Dead Men

‘Mark, put your bloody foot down!’ said Lynn.

‘We’re in the South here, nothing’s going-’

‘Do as he says, Mark,’ said Kelly, from the back seat. ‘Get us out of here.’

As Nugent opened his mouth to reply, his face exploded in a shower of blood and skull fragments that splattered across the dashboard and windscreen. A second shot shattered the rear window and Kelly slumped forward, blood pouring from his throat. Lynn grabbed the steering-wheel and lifted his right leg over Nugent’s left, trying to get his foot to the accelerator. The engine roared but the car didn’t move. A third shot rang out, and for a moment Lynn thought he’d been hit, but there was no pain. He fumbled for the gear lever, screaming in frustration.

The passenger door was pulled open and the barrel of a gun was pressed to the side of his head. Lynn raised his hands. ‘I’m not armed,’ he said.

Salih sat in his hotel room and studied the map of the United Kingdom that he’d spread out across the double bed. He had spent an hour in Borders in Oxford Street and had purchased A-Z street directories that covered all the areas that appeared in the list of landline locations the Russian had given him. He sipped a glass of Evian water and eyed the circles he had marked on the map. Most were dotted in and around London and were either police stations or government offices. None of the numbers belonged to private residences. Charlotte Button had made two calls to Leicester, to the police headquarters building where Khan worked. She had made several to Glasgow numbers and two to Belfast. Over the past fortnight she’d made fifty-three calls to landlines and twice as many to mobiles. She’d spent most of this week in Belfast.

Salih inserted a new pay-as-you-go Sim card into his phone and called the Belfast number. The Europa Hotel. He cut the connection and smiled to himself. There was a good chance that Charlotte Button was staying at the Europa, though he doubted she would be using her own name. Belfast was as good a place as any to kill her, but hotels were public places and Salih would need time to kill her in the way that Muhammad Aslam had stipulated.

He walked around the bed, looking down at the map. One of the landlines was located in Culford School at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Salih had Googled the name and discovered that it took boys and girls as boarders. It was a place for the rich to educate their children away from home. Khan had said Button had a daughter, and that the daughter had been sent to boarding-school. Now Salih knew where she was, and if he got the daughter, he’d get the mother, guaranteed. Salih had no reservations about killing women or children. People were people, no matter their age or sex, and Salih’s profession was to kill. But the boarding-school was a long shot. If the child was there, it might be weeks before her mother visited.

Salih sat on the bed and studied the map again. At some point Button must have phoned her home. There were two numbers, in Berkshire and Surrey, to the south-west of London. Merkulov had supplied addresses for both. One was in the centre of Windsor, the other a village called Virginia Water in Windsor Great Park, about eight miles from Heathrow.

Salih had a small Dell laptop on the dressing-table, connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network. He had an account with www.192.com, which he had opened when he was in Dubai. It allowed him access to a huge database, including phone directories and electoral rolls. Salih had been surprised to discover how much information about its citizens the British Government was prepared to make available to anyone with computer access, but he was more than happy to take advantage of it.

He had already entered ‘Charlotte Button’ in the website’s search engine and come up with nothing, country-wide. This time he simply entered ‘Charlotte’and the address in Windsor. It came up blank. He tried with just the address but the search engine insisted on a name or a description of a business. Salih sat back and flipped through his notepad. Khan had said that the woman’s husband was an estate agent. He tapped in ‘estate agent’ and hit the search button. In less than a second the website gave him the name of an estate agent at the address. Salih smiled. Sometimes information was hard to come by; sometimes it was like plucking apples from trees. Now he knew where the husband worked.

He cleared the search engine and entered the Virginia Water address with the name ‘Charlotte’. He hit the search button and, almost immediately, the address popped up with two names above it. Charlotte Pickering and Graham Pickering. Salih muttered a prayer, thanking Allah for all his works. Charlotte Pickering was almost certainly Charlotte Button.

‘Got you,’ he muttered.

Shepherd was stretched out on the sofa watching an episode of Midsomer Murders when his mobile rang. It was Button. ‘We’ve got a problem, Spider.’

Shepherd squinted at the digital display on his wristwatch. It was just after three thirty in the afternoon. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Gerry Lynn was murdered last night near Dublin.’

‘Shit.’

‘Shit is right. Now, tell me you’ve got Elaine Carter under surveillance.’

‘No can do, Charlie. She’s not at home and I haven’t seen her all day.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Home.’

‘I’m coming round.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

‘She’s not there, you said.’

‘I know but-’

‘Stay put, Spider. I’ll be there within the hour.’ The line went dead.

Shepherd made himself a mug of coffee and went on watching Inspector Barnaby. Like most television shows Midsomer Murders bore almost no relation to reality. Two polite middle-class detectives were knocking on the doors of well-kept cottages asking questions over cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches. In the real world ninety per cent of murders were solved within the first hour or so of the victims’ deaths. More often than not a family member or business acquaintance had killed them, and the motive boiled down to anger brought on by money, revenge or sex, with drugs or alcohol fuelling it. Usually there was no real detective work involved. It wasn’t easy to take a life and most people who killed were immediately stricken with remorse. They’d stay with the body until the police came or walk into a police station and confess. Those who tried to cover their tracks were usually caught because a few simple questions asked of the deceased’s nearest and dearest would throw up the names of any suspects. Then it was simply a matter of nailing down where they had been at the time of death. Rarely was there any mystery to be solved.

One of the nice middle-class detectives was about to reveal who the murderer was when Shepherd’s doorbell rang. He muted the television’s sound and went to open the front door.

Button was wearing a fawn belted raincoat over a dark suit and carrying a Prada bag. She walked past him and down the hall to the kitchen. ‘Got any wine?’ she asked. ‘I need a drink.’

‘Red or white?’

‘I don’t care what colour it is.’ She took off her coat, threw it over a chair and sat at the kitchen table. She put her head in her hands.

Shepherd opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Frascati. Button groaned when she saw the label. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘There’s champagne,’ said Shepherd. ‘Elaine gave it to me. But I like Frascati. It’s crisp, clean, and you can drink it with anything.’

Button laughed. ‘Just pour it, Spider.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Shepherd, as he uncorked the wine.

‘The Garda Siochana called it in last night,’ said Button. ‘They found the bodies on a farm in County Dublin.’

‘Bodies?’

‘Lynn and his two IRA minders. The guy who owned the farm, Jonas Filbin, was in gaol with Lynn and was released under the Good Friday Agreement at about the same time. He moved south and took over the family farm. Lynn and his minders had left and were heading back to Belfast. There was a Land Rover in a ditch on the road outside. Looks like they stopped to see what was going on and the minders were shot through the car windows. Lynn either got out or was forced out and was walked into a field. A bullet in each knee and one in the back of the