Trouble, thought Black. He was unarmed and thus disadvantaged.
A sound disturbed the silence. The creak of weight being shifted, somewhere in the interior.
Muscles tensed, he eased himself along the corridor, which was a dog-leg, his senses alert for the slightest sound, the shift of movement. He passed a door to his left, opened it a fraction – a hall cupboard containing domestic stuff: ironing board; clothes rack; towels on shelves. Other oddments. On the wooden flooring before him, a scattering of broken glass. He turned the corner. Three doors, one facing him, one to his right, one to his left. The one facing was half open, and looked like the entrance to the living room. He took a deep breath, entered.
And plunged into a nightmare.
10
The living room was a mess. Television toppled on the floor, screen smashed. Shards of glass strewn across the wooden flooring. Jagged remains of wine bottles; broken ornaments; torn cushions; the window blinds ripped and hanging askew. The room was large, open-plan, stretching into the kitchen. Taking up a good proportion was a black leather corner suite. The black leather had almost disappeared under a new coat of a very different colour. Blood. Everywhere. On the furniture, on the floor, spattered on the walls. Lying sprawled on the suite was the naked body of a young woman. Her torso, neck and groin were a mass of stab wounds. Her clothes were scattered on the floor, saturated in blood. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, empty and dead.
Black held his breath. A noise behind him. He turned slowly. A man stood in the doorway. He was dressed from head to foot in the papery plastic outfit worn by crime scene investigators. In one gloved hand he held a semi-automatic pistol. Black recognised the issue – a Glock G22. Equipped with silencer. The man had narrow features, jutting chin, nervous eyes set under a beetling brow.
Black heard the front door close. Another man, similarly garbed, entered the living room via the kitchen. In one hand, a long steel-handled butchers’ knife, smeared in blood.
Easy to guess what it had been used for.
The man held the Glock in a two-handed grip, the barrel only four feet from Black’s face.
“You’re here,” he said. “You couldn’t let it go.”
“Let what go?” asked Black, ignoring the pistol, keeping eyes locked on the man’s face. The man with the knife stopped an arm’s length from him, hovering. Waiting for instructions, Black surmised.
“Our lucky day. This is how this plays out. You had drinks. Things got out of hand. You wanted to fuck. She said no. You’re not the type of man who takes no for an answer. You had your way. You stabbed her. Stabbed her, and kept going. Using the knife as your dick. Classic sex crime. But she caught you in the neck. A single flick of the blade. Caught you in the carotid artery. You’ll bleed out on the floor, beside your girlfriend. Your fingerprints all over the knife. Hook, line and sinker. The police won’t look beyond the end of their nose. Case closed. As I said, lucky day.”
“You should have been in amateur dramatics. Shooting me with that fancy Glock isn’t going to help your little stage setting.”
“Shut up. Kneel down, Mr Black, or I will blow your fucking brains out. I kid you not.”
“I assume the dead girl is Fiona Jackson.”
“Shut up. Kneel.”
“No.”
The man took a step closer, licking his lips with a small darting tongue. His voice rose.
“I swear I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
Black answered in a measured voice. “I have no doubt. But whether I kneel or not, I’m a dead man. Either shot, or stabbed by your friend. I don’t like my choices.” He gave a cold grin. “So, I guess I want to fuck things right up for you. I’d rather have a bullet in the head and the cops asking lots of questions, than giving you a gift-wrapped crime scene. So be my guest. Pull the trigger.”
Black held the man’s stare. He heard a sound in his head – the drum of his heart. He was playing a dangerous bluff. The man looked nervous. A millimetre twitch of the finger, and Black had a bullet in the head. He focused, nerves stretched. A second passed, two seconds. The man gave a delicate, almost imperceptible shrug, flicking a glance at the man with the knife. But Black saw it. And Black knew exactly what it meant. It was what he was hoping for. The last thing they wanted was to shoot him.
The other man knew as well. He jerked forward, slicing the knife towards Black’s neck. Black wheeled round to face him, stepped in, raised a forearm, blocked, jerked up his elbow, slamming it under the man’s chin. He heard teeth crack. The top of the man’s tongue flew out, a pink lump of moist gristle, bitten clean through. The move was performed in two seconds. The man was stunned, staggered back.
Black wasn’t finished. He caught the man’s wrist, pulled him in, twisted. A bone snapped. The man shrieked in pain. The knife clattered onto the wooden floor. He was off-balance. Using his momentum, still gripping his arm, Black whirled him into the man holding the Glock.
A further two seconds of confusion followed. The man with the Glock shoved his friend out of the way. Too late for niceties. He would kill Black any way he could. Gunshot or knife wound, it was past time for caring. He pointed the Glock. Black was on him, slapping the pistol to one side. It fired, the silencer reducing the shot into a sound like a muffled cough. The man who’d carried the knife grunted, as a bullet punched through his chest, shredding organs and spine. He collapsed onto the broken television, and lay
