A WALK IN THE PARK
"Can't believe people choose to live in a place like this," the hired killer said, peering out of the car window at the scattering of houses.
Mason nodded. "I'd go mad in a day. You can see the whole village from here. Church. One pub. One phone box. Shop that isn't much bigger than the phone box. And that's it." I'm talking too much, Mason thought. Nerves.
He'd picked the killer up at King's Cross earlier that day. When Mason introduced himself, the man stared at him as if he were mad and then shrugged and said, "Call me Smith, if you want." Smith had travelled down on the train from Newcastle with all the other commuters. It was one of Davey Hume's rules: if there was any killing to be done, he brought someone in from another city. They turned up, did the job, got paid, and vanished. Davey's theory was that this sowed confusion. Mason thought that it meant someone was more likely to grass them all up somewhere along the line, but he kept it to himself because you didn't contradict Davey Hume.
Mason fidgeted uneasily in the car seat. He'd pulled into the car park of The Cardinal's Arms, Kingsbourne's only pub. The village was about fifteen miles from Dover, and about a light year from civilisation, the nearest tube station, and the twenty-first century. Mason had been around violence much of his life, you couldn't be part of Davey's circus without it, but he still felt uncomfortable when he had to deal with men like Smith. I'm an organiser, a planner, Mason thought. An accountant. Not muscle. I leave that to other people. Davey values my brains, my smartness. But people like Con Murphy resent me because I'm in close with Davey and they're not, and because they've got the brains of a cue ball. So they're forever nagging at Davey about how I never get my hands dirty, and he sends me on jobs like this, once in a while, just to prove that I can be one of the boys.
"Be my representative on the spot," Davey had said, holding court in The Palace after closing time, feet up on a table, glass of Macallan in his hand, the faithful and the followers gathered around to hear him. "Make sure business gets carried out properly. And then pay the man afterwards."
"Maybe he could hold his hand too," Con had muttered, to sniggers from some of his boys.
Mason didn't acknowledge the insult, just waited for Davey to react.
"Con, you questioning my judgment?" Davey said after a while, in a very quiet voice.
"No, Davey, just—no. Sorry." Con glared at Mason, who just stared serenely into space.
~
Mason had kept glancing at the speedometer all the way down from London. The car had been stolen to order from a quiet London suburb the night before and fitted with scrapyard plates, and Smith and his sports bag were in the front of the car, and eight thousand pounds in cash and a gun that Davey had insisted Mason bring were hidden in the back, so he didn't want to be pulled over for a traffic offence. Mason hadn't wanted the gun, didn't like it, didn't see why he needed it, but he didn't dare say so. The semi-detached houses of the London commuter belt had given way to fields and trees interspersed by an occasional village, some of them executive developments, large brick houses with parking for three cars, others picture-postcard villages with thatched cottages and duck ponds. Mason hated it all; he'd grown up in London, spent his life in London, wasn't used to seeing green unless it had railings round it, wasn't used to there being space, not people.
Late in the afternoon, Mason had turned off the London to Dover road and onto a winding lane that curved its way through a valley of slowly waving cornfields and orchards of low, neat apple trees.
"This it?" Smith had said.
"This is it. Not exactly the centre of civilisation, is it?"
A squat stone church sat in the middle of a huddle of houses, crows lazily circling its weathered green spire. The ground floor of one small house had been converted into a shop that doubled as a post-office. Faded posters in the window advertised promotions that had finished a year before. Not far past the shop was a pub with a car park that would hold four cars, if they weren't too big. Mason had pulled in and switched the engine off. Theirs was the only car there. Hanging baskets spilt bright blooms of orange and red over the entrance to the pub. No-one went in, or came out. The two men sat in the car for a couple of minutes and watched the village, and then Smith said, "Let's take a look at the place, see the lie of the land."
Mason steered the car out of the car park, and turned left. He had sat up late the night before, memorised the small square of map. Within a hundred yards the village became nothing more than an occasional house set amongst tight copses of trees and fields fenced with barbed wire behind which sturdy horses snuffled placid and lazy among the long grass. Then the woods took over, and there was nothing on either side but the trees. Mason drove under a disused railway bridge with bushes tumbling over its walls.
