by Zoe Sharp
“There’s no guarantee anything’s actually going to kick off at this race meeting, is there boss?” Dempsey asked, taking his eyes off the road for a second, during which time it seemed to O’Neill that about half a mile of scenery zipped past.
“We’ve got all the players in one place and a quantity of unaccounted-for explosives,” O’Neill snapped back. “You think?”
“Even so, we could cause a panic for nothing—”
“But if it turns out to be something and it comes out that we knew about it beforehand, we’re going to get our arses handed to us,” O’Neill said. “Can’t this crate go any faster?”
118
“Come on, come on!” Kelly grumbled as she jogged around the outside of the main building, aware this was all taking far too long.
She’d abandoned her coveralls in the van and left McCarron to make his own more legitimate way inside. Now she had to find an opening herself.
The ground floor yielded nothing accessible, nor did the floor above. It was only when she lifted her gaze up to the high second level that she spotted a small window slanted open.
“Oh you have to be kidding me . . .”
But the main stand was a striking modern design, its outside walls constructed of a composite material that could have been metal or plastic. Either way, it was smooth to the touch, each panel measuring roughly one metre by two, but the fixing system left a sizeable recess between one panel and the next. The gap was big enough to hook her fingers into and the narrow toes of her Red Chili shoes.
Despite herself and the situation she was in, Kelly smiled. She shifted the backpack more securely onto her shoulders and went for the first hold.
Once she got off the ground her biggest fear was being spotted. There was no way she could explain away climbing up the outside of the building. Not for any legal purpose.
As if I wasn’t in enough trouble.
She kept moving smooth and slow but making deceptive progress, always maintaining three points of contact, always reaching for the next gap for fingers or toes.
After a minute or so all her attention was focused on what she was doing so that even if anyone had called out from the ground she would barely have heard them, but her luck held. Nobody called out.
Nevertheless, by the time she reached the window her limbs were tight with the effort. The open pane was unlatched but the aperture was much smaller than it had appeared from the ground. Kelly realised that, still wearing the backpack, there was no way she could fit through. She had dangled perilously while she struggled to remove it, thrusting it inside first.
She squeezed herself through after the pack and just caught a glimpse of a cloakroom of some kind before dropping hands-down onto a bench in semi-controlled descent.
Kelly forward-rolled onto her back on the floor, staring up at the utilitarian lighting in the ceiling while her chest stopped heaving and her pulse rate slowed to something approaching normal.
After maybe a minute she sat up. Her initial impression of the cloakroom was confirmed but this had the look of a staff sanctuary and—judging from the clothing hanging on pegs on the wall in front of her and the scattering of shoes—she’d had the luck to land in a female domain.
Kelly propped the window back on its latch and lifted the backpack onto the bench beneath it. She still had the suit she’d borrowed from Lytton. If she changed into that she might just manage to pass for one of the guests. It was a weak plan but she didn’t have anything better.
No sooner had the thought formed than she heard the faint rattle of the door handle behind her. Kelly spun in time to see the door beginning to swing open. There was nowhere to hide, and no time to do so.
Looked like her luck was just about to change.
119
Dmitry opened the door. Standing outside was one of the restaurant waitresses carrying a tray holding an insulated cafetière of coffee and all the paraphernalia to go with it.
“Sorry sir, we’re short-staffed so we’re running a bit behind,” she said, flashing him an anxious smile. “I’ve brought you some to be going on with and we’ll get the filter machine going as soon as we can.”
Dmitry did not return her smile. He jerked his head towards the table and the girl hurried forward to put down the tray.
Harry Grogan was standing at the full-length sloping window, staring down onto the track. He did not turn round when the waitress entered. He had no need to, Dmitry acknowledged, when he had someone he trusted to guard his back.
“Would you like me to pour?” the girl asked, reluctance in her voice.
Dmitry was just about to make her do it but without turning from the glass Grogan ordered, “Leave it. Just make sure we’ve got our proper supply like we’re supposed to, sweetheart, before things get going.”
“Y–yes sir,” the girl stuttered, plonked the tray down and bolted for the door. Dmitry reached across her when she went to grab the handle and saw the fear jerk in her eyes. It didn’t abate when he handed her a tip, even if it was a generous one for somebody earning close to minimum wage. She pocketed the folded note with a brief mutter of thanks and scurried away.
Is this how I want people to behave towards me? Dmitry brooded. Is this success?
He let the coffee brew and poured a cup the way he knew Grogan preferred it, putting it down near his boss’s right hand.
“Make yourself scarce will you Dmitry?” Grogan said then over his shoulder. “I’m expecting company.”
Dmitry felt something dig deep into his gut but was careful to keep his face expressionless. He knew Grogan could see his reflection in the glass and was watching for some unguarded gesture.
