Blind Impact (The Gabriel Wolfe Thrillers Book 2)

by Andy Maslen

  Sarah’s eyes flicked to the blade and back to Kasym. “What did you do?”

  “I was the best shot in our neighbourhood. I could put a bullet through a squirrel’s eye at a hundred metres. Their eyes were much bigger than a squirrel’s. From my hide, fifty metres out, it was like a fairground shooting gallery. You know? Hit five soldiers and win a prize? I lined up my first target in my sights and shot him through the head. Before he fell off the log he sat on, I had killed two more. The other five were scrambling around for weapons, but that was not to be. I took two more with body shots, and the other three with shots to the legs.

  “I walked into the farmyard. It smelled of the brandy and the charring goat. And Russian blood. I have smelt a lot of it since. The three men I’d wounded were pathetic. Crawling around clutching themselves, praying to their stupid saints, calling for their mothers. My blood was rushing in my ears – it sounded like the high wind through the forest in midwinter. I pulled my skinning knife and killed two of them cleanly, stabs to the heart. The eighth man was bleeding badly. I had clipped his femoral artery. You know, the big one inside the thigh? I tied a tourniquet round his leg, up high, to stop the blood. He tried to thank me but I shushed him.” Kasym put his fingers to Sarah’s lips in an oddly gentle gesture that she did not resist. “Until I started shooting, I had never killed a man before, you see, and now I was shaking. Trembling all over. This man had raped and killed my wife and my daughter and I wanted revenge. I wanted him to know what he had done. But he was drunk on the brandy, weeping and pleading with me to spare his life. All manner of tortures and slow deaths rushed through my mind, but in the end, he made me feel sick with his begging. I just untied the tourniquet and left him there to bleed out. I walked back to my farm, packed a bag, locked the doors, and never went back.”

  Kasym swiped at his eyes with the balls of his thumbs and refilled their glasses. He noticed that Sarah’s eyes were frosted with tears that glistened on her fair eyelashes like dew on spiders’ webs. He cleared his throat and refocused on her face, bringing it into sharp clarity.

  “You poor man,” she said.

  “Forgive me, others’ tragedies make poor entertainment.”

  “No, I understand. If anything happened to Chloe, I’d want to kill the man who did it. I hope you know that.”

  Chapter 33

  Astrid’s flat was on the top floor of a tower block that stood, sentinel-like, on the edge of a park. The block itself was built with at least half an eye on how it looked for its residents and those passing in its shadow. Between the flats, square steel panels in bright blues, greens and yellows gave the building a festive feel, at odds with much of the Soviet-era architecture elsewhere in Tallinn. Once the lift doors closed on them, Astrid turned to Gabriel, placed her hands on his cheeks to turn him to face her, then stretched up and kissed him. Her lips were soft and warm, and as he kissed her back, she opened them a little. They stood, locked together in an embrace as the lift ascended without stopping to the eleventh floor. He could taste the sweetness of the pastry on her and inhaled her heavy, musky perfume, and felt himself growing hard under the insistent pressure of her hips grinding against his own.

  When the lift doors opened, they stumbled out, separating and laughing as Astrid drew her front door key out from her T-shirt on a looped leather thong. Gabriel reached around her as she pushed the key into the lock, cupping her breasts and nuzzling the back of her neck where her piled-up hair exposed the skin.

  Inside, she pulled him by the hands into her bedroom, walking backwards and locking eyes with him.

  “Take your clothes off,” she said, hands on hips. “Come on, soldier boy, I haven’t got all night.”

  Gabriel undressed, folding each garment and placing them in a pile on a chair next to the wardrobe. When he was naked, he stood still in front of her, letting her look him up and down. He was in good shape from the gym and the physical nature of some of his work, but he still felt vulnerable as the fully-dressed woman scrutinised him.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  He complied, then turned again to face her.

  “Now undress me, and don’t be rough.”

  He came up close to her and pushed the biker jacket off her shoulders, and dropped it behind her onto the chair. Astrid lifted her arms up above her head, never once taking her eyes off his, letting him pull the hem of the T-shirt up and over until it came free with a whisper as a few strands of her hair escaped from their bonds and stuck to the material with static. He drew a breath in and groaned as she placed her fingers around his penis and squeezed him gently there before letting go again.

