Revenger (26 page)

‘So what happened to the man with the gun? The one by the car?’

‘He killed him . . . with the knife,’ said Miklosko.

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Keane. She knew what Miklosko
meant
, but she needed it in unambiguous form. ‘There were two

men who came to rescue you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And one of them had a knife?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he killed the man with the gun?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘I don’t know. I remember the other man holding me and telling me it was going to be all right . . .’

‘This is the second rescuer?’

‘That’s right . . .’

‘Can you describe him?’

Miklosko made a visible effort to conjure up a picture in her mind of the man who had held her, but then sighed and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. He was bigger than me, obviously, and I think he had dark hair. But apart from that it all goes blank, really, and there are just a few images, as I say, like trying to remember a dream the next morning. The next thing I really knew was waking up here, in hospital.’

‘But there were two men who came to rescue you?’

‘Yes, definitely. There were two.’

Keane smiled with entirely unfeigned gratitude. ‘Thank you, Mrs Miklosko,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’

Outside in the corridor, Walcott was studying his smartphone with a look of boyish glee on his face. He saw Keane and his grin became even wider. ‘I know who Snoopy was,’ he said, triumphantly.

‘That’s great, how did you find out?’

‘Well, the pathologist said he had a Royal Marines crest tattooed on his left shoulder, and Chrystal Prentice told us his nickname was Snoopy. So I tried calling the Ministry of Defence and the Marines and no one there was going to be able to check out the records till tomorrow. So then I thought, Sod it, and Googled “Snoopy” and “Marines”, and there he was, from a local newspaper story a couple
of
years ago, running an assault-course day for underprivileged kids.’

‘So who is he?’

‘Norman Derek Schultz. He was a company sergeant major in the Royal Marines. Only left about a year ago. And I’ll tell you something else. That event he was doing for the kiddies, it was in Poole, Dorset. And that’s where the SBS are based. What if he and the other bloke, his mate, were both in the special forces? That would explain why they were able to take on a whole bloody riot, just the two of them.’

‘Yes, it would,’ Keane agreed. She yawned and then closed her eyes for a few seconds. ‘Sorry,’ she said, coming back to life. ‘I’m very tired. Must be getting old. Still, there soon won’t be any need for people like you and me to stay up all night trying to solve murder cases.’

‘Why not?’ Walcott asked.

‘Because they’ll be able to work the whole thing out on Google.’

60

THE WARD SISTER
had objected strongly to letting Carver anywhere near her patient. Mr Curtis, she pointed out, had lost a great deal of blood and then suffered respiratory failure during his operation. But Carver had waved his official papers, said the magic words ‘national security’, then pointed out that tens of people had already died, and more might still be in danger if the perpetrators weren’t caught. Finally, without voicing any overt threat, he made it clear that he was armed, and she had very grudgingly relented. Now he was sitting beside the bed of an extremely sick man – a man whose injuries he had inflicted – wondering whether he could afford to trust his own instincts.

Carver had been thinking about the way Curtis had acted – the warnings to stay away from Netherton Street or get the hell out; the fact that he had been unarmed when he had been charging towards the supermarket; the general sense of competence he exuded – and come to a conclusion. So the first thing Carver said was, ‘Who are you working for?’

Curtis looked at him blearily and mumbled, ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes, you do. You weren’t there by accident tonight. You were undercover. I could tell. That’s why I didn’t kill you. Sorry for shooting you, by the way.’

Curtis was in no state to feel like being grateful.

‘But look on the bright side, I also saved your life. If you’d made it to the supermarket, you’d be dead.’

Still Curtis saw no reason to say thank you.

‘OK, I don’t blame you for feeling that way. So, I’m guessing you’re either an undercover cop or security service. Either way, you won’t want to tell me anything. Not some bastard who comes from another ministry and blew the shit out of your shoulder. So I’ll keep it short. I’ve already got to Bakunin . . .’

Carver saw Curtis’s eyes widen in recognition, and for the first time thought he might be getting somewhere. ‘He told me he got his orders from someone, he didn’t know who, he only had a voice-mail to call if he needed to get in touch. But maybe you know more than he did. So here’s my question: who was calling Bakunin?’

