‘Don’t move,’ Dasha Khalovsky hissed in her ear, her breath stinking so strongly of cigarette smoke that Aniela couldn’t help flinching back. Aniela’s head was twisted to one side in Dasha’s grip: beside her, Dasha said loudly to Jon:
‘Drop your gun or I’ll shoot her in the head!’
Jon had dragged his gun from his waistband in a blur of movement, unbelievably fast. He was aiming it two-handed at the women, his legs slightly bent, his eyes absolutely calm and focused. Aniela had never had a gun pointed at her in her life; it was the most terrifying thing she could imagine, even with Jon behind it. She trusted him completely, and still, the sight of that wicked dark barrel, so small and so lethal, was paralysingly frightening.
‘It’s you I want!’ Dasha hissed at Jon. ‘I’ll let these two go if you drop the gun!’
The big Glock spun in Jon’s right hand, pointing up into the air, his hands spread wide. His voice was very calm when he said:
‘Okay. I’m going to put this down, slowly, so it doesn’t go off. I’m going to kneel down and put it on the ground. Let me just do that, and then we can talk this over—’
But Aniela felt the pressure of the gun against her temple abate; Dasha was already pulling it away to aim at Jon.
No! I won’t let her! Pulling away, shoving back with all her might, Aniela saw Dasha’s arm lowering as she targeted Jon. Later she thought that she had seen Dasha’s finger tightening on the trigger, the pointed red nail gleaming, but that was obviously impossible; there was no way she could have noticed that level of detail, not with the speed with which it all happened. Aniela lunged forward, grabbing Dasha’s arm, pulling it down just as the gun went off. The bang seemed incredibly loud at such close quarters, but Aniela couldn’t let herself be distracted by it; her entire focus was on the gun, getting it pointed into the carpet, away from Jon, away from the wheelchair.
The two women wrestled, panting, Aniela’s strong hands closing around Dasha’s wrist. Aniela’s job was physical, and she had peasant genes that had blessed her with solid, strong muscles; she had the advantage on Dasha, and she used it mercilessly. I want to break this bitch’s wrist! she thought viciously, bending it till Dasha screamed in fury. The gun went off again, the recoil shocking Aniela, but it was pointing down and away; that shot at least went wide of everyone.
But what about the first one? How badly is Jon hit? The worst part of all – worse than the frenzied struggle with Dasha, her foul breath so close, the nails of Dasha’s left hand digging into Aniela’s arm, trying to pull it off, drawing blood – was that Aniela could not afford to glance ahead, even for a moment, to see how Jon was – because she must have hit him! If she hadn’t I wouldn’t be fighting her alone, he’d be over here dragging her off me—
The thought of Jon lying on the ground, bleeding out, needing her desperately, while she was unable to run to him, gave her extra strength, rage rising in her like a red cloud of fury. She forced the Glock from Dasha’s hands so violently that Dasha screamed again. I hope I broke a finger! Aniela thought, as the gun flew out of her grasp, across the hallway.
The doors of the closest lift slid open with a ping and, with appalling luck, the gun landed inside the car. Dasha, who was marginally closer, precipitated herself towards it,Aniela throwing herself on top of her. The breath shot out of Dasha as Aniela landed on her, flattening the thinner woman, her bosoms squeezing out on either side of her body like fat, padded balloons. Dasha’s arm, reaching out for the gun, was plastered flat to the lift floor. Aniela tried to drag herself over Dasha to grab the Glock: it was all she could see, her utter and total focus, lying there in the far corner, its metal dull against the shiny floor and marble walls, a stubby, compact black gun with a squat, wide stock. Such an ugly small thing to be able to kill, to make two women fight to the death, if necessary, to gain possession of it—
Grabbing Dasha’s hair, Aniela pulled up the Russian woman’s head, meaning to slam her forehead down into the lift floor. It should have been a knockout blow, but Aniela had clutched the hair so hard that half of it came away in her hand, a dry, crispy mix of tinsel extensions and real hair that Dasha had bought and had woven into her own. Aniela stared in shock for a moment at the contents of her fist, and Dasha, howling like a dog, bucked up underneath Aniela, jerking her off to the side.
