The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (40 page)

“What do you do, Mr. Smith?”

“I work in a café.”

“Really? You work in café yet you have the guts to come here, to my club, to beat two of my men in front of me, when you must know that I am dangerous man.” By way of emphasis, he flicked back his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster with a pistol inside it. “You know these things, yet you still come here. No, Mr. Smith, you do not just work in café. Who are you really?”

“It doesn’t really matter who I am. I’m here to make you an offer.”

Emil sucked his teeth. “Very mysterious, Mr. Smith. But I admire your courage. Make me your offer. I will consider it.”

“The couple in the flat next to mine can’t afford to pay the rent that you are charging. Maybe they could when they moved in, but perhaps you have increased it?”

“It is free market, Mr. Smith. A man must make a living in this world.”

“I understand that. I’m not telling you your business. You are obviously successful.”

“Yes, Mr. Smith, I am. And you work in café.” It was a gentle reminder of their respective stations, and Milton was not minded to question it. “What is your offer?”

“The flat in Chertsey House. How much did it cost?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“I’m guessing one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

Milton lowballed the value, knowing that it would have cost more, but knowing, also, that, if he was fortunate, they were about to enter into a negotiation. He didn’t want to start too high.

Zharkov grinned. “Ten years ago, perhaps. Price goes up as years go by. Today’s value, two hundred.”

Milton had already checked, and he knew that that was about twenty-five thousand more than the property would fetch on the open market, but he wasn’t about to dispute it.

“I’d like to buy the property.”

“You?”

“That’s right.”

“You work in café. Now you want to be landlord?”

“I leave you to your business, Emil. Leave me to mine.”

“You are funny man, Mr. Smith. How does man like you find money to buy flat for two hundred thousand?”

“Who said I was offering two hundred?”

“That is price.”

Milton smiled. “No, Emil. It’s not.”

Emil’s sunny disposition became occluded by irritation. “That is price, Mr. Smith. I do not wish to sell. If you wish to buy, you pay price I tell you to pay.”

“I was hoping we could conclude this without the need for unpleasantness.” Milton shook his head, making a play of his disappointment. “Are you sure that two hundred is your best offer?”

“Are you
threatening
me?”

“I suppose I am.” He took out his phone, opened the media tab and selected the video he wanted to play. He passed the phone across the table. “Watch.”

Milton had checked that the footage was clean and that it showed exactly what he wanted it to show. The tiny camera that he had hidden had recorded the moment where Dmitri and Pavel had come into the flat. Their faces were clearly captured. The microphone had picked up the conversation: the father’s pleading for more time, Dmitri’s threats, the shriek from the wife as her husband was struck, Ahmed rushing in to stand between his father and Dmitri. Everything had been recorded. Everything had been evidenced.

Milton watched Emil's face as the footage played. His brows lowered and came closer together, his eyes burned.

The footage stopped. Milton reached out and collected the phone.

Zharkov slammed his fist on the table. “You are blackmailing me?”

“This is just a negotiation,” Milton said calmly. “I want that flat. I’m telling you what I’ll offer for it. I have fifty thousand pounds in my bag. I’m prepared to give that to you, right now. In return, I want you to sell me the flat.”

“
Fifty?
You are crazy!”

“That’s not everything that I’m offering, Emil. It’s fifty thousand, and I won’t pass this to the police. A man like you can afford the best lawyers, and they could make it so that you had a way out of the mess that I could cause. But lawyers are expensive. And it would disrupt your business. So I want you to try to put a value on those things, too, and add them to the fifty. Do you think we’re getting close to your valuation now?”

All of Emil’s previous bonhomie was gone, revealed for the flimsy veil that Milton had known that it was. He glared at him without any attempt to disguise his fury.

“You are brave man, Mr. Smith, coming into my club and threatening me. People have been badly hurt for less. Killed for less.”

“I’m sure they have. But you’re wasting your breath. I’m not frightened of you.”

You should be frightened of me.

