by Mark Dawson
Pasko’s shirt was stained with the fresh bloom of her blood. He reached up and pressed the palm of his hand into the middle of it. He stepped closer to Milton, laid his palm on his chest, and then dragged it down. It left scarlet tracks across Milton’s flesh.
“She betrayed me, John. A week away from us? She could have left much sooner than she did. How could I trust her after that? I had no choice, and that is your fault. Her blood is on your conscience.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
MILTON’S MUSCLES burned with adrenaline, but he forced himself to wait. The man next to Hicks had raised the gun and aimed it at him. There was nothing he could do.
Sarah was curled up on the floor, blood pooling around her body.
Pasko ignored her as if she wasn’t even there. He gestured across to Nadia with the bloodied knife. “Your brother found Mr. Milton, Nadia. Did you know that? He was driving the lorry that Samir used to get into the country. I am going to punish John this afternoon, and then I am going to kill him and his friend. You are going to watch. And then you are going to persuade me that you will never try to contact your brother again. Because we know where he is, don’t we, John? Mr. Hicks told me. He is in Dover. The detention facility. Applying for asylum. It would be very easy for me to pay someone to put a knife in his heart. I could kill you, just like that silly bitch on the floor, and then I could kill your brother, too. You need to persuade me that I don’t need to do that.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“Pasko—” Milton started.
Pasko gestured to Florin. “Get him ready. Help him, Llazar.”
The last few moments had been a surprise—to everyone, not just to Milton. He turned his head to look back at Florin and the man with the gun, who must have been Llazar. They hesitated; not because they were frightened of Milton—and why would they be, with him naked and pathetic?—but because they were frightened of Pasko.
“Now!” Pasko spat.
Florin grabbed Milton’s shoulders.
Milton struggled.
Milton allowed Florin to wrap his arms around his chest.
Pasko took a quarter turn and laid a finger against the charge box. “You know what this is, Nadia?”
Llazar put the gun away and stepped closer to Milton and Florin.
Nadia did not answer.
“It is a parilla,” Pasko said. “I normally use it when I want to extract information. Not today, though. I am going to use it to torture him. And when I have inflicted enough pain, I will kill him.” Pasko laid the bloody knife down on the table. “Come over here,” he said to Nadia. “You can help me. I’ll show you how to use it.”
Nadia turned and tried to run for the door. It was pointless—the fourth man was still standing before it, blocking it with his bulk, but it was a distraction. Llazar turned his head a fraction toward the sudden commotion as the fourth man caught Nadia with a backhanded slap across the face. Llazar was directly in front of Hicks, and he wasn’t concentrating. Hicks sprang up, wrapped his right arm around Llazar’s neck and fell back, his weight bringing them both down to the floor.
It was the chance that Milton had been waiting for. He jerked his head backwards, his skull cracking into Florin’s face. His grip was released, and Milton threw the hardest punch that he could muster. His right hand connected; Florin stumbled back, lost his footing, and fell onto his backside.
Milton turned and barged into the man next to Nadia, driving him all the way across the room until they crashed into the door. Milton had his arms around the man’s torso, holding his arms in place even as he tried to free them. The goon butted Milton, his brow clashing against Milton’s left eyebrow and immediately cutting it open. Milton felt the blood well up before it bubbled over and ran down into his eye. He butted back, clashing his forehead into the man’s nose, and then reached up and rested both hands so that they were spread around the side of the man’s head, his fingers splayed and his thumbs pressing against his eyes. He pushed hard. The pads of his thumbs dug into the man’s eye sockets and he felt the aqueous fluid within the cavities as it bulged and spread around the pressure. The man screamed, reaching his hands up until they fastened around Milton’s wrists, but it was too late. Milton pushed harder and was rewarded with a popping sensation and then a gushing of blood that burst around his thumbs and ran down his wrists.
Nadia screamed.
Milton turned and quickly located the others.
Llazar had freed himself from Hicks and was rising to his feet. His gun was on the floor, dislodged during the struggle.
Florin was getting up, too, a knife in his fist.
Pasko went for the blade on the table.
Three on one.
Florin squared up to him. He had blood running out of his nose from where Milton had struck him. Milton could see that the man was a comfortable and adept fighter: his weight was evenly balanced, and his arms were loose and moving freely as he passed the knife from hand to hand.
Milton sensed movement and turned as Llazar swung the wooden chair at him. Milton had just long enough to raise his arms to cover his head, and the chair broke across his right shoulder and the top of his arm.
Florin sprang forward and slashed down. Milton sprang away into the middle of the room, the knife nicking his shoulder. Pain flashed. Milton ignored it.
Florin had overstretched and unbalanced himself. Milton stepped up, wrapped his arms around the bigger man’s waist, and heaved up, lifting him off the floor and bringing him across the room until they both clattered into the parilla. Milton slammed Florin down onto it, the sudden impact enough to send them both through the metal grid and onto the floor between the frame.
Llazar grabbed Milton from behind and yanked him up. Florin disengaged himself from the wrecked frame as Milton put his feet on the metal and pushed back, toppling Llazar.