The lift doors slammed shut. Panicking, Aniela reached up, frantically trying to find the button that would open them again; but she must have hit the wrong one, because the lift hummed into life, the floor falling away below the two women as it started to drop. Dasha, twisting round, punched Aniela in the face. Aniela hit her back with the hand still gripping Dasha’s clump of hair. Dasha’s red-lipsticked mouth gaped wide, and Aniela shoved the hair into it, Dasha coughing and choking and simultaneously trying to bite down on Aniela’s hand.
What do you do when a dog bites you? In a flash, Aniela remembered what her father had done years ago when a neighbour’s dog had bitten his leg: he’d grabbed the dog’s head and rammed it further into his calf, choking the animal, forcing it to release its hold; then, with the grip he’d got on the back of its neck, he’d hurled the mutt away, right over the fence that separated their gardens. The dog had been very subdued ever since.
Do it! Against every physical instinct, Aniela shoved her hand into Dasha’s mouth even further, forcing Dasha’s jaw to yawn so wide that she couldn’t bite down any more. Blood was running down Aniela’s arm from where Dasha’s pointed nails had dug in, and now there was blood on her knuckles from Dasha’s bite. Spitting the hair out of her mouth, Dasha reached both hands out, eyes narrowed into slits of fury, and lunged for Aniela’s neck.
‘You stupid Polack bitch!’ Dasha gasped, grabbing hold of Aniela, trying to strangle her: they were on their knees now, facing each other.
‘Russian whore!’ Aniela snapped back, wrapping her arms around Dasha’s back, splaying her fingers, and grabbing every last strand of Dasha’s hair she could, feeling an odd series of knobbly knots under her fingers where the extensions had been put in. Snagging her fingers around them, she pulled back viciously, snapping Dasha’s head back on her neck with an audible click; Dasha’s grip on Aniela’s neck weakened as her own windpipe closed up.
Aniela shook partly free of Dasha’s hands, lunging over her to try to get the gun. As she did so, the lift landed with a little bump, and Dasha’s head came upright. The women smashed their foreheads into each other’s with a crack of bone against bone, an unintended head-butt that sent them both reeling, seeing stars.
The lift doors slid open. Aniela tried once again to get past Dasha to the gun, but Dasha blocked her, throwing her body into Aniela’s, and they fell back, towards the lobby, where the lift had come to rest, through the doors.
Get back – up to Jon – get the gun – knock her out and get back in the lift—
The trouble was that both of them had exactly the same goal, and neither of them had anything left to lose. Aniela was frantic to save the man she loved, make sure Dasha couldn’t finish what she had begun; Dasha had to kill Jon, now, because she had shown her hand, and Jon would be heading straight to Grigor if she didn’t silence him as soon as she possibly could...
Dasha was over Aniela, her hands raised into claws, coming for her face. Aniela, on her bottom, scrabbled away, crab-like, looking desperately around her for a weapon of any sort, a way to hit Dasha without getting her face ripped to pieces. The gun was in the lift car, with Dasha blocking her access, and might as well have been on Mars for any good it was to her.
At the end of the lift bank was one of the decorative tables with which Limehouse Reach was strewn; on it was a big transparent-glass hollow spherical vase, exactly the same shape as a goldfish bowl, but containing orchids floating in water instead of a small orange fish. The orchids were white, and Andy had made the effect Christmas-like by dropping green and red ornaments into the vase too, and twining it round with ivy. Aniela crab-crawled back even further, trying to lure Dasha towards her, away from the g
un, putting the best frightened expression on her face that she could. Dasha’s lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, her eyes lighting up in a predatory gleam of triumph, as she dived towards Aniela like a raging hyena.
And as she did so, Aniela twisted round, grabbed the vase with both hands, and brought it down on Dasha’s head. Water spilled everywhere as she dragged the vase off the table, making the big vase slippery and hard to aim, the ornaments sliding out, the ivy landing round Dasha’s neck. It was a glancing blow, imperfect, but enough to send Dasha staggering back, and Aniela crowed in triumph:
‘That’s for Katyn, you Russian bitch!’
‘Fuck you!’ Dasha reeled towards her, grabbing for the vase, catching hold of the rim; they wrestled for it, and it shot out of their hands in an arc, landing with a crash on the smooth floor of the lobby.
