The Necessary Deaths

by David C. Dawson

  Steve was swearing at his laptop, trying in vain to get a trace on Dominic’s cell phone.

  Miles was scanning the security screens on the wall of the lodge. “I really wouldn’t worry, dear boy. Harrison has spoken to his chums at the Met Police, and they’ll find them very soon. This part of London is covered with cameras. All they have to do is type the license plate into their computer and Bob’s your uncle.”

  Steve was shaking his head. “I just hope they do. I’m confident this laptop is working fine. Which means something’s probably happened to Dominic’s cell. I hope that doesn’t mean something’s happened to Dominic.”

  Jonathan turned and glowered at Steve, before joining Jackson, the tall graying security guard, to study the battery of security monitors.

  “What happens if they decide to break in through a window at the back of Miles’s offices? We’ll never see them, then.”

  Jackson leaned forward and pointed at one of the screens. “You’ll see them on one of these cameras, sir. Anyway, if they attempted to break in, it would set off the alarms. Be assured we’ve got it covered here, sir.”

  The atmosphere was shattered by the shrill sound of “I Fought the Law” by the Clash. Miles grinned and reached into his pocket to pull out his cell phone.

  “Miles Torrington?” As he listened, however, his grin quickly vanished. “One minute, Miss Downpatrick. I’ll put you on speakerphone.”

  He set the phone down on the desk in front of them. Janet Downpatrick’s voice filled the room.

  “Mr. Torrington. You have something of ours, and we would like it back. Now, we could remove it from your safe. But it would be far simpler if you were to do that for us. You can hand it over to me in ten minutes at that security lodge where you are currently standing.”

  Miles laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but if you’re threatening to break into my offices, then our wonderful security staff here will make certain you’re handed over to the boys in blue straight away. You and your chum Randolph James. Frankly I’m astonished that a Cambridge University man like him would get mixed up with a lowlife like you.”

  “Don’t waste my time with cheap insults, Torrington. We know you have the package. Your friend Mr. Delingpole told us. He’s being looked after by our own security officer at this moment. Viktor has express instructions that if we don’t return within the next twenty minutes with the package, then he should deal with Mr. Delingpole. If you hinder me in any way, then you won’t see your friend again.”

  Jonathan felt the blood drain from his face. Miles put his arm on Jonathan’s shoulder reassuringly. Then he turned back to the phone.

  “If I get you your little package, will you take me to Dominic?” Miles asked.

  “Yes. He will be released straightaway. We’re not unreasonable people, Mr. Torrington. But we don’t tolerate theft. You have something that is ours, and we want it back.”

  Miles laughed again. “I don’t think your moral framework is in the same universe as ours, Miss Downpatrick. Don’t even begin with your petty self-justification. I’ll meet you here in ten minutes with the package.”

  Miles reached for the phone and ended the call. His hand was shaking, and his face was white with fury. “What a vile woman,” he snapped. “You had all that recorded, presumably, Harrison? I’ll go and retrieve the envelope from the safe, and you’d better come with me in case they’re lying in wait.”

  Jonathan leaned heavily against the wall behind him. “You don’t believe for a minute that they’ll hand over Dominic once they’ve got the package, do you?”

  Miles picked up his cell. “I don’t know. I would rather not believe that they’d kill him. For your sake.” He turned to the security guard who was watching the screens. “They can’t be far from here. Do you have any view of the perimeter roads?”

  “We do, sir, but I’ve not seen any activity in the last ten minutes or so. It’s very quiet out there.”

  “Fuck! Why didn’t I think of it before?” Steve stood up suddenly and punched the wall. “The last place the trace of the car showed up was Parker Mews. I’ve only just thought to check it out. There’s an underground parking lot there. That’s where they’ve got him, with that Krasov bloke. As they’re underground, his phone signal isn’t getting through.”

