No Peace For The Wicked rgafp-1 Read online

  No Peace For The Wicked

  ( Riley Gavin and Frank Palmer - 1 )

  Adrian Magson

  Adrian Magson

  No Peace For The Wicked

  Chapter 1

  The first old man died on the beach.

  Unaware of his impending fate, he watched, huddled in a blanket, as gulls screamed over a plastic bottle bobbing in the choppy water, while under a heavy sky a tanker plodded up the Channel. Apart from him, the beach was deserted. It was too early in the season for day-trippers and too cold for beachcombers with their wretched metal detectors.

  He wasn’t interested in seagulls or tankers. The birds were noisy and demanding, like people, and the tankers too remote. He had long ago given up interest in anything much, surrendering willingly to an ill-tempered isolation. Now all he had left was the creeping disease of old age, made bearable by the few bits of comfort a well-stocked bank account could buy. As long as the account received regular additions, that was all that concerned him.

  A car approached along the promenade and he sank instinctively deeper into his deckchair, pulling the blanket tighter around him. If he’d wanted strangers stopping by for a chat he’d have hung out a sign.

  Maybe it was Willis. His minder was due about now with a flask of coffee laced with something that would truly piss off his doctor, if only he knew.

  The hairs on his neck stirred as the footsteps approached, bringing faint memories of other times when danger had moved against him.

  Well, he’d faced that and usually walked away laughing.

  The newcomer stopped behind him, so close he must have been staring down at the top of his head. He fought a strong desire to turn and look. Damn him! He’d sit and defy the intruder to come round and look him in the eye.

  Whoever it was didn’t bother. Instead the old man heard a rustle of cloth and a familiar metallic click. It turned his blood to water. Then the seagulls and the wind, the impending rain and the tanker, all ceased to matter.

  Half a mile away, in a block of exclusive flats overlooking the sea front, another old man stared out to sea, puffing on his first cigar of the day. He knew it would likely kill him, but he didn’t give a bugger. Too old to let it worry him now, anyway. He wriggled his toes into the pile of his new carpet. Nothing like the feel of a fresh nap, he thought. About as far from Linoleum as it was possible to get.

  He brushed a speck of ash from his sweater and debated going for a walk. Over to the east he could see two figures down on the pebbles. One appeared to be huddled in a deckchair, the other standing behind him. Bloody mad, some people, he thought idly. Probably asylum seekers, looking for something to steal.

  The standing figure appeared to be holding a hand out to the other. Offering something maybe, or pointing. There was something familiar in the stance that made the cigar smoker shiver. He decided he was better off staying in. Far too cold to venture out, anyway. Easy way to catch a chill. In any case, the boys would be here later for a game of cards.

  He glanced at the coffee table, with its single sheet of paper covered in neatly typed figures. He smiled momentarily. Money was still rolling in, and as long as the managers didn’t get greedy and the other two let him run things the way he always had since… well, since the changeover, it should be fine.

  The front door clicked. Startled, he swung round. Two figures were standing in the hallway as if they had materialised out of the walls. Their heavy coats and dark slacks gave them the appearance of men attending a funeral.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he demanded. For the first time in years he felt a skewer of fear deep in his gut. “How d’you get in?”

  The leading figure stepped forward and pointed at the smoker. There was a sharp, flat sound and the cigar snapped into the air. It landed on the new carpet where it sizzled pungently.

  The old man fell alongside it.

  The second newcomer stepped past the gunman and carefully retrieved the cigar. He placed it in an ashtray where it could burn safely without threatening the other residents in the tower block.

  Then both men stepped across to the window and looked out. Over to the east a solitary figure was walking up the beach towards a car parked on the promenade. Behind him was a figure slumped in a deckchair as though sleeping.

  The two men turned and left the flat, barely glancing at the man lying on the floor.

  Job done.