Shouts were heard from the main reception desk as the vase shattered spectacularly over the palazzo tiles. Aniela staggered to her feet, picked up the table the vase had been standing on, and smashed it across Dasha’s body as the Russian lunged for her; but as she did, her heel slipped on the water that had poured from the vase, and she fell backwards, winding herself as she toppled to the ground. Dasha, knocked to all fours, crawled towards her. Aniela managed to get her elbows under her body, pushing herself up, but she had hit her head in the fall and her vision was blurry, her head woozy. Dasha, with an insane light in her eyes, grabbed her head, shoved her back and started to try to force her back into the sunken carp pond; three sides of it were surrounded by a low black slate rim, on which Dmitri and Zhivana had been sitting earlier, but the fourth was a decoratively flat, bleeding-edge drain-off, and Dasha, taking full advantage of Aniela’s visibly dazed condition, proceeded to drag her shoulders up far enough so that she could get Aniela’s head underwater.
‘This is for fucking Stalingrad!’ she screamed, completely beside herself with fury now.
The chilly water was actually the best temporary cure for a head blow imaginable. In the seconds before her face went under, Aniela’s eyes snapped open with shock, the pain in her skull fading: Dasha shoved Aniela’s head under and started to push it down, but Aniela’s hands came up, grabbed Dasha’s arms, and, with everything she had, twisting, turning, her strong Polish peasant body lifted Dasha’s, hauling it towards her, dragging the Russian woman right into the carp pond with her.
Water splashed everywhere. Below Aniela, a long slippery body folded and pushed away from her with a slick muscular contraction, a poor hapless koi carp whose peaceful existence had just been brutally invaded. Dasha had tumbled on top of her, and Aniela started to push her off, but then she felt Dasha’s weight lifting, miraculously allowing Aniela to rise to the surface. She came up, spluttering, shaking her head, to see the pond surrounded by men: the security guards, Kevin the desk guy, the doorman in his overcoat, and two of Grigor’s bodyguards, leaning down to pull their employer’s wife out of the water, one heaving on each arm.
‘Dasha Sakharova! Vsyo v poryadke? Are you all right?’ one asked solicitously.
‘Ugh!’ Dasha’s hair was plastered to her face, the knobs of the remaining extensions showing now that it was wet. Her make-up was smeared, her expression livid. Kevin was bending over, helping a soaking Aniela out of the pond: Aniela was freezing, shivering, but had never felt clearer-headed in her life. Gaining her feet, she saw that Dasha was balancing herself, her left hand on one of the bodyguard’s arms, her right hand snaking inside his jacket, reaching for his shoulder holster—
Fuck! Fuck! She’s going for his gun!
Aniela launched herself towards Dasha just as the Russian woman dragged the gun from the holster. Their bodies collided; the gun flew from Dasha’s hand; Dasha tottered backwards, Aniela on top of her, and they crashed into one of the smaller Christmas trees, a ten-footer in a pot by the side of the carp pond, knocking it over as they tumbled to the ground, locked in a wrestling hold.
Absolutely Everyone
The doors of the penthouse lift opened into the lobby, and a whole group of people tumbled out. Melody was in the lead; the last one in, she was the first to leave, and she was the lithest and the fastest. Seeing a gun fly through the air and clatter to the tiles, she dashed towards it and grabbed hold of it, picking it up and holding it as carefully as if it were made of glass.
Behind her, Andy, Wayne, Dmitri, Zhivana, Grigor, and three more bodyguards piled out of the lift: they had been summoned by a frantic call from Kevin to tell Grigor that his wife and the Canary Clinic nurse were, for some reason, engaged in a major catfight in the lobby of the building.
‘Dasha!’ Grigor yelled. ‘Where are you? What the fuck is going on? Why are you here?’
‘Mama?’ Dmitri called, looking around him. ‘Where are you?’
But Dasha and Aniela were hidden by the bulk of the Christmas tree, lying on its side. A ping came from the main bank of lifts, a green light flashing on as car doors opened and Jon limped out. Melody looked at him and screamed: blood was clotted down one leg of his sweatpants, and he was naked to the waist, his T-shirt pulled off, twisted into a rope and tied tightly around the upper thigh of the bloodstained leg, an impromptu tourniquet. His jaw was set grimly, his bare chest beaded with sweat, and he carried a gun like the one Melody was holding, pressed to his thigh. He looked like an action hero in the last reel of the film, beaten up by the bad guys, left for dead, risen from the grave.
He looked at Melody.
