Angel of Death (3 page)
Angel felt as though she was wading through deep water, but even so she walked fast, dragged along by the heroin itch. She found Deano crashed out on the bed, his tracksuit bottoms around his ankles, a fresh track mark where he’d injected the big artery in his groin. The veins in his arms had collapsed years ago. Angel had bad veins too. Recently there had been times when she’d missed by so much that blood had streamed down her wrists. So she too had taken to injecting her groin, or as Deano called it, ‘opening the window’.
Deano’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open as Angel slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small lump of black tar heroin wrapped in cellophane. She took a shoebox full of drug-taking paraphernalia from under the bed, tore open an alcohol swab and cleaned her hands and a bent spoon. She dissolved the lump on the spoon over a lighter, then placed a little ball of cotton-wool in the solution. When the ball had puffed up, she inserted a syringe into it and drew up all the dirty-brown liquid. Spreading her legs as if for a punter, she felt for the pulsing femoral artery. She slid the needle in and pulled the plunger a millimetre. Blood swirled into the syringe barrel. Slowly, she depressed the plunger. The rush was instant, enveloping her like a lover’s soft, warm embrace, soothing away all the pain and memories. Eyeballs rolling, she lay back next to Deano. As sweet oblivion stole over her, she replayed in her mind the moment the man had died. That was one memory she wanted to hold on to. Always.
Stephen Baxley wandered around the grounds of his ungainly mock Tudor mansion saying goodbye to everything. He said goodbye to his Aston Martin. He said goodbye to his horses. He said goodbye to the swimming pool, the tennis court, the sprawling landscaped gardens. Then he headed inside the house.
The entrance hall’s ornate beamed ceilings, chandeliers and faux-antique furnishings reeked of tasteless extravagance. Stephen entered the study, its wood-panelled walls stuffed with unread leather-spined books. He locked the door, poured himself a large whisky from a crystal decanter and sank it in one. He poured another and took it to his desk, which was strewn with papers. His gaze skimmed over a letter, lingering on the words ‘foreclosure’ and ‘court action’. A spasm twisting his face, he yanked open a drawer and took out a sheet of writing-paper whose black letterhead read ‘SB ENGINEERING’. Pen in hand, he stared at the letterhead for a long moment. Finally, lips pale and compressed as if every word was a knife slashing at his mind, he wrote, ‘Dear Jenny. Please forgive me for telling you this in a letter, but the words are simply too painful to say to your face. I’ve been forced to declare the business bankrupt. I tried everything I could to save it, but failed. I’ve failed you, I’ve failed the children…’
Stephen broke off from writing to empty his glass. Whisky dribbled down his chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it off. He pressed pen to paper again, but no words appeared. His hand trembled as if struggling against some invisible resistance. Suddenly, he jerked it up and stabbed down, tearing the paper, scratching a deep gouge in the desk. Eyes shining wildly, he stabbed the letter again, snapping the pen, the jagged end of which pierced his palm. Blood spattered the papers as he thrust them off the desk, along with a reading lamp whose glass shade shattered across the parquet floor. He ground his forehead against the desktop, digging his fingers into his scalp, emitting a low, anguished groan.
‘Everything OK in there? I heard a noise like something breaking.’
Stephen’s head snapped up as Jenny’s voice came through the door. He took a deep breath to steady himself before he spoke. ‘Everything’s fine, darling. I dropped a glass, that’s all.’
‘Do you need a hand cleaning it up?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Are you almost done for the day?’
‘I’ve just got one or two more things to sort out.’
‘Well try not to be too long. Charlotte’s getting hungry.’
‘Don’t wait for me.’
A note of displeasure that suggested this was an all too familiar topic of conversation entered Jenny’s voice. ‘You know how I like us to sit down and eat together as a family, Stephen. We talked about this last week and you said—’
Irritation sparked in Stephen’s voice. ‘For Christ’s sake, Jenny, I know what I said—’ he started to snap, but caught himself. He drew in another long breath and continued in a softer, if slightly forced tone, ‘Look, just give me ten minutes. Then I’ll be all yours for the evening. I promise.’
