A woman answers the door. “Yes?” she asks with a frown.
I look down at my clipboard first then up at her. “Good evening, Madam. There has been a gas leak in the area, and I’d like to check that your house has not been affected.” I wave my calculator at her.
She stops frowning and looks alarmed. “Of course,” she says, stepping back and opening the door wider.
Until this moment I never imagined it was going to be this easy. I didn’t really believe the article I read that most people are so reassured with badges of authority that they would even let anyone with a clipboard or a uniform into their house without checking their identity first.
“Thank you,” I say, stepping into her hallway. “This won’t take long, and you can follow me around the house for your peace of mind.”
“All right,” she agrees immediately.
I angle the calculator so that she can only see the back of it, and start walking around her house. I note the cloakroom on my left and go into an open plan living room. The kids look up at me curiously. Holding my calculator aloft I smile politely at them and quickly walk through the room past the dining table towards the sliding glass doors.
“Can I open them?” I ask the woman.
“Of course,” she says, and rushes to open it for me.
I step out into the garden and observe the measurements. I re-enter the house through the kitchen door. It’s not big, but there is a side door which leads to a small pantry. I walk into the corridor that leads back to the reception rooms and the front door. There is another door to my right. I open it and find a smaller reception room. I go into it with my calculator held up high, look at it, press a few buttons, and turn around to smile at the woman.
“So far so good,” I proclaim.
She smiles back, relieved. I go upstairs with the woman following me anxiously and note the exact layout of the house while pretending to monitor the gas levels.
I turn to look at her. “Looks like all is well with your house.”
She appears happy.
“I’ll be off then.”
She follows me to the front door, and fucking thanks me for the privilege of casing her house before closing the door. If I make it through this, I’ll send her a note and tell her never to let a stranger with a clipboard into her house again.
I glance at the opposite house as I walk back to my car. There are lights on in it. I chuck the clipboard into the well of the front seat and, taking off my coat, I slip quickly into my black jacket. I check that my tranquilizer injections are still in the pocket. Then I stuff the tranquilizer gun into the waistband of my jeans, take the bag with the meat and champagne, and set off down the road.
I walk around the wall of the house. When I get to the position where I cannot be seen from the road, I throw the meat over the wall and wait for the dogs to smell it.
The two pitbulls come almost instantly. They must be starving because they growl and snap at each other in their race to gobble down the fresh meat. The rottie is next to arrive. It joins in the foray.
Lifting myself over the wall I take aim and shoot. The rottie first because it is the biggest. It whines and jumps back in shock. The pitbulls carry on eating. I land back on the ground and reload. One after the other I get the pitbulls. Then I hang around for about ten minutes while the darts take effect.
The rottie is still growling softly when I jump into the enemy’s yard.
Forty-six
Jack
I crouch low, and keeping in the shadows of the wall, make my way to the back door. I notice there is a window open upstairs. Good. I will climb the drainpipe if the kitchen door is locked.
I look in through the window and the kitchen is empty. I try the door and it turns. They were obviously expecting the dogs to protect this door. Very careless. A good sign. I open the door and step into the house. The microwave is on and something is slowly turning inside. I look at the display panel on it. In thirty seconds it will ping.
I pull open the side door and step into the pantry. The microwave pings. Through the slit I see a bald hulk of a man come into the kitchen. Chest to chest he might have three inches on me. He takes his food out of the oven and opens a drawer, the engorged muscles in his meaty arms flexing. He has size but I have speed in both feet and hands.
While the three-hundred-pound gorilla is riffling for cutlery, I slip out, my body seeming to act without conscious thought when I bash him over the head with my champagne bottle. I’ve been in a lot of bar room brawls and nothing beats the solid weight of a champagne bottle.
Unlike the Hollywood movies where the sugar syrup bottles smash into a thousand pieces, the champagne bottle stays completely intact. There is nothing more than a dull thump when the bottle makes contact with his skull, but his massive legs give way under him and he drops to the floor. I hook my wrists under his armpits and drag him into the pantry. Quickly, I remove the plastic cover from the tranquilizer syringe, and stick the needle into his bulging arm muscles.
Strange. He has a tooth missing.
I open the door a crack. No one has come looking for him yet, but they will. I don’t have much time. Carrying the champagne bottle, I slink down the corridor like a shadow. There is no one in the small reception room, but I can hear voices coming from the large main room. At least one male and two female voices. I look in through the crack of the door and see a very young woman. She can’t be more than twenty.
