Текст книги "Good Bait"

Автор книги: John Harvey

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

At the foot of the stairs they exchanged smiles and went their separate ways, Karen fast-dialling Mike Ramsden as she did so, setting up a meeting of their own, how to proceed from here.

35

Not quite able to settle, alert for sounds of an approaching car, strange voices, a vehicle turning into the lane, they had fallen, nevertheless, into something approaching a routine. Letitia was the more listless, the more likely to lapse into moods of depression, alleviated by her son’s almost omnipresent good humour.

Kiley had made contact with Anton’s brother, Taras, as requested; driven up from London and met him at an Ibis hotel, off the M6 north of Preston. Phoned Cordon to report.

Anton was under a lot of pressure, Taras had told him, seeking to explain his brother’s behaviour. Business, it does not always run well. He chose not to elaborate. And on top of that, this thing with Letitia and his son … much as he liked Letitia, Taras said, she was in the wrong. Taking a man’s son away from him, his flesh and blood.

Taras had gripped Kiley’s arm. ‘In our country, in Ukraine, it is most important bond. Family. Father and son. Holy, you understand? Here, in England, perhaps is different. But for us, for Anton … And what did she think, Letitia? She could run, hide forever? And you, you know where she is. Her and the boy.’

Kiley had shaken his head.

‘You must.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘This man with her …’

‘A man with her?’

‘This man, he is her lover?’

‘No.’

‘You are sure of this?’

Kiley nodded.

‘Then why?’

‘A friend.’

‘A fool.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You know where they are,’ Taras said again.

‘She wants to be certain nothing will happen to her,’ Kiley said. ‘If she returns. Her or the boy. She wants to know that Anton will sit down with her and talk, talk reasonably.’

‘Of course.’

‘A lawyer should be involved.’

‘No lawyers. He does not like lawyers.’

‘An accommodation needs to be reached. Equal access to the child.’

‘Equal, no. He will never agree. Danya is his son.’

‘Equal access and a financial arrangement of some kind, to look after the boy. The exact details can be sorted later.’

Over and over, Taras was shaking his head.

‘I was told you were a reasonable man,’ Kiley said. ‘A good man. Someone who could be trusted to do the right thing.’

Taras flexed the fingers of both hands, the knuckles cracking, one after another. ‘I will speak with him. My brother. Do what I can. I will let you know.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But no promise.’

‘I understand.’

‘What d’you think?’ Cordon had asked Kiley, once the conversation had been relayed.

‘My best guess?’

‘Of course.’

‘My guess would be, sooner or later Anton will come round. Pretend to, at least. Agree to terms, and then, when he’s got them in his sights, renege on the whole thing. Till then, I’d keep a weather eye.’

‘You’re a pal, Jack.’

‘Just wait till you get my bill.’

Cordon took it as a joke; hoped against hope that it was. All too aware that Kiley had already gone the extra mile and beyond. Loyalties stretched close to breaking point, he shouldn’t wonder.

‘As soon as Taras gets back to me,’ Kiley said, ‘I’ll let you know.’

They were still waiting.

In the kitchen, next to Letitia, Cordon was Heston Blumenthal and Nigel Slater rolled into one. ‘Cordon Bleu again, eh?’ Letitia had joked, on her way from bathroom to bedroom through the kitchen. The towel she was holding wrapped around her slipped just a little as she turned away.

Cordon used a fork to turn the sausages in the pan, where they were cooking with onions, a couple of bay leaves and a scattering of fennel. The potatoes were simmering, ready to be mashed with milk and butter. He poured a splash of red wine in with the sausages, another into the gravy that was thickening in a small saucepan to one side.

‘You’d make someone a lovely husband,’ Letitia said, coming back into the room. ‘Anyone ever tell you that?’

‘Not recently.’

She picked up his glass and sampled the wine. Made an approving face and poured some generously into a glass of her own.

‘You could tell Danny dinner’s nearly ready,’ Cordon said. ‘Drag him away from the TV.’

