Exit wound

‘I know this is stupid, but we called this old thing “Cuckoo”, after a song we loved. It was a hit when we met. Everyone used to sing it and…’ She stared into the sidecar for a few more seconds, before reluctantly getting up. We closed down the garage and headed for the apartment.

101

We walked into the lobby through a set of wooden doors with Victorian-wired glass panels. The harsh white light from the overhead fluorescents did the cleaners no favours. Hastily swished mop marks showed as plain as day across the black marble floor.

Sweet, flowery disinfectant did battle with the stench of boiled cabbage. There was no lift, so we climbed the stairs to the first floor. Anna pointed down the corridor. I counted four doors. ‘Last one on the right.’

I signalled to her to carry her wheelie. It was making too much noise.

None of the doors had a bell or a knocker. They didn’t even have numbers. Each was just a plain sheet of veneered plywood with a fake brass knob, dulled from decades of use.

We reached Semyon’s apartment. Anna’s hand was poised to rap against the veneer. I heard a dull thud inside and knew exactly what it was. I pushed Anna clear as the lock turned.

I rammed my full weight against the opening door. It only travelled a foot. I burst through to see the body behind it stumbling back into the hallway. Tattoo’s mate staggered to his feet, one hand tugging his leather jacket away from his waist. I focused on the other and jumped on him, pinning him to the floor. I grabbed his fingers a nanosecond before they could make contact with the pistol-grip in his waistband. His cologne matched the building’s disinfectant. I felt my eyes water and my throat constrict. With him in the room, the boiled cabbage didn’t stand a chance.

He bucked and kicked, trying to head-butt me off him. His stubble rasped at my neck and face.

I pushed my hands down on his, determined to keep the weapon where it was. My knuckles sank into his stomach. I felt the hammer of the revolver and found my way to its grip. We rolled about on the carpet, each scrabbling for some kind of advantage. His fist thumped into the side of my head. I tried to sink my teeth into his face or neck to cause him enough pain to disorient him.

I thrust my right hand between the weapon and his skin, searching for the trigger. At the precise moment my middle finger found the guard he raised his knee to push me away. I used the distance between us to jab my finger onto the trigger.

There was a dull thud.

The suppressed barrel put a round into his lower gut, bollocks, cock or leg. I didn’t know which and didn’t much care. I shoved my left hand over his mouth to muffle the scream.

I suddenly had enough space to draw down the weapon. I jammed the long fat barrel against his head and fired again.

I rolled off his corpse and allowed myself a couple of deep breaths before moving on. I knew there wasn’t time for more. ‘Anna?’ I got up and closed the front door.

Low-level bookcases ran the length of the corridor. Books and magazines lay strewn across the floor. The brown, swirly-patterned carpet at the entrance to the living room was wet with blood. Anna knelt, sobbing, beside Semyon’s body. He lay half in, half out of the doorway, still in his raincoat and scarf. He’d thrown up his right arm in a vain attempt to protect himself. He must have known what was coming. There was no mistaking the exit wound on the left side of his forehead, slap in the middle of his frontal lobe. It wasn’t the only one. His left arm and both legs were stained crimson where he had taken rounds.

I checked the weapon. The chamber was empty. I ran my hands over the second loadie’s body for spares. He was carrying no extra ammunition. I guess he must have brought just enough to torture and kill an old man.

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a bread knife. Two sets of bike gear lay on the floor, along with the rest of the room’s contents. They were old waxies, 1980s-style jackets. The pockets had been turned out.

The kettle had boiled dry on the stove. Semyon must have put it on as soon as he came in. The loadie had been waiting for him, or maybe he’d just knocked on the door. Semyon had known we were due any minute.

If anybody else had been here, they’d have done their stuff by now. All the same, I had to make sure. I cleared the two bedrooms, living room and bathroom. They’d all been ransacked. Drawers had been emptied, stuff torn apart – even in Grisha’s room, another shrine, still with his teenage football teams and pop-star posters on the wall.

I checked the loadie’s pockets and pulled off his fashionably pointed shoes. I couldn’t stop thinking about Red Ken lying on the tarmac, having taken a mag from this man. It made me feel good that the front of the bastard’s head now looked like Semyon’s. I just wished I’d been able to cause him the same amount of pain.

He had nothing on him at all. He’d come to the job sterile, and there was no sign of whatever he’d hoped to find in Semyon’s apartment.