The Midnight Cleaning Company

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

We hurried across the village green to the little hotel. The desk clerk had gone home for the night, allowing us the opportunity to dispose of the bodies.

We retrieved our weapons and stuffed the three rucksacks with our dwindling supplies of cash and blood bags and stashed them behind the abandoned front desk.

Shuffling awkwardly and constantly checking over our shoulders for witnesses, Andre and I carried one end each of the bodies, while Killer-Bee scouted ahead to make sure the coast was clear to rush through with our obvious cargo wrapped in blood-soaked bedsheets. Fortunately the village green and the little country road were both deserted. We hurried to the golf course that Andre and Killer-Bee had discovered. It was not the ideal place to bury bodies but it was our best available option.

Andre stole a shovel from a row of gardening allotments on the edge of the village. The three of us took turns to dig a deep grave, swapping over and passing the shovel between us to maintain a rapid momentum. The dark clouds overhead broke and rain fell heavily which made grave digging easier but messier. In less than quarter of an hour, the corpses of the young couple shrouded in the bedsheet, were buried amongst the thick tangle of trees between the seventh and eighth hole of the Milbrook golf course.

We had to rush to retrieve our luggage and catch the last overground train into London. High on the adrenaline of getting away with murder and charging into uncertainty we vibrated with nervous energy throughout the train journey. At Finsbury Park we changed to the underground train. As soon as our rickety old train pulled into the station we burst from the doors and sprinted with an inhuman speed we made no effort to conceal, to leap aboard the very last Victoria line train just as the doors closed. We alighted at Oxford Circus with a tide of tourists and emerged onto a packed Oxford Street. The famous shopping district was so busy that we were queuing rather than walking as we made our slow march until the turn off towards Mayfair.

The three of us stood opposite the Dorchester Hotel, where Vincent was staying and where both George and my Lieutenants had spotted Cleaners casing the area.

The heavy rain had dwindled into drizzle which stung our faces but did nothing to clean off the mud which drenched us.

Parked in a neat line amongst the Bentleys and Jaguars near the front of the building were three unmarked black vans.

"Wait here", I ordered Andre and Killer-Bee and handed them my backpack.

I stepped into the beautiful lobby and ran my fingers through my hair to shake off the droplets of rain. I had only ever once previously been to this hotel, but the Elder who had requested our services had been considerate enough to dump the exsanguinated corpses in the bins at the back of the building. The hotel was grand to the point of over the top decadence. The lobby split into multiple richly carpeted corridors leading to exclusive restaurants and a row of mahogany panelled elevators. I was pondering which direction to take to search for Vincent, when his voice echoed around the large antechamber of the entrance lobby. I looked up and saw the fool to be sitting at a fully laid table in the centre of the main restaurant.

"Fleming! Over here!" he called.

I stormed towards him. He held up three fingers when he saw my expression and counted down by dropping them one at a time. By the time I had reached him all his fingers had been balled into the fist he held proudly aloft.

"Boom", he whispered and cackled his madman laugh.

A bone-trembling force shook the whole building. Plates, silver cutlery, and tea cups fell to the ground. Glass flew around the room from all directions and a thick cloud of grey dust filled the air. Through the debris I saw Vincent calmly sipping his neat whiskey from a crystal tumbler with a satisfied smile on his face.