‘Where is she?’ he said, his voice husky, limping towards her as fast as he could. ‘Is she all right? For God’s sake, tell me she’s all right!’
‘I don’t know!’ she wailed, feeling helpless. ‘I don’t know what’s going on!’
‘Melody!’ A new arrival stood in the entrance to the lobby, the revolving doors slowing down behind him. ‘My God, what’s happening?’
He looked in disbelief at the scene in front of him; the bodyguards, the water spilled everywhere, the fallen Christmas tree, the expressions of panic on everyone’s faces.
‘James?’
Forgetting everything but him, Melody dashed towards him, throwing herself into his arms. His closed around her tightly, the leather of his jacket smelling deliciously familiar, his scent as enveloping as his embrace. She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t take in that he was here, but when she looked up, she saw his face so close, so dear and tender, and she burst into tears of hysterical happiness as he kissed her, clinging to him fiercely. This was everything she had wanted, James back in her arms, kissing her hard, and she heard herself sobbing as she twisted her fingers in his fine silky hair and kissed him back, pressing her whole body against him, crying so hard that she could barely breathe.
When he pulled back, he exclaimed:
‘Oh God, darling, your face – am I hurting you?’
All she could do was shake her head, tears running down her cheeks, snot bubbling in her nose, and laugh and cry simultaneously, as James produced a handkerchief from his trouser pocket – that was James all over, he always had a linen handkerchief on him – and started, with gentle care, to blot her face.
Then he reared back, horrified.
‘Melody!’ he said, looking at her right hand. ‘Why are you holding a gun?’
Grigor’s bodyguards had just noticed that Jon, too, was armed, and they had taken a very proactive approach: one of them came up behind him with his own Glock pulled and aimed it at Jon’s head, clicking off the safety.
‘Brosay oruzhie!’ he yelled. ‘Drop it!’
‘Mr Khalovsky, Aniela’s in danger!’ Jon said urgently to Grigor, obeying the bodyguard. ‘The nurse – she saved you when you fainted – your wife’s trying to kill her—’
Grigor’s hands rose to his head; he looked as if he were trying to pull out the little hair he had left.
‘Dasha is mad!’ he wailed. ‘Completely mad! I never know what she will do next! Why is she trying to kill a nurse, for fuck’s sake! She is completely ruining New Year’s Eve for me!’
‘Mama!’ Dmitri took a few steps towards the fallen Christmas tree. ‘Mama, what’s going on?’
Then almost the entire lobbyful of people gasped in shock as Dasha rose to her knees behind the wide sprawl of tree branches. Only the bodyguards and Jon, trained in combat, didn’t react audibly, but even they flinched at the sight of her. She looked as if she had gone twenty rounds with a cage-fighter. Her face was a livid mask, her hair hanging down in clumps, a big patch on the side of her head bald where Aniela had pulled out more extensions. Her blouse was ripped and torn. In one hand she held a long shard of glass, one of the points of the ornamental star which had been on top of the tree and had snapped when it crashed to the ground. Dasha’s other hand was twisted in Aniela’s hair, and now Dasha dragged herself up to her feet, pulling Aniela with her, the broken point of the star jabbing into the nurse’s neck, beginning to draw blood.
‘I’ll kill her!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll do it!’
‘Dasha, what the fuck!’ Grigor spread his arms wide. ‘Are you trying to kill me? Are you trying to give me another heart attack? Why the fuck are you doing this?’
‘Papa! It’s not always about you!’ Dmitri said angrily to his father.
‘It is about you,’ Jon said urgently to Grigor, pitching his voice to cut low, through the high-pitched screams. ‘She wanted me to kill you.’
‘What?’ Grigor exclaimed. ‘Fuck, Dasha, why?’
‘You wanted a divorce!’ she screamed, the ornament wobbling dangerously close to Aniela’s jugular. ‘To marry that little bitch!’ Dasha jerked her head at Zhivana, who clung in fear to Dmitri’s arm.
‘Mama! You’re talking about my wife!’ Dmitri yelled back angrily. ‘She’s your daughter-in-law now – show some respect!’
‘You got married?’ Grigor stared at them. ‘I thought you were just engaged!’
‘We eloped,’ Dmitri said, going pink. ‘To Gretna Green. We were going to announce it at midnight, but—’
Bad Angels Page 46