Headhunter Read online

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Matt Jackson chided. ‘Gotta be a wife or girlfriend,’ he teased.

  ‘Yeah, girlfriend. Gone now, though – you know how it is.’ Flynn did not elaborate but realized that if he didn’t change the name this was a question that would be asked all the time and he needed a strategy to deal with it.

  ‘Shame … she must have been something else for you to name your boat after her.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He glanced sideways at the client. ‘She was.’

  Mr Jackson chose a few coves and bays he and his new wife wanted to visit and the day was pleasant and leisurely. Not a lot of nautical miles were covered but lots of dips in the sea were taken and they finally drew into Cala de Sant Vicente, where the couple sat chilling on deck and Flynn prepared a lobster, crab and oyster salad for them. He left them alone with food and wine and clambered up the ladder to the flying bridge, the platform located above the main bridge with a secondary set of controls used for fish spotting and helping to manoeuvre the boat when a big fish is being played. Up here, he ate his own food, a pasta salad.

  His mobile phone rang: Donaldson calling.

  ‘Hey, yank,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Hey, fugitive,’ Donaldson said.

  ‘Got something for me?’

  ‘Uh-huh … Halcyon is now on its way to Grand Harbour, Valetta.’

  ‘Malta?’ Flynn said. ‘Any idea why?’

  ‘Connected with that last big push of migrants from Libya, we think. Viktor is just there to collect payment from intermediaries, not give lifts to his customers.’

  Flynn tried to visualize the thousand people about to commence the treacherous journey from North Africa to Europe in search of a better life – if they made the crossing in one piece, that is, or joined the many who had died trying that year.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  Donaldson said, ‘Plans?’

  ‘Formulating,’ Flynn said. ‘Thanks for that.’

  The call ended. Flynn finished his meal then climbed back down to the rear deck and collected the dishes from the clients, who had wolfed their food down with glee and told him how good it was. He took the dishes into the galley to wash up before serving dessert.

  As he dried the dishes, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Before he could answer it he looked and saw that Lizzie Jackson was standing behind him. She had showered and was now wearing a bikini top, loose denim shorts and a see-through Kaftan. Her hair was bedraggled but she looked amazing.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi, there,’ Flynn said back, ignoring the phone.

  ‘How good does food taste after a day swimming in the sea?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Look, I hope you don’t mind me asking … it’s a girlie thing … but you know this Maria, the girl your boat was named after? Matt mentioned her to me and I don’t know …’ She hugged herself. ‘I feel a sort of connection with her.’ Then she laid both her hands on her chest. ‘Here, in my heart … like I know something, I dunno, something really bad happened.’ She gave the impression she was struggling to get to grips with the feeling. ‘I’m really sorry if I’m wrong, Steve, it’s just an overwhelming feeling of sadness. I’m not psychic, don’t get me wrong.’

  He looked at her in amazement, not knowing how to respond to this intuitive woman. ‘Uh … she died.’

  ‘Oh my God, how tragic,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m not psychic, honestly, but I do feel things here, like there’s something about this boat … sadness but happiness too, y’know? It could be her spirit. Close. To you, to us.’

  ‘Nah, I doubt it.’

  ‘You’re a man. You don’t feel the same things as a woman.’ She tilted her head. ‘Can I give you a hug? Non-sexual, that is.’

  Flynn hesitated and glanced at Matt out on the deck, looking across the bay and sipping his wine.

  ‘You need it,’ she prompted him, opening her arms and encouraging him. ‘Human-to-human … much deeper than sex.’ Her eyes were wide and alive, yet tinged with some kind of faraway-ness.

  Flynn relented. ‘OK.’

  She embraced him – a tad too long, he thought – but it was kind of nice, although his embraces with women were usually a precursor to something far more basic than the spirit. When she stepped back, she looked him in the eye. ‘Now I really do feel a connection. She was a good woman, that Maria, wasn’t she?’

  Numbly, Flynn nodded. ‘She was.’

  They retired early.

