side of it in a similar spot to the one in which he'd waited for Robbie O'Brien almost exactly a week ago.
When Tino came back through the door, just like Slim Robbie, he didn't have a chance. He must have caught something out of the corner of his eye because he turned towards his killer and his eyes widened dramatically as he saw the barrel of the .38 level with his eyes. Murk pulled the trigger twice and blew the top of Tino's head off, not even bothering to try to catch him as he tumbled messily to the ground with all the dignity of a sack of potatoes, the blood already leaking rapidly from the exit wounds.
Then, satisfied that Tino was dead, Trevor Murk returned the gun to the bag, checked the place over to make sure he hadn't left behind any tell-tale clues, and walked out of there, thinking that he'd earned five grand and it wasn't even lunchtime.
40
Tina found the Megane in the underground car park quickly enough. It was parked in the space for apartment 3C. She made a note of the number, then leant down and let down all four of the car's tyres, one by one. Trevor Murk wasn't going anywhere. Not using the method of transport he'd come here in anyway. She tried to inform control of where the car was parked but she'd lost the signal, so she made her way over to the lifts, wondering who it was her suspect was visiting in number 3C, and whether or not it had anything to do with the O'Brien killings.
While she was going up, she tried control again, but although she got a signal it cut out before anyone could answer. A voice inside her head told her that she was heading into extremely dangerous territory, and that with the first ARV only a couple of minutes away there was no point in going on. She'd done her bit, even got Murk's position down to an individual apartment, so why keep going?'
'Because,' she told the voice, 'this is my collar, and I do not want him getting away.'
The lift doors opened and Trevor Murk stood there facing her. 'Hello,' he said, with a friendly smile.
Tina managed to conceal her surprise and smile back at him. 'Morning,' she replied, stepping past him, and thinking immediately that his was definitely the sort of face that could charm its way through an old lady's front door. And a young lady's, she thought. He was definitely a looker.
As the doors shut and he disappeared, she tried control again. This time she got through, and was put straight on to Sergeant Brooking. 'He's leaving the building, Colin,' she informed him. 'Via the underground car park. Carrying a black holdall.'
'Keep back from him, Tina, I've told you. Strict orders. He's to be treated as armed and dangerous.'
'I've let down his tyres so he can't get out in his vehicle. He'll probably come out on foot through the car park entrance. Either that or the building's main entrance, wherever that is. Get people to both places. And for God's sake, get them to take him alive. He's got information we badly need.'
Brooking started to say something else but the line was bad and she wasn't really listening.
She found the staircase and started down the steps, taking them two at a time, the adrenalin coursing inside her. Less than a minute later she was coming back down to the basement level. There was a swing-door at the bottom of the stairs that led out into the car park. She took the final three steps in one go, dropping the phone into her pocket, and went to peer through {he glass to see whether Murk had discovered her handiwork on the Megane yet.
But as she did so she heard the sound of echoing shouts and the loud clatter of footsteps coming rapidly closer. Then she saw
Trevor Murk's upper body hurtling towards the door. She turned to get out of the way, but before she could he hit it head on with all his weight, knocking her flying into the stairwell.
She landed on her behind on the hard stone floor, and as she went to get to her feet Murk spotted his opportunity and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her upright while at the same time removing the gun from his holdall. He dropped the holdall on the floor and thrust the gun's silencer against the side of Tina's head.
'Sorry about this, my sweet, but I need a hostage. If you don't resist, you won't get hurt. If you do, I'll have to kill you. Hope you understand.' He dragged her over to the swing-door and pushed it open with his shoulder. 'Back off!' he yelled, the acoustics of the car park making it sound so much louder. 'Back off now, or she dies!'
Ahead of them, Tina could see three uniformed officers, one holding an MP5, the other two Walther PPKs, all ready to fire. Behind these three were a number of plainclothes officers and more uniforms running down the entrance ramp in their direction, about thirty yards away. She thought she saw John and Malik, but before she could tell for sure Murk yanked her head back so that her eyes were pointing towards the dank stone ceiling, while increasing the pressure of the gun against her temple. She felt herself panicking inside but used every ounce of her mental strength to focus on remaining calm.
