Simon heard the footsteps outside, he had put the gravel down in the path for a reason other than just aesthetics. He picked up his phone and opened the CCTV app and pressed the screen on the camera at the side of the house.
He was creeping up the path as quietly as he could, the gravel crunching slightly with each step, unable to see the camera ahead of him. Simon didn’t do overt displays of security equipment, none of the cameras were visible.
Just a few more steps, Simon thought while he finished his tea. He walked over to his understairs cupboard and took out a pistol and a suppressor. He attached the suppressor t as he quietly opened the front door, closed it behind him and crept up behind his visitor.
“Would you please put your hands on your head for me, and slowly walk forwards?” said Simon in a calm and clear voice. The other man froze. “Don’t turn around, and don’t try to run off” advised Simon. “Now, is it just you or have you brought some friends?” he asked
“It’s just me” the other man said not really sure what was going on. “Right, that’s good then. Walk slowly forwards until you reach the bench over there” Simon directed, and the man complied. When he got there Simon said “Very slowly, turn around and sit down, keeping your hands where they are”.
The man did as instructed and then, as he turned around saw the gun in Simon’s hand.
“Excellent, so far, so good” said Simon with a smile. “Got a phone with you?” he asked his visitor. “Um, yeah it’s in my pocket”. “Take it out, and place it on the table, then pick up the roll of tape just there”.
As he was asked, the man placed his phone on the wooden table in front of him and picked up the roll of thick industrial tape.
“Good, now please will you tape your ankles and left wrist to the bench, nice and tight too”, asked Simon with almost kindness in his voice. Once done, the man watched as Simon attached his right wrist to the arm of the bench with some tape, then sat down opposite him.
“So, what brings you out here this evening?” asked Simon, slightly smiling again. “I was bored” came the rather timid reply.
“Bored? Goodness, the things people do when they are bored” said Simon as he picked up the phone in gloved hands. “Passcode?” he enquired.
“120305” the other man replied.
“You’re not even 20, bloody hell” Simon laughed “have you come far to get here?”
“I live in the village” he said, watching Simon intently.
“A local lad, I bet you know this place well…do you live alone or..?”. “With my parents” he quickly offered, as though this would protect him and mean this odd man would let him go.
“Are you new to the village or….?”, “we’ve been here ten years” came the nervous reply.
“Right, any brothers or sisters?” asked Simon, sounding genuinely interested.
“Just an older brother, he lives in Manchester now” said the other man, looking rather more nervous.
“So, what does your old man do?”
The other man explained his understanding of his father’s job, something at the local leisure centre and that his mum helped out at the local accountancy practice before Simon interrupted.
“OK, so we’ve established you live with your parents, who seem lovely by the way, nice Facebook profiles anyway, your big brother is miles away, and when you’re bored, you like to creep around people’s houses”.
“Hmmmmm” murmured Simon, staring at the screen. “Well then” he said eventually “ bored you say? Me too, but when I get bored, I like to find something creative to do, and since you’ve arrived uninvited, let’s find something that will occupy us both”.
With that, Simon walked towards the front of the house with the man’s phone and placed it on the driveway of the house opposite, just under their bin, then walked back to the garden and to a small shed.
He opened the door, reached in and took out a box, which he placed on the table, then sat back down.
“What were you planning on doing at my house this evening?”, Simon asked as he opened the box and thoughtfully examined the contents.
“I don’t know” stammered the other man, getting more anxious by the moment.
“You don’t know……let’s see if we can jog your memory” said Simon, with what the other man felt was a slightly more sinister edge to his voice.
Simon closed the box gently. “No, I think fingernails and the like, while painful, are a bit of a cliché, I much prefer something a little more…… psychological”.
“You’ll need to be a little patient though, no trying to run off, but I’ll be back in a bit” and with that Simon covered the other man’s mouth with a strip of the tape, and walked down the path.
It was almost 2 hours later when Simon came back. The other man had fallen asleep, despite his fear. Simon woke him with a gentle shake of his shoulder. “Wakey, wakey…..you have been a busy chap tonight”. The man looked puzzled but couldn’t speak through the tape.
