Ratcatcher

at Braginsky himself. No good: they’d riddle their own man if they had to. Purkiss placed the gun on the ground and raised his hands. Braginsky’s legs buckled and he slid to the ground, his face a gargoyle mask of fear.

Purkiss scanned the environment. There was nothing he could do, nothing. The door to the fire escape was too far away to be of any use, and the men were between him and the doors to the inner stairs. If they didn’t take his phone away from him immediately he might be able to get a message to Elle and Kendrick. The likelihood of that was almost non-existent.

One of the men coughed, and frowned at the rope of blood his mouth flung out on to the concrete. An instant later the crash of a shot rang off the walls around the roof. The man hit the ground face-down as the other three spun and crouched, one of them knocked off his feet immediately by a second shot. The man with the shotgun pulled the triggers of his weapon. The boom of the firing mechanism was followed by the stinging spatter of lead shot against the wall of one of the blocks. His body jerked twice and he twisted towards Purkiss as he fell. The fourth man got to his feet, swung his gun arm over to point it at Purkiss. Purkiss dived and rolled on his shoulder and the shots sang off the wall. Braginsky screamed and spun face-down, hit by a ricochet, Purkiss assumed. The man was taking aim again when the rifle hammered. He was hit three times before he could fire. He sprawled awkwardly, the gun spinning and skittering away from him across the surface of the roof.

The aftershock of the gunfire had left a high peal in Purkiss’s ears. Below, the sirens were becoming more insistent, the notes from assorted vehicles overlapping. Purkiss crouched, holding the Sig-Sauer lowered in a two- handed grip. From the doorway of one of the stairwell blocks Elle and Kendrick had broken into a run towards him, Kendrick with the rifle at the ready and Elle holding her pistol at her side. As they got near Purkiss saw her eyes were dazed. It was the first time she’d killed, he thought.

‘There may be more coming up behind,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘And the police are on the way.’

Purkiss said, ‘The fire escape.’ He pulled open the door and looked down. Nobody in the alley yet. They began to descend, Purkiss in the lead and Kendrick at the back, their soles squealing on the metal steps. As they approached the window Purkiss had climbed out of, voices from the room beyond became louder. He ignored them and slipped past, hearing them turn to shouts.

Two floors from the bottom Kendrick said, ‘Ah, bollocks,’ as a police car pulled across the mouth of the alley.

There was nothing to do but keep going. One floor down Purkiss said, ‘Jump’, and swung himself over the banister. His shirt caught on a spur of metal and tore all the way down. The doors of the car were opening, uniformed men emerging and yelling. Purkiss hung in space for a second, then hit the floor, rolling. Something spanged and chipped off the tarmac beside him. The low crack of the shot trailed after it.

Why are they shooting at us, he thought, before realising the shot had come from far away and another direction. He rolled over and over, deeper into the alley, sounds coming disorientatingly from all around, shouting and sirens and two more cracks (from above, he now understood; reinforcements had arrived on the roof). Then he was up and running at a low crouch, glancing behind him, seeing Elle and Kendrick close at his back.

Behind them a couple of the policemen were shouting something. One of them tried to come forward, but he cringed back as a rain of shots spackled off the steps. The police seemed torn between returning the fire from above and covering Purkiss and his colleagues, especially as the firing from the roof didn’t appear to be aimed at them. Kendrick crouched behind some steel bins and started to lay down covering fire, aiming diagonally upwards at the fire escape door. Purkiss hoped to God he didn’t start shooting at the police.

The alley didn’t, as Purkiss had thought before, end blindly. There was a narrow gap, wide enough to fit a single person, leading through to a street at the back of the hotel. Elle pointed at the gap and nodded. Purkiss waved her ahead of him and yelled at Kendrick, ‘Come on.’

The shooting from above had stopped. That was a bad sign, because the police would now be free to come after them or, worse, start firing. Purkiss grabbed two dustbin lids and held them up as makeshift shields. He winced as a bullet smashed into the wall of the alley. Another sang off one of the lids, the impact almost knocking it from his hand. He waited till Kendrick disappeared through the gap, then crammed himself through. Ahead Elle was sprinting, not waiting for them. He understood that she needed to get to the car and start it up.

They weaved and cannoned through the maze of streets, bouncing off the rain-slicked walls. Purkiss was aware of a terrifying claustrophobia. He felt hemmed in on all sides by the clusters of people, the coloured lights, the vehicles. He had no idea where he was running, kept his gaze on Elle several yards ahead, who was a faster runner than he’d realised. He saw a screaming couple recoil from them. As if for the first time he noticed the rifle in Kendrick’s grip. He yelled, ‘Get rid of that.’ Kendrick snarled something bestial in reply and kept hold of the gun.

And they were at the car, its exhaust already alive and growling. They piled inside. Elle looked in the mirrors, pulled away gently and kept the speed slow, maddeningly so. Much as Purkiss wanted to shout at her to put her foot down, he understood the need to be unobtrusive. He turned in his seat and stared back through the rear window. High on the roof of the hotel he saw helmeted figures swarming under the spotlights, the occasional prick of light from a gunshot. On the streets below people were massing in fear and wonder, craning their gazes upwards, like peasant villagers staring up at a Gothic castle where terrible deeds were being perpetrated.

Never in front of his men would Venedikt lose control. To do so would be humiliating, unmanly. It would also be tactically unwise, because every display of fear and doubt in the leader would kindle such feelings in his followers, where they would be magnified a thousandfold.

‘We believe all eight are dead, sir.’

It was sir now, not Venedikt Vasilyevich. Dobrynin had been making and taking phone calls. Now he stood before Venedikt, his mutilated hand grasped in the other, the only sign of his nerves.

‘Eight.’.

‘Yes. Braginsky and Ivanov from the room, the remaining six on the roof.’

‘All dead.’

‘None in custody, as far as we know. The police have not been seen to take anybody away yet. The only ambulance has been to attend to an injured policeman on the ground.’

‘And no Purkiss.’

‘No, sir. He and the other two have escaped.’

Venedikt felt the urge to probe his temples with his fingertips but resisted. Control.

‘And we don’t know if Purkiss learned anything from any of the men.’

‘No, sir.’

The office was spartan, unused before now. He would have preferred that they hadn’t had to use it. Now, perhaps, they would have to move again. But where to? He watched Dobrynin’s face, the grave, calm expression. On the periphery of Venedikt’s vision the wall clock said ten past one.

Seven hours.

‘It’s a setback.’

Dobrynin stood poised, waiting for the next.

‘A setback. But no more.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Dobrynin exhaled, audibly, grasping the meaning. We stay put. We proceed as planned.

Venedikt waved him into a seat. With pen and paper they made rapid calculations. Eight men down. A third of their number. It was a setback, indeed, a serious though not a fatal one.

After Dobrynin had left Venedikt walked outside and stood in the sharp cold, relishing the tingle of the fine rain on his upturned face. The row of disused hangars in the distance resembled the tailbones of some gigantic fossilised prehistoric beast. Only one, the nearest, was illuminated, the men moving about moth-like under the arc lights. They had worked swiftly, transporting everything to the new location within ninety minutes.

No. The energy and manpower that would have to be spent in moving everything again would be better directed towards another goal. Finding Purkiss, and neutralising him.

First, Venedikt needed to speak to his English ‘friend’. The word was increasingly bitter in his mind. The ‘friend’ was playing games with him. It was time for a reminder of who was in charge.