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  He attempted a smile. It seemed to terrify the shop assistant to an even higher level.

  As he spoke, he had watched the woman’s eyes taking him in and her expression become increasingly horrified at his dishevelled, bloodied presence.

  The pharmacist came out from behind the dividing wall, looking curiously at Flynn with her eyes fixed on him. She asked, ‘What’s going on, Margaret?’

  ‘This man wants painkillers,’ the shop assistant said.

  ‘Strong ones,’ Flynn added. A sudden rush of agony from his leg almost made him collapse. He grabbed the countertop.

  The pharmacist, a no-nonsense-looking woman in her forties, stepped through the gap at the end of the counter and said, ‘You need a doctor, probably a hospital judging by the look of you.’ She pointed at the blood on Flynn’s leg and also saw the ragged hole in the denim. ‘Has someone stabbed you?’

  Flynn shook his head. He was starting to sweat very heavily now; his body seemed as hot as a furnace.

  ‘Shot me,’ he corrected her.

  ‘In that case you definitely need to get to hospital.’ She turned away from him. He realized she was going for a phone.

  ‘No,’ he said, barged past her and stood in her way. ‘Gimme the junk I need and I’ll be out of your way,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she said firmly, scared but unafraid at the same time.

  Flynn’s face must have turned monstrous at that point, making her recoil.

  Then he added, ‘Please. I’m desperate.’

  He knew he wasn’t being himself, particularly in respect of intimidating women.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her nostrils flared warily as she eyed him. ‘You need hospital treatment.’

  ‘I’ve just killed a man,’ he uttered.

  Behind him, the shop assistant – Margaret – inhaled with a dramatic squeak.

  Flynn’s eyes took in the pharmacist’s face, working over her features, looking for any sign that she would willingly – kind of – help him. ‘Just show me where the painkillers are and I’ll go … When I’m better, I’ll come back and pay, honestly.’

  In return, she weighed him up. He saw her make a decision. ‘This way.’

  She eased herself past him and led him through to the area at the back of the shop where the shelves were packed with pharmaceutical products.

  ‘Morphine would be good,’ he suggested.

  ‘Why, are you an addict?’

  ‘Do I look like one?’

  She gave him a look that said, Yes.

  ‘No, I just know it’d be good.’

  ‘We don’t have any in stock.’

  ‘Shit. Methadone, then.’

  ‘Locked away for the night, needs two keys and my partner has the other.’

  ‘Shit.’ Flynn knew it was a lie and, as much as he would have liked to throttle her, he stopped himself from putting his hands around her throat.

  He watched her take a few boxes of tablets from a high shelf and drop them into a small plastic bag. She then went back to the counter, put the rest of Flynn’s earlier selection into the bag and handed it to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said meekly.

  ‘As soon as you walk out of that door, I’ll be calling the police,’ she told him, holding his gaze unwaveringly.

  ‘I get that.’

  ‘Now fuck off.’

  ‘I’m going.’

  Flynn pivoted around with his newly acquired bag of goodies clutched to his chest and stumbled out from behind the counter into the public area of the shop at the same moment as the front door was rammed open and two armed cops, one male, one female, kitted out like Star Wars troopers, entered in a well-rehearsed move, one going left and low, the other right and high. No weapons were drawn but the palms of their hands rested significantly on the stocks of the Glock pistols in the holsters at their waists. The fastening loops on both guns had been unclasped.

  Flynn stopped. He swayed.

  The female cop took the lead.

  She raised her left hand in a police-stop gesture, her right staying on the Glock.

  ‘You stop right there, matey,’ she shouted. ‘Drop that stuff, put your hands up and get down on your knees.’

  ‘No, can’t do that,’ Flynn replied stubbornly.

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll either Taser you or shoot you,’ she said, unsurprised by his refusal to cooperate.

  Flynn shook his head. His mind was reeling and struggling now. ‘I need to get out of here,’ he said. ‘I’ll put you … I’ll put you down if you try to stop me.’

