips.
Corum took a step towards Price, who raised the gun and
pointed it shakily at him.
‘Don’t fuck with me copper.’
Corum stepped back again and reaching behind his back,
gently shutting the door he had just come through.
‘What’s in there?’ asked Price.
‘Nothing,’ replied Lavius. ‘You want to go? Let’s go. My
car is out front.’
He then led Price out through to where his car was parked. He made a
show of carefully getting out his car keys to Price, who just motioned with him
to get on with it.
Corum got in the driver’s seat and Price eased himself in the
passenger side, hissing in pain as he sat down. ‘You need a hospital,’ observed
Lavius.
‘Just shut up and drive,’ replied Price, holding the gun with his
left hand, pointing it at Corum.
Corum started the engine and drove off, slowly along the driveway
and through the trees. Armed police were advancing through the bushes off to
the right. There were police cars blocking the gate.
Once he had driven as far as it was possible to go,
Corum stopped. Armed police were pointing sub-machine guns at them from the
gate. Blue and red lights were flashing into the car.
‘Shoot me again if you want. But this is the end for you,’
said Corum as calmly as he could.
‘God dam you!’ hissed Price holding the gun up to
Corum’s head so that the police outside could see it. ‘I should shoot you right
here!’
‘Go ahead,’ replied Lavius. ‘I saved your life back
there in the bunker, in case you didn’t notice, by the way.’
‘Just stay where you are!’ demanded Price. He tried to
grab Corum with his right hand, but he couldn’t move it. He didn’t dare let go
of the bullet wound he was holding. ‘I’ll shoot you, don’t think I won’t.’
‘That won’t help you.’
It was beginning to dawn on Price now that he had no way
out. He was pale, losing blood, he probably couldn’t stay conscious much
longer.
‘I had a rough upbringing,’ he suddenly blurted out,
leaning his head back limply. ‘My father beat me every day. I joined the army
when I was just a kid, anything to get away. I…’
‘I know plenty of people that have had really awful
childhoods,’ said Corum, as if losing his patience. ‘I meet lots of them in my
line of work. None of them have ever shot me. I’m on a crutch because of you.’
Price continued to hold the gun to Corum’s head. ‘Tell
them to let us through or I’ll blow your fucking brains out.’
‘No,’ replied Corum. ‘I won’t be doing that.’
Price made no reply, perhaps unable to think of one.
‘Well, see you later Price. I’m getting out of the car
now. You can shoot me again or not, that’s up to you.’
Slowly Corum reached for the car door and opened it,
then as he straightened up he held his hand above his head.
‘I’m a police officer!’ he called out as the armed
police moved in.
Price let the gun drop. Uniformed officers dragged him
out of the car and off towards the waiting ambulances.
‘My warrant badge is in my jacket pocket,’ said Corum.
‘You can lower your hands, sir,’ said the policeman that
checked his card.
Corum dropped his arms then looked at his hands. He
expected them to be shaking, but they were not. He didn’t know what it was he
was meant to feel now. He just felt numb.
***
One of Trajan’s men, an ugly shaven-headed brute, edged
around the front of their van, holding a combat knife in his right hand. Trajan
signalled to his other goon, a gaunt young man with sunken cheeks and earrings,
who slowly unzipped his jacket and put it down to reveal his muscular tattooed
arms.
Trajan hissed at him to get a move on and the young man
circled wide, nervous of the gun that Trajan was pointing in that direction.
There was a smacking sound like a melon being hit with a spade and the
shaven-headed man fell backwards onto the paving stones, cracking his head.
Trajan and tattoo-arms watched as horror as his to
unconscious body was dragged in behind the van, his head and torso slowly
disappearing from view. Trajan motioned with his gun for his other man to get
in there and flush Kelly out.
‘Go round other side, Jakub,’ he whispered.
Jakub reached behind his back and drew out a sheathed
knife. He then uncovered the blade and threw down the sheath. He then started
walking a slow wide circle around the van. Trajan started edging around the
other side.
The back of the van was in the shadows, so Jakub didn’t
see where the batarang came from that hit him right between the eyes. He
staggered back and rubbed his head. There was no blood, to his surprise, and he
stooped to look at the thing that had hit him. It was a sort of cheap plastic
toy that had being filled with sand to make it heavier, painful but harmless.
