Free In the Evil Day by Peter Temple

thing, in the right side pocket of the leather jacket. Took the mobile phone too. In the left pocket were car keys and a full magazine, fifteen rounds. That’s excessive for taking out one man, Niemand thought. He stood up.
    ‘Scare, mate,’ the gunman said. ‘That’s all, mate, scare.’
    It was hard to pick the accent through the blood and the carpet but Niemand thought it was Australian. An all-Pacific team.
    ‘How’d you find me?’
    The man turned his head. He had a strong profile. ‘Just the messenger here, mate. Bloke gave me the room number.’
    ‘What’s your car?’
    ‘What?’
    Niemand ran the pistol over the man’s scalp. ‘Car. Where?’
    ‘Impreza, the Subaru, at the lane.’
    ‘Don’t move.’
    Niemand went to the doorway, now a hole in the wall, looked down the dim corridor. Nothing, no sounds. The room next door was empty, he’d seen the whiteboard in the reception office.
    He went back. ‘Unlucky room number,’ he said to the man on the floor and, from close range, shot him in the backs of his knees. Clap, clap.
    While the man keened, thin sounds, demanding, Niemand dressed, stuffed his things in his bag. The big man was lying back on the bed now, feet on the ground, making small grunting noises. If he wanted to, Niemand thought, he could have a go at me, just flesh wounds, like cutting your finger with a kitchen knife. But he doesn’t want to, why should he? He’s just the battering ram, the paid muscle.
    Like me, all I’ve ever been, just the paid muscle. And always stupid enough to have a go.
    ‘Give me your mobile,’ he said to the big man.
    The man shook his head. ‘No mobile.’
    Niemand went down the fire escape, not hurrying, walked down the alley, saw the car, pressed the button to unlock the driver’s door. He drove to Notting Hill, light traffic, rain misting the windscreen, feeling the nausea, the tiredness, not too bad this time. He’d never driven in London but he knew the inner city from his runs, from the map. Near the Notting Hill Gate underground, he parked illegally, left the car unlocked with the keys in it, Three youths were nearby, laughing, one pissing against a car, he saw the joint change hands. With luck, they’d steal the Subaru.
    On the underground platform, just him, two drunks and a woman who was probably a transvestite, he took out the gunman’s mobile, flipped it open, pressed the numbers.
    ‘Yes.’ Hollis.
    ‘Not a complete success to report,’ Niemand said. ‘Those boys you sent, one’s too fat, one’s too slow. I had to punish them. And I’m going to have to punish you too, Mr Hollis.’
    ‘Hold on,’ said Hollis. ‘There’s some…’ ‘Goodbye.’
    Niemand put the mobile away. One of the drunks was approaching, silly slack-jawed smile.
    ‘Smoke, mate?’ he said.
    Glasgow. Niemand knew what people from Glasgow sounded like, he’d spent time with men from Glasgow. He turned side-on to the man, moved his shoulders. ‘Fuckoff, throw you under the fucking train,’ he said in his Scottish accent.
    The man put up his hands placatingly, walked backwards for several steps, turned and went back to his companion.

12
…HAMBURG…
     
    ‘WHAT’S SERRANO’S business in Hamburg?’ said Anselm. He was uneasy, his scalp itched. The other people in the restaurant seemed too close, he felt that they were looking at him.
    They were in Blankenese, finishing lunch at a table in the window. Below them flowed the Elbe, wide, grey, unhealthy. Two container ships attended by screeching flocks of gulls were passing each other. The huge vessels—clumsy, charmless things bleeding rust at the rivets and oozing yellowish liquids from their pores—sent small waves to the banks.
    ‘Moving money, papers,’ said O’Malley. ‘He shifts stuff all the time. Can’t keep any computer records. No paperless office for Mr Serrano.’
    ‘The pages any use?’
    ‘The ones we can understand don’t help us. We sold them to a firm in Dublin, so we’ll get