Some forty-five minutes later, plates that had been full were close to empty; even Danny had made short work of two fat sausages and a good dollop of mash soaked in gravy. Only the onions had been pushed to the side of his plate and left.

‘Now tell me there’s apple pie,’ Letitia said.

‘Afraid not.’

‘Anything?’

‘Pears. Cheese.’

‘What kind of cheese?’

‘Goat’s.’

She put two fingers in her mouth and mimed throwing up and, laughing at this, Danny had a coughing fit that reduced him to tears.

Cordon did the washing-up and Letitia, having run a bath for Danny, dried.

Cordon opened a second bottle of wine.

Letitia washed her son’s hair, rinsed it, and rubbed it dry. Kissed him and tucked him up in bed. Read him story after story until his eyelids fluttered closed. Kissed him again, gently, sat watching him a while longer, then tiptoed away, angling the door quietly closed.

She was not going to lose him, no matter what.

There was a sliver of moon in the sky; faint clusters of stars. Close against the open doorway, Letitia shivered and lit a cigarette. Cordon was standing midway between the house and the barn, staring up into the sky. His father had taught him the names of all the constellations and now, though he could trace their patterns with his eyes, Orion aside, he could not have named a single one.

It didn’t matter, he told himself, why should it? But in some way he couldn’t quite explain, not knowing was letting his father down; dishonoured him; what he stood for, what he was.

‘Don’t you have a son somewhere?’ Letitia had said to him the other day. ‘South Africa, somewhere? Australia?’

He hadn’t answered.

Her cigarette sparked now in the darkness.

‘Danny sleeping?’ he asked, turning in her direction.

‘I think so.’

She thought he was going to stop beside her as he drew level, but instead he carried on into the house.

36

Ramsden had been right about the car used in the Camden shootings, the BMW; it had been found on the upper level of a supermarket car park out at St Albans, burned to a blackened shell. The lab techs had done what they could – cyanoacrylate fuming, VMD – but to no avail. If there was a link back to Valentyn Horak, always assuming Horak and his associates had been responsible, this wasn’t it.

So far, they had had no success in discovering whatever vehicle had ferried the bodies to Stansted, nor where Horak and the others had been tortured prior to being killed. Gordon Dooley, suspected of being behind the crimes, avenging the gunning down of two of his own, was still under careful surveillance and was placing not a foot out of line. The only regular visits he made were to his ageing mother in a care home in Haywards Heath and to the chiropractor dealing with his back, spatial realignment of the spine. The only phone calls to one of his ex-wives, urging a reconsideration of the amount he was currently paying in child support, and to his bookmaker ahead of meetings at Kempton, Haydock and Southwell.

The CCTV operator who’d conveniently phoned in sick on the evening the three bodies were placed inside the airport storage unit, was still adamant that his migraine had been real, no one had got to him, no pressures exerted, no payment made. His bank account showed no unexplained sums as income; a search of the flat where he lived in Harlow had discovered no suitcases crammed with used banknotes on top of the wardrobe or under the bed. Taking up the floorboards yielded only dry rot and a small family of mice.

‘Bastard’s lying through his back teeth,’ Ramsden said and Karen thought he was right. But proving it, like so much else …

The security officer supposedly on patrol that evening had proved an easier nut to crack. Up to a certain point. Sick about it, wasn’t he? Sick to his stomach about what had happened. Never would have imagined it, never in a million years. These two fellers had approached him, he told Ramsden, just a couple of nights before. All we need you to do, they said, turn a blind eye. To what? He didn’t know to what, didn’t ask. Bit of jiggery pokery with one of the containers, he imagined. Something smuggled in. Stuff being knocked off, stripped from the manifest. If he’d thought for a moment it was going to be anything like it was …

‘How much?’ Ramsden had asked. The room a sweat box, despite the outside temperature; low ceilings, space just enough for a metal table and chairs, the only window locked fast, heating turned up deliberately high.

‘How much?’ Ramsden said again.

‘How much what?’

‘How much they drop you?’

‘I told you, nothing.’

‘Listen, you miserable little scrote, don’t fuck me around. How fuckin’ much?’

