widened. Artem grinned, obviously revelling in the patent fear of the prisoner. Slowly, he made a show of clicking off the safety. Wincing, Merrett clenched both his teeth and his buttocks.
‘Enough!’ Ihor Chepoyak stepped out of the shadows and placed a hand on Artem’s shoulder. Reluctantly, the smaller man put the safety-catch back on. Stuffing the gun into the back of his stonewashed jeans, he retreated to the far side of the room.
Gazing out of the window into the North London darkness, Ihor felt a terrible longing for home. It often came when he was in the presence of death. His greatest fear was that he would die in this shit-hole and never make it back to the Ukraine. His final resting place in Lychakiv Cemetery, in Lviv, had long since been chosen and paid for. A substantial crypt, close to the tomb of the poet Ivan Franko, had been secured with the help of a large bribe to a local official, who had overseen the removal and cremation of the remains of the Jewish merchant and his family who had resided there for the previous 120 years. Of course, someone could easily come along and do the same to Ihor himself in due course. But his mother had already been interred there, and Ihor took comfort in knowing that he would join her when his time came.
Finally, he looked down at Merrett. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said quietly. ‘Artem here is not going to kill you.’
Merrett’s mouth went dry. Shivering against the cold, he tried and failed to think of something to say.
‘But we have to do something,’ Ihor continued.
‘Let me go!’ Merrett croaked.
Ihor smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. The problem is that you are a problem.’ His expression hardened. ‘And I have to deal with problems.’
Merrett’s brain finally started working. ‘People will be looking for me.’
‘No one will find you here,’ Ihor snorted.
‘I am a policeman. There will be a massive search.’
Ihor made a face. ‘Oh? So now you admit to being a policeman?’ His laugh was harsh. ‘Well, Mr Policeman, let them look.’
Merrett wiped his nose on the arm of his jacket. ‘If you. . harm me, what will Shen say?’
‘Shen?’ Ihor stepped closer to his captive. ‘Shen doesn’t even know that you exist. But I am sure that he will be delighted to know that you and your colleague Miss Scripps think that he is a corrupt officer.’ Lifting his gaze to the ceiling, Ihor stroked his chin theatrically with his free hand. ‘Yes, I wonder what he will think about that?’
Jesus, Merrett thought, how did he find out about Rose? There was nothing he could do about that right now. ‘Shen?’ he asked. ‘Is he bent?’
‘That is not your problem.’ Moving behind Merrett, Ihor slipped a Fort-12 CURZ pistol out of his pocket. Bringing the barrel to the man’s head he squeezed the trigger once. . twice. By the time Merrett had pitched forward, his blood immediately pooling on the concrete alongside his corpse, the staccato whine of the gunshots had already dissipated through the empty building, to be replaced by the background hum of the traffic noise outside. Putting the gun back in his pocket, Ihor stepped round the body and headed for the door. He nodded to Artem, who was propped against the wall, looking bored. ‘Let’s go.’
Leaning up against the front desk, Carlyle watched Falkirk and his lawyer scuttle out into the London night. It had taken the Earl less than an hour and a half to get legal representation down to Charing Cross police station. And it had taken his lawyer, an overly self-confident young blonde, less than ten minutes to have their interview terminated and her client released. Falkirk had said nothing and made no visible response when Carlyle had placed a series of photographs of Alzbetha’s corpse in front of him.
‘That went well, then,’ said Joe Szyszkowski, appearing behind the desk with a mug of steaming tea in one hand.
The desk sergeant, catching the murderous glint in Carlyle’s eye, shuffled off promptly in search of some paperwork that might need his attention.
Joe noisily slurped the tea. ‘Dolan’s Federation rep called as well. He says that they will be making a formal complaint.’
‘Fuck him,’ Carlyle growled. ‘Is he still here?’
‘No,’ Joe sniffed. ‘He walked out even quicker than his boss.’
‘Great.’ Carlyle felt rage and frustration bubbling in his guts, all the more corrosive because he wasn’t sure what he realistically could have hoped for from tonight’s little escapade. Patience wasn’t his strong point, and he’d reached a place in this investigation where he just had to shake things up a bit.
‘At least we’ve rattled their cage,’ Joe remarked, more or less reading his thoughts, before placing his mug on a coaster on the desk. ‘They’ll have to move more carefully from now on.’
‘Right.’ Carlyle yawned. It was time to go home. They could work out what to do next in the morning. ‘Oh, Christ!’ Gazing across the waiting room, he saw Carole Simpson sweep through the front door. She looked tired but there was a grim determination in her eyes. He tried to remember the last time he had seen her here, at Charing Cross; it had to be the best part of six months. One thing was sure: she wasn’t dropping in at almost ten o’clock at night for a social visit.
Simpson spotted Carlyle and her expression darkened further. Standing up straight, he waited for her to make her way over.
‘John,’ she said, nodding brusquely to Joe Szyszkowski, ‘we need to talk.’
TWENTY
Gavin Heath sat behind the wheel of his Peugeot Bipper Pro, carefully nibbling on his Italian tuna sandwich. Mancini’s cafe on Brecknock Road, 250 yards south of Tufnell Park tube station, was his usual stop-off, just over halfway through his eight-hour shift. Working for Column Security was boring but straightforward. Over the last three years, Gavin had worked his way up from a temporary summer job guarding a building site to becoming a supervisor on the North London circuit, touring a range of empty offices and shops between Kings Cross and Wembley. The job paid less than?12 an hour, plus he had to wear a stupid, fake uniform, but it helped pay for his Business Studies course at UEL — the University of East London.
Finishing his food, Gavin daintily wiped his mouth with a napkin and lifted his coffee from the passenger seat. Removing the lid, he blew on it gently before taking a cautious sip, as he watched the world go by. Tufnell Park was still lively at this time of night and he eyed a couple of pretty black girls laughing and joking as they waited at a bus stop.
When he’d stared at the girls for a few seconds too long, he let his gaze slip ten yards further along the road to Carleton House, which was his next port of call. Gavin studied the ugly, squat office block, stuck between a pawnbroker’s and a discount supermarket, and wondered why anyone would build a speculative office block here. It was completely the wrong part of town even before the economy had gone tits up.
Unsurprisingly, there had been no takers for this ‘premium’ space, and the developer had gone bust. To date, Carleton House had never been occupied, and Gavin thought there was a fair-to-middling chance that it never would be. Inside, it had never even been fitted out. Even though it was less than three years old, the place already looked well on the way to becoming derelict.
The radio on the dashboard crackled. ‘
The caller was Jessica in Despatch. She was a nice girl and, not for the first time, Gavin wondered if maybe she fancied him a bit. She’d even asked him out for a drink once, but he’d declined. He didn’t want to get involved with anyone at Column other than doing his shift. Security was just a temporary thing. When he left it behind, he would leave it all behind.
‘Everything’s fine. I’m just at Carleton House in Tufnell Park.’
‘
Clinton Roache, the office manager, was always complaining about people not following the company’s standard reporting procedures. Out on the road, you were supposed to check in with the office every hour.
Gavin checked the clock on the dashboard and sighed to himself. In truth, he had only checked in once in the
