Below Zero (Ryan Kidd Thriller series) Read online

  Chapter 14

  At first Carly was dead against the idea. She wanted to go back to Puerto Banus.

  ‘Jeez, Ry, let’s just find a taxi and go back to the hotel. I so need to have a shower and some sleep.’

  She sounded tired and tetchy and I could see that the strains of the last twenty four hours were fast catching up with her.

  ‘Listen, hun, we can’t go back to the Pyr. Our cover’s blown and god knows who’ll be staking the place out. I’m sorry to break the news to you, but you’ll never see your best bikini again.’

  OK, so it was a feeble attempt at humour, but I was shattered and not used to having to take into account the needs of a nineteen year old girl who, at the best of times, is as hard to work out as a set of quadratic equations. And now definitely wasn’t the best of times.

  Luckily she didn’t go into meltdown mode. She just scowled and contented herself with muttering, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I decided that was her way of saying she was all in favour of my idea.

  The whole area had the feel of a deserted movie set for a TV soap about ex-pats living the dream, and only a couple of places had lights on, so I picked a villa that was set back from the street in its own grounds and shrouded in darkness. I hopped over the low wall and slipped up to the front door.

  I opened it using a trick with a credit card that I’d learned from watching one of DK Kapoor’s heavies when I was working a case for him. The guy’s manoeuvre had worked a treat but what we found inside the house that time still makes my blood run cold. Thankfully this time Carly and I had no such problems. The place was empty.

  I found some candles and a box of matches in a cupboard in the kitchen so we had some light, and we had a quick nose around. The place was all set up like a show home but there was no sign that anyone was actually living there.

  ‘This place probably belongs to people in the UK who rent it out to holiday makers,’ I said confidently. ‘And obviously business is bad.’ I grinned at Carly. ‘Which is great news for us because it means we have a hidey hole with all mod cons at our disposal.’

  She sat down on the living room sofa. ‘Right. So what’s the plan for tomorrow?’

  I shrugged. ‘We’ll find an ATM and get some money. Then we’ll have breakfast somewhere. After that we’ll buy a bag and some clothes and then we’ll take a bus across country to Granada.’

  Carly looked at me quizzically. ‘Why Granada? Why don’t we just get a taxi to Malaga?’

  ‘Because that’s what whoever it is who’s after us will expect us to do and they’ll be staking the airport out. We’d never make it onto a plane there in a million years. But nobody will be expecting us to fly out of a place like Granada. We’ll be completely under the radar.’

  Carly was sceptical. ‘Do planes even fly to London from there?’

  I had no idea but I wasn’t going to say so. The plan was sound as a pound and I wasn’t going to get hung up on details. ‘Course they do. Why don’t you look it up if you’re worried.’

  The problem is, Carly has a built-in bullshit detector and I knew she’d check. But, if I was right about Granada, then I’d look like a man who knew what he was doing and that might help give her morale – and my credibility – a much needed boost. I reckoned it was a risk worth taking.

  Carly glanced up from the screen. ‘Yeah, all right, they do. BA fly from there to London City Airport.’ She looked at me with grudging respect. ‘That’s impressive, Ry. I thought you were just making it up as you went along.’

  I laughed. ‘As if I’d ever do that!’ Then I yawned and stretched. ‘Hey, hun, it’s been a hell of a day, so I think I’m going to turn in. How about you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, there’re fresh towels and stuff in the bathroom so I’m gonna take a shower first.’

  My brain zeroed in on the word “first” like a heat seeking missile. I wasn’t sure if this meant she was going to come to bed with me afterwards. My heart was doing a drum roll, but I stayed calm and gave nothing away. I just nodded. ‘Yeah, why not? Though the immersion’s not on so it’ll be a cold shower.’

  The corners of her mouth twitched up slightly into the ghost of a smile. ‘Then you should definitely have one.’

  It was possible, of course, that I might not have been quite as inscrutable as I’d hoped. Anyway, she winked at me then headed off into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind her. I stood there wondering what to do. In the end I went into the main bedroom, stripped down to my boxers and slid into the bed. I could hear the shower running hard, but I knew no matter how much she scrubbed herself she was never going to be able to wash away the memories of what we’d been through in the last twenty four hours. I just hoped that what I had planned would take her mind off those things for a while. And, believe it or not, it wasn’t just the sex I wanted her for; I think we were both in need of some TLC.

