“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Langham shouted. “That place is on fire!”
He called it in. By the time the fire crew appeared, the house may as well have been classed as gone. He clamped his eyes shut. He suspected something had been put on timer to make sure the place went up once Hiscock and that man were well away, otherwise it would have been on fire as the men had left. If he went over there now, there was no telling whether he’d be able to get inside—whether there was anyone in there who needed saving.
“Should I go there?” He opened his eyes and turned back to Oliver.
“No point. It’s just dead bodies in there. The fire has to destroy something other than those. Colin says it’s some sort of computer. It’s very important that the fire is left to burn. At one time he’d have said the software should be saved, but he’s been talking to Nellie, the woman from The Running Hare, and—”
“Jesus. He knows her?”
“Yeah. Since they were kids, apparently. Anyway, she’s told him that the software is evil.”
Langham laughed. “No more evil than she was, I’ll bet.”
Oliver shrugged. “Colin reckons she’s changed. That he was surprised at what she’d done in life, but now she’s gone back to how she was when he knew her. I’m trying not to get too involved in that side of it. Star-crossed lovers and all that. A love denied. Not my thing, is it.”
“No. And waiting isn’t my thing. I’m getting pissed off now.”
The wait didn’t turn out to be much longer. Villier arrived full of self-importance, as Langham had suspected she would. As a sergeant, she’d been trying hard to move up the ranks, but being a bolshie woman had seemed to prevent her career advancement. Maybe tonight she’d prove she could cope in what appeared to be a weird situation. Langham didn’t want anything to do with it.
“Right,” Villier said. “So you’re saying we might need extra help out at the house?”
“Yes,” Oliver said. “It’s not your usual type of killing. I keep seeing a foreign country in my head, deserts and whatnot, and the feeling is strong that the kind of thing used to kill those people isn’t something the general public know about. Covert weapons use, that sort of thing. Stuff governments keep quiet about. And one of the victims, a man named Colin, keeps saying his boss is someone in politics.”
“Oh fuck.” Villier chewed the inside of her cheek, stared behind them to where the mansion was. “So this investigation may well be taken off of us anyway then.”
“I’d say so,” Oliver said. “There are things going on that they won’t want us knowing about.”
“Yep, police involvement will be closed down,” Langham said.
Villier grimaced. “I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I,” Langham said, “but you’ll come to realise that a lot of things are hushed up. Whether you like it or not, you need to do as you’re told, keep your mouth shut, and just accept that the case isn’t anything to concern yourself with once you’re advised to step back. The fact that Hiscock and Mondon are involved, though… That’s a surprise. They usually kill for hire, with guns. Still, if it means they’ll be apprehended—finally—then that’s a result in itself.”
“Well.” Villier gestured to an officer sitting in her patrol vehicle. “I need to get this car moved over, get it out of the way. And you two had best go. Suppose you’d be better off turning round and using an alternative route.”
“Yep.” And Langham was bloody glad to be doing that, too.
Chapter Seventeen
“What the fucking hell are you two playing at?” Sid blasted down the road, gripping the steering wheel in his meaty hands. “First you ask me to sort it so a second man gets offed—which, by the way, is fine and dandy and done—but then you ask for a passport in a new name and want it at short notice. That isn’t something I can manage within the hour, you know that. I mean, really?”
Jackson winced at the speed Sid was going. “If you don’t slow down, we’re going to get pulled over. I told you that bloody copper saw me. He’ll have called it in—called the description of this van in.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sid waved one hand. “Black vans are popular. Less popular than white, I’ll give you that, but popular all the same. We could be anybody. Besides, it was the only one I had handy. All the others are out. And I’m well aware of that copper and what he’ll have done—fucking stupid of you to have let him see you if you ask me—but I need to get us away from the scene pretty sharpish, don’t I. Fuck me sideways, I know you’re willing to pay handsomely, Mr Whiteling, and pardon my French, but some kind of warning would have been nice. I was about to go to bed.”
“It’s not his fault,” Jackson said.
Jackson jabbed Sid in the ribs. Randall sat on Jackson’s other side, and Jackson wondered now whether it had been a wise move for them to all sit in the front. Perhaps he and Randall should have climbed into the back. Sid, up front alone, would have aroused less suspicion. After all, he was just some overweight bloke, a man who never got a second glance. But Jackson, with his bald nut, and Randall with all that black hair? The police would spot them in no time and put two and two together.
“Stop the van,” Jackson said.
“What?” Sid shook his head. “No bloody way. Not until we’re out of range and where we need to be. And pulling over now isn’t a good idea, look.”
Blue lights swirled ahead. Jackson’s guts rolled. The lights belonged to a fire engine, going by the height of them. That
