names, photographs of his victims; the discs containing the child pornography downloaded onto Lalique’s computer; the artist’s impression of the sword; detailed descriptions of every operation he’d painstakingly designed. All his hard work was now nothing more than evidence, enough to sink him so deep he’d never come back up.
He had to get rid of it all immediately. Grabbing the waste paper basket from under the desk, he shook out all the crumpled pages of book notes and started throwing the incriminating material into it.
Now, he had some matches somewhere, he thought feverishly, left over from the romantic candlelit dinner that had never happened, thanks to that ungrateful bitch Daria Pignatelli. He found them on the side, struck one and tossed the burning match into the waste paper basket.
He watched as the flames leapt up and the evidence began to blacken and curl. The incriminating paperwork caught light. The computer discs twisted and melted. He was safe now.
That was when it occurred to him that it was a wicker basket, and it would catch fire along with its contents. By then the flames were already spreading fast and he couldn’t stamp them out with his bare feet. The office began to fill with smoke. Penrose coughed.
The pool building comprised four integral changing rooms behind wooden doors labelled SPOGLIATOIO 1–4. Each contained its own luxurious shower cubicle, large wardrobes for clothing and shoes, storage units for towels, robes, hairdryers and assorted items, and lockers for personal effects, offering several possible hideyholes for a bag full of money. After a couple of minutes’ fruitless search of Spogliatoio 1, Cutter went next door to see how Grinnall was faring.
‘Bugger all luck,’ Grinnall said, standing in a heap of towels and slamming the lid of an empty storage unit.
‘Where’s Dave?’ Cutter asked with a frown. Grinnall shook his head. Cutter sighed and headed for the entrance, pausing at the poolside to glance lovingly at the holdall and its one-point-two-eight-million cargo. Grinnall bustled angrily into Spogliatoio 3, ripping into the storage spaces and muttering to himself about what he’d like to do to that twisted little fuck Penrose Lucas.
‘Dave?’ Cutter called outside. ‘Oy! Mills!’ There was no sign of him anywhere. Cutter strode back inside the pool building. He was about to say something to Grinnall when he stopped and did a double-take.
The holdall full of money was no longer where it had been sitting just a moment ago.
‘Terry, why’d you shift the bag?’
Grinnall came out of the changing room, looking disgruntled. ‘What?’
‘Where’s the money?’
‘I don’t know. Where’d you put it?’
‘Right there. Don’t wind me up.’
‘I’m not fucking winding you up. I never touched it.’
‘Then where the fuck is it?’ Cutter said, frowning deeply. His immediate thought was that Dave Mills must have sneaked in and made off with it. He panicked for a second and was about to run outside after him — but then he realised that wasn’t possible. His back had only been turned a moment. He looked all around him. Was he going crazy?
Then he spotted it. A dark shape at the bottom of the pool, sitting on the tiled floor of the deep end. ‘Oh, fuck, no!’
Without an instant’s hesitation, Cutter dived into the pool and began swimming towards the bag with powerful strokes. As he reached it, six feet underwater, he prayed the money wouldn’t be ruined.
Grinnall was standing anxiously at the edge of the pool, watching and praying much the same thing, when an arm suddenly snaked out from behind him, locked tightly around his neck and hauled him backwards off his feet towards the open door of Spogliatoio 3.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Ben knew exactly who he was dealing with. Brown had provided detailed profiles on Penrose Lucas’s hired guns. The big guy in the leather coat was Terry Grinnall. Thirty-six years old. Ex British Army, but he’d only followed that career long enough to learn that he could kill more people, with greater impunity and for a lot more pay, as a private soldier. Bosnia, Afghanistan, Africa, the usual trail of blood and money. Somewhere along it he’d encountered former Para, Steve Cutter.
But the trail ended here. Ben dragged Grinnall inside the changing room and slammed the door shut with his foot. He grappled the man to the floor, keeping his left arm locked around his throat and his right hand over his mouth.
Grinnall was as strong as he was heavy. He flailed out with his fists and feet and tried to smash Ben in the face with the back of his head and bite his hand. Ben squeezed harder, flattening his windpipe shut. Grinnall bucked and thrashed like a wild man.
In just a few more seconds, Cutter would be out of the pool, and Ben would have problems if he faced having to deal with them both at once. Cutter was smaller and less powerful, but he was also smarter and more dangerous. Ben had seen enough to know that as he’d watched them move through the villa.
He also knew that he’d encountered the guy once before.
Just seconds. But Grinnall had only a few seconds, too.
Or maybe not. Just when Ben thought Grinnall was beginning to lose consciousness, the man suddenly gave a violent buck that broke Ben’s grip on him. He twisted round and flung a vicious punch at the side of Ben’s head. Ben blocked it — only just.
The next few instants were a life or death struggle for both of them. A powerful knee flew up and caught Ben in the stomach, almost knocking the wind out of him. Ben drove the heel of his hand into Grinnall’s chin, slamming his head down hard with a crack against the tiled floor. Grinnall reached up with both hands clawed, going for Ben’s eyes.
And Ben drew the Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger from his leg sheath and punched its slender tip downwards through the leather coat and into Grinnall’s heart. Clapped his hand over the man’s mouth to stifle the terrible sucking gasp that people made when a cold steel blade penetrated deep inside their body. He stabbed the knife in again, then again, feeling the razor-sharp edges grind against bone as they parted Grinnall’s ribs on their way through.
Grinnall’s eyes rolled back and his body went limp. Ben clambered painfully to his feet. He plucked out the knife and wiped it quickly on the dead man’s trouser leg, slipped it back into his sheath. Bundled the heavy corpse into the shower cubicle, then opened the changing room door a crack and peered cautiously out.
Straining every muscle with a groan of effort, Cutter heaved the dead-weight of the holdall out of the water and shoved it up onto the edge of the pool. He hauled himself up and collapsed next to the soaking wet bag, gasping and dripping water everywhere. The money! He fumbled for the holdall’s zipper and ripped it open. The stacks of notes inside were completely sodden. He moaned in despair.
‘Terry!’ he yelled, suddenly realising that Grinnall wasn’t there.
‘Terry’s in the shower right now,’ Ben said.
Cutter looked up and his eyes widened, then narrowed into slits. He looked like what he was, cornered and deadly. Ben kept the silenced Browning Hi-Power aimed squarely at his head as he approached. The pistol had come courtesy of the Trimble Group, along with the commando dagger and certain other mission-specific items Ben had brought with him to Capri.
‘I know you,’ Cutter said, watching every step.
‘I know you, too,’ Ben said. ‘Little Denton vicarage, the night my friends died. You were making an unscheduled pick-up. And I never forget a voice.’
‘Hope.’
‘That’s me.’
‘Mills?’
‘Took up high-diving,’ Ben said. ‘You’re the last.’
Cutter gave a bitter grin. ‘There you go. Don’t suppose I’ll ever know where the rest of that cash was, will I?’