Milton didn’t need to look to remember the locations of the weapons that were to hand: the glass on the table, the knife on the bar, the bottle on the bar, the corkscrew.

“You have deal,” Emil said, finally. His face showed disgust; with himself, perhaps, for being backed into a position where he had no room to manoeuvre. “The money?”

Milton reached down, collected the bag and deposited it on the table. The Pole unzipped it and took out one of the bundles of banknotes. It was apt, Milton thought, that the dirty money that Higgins had hoarded was now being put to good use. Some would help Hicks and his family; the rest would help Ahmed and his parents.

“And the video?”

“I’ll keep that. Just in case you think it would be a good idea to do something foolish.”

“Not acceptable.”

“I don’t care. It’s the only choice you’ve got. What’s it going to be: yes or no?”

Emil must have realised that the files were digital and that Milton would have backups, and, after another moment of irritated contemplation, he spat a Polish curse and put out his hand.

Milton didn’t take it. “Contact your solicitor and have him draw up the transfer documents for the house. I’ll come back this time next week and we can sign them.”

He stood.

“Why you do this, Smith? Why you put yourself in my business like this?”

“I’ve been wading through shit for the last week, Emil, and I’ve had enough of it. I want to do something good.”

He left the money on the table, turned his back and, without a backward glance, walked to the door.

No one tried to stop him.

MILTON WALKED through the supermarket and back outside into the darkening afternoon. He found the Volkswagen and set off. He needed to get back home. He wanted a shower, to wash the grime and muck from his body, and then he would have to start thinking about his shift at the shelter. He had missed a few nights recently. Cathy had been kind about it, but he didn’t want to let her down or take advantage of her good nature.

The traffic choked up on Newham Way as he headed back to the west. Milton stared out at the long row of red taillights ahead of him, curving around the bend as the road turned through Beckton Park.

Milton saw the Nissan again as the traffic started to flow a little more freely. He had just passed through Beckton District Park; he signalled and exited the road at the junction with the A112, and then turned sharp left onto Tollgate Road. The Nissan signalled, too, and followed him off the main road. Milton flicked his eyes back to the mirror and saw a second car turning left, the three of them now heading east on Tollgate Road.

It was a two lane road that was hemmed in with 1950s terraced housing. The residents parked their cars in bays that alternated on the left and right sides of the road. The channel that remained in the middle was narrow, with only just enough space for both lanes of traffic to navigate easily.

Milton dabbed the brakes to allow the Nissan to draw a little nearer.

Milton recognised the driver.

He sped up a little, continuing ahead until he passed onto a stretch of the road that cut through the park he had seen earlier. There were metal railings on either side and then wide open spaces.

The Nissan’s driver kept the distance down to twenty metres between the two cars.

Milton stamped on the brakes.

The driver behind him was too slow to react, and, although he managed to slow a little, it wasn’t enough to prevent his car from bumping into the back of Milton’s Volkswagen.

The second car that had turned off the main road was a Ford, a dowdy Mondeo that had seen better days. Milton recognised it: it was Alex Hicks’s second car. He watched in the mirror as it pulled out and drove alongside the Nissan.

Richard Higgins didn’t even have time to open the door and run.

Hicks raised a snub nosed Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. He aimed across the cabin of the Mondeo and fired a contained burst through the open window. Hicks was close to the general, and he was an accurate shot. The spray of 9x9mm rounds blew out the window of the Nissan and perforated Higgins.

Hicks aimed and fired again.

The general slumped to the side until Milton could no longer see him through the mirror.

The engine still running despite the collision, Milton put his Volkswagen into gear and pulled away, heading east.

THE SHOOTING of Richard Higgins made the news that night. Milton listened to it on the radio with some of the regulars in the shelter. While the police suggested that it was possible that the drive-by was connected to the story of the Westminster paedophiles with which Higgins was so intimately connected, there was no other clue to suggest what might have happened or who might have killed him. Milton wasn’t concerned. There had been no witnesses that he had been able to see. The police had very little to go on.