"Might as well be on the moon," Mason muttered.
Not far beyond the bridge the trees drew back on the left to make space for a low brick building that squatted a little way back from the road. Its windows were boarded up and ivy strangled the walls. A faded sign announced it as the Kingham Valley Pumping Station, but the screws holding one end of the sign up had long since rusted away, and it now hung drunkenly away from the wall. A minute later the woods on the other side opened up and became scrubby grass. Sheep huddled and stared at the road, their backs splashed with splodges of blue dye. Then there was a tall wooden fence, and a bungalow set a way back from the road. The fence was high enough, and the house low enough, that not much more could be seen from a passing car.
"That's it," Mason said. "First house past the waterworks, or whatever the hell it was. Only house past the waterworks, come to that."
"Aye, that'll be the one," Smith said, swivelling in his seat to keep the house in sight. "Nice and private. Not going to get any nosy neighbours rustling their net curtains here, are you? Bit different from my usual turf, this. Job'll be a walk in the park."
"Bloody big park," Mason said. "And no ice cream van either."
"You're sure it's just the one man?" Smith asked.
"That's what I was told. And not young, either, he must be getting on a bit now, too."
"Not for much longer, he won't be."
They drove in silence for a while after this. Mason didn't know much about the man they had been sent to kill. He had a photo, an address, a name, and what Davey had said to him in the back office at the Palace the day before.
"Thought this one was dead," Davey had said. "Thought someone else had done the job for me. I'd heard he'd gone to Spain, got on the wrong side of someone there and they'd had him done. Turns out he just moved on. But this time, he's not going anywhere. Except down there." He grinned and jerked his thumb at the floor. "You're my money man, Masey, you must know what I mean. How good it feels when there's a bad debt on the books for years, and you finally get to clear it."
"This one goes back a long way, then?"
"Right back to the early days. He worked for me when things was really coming together, growing into what I have now. I thought he was going to be a real asset. Turns out he was just a rip off merchant, and he ripped me off and got away with it. Only one that ever has." He smiled, but there was little humour present. "Except he's not got away with, has he? It's taken years, but I've found him. Little rats, they squeak to each other, and somewhere down the line one of them squeaks in my ear in return for a crumb or two. He's down in Kent, some poxy village in the middle of nowhere, out Dover way. Thought he'd stay hidden. But I found him. I can trust you to look after this one, Masey?"
"Of course, Davey, you know that. Though I've got to say, it's not really my thing." It was as close to a protest as Mason dared get.
Davey Hume nodded, and took a long drink from his crystal tumbler. "Keeps the boys happy though. Good for morale if they see you getting your hands dirty from time to time."
"Sure, it's no problem Davey, day out in the country, I can handle that."
~
Mason came to a widening in the road. He turned the car around and they drove back past the bungalow again, not slowing much.
"Car in the drive," Mason observed. "He's probably in."
"Aye, probably."
"Not fancy it now?"
But a muddy Land Rover came barrelling along the narrow road towards them, and when Mason got the car back down from the grass verge and back onto the tarmac, his palms sweating, Smith said, "No. When it's dark and late. Prefer it dark and late. We'll park up by the waterworks, walk down along the lane, he won't even hear us coming. Job done, then back to the car."
"Um," Mason said. "Us? I thought I'd be staying with the car."
"Did you now?" Smith said.
"Yeah. I thought you'd, well, you know, prefer to just get on and do the job. Not really my thing, I'm just a money man, a manager, really."
"A manager." Smith's voice was without any inflection, but Mason felt that the man was laughing at him all the same.
"Yeah, you know, I look after business."
"Aye, well that's what you'll be doing tonight," Smith said. "Looking after business. That way I've got an extra pair of hands if I need them, and I don't have to worry about you getting spooked by a rabbit and driving off without me."
"I wouldn't do that," Mason protested.
