Cold Revenge (2015) (36 page)

‘We don’t want anything to get lost in translation,’ Enver explained grimly. He took his jacket off and gave it to Huss to hold. His tie followed. Then he slipped the gloves on and flexed his fingers. He looked huge now in the darkness, lit softly by the glow of the energy-saving street lamps.

‘Time for a little chat,’ he said. His voice was quiet with menace, his eyes hard. Huss looked at him wonderingly. This was a side of Enver she had never seen. She knew his history; she knew he’d been a boxer. But she had never considered the innate brutishness that is necessary to reach the top flight as Enver had. When Enver chose to, he could be very violent indeed.

They came to the end of the road. Parked diagonally across from them was a white Ford Transit with a huge, burly figure at the wheel. It had to be Dimitri, thought Enver.

They crossed the road.

‘Wait here,’ said Enver quietly. Huss did as she was told and watched as Enver approached the van. He tapped on the window and the driver lowered it. She could see his face, a white blur, as he peered out at the thickset stranger with the heavy moustache.

Enver would never have made anything other than a good journeyman boxer, but he could hit unbelievably hard.

His best punch was a right hook and it was this that connected with the side of Dimitri’s head.

Huss didn’t see the punch, but sound travels at night and she heard it quite clearly. For the second time in just over a week Dimitri’s cheekbone was shattered. Then Enver yanked open the door of the van and dragged the stunned Dimitri out on to the pavement. Another couple of blows and a savage kick to the ribs.

Enver bent over the figure now lying half in the gutter and said something, then turned and walked away.

A couple of metres away, he stopped and walked back to where Dimitri lay.

‘Nearly forgot,’ he said. He kicked Dimitri as hard as he could in the groin, then rejoined Huss.

‘Time to go,’ he said.

They walked a couple of streets away, down to the high street, and caught a taxi to Paddington. Enver was completely silent, wrapped in whatever thoughts he had. Huss respected his right to privacy.

Enver appreciated Huss’s tact. He looked at the stocky young woman beside him and smiled apologetically at her. He hoped he hadn’t alarmed her. Beating Dimitri up had left him feeling cleansed somehow. Huss smiled at him and patted his arm.

They pulled up outside the station and he decided to wait with her, until her train back to Oxford was ready for boarding. He liked Huss. They sat at a table outside the station bar and had a drink, while they waited for her train.

Now that the earlier tension of the evening was draining away, Enver was funny and warm and considerate. Huss stared at him mistily. Ever the optimist, she thought, it’s like a date, sort of.

‘Do you like ceviche?’ she asked Enver suddenly. He stared at her with some surprise.

‘What, that raw fish with lime juice on it?’

‘Yes,’ said Huss.

‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said.

‘I don’t either,’ said Huss, pleased. ‘What do you like to eat?’

I wonder what she’s on about, thought Enver. ‘I like köfte and shish kebab, that kind of thing. Stereotypical, I guess, but, well, it’s what I like.’ He paused. ‘Grilled meat, and cake. I do like cake.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I like cake too.’

She nodded, satisfied. She stood up to go.

‘I’ll walk you to the barrier,’ he said. There they halted awkwardly. They stood looking at each other, almost in embarrassment.

‘Well,’ said Enver lamely, ‘it’s been lovely to have worked with you.’

Huss smiled at him. Sod it, she thought, then, ‘I like köfte too,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Enver.

Huss shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. Enver tugged his moustache. The enormous station was brightly lit and had very few people around. It felt almost hallucinogenic.

‘Is it true that DCI Hanlon stabbed a man to death on that island?’ she asked.

Enver looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh no. Not at all. She didn’t stab him. She killed him with a spear. It was there,’ he made a sketching motion in the air, ‘hanging on the wall. She didn’t bring it with her.’ He shook his head emphatically; that would have been weird, the gesture implied.

‘Oh,’ said Huss faintly. How can you compete with that, she wondered. ‘Well, I’d better go.’

She passed through the barrier and walked towards the train. I won’t look back, she thought. She did, though, and saw Enver’s broad shoulders as he slowly lumbered towards the Underground. Off to see Hanlon, she thought bitterly.

With a spear. She shook her head.

She settled down in the carriage and took her phone out. And a book. Fiction is a great consolation, she thought. Huss never gave in to self-pity. She always made the best of things.

To her delight and amazement, a message appeared on the screen of her Samsung phone.

I’m glad you like köfte. Would you like to come to my brother’s restaurant some time, if you happen to be in London? Enver.

Oh, I think I can happen to be in London, thought Melinda Huss. She frowned gently to herself as she answered, and smiled.

Corrigan sat in the visitor’s chair beside Hanlon’s bed, looking at her with affectionate concern. He was formally dressed in black tie, but with his size and battered face he looked more like a doorman than a senior policeman.

Her dark, curly hair contrasted with the white of the pillows, and the bandage that ran around her head looked almost chic. She was wearing a hospital gown and seemed frail and childlike in the bed.