Florin stabbed again at Milton’s gut just as Hicks arched his back and kicked out at the big man. The top of his foot cracked into Florin’s elbow. His thrust was redirected, the tip of the knife flashing across Milton’s skin, scoring a narrow trench from his breast down to his navel.
Milton was lying atop Llazar.
“Milton!” Hicks warned.
Florin drew back with the knife and stabbed down. Milton intercepted the downward thrust and redirected it, the six-inch blade disappearing into Llazar’s shoulder. Milton held the blade there as Florin tried to free it and then drilled the point of his elbow into the bigger man’s face. Florin’s nose exploded, even more blood spilling out to mingle with the flow that had already been discharged. He slumped to the side, the back of his head bouncing against the concrete.
Florin fell flat and then lay still.
Milton quickly looked up.
Pasko had grabbed Nadia and now he was backing away, the smashed parilla standing between them.
Milton twisted the knife in Llazar’s shoulder and then yanked it out.
Llazar screamed in pain.
Milton put the blade to Llazar’s throat, pushed down and swept it to the right in a firm, fluid motion. The blade cut deep enough to sever the windpipe. Blood pulsed out of the wide incision, spraying up and splashing over Milton’s skin.
Milton spun at the sound of a slamming door. The door through which Pasko had entered was closed; the older man had fled. He turned. Nadia wasn’t there. Milton gasped for breath and looked down at his body. He was covered in blood: some of it his own, most of it from the men that he had disabled.
He turned to Hicks. “You okay?”
“Fine. Go and get her.”
Milton ran for the door.
Chapter Fifty-Five
THE DOOR WAS LOCKED.
Shit.
Pasko had abandoned his son to buy himself a little extra time.
“Milton.”
He turned back into the room. Hicks nodded to Florin. He was starting to stir.
Milton went to Llazar’s body. The blood was still bubbling out of his neck, the force stilled now that his
heart had stopped pumping. Milton frisked the body quickly and expertly and pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket. There was only one key on the ring that could fit the bracelet around Hicks’s wrist, and, when Milton tried it, the cuff popped open.
“Nadia,” Hicks said.
“They’ll be long gone by now.” Milton angled his chin in Florin’s direction. “But he’s left us with him.”
Milton unlocked the bracelet that was still attached to the wall and went over to Florin. The big man was coming around. Milton turned him over onto his stomach and cuffed his hands behind his back.
Hicks was kneeling over Sarah’s body.
“Dead?”
Hicks nodded.
“Don’t worry. He’ll pay. But we’ve got to get out of here.”
“I know.”
“Florin, too. Take his legs.”
Hicks grabbed Florin by the ankles and Milton grasped him beneath the shoulders. Between them, they carried him through the door through which they had entered the room.
#
THEY WERE IN THE BASEMENT OF THE BUILDING.
The floor was used for storage; Milton found a room full of empty coffins and another with bottles of chemicals. A third room was equipped with another stainless steel table that was gently cambered toward a drain in the middle. The table, and the other equipment around it, was self-evidently used for the preparation of bodies. The more Milton considered it, the more he was impressed with what Pasko had built. The business would be useful for washing the dirty money from his illicit operations and would offer additional side benefits, too: it made the importation of new workers for the brothels both simple and reliable.
And, he suspected, access to cremation would be a useful way to dispose of bodies.
Hicks found his clothes in a storage cupboard and dressed.
Milton collected his own clothes from the room with the parilla and took them to a small bathroom at the end of the corridor. There was a cracked mirror on the wall and Milton regarded himself: he was a mess. There was a cut in his eyebrow from where he had been butted; his shoulder was discoloured with a darkening bruise from where the chair had been broken over him; he had bloody wounds on his shoulder and chest where Florin’s knife had scored him. Beyond his own wounds, he had more blood on his face and down his body from the three men he had taken out.
He took a handful of toilet paper and mopped off as much of the blood as he could. It wasn’t ideal, and plenty was left smeared across his skin, but there was no time to be more thorough.
There was one more room to check. Milton forced the door and found his pistol and the flick knife that he had confiscated from Hamza.
He pocketed both and went back to the preparation room.
Florin was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his chin resting on his chest. Hicks had thrown water in Florin’s face; the blood from his crushed nose had been diluted and smeared, staining his shirt, but he was finally coming around. He opened his eyes, closed them again, and then tried to move his arms. The cuffs rattled behind his back, and his eyes opened for a second time, his face switching from confusion to anger.
“Wake up,” Milton said.
Florin looked up at him with no attempt to disguise the hatred in his eyes.
“Where are we?”
Florin spat at Milton; the gobbet landed at his feet.
Milton took out the balisong and snapped the blade open. He reached down with his left hand, grabbed Florin by the chin, and raised his head so that his neck was exposed. “I’ve killed one of your friends this evening,” Milton said, laying the edge of the blade against his larynx. “Don’t think you’re a special snowflake. Answer the question.”
