protruded from Rossiter’s chest. Rossiter gasped against the sting of the dressing, nodded. ‘I can… spin them a yarn. It’ll give you three a chance to keep working.’
Elle sighed, shook her head. She helped Rossiter to sips of water from a glass from the kitchen, then hoisted one of his arms over her shoulders. Purkiss took Rossiter’s right hand and curled it around the protruding plastic tube.
‘Keep hold of that.’
Ideally there should be a sealed bag on the end to prevent re-entry of the air, but there wasn’t time to look for something suitable. He supported Rossiter from the right and the injured man half stumbled between them towards the door. Kendrick went ahead, checked that the coast was clear on the street below. They moved as quickly as they could to Elle’s car, and lowered Rossiter into the back, Kendrick sliding in beside him.
Purkiss turned in his seat. ‘What happened?’
Another bout of coughing from Rossiter. His voice was a rasp. ‘Went home for some clean clothes, knowing… I’d be at the office all night. Teague was there — surprised him, he was rummaging through drawers and didn’t hear me come in — and just went for me. Wasn’t… armed, just grabbed a paper-knife when the fight started going against him. Stuck me.’ He paused for breath. ‘He didn’t… didn’t hang around after that. Must have thought he’d got me somewhere vital. The heart, perhaps.’ He gave a bitter, choked laugh. ‘Not the first to have difficulty finding it. My heart.’
Purkiss wondered if the man was starting to rave. He cursed himself inwardly that he hadn’t checked for signs of head injury.
Elle watched the rear mirror, her foot down. ‘He obviously lied about following the removal vans from the Rodina offices. What was he doing in your flat, do you think?’
‘God knows.’
Purkiss watched him in the wing mirror. Again Rossiter appeared to be drifting away. Was there more blood, escaping the makeshift dressings?
Kendrick, who hadn’t spoken a word since they had arrived at Rossiter’s, said, ‘This other bloke, Teague. You said the fight was going against him.’
Rossiter nodded.
‘Is he injured?’
‘Hurt his arm, I think. Got a few blows in to his face and neck. Probably not enough to affect his — to affect his mobility.’ In the mirror Purkiss saw a fresh tide of pain ripple across Rossiter’s face.
Blue strobes were suddenly swarming before them. Elle swung into the forecourt of the hospital’s casualty department. She and Purkiss were out the doors, helping Rossiter from the seat, his face paling again in the harsh fluorescent light over the entrance.
Among the cries and jostling of the Friday night custom they found the triage desk. Elle shouted something in Estonian to the young nurse who was rising from her chair, and three more nurses ran forward to support Rossiter and turn him on to his back on a stretcher.
As Purkiss and Elle were turning to go Rossiter grabbed Purkiss’s forearm and whispered, ‘Thanks.’
Purkiss nodded, and they took off.
Twenty-Five
The hotel Abby had been using was on a corner. Elle parked three blocks away across the road within sight of the entrance. They watched the front for a while. There wasn’t much traffic in and out of the glass doors, and the street, while doubtless busier than usual for this time of night, had lost the press of shoppers Purkiss had noticed when he’d been there before.
‘I’m going in on my own,’ he’d said, and she immediately objected. But he prevailed. If Fallon or his people had set up an ambush then at least some of them would be outside to block any escape. It made sense to keep the entrance under watch with Elle at the wheel and Kendrick riding shotgun, rather than corralling one or both of them inside the hotel.
Purkiss stepped out of the car and crossed towards the entrance without looking back, flinching at the squeal of tyres somewhere off in the distance but not breaking his stride. The midnight air was cold and the wind was up, whip points of rain flicking the exposed skin of his face and hands.
In the foyer, a post-dinner business party milled boozily and a cleaner pushed a desultory mop across the tiled floor. Purkiss went up to the reception desk and waited for the woman seated there to come off the phone.
He said, trying English and his best smile, ‘Good evening. I know it’s late but I wonder if you might have a room.’
She glanced at the mark on his neck, at his unshaven cheeks, but only briefly. There was blood on his cuffs from where he’d worked on Rossiter, but he’d rolled them up. In any case she wouldn’t be able to see them from where she was sitting. With a tight smile she peered at her computer screen.
‘Yes, sir, we do.’
He cut in: ‘Something on the first floor?’
Her eyebrows twitched. It was an odd request. Pursing her lips slightly, she considered. ‘One three one’s available — ’
‘And overlooking the courtyard, if possible.’
He could see she was fighting the urge to roll her eyes. ‘One one seven?’
‘Perfect.’ It was the one next door to Abby’s.
He took the registration card and filled it in below the level of the desk so she couldn’t see the blood on his sleeves. He handed it across with his Martin Hughes credit card, and waited while she entered the details, hoping she wouldn’t ask about luggage. After she handed across two key cards he thanked her and turned, expecting either the hotel’s security or someone worse to be bearing down on him. There was nobody.
Purkiss ignored the lift and walked across to the stairs. He climbed them to the first floor. Stepping into the carpeted gloom of the landing he waited, listening. Voices somewhere, the low murmur of a television set through one of the walls. He walked to a bend in the landing and risked a look round. A defective lighting panel in the ceiling gave an occasional flicker, but otherwise the corridor was empty.
Abby’s room was 119. He resisted the temptation to listen at the door and instead approached 117. As softly as he could he slipped in the key card, wincing at the electronic click. He pushed open the door, controlling it as it closed behind him. He took a glass from the bathroom and put its open end against the wall adjoining room 119, pressing his ear to the base. Within a minute he had become acclimatised to the creaks and hollow noises being conducted from far-off parts of the hotel, and was able to distinguish them from the nearer sounds on the other side of the wall: the rustling of cloth, the shift of bedsprings, a footfall.
Purkiss went back into the bathroom. He saw a round shaving mirror affixed to the wall with an extendable arm. He fished a handful of change from his pocket and sorted through it till he found a coin of the right size, then used it to unscrew the arm of the mirror from the wall. Quietly he eased open the sliding door at the far end of the room, the noise muffled by the gathering rain, and stepped out on to the tiny balcony. Below was a courtyard with a scrap of garden. To his right was the identical balcony to room 119. The sliding doors were closed, the heavy curtains drawn.
He pulled the arm of the mirror so that it was maximally extended, and reached across with it as far as he could over the other balcony, tilting it until he had the view he wanted. The curtains were separated a crack at chest height. As he watched the mirror, a man’s torso appeared fleetingly inside the room. Purkiss adjusted the angle some more and saw the side of a man’s face, his mouth moving as he addressed somebody to the side of and below him.
At least two, then.
Back in the room he squatted down at the minibar. He found a bottle of wine and eight miniature bottles of spirits. Among the coffee things on the dresser were six sachets of sugar. He took everything to the bathroom and poured the wine down the sink, then poured the contents of the miniatures into the wine bottle, half filling it. Using his teeth he ripped the edge of a hand towel and tore it lengthways. He rolled it and pushed it deep into the neck of
