One. Twice. A third time.
Not the head, thank God, but Shelley was sure he heard ribs crack. At the same time Drake was screaming, ‘You tell them! You tell them Guy Drake was here! You tell them this is for Emma!’ and Shelley knew that his main priority had been to stop Guy Drake doing something like this, and in that he’d failed miserably, because it was going to take more luck than any man deserved to walk away from this with no comebacks.
From inside the building came the dull thump of something exploding. The fire was spreading fast.
Shelley heard a screech from across the car park – ‘Stop it, you bastards!’ He peered into the gloom, past the cone of light thrown by the security lamp to where he could just about make out the figure of a woman – one of the cam girls, brave enough not to flee. Great, he thought, a witness. All we fucking need, and he lunged, grabbed the bat on a downward stroke to prevent it from thumping into the cam worker a fourth time and snatched it from the older man’s grip with such force that Drake skittered backwards, lost his balance and sprawled to the tarmac.
For a moment that was where he lay, locking eyes with Shelley. Behind the balaclava there was no sign of shame, just the glowing embers of violence. His lips were wet, parted. His shoulders rose and fell.
Shelley knelt to the worker. The kid was in his early twenties, and he was in a bad way. Evidently Drake had got some serious digs in, at least one of them a head shot, probably delivered back in the office.
But he was alive. ‘Ring for an ambulance,’ called Shelley to the distant figure of the girl.
‘You animals. You animals!’ she screamed. ‘What did he ever do to you?’
‘He killed my daughter!’ bawled Drake as he pulled himself to his feet. ‘He killed Emma.’
‘What you talking about? Emma who?’ came the shout back.
She doesn’t know about Emma?
But there was no time to ask. ‘Get him into the van,’ Shelley told Bennett, who had materialised in the doorway of the office building. Smoke billowed around him. Behind its grey veil was the dancing orange of flames. Gurney was there too, escaping the fire, already clambering into the driving seat of the van as Bennett manoeuvred Drake into the rear and Shelley prepared to climb aboard.
‘That was my job.’ The girl stepped forward and Shelley saw that it was the same girl he’d spoken to. How come she hadn’t heard about Emma? ‘What am I going to do now?’ she wailed.
Drake was being bundled into the van by Bennett, but over his shoulder yelled, ‘We did you a favour.’ The anguished millionaire, who would shortly be delivered to his five-star London hotel by his paid team of bodyguards, screaming how he’d done a favour for a woman who suddenly had no idea where her next meal was coming from.
Shelley felt sick.
CHAPTER 28
THINKING ABOUT IT later, Sergei really should have known all along. Why? The clue was Grandfather.
The Skinsman sat in his usual place in the front room of the terraced Finsbury Park house, a familiar comforting figure to oblivious locals passing by, a symbol of threat and terror to anybody who knew him as the Skinsman.
However, to his usual attire of baggy old-man jeans and grey sweatshirt he’d added a scarf and coat, looking as though he was waiting to be taken on an outing by a carer.
That’s what Sergei saw as he peered through the window, taking the opportunity to scrutinise Grandfather a little more closely than he ever had before, remembering what the old man had said the last time they met.
He knocked in the code, waited. When Karen opened the door she wore her usual for-the-neighbours smile and, as usual, the mask slid away when she closed it. But this time, instead of gesturing for him to proceed along the hallway, her eyes scooted left and right and she leaned towards him.
‘Sergei,’ she said very quietly, ‘we need to talk about Ivan.’
That was all she said. But it was enough to surprise Sergei, who pulled back and looked at her askance, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. She had a finger to her lips, tilting her head back at the room in which Grandfather sat all wrapped up ready for his mystery trip but staring hard at the TV.
‘Ivan? My brother Ivan?’ he whispered.
She nodded. Her eyes were flint. ‘Not now, though,’ she said in a smoker’s rasp. ‘Dmitry’s on the warpath. I’ll call.’ She fixed him with a complicitous stare. ‘I think you’ll find what I’ve got to tell you very interesting indeed.’
