There would be plenty of parties in London, of course. Melody would have had to make just a couple of phone calls to find out where. Honestly, I could just turn up at Shoreditch House, she thought. Sign myself in, go up to the rooftop – there’d be bound to be tons of people I know there. She and James had spent the last New Year’s Eve partying on the rooftop terrace with a whole group of friends, lying together on one of the huge outdoor beds, wrapped in warm coats, flames flickering in the open fire pits, fireworks snapping and bursting open overhead, sparklers in their hands. Cold air around them, but James’s arms around her, mulled wine heating her insides, his mouth on hers hot and eager – the contrast between her previous New Year’s Eve and this one was so atrociously painful that Melody had to push away every single memory of last year so that she didn’t whimper aloud with misery.
But I’m in no state to go out. Not yet. I’d have to field hundreds of stares at my face, hundreds of questions about James, Felicity, the Much Ado audition.
She still hadn’t heard whether she’d got Beatrice, wouldn’t until the New Year. It was normal practice for an actor, post-audition, in the waiting period, to smile brightly and deflect queries about how it had gone, if their agent had got any feedback, whether they had anything else lined up: all part of the game, and an actor had to be tough enough to deal with the downs of his or her career as well as the ups. The ones who didn’t have an inner core of steel and self-confidence dropped out, and Melody was definitely not going to do that.
But I’m too vulnerable right now. I still need to hole up and lick my wounds. I said I wouldn’t go out in public until my face was one-hundred-per-cent completely healed, and I need to stick to that...
The doorbell rang. She jumped up from the sofa with great relief: Aniela’s come up at last! She must have decided it was okay to leave her patient—
But when she pulled the door open, it was Andy standing there, the handsome concierge, smart in his uniform and smiling at her, his teeth flashing white.
‘Miss Downs?’ he began.
Melody couldn’t help smiling ruefully.
‘Oh, you can call me Dale,’ she said. ‘I mean, everyone here knows who I really am by now.’
‘I’m so sorry about that paparazzo jumping out at you at the riverfront doors,’ Andy said: he had already apologised on behalf of the management, but was very contrite, seeing it as Limehouse Reach’s failing that Melody had been ambushed right by the back entrance.
She shrugged.
‘Honestly, Andy, like I said before – it’s not your fault,’ she assured him. ‘I know who set me up, tipped off that pap, and it wasn’t anyone who works here.’
Andy pulled a face.
‘They’re awful, the paps,’ he said sincerely. ‘Anyway, on a happier note, Mr Khalovsky is having an impromptu party in his penthouse, and he thought you might like to join? That nice Japanese family are coming too.’
‘Oh.’ Melody hesitated. ‘I’d love to, but I said I’d spend midnight with Aniela—’
‘I already asked her,’ Andy said, ‘and she said she couldn’t leave her patient. It’s a new one, some poor bastard who had a skiing accident – that stunt guy left, apparently. Funny, isn’t it?’ he added in parenthesis. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d be okay to check out for weeks, would you?’
‘I don’t like the idea of leaving Aniela alone,’ Melody began, but already, the thought of a party upstairs was a huge temptation: she would have company without intimacy, be surrounded by people but not ones in her world, nobody who could use the gossip about her to make her suffer.
‘Look, why don’t you come on up, and then we can ring her and tell her to join us just before midnight?’ Andy suggested. ‘That way she’ll be with everyone for a nice toast to bring in the New Year. Mr K’s got fireworks and everything – we’re going to shoot ’em off the terrace—’
‘Oh, that sounds lovely!’ Melody couldn’t resist. ‘All right, give me five minutes to slap on some make-up and put on a dress. Ten,’ she corrected herself, dashing inside. ‘Come on in and have a glass of fizz while you’re waiting, why don’t you? I’ll be as quick as possible—’ She grinned. ‘Actresses can put on make-up really fast when we need to.’
