Dead Man's Gift 01 - Yesterday Read Free

cash by someone else a few weeks back in Oxford Street – and switched on a second, keying in a number he’d learned by heart.
    ‘Everything all right with the kid?’ he asked, when Phil Vermont picked up at the other end.
    ‘He’s secure and doing what he’s told,’ said Vermont, sounding surly. ‘You spoken to Horton yet?’
    ‘Just now.’
    ‘How’s he taking it? Is he going to pay up?’
    That was all Vermont was interested in. The money he was going to make from this job. He had no idea of what Tim Horton was going to have to do to get his son back, and Frank wasn’t going to bother enlightening him. Vermont and the psychotic bitch assisting him were just the hired help. ‘Course he’s going to pay up,’ said Frank. ‘He knows what’ll happen to his boy if he doesn’t. Now you need to sort out the next stage of the operation. Our little London friend.’
    ‘Does she really have to die?’ There was a hint of regret in Vermont’s voice.
    ‘Don’t use that word over the phone,’ snapped Frank. ‘And yes she does.’
    Vermont sighed. ‘Okay. I’m on it.’
    ‘Let me know the moment it’s done,’ said Frank and rang off. He poured himself a lukewarm cup of coffee from the Thermos on the seat next to him, unable to resist reaching under his belly and having a quick, satisfying scratch, wiping the sweat on his trouser leg. He’d enjoyed riling that arrogant bastard, Horton. He’d seen the guy on the TV more than once, interrogating people on his parliamentary select committee. Like all politicians, Horton thought he was above everyone else. Now he was finding out the hard way that he wasn’t. Frank didn’t care about Horton dying, or any of the other people who were going to die with him. One way or another, they all deserved it. But he did feel sorry for the kid. It wasn’t his fault he had an arsehole for an old man. He knew the kid was going to have to die, though. The people he worked for didn’t like loose ends. More than that, they wanted to make a point. And the point was a simple one. They were totally and utterly ruthless.
    For a few moments, he wondered how he’d ended up in this position. It wasn’t quite what he’d had planned when he’d been a kid himself. But that was the way it worked out sometimes. Greed, and a few wrong decisions, and you ended up doing things that would have made your old self’s hair stand on end. And the thing was, they came all too easily when there was big money involved, like there was now.
    In twenty-four hours, he was going to be a rich man. It was this thought that drove him on as he put down the coffee cup, started the engine and pulled on to the road.
    * * *
    Life had been crap for Celia Gray. Non-existent father; mother who peddled her for sex to support her crack habit until social services had intervened and put her in a succession of children’s homes; streetwalker at fourteen; first stint in prison four years later … You couldn’t make up a grimmer story if you tried. Not that anyone ever had tried with Celia, and she’d learned not to try with them either. She knew she was a hard-hearted bitch, constantly paying the world back for everything it had done to her, and men in particular. Celia hated men. Even the young ones, like the little brat they were babysitting. Just looking at the rich, spoiled little bastard made her skin crawl, but for the moment she was under orders to make sure he was okay.
    They’d tied him to the bed in the downstairs bedroom, and she went in there now and yanked the duct tape from his mouth. ‘Don’t say a fucking word,’ she hissed as he started to speak.
    He immediately shut up, his bottom lip quavering, as if he was about to cry. Celia grabbed him by the back of the head as she pushed a bottle of water to his lips, making him drink. He gulped greedily until she pulled the bottle away and let his head fall back.
    ‘Can I have something to eat, please?’ he asked in a small, whiny voice.
    ‘What