‘Couple of hundred, that’s all.’

‘And the rest.’

‘No, no, straight up.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come cheap, then, don’t you? ’Less you knew them, of course. Make more sense that. Old mates pulling a favour. That how it was?’

‘No. No, I swear.’ Sweat pouring off him like rain.

‘You did know them, though.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘Never seen ’em before. Not till that night. I told you. Never.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘No.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I told you, my oath.’

‘Your what?’

‘My oath. My word.’

Ramsden grated out a laugh. ‘Your fucking word! Not worth a fiddler’s fart and any self-respecting silk who gets you on the stand’ll have the lies stripped off you so fast you’ll be up there shivering with one hand hanging on to your scrawny balls and the other covering your arse.’ He laughed again, pushed back his chair. ‘You’re going down, you miserable little dipshit, down for a long time, unless you give me something I can use. You understand? We understood?’

‘Yes. I mean, no. I dunno. I dunno if I can.’

‘Pentonville. Brixton. The Scrubs. Aiding and abetting, that’d be the least of it. Accessory to murder, I’d say. Depends. ’Less, of course, you recognise the shit you’re in. Give us a reason for putting in a word. Show us how good you are, remembering faces, naming names.’

Head bowed, the security officer closed his eyes. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose. His voice was a whisper, little more. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘Say again?’

‘I’ll do what I can.’

Ramsden allowed himself a smile. It wasn’t to last for long.

Four sessions: faces on the computer, folders of well-handled 6 x 4s, try as he might the man failed to pick out a single face, a single name. He was lying, of course, just as the CCTV operator was lying, but what could they do? The threatened possibility of a jail sentence against the embedded certainty that if he grassed sooner or later someone would use a blade on him, likely even cut his throat, in the nick or out.

In her office later, Karen read the anger, the frustration on Ramsden’s face.

‘Bastard!’ he said, slamming a fist down on to her desk. ‘Chickenshit bastard!’

‘It’ll come. You know it will. Sooner or later, it’ll come.’

Not soon enough for Burcher. True to his word, he had made more officers available, civilian support staff, too, but for that he expected results. Homicide, he had said, holding back just a little on the irony, your field of expertise. There’d been an urgent message just that morning: the Detective Chief Superintendent would appreciate a progress report ASAP. So far she hadn’t returned the call.

When the phone rang, she thought it was possibly Burcher himself, snotty and impatient, demanding action, answers.

Counting towards ten, she picked up on six.

‘We were going to have a catch-up?’ Alex Williams’ voice, pleasant, even.

‘Yes.’

‘How about this evening? Short notice, I know, but if we keep leaving it …’

‘No, this evening’s fine.’

‘You remember how to get here?’

‘I think so.’

‘Around seven, then? Seven thirty? See you then.’

‘A date?’ Ramsden said, eyebrow raised, having heard just one side of the conversation. ‘All right for some.’

37

It was dark by the time she arrived, had been dark for a good couple of hours. The house was quintessential South London suburban: generous bay windows, white paint, red brick; an attic room with a steeply angled roof. Shrubs in pots in the small front garden; a bare bed with the earth set hard from where it had last been turned. A child’s scooter resting against the green recycling bin. Please! No Junk Mail!stickered to the letter flap in the front door.

Karen rang the bell.

The door opened to a small child wearing Miffy pyjamas; startled eyes, curly hair: Alex stood behind her, denim shirt hanging loose over blue jeans, bare feet, glass of wine in her hand.

This is what I’ve been missing, Karen thought. For that brief moment, it mattered.

‘You found us again then. No trouble?’

‘No trouble.’

‘This is Amy. Say hello, Amy.’

Amy did no such thing.

‘Hello, Amy,’ Karen said, leaning towards her, and Amy wriggled away.

Alex laughed. ‘Come on in.’

What had been two good-sized rooms had been knocked through to make a large space that was filled, nevertheless, with soft-cushioned settees, easy chairs, a dining table of scrubbed pine, more chairs, magazines, comics, a flat-screen television, children’s toys. Paintings vied with bookshelves for space on the walls; one section crowded with children’s drawings, brightly coloured, starting to curl.

