An Eye For Justice Read online

  Cara whimpered, turning her head, the last of her strength almost gone, ‘I’m sorry, Courtney. I can’t hold on any longer. I want to go with Rupert,’ she said, looking over her shoulder again.

  ‘Yes you can hold on. Rupert will be fine,’ Pascal said, and then she was moving into the window, up and out onto the ledge, standing now, heels hanging over the edge, palms gripping the wall; then she was moving along the ledge. Then Cara was looking up at her, smiling through her tears. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said.

  As she reached her, Pascal said, ‘Hey, we’re not out of this yet. Hold on.’ She gravely studied the situation. It looked very bad, but she kept a calm smile on her face. ‘You see how I am standing, Cara? I am going to take hold of your right wrist, and I am going to lift you up, so you are standing like me. There is plenty of room here on the ledge, especially for a small person like you.’

  Cara looked up at her, unsure. Then she nodded, trusting. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’ Pascal reached down and grasped Cara’s wrist firmly, moving her fingers around it, getting purchase. Then she said, ‘after three. One, two, three.’ And she hoisted her up, but as she was level, Cara’s foot scuffed the ledge, and she swung back, out into the void again. Pascal winced, praying, ready to go as well, but just managing to hold, right hand fingers desperately splayed flat, trying to grip on the wall, praying that Cara’s momentum would swing her back in. It seemed like forever, but then Cara was swinging back, her light weight saving her. Then she was standing next to Pascal, both of them pressed against the wall, faces turned to the right.

  Pascal looked down at the smartphone, and started to move down again to pick it up, but Cara beat her to it. ‘Let me, Courtney. I’m smaller,’ she said, suddenly full of confidence. Pascal laughed as all the tension seeped out of her, then she made the mistake of looking down at the street. She shivered. They needed to get the fuck off the ledge.

  ‘We’re going back in now, Cara. So follow me, nice and slow.’

  Then they were both moving slowly, edging along the wall.

  * * * *

  Southern District Court

  Very slowly, as the noise around the courtroom abated, all eyes turned to Angel Milken. Now he was the one who looked all alone, almost as if he had taken over Hannah’s erstwhile role. He sat there in the witness box, his back still ramrod straight, face rigid and defiant, the playful smile long gone. ‘I have no intention of engaging in these, these theatrics,’ he said indignantly

  ‘Well, Mr. Milken,’ Judge Friedman said, ‘the jury will be entitled to draw certain inferences from your refusal to remove your eye-patch. I’m sure you understand that, and Mr. Browder will so advise you.’

  As Milken sat there, Hannah spoke up loudly. ‘You’ve heard my story,’ she said, turning to the jury. ‘You must judge.’ Then she turned back to Milken and began to speak again, matter of factly, as if she might have been discussing a school day trip from long ago. ‘We were happy in Jodenhoek, until you came. I had a wonderful mother and father, full of life and love; a cousin, Rudi, Grandpa Isaac, and my beautiful, beautiful, little sister, Helena. You murdered them all, and for what? A sick, racial, genocidal ideology promulgated by a lunatic, but I guess you were only following orders.’

  Hannah looked down in her lap again; a single tear ran down her cheek. The court was absolutely, eerily, silent. ‘Just tell me, now,’ she said, wearily, ‘because it doesn’t really matter anymore. We are both old and our time is gone. So tell me, why? Why did my whole family have to die? Are you brave enough to face me, now, without your guns and your dogs, when you’re all alone, like I was. If you believe in what you did, and you have any strength of character, then tell me. Tell us all?’

  Hannah held his gaze, both of them unblinking, then she shrugged dismissively and turned away, but as she did so, he calmly raised his hand and pulled the eye-patch off.

  * * * *

  As Pascal clambered back into the room, Schmidt was there waiting with the gun. She ignored him to reach back out and help Cara back in and down onto the floor. Then she turned back and faced him. She said, ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we go back to where I guess you’ve been sniffing around. Where you had no right to be,’ he said. ‘Bring the brat and the phone,’ he added gesturing with the gun. She took Cara’s hand and began to move, Schmidt following.

  As they arrived back in the hidden room Schmidt said, ‘I see you’ve been admiring my work,’ nodding up at the screen on which Pascal had left the frozen image of Helena, green silk tie pulled tight around her neck, her face caught in a rictus of pain and terror.

  ‘Who took the video, Schmidt? Was it O’Leary? Pascal asked, standing in front of the screen so Cara wouldn’t see it. She watched the squat killer with the dead eyes staring back at her. He seemed completely relaxed now; and he had put the gun away in his underarm holster, almost like an invitation to her to try something, like he wanted some kind of contest with her, and there was something else there in his look; anticipation.

  ‘That Mick schmuck? Are you kidding me? Kiddie fiddler with a habit? No, the man who took that amazing footage for the boss was Mayberry Wilkins,’ he said, moving into the room.

  ‘That the clown who scoped me at the airport? The one been hanging around outside the apartment?’ she said, sitting down in a chair to bolster Schmidt’s sense of security, working on getting an angle, anyway to make him feel comfortable, that she was no threat.

