She cut the engine as the cars behind her beeped their horns, and gave her location to control, before running back towards the side street.
As she got to the corner, she saw the Megane turn into the entrance of an underground car park beneath the block of flats. ‘Bingo,’ she said, returning to the car and reporting this new information to control.
‘ETA for the first ARV is six minutes,’ said the voice of Sergeant Colin Brooking, the controller she’d been communicating with for the past half an hour. ‘Your orders are to wait until it arrives, Tina.’
‘Received and understood,’ she said, getting back into the car and performing a dangerous reverse manoeuvre that attracted more blasts of the horn from passing drivers, before turning into the side street and driving down past the entrance to the underground car park.
She parked up on some nearby double yellows and pulled a sign out of the glove compartment advising any over-zealous traffic wardens that she was a police officer on duty. Then, with an audible intake of breath, she got out and headed in the direction of the flats.
39
The faint sound of knocking drifted into Tino’s trance-like state. He was fantasizing about making love to three clones of Judy on his uncle’s boat, all of whom were satisfying him with their tongues and telling him what a good, brave man he was while at the same time, in a perfect combination of his two favourite pastimes, he was fishing for herring off the Friesland coast where he’d grown up. The knocking grew louder, and with his reverie now disturbed, he got up off the bed and walked through the lounge to the front door of the apartment.
‘Who is it?’ he called out.
‘Trevor.’
Without responding, Tino pulled open the door and glared at the man he’d once thought of as a friend. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said formally, moving aside to let Murk in, ‘but I think it is the least you could do, would you not agree?’
Murk stepped inside. ‘Listen, cool it, sweetboy, I can explain. That bastard, Stegsy-’
‘Who?’
‘Sorry, Mark. The undercover copper. He was blackmailing me, same as you. He made me do it.’
‘He said you always did this sort of thing, reporting your friends to the police when they were breaking the law. He said you were a grass.’
‘That lying cunt. Don’t you believe it, Tino. He’s as dodgy as something dodgy. It’s his way of sowing the seeds of discontent among the masses. You know what I’m saying?’
‘No, Trevor, I do not. But that’s not important now. As I told you, we need to find Mark, and quickly. He could have murdered this poor girl, and I don’t want her death on my conscience.’
‘Very upstanding of you, Tino. I always knew there was more to you than met the eye, and that’s saying something. I’m only sorry that Mark put me in a position where I had to cause you this much trouble.’
‘Where will Mark be now?’
Murk put the bag he was carrying down on the floor. ‘I know a couple of pubs he uses near here. We’ll try them, see if he’s there. Otherwise I’ll have to phone him down at the station.’
‘OK,’ said Tino, nodding. ‘Let’s go.’
‘You’re not going out like that, are you? It’s cold out there, you’re going to need a coat.’
Tino looked down at his shirt and jeans and decided Murk was right. He wasn’t dressed for the English weather, even on a spring day. ‘Hold on a minute, I’ll go and get one.’
He turned and walked into the bedroom. As he did so, Murk opened the bag and took out a.38 Smith and Wesson and silencer. A rag wrapped round the handle to protect it from fingerprints meant that he didn’t have to worry about gloves. He stepped over to the bedroom door and positioned himself to the side of it in a similar spot to the one in which he’d waited for Robbie O’Brien almost exactly a week ago.
When Tino came back through the door, just like Slim Robbie, he didn’t have a chance. He must have caught something out of the corner of his eye because he turned towards his killer and his eyes widened dramatically as he saw the barrel of the.38 level with his eyes. Murk pulled the trigger twice and blew the top of Tino’s head off, not even bothering to try to catch him as he tumbled messily to the ground with all the dignity of a sack of potatoes, the blood already leaking rapidly from the exit wounds.
Then, satisfied that Tino was dead, Trevor Murk returned the gun to the bag, checked the place over to make sure he hadn’t left behind any tell-tale clues, and walked out of there, thinking that he’d earned five grand and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
40
Tina found the Megane in the underground car park quickly enough. It was parked in the space for apartment 3C. She made a note of the number, then leant down and let down all four of the car’s tyres, one by one. Trevor Murk wasn’t going anywhere. Not using the method of transport he’d come here in anyway. She tried to inform control of where the car was parked but she’d lost the signal, so she made her way over to the lifts, wondering who it was her suspect was visiting in number 3C, and whether or not it had anything to do with the O’Brien killings.
While she was going up, she tried control again, but although she got a signal it cut out before anyone could answer. A voice inside her head told her that she was heading into extremely dangerous territory, and that with the first ARV only a couple of minutes away there was no point in going on. She’d done her bit, even got Murk’s position down to an individual apartment, so why keep going?
‘Because,’ she told the voice, ‘this is my collar, and I do not want him getting away.’
The lift doors opened and Trevor Murk stood there facing her. ‘Hello,’ he said, with a friendly smile.
Tina managed to conceal her surprise and smile back at him. ‘Morning,’ she replied, stepping past him, and thinking immediately that his was definitely the sort of face that could charm its way through an old lady’s front door. And a young lady’s, she thought. He was definitely a looker.
As the doors shut and he disappeared, she tried control again. This time she got through, and was put straight on to Sergeant Brooking. ‘He’s leaving the building, Colin,’ she informed him. ‘Via the underground car park. Carrying a black holdall.’
‘Keep back from him, Tina, I’ve told you. Strict orders. He’s to be treated as armed and dangerous.’
‘I’ve let down his tyres so he can’t get out in his vehicle. He’ll probably come out on foot through the car park entrance. Either that or the building’s main entrance, wherever that is. Get people to both places. And for God’s sake, get them to take him alive. He’s got information we badly need.’
Brooking started to say something else but the line was bad and she wasn’t really listening.
She found the staircase and started down the steps, taking them two at a time, the adrenalin coursing inside her. Less than a minute later she was coming back down to the basement level. There was a swing-door at the bottom of the stairs that led out into the car park. She took the final three steps in one go, dropping the phone into her pocket, and went to peer through the glass to see whether Murk had discovered her handiwork on the Megane yet.
But as she did so she heard the sound of echoing shouts and the loud clatter of footsteps coming rapidly closer. Then she saw Trevor Murk’s upper body hurtling towards the door. She turned to get out of the way, but before she could he hit it head on with all his weight, knocking her flying into the stairwell.
She landed on her behind on the hard stone floor, and as she went to get to her feet Murk spotted his opportunity and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her upright while at the same time removing the gun from his holdall. He dropped the holdall on the floor and thrust the gun’s silencer against the side of Tina’s head.
‘Sorry about this, my sweet, but I need a hostage. If you don’t resist, you won’t get hurt. If you do, I’ll have to kill you. Hope you understand.’ He dragged her over to the swing-door and pushed it open with his shoulder. ‘Back off!’ he yelled, the acoustics of the car park making it sound so much louder. ‘Back off now, or she dies!’