‘OK, Stephen.’ The way Jenny said his name was full of significance. It meant there was going to be an argument if he broke his promise.
As his wife’s footsteps moved away from the door, Stephen picked up a framed photo of her, himself and their two children, Charlotte and Mark. It was one of a set that had been taken by a professional photographer four years ago. Charlotte would have been eleven and Mark nineteen or twenty. Stephen was squatting in front of Jenny with his arms around the kids’ waists. All four of them were casually dressed – the photographer had wanted to avoid the stuffy formality of many family portraits. All four of them were smiling, but Mark’s smile didn’t look quite real, at least not to Stephen. There was something strained and awkward about it. There was a certain stiffness about the way he held himself too, as if he’d rather be anywhere else but there. Stephen had angrily pointed this out to Jenny on first seeing the photos. As usual, she’d defended Mark, saying his smile looked perfectly genuine to her. She’d been lying, of course. But there was no point arguing with her. There never was when it came to Mark, reflected Stephen. The little shit couldn’t do any wrong in her eyes.
Stephen would have kept the photo somewhere out of sight if it hadn’t been for Charlotte. The photo captured her perfectly. He often found himself staring at her face with its laughing, liquid-blue eyes and frame of auburn hair, wondering how he’d ever managed to create something so beautiful. Tenderly, he ran his fingers along the contours of her features. His breath came in a shudder. She’d had everything, every luxury money could purchase, and now she would have nothing. Nothing! The thought tore at him like a howling madman. His fingers curled into a fist, nails pushing deep into the wound on his palm. He knew what it was like to have nothing. His childhood had been a pitiless, degrading struggle against poverty. He’d sworn his children would never know that sort of life. But the last few years had been one long string of cancelled orders, failed deals and bad investments. The economy was going down the drain, and it was taking him and his family with it, all the way back to the sewer he’d spent half his life climbing out of.
Stephen shook his head, tears spilling down his cheeks. ‘No. I won’t let it happen. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.’ The words hissed through his teeth like escaping steam. For several minutes he chanted them to himself. Then, as if a solution had suddenly occurred to him, the tension drained from his features. He raised his eyes, and for a moment seemed to be looking through the ceiling to some other place. His gaze returned to the photo. ‘Don’t worry, my sweet little girl. You won’t have to find out. None of you will.’
Placing the picture face down on the desk, Stephen reached for the phone and punched in a number. A male voice answered. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘It’s not Mum, Mark. It’s me.’ Stephen’s voice was flat and emotionless.
‘Dad.’ Mark sounded surprised, as if his father was the last person he’d expected to be calling. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can you come over?’
‘What? Right now?’
‘Yes, right now.’
‘I’ve only just got in from uni.’
‘This is important.’
A note of concern came into Mark’s voice. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Look, Mark, I don’t want to go into this on the phone, except to say that this is something that concerns us all. So just get yourself over here and I’ll explain everything.’
‘OK,’ sighed Mark. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Stephen hung up without saying goodbye. He reached for the whisky again, but hesitated. As much as he thirsted for the warmth of its liquid embrace, it was going to take a clear head and a steady hand to do what must be done. His eyes unblinking, his movements curiously stiff, like a wind-up toy set in motion, he turned to a TV screen split into four quadrants. CCTV cameras showed the front gate, the front door, the back garden and the garage. He switched off the CCTV. Then he made his way to the large living room. It was decorated in muted tones of misty blue, chosen by him to match Charlotte’s eyes.
Charlotte was stretched out on the leather sofa, watching the oversized plasma television. It showed a helicopter’s bird’s eye shot of several figures in white plastic suits milling around a car at the muddy edge of a river. A warm breeze smelling of cigarette smoke wafted through the open French doors. Stephen looked past Jenny, who was smoking on the patio. He looked past the manicured lawns and flowerbeds. He looked past the patchwork quilt of brown moorland and green fields to the sprawling cityscape of Sheffield. A ripple disturbed his features. He knew the city as well as he knew anything. In his teens, he’d explored its every cranny and dark corner, and the things he’d found had destroyed and remade him in their own image. Those things had touched every part of his life, except Charlotte. She was the one pure passion of his existence, and he would never allow anything to change that.