  Schmidt ignored her and turned to Cara. ‘Give me the cell phone, honey,’ he said.

  She handed it to him and he plugged it into mains power and a connection to the large screen, then scrolled and pressed. ‘Lets just see what your Daddy thought he was doing, before I stretched his neck.’

  There was a crackling sound, then John O’Leary’s face appeared smiling, filling up the entire screen. Cara started when she saw it and Schmidt laughed. Then O’Leary was holding up his wrist watch to the camera showing the time and date: it showed 3.15 am on the morning of the murder. Then the camera turns and shows the corridor outside Helena Palmers room, the room number, then John Schmidt and Mayberry Wilkins approaching and entering the room. As the door closes behind them O’Leary can be heard whispering, ‘just in case.’ Then the screen goes blank.

  ’So you killed Helena. What about John with the car in the harbour?’

  Schmidt just carried on smiling, which was answer enough for Pascal. She looked around at the art and the other treasures in the room. ‘So he kept all the looted stuff hidden away here, along with the atrocity porn, in his own little secret cave. How fucked up and sad is that?’

  ‘Keep on talking, bitch, cause I’m going fuck you every which way, just like Helena, and then I’m going to cap you, along with your little friend here.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Pascal said, playful.

  For a second something moved in his eyes. She guessed he wasn’t used to people being unafraid; a new experience for him.

  She stood up abruptly. Schmidt stepped back apace, surprised at her sudden movement, his eyes watchful and wary. She knew now he wasn’t going to slip up and their time had just about run out. If she was going to save Cara, she was going to have to take him head on.

  She suddenly shoved Cara hard away towards the wall and flipped back towards Schmidt. She watched him a moment and then smiled. ‘Come on then you chicken shit motherfucker,’ she said, still smiling, goading. ‘You like raping and killing submissive women, yeah? So how about you give me a try?’

  As he reached into his jacket for the gun she was airborne, launching herself at him so that her body was horizontal as she hit him across the chest. He went over backwards with his hand still inside his jacket. But he was up again like a jack-in-a-box. As he brought the gun out, straightening his arm to fire, Cara, who had been watching spellbound, lifted a large priceless Ming vase off a pedestal and threw it underarm in a shot she had been practicing in netball classes, all in one smooth motion. It was a lucky sh
ot, the vase disintegrating against the gun, knocking it from Schmidt’s grasp, sending it skittering across the parquet floor. Schmidt went down into a crouch, and began to walk slowly towards Pascal, stamping each foot, almost as if he were a Sumo wrestler.

  Pascal watched as he approached, knowing she’d have to try and use his mass against him, but he was formidably well built. His legs were like tree trunks, and she knew a foot sweep to try and unbalance him would be hopeless. The gun looked out of reach for both of them, unless she just turned and ran for it. He saw her eyes darting towards it, and then it was a race.

  She got there first, just; it was an old style .357 magnum and she grasped it as she went into her roll, her fingers desperately feeling the contours, safety off, finger on trigger. Then she was coming out of the roll, onto her stomach, gun held two-handed, out in front of her, pointed directly at him as he came on, almost on top of her, as she pulled hard on the trigger. The sound was deafening, and the blood spurted out of him as he kept on coming, three, four, five bullets hitting him like giant punches, riddling his guts, making him almost dance on the spot as they ripped into him. Then he was toppling onto her in a crumpled bloody heap, smoke rising off him, the sound of the gunfire echoing away into an eerie crypt like silence, broken only by the sound of Cara softly moaning in the background.

  Pascal must have lain there for a minute, drawing in huge lung-full’s of air, unaware of the weight on her and the blood dripping onto her face. Then she slowly began to move around tentatively, and then she gave a determined heave, and Schmidt’s body rolled off her. And then Cara was on her, hugging her tightly, trying to wipe Schmidt’s blood from her face. Pascal dug out her cell and speed dialed detective Daly, still hugging Cara. He answered almost instantly, saying,’ kinda busy now, Pascal—’

  ‘Schmidt’s dead. I’m in K Tower with all the evidence you’ll need to indict Angel Milken et al with conspiracy to murder multiple times. Interested?’ she said.

  ‘How the hell..? Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there, and don’t screw up my crime scene.’

  * * * *

  Southern District Court

  The eye revealed was indeed bright blue. And even with Angel Milken’s advanced age it seemed to glitter, an extraordinary counterpoint to his other familiar grey eye. The effect was eerie and, when combined with his other features, gave him a kind of ethereal, otherworldly appearance.

  He had risen to his feet, a look of contempt on his face as he surveyed the watching crowd. His eyes moved to Hannah. ‘I should have shot you when I shot your sister,’ he said, calmly. Then he looked up at the judge, the authority in the court, and continued. ‘Hitler was very clear,’ he said, voice strong and full of zeal. ‘You are, you Jews, and you were, an existential threat that required a radical solution, and that solution was National Socialism. You, Miss Cohen,’ he said, looking back at Hannah, ‘ironically, have proved Hitler right. He said we must kill all the Jews, especially the children, or they will come back and avenge their dead. You have done that, and I salute you for it. You are far far braver than all the others here today.’