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Andy said gratefully, coming inside and pouring himself a glass of champagne. ‘I don’t mind telling you, I’m having quite a rollercoaster ride this New Year’s!’ Melody hugged him briefly but fiercely.
‘You and me both,’ she said. ‘And Aniela too. She and I’ve been through the wars in the last few days. Can’t wait to raise a glass with you two in—’ She looked up at the clock. ‘Shit, barely an hour!’
Dasha
Dasha was pacing up and down on the concrete floor by the back door to the parking garage. It should, of course, have been guarded, but Dasha was alone: Nestor, who was supposed to be on duty there, had been summoned by Ilya, who, up in the penthouse, had decided that this was the ideal time for him and Nestor to take out the stuntman. The disarray and confusion after Diane’s girls had had to abort their show, the bustle of trying to clear up and make the party respectable for Dmitri and Zhivana, had provided an excellent opportunity for Ilya to slip out and meet Nestor in the lobby before heading up to the fortieth floor.
But it had been over forty minutes since Nestor had left, and still she had heard nothing.
Not good. Not good at all. Nestor should be back down here by now, or at least have sent me a text to let me know what the hell’s going on.
Dasha had been holed up in this garage for two hours now, ever since Nestor had let her in the back door to wait with him for Ilya’s signal to meet up. She was getting pretty damn sick of the sight of concrete walls and columns; there wasn’t even a gleaming array of cars to look at, as the few here were all carefully shrouded in custom-made protective covers. The only one that was visible was a bright yellow Lamborghini, which had just been driven down in the huge elevator by the doorman on duty. He and Nestor had ooh-ed and aah-ed over the big shiny thing as Dasha concealed herself behind one of the pillars, rolling her eyes in contempt.
Boys and their toys, she thought contemptuously, lighting a Sobranie cigarette from the butt of the last one, throwing the butt to the ground and grinding it under the sole of her five-inch Louboutin. They make me sick. If they put that money into precious stones, it would be a good investment. With those cars, they might as well just piss it away.
She checked her watch yet again. Jesus Christ, where the fuck are those two incompetents? What are they doing, having tea with him instead of shooting him in the head? How long does it take to kill someone?
Dasha answered her own question. No time at all.
She had done it herself many times, and was planning to do it again tonight, twice over: take out Ilya and Nestor herself, after they’d dealt with Jon, covering her tracks. It was imperative that no avenue was left for Grigor to one day discover that his wife had planned to have him murdered. Nestor had disabled the CCTV in the garage before letting Dasha in, so there would be no video evidence of what she was going to do as soon as Nestor and Ilya came down here to report their success. She would shoot them both, take out their guns, put them in their hands and fire another shot; at a cursory glance it would look as if they had killed each other in a shootout. It might, or might not, be connected to Jon’s murder, depending on how much Grigor allowed the local police access to investigate, but that was not Dasha’s concern. Once she had taken out the two bodyguards, she would disappear out of the parking garage, go back to her car and drive back to the Dorchester, where she was staying.
No one would ever connect her to the three deaths. She was sure of that. But it all depended on Nestor and Ilya’s succeeding in killing Jon Jordan...
Dammit! she thought furiously. Her feet were starting to hurt; she had been standing up for over two hours. What’s that English expression? If you want a job done well, do it yourself!
She pulled her mobile from her bag and d
ialled both Ilya and Nestor’s numbers. They rang for five rings each and went to voicemail. Fuck it. This is not good.
Dasha’s careful plan was dissolving into smithereens before her eyes. She was going to have to go upstairs, something she had had no intention of doing; but she couldn’t stay here for ever, waiting for those idiots to return. Something had clearly gone wrong, and, as usual, she was going to have to fix it...
Her heels tapped out a vicious, menacing tattoo as she strode across the garage to the lift that would take her up to the fortieth floor; she was so livid that she forgot she was still smoking, and had to throw the cigarette out of the lift just as the doors began to close, the smoke alarm blaring for a split-second before it cut off again.