Amy had retreated behind one of the settees and was clutching a one-eyed bear. Another girl, older, sat cross-legged on the floor, reading a book. A boy of eight or nine lay on his tummy, watching a programme about seals on TV, the sound turned down to a whisper.

‘I think they were all in bed, last time you were here,’ Alex said. ‘So, that’s Ben, that’s Beth, and Amy you’ve already met.’

Self-conscious, Karen said, ‘Hi,’ and was predictably ignored.

‘And I’m Roger.’ Alex’s husband was wearing a long butcher’s apron, flour on his hands, flip-flops on his feet. ‘We did meet before, though I don’t expect you to remember. And I won’t shake hands or you’ll get this all over you. Dumplings. For the casserole. Lamb, I hope that’s okay.’

A smile and a nod of the head and he disappeared back to the kitchen.

‘Just sling some of that stuff off there and have a seat,’ Alex said. ‘Let me get you some wine. The kids will be in bed any time soon and we can eat. After that we’ll talk. White or red?’

It was past nine. Between them they’d cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, then Roger had excused himself to go upstairs and wade through his emails. Alex had stuck some Chopin on the stereo and opened another bottle of red.

‘Stansted,’ Alex said, ‘all the crap that goes with it. They’re hanging you out to dry on this, you realise?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘They’ll let you and your team keep ferreting around, kicking up as much dust and trouble as you can. Hoping you’ll shake something down into the net. Anything useful that looks as if it might bear fruit, they’ll have it for their own, work it whichever way they can. Whatever’s deemed expedient. And if you come up short, fail to get a result, well, nobody else but you to blame.’

‘What else could I do? Tell Burcher to take a hike?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘And besides – Warren, Charlie and Alex, wasn’t that what he said? Intent on the bigger picture. All three of you. Or isn’t that true?’

Alex shifted position, folding one leg beneath her. ‘No, it’s true. As far as it goes. But, you know, SIS, we can be proactive in the gathering of intelligence, but basically we’re there to support. What’s the rubric? Something about helping prevent harm and enforcing legislation against organised criminal networks at National Intelligence Model levels 2 and 3.’

Smiling, she drank some wine.

‘They use us, sweetie, like we’re all using you. I just wanted to be sure you knew.’

Karen sighed and settled back into the comfort of her chair; she’d eaten too much – too much casserole, too much crumble. Her bed was the other side of London and she had an early start next day. Nonetheless, when Alex reached the bottle in her direction, she nodded and held out her glass.

‘Let me ask you something,’ Karen said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Valentyn Horak, one of the victims at Stansted, he was subject to a surveillance operation before, yes?’

Alex nodded.

‘Placed under arrest, charged – presumably with the go-ahead of the CPS.’

Alex nodded again.

‘Everything’s fine almost up to the trial and then, out of the blue, someone at the CPS decides, after looking through the evidence again, oh, no, sorry, this isn’t going to stick, and recommends no further action be taken.’

‘Yes. At least, that’s what I understand.’

‘And you don’t think that’s a bit funny?’

‘Funny, no. Lazy, maybe. Slipshod, possibly. And whether that’s down to the officers involved in the arrest, or the CPS barrister, I don’t know. Most likely a combination of the two. But, Karen, you know, it happens. More often than we’d like. More often than it should.’ She sipped some more wine. ‘Water under the proverbial bridge.’

‘You don’t think it might have been a matter of money changing hands?’

Alex looked at her appraisingly. ‘Whose hand did you have in mind?’

‘Take your pick.’

‘It’s possible, I suppose, but …’ She shook her head a trifle wearily. ‘Corruption, it’s there, certainly. Fact of life. Just turn on the news.’

‘But in this case?’

‘If there’s anything more than the usual vague suspicions, I haven’t heard.’ Alex pushed herself to her feet. ‘Let’s go into the garden. I need a cigarette.’

