Nails In A Coffin (Demi Reynolds Book 1) (4 page)

Demi had been alone for an hour. She’d been sitting in her front room, contemplating the whereabouts of Nathan Richards. It was making her feel rather nauseous. People didn’t just go missing. So when somebody did, it was a shock to the system. Especially when the last time she’d seen Nathan, his brain had been leaking from his skull and his car was on fire.

Dead people don’t go missing.

She stood up abruptly and started pacing her living room. Her feet were sinking into her carpet. It was good carpet. The sort of stuff you buy at an extortionate rate per meter, and then realize you don’t have enough and have to spend extra for a triangle-shaped hole in the corner of the room.

“He can’t be missing,” Demi found herself confessing into the silence. The sound of her satellite box clicking its hard drive startled her. It did that a lot. As if every now and then it was gasping for air. It didn’t like being turned off. Neither did Demi. She didn’t like feeling like she was gasping for air. On standby until someone turned her back on. It was a nasty feeling. It suffocated her. She needed to talk to somebody. So she reached into her jeans back pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. She slid her finger across the screen, unlocking it, and quickly tapped on her phone call list. She found the person she was after and clicked on their name. A little arrow sat beside the person’s name. It was pointing outward and was green, signifying that she had called that number last, and not the other way around. It had been eight days since she last called that number. And now she was breathing heavily as she held the phone to her ear after pressing down on it again.

A ring tone buzzed in her ear. Two seconds passed, and a voice said hello on the other end.

“It’s me,” Demi managed to say, even though her voice box was fighting against her. She cleared her throat and said it again.

“I know it’s you. My phone can see caller IDs as well. Wonderful technology, isn’t it?” the man said.

Demi broke into an unexpected smile. The fact that she was smiling at all was a miracle. She knew she wouldn’t be smiling long. Not if her worst fears were about to be realized.

“I killed somebody I shouldn’t have,” she said, still pacing around her living room at a few steps every ten seconds. It was as if she wasn’t comfortable where she stood and had to get rid of her jitters by moving.

“I know you killed somebody,” the guy said, sounding a little impatient.

“Not that one, a new one. Last night. Actually, this morning, to be precise.”

The voice on the other end went silent. She could hear the man thinking.

“Who?” he finally asked.

Demi paced once again. Two steps, and then she stopped dead. “Nathan Richards,” she croaked.

“God blimey,” the man responded.

There was a deathly silence for a few seconds. It was as if the situation was being marinated so it tasted a little better and went down a little easier. But try as they might, there wasn’t any way to take this sort of situation. It was what it was, and the quicker they came to terms with what was happening, the easier it would be in the long run.

“I need to get out of London before Donny finds out,” Demi said, breaking the silence.

There was no answer from the other end of the phone. Just a slight crackle in the speakers. As if somebody was breathing into them. Shallow and sparse.

“You there?” she asked.

Still no answer.

“Please, you’ve got to help me. I can’t fight this on my own.”

The sound of indifferent laughter came from the other end of the phone. “Oh, Demi, there isn’t any fighting this. You’ve gone and fucked up good and proper.”

“But I need your help!” she cried, tears beginning to run down her face. You knew It was a grave situation when Demi Reynolds began to cry.

“Listen, he already knows,” the man said on the other end. “Who do you think took the body?”

“What? How does he know?”

“I’m not sure, but trust me on this, he definitely knows. I’m certain of it, in fact! He rang me a few hours ago, putting some feelers out. He was testing the waters. He was asking weird questions.”

Demi sat down. She wasn’t pacing anymore. “Like what? What did he ask?”

“He mentioned your name. He asked where you were. Like I was supposed to know! I told him that I had no idea and it was best if he rang you.”

Demi quickly checked her phone’s top bar. There were no icons on the left side. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.

“He didn’t call!” she said, her hands shaking a little.

“Of course he didn’t call. He’s not like that. He knows you did it. He’s coming for you, Demi. You need to get out of there as quick as you can. Don’t waste any time. No bags. Nothing. Just your passport, plastic, and a ticket to somewhere-the-fuck-away from here!”

She nodded her head and then realized the man on the phone wouldn’t have seen her do it. She was just about to say something when the mobile went dead. He had hung up. Her facial expression changed. A pang of urgency ran through her core. And then the sound of muffled voices. She looked around her living room, as if they were coming from somewhere near her. But then she questioned whether they were in her head. It didn’t take long for her to realize where they were coming from. The hairs on her arms stood up and a cold shiver ran down her back.

Her front door came off its hinges. She stood there, watching, amazed at what she saw. At who she saw. Two men walked into her flat. One of them was holding an axe. The other was holding a large cylinder-shaped battering ram.

