‘What do you need?’
He took a while to answer then said, ‘I need Robbie to take out any CCTV in their street and a few streets either side, so they can’t link my arrival to the scene.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘what else?’
He shook his head, ‘Nothing. Just leave me to it.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said, ‘when?’
‘Might as well be tomorrow. No point fucking about, eh?’
‘I’ll drive you,’ Kinane said.
‘No,’ Palmer answered quickly and Joe Kinane looked a little put out.
‘He’s right Joe,’ I told him, ‘you’re known. You’d stand out a mile in that street,’ and I turned back to Palmer, ‘take someone else, somebody who isn’t known to them.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Peter Kinane and we all turned to look at him, including his dad. What we saw was a man who looked so damned determined to prove he wasn’t like his older brother that I didn’t hesitate.
‘Okay,’ I said and Joe Kinane stayed silent.
Palmer checked his watch and let the final seconds tick away, then he glanced at Peter Kinane. He climbed out of the car, closed the door behind him and commenced a leisurely walk along the street.
Peter Kinane was unlikely to be seen from his position. He’d parked far enough away from the house on a corner. From here he could clearly make out the property, the huge, bald, Serbian enforcer guarding the doorway and the comparably slight figure of Palmer as he walked unhurriedly towards it.
The Serb heavy was expecting Palmer and watched him all the way. When he reached the man he said, ‘I have a message for Dusan Stevic from David Blake. He wants to talk. He has a new offer, to end this.’
‘Wait,’ he was told and a second heavy manning the door left his post and went in to announce Palmer’s arrival. Palmer waited, the first guard watching him intently the whole time, huge arms folded across his tree-trunk chest.
The second heavy eventually returned and said something in Serb to his colleague. He stood aside and Palmer was allowed to walk up the steps. As soon as he reached the front door they patted him down thoroughly to ensure he wasn’t carrying. When they were satisfied, there were more words in Serbian between them and Palmer was waved on into the house and up the stairs. One of the men called ‘Zoran!’ to alert the man standing outside the brothers’ secure room.
As before, Zoran wore his long black coat open and Palmer could see the handle of the gun protruding from the shoulder holster. Zoran went about the rigmarole of searching Palmer all over again but Palmer was unarmed. He knew he could never get a weapon past these guys. When he was satisfied that Palmer was clean, Zoran called through the locked door and one of the brothers answered him, Zoran spoke again and there was a pause. The enforcer surveyed Palmer intently as he waited and Palmer stared straight back at him, saying nothing.
There was a buzz from inside the secure room and the door clicked open. Zoran stepped to one side to enable Palmer to walk up to it and open the door. Palmer advanced towards the door but, at the last moment, as he reached out with his gloved left hand to push it inwards, he turned his open palm into a fist then moved so quickly Zoran had no time to react. Palmer’s left fist became a blur that flew sideways and landed hard on Zoran’s throat, crushing it. Zoran’s eyes bulged and he began a panicked battle to breathe now that his windpipe and throat had been crushed. As the big man swayed, Palmer pushed him backwards against the wall and forced his other hand into Zoran’s jacket. It came out holding the silenced pistol and in virtually the same movement Palmer wedged the end of the barrel up beneath Zoran’s chin and fired. The round tore through him, taking the top of his head off and splashing blood all over the ceiling. As the big man’s body slumped to the ground, Palmer kicked in the door.
The Stevic brothers were already moving, the sound of Zoran’s choked breathing, the suppressed gunshot and the tell-tale splash of blood, some of which had spattered through the door, alerted them. Palmer strode into the room with his gun held out. He shot the nearest brother, Sreten, in the face as he tried to get up out of his armchair and the body slumped back down into a seated position, eyes still open in shock. The second brother Marko had already reached a shotgun and was turning to aim it straight at Palmer when he was shot twice in the chest in quick succession. He fell backwards, upending the table, dislodging glasses and papers and making a din that alerted the men on the ground floor. They began to run up the stairs, shouting.
