48 Hours - A City of London Thriller (29 page)

Dee spun around on her patent leather boots.

“
It’s actually quite comfortable, and flexible.” She ran
through a few martial arts moves, including high kicking, but
stopped when she noticed I was sweating.

“
Get you shoes on and go and order the takeaway,” she
instructed. “I’ll have a Chicken Korma with plain white rice and
nan bread.”

“
But the Indian Restaurant is almost a mile away,” I
complained, knowing that I would pass two Chinese takeaways, a
kebab shop and the Pizza & Pasta Palace before reaching the
Spice Island Restaurant. Although, I had to concede that the food
from there was wonderful.

“
What? Don’t you think I’m worth it, then?” Dee pouted as she
started to unzip her catsuit.

“
OK,” I conceded. “I’m on my way. I’ll be back
soon.”

It was beginning to get dark outside, and so I cut through the
back garden and climbed over the small fence into Mrs Catterpole’s
garden before walking silently beside her house onto her driveway
and onto the main road. Mrs Catterpole was a feisty white haired
old lady who had scolded me more than once for using this shortcut.
I vividly remembered one occasion when I thought I had got away
with it. I was just exiting through her gate and she called me
back.

“
Joshua Hammond!” she called out, and like a naughty
schoolchild I went to her and took the rebuke with head bowed. I
might have been a man of thirty, but she was seventy and she made
me feel like a kid again. She doesn’t hold grudges, though, because
when my downstairs neighbour told her I was in bed with the flu,
she came around with a casserole, and by the time she left my flat
was as clean as it had ever been.

On this occasion I made it without being caught and, having
saved myself three hundred yards, I set off in the direction of
Spice Island.

***

The Lexus circled the area for a second time and all was
quiet. It came to a stop outside the townhouse. The light was on,
as they had hoped. It suggested that their journey hadn’t been
wasted. The three men in the car were tired; it had been a long
couple of days. They had left Amsterdam yesterday evening and
driven to the Channel Tunnel to avoid as much customs interest as
possible. They had expected a thorough search of their SUV, and so
they hadn’t carried anything illegal with them. That meant, of
course, that they had to rely on Mr Van Aart’s good friend Mr
Holloway, the owner of the printing press, receiver of stolen goods
and seller of humans trafficked from Eastern Europe, the Middle
East, the Far East and Africa. Van Aart and Holloway had what they
called a framework agreement. In Western Europe Van Aart would
provide anything Holloway needed, and in the UK Holloway was the
provider. If the balance swayed too far in one direction, a
financial settlement was agreed. It was all very business-like, and
very grubby.

The counterfeit Kazakh Ambassador, better known to his friends
as Rik, sat beside Gregor in the back seat. Piet, now without his
chauffeur uniform, was again in the driving seat.

“
How long to open the front door?” Rik asked
Gregor.

“
A few seconds, that’s all. It’s on a movable latch that can
be operated from the flats.”

The three men exited the car and walked to the front door.
Gregor took what looked like a wallpaper stripper bent halfway down
the blade. The big man placed his weight on the centre of the
glazed door until it flexed, then he forced the thin blade between
the door and the frame exactly where the Yale lock was located. The
door sprang open. They entered and closed the door behind them,
allowing the lock to engage.

***

Dee decided that in ten minutes she would go to the kitchen
and find some plates and cutlery, ready for the take away meal Josh
was bringing home. She would just wait until this episode of
Friends had finished. Dee had surprised herself this last week. She
had always considered herself to be a strong, independent woman who
could live happily without a man. In her teenage years the closest
she came to the boys was when she was throwing them around, kicking
them or punching them in martial arts classes. Her sacrifice had
seemed to be worthwhile when Dee had qualified to compete in the
Commonwealth Games, held in Manchester, but she had been injured in
training and lost her place. So, rather depressingly, she spent the
duration of the Games in the arena seating, watching her ‘Team GB’
teammates.

Somehow, Josh had caught her unawares. He wasn’t so handsome
that he turned heads. He wasn’t terribly intellectual, either, and
whilst he was in reasonable physical shape, he was nowhere near as
fit as she was. Then again, he didn’t have to work in the kinds of
dangerous and tawdry places Dee encountered on a regular basis.
Whilst the largest part of her time was spent in close protection
work, looking after people who considered themselves to be
celebrities and at risk from fans, there were more testing duties
from time to time. Vastrick Security had initially specialised in
extracting people from cults and deprogramming them. About half of
the rescued men and women went on to lead normal lives again, but
the other half would go back, find another cult or even be
sectioned under the mental health act. Some of the extractions were
violently opposed, with weapons being used to try to keep Dee and
her colleagues away from their targets. She still found it
surprising how many cults with names like ‘The Universal
Congregation for Peace and Love” employed thugs to keep their
members in line until the programming finally weakened their
resistance.

Josh got under her skin. She was beginning to believe that she
loved him, and it was difficult trying to persuade herself that
this was not a sign of weakness. She was suddenly aware that
Friends had finished, and she stood up just as the front door
exploded against the wall.

***

Dee looked around to see three masked men rush into the flat,
the third man closing the damaged door. It was this third man who
spoke, as he looked her up and down, his eyes wide with obvious
surprise.

“
Good evening, Miss Whiplash. We are sorry we damaged the door
but we forgot our key.” Dee recognised the accent immediately. Van
Aart’s men, she thought to herself. She would play along for the
time being, to see what developed. She put on a panicky girlish
voice.

“
What do you want? Who are you? I don’t have anything
valuable.”

“
Where is Josh Hammond?” the leader asked, his tenor
suggesting he expected a helpful answer.

