by Alex Howard
He remembered the hammer; he remembered the chisel; he remembered the blowtorch. His body remembered the pain.
He explored his mouth with his tongue. His teeth were miraculously intact, but his eyes didn’t open properly. He guessed his face and head were pretty badly swollen as he gingerly felt them. His hands were nightmarish. Agonizingly sore, they looked like fleshy oven gloves. Two or three fingers on each hand were probably broken; he was missing fingernails. He turned his gaze away. Just looking at them was making him feel sick, and every time his heart beat the puffy, tight, hot flesh on each hand throbbed as the blood tried to force its way through the constricted vessels. He wondered what he was doing here and where he was. He guessed he would find out eventually.
Dimitri and Arkady Belanov were not happy men. Normally, neither of them had to think long term. Arkady was a problem-solver. As a teenage hood, he’d beaten people up to order. As a conscript soldier, first in the regular army then Spetsnatz, he’d fought or killed to order. In prison, he’d provided the muscle for the vor and, of course, now Myasnikov gave the orders and he followed them.
But Hanlon, like all women in his view, had confused things. She had got in the way of his relationship with the Butcher. He’d been too proud to tell Myasnikov of his and Dimitri’s humiliation at her hands. He could barely admit it to himself. Now Joad had informed him that Hanlon was determined to save Demirel, that they could use him as bait. It was his plan, but taken over and refined by Joad.
‘It’s what you said you wanted, Hanlon. I can find her now.’ Joad’s voice on the phone was clear and confident.
‘How?’ Arkady had asked. Suspicion and hope both waged a battle in his heart.
‘I work with Demirel’s girlfriend. She knows Hanlon. I can tip her off; she’ll tell Hanlon. Hanlon will come.’
Joad’s voice on the phone was calm and relaxed. It was an unusual experience to be more or less telling the truth to disseminate a lie. It made life a lot easier. Arkady looked at Dimitri, who shrugged.
‘How do we know the police won’t turn up?’ asked Arkady suspiciously.
Joad sighed. ‘Because both Hanlon and Huss know you have someone who works for you in a high place in the force. You can’t mobilize an armed response unit discreetly. I’d know and so would that other copper you’ve got working for you. You’d know immediately if either of them made it official.’
Arkady nodded. It made sense. From what he knew of Hanlon she would prefer acting alone. It had happened in the past; it would happen again.
‘What will you tell Huss to make her believe you?’
Joad grinned broadly as he held the mobile phone to his mouth. He was glad Dimitri couldn’t see his face. ‘DI Huss thinks I’m a bent copper, so I’m going to tell her a little bird told me that you were thinking of retiring me. Permanently. You follow me so far?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Arkady. It was his turn to grin broadly now; so did Dimitri. ‘It makes sense.’ Of course it does, he thought, since that is what we were planning to do to you anyway.
‘So,’ continued Joad, ‘I get her to fetch Hanlon to take you out. Now, you’ve met Hanlon. She’s not one for sitting around, twiddling her thumbs. One of her ex-sergeants is in a coma, thanks to her. She’ll do anything to avoid losing another one. I think we can safely say she’ll be down at your gaff like a rat up a drainpipe. Oh, and, Arkady, Huss will almost certainly want to hear Demirel’s voice or she won’t believe me. Don’t do anything stupid like kill him. Not for the moment.’
Silence on the phone. For an agonizing second, Joad thought, Christ, I hope they haven’t killed him. Then relief washed over him.
‘I like this idea,’ said Arkady with approval. ‘And this woman, Huss, afterwards?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Joad tetchily. ‘You could shut her up, permanently, but Huss lives with her parents. I’m sure that you can explain to her what the consequences of her talking would be, not just to her, but to them. But she’s not my problem, mate.’
‘Yes, that would work,’ said Arkady. ‘You have their address and details?’
‘Yes,’ said Joad. ‘Thing is, Arkady, I’m going to find it hard working with Huss after this. I’ll have to go for early retirement, until the pension kicks in. I don’t want to lose money, even for a friend like you.’
‘How much?’
