‘Looking for this?’ the Kid asked.
He produced something flat and shiny, which looked like a sardine can with the wrapper removed. It was the hard drive from Blenkinsop’s computer. When he opened his hand, it fell to pieces, having already been dismantled. One by one, he ground its circuits under his heel.
‘Oops,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Oh by the way, drop the blade.’
Heck had no option; he released the knife.
The Kid chuckled. ‘Good of you to leave your dabs all over that. That’s another murder we can frame you for. I’m a bit surprised actually. You’re the one who supposedly outsmarted Deke. Least, I’m guessing you did. We haven’t heard anything from him since he was supposed to whack you, and now you’re answering his phone.’
Heck shook his head. ‘You’ll never find out what happened to Deke.’
The Kid shrugged. ‘Hardly matters. He was never really part of the crew, just an employee. They come and go. We don’t form emotional attachments with any of them.’
‘Cold professionals, eh? Except that
you
aren’t, are you? I mean
you
personally.’
The Kid grinned and beckoned Heck along the landing. ‘I wouldn’t press too many buttons if I were you. Just because I’m under orders not to kill you yet doesn’t mean I won’t get the pleasure later on.’
‘The rest of your mob are professionals, but you aren’t,’ Heck insisted. ‘You’re the immature one, aren’t you? The one who craves notoriety.’
‘I’m warning you, pig … don’t make it hard for yourself.’
‘You see, I’ve seen you before. On crime scene photos from Brighton and Aberystwyth. Those were perfect snatches. Your crew got clean away each time, but
you
couldn’t resist coming back to see what was happening. To revel in the misery and fear you’d caused.’
‘Every job has its perks.’
‘And every job has its fucking idiots who can’t be trusted to do it properly. Which is where
you
come in.’ Heck knew he was getting to the Kid by attacking his self-esteem; he could see the laugh lines fading from the truculent, youthful face. ‘You’re the weak link in the chain, son. A social inadequate who’s only in it for the thrill of feeling powerful, and as such is going to get his mates bagged and tagged.’
‘Enough talking!’ the Kid snapped, backing towards the top of the stairs, but now pointing the gun straight at Heck’s forehead. By the gleam in the Kid’s eyes, he was crazy – he’d have to be to be part of this outfit – but by his own admission he was under orders not to shoot. So Heck took the gamble and continued goading him.
‘You know what we call you in the Serial Crimes Unit – “the Kid”.’
The Kid’s eyes were slowly clouding over.
‘That’s right,’ Heck said. ‘As in the young one, the inexperienced one, the
inept
one. Can’t build much of a rep on that. Ever heard of a master criminal called “the Kid”?’
The Kid’s gun hand was trembling.
‘But it gets worse,’ Heck said – he knew they were reaching critical mass, and was now watching his captor ultra-carefully. ‘How’d you think your mates would react if they knew what you’d been up to? I bet they wouldn’t stop at “inadequate” or “inept”, would they? I bet they’d slip “dickhead” in there, or “useless prick”. How about “brainless fucking pipsqueak”?’
‘You pig bastard!’ the Kid shrieked, raising the gun and slashing down with it.
Heck blocked the blow with his left, and caught the Kid square on the nose with a right. The Kid’s head flew backward, but he kept his feet. Heck clutched at the hand holding the gun and slammed it against the wall. The Kid hung on to the weapon and tried to claw Heck’s face, but Heck butted him, drawing a yelp of outrage. They were now at the top of the stairs, the Kid teetering on the edge. Heck threw another right, catching him again on his already broken, blood-spurting nose. The Kid squawked, tottered and fell backward. Heck, not wanting to lose hold of the gun hand, dived down the stairs after him. They crashed all the way to the bottom, breaking spindles, bouncing over treads. The adrenaline that seemed to have been pumping through Heck’s veins for several days rendered him almost immune to the many bumps and sprains. Though he was again fighting for his life, it was a less terrifying ordeal than it would have been a week ago. This member of the opposition had plainly never been a soldier of any description, let alone a special forces guy; his combat skills were too inadequate. This boosted Heck’s confidence no end – he got to his feet first.
