Death on the Pont Noir - By Adrian Magson Page 0,96
car had appeared in the distance. Only this one was shiny and sleek, and rode the tarmac with undoubted elegance, at sharp odds with the sleety brown of the surrounding fields and the grubby snow clouds gathered overhead.
A gleaming black Citroën DS.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Jack Fletcher stared hard at a point in the front left corner of the shed, his foot poised on the accelerator, keeping the engine of the Renault at a smooth pitch. He’d judged the distances carefully with the help of the man who’d brought him here. He had spoken passable English, and between them they had worked out at what point Fletcher had to hit the gas in order to hit the car broadside on. From the three test runs he’d made, he knew precisely what the timing was and how fast the truck had to be going. And that was Fletcher’s speciality. There would be no messing this time, no holding back, even just a little. He’d had his orders. This one was for real.
He felt his heart tripping fast, reverberating through his chest even above the roar of the truck engine in the confined space of the shed. For the first time in years, he felt proud of what he was about to do. ‘Ruby’ Ketch, passing on orders from a higher authority, had selected him for this job, and him alone. No George bloody Tasker sticking his oar in this time, telling him how he’d screwed up and gone in too heavy. This time, Tasker was going to see and feel what heavy was all about. And Calloway. They wouldn’t know what had hit them.
He laughed out loud at the absurd beauty of it. Because they bloody would know, of course they would; in the few seconds it would take them to suss it out, by which time it would be too late, they’d go mental as the realisation of what Ketch had planned for them actually sank in.
‘We got a big job for you, Jack.’ Ketch had said two days ago. He’d treated Fletcher to a few drinks before telling him what he’d wanted. ‘Seems we’ve got a couple of bleedin’ twicers in the camp.’
Ketch had told him, lighting up a big cigar while Fletcher absorbed the information.
Tasker and Calloway? He could hardly believe it. On the other hand, he’d never liked Tasker, and Calloway was too smooth for his own bleedin’ good. Smarmy young git. He found he’d been ready to believe anything of them.
‘We need someone we can rely on, Jack, to sort this out,’ Ketch had continued, flicking away the match. ‘Someone with the balls to do it right.’ He’d looked Fletcher in the eye from close up, the smell of the cigar mixing with cologne and filling Fletcher’s nose. ‘We need ’em to go away, Jack. Gone for good – know what I mean?’
He’d accompanied the words by taking out his trademark pen and writing a number on a paper napkin. It was a big number, so big it had almost made Fletcher’s eyes water. And preceded by a pound sign. It was more than Fletcher had earned in years, and he swore the number sat there looking up at him with a devilish grin on its face, calling out to him to pick it up.
Ketch had leant closer, a reassuring hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. ‘Money like this, you could retire, Jack.’
‘Eh?’ That had come as a surprise. But not an unwelcome one.
‘Call it your signing-off fee, eh? Bloody good sign-off, too. You’d be in clover. And the job you’d be doing, you’d be a legend.’ The final four words were said in a hushed whisper, and Jack Fletcher felt his chest would explode.
He’d picked up the napkin and thought, a job like this, I’d do it for bloody nothing.
Now, watching through the gap he’d made between the planks in the wall, he waited for the black Citroën to appear. They’d be driving at a steady pace, he’d been assured, unsuspecting because Tasker and Calloway had been told the crash would take place a good mile further down the road, on a bend. They’d probably be gassing, telling themselves how clever they were to be cheating on Ketch and the rest, and wouldn’t even give the shed a passing glance. To them, it would be a shitty structure in the middle of a vast brown rolling sea of muddy fields.
He looked at his wing mirrors out of habit, before remembering