“I don’t have any more photos, but some other guy does. I think he’s called Collins, Frank Collins, or something like that.”
“And the girl?”
“She’s at the house with Chandio.”
Mai Bell sat back on her haunches, studying the man. The blood from his cuts had flowed across his cheek and was trickling down into his ear. She looked at her husband and nodded. The Greek began to buck under her husbands weight but she placed a hand on his chest and made a hushing sound, as though reassuring a child.
“Shush, shush. It’s okay,” she said. “We believe you. Cole here just has to gag you, that’s all. Take it easy now and open your mouth like a good boy.”
The fear was obvious in the Greek’s eyes as he flicked his gaze between the two of them, but Mai Bell reassured him with a pleasant smile, and he reluctantly opened his mouth.
Cole Bell pushed a waded sanitary towel firmly into his mouth, then slapped a large piece of duct tape across it. The man’s nostrils flared as he sucked deep breaths through his nose.
Cole Bell eased his weighed off the man, so he could breathe a little easier.
“Kill him,” Mai Bell whispered to her husband as she clambered past them.
Her last glimpse of the scene inside the van, was her husband reaching out to pinch the big man’s nostrils tightly closed.
*
The house seemed quiet.
Mai Bell stood with her ear to the letterbox, listening intently. After standing quite still for nearly ten minutes, she eventually returned to the van and climbed into the passenger seat.
“Can’t hear anyone moving around inside the house, and there doesn’t seem to be any alarm as far as I can see,” she said.
Taking the cheese and onion sandwich her husband held out to her, she absentmindedly chewed it while she studied the house.
Cole Bell grunted, crushing the empty cola can in his hand, then tossing it into the back of the van over his shoulder.
“Oh, my Tarzan,” Mai Bell said with a twinkle in her eye.
“So, I wonder how many are inside?”
Mai Bell wiped her lips with a napkin, burping quietly behind it. “No way of knowing.”
As the smell of second-hand onions wafted over him, Cole Bell wrinkled his nose. “Got the gear ready?” he asked.
Mai Bell nodded, reaching for a bum bag, which she fixed around her waist. “Should be enough for about six people. If there’s any more than that in there, we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”
“Well doing it this way certainly beats taking them all to the crematory tonight. That would really freak old Bert out. You know how twitchy he gets.”
Mai Bell chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t you worry any about Albert. I’ll take care of him. That’s if our little plan works out, of course.”
Cole Bell took a sideways glance at his wife. Her eyes were shining in the light from the street lamp, her lips slightly parted. He could feel her excitement, as though it were his own.
“Albert always had a soft spot for me,” she finished.
“More like a terrified one,” Cole Bell quipped.
Mai Bell slapped her husband on the thigh, then tutting, climbed out of the van, sliding the door closed as quietly as she could. Cole Bell opened the glove-box, pulled out a couple of night-vision goggles and joined his wife at the front door. By the time he’d reached her, she already had the door open and was waiting in the dark hallway.
“Yale lock,” she muttered.
He nodded, following her into the lounge. It was empty, stripes of light from the street lighting shining through the thin curtains, reaching far into the corners. He kept his goggles up. They weren’t needed in this brightness.
Using well rehearsed hand-signals, Mai Bell told her husband to search the rooms downstairs, while she explored the upper floor. Giving a thumbs-up sign, he eased his way back into the hall.
Mai Bell had chosen to explore the upper floor because she weighed far less than her husband, which made it less likely that she would set any stair treads creaking.
Keeping to the side of the staircase, she slowly made her way upwards, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet, testing each tread before putting her full weight on it.
The top landing was small, with four doors leading off it. The doors of two rooms were ajar.
The sound of muffled snoring came from one. Easing over to the other, Mai Bell saw the reflection of white wall tiles.
The bathroom then.
Moving on to another door, she slipped down her goggles, then slowly - very slowly - eased it open.
