The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  “He was a bit less combative this time round,” Dempsey said hurrying to keep up. “No more helpful, mind you, but not as rude with it.”

  “Yeah, well maybe this will change his mind.” O’Neill shouldered open the door and punched the call button for the lift. He glanced at the floor indicators, found them both stuck at the upper levels and headed for the stairs with a frustrated grunt.

  When he saw the man half a flight above them—staggering and barely upright, clinging to the banister with blood coating his head and one shoulder—O’Neill’s first thought was that he’d been shot. Putting it all together on the fly it was a logical assumption. He took the intervening steps three at a time and caught the man under the armpits just as he would have fallen.

  It wasn’t until he’d propped the injured man against the wall that he realised he knew the face under all that gore.

  “Lytton? What the hell happened?” he demanded. “Where are you hit?”

  “Over the head,” Lytton said sounding blurry but remarkably calm. “That bitch . . .”

  “Jacks?”

  “Hmm? What? No, not her—that bitch Steve’s married to,” he mumbled. “Who would have thought it?”

  Dempsey leaned in. “Mr Lytton we just heard a shot—”

  “No he wasn’t shot.”

  O’Neill straightened, exchanged a worried look with his DC and asked carefully, “Who?”

  “Steve,” Lytton said. “I think she beat him to death, poor bastard.”

  “Where is she now—Yana Warwick?”

  “Don’t know.” He tried to stand, swaying precariously. “Probably far away if she’s any sense. Where we should be.”

  O’Neill jerked his head. “Get hold of Cheever again,” he told Dempsey. “Tell him we need back-up. Never mind a possible bomb scare—this has just become a murder scene.”

  He started up again but Lytton’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “You said ‘possible’ bomb scare?” he queried. “You might want to re-think that one just a little . . .”

  146

  Grogan was still in the parade ring with his trainer when he saw the window fall. Like O’Neill he had no problem identifying the gunshot for what it was.

  His immediate concern was for his horse. The grey colt took any excuse to spook when he was race-fit. At the onset of the commotion he reared up, trying to yank away from his lad.

  The prospect of such a valuable animal running amok on a crowded racecourse made Grogan abandon his dignity and grab hold. Eventually, between them—he, the lad, and the trainer—they managed to calm the colt down. As much as he’d allow himself to be calmed.

  This could have cost us the race.

  By the time he could step away, straightening his tie and wiping his hands, the panic was largely over. Grogan saw a couple of men hurrying for the entrance to the stands and clocked them as police even in civvies. He followed the gazes upwards and saw at once the shattered window in the private box at the top of the stand.

  It only took another moment to realise whose box it was.

  With a final nod to the trainer he walked briskly across the grass. The entrance to the building was being guarded by a member of racecourse security who stepped into his path.

  “Sorry sir, there’s been an incident upstairs. If you wouldn’t mind—”

  “Yes I would mind,” Grogan said going toe to toe. “And bearing in mind the amount of money I’ve paid to enjoy watching my horse run from up there, unless you want to be hearing from my brief, you’ll let me through.”

  The security man quailed under Grogan’s stare and jerked his head without a word. As if not actually inviting him to pass would be an excuse later, Grogan thought savagely. If you were one of mine sonny, I’d sack you on the spot.

  He was still simmering as he summoned the lift.

  147

  Inside the private box only two people were still on their feet.

  Kelly Jacks was one of them.

  She’d seen McCarron go down in response to Dmitry’s gunshot but not as a direct result of it. He’d clearly thought the Russian was going to kill him, had risen clumsily, unbalanced in his panic, tripped over his own feet and fallen.

  The shock and the pain of landing heavily, on top of his recent injuries, kept him down. Kelly was praying it was no more than that.

  She’d hurled the heavy conference chair at Dmitry at the same moment he’d pulled the trigger. His automatic flinch had pulled the shot wide of its intended target. Instead it smashed the glass of the central window and kept on going to God knows where outside.

  The chair had a metal frame and legs and a substantial seat. It caught Dmitry across the jaw and shoulders, jerking his head back with a grunt. He let go of the gun as his legs went from under him and he toppled onto his back.

  Yana dropped her composed act and pounced for the gun, scrabbling on her hands and knees. Kelly leapt forwards and kicked it hard enough to send it spinning under the table and across the far side of the room out of reach. Yana gave a howl of rage.

  Kelly’s eyes flew back to Dmitry who’d managed to roll onto his side propped on his elbow. He was floundering and groggy and, from the way he held himself, she judged she’d either severely bruised his shoulder or possibly broken his collarbone.

  Just to make sure he was out of the game she bounced on her toes and kicked him under the side of his jaw. She heard his teeth clack together as he flailed backwards again. This time he lay still enough to convince her he would not be a problem in the short term.