  Flynn stayed on deck, mopping it down, generally cleaning and rinsing the towels, thinking about how instinctual women seemed to be in complete contrast to himself, a brute force of nature. Perhaps he’d take up Reiki, get in touch with his inner soul, light candles with sickly aromas and breathe deep, though, joking aside, Lizzie Jackson’s connection, or whatever it was, to Maria was uncanny and unsettling.

  He decided to chance a small whisky before he retired to his single bunk and it was only when his phone vibrated again that he realized he hadn’t looked at it when it had done so previously.

  It was Molly.

  ‘Hey, Flynn, thought you were ignoring me.’

  He laughed. ‘Just been busy – in a nice way.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a tough job, et cetera. How about you?’ Flynn took himself, the phone and the whisky to the rail.

  ‘Busy in a busy way.’

  ‘I can imagine. I spoke to Karl earlier.’

  ‘About Malta?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just thinking through possibilities … Anyway, what have you been up to?’

  ‘Combing the Web, looking through CCTV footage … Did you look at the text I sent earlier?’

  ‘Should I have done?’ He sat on the fighting chair and placed his glass down on a bait box.

  ‘Some still photos from security cameras at Manchester airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle. Manchester the day before yesterday and Paris last year. They show the Bashkim couple – the man and the woman – using the private side of those airports who could well be the people suspected of murdering that gangster in Paris that Karl talked about … and maybe Alan Hardiker, although we don’t know for certain if two people are involved in Alan’s death. I’ve been trying to dig into flight plans for private aircraft around those dates. Paris is a nightmare, not least because my French is crap, but Manchester has revealed something.’

  ‘Go on,’ Flynn said.

  ‘A small private jet touched down from Zante two days ago, then hours after we found Alan’s body, it left Manchester for Ibiza. I’m struggling to get names but it looks like there were just two people on board. I’m on it, as they say.’

  Flynn took in the information. Ibiza, he thought. These fuckers move quick, but at least he was untouchable at this exact moment in time.

  ‘Anyway, the Ibiza thing is a bit worrying, obviously, so you might want to really be on your guard, just in case,’ Molly said. ‘Again, I’m trying to access information from the authorities there, but … so frickin’ slow, you wouldn’t believe it. But at least you’re OK.’

  Flynn said, ‘I’ll have a look at those photographs.’

  ‘OK.’

  He ended the call and went on to the phone’s menu to find Molly’s earlier message, which he opened and tabbed through to the photographs she’d attached.

  There were four. Not particularly clear ones, two showing a man and woman passing through a revolving door at Manchester Airport and another two showing what appeared to be the same couple passing through a sliding door at Paris.

  Flynn used his finger and thumb to enlarge one of the pictures.

  The boat rocked ever so slightly.

  There was a faint creaking noise behind him.

  Flynn recognized the two people in the photograph at the same time as the piano-wire garrotte made a whooshing noise as it zipped through the air over Flynn’s head and was hauled in tight around his neck, the thin wire digging deep into the skin immediately, cutting
his flesh. His mouth opened, his tongue shot out, his eyes bulged and he released an ugly, rasping choking noise as the blood and oxygen were cut from his brain.

  Behind him, Matt Jackson pulled hard on the toggles of the home-made, specially prepared killing tool, knowing that a solid grip would be essential to complete what was usually a straightforward task with most people.

  He already knew, but was not intimidated by the fact that Flynn was not most people. That made it all the more exciting, not like the repeated plunging of his knife into the body, head and neck of the stupid, money-grabbing detective who had outlived his usefulness. That killing had just been perfunctory. But this one …

  However, Matt realized his first mistake was that Flynn was sitting in the fighting chair, which meant that the back of it came between him and his intended victim. Also that the chair – which essentially was a heavy-duty office chair – although fixed to the deck could obviously swivel. Consequently, Matt had to contend with both Flynn and the movement of the chair.

  He hadn’t expected it to be easy. Flynn was big and tough and unlikely to go down without a fight for his life. Matt had known that as soon as the wire was around his neck he would have a real struggle on his hands.

  But not all killings could be easy. If they were, everyone would be at it.

