The Hard Way by Duncan Brockwell (electronic book reader .txt) 📗

Through the thick wooden door, she heard one of them say they were detectives. He held up an ID wallet that said he was with the Metropolitan Police. “We just want to ask you some questions about a colleague of yours, Mr Vanu Parekh. May we come in?”

“It’s a bit late to be calling now, isn’t it?” She stood back, hoping these guys would disappear.

“Who is it, honey?” Her husband stood behind her.

“It’s okay, darling, they say they’re detectives.”

“Then what the hell are you making them shout through the door for?” He unlocked it. “I apologise for making you wait out there. Please, come on in, detectives. What can we do for you?”

All Paula wanted to do was scratch his eyes out. Those glasses made them appear twice as big as they really were. She smiled at the detectives, one taller and slimmer, the other shorter, butch, scary-looking. Both suited, both showed their ID. “Great! You’re in. Why don’t you come through to the lounge?”

She led them through. “So, like I was saying, it’s a bit late for questioning people, isn’t it? I thought your lot would stop at a decent time.”

“Can I ask what this is about, detective?” Her husband sat on an armchair, while the detectives chose to sit on the sofa.

“One of your wife’s colleagues was involved in a fatal motor vehicle collision, Mr Lang. We’re just carrying out routine questioning.”

When her husband glanced up at her, asking her what this was all about, she had to get away from him. “I was about to make a cup of tea. Would you both like one?” She received two nods from the detectives. “Great! Let me go and get them.”

“I think I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,” the taller detective said, standing. “I’ll give you a hand bringing them in.”

In the kitchen, Paula busied herself preparing four mugs of tea. “So, this is about Vanu? It’s such a shame. He was the nicest man I ever met, and the smartest.”

“We’re after any information you may have, Mrs Lang. Between you and me, I don’t believe he lost control of the vehicle. My partner and I believe he was run off the road.”

The thought had occurred to her, although she poo pooed any assertion by Vanu and Richard more recently. Paula wasn’t stupid; she knew the ramifications of the project she had spent three years working on. There would be people, companies, governments out there who would pay large sums of money to prevent its existence, such was its global environmental impact. “You think he was murdered?”

“It’s a possibility, yes.” He stood back, his arms folded, as he leaned on the kitchen table. “I don’t suppose you’d know why someone might want him dead, do you?”

There was something about these detectives she didn’t trust. It was too late to do anything about it now. Putting the milk and sugar into the four mugs, she spoke without looking at him, while placing the mugs on a tray. “No, I have no idea.”

“What is it you do over at Fisher Valves?”

“We’re working on a revolutionary car valve,” she replied, hoping she hadn’t said too much. She picked up the tray and turned to him. “Shall we go back to the lounge?”

Paula heard a noise in the distance. She carried the tray through the hall and turned in the doorway. “Here we are, four mugs of–”

She gasped at the sight of the squat detective holding a bag over her husband’s head. Her husband was desperate to breathe, but the bag sucked in and out, preventing him.

Dropping the tray of mugs, Paula made a break for the front door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Managing to open it, she found herself running along the gravelly driveway in bare feet, the stones cutting into her flesh.

A bang preceded a force so great it knocked her to the ground.

Sucking in, trying to breathe, her back and legs felt numb. Her biggest fear was being unable to get a lungful of air. She sobbed.

Strong hands grabbed her ankles and pulled her along the gravel to her house, up and over the step into the hallway, and along the carpet into the lounge. “There! We wouldn’t want you to miss this, Mrs Lang.”

The taller intruder lifted her into one of their dining room chairs.

In front of her, the squat intruder put a plastic bag over her husband’s head again, only this time he didn’t take it off.

His body thrashed about as much as the rope tying him down allowed.

After a minute and a half, her husband’s head dropped. “You bastards. Why are you doing this?”

“You know why, Mrs Lang. You’re not working on ‘some valve’ in that workshop. You know it, we know it. But you won’t be around long enough to see the rewards.” He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back.

“Wait! Please.”

He let go of her hair, and a moment later she couldn’t see through the plastic bag over her face. Panicking, she thrashed about with her arms, but they were held back by something, hands. Squat guy must’ve come over to help. She couldn’t move her legs.

She couldn’t breathe. Everything was getting dark around her. The bag kept sucking in, blowing out, with every breath. When she called for help, it came out muffled.

Paula Lang didn’t want to die; it wasn’t her time. She had so many memories to make, people to meet. Tears rolled down her cheeks inside the bag, as she thought of all the opportunities that life had to offer, cut short by these two killers, her killers.

42

“Excuse me, gentlemen, while I take this.” Melodi Demirci smiled at her captive before stepping outside of the barn. Out in the blackness, she put the phone to her ear.

“It’s done,” a male voice said. “We had to go ahead and punish the husband.”

“Too bad for him. Make sure they’re never found, like we discussed.” She hung up, smiled, and put her mobile in her