Dusan was the last brother left alive — he managed to pull out a gun and dive behind the upturned table. He reached his hand out over the top of the table and fired blind three times, missing Palmer by inches. Palmer returned fire, pinning the guy down. Dusan’s hand went back behind the table, as bullets hit the solid wood but failed to penetrate it. Palmer could hear the two big Serbs crashing up the stairs. They would reach him in seconds and he’d be caught in a fatal crossfire between them and Dusan. It would all be over for him if he couldn’t kill the last brother quickly.
Palmer made a decision then and dropped his gun. He took a step forwards and scrambled for the shotgun Marko had dropped. As Dusan raised his gun hand to fire once more, Palmer turned the shotgun on him and returned fire. The first round went into the table and there was a scream from the other side as the pellets did some damage and Dusan let the gun fall from his injured hand. Palmer ran towards the upturned table, put one foot on the edge and peered over at him. Palmer pointed the gun downwards just as the wounded Dusan rolled onto his back and looked up into the barrel.
His terrified scream of ‘No!’ was stifled by a shotgun blast in the face.
Palmer threw himself over the upturned table and hit the ground just as the two big Serbs burst into the room, still shouting. He rose to his feet again with Dusan’s handgun and took out the first enforcer before he had time to take in the scene of carnage before him; two bullets into the chest putting him down. The second Serb swore and brought round his own gun but, in his panic, he was too quick to fire. His bullet cannoned into the wall behind Palmer who took more care with his shot. The first round hit the big Serb in the shoulder but, amazingly, he stayed on his feet. Instead of falling, he tottered backwards, cursed loudly, and tried to raise his weapon once more. Palmer took a step forwards, aimed carefully and put three more bullets into him. The man went backwards and fell onto his colleague who was still moving, desperately trying to drag himself to his feet, despite the bullets inside him and the dead weight on top of him. Palmer put a bullet in the back of his head on his way out of the room.
Palmer went down the stairs like they weren’t there and was out into the street. He had entered the building unarmed and left six men lying dead behind him.
46
The day after Palmer killed the Stevic brothers, Vasnetsov finally lost patience with me and a file arrived at my house. In it were photographs of my daughter out for walks in the park with Joanne and a bodyguard. The message was clear. Cooperate or Emma would face the consequences.
Later that same day, I took a call from one of Vasnetsov’s men. He gave me a date, a time and a flight number. I had been summoned to meet Vasnetsov’s first Joe and my destination was Helsinki.
Detective Sergeant Nigel Kelly was wading through the files on Dusan Stevic’s computer, as part of the Lothian and Borders Police investigation into the killing of six Serbian gangsters who’d set themselves up in the city. It made for interesting reading. Some of the files were encrypted but others weren’t. It seemed the Stevic brothers were not as careful as they might have been, exhibiting an arrogance that, according to some, had been fostered by a belief that they were somehow untouchable by the authorities. Well, they might all be dead now but the information they left behind could be priceless, enabling a thorough investigation into their criminal network, which would undoubtedly lead to further arrests. There were even spreadsheets detailing payments received and those made, along with the names of the recipients.
Kelly was about to take a
break when he stumbled upon a Real Player flash video with a Serbian title. On a whim he clicked on the file and waited while it opened. He wasn’t expecting such a stark image.
The girl was bent over with her face virtually pressed into the camera. She was naked and her large breasts dangled beneath her, swaying from side to side, as the older man took her from behind. From the look on her face, she was enduring the sex, not enjoying it. From the look on his, he had no idea they were being secretly recorded.
‘Wahey!’ shouted Detective Constable Russell when he looked over and noticed the film playing on Kelly’s computer, ‘Kelly’s watching porn!’ and he wandered over to get a better look. The first thing he noticed was the naked girl being taken from behind by an old, fat bloke. His eyes zeroed in on the distinctive tattoo on the girl’s arm, then he clocked her face.