  ‘No, Mr Flynn, I’ll put you down … Now drop the gear, hands up and get down on to your knees, then on to all fours, then on to your belly and we’ll remain good friends, OK? I’ll get you to hospital and get you treatment, OK?’ she concluded lightly.

  ‘OK,’ Flynn said. But his brain was playing tricks with him, telling him he could do this, barge his way out, deck both cops before they got anywhere near drawing their guns. It was probably something he could have done under normal circumstances.

  He gripped the bag containing his drugs tightly to his chest like a rugby ball, lowered his head and began to charge.

  He got maybe two-and-a-half strides before the female cop, acting so quickly, so decisively, drew her Taser from the holster at the small of her back, aimed and discharged it at Flynn.

  The electrodes connected with his shoulder and upper chest.

  50,000 volts zapped through him, instantly closing his body down and flooring him. He landed face down on top of his shopping, bursting the bag, jerking every limb, then hissing and moaning as the charge subsided and every bone, sinew and muscle stopped working, everything except his vital organs.

  He looked up at the female officer standing astride over him.

  ‘You should’ve done what I said,’ she reprimanded him.

  TWO

  The dining table was impeccably laid out.

  The cutlery was gold-plated and all the crockery and glasses rimmed with gold. The candelabrum – the magnificent centrepiece to the table – was solid gold with sprays of tiny diamonds and the tablecloth made of the finest Vietnamese silk inlaid with gold thread.

  Viktor Bashkim surveyed it all with satisfaction.

  He loved gold.

  He had strived for it all his life, ever since he had ripped the chunky gold necklace from the teenager who’d harboured aspirations to become his rival on the streets of Tirana in Albania almost seventy years before; a young man Viktor Bashkim had stabbed forty-four times for this temerity and left to bleed out into a stinking gutter.

  Viktor had stood towering and victorious over the dying boy before fleeing the scene, holding up the heavy chain against the moonlight and instantly realizing he wanted more.

  Only then had he fled as a battered cop car turned into the alley with its blue light making a scraping noise as it rotated lazily.

  Viktor smiled at the cherished memory of that tableau in his brain.

  His first kill. His first caress of gold, almost in the same moment.

  That night was also when he’d had his first full sexual experience. The testosterone produced by the killing had fuelled his young body with lust and he’d forced himself on to his then girlfriend in a frenzy.

  A very good night.

  Viktor touched the chain still hanging around his now-scrawny, eighty-four-year-old neck. He had worn it every day since so he would never forget his origins.

  His ultimate intention had been to gift the chain to his eldest son, Aleksander, but that wish was not to be any more.

  Viktor blinked sadly, his eyes milky with age, cleared his mind and looked down the table again, then nodded with appreciation as it brought some pleasure to his old eyes.

  ‘This is good, Mikel,’ he said to the head waiter.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘And the meal?’

  ‘On schedule, sir.’

  Viktor nodded. The waiter bowed and reversed away.

  Vik
tor walked slowly past the table, allowing the tips of his arthritically gnarled fingers to brush against the tablecloth, then he stepped out of the banqueting suite and main saloon on to the equally expansive upper rear deck of his fifty-metre-long luxury motor yacht named Halcyon, constructed by a Turkish boat builder seven years before, now presently berthed in the port of Zante Town, capital of the Greek island of Zante or Zakynthos.

  He inhaled the sweet aroma of the early evening air and looked forward with anticipation to the nine-course meze that would be served for his special guests, yet to arrive. It was another hour before they were due.

  He leaned on the rail and looked across the twelve-mile stretch of the Ionian Sea towards mainland Greece. That country’s rugged silhouette was clear, made even more so when Viktor slotted his thickly lensed glasses on to his nose and was able to see the rocky coastline with even more clarity.