He caught a glimpse of something moving in the shadows
and cried out to Trajan, who moved around the other side of the van to try and
get line of sight. Another batarang came flying out from the darkness making
him duck. In that brief second of confusion, a dark cloaked and screaming
figure came flying out of the darkness at him. He fired wildly, two shots which
both missed. A leg swooped round with incredible force onto his wrist and the
gun went flying, falling into the canal with a plop. The dark figure kept the
kicks and punches coming and Trajan, his arm still painful from the first kick,
did his best to defend himself as he rabidly stepped backwards.
Tattoo-arms came rushing in with his knife, slashing and
stabbing and the dark figure ducked around behind Trajan, using him for cover,
then threw another batarang.
‘Jesus!’ cried the goon, as the plastic weapon hit him
right in the eye. ‘Jesus Christ!’
Trajan turned angrily and came at the dark figure in an
amateurish boxing stance, cautiously advancing, but ended up flat on his back
when his legs were swept out from under him.
Jakub, blinking and wincing, came at the dark masked
figure again, giving Trajan time to stand up. They advanced together, circling,
making feinting attacks, looking for an opening. Circling, Trajan managed to
grab the cloak, but all that he succeeded in doing was ripping it off.
Before Kelly could recover her balance, Jakub stabbed at
her, and she barely managed to block it. He caught her with the back swing
though, and the hilt of the dagger smashed into her left cheek.
Kelly staggered back, crying out in pain and the young
man with the knife pressed his advantage, coming in again with a flurry of wild
slashes. He was leaving himself wide open though and judging her moment
perfectly as his slashes came in closer, she ducked under his arms and planting
her foot into the crook of his knee, shouldered him into the canal.
She didn’t get a chance to enjoy the victory as, taking
a chance, Trajan ran up and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. She wriggled
around and bit him on the hand. Ignoring the pain, he used his other hand to
gut-punch her, his great meaty fist slamming into her belly like a
sledgehammer. She collapsed to the ground, trying to breathe.
There was splashing coming from the canal and cries for
help, but Trajan ignored them. Casting around on the ground he spotted the
dagger and picked it up with his bleeding hand.
‘Now get you fucking bitch,’ he snarled at her, but he
was hesitant to lean over her in order to use the knife. Instead he tried to
stamp on her, but she rolled out of the way. He tried again, then a kick, but
each time she rolled away just in time. He cursed and kicked wildly at her, but
by now she had recovered and as his leg wound back for another kick she pushed
up with her arms, her feet coming up like pistons into his crotch. With a
strangled squeak, he collapsed.
Kelly needed to get her breath back. The other one was
already dragging himself out of the canal. She needed to get out of the open as
well, go hide somewhere she could use the terrain to her advantage. She limped
towards the visitor centre.
***
Groaning Trajan levered himself up to a standing
position. Jakab was stood nearby, soaking wet, looking like a drowned fool.
‘What now?’ asked his henchman.
‘This is personal,’ snarled Trajan. ‘I kill this bitch.’
‘Boss,’ came a voice from over at the van. Dramak was on
his feet, blood on his face. He was pointing at the visitor centre. Trajan and
Jakab walked over to him. Dramak was gently pressing at his nose and wincing.
‘It broken, you stupid cunt,’ said Trajan. ‘Come on,
let’s go.’
He leaned into the van and pulled out a tire iron and
once they were at the centre, he used it to smash the glass door and get
inside. An alarm went off, which he ignored.
Trajan all but pushed Dramak inside, who was in no hurry
to meet again the person that had just broken his nose. ‘Pricolici…’ he
muttered under his breath as he took a knife from his belt.
There were rows of shelves selling the usual sorts of
souvenirs, books and other tat. Trajan motioned Dramak to his right and Jakub
to his left. He himself took the central aisle as they headed towards the
tills. It was dark, but illuminated by the blue lights from outside.
Something hard and heavy flew out of the darkness and
hit Dramak on the top of his head, sending him flying into a display of
postcards. Trajan and Jakub ducked as more snow globes came flying at them.
None hit though, instead exploding over their heads as they hit the shelves,
showering them in glass and water.
It all went quiet again. Trajan crawled over to where
Dramak had fallen, but judging by the amount of blood that was coming out of
his head he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.