There were two beds in the room. Both were occupied. A man slept in one, the other held an older man and a young girl. The older man gave a snort, turning over as the dim light from the landing fell across his face.
Mai Bell backed out and eased the door closed, turning her attention to the last two rooms. The first one she tried was empty - just three double mattresses spread on the floor. She exited with a nod, licking dry lips, trying not to let the tension and excitement get to her.
The last door make a quiet squeak when she opened it. She froze for a moment, foot half raised, holding her breath. Then, when there was no reaction from within the room, she eased the door open just far enough to slip inside.
The room was furnished with a king-sized bed, a double wardrobe, and two chest-of-drawers, set against the wall opposite, and to the left of the door. It was well lit by the outside street lighting, and Mai Bell could easily make out the tousled black hair of the man occupying the bed. The side of his face was dark against the crisp white pillows.
Bingo! This had to be Altaf Chandio.
Moving across the room, Mai Bell eased over to the side of the bed on the balls of her feet, then stood looking down at the man as he slept. He was handsome, but that meant little to her - she’d always considered good looks to be a negative.
Pulling a slim metal bar from her bum-bag, she raised her arm, sighting up on the large carotid artery throbbing in the man’s neck. Gritting her teeth, she punched it downwards with a sharp slap, knowing that if it didn’t work first time, they were in trouble.
The man opened his eyes in surprise, but didn’t utter a sound. The shock to his artery had cut off the supply of blood to his brain, rendering him incapacitated. She had perhaps five seconds before he came to his senses again.
Taking a bottle from her bag, she uncorked it, quickly upending it on a pad. Careful not to take in the fumes herself, she held it across the man’s mouth and nose, forcing him to breathe in the vapour. The chloroform would give them the time they needed to set up the scene.
As she left the bedroom, Mai Bell saw a warning flash of light from the floor below - the prearranged signal that her husband had found nothing and was on his way up the stairs. A few moments later he was at her side and she signed that one man was down, but that three others were still in the last room off the landing. He nodded and followed her as she eased her way in.
They stood beside the beds, mimicking each other’s movements, as though attached by invisible threads. It took just a few moments to knock the men out, but the girl woke up before Mai Bell got to her.
Looking up at the dark figure standing over her, the girl opened her mouth to scream. Mai Bell dropped her bottle, pulled the pillow from under the girl’s head and held it over her face.
“Don’t smother her,” Cole Bell whispered in a harsh voice. “Hang on, we have to make it look like an accident.”
Mai Bell continued holding the pillow over the bucking girl, while her husband ran around the bed and picked up the bottle, quickly corking it.
“Now,” he said, and as Mai Bell pulled the pillow aside, he held the last pad in place.
The girl took a deep breath, then fell quiet. They both breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t managed to scream. Mai Bell looked across at her husband. His forehead was lined with sweat and he was breathing in short excited gasps. It reminded her of a pa
nting dog.
She could see how charged up he was. There was nothing so arousing as taking somebody’s life - he had taught her that. Later, when they got back to their hotel, they would make love.
“Everything good downstairs?” she asked.
Cole Bell nodded, easing the tension from his neck. “I’ll go sort the boiler out,” he said. “It’s in the kitchen - gas, just like we thought.”
As Cole Bell attended to the gas boiler, partially blocking the vent with the remains of a bird’s nest, and adjusting the burners to the most inefficient setting he could, Mai Bell made sure all the windows were tightly closed.
Double glazing really was a wonderful invention, she mused, moving from room to room. No drafts to disperse the fumes that would soon be spreading throughout the house.
Just another tragic case of carbon monoxide poisoning!
Chapter 34
Albert Gray was not afraid of death. To him death was a release - the final full stop at the end of life’s long story; the start of a new Chapter; the epilogue to birth’s prologue. Albert Gray knew this first hand, because he was an undertaker.
However, Albert Gray was afraid of pain. Very much afraid. And he knew - also first hand - how much pain the diminutive Mai Cole could inflict on the human body.