Fuller was making a good recovery in a separate hospital. Parts of him were frostbitten, there was a certain amount of internal bleeding and his skull was fractured, but it seemed he would survive intact.

Hanlon’s mobile was charging next to the bed, when Corrigan’s phone rang.

‘Excuse me,’ he said and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Enver had spoken to him briefly about a threat to Hanlon from some Russians. The Russian mafia, he’d said. Corrigan had groaned to himself. Not content with home-grown mayhem, Hanlon was casting her net further afield. To Enver’s huge relief, Corrigan had told him to fill him in later. The assistant commissioner had watched the expression on Enver’s face and rightly guessed that the DI would be busy trying to airbrush whatever facts made Hanlon look bad, out of the report.

In the interim, for security reasons, Corrigan had Hanlon transferred from University College Hospital, where she’d been initially taken, to the one at Seven Sisters where Whiteside was being looked after. In fact, he was just down the corridor.

Hanlon was high on a cocktail of medication and felt warm, comfortable, safe and grateful to be alive. I could be face down in that drain, she thought drowsily, sleeping with the microbes, not even the fishes.

She propped herself dozily up on one elbow and saw that Corrigan’s long black overcoat with a velvet collar, the one that made him look like a successful bookmaker, was draped over the back of his chair and his briefcase, a kind of man-bag that rather surprised her, was there too. He had been wearing a dinner jacket; only now did it occur to her that he must have come straight from the Mansion House.

She thought, I wonder. She took her phone from the bedside table next to her and scrolled through the menu, until she came to the number of the unrecognized mobile that had been giving her the information on Whiteside’s family. She pressed dial.

A phone rang from the overcoat pocket. One ring was enough. She pressed end call and put her phone back.

Corrigan knocked and re-entered the room.

‘I’m off now, Hanlon. I’m sure DI Demirel will keep me up to speed and you can come and see me when you’re up and about.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said sleepily. ‘I’m sorry if I messed up your evening.’

Corrigan smiled. ‘It was very dull, Hanlon. You’d have hated it.’

She smiled woozily at him. ‘I’ll have my report ready as soon as I can.’

‘You do that, Hanlon, and concentrate on leading as dull a life as possible, please,’ said the assistant commissioner.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No more excitement, Hanlon. I’m on pills for that kind of thing, understand.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Corrigan turned to go. ‘Sir?’ said Hanlon. Corrigan stopped and looked at her.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and closed her eyes.

Corrigan nodded curtly and left the room. A wave of conflicting emotion washed over him. It was the first time Hanlon had ever thanked him for anything. He felt very moved. He closed the door quietly behind him. Hanlon waited five minutes. She had one more thing she needed to do, before she could sleep.

She slipped the heart-rate monitor and blood-pressure counter off the fingers they were attached to. She had canulae in the backs of her hands but they weren’t yet attached to any lines.

She swung her feet down on to the cool, beige lino of the floor. She picked up the book she’d asked DCI Murray to bring in. It belonged to one of his daughters and the request had puzzled him greatly, but he’d done as she asked.

Hanlon padded in her bare feet, two doors down to Whiteside’s room, and let herself in. The nurses’ station was the other side of a partition with a window and allowed enough light to read by.

Whiteside lay asleep in his coma and he stirred as she watched. She could see a muscle move in his powerful forearm.

She whispered, ‘It’s not called
Sleeping Beauty
in the original, Mark. It’s called
Briar Rose
. I’ll read you the opening sentence. Just like I promised you. Everything’s going to be all right, I swear.’

She opened
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
and started reading. ‘A long time ago there lived a King and Queen...’

A little while later she leaned forward and kissed his forehead. ‘One day, Mark, one day.’

~

We hope you enjoyed this book.

The next gripping book in the DI Hanlon series,
A Hard Woman to Kill
, will be released in Summer 2015

For more information, click one of the links below:

Alex Howard

More books in the DI Hanlon series

An invitation from the publisher

Detective Inspector Hanlon is back. She’s been promoted, and now she goes undercover in Oxford to find the sadomasochistic killer of two students.

Philosophy lecturer Dr Gideon Fuller, with his penchant for high-end sadistic sex, is in the frame, but Hanlon is not convinced. From the specialist brothels in Oxford and Soho, to the inner sanctum of a Russian people trafficker with a taste for hurting women, the trail leads Hanlon deeper and deeper into danger – until she herself becomes the killer’s next target.

‘Meet my new favourite detective – DI Hanlon.

‘She’s not that likeable. But I loved her. She’s not all that trustworthy. But you’d want her on your side... If you get on her radar beware – yet if you gain her trust and her loyalty she will fight for you until her last breath.

‘This dark and sinister tale of missing children is brilliantly done, authentic and doesn’t pull any punches... The story twists and turns its way to an edge of the seat conclusion.

‘Highly recommended.’
LizLovesBooks

A
LEX
H
OWARD
was born in London and educated at St Peter’s College, Oxford and Edinburgh University, where he studied Arabic and Islamic History. He worked in adult education for the British Council and other institutions in the Middle East and London. He is married with two children.

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alexhowardcrime.com

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