  “Keep going,” she whispered.

  He reached around her and unclipped her bra – plain, black cotton, designed for support not seduction – and let it fall to the floor. Then he knelt in front of her, pausing to kiss her neat little navel before unzipping the skirt and pulling it down to the ground for her to step out of. The boots, knee socks and tights all followed. Finally he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her tiny, black knickers and drew them down over the firm contours of her thighs. He stood and let her lead him to the bed, a giant iron-framed antique, dressed with a candy-striped pink and white sheet, antique lace throws and a voluminous duvet covered in black and pink skull-print fabric.

  “On your back,” she said, swinging one muscular leg over his hips to straddle him. She settled down onto him with a sigh of pleasure, closing her eyes and rocking her hips to and fro in a steady rhythm. Gabriel held her around the waist and looked up at her. She was biting her lower lip, pulling it between her teeth as she ground and swayed on him. He reached up to her breasts, letting his hands cover them and enjoying the feeling of her hard nipples under the skin of his palms.

  Astrid began to move more urgently, pushing down onto him and leaning forward to place her hands on his chest. Her hair had come unpinned, and as she fucked him, the long, black coils trailed across his eyes. He moved under her, matching her pace and then, with a small cry like a wounded animal, she came. The contractions around him were enough for Gabriel to reach his own climax, and moments later, they were lying in each other’s arms, panting, sweaty, and laughing.

  “Are you this friendly with all the staff then?” he asked, when his breathing had settled.

  “Fuck you!” she said, slapping his chest before snuggling back against him. “You’re cute, and you seem to like being around people, at least when you’re not beating the crap out of them. And your accent’s really hot.”

  “Really? I never thought of it like that before. I mean, Yanks love it, but I didn’t know it played well this side of the pond.”

  “Well it does.”

  She levered herself up onto one elbow and ran her hand over his torso, from his flat, muscular belly up to his collarbones.

  “How come no bullet holes? I thought that’s what all you soldier boys came back with.”

  “Disappointed, are you?”

  “No,” she said, with a smile. “But, you know, it’s kind of sexy when a guy has a few scars.”

  “That your thing is it? I got this one,” he said, taking her index finger and tracing a line from his eyebrow to his left cheekbone. “Bayonet. You know what one of those is right?”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “No. Not at the time. You’re too pumped up with adrenaline. Hurt like fuck later, though.”

  She ran her finger up his thigh, then stopped as her nail snagged on a puckered ridge of skin on the inside, near his groin. She kicked the duvet off and bent to peer at the white scar.

  “This?”

  “That was a bloke who should have known better. Did it with a hunting knife but he missed the artery.”

  Her eyes widened as she turned to him. “What did you do?”

  “I delivered The Queen’s message, didn’t I?”

  Her brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m walking around up here, fucking a beautiful Estonian girl, and he’s walking around do
wn there,” he said, pointing at the floor, “getting red-hot pitchforks shoved up his arse.”

  “I have a scar,” she said, rolling onto her stomach. “Look.”

  He scanned her pale skin in the weak dawn light coming in through the window.

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “My last boyfriend stabbed me in the back; two-timed me with my best friend.”

  “Those wounds always take longer to heal.”

  He rubbed her smooth skin, feeling the knobbles of her spine from the nape of her neck all the way down to the little dimples each side of her tailbone. As he stroked her skin, a faded bruise on her right tricep caught his eye, little more than a pale yellowish-green blob. He looked more closely. The bruise was actually four small bruises. There was a matching set on her left arm. He rolled her back to face him, holding her gently by the shoulders.

  There were two more bruises, on her biceps, roughly opposite those he’d seen first.

  “Who did this to you?” Gabriel said.

  Astrid looked away. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

  “No it isn’t. Someone gripped you hard enough to leave bruises. A man?”

  “I said it’s nothing!” she snapped, whirling back to face him. Her eyes were hard points in the dawn light.

