Page 173 of King’s Ransom

‘Are you fucking insane?’ Oberov said.

‘But you never hired my company again. As any small-business owner will tell you, repeat business is important. And in my trade, a man like you would normally be good for that. Why didn’t you hire me again?’

‘Because you’re a butcher! You were an animal with that man. You did surgery on your own face so you could enter that fund manager’s home, inhabiting the body of his butler, and then you tortured him for two days before killing him and painting the walls with his blood.’

The Unperson smiled distantly at the recollection.

‘You wanted him taught a lesson.’

‘I didn’t want the butler sent to prison for his murder.’

‘The butler was rude to me. He needed to be taught a lesson, too.’

The Unperson looked over at the concrete-pouring hose.

‘As now do you. Because it was you who made Dr Speedman aware of my existence.’

‘Now, that was—’

‘Blah, blah, blah. Mr Oberov, I’m told you’ve been known to bury your enemies in the foundations of some of the buildings in these parts. Indeed, sometimes you’ve buried them alive.’

Oberov spat, ‘You will pay for this, you dog—’

Bang!

The Unperson shot him in the face.

(I hadn’t even seen the gun appear in his hand, he’d drawn it so quicky and fluidly.)

Blood exploded out the back of Oberov’s head.

The gang lord flopped to the base of his concrete ‘coffin’, a pool of blood fanning out from his head.

‘No!’ his son, Dmitri, yelled.

Bang!

The Unperson shot him, too.

The younger Russian also collapsed, dead.

‘Honestly, Samuel, see what I mean about boredom? What a tedious conversation,’ the Unperson said. ‘I much prefer talking to you.’

I just stared down at the two dead bodies in the concrete box in the pit.

He’d killed them without the slightest hesitation.

I swallowed, figuring he was about to do the same with me.

‘Oh, Samuel, you’ve gone white,’ the Unperson said with mock concern. ‘Please, don’t look so frightened. I wouldn’t dream of killing you in such an undignified way. They were crude thugs who needed to die crudely. You deserve better. You deserve the Aristo King treatment.’

Suddenly, Uri dragged me over to the larger pit and threw me into the concrete box with the bodies of Oberov and his son.

I landed with a sickening thud right on top of Oberov’s corpse, my head bouncing off his lifeless face. Some of his blood spattered my right cheek.

The Unperson appeared at the edge of the pit, looking down at me.

‘I think it’s only fitting that Mr Oberov and his boy should be buried forever in concrete. The same end to which they condemned so many poor souls in this neighbourhood. Wouldn’t you agree?’