Chapter 58
Lee is Vern’s surviving bodyguard. In fact, of the four men at Vern’s villa on the night this all began, he is now the last man standing.
He was there the night that Esteban was shot from the back. He was there the night that Korbin was knifed in the front.
And here he is again, sitting by the body of a hitman, while Vern’s blood is adding to Rosie’s claret collection indoors.
That’s a hell of a run of bad luck for one man. Or a hell of a run of incompetence for a bodyguard. Or?
Amy sits next to him. He looks upset.
‘You okay?’ Amy asks.
‘This is –’ Lee sweeps his hand over towards the body and back towards the house. ‘It’s not for me. I’ve seen it all before.’
‘Death?’ Amy asks.
Lee nods. ‘Too much of it. I signed up at eighteen to see the world, have a bit of fun. And … well, I’m sure you know.’
Lee wants to tell her something. But he also wants to tell her nothing. She just needs to steer very gently through the middle.
‘And did you?’ Amy asks. ‘See the world? Have a bit of fun?’
‘I suppose,’ says Lee. ‘At first.’
‘Rosie asked how many people you’d killed,’ says Amy.
‘Too many,’ says Lee. ‘Can I show you something?’
‘Can I ask you to put your gun down first?’ Amy asks.
‘My gun?’ says Lee. ‘Why?’
‘Just make us both feel a bit more comfortable,’ says Amy.
Lee shrugs and tosses his gun out of reach. ‘I’ll be happy if I never see another gun.’
‘What did you want to show me?’ Amy asks.
Lee rolls up the sleeve on his T-shirt. He has a tattoo that reads CFC.
‘Chelsea,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Amy. ‘No wonder you’ve killed so many people.’
‘Had that done in Helmand Province,’ says Lee. ‘Do you want to know about the last person I killed?’
Amy can’t help but glance at the body in the hollow and think about Vern Blackwood. Had Lee fired a bullet at Vern before he shut the door of the wine cellar? He’d have needed a suppressor, but the hitman’s gun must be somewhere and that would have a suppressor.
‘I can’t tell you the unit I fought in,’ says Lee. ‘It didn’t have a name. But sometimes we’d be told to get ourselves in a bit of trouble. Go where we shouldn’t.’
Rosie leaves the house in a hurry. Amy calls over to her. ‘Rosie, you have to stay here for the police.’
‘I’ve decided you and Lee can deal with the police,’ says Rosie. ‘I’m going to The Hunter’s Rest. I can’t just sit and look at a corpse, it’s like being married again.’
Rosie, not waiting for a reply, jumps into her car and speeds off down the drive.
‘So,’ says Amy to Lee, ‘you were doing something you shouldn’t have?’
Lee’s gun is out of range, but what if he does have the hitman’s gun too? Amy still has her gun, and she realizes that Lee hasn’t asked her to dispose of it. Lee seems to have other things on his mind.
‘We were in a compound,’ says Lee. ‘They were holding someone, a journalist, our job was to get him out without a fuss.’
Amy has done a few jobs like that. Darkness, unfamiliar buildings, guards. It’s what you train for, but you still need a bit of luck.
‘He’s being held in a shower block, this guy,’ says Lee, ‘and we’ve got one man throwing a smoke grenade through the door, and two men going in through the roof.
I’m on a perimeter wall, I can see the whole scene, you know, night vision, all the kit, and I see one of theirs starting a little patrol.
Big gun, but T-shirt and sandals, so not expecting anything.
He’s walking between two buildings, and I don’t have a clean shot, so I jump down off the wall and follow the way he’s just gone.
I see him in the distance, and he looks left and right.
I know if he turns right he’ll be on the shower block in a second.
Our boys would have him, but he’d have time to let off some shots and scream the place down. ’
‘So you have to take a shot?’ says Amy.
‘Or all hell breaks loose,’ says Lee. ‘I’ve got a Heckler and I know that’ll be silent, so I aim, and I take the shot, and down he goes. Job done. I jog up to check, make sure he’s dead, but I’ve done it often enough to know he is.’
Amy nods. You always know. Perhaps because it takes a piece of you too. So you feel it.
‘And I get to him,’ says Lee. ‘And he’s lying on his back, my age, and, you know, he’s a soldier, I know that. He’s got a gun, I’ve got a gun, we both knew the game.’
Lee goes quiet.
‘But?’ says Amy.
‘On his arm,’ says Lee. ‘I can just see it poking out under his T-shirt.’
Amy nods, and Lee rolls up his sleeve again.
‘Chelsea tattoo?’ says Amy.
‘We were playing that evening too,’ says Lee. ‘Champions League. I was excited, he’d have been excited too, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ says Amy.
‘We got the journalist,’ says Lee. ‘He wrote a book about us in the end, called it The Killing Crew. And that’s what we were. That’s what we did. We killed people.’
It is not the time, but Amy makes a note of the title, it sounds right up her street.
‘We get the chopper back,’ says Lee. ‘The lads had a few beers and watched the Chelsea match.’
‘And you?’ Amy asks.
‘Never watched a match again,’ says Lee. ‘To this day. And never shot a gun again.’
‘You’ve never shot a gun again?’ says Amy.
‘Left the army,’ says Lee. ‘Told them I had the heebie-jeebies, and they were good about it. They knew the work we were doing.’
‘But you became a bodyguard?’ says Amy. ‘An armed bodyguard?’
‘What else was I going to do?’ says Lee. ‘I did a week on the sites, hauling bricks, and I did two days as an estate agent, but you know a geezer with my employment history can do very nicely in this game.’
‘But you do have to shoot a gun every now and again,’ says Amy.
‘Not with Vern, I didn’t,’ says Lee. ‘Perfect job for me. Carried a gun, cleaned my gun, pointed my gun once or twice, but never shot it.’
‘You didn’t kill the hitman?’ Amy asks.
Lee smiles. ‘That’s what you thought?’
Amy considers this. ‘I didn’t not think it.’
‘I honestly thought I had the perfect job,’ says Lee. ‘Then everybody starts getting murdered. Bloody Esteban messed it all up for me.’
‘Esteban messed it up?’ says Amy. ‘I think Connor Brooks messed it up for you.’
‘Connor Brooks?’ says Lee. ‘No.’
‘No?’ repeats Amy.
‘No,’ says Lee. ‘Connor Brooks was all my fault.’