Who was it who said in London you could never see stars? There they were, peppering the purple darkness above their heads; the night clear and cold, intimations of a frost.

Alex’s lighter flared.

‘Sure you won’t join me?’

‘Sure.’

‘I always thought you smoked.’

‘I did.’

‘When did you give up?’

‘Which time?’

Alex laughed. The tip of her cigarette bobbed like a firefly in the dark.

‘It’s nice out here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Quiet.’

‘Yes.’

They stood there, silent, absorbing the small sounds around them. Other people’s lives. Lights were showing, muted, at the rear of several other houses, but not many. Alex’s husband and children were inside sleeping. The other side of the city seemed far away.

Karen shuddered involuntarily, as if someone had stepped over her grave.

‘You okay?’

‘Yes. Yes, fine. Just thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘Whatever it is I’m missing.’

‘Are you missing something?’

Karen looked into Alex’s face before answering. A long moment, wondering. ‘Probably. Yes, maybe.’ A small laugh, shake of the head. ‘I don’t know.’

Alex touched the back of her hand to the smooth skin, slightly chilled, of Karen’s arm. ‘Best go back inside.’

Dropping her cigarette, she ground it out on the path.

In the kitchen, Alex made coffee while they waited for a cab and Karen asked about Roger’s job – she could never remember exactly what it was – the kids, how the two eldest were getting on at school. In less than the promised fifteen minutes, the driver was at the door.

‘Anton Kosach,’ Alex said, as they stepped into the hall. ‘The guy Charlie Frost was interested in. You’ve not turned up anything that involves him, I suppose?’

Karen stopped. ‘Kosach, no. Why d’you ask?’

‘Oh, no special reason. Just thought you might have run across the name, at least, that’s all.’

Karen shook her head. ‘If I had, I’d’ve reported back. You’d’ve heard.’

‘Yes, of course.’

The cab was in the middle of the road, indicators clicking on and off.

Alex squeezed her hand, brushed her cheek. ‘Keep in touch.’

Karen gave the driver her address and settled back. Her head had started to swim and it wasn’t just the wine.

38

Karen woke to the low thrum of music from the flat above; rolled over slowly, groaned, raised herself gingerly up on to one elbow, reached out and illuminated the small bedside clock. 6.03. What the hell was going on? For weeks on end it was as if no one was there, not even the faintest of footsteps criss-crossing above her head, and now, suddenly, it was whatever sad DJ had pulled the early breakfast show on Kiss or Choice, kicking things off with a chunk of dubstep reggae her neighbours seemed to be playing at full volume.

When she sat up something akin to a squash ball caromed, side to side and front to back, inside her head. Wincing, she closed her eyes and levered her legs slowly round, and as her feet touched the floor, the music stopped.

Thank you very much.

Gingerly, she made her way to the bathroom, peed, splashed water in her face, pressed two paracetamol out of their foil and swallowed them down. The last time she’d had a hangover to equal this had been Carla’s birthday the previous September, the night Carla had insisted on treating them to her impression of Christina Aguilera at full shriek and she herself had come close to copping off with a startlingly beautiful black man who claimed to have played for Leyton Orient.

Now, as then, she should never have had that last glass of wine. Although, at Alex’s, she hadn’t realised she was drinking much at all.

Pulling back the curtains, she gazed out into the empty street, the convoy of parked cars. A cyclist in reflective gear, front light pulsing, swished past and out of sight.

Karen leaned slowly forward and rested her forehead against the welcoming glass.

She was in the kitchen, making coffee, trying to decide whether or not she wanted toast, when her mobile trilled to life.

That bloody phone!

Tim Costello’s voice. A shooting outside the twenty-four-hour Tesco at Woodford. Close on four in the morning. Sixteen-year-old using the ATM. Bullet wounds to the side, shoulder, backs of the legs. Taken to Whipps Cross. Still touch and go.

‘The ATM, a robbery?’

‘Either that or drug related. Local Drug Squad’ve had half an eye on him. Lot of manoeuvring going on, apparently. Usual squabble over territory.’

‘Could be a hit, then.’

‘Possibility.’

