by Cain, Tom
Either way, it took a minute or two on Carver’s smartphone to uncover Peck’s Facebook account. Though his Wall was restricted to Friends, most of his photos were not. So Carver sifted through countless shots of TP3 living large at poolsides, parties and polo tournaments. And then he hit pay dirt: an album modestly titled, ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo . . . and Trent’.
There was Peck, posing with his kids as they strode across the zebra crossing in Beatle-esque poses with the caption, ‘Can’t believe I live about fifty yards from here!’
In the next shot, there he was again, standing on a roof terrace, pointing back down at the road, with the famous white stripes just visible in the background and another caption. ‘Told ya so!’
So he lived on Abbey Road. Carver logged on to Google Earth, opened up the Streetview shots of the area and soon found Peck’s flat. The jammy little sod had a fifth-floor penthouse on top of a modern, glass-fronted building just down the road from the legendary Abbey Road Studios. It was actually more like eighty yards from the crossing, but that was just being picky. More importantly from Carver’s point of view, the satellite photo showed that Peck’s building, which was named The Glasshouse, butted right up against the block next door. Both buildings were of very similar heights and had flat roofs. This neighbouring block was right beside Peck’s penthouse, which occupied half the top floor. It had two large glass lanterns in its roof, bringing natural daylight into the rooms below.
Carver kept Googling, and found countless property ads for apartments in The Glasshouse, including an old one for Peck’s apartment which not only gave him pictures of the open-plan living area, the kitchen and one of the bedrooms, but also provided a plan, which he promptly downloaded to his phone. The images of the interior layout were tiny, but he could make out the key features nonetheless.
He knew exactly where Alix was now. He could picture the rooms where she was sitting. Was she making polite conversation with Peck? Was she having to give him more to ensure his co-operation? Carver knew she loved him, but he also knew she had been trained to use her body to bend a man to her will.
It took every ounce of self-control to stop himself going there now, standing guard outside the door, or simply charging in and beating the crap out of Trent Peck the bloody Third. But he knew the reality of the situation. He could not compromise Alix’s security by leading anyone else to her. He was a mile and a half from her now, and that was as close as it was going to get.
Still, now that he’d found one of the women in his life, what about the other? Ginger’s number was still in his address book. He sent her a message: ‘Ginger, darling, enjoyed our chat this a.m. v much. Care for a walk in the park? Sam Cx’
It was the first feeler sent out from one opponent to another. Carver was certain it wouldn’t be long now before contact was made. He could sense it in his bones.
Novak got the message. She would have grinned with delight if she’d been capable of such a thing. Instead, she called Kutchinski: ‘Carver’s made contact. He wants to meet. Do I have clearance to act on his invitation?’
‘No,’ she was told. ‘We have other plans.’
‘What if this is my only opportunity? He could be captured by the police. He could leave the country. Anything could happen.’
‘Be patient. Just bide your time and you will have him. You will have it all.’
86
GRANTHAM HAD A personal driver, but this wasn’t a journey he wanted recorded on any official log. Instead he walked to Vauxhall underground station and took the Victoria Line to Green Park and then the Jubilee to St John’s Wood. As he scurried down Grove End Road, past the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth en route to Abbey Road, Grantham prayed he wasn’t too late. He might have affected a blasé attitude to Giammetti, but he knew how much danger Alix and Peck were really in. If harm should befall them in a flat owned by an American diplomat, well, it would just be one more rusty nail in the coffin of the not-so-special relationship. And if Giammetti should then choose to reveal the contents of their conversation, then life could get very nasty for J. Grantham too.
Now he’d reached the corner of Abbey Road. He wanted to get to the other side of the road, and there was a zebra crossing right in front of him, but a group of people were standing on it in stupid poses taking pictures of one another, so it was much more difficult to get across it than it should have been. Grantham had never taken the slightest interest in music. He neither knew nor cared what the appeal of this particular crossing might be. He looked at the numbers on the buildings beside him. Not far to go now.
