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Pitt had never killed anyone before and his ruthlessness surprised him. Those who knew him, of course, would have expected nothing less. The man who could so often appear grim and humourless. Only Hardyman had been used to seeing some other side of him, and, now that Hardyman was gone, no one else would.
However, as Hardyman had known and Daisy had long since forgotten, there was much hidden beneath the surface; the same mixture of confidence and uncertainty, the same juxtaposition between self-assurance and discomfort with others.
Pitt knew himself, of course. He knew what lay hidden. That was why, when it came to committing murder on behalf of a young woman to whom he had never spoken a word, he had assumed he would be nervous. He assumed there would be fear; fear of guilt, fear of being overcome, fear of dying, fear of detection and ruin and humiliation.
Yet, Daisy, and anyone else who thought the worst of Pitt because of his rude exterior, would have been proved right. For Pitt felt no fear, just an absolute certainty in the righteousness of his actions.
He used his bare hands to finish the job, although he had brought Chen Yun to his knees with a blow from the metal bar. He had planned to use his hands from the start; the metal bar had been a supplementary instrument of death that had fallen into his possession. He would perhaps use it again on the two outside, but at that moment all he was interested in was Chen Yun, and that he wanted to feel the life drain from him.
Chen had had the phone in his hand, but two quick steps and a heavy swing of the metal bar and the phone had been sent crashing from the desktop, breaking four of Chen’s fingers in the process.
Thereafter, Pitt was on top of Chen, raining down blows to the head, and then grabbing him by the throat. Of course, Chen struggled. No man allows himself to be strangled by a complete stranger. Indeed, as they fought, Chen landed several powerful blows with both feet and fists to Pitt’s body and the side of his head.
It did not matter, for Pitt had made up his mind. The man would die. The blood from Pitt’s nose dripped onto Chen’s face, splashed on his cheek. A drop went into his tortured mouth, as he gasped for air. Pitt let the blood run, took the brutal kicks to the lower half of his body.
Chen expended a lot of effort in a short space of time, and then he was exhausted. Finished. He had conceded before he died because he knew. Perhaps he did not want to die fighting. Perhaps he wanted to die at peace. Perhaps he thought that, by giving up the fight, Pitt would relax his grip.
Pitt’s grip never changed; he could not tighten it any further, he did not slacken off. Chen died eleven seconds after giving up. His eyes questioned Pitt. He thought Pitt might stop to explain himself. Wasn’t that what killers did? Not assassins, perhaps, but barehanded killers. Did they not want to let the victim know the reason why they were taking such terrible revenge?
Despite the fact that he had not received a bullet in the head like he thought he might have done from a hired hand, Chen still assumed that Pitt had been paid to do the job. He had that look about him; eyes that spoke of nothing, eyes that had seen too much death, eyes that refused to be emotionally affected.
Chen spent his last few seconds thinking that his death had been inevitable from the second that Pitt had walked in the door.
Once Chen was dead, Pitt kept his grip tight for a further half minute. Delaying meant he increased the chances of getting caught, but he had never killed a man before and wanted to make sure. He was not worried at that stage that the police might be called; far more possible that Chen had extra men. A platoon of heavyweights on call for just such an occasion. However, the fact that there had only been one hired hand present implied that Chen was not used to trouble.
When Pitt was finally convinced that Chen would never breathe, walk or deal in women again, he let his head fall with a bump onto the floor, then stood up and looked over his shoulder. She was standing in the doorway, still clutching her throat, still struggling for breath.
She had not loved Chen. No one could love Chen. But Chen had been the heart of the operation, the one who knew the transport route across Asia and Europe, the man with the contacts. Chen had not groomed a natural successor, as he had trusted no one. Give someone else all the information they required, then what would the point have been of the man at the top?
He had not even worked by giving a little piece of knowledge to a lot of different people, because what was to stop them all working together? Plainly and simply, without Chen the entire operation would collapse. The good life, the easy life, the easy money to which Klimsky had become accustomed, was gone.
She had wondered about him when she’d seen Pitt for the first time; the look of him had scared her, but she had wanted to bide her time. She did not want a repeat of the Bugeri incident of a few months previously, when she had ejected the wealthiest businessman south of the M4 because she had taken him for an undercover police officer.
She had let him in and now Pitt had brought their destruction. As she looked across the small room, she thought that she had never hated anyone more in her entire life. And Klimsky had hated a lot of people.
She was not going to fight. She’d been involved in her fair share; she had ripped out eyeballs, and landed punches that had broken jaws and knocked out teeth. But she knew she did not have the strength to beat a man of the power and seemingly malicious will of Pitt. If Pitt had killed Chen with his bare hands, she was not going to waste her time trying. She had to get out. Retreat, re-group, hunt Pitt down and deal with him in much slower time.
Pitt did not wilt from the look of loathing, recognising that Klimsky was not just the hired hand. Perhaps she would know enough to continue Chen’s work now that he was gone.
Klimsky turned and started running down the corridor. A few large steps and Pitt was behind her. Had grabbed the metal bar on the way out of the office. The speed, the agility, the sure-footed movements were all alien to him, but Pitt was not operating on a normal level.
Again, he thumped her hard on the neck – a crashing blow from the back – and she collapsed on the spot. The top of her spine was cracked and smashed with one massive blow.
She was not instantly dead, but lay still on the floor, looking up at him with glazed eyes. As Pitt stood over her, breathing heavily, the henchman lay just behind. Pitt kicked her leg to see her reaction; it gave way limply. He felt absolute contempt and hatred for the woman. He had been aware of the crumbling of her neck beneath the blow from the metal bar and wondered if she would be paralysed.
The thought crossed his mind to leave her there, to let her suffer for her sins for the rest of her life.
A fleeting thought. He had to leave no bridge unburned.
He glanced over his back at the stricken body behind him. The guard was already dead. He turned, kneeled beside Klimsky’s broken body, placed his hands around her throat and throttled her.
She died quickly, unable to struggle.
When he was finished, and sure that the guard was also dead, he walked back to Chen’s office. He stopped, looked around, noticing for the first time the canvas paintings of Chinese art. Could have been stolen from Chen’s local restaurant.
There was a calendar with a picture of a bare-breasted Asian girl for the month of July. Two of the walls were completely bare, suggesting that the tawdry wall hangings that were in place had been an afterthought. Chen had not cared about his surroundings.
There was a window behind Chen’s desk that, as with the windows in the main room, looked as though it was permanently blacked out. Pitt walked around the desk, making sure not to soil his feet by stepping on Chen, and lifted the phone.
He called the police. Reported a murder, and then walked calmly back down the corridor and through the dimly lit room; the room with no natural light, where women were crying out in pain and men were drinking and enjoying themselves.
He walked down the stairs and back out into a warm late Bristol evening. As he took the long walk to his car, it started to rain. He lifted the bottom of his shirt to his nose and wiped the blood from his face.