Albert Gray had trained under his father - one of the best undertakers in Golders Green, they used to say. After his father’s death, he’d taken over the business, got married, and had a son. All the things he’d ever dreamt of doing.
At first it had been a satisfying life, but somehow things had changed and the satisfaction slowly died. Nagging little suspicions that other people were doing better, were happier, had more things than he did, began to fill his mind.
Over the years these dissatisfaction mounted and Albert Gray began to gamble, the thrill of the chase replacing his deep feelings of inadequacy.
Then one day, Albert Gray had a visitor. A thickset, ugly looking man, who informed him, that if he didn’t pay back what he owed to the bookmaker by the end of the month, he wouldn’t have a business, a house, or legs that worked.
The man had spoken in soft tones, which made the threats all the more frightening. And as a parting gift, he had left Albert Gray with a broken nose. A token of things to come should he default, so to speak.
So when they came - when they offered him such a tempting escape route - Albert Gray grabbed their money with both hands.
It had started slowly at first, just the odd body now and then. Easy enough for him to dispose off in the oven, after his staff had gone home. And the money was good, enabling him to pay off his debts and buy the things that made life worth living: a bigger car, good clothes, a watch to match his new position in life. The money also opened new doors for him - the golf club, the Masons, membership of an exclusive club in the West End.
Life was good, but three years in, the body count had begun to rise and Albert Gray found it harder to cover up what he was doing. Stupidly, he complained, tried to back out, even made a veiled threat about going to the police when that didn’t work.
They had seemed like such a nice couple when he’d first met them, Mai and Cole Bell. She so small that she barely reached his shoulder; he tall and slim and dressed like a banker.
Mai Bell always had a soft smile on her thin lips. She was wearing it the day she looked up into his face and made it plain that if he didn’t want to end up in one of his own coffins, he would carry on supplying them with the services they paid him for.
Tonight they’d woken him from a deep sleep. He was still a little bleary eyed as he stood looking at his visitors, the body they’d brought laying on the trolley between them like a large restrictive lump in his throat.
He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as though the worries of the world were weighing him down.
Before leaving, Cole Bell tossed a heavy envelope at him. It hit his chest and he fumbled at it, but it fell to the ground, spilling out twenty pound notes.
As Albert Gray scrambled about on the floor for his money, Mai and Cole Bell turned and left without a word, their distain apparent on their faces.
Chapter 35
Looking down at the creature’s jerking death, the excitement of the climb was quickly replaced by a series of chest heaving sobs.
Frank’s dream had taken him back to a time when he’d been playing on a undeveloped building site. He was trying out the new plimsolls his mum had bought him for his tenth birthday, climbing his favourite tree. He’d climbed the tree many times before, but this time had pushed himself harder, had gone higher, had almost reached the top.
As he sat on the swaying limb, a bird swooped down behind him. Turning, he spotted a nest built in the fork of the branch. Excitement growing, he eased himself further outwards, scared and aroused in equal portions as the branch bent beneath him, creaking with his weight.
The nest had three eggs in it and he poked at them with his fore-finger. They were warm. Carefully picking one of the delicate eggs up, he balanced it in his palm, fascinated by the pattern of spots covering its surface.
A sudden fluttering of wings made him jump. The bird swooped at him, chattering angrily. Almost loosing his balance, Frank grabbed at the branch, the egg arcing from his grasp, out through the leaves, where it fell to the ground far below.
Easing his way back to the trunk, he hurried down to the ground as fast as he could, heart beating wildly. Back on the ground he knelt and picked up the delicate object. It was smashed at one end, and as he turned it over, a half-formed chick fell out onto his palm. It jerked weakly in his hand, its tiny beak opening and closing in the cool air.
