David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (36 page)

       
“Yes,” I said. “Still
here.”

       
“Have you got any idea
when you’ll be getting to my place, yet?”

       
“Melissa, there’s
something you need to know about. Just hang on one moment,” I said, getting up
and heading for the door.

       
“What?” she said.
“What’s wrong?”

       
“OK, I’m outside now. I
was in a café. I didn’t want anyone to overhear me. Now, I’m sorry to be the
one to break the news, but there’s a problem with us meeting at your
apartment.”

       
I told her about what
had happened with the three guys, and when I’d finished she was completely
silent at the other end of the line.

       
“I’m sorry, Melissa,” I
said. “I wish there’d been a way to avoid it. Your place is really messed up.
Jones is in there now, dealing with the cleaners. He was worried about you. One
of us should tell him you’re OK.”

       
She still didn’t answer.

       
“Melissa, are you
there?” I said. “Are you OK?”

       
“I am,” she said. “But
what you’re telling me doesn’t make sense. I’m really worried, now, too.”

       
“Why?”

       
“Because I didn’t know
you’d arrived yet. I hadn’t heard back from you when I texted about the change
of time. So, as soon as I got out of the building I called Jones. He told me he
hadn’t seen you. He said he’d gone to my building around five thirty, like I’d
told him to, but no one was there. He said he waited twenty minutes, then left,
assuming there’d been a change of plan.”

       
“You spoke to him?
When?”

       
“Two minutes ago. Right
before I called you.”

       
“But I spoke to him, it
must have been a couple of minutes before that. I had another thing I wanted
him to check on. He was still at your place. In fact, he told me the cleaners
were just arriving at that moment.”

       
“Something’s wrong with
this picture, clearly. OK. The one thing we know for sure is that he has his
phone, since we both spoke to him on it. Stay where you are. I’m going to get a
location on it, then I’ll be right back.”

       
I hung up,
then
made my way through the passage which ran through the
centre
of the building, emerging onto the broad walkway
next to the Thames. A filthy, ragged pigeon swooped down in front of me, almost
touching my head with its wings, so I batted it away and crossed to the river
wall to wait.

       
Melissa called back
after six minutes.

       
“He’s in my apartment,”
she said. “Or his phone is, anyway. And he must be in trouble, to have spun me a
line I was bound to see through straight away.”

       
“Agreed,” I said.

       
“We’ve got to help him.
Can we risk the police?”

       
“No. There’s no time.
And it’s too dangerous. Whoever’s behind this clearly has a finger in your pie,
and we don’t know how many others. We’ll take care of this another way.”

       
“How?”

       
“I’m a hundred yards
from your building. Leave it to me.”

       
“No. Wait. I’m already
in a cab. I’ll be there in three minutes.
Four at the most.
And I have a key.”

       
“OK. I’ll keep an eye on
things till you get here. We don’t want him being carted off anywhere else.”

       
“Good thinking. And
David?”

       
“Yes?”

       
“I know how this must
look. Thanks for not jumping to conclusions.”

       
Little did she know I’d
jumped to lots of conclusions,
recently.
And none of them good.

I switched my phone to silent, put it back in my pocket, and then
spent the next two minutes surveying the immediate area for anyone else who
could be watching the door to Melissa’s building. I couldn’t identify anyone at
ground level, but there were plenty of places in the surrounding apartments and
offices that would offer excellent cover. There was no way to check them in the
time I had available, though.
And no way to reach them
without taking my own eyes off the entrance.
So I contented myself with
finding a spot in the shelter of the steps that led up to the higher level of
boutiques around the base of the Tower, and remaining as vigilant as possible.

       
Melissa’s cab arrived
after another two minutes. She jumped out, paid the driver, and started to
hurry across the twenty yards of cobblestones between the road and her
building. Her black wool coat was cinched in tight around her waist, and the
heels she was wearing - chosen with a day in the office in mind, I guessed -
emphasised
the delicately defined muscles in her calves.
They did nothing for her ability to move quickly over such a slippery surface,
though.

       
I waited till I was sure
no one was following, then stepped out into the open and made my way across to
join her. She saw me coming and paused a few feet from the door, her key
already in her hand.

       
A gaggle of teenagers
pushed past us in the main lobby, but we made it the rest of the way to
Melissa’s corridor without seeing anyone else. The door to her apartment was
closed, but before we were within fifteen feet of the place we could tell it
wasn’t deserted.
Because we could hear voices from inside.
Men’s.
Two of them.
And
neither of them were Jones’s.

       
 
Melissa held up her hand to stop me outside
the apartment,
then
cupped it to her ear to indicate
she was listening to them.

       
“Here’s some free
advice,” a man said. “Don’t try and be a hero. There’s no point. No one’s going
to thank you for it. You know why? Cause they’ll be dead.”

       
“We’re going to find
them,” a second man said. “Whether you tell us, or someone else does. The
outcome’s going to be the same. The only thing to decide is how much pain
you’re going to bring on yourself.”

       
“We’ll put it out there
that we had to torture you for hours, if you want,” the first man said. “Just
tell us. Where did
Trevellyan
go?”