‘Witnesses that early?’

‘Not so far. But CCTV. Still checking.’

‘Let me know, Tim, anything shows.’

‘Will do.’

She was barely out of the door when the phone rang again. The switchboard with a call from a Detective Sergeant Barry Morgan, a hostage negotiator in the Notts Police.

‘Got a situation here. Mansfield. Armed male holding a pregnant woman hostage. Both known to you, I believe.’

Karen drew breath. ‘Jayne Andrew?’

‘You got it.’

‘Wayne Simon.’

‘Wanted in connection with the murder of his partner and their child, back end of last year, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any history? Anything useful you can tell us?’

‘Useful? He’s been stalking her for a while. Work and home. I made the point when I was up there not so long ago. Strongly, I thought. The likelihood of something like this happening. Obviously not strongly enough.’

Morgan said nothing.

‘What’s the likely outcome here?’ Karen said. ‘Which way you leaning?’

‘Hard to say. Blokes like Simon, not exactly rational. Spoke to him a couple of times on the phone. Her mobile. Lot of anger, not a lot of sense. Since then no one’s picking up. Case of waiting it out, I’d reckon.’

Karen heard her own voice, low and persuasive: He’s not going to hurt you, I promise.

‘I’m on my way,’ she said.

‘Likely no need.’

‘Anything happens, get me on this number.’

Karen broke the call and, taking care not to move her head too sharply, bent low and reached for her shoes.

It was a grey kind of day. Clouds the colour of pale slate that presaged snow. Karen drove too fast, using both her siren and magnetic beacon to clear a way through the traffic that clustered along the motorway between Leicester and Nottingham.

A command post had been set up some seventy-five metres from the front of the block in which Jayne Andrew lived, rutted tarmac and muddied grass in between. Residents of the neighbouring flats had been evacuated as a precaution, the immediate area cordoned off.

Barry Morgan met Karen with a quick handshake and ushered her inside. Made the introductions, senior firearms officer, incident commander. More handshakes and down to business. A plan of the flat’s interior had been stuck up alongside the windscreen. Living room and kitchen with windows to the front, door leading out on to a narrow balcony, bedroom and bathroom with windows to the rear. Armed officers were already in position.

‘Last sighting,’ Morgan said, ‘best part of half an hour since. Living-room window. Lass standing there with Simon close behind her, knife to the side of her neck here.’ He rested two fingers just behind the jawline, immediately below the ear. ‘Cowardly bastard.’

‘Maybe should have taken him out then,’ the firearms officer said. ‘Clear head shot for a full five seconds.’

‘No need,’ Morgan said. ‘Not while there’s a risk of hitting the woman. Not while there’s time.’

‘Is there?’ Karen asked. ‘Time?’

‘Happen.’

‘When did you speak to him last?’

‘An hour back. Same barely coherent ranting as before. What a crock of shit the world is. Everyone conspiring against him. Doing him down. Women especially. Whores, the lot of them.’

‘He’s not made any demands?’

‘Just threats. If we come near the flat, attempt any kind of rescue, he’ll cut her throat.’

‘And if we don’t?’

‘Cut her throat anyway. Later rather than sooner.’

The firearms officer lifted clear the binoculars through which he’d been watching. Spoke to Karen. ‘Killed this young woman, didn’t he? Hammered the life out of her. Cut her about for good measure. And the kiddie, killed her too. Next time my lads get an unobstructed view of the target, let me give the order. One in the brain pan. All the consideration he deserves.’ He hawked up phlegm from the back of his throat and, nowhere to spit it, swallowed it back down. ‘Eugenics, where people like Simon are concerned, not such a bad idea after all.’

For some moments, no one looked at anyone else.

Then the sound of a police helicopter circling overhead.

‘You’ve spoken with her,’ Morgan said to Karen, ‘must have got some impression. How d’you think she’d stand up to this?’

Karen was remembering the pale-faced young woman who’d made her tea, talked about her boyfriend out in Afghanistan, talked about the coming baby. About Wayne Simon.