And that was how she left it. Light glinted off the gold hoop earrings she wore as she turned and walked away in high-heeled boots.
That was interesting, he thought, proceeding down the hall. And what was all that about Dmitry being ‘on the warpath’?
Sure enough, as he ventured further into the house he saw that in another room sat three men he vaguely knew as guys who worked for the organisation – men Dmitry called upon when, as he put it, ‘things got dark’. On the table were their phones, their car keys, their cigarettes. Their guns.
They responded to Sergei’s greeting with the merest, almost reluctant incline of their heads and there was no warmth in their eyes, none at all. Sergei felt something in his stomach shift, a feeling of disquiet, and he wondered if it would be wiser to make his excuses, turn and leave right now. And never come back.
But then from the back room he heard the call. ‘Sergei, is that you? Get your big Chechen arse in here right now.’ Sergei’s Chechen arse wasn’t big, but he recognised that tone in Dmitry’s voice and knew it wasn’t the time to argue. ‘Now!’ shouted Dmitry, although Sergei was already hurrying through.
‘Yes, boss,’ he said. He wondered what was going on, eyes on Dmitry’s screens, which were blank, monitors in sleep mode. That in itself was unusual. He braced himself for whatever came next.
‘Did you close the studio?’ asked Dmitry.
‘Yes, Dmitry,’ replied Sergei cautiously. ‘All done as you asked.’
‘Yes, yes. Watch this,’ said Dmitry. Impatiently he waggled a mouse and tapped at the keyboard at the same time. As one the screens fired up, Dmitry keyed in a password. Now Sergei was looking at footage. He recognised where it had been taken, of course. The cam house. But as for what was happening …
‘Blyat,’ he muttered in Russian. No fucking way.
Instead of watching a girl joylessly remove her clothes, what he saw was a man in a balaclava leering into the camera, baring his teeth, flipping the finger and in the next instant hefting a baseball bat.
The picture died.
Another image, also the studio but a different room. Same guy, same smash-cut ending. Another room, another.
Dmitry’s mouth was set. His colour rose. ‘They attacked the studio last night,’ he seethed.
Sergei floundered. ‘But … I don’t understand, Dmitry.’
‘They hit the wrong fucking studio.’
CHAPTER 29
SHELLEY WOKE, RANG Lucy, told her about his fun night and that he’d be leaving shortly. Next he went downstairs into the quiet of the house, in search of the other two.
In the kitchen he found Gurney, still wearing his combat trousers and hoodie, head down over a bowl of cereal.
‘You enjoy yourself last night, did you?’ said Shelley from the doorway.
The Para looked up, milk spackling the stubble on his chin. ‘Felt good getting busy with the baseball bat,’ he grinned. ‘And good to see a few birds with their kit off.’
Shelley nodded, thinking if he had a button that could call up a tactical napalm strike, he’d be pressing it and aiming the strike in Gurney’s direction.
But there was no button. There was just the wild contradiction of an expensive designer kitchen and a Paratrooper who couldn’t eat cereal without getting it on his face. So instead he asked, ‘What’s happened to the van?’
‘Already taken care of. Me and Lloyd sorted it earlier.’
Shelley nodded. ‘Right. Where is he now?’
Without looking up Gurney pointed outside.
Shelley found Bennett on the stones. Unlike Gurney he’d changed and now wore his suit. He stood with his hands in his pockets staring into space with a vacant expression that Shelley recognised from the previous night.
‘Not zoning out on me again, are you?’ said Shelley, and instantly regretted reminding the man of something he’d no doubt rather forget. ‘Look,’ he said, changing tack, ‘there was nothing you could have done differently last night. Don’t take it bad.’
‘It was supposed to be my show and it was FUBAR, how else should I take it?’ replied Bennett, sounding dismal.
Shelley wasn’t sure about that. He was the guy that Susie had asked to look after Drake. If anybody was to blame it was him. Even so. ‘What are you doing now, then?’
‘Waiting for Johnson to arrive.’
‘Then?’
‘Then we’re packing our shit and getting the fuck out of Dodge, Shelley. Suggest you do the same, my friend.’