  I passed the time taking bets with myself as to which bedroom she’d choose to go into when the water finally stopped.

  As it happened I never did get to find out. The mental coin I was flipping in my head had just come down on tails for the tenth time in a row and, on the strength of that, I’d decided that Carly was definitely going to put me out of my misery and we’d spend the rest of the night canoodling, when I heard a car door slam outside in the street and then heavy footsteps running up to the front door.

  I leapt back out of bed and grabbed my clothes. If I was going to die so be it, but I really didn’t want to die with my trousers down round my ankles, so I dressed myself in record time. I was quick but not quick enough to escape. Somebody was already turning a key in the lock and they were about to catch us bang to rights!

  Chapter 15

  I had made it out of the bedroom and into the hall when the front door was flung open and two guys burst in. They weren’t tooled up which was a relief, but they both looked as mean as rattlesnakes with a hangover.

  ‘Who the fuck are you, pal?’ growled the first guy in an accent that was made in Glasgow. As P.G. Wodehouse once said, “it’s not hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine”. Mind you, his mate was English and he wasn’t exactly Sunny Jim either.

  This bloke snarled at me and said, ‘And what the fuck are you doing here?’

  My gut was telling me that these guys were nothing to do with the caper we were involved in. They had the smell of old school criminals, not Russian mafia or the security services. I hoped my gut was right and it wasn’t just indigestion. I held up my hands. ‘It’s OK, fellas, I can explain.’

  They gave me the thousand yard stare and I figured they were probably going to listen to my first half a dozen words out of common courtesy and then beat the crap out of me. I just hoped Carly had the sense to stay hidden. She didn’t.

  She stepped out of the bathroom wrapped up in a thick white towel that stopped mid-thigh. She had a smaller one on her head like a turban. She still looked drop dead gorgeous.

  ‘Sorry for taking ages, babes but…’ Then she gasped and acted surprised to see the two guys. Tweedledum and Tweedledee gawped at her like she was a vision of Venus de Milo rising up out of the sea.

  Carly frowned. ‘No, I’m not having it, babes. I told you it was just me and you and no way was I agreeing to your mates joining in – so they can just piss off. Sorry.’

  I could see what she was trying to do, but it was one hell of a dangerous strategy. Still, the opposition were off guard and it gave me something to work with.

  ‘Err…these guys aren’t my mates, sweetheart. I don’t know who they are but I think they’re not happy about us trespassing on their property.’ I grinned weakly at the men. ‘Sorry, fellas, me and the bird here couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel for some nooky, but she didn’t fancy doing it in the woods so we thought no one’d mind if we borrowed an empty gaff to get it on.’

  ‘Well, ye got that wrong pal. We dae mind.’ The Scottish guy was scaring me. He had teeth like broken tic-tacs and he loo
ked capable of anything. So did his mate, but he’d stopped acting menacing and was giving Carly the glad eye.

  ‘Oi, lighten up, Kenny, you can’t blame the bloke for wanting to give her one.’

  I could’ve kissed him.

  Kenny scowled. ‘Yeah well, he shudda had more sense than tae pick one o’ Mr H’s gaffs tae gi’ her one in.’

  Carly was now playing the very contrite female role. ‘Oh look, we’re really sorry and we really, really didn’t mean to upset your Mr H. But, like my boyfriend says, we got a bit carried away. Just give me two minutes to get dressed and we’ll be out of here, and I promise you we’ll never do anything like this again.’

  She smiled at them so sweetly that for a nanosecond I thought we might get away with it.

  Kenny’s mate smiled. ‘Nah, I’ve got a better idea sweetheart. You get dressed and then me and Kenny’ll take you and your boyfriend here to Mr H’s place and you can apologise to him in person. He’ll like that.’

  I was going to argue but then Kenny produced a shiv and I decided the wisest course of action was to keep my mouth shut and take our chances with the mysterious Mr H.

  Chapter 16

  Carly and I sat in the back of a Range Rover while Al, the English guy, drove and Kenny sat cleaning his fingernails with his shiv.