I’m frightened. Frightened he’ll do something. Hurt me. Hurt my baby.

‘Not too well. She’s not strong, physically strong. Low self-esteem. And she’d be scared, scared for the baby.’

‘Any idea why he’s latched on to her the way he has?’

‘Men like Simon, they’re drawn to women they see as weak. Easier to bully, knock into shape. Then, when those women start thinking for themselves, trying to break away, the Simons of this world react the only way they know how. Lash out.’

‘End of lecture,’ the firearms officer said, as much to himself as anyone, loud enough to be sure Karen had heard.

No one had seen hide nor hair of Jayne Andrew for a full thirty minutes, just glimpses, shadowy, of Simon moving around the flat without apparent direction, this way and that.

Karen remembering again her vain promise she would come to no harm.

Morgan dialled the number for Jayne Andrew’s mobile, the one on which he’d spoken to Wayne Simon before. While it was still ringing there was a sudden movement behind the living-room curtain, the window opened and two mobile phones were hurled down on to the grass. His and hers.

‘Fuck,’ Morgan said softly and lowered his head.

‘Stage two,’ the incident commander said, not without a certain satisfaction.

Morgan was already fastening his bulletproof vest. Moments later, he was stepping out of the van, loudhailer in his hand. ‘Wayne, listen to me. There’s a way out of this. For everyone. For you. Nobody has to get hurt, no one has to come to any harm. You hear me? You understand?’

No movement. No response. No reply.

‘Just let me see Jayne, let her come to the window on her own. I just want to see that she’s okay. Then you can let her go. Let her leave.’

Snow was starting to flutter slowly down, catching in Morgan’s hair as he moved steadily forward, one careful pace at a time.

‘No one’s hurt here. Nothing’s happened. Nothing that we can’t talk about reasonably, between ourselves. You and me. But you have to let Jayne go first. Then we can talk. All right, Wayne? We can sort this all out.’

While he was still talking the door opened and Jayne Andrew stumbled out, one hand thrust out in front of her, the other clutching her belly; her face, her front, dark with blood.

Morgan dropped the loudhailer and started to run.

‘Go, go!’ the firearms officer shouted, and immediately armed officers began to advance from either end of the balcony, weapons raised.

Karen was running herself, stumbling a little on the uneven ground.

Jayne Andrew tumbled into the arms of the first officer to arrive and, taking her weight on his free arm, he turned her away from the balcony edge and towards the wall and lowered her slowly down. Which is where she was when Karen reached her, still crouching, holding herself and sobbing inarticulate sounds through trails of snot and tears. That close, the blood startlingly bright on her face and hands.

Not hers.

Karen carefully raised Jayne Andrew’s head and wiped her face, took hold of her then by the arms and lifted her to her feet; put one arm round her and held her tightly as she walked her towards the stairs, the waiting paramedics, the ambulance, a warm bath and caring hands, the first of many nightmares, flashbacks, some kind of a future.

At least she was alive.

Wayne Simon had slashed his throat across while holding her close, the blade puncturing the carotid artery behind the jawline, below the ear.

He lay on his back, legs akimbo, arms outstretched, head to one side, a beached fish on dry land, the severed flesh open like a second mouth.

Flowers of blood stippled across the floor, along the wall.

‘Look!’ Wayne Simon had said, the moment before he cut his throat. ‘Look what you made me do.’

Karen drove back more slowly; urgency, expectation drained. The promised snow flaked across the windscreen, sticking here and there beyond the wipers’ range. She thought of Carla, wondered how she was, living in provincial digs and stepping night after night into the spotlight to enact The Revenger’s Tragedy, more familiar now with the quickness, the arc of blood. She thought of Alex, the enviable assuredness with which she worked and lived, the quick touch of her hand upon her arm.

At the service station, she drank coffee, black, and checked the messages on her mobile phone. CCTV at Woodford had shown two men running from the scene of the shooting, one of them Liam Jarvis, previously arrested and then released in connection with a similar shooting in Walthamstow. A fresh warrant had been issued and a search carried out at his last known address, as yet no sign.