'Armed police, drop your weapon!' instructed the uniform with the MP5. 'Drop your weapon now!'
'Trevor, we can do a deal,' Tina whispered. 'We know you're the shooter in the O'Brien murders. If you turn QE against whoever hired you, the sentence'll be a lot less.'
Mark ignored her. 'I want twenty grand and a helicopter to take me to France!' he demanded, somewhat optimistically.
Tina gave a derisory snort. 'For fuck's sake, Trevor, be serious. You're not getting out of this one. All you can do is limit the damage by doing what they say and dropping your weapon. Otherwise you're going to end up either dead or doing thirty years.'
'Shut the fuck up!' he snapped. Then, to the uniforms: 'Get back! Get back now!'
John's voice: 'Come on, Trevor, drop the gun. You don't want to do this.'
'I said get back! Do as I say and she doesn't get hurt. Now I told you: I want a helicopter and twenty grand--'
Tina's left arm flew upwards and grabbed the wrist holding the gun, yanking it off to the side. For a split second Murk's resistance disappeared, and she used that second to elbow him in the gut with her right arm and break free from his grip, letting go of the gun at the same time as she tried to run out of the way.
Murk swung round in her direction, pointing the weapon, and that was the moment the shooting started.
41
'Come on, Trevor, drop the gun. You don't want to do this.'
I was standing six, maybe seven yards away from him, off to the right of the three armed officers facing him down. Behind me stood Malik and at least a dozen other police, all temporarily helpless in the face of what was going on. I could see the look of tension on Tina's face as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, her hair in the painful grip of Trevor Murk, the man we were now sure was the killer of Robbie O'Brien and Kitty MacNamara, and I wanted desperately to do something - anything - to help. My guts were churning, my legs felt numb and useless, and I knew that I was possibly seconds away from losing the woman I loved for the second time in as many years. It was worse, if you can believe it, than the time a gun had been pointed at me, because at least then my destiny had felt like it was in my own hands. Now it was in the process of being irreversibly altered by a man with a frighteningly casual attitude to murder.
'I said get back!' Murk screamed. 'Do as I say and she doesn't get hurt. Now I told you: I want a helicopter and twenty grand--'
Tina made a grab for the gun, pulling it away from her temple, and elbowed him in the gut at the same time. She then broke free of his grip on her hair and started to run. It all happened so suddenly that for a moment I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My heart was in my mouth, and I was rooted to the spot as Murk swung the gun round in her direction, more in an act of desperation than anything else. And then I heard the spit of the bullet passing through the silencer, and suddenly she was stumbling forward, falling hard on one knee, then rolling over.
All three armed uniforms opened up at the same time, hitting Murk repeatedly and sending him dancing wildly in the direction of the swing-door. Even before he hit the ground I knew we'd be getting no answers from him now. There was no way that trained firearms police shooting to kill were going to be unsuccessful from that range.
Instinctively, I ran towards Tina, shoving the uniforms aside in my urgency to get to her, to tell her she was going to be all right, and knowing too amid the adrenalin and the fear that I was finished if she was dead, that I'd never be able to come back from a blow like this. I loved her. I truly loved her. I'd never told her that before because I'd always been so careful not to scare her off, but now I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, because it was so important that she knew before it was too late.
'Get paramedics over here now!' I yelled, crouching down beside her and taking her hand. 'Tina, it's John. You're going to be OK.'
A pool of blood was forming on her right trouser leg just above the knee, her teeth were clenched in pain, but she was still conscious.
Shit, this hurts,' she gasped, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
They say it's a grand life if you don't weaken, and for so long I've tried to live my life like that, but at that moment in time, weakness felt so tempting that I almost opened my arms to greet it. Almost.
'We're going to get you to a hospital, don't worry.'
'What about Murk?'
'Don't worry about him.'
'Is he dead?'
'I don't know.'
'We've got to get to the bottom of this,' she whispered, her eyes opening and focusing on me.
At that moment, I felt a burst of hope, elation following close behind. I tried to calm down, not wanting to get too excited, but it seemed that maybe the wound wasn't as serious as I'd first thought, and Murk had intended. Otherwise, surely, there would have been no way she'd be holding a conversation, particularly about how the case was going. I've been with conscious gunshot victims before and, contrary to what you see on the films, they don't chat. They go into shock.