‘Hundred and the Merc. I’ve got attached to it.’
‘One hundred, no Merc. I am attached to it.’
‘Jesus Christ, Arkady,’ protested Joad. ‘Even Judas got thirty pieces of silver.’
‘That was for son of God,’ said Arkady curtly. ‘You’re just giving me one woman and one fat Turk. Come to Woodstock Road, one hour, we work out details.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Joad.
He turned his phone off and looked at the woman beside him in the passenger seat.
‘This had better work, Joad,’ said DI Huss. Until now she had been primarily concerned with Enver’s safety. With a horrible chill of certainty she realized that what Joad had said was true. Belanov would not hesitate to have her silenced, or her family. It’s what men like him did. He tortured women for fun with a blowtorch. Belanov had machine-gunned families in the Caucasus: men, women and children. He had strapped suspects to artillery shells in Chechnya and blown them to pieces so no shred, no trace would remain. It was called ‘pulverization’. He would do the same again in Oxfordshire. He wouldn’t care. And if he was arrested, a proxy would do it for him. The terrifying thing about Belanov and Dimitri was that there were a lot of them around. They weren’t just isolated monsters.
Joad was genuinely aggrieved that she sounded so aggressive. Hadn’t he just saved her boyfriend?
‘Don’t say thank you, then, fatso,’ he said angrily. ‘Let’s just hope Hanlon doesn’t let you down.’
Huss stared at him grimly. ‘She won’t, Joad. She won’t.’
29
‘No, your posture’s still all wrong,’ said Mawson to Hanlon. The two of them were at a range that the DS used near Slough. Range was a possibly over-descriptive word. It was a field screened by scrubby trees. At one end of the field there was an embankment where spoil had been dumped years ago, forming a natural earthwork to act as a barrier to the bullets.
Hanlon had been driving around with her .22 rifle in its gun bag in the boot of her car ever since Mawson had promised her a shooting lesson. Being taught to improve by a Bisley champion, one of the best shots in the country, was not an opportunity to be missed. Hanlon was always keen to learn from an expert. She loved learning new things and building on existing knowledge.
Mawson had examined her rifle, an old Ruger that she’d bought second hand from Tremayne, her former boss, way back when. Hanlon was a good shot. She belonged to a range in West London, and occasionally spent time in the summer with a box of cartridges, unhurriedly shooting at targets. It was quiet – her gun had a suppressor, although a .22 didn’t make much noise anyway – and relaxing. She enjoyed the camaraderie of her fellow marksmen, generally placid, friendly, middle-aged men from a variety of backgrounds. Target shooting was very democratic, very egalitarian, unlike thousand-pound-a-day game shoots where the emphasis was as much on who had the most expensive shotgun as it was on marksmanship.
Mawson examined the gun, snapped it shut, squinted down the sights, put a shell in it and fired a shot at a target halfway down the field. The business of checking the accuracy of her sights had begun.
When that was done, when he’d made minor adjustments to the positioning of her scope, zeroed the sights to a hundred metres accuracy, he said to her, ‘You see that “shoot n-c” target to the left.’ Obediently, she looked down the sight at the piece of paper with the concentric rings of the target, a drawing pinned to a post. ‘Six shots on that, please, in your own time. There’s no rush.’
Mawson watched as Hanlon lay prone on the ground, her rifle resting on his tightly folded jacket, the slight breeze playing with the curls of her dark hair, her fac
e concentrated as she worked the bolt.
He put the field glasses to his eyes and looked at the rings of the target she was shooting at. It wasn’t perfect, but for an amateur it was extremely impressive. He studied the groupings of the shots and made a mental note of areas that needed to be covered.
Zero sights at 100 metres; not happy with her trigger action; think, press, rather than pull. Never snatch, you should know that, Hanlon. Another trick you can do is to start the press motion with the little finger and work upwards, little finger, ring finger, middle finger now. . . bingo. Always be gentle.
‘Have you got that, Hanlon?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘After you shoot don’t look up. Keep your focus through the scope. If you miss, then at least you’ll see where your shot went. If you hit, you’ll see where you hit.’