Curtis didn’t look at all bemused or surprised by what Carver had said. But he said nothing.

‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Carver said. ‘That’s obvious. You don’t want to tell me. That’s understandable. But here’s my problem: I need to know who that man was. So either you tell me . . . or I make you tell me. And I don’t want to do that. So please, tell me.’

‘Can’t do that. Only talk to my cover officer . . .’

‘He’s not here and I’ve not got time to call him. Tell me: who was Bakunin talking to?’

Carver held up the Glock. ‘See this? It’s got a very hard barrel. If I push that barrel right into your wound it’s going to hurt you more than you can even imagine. And the fact that you’re hooked up to painkillers won’t help. This’ll cut right through the drugs.’

Curtis stared back at him, defiantly silent.

‘I’ve already tortured one person this evening, I really don’t . . . Oh fuck it . . .’ Carver clamped his right hand over Curtis’s mouth. With the left he drove the barrel of the Glock hard into the centre
of
the bandaged area around the shotgun wound. Carver knew where he had hit Curtis and he was going right for the heart of the impact.

Curtis’s body writhed. The veins on his forehead popped. His eyes were so wide open Carver half-expected the eyeballs to pop out. He gave a muffled cry of agony.

Carver pulled back the gun, but kept the hand where it was. ‘Tell me, calmly, no shouting or screaming, or I do it again . . . For fuck’s sake, we’re on the same side! I’m trying to catch the man who ordered the riot. I just need one fucking name!’

‘Cropper,’ Curtis said. ‘We never confirmed it for sure. But we think he’s called Danny Cropper. Ex-Para . . .’

Now there’s a surprise, Carver thought.

‘Operates out of a strip joint he owns in Brewer Street, name of Soho Gold.’

‘Thank you,’ said Carver. ‘See, that wasn’t so difficult. And I’m sorry I hurt you. Tell you what, I’ll make the pain go away.’

He reached across to the bag from which an opiate analgesic was dripping into Curtis’s arm and dramatically upped the dose. Curtis looked at him blearily then closed his eyes.

‘Thanks,’ said Carver, when he saw the ward sister on the way out. ‘We only talked for a couple of minutes, but he was very helpful. He’s fast asleep now, though. Probably the best thing for him, eh?’

Walking through the lobby towards the main exit Carver was passed by the two plain-clothes police, the tall woman and the black guy who had come in at the same time as him. The woman bumped into him on the way by.

She said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

Carver said, ‘Quite all right.’

And then they were gone.

61

CELINA NOVAK WAS
wearing a short, black, fringed wig and an enormous pair of dark glasses when she arrived at Soho Gold. Between them they hid both her natural hair and almost all her face, so that the only thing visible was her mouth, which was painted a rich, glossy scarlet. Everything else was black: the fur-trimmed jacket, open to reveal a miniskirted dress; the stockings; the knee-length, high-heeled boots; and the evening bag. She had been flown into Biggin Hill and driven away in another ambulance. Ten minutes later, the ambulance had driven into an empty office car park and Novak, now freed from all the bandages, had been transferred to the London taxi that had taken her to a discreet hotel in St James’s, just off Piccadilly. The equipment she had requested had been waiting for her in her room. She’d collected it and gone straight back out again. Now she was picking her way along the litter-and dogshit-strewn pavement, straight past the short line of damp, shivering punters waiting for the security check. She went up to one of the two thick-necked bouncers standing by the door with identical black suits and Bluetooth earpieces.

‘You on the list, hey?’ he asked her in a guttural South African accent.

‘No.’

‘Then fuck off to the back of the queue.’

‘I am here to see Mr Cropper,’ Novak said with a blank, almost robotic assurance that surprised the bouncer. ‘He is not expecting me. Tell him I have a message. It relates to the event he organized earlier this evening. He will know what I mean.’

The bouncer gave her a hard, intimidating stare but she stood her ground, saying nothing, showing no fear or unease whatever. So he put a finger to his earpiece, waited for his call to be picked up and then said, ‘Got some fuckin’ fresh here wants to speak to Cropper. Says she’s got a message for him . . . some shit to do with an event this evening, something he organized . . . Ja, all right, I’ll send her through.’ He jerked his head towards the door of the club and said, ‘Mr Cropper’s by the bar. He’s expecting you.’