  Chapter 2

  The young man in the smart suit seemed oblivious to the chill in the air as he stood on the patio watching his employer. She was kneeling on a cushion, digging the blade of a knife between the flagstones and levering out stems of couch grass, the crepe-flesh in her upper arms quivering with the effort. The knife strokes were short and vicious, as if the battle with the weeds was personal, old age against new growth.

  He looked around, eyes flicking over the tree line a hundred yards away, then turned to take in the house behind him. Set in an acre of prime Buckinghamshire countryside, the house wore sweeping eyelash gables overlooking a magnificent stepped garden, and every brick and tile, each bush and shrub, echoed solid, undeniable wealth. He’d heard it was once the home of a merchant banker. He wasn’t surprised.

  Inside the house a telephone warbled pleasantly, as if promising good news. The young man went into the kitchen and through to the hallway, breathing a sigh of relief once he was out of earshot of the woman. Guard duties with no danger of action had a definite downside.

  He picked up the phone and listened to a brief message, then replaced the handset without comment and returned to the patio. Over the old woman’s bowed back he checked the garden for signs of movement but saw only borders and flower-beds in perfect splendour; neat, ordered and unblemished. Not that he cared for any of it, save for the fact that intruders had no place to hide. Gardening wasn’t really his forte.

  The woman glanced up as his footsteps sounded on the stones, the knife hand stilled, thumb resting on the top of the blade. The way she held it reminded the young man of a combat instructor he’d once trained with. Vicious bastard liked to nick trainees with the point of his dagger, to give them a sensation they never wanted to experience again. It had worked, though. The memory still made his gut twitch.

  “What is it, Gary?” she asked.

  “It’s done,” he replied, hands clasped respectfully behind his back.

  The woman very nearly smiled. She didn’t, much, as if she had never learned how. “Good. Thank you.” She gazed down at her handiwork. “Much better without all those horrid weeds, and I must get that back border sorted out — it’s looking quite a mess, don’t you think?”

  Gary made no comment. He had learned not to. When the woman levered herself upright with a grunt, Gary made no move to help, either. Something else he’d learned not to do.

  The woman was in her mid-seventies and dressed smartly as always — even for gardening. There was still a hint of the showgirl she used to be, mostly revealed by a taste for gaudy jewellery and too much makeup. Behind Dior glasses and heavily layered mascara were eyes that looked out on the world in a seemingly benevolent manner. Eyes like someone’s grandmother, which she was, although not recently. Those eyes made Gary shiver. And he didn’t shiver at much.

  “Have you called Spain?” she asked, dropping the knife onto the cushion at her feet.

  “No, Mrs G. I thought you might want to do that.”

  Her full name was Letitia Grossman. Lottie for short. But she liked being called Mrs G; she thought it showed respect. There had been too many times when respect had been denied her, and she had a lot of ground to make up.

  She reached up and patted Gary’s cheek with a wrinkled hand, one of her long fingernails trailing
momentarily across his cheek. Then she walked towards the house, leaving behind a sickly trace of sweet perfume overlaid by the tang of damp soil. Like she’d been recently dug up and bought back to life, Gary thought.

  For Riley Gavin, the first rays of sun in Sotogrande, on the southern coast of Spain, brought a shiver of a much more welcome kind. The day promised to be hot and still, just the way she liked it. She dropped her towel and bag by the pool and revelled as the heat rolled across her naked shoulders. The long, grey winter had dragged on like a depressing cold, and she had been waiting weeks for this moment when she could forget about the wind and rain, the slogging along grey streets back home looking for stories, and allow herself to relax for a while.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass door to a changing cubicle. My God, she thought, I’m so white I look like the blood’s been drained out of my backside. She flicked back her long, blonde hair, wondering if maybe she hadn’t also got a little soft around the chin. Too much junk food while sitting in her car watching and waiting for something to develop. Instinctively she adjusted her stance to pull in her stomach. There was no vanity in the move, simply a self-conscious need to look ‘right’, as her mother always used to say.

  She lowered herself on to a lounger and looked around. Perfect. No one else about.

