‘That’s just so you don’t get any ideas,’ I told him, and turned towards the girl, who was sat hugging her feet to her chest, watching us raptly.
I smiled, wanting to reassure her that she was safe now, but she didn’t smile back. Instead, she simply stared at me with wild animal fear, and I wondered what terrible journey she’d been on to get to this place where she’d become nothing more than a disposable product to be consumed by monsters.
When Marco had got back to his feet, I pushed him out of the door and gestured for the girl to follow, hoping she’d respond. She hesitated, then got to her feet and followed.
As I picked up the switchblade from the desk where Tracksuit had put it, Marco’s phone buzzed in my pocket.
I ushered Marco into the front of the car and the girl and I got in the back. Then, as he started the engine, I took out the phone.
Good. When are you coming?? read Sheridan’s text.
My text back was even shorter: Soon.
59
Half an hour later, Marco was driving his Mercedes up a long, winding hill through dense forest. Below us to the south I could see the lights of Sarajevo shimmering in the valley under a bright three-quarter moon. I’d made him drop the girl off at a private hospital in the city centre, and had given her a thousand euros of my own money to help pay for anything she needed. As soon as she knew she was free, she was out of the car and racing up the hospital steps in her bare feet and, watching her go, I truly hoped that she made it back home and managed to put the ordeal behind her.
Now it was just the two of us, and Marco wasn’t going anywhere since I’d cuffed his right wrist to the steering wheel. As he drove, I emptied the magazine and checked the number of bullets. Nine. More than enough.
‘You say Sheridan’s got two guards on the property. Where will they be?’ I asked him.
‘He keeps them well away from the house,’ said Marco. ‘One is usually in the gatehouse at the entrance, where the camera screens are. The other is meant to be patrolling the grounds. Most of the time I expect they are both in the gatehouse.’ He looked back over his shoulder. ‘What are you planning to do?’
I knew exactly what I was going to do. Until I’d shot Cem Kalaman a week ago I’d had my doubts that I could ever kill the way an assassin kills. But I knew now for sure that I could, and that Alastair Sheridan could no longer be allowed to live. The thought that he would have raped and murdered the girl in the cage, and made her final hours, possibly days, a living hell, steeled my nerves.
‘I’m going to kill him,’ I said. ‘And then you’re going to drive me back to the city, unless you fancy dying in there with him.’
He shook his head energetically. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘I didn’t think so. You’re a piece of shit, Marco, but my quarrel’s with Sheridan, so if you do as you’re told, you live. But the moment you try to double-cross me, you die.’
Marco looked at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m not going to do anything stupid, OK? But this is fucked up, my friend. You can’t just kill Sheridan. He’s going to be the next leader of your country.’
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ I said. ‘He isn’t.’
Marco evidently decided that it was best just to shut up, because that’s what he did. A couple of minutes later he took a turning down a narrow, newly tarmacked road and slowed the car.
‘We’re coming up to the gatehouse. If my man at the gate sees my handcuffs he’ll know something’s wrong.’
I passed the key over to him and slid down in the seat so I was out of sight. ‘I’ve got the gun trained right on your back, Marco. One wrong move and I start shooting.’
‘OK, OK,’ he said, taking the cuffs off and chucking them down beside his seat.
A minute later, he came to a halt in front of a large, imposing gate lit by twin lamps, one on each gatepost, and pressed the button to let down the driver’s side window.
I slid further down in the seat so I was almost lying down as a man approached and he and Marco had a quick conversation in Serbo-Croat. Then Marco brought the window up again and the gates opened.
We drove inside and I stayed down until, after about fifty yards, he brought the car to a halt. I sat up and saw that we’d parked in front of a large gothic-looking mansion with grey stone walls and swathes of ivy like jungle creepers running down them. There were lights on inside and the curtains were drawn.
‘What now?’ asked Marco.
‘Does he have a camera watching the front door?’
‘I’m not sure. I think so. Maybe.’
‘Well, you’d better be the one who knocks on it then.’
I followed him out of the car. The night was still and peaceful, the moon bathing the house’s neatly kept gardens in eerie light. No one appeared to be watching us from the gatehouse but, even so, I kept to the shadows and out of sight as Marco mounted the steps to the front door.
He knocked hard while I stayed round the corner, the gun already drawn, and then it was opened and I heard Alastair’s voice, deep and cheery. ‘Hello Marco, have you—’
He never finished the sentence. I was round the corner in an instant, and there he was. Alastair Sheridan. My nemesis. The man who’d murdered Dana Brennan and countless others. The man who’d destroyed my life.
His face didn’t just fall, it collapsed as he saw me. But I didn’t give him a