  I tried to engage Al in conversation. ‘So who is this Mr H?’

  Kenny sniggered and not in a good way. ‘Your worst fuckin’ nightmare, pal.’

  Obviously Kenny had no idea what my worst nightmare was, but I was prepared to bet Mr H would give it a run for its money.

  ‘What? He’s a spider from the planet Zargon is he then?’ I was hoping to lighten the mood. I failed miserably. Not even Carly laughed.

  ‘I’d watch my mouth if I was you,’ said Al. ‘Mr H don’t like smart arses.’

  That seemed to be good advice, but, working on the principle that knowledge is power and all that, I wanted to try and find out a bit more before we met Mr H face-to-face. ‘So what does Mr H like?’

  ‘People who don’t break into his property. He likes them well enough.’ Al paused then added. ‘Oh dear, you don’t fall into that category though, do you?’

  ‘So how did you know we were there?’

  ‘It ain’t rocket science. You triggered the alarm system the moment you opened the door. It’s a silent one linked to Mr H’s place. He gave us a bell and we came running as soon as it went off.’

  I nodded thoughtfully. ‘So why does Mr H need blokes like you on his payroll?’

  ‘Tae deal wi’ shitebags like you, ye wee bastard!’

  Al chortled. ‘There’s some truth in that, but Mr H is first and foremost a businessman and we help him make sure his affairs run smoothly.’

  ‘What’s he going to do to us?’ Carly asked this quite matter-of-factly. I admired her composure.

  ‘Dunno,’ replied Al. ‘You can never predict how Mr H is gonna react. But if you smile nicely at him, darlin’, it may help.’ Then his eyes flicked up to the mirror and he winked at me. ‘Though I shouldn’t try smiling at him if I was you, mate. Mr H will only think you’re being disrespectful.’

  I was fast coming to the conclusion that Mr H was one of the old school villains who’d relocated to the Costa del Crime. There’s a mythology that’s grown up around these geezers that they were somehow the salt of the earth. That they looked after their own and only did crimes that affected institutions like banks and international jewellers rather than ordinary people. It’s all complete bollocks of course. To a man they were nasty, greedy, ruthless toerags who ruled by fear and didn’t give a flying fig for anybody but themselves. The only plus I could see in all this was that, compared to the Russian Mafia, they were pussy cats. Though, in truth that was a bit like saying Velociraptors were a tad more cuddly than T-Rexes. Meeting either only had one result.

  And the irony of it all was that less than half an hour ago all I thought I had to worry about was whether Carly would sleep with me or not. Now, instead of me enjoying a night of passion with a man-eater, she and I were speeding towards a meet with the human equivalent of a carnivorous dinosaur. Life can be an absolute bitch sometimes.

  Chapter 17

  We soon left the bright lights of the coastal strip behind as the Range Rover made its way up into the mountains. I could feel my ears pop as we climbed. After about 40 minutes, Al turned off the paved road and bumped along a rutted track for a while until we came to the high wall that marked the boundary of Mr H’s property. A camera mounted on the entrance tracked us and then the electronic gates swung open and we drove through a grove of olive trees until we came to a large ranch-style house with a swimming pool.

  The front door opened and a stocky guy with an enormous brandy glass in his hand stood there watching us. He had a face like a dyspeptic baby whose mum’s lost the gripe water. I guessed this was Mr H. It was.

  Kenny shoved me in the back and Al took Carly’s arm and the four of us followed Mr H inside.

  Mr H sat down on a sofa, sipped his brandy and looked at us with his piggy eyes.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re Mr H,’ I said. ‘But beyond that I haven’t got a clue.’

  He sniffed. ‘I’m Des Hammond. Ring any bells?’

  It did. Hammond was suspected of being the brains behind a big bullion heist a few years back. It went to trial but he walked free after a couple of key witnesses suddenly got bad cases of amnesia. He wasn’t a bloke to play games with.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, now that you come to mention it.’

  He gave me a long cold stare. ‘So what were you two doing in my house?’

  I made a rueful face. ‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘Kenny and Al here burst in before we could get it on.’

  ‘Did they now?’

  Al decided to stick his beak in and, amazingly, he was backing me up. ‘Bloke did say they was there for a bit of how’s yer father. And, to be honest, the bird here was stripped for action when we turned up.’

