“Hold your horses,” Bernie said. “I haven’t even got asking what I called you for.”
He sighed loud enough for her to hear. “All right. What?”
“Christmas.”
“We talked about this already. Ellen’s spending the day with—”
“But her granny wants to see her. That poor woman’s been through hell. Ellen’s all she’s got left of her own daughter. What’s the sense in making the child spend the day all alone in that flat of yours?”
“She won’t be alone. She’ll be with me.”
“She should be with her family,” Bernie said. “Her grandmother, her cousins, all of our ones will be here. Let her have a nice day. A happy day. Just because you’re miserable, don’t make her miserable too.”
“I’m taking her to see her grandmother—
“You’re taking her to your mother? Sure, what’s the point of that? Your mother hasn’t the wit to know her own children when they’re in front of her, let alone—”
“That’s enough,” Lennon said, his throat tightening. “I have to go.”
“But what about Chr—”
He hung up and placed the handset back on the coffee table, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. How many times would he have to argue this out with Bernie McKenna? Ever since Marie died, her family had been circling, waiting for him to slip up so they could claim his daughter for their own.
True, he hadn’t been a father to the girl for the first six years of her life, but they had been no more a family to her. Marie’s people had cut her off when she took up with him, a cop, long before Republicans changed the stance they’d held for decades and acknowledged the legitimacy of the police service. Until then, any young Catholic who joined the police immediately became a target for assassination, and anyone who associated with them risked being ostracised from their community. Marie had done just that, and he had repaid her sacrifice by abandoning her when she fell pregnant. These arguments only served to remind him that they had all failed Ellen, and they always left him wishing he had some moral high ground he could take. But there was none. His was the worst betrayal of all, and Bernie McKenna would always hold that over him. Anger bubbled in him after every call, and only force of will would quell it.
Before he could fully calm himself, the phone rang again. He snatched it from the coffee table, ranting before he hit the answer button. “For Christ’s sake, you’re going to wake her up. I am not discussing this anymore, so for the last time, you can—”
“Jack?”
“—shove Christmas up your—”
“Jack?”
Lennon paused. “Who’s this?”
“Chief Inspector Uprichard.”
Lennon sat down on the couch, covered his eyes with his free hand. “No,” he said.
“I need you in, Jack,” Uprichard said.
“No,” Lennon said. “Not again. I told you, didn’t I? We agreed on this. I’m not doing nights over Christmas. I can’t.”
“DI Shilliday’s taken ill,” Uprichard said. “I’ve no one else to cover for him.”
“No,” Lennon said.
“It’ll be an easy night. It’s quiet out. You can sleep in your office. Just so I have someone on site, that’s all.”
“No,” Lennon said, but there was no conviction behind it.
“I’m not really asking you, Jack,” Uprichard said, his voice hardening. “Don’t make me order you.”
“Fuck,” Lennon said.
“Now, there’s no call for that.”
“Yes there bloody is,” Lennon said as he stood. “That’s the fourth time this month.”
He almost said he knew where it was coming from, that DCI Dan Hewitt of C3 Intelligence Branch was pulling strings to make his life difficult, but he thought better of it.
“I’m sorry,” Uprichard said. “That’s just the way it is. I want you here in an hour.”
SUSAN OPENED THE door wearing a dressing gown pulled tight around her. In the few minutes between Lennon phoning her and knocking her door, she had tidied her hair and applied as much makeup as she could manage. Either that or she went to bed wearing lip gloss.
Ellen huffed and mewled in Lennon’s arms, her bare feet kicking at his sides.
“You’re a diamond,” he said to Susan. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Susan gave him a smile that was at once warm and weary. “It’s all right. I hadn’t gotten to sleep yet.”
Lennon knew a lie when he heard one, but still he was glad of it. “I’ll be back before you get up in the morning.”
Susan reached for Ellen. “C’mere, pet, I’ve got you.”
Ellen whimpered and rubbed her eyes.
Susan kissed her hair. “You can sleep in with Lucy, all right?”
Ellen buried her head beneath Susan’s chin. She had been ferried here while she slept many times before.
Lennon touched Susan’s forearm. “Thank you,” he said.
She smiled again. “When you come back, why don’t you come in for breakfast?”
“The neighbors might talk,” Lennon said.
“Let them,” she said.
3
THE PLASTIC-COVERED CORPSE rolled against Galya as the car jerked to a standstill, its bloody odors forcing her to gag against the cloth that had been shoved in her mouth. She wedged her shoulders against the rear wall of the trunk and pushed the body back with her knees. They’d used some sort of thin electrical cord to bind her wrists, but already it worked loose on her blood-slicked skin. She could easily slip free from it, but instead chose to keep it there until her hands could do her some good.
Galya felt the car rock as the men alighted, heard the doors slam shut. The last few minutes of the journey had been slow, with sharp turns and sudden stops, before a final lurch and judder as the car came to a halt on rough ground. She strained to listen to the environment beyond the darkness that encased her. Traffic noise somewhere, but closer, the soft sigh of water.
As soon as she’d woken in the black, her head throbbing with the car’s engine, she knew they meant to kill her. There was no question. The sound of water only confirmed it. They would dump the dead man in it, then throw her in after. Maybe they’d kill her first, or maybe they’d drown her. Either way, she would be in the water soon.
Voices now, outside, the Irishman’s high and panicky, the Lithuanian’s low and angry. They exchanged accusations and curses as they came closer. A key scraped against metal, the lock turned, and cold air flooded in.
A cloud of mist formed between Darius and Sam as their breath mingled. The Lithuanian grabbed his countryman’s body and hauled it from the trunk, grunted as he let it drop to the ground with a wet thump.
Galya did not resist when Sam reached for her. The icy ground seemed to bite at her soles as he held her upright. She bucked with the intensity of the shivers that shot through her, and he gripped her arms tighter.
The car, an old BMW, stood feet from a stretch of water, parked on a narrow band of waste ground separated from the empty road by a low curb. All around were warehouses and cranes, quiet and still in the cold night. Lazy waves lapped at the embankment. Across the channel, more warehouses, and the lights of the city beyond them. Galya tried to turn her head to see more of the surroundings, but Sam squeezed and jerked her arm.
“Quit it,” he said, as much to himself as to her.
