Cold Heart Page 20

  “Tell me why you had my sister killed, you sick fucking cunt and I’ll make your death as quick and as painless as I can; I promise you that small liberty.”

  Slowly but surely Jonas began to regain some of his long-lost composure and groggy senses. He glanced around the small car, then out at the vast grey river in front of him, in bewilderment, still desperately trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

  “What is this?” he cried. “Who the hell are you?”

  Unhappy with his response, Estelle whipped out a second knife and stabbed it deep and hard into Jonas’s left thigh, which again she just left there for the time being. Jonas howled with excruciating pain as the blade jabbed straight into his thigh bone. Immediately, he began sobbing and begging for her to stop.

  “No more. Please... No. Take them out. Please? Take them fucking out.”

  “Why was my sister killed, Detective?”

  Estelle deliberately wiggled the first knife around, deeper inside the bone and nerves of Jonas’s thigh. He screamed hysterically again, which almost brought a sadistic smile to Estelle’s lips as she imagined the pain her sister must have endured as the dirty, stinging ice-cold water from the same river in front of them now rapidly filled her lungs.

  “Okay, okay! I was told to arrange it, all right! I WAS FUCKING TOLD,” he roared over and over. Estelle pulled out the crumpled picture of the family from her pocket and pointed at the middle-aged man in the center of the photo.

  “By this man?”

  Jonas glared at the picture. Tears of pain and anguish filled his eyes. He hesitated for a moment, but a second was all it took for Estelle to know the truth before he’d even spoken. The expression of recognition on his face gave everything away. Anger raged and burned through every single vein in her body. She took her cigarette and burned it out on Jonas’s cheek without any warning. Jonas howled and squirmed in even more excruciating agony. Estelle pulled the cigarette away and casually relit what remained of it. She took another long hard draw, giving Jonas some time to calm and reflect, letting everything she’d said sink in just a little bit further.

  She gently placed the photo right back into his face again.

  “By this man?”

  “I’m not... I don’t know.”

  Estelle was already getting sick of Jonas’s hesitation and his lies. His body language and facial expressions had told her everything that she needed to know. She just wanted some oral confirmation. To hear the words from the coward’s mouth. Without further pause she stubbed the relit cigarette out into Jonas’s right eye this time while holding his head and hair steady with her other hand. He managed to close his eyelids though just in the nick of time but only to feel the stinging burning sensation melt its way through his eyelids. Jonas roared with even more agony. More than he’d ever felt before in his entire life. Even more excruciating than the two knives embedded into the bones of his thighs.

  “Yes, yes!” He screamed. “Yes, okay. Yes, fucking yes, you sick fuck! You sick fucking bitch. This man. This fucking man.”

  Estelle pulled the cigarette away from his singed, red raw eyelid.

  “Why?” Estelle calmly asked.

  Jonas began sobbing hard while blinking uncontrollably. Trying to blink away the excruciating pain from his right eye. He began dribbling saliva from his mouth too.

  “I don’t know. Please, I don’t fucking know. I was never really told anything. Just to make her disappear. I think she was blackmailing him about something. Something, only he knew about. But he’s got me in his pocket, all right. He’s got me good and hard. I have to do everything he says and asks.”

  “So, you’re his little bitch on the force then, I take it?”

  “Yes. If he wants something done then I have to do it. Okay. He’s got me by the fucking balls.”

  Estelle didn’t give a shit though what this politician had on Jonas. She wasn’t even slightly curious to the holds he had over him. A bent, dirty cop on the take was not news to her or even her concern. All she cared about was her sister.

  “So, he wanted you to kill my sister and make it look like a suicide or some kind of tragic accident?”

  Jonas sobbed even harder. He couldn’t control his emotions even if he wanted too. By the look of it and by the sound of Estelle’s tone of voice he knew he wasn’t getting out of this predicament alive and that he was facing the final few moments of his miserable life. No doubt about that.

  “Yes.”

  Estelle hesitated. Carefully taking everything in. Every breath, every look, every facial tick. She took another deep hard draw from her cigarette as if she suddenly had all the time in the world to contemplate things through. Nothing made sense. Why the hell did this politician even want her sister dead? What the hell did she have on him to be dispatched off so easily in such a manner like she was just a piece of filth and shit?

  “Where can I find him right now? This Clark Wallace politician?” she finally asked. “He has an office in the city, yes?”

  “Yes... On George Street. Next to the city chambers.”

  “And he lives in the city somewhere too, I take it?”

  “A house. Yes. Claremont Terrace. Just off Kelvingrove Park in the West End. Number forty-five.”

  Estelle took another draw from her dying cigarette.

  “Will you please let me go, now? Please?”

  Estelle sniggered out hard at that. She then turned back to face the detective with a steely look of zero emotion.

  “Is there anything else you wish to say to me before I condemn you to the same fate that you inflicted upon my sister, Detective?”

  “No. You can’t kill me. Please. This is fucking insane! THIS IS FUCKING MADNESS. I told you everything. Just leave me tied up here until you’ve done what you need to do. I swear, I won’t call it in or try to stop you in anyway. Please, I swear.”