An hour went by with Mawson patiently improving her technique, then he set up a new target at a hundred and fifty metres. She could feel herself improving under his expert instruction. Her spirits rose. She was almost happy. ‘We’ll make this the final one,’ he said. Hanlon nodded.
She lay down on Mawson’s coat, which he had gallantly spread on the ground for her, and rested the barrel of her rifle on her own rolled-up jacket.
‘Remember what I said about posture,’ he told her. ‘And one little tip, Hanlon. If you’re not using a bipod, and you’re in a field somewhere in the country, think fence post or wall. You can always use where the horizontal bar meets the vertical, if necessary, for a prone shot. Got that? Now, clear to fire.’
The field was sizeable and there were only the two of them in it. Despite the sense of space, the whole universe for Hanlon had contracted down to what she could see through the circle of the scope and its cross-hairs. She concentrated hard on the placing of her shots, aiming high to allow for the fall in the arc of trajectory of the bullet. She fired, worked the bolt, ejected the spent cartridges, and then they were done.
They walked up and checked the shoot n-c paper target. There was a bull, then a circle to denote a score of nine and another to show a score of eight, in the black three-inch centre of the target. The first two shots were high left. Adjusting as he had shown her for the height and direction by a couple of notches on the scope, she’d dropped the next two bang in the centre, in the bull.
‘Compare this to your other one,’ said Mawson. There was a dramatic difference between her first attempt and the final one.
‘Thank you,’ said Hanlon to Mawson.
‘Don’t mention it,’ he said.
They walked back together to the gate at the edge of the field, then Mawson patted his rifle. In one smooth movement he loaded a cartridge, snapped it shut, released the safety, brought it to his shoulder, aimed and fired at a small metal target at the end of the field. It was two inches wide. Hanlon heard the dull clang as the bullet hit.
It was a massively impressive piece of shooting.
He ejected the spent round and smiled at her. He was perfectly relaxed, his eyes kind behind his glasses. ‘But just remember, Hanlon, the bullet and the target are one and the same. Successful shooting should transcend the act of shooting. Have you read the Tao Te Ching?’
‘No.’
‘But you know of it?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said.
He nodded, satisfied. ‘Good, you should read it,’ he said. ‘It covers everything really.’ Mawson smiled at her and quoted, ‘The great Tao pervades everywhere. . . Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish greatness. Don’t forget that, Hanlon. It’ll make you a much better shot. More than that, it’ll make you a much better person.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
He nodded and watched as Hanlon turned and left the field, walking slowly and thoughtfully back to her car. Mawson thought, I’m really very lucky with my team. McIntyre and Hanlon, they complement each other.
But then, as he watched her, he was conscious of a cloud drifting over the sun, and the sky darkened. Everything is interconnected, he thought.
Another line from Lao Tzu crossed his mind. ‘The daring and violent do not die a natural death.’
He strongly suspected that it might well have been written with Hanlon in mind. There were probably Hanlons around in the Zhou dynasty in five hundred BC, or the equivalent. Nothing was new under the sun.
Her car started and she drove off.
30
DC McIntyre stared at Serg. The woman on reception in the building where the MPU office was located had called her to say there was a visitor for Hanlon. McIntyre, only half listening, busy posting stills of a missing Bucks New University student from a CCTV camera on to Twitter (please retweet), had assumed it was someone from the Specialist Search Unit about the reservoir and had irritably gone downstairs to fetch him.
McIntyre was irritated because she was slightly put out by Mawson whisking Hanlon away for a couple of hours. She knew it was unfair on Mawson. He worked extremely long hours and when he did contribute to armed police training, he was scrupulous about doing it in his own time, hours he had accrued in lieu when he’d been working unpaid overtime. Thames Valley had to make about fifty million pounds worth of budget cuts. Cost savings were being imposed everywhere, but Mawson was adamant quality wouldn’t suffer.
The cuts were vindicating Mawson’s views on policing too, noted McIntyre with satisfaction. Several large old inefficient stations were closing and small new customer-friendly ones opening. Like this one, she thought proudly. We’re the vanguard. The man is a prophet, she thought affectionately.
