Looking Good Dead (49 page)

The man swung the beam onto her face. ‘We enough talk! Maybe you like quick fuck? Mr Bryce, you like watch me sex your wife for you?’

Tom’s terror suddenly switched to fury. ‘Touch her and I’ll kill you,’ he said.

The man rounded on him and shouted imperiously, ‘ENOUGH TALK I SAY!’ He stabbed the beam of the torch right into Tom’s face. ‘YOU QUIET. YOU ARE NOT THREAT ME!’

Then the man knelt down. Tom heard the sound of tape ripping and realized what was coming next. Blinking hard, he could see the man was leaning over him. He could smell cologne on him, a sharp, masculine tang.

Tom stiffened.

He knew he had just one shot at this, that was all. He hadn’t thought it through, he just had to do it.

The man was holding a wide strip of gaffer tape between his hands. ‘You close mouth,’ he said.

‘Can I just blow my nose?’ Tom asked.

‘No blow!’

‘I’m going to sneeze!’

And in that moment he detected the hesitation, just the briefest wavering by the man. It was enough.

He sprang sideways, rolling over once, grabbing the bucket with both hands and lifting it, then turned and found the torch beam straight in his face. Kellie was safely to the left, well out of range. With all his strength he hurled the contents of the bucket straight at the flashlight beam.

He felt a few sharp pains on his hands like stings, droplets of the acid, but barely registered them as his ears filled with a terrible, piercing scream of agony.

The torch fell to the floor. Tom could just see the man staggering back clutching at his face. Had to get him! He had to grab him before he got out of reach!

Had to.

Tom lunged, launching himself forward in a full rugby tackle, aware there must be some acid on the floor but beyond caring. This was his only chance. Somehow, his arms almost leaving their sockets, he just managed to grab the man’s right ankle before the chain snapped tight against his own, jolting him to a halt. Then, with a strength he did not even know he had, he yanked the ankle back towards him.

The man fell back across him, writhing, screaming, howling pitifully, clawing at his face with his hands. Kellie was screaming also.

‘Tom! Tom! Tom!’

‘HELP!’ the Russian cried. ‘HELP, YOU HELP, YOU HELP, PLEASE HELP!’ Then he just started bellowing in agony, clawing at his face, at the same time writhing, trying to wriggle away from Tom.

The man had come to get them, which, Tom realized, meant he must have the keys to the shackles. He seized the torch and cracked it down with all his force on the back of the man’s head. There was a tinkle of glass and the light went out. The man was silent, motionless, and for an instant the only sound in the room was the ghastly hissing coming from the man’s head, accompanied by a new smell, a vile stench of burning flesh and hair. Tom retched; the acid seeming to fill the air with an invisible caustic haze. He could hear Kellie coughing too.

He found the Palm, switched it on and rummaged in the man’s jacket pockets. Almost immediately he found a small chain with just two keys on it, and pulled it out. He stood up, shaking from shock and fear, not knowing if someone else was about to appear at any second, knelt and using the light of the Palm found the keyhole. But his hand was shaking so much he could not get it in.

Jesus, come on, please!

Finally it slipped in. But it would not turn. It must be the other one, he realized. Somehow he got the second one in straight away; turned it. The lock sprang open, and seconds later he was limping across to Kellie. His hands were really stinging now, but he had no time to think about that.

Crouching beside her, he kissed her and whispered, ‘I love you.’

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, near motionless with shock. He unlocked her ankle shackle, then started working on the tight knot on the cord binding her legs. His hands were shaking again; the knot was so tight, so damned tight. It wasn’t moving. He tried again. Then again. ‘Are you OK, my darling?’

She said nothing.

‘Darling?’

Nothing.

Then, in a tone that sent a shiver rippling beneath every inch of his skin, she said quietly, ‘Tom, someone’s coming into the room.’

He looked up. Straight into a torch beam coming from the doorway. Then he heard the chiding voice of the obese American. ‘You are one silly boy, Mr Bryce. Very foolish indeed.’

The beam swung away from Tom’s face, around the room. In seconds it would find the Russian on the floor. Tom, his nerves jangling, made a snap decision; he had no idea what the outcome would be, but it could not be any worse than waiting here, crouched down, for the American to come over.