‘Bloody hell, that’s her,’ he said, ‘that’s the girl we’ve got downstairs. She’s one of those trafficked Ukrainian lassies the Serbs brought in. We picked her up a couple of hours ago. I didn’t recognise her with her clothes on but she’s got that big fuck off tattoo on her arm. It’s definitely her alright,’ but Detective Sergeant Kelly didn’t answer him. He had not been so easily distracted by the naked girl and her tattoo, instead he simply whispered the same word three times. ‘Fuck… fuck… fuck.’
It was then that Russell tore his gaze away from the girl and finally took a closer look at the man who was screwing her. He was podgy and balding, with a thin wisp of combed-over ginger hair, his face was red, sweat poured from his forehead and he was grunting like a pig, as he thrust into the unfortunate girl over and over again.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Russell, when he finally recognised the man, ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘No,’ answered Kelly, ‘but it might as well be.’
Colleagues heard the muttered curses of the two detectives and wandered over to see what had distracted them. Others followed and soon there was a small cluster of men and women who’d abandoned their desks to view the film of the fat man and the girl. He was putting his back into it alright. From his face, it was hard to tell whether he was having an orgasm or a heart attack. The finale was greeted in near silence by the posse of detectives.
It was DC Heather Shaw who finally put it into words, ‘Is that…’ but she couldn’t quite bring herself to finish the sentence.
‘Assistant Chief Constable Brinklow,’ confirmed DS Kelly, who’d at least had a little time to get used to the idea, ‘it only bloody is!’
News travels fast, particularly when that news involves the arrest of an Assistant Chief Constable on charges of corruption. We watched it on the TV at the Cauldron.
‘They reckon Brinklow will get at least fifteen years,’ explained Sharp, ‘five years for what he did, five for his rank,’ then he added, ‘and five years extra for that bloody video.’
Brinklow’s unwitting porn video was already the stuff of police legend. It was probably true that the footage of Brinklow raping that trafficked Ukrainian girl would be the difference between ten years, out in six and fifteen years, out in ten, if the parole board didn’t actually think he should go right to the end of his full term because the abuse of power had been so great.
I took a long while to say my goodbyes to Sarah and Emma. I didn’t want to go but knew I had to, for their sakes. Picking up my daughter and holding her to me so I could kiss her goodbye was the hardest thing I have ever done. Sarah stood in the doorway with Emma in her arms as I drove away.
I couldn’t take Palmer or Kinane with me on this journey so I left on my own. Before I drove to the airport, I took a drive through Newcastle, so I could have one last look at the streets I had known all my life, because I knew I wouldn’t be coming back.
There was no private jet to transport me to Vasnetsov’s property near Helsinki. Instead, I was instructed to take a scheduled flight from Heathrow to Vantaa airport in the Finnish capital. I was met there by one of Vasnetsov’s men, a tall, corporate type in a suit who recognised me but did not bother to introduce himself. He walked me to a large Audi and gave me the keys.
‘Use the sat nav,’ he ordered, ‘it’s programmed to take you to a house in Anjalankoski Kouvola.’
This meant nothing to me, but when I climbed into the car the display told me I had a hundred and thirty kilometres to go. Vasnetsov’s man tapped on the window and I wound it down. ‘Don’t stop,’ he warned me, ‘or we will know.’ And I had no reason to doubt that.
The sat nav guided me away from Vantaa and down a wide, tree-lined road that took me past apartment blocks, then houses, until we reached the suburbs which were lightly dusted with snow. Finally I joined the main highway and made steady progress — the traffic was light compared to the UK. I found myself subconsciously slowing down, as if I was trying to delay the inevitable. I felt like a condemned man being dragged to the gallows.
I passed mile after mile of woodland, huge conifers either side of me, with nothing to break the tree lines apart from a succession of bridges that spanned the road I was on. It was getting dark when I finally left the main highway and took a minor road with no destination sign or lighting. I had to rely on the sat nav to ensure I was headed the right way and my headlights to guide me, along a road which seemed to be narrowing progressively as I neared my final destination. I was glad of the snow, because it reflected the beams and helped to light my way. I’d gone nearly two miles down this winding excuse for a road when I turned a corner and the house came into view. It wasn’t quite the gothic monstrosity of his English home but the faded, white-stone mansion had clearly been here for a very long time before Vasnetsov added it to his portfolio.