Shelley sighed. ‘Listen, mate, we used to have a thing back in the 22. “Anti-fragile”, we called ourselves. You know what that means?’
‘It means the worse shit gets the more efficient you are.’
‘Exactly. We’re anti-fragile, blokes like you and me, but occasionally we need reminding of that fact.’
Bennett nodded. ‘Cheers, Shelley, appreciate that.’
‘Things were bad last night.’
‘They don’t get much worse.’
‘But we need to move on,’ Shelley told him. ‘There’s no point in having a pity party about it all. We’re all at fault for what happened. We all either did too much or didn’t do enough. So right, yeah, we’ll make plans to leave and let Guy Drake think about what he’s done, like a naughty schoolboy. But in the meantime we need to be clever.
‘Think about it, Bennett. Last night he told all and sundry his name. But you know what? He’s the only one of us with an alibi. We need to work on making sure we can’t be connected. You burned the van, did you?’
Bennett nodded. ‘It all went up. Bats, balaclavas, hooded tops.’
Thinking about burning kit reminded Shelley of something that was bothering him. ‘While we’re on the subject, how did the fires start? Did Drake have some kind of fuel with him?’
Bennett sighed. ‘I don’t know. In the office I saw him with a bottle of water. Like a bottle of mineral water, you know? Only it obviously wasn’t water, because the next thing I knew the fires started.’ He pulled off his glasses, his eyes looking tired and beady without their magnification, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘We should have seen the signs.’
‘You did see the signs, Shelley, you were right all along.’
‘I’ll do my gloating later,’ said Shelley. ‘Where is our glorious leader, by the way?’
‘He’s been in touch. He’ll be here soon. Same with Johnson.’
Shelley was in two minds about seeing Drake. There was no point in reading him the riot act, and yet on the other hand he wanted to look into his eyes and gauge how he felt about the events of the previous evening. He wanted to see shame, sorrow, apology.
He turned and went back inside the house in search of caffeine. Things had changed, he knew. Not just the fuck-up of last night. Other things. He wasn’t going to be tethered by some misplaced sense of duty to the Drakes. Fuck that. The mystery of Emma’s death would have to remain just that.
Leave. Don’t look back. That was the plan now.
CHAPTER 30
PARKED OUTSIDE THE block of flats that Corporal Adrian Johnson (ex-Parachute Regiment) called home was the only thing apart from his regiment and the men who had fought at his side that he had ever truly loved: his BMW 3 series, wrapped in matte metallic blue.
It was his pride and joy, that motor. He’d lowered it, as well as adding customised bodywork and a large subwoofer in the rear – and when he wasn’t calling it his ‘bimmer’, he was referring to it with feminine pronouns and telling anyone who’d listen how he’d left a Porsche for dead the other day.
To make sure his pride and joy was never far from his sight, he always parked her in the space close to the entrance, the space reserved for disabled people and blue BMWs. And as he left his first-floor flat that morning and took the stairs to the car park below, he looked forward to seeing her, knowing that just to sink into her leather seats would help make him feel better about the situation at work: this ex-SAS guy Shelley coming on board.
It was because of him, Shelley – the word felt bitter in his mouth – that he’d missed the fun last night.
Fun? Oh yes. How did he know? He’d had a call that morning – James, not Lloyd, which was a bit weird, but anyway – only to be told that the lads had got tooled up and laid into Foxy Kittenz last night.
Bastards. Did it all without him. James and Lloyd – they got to see the cam girls, they got to rough people up, not him.
What’s more, the raid on the Russkis’ unit could potentially land him in a lot of trouble. The Russkis were going to think he had something to do with it. They might even think he was involved.
He’d been at home all night, having a curry and shagging Jane, who would back him up on it. If he saw the Russkis again he’d tell them that. Style it out. They were a bunch of clueless muppets anyway.
Johnson got down the stairs and exited the block, only to see some bloke leaning against his bimmer.