“Of course,” he said. “Call if you need me.”
Grogan picked up the cup and sampled the contents with a grunt of approval. “Why don’t you go and seek out our noble sponsors?” he said. “Perhaps you could remind Mr Warwick of his . . . obligations.”
“Of course,” Dmitry said again, only this time there was a touch more enthusiasm in his tone.
120
“Am I glad to see you!”
Kelly gaped at the girl who stood in the open doorway, her mind a complete blank.
The girl didn’t seem to notice this reaction right away. She was slightly on the plump side with skin the colour of strong café latte and an air of bustle about her as she hurried into the cloakroom. “Oh, please tell me you’re the new girl?” she blurted out as Kelly remained frozen with surprise. “We are so short-staffed it isn’t true. Today of all days, and then we were told you couldn’t make it. I mean, disaster or what?”
Kelly saw the girl’s eyes flick over her features and instinctively put a hand up to her discoloured face. “I nearly didn’t,” she said, rueful. “But I need the work, you know?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Don’t I know it,” she said. “I’m Shula by the way. You?”
“Ellie,” Kelly invented quickly.
“Did they explain anything to you?”
“Erm, no,” Kelly said. “They just dumped me here and assumed somebody else would tell me.”
Shula rolled her eyes. “Typical. Well, we’ll soon get you sorted out.” She pointed to a rack of clothing. “Pick out something that fits—white shirt, waistcoat and either black trousers or skirt, whichever you prefer.”
Kelly thought of the climb she’d just made and her leap from the walkway last time she was here. “Trousers, I think.”
“Don’t blame you. I don’t have much of a choice—don’t have ankles, see, just calves that go all the way down. About a size eight are you? Lucky girl.”
Spending time in prison had rid Kelly of whatever inhibitions she might once have had about undressing in front of a stranger. She stripped down to her underwear without a qualm and was soon pulling on the uniform Shula helped her select.
“We’re supposed to have the wife of one of the sponsors helping organise the hospitality but she hasn’t deigned to put in an appearance yet,” Shula said rolling her
eyes. “Losing Mrs Lytton was a disaster—she was originally taking care of things and there wasn’t nothing she didn’t know.”
“What happened to her?” Kelly asked innocently.
Shula pulled a face. “She died suddenly. Not here,” she added quickly as if worried about scaring Kelly off. “And the other bloke’s wife was supposed to take over but she’s been a non-starter I can tell you. Scurried around the place like she was counting the silver and never showed up again after that.”
Kelly nearly asked more about Yana Warwick then realised she shouldn’t even know the name and shut up.
“What happened to your face—boyfriend?” Shula’s eyes lingered with a certain amount of sympathy. When Kelly just gave a shrug she added, “Don’t worry—we’ve all been there. Tell you what, the girls are always leaving their make-up bags lying around. Let’s see if we can’t steal you a bit of foundation, take the edge of those bruises. He caught you a belter didn’t he?”
And five minutes later, when Kelly stepped out of the cloakroom with her newfound friend, she realised she was wearing a far better disguise for helping her blend in on the racecourse than anything she could have borrowed from Matthew Lytton’s dead wife.
121
Steve Warwick was sweating inside his suit as he walked from the VIP car park towards the main racecourse building. It had nothing to do with the exercise and everything to do with the woman on his arm.
Her face a mask of cosmetic perfection and dressed in a voluptuous but politically incorrect fur coat, Myshka was looking her mysterious very best.
“Matt’s going to flip out,” he complained, flicking her nervous little glances. “He’s expecting to see me with Yana not—”
“It will be nice surprise for him then, yes?” Myshka said, her voice as sultry as her walk.
Warwick swallowed. “Darling I thought we agreed it would be best—”
“No!” Myshka interrupted. “We did not agree. You made decision. I did not agree.”
And Warwick finally realised with a feeling of panic in the pit of his stomach that by allowing Myshka to dominate him in the bedroom he’d also allowed her to take too much control of things outside of it.
“Look darling, let me at least go and have a talk to him before he sees us together—explain things, hmm?”
He held the door open for her, ushered her through. Myshka waited until they were in the lift gliding upwards before she turned him to face her. The way she let her eyes focus on his mouth had his breath hitching in his throat. Damn, she could always do that to him with just a look.
She trailed one of those deadly red-tipped acrylic nails along his cheek, gripped his chin just a little too hard. Lust began to curl through his belly.
“He will understand soon, and we still have a little time,” she murmured. She leaned close to his ear, her breath stirring the delicate hairs on his lobe as she whispered, “And I do not have on any underwear . . .”
122
McCarron’s mugging story did not gain him free entry to the racecourse but it did see him escorted through the disabled entrance by an elderly steward with too kind a heart for the job.