“The boss wants to see you,” the man with the axe said, motioning her to follow them. She did as they asked.

“And this is in regard to what?” she inquired, feeling a little cheeky for asking. She knew exactly what was happening and why it was happening. But it never hurt to play dumb to some things in her line of work.

“This is in regard to you killing the boss’s brother. He’s funny like that. Proper gets wound up about trivial things. I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll find out soon anyway,” the one with the battering ram offered her in response. He grabbed her by her left arm. The man with the axe grabbed her right arm, and they escorted her off the premises.

The police were long gone, so there was no stopping the two men. She was a trained contract killer, but she wasn’t any miracle worker. The two guys who had her by the arms weren’t pushovers. There was nothing she could do about it.

They shoved her into the back seat of their Peugeot. They got into the front. The car reversed and sped off. She watched her apartment block disappear from the back of the car. She got one last glimpse of freedom before it too disappeared.

Donny the Hat was sitting down behind his desk, at his office. Documents were strewn all over the place. Database printouts. A few Polaroid’s of clients who needed dealing with. A number written on a piece of yellow sticky paper sat in the middle of the mess. It was a mobile number. The first three numbers were staring at Donny as he sat in his office chair, motionless, nearly breathless. But he breathed in deep and exhaled. His chest rose up and then back down. He was a beast of a man. A man who didn’t take shit from anybody. And right at that minute, he was seething with anger. Somebody had to pay for his brother’s death. It was a blemish on his reputation as an underworld boss. He couldn’t just let it slide. Somebody would need to pay dearly, and publicly at that. The city of London would need to know that Donny the Hat Harrison was no pushover. He wasn’t the type of man to turn a blind eye to something. He was the type of man to make people pay for their sins.

It was all about respect in his world. You learned fast in his game that showing anything but respect would garner you an early ticket to the meat wagon. Before you knew it, you were brown bread, and nobody likes wholemeal.

“I’ve decided,” Donny said under his breath.

The slight smell of vodka from last night prickled at his senses. First his tongue and then his nose. He felt sick. Last night was a heavy night of drinking and lots of sex. It was a celebration of a good day’s work. He had finally come to some sort of arrangement with the South London crime syndicate. They were no longer at each other’s throats. Peace was shared between the two firms. But now…now his brother was dead. And it was a sign of weakness on his part if nothing came of it. If it stayed the way it was, he would be forced out. The South London crime boss would see him as a disgrace. The peace would be over, and he’d have to answer to a lot of people. They’d probably let him walk, but he’d be dead inside. Nobody would remember the good that he’d done. The work he’d put in. They’d only remember what he didn’t do. And that was avenge his brother’s death.

“I’ve decided,” he said once again, repeating himself for no apparent reason. He was the only person in his office. He was thinking out loud.

He reached for his phone and put the receiver to his right ear. The cord dangled across his desk, displacing some of his paperwork as he pulled the receiver nearer. He dialed the number that was on the yellow sticky note in front of him. He mouthed the first three numbers out loud. They meant something to him. He just didn’t know what. He heard the dial tone punch in and change to a ringing tone. He waited for a few seconds, and then a voice answered.

“Hello?” the voice said.

“Hey, I’ve decided. I want to kill her. Change of plan. Don’t shoot her. Bring her back here, and we’ll play a game.”

The phone went dead. He put it back down, slotting the receiver in place. He sat back in his office chair and looked up at the ceiling. The wallpaper was peeling. He watched as a minuscule bit of paint fleck dropped off the ceiling and gently made its way toward him. He smiled.

“One by one, they all peel.”

The driver put his cell phone back in his pocket and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. He smiled and looked at his partner, who was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, still holding an axe.

“Change of plans. Looks as if the boss wants us to let him do her in,” he said, taking the first left on a roundabout.

They were planning on taking her to some layby somewhere, popping three bullets into the back of her head, and rolling her down a ditch. She wouldn’t have been found for a few days. Maybe even weeks. But plans change. And when they change, they must still respect them.

“I’m okay with letting The Hat kill her. He’ll come up with some great way to do it. You know how he is. He’ll see a movie, usually a horror movie of some sort, and question the factual validity of the death scenes. He’s like that. All factual,” the passenger said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a pouch of rolling tobacco. He started to roll himself a cigarette, but then gauged that his partner would want one, too, so he flicked the rolled cigarette into the driver’s lap.

“What do you think?” the driver said, momentarily craning his head toward Demi Reynolds, who was sitting in the back seat, looking pale and flustered.

“What?” was all she could muster.

“What do you think he’s going to do to you?” the driver said, moving his head forward, back to looking out the windshield as he drove at a reasonable speed.

