Hot Revenge Box Set 2

The car drives into the night, taillights, glowing gold through the exhaust. Ross stands silently by.

“Time for me to go too.”

“Good luck, James. I’ll be listening.” He offers his hand and I shake.

Then, bag in hand, I set off down the dark streets.

*****

Michael

The night is icy, the ground slick with frost and a breeze, slight though it is, bites at fingers and ears, even through the gloves and the woollen caps both Klempner and I are wearing.

Slipping from one shadow to another, we skirt the luridly lit front entrance of Club Electric, moving around the side.

“Don’t slip on the ice,” mutters Klempner. “You’d end up in the canal.”

The water, black and unwelcoming, ripples sluggishly, assorted unsavoury-looking objects bobbing at the surface.

“No, thanks… How are you planning on getting inside? I’m assuming you weren’t planning on the front door.”

“No. He probably has the back covered too.”

“Fire escape?”

Klempner shrugs, noncommittally. “Maybe.”

“So, what then?”

He brandishes the wooden carrycase he’s been toting since he first arrived with his armoury.

“And that is…?”

He kneels, unclipping the case. It opens into two halves, lying flat, to reveal inside what looks like a gun, sort of, and various components, nested into hollows in packing foam.

“A harpoon gun? And you plan to use that how exactly? I know James talked about hunting whales. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to see Finchby with one of those through his chest, but…”

“It’s a line thrower.” Klempner raises eyes to high above.

There, above what would once have been loading access for, what was then, a warehouse, a mix of silhouettes and dull glints mark the rusted remains of ancient winch and pulley systems jutting from the wall.

Klempner strolls to and fro, apparently measuring height or angle by eye. “What are you like at climbing? Ever done any?”

“Klempner, that’s got to be, sixty… seventy feet…”

“Yes. Have you done any climbing?”

“A bit of rock-climbing when I was a teenager and of course some rope work in the gym. But nothing like…” I let my eyes slide upward: a solid wall of smoothly constructed brickwork, damp in the night air, slick in the winter freeze. “… nothing like that.”

“If you can climb a rope in a gym, you can do this. It’s just a longer stretch.” He cranes his neck, looking up. “Which of those looks the most secure, would you say?”

“You have got to be kidding. Trust our weight to one of those? They’re decades old. There can’t be more than rust and hope holding them together.”

“You want to get inside or not? We can’t use the entrances. There’s no windows at all for the first two stories and the ones above that are barred. Oh, and for the avoidance of doubt, we’ll be trusting my weight to it, not yours.”

“Your weight? Why yours?”

“You're heavier than me, by quite a bit. I'll go up first, get the rope anchored to whatever else I can find up there. Then you can follow.”

“Klempner, that’s just not…”

“Got any better ideas?”

“Since you ask, no.”

“Well then.”

“What’s your idea from there? Hoping there’s access from the roof?”

He shrugs. “There usually is for these places. Services shafts, ventilation… Whatever. And if there isn’t any ready-made, we might make an access. Through the roof tiles perhaps.”

He looks up again, sucking at his teeth. “If we’re pushed, I suppose we could tackle the bars on those upper windows, but I don’t much like the idea of dangling sixty feet up for the length of time that would take. Even in the dark, we’d be too visible if anyone came round.”

He extracts the ‘gun’ from the packing, assembling parts. It could be a shotgun except for the unusually short barrel and strapped below the barrel, a canister, loaded with coiled cord.

end… He glances up. “The projectile…” he explains, without waiting for my

in some fascination.

huffs. “Once or

interesting life, haven’t

He fiddles with the cord, smoothing over a kink. Then knotting cord to the loop, he loads the projectile

it the Chinese say? May you live

clicking it home. “… But it’s

“True.”

going to tell me what the deal is with you and the Haswell woman? You’re

“One of them.”

and Beth Haswell? You seem pretty chummy with her, but no-one blinked. Not even her

husbands. I

seconds. Then, “And Jenny’s

was one of the

line instead of bullets

“Why?”

up and over one of those brackets so the line will catch.

more if you can, then there’s

“I like that idea.” He aims upwards, sighting along the length

trailing its cord. As it approaches its target it flies straight as an arrow,

Klempner cranes to see. “Must be a wind

misses the

shifts… a brighter

“Someone’s coming.”

faces away

glare of a torch, accompanied by floating red

it was? I didn’t

Some

“Probably kids or crack-heads.”

what they pay us

swings through the darkness, frozen fog a-glitter in the air as

from between the bins, knocking one of the cans flying as it goes. Then

vermin. I’ll tell Finchby he needs to put down some

it be better to poison

small red ember arcing through the

draw breath and then realise I'd been holding it. There’s a

of cord; a fresh cartridge. He stands where he stood before, then

behind. At the

time drops squarely over one of the

“Not two?”

of the cord to the rope, then hauling on the other, up and over the ancient bracket, then down again. In under two minutes,

his full weight on it. Nothing

go up first. Once I’m up, I’ll re-anchor, then you send the bags up next. Then you come

Be careful. With the

sniffs and nods, then, one hand over the other, feet propped against the brickwork, ‘walks’ up

as he

How old are you?

enough to be Charlotte’s

you climb that wall

series of jerks, it rises, vanishes into darkness, then the rope falls back. My bag next. That too is hauled upwards and the end of the

a while since I last did any climbing, several years in fact. The

I crane upwards, the wall, sheer, vertical, smooth, looms vertiginously

Crap…

your ass.

He did it…

So can I…

propped up against the wall, knees flexing as I ‘walk’ up, hauling

about the half-way point, biceps beginning

from above. “Michael, what the fuck are you doing down there? This

Smart bastard…

I pull up from my

my feet

the brickwork is iced or just sheened in condensation, but the soles of my boots slide

drops onto my single right hand. For a heart-stopping second, the rope slides, the leather of the glove hot against my palm and my heartbeat accelerates from andante to allegro in the space of a couple of beats before I snap my

Christ!

a mosaic of light and dark and grey which swirls under me alarmingly. All around, the lights of the City

a hiss from the darkness

iced. Gimme

“I’m coming down…”