Novak walked through, her expression still as fixed as an Easter Island statue’s. Inside, the club was decorated to match its name. Around the sides of the room, gold swag curtains were draped around booths whose furniture consisted of gold-upholstered banquettes wrapped around circular tables, each with its own set of golden steps. In the middle, facing the stage, there were more tables, partly surrounded by black and gold chairs arranged so that there was always a clear view of the stage. One dancer was doing her routine around the pole that rose from the middle of the stage and others, in various shades of undress, were entertaining the men gathered around the tables. These were the Golden Girls, the club’s principal attraction, and the garters they all wore on their right thighs were stuffed with ten-, twenty- and fifty-pound notes. Even in the midst of a depression sex, at least, was still selling.

Without slowing her pace, Novak discreetly opened her little evening bag and removed a small, clear, plastic phial, no more than 4cm long and roughly the thickness of a pencil. It was filled with a colourless, virtually tasteless dose of digoxin, the poison derived from the digitalis, or foxglove. At this extreme concentration it
would
induce an acute, and almost certainly fatal, bout of cardiac arrhythmia. Novak slipped the phial under her watch strap and cast a cold, dispassionate eye over the men all around her. She wondered if they knew how pathetic, how desperate, how impotent they looked as they were ripped-off and prick-teased by strippers who so obviously despised them. Some were sweaty, red-faced and over-eager. Others tried to sit back with a seen-it-all-before sophistication. Not one had managed to establish any degree of command over the woman who was supposedly performing for their gratification.

Cropper wasn’t hard to spot: a big man in a tightly buttoned suit sitting on his gold leather stool with his back to the bar and his arms round two topless bottle-blondes. He was running his hands around the insides of their lacy knickers while they stood there passively, letting themselves be fondled. Novak had met men like him in clubs like this all the way from Boston to Bangkok, and though she held him in as little regard as any of the other men there, she did at least admire the fact that he alone made it plain that these women were his possessions, to do with as he pleased. All relationships, in Novak’s view, were fundamentally about power. And she was always on the side of the person who wielded it, particularly if that person was her.

The moment Cropper noticed her presence she saw his attitude change. There was a nervous, uncertain falseness in the smile that he beamed in her direction, a desperation in the way he dragged his groping fingers away from the girls’ underpants, got to his feet and held out his right hand for her to shake. She ignored it, and as he withdrew it he started blathering, ‘So, yeah, yeah . . . great to see you, er . . .’

‘Magda.’

‘Magda . . . yeah, right . . . well, run along, girls . . .’ He gave the two blondes a pat on each rump. ‘Me and Magda are going to talk a little business. Can I get you a drink, Magda? Vintage champagne, a cocktail, anything you like . . . on the house.’

‘Iced water is all I require,’ she said, sounding as though that was
what
ran in her veins, too. She took the stool next to Cropper. His half-empty glass of vodka was sitting on the bar between them.

‘Water, right . . . with ice, lemon, all the trimmings, eh?’ he said.

He waited for a second, expecting her to manage a please or thank-you at that point, and even some sort of fractional smile. Most women would do that just to be polite, no matter what they thought of the man in front of them, but Novak’s face remained frozen and she said nothing.

Cropper was getting a little angry now. She could tell. As terrified as he might be by the prospect of the message she was bringing from his anonymous masters, he still didn’t like anyone taking the piss quite so blatantly. He turned around, not giving a damn that he was turning his back on her, and called out to the girl behind the bar, ‘Oi, Shelley, get us a mineral water, flat, lots of ice.’

‘Nice and cold, yeah?’ Shelley called back.

‘Frigid,’ said Cropper, tersely. ‘And another double Goose with a twist. I’m gonna need it.’

As he stood watching Shelley prepare the drinks, Cropper reached for his old drink and downed it in one. Novak had her bag open on the bar. She was fiddling around inside it, the way women do when they’re trying to find something. Cropper didn’t pay her any attention. He didn’t see that she was actually putting a thing back, rather than taking it out: the little plastic phial. It was empty.