  Yana let out another feral cry and bent to cradle the fallen man’s head tenderly. “Dmitry!” Her shakes and pats had no effect.

  “Let him sit this one out Yana.”

  “Bitch!” Yana hissed, rounding on her. She held up a hand, finger and thumb squeezed together almost touching. “We are this close. Why couldn’t you keep stupid long nose to self?”

  “I did keep my ‘stupid long nose’ to myself,” Kelly shot back. “I queried the Veronica Lytton scene, was told to go ahead and we cleaned it. All that evidence gone without a trace. You should be bloody thanking me, not murdering my friend and setting me up.”

  “You interfere just by who you are,” Yana said. She rose, began to circle. “Lytton, he doubt because of you. He want to keep looking—want you to keep looking.” She shrugged. “So we had to get rid of you.”

  “And you thought it would stick—setting me up for Tyrone—even though they can test for ketamine in my hair for months afterwards?” she said, injecting scorn into her voice in place of bravado. “You must have known they’d tumble to it eventually.”

  Yana shrugged again. “It not matter,” she said. “After today, nothing matter.”

  Kelly felt a cold shiver that was not just because of the cool breeze gusting in through the broken window. She was aware of the noise outside—first screams and shouts and now some kind of reassuring drone from the public address system, trying to refocus everyone’s attention on the big race. People would remember today she thought, but not for the reasons Lytton had hoped for.

  Lytton!

  “What did you do with Matthew?”

  “Don’t worry, he is all taken care of,” Yana said with a smile that did nothing to reassure.

  Kelly flicked her eyes towards McCarron. He was sitting with his back against the table leg, clutching his cast arm with a look of intense concentration on his pinched face as if trying to will his way around the pain.

  “What the hell is worth all this suffering?” She shook her head slowly. “What do you hope to gain?”

  “That is easy question—everything,” Yana said. “Soon, it ours.”

  Uncomprehending Kelly gestured towards the unconscious man on the floor. “You and Dmitry?” she queried. “You think you can trust a thug like him? What makes you think he won’t turn on you too as soon as you’ve got what you both want?”

  “Oh, Dmitry would never turn on her,” said a voice from the doorway. “Would he sweetheart?”
<
br />   Both women spun to find Harry Grogan had quietly opened the door and was standing in the frame taking in the room at large. Kelly found her voice first.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Grogan was staring at Yana as though it was the first time he’d set eyes on her and he didn’t like what he saw. He spoke without shifting his gaze.

  “Because she’s Dmitry’s sister.”

  148

  Grogan took it all in before he stepped into the room. Dmitry was well out of it, limbs threshing weakly. There was an older man Grogan didn’t know on the floor near the table. He looked as though he’d been through the wars and was not out of them yet.

  That left the two women.

  They couldn’t be more different in looks but there was the same streak of steel running through both of them, he realised. Only, with Kelly Jacks it was forged in fire, clean and bright. He wondered why he’d never seen the sheer contaminated greed in his mistress before.

  “Hello Myshka,” he said. “Having fun sweetheart?”

  Kelly Jacks raised an eyebrow. “‘Myshka’?”

  “Means ‘mousy’ in Russian, I believe,” he noted. “Not exactly an apt description of Yana when you see her like this is it? Bit like calling a short-arse Lofty.”

  A smile twitched at the corner of Kelly’s mouth. Yana didn’t quite get the reference but if the stiffening of her spine was anything to go by she knew enough to be insulted by it.

  “You know her,” Kelly said. Not a question.

  “In the biblical sense,” Grogan agreed. “And for one of the hardest coldest bitches I’ve ever come across, I must say she was . . . passionately inventive between the sheets.”

  Yana glared. “If I am a man, cold and hard would be prized.”

  “But the shame of it is you’re not,” Grogan said flatly. He glanced pointedly at Dmitry, beginning to struggle feebly to rise like a beetle on its back. “Still twice the man your brother ever was though.”

  “Dmitry is good man!” Yana said, hands bunching into fists as if ready to swing a blow. “You never give him chance to prove himself. You treat him like servant—like a dog.”

  “I treated him like he was fit to be treated,” Grogan said. “A guard dog that’s used to roughing it but is not allowed inside on the furniture. What—you thought I’d groom him to take over? Some kind of surrogate son?”

  Grogan intended the comment to be flippant, but saw immediately from Yana’s face that was exactly what she’d been hoping.

  “You should have trust him more.”

  “If today’s anything to go by, looks like I’ve been trusting him too much as it is.”

  For a moment nobody spoke. The wind blew in through the broken window, flapping around the table. Beyond, Grogan could hear the commentator revving up the crowd ready for the start. If this turns nasty I might never find out if the colt wins.

