Stalkers

home.’

‘It’s risky.’

‘Risks are sometimes necessary.’

They crept past the door recess to a small wash-house window. It was double-glazed, its frame made of PVC.

‘Breaking one of these will disturb the entire neighbourhood,’ Lauren said.

‘Yeah, but that won’t.’ Heck pointed to the floor above, where there was a smaller window with a panel of frosted glass. ‘That’s a bathroom or toilet. It’s our best bet.’

It was far out of reach, though a horizontal stretch of iron guttering was located about three feet underneath it. They might conceivably be able to reach that. ‘Okay.’ She still sounded unhappy. ‘How do we do it?’

He produced the duct-tape. ‘Plaster the glass with this, then punch it.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘It works for hundreds of shithead house-breakers every day. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work for us. No one’ll hear a thing.’

‘Who’s going to do it?’

‘Can you stand on that gutter without ripping it out of the wall? I don’t think I can.’

‘Christ,’ she said, resigning herself to the inevitable.

‘Here.’ He gave her the roll of tape, then took his sweatshirt off and handed it to her. ‘When you get up there, wrap this round your fist.’

They glanced around once more just to make sure they weren’t being observed from the premises opposite. But it was still pitch-black in the narrow canyon between the two rows of cottages. Nothing stirred apart from the bats darting about overhead.

Using Heck’s foot as a stirrup, she clambered up his body until she was able to stand erect on top of his shoulders. She wasn’t heavy, but after the battering he’d recently taken, he had to lean against the wall for support.

‘Can you reach?’ he asked in a strained voice.

‘Just about.’ She yanked down on the gutter with both hands to ensure it was solid, and then used it to lever herself upwards. It was just wide enough for her to gain a purchase with her knees and then reach up and find the window sill. Once standing, she carefully layered the duct-tape on the glass. ‘Here goes nothing.’

There was a dull whump as she struck it. Another followed, slightly louder, but not loud enough to alert the neighbours. Piece by piece, she handed the sticky tape-coated shards down to him. ‘You know we’re leaving prints all over this stuff?’

‘He’s not going to call the police. Don’t worry.’

A short while later, she was able to climb in through the empty frame. Heck moved back to the rear door. She opened it from the inside. He stepped through and closed it behind him. Again they had to wait as their eyes attuned, but street lighting filtered in through the front windows, so it wasn’t long. The interior was split level in the 1960s beatnik style, the upper floor open aspect with only a carved wooden balustrade to separate the sleeping area from an eight-foot drop. Aside from smaller rooms like the wash room and kitchen, the ground floor was an all in one lounge-diner, modern in look yet with old-fashioned fixtures: a flagged floor, oil paintings on the white plaster walls.

They advanced warily.

‘What exactly are we looking for?’ Lauren asked.

‘We’ll know when we find it. There must be something here we can use — I was right about the personalised alarm.’ Heck pointed to a corner of the ceiling, where a tiny red light was flashing on and off, and a video camera turning to follow their progress.

‘Shit!’ She made to dart away, but he grabbed her.

‘Don’t panic. I want him to know we’ve been here.’ He made a V-sign at the lens.

‘This is so nuts,’ she replied.

‘No. This is psychological warfare. He needs to know that his adversaries are at least as smart as he is.’

‘Sounds like macho bullshit to me.’

‘Whatever, it works.’

They poked around the downstairs, moving furniture, opening drawers, before Heck headed up to the first floor. Lauren followed, increasingly tense. They’d been here several minutes already, which felt as though they were stretching their luck absurdly. They searched the bedroom shelves but found nothing of interest.

‘Know anything about hacking?’ Heck asked, eyeing the bedside computer.

‘No.’

‘Neither do I.’

He tried to access the system anyway, but the password defeated him. While he was thus engaged, Lauren brushed against the wall, only for it to creak as though made from flimsy material. Heck heard this and got to his feet. They examined the wall carefully. Now that their attention had been drawn, it became apparent that this portion of wall had been left accessible. There was no furniture against it; it had no skirting board. Heck tested it with his fingers. It creaked again.

‘This is just soft-board. Ah hah …’

He’d found a tell-tale slit in the paper, which, when he followed it, described a rectangle about six feet tall by three wide. He pushed hard. There was a click as a catch was released, and the rectangle swung outward. A bare wooden stair lay beyond.

‘What the hell’s this?’ Lauren said.

‘Fifty years ago it would’ve been Deke’s ascent to the gallows.’

The stair connected with the loft, or with a room that had been constructed inside the loft. It was small and square, with only the roof’s south-facing slope serving as its ceiling. There were no windows, so Heck felt it safe to flick a switch. An electric light came on, revealing another desk, another computer, a filing cabinet and a wall- cupboard.

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ he said.

He opened the cupboard first. Inside it there was a steel rack containing a variety of automatic weapons. Various pistols and revolvers were ranged along the top: Glocks, Brownings, Berettas. Below those, there were heavier-duty items: rifles and submachine guns. Heck recognised a Kurtz, two Armalites, a Kalashnikov, even a high-powered Dragunov sniper rifle.

‘Good God,’ Lauren said slowly.

Heck turned to the filing cabinet and yanked open its drawers. They were packed with paperwork filed in buff folders. A reference code had been scrawled on each one with felt pen. The codes were the sort you used when listing electronic data and wishing to keep it orderly and chronological; for example, ‘a’ through to ‘z’, followed by ‘za’ through to ‘zz’, followed by ‘zza’ through to ‘zzz’, and so on. There was also a leather-bound ledger. Heck flicked it open. It was filled, page after page, with lists of scribbled notations. At first glance it looked like gibberish, but there were numbers in there with pound signs attached, big numbers, each one struck through with biro (possibly to indicate that the full fee had now been paid). On one occasion, Ezekial — because this was evidently a ledger of his accounts — had earned twenty-five thousand pounds for a single job. On another he’d earned forty-five thousand pounds.

Lauren stiffened. She thought she’d just heard movement outside the house.

Heck continued to flick pages. Each separate list clearly referred to a different employer — at least that was the way it appeared. She hooked his arm with her hand. He shook her loose; he was too preoccupied.

‘Someone’s coming in,’ she whispered, dashing to the top of the loft stair. She strained her ears to hear more — a key was turning in the front lock. This time Heck heard it too.

‘We’ve got to go!’ Lauren hissed.

He nodded, but his eyes scanned quickly down the very last page in the ledger. At the bottom of the final list, the reference to the most recent job was ‘RO’.

Ron O’Hoorigan?

The figure alongside it read ten thousand pounds.

‘Heck!’ Lauren had been halfway down the stair and now stuck her head back into the room.

He glanced at the top of the list. Whoever these particular jobs had been performed for, he — or they — were