  Flynn dropped the phone and instinctively tried to insert his fingers between his neck and the wire, and at the same time used his feet on the deck to begin to swivel the chair and keep his attacker off balance from the get-go.

  This movement seemed to catch Matt by surprise. He had murdered a couple of people by this method over the years. Both had been seated and both, in reaction to the garrotte, had flicked up their legs and panicked like demented puppets.

  Flynn, however, kept his feet on the deck and tried to run and spin the fighting chair, which dragged Matt sideways and off balance.

  He kept a tight hold, pulling the wire with the toggles and digging it in, a grimace of effort on his face.

  Flynn fought back, rotating the chair, making Matt move with it to keep his position behind and, in doing so, he stumbled on the bait box which had been on the deck at Flynn’s feet, though he did remain upright.

  As the chair spun, Flynn caught sight of Lizzie standing and watching the spectacle from the main door to the lounge. Even in that fleeting glimpse, when his face was twisted in agony, he saw a gleam of killing lust in her eye and a large knife in her hand at her side – the back-up plan.

  Flynn realized that Matt had stumbled on the bait box. He stopped trying to get his fingers under the wire because they simply would not go. He dropped his left hand to the side of the fighting chair, fumbling with his fingers and finding the metal adjustment bar which he yanked upwards, causing the foot rest that had been so neatly tucked under the front of the chair to swivel up as he raised his feet, then slammed them down on the rest. This gave him extra purchase and he forced himself upright, like stamping on the brakes of a car, and he rose up and angled backwards against Matt, who was suddenly faced with having to step back and pull the garrotte at a downwards angle instead of the horizontal, losing grip and power as the physics altered. Flynn virtually back-flipped out of the chair, not like a dainty gymnast but a grizzly bear, rolling and falling with his full weight against Matt, knocking him sideways. The toggle in Matt’s left hand whipped out of his grip and immediately the pressure on Flynn’s neck was gone.

  He didn’t have time to savour, gasp and suck in air, because as he too staggered sideways, elbow-jabbing Matt in the chest, Lizzie screamed and came at him with the large knife. Flynn now saw it was not just a knife but a machete, raised high in both hands, aiming at Flynn’s head. Even if she missed his skull and was unable to slice that off like a boiled egg, and connected with his neck or shoulder instead, the wound would be devastating and debilitating, a deep, bloody cut, serious enough to put him down and be at their mercy.

  Flynn knew the machete would be honed to perfection – and the fight would be over if it struck him.

  He also knew that, to one side, Matt was scrambling to his feet.

  Flynn sidestepped right and pivoted.

  Lizzie swerved with him, the machete still raised.

  She was fast.

  The big blade angled, slicing through the air at forty-five degrees with a swish, and Flynn knew the only way to stop it was to be faster and perfectly accurate himself, otherwise she would now just slice through his forearm and maybe take his hand off with the first blow.

  Flynn’s left hand shot out, his palm facing outwards as though he was changing gear from first to second. He caught Lizzie’s right arm just above the wrist and grabbed it – he was in control then. With a tearing, crunching twist, he forced her arm upwards against the elbow joint and broke it. He turned into her, cupped her elbow with the palm of his right hand and then pushed upwards again, damaging the joint even more.

  An unworldly scream ripped out of her warped mouth and she dropped the weapon on to the deck.

  Flynn then turned again so he was face-to-face with her, keeping a hold of her left wrist. He brought his right arm back and then slammed the heel of that hand up into her nose, dislodging the septum, the thin partition of gristle separating her pretty nostrils, and ramming it upwards into the frontal lobe of her brain, imbedding it. Her eyes rolled, her legs gave way and she quivered down on to the deck like runny jelly.

  Flynn released her; no time to dwell on this.

  He spun to face Matt, who had regained his feet and was powering towards him, having discarded the garrotte but replaced it with a small flick knife, the blade of which flashed out as he came at Flynn, whose mind now saw everything in slow motion. This, now, was his kind of conflict, the type he had won many times and expected to win again.

  A street fight on the rear deck of his boat.

  It was over in a matter of seconds.