  SIMON WAS dozing; his eyelids occasionally flickered open to gaze at his mother where she sat beside his bed. Samantha had stayed at his side in the hope that he might wake long enough for them to have another conversation. She felt that in a curious way, this crisis had the potential to bring them closer together again. Setting down her book, she rubbed her eyes. She had been reading the same page for the last five minutes.

  Samantha decided to wait another twenty minutes, not wanting to tear herself away from Simon’s side in case she missed the moment when he woke up again.

  Through the window she could see a uniformed police officer walking down the corridor toward the room. She looked at her watch. It was ten to eleven. He must have come for the shift change. She watched as he started chatting with the other officer on duty. They were laughing and joking together.

  After a moment the door opened, and the newly arrived officer looked in. He removed his peaked cap and saluted her. She felt flattered.

  “Evening, ma’am. Are you staying much longer tonight? If so, one of us can go and get you a cup of tea if you want.” Samantha thought the man rather attractive. He was tall and well built, bald, and sported a small Tom Selleck mustache. A Londoner by the sound of his accent. East End, she guessed.

  “That’s very kind of you. Yes, please. It’s so good of you to look after Simon like this. I was just thinking that it must be very boring, standing out there in the corridor hour after hour.”

  Samantha stood up and smoothed down the creases in her skirt and blouse. Her hair must look a mess, she thought, and she really needed to get a shower.

  The officer looked past her at the sleeping form of Simon.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. He’s had a tough time, I hear, missus. You’d think he’d be safe in a hospital. They’re supposed to be looking after you.” He looked back at Samantha. “Don’t you fret, ma’am. He’s in safe hands with me here. I’ll get you some tea and then you can set off home and get some shut-eye. I’ll take care of your son tonight.”

  Chapter 28

  “THAT’S GOING to need some stitches in it, my friend.” The curly-haired blond doctor turned John’s injured hand over gently and examined it. They were in a small treatment room off the main corridor. John sat on the edge of a high, padded trolley, his legs swinging a few inches above the floor. He was angry with himself for being here, rather than at Simon’s side, and he wanted the consultation to end as quickly as possible.

  The young doctor looked up at John without letting go of his injured hand. “Don’t look so worried. I’ll give you a local anesthetic, and you won’t feel a thing.” He paused for few seconds, staring into John’s eyes. “I do remember where I’ve seen you before. It was the Bulldog. Just a few nights ago. You were in there with a skinhead wearing Grinder boots. Not my kind of thing, really, but he had a sweet face. Are you an item?”

  John was beginning to feel light-headed and slightly queasy. Perhaps it was the oppressive warmth in the ICU, or the smell. Or maybe he had lost more blood than he thought. Either way, he was not in the mood to be picked up by a doctor who was supposed to be treating him, cute as he was.

  He pulled his hand away and tried to get off the trolley and stand up. His head seemed to fill with cotton wool, and his legs buckled as his feet touched the floor. Two strong arms grabbed him around the waist and expertly transferred him to a chair.

  “No need to swoon on my account, my sweet. Here, put your head between your knees for a moment. I’ll do the same for you one day. I don’t think you’re in any fit state just now, so it wouldn’t be ethical for me to take advantage of you, much as I’d like to.”

  As the blood began to surge back
into his head, John felt a curious mix of emotions and an overwhelming sense of fatigue. The doctor was really very cute, but Simon was a few yards down the corridor, and the last time John had seen him, he had only just recovered consciousness after nearly dying. His eyes prickled with tears, and his shoulders began to tremble.

  “Oh sweetheart, you’ve had a rough time.” The young doctor bent down to John’s side and put an arm around his shoulder. “Your Ozzie friend said you’d come to see young Simon in room 4. He’s the ketamine boy, isn’t he? So is he your man? He’s very sweet but a very silly boy to go playing with that shit. Let’s get you sewn up, and then you can go and give him a big hug. I think it will do him the power of good.”

  STANDING IN his dimly lit office, Miles searched through the documents in the safe once more. He knew it was a pointless exercise. The envelope was gone. There had been no sign of a break-in when he arrived. The lights were off, the alarm was on, and everything was in its place. Until the moment he had opened the safe a few moments ago, he had suspected nothing. He picked up his cell phone.

