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

But then Hicks thought of the money that the general had so insouciantly dropped onto the seat of the car. Thousands of pounds, just like that. He thought of the money that they had taken. Tens of thousands, maybe more. He thought of his wife, Rachel, and the cancer. It had changed everything. It had bent his principles and twisted his morals until he didn’t recognise himself any more.

The cancer. He didn’t want to think about it, but he couldn’t stop himself. It had started with a melanoma on her back. He had seen it one morning after she had come out of the shower. The National Health Service had removed it, but the disease had already spread. The MRI discovered a five-centimetre growth under her left breast that had burrowed deep into her chest wall. There was another growth on her right lung. The doctors were talking about surgery and then aggressive chemotherapy, but Hicks had been able to tell from the way that they delivered the prognosis that they were not hopeful of being able to do very much at all.

Hicks had immediately started to research their options. Foreign treatment seemed like the best hope. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York was offering an experimental combination of two drugs: Opdivo and Yervoy. They were among a vanguard of new medicines that worked by bolstering the immune system so that it attacked the tumours. Patients who had taken the cocktail had reported incredible results. There was a story in the press that Hicks had fastened onto. One patient, a woman of similar age to Rachel, had returned for a follow-up examination to be told that her tumour had gone. The melanoma cells had simply been dissolved. Hicks spoke to Rachel’s oncologist and suggested that they try the treatment. The man shook his head. It wasn’t available on the National Health Service. Hicks called the clinic in New York. Treatment was possible, but the drugs were expensive. Two courses would cost over a hundred thousand pounds.

They didn’t have that. Not even close.

Hicks had no choice. He had to find the money.

If he couldn’t find it, or if he was too slow, then Rachel would die. He would be widowed. His children would lose their mother.

And that was not going to happen.

Hicks wouldn’t let it.

He had served with Gillan in the Regiment and they had kept in touch afterwards. The two of them met for a drink once or twice a year, and the last time Gillan had suggested that he had been getting extra work with a group of other ex-SAS men. Hicks had been working in private security, body guarding for rich Arabs who treated London like their own private playground. They showered money around like confetti, yet they were parsimonious when it came to paying their staff. Gillan had asked whether Hicks would be interested in learning more about the opportunity, but he had said he wasn’t interested. It was before the diagnosis, and he hadn’t needed to know any more to suspect that it wasn’t completely legitimate. But then came the cancer, and Hicks’s priorities had changed. He would never be able to make the money he needed by working for the Arabs. He was open to alternatives.

He called Gillan and said that he might be interested. They had met again and, this time, Gillan had brought the general with him. Higgins explained the kind of jobs that they undertook: they targeted serious criminals, robbing them at the same time as they removed them from the street. He made it sound as if it was a public good.

Hicks saw that for the fig leaf that it was, but he said that he was interested.

Öztürk had been his first. That operation had been just as advertised. A bad man had been taken out. The fact that he had a lot of money was a useful side benefit.

But now this.

Isaacs.

Fabian.

It was not the job that had been advertised at all.

The reality of becoming a member of the Feather Men was not what he had been sold.

He was jolted out of his reverie by the ringing of his telephone.

“What’s going on?” It was Alistair Woodward.

“Fabian’s still inside. No sign that he’s awake. Where are you?”

“London.”

“What are we doing?”

“Not we—you. The general wants you to break in and give him a warning.”

“What kind of warning?”

“He needs to know that it’s not a good idea to threaten people we’re looking after. Be persuasive.”

“How persuasive?”

“Use your imagination. But make it good.”

HICKS PUT the car into first and pulled out, driving down the road until he was completely out of sight of Fabian’s house. He had no desire to make it easy for the man to spot his registration plate after he had done what he was going to have to do. He waited until the only other car he had seen in the last hour had rolled past the window and then opened the glove box. He pulled a pair of latex gloves onto his hands and checked that his Browning was easily accessible in its shoulder holster. It was. He took off his jacket, slipped the holster on, and then replaced his jacket.

He got out of the car, leaving the door unlocked, and quickly walked back to the house. The gate to the front garden was unoiled and it opened with a creak that seemed much louder than it actually was. He paused on the step for a moment, assured himself that all was well, and then crossed the garden in three paces. The front door was made of wood, thin and flimsy enough that it would have opened with a firm kick. That was not an option, though. Hicks had to be quiet. He knelt before it and flipped aside the hinged lid that obscured the keyhole. The lock was a simple mortice. He took out his lock pick, slipped it into the keyhole and then followed it with the long L-shaped tension wrench. He used the wrench to apply torque to the pins to prevent them from being pushed back down into place and, once he had found the correct alignment for the pins, he turned the handle and gently pushed the door open.

He slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind him.

He stood there for thirty seconds and just listened. As far as he had been able to ascertain, there was no one else in the house. Hicks closed his eyes and acclimatised. He heard the tick of water falling into a metal basin from a leaking tap. He heard the creak of a pipe. He heard the sound of a cat mewling in the back garden and then the louder screech of a fox. He held his breath and strained his hearing, concentrating on the first floor, listening for anything that might suggest that Fabian was awake. He heard nothing until, after a moment, he heard the unmistakeable sound of snoring.

Good.

He opened his eyes and took a balaclava from his pocket. He put it on, settling the woollen garment so that only his eyes were visible. He took a pair of thin latex overshoes and slipped them over his boots. Finally, he took out a small shielded flashlight, switched it on and cast the light around so that he could survey his surroundings more thoroughly. The hall was a mess. There was a pile of mail on the floor just behind the door, surely several weeks’ worth, and another stack that had been precariously balanced on a small table that also held a telephone and a bunch of keys. He reached out and took an envelope from the pile, holding it between gloved thumb and forefinger. It was a bill, angry red showing through the envelope window, addressed to Edward Fabian. He put it down again.