It was one in the morning when Milton looked out of the hatch and saw the man waiting against the railings, his outline silhouetted by the streetlamp behind him. Milton waited until the shelter was empty and then opened the door.

Alex Hicks came inside.

“Evening, sir.”

“I told you, Hicks, don’t call me that.”

Milton noticed that the younger man was walking a little gingerly, bent over very slightly to the left. The shoulder. His left hand was also heavily bandaged.

Milton sat down beside him. Hicks had been shadowing Milton for the last few days. They knew that Higgins had no idea where either of them lived, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that he would put two and two together and realise that Hicks had first seen Milton that night at the shelter. Hicks had telephoned Milton yesterday evening to tell him that the general was onto him. He had been outside the shelter when Milton arrived at the start of his shift and he had stayed in the area until the morning. Higgins was wily, and there had been no opportunity for Hicks to take him out then. Milton had led Higgins all the way home; it had been all he could do to stifle his instinct to shake him off, but he was the bait, and it was necessary. Hicks had been there, too—Milton had seen him—but the underground was unsuited to a quiet hit and the walk back to Arnold Circus had been busier with pedestrians than it usually was. There had been no opportunity for Hicks to put the general down then, either.

Hicks had reported what had happened. The old man had stayed outside Milton’s flat for five minutes and then he had disappeared. Hicks stayed in the area, hiding out inside a flat in the tenement on the other side of the street. Milton had proposed it because he knew that it was unoccupied. The flat offered a broad view of Milton’s building and its surroundings, and Hicks could observe from there without being seen.

And, true enough, the general had been back later in the morning.

“Was he following me all afternoon?”

“All the way to Beckton. God knows what he thought you were doing.” Hicks paused. “Actually, what
were
you doing?”

“Never mind,” Milton said. “I saw him. I saw you, too.”

“Yeah, well,” Hicks said, defensively, “you knew I was there. He didn’t.”

“No,” Milton said. “He did not. You did well, Hicks. It was clean.”

Hicks nodded with feigned indignation. Milton could see that his praise meant something to him.

Milton indicated Hicks’s shoulder. “How is it?”

“Been better.” Hicks smiled, a mixture of bitterness and rue. “I saw a friendly doctor I used to know from the Regiment. The general made a bit of a mess of it. Nerve damage, the scapula is chipped and he nicked the artery, too. All in all, I got lucky.”

“And the hand?”

Hicks held up his left hand. It was dressed and wrapped in a bandage. “A little worse. Severed some tendons. Some nerve damage, too. I won’t be able to use it properly again. But, you know what, all in all? I reckon I got away with one.”

“What did you tell your wife?”

“Haven’t seen her yet. She’s keeping the kids out of the way.”

“You don’t have to worry about that any more.”

“No, I don’t suppose I do.”

Milton took out his cigarettes and offered the packet to Hicks. He shook his head; Milton took one of the cigarettes and lit it. “How is she?”

“Rachel?” Hicks shrugged. “No better and no worse.”

“So how much do you need?”

“What for?”

“The treatment.”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“How much have you got?”

“About half.”

Milton got up and went into the kitchen. He still had the second of the two sports holdalls he had brought with him today. He collected it and put it on the floor next to Hicks’s legs. “There,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Open it.”

Hicks unzipped it and looked inside.

Milton watched him do it. “Higgins had a lot of money in the vault. There’s enough in there for what you need.”

“Seriously?”

“Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I live a simple life. I’m not ambitious. And your family needs it. Take it.”

Hicks turned and looked at Milton. His eyes were damp. “Thank you.”

Milton got up and inhaled on his cigarette. “Don’t make a song and dance about it,” he said. “You’re still an idiot.”

Hicks stood, too, and wiped his eyes with the back of his jacket. “I know I am. I won’t forget what you did.”

“Like I said: forget it.”

Hicks put out his hand. Milton took it and they shook.

“Go on,” Milton said. “Fuck off.”