Kiss of Death. Paul Finch

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ STOP

      Kelso climbed out and stood beside the car, his breath pluming in the frigid air.

      Initially, there was no sound. He glanced left and right and saw to his surprise that he’d halted on a narrow bridge. He’d been so focused on the stop sign that he hadn’t noticed the rotted, flimsy barriers to either side of him. Not that it was much of a bridge. By the looks of it, it didn’t lead anywhere in particular; it was probably for the use of livestock.

      ‘Kelso!’ a harsh voice shouted.

      He turned full circle.

      ‘Kelso!’ the voice shouted again, and, realising where it was coming from, he scrambled around the front of his Peugeot to the left-hand barrier.

      Some twenty feet below, he saw what he took to be a derelict railway cutting, except that this also had been adapted into a farm track, because, almost directly underneath him, a flatbed truck was waiting. Its driver, the younger of the two hoodlums, a taller, leaner figure than the older one, but mainly identifiable because, instead of a green balaclava, he was wearing a black one, had climbed from the cab.

      ‘Throw the cash down!’ he called up. ‘Do it now!’

      ‘Where’s my wife?’ Kelso shouted back.

      ‘Throw it now, or you’ll never see her again.’

      ‘All right, for God’s sake!’

      Kelso returned to his car and, one by one, humped the loaded haversacks to the barrier, dropping them over. Each one landed with a shuddering crash, bouncing the truck on its shocks. From twenty feet up, fifty grand in used banknotes made quite an impact. The younger hoodlum had clearly anticipated this, because he stood well back in case one went astray. However, when all four had landed, he hurriedly lowered the tailgate and jumped on board, opening the zips on two of them to check their contents, before climbing back down and scuttling to the driving cab.

      ‘Hey!’ Kelso shouted. ‘Hey … what about my wife?’

      The guy never once looked back. The door slammed behind him, the vehicle juddering to life, before roaring off along the cutting, frosted leaves and clumps of frozen earth flying behind it.

      ‘What the …’ Kelso’s voice almost broke. ‘Good … good God almighty!’

      ‘Hey,’ someone behind him said.

      He spun around, and almost collapsed in gratitude at the sight of the older villain, who had evidently sidled out of the trees beyond the signpost and now approached along the lane.

      As before, he wore overalls, heavy gloves and a green balaclava.

      Also as before, his pistol was drawn.

      ‘I’ve done as you asked.’ Kelso limped towards him, arms spread. ‘You saw me.’

      The hoodlum pointed the gun at his chest. ‘Yeah, you’ve done as we asked.’

      Kelso stumbled to a halt. ‘OK … please let’s not play this game any more. Just let me have Justine?’

      ‘Worried about your wife, eh?’

      Despite his best efforts, Kelso’s voice took on a whining, agonised tone. ‘Please don’t do this. Just tell me where she is.’

      ‘Where she was before. Back at your house. Why would we bring her with us?’

      ‘OK … so … is that it, then?’

      ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ But the hoodlum didn’t lower his firearm.

      Kelso was confused. ‘So … I can go?’

      ‘Eager to see her again, eh?’

      ‘What do you think? Just let me go, and I’ll drive back.’

      ‘Nah. I can send you to her a quicker way.’

      ‘What …?’ After a night of extreme horrors, Kelso, who’d thought he’d be rendered immune to this sort of thing for the rest of his life, now felt a deeper, more gnawing chill than ever before. ‘What do you mean?’

      The gaze of those terrible eyes intensified. He imagined the bastard grinning under his balaclava; crazily, maniacally, a living jack-o’-lantern.

      ‘Oh, no …’ Kelso simpered under his breath. ‘Oh no, please nooo …’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ the hoodlum chuckled, firing twice into the bank manager’s chest.

       Chapter 1

       Present day

      The church of Milden St Paul’s was located in a rural haven some ten minutes’ walk outside the Suffolk village of Little Milden. It sat on the edge of a quiet B-road, which ostensibly connected the distant conurbations of Ipswich and Sudbury but in truth saw little activity and was hemmed in from all sides by belts of gentle woodland and, in late summer, an endless golden vista of sun-ripened wheat.

      The atmosphere of this picturesque place was one of uninterrupted peace. Even those of no religious inclination would have struggled to find fault with it. One might even say that nothing bad could ever happen here … were it not for the events of a certain late-July evening, some forty minutes after evensong had finished.

      It began when the tall, dark-haired vicar came out of the vicarage and stood by the wicket gate. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, about six-foot-three inches tall, and of impressive build: square across the shoulders, broad of chest, with solid, brown arms folded over his pink, short-sleeved shirt. His hair was a lush, curly black, his jaw firm, his nose straight, his eyes a twinkling, mischievous blue. To pass him in the street, one might think it curious that such a masculine specimen had found his calling in the cloth. There had to be at least a chance that he’d have certain of his parishioners swooning in their pews rather than heeding his sermons, though on this evening it was he who’d been distracted by something.

      And here it came again.

      A third or fourth heavy blow sounded from the other side of the church.

      Initially, the vicar wondered if the warm summer air was carrying an echo from some distant workplace. On the church’s south side, you could see the roof of Farmer Holbrook’s barn on the far southern edge of the wheat field next door. But that was the only building in sight, and there wasn’t likely to be much work under way on a tranquil Monday evening.

      When he heard what sounded like a fifth blow, it was a sharper, flatter sound, and louder, as if there was anger in it. The vicar opened the gate, stepped onto the path and walked towards the church’s northwest corner. As he reached it, he heard another blow. And another, and another.

      This time there was a smashing sound too, like wood splintering.

      He hurried on to the church’s southwest corner. Yet another blow followed, and with it a grunt, as of someone making a strenuous effort.

      On СКАЧАТЬ