Hicks reached into his jacket, released the clip on his shoulder holster, and withdrew the pistol. It was a Hi-Power, the model favoured by the Regiment, and one that had never let him down before.

He walked ahead and quickly checked that the rooms downstairs were empty. There was a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom. They were all untidy, with mismatched furniture, abandoned clothing, and discarded newspapers and food packaging, and they were all empty.

Hicks returned to the hall and ascended the stairs. The boards beneath his feet were old and they creaked; he stepped on the outsides of the steps, closer to the stringers, and minimised the noise.

He reached the landing. The snoring was much louder here, and it was easy to locate. There were three doors off the landing: two bedrooms and a second bathroom. He checked the other rooms first, confirmed that they were empty—and thus that the house was empty apart from the sleeper—and approached the final room. He pushed it open with his fingertips. The hinges were in good condition and the door swung back noiselessly.

Hicks stepped inside.

The window was uncovered and it admitted a little indirect light from the streetlamp outside. There was enough for Hicks to be able to look around without the flashlight, so he switched it off and put it back in his pocket. The room was as untidy as all of the others. There was a bed and the shape of a recumbent figure beneath a duvet that was pulled all the way up. There was a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. There was a set of drawers with an old-fashioned clock radio sat atop it, the red figures glowing.

He approached the bed.

Eddie Fabian was sleeping on his side, his face turned toward Hicks. His head rested on his arm, and his right foot protruded out from underneath the cover. Hicks drew the Browning, rested his finger against the trigger guard, and then slowly lowered himself onto the bed so that he was sitting next to Eddie’s body. The man exhaled and shifted position a little. Hicks let him settle again and then pressed the barrel of the pistol against the side of his head.

“Edward,” he whispered.

The man jerked in his sleep, and his breathing came a little faster.

“Edward, wake up.”

Fabian’s eyes flicked open. There was a moment of dumb incomprehension, then confusion, and then fright. His body stiffened and his arm jerked up, catching against the duvet. Hicks placed his left forearm across Edward’s shoulders and pushed down, pinning him to the bed. He kept the muzzle of the gun pressed square against his temple.

“Lie quietly. Don’t try to shout. I’m here to deliver a message. If you listen to me and do what I tell you to do, you’ll be all right. Understand?”

Fabian’s eyes went a little wider. He didn’t speak.

“Edward, you need to tell me that you understand.”

Fabian managed to nod his head.

“Very good.”

When Fabian spoke, his voice was thin and raspy. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m here to give you a message.”

Fabian tried to raise himself from the bed, but Hicks pushed down harder. Fabian gave up and fell back down against the mattress. He lay still, his body rigid with tension.

“You threatened a man the other day, Edward. You told him that you remembered him from years ago. When you were a boy. Do you know the man I mean?”

Fabian didn’t respond. He stared up at Hicks, his eyes bulging with fear and his larynx bobbing as he swallowed down on a dry throat.

“Do you remember him, Edward?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice a parched gasp.

“You are not to speak to that man again. Under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And you are not to repeat any of the things you said to him to anyone else. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you do, I’ll be back. I know where you live. I know the cab you drive. I know everything there is to know about you. And if I have to come back, it won’t be to talk. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Be sure that it is. I’m going to go now. If you call the police or try to come after me, it’ll go badly for you. I’d stay in bed. Think about what I’ve said and what you’re not going to do. Understand?”

“Please—just go. I won’t do anything.”

Hicks stood and stepped back from the bed. Fabian did not move. Hicks backed away, keeping the gun visible, reversed through the door and pulled it closed after him. He holstered the Browning and made his way quickly down the stairs. He took off the overshoes, the gloves and the balaclava and stuffed them back into his pocket. He opened the front door a little, looked out to confirm that the street was quiet—it was—and then stepped outside. He closed the door, made his way through the garden and then the gate and onto the pavement.

Hicks walked briskly back to his car and got inside.

He waited there for fifteen minutes, using the mirrors to look back down the road toward Fabian’s house. There was nothing to see.

He took out his phone and called Woodward. “Hicks here. It’s done.”

“And?”

“It’s done.”

“He’ll do what you said?”

“I scared him, like you wanted. He won’t—”

Hicks saw the glare of headlights in the rear-view mirror. He looked up and squinted as a vehicle closed on him and then went by. It was a black cab. It slowed at the junction with Grove Green Road and Hicks could read the registration in the light from a streetlamp.

It was Edward Fabian’s cab.

“Hicks?”

“Problem. Fabian just drove past me.”

He started the engine and pulled out.

“What?”

“He’s in his cab.”

“Where’s he going?”

“How would I know?”

“Follow him.”

“I already am.”

Fabian pulled away from the junction and turned onto the southbound A12, toward central London. Hicks followed. It was a dual carriageway and it was quiet, with excellent visibility. Hicks could afford to stay a good distance behind.

He didn’t like the way things were going.

“Where are you?” Woodward said.

Hicks glanced up as a road sign flashed by him. “Coming into Leyton. Headed south. He’s going into the city.”

Hicks felt uncomfortable at the way events were unfolding. He forced himself to remember his wife, reminding himself that he was only doing the things that he was doing for her.

But that didn’t make him feel any better.

MILTON ENJOYED the film. He stayed in the area, taking an early dinner in one of the Turkish restaurants that lined Kingsland High Road, and then took the bus toward the city. He changed onto the underground at Bethnal Green and arrived at Oxford Circus at a quarter to ten. Cathy was just leaving, and there was just time for a quick conversation before Milton got down to work. A few of the regulars popped in over the course of the first couple of hours. He shared a few words with them and then concentrated on cleaning the kitchen. He found his thoughts wandering to his neighbours in Bethnal Green and how he might be able to help them.