  “So Yana—Myshka whatever her name is—is your girlfriend as well as Steve Warwick’s wife?” Kelly asked. “Not too much trust to be had anywhere is there?”

  “She got her claws into me when I was in Moscow a few years ago,” Grogan said. “Saw me as a meal ticket but not a visa.” He flicked his gaze to Kelly. “Never going to divorce my Irene, no matter what state she’s in. “’Til death do us part and all that. So she set her sights on Warwick instead. What have you done with him by the way?”

  “He’s dead,” Kelly said. “They beat him to death.”

  “Well at least he went out with a smile on his face then,” Grogan said and at her grimace of surprise added, “He was into a bit of S&M on the quiet was young Stevie boy.”

  Kelly spread her hands. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said sounding abruptly annoyed by the fact. “What does setting me up for murder and killing her husband gain her for heaven’s sake?”

  “Freedom. Power,” Yana said proudly. “And money—a lot of money.”

  “Not anymore sweetheart,” Grogan said. “I saw enough coppers milling around outside to scupper any plans you might have had about getting away with it. Won’t be long before they start finding the bodies.”

  Yana considered this for a moment, her gaze turning inwards. It was a shame Grogan thought. Yana would have made the ideal right-hand man—if only she had been a man. Intelligent, ruthless and inventive in more places than just the bedroom, she would have been a worthy heir.

  Perhaps I should have looked beyond the backside and the boobs, he thought regretfully. Ah well, too late now.

  “You’ll have no freedom and no power in prison. Trust me, you won’t enjoy the experience,” Kelly Jacks said, her voice matter of fact without gloating. “And you’ll be a little old lady by the time you get out.”

  Yana’s head came up, her gaze glittering. “I not go to prison,” she said through her teeth. “I rather die!”

  Just for a second Grogan thought it was merely the woman’s sense of high drama coming to the fore. Then she pulled something from her pocket and held it up. He recognised a BlackBerry, the casing a pale metallic blue.

  The Myshka he knew had an iPhone but the device held no special significance for him. If her tense reaction was anything to go by the same could not be said of Kelly.

  “That’s Veronica Lytton’s isn’t it?”

  Yana smiled, a deep, rich Myshka kind of smile. “Of course,” she said. “I take it from her just before she die. And now I use it to finish this.” She deftly keyed in a number. “Is . . . poetic, no?”

  And she hit send.

  149

  “Holy shit,” O’Neill murmured.

  They were down in the basement storeroom and he’d pulled away the cover that Matthew Lytton had pointed out.

  Beneath it was a bomb.

  At least, it was a pile of paper-wrapped blocks of what looked distinctly like explosives, attached to one of the support pillars. Through a couple of rips in the outer packaging O’Neill could see orange plasticine-like material, soft and malleable.

  The blocks were linked together by a mass of different coloured wiring. Nestled in the middle was a cellphone with wires hot-glued into the casing. It didn’t take a genius to work out that was the remote detonator.

  O’Neill had been through the basic course for identifying suspicious packages and a frantic voice in the back of his head was yelling, “Semtex!” He even thought he could smell something like anti-freeze and recalled one of the instructors joking that by the time you could smell explosives strongly enough to identify them, you were usually far too close.

  He acknowledged this wasn’t his field of expertise but something told him the amount and the placing would be more than enough to bring the whole of the stands crashing down around or on top of him. He took an almost involuntary pace backwards and slapped Dempsey’s hand down when he would have started dialling his own cellphone.

  “Don’t be an idiot! Get to a safe distance before you use one of those things. Tell Cheever to evacuate the whole place and call the bomb squad. Now!”

  Dempsey didn’t argue.

  As he dashed out he almost collided with Lytton who was leaning in the doorway and holding onto the framework in order to stay upright.

  “Inspector—”

  “And you Mr Lytton. Get the hell out of here.”

  He’d half-turned away so it was only out of the corner of his eye that he caught the display of the cellphone detonator as it lit up like the proverbial Oxford Street Christmas lights.

  “Holy shit,” he said again.

  150

  Kelly had never actually been inside a building while some mad Russian woman attempted to blow them all to kingdom come but she had a pretty good idea this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  Yana was staring at the BlackBerry with her face screwed up as if it had personally insulted her. She stabbed her thumb against the keypad again, redialling.

  As if once wasn’t enough.

  Kelly suddenly realised that she was just standing there—they all were—and letting thi
s bitch have another go at killing them all.

  Anger sizzled like a starburst inside her head. She took two rapid strides and launched, hitting Yana in the chest and bowling her straight off her feet. The BlackBerry spun out of her hand and clattered under a low sofa against the wall, shedding half its casing and the battery en route.