Vendetta (10 page)

He was back in the bathroom. This time, his back against the wall. As if he was shackled, couldn’t move. Reuben stepped into the room, a picture of black in motion, from his gelled hair to the Luger in his hand. Mac called out his name, but the other man walked past him like he wasn’t even there. Reuben kept moving. And moving. Until he reached it. The bath with Elena inside it. Mac fought hard against the wall, but he couldn’t get free. Mac shouted out. Elena screamed. But there was no noise, just a horrible, cold expectation of death. Mac jerked and fought. Reuben smiled. Mac banged his fist against the unbreakable wall. Reuben raised the Luger. Mac’s hands were broken and bleeding. Reuben aligned the gun with the back of Elena’s head. Mac and Elena cried out at the same time. Finally sound came as the echo of a bullet shattered in the room . . .

Mac came to, shivering and sweating, slumped against a pipe on the wall. He didn’t know where he was. What was he doing in this small space? Why was he sitting down? His confused gaze flickered around. Tiles, door, kind of walls. Hard seat. Toilet seat. He closed his eyes as he remembered where he was. Placed his head in his hands. He couldn’t go through all this again, this mad ‘one minute he was there and the next he was not’. Just like what happened after Stevie was gone. It terrified him, this lack of control. His hand groped inside his pocket with desperation. Stilled when he found what he was after. Elena’s bracelet. He pulled it out and rubbed it flat against his chest. It was almost like he could feel her. Like she was there with him.

But she wasn’t here. She was dead.

Dead.

There was a cold calmness about the single word that finally helped him ease the air more freely into his body. He took steady breaths in and out. In and out. Mac pulled the bracelet away from his body and shoved it back into his pocket. Got back on with the job he’d vowed to do.

He looked back at the items on the floor. Gathered the pregnancy testing kit box, the photo and card and placed them inside his pocket as well. Which left only the Post-it note on the floor. He didn’t put it away, instead stared hard at it.

Fuck up = death.

Of course he had no proof. But men had gone to the gallows for less evidence than Mac had. Reuben was going to the gallows. Even if it wasn’t him, the killer might be at Reuben’s son’s party. He’d wipe out the entire gang if he had to . . . He’d made a promise to Elena to keep her safe. Now she was dead.

He snatched the Post-it off the floor. Shoved it into his pocket as he stood up. Checked his watch.

11:19.

Made eye contact with no one as he left the burger bar. Walked round the side of the building to the alleyway he’d noticed on the way in that contained three large dumpsters. He flipped back the lid of the first one he came to. Dropped his rucksack, containing Elena’s bag, into it. All he needed was safely tucked away in his pocket. He flicked the lid back down as he made his decision about his next move.

He knew he was about to take a big risk. If it worked he’d have a clearer idea of what the fuck was going on. And if it didn’t . . .

He’d either be behind bars.

Or dead.

nineteen

11:45 a.m.

The Munch Munch café. The one place Mac knew he shouldn’t be found dead near. But he stood across the road from it, knowing that its biggest customers were the cops from the nearby police station, nicknamed The Fort.

He pulled his baseball cap lower. Stepped out into the quiet street. He was sure the light breeze carried fine flecks of rain, but the ground around him was dry, so maybe the rain wasn’t there at all. He reached the café just as the door opened. He dipped his head sharply when he realised that he knew the people coming out. A young WPC he’d grown to like and an older male detective. From the smile glowing on her face, he knew that she didn’t know the guy was married. When this was all over, he’d have a little whisper in her ear.

The couple were too engrossed with each other to pay him any attention, so he stepped back, head still down, to let them by.

He moved inside. A Euro-trash tune banged out from the plasma telly mounted on the wall, showcasing a video with a man jiving in close-ups with fluorescent green beams zip-zapping behind him. The place was almost empty, except for a solitary occupant. The person he was looking for. He walked through the aisle between the tables and the church-like mini-benches. He stopped at the table. Only when he rasped out her name did she look up.