  Flynn concentrated on the blade initially. He parried it away with his left hand and, before Matt could bring it back on its killing trajectory, Flynn pirouetted 180 degrees in a balletic continuum of the parry, using Matt’s extended right arm as a pathway. Flynn’s crooked right elbow followed it all the way up to the side of Matt’s face, driving the point into his cheekbone and sending him staggering sideways. Flynn kept hold of his arm, yanked Matt back to him and goose-necked his wrist against his own chest, forcing Matt to drop the knife as searing pain forced him to open his fingers. Flynn continued to force Matt’s hand down and the wrist broke with a tearing crack of bone and tendon. Flynn followed this with a powerhouse punch with his right fist into Matt’s agonized face that flattened all his boyish features momentarily before they more or less sprang back into place, though his nose was now broken and distorted.

  Stunned, Matt slithered down to his hands and knees with blood gushing and pooling on to the white deck underneath his bleeding face.

  Flynn positioned himself and kicked him hard in the ribcage, a new ferocity overwhelming him.

  Matt’s uninjured arm collapsed underneath him as Flynn continued to stomp on him until finally he stopped, gasping for breath.

  He stood over Matt. ‘You killed her, didn’t you? You murdered Maria.’

  Matt rolled on to his side and squinted through already closing and swelling eyes at the unmoving Lizzie. ‘She dead?’

  Flynn looked across at her. She was alive but her face looked as though she had been hit head-on by a lump hammer. Her eyes were glassy, unaware.

  ‘Not yet, but she will be.’ Probably brain-dead just for now. That little shard of bone must have done its job. ‘Did you kill Maria Santiago?’ he asked Matt.

  Behind his blood-covered features, Matt laughed harshly. ‘It was easy.’

  ‘And you cut off her head? You took it – where is it?’

  ‘Fuck you, fuck you … nobody’s ever …’

  ‘Beaten you? Just watch this.’

  Flynn moved over to Lizzie and placed his right foot on her exposed neck. He pressed firmly and kept on
the pressure. Lizzie’s instinctive reactions to stay alive made her claw at his calves as blood and oxygen failed to make it to her brain. She was weak and uncoordinated.

  Matt said, ‘You bastard,’ and tried to slither though his blood towards her. Flynn watched him come, his eyes cold as granite. He did not move, simply kept his foot in place until Lizzie’s flailing hands fell away, then took a step back as Matt tried to launch himself at his legs, landing party across his killing partner’s unmoving form. Matt then dragged himself up her body until he was nose to nose with her.

  ‘Lizzie, Lizzie,’ he whispered through bubbles of blood. ‘My Lizzie.’

  His broken wrist flopped uselessly across her torso. Flynn circled them until he was behind Matt, who rolled off Lizzie and looked up at Flynn, who squatted down on to his haunches.

  ‘Where is Maria’s head?’

  ‘Like I said, fuck you.’

  Flynn nodded. ‘OK.’ He wiped his face, then rocked forward so that his right knee was on Matt’s chest. He reached out with both hands and almost gently placed his fingers around Matt’s neck and looked him in the eyes. He wanted to make this one up close and very personal.

  Flynn stripped both bodies, then strapped weight belts and ankle weights around them from the diving equipment he had on board and packed them with lead. With a bait knife he slit their bellies so they would not bloat with gas, then shoved each one through the transom door on the rear deck into the wake of the boat. The bodies flipped over, did not immediately sink but did attract a whole host of shrieking and whirling gulls that were already following the boat. The birds dived and squawked and squabbled over the entrails but were finally defeated as the bodies disappeared under the churning seawater and began their slow, twisting descent to the bottom.

  Flynn then listlessly tossed twenty fingertips overboard that he had also removed with the bait knife, causing a fresh commotion from the birds, then flung Matt and Lizzie’s teeth into the water, having smashed their jaws to a crumble with a hammer. Finally, all their shredded belongings were thrown over. Flynn wasn’t surprised to find there was nothing that identified either of them in their gear. They had two bundles of ten thousand euros between them, which he kept.