Florin paused, weighing up how much trouble he was in—and deciding, perhaps, that it was rather a lot—and cleared his throat. “North London.”
“Where?”
“Kilburn.”
“Do you have a car?”
“Outside.”
Milton nodded to Hicks and they both reached down to bring Florin up to his feet.
“Which way is out?” Milton asked. “Up?”
Florin nodded.
#
MILTON LEFT HICKS to help Florin up the stairs and went on ahead. He drew the pistol and held it ready as he emerged into a small lobby. There were three doors: the door to his right led to a chapel of rest, the door directly ahead opened into a tastefully decorated office where the undertaker could meet prospective clients, and the door to the left led outside. It was ajar. Milton was reluctant to use it.
“Is there another way out?”
“Through the office,” Florin said. “There’s a fire door.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the car park.”
“Keys?”
“In my jacket pocket. Hanging up over there.”
There was a large padded leather jacket on a hat stand in the corner of the lobby. Milton took it and emptied the pockets: he found a bunch of keys, a wallet and a mobile phone.
He held the phone out. “Passcode?”
Florin recited a six-figure combination and, when Milton entered it, the phone unlocked.
“Your father’s number?”
“The last number I called.”
Milton scrolled to the relevant page and saw an outgoing call from earlier that day. The call was credited to BABA.
He put the items back into the pockets, slipped the jacket on, opened the door, and made his way into the office. The room was dark. There was a single window, but it was covered by a blind and it was dusk outside. There was a single desk with a PC, a keyboard and a mouse, together with a neatly arranged tray of stationery. Milton paused, collected a stapler and slid it into his pocket. He crossed to a door that was opened with a panic bar. Milton edged up to the door and, with the pistol in his right hand, he reached out with his left and pushed down on the bar.
The door swung open. There was a car park outside. A black BMW 750 was parked ten feet away. It was the only vehicle that he could see. He waited for a moment, looking up and down the street beyond the car park. The undertaker’s was screened by a wall and several neatly trimmed trees, and he could see a row of illuminated awnings and the occasional car that passed by. He didn’t recognise the location.
Hicks brought Florin to the door.
There was no sign of anyone outside. No sign that anyone was observing him. No sign that Pasko was still here.
Milton reached for the keys and blipped the lock. The BMW’s lights flashed and, with a second press, the powered tailgate began to rise.
Milton ducked down and hurried outside. He made it to the car without incident. Pasko was long gone.
He looked into the trunk. It was spacious and offered more than enough room for Florin.
He turned back and gestured that Hicks should bring Florin outside. Milton helped him to manoeuvre the bigger man inside, arranging him so that he was lying on his side with his knees up against his chest and his wrists behind his back. Milton closed the boot and got into the front of the car. Hicks slid in next to him.
“We need to set up an exchange,” Milton said. “Nadia for Florin.”
“You trust Pasko?”
“No. But he’s lost one son. You think he wants to lose the other?”
“I doubt it. Are you going to call him?”
“His number’s in Florin’s phone.”
“Where are you going to suggest?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
MILTON DROVE for ten minutes until he was well away from the undertaker’s. He parked at the side of the road and took out Florin’s phone. He entered the passcode, navigated to the phone menu, and flicked through until he had the number for BABA. He pressed dial.
The call rang three times before it was answered.
“Florin?”
“Milton.”
Pasko paused before he responded. “It appears that I owe you an apology, Mr. Milt
on. You are a resourceful man. I underestimated you.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
“Perhaps. But I have something that you want. The girl. She is here, with me. It will be a simple thing to punish her for the inconvenience that she has caused.”
“Florin might have a different view about that.”
There was no response. Milton could hear the hush of traffic on the other end of the line. Milton waited for Pasko to speak.
“What do you propose?”
“An exchange.”
“My son for the whore?”
“That’s right.”
There was another pause as Pasko considered the offer. “I need to speak to Florin,” he said.
“No,” Milton said. “He’s alive. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Then there will be no exchange.”
“I’m not a fool, Pasko. I don’t speak Albanian. I don’t want him telling you something that might be unhelpful to me. You know I want the girl. I know you want him. I don’t have a hand to play if he’s dead.”
There was no response. He heard the muffled sound of a car horn and then the sound of voices.
“Fine,” Pasko said. “We will meet. Florin for the whore. Where?”
“The Golden Jubilee Bridge. You know it?”
“Yes.”
“The side nearest to the Houses of Parliament.” He looked at the clock in the dashboard. “I’ll meet you in the middle of the bridge. One hour. Bring the girl. I’ll bring your boy.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
MILTON FOUND A QUIET SPOT on the way to the rendezvous. He parked up and went around to the trunk. Hicks joined him.
“Ready?”
Hicks nodded.
“On three. One, two, three.”
They lifted Florin out of the trunk and marched him around to the back of the car. He slid onto the seat, his arms still pressed awkwardly behind his back. Milton gave Hicks the key to the cuffs and his pistol.
“Get in next to him,” he said. “Put a bullet in his knee if he causes any trouble.”
“With pleasure.”