  As Milken looked around the courtroom, a kind of mad expression on his face, Hannah slid another note across the table to Morganna. It read, “tell security to check his mouth for a cyanide capsule.” Morganna looked up at her, expecting a joking smile, and then realized from her face that she was serious. She beckoned a guard over and passed him the note, getting the same initial reaction, before he too got it and started to move slowly over towards the witness box, where he whispered to a couple of security guys.

  They grabbed Milken from behind, one of them managing to wedge a ruler into his mouth, preventing him from biting down on anything, as Morganna rose to her feet. ‘Sorry, your honour, for that, but my client apprehends that Mr. Milken may have a suicide pill in his mouth,’ she said.

  Speechless, Friedman’s incredulous look faded as the security guy held up a round blue shaped pill, covered in Milken’s saliva. Then Milken was shouting in a mixture of English and German, calling for his son, Michael, to bring the wheelchair, so he could leave. As this was taking place two official looking men in suits approached the bench and one leant up and whispered to the judge who nodded a couple of times. Then Friedman was addressing Milken. ‘Mr. Milken, these gentlemen are from the Justice department war crimes unit, and they would like to speak with you about certain matters. And I am sure there will be many other government agencies who will wish to speak to you also.’

  EPILOGUE

  The farewell celebratory dinner was held early, 7.30 pm sharp, so Cara could attend before her bedtime. It was a little sad because we were saying goodbye to Hannah and to Cara. Hannah was flying home in the morning, and Cara was going back to her mother, just out of rehab, but apparently doing very well.

  ‘A toast,’ Hannah said, raising her glass of red wine and touching it against Cara’s tall glass of cola. Around the table were sat Pascal, Detective Daly, Morganna, Christoff, Hannah and Cara. The centerpiece of our gathering sat on a little plinth in the middle of the table, the golden diamond encrusted pendant that had brought us all together and caused, it had to be said, so much mayhem and misery. But that was the past, and now it was time for the future, and so we raised our glasses to Hannah as she made the toast. ‘L’chaim. To life.’

  ‘To life,’ we all repeated, then Hannah said, ‘in fact I’ll go further. ‘l'chaim tovim ul’shalom; for good life, and for peace.’

  We all echoed that as well, and as I leaned back, sipping wine, my mind wandered, reliving the last frenetic week.

  After viewing O’Leary and Schmidt’s phone footage, Stahl had confirmed the DA’s office would not oppose an appeal if I were minded to make one. It was a done deal, just a paper exercise, and so judge Gonzalez had immediately released me on bail pending that appeal. So, having just arrived back at Rikers, I left almost immediately on a cloud of euphoria. I was also told by Pascal that it wasn’t just the O’Leary footage that convinced Stahl. He had also spoken with Bob Jeffries at Homeland Security about the CCTV digital file, but what was said between them was all a bit hush-hush, Pascal had said mysteriously.

  Angel Milken was unlikely to ever see the light of day again, but I doubted he would endure for long; guys like that never seemed to do much penance. Suicide or an early death were likely. The hidden room in K Tower had thrown up a host of long lost treasures, including Rudi’s famous Van Gogh, the Road to Tarascon, missing since the 1940’s, that he’d forged and replaced and taken out of Germany all those years ago, a tribute to his courage and bravery. Efforts were being made to find the original owner, pending that it was going to the Dutch government.

  And Michael Milken, anxious to avoid even more bad publicity made a big payout to Chantelle Latifah, although in the end it probably wasn’t going to help him much. But so far Charles Browder was still free and would probably be able to slime his way out; typical lawyer really.

  I looked over at Detective Daly, canoodling with Pascal, and now a friend since he’d come over to my side. He’d cleared up the deaths of John Palmer and O’Leary, based upon film clips found in Milken’s private cinema. Seemed Schmidt had been under standing orders to film any killings for Milken’s enjoyment; stupid and arrogant. Still it had allowed Daly to arrest and indict Mayberry Wilkins, Schmidt’s sidekick, for murder, and Fossey had agreed to testify against him for a lesser sentence.

  As I looked around the table a momentous decision I had been wrestling with for a while suddenly seemed to resolve itself. As a gap in the conversation opened up I looked over at Morganna and said, ‘how does Calver & Fedler LLP, New York Attorneys at Law sound?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask, Calver,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘But maybe Fedler & Calver sounds better,’ she added with an impish grin, then, ‘and with our own in house investigator, Ms Courtney Pascal, and her little helper, Miss Cara O’Leary, but only in the school holidays?’

  THE END

  Abou
t the Author

  Mark Young practiced as a lawyer and ran his own law firm before starting to write. This is his second novel after his first, Explosive Verdict, was published in 2016. He lives in Suffolk.

  www.mark-young.com