"Not twice," Smith said, and there was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. "Besides," he went on, "this is the country, they always have dogs out in the country, and if there is a dog I'm going to need someone to occupy it for me."
~
Mason drove through the village and out onto the busy lanes of the A2, joining the endless streams of articulated lorries heading for Dover. Mason pointed out to Smith that they had hours to kill—although he stumbled over the word when he said it—and that it wasn't a good idea to hang around the village.
"Not that there's a lot to hang around for," he said. "Apart from the pub. And we might stand out a bit in there. Probably the sort of place where they all stop talking and turn to look whenever strangers come in. How d'you fancy grabbing something to eat? I'll drive us down to Dover. Get a sandwich, cup of coffee." He didn't feel like eating, not at all, but it would be something to do.
"Do whatever you like," Smith said, reclining his seat and closing his eyes. "I don't eat before a job. Keeps me sharp. I'm going to have a kip now though, so I don't care what you do, as long as you don't disturb me and wake me with a coffee when it's good and late."
Then he just lay back in his seat, not moving, like a statue. Mason couldn't even see him breathing, and couldn't tell whether the man was asleep or not. He drove into Dover, the wide sweep of the road curving down towards the flat silver of the sea. Mason couldn't think of anything to do so he just drove around aimlessly for a while, and then parked in a car park with a sea view and sat there, staring out of the windscreen as it grew dark, watching the lights of ships slowly moving out at sea, wishing he could sleep, wishing he could put the radio on and listen to it to pass the time but too scared that it would wake the other man up.
After forever Mason thought, at last, it's time. He drove to a service station, bought some coffee out of a machine, and got back into the car.
Smith opened his eyes suddenly, the way a cat does, before Mason could say anything to wake him up. He sat up in one fluid motion, opened the car door, stepped out and stretched. Then he got back in, adjusted his seat, and took the coffee out of Mason's hands.
"I'll drink this on the way," he said. "Let's get going."
~
Mason parked the car in the driveway to the pumping station and switched off the engine. Smith opened the sports bag at his feet, and took out something wrapped in a cloth.
"Tools of the trade," he said, and he began to unwrap it.
Mason nodded, and said "Yeah, I'll just get mine," and hoped that he sounded as if it was something that he said every day. Smith put a hand on his shoulder, and leant in close to him, too close.
"You know how to use it?"
"Sure," Mason said, and it was true. In a way. Bry had shown him one night in a back room of the Palace, and he'd even pulled the trigger a few times, although only after Bry had taken the bullets out.
"My job," Smith said. "So my rules. You stick it somewhere safe. You keep it there. You don't mess with it, you don't play around with it, you just keep it there in case I need a backup and ask you for it. You understand?"
"Sure, whatever you say. It's your operation."
"That it is. And one more thing." Smith still hadn't moved his face away. Mason could smell the coffee on his breath.
"What?"
"You point it near me—anywhere near me—and I'll kill you. You understand?"
Mason swallowed. "Yes."
Mason thought about just leaving the gun in the car, but he didn't want Smith to think that he was afraid, so he got out of the car and leaned in the back door. He pulled the gun from under the seat and put it into his jacket pocket, trying to handle it as if it were something that he did every day. When he turned back, Smith was standing by the side of the road, as motionless and dark as one of the trees, holding his gun down at the side of one leg. In the darkness, it looked as if he was pointing an accusing finger at the ground.
At first as they walked down the road the silence pressed in on Mason like a weight. After a few moments though, he realised that it was not silent at all. He could hear skittering in the undergrowth to the side, rustlings in the trees as if their footsteps were disturbing whatever was sleeping there. From a little way off into the woods came a noise somewhere between a grunt and a cough that made him jump; he looked at Smith to see if the other man had seen but the killer was walking ahead now, with cautious, quiet steps. They had reached the house.
The two men slunk across the road and into the shadow of the fence. Mason noticed that when they moved, Smith held his gun up high to the side of his head, as if he were listening to it, like people do in films. He loves all this, Mason thought. I bet he's got a bookshelf full of books about special forces. They waited at the fence, peering into the darkness of the garden, listening.