Celina Novak had been given the go signal. She was standing in the shadow of a tree that stood in the forecourt of a Baptist church, just across the road from the glass-fronted building, wondering what the best way was to get access to Trent Peck’s apartment, when she saw the nondescript figure in the dark-blue overcoat walking up Abbey Road. It took her a second to realize that this was Jack Grantham, and she guessed at once that he was coming to warn Petrova of the threat that she was facing. Well, the two of them would soon discover just how great that threat was. As Grantham turned left off the pavement and walked between two rows of ornamental trees towards the front door, Novak slipped out from under the tree and started walking towards that same door.
Grantham pressed the buzzer of the apartment building. It was answered by a man. The sound was muffled and crackly but when the voice said, ‘Hello?’ Grantham thought he detected an American accent.
‘Is that Peck?’ Grantham said.
‘This is he,’ the voice replied, with the grammatical formality that was now far more commonly found among well-educated Americans than the English of any class. ‘To whom am I speaking?’
‘Hello, my name’s Grantham. Your boss just called me.’
‘Jack Grantham?’ Peck said, incredulously.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Trust me, I’m not. I’m here because of Mrs Vermulen. She’s in very serious danger.’
For a few moments there was nothing but interference coming through the speaker. Then Grantham heard the American again: ‘I guess you’d better come up.’
The door buzzed. Grantham pushed it open and stepped through. And as he did he felt something hard in the small of his back, smelled a delicious waft of a woman’s scent and heard a female voice in his ear say, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Grantham. My name is Celina Novak.’
He stopped dead in his tracks, but immediately felt a sharp pain in his kidneys as his back was jabbed again and Novak said, ‘That’s a gun. And I will not hesitate to use it unless you do exactly as I say.’
They proceeded down the hall towards the lift. Novak remained behind Grantham. ‘The deal’s off,’ he said. ‘I no longer require your services. But don’t worry, I’ll pay you in full.’
Novak laughed. ‘What you do or do not require is no longer relevant. I have new orders. Now, I believe we’re going up.’
The lift arrived. The doors opened. Grantham got another shove in the back to remind him to walk in. ‘Fourth floor,’ she said. He pressed the button, the doors closed, and it was only then that the pressure in his back eased and he felt able to turn around and look at the woman who now had him in her power.
She certainly was a remarkable sight. And almost all of it was spectacular to behold. Grantham could hardly fail to notice the length and shapeliness of her legs in her spray-on jeans; or the slimness of her waist; or the fullness of the breasts that were tantalizingly displayed behind her semi-unzipped jacket. He was not blind to the tumble of her hair, the gloss of her lips or the cool inscrutability of her dark glasses. But then he saw past all those things to the waxwork artificiality of her face, and suddenly everything about Celina Novak seemed somehow terribly wrong.
‘She really fucked you up, didn’t she?’ Grantham said. ‘Losing to her must have been bad enough. But losing your looks as well . . .’
He was trying to make her lose her temper and with it
her self-control. If he did that, maybe she’d start making mistakes. But Novak had no intention of giving him that satisfaction. She pressed the ‘pause’ button on the lift and they stopped, halfway between the second and third floors.
‘You will press the doorbell,’ she said. ‘You will introduce yourself. You will not do or say anything at all to suggest that there is anything wrong. When the door is opened, you will go inside. If you do not do these things exactly as I say, you will die. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes.’
Novak pressed the ‘start’ button again and they continued upwards. When they reached the top, the doors opened and Grantham stepped into a small hallway. There were just two penthouse flats on the top floor, with one door on either side of the hall. He went up to Peck’s and pressed the bell.
The door had a small peephole. Novak stood with her back pressed against the wall, just next to Grantham, where she could not be seen. Her gun was still pointed directly at him.
There was a pause while Peck looked through the peephole, examined Grantham and satisfied himself that he really was who he claimed to be. Then the door opened.