A reception committee of half a dozen guards awaited me. They carried weapons openly; pistols in holsters, submachine guns slung over their shoulders. Lights burned in the house and there was a tense atmosphere.
Evgeny Gorshkov came out of the house to meet me, just as one of his men had finished patting me down.
‘He is clean,’ the man said.
‘Of course he is,’ answered Vasnetsov’s head of security, ‘he is not so stupid as to bring a weapon, a wire or a tracker to a meeting with us. Blake knows that, if he did, we would bury him out here,’ and he glanced towards the forests.
Evgeny took me inside. We went into a large room at the front of the building that had a huge open fireplace with logs burning ferociously in the grate. Vasnetsov was sitting there with Mikhail Datsik, his banker, along with another three bodyguards.
‘I am glad you did not miss your flight,’ said Vasnetsov dryly by way of greeting, ‘so much easier this way.’
‘I’m here,’ I admitted, ‘but I still don’t see how I can help you.’
Vasnetsov frowned at me. ‘You will help me by carrying out my instructions. Soon you will meet my Joe. He has been in training for two years and you will provide his route in to my homeland. That much I have already explained,’ and he shook his head. ‘You should be happy, Blake. When you leave here in the morning you will take my Joe and your fee. I promised you two million US dollars and it’s yours.’
‘So I get to stay the night here?’ I asked.
‘Your flight to Amsterdam leaves in the morning. Tonight you eat and sleep. In the morning you leave here a wealthier man,’ and he shrugged as if it couldn’t be easier. ‘Once you arrive in Amsterdam you send my agent down the line. It really is very simple.’
‘And if I refuse?’
His face hardened, ‘I already told you that I do not forgive.’
‘You did,’ I conceded, ‘so tonight I will eat and sleep and tomorrow…’ I shrugged, as if I would likely go along with his plan but I was stalling, buying myself some precious time before I made him my enemy with a refusal.
‘Good,’ he said but abruptly the lights in the house went out and we were plunged into darkness. I could only dimly make out shapes in the room. There was some shouting in Russian, a panicked question and an authoritative reply, then people began moving in and out of th
e building.
Vasnetsov barked something in Russian and waved an arm. I was willing to bet it was something like, ‘Get out there, find out what’s happening!’
Someone activated a hand-held flare. One of the bodyguards held it and three of them started towards the main door. They didn’t get very far. The weapons must have had suppressors because I never even heard the shots. All three bodyguards were dropped in the hallway with ruthless efficiency. I instinctively threw myself to the floor.
‘Evgeny!’ Vasnetsov had panic in his voice as he called for his personal bodyguard who drew a pistol, dropped to one knee and aimed his weapon at the window, then at the door, then back at the window again, as if unsure where the attack would come from. I could hear shouting and the sound of boots running along wooden floors. The sound of gunfire that followed was deafening. Vasnetsov’s bodyguards were determined not just to combat the threat outside but to obliterate it.
After the initial bursts of machinegun fire there was a brief pause and I heard orders being shouted in Russian. I could also hear the screams of dying men then further gunfire but the bursts were more focussed now, as if they were trying to pick out individual targets. Evgeny was chattering away into a tiny hand-held radio, trying to work out what was going on. I didn’t speak a word of Russian but I knew panic when I heard it. The men he was communicating with were trying to brief him, while at the same time fighting for their lives. I lay on the wooden floor praying they had bigger problems to worry about right now than me.
This pattern was repeated for a while; short bursts of gunfire from Vasnetsov’s bodyguards, then return fire that held an eerie quality because it was silent, but we knew about it because bullets were hitting the front of the house, shattering windows and thudding into the brickwork. It sounded like there was a whole bloody army out there. The shouting continued, but it was getting less and less regular. Evgeny was still calling out his list of names, ‘Lev!.. Ivan!.. Oleg!.. Pyotr!’ and I could see by the light from the flickering flames of the fire that he was sweating. I realised they were losing.
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