He sprang up and ran at the doorway, aiming straight for the man in the puce shirt standing in it. He just ran, head down, screaming at the top of his voice, ‘YOUUUUU HIDEOUS BASSTAAAARRRRD!’

He vaguely took in that the man was trying to pull something from his pocket. Something black, metallic. A gun.

Then, running flat out, he struck the American full in the stomach with his head. It felt like hitting a massive cushion. He heard a winded gasp, felt a sharp jarring pain in his own neck, and a moment of blackness. The American tumbled backwards, and Tom fell with him, hitting the floor with his head between the man’s legs.

Then a hand grabbed his neck from behind, a hand that felt cold and hard, more like a metal pincer than human flesh. It released his neck and a split second later grabbed his hair, jerking his head painfully up, then pulling him right over onto his back, thudding the back of his head down on the floor and holding it pinioned there.

Tom looked straight up into the stubby barrel of a handgun, and the eyes of ice behind it.

The man was stocky and muscular, with gelled spikes of short, fair hair and heavily tattooed arms. He was wearing a white singlet, with a gold medallion on a chain which was almost touching Tom’s face, and he smelled of sweat. As he stared down expressionlessly, he was chewing gum, mashing it with small, intensely white incisors that reminded Tom of a piranha fish.

The American was staggering to his feet.

‘You want I kill him?’

‘No,’ the American gasped, puffing and wheezing. ‘Oh no. We’re not going to make it that easy—’

Suddenly Tom heard a commotion a short distance away. A male voice shouted, ‘POLICE! DROP YOUR GUN!’

Tom felt his hair released. He saw his assailant turn in shock, then without any hesitation raise his gun and fire several shots in rapid succession. The noise was deafening; Tom’s ears went numb for a moment and his nostrils filled with the reek of cordite. Then his assailant, and the American, vanished.

An instant later he heard a different voice, English, cry out, ‘I’ve been hit. Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, I’ve been shot!’

86

Grace, emerging from the large elevator, pushed past a partly open door labelled with a large yellow and black warning sign: protective clothing must be worn beyond this point. Glenn Branson, first out of the elevator, rounded a corner head of him, and Grace heard him shout, ‘POLICE! DROP YOUR GUN!’

Moments later he heard five shots in rapid succession. Then Glenn crying out.

Turning the corner he saw his colleague lying on the ground, clutch-ing his stomach, blood all over his hands, his eyes rolling. Grace shouted into his radio, ‘This is DS Grace. We have a man down! We need an ambulance! Send the firearms unit straight in. And all other units.’

He stopped, torn for an instant between staying with his colleague and wanting to catch whoever had done this. Waiting outside the building he had two vans of uniformed officers, an entry team from the Police Operations Department, a public order team armed with shields and batons, and a firearms team.

He turned to Nick Nicholl and Norman Potting, who were right behind him. ‘Norman!’ he yelled. ‘Stay with Glenn!’ Then he ran on. Ahead of him he saw a heavy metal door marked emergency exit only swinging shut. He dived through it, then leapt up a stone staircase, two steps at a time, hearing Nicholl pounding up right behind him. He rounded a corner. Then another.

Round the next he caught sight of the man in singlet and jeans with short, spiky hair who Derry Blane in the Fingerprint Department had identified as Mik Luvic. ‘POLICE. STOP!’ Grace shouted.

The man stopped, turned, pointed what looked like a gun at him. Grace, flattening himself against the wall and holding Nick Nicholl back with his arm, saw a muzzle flash, heard a zing then felt shards of cement dust strike his face. The man disappeared.

Grace waited for several seconds, then ran on up the steps, totally oblivious to danger, just angry – determined to get the bastard, to get him and tear him apart with his bare hands. He rounded another corner and stopped. No sign of Luvic. Up another flight, his heart pounding, round another corner. He paused again, inching forward cautiously. Still no sign.

They had to be near the top.

Up more steps and another corner. More steps. Another corner. Then a metal door ahead of them with a big red exit sign, swinging shut. Grace raced, panting, up to it, then turned to Nicholl. ‘Careful.’

The young DC nodded.

They heard the roar of an engine, the clack of rotors.

The helicopter he had seen on the roof, Grace realized.