But McIntyre – it was unfair and childish, she knew – felt that Hanlon had been taken on a treat (even though McIntyre was totally uninterested in guns), while she hadn’t, and she was left with the dull job of putting out photos and descriptions of missing people on social media. Then she had a couple of upgrades to do on those who were already on the system but were causing extreme concern because of the length of time that they had been missing. Two people on her list fell into that category. They hadn’t been gone that long, but they had left none of the usual footfalls that marked our lives. No credit card activity, no bank activity, their passports still at home, their friends and relations baffled.
She knew it was important work and that many of those listed as missing had loved ones who were frantically worried about them. But it was dull, dull, dull.
Having just put the finishing touches to people who had turned up safe and sound on the website, Karen downstairs called her. She walked downstairs and there, sitting politely on a chair in reception, checking his phone, was Serg Surikov.
She could see Karen’s thin face eying the Russian clandestinely over her desk. Serg stood up and looked at McIntyre. Oh my God, she thought.
Serg was one of the most attractive men McIntyre had ever seen. He had the quirky, distinctive but symmetrical looks and the build – tall, angular, graceful – that male models had. The kind of man who could wear a bin bag and still look good. His mother had been Tatar from West Siberia, from Omsk, and this oriental/Mongol lineage showed in his slightly slanted green eyes and high cheekbones. He carried with him the danger and exoticism of the steppes and the Taiga, the effect of which in a humdrum Slough office, on a dull Thursday morning, under grey skies, was magnified a thousandfold.
McIntyre, like Francine Edwards, was smitten. Her religious upbringing and years of church attendance from Sunday school to choir, and her daily Bible readings, helped put words to feelings. (That morning it had been Romans and Psalms. St Paul had warned McIntyre against the temptation of desire.) Staring at Serg, she was only too conscious of the lure of the sins of the flesh.
O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your love is better than wine.
But she didn’t quote from the Song of Solomon. Instead she smiled politely and asked if she could help him.
Serg stood up, elegant with loose-limbed arrogance. ‘I apologize for
disturbing your day,’ he said.
What an amazing accent, thought McIntyre. Disturb away, please. She made an it really doesn’t matter gesture.
Serg smiled. He had a slightly wide mouth, perfect lips and a strong jaw. She guessed he was about thirty. There was a deep scar between his eyes and a smaller one by the side of his left eyebrow, which was dark and shapely. The slight imperfection, the hint of dangers past, only enhanced his attraction.
She took the card that he proffered. ‘And how may we help you, Mr Surikov?’
I arose to open to my beloved, thought Shona McIntyre, and my hands dripped with myrrh, My fingers with liquid myrrh, I opened to my beloved.
‘I’m looking for DCI Hanlon,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said McIntyre. She felt thoroughly deflated. Serg looked at her with those amazing eyes.
‘She’s out for the moment,’ she said. ‘Can I help you? Or would you like to wait?’
Please wait, she thought. Please keep me company.
Serg smiled. ‘What time are you expecting her back?’
‘Lunchtime,’ said McIntyre.
‘I’ll return at one.’ He turned to leave.
‘What shall I say it’s in connection with?’ asked McIntyre.
Serg smiled again. ‘Tell her it’s about some Russians,’ he said. He turned and left the building.
Karen, the receptionist, looked at McIntyre and pushed back the fringe of dark hair that framed her forehead. ‘OMG, as my daughter would say.’
His speech is most sweet and he is altogether desirable, as the King James Bible would say, thought Shona McIntyre.
31
Hanlon pulled into the car park and neatly reversed into her space. It was surprising, she thought as she put the handbrake on the small, powerful car, how quickly you could get used to things. Not that long ago the Slough/Langley Police Station had seemed almost alien; now it was like a second home. She did the drive through London and out down the M4 without thinking. The small estate where the place was located felt familiar. It all seemed so tranquil here. Even the roar of jets every few seconds from above seemed not just bearable but practically unnoticeable.