In Dasha’s YSL silver handbag, among other things, was a Glock B26, tiny but lethal, nicknamed the ‘baby Glock’ by gun sellers. She pulled the handbag across her chest and held it open with her left hand, her right hand hovering at the opening; as the doors slid open at the fortieth floor, and she stepped out, listening intently for anything from a scuffle to a gunfight, she moved her right hand down, feeling the familiar weight and heft of the pistol. It was just over four inches high, fitting neatly in her palm; she worked the long nail of her index finger as she manoeuvred it around the trigger. She had a full magazine: ten rounds.
More than enough for all three of them, if necessary, she thought grimly as she moved down the corridor.
On full alert, she paused at the corner around which Jon’s apartment door was located. All she could hear was a faint thumping noise, which could have been anything, even a dishwasher being run. Though who runs a dishwasher this late on New Year’s Eve? Edging around the turn in the corridor, she found it empty. Closed doors, a wreath hanging on Jon’s apartment door, none on any of the others. They were all unoccupied but his; she knew Grigor’s habit of offering wreaths to any other occupant of the building when he was in residence for Christmas.
And no one turns down a gift from Grigor Khalovsksy.
But if there’s no one staying in the apartment next door, why am I hearing thumping coming from inside?
She pulled out her phone and dialled Nestor’s number. Twenty seconds later, she heard the unmistakable sound of a mobile phone ringing behind the door of the apartment from which the bumping noise was issuing. With great caution, Dasha tried the door handle; unsurprisingly, it was locked.
The phone was still ringing inside. Making a snap decision, trusting her instinct as she had so often before, Dasha picked up the hem of her coat with her left hand, doubled up the heavy fur into a fold, hoicked it up over the lock of the apartment door, nestled the barrel of the Glock against the coat and fired a shot. The sound was muffled very successfully by the fur, a dull metallic plop; letting the coat fall, Dasha saw with satisfaction that the small, 9 mm bullet had blown a neat little hole through the lock, disabling it. The coat had not only muted the gunshot, but prevented any tell-tale scorching on the metal of the lock; unless you bent to look at it closely, you wouldn’t even notice the bullet hole.
She was inside in a second, closing the door behind her. Nestor and Ilya were lying on the floor of the living room, and she saw them immediately, on their sides, their hands and feet tied together, limbs bent up awkwardly behind their backs, hogtied with great efficiency. Ilya was still unconscious, but Nestor was awake, his eyes meeting Dasha’s frenziedly; he was trying to yell, but the gag prevented him. The thumping she had heard had clearly been him, trying to break free of his bonds, to no avail.
‘Useless cunts,’ she muttered, pulling the Glock out of her bag.
Picking up a pillow from the sofa, she walked over to Ilya and shoved it over his face. Bending over him, she worked the gun into one of his eye sockets and shot him. Nestor’s eyes were so wide now that the eyeballs looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, his heels drumming on the carpet as he attempted desperately to wriggle away from her. She couldn’t even relish the moment, she was so angry about their failure.
‘Fuck you,’ she said, kneeling down beside him, pillow in hand. Covering his face, she repeated the process; she would have preferred to see those madly staring eyes freaking out as the barrel approached, but she needed to use a sound suppressor, and the pillow was perfect. The eye shot was her preferred method of execution. There was no risk of the victim surviving with a bullet fired straight into his skull. Also, it was particularly upsetting for anyone who saw the body, which added a nice touch of intimidation. Dasha firmly believed in ruling through fear.
Nestor’s body slumped sideways, an instant death.
Too good for him, she thought, standing up. I would have gutshot those losers and left them to die in agony, but I couldn’t take the risk of their being found and spilling the beans about who hired them.
Right.
She threw the pillow aside and strode towards the door.
Two down, one to go.