  “Not a customer. They couldn’t reach you. And I’m fairly sure you don’t have a boyfriend. Who then? Silvi?”

  “Not Silvi. She’s a good friend.”

  Gabriel placed his fingertips against the bruises, measuring the spacing. “No, not a woman.” Then he cupped her cheeks in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “Who did this to you, Astrid? Tell me.”

  “Who do you think? A man who thinks he owns the staff as well as the bar.”

  “Yuri?”

  She lowered her eyelids. Gabriel pulled her into him and held her against his chest.

  “Please don’t do anything, Terry. I need this job. Yuri owns all the places round here, or he protects them. And he knows everything that happens in the rest of Tallinn – I’d never get another job if you hurt him. It was just one of those things. I’m fine.”

  Gabriel looked across the room over the top of Astrid’s head, stroking her hair. Enemies everywhere. The old-fashioned alarm clock read four-fifteen. He felt his eyes closing.

  *

  “Chechens!” Gabriel cried out as he jerked awake, startling Astrid and almost pushing her out of bed in his struggle to get out from the bedclothes twisted round him.

  She grabbed hold of the duvet to prevent herself from falling to the floorboards and pulled herself back to Gabriel. He was trembling and bathed in sweat. The clock on her old-fashioned, white-painted dresser said it was ten-thirty. Sunlight was streaming in through the window. Hexagonal rainbows refracted through a crystal pendant hanging from the frame and crawled across the rose-print wallpaper.

  “What the fuck?” she said. “Are you all right? Wow, I mean that was some nightmare. Look at you. You’re soaked.”

  Gabriel was heaving great oxygenating sighs as he struggled to get himself free of the nightmare vision of two Englishwomen lying dead in a pool of blood. Astrid wasn’t done with her interrogation.

  “Also, why were you shouting about Chechens?”

  “OK, look,” he said, drying his chest on the duvet cover. “I need to trust someone in this city, and I sense you’re not exactly an establishment figure.”

  She sat straighter, not bothering to cover her breasts, and placed her hands on his shoulders.

  “If you’re about to tell me you’re on the run or something, I’m not interested. And what happened to your voice? You sound different.”

  Gabriel realised that in the aftermath of the nightmare his voice had lost Terry Fox’s East London roughness and resumed his own careful diction.

  “I’m not on the run.” He paused. How he phrased his next utterance could be the difference between closing in on the Bryants and leaving Tallinn empty-handed. “And I’m not Terry Fox either. I am looking for a mother and daughter from England, though. But they’ve been kidnapped, by Chechen separatists, and we believe they’re here, in Tallinn.”

  “Really? What are you? Some kind of secret agent? Oh, my God, this is so cool. I mean, like, I’m your way in, aren’t I?” She frowned, her brows knitting and her plump lips compressing in a moue of suspicion. “Hey, was all that,” she poked his groin through the bedclothes, “just to get information out of me?”

  He laughed, her obvious enjoyment of the moment dispelling the last tenebrous shreds of his nightmare. “No, it really wasn’t. I think you’re very pretty and I wanted to ask you to breakfast. Plus it was you who practically pulled me into bed, or had you forgotten?”

  The frown softened, then disappeared, and Astrid smiled. “It’s just, you know, a girl’s got some self-respect, that’s all.”

  He took her hand and pulled her towards him for a kiss. He stayed close, looking into her eyes. “I could use a friend in Tallinn. I need to find out if anyone knows if there are Chechens operating here. They may still be here, or they may have moved their hostages, but I need to find them, and quickly too.”

  “I know who would know,” Astrid said, getting out of bed and fishing clean underwear out of the top drawer of the dresser. “Yuri.”

  “You said he’s a big Russian player here, when he’s not beating up his female employees. Owns half the clubs in Tallinn?”

  Astrid nodded. “I heard rumours he runs girls too – you know, prostitutes. Russians and Chechens, they don’t get on so well. So you need to get to see Yuri.”

  Gabriel felt as if he were taking a massive step closer to finding the Bryants. He swung his legs round and got out of bed, dressing and talking at the same time.

  “What his surname?”