  Estelle shook her head and smirked again. This man clearly had no idea who she even was, who she really was, who she even worked for or most importantly of all what she was capable of doing without guilt, without a conscience, without any remorse. He was and always would be completely oblivious to all the horrible, terrible, despicable things she’d ever done in her life. And not all of them in the line of duty. From her look alone, Jonas sensed the end was near. But still he kept on talking. If it meant a few more valuable seconds added to his meaningless, miserable life then he’d keep talking until he ran out of breath.

  “Are you really Gayle’s sister? The one who disappeared out of existence all those years ago? Are you really her?”

  Estelle ignored Jonas’s words and finally finished her fag. She stubbed it out onto the steering wheel, even though she was more than tempted to stub it out right into the detective’s other eye.

  “Where did you go? Where have you been all this time? There are no records of you having existed? It’s fucking crazy.”

  Estelle wasn’t listening to Jonas anymore. She started the car engine and slammed her foot down hard upon the accelerator without a second thought. Before Jonas could even blink or regather his thoughts, Estelle was driving fast and hard, straight for the rusted old river barrier that would have struggled to withstand even a cycle bike colliding into it.

  Jonas suddenly saw his life flash before his eyes. He knew the end was coming for him. There would be no escape. All he could think about was his mother now. Bed bound. Wheelchair bound. All the bad things and bad decisions he’d ever made in his life had all been for her and to give her a better life in her final few years. What would she do without him? How would she even survive in a world without his help and support?

  “No. You can’t do this. NO. I am an officer of the law. PLEASE. YOU CAN’T DO THIS. I am an officer of the fucking law—”

  Just before the car collided with the barrier and reached the embankment, Estelle flung open the driver’s side door and threw herself out onto the concrete ground below. Jonas screamed with hysteria as the car flew off the embankment and into the mu
rky, deep, gray river water with a huge splash.

  Estelle immediately climbed back up onto her feet. She casually dusted herself down and watched for a few moments as the tiny blue Peugeot, along with both Detective Jonas and the tied and gagged Mrs. Lamont in the boot, sunk gently beneath the dark grey waters.

  Chapter 19

  Estelle walked fast but with a slight limp as she made her way out of the old dock warehouse and down into a desolated rundown industrial estate nearby, which seemed to still be in use. Well, a small portion of it anyhow. Almost every store appeared to be either boarded up or had its shutters firmly planted down, all bar one or two.

  Estelle limped further down the potholed street and towards an old rundown fishing tackle store. She was limping because she’d landed awkwardly on her ankle while jumping out of the moving Peugeot only ten minutes before. She acknowledged that it had been a stupid, highly emotional, and impulsive move on her part. She could easily have just pushed and rolled the damn car into the river. But the spontaneity of the action and then the satisfaction of witnessing the look on the detective’s face before she’d leapt out of the vehicle before sending him to his miserable and terrifying doom was well worth twenty broken and sprained ankles in her book.

  The old fishing store halfway along the rundown industrial estate appeared to be the only place still open and doing business that day. The only reason she was heading straight for it in the first place was because something had caught her eye directly outside and if she didn’t move fast then the opportunity would be lost to her.

  Outside the small fishing store, a young man wearing a black biker’s helmet climbed onto his motorbike and proceeded to rev it up. He’d just left the open store with a small package in hand, so only a customer, Estelle guessed. Not that it really mattered. The young biker cut the engine when he saw Estelle approaching him from the other side of the street. She looked to be in a right fucked up state. Yet oddly calm and not as distressed as some people might appear in her current physical appearance. As she continued to limp towards him, the young man assumed she was just going to ask him for help or medical assistance. Perhaps she’d even been attacked or involved in some kind of accident or crash close by.

  Covered in scratches and bruises and blood. She appeared to be in a pretty bad way whatever the hell she’d just walked away from. Her clothes were torn and stained in so many different places and that limp which seemed to be easing up the more she walked it off. Regardless of how she looked though, she had a steely aura of determination in her eye that told the young biker in his gut that he should just start up his bloody bike and ride the hell away. By the time the young man let that feeling sink in though, it was too late. Estelle was only yards away when she whipped out her gun, almost as quickly as she’d come to a halt in front of him. With a cold and firm tone, she told the young man to get the fuck off the bike.

  The young biker placed his hands firmly up in the air and climbed off his motorcycle as swiftly and as calmly as he possibly could. Estelle waved him to stand further away as she climbed onto the bike herself and started up the engine, first time. Without even taking her eyes away from the shocked and fear-stricken young biker, just in case he tried anything stupid and made a mad dash to take back what was his, she drove swiftly away at a blistering speed.

  The first thing the young biker did, just as soon as Estelle and his bike were out of sight, was to pull out his mobile phone and call the police.

  ***

  Back on the stretch of river beside the old warehouse where Estelle had recently driven and ploughed Mrs. Lamont’s old blue Peugeot into the Clyde, Jonas suddenly emerged from underneath the surface of dirty, polluted river water. He gasped desperately for breath as he waved his hands in the air trying to stay afloat. His left hand clutched one of the knives that had previously been embedded into his thigh. He had no idea how the hell he’d managed to escape from that death trap. Just pure and utter luck along with sheer determination and frantic will power.

