The Assassin King

León de Bruin squatted down by the Twin Otter’s open hatchway, the better to savour Ronan Calder’s expression as he recovered from his stun gunning. He was so groggy that it took him several seconds to realise his predicament, lying on his side on the platform step behind and beneath the aircraft’s starboard wing, his arms and legs taped to the block of masonry he’d remarked on earlier, hugging it to his belly like he was a contestant on the World’s Strongest Man trying to heave an Atlas stone up onto its stand. And the only thing stopping him from falling from the platform step into the sea below was Andrei holding onto his jacket collar – another source of amusement for de Bruin, as it happened, for Andrei’s one weakness was his very palpable discomfort with heights.

‘What’s going on?’ slurred Calder, sounding more confused than terrified.

They were low enough by now for de Bruin to taste the salt upon his lips and see the Twin Otter’s black shadow rippling over the roiled grey water. Away to their south, he could make out the pursed mouth of the River Nene and the white dot of Warne Farm, scene of last night’s fiasco. He could picture it now, Anna Warne scrambling away across her bedroom carpet before getting back to her feet and picking up her bedside lamp, her baggy white cotton T-shirt clinging and translucent from the rain, the outline of her breasts and nipples, her dark brown hair wet and bedraggled, and a look of such imperious contempt in her eye! Just like that, he’d been thirteen again. Thirteen, and in love for the first time. Her name had been Carmen Trent. She’d been in his year at school, pretty rather than obviously beautiful, a bright-eyed English rose, all vitality and flushed skin. A little plump, maybe, but savvy enough to turn that into the kind of feminine curves that had reduced him to blushing imbecility. Moderate in her use of make-up, and her silky long hair so well brushed that it had taken on an almost hypnotic swishing quality whenever he’d sat behind her in class and she’d turned her head.

Most of all, though, she’d been kind.

De Bruin had been an ugly child, weedy of build, with bad skin, protruding ears and crooked teeth. He’d been hopeless at games, slow to learn and with an unfortunate habit of saying exactly the wrong thing when trying to fit in. His bullying had been incessant. Perhaps it had only been because Carmen had lived a couple of doors down, and their mothers had been friends, but she’d been the one person at school ever to treat him with decency, or to stand up for him against his small army of tormentors. For that alone, he’d have worshipped her. But it hadn’t been for that alone.

His body had been changing in the most confusing ways. He’d had endless fantasies of wrestling Carmen to the ground, their bodies hotly pressed, their cheeks and mouths. Walking home together after being dropped off by the school bus one afternoon, a violent summer squall had set them sprinting for shelter beneath the old oak at the foot of their street. Her cheap white cotton blouse had been drenched to a pearly translucence, clinging beguilingly to her skin, while dribbles of rain had trickled down inside her collar, causing her to undo her top buttons to brush it away. Still panting from their dash for cover, she’d put her hands on her knees to recover.

Her blouse had fallen open from the throat. Her young breasts had swung free inside her bra for a few heart-stopping moments. The shape and colour of them, the way they swelled and then sank again with each breath, the chilled rose bumps of her nipples, all framed by her frazzled long dark hair. He’d never seen anything remotely as erotic, either before or since. He’d suffered the inevitable teenage reaction. Terrified she’d notice, he’d tried to adjust himself before she looked up, only to draw attention to it instead, so that she’d caught him with his hand down his trousers, and had given him a look of such utter revulsion that it had stamped itself deep into his psyche, so that he’d never quite been able to lose himself completely to a woman since, however beautiful, unless she had about her that same sense of contempt and loathing.

An English rose with bedraggled hair in clinging wet white cotton regarding him with horror and disgust. No wonder he’d frozen last night in Anna Warne’s bedroom. No wonder she’d become lodged like a splinter in his mind ever since. And, like a splinter, the harder he tried to squeeze her out, the harder he found it to think of anything else. ‘Do you know where I went yesterday evening, Mr Calder?’ he asked, gesturing south across the Wash.

Calder shook his head, bewildered. ‘Warne Farm?’ he hazarded.

‘Correct, Mr Calder. Warne Farm. And do you know why?’

‘You never told me. I’d have gone there myself if you’d said what for.’

‘Forgive me,’ said de Bruin. ‘I expressed myself poorly. I didn’t mean: Why did I go there? I meant: Why did I go there last night?’

‘Oh. Because the police had left. Because it was empty.’

‘Not exactly, no. Not because it was empty, but because you told me it was empty.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Calder. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself with a series of short fast breaths. ‘I never actually said it was empty, if you recall. I only ever said that the lights were off and all the cars had left.’

‘A little late to be revising your story now, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not revising it. I just—’

‘I asked you if there was anyone there,’ said de Bruin. ‘You told me no. You told me they’d all left.’

‘I meant the cars,’ said Calder, in desperation. ‘I mean we don’t have cameras everywhere. Only on the roof and in the barn and covering the drive.’

‘The time to tell me that would have been yesterday, don’t you think?’

‘I did, I did. I swear to god, I thought I did.’

‘No,’ grunted Andrei. ‘You said there was no one there.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Calder again, risking another glance down at the sea beneath, the white spume reaching up for him like the hands of drowned sailors. ‘Please. Please. I beg you. My boy. He’s sick. He needs me. His mum can’t do it alone.’

‘You know my policy, Mr Calder. I’ve always made it clear. My employees are allowed one honest mistake. I’ll always forgive one honest mistake. I’m not a monster. But you’ve now made two. Two serious mistakes. Two costly mistakes. Two mistakes, moreover, that might almost have been designed to do me harm.’

‘No. No. Never.’

‘And I should just believe you, should I?’

‘It’s the truth. I swear it is.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said de Bruin. ‘I don’t buy it anymore.’ And he gestured at Andrei to push him to his death.

‘Please,’ wept Calder. ‘I beg you. I don’t want to die. I’ll do anything. Anything.’

De Bruin frowned as if undecided. Not that he was. Calder didn’t have the balls to betray him deliberately, and he still had value, both as his link to the bikers and as a fall guy to toss to the police should the need arise. But he’d been careless twice now, and so he needed to be reminded of his place in the world. ‘Anything?’ he asked.