  Yet despite the magnificent view, the setting, the position of the boat in the pretty harbour and the flowery scent of the evening, Viktor sighed heavily. His old heart was still pounding as healthily as a man thirty years his junior, but it felt like lead in his chest thanks to his terrible loss.

  His jaw rotated in fury.

  At least the wheels of retribution were in motion.

  It had taken a few months to come about, but it was here and he was waiting impatiently for news.

  Now his jaw set grimly and his bony fingers gripped the rail as he looked down to the deck below on which the big Jacuzzi bubbled away around the bikini-clad body of his remaining grandson’s latest female companion, a heavily chested twenty-something with long black hair and Slavic features who was quite happy to take Niko’s money and lifestyle and tolerate the screwing.

  Viktor watched as Niko himself then emerged from the lower cabin, attired only in his black and silver Speedo swimming trunks, displaying his generous goods to great effect. He glanced up at Viktor and gave the old man a grin before clambering into the Jacuzzi alongside his lady friend, who was already pouring champagne into two slim fluted glasses. Niko settled alongside her, took a glass and raised it to Viktor before swallowing the expensive contents in one. Viktor saw the woman’s right hand slither under the surface of the water, through the bubbles like some kind of aquatic snake, and her fingers encircled Niko’s engorged privates.

  Repulsed, Viktor turned away and re-entered the saloon, making his way through to the bridge where the boat’s skipper sat at the complex dashboard, messing with the GPS system.

  He stood quickly on Viktor’s entrance, but the old man gestured for him to stay seated.

  ‘Have we heard anything more yet?’

  The skipper shook his head. ‘Not since …’

  ‘Do we need to be concerned?’ Viktor asked. His voice was harsh with age but still strong and commanding. Despite his background and its many temptations, he had steered clear of the excesses which had made him a fortune big enough to spend thirty-five million euros on this super yacht. He had never been a great fan of alcohol, never taken a drug other than on prescription, never smoked and never paid for sex. These were all goods and services he was happy to provide for others and reap the profits, but they were not for him.

  ‘Let me see again,’ Viktor said.

  ‘Sure, boss.’

  Viktor turned and crossed to a large-screen TV fitted to the back wall of the bridge which came to life.

  He watched the images with cold but satisfied detachment masking an inner delight as the young woman on the screen, naked and tied to a chair, had her head yanked back and was then expertly decapitated by a masked man with a finely honed panga, an African machete, with four perfectly aimed, slashing cuts, working through the spraying blood, gristle and bone until the head came free. The severed head – the once-beautiful female features now distorted and almost unrecognizable – was then jiggled in front of the Go-Pro camera lens which was relaying the footage and recording the brutal execution of an innocent.

  ‘What was the bitch’s name?’ Viktor asked as the footage paused.

  ‘Santiago, Maria Santiago,’ the skipper said.

  ‘Spanish bitch,’ Viktor said. He ran the back of his hand across his old, dry lips. ‘Spanish cop bitch.’

  Steve Flynn’s eyes flickered open and slowly focused on the white tiled ceiling above him. It took a few moments before his brain lost its fuzz, some semblance of clarity returned and he remembered where he was.

  His recollection was confirmed by two things.

  First, the two intravenous drips feeding into him via the cannula inserted into the vein on the back of his left hand and the electrodes stuck on his upper chest, wired to the monitor just behind and to one side of the bed, which was displaying his vital signs.

  The handcuff ratcheted around his right wrist and, securing him to the framework of the metal bed, also assisted his memory.

  He was in a hospital bed but he was a patient going nowhere because he was also a prisoner.

  He raised his head slightly and squinted down the length and breadth of his six-foot-three-inch body. An arc of incredible pain akin to forked lightning lanced through the centre of his cranium, ear to ear, with the movement also reminding him of his burst eardrum.