Trajan picked up a tea-tray, using it as a shield and
stood up to look around. He saw movement in the shadows at the back of the
shop.
‘Over there!’ he shouted at Jakub who stood up and
looked over the shelves. The pricolici appeared as if from nowhere and with a
high-pitched scream stabbed Jakub in each of his legs with two souvenir pens.
He screamed and turned to flee, but a flying kick in the back sent him crashing
to the floor, where he stayed, crying and begging for mercy in Romanian as he
curled up in a ball, wedged between two racks of T-shirts.
Trajan picked up a cup and threw it. It hit the
pricolici in the back, making her duck out of sight. Something heavy, a wooden
sculpture or something came flying back and he batted it away with the
tea-tray. He picked up and returned fire with whatever he could lay his hands
on, cups, statuettes of the kelpies, paper-weights, anything heavy.
The pricolici leapt over the counter at the back of the
shop and Trajan took the opportunity to turn and run for the door. It was
blocked by a fallen shelf and he wrenched it aside desperately as he heard
movement behind him. Something sharp hit him in the right elbow. He howled in
pain as he looked down to see that Dramak’s knife had just embedded itself in
his arm, between the bones. A snow-globe smashed over his head as he slumped to
the ground.
His right arm hung limply, completely dead. He raised
his left hand. ‘Enough pricolici! Enough…’ The pain was so intense, he could
feel himself blacking out.
As he slipped into unconsciousness, the last thing he
saw was a small dark figure sweeping past him and out of the door, like a
shadow-demon from the worst nightmares of Romanian folk-lore.
Kelly was tired, badly beaten and tired, but she had one
last thing to do. Cunningham hadn’t moved, he was still stood between the
Kelpies waiting to see what happened, looking lost and terrified. When he saw
Kelly emerge from the centre he seemed to come to his senses and started
running towards the van.
He didn’t make it. Kelly ran up behind him and sent him
tumbling onto the pavement with a kick in the back. Then her other leg lashed
out and the heel of her foot came down hard on his knee, dislocating it. He
cried out, sobbed, tried to crawl to the van, then passed out.
Kelly walked slowly over to where her cape was and put
it back on. She then went over to the discarded green plastic bag and picked it
up. She looked inside, whistled through her teeth then bundled it up and
stuffed it down her belt.
She could here the sirens of cop cars and she realised
she was in no shape for running. Kelly spat out some blood and looked up at the
giant horse heads.
***
Hours later, in the small hours of the night before
dawn, Lavius was on the scene, shinning a torch into the broken window of the
visitor’s centre.
All the injured, Cunningham, Trajan and his men were
being bundled into ambulances and taken away. Uniformed policemen swarmed
everywhere.
His Chief, a stocky woman in her late fifties approached
him. ‘The work of your informant Gavin Newgate I take it?’
Corum shrugged. ‘I’d say so. Broken noses and skull
fractures, that’s usually a good indication.’
‘What a mess,’ she replied, lighting a cigarette then
offering him the packet. ‘Still, two of Edinburgh’s biggest gangs effectively
wiped out. We should give your pal Gavin a medal.’
‘We could give him the reward money for Price.’
‘Maybe,’ she said as she turned to walk away. ‘But it
was you that took him down.’
Lavius turned to follow. ‘I thought I’m in trouble? I
should have told you my suspicions about Reggie earlier.’
‘Maybe,’ she mused. ‘I’d play it cool if I were you.
Save it for the enquiry. Is there much chance of getting your pal to testify
before all the trials?’
‘I could ask I suppose.’
‘Huh,’ she grunted, indicating she wouldn’t hold out
much hope. ‘I’m going back to the nick. I suggest you go home Corum, this isn’t
your investigation any longer. I’ll send a car in the morning. If you happen to
see Mr Newgate, let me know.’
She got into a police car and was driven away. Lavius
looked up at the horse’s head and thought he saw a small black shaped lodged in
one of the horse’s ears.
Eventually he looked away and shaking his head, started
walking back to the main road.
With a thin smile he took his phone from his pocket and
called a taxi.
***
Kelly lay on a lounger by the pool of the Lugar Hotel,
looking out over the Portuguese coast from the balcony. The weather was cool
though and she was fully clothed. She was considering going to get her coat,
but was too comfortable and on her third cocktail.