‘What are you watching?’ Stephen asked, more for something to say than because he was interested.
Charlotte flinched, twisting towards him. ‘Dad! You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to.’
A slight frown marred Charlotte’s china-smooth skin. ‘Are you OK? You look really pale.’
Stephen tried to force a smile, but one wouldn’t come. ‘I’m fine, sweetie.’ He stared at Charlotte intensely, as if etching every detail of her features onto his mind.
She squirmed a little. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Because I love you. I love you more than anything.’
Charlotte turned on her best daddy’s girl smile. ‘More even than you love Mark?’
‘A thousand million times more. More even than I love my own life.’
‘So does that mean I can have a new iPhone?’
A tick so faint as to be scarcely visible pulled at Stephen’s mouth. ‘You can have whatever you want, sweetie. You know that.’
Charlotte jumped up to wrap her arms around Stephen. ‘Thanks, Dad. You’re the best!’
He hugged her back, briefly closing his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her hair. ‘Now go tell your mum to put the food out. There’s something I need to take care of in the garage. I should only be a couple of minutes.’
A smug smile playing at the corners of her lips, Charlotte headed for the patio. Stephen’s attention was drawn to the television by a voice saying, ‘…divers recovered the man’s body earlier today. Police have yet to formally identify the dead man, but they believe him to be Ryan Castle, a thirty-three-year-old local man whose car was found at a nearby nature reserve. They further believe that Castle, a known drug dealer with a history of violent crime, may have been the victim of a deal gone wrong. Castle was killed by gunshot wounds to the chest—’
Stephen picked up the remote-control and turned the television off. As he headed out the front door, the newsreader’s words echoed in his head.
Killed by gunshot wounds to the chest. Killed by gunshot wounds to the chest.
‘Stephen.’
Flinching at the sound of his name, Stephen looked towards the wrought-iron gate that separated the long driveway from the quiet lane beyond. A man in a dark grey suit was standing beside a black Jag on the other side of it. The man was bald with a natural tonsure of salt-and-pepper hair and a slightly jowly, almost babyishly smooth face. A deep frown cut Stephen’s forehead. Edward Forester. That phoney bastard was the last person he felt like talking to. But he knew from experience how persistent Edward could be when he wanted something. Sucking in a tight breath, he approached him. Edward smiled, showing unnaturally white and even teeth. There was something about his smile – some quality of rigidity – that made it seem more a habitual reflex than a genuine expression of emotion.
‘Save your smile for the voters, Edward,’ said Stephen, his voice cold and hard. ‘What are you doing here?’
The smile disappeared like water from a tap being turned off. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you all week. Why haven’t you returned my calls?’
‘Because I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
‘I thought we were friends.’
‘Friends?’ A slight, humourless curl came to Stephen’s lips. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word.’
A ripple crossed the smoothness of Edward’s face. ‘Christ, they’re true, aren’t they? The rumours I’ve been hearing.’
‘Goodbye, Edward,’ said Stephen, turning away from the gate.
‘Don’t turn your back on me,’ snapped Edward. ‘I’ve a right to know what’s going on.’
Ignoring him, Stephen headed towards the garage. Edward’s angry voice pursued him. ‘I’m warning you, Stephen. Don’t make a fool of me.’
Stephen lifted the garage door, revealing his Range Rover and his Aston Martin. He ran his hand lightly over the sports car’s sleek bodywork. Other than Charlotte, making money and one or two vices, there was nothing he loved more than opening up its throttle on the leafy lanes surrounding his property. The thought of someone else driving it and getting the same pleasure from it that he did was enough to make him feel nauseous. Shaking his head as if to say,
No way
, he took a couple of petrol canisters from a shelf. He unscrewed one and sluiced its contents over the vehicles. The sound of an engine starting up then receding into the distance, told him Edward had left.
Lucky for him
, he thought. He approached a tall, rectangular metal box, opened it with a key, and removed a double-barrelled shotgun and a cartridge belt. He strapped on the belt, broke open the shotgun, chambered two cartridges, and snapped the barrel shut. Holding the shotgun in one hand and the full canister in the other, he returned to the house.