  He had no bedcovers on and was wearing a grubby off-white hospital gown, blood-stained around the lower hem just below his groin, beyond which he could see the surgical dressing around his right thigh, through which blood blossomed like cumulous clouds. A drain ran out from underneath the dressing, half-filling a clear plastic bottle attached to the side of the bed with liquid, the colour of which reminded Flynn of a frog smoothie. This was another reminder of why he was here in a side ward at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

  A further reminder – these were all piling up as his mind began to function properly – was still the vivid sound of Brian Tasker’s neck as he had broken it. He could hear it, satisfyingly, reverberating around his brain, even among the blur and slight confusion he was experiencing as his thought processes were retuning.

  The sound of that neck breaking, Flynn knew, was one that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

  A trapped groan came from his throat as a fresh jolt of pain seared up his right leg and told him that whatever painkillers had been administered were now wearing thin.

  Painkillers? he thought. What was it about … painkillers? He winced as that memory also came back to him: a pharmacist, two frightened women … cops crashing through the door, a Taser deployed and poleaxing him. His own search for pain relief to self-administer coming to an embarrassing finale on the floor of a chemist’s shop.

  Flynn caught some movement in the periphery of his vision. He angled his head slightly to look.

  The uniformed cop by the door had her back to Flynn. He could tell the officer was female and she was engrossed in composing a text on her mobile phone, her head hunched low, hands up in front of her chest as she thumbed the phone’s keypad. Flynn heard the flapping of wings, the sound indicating that a text had gone up into the ether.

  Flynn frowned when he saw the Glock pistol in the holster on her right hip, plus all the other cop accoutrements: ballistic vest, rigid handcuffs, CS gas canister, the Taser, an ASP – the extendable baton – and the personal radio.

  She was armed and guarding him.

  Flynn had been correct: he might have been a patient but was also definitely a prisoner and not going anywhere.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to attract her attention, but his lips, teeth and tongue seemed to be superglued together. He tried to make some saliva but the anaesthetic had completely dried him out. At least he assumed it was the anaesthetic. Instead of speaking he made a muted buzzing noise, loud enough for her to hear and make her turn.

  Flynn gave her a lopsided smile, just as much as his bonded lips would allow. He guessed it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  ‘You’re awake, then?’ she said, businesslike, slipping her phone into her trouser pocket. She was pretty, but with her hair scraped back into a tight, p
ractical bun and only the merest dab of make-up, she was all no-crap, purely professional – and she did not smile back.

  She was the officer who had Tasered Flynn in the pharmacy.

  He nodded and attempted to expand the smile all the way across his lips, maybe to try and melt her heart, but all it did was become a grimace and she just scowled hard at him.

  The phone in her pocket buzzed as a text landed.

  She ignored it, kept her eyes on Flynn and spoke into the microphone clipped to her shoulder tab, which was connected to the personal radio on her utility belt.

  ‘Alpha-Romeo Eight to Superintendent Dean, receiving?’

  ‘Go ahead, Molly,’ came the clear reply.

  ‘Prisoner’s back in the land of the living, sir.’ She kept her eyes on Flynn as she transmitted this snippet.

  ‘Roger, thanks for that.’ Flynn recognized Rik Dean’s voice. ‘I’ll be with you ASAP … Be careful with him,’ he concluded with a warning.

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  She took her thumb off the transmit button and continued to study Flynn, clearly uninspired by what she was seeing. She stepped across and found the call button on the wall to summon a nurse. She held her thumb over it.

  ‘I’m told I have to be wary of you,’ she said to Flynn, her eyes half-lidded in a challenge. ‘So all I’m saying to you is this, Mr Flynn – don’t try anything or I’ll shoot you in the other leg, CS gas you, Taser you again then beat your wounds with my baton while the snot and tears gush out of your eyes from the CS. Understand?’

  Flynn’s crooked attempt at a smile dematerialized with each word she spoke.

  He nodded compliantly, believing her.

  By then he had induced some saliva into his dry mouth and had produced enough to get his lips open and whisper, ‘I’m desperate for a pee, though.’

  A sly grin came to her face. ‘No problem – pee away.’