He pushed the door open. A hugely fat, pigtailed man, who he recognized instantly from the photograph Derry Blane had produced as Carl Venner, was in the pilot’s seat of the black helicopter. It was a small chopper, a four-seater Robinson. Luvic was untying a mooring rope attached to one of the helicopter’s skids from a metal stanchion.

Bursting through the door, Grace yelled, ‘STOP. POLICE!’

The Albanian raised his gun. Grace dived to the ground as he saw the muzzle flash. A strong wind was blowing, worsened by the down-draught of the accelerating rotor blades. Sheltering from the wind and the Albanian’s gun behind the structure next to him, the top of the lift housing, he presumed, Grace heard a crack close to his ear.

Seven shots, he had counted. How many in the magazine?

The mooring rope came free. Luvic ran round to the other side of the helicopter. Grace turned to Nicholl and yelled, ‘Stay back!’

Then he began crawling forward on his stomach, looking around for something he could use as a weapon. A short distance to his right he clocked several bags of cement and a pile of bricks. Spiky Hair was working on the second rope. Grace got to his knees and launched himself at him.

Luvic raised his gun. Grace threw himself sideways just as he saw the muzzle flash, wishing to hell he’d had the sense to put on a flak jacket. An instant later he heard the crack of the pistol. The man pulled the trigger again.

This time nothing happened.

Grace went straight for him. The next thing he knew the Albanian’s feet were flying at him, catching him full on under his chin. Grace was catapulted onto his back on the pitch surface of the roof, winded and stunned.

He heard the engine roar rise. He rolled over, blinking, still a little dazed, saw rooftops, the single tall chimney stack of what had once been Shoreham power station in the distance. Felt the wind increasing. Luvic was on board now. The helicopter’s skids were off the roof.

In desperation he threw himself at the pile of bricks. Then he saw a length of scaffold pole lying beside them. He grabbed it and hurled it in a swirling arc, with all his strength, at the tail rotor.

For an instant, it sailed through the air in what seemed like slow motion. He thought he had thrown it wide. But, to his amazement, it was a bull’s-eye, right in the middle of the rotor.

There was a grinding metallic sound and a shower of sparks. The helicopter lurched sideways.

Then he thought he had failed after all, as it rose sharply several feet in the air, before suddenly beginning to rotate on its own axis. And Grace saw that the entire tail rotor had gone.

The helicopter spun once, twice, then a giddying third time. It veered straight towards him, engine screaming, and he had to flatten himself on the roof to avoid being hit by the skids. The wind threatened to rip his jacket from his back and the hair from his head. Grace heard a huge bang and the next moment was showered with bits of metal and pieces of masonry, as the helicopter struck the side of the lift housing. Like some massive beetle crazed by fly spray, it skewed away, almost sideways, part of one of its main rotor blades clattering down inches from Grace, who rolled sideways to get out of its path.

He caught a glimpse of Venner in his puce shirt at the controls, saw the fear in his face as he struggled, saw the frozen white shock in the face of Luvic.

The helicopter tumbled over onto its side and did a complete flip, followed by another, tumbling towards the edge of the roof, reminding Grace of one of those cheap toys Brighton street vendors sold which were weighted and rolled over and over, propelled by their own momentum.

And suddenly there was a stench of aviation fuel in the air.

The stricken machine crashed into the lift housing for a second time, crabbed round, still under power, until the cockpit was hanging over the edge of the roof and the helicopter was prevented from going completely over only by its tail wedged against the base of the structure.

The engine stopped.

Grace scrambled to his feet and ran across.

The machine was see-sawing. Teetering on the brink. Luvic was unconscious, lying upside down on the glass bubble of the cockpit roof. Venner was struggling, upside down also, suspended by his harness. At any moment the helicopter was going to fall.

‘Help me!’ the pigtailed man implored, thrusting a hand out of the open, swinging door. ‘Please, for God’s sake, help me, man!’

Grace, who was not good with heights, knelt, staring at the car park a long way below, the wind threatening to blow him over the edge. He grabbed the man’s wrist, which was greasy and thick as a ham.

The helicopter lurched. The stink of fuel was horrendous. Grace felt something bite into his hand. It was the man’s wristwatch. He gripped the pudgy flesh just above it and met the man’s tiny, terrified eyes, staring into his own. Imploring him.