‘Mac, what the hell are you doing here?’ asked Detective Inspector Rio Wray.

twenty

He took the seat across from her in the mottled-skin-coloured booth.

‘Just like old times,’ Mac finally said.

And it did feel like old times. This was their table. His, Rio’s and Calum’s. They’d started out together, three Bobbies on the beat, eager to uphold the law. At this table they’d compare notes on cases, put their heads together to make sure that those living on the wrong side of the street were brought to justice. As the years had passed, they’d still met at this table, but gone their separate ways. He’d gone undercover; Rio had kept her eye on her career, moving on and up. And Calum? Thinking about Calum made him wonder where it had all gone wrong.

She didn’t respond to his comment, instead asked, surprise in her voice, ‘So what brings you down here? I thought you were on a job?’

There were a number of reasons why he was down there and one of them had already been settled. If Rio’s team had already identified Mac’s DNA in the hotel room, she would have arrested him on the spot. So that hadn’t happened yet. But he also wanted to know what Rio’s team had discovered.

As she spoke he could see her dark eyes checking him out – the baseball cap, the light bruises, the pale face. He needed to be very careful because the woman opposite him was no fool.

‘I am. But just needed to come up for some air.’

She did that thing with her eyes that always made him feel uncomfortable – stared straight into his as if she were gazing deep into his mind.

‘I’m glad you’re here. I was worried about you being on your own today.’

He took a deep breath, knowing exactly what she was talking about. The one thing he didn’t want to think about.

‘Have you been to—’

‘No,’ he swiftly interrupted.

‘I’ll go to the grave later . . .’

‘Just leave it alone, all right.’ He knew his voice was hard but he couldn’t stop it. The truth was if he had to think about
that
as well, he wasn’t going to make it through the day.

‘I can’t do that,’ she stubbornly went on. ‘He was my godson. Today’s the first anniversary of his death.’

Son. The word hovered over the table between them. Son. His son. His little boy. Stevie. Six years old and full of life. One day laughing his beautiful face off, the next day dead.

Suddenly Rio spun her mobile on the table to face him. He looked down and wished he hadn’t. The screen showed a photo of Stevie taken last year, all honey-brown hair, Mac’s blue eyes, with that grin that would’ve been complete when his two new front teeth came. But, of course, they never had. Sharply he turned his face away. He couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t. They stayed like that, his face turned to the wall while his dead son smiled up at him from the table.

Finally Rio inched the phone back to her. Once she put the mobile away, she almost put her hand over his, but she didn’t. That type of emotional contact just wasn’t her style.

‘You look terrible.’ Now that was the Rio he knew.

He turned back to her. ‘Talking about terrible, I just wanted a bit of Intel that might be able to help with the job I’m on.’ Rio took a slug from her coffee, so he carried on. ‘I hear there was a body found at some hotel in Bayswater.’

Rio eased her cup down as suspicion clouded her eyes. ‘Why come to me to find out about this case? All you’ve got to do is check in with your superior – what’s his name, Phil? And I’m sure he’ll get all the details you need.’

‘I could do that, but it would take a while. If you could just tell me, I wouldn’t have to jump through all those boring hoops.’

Rio slowly licked the moisture from her lips as she kept her gaze on him. He kept his eyes steady on her face, knowing if he looked away she’d know that something just wasn’t right.

‘Come on,’ he coaxed softly. ‘You might have info that can tip my case in my favour.’ Then he said the one thing he knew would bring her round. ‘The sooner I get my case finished, the sooner I can get home, close the door and think about . . .’ His voice wavered. He couldn’t say Stevie’s name, just couldn’t say it.

He saw the suspicion in her gaze give way to sympathy.

‘The hotel murder? It was a pretty brutal and messy scene,’ she finally said. ‘A woman with her head blasted to pieces. No ID. So, genetics is all we’ve got to work with.’ She reached for her coffee again. ‘Pretty sleazy hotel, popular with prostitutes and petty criminals. Or undercover cops.’ She laughed. He looked into her eyes to confirm she was joking. She was. Rio became serious again. ‘So we’re guessing she was a prostitute. Russian, by the look of it.’