As it lay twitching amongst the yolk and albumen shimmering in his palm like a mound of putrid snot, Frank could see that the tiny creature was in pain. He couldn’t help empathising with the tiny creature and the feelings frightened him. They were too similar to what he felt when he heard his parents shouting at each other after he’d gone to bed.
Frank knew that he should put the half-formed chick out of its misery, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he just watched helplessly, tearfully, as the chick slowly died.
Horrified at what he’d done, and not wanting to believe that he’d been the cause of the tiny creature’s death, he threw the dead thing as far from him as he could, wiping his hand down his jeans over and over again, sobbing loudly.
In reality, Frank had run home that day, doing his best to push the experience from his mind: but in his nightmare, the chick had clung tenaciously to his palm, and no matter how hard he had tried, he just couldn’t shake it off.
Then, as he watched in horror, the tiny form morphed into a miniature Conrad Hunter, who grew taller and taller, until he finally stood life-sized on the palm of Frank’s hand, staring down at him with yellow eggs where his eyes should have been. The man’s face twisted into a grotesque smile, and when he tried to speak, a white, glutinous substance flowed from his mouth.
Frank screamed himself awake, struggling at the branches that suddenly gripped him tightly, only to find himself thrashing about in the tangled bedsheets, head thumping so hard that his eyes pulsed.
It had been a nightmare, just a drunken nightmare! Groaning, Frank fell back onto the pillows, eyes screwed shut against the daylight pouring through the window. He felt like hell - but then a three day binge tended to do that to you!
Turning onto his side, he cracked open his eyes again and listened to the birds singing outside. Was it them that had kicked off the nightmare, or was it something deeper inside him - something that told him, no matter how much he hated Conrad Hunter and wanted him dead, there was no way he could kill him?
*
After a long hot shower, Frank felt almost human again, and even managed to eat some poached eggs on toast. As he ate, he thought about the nightmare he’d had.
All the bravado about him going to London and killing Conrad Hunter had been just that - empty bravado. He knew he could no more kill a man, than he could the
half dead bird of his childhood days.
No, the best he could do was try to find the girl, Chantelle, and get her to come with him to the police. In the meantime, he had a living to make, he’d neglected his business for far too long.
Checking in with his answering service, Frank picked up the day’s delivery schedule and entered them into his mobile sat-nav. Then planning his day’s deliveries, he purposely kept his thoughts away from the account Jeffrey Hunter had opened for him - one step at a time.
The sky had clouded over and as he pulled his bike off its stand, Frank felt the first drops of rain. Heading up the track, he shook the raindrops from his helmet, speeding up as the downpour started, so the wind would clear his visor.
Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting astride his bike outside Brambles Coffee Shop, trying to see through the steamy window. Torn between wanting to see Karla, and not being late for his first pick-up, he shrugged, then opened the throttle and headed out on to the A9: he’d call in at lunch time and talk to her then, explain what an idiot he’d been.
The rain settled down to a steady drizzle, making for slow progress. The roads around Ross- Shire were more like lanes in places, narrow and winding, often just single track, where you were forced to pull into a lay-by for traffic to pass. Add in the diabolical weather, and he was finding it hard to keep up with the deliveries.
Lunch time came and went, but Frank had no time to make it back to Brambles Coffee Shop for his planned talk with Karla. Her message had shaken him, but he really couldn’t believe that she’d meant it when she’d said she didn’t want to see him anymore.
At least the rain had eased and he could speed up a bit now.
Chapter 36
“We should have flown. It would have been far quicker.”
Mai Bell shook her head, concentrating on finding her way to the M1, almost missing the turning as her husband’s voice drowned out the instructions from the sat nav.
“I said—”
“I know what you said,” Mai Bell answered. “Can you just be quiet for a minute, until I get us on to the motorway?”
Cole Bell sat in silence while his wife concentrated on the voice giving instructions on which turnings to take. He hated driving long distances in cars, unlike his wife, who loved the open road. He would do anything he could to avoid long hours spent cramped in a vehicle. It was so boring.