Grantham stepped into the flat and walked past Peck, who was still standing right by the door. He seemed to whisper something to Peck as he walked by. Peck turned to catch what he was saying. He caught the words, ‘. . . a trap’, and tried to respond, but it was too late. Peck still had his back to the door as Celina Novak stepped through it with her gun in her hand and blew his brains out.
87
TRENT PECK THE Third slid down the wall beside his front door, leaving half the contents of his skull smeared across the creamy paintwork as he went.
Novak did not stop to look. She stepped straight over the corpse towards Jack Grantham, who had turned round to see what was happening.
Grantham was a desk officer, not a field agent. He had no way of defending himself when she flicked out her right arm, with all the speed and accuracy of a striking cobra, and punched the hot tip of her pistol’s suppressor straight into his Adam’s apple. He bent double, clutching at his throat as he desperately gasped for air, and was completely defenceless as she kicked him very hard in the balls with her carbon-fibre-tipped ankle boots. Grantham fell to the floor beside Peck’s body.
He would be out of action for several minutes, but it never hurt to make sure, so she kicked him hard in the side of the head, and while he was still dazed patted down his jacket till she found his phone, took it out and slipped it in the small bag she had slung diagonally across her body. There was a zip-up inside pocket in the bag. It contained a number of plastic cuffs that were really just oversized cable ties, twisted into a figure of eight that could be pulled tight around a pair of wrists or ankles. Two of the cuffs left Grantham’s arms and legs immobilized. There might come a time when he would have to die, but he was still too useful a negotiating tool to dispose of just yet.
Now for the main attraction.
‘Alexandra . . . my darling . . . where are you?’ she called out. ‘Please won’t you come out to play?’
Her words faded away into absolute silence. There was nothing at all to hear except the distant sound of traffic from the road and a radio playing in a downstairs flat.
‘Very well, then,’ Novak said. ‘If you won’t come out, I’ll just have to come and find you.’
Alix was sure that Novak would hear the fearful pounding of her heart. She was crouched behind the kitchen island that stood at one corner of the huge living area. In her hand she was clutching the longest, most vicious-looking knife she’d been able to find in the butcher’s block beside the cooker. Peck was the kind of man who almost never cooked, but still equipped himself like a Michelin-starred chef. His knives were Henckels Professionals: perfectly balanced, razor-sharp and capable of filleting a live human being just as easily as a joint of meat.
The island was set at right angles to the double-door that led from the hall into the living area. Alix was planning to let Novak come far enough into the room so her back was exposed, and then try to get to her before she could turn to defend herself. It was a long shot. But it was the only chance she had.
She heard the sound of doors being opened as Novak methodically worked her way through the three bedrooms, each with its own en suite bathroom, and the large built-in cupboards on either side of the hall. Now she was coming closer.
The drumming of her pulse in Alix’s ears felt almost deafening as Novak opened the doors into the living area. Alix dared not lift her head above the island to look where Novak was going, so she had to judge by the sound of the other woman’s footsteps on the parquet floor as she came into the room and seemed to turn right, away from the kitchen, across the lounge where Peck’s armchairs and sofas were arranged. There was a door on to an open terrace at the far end of the lounge. Perhaps that was where Novak was heading. She probably thought Alix was hiding out there, or had even tried to make her escape across the roof.
Alix closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning all her strength and courage. Then she got on to all fours, pushed with every ounce of strength in her legs and hurled herself across the floor towards the glossy black bullseye of Celina Novak’s back.
Novak had been caught out once before. It wasn’t going to happen again. She spun round at the first scuffing sound of Petrova’s feet on the hardwood floor. There was actually time for her to have raised her gun, aimed and fired, but that would have been too easy and much too fast. Novak wasn’t interested in killing Petrova. She wanted to make her suffer, pay her back with interest for the pain she had caused. So she threw her gun to one side, freeing up both her hands as Petrova raced towards her, crouching low to present the smallest possible target, and only straightening up as Petrova came within a couple of paces and drove her knife upwards in an underhand stab aimed straight at Novak’s guts.