       
There was silence for a
moment, then the sound of a fist crashing into a jawbone.

       
“The woman will tell us,
if you don’t,” the second man said. “She’s next on our list.”

       
“Right,” the first man
said. “Maybe you should just keep quiet. We’d have much more fun working on
her.
Much more options, with a woman.
More than just a
punch bag, like you.”

       
“And we won’t even have
to go looking for her,” the second man said. “She’ll just come walking on in
here, all on her own.”

       
“Do you know what we’ll
do to her, when she gets here,
If
you haven’t already
told us?” the first man said. “Maybe we should keep you alive, so you can
watch.”

       
“Memories like that
should be shared,” the second man said. “They’re too good to keep to yourself.
You know we’d have to tape it.”

       
“And post it on the
web,” the first man said.

       
“All the pain and
humiliation she’s going to suffer?” the second man said. “You’ll know you
caused that. And you’ll know you could have saved her, just by telling us one
thing.”

       
Melissa switched her
keys into her left hand, and drew her Sig. Then she turned to me and mouthed,
on five
.

       
“David
Trevellyan
,” the second man said. “Where is he?”

       
Four
.

       
There was another moment
of silence, and the sound of another blow.

       
Three
. I drew my Beretta.

       
“Tell us, and we’ll stop
this,” the first man said. “We’ll stop hurting you, while you can still see,
and you’ve still got some teeth. And we won’t hurt her, either.”

       
Two
.

       
“What are you waiting
for?” the second man said. Tell us now. Stop all this pointless pain. Save
yourself. Give us
Trevellyan
.”

       
One
.

       
“Do it,” the first man
said. “
Trevellyan
didn’t come back and help you, did
he? You owe it to yourself. Give him up. Tell us where he is.”

       
Melissa nodded to me,
then
with one fluid move she slipped her key into the lock,
turned it, and pushed the door away from her. I stepped through into the
apartment and moved to my left, covering the guy standing nearer to Jones, who
was tied to a wooden dining chair in the
centre
of
the room. Melissa followed me in, and moved to her right.

       
“Are you looking for
me?” I said. “Because if you are, I’m right here. You can leave my friend
alone, now.”

       
The guy I was covering
started to turn towards me, raising a Smith and Wesson. The other spun round
the opposite way and lunged at Melissa.

       
“Stop,” I said. “Drop
it.”

       
My guy froze, half way
round, and let his gun clatter harmlessly to the floor. The other one, though,
wasn’t so sensible. He was about six two and broad in the shoulder, so maybe he
fancied his chances against a woman. Or maybe he had a death wish. But either
way, he took two rapid strides towards Melissa. I expected her to shoot him on
the spot, but she actually lowered her Sig. She waited till he was four feet
away from her. Then she stepped diagonally to her right and unleashed a
tremendous forearm smash directly to the guy’s face. Both his feet left the
floor and he crashed down backwards, completely poleaxed. But Melissa wasn’t
finished. She lifted her leg and drove her foot down towards his head. I
thought she was going for his throat, like I’d done to the guy who’d attacked
me in that same room, earlier. But when I saw the prolonged spasm rip through
this guy’s body, I
realised
she’d taken a different
option. I looked more closely, and saw it wasn’t one that was open to me. She’d
driven the heel of her shoe straight through his left eye and, if there was
much of one there, into his brain.

       
Jones, the guy who’d
been interrogating him, and I watched in silence as Melissa extracted her heel.
She lifted her foot slowly. The guy’s head followed until it was raised an inch
and a quarter off the floor. Then she gently shook her ankle. His eye socket
held its grip for a moment,
then
gave a soft slurping
sound, and his skull fell back down onto the polished wood.

       
“That’s good,” she said,
staring directly at the guy next to Jones. “I’ve seen it where the whole
eyeball comes out, skewered by your heel like a kebab. Then you’ve got to
decide: waste time picking it off, and get your fingers all covered in ocular
slime; or just move on to the next home-invading bastard with it still stuck in
place?”

       
The guy took a step
backwards.

       
“Stop,” she said.
“Release my friend from the chair.”

       
The guy pulled a
switchblade from his pocket, popped the blade, and cut the four plastic ties
that had held Jones in place. He handed the knife to me,
then
Jones struggled to his feet and staggered away from the chair, ending up
leaning against the wall to help keep himself upright.

       
“Now, sit in the chair,
yourself,” Melissa said. “Then look around the room.”

       
The guy hesitantly
complied, and I followed his gaze as he wrestled to keep it away from the four
dead bodies that were still lying on the floor.

       
“I’m going to help my
friend get cleaned up,” Melissa said. “We’ll be gone maybe five minutes. While
we’re out of the room, I want you to think about your comrades. About what
happened to them. And who did it. Then, when we come back in, I’m going to ask
you some questions. You better be ready to answer them.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Melissa and Tim were actually out of the room for closer to fifteen
minutes. When they reappeared Melissa had changed into jeans and a jumper, and
Tim was looking decidedly healthier. The blood had been washed off his face, his
skin had regained a little of its
colour
, and a
couple of plasters had been stuck over the worst of his cuts.