  I thought Carly might have said something about this but she had the good sense to keep her mouth shut.

  Hammond sniffed again. I suspected he was over-fond of the old Bolivian marching powder. ‘Well, the young lady’s tasty enough, alright. But it don’t add up. There’s plenty of places to get your leg over so why break into my particular gaff?’

  I shrugged. ‘Yours looked empty so we figured it was as good a place as any.’

  Hammond considered this. ‘Nah. I’m not buying it.’ He looked at Al. ‘Did they have a car?’

  Al shook his head.

  Hammond pursed his lips. ‘Hmm. That development is a bit off the beaten track. It’s a nice quiet residential area. No bars, nightclubs or restaurants. So, no way would you be there unless you had a particular reason.’ He took another swig of his brandy. ‘And don’t tell me it was ‘cos you were both feelin’ randy.’

  I pulled at my earlobe and tried desperately to think up a plausible explanation. ‘Well, you see…’

  He cut me off. ‘No, I don’t bloody see but I’m just about to!’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Al, pass the bird’s bag over and let’s have a look inside.’

  Al took Carly’s shoulder bag and handed it to him. Mr H glanced up at me. ‘And you can gimme your bum bag, mate – or shall I get Kennie to cut it off with his shiv?’

  I did as I was told.

  He tipped Carly’s bag up and scattered its contents onto the sofa. He zeroed in on the two passports. ‘Hello, what’ve we got here?’

  He opened them and glanced inside. ‘Nice mug shots, sweetheart. Most birds look like right munters in theirs, but not you, eh, Cynthia – or is it Kelly?’

  ‘It’s Kelly.’

  Hammond nodded. ‘Yeah, ‘cos you sure don’t sound northern.’ Then he opened my bag and took out both my passports. ‘And which one of these geezers is really you?’

  ‘I’m Brian Ridley.’

  ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘You look pretty rough in your photos
but you don’t look forty.’ He sat back and stroked his chin. ‘Now the next question is: why are two ordinary British tourists travelling with dodgy passports?’

  ‘Cos they’re up tae nae fuckin’ gud.’

  Hammond sighed. ‘Yes, thank you, Kennie. I’d already worked that bit out. But what I really need to know is what kind of no good it is they’re up to – and how come it involves me?’ He smiled his crocodile smile at us both. ‘So are you gonna tell me upfront or am I gonna have to get Kenny and Al to hurt you?’

  Chapter 18

  Kenny’s mean little face lit up at the prospect and he actually licked his lips. Al was eyeing Carly in a way that made me queasy.

  ‘Course they don’t have to hurt you, Mr Ridley,’ Hammond said. ‘They could just get tasty with your girl and you could watch. How does that sound?’

  It sounded like the worst thing I could imagine, so I took a decision to tell him a version of the truth. The thing was I’d noticed he had a print of Queen Elizabeth hanging on his wall. I was hoping against hope that the guy was one of those exiled Brits who become ludicrously and sentimentally patriotic – as long as it doesn’t actually mean abandoning their cushy ex-pat lifestyle to go back to England to live.

  ‘There’s no need for that Mr Hammond. My real name is Ryan Kyd and this is my associate Carly Bloom. We’re private investigators working for British Intelligence.’ Hammond’s eyebrows lifted slightly but he said nothing. I figured I’d hooked his interest so I carried on in my best no-nonsense-Joe “just the facts ma’am” Friday persona. ‘We were sent out to Spain to track down a scientist who had absconded with information vital to the security of the realm. We followed him here but he was murdered before we could persuade him to come back with us to England.’ I looked grim faced and steely at this. ‘But that wasn’t the end of it. He had some top secret data on a memory stick which he’d stashed in Tangier. So we took a trip over there to get it, but it all went pear shaped and we escaped in a fishing boat which brought us here and dumped us on the beach. We couldn’t return to our hotel in Puerto Banus for fear that whoever it was who killed the scientist – and we suspect it was the Russian Mafia – would be waiting for us. So we decided to break into an empty property and rest up. It was our intention to travel to Granada tomorrow and fly home using the fake passports.’ I paused and nodded at Kennie and Al. ‘But then your guys came along and the rest is history.’