cans and pretending to be Teddy Sheringham and Tony Cascarino. Tonight it was quiet.
There was more building going on on the other side of the tracks. The metal skeleton of the building was slowly being wrapped in bricks and mortar.
He didn’t have a weapon. No doubt he could have climbed over the wall and dropped down onto the building site and found a decent sized rock. Or maybe a piece of steel pipe or rebar, a chisel, hammer or other tool. He decided against it, not for any ethical reasons-he had no problem with stealing from a construction site. No, he wanted to do this with his bare hands. He didn’t want anything between him and Devere as he beat the life out of him.
Konstantin found the building. Lethe was right, he couldn’t miss it. It was one of those carbuncles on the face of the city Prince Charles had been railing about for years while no one paid the slightest bit of notice to his royal raving.
He had lost his bump key when the BKA took him into custody, so getting past the security was going to be a little more complicated. He stepped back, standing just out of the puddle of light from the streetlight, and looked up at the facade. There was a fairly substantial drainage system on the outside of the house, with pipes running all the way down from the roof. He’d never understood why the British put their water pipes on the outside of their houses, when the cold came they were always going to crack, maybe not for ten years, but eventually they would. Freeze, thaw, and all of that. Pipes on the outside was asking for problems. Good metal pipes properly set into the mortar were asking for an entirely different set of problems.
Konstantin picked a path up to the first balcony. It was a long affair that actually ran around half of the frontage, then turned right to catch some of the lowering evening sun. The second story balcony repeated the pattern. It was the same for each of the four stories. The water pipes threaded through the narrowest of places, where the balconies didn’t over lap. Once he got to the first one it would be relatively easy to climb to the next. Of course there was no guarantee that when he got there the balcony doors would be open-and if they weren’t, hell would freeze over before Devere stopped playing Little Pig and let him in.
He could always try the buzzer trick again, but there were only three buzzers and no lights in any of the lower apartments. He didn’t waste any more time. He shimmied up the drainpipe, scuffing his feet off the wall, and hooked his hand onto the first balcony so that he could pull himself up. Second to third was almost as easy. He stood on the balcony rail and reached up. The next level was six inches out of reach, so leaning out over the drop, he jumped.
Konstantin caught the concrete base of the balcony and hauled himself up as though he was doing chin-ups, then swung, hooking his leg up onto the balcony railing and climbed onto the third story balcony. He repeated the maneuver for the fourth story and stood there for a moment, looking in through the huge plate glass doors and dusting his hands off.
The television was on, casting shadow shapes across the contours of the lounge.
Miles Devere was slumped in a leather armchair. He had his eyes closed and rested in the posture of someone who’d slipped into sleep.
Konstantin wanted him awake for the fun.
He checked his watch. It wasn’t quite midnight. There were chairs on the balcony, good cushioned chairs with high backs. Konstantin settled down into one of them. He was going to do this the Russian way. That meant coming late, four o’clock, coming in fast and hard and scaring the living crap out of Devere before he made him beg and plead and offer to pay anything, to give up his fortune, anything, and everything. Konstantin wasn’t about to be bought. When Devere was through begging he would beat the man to death and leave him in his fancy skyscraper city apartment surrounded by all the fine things money could buy.
He had the patience of a saint when it came to keeping a promise.
He looked out over the river, watching the city at night. It was a curious beast. It never quietly slept. He couldn’t understand the appeal of it. It was dirty, smelly, over-crowded, just like any other city in the world. He scanned the rooftops from The Tower to St. Paul’s distinctive dome and over the rooftops to The London Eye and, almost on the edge of what could be seen, Big Ben. The night lights made it seem like a different place. Like a fairy tale city. They might soften the sharp edges of the architecture, but they couldn’t hide the fact that right now murder was the only tale of the city worth telling.
He checked his watch again.
Two a.m.
Soon, he promised himself. The ambient light from the television went out.
Two hours passed slowly. Konstantin didn’t mind. Some moments were worth savoring. This was one of them. The moon was full and bright.
He stood up and walked the length of the balcony, looking for a makeshift tool that would help him break the lock open if he needed it. Three out of ten burglaries in the city required no force at all because the occupants were too dumb to lock their own doors and windows, but Konstantin was working under the impression that Devere was security conscious. Rich men usually were-to the point of paranoia. Whatever he was, Devere wasn’t a keen gardener. There was no ready supply of tools for turning the soil and planting bulbs in the window boxes.
He walked back slowly to the balcony doors. The basic locks that come with balcony doors are usually brittle and quite soft, meaning they will break under pressure. It didn’t matter how tough the glass was if the lock was going to shatter under a decent amount of leverage. A broom handle was enough to break most of them, but thankfully, most of the people sleeping soundly out there under the soft lights in fairy tale city didn’t know that. If they did, they wouldn’t have been sleeping at all, never mind soundly.
The door was locked, but he couldn’t see any additional locks or security-meaning Devere thought living four flights up made him safe. He wouldn’t live to regret that mistake.
Konstantin found what he was looking for: a metal rod from the clothes hanger Devere used to dry his designer shirts.
He slipped it through the lock handle and applied a little pressure, testing it out. He felt the resistance, then pressed again, a little harder this time, working the lock. It split on the third try, with a crack like a gunshot.
He tossed the metal rod aside and slid the door open on its runner.
He went inside.
The apartment had that eerie four o’clock silence. He moved quickly through the place, walking from room to room. The decor was spartan, Scandinavian minimalist. It had absolutely no stamp of personality on it, and that wasn’t just because of the dark. It wasn’t actually that dark inside; the full moon painted everything silver.
Each white wall had a single piece of art on it. Konstantin couldn’t tell if they were cheap prints or expensive originals. He wasn’t much of an art lover. He recognized some pieces, especially by the old masters, but the new stuff, not so much. He liked his artists like he liked his enemies, dead.
Devere didn’t look like a paranoid man. There were motion detectors in each room at strategic points, and the little red light blinked every time Konstantin moved, but no alarm sounded. Like most people, he obviously didn’t set the alarm when he was in the apartment.
He found Devere’s room.
He listened to the sleeping man’s gentle snores through the door for a moment, checking his watch again. It was four o’clock sharp. It was time to raise some hell. Konstantin kicked the door open, yelling bloody murder as he charged into the room.
Miles Devere thrashed about in the starched white sheets of the bed. Brutally woken, he came up into the sitting position with his right hand across his heart.
Konstantin didn’t give him a second to work out what was happening.
He flew at Devere, straight across the room and into his face like some sort of hellion out of his worst nightmare-and that was exactly what Devere would be thinking for those few seconds as the mad shrieking silhouette charged at him. He hit Devere once, a back-handed left across the side of his face, then grabbed his hair and dragged out of the bed.
By then Devere had worked out what was happening.
It didn’t help him.
Konstantin bundled Devere to the floor and laid into him with his booted feet, kicking him again and again until the naked man was crumpled up in a fetal ball trying to protect himself. He didn’t say a word, he just stepped back, giving himself room to drive another kick into Devere’s back.
He bent down and grabbed a handful of Devere’s hair and dragged him through to the living room. Devere