It did not take much after that to feign a weakness that required a brief rest at the First-Aid post, located in the main building. The steward walked him in and delivered him into the care of the uniformed paramedic in charge who’d been drinking a cup of tea and reading a racing paper.
“Ah, first customer of the day,” the paramedic said jumping up. He let out a low whistle as he cast a professional eye over McCarron’s healing wounds and intricately cast arm. “Coming out today in this state, you must really like to put a bet on, old man.”
“Well Matthew offered to send a car, bless the lad, but I told him I’d rather make my own way,” McCarron improvised, shrugging off the jacket he’d only managed to get half on in the first place.
“Matthew?” the medic asked. He slipped an inflatable cuff around McCarron’s good arm and began to pump it up.
“Hmm? Oh, Lytton, of course.”
The medic faltered. “Lytton as in the Warwick-Lytton Cup—that Lytton?”
“Aye lad. Why else do you think I’m here ‘in this state’ as you so rightly put it?”
The medic flushed. “I’m very sorry sir. I didn’t realise . . . you should be wearing a tag, see, to show you’re a VIP.”
“And that makes a difference to how you treat people does it?” McCarron asked with ominous calm.
“Well no, but—”
“I’ll be sure to mention that to Matthew,” he said. “Now, where would I find him?”
123
The police presence around the racecourse was being organised by a uniformed chief inspector called Cheever. Initially he didn’t take kindly to a couple of plainclothes cowboys from north of the river trying to ride onto his patch and start any kind of a ruckus.
He explained this to O’Neill and Dempsey in terms that left them in no doubt of his feelings on the matter. O’Neill mentally labelled him an arse within moments of meeting the man. The mental picture was completed by the fact Cheever was almost entirely bald and had a cleft chin.
“So, you’ve no hard intel there are explosives at my racecourse—or anywhere within a hundred miles of here for that matter, hmm?”
“No sir,” O’Neill said with a scrupulous politeness he tried hard to maintain. “But we’ve been watching this drama unfold and we can’t ignore the fact that all the players are here—in one place. Today. If Warwick really is planning to get rid of his partner then—”
“Ah but that’s exactly my point, hmm?” Cheever interrupted. “It’s all a big ‘if’ isn’t it? You know—if you’ll pardon my saying so—jack shit for certain.”
O’Neill felt the muscle in his jaw hinge clench, heard the squeak as his teeth clamped together.
“No sir.”
Cheever nodded. “Well then. I am not prepared to evacuate this facility, causing disruption and no doubt panic—not to mention a world of bad press—solely on the basis of your gut instinct.”
“Sir, surely public safety is—”
“My concern,” Cheever snapped. “And I’ll thank you not to try and tell me how to do my job detective inspector!” He paused, glowering. “If you can provide one iota of hard evidence I’ll act on it. Until then I’d thank you to get out of my command post and stay out of my way!”
O’Neill turned away, Dempsey silently on his heels, and stepped down out of the Portakabin Cheever had commandeered. The door wasn’t quite slammed behind them but it was a close-run thing.
“Bloody tin pot dictator,” Dempsey said sourly once they were outside. He hunched his shoulders. “What now, boss?”
“We find him his bloody evidence,” O’Neill declared. “And make him eat it.”
124
Steve Warwick shouldered his way into the private box with his fist wrapped in Myshka’s hair and his mouth clamped onto hers. As soon as they were inside he groped for the key to click over the lock and backed her roughly against the wall alongside the door. She gasped in pleasured pain. Warwick’s hands dived for the hem of her dress, gathering it up towards her waist.
“Stop!” she commanded, before he could discover for himself if her boast about a lack of underwear was true.
But he stopped anyway. Experience had taught him that Myshka’s games might be cruel, but they were always so satisfying in the end. He let the edge of the dress fall back into line, smoothed his hand across her hipbone and cupped her, not gently, through the material instead.
She gasped again, her eyes bright with a feral excitement he didn’t think he’d ever seen in her before.
Hell, if horseracing turns you on this much, darling, I’ll take you to bloody Ascot every week.
She batted his hand away, drew herself to her full imperious height. “Strip,” she ordered.
Warwick glanced at his watch even as he reached to unknot his tie, his expression wolfish.
“Whatever you have
in mind, darling, we’ll have to make it quick,” he said, shrugging out of his suit jacket. “The race will be—”
Myshka moved in closer, pinched his chin between a steely forefinger and thumb. “Silence,” she rapped. “Your clothes—take them off. All of them.”
He fumbled in his haste to comply, but at least still had enough of his wits to hang the jacket on the back of a chair and fold his trousers to avoid creases. No point in making it too obvious what he’d been up to when he got back out there—especially not to Matt.