The Kid, who was grovelling in agony on the hall floor, was still clinging on to the gun. Heck stamped on his hand twice. The gun came loose, and Heck kicked it, sending it skittering away across the tiles, its silencer detaching. The Kid tried to stand up – Heck let him, then caught him with another left, followed by a short, crisp right. The Kid crumpled down in a heap, where he lay groaning. Heck turned to look for the gun. There was no sign of it – it had slid away in the direction of a half-open door on the other side of the hall. Heck limped over there.
But the Kid couldn’t afford to leave it at this; there was too much at stake. Unexpectedly, he dragged himself to his feet and barrelled into Heck’s back, toppling him out of the way, and running past to get to the door first. Heck caught him by the belt and hooked an arm over his shoulder. They crashed into the open door together, blundering through it and falling down yet another stair, this one made from rough wood. The floor at the bottom was cold concrete, and this time Heck got the worst of it. He was underneath and the Kid on top, so it drove all the wind out of him.
The Kid tore himself from Heck’s weakened grasp, jumped to his feet and, in the half-light, stumbled over an empty box, hitting a workbench. Hand tools flew everywhere. The Kid swore as he kicked them around, still looking for the gun. Heck levered himself up onto his elbows. The Kid suddenly spotted something, and hunkered down. Winded, Heck tried to get up but knew that he wouldn’t make it. His opponent spun around, Colt Cobra in hand, his face a Halloween mask of bloodied, maniacal glee. He fired twice, the detonations deafening.
The first slug hit Heck in the solar plexus with what felt like crushing force. The second took him in the upper right chest, flipping him sideways. He slammed against the bench, sending yet more tools spinning. Both blows had packed sledgehammer power; his innards seemed pulverised.
Reality ebbed before his fading eyes, and then he slumped to the floor.
The Kid came forward, panting.
‘Maybe I can build a rep on
that
instead!?’ he jeered. ‘Not so cocky now, are you, pig bastard!’
He kicked Heck over onto his back, and knelt astride his body to search it. He didn’t notice Heck’s right hand close on the handle of a claw-hammer. He didn’t even notice the hammer – until it was whistling up towards his left temple.
SMACK!
The meaty impact echoed across the cellar.
The Kid dropped like a sack of potatoes, his head striking the concrete.
It took several agonising seconds for Heck to haul himself to his feet. He extricated the gun from the Kid’s hand, tucked it into his waistband, and then yanked open the shirt he’d been wearing to check the Kevlar vest beneath. The two flattened slugs were still lodged in it.
‘Much as I enjoyed your flash suit, Deke,’ Heck said to no one in particular, ‘I enjoyed your underwear more.’
He worked the slugs loose and dropped them, though even that was painful – no doubt there’d be bruises the size of dinner plates underneath. He turned back to the Kid, who was still unconscious. ‘And just who the hell, I wonder, are you?’
He searched the Kid’s clothing, finding, among other things, a mobile phone, which he pocketed, and a leather wallet containing a number of credit cards. It seemed the name the Kid was currently going under was ‘Brian Hobbs’. If that was a fake, it was a fake the Kid liked, because not only was that the name on his cards, it was also the name on his driving licence. Heck felt at the Kid’s throat, to check the carotid was still pulsing. It was, which Heck supposed was a relief.
He moved away, looking for a light. Finding a cord with a toggle, he pulled it and a bulb sprang to life. The cellar was larger than he’d thought, and quite orderly, apart from the area the two of them had just destroyed during their fight. There was another workbench in the corner, underneath a shelf laden with jars of screws, nails and so on. There was also a hook from which a bundle of rope was suspended. That would do nicely. It was a bit Spiderman-like, but Heck couldn’t think of a better outcome than calling this incident in and leaving the culprit bound at the scene of the crime.
He walked over there – and heard a noise behind him.
Yet again, because it was absolutely imperative that the Kid saved this situation, he’d somehow revived himself. When Heck turned, the Kid was halfway across the cellar, a razor-tipped wood chisel raised above his head. He screamed with homicidal rage.
Heck pulled the gun and fired four times.
It wasn’t what he’d planned to do. It wasn’t even what he’d wanted. It was pure instinct, sheer self-preservation.
The first three bullets tore into the Kid’s torso, stopping him as if he’d run into a brick wall, while the fourth – just in case he too was secretly armoured – was directed at his massive forehead, in which it blasted a hole the size of a fifty-pence piece.