  The complex was a real find. Small and exclusive, the only other residents were a few golfers too busy playing the local courses to have any interest in the pool. Casual visitors were politely turned away, and there was little to attract families. The small flat was hers for a week and she didn’t intend straying far from where she was right now. Riley reached up behind and pulled at the thin cords of her pink bikini top. The unaccustomed heat, as well as the sudden exposure in the open air, brought an instant tingle to her sensitive skin, and a brief shiver ran the length of her body. Oh, yes, she thought. I’m in Heaven…

  She lay back and sighed, wondering why she didn’t do this more often. Money is why, you silly bitch, she reminded herself, and stretched her legs out before her. Money and the thrill of it all. The chase.

  Well, the chase could go hang itself for a while as she recharged her batteries. She hadn’t taken a decent holiday since last August and she deserved one more than usual. God knows, she’d worked her little tush off for it. Her last assignment had been long and wearing, chasing up an investment scam perpetrated on a flock of churchgoers in the Midlands who had put their trust in a self-styled Christian Broker. The fact that thirty per cent was an unusually high return and the proposed ‘opportunity’ was a land development fund in Colombia, home of coffee and cocaine but rarely top land deals, had failed to ring alarm bells among the virgin investors. It wasn’t long before phone calls by the church’s pastor to the broker received nothing but the disconnected tone. It had taken Riley two months to track down the culprit, hiding behind another front company, this time in the retirement homes business. By then she had gathered enough information on his activities to put together a fireproof story that made the front pages of at least three dailies. Her research, someone else’s by-line, but what the hell. The main thing was that the ‘Broker’ would shortly be appearing in front of a jury and later, ripped-off investors and court willing, be in a home of another kind altogether.

  Warmed by the sun, she slipped into a shallow sleep. Gone were thoughts of work and earning a living. Time enough for that next week.

  Half an eternity later there was a click at the side gate and a faint splash as someone entered the pool. She opened her eyes and looked. A dark head of hair and strong brown shoulders slipped smoothly through the blue water. A man, probably young. He turned and swam back to the other end, a smooth, uncluttered crawl. Mmm… Masculine and tidy. Now there’s a rarity.

  After three lengths the swimmer pulled himself smoothly from the water and sat on the side of the pool, shaking droplets from his head. He reached for a towel and a packet of cigarettes.

  A few years over thirty, Riley guessed, a bit gaunt in a hungry sort of way. Good muscles, but not cover-boy six-pack. She felt a stirring of interest and looked him over some more, enjoying the secretiveness of her survey. Nice, she thought. Can’t see his buns, which is a pity.

  As the man blew smoke into the air, he seemed to notice her for the first time and nodded. Riley nodded back, inadvertently revealing that she was looking at him. She also remembered she wore no bikini top. Oh, what the hell, she thought. He’s seen me — it would be crass to go all girlish and cover up now.

  She allowed herself to drift away again. What will happen will happen.

  Moments later she sensed a presence nearby. It may have been the sudden coolness as his body cut off the sun, or the faint hint of aftershave against the background smell of chlorine.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked. His voice was pleasant with a faint accent. French? Spanish? Maybe he’s rich and-

  Riley snapped her eyes open. It was the waiter, Rafael. He was looking down at her with tactfully unseeing eyes, a drinks menu in one hand, a silver tray in the other. Across the pool, the swimmer was gone, a hint of smoke hanging in the air behind him.

  Riley scooped up her bikini top and shook her head, embarrassed and irritated. “Nothing, thanks,” she said, and waited for Rafael to leave before settling back to sleep, her thoughts on the strong shoulders and the sleek, black hair of the man across the pool. She hoped he got sunburn.

  The following day the pool was deserted. Riley shrugged off her bikini top, poured liberal amounts of Ambre Solaire into her palm and massaged it gently into her body, concentrating on where her skin was most tender. She was enjoying the sensation of the warm lotion when the gate clicked and the waiter entered. He stopped in front of her and lowered his silver tray. It held a cordless telephone.