She is wearing tight pink shorts and a bikini top. There are blue-black choke marks around her neck. One look at her and I know she’s not here willingly. She is sitting on a sofa looking at the two other people speaking in the room.
I take a big risk.
I step into her vision. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open, but I place my finger over my lips. She swallows hard. Her eyes dart first to her left then to her right, and I know instantly that the real danger is on her left. I make a beckoning motion with my hand and point upstairs. She frowns and I do it again. She nods, stands up, and adjusts her tight shorts, pulling them down.
“Candy,” she says. “Can you come upstairs with me for a minute? I need you to help me with something.”
“What now?” Candy asks.
“Yeah, I better do it before the customers start arriving.”
“What is it?” the man asks. His voice is stern.
“I just need Candy to help me camouflage some bruises on my back with make-up. I just remembered I got Anderson coming today, and he doesn’t like to see bruises that he didn’t cause himself.”
“Go up with her,” the man orders.
Silent as a beetle I scuttle back into the kitchen. I wait for the girls to leave the room. When they are halfway up the stairs I steal back into the corridor and walk boldly into the room. The man stands up, his face amazed. I recognize him from Kaja’s description. The big guy with the red hair.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands as he walks aggressively towards me. His accent is thick.
I put my hands up as if in surrender, one fist curled around the neck of the champagne bottle. “I’m just here for a bit of ass, mate. I even brought my own champagne.”
His pale eyes flicker with uncertainty. He’s obviously not the sharpest pencil in the box, but he doesn’t stop moving towards me. When he gets close enough I brace myself, bend at the waist and ram my head into his stomach. Fuck. He’s fit! It’s like driving my head into a fucking concrete wall. Sparks of pain shoot up my neck and into my skull.
He stumbles, but manages to grab both my shoulders and shove hard, making me stagger backwards. I right myself, wheezing in and out. A look of amusement comes onto his face. Grinning and bending at the knees, he curls the fingers of both hands, motioning me to come forward.
He wants a little fun. A wrestling match.
I can hear the girls moving around upstairs. I don’t know yet how many other people are up there so I don’
t have the time to indulge in his invitation. I put the champagne on the floor.
“No sense wasting good champagne,” I say with a smile, but I’m so high on adrenalin my heart is skipping beats.
“None at all,” he agrees. “Let the victor have it.”
“May the best man win.”
“That’ll be me,” he snarls, and moves, damn fast. So fast that I nearly miss seeing his change of tactic. He slides to the right, opposite to the direction he has been circling and throws a blow with his left hand and tries to hook my leg and hurl me to the ground. I sidestep, whirl and come face to face with him again.
He lunges.
I avoid one flying fist only to reel under the impact of another. My vision blurs. Fuck, he got me in the jaw, but I’m so pumped up on adrenaline I don’t even feel the sting.
He charges like a bull straight into my stomach, but I’m prepared. I tighten my muscles, and he sees stars. I bring both my elbows down hard on his back, right between his shoulder blades. With a grunt of agony, he drops to the floor, rights himself up, and stands swaying. He stares at me panting hard, wanting blood.
We circle each other. Like animals. He brings his left fist up to fool me into thinking he is about to strike. The real blow waiting is his powerful right fist. I skip back and his flying knuckles miss me. I feel my hair ruffle with the force behind his blow, even as I land my own solid uppercut to his chin.
He sprays blood and saliva as the flesh around his mouth vibrates with the impact. He staggers back. My fist burns with pain, but I actually enjoy it. It helps banish the surreal feeling and makes me more focused.
With a look of stunned fury, he lurches towards me to try and bulldoze me to the ground, but I’m ready for him. I crouch to the floor. Rolling clear and stretching forward, I swipe the bottle off the floor. In one smooth action I stand and slam the bottle into the side of his head. Playtime is over, motherfucker.
The effect is instantaneous. His eyes dim and he starts going down. I catch his dead weight before it flops to the floor. I stab him with the tranquilizer and drag him behind the couch. I tuck his legs up so he is completely hidden.
Picking up the champagne bottle I go swiftly into the corridor. I start up the stairs and try the first door. It opens. Inside it is crammed full with four bunk beds. The girl who helped me and three other girls are huddled on one of the beds. I go in and shut the door.