The Kid again flopped to earth, this time with blood venting in spurts from his chest, his back, and the right side of his imploded skull.
Heck leaned on the bench to regain his breath. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that he hadn’t just done what he’d earlier berated Lauren for doing. This wasn’t an execution, it was simple self-defence. But he didn’t feel particularly bad about it … until about ten seconds later, when he heard the approach of sirens.
He whirled around in a panic. This was Belsize Park of course; not the sort of neighbourhood where gunshots would go unreported.
He took the stairs three at a time, and emerged into the hall to see a blue spinning light outside the front windows. He dashed into the kitchen, where he halted to think. A sensible patrol officer would have sent his partner around to the back before trying to gain entry at the front, but they’d only
just
arrived. There was still a chance. He grabbed a stool from under the breakfast bar and heaved it at the window over the sink. It exploded outward in a jangling cacophony. They’d hear it, but speed was all that mattered now. Heck vaulted out and sprinted the full length of the extensive rear garden. By the time he reached the far end, he could hear shouting. Torchlight speared onto the lawn. He didn’t look back, but scaled the fence and dropped down the other side into a narrow, leafy lane, which he ran off along at full pelt.
Only when he was four or five streets away and thoroughly exhausted, the sweat swimming into his eyes, did he halt and double over, hacking out coughs. Almost on cue, there was a ring-tone from his pocket. It was Deke’s mobile phone.
He took it out. By the number on the screen, the call was coming from the same phone that had called him on Lisle Street. He put it to his ear.
‘Talk to me,’ he said.
‘Mark?’
‘Ye-yeah, who is …?’
‘Oh Mark … oh God, Mark … who are these awful people?’
The voice was cut off as though a hand had been slapped over a mouth. It had been tearful, totally terrorised – but there was no doubt who it belonged to.
Dana, his sister.
Gemma’s eyes snapped open to the trilling of a telephone bell.
She lay confused for a few moments, before focusing on the neon numerals of the clock on the other side of the darkened bedroom. It was just past midnight – she’d turned in relatively early because she’d wanted a quick start the following morning. She fumbled on the bedside table and finally found the offending article.
She put it to her ear. ‘Yes, Piper.’
‘Ma’am, it’s me.’ It was Des Palliser.
Gemma sat up. ‘Have we got something?’
‘Yeah … I think we do.’
‘Well?’
‘How soon can you get over to Hampstead?’
‘Hampstead?’
‘Belsize Park, to be precise?’
‘Belsize Park?’ Gemma’s thoughts were still fuddled. What on earth could take them to that exclusive neck of the woods? ‘This is related to Heck, yes?’
‘I think it could be.’
‘
Could
be?’
‘Ma’am, this is serious.’
Gemma was now fully awake. Palliser’s tone was one of suppressed excitement, but she didn’t like the sound of that last comment. ‘How serious, Des?’
‘As in … “do you want to check a fresh murder scene yourself before local plod get their dirty paws all over it” serious.’
She leapt from the bed. ‘I’m on my way.’
Gemma made it to Belsize Park in record time. She lived in Highbury, but a blue spinning beacon on top of her BMW meant that she could hurtle down Camden Road and up Haverstock Hill without being intercepted by uniforms, and allowed her to pull straight in alongside the crime scene tape now deployed across the driveway entrance to sixteen, Templeton Drive.
‘Ma’am?’ one of the local detectives said. He’d been standing behind the tape, jawing with a couple of uniforms, and looked astonished to see her.
‘Hello Tony,’ she replied.
Detective Sergeant Tony Gibbens was close to retirement. His stained tie, scruffy brown mac and cynical attitude indicated that he was a creature from another era. He was balding, with tufts of white hair behind his ears. He scratched at one of these as she approached.
‘Fancy letting me take a look, Tony?’
‘Yeah, course. Surprised to see you, though, ma’am.’
‘What have we got?’
Gibbens turned and regarded the house, every window of which was now brightly lit. ‘Well … it’s a two-hander. Unusual circs. But if someone’s called your mob in, they were a bit previous. Lab team haven’t even got here yet.’
‘Who’s Crime Scene Manager?’
‘DI Jeffries. When he arrives.’
‘Alex won’t mind me having a quick shuftie, will he?’
‘Don’t suppose so, ma’am.’ Headlights flooded over them. ‘This is probably him.’