Novak met the oncoming blade in the classic cross-block defence that she and Petrova had both been taught when they were still little more than teenage girls. She crossed her forearms over one another and then pushed downwards, away from her body to trap Petrova’s knife-hand in the ‘V’ of her crossed arms, catching it at the wrist. It took every ounce of Novak’s strength to hold Petrova there, but she succeeded in stopping the thrust, and the knife came to a sudden halt just millimetres away from the shiny fabric that covered Novak’s stomach.
Alix had anticipated the cross-block, and allowed for its obvious shortcoming: both Novak’s arms were now occupied. She couldn’t afford to let either of them even relax, still less move, or Alix would be able to complete her thrust and stab the knife deep into Novak’s guts. But Alix still had one hand free.
She swung her left arm round, grabbed hold of a fistful of Novak’s hair and pulled hard.
Novak shrieked as her head was yanked sideways. Her arms gave way a little and Alix let her shoulders swing round, so that the pull of her left hand was matched by the punch of her right as it drove the needle point of the knife right up against Novak’s jacket.
Another fraction of a second and Alix would have completed the thrust and finished the job she’d started back at the Goldsmiths’ Hall.
But then Novak’s scream turned to an exultant yell of delight. Her head snapped back to the vertical and Alix found herself with nothing in her hand but a glossy bunch of extensions that had been pulled from their moorings amidst Novak’s natural hair.
Alix was taken totally by surprise. She was distracted as her mind tried to come to terms with what had happened. Her muscles relaxed. Her guard was down. Novak felt the change in her opponent and in that instant she attacked again.
Novak grabbed Petrova’s knife-hand with both of hers, gripping it as tight as possible and jabbing her nails deep into her skin.
She pushed the trapped hand towards Petrova’s wrist, so that the back of her hand was at right angles to her arm. The pressure and pain of that unnatural angle made Petrova’s arm give way and her elbow retreat.
Novak kept moving, forc
ing Petrova to bend and turn her body so that suddenly the hand clutching the knife was being forced up behind her back, her shoulder was screaming in agony and it was her turn to cry out in protest.
The fingernails pressing into the flesh of Alix’s hand and wrist were like little daggers stabbing her, and the pain was so intense that she was hardly conscious of her fingers losing their grip on the knife. It clattered to the floor, and as it hit the ground Novak stamped her boot down into the back of Alix’s knee, and then as her body crumpled, hit her with a karate blow to the back of her neck.
Alix didn’t feel a thing as she hit the floor. She was lost in the deep, dark void of unconsciousness.
Novak took a few moments to enjoy the sight of her most bitter enemy lying beaten at her feet. Then she walked across the floor to pick up her gun and put it in her bag.
On her search of the apartment, Novak had noticed that Trent Peck the Third had installed a large brass bed in his room, the kind whose frame is absolutely perfect for tying up or cuffing a sex-partner, just to add a little spice to lovers’ games. Novak picked up Petrova’s unconscious body and began dragging it across the floor, thanking the late Mr Peck as she went for choosing such a nice, slippery surface. She continued down the hall, past Peck and the unconscious Jack Grantham and into the master bedroom. That was covered with soft, thick carpet, which made it considerably harder to shift Petrova. The blonde bitch had obviously become fat and lazy in the contentment of her relationship with Carver, because she seemed to weigh as much as a baby elephant.
Novak was breathing heavily and her back was aching as she finally hefted Petrova on to the bed; the top half of her, at any rate. She was just able to stretch one of Petrova’s arms far enough to secure it to one of the brass rails at the back of the bed frame with another one of the plastic cuffs. Then she shifted a bit more of Petrova’s flabby backside on to the mattress, and that was enough to enable the other arm to be tied nice and tight. From there it was a relatively simple business to heave her legs up on to the bed. Novak was about to tie them too when a thought occurred to her.