The Payback by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online Page A

to every question we’d asked, looking far too pleased with himself, knowing he had the protection of the attractive, public-school-educated lawyer sitting next to him, who as far as I could see didn’t give a shit about what he’d done either. Therewas no fear of the consequences of his actions, no regret for the way he’d casually ruined so many lives, and I remember thinking then how desperate I was to kill him – to put a gun against his head, to make him beg forgiveness, and then pull the trigger – and if I couldn’t do it to him, then I wanted to do it to some other bastard who deserved it.
    I was only ten minutes out of that interview when I phoned Raymond and said I’d take the job. Three nights later, I waited for Vincent Stanhope by the lock-up he sometimes used, and when he emerged from it and went to his car, I walked up behind him and, without a moment’s hesitation, put two bullets directly into the back of his head.
    It felt easy at the time, but afterwards, when I got back to my poky little flat, I threw up repeatedly before going into shock as my conscience reacted to what I’d done. I didn’t sleep that night. Instead I sat up smoking and drinking, playing the killing over and over again, paranoid thoughts of being arrested by my own colleagues and spending the rest of my days in prison filling my thoughts, until finally a grey, sickly dawn broke over central London, and I threw up all over again.
    That was over ten years and perhaps twice as many bodies ago now, and I don’t throw up any more when I kill someone. I’ve become hardened to it. I still like to think that the ones I take out are the bad guys, but now, whichever way I care to look at it, I am a professional killer. And as Bertie Schagel helpfully pointed out, a good one too.
    And Kyle Morris? He got four years for manslaughter and was released after just two and a half.
    As I boarded the Cathay Pacific flight to Manila that night, stuck in economy with all the guest workers returning home for their holidays, it struck me that there really was no justice in the world.

Six
     
    When Tina Boyd shut the front door of her end-of-terrace cottage behind her and walked through to the kitchen, she felt more like a drink than at any time in the past six months. She had, however, resisted buying a bottle of something on the way home. There was no way she was going back to the booze now. Not after the damage it had done to her over the years. Thankfully, there wasn’t a drop of it in the house. Instead she poured herself a pint of orange juice and sparkling water – her evening tipple these days – and took a couple of sizeable gulps before sitting down at the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette, and contemplating the latest developments in her turbulent life.
    From the start, Tina had regretted getting involved with Nick Penny. She knew from bitter experience that affairs with married men never worked out, and caused pain for all concerned. It had happened one night several weeks before Christmas when he’d come round to her place for one of their update meetings. More and more, they were tending to meet at hers. It was easier to talk there without anyone listening in, and at the time she hadn’tthought there was anything untoward about having a married man round, because their relationship had just been business, even though she found him vaguely attractive. But that night he’d poured his heart out to her about the strains of the libel case, the pressure on his marriage, everything. She’d listened and sympathized, feeling sorry for him, because she knew how hard things could get sometimes, knowing from the way he was looking into her eyes that he wanted something to happen.
    She hadn’t made any overt move, but at one point when he was talking, she put a hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze, and then when she’d got up to go to the kitchen to refill her water glass she’d brushed her hand against his – a small but knowing