"What you reckon then?" Mason whispered. "Dog?"
Smith took hold of the fence, rattled it gently, waited. Then shook his head. "Would come running," he muttered.
"Might be in the house."
Smith just held the pistol up, then pointed it into the darkness and mimed a shot. Mason looked away. Killing a man was one thing, that was business, but killing a dog was just cruel. He'd always had a dog when he was little. He remembered how he'd cried when his red setter Rusty, as dumb as a plank but his best friend in the whole world, had run into the path of a delivery van. Smith climbed over the fence and into the garden, and Mason followed him. As he went over, the fence creaked, and to Mason it sounded like a tree falling. They hesitated for a moment, but no lights came on in the house, no doors opened.
Smith waved towards the side of the house. They were going to go in round the back. The two of them stepped cautiously through the shadows, following the edge of the garden around the house, walking silent on the soft grass.
Then Mason thought: that's strange, we're miles from the sea here, but I'll swear I can hear it, and then the sound changed, swelling, sounding more like there was a party of lunatics out there in the darkness with them, hiding in the bushes, cackling away.
"Hell is that?" Smith said, and the sound grew, a chattering jabber, and Mason thought of the sea again, because it looked as if a wave had broken around the corner of the house and towards them, white froth surging forward over rocks, the noise louder than ever. Both men backed off a step but by then the geese were in a frenzy, shouting their indignant alarm and lifting their wings with anger.
Smith ran for the fence and vaulted it in one go. Mason followed him, clambered over and then dropped down to the ground, his heart racing, his breath shallow and fast.
"Stay quiet," Smith muttered. "Saves us breaking in. He'll come out to see what's going on, see if it's a fox or something. I'll get a shot then, and we're done. Geese. Jesus."
No lights came on in the house, no doors opened. Gradually the gabble of the geese subsided into a quiet chatter, and the flock wandered off round to the back of the house again, their panic over. Then the light over the porch clicked on, and Mason jumped. The front door opened a little way, but they could not see in, and no-one came out. Smith rose to half-standing, rested his arms on the top of the fence, aiming at the space just in front of the door.
Come on, come out, Mason thought, and then I can go home. I can pay Rambo here his money and get back to the world I know, where at this time at night I can walk fifty yards from my front door and get a drink, place a bet, have a meal, find a woman. And no geese, just the damn pigeons.
Then the darkness towards the back of the house blossomed into a fierce light and there was a roar, and a rattle on the fence like hail that nearly stopped Mason's heart and sent Smith falling backwards to the floor and then scrabbling to his feet again. Mason didn't need telling twice, didn't care whether Smith was with him or not, he just wanted to get away before the shotgun roared again. He raced into the road, but felt as open and exposed as if he'd been in the middle of a vast plain, so he ran straight into the trees on the other side, a mad, frantic scramble, tripping over branches, nearly breaking his ankle when he caught his foot in a hollow, brambles ripping at his hands, his face. He realised that he was holding his gun in his hand, and could not remember having taken it out of his pocket. Smith had caught up with him, and ran alongside him until Mason had to stop because his lungs were burning and he thought that he was going to throw up. He bent forward, hands on his thighs, the metal of the gun cold through his trousers. When he could breathe again without pain he crouched down. Smith did the same.
"Bastard," Smith said. "Nearly killed me. My face is bleeding, look." He shoved a dark hand towards Mason. "Christ, man, it's not stopping. Splinters off the fence, I can feel them. Tell you, I'm going to come back another time, and I'm going to have him. He's a dead man. Where's the car?"
"By the road," Mason said.
"Aye, I know it's by the road, but where the hell is the road?"
There was a long silence.
"Maybe that way," Mason said in the end, waving roughly in the last direction he remembered running from. He had no idea where the car was, no idea where the road was, he just wanted to be home amongst the concrete and the brick, back where there were lights everywhere, all night, burning away the darkness.
"What was that?" Smith said, whipping his gun up and pointing it at random places in the darkness. "Did you hear that?"