“Yes, you’ve paid me a short visit, then popped over the road for a while, then been over to that lady up the road, you know, the one that leaves her curtains open when she gets changed. You spent a good hour outside her house, then another half an hour by that house near the church, the one that young lesbian couple live in….hmmmm, been hanging around outside some interesting properties”.
The other man’s brow was deeply furrowed now and he was shaking his head in confusion.
“Well, you see, when the police try to find you in a day or two, and they will try..” Simon paused, almost thoughtfully, “they will use phone tracking data to plot where you had been before you disappeared, and they will determine you were a bit of a pervert, but of a peeping Tom by all accounts”.
The man shifted on the bench a little. “But you see, they probably won’t find you, since your phone will lead them miles away from here”.
Simon fixed the other man with an icy stare that sent a shiver right through him. “Right!” he said, “Let’s get started” and he opened the box on the table.
————–
He was suddenly grabbed by his hair and pulled backwards off his chair, the shock of it unbalanced him and he stumbled to the ground making the pain worse.
He couldn’t even turn his head to see who it was, the speed of the attack took him completely by surprise and he was scrabbling to get to his feet, if for nothing else than to ease some of the pain in his scalp.
A few more seconds and he would be out of the door so he had to act fast. He moved his hands away from his assailant’s wrist and forearm and dug his thumb into their median nerve, the result was immediate. They let got of his hair and yelled in pain, but he dug deeper, raising their pain level to such an extent they dropped to the floor, and in no time at all he pulled their arm up behind their back until he heard something tear and a scream of pain. He pushed their head hard into the tiled floor with his other hand and sat aside them.
It took a moment to catch his breath and he used this time to take a really good look at his attacker, and a feeling of dread rose up inside him. In that split second, the man on the ground rolled them both over and he felt the sharp pain in his chest as the blade slid silently into his heart.
The man they called ‘The Shepherd’ looked into his eyes as though watching his soul ebb away and withdrew the knife, before getting up and walking towards the desk.
He picked up the laptop that was there, then returning to the man laying in a widening crimson pool, tilted his head to one side and saw the pendant, leant over and pulled it from the man’s neck and left.
He needed to see a doctor, his arm was hurting like hell but he had too many more pressing things to do so some pain killers and a scotch would have to suffice later. Gingerly climbing into the borrowed car, he placed the laptop onto the passenger seat and opened it.
No password, what is wrong with people? He mused as he started to open folders. It looked like there was something useful there, so a good trip out – time now to go to the apartment he had found and have a proper look and see what was on the USB.
Struggling out of the car, he grabbed the laptop and made his way through the small vestibule between the parking area and the stairs. He didn’t want to risk the lift as it hadn’t given him any confidence a few days back when he chose this apartment, obvious that it’s owners had gone away for a while given the amount of luggage they had crammed into the waiting taxi.
Once upstairs, Bariu poured himself a drink and threw two pain killers into his mouth and took a large gulp of whiskey and coughed. That was strong stuff! With the laptop on the table it was as good a time as any to have a look at what this operation was really made of.
Pages and pages of notes were sprawled out all over the table hours later, and he could barely keep his eye open. He had grouped his notes based on people, places and things. Who was who, and how they fitted together was starting to take shape, Kelmendi at the top, of course, then his trusted few followed by the leagues of foot soldiers spanning all the pies he had his dirty fingers in.
He had spent some hours creating piles with the names and photos of the people involved, and then moved to a folder called ‘targets’. It didn’t take long to find a file with his name on it, and he’d been expecting that, so it wasn’t a shock. There were other names he recognised and felt nothing towards, noting in their files what their misdeeds were that had got them added to such a list.
As Bariu was looking over the pictures of people that Kelmendi sought, he noticed a face he thought he knew, but couldn’t place it. Maybe it was time to sleep.
At 3:35 he woke with the name to the face – it was that police man, the guy who was trying to arrest him but ended up knocked out when Kelmendi came for him. He had a n odd name, mind you all British names seemed odd to Bariu, but this one was hard to remember but there it was, Corrigan, DCI Corrigan….he ran to the kitchen table and read the rest of the document. Had he bothered to open the file properly, he may have had a decent sleep, as the name was right there in bold letters, along with two addresses, his and his family’s – what does Kelmendi need with this?