  “Volkov. Talk to Silvi. Maybe she can get you an introduction. After last night, I guess she feels she owes you.”

  “That’s what I’ll do, then. I’ll ask Silvi. And Astrid?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks. For the company. For last night. For being so clever. I owe you.”

  She smiled. “That’s OK. You’re a good guy. And now . . . Terry . . . if that’s even your real name … you need to go home. I’ve got stuff to do. But we’re still going to see Joonas’s band on Sunday, yes?”

  Gabriel looked up at her as he tied the laces of his boots.

  “My name is Gabriel. And wild horses . . .” he said. As she frowned, he pulled open the door and slipped out into the corridor.

  Chapter 34

  On his one-mile walk to the bar, Gabriel ran through different angles that might lead to a meeting with Yuri Volkov. I need more shifts. I want to work in a different market – hotels, maybe, or casinos. I’m looking to travel round Russia for a bit and need some work contacts. The last option was the best – there was no way Silvi could provide that herself. As it turned out, he could have saved himself the effort.

  The bar didn’t open until seven, and that was really only to provide a few die-hard boozers with their fix and a sandwich. Gabriel arrived at half-past and was heading in to change when Silvi popped out of her office like a punky Jill-in-a-box and waylaid him in the dingy corridor.

  “Hey, got a minute?” She crooked her finger at him.

  “Sure, Silvi. What can I do you for?” he said, turning and followed her back into her office.

  “You’ll find out.”

  Inside, her paper-stuffed quarters were hot and humid, the air smelling of recycled breath and sweat from the bar area beyond her door, combined with a harsh bleachy aroma that made his nose tingle.

  She sat on the edge of the big desk, hands planted to each side of her, gripping the edge, feet swinging, four inches clear of the floor.

  “I want to thank you for last night,” she said. “That bitch would have had my hair out by its roots.”

  He shrugged. “No big deal. It’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And you’re good. You pass your trial. What do
they say, ‘with flying colours’?”

  “Yeah, about that,” he said, preparing to ask her about Yuri.

  She held up a hand. “And a pay raise, yes? No problem, I was going to offer you one anyway. Twelve Euros instead of ten. It’s worth it to keep the place happy so people spend more. There’s another thing though.”

  “What? Don’t tell me those stupid Brits filed a complaint with the police.”

  She laughed and crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I pay the right people. They’d get booted out of Tallinn if they went to the cops.” She leaned forward and looked him in the eye. “I said Jonny’s is owned by a Russian, yes?”

  “Yes. Told me to watch my mouth about him as a matter of fact.”

  “Yes, well, you should. But anyway, our boss wants to meet you. His name is Yuri Volkov.”

  Even though the prize had just fallen into his lap, Gabriel didn’t want to appear too eager. “Why does he want to meet me?” Gabriel matched her body language, folding his arms and altering his stance to move his feet further apart. He frowned, trying to look suspicious.

  “I told him about your . . . performance. How you kicked them out and pulled that bitch off me. He likes to know what’s happening in all his clubs. So now he wants to meet you. He told me he might want to move you. Which, obviously, I would be sad about. Astrid, too, from what I hear.”

  “Fine. I don’t mind meeting anyone. When and where?”

  Silvi reached behind her and pulled a scrap of paper from the middle of a pile near the PC. “Here. And tonight. You got the evening off till you come back.”

  “Really?” he said, frowning. “I can’t afford to lose the wages, though. I need that dosh.”

  “It’s fine. You’re meeting the boss. The big boss. Time off, with pay, all right?”

  “Cool. So I’ll go now?”

  “Sure. You can change when you get back.”

  *

  Twenty minutes later, Gabriel was standing outside a grey stone building of six floors at number 205, Viru. It looked like serviced offices. Through the spotless plate glass of the door, he could see a security guard behind a desk watching a small black-and-white monitor. To the left of the door was a brass plate housing a dozen plastic rectangles about half an inch by two, covering printed company names and logos. He pressed the button at the bottom of the plate. The guard looked up and reached under the desk. Gabriel waited for the harsh metallic rattle from the latch and pushed hard on the door.