“I don’t know,” Demi replied. She could feel her lungs inflating as panic began to settle within her.

“You ought to know, Demi,” the passenger said. This time he was the one craning his neck and looking at her. “You work for him. He’s a cold-blooded killer. He hires people like you to kill the people he can’t. If that doesn’t strike you as interesting, then I don’t know what does.”

“What do you mean? You expect me to be relishing the idea of dying?” she asked, her hands trembling a little.

“No, not at all. But there must be a little part of you, a tiny part, that is interested in how he’ll do it. I mean, you and him are tight. Well, you used to be close until you killed his brother. I know accidents happen, but I’m afraid some things can’t be forgiven. No matter how much you want them to be forgiven, some wounds don’t heal,” the driver said, taking a left.

It seemed as if both men were enjoying themselves. Demi wasn’t. Her heart was racing at a million beats per second. Her head felt sweaty, and her hands seemed to be expanding, as if her skin was becoming tighter. It seemed as if that tight feeling she was experiencing was rising up her arms, neck, and face. She felt trapped. Her breathing was off centre, and her legs were shaking. She was coming to the realization that she was about to die. She’d thought that she’d handle it a lot better than she was. After all, she was a contract killer. She should have nerves of steel. But knowing that her boss, Donny the Hat, was going to be the one to kill her was really making her feel the strain.

She’d give an arm and a leg for it to be anybody else. Anybody at all.

“You reckon he’s going to make you suffer, Demi?” the passenger asked, lighting up his rolled cigarette. The driver followed suit and lit his. The windows were closed, so the smoke began to make the air a little thick.

“I don’t know!” Demi shouted.

The driver and passenger began to laugh. They were trying to wind her up, and it was working. Demi knew what they were doing, but part of her couldn’t help playing along, because deep down she was petrified.

“I reckon he’ll behead you with a butter knife. He’s like that now. I mean, he watches a lot of those videos those Muslims release. He’s fascinated with the process. So much so he made us go out and look for a guy or gal to behead a few months ago. He said he didn’t care who it was. Just to bring them to him. We asked if he wanted somebody from a rival firm, but he declined. He just wanted anybody. So we put our heads together and came to the conclusion that we’d go to the local smack house and lure a smack head out of hiding,” the driver said.

Demi swallowed.

“When we got the smack head to get in our car, we drove him to the pub, and Donny was there waiting. He looked at the homeless guy, and his eyes lit up. I tell you what, I’ve never seen a guy look so happy. I mean, he was really happy. I’ve seen some guys get close to that kind of elation, but boy, oh boy, he was happy,” the passenger butted in.

Demi blinked a few times. Her eyelids were nearly sticking together.

“We ushered the homeless guy forward and made him sit down. We teased him a little, and then Donny started smashing him in. He broke all the guy’s rotted teeth. He snapped all the fingers on the guy’s right hand. Then he decided to beat him some more. The smack head finally conked out and was unconscious. That’s when Donny got his blunt blade and began carving at the guy’s neck. At first we thought the smack head wouldn’t wake up. In fact, I know I was hoping he wouldn’t, for his sake. I didn’t fancy seeing such a thing,” the driver said, taking another left.

“But he did wake up,” the passenger interjected, taking another drag on his cigarette. “And he was screaming and screaming. But as Donny cut at the guy’s throat like it was a Christmas turkey, the screams turned into gargling and then whistling, and finally nothing. He was dead. His flesh was white, and his head was hanging off the spinal stem. Donny couldn’t quite manage to sever the cord. It was too tough, especially with that blade. So he ripped the head off, twisting it, and it popped off. There was so much blood. I felt a little sorry for the druggy guy, but he shouldn’t have agreed to come along.”

“Yeah, drugs will cloud your judgment when it comes to who you get in a car with,” the driver said.

“Exactly,” the passenger reiterated.

Then they both turned their heads to face Demi. She was a mess. Her hair was covered in sweat, and her face was aching from her clenched jaw. The two men staring at her had smiles on their faces.

“So what we’re saying is, if he did that to a guy he didn’t know, who for all intents and purposes hadn’t done anything to him, what do you think he’s going to do to you? The woman who killed his own fucking brother?” the driver asked, turning around again and parking up on a curb.

“Rather you than me,” the passenger offered up as the engine died and both the passenger and the driver got out of the vehicle. They were at their destination. And Demi was expecting the worst.

The door next to her opened, and the driver grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her out of the car.

“I think it’s best if we don’t let Donny stew any longer. I’d rather keep my head, thanks,” he said, slamming the door shut and dragging her off to her demise.