  “Call for you, Miss Gavin. Urgent, the man says.”

  Riley sighed. “Did he give a name?” Who in hell knew she was here?

  “Mr Brask, madam.”

  Damn, she thought. But she took the phone anyway.

  Chapter 3

  Gibraltar airport was hot and noisy, with a combined smell of baking tarmac and aviation fuel soaking the atmosphere of the terminal building. By the time Riley checked in and went in search of a seat, she was in no mood to humour screaming kids, pushy parents or the openly lecherous squaddies standing around clutching cans of lager and staring at anything in a skirt.

  She dropped her leather holdall on the floor, trying to calm down. Bugger them all, she thought rebelliously. Most of all, bugger Donald bloody Brask.

  When a woman in a seat nearby stood up and walked away, Riley nudged her bag over. Before she could sit down, a young squaddie with garish tattoos on his arms and a mass of angry pimples on his chin pushed past, dropped into the seat, smirking proudly at two of his mates on the other side of the room. Then he lifted a can of lager to his mouth and swallowed noisily, a froth of beer escaping down his chin.

  “It’s your lucky day, love” he said, staring hotly at her. “You want a seat? Be my guest.” He patted his bony lap in what he probably thought was an inviting manner, his pimples taking on an inflamed look as his hopes rose.

  Riley looked down at him and sighed. Oh, yuck, why do they do it? Everyone’s an original half-arsed Romeo.

  Before the soldier could react, she took the can of lager from his hand, and with a flick of her wrist, poured a squirt of the foaming liquid directly into his lap.

  The man leapt to his feet with a howl of protest, while his mates and some of the passengers laughed.

  “What the bloody hell did you do that for?” he demanded, brushing ineffectually at the spreading stain on his trouser front.

  “Because,” Riley said icily, “you’re an ignorant little shite.”

  The soldier swore under his breath and made a move towards her. Before he could touch her, a tall figure stepped between them.

  “Knock it off,” said the newcomer. His voice was soft but carried the unmistakable timbre of authority. The soldi
er stepped back, the anger subsiding to a sullen glare.

  The man watched him walk away, then turned to Riley. “You all right?”

  It was the swimmer from the pool. He was dressed in a linen suit and light blue shirt, and his tanned skin proclaimed regular exercise and above average fitness.

  “Thank you,” said Riley gratefully. She felt a glow coming to her cheeks at the thought of what this man had seen of her by the pool. “You really didn’t have to. I was about to drop him.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you were. But they’re just young lads, full of vim and too much beer. They get a bit carried away.”

  “Well,” she murmured coolly, “he nearly was, at that.”

  An announcement called for all passengers to make their way to the departure gate, and the man excused himself and went over to the desk, where a young woman attendant smiled at him, then bent to her computer screen. She looked up at a question from the man and pointed towards a middle-aged woman with a hint of a moustache standing in the queue for departures. The man nodded at the attendant and walked across to the woman.

  Moments later he was back beside Riley. “Stroke of luck,” he announced. “We’re travelling together.”

  Riley looked at him. “Really? And what did you promise that woman with the hair problem — a baby?”

  He barely batted an eyelid. “I’m sorry?”

  “You asked her to change seats.”

  He had the good grace to look sheepish. “I told her you were my fiancée and we’d been split up by computer error. She was glad to help.” He held out his hand. “John Mitcheson.”

  “Riley Gavin.” As his warm hand engulfed hers, she wondered if he could feel her pulse beating in response.

  “Riley? Is that Scottish?”

  “No. My dad liked old cars.”

  As they boarded the plane and settled in their seats, Riley was acutely aware of his body close by and a faint hint of aftershave. She gave a wistful thought to lost opportunities, and hoped Donald Brask hadn’t taken up an offer on her behalf which would turn out to be a turkey. She’d make his life hell if he had.