“
Josh is out at a stag party for his friend. He won’t be back
until two or three in the morning. He might not be back at all, if
they drink too much,” she lied.

The leader swore under his breath, and told his colleagues to
search the flat, to be sure that Josh was not around.

“
And who, exactly, are you?” the man enquired.

“
I’m just a friend,” she answered, genuinely not knowing
whether she was anything more than that.

The heavy set man returned to the room, carrying her
nightdress.

“
They’re sleeping together, boss,” he said, brandishing the
lingerie.

The leader took his mobile phone and pressed a speed dial
button. There was a brief conversation in Dutch before he hung up.
All three were now back in the lounge. The leader said something in
Dutch and the two others moved towards Dee.

“
What are you going to do to me?” Dee shrieked, as if
terrified. The men smiled at the seemingly frightened girl, and
dropped their guard, as she had hoped.

“
You’re coming with us, to make sure Mr Hammond does as he’s
told.”

Piet came up behind her and grabbed her upper arms, while
Gregor approached from the front. Dee waited, and then made her
move. She threw her head back and felt the satisfaction of her head
crunching against the gristle of Piet’s nose. Piet let go with one
hand and clutched his face with a howl of pain. Dee lifted her
right leg, and with her high heeled boots she scraped her foot down
his shin. He yelped, let go of her other arm and doubled over, as
she had anticipated. Dee threw back her right elbow until it
connected with Piet’s chin, and he went down. The big guy was
almost on her, and so she deterred him by placing a well-aimed kick
into his groin. The pointed toes of the boots did their job and she
heard the wind go out of him. As he bent forward, her right knee
came up to meet his chin and his head snapped back. He was
teetering on his feet, and so Dee took hold of the ski mask, and a
good chunk of hair, and pulled him towards her. She used his weight
against him, and threw him on top of his groaning
friend.

Dee was about to take out the third man when she felt a
burning sensation in the middle of her back. Her muscles spasmed
uncontrollably. She knew that she had trained for this eventuality,
and so she forced herself to breathe so she would stay conscious,
but her attacker did not stop sending the pulsing electricity down
the wires in the same way the man leading her training session had
done, and eventually she passed out.

Rik sniggered as his men began to lift themselves from the
floor. He placed the stun gun back in his pocket. He had never had
to use that much voltage to put someone down before. He just hoped
she wasn’t dead.

Chapter
62

Lambeth Road, London. 7:30pm.

Lavender Fisher couldn’t remember the last time her father had
been so angry, yet he was a man who had built his reputation by
being angry. When she had arrived back in the UK, her dad’s head of
security was waiting in the Arrivals hall to take her back to the
family home in Isleworth. Declan was pleasant enough for a
bodyguard. He warned her that she was in for a roasting when she
got home, and he was right.

If she had been younger she would have been grounded. The
worst thing about all of this was that she genuinely couldn’t
remember the photos being taken, although her father was apoplectic
with rage about them. She remembered the nice German boy, Conrad;
she remembered going back to his flat and meeting his flatmate. She
even remembered the drink and the drugs, but everything else after
that was a blur. What she remembered vividly was waking up shortly
before noon the next day in a scruffy flat, in a double bed where
the bed linens had not been washed for weeks. The place smelled
awful. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed the night
before. There was no-one else in the flat and so she picked up her
clothes - a pair of panties and a short black dress - and put them
on before heading back to her five star hotel.

The things her father described as being on the photos sounded
sordid and dirty even to Lavender. No self-respecting girl could
indulge in a threesome with people she had only just met and retain
a scintilla of pride. But she had, and there was photographic
evidence. What was worse, the police had the photos which showed
her with the remnants of cocaine between her nose and top lip. She
had an appointment to go and see the police with her father next
week.

At this particular moment Lavender was in the back of the
Chrysler 300C and Declan was driving. They were on Lambeth Road,
heading towards Elephant and Castle and the Ministry of
Sound.

Lavender wouldn’t have been able to attend the reception, or
the party afterwards, had she not been repatriated so urgently by
the TV Company. This was a bonus for her. The fashion brand that
was launching their autumn range also produced luxury goods and so
the ‘Goody Bags’ would be stuffed with branded watches, bracelets,
neck scarves and belts. It was not unknown for the value of such a
gift bag to be worth over two thousand pounds. These freebies
allowed Lavender to be extra generous to her friends on their
birthdays and at Christmas.

Lavender was wearing a relatively modest mini dress with
matching bondage shoes, and not a lot else. She noticed blue lights
flashing behind her and turned to see a black SUV with flashing
blue lights behind the radiator grille.

Declan saw the blue lights and instinctively looked at his
speedometer. He had crept over the speed limit by ten miles per
hour. He waited until there was a place to pull in off the busy
road and then parked up in a recessed parking area. The SUV pulled
in behind.

A man in jeans a tee shirt and a leather jacket approached the
driver’s door. He held a warrant card against the glass; the name
read ‘Detective Constable Gary Presswell’.

Declan wound down the window. “So when did detectives start
pulling people over for traffic offences?” he asked.

“
Don’t worry, I’m not going to write you a ticket. We’ve been
following you since you left the house because the young lady in
the back is the target of a kidnapping threat we received this
afternoon. Could you just show me your driving licence,
please?”

Declan went into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. As he
looked up, something was sprayed into his face. A second later the
rear passenger side door flew open, and another man reached in and
took Lavender by the arm.

“
Come with me or you die where you sit,” he
snarled.

As the SUV drove away at speed, Declan rubbed his eyes. He was
still blinded and in real pain. He tried to get out of the car by
touch only, and when he was standing upright he leaned on the car
horn until someone came to his aid.