  “Harrison, am I going mad here? You did put that envelope in the safe after copying the photographs and the data card, didn’t you? Because it’s certainly not here now.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the phone. Then Harrison responded, “We’re just checking the security camera that’s pointing at the front door of the offices. I think we may be the victims of a very professional burglary, sir.”

  In the background, Miles could vaguely hear Jackson, the security guard, talking to Harrison. “I’ve just spooled through the video recording of the last five minutes. There’s nothing been recorded. Not even of Mr. Torrington entering the building. It looks like camera thirteen has been sending a freeze-frame for at least the last half an hour, maybe more. I’m going to have to check the other cameras on the network. Our security has been compromised.”

  Harrison’s voice came over the phone’s loudspeaker. “Mr. Torrington. It appears we’ve been burgled by people who clearly know what they’re doing. They’ve fixed the cameras and the alarms. And they knew how to get into that safe. Is anything else missing?”

  Miles walked back up the stairs to his office, switching on lights as he went. As far as he could see, nothing was out of place. He was a fastidious man and he kept his desk and office almost obsessively tidy. It was a characteristic he shared with Dominic.

  “You’re going to have to come in here, Harrison. Only you will know for certain if anything else has been taken. As far as I can see it all looks exactly as we left it earlier.” Miles sank into the leather armchair by his desk. “So who broke in? It can’t be that ghastly Downpatrick woman and her cronies. Otherwise why would she go to the trouble of ringing me up and sending me on this wild goose chase? The problem now is, without that envelope, how are we going to bargain for dear Dominic’s life?”

  Harrison coughed at the end of the phone. “Mr. Torrington, would you be so kind as to go into the storeroom and open the large box of toilet paper?”

  DOMINIC TENSED as Krasov opened the passenger door and leaned in. He could smell the man’s overly sweet aftershave, mixed with sweat and stale garlic. The heavily built man leaned in to check the webbing belts holding Dominic tight in the backseat.

  “He’s not going anywhere for the moment, ma’am. Do you want me to stay here with him, or watch your back again up top?”

  Janet Downpatrick was standing by the side of the car, hugging her black overcoat tightly against the chill of the underground parking lot. She had returned to the vehicle from the car park entrance, where she had gone to call Miles on her cell phone five minutes before.

  “I’d prefer that both you and Randolph stay close during the transaction. I don’t believe they’ll try anything foolish at this stage. But you’ll need us out of the car if they fail to deliver and you have to deal with Delingpole.”

  Dominic’s body began shaking, and it was not just from the chill of the winter air. Krasov finished his inspection and gave Dominic a white-toothed smile. Then he closed the door, and Dominic heard it lock immediately. Randolph James was unbuckling his seat belt as he turned to look at Dominic.

  “I’m very sorry, old boy. You must understand that I really don’t enjoy being involved in all this. I don’t think you realize just what you got yourself involved in. What we’re doing is for the greater good. I don’t relish the thought of anyone, least of all you, being part of the collateral damage.”

  Before Dominic could reply, Randolph James MP climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and was gone.

  Dominic watched the three figures walk toward the exit ramp for a moment before reaching into his pocket for his cell. He had to call John to warn him about Simon’s killer. But looking at the screen on his phone, it was clear that the thick concrete walls below ground blocked any possibility of a signal. He tugged hard at the webbing straps across his chest without success before looking around the car for anything that could help him get free.

  STEVE AND Jonathan crouched down behind a row of cars parked in an unlit side street. A few yards away on the other side of the road, Janet Downpatrick strode toward Lincoln’s Inn with Randolph James at her side. Viktor Krasov followed a few paces behind, occasionally glancing into the shadows on either side.

  Jonathan leaned close to Steve and whispered in his ear, “So that’s Krasov. I wouldn’t like to bump into him in an unlit street late at night.”