It was February now, but she still had plenty of money.
She had three British newspapers folded on her lap. Everything had moved on
now, the trails of Price and Cunningham rumbled on. Trajan and the Vampires had
already been put in prison. Lenny and the other Hamiltons had cut deals with
the court, Lenny himself gave evidence against Price concerning the Pebble
House shootings.
Three men had died that night at Almond Castle, two of
the Scottish Arian Brotherhood and one of the Hamiltons. All of them stabbed to
death. The name of Gavin Newgate barely got a mention, and if it was written in
the press at all it was always in association with the Hamiltons. A writer for
the Guardian had connected Newgate to “The Squirrel” and on first reading this
she had started to get nervous, but after a few weeks she never saw it
mentioned again.
Besides, everyone was getting all excited about this new
virus that had come out of China and was now hitting Italy. Plans for the BBC
to make a three-part dramatization of the events called “The Almond Castle
Massacre: What really happened in Scotland’s Deadliest Gang War” had been
scrapped.
Kelly tossed the papers aside, stood up and went to the
balcony rail. Across the sea were distant cliffs, and above them, rows of
opulent villas, white patches on the tree covered slopes.
She had no strong desire to go home and was trying to
persuade her gran to come out, but the old lady was stubbornly refusing to get
on an airplane. She had only sent a couple of messages to Niles to let him know
she was doing ok. She felt bad for how much she had involved him in everything
and was letting things settle down.
All she had to worry about now was her PTSD, the
nightmares and flashbacks to all the bloodshed and the multiple times she had
nearly been killed back in Scotland.
Her phone chimed and she took it out of her pocket. She
then looked around and up at the veranda above the pool. A waiter or another
member of staff opened a door and Corum Lavius stepped out. He shaded his eyes,
spotted her and gave her a wave. He did not have a crutch.
‘Hello Miss Take,’ he said as he joined her at the rail.
He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and chinos, but didn’t seem to mind the cool
air.
‘What do you look like?’ she asked.
He looked down at his shirt. ‘A copper on holiday.’
‘Good grief’ she sighed in reply.
‘Yeah, I know, right?’ laughed Lavius as he casually
started to roll himself a cigarette.
‘Leg better?’
‘As good as new,’ he said as he lit the cigarette and
tossed the dead match over the balcony. He blew out smoke with a satisfied
sigh.
‘You seem pleased with yourself anyway,’ she admitted.
‘Hey, where is my reward money?’
‘That was never going to happen,’ he confessed. ‘I’ll
buy you dinner tonight, how about that?’
‘Fine,’ she grumbled. ‘How’s your dad?’
‘Oh, you know,’ replied Corum as he puffed on his
cigarette. ‘He was treated as a witness against Cunningham. He was fine. It was
me that was sailing close to the wind all the way through the trail.’
‘How come?’
‘Because of you,’ he smiled at her. ‘Gavin Newgate, the
pricolici, who may or may not have been a girl, and certainly didn’t have a big
sister called Stacey. ACU are all over me, but fuck ‘em.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kelly truthfully.
‘It doesn’t matter, I hardly had to perjure myself at
all. It helped that I managed to smooth talk myself into looking like a bit of
a hero. “The cop that caught Price”, sort of thing.’
‘I know,’ Kelly nodded. ‘I’ve kept the newspaper
clippings.’
They stood and looked out across the sea. Kelly edged
towards Lavius and rested her head on his arm.
‘Are you eyeing up those cliffs?’ he asked a little hesitantly.
‘I don’t think you are allowed to climb them.’
‘I’m not looking at the cliffs,’ she replied. ‘Although
I am thinking of other skills that need to be kept up.’
Lavius passed his eyes over the lavish looking villas,
but said nothing. He cautiously put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Do you think
you’ll be able to stand my company for three weeks?’
‘Sure,’ she admitted. ‘I was only ever mean to you when
I was stressed. I’m actually super nice really.’
Lavius swallowed a sarcastic reply.
‘Do you think you’ll ever go back to the UK?’ he asked
eventually.
‘Maybe,’ she mused. ‘Maybe in the summer, July or
August, just to see gran.’
‘Sure,’ murmured Lavius. ‘I expect everything will this
new virus will have calmed down by then.’
They looked out across the sea together, each lost in
their own thoughts.