'What's happened with the gun lead?'
'Jesus, Tina, don't think about it. Rest. Conserve your strength.' Then I leant down close to her. 'I love you,' I whispered.
'You're not angry?'
'I'm proud,' I told her, smiling into her blue eyes. 'Really proud.'
At that moment, the paramedics arrived. I continued to hold her hand, whispering soothing words while the paramedics went to work, cutting the trouser leg away to reveal the bloody mess beneath.
'You're going to be OK, luv,' said the older of the two a few moments later, as he wiped away the blood and examined the injury. 'It looks like it's only a flesh wound. A nasty one, but a lot better than it could have been.' 'That's easy for you to say,' she hissed, through gritted teeth.
Five minutes later and Tina was in the back of the ambulance heading towards Charing Cross hospital. She let me hold her hand on the journey, but only after I'd promised that as soon as we got there I'd go back to the station and follow up on the gun lead.
Malik came with me, and after we'd seen her off into the operating theatre he put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile. 'Are you all right, John? You look like Flanagan did last night.'
I exhaled loudly, still conscious that my heart was thumping hard in my chest. That was close, Asif. If Murk's aim had been a little steadier, she'd have been dead.'
He knew then, I'm sure, that the two of us were lovers, but was sensible enough not to comment on it.
'But she's not,' he told me. 'She's not. That's what you've got to remember.'
It wasn't something I was likely to forget.
42
Stegs spent lunchtime in the One-Eyed Admiral. A couple of small-time bad boys he knew came in, and the three of them had a good chat about this and that over a few pints. Stegs bought them both double Jamesons when it came to his round and they asked him what he was celebrating.
'Just won a little bit of money on the lottery,' he told them.
'Oh yeah?' said the younger of the two, known to Stegs only as Piko. Piko had a three-inch scar running down his left cheek and very hairy nostrils, and he sometimes sold Stegs speed.
'Not enough to mug me for,' said Stegs, thinking that if they had half a clue how much money he had in the boot of his Toyota they'd have had a knife to his throat in no time.
Piko and his mate left about 2.30. Stegs stayed on for a while and talked at Patrick, the barman, reminding himself that he had to remain sober as his work wasn't yet done. But he was in celebratory mood, and he allowed himself half a gram of whiz in the toilets to keep him from flagging too much. His plan was to have a few more beers that afternoon, then slowly make his way home, buying some chocolate for the missus on the way. He was going to tell her that he'd tendered his resignation, the experience with Yokes having finally proved too much for him. Not that he was going to go and work for that hound, Clive. Instead, he was going to set up his own business, providing security advice to well-heeled firms. He knew a couple of colleagues who'd done that, and it had proved an easy way of making decent money. You just needed a few quid to get you started, and you were away. And now that few quid was no longer going to be a problem.
In fact, everything was going swimmingly for Stegs as he left the Admiral at just after three o'clock. However, ten yards down the street in the direction of his car and booty, that all changed with a suddenness that fate only keeps for those it likes to fuck up big-time.
The mobile rang, the tinny strains of Mission Impossible coming up from out of his jeans. He fished it out of his pocket and saw that it was a call from home. He took a deep breath, steadied himself so that he was sounding as sober as possible, then took the call.
'Hello, luv, you all right?'
There was a ferocious hacking sob down the other end of the line, and Stegs initially thought she was having an asthma attack,, even though she'd never had asthma before, but then came the recriminations, and he knew she was fine. Physically anyway.
'You bastard!' she spluttered. 'You've been lying to me all this time.'
'Hold on, luv, what is this? What are you talking about?' 'Don't play the fucking innocent with me!' The F-word. The biggest verbal weapon in the missus's armoury. Like an atomic
warhead, kept back only for situations of the utmost seriousness. This, then, had to be bad. And it was. 'I've had a reporter on, asking to interview you. He said you'd been suspended since last week. So, what the hell have you been doing, eh? Getting up in the middle of the night and disappearing like some sort of.. .' She couldn't think of the right insult, so instead sobbed loudly again. 'Have you got a girlfriend or something? Is that who you're seeing?'