‘Look.’
She turned at Morrison’s voice, and looked to where he pointed, dread consuming her at the tone of his voice.
Blood splattered up the far corner of a wall, and the beam from Morrison’s torch wavered as he shone it on the floor tiles.
A single tooth lay amongst a clump of hair.
‘Enough.’
Kay spun on her heel and raced across the room, then up the narrow concrete staircase.
Sharp stood at the doorway to the cellar, his face troubled when she appeared, but she shook her head, unable to speak.
Instead, she pushed her way past him, leaving the office behind and staggering along the corridor to the chink of light that shone through the gap in the back door.
She shoved it open and stumbled into the alleyway, closing her eyes against the bright sunshine, her hands on her hips as she forced fresh air into her lungs.
Footsteps clattered behind her, and she turned around as Carys tumbled out through the door, her face pale.
The detective constable placed a gloved hand on the red brick wall of the empty Chinese takeaway shop and leaned over. She held up her other hand as Kay approached.
‘I’m okay, I’m not going to be sick. I just—’
‘Yeah. I know.’
Kay glanced over her shoulder as the back door slammed open once more on its broken hinges, and Sharp appeared.
He buttoned his suit jacket over his chest as he drew closer, and Kay noticed his hands shaking as he cast his eyes over the younger detective.
‘You going to be all right, Miles?’
‘Guv.’
‘What about you, Hunter?’
His grey eyes swept over her, concern furrowing his forehead.
She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
‘Yeah. I’ll be okay.’
‘Sir, we found this a moment ago.’
They both turned at the sound of Morrison’s voice, a quiver on the edges of his words as he strode towards them, his face grey.
He held up a wire, and Kay took it from him with shaking hands.
She recognised the blue colour all too well.
‘It’s an audio-visual cable – same as you’d use for your home entertainment system to connect it to speakers, or cameras,’ he said.
I know, thought Kay. He put them in my house, too.
She handed it over to Sharp, their eyes locking.
He recognised it, too – thanks to his ex-military contacts, the microphones and miniature cameras she’d discovered in her house had been removed covertly, without alerting Demiri to the fact his surveillance had been thwarted. That recording equipment now sat hidden in a bank’s safe deposit box to which only she and Sharp had keys.
‘Looks like Demiri was filming what his clients were doing down here,’ said Morrison.
‘He gave himself some insurance, so they wouldn’t talk about the place and betray him,’ said Kay, turning the wire between her fingers. ‘Jesus, what a monster.’
‘Those poor women,’ said Carys. ‘All they wanted was a new life.’
‘And this is how they paid for it. Hell of a way to go,’ said Sharp, and visibly shivered. ‘In all my years working on this team, I’ve never seen anything as bad as what’s down here.’
Kay peered back at the nightclub. ‘He’s going to pay for this,’ she snarled.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kay’s mobile phone started ringing as she pushed her key into the front door lock and stumbled into the hallway.
Jostling the two shopping bags in her hand, she dropped her handbag onto the bottom stair tread, placed the bags at her feet and answered it a split second before it went to voicemail.
‘Hi – how’s it going?’
‘You sound out of breath – everything okay?’
She could hear the note of panic in Adam’s voice over the miles.
‘I’m fine – you caught me as I was walking through the front door, that’s all.’ She moved her phone from one hand to the other as she shrugged off her jacket and placed it over the bannister before picking up the shopping bags and making her way through to the kitchen. ‘So, what’s it like?’
‘Good, good. I’m really glad I came, to be honest.’
‘There you go. If you’d stayed here, you’d have missed out. How did your presentation go?’
‘Fantastic. I’ve made some more contacts – one of the chaps I got speaking with has a practice down in Devon I’ll go and see next month—’
Kay let his voice wash over her, his enthusiasm and the normality of his words settling her after the trauma of the search at the nightclub. As she listened to him, she unpacked the bags, flipped the kettle on and settled at the worktop.
‘What about you?’
His words jerked her from her relaxed state.
‘Kay?’
‘Sorry. I was thinking.’
She rubbed at her right eye, and sniffed.
‘You all right?’
‘Yeah. Tough day, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’m only sat here in an empty hotel bar all by myself with an average glass of Pinot Noir if you want to tell me about it?’
‘No – no, that’s okay. Thanks, though. Did you manage to catch up with that bloke you were hoping to meet?’
‘Yes – he’s picking me up from the hotel tomorrow morning so we’ll be out for most of the day. I expect the mobile reception will be crap, too, so if you need me—’
‘Really, everything’s okay.’ She smiled, letting warmth into her voice. ‘You don’t have to worry about me, promise.’
‘You’ve got all the security lights on, yeah?’
‘Yes.’
She proceeded to tell him about the visit from her colleagues the previous night, and he laughed.
‘You’ll never hear the end of it now.’
‘You’re right there. Thank goodness it’s only four weeks until it’s Gavin’s turn to host us – they might have forgiven me by then.’
‘How are Bonnie and Clyde?’
‘Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that Clyde’s skin is healing well.’
‘Oh, that is good news. I’ll make a veterinary nurse out of you yet.’
‘That’s if they’re still here when you get back. I think Carys has her eye on them.’
Laughter rang down the line. ‘I might have known. What about work?’
They chatted for another twenty minutes, and then Adam mentioned his stomach was rumbling, so Kay shooed him off the call and promised