"Countryside," Mason said, "there'll be rabbits and owls and stuff, foxes, I dunno, all sorts, the whole bloody place is alive."
"No way was this a rabbit," Smith said. "This sounded bigger."
They crouched, listening, and for a long moment that seemed like an hour, there was not a sound. Then the air rippled into life above them, a flapping flutter low above their heads and both men swore and nearly shot at whatever it was. Something in the carpet of leaves rustled, and Smith said, "We've got to get back to the road, this is doing my head in."
Then a quiet voice said, "Welcome to the country, lads," and Smith fired two, three times, but Mason wasn't waiting to see what happened next, he just ran off into the woods again, gripping tight on to his own gun, thinking please let this be the way back to the road, please. When the shotgun roared again he fell, stumbling over a tree root that tried to curl its way around his ankle, and a pain grabbed his leg and squeezed. He stood up, trying to convince himself that he hadn't just twisted his ankle, and took a couple of tentative steps, but each time he put any weight on that foot, the pain came burning back in. It didn't matter though, he had to keep moving. The shotgun hadn't sounded that close, but he had lost any sense of direction amongst the trees and for all he knew he was walking towards it. He held his gun tight in a sweating hand, and tried to walk as quietly as he could through the undergrowth, talking to himself under his breath to take his mind off the pain and the fear and the darkness, repeating over and over: one step, and another step, one step, and another step, one step and another step.
Then Mason heard the rustle of a bush behind him, and he turned and saw the dark figure begin to raise its arm but he was faster and he pulled the trigger and the sound of the shot sent everything that lived in the trees around him skittering and cawing into the night. He walked forward, still aiming at the body that lay half shrouded by the dead leaves into which it had fallen, but he knew even before he even reached it. It was dark, and he couldn't see very well, but he could see well enough. He turned and stumbled on through the dark.
Smith was going to shoot me, Mason thought. Hell, call himself a professional, he was as scared as I was. If I hadn't shot him, he would have shot me. I'll tell Davey that the target shot Smith, he wouldn't believe I could shoot anyone anyway.
Mason limped through some bushes, and the ground disappeared suddenly from beneath his feet. He slid down an earth bank, losing hold of his gun on the way, and then he thumped into beautiful, hard tarmac. He ignored the pain in his ankle, jarred again by the fall, and kissed the road. Then he staggered to his his feet. He couldn't see his gun, spent a couple of moments looking around for it, then realised that he must have dropped it at the top of the steep bank. He tried to scramble up, but his ankle gave way and he slid back down again. Can't do it, he thought, and no time to try.
He took a gamble, turned left and hobbled along the road. After a minute or two he limped around a corner and saw the car, sitting in the driveway to the disused pumping station, and the anonymous family hatchback was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen in his life.
Mason limped to the car as fast as he could, put his hand in his coat pocket and thought for one desperate moment that he had lost the keys in the flight through the woods. Then he remembered that he had put them into his jeans so that they would be safe. He fished them out, unlocked the car door and slid himself in. He didn't know how well he would be able to drive, the car was a manual transmission and it was his left foot that he had hurt, but if he had to drive the whole way back to London in first gear he'd do it.
Two hours, maybe a little more and he would walk into Davey's office in the back-room at the Palace, demand a large Macallan, not off the bar, the twenty-one-year-old stuff that Davey kept in his desk drawer, and he would take the first glass in one go and say Davey, I'm not doing another job like this for you, not ever. Send Con Murphy next time. Let him get shot at, barely escape with his life. Now pour me another, you owe me it.
Mason fitted the keys into the ignition, turned them.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Still nothing. No engine. None of the dashboard lights came on. Nothing. He looked out and saw that the bonnet was not quite back in place, as if someone had closed it without wanting to make too much noise.
"No," Mason said. "No oh no oh no," and he opened the car door again and staggered out, but the woods were already coming alive with a startled flurry of crows as someone walked through the undergrowth, not bothering to keep quiet any more, the footsteps unhurried, all the time in the world.