  All he could remember was furiously rubbing and slicing the rope that bound his wrists together against the exposed part of the blade that was still sticking out from his thigh bone. Luckily his ankles hadn’t been tied or else he would have really and truly been up shit creak without a paddle. With both hands then freed he’d managed to pound the glass on the passenger side window with his fists until the glass had shattered and given way to a ton of pouring water. Blindly, in the suffocating darkness, with only thoughts of his seriously ill mother on his mind, he’d somehow managed to wriggle out of the broken window and back up to the surface.

  It was a miracle. An absolute fucking miracle. Perhaps even a sign to most people that they’d been given a rare second chance to change their ways and lead a better, positive life. A few seconds longer under the water and Detective Jonas would have been a dead man for sure. His ordeal wasn’t over yet though. Jonas found himself drifting along with a strong current as he tried his hardest to swim closer towards the just-out-of-reach shore of the river.

  After half a mile of drifting through the various currents, he desperately managed to drag himself over towards another small embankment close to the shore and a nearby park. A shocked jogger running along the river’s edge stopped in his tracks to help Jonas out of the river, just as soon as he’d noticed his bobbing head and flailing arms in the water.

  “Jesus Christ. Are you all right there, mate?” cried the concerned jogger as he helped drag Jonas safely ashore and onto the grass.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” spluttered Jonas as the jogger then assisted him up onto his feet.

  “How the hell did you end up in the river, pal? You been drinking or something, aye?” joked the jogger, but still sounding a little aghast.

  “No, I haven’t been fucking drinking. I’m a bloody police officer for Christ’s sake. I’ve been brutally assaulted.”

  The jogger didn’t quite seem to know what the hell to make of that statement.

  “Do you have a phone I can use, please?” Jonas anxiously asked while coughing and spluttering up more dirty river water in between words. The jogger frowned but gently nodded. He then reluctantly handed Jonas his phone.

  “Aye, sure, pal. But dry your hands first before you use it, aye?” said the jogger adamantly. “It’s a brand-new fucking iPhone this.”

  Jonas gave the jogger a look of daggers before wiping his wet hands upon the grass beneath his feet. On the jogger’s iPhone, he signed into his google account to access a list of phone numbers that were stored on his previous mobile. He dialed one of the numbers and waited impatiently for a reply.

  “Will I get some kind of hero’s medal from the city for rescuing a police officer in distress?” the jogger continued in jest but none the less sounding positively hopeful. “Perhaps even ma picture in the paper, aye?”

  Jonas gave him another hardened stare without any response of words. In his mind, he’d like to give the cheeky bugger a picture in the paper all right. Preferably in the obituary section.

  ***

  In the heart of the upper class, west end part of the city, and in the east end of Kelvingrove Park, the popular right-wing and up-and-coming politician Clark Wallace was putting on a birthday party for his young son, Phillip, who had just turned five that day.

  Clark was a handsome, charismatic man in his early 40s with big ambitions beyond just becoming a local MP for Glasgow North. He had a ruthless streak that had seen him rise in just a few years from prosecution lawyer to a rising member of parliament at Westminster. A few years back, with the recent Brexit fiasco, Clark had seen a chink in the left-wing armor and discovered a profitable way to exploit the situation for his own benefit and gain, especially when it concerned the rising fears of many local Glaswegians in the area regarding the growing influx of refugees from around the Middle East.

  Most Glaswegians had been very welcoming to the refugees from Syria and Iraq and Libya over the years. So had most Scottish people around the rest of the country for t
hat matter, which reflected their huge majority Brexit vote to stay in Europe and remain part of something good, stable, and solid while the rest of the UK firmly voted to come out.

  But Clark knew that with a little meddling and manipulation on his part and using his favorite quote of ‘seeing is believing’, he’d gradually found a way, even though it was breaking the law by a long stretch of the imagination, of planting little seeds of doubt within the Scottish public’s minds and slowly but surely changing Scottish public opinion on Brexit and especially on immigration. After only a few months of putting his ingenious yet crafty plan into action, Clark and his right wing movement had seen a huge rise in support for him and his extreme ways ever since he’d implemented his devious plan over a year ago and all with the help of one corrupt police detective and a gang of football hooligans.

  Clark stood, silently watching on, in the back garden of his big old Georgian house on Claremont Terrace. He had the most spectacular views of Kelvingrove Park from the top floor there. His beautiful wife Victoria, who was also in her early forties but looked ten years younger, stood radiantly by his side as they watched with great pride and joy their little five-year-old son bouncing up and down upon a huge inflated bouncy castle with a dozen other excited, giggly, screaming children

  Suddenly Clark’s second personal phone began to ring, which he thought was rather odd because that particular phone was only used for very private messages and only rang in case of a dire, extreme emergency. He couldn’t even remember the last time someone had actually called him on the number or even when he’d rang someone on it himself. Never, was the answer once he’d actually taken a moment to think about it. It even had an inbuilt voice disguiser so his voice could never be recorded and therefore never hold up in court for that matter. Not that it would ever come to that.