  As Krasov reached the corner with Lincoln’s Inn, he stopped and turned, staring in the direction of Jonathan and Steve’s makeshift hiding place. Jonathan held his breath for what seemed an age before Krasov finally turned and resumed walking until he disappeared out of sight.

  “Shit, Jonathan. Can’t you ever keep quiet?” Steve tentatively stood up and leaned against the wall behind him.

  Jonathan ignored the criticism but continued in a whisper. “Well done for figuring out the car park. Looks like this is our chance. They must have left Dominic on his own. This is going to be easier than we thought.”

  “I’m not counting any chickens too early, mate. They must be pretty confident that he’s not going to escape if they’ve left him alone. Either that or they’ve already done something to him.”

  Jonathan stood up and put his mouth close to Steve’s ear again. “If you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything at all. That’s my friend, partner, and lover you’re talking about. I don’t want to hear any thoughtless speculation from you.” With that Jonathan strode off toward the entrance to the car park.

  MILES TORRINGTON had been momentarily thrown by Harrison’s bizarre request. “I presume that at this particular moment of crisis, you’re not asking me to restock the toilets. Is this an alternative secure storage box?”

  “You guessed right, sir. It’s not something I do regularly, of course. But given these exceptional circumstances, I thought it wise—”

  “You thought it very wise, old boy. Hurrah for Harrison!” Miles picked up his phone and hurried down the stairs to the storeroom. “So you didn’t put the envelope in the safe at all?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I put an extremely good copy into the safe. But you’ll find the original, together with another copy, in the bottom of the toilet roll box. I always think it’s wise to keep the original.”

  Miles had reached the storeroom and tipped a few dozen toilet rolls out of a large brown cardboard box onto the floor. Tumbling out behind them came two large brown envelopes.

  “Bingo. I’ll bring both across to the lodge and give that Downpatrick woman the copy when she turns up. Presumably the burglars who raided our safe won’t take long to realize they’ve got a copy?”

  “Given the level of professionalism they’ve shown so far, no time at all, sir. Which means they know they’ve got a bit more housecleaning to do. And that’s a bit of a worry.”

  Chapter 29

  BLOOD WAS seeping into the cuffs of Dominic’s dress shirt, but he ignored it as he sawed away at the
webbing strap around his waist. Fiber by fiber, the torn edge of the soft-drink can was slowly shredding the bonds that imprisoned him. It took several minutes to sever a single thread of the strap. Often the makeshift saw slipped in his bloodied hand, but Dominic grimly persevered. It had taken twenty minutes to get a little under halfway through.

  Dominic worried that the soft aluminum would not last the punishment he was giving it. From time to time, he glanced around the inside of the Mercedes, hoping to find a better replacement tool for his task, but there was none.

  The growing tear in the webbing flexed a little wider as another thread surrendered to the onslaught of the blunt instrument. Each moment of progress gave Dominic a small surge of adrenaline. He was proud of the resourcefulness he had demonstrated. After all, he was the least practical-minded country lawyer in England.

  A shadow flickered across the headrest in front of him. Dominic froze. Was it Krasov returning unexpectedly? He slowly pushed the remnants of the soft-drink can under his thigh, too terrified to turn around. The shadow flickered again, and then there was a banging at the side window.

  “Dominic! Your knight in shining armor is here. Well, kilt and sporran actually. But I think that’s far sexier for a rescuer, don’t you?”

  Jonathan’s broad grin seemed to fill the window at Dominic’s side, and he fell back in the seat with relief. “What kept you?” was all he could muster as he looked back with fondness at his partner.

  “If you will insist on running off with strange men, don’t expect me to be there to pick up the pieces each time.” Jonathan was tugging at the door handle. “Now be a sweetheart and unlock this door. It’s time we went home.”

  Dominic tried to reach forward for the master unlock switch on the driver’s door, but the webbing straps held him back. He raised his hands in mounting despair to Jonathan outside the window.