‘How do you know that?’ Only after he’d cut in did Mac realise his question sounded too eager, too probing.

Rio did a sweep of his clothing again. Settled on his baseball cap. ‘Are you all right? You look mashed. Battered and bruised – are you in some sort of trouble?’

‘I’m on a job,’ he explained. ‘Being battered and bruised comes with the territory. You know I can’t talk about that. This girl?’

‘You seem very interested Mac – may I ask why?’

‘I told you I’m on a case. There’s probably no connection but I need to cross-check.’ But he didn’t sound convincing.

Rio gave him a curious look before continuing. ‘The victim had a strange red star tattoo on her left arm.’ Mac eased back down. ‘It had Russian writing around it. I’ve never seen one like it before. But, mind you, it could be a girl from Romford who saw it on the Net, so we’re going to be asking around the parlours just in case it was done locally.’

‘DNA?’

‘The lab guys are still trying to find a match for our faceless lady on our system.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘I don’t know – how long’s a ball of string? If she’s on the system, when I get back to the office probably. Lunchtime? This afternoon?’

‘Any idea who pulled the trigger?’

‘Hard to say at the moment. But we did find evidence there was someone else injured in the incident. We’ve got that DNA as well, so we’re running it through the system. Maybe that’ll help, maybe it won’t. But, if you’re asking me who I think it is, it’s likely to be a John with a gun. But you know me, Mac. I always like to get my man, so we’ll do a thorough job. Especially when it’s a man who does something like that. If you could have seen what I saw, you’d know what I mean.’

Her gaze flicked back to him, her emotions firmly in place. ‘It won’t take us long to figure out who he is. If he’s injured he’ll turn up somewhere needing medical attention, although he hasn’t popped up at any hospitals that we’ve checked so far. I think that the killer might be the kind of sicko who doesn’t leave straight away but goes for a nap on the bed. But he was bleeding – how or why, I haven’t figured out yet. So he has a snooze, and when he wakes up goes back into the bathroom to gaze lovingly at his handiwork. We found footprints that suggest he then moved across the bathroom to gaze at himself in the mirror. A man who adores the look of his face after he’s murdered a woman. Nice type. The sort you could take home to your mum’s.’

Mac felt sick. What if Rio and her team caught up with him and really thought that’s what he’d done. Gloated in the mirror after . . . after . . .he’d pumped a shot into Elena. And possibly killed his own unborn child?

‘Mac? Mac? Are you OK?’

He heard Rio’s worried voice and looked up at her. Except it wasn’t her he saw, but Elena. Elena as she’d looked the last time he’d ever seen her. Smiling down at him as she lay on top of him, naked in bed. Her head arched back, her hair flowing with the abandon of an ebony scarf drifting in the wind. And her face . . .Her face had been a rosy white, not a mash of twisted flesh as he’d seen it last.

‘That’s it.’ The urgent tone of Rio’s voice pulled him back to her. She leaned over the table. ‘I’m going to contact this Phil . . .’

‘I’m OK.’

‘I don’t know why you’re undercover these days anyway. They should have given you a desk job after what happened to Stevie, and you being diagnosed with having PTSD . . .’

‘I don’t have post-traumatic anything,’ he hissed. ‘Phil needed me; there wasn’t anyone else he could use . . .’ He shoved up from his seat. ‘I need to go.’

He started to twist round but was stopped by Rio’s words. ‘We do have another angle on the killer.’

He froze. Turned back. Let her finish. ‘The hotel has got hidden security cameras in the reception. Not for customer protection, of course – the owner suspected his staff were stealing from him. We’ve got an image of a man, about your height . . .’ Mac’s breath stopped in his throat.

‘But the image is hazy and the receptionist’s description was crap. We’re getting one of the techy guys to work on it and should have it back in a matter of hours . . .’

The ring of her mobile stopped her words. She took the call. Listened. Then said, ‘I’ll be there ASAP.’