His immediate reaction was angry indignation. He was about to start forward and begin his day by administering a beating when he got a better look at the guy. He wore a turtleneck sweater underneath a long dark woollen coat, and he held something in his lap, a piece of fabric. Johnson didn’t recognise him but knew instantly that he was one of the Russkis.
Next he became aware of two more men, and swivelled to see them as they emerged from where they’d been standing, on the other side of the entranceway.
They were dressed similarly to their mate. Like sharks they moved in on their prey, boxing him in.
‘What’s going on?’ said Johnson, turning back to the first guy.
In reply, the guy merely grinned and held up the piece of fabric he was holding. At first Johnson couldn’t work out what it was, but then it hit him. He’d used them several times in the past. Mind you, he’d never worn one himself.
Oh shit.
It was a hood.
CHAPTER 31
THE LAST OF the fire engines had departed. Tendrils of smoke rose from the damp, blackened remains of the office units. The fire had spread from the first block, taken by wind and cost-cutting building work to gut two and a half neighbouring buildings.
Detective Inspector Gary Phillips drew up to the scene and drained the last of a Starbucks. Looking around, he saw that early-bird workers had started to arrive for their day at the office, clambering out of cars and staring in shock at what once had been their place of work. Phillips, meanwhile, slammed his own car door shut and hoped he wouldn’t have to go looking for the officer in charge. After all, it was Phillips who’d been called here, so it would be courteous not to make him—
‘You DI Phillips?’ came a voice from behind him. He turned to see a plain-clothes who had peeled off from talking to one of the fire investigators.
‘I am. What am I doing here?’
‘I’m DS Steve Lawler, OIC,’ said the man. ‘I’m told you’re in charge of an investigation involving some kind of online sex-worker set-up, yes? Goes by the name of Foxy Kittenz?’
Phillips was indeed in charge of that investigation, and the name Foxy Kittenz had come up in connection with the Emma Drake case. In turn Foxy Kittenz had been linked to a much, much bigger fish.
All of which meant that he looked at the OIC with fresh interest. ‘I am, yes. Why?’
‘Well, according to a girl who works here, this is your actual Foxy Kittenz,’ said the DS, waving an arm towards the first building. ‘Or was.’
DI Phillips was confused. ‘Um, I don’t think it is, mate. Or even was.’
‘Really? Tha
t’s what it is according to this girl. She’s a foxy kitten herself, she says, and she’s making some pretty wild claims. The name Guy Drake has come up. And she’s talking about a girl called Emma. Google says that could be Emma Drake.’
Phillips had to admit there was something going on here. ‘Where is she, this girl?’ he asked.
The DS indicated a car. ‘In there, being looked after by a WPC. Some guy, her boyfriend, I think, was badly beaten. He’s in the hospital now.’
‘Beaten? So this is …’
‘Arson? Oh yes, no doubt about it. This girl saw the lot. Four men in balaclavas and carrying baseball bats burst in last night, turfed out all the girls, beat up this guy and then set fire to the place. Not necessarily in that order, by the sounds of things. They even left a battering ram behind.’
‘Good of them,’ said Phillips. He thanked Lawler and moved away, reaching for his phone. He had a call to make to his contact in MI5 – a guy called Claridge who’d asked to be kept informed of any developments in the Emma Drake case.
CHAPTER 32
JOHNSON TRIED TO remain calm. He’d been bundled into the back of a van that was now on the move.
‘I didn’t have nothing to do with the raid,’ he said, his voice muffled by the hood. ‘I didn’t even know it was happening. I was at home all night. You can ask my missus. I can tell you what we watched on telly. I had four tins of San Miguel and we ordered a curry. Fuck me, you can smell my farts if you think I’m making it up.’
‘They attacked us last night,’ came a voice. Russian, low and matter of fact.
‘Yeah … but …’ Johnson tried to grasp at straws but found there were no straws to grasp. ‘We can make it up. Come on, guys, we can talk about this.’
‘You are going to talk about it. Make no mistake about that.’
And that was it. None of his questions or protestations were answered. Instead he was forced to sit in silence, hood on his head, his hands bound with a plastic cable tie.
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