She was just about to open it when she heard movement outside. Angling as best she could to squint sideways out of the peephole at the next-door apartment, she saw Jon emerge. Even with this distorted, fish-eye vision, she knew that he was carrying; his right hand, hovering at his waist, clearly indicated that there was a gun in the small of his back. She tensed, thinking he was coming here to check on the bodyguards; it’s perfect, she realised. If he comes up to the door, I can shoot him right through the peephole.
But he didn’t. He was sweeping the area, backing away, covering the door from which he had just exited, moving out of her line of sight, and then she realised why; something was sliding out, a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse, that white uniform unmistakable.
Damn. He’s on the move. He knows that Nestor and Ilya came to kill him. He might even be heading up to Grigor’s now to tell him everything – who knows?
There was no time to speculate on what was going on, why on earth there was another patient in that room, accompanied by a nurse. If Dasha didn’t act quickly and decisively, everything might be lost. Jon would survive, and his knowledge was simply too dangerous for her to let that happen. And she couldn’t leave any witnesses behind.
I have no choice. I’ve got to kill them all.
Aniela
Dasha’s improvised silencers had worked very effectively. Jon and Aniela had been in the bedroom, lifting Jeremy Bingham-Smythe into the wheelchair, when she had been firing the Glock, and the noise had not carried through the walls separating the apartments, especially since they were mirror-images of each other, each kitchen wall heavily tiled and lined with sound-muffling appliances. So they had no idea of Dasha’s presence next door; the reason Jon chose to turn right, rather than left, coming out of the apartment was to head for the further bank of lifts.
‘Anyone who knows where this apartment’s located is likely to take the closer lifts,’ he said swiftly, as they fastened the straps around Mr Bingham-Smythe’s unconscious body to hold him into the chair. ‘We’ll have a better chance of avoiding anyone by going that bit further. I’ll take point, you push the chair. Don’t say a word and keep one eye on me the whole time, okay? Just follow my lead.’
He opened the door and slipped out, leaving it open; twenty seconds later he gestured for her to follow with the chair. Aniela was so used to pushing wheelchairs that she could manoeuvre it with comparative ease, and she swivelled it round the corner and down the corridor, fast, keeping pace with Jon, avoiding the side tables positioned along the walls every ten feet or so. Jon’s head swivelled constantly from side to side, taking in every aspect of their surroundings, but he walked very swiftly, up on the balls of his feet, and Aniela felt the muscles of her back, her arms, the front of her thighs, flexing as she pushed the chair equally fast.
It was too fast for Dasha: they had practically shot out of the apartment, Aniela kicking the door shut behind them, and they were halfway down the corridor before she had even got her own front door open. Dasha was no sniper, and she had never engaged in a shootout. Her skills were close-rang
e torture and execution. If she had had a Kalashnikov, she could have taken the entire group out from a distance, spraying them with bullets: but instead of an AK-47, she had a pocket handgun which held ten rounds, and she had fired three of those. She couldn’t afford to waste any more bullets firing at random, especially against Jon, who she had to assume had all the armoury that Nestor and Ilya had been carrying, besides any of his own he might have already possessed.
Stealth was the only way. She stripped off her coat, hiked up her skirt above her knees, and kicked off her shoes, and as soon as they disappeared around a corner, she shot out down the corridor in pursuit, the Glock in her hand. They had already rounded the next turn, were getting close to the lift bank; Dasha knew she needed to act as swiftly as possible...
Aniela’s heart was beating fast, but she was managing to stay calm and collected, despite the fact that she could see a gun shoved down the back of Jon’s sweatpants – and there’s another one in the pocket on the back of the wheelchair, she knew. The pale blue vinyl was distended with the bulk of the pistol, the gleam of steel inside unmistakable. They were at the lifts now, Jon pressing the call button then moving away, to scope out the corridor that ran along the far side of the lift bank, making sure that no one had looped around and was coming at them from that direction—
Oof! Someone grabbed Aniela from behind, an arm around her throat, dragging her off balance. The hand round her neck was sharp-nailed; the tips dug into her as she struggled to catch her breath. And then she felt something cold and hard shoved into her right temple.
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