wrong to leave the guests and staff here alone with these animals, but she also knew that, given the choice, she still would. ‘No,’ she said, moving key in hand to the next door. ‘He doesn’t work in the hotel.’
‘That’s one piece of good news. For you, anyway.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘If you do exactly as you’re told, you’ll be back with him by the end of the night.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, angry suddenly. ‘You talk about being part of some Army of God, but what exactly do you hope to achieve?’
‘Keep locking those doors,’ he snapped back. ‘The less you know about any of us, the better it’ll be for you, I promise.’
Elena did as she was told, annoyed with herself for losing her temper.
Behind her, Fox was speaking again, his tone conversational. ‘Politicians will always tell you that violence solves nothing. You watch them on the TV; that’s what they say every time. That violence is counter-productive and that if you want something you have to act within the law.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Let me tell you something: that’s bullshit. Violence gets your voice heard. It makes people listen to you. It makes them react. It brings them to the negotiating table. It makes them fear you. In the end, it always gets you what you want.’
Elena put her key in the last door and twisted it. There was no prospect of escape for anyone now. ‘So how much more violence are you intending to commit?’
‘That depends on the government.’
‘They won’t negotiate. They never do. Even I know that.’
‘They negotiate a lot more than you think.’
Elena looked down at the body at her feet. The man was about thirty, with thinning hair and glasses that were now broken. Just an ordinary person, like the rest of them. ‘They won’t let you get away with murder,’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘Well, you’d better hope they do,’ said Fox, taking her by the arm and leading her away from the door. ‘Otherwise none of us are getting out of here.’
Twenty-one
17.05
TEN FLOORS ABOVE Fox and Elena, the man called Scope watched as police cars stopped on either side of the hotel, acting in unison as they blocked the traffic in both directions, creating a car-free zone right in front of the main entrance.
They were out of their vehicles in seconds, moving very fast for cops, who in Scope’s experience tended to amble everywhere unless they were slap bang in the middle of an emergency. These men were gesticulating and shouting orders, moving people away from the hotel, while at the same time putting out traffic cones and scene- of-crime tape. Another police car pulled up slightly behind the others, and three guys got out. They went round the back of the car and opened the boot, pulling out what looked like MP5 sub-machine guns. Proper firepower.
Something big was going on, and for a moment Scope thought it might have something to do with what he’d done here, except he was sure it couldn’t be. He’d worked efficiently and there’d been no noise. Mr Miller’s corner suite only backed on to one other room, and when he’d put his ear to the wall all he could hear was the sound of loud dance music.
No, whatever this was, it was way bigger than him. Already he could see more police cars, along with a fire engine and two ambulances, driving into Hyde Park and taking up position a hundred yards distant like some kind of wagon train, while in the sky overhead a helicopter with search beam made tight circles.
He wondered what the hell was happening. Up here on the top floor of the Stanhope you were above everything and insulated by silence. It was the perfect spot for his work. But the problem was, he had to get out, and soon. And with all these police around it wasn’t going to be easy.
He briefly inspected the wound on his left forearm, the result of a mistake that could have ended in disaster. He’d dressed it using the first aid kit from the bathroom, and added antiseptic, but the teeth marks were deep, and the blood was still staining the dressing a deep red. It might be even more serious if it turned out the guy responsible for it was HIV-positive, but right then he was more concerned about his blood leaving potentially incriminating DNA traces behind.
Turning away from the window, Scope returned to the bathroom and applied a roll of fresh dressing over the top of the first. There was a cut about an inch long just above his left eye, and although the plaster he’d covered it with was still sticking, the area around the edges was beginning to darken and swell. It looked conspicuous, and that was bad, but there was nothing he could do about that.
He took a deep breath, buttoned up his jacket so that it covered the telltale red flecks on his shirt, then walked back through the suite’s lounge, stepping round the bodies. Finally he removed the manager’s badge and left the room, slipping off his gloves as he started down the corridor.
Twenty-two
MARTIN DALSTON TOOK ANOTHER long sip from his glass of Pinot Noir and placed it on the bedside table next to the three bottles of pills neatly arranged in a row, and the two envelopes containing the letters to his ex- wife and his son. He then lit his second cigarette of the afternoon. His second cigarette, in fact, of the last twenty- two years. It didn’t taste too good, and it was making him cough, but to be honest, he no longer cared.
He looked at the rope with noose attached that he’d hung from the large picture hook on the opposite wall. In hindsight, he wished he hadn’t put it there since it was constantly in his field of vision – an annoying reminder of what was coming to him – but there’d been nowhere else suitable, and even so, he still wasn’t sure the hook would take his skinny ten stones.
Typically for a man who’d always liked to keep his options open, Martin had chosen two different ways to die. Hanging was the quick method, although, thanks to the height of the hook, it would mean him keeping his legs bent and off the floor as the rope either throttled him or broke his neck, something that would require the kind of self- discipline he wasn’t at all sure he possessed. The slow, more painless method was the drugs – a combination of barbiturates, oxazepam and aspirin that he’d been assured would send him gently to sleep.
The disadvantage of an overdose was that it would give him time to think about what he was doing, therefore opening up the possibility of a change of mind. At least if it was quick he’d have no choice in the matter. His preference would have been a gun, but this was England, so that was impossible. So, after much thinking, he’d come up with a simple plan: take the pills, lie back on the bed, and keep the rope in sight as he drifted off, so that he’d always know how painful the alternative was.
His coughing subsided, and he took another deep drag on the cigarette, trying hard to enjoy it. Strangely, he’d been looking forward to this afternoon. He’d always been prone to melancholy. Dreaming of happier days, and viewing them through the inevitable rose-tinted glasses. So to have the opportunity to relive blow-by-beautiful-blow the happiest two weeks of his life, and to savour all the things that could have happened if he’d followed his dreams and made a life with Carrie Wilson, rather than taking the sensible option and marrying Sue, was a guilty pleasure indeed.
But so far his reminiscing had been disturbed by the constant noise of sirens going past the window in both directions. A few minutes earlier there’d been a lot of shouting inside the hotel; he even thought he’d heard some shots, although he wasn’t entirely sure. As he lay back on the bed the sound of the sirens grew louder, and they now seemed to be stopping directly outside the hotel.
He thought about getting up to see what all the fuss was about, but quickly dismissed the idea. The world outside the door to room 315 was no longer relevant, especially when he had a date with a young, gorgeous Carrie Wilson, with the gap-toothed smile he’d missed so much.
He picked up the wine glass and took another long sip of the Pinot Noir.
Soon it would be time to start taking the first of the pills.
