Vendetta (6 page)

‘Now, what would an undercover cop be doing breaking into my office? Apart from anything else, that’s breaking the law, isn’t it?’

‘Calum, I need your help.’

A sour laugh erupted behind him. The shotgun jammed deeper into his skin. ‘Help? If PC Mac thinks quipping is going to save him from a double barrel’s worth of shot, he’s lost his touch.’

Mac said nothing. A lifetime of seconds passed before he heard a grunt behind him. The cold steel slowly lifted from his skin. Click. The hammers slotted back into place. Calum Burns emerged from behind him. He was taller than Mac’s five eleven, more toned than bulky muscle, with a face that could range from cheeky to marble cold in the beat of a second. He wore marble cold as he rested the shotgun upright against a wall. Without looking at Mac, he slowly walked towards the desk, his steps uneven, but careful. His movements surprised Mac because Calum was a man known to walk with a cocksure swagger. But Mac clamped down on asking about what was up with his leg, instead watched Calum settle in a chair.

Calum leaned idly back and stared at Mac with sharp green eyes. And spoke. ‘The traditional way to ask someone for help is to call them, or press the entry phone to their office – not break in through their windows.’

‘And what would you have said if I’d given you a bell?’ Mac seated himself opposite.

‘Fuck. Off.’

The charged atmosphere intensified. Sweat bubbled up from the pores on Mac’s forehead. He flipped his hood back and peeled off the strip of towelling. Fished around in his pocket. Found Elena’s phone and put it on the desk. Calum took no notice of the phone; instead he studied Mac’s wound.

‘Pistol shot?’ Calum broke the silence.

Mac ignored the question and pushed the phone across the desk. ‘I can’t get into this phone and I need to know what was on it. Names, addresses, phone calls, texts – the lot.’

Calum twisted his mouth, but picked up the phone. ‘And why would I do that? And please don’t say “for old times’ sake” or I really will blast you to kingdom come.’

‘You’re a security consultant-cum-fixer these days, aren’t you? One of the best in the business – or so I’ve heard.’

Calum’s face turned hard. ‘You’re not getting me, are you? The question is not “Can I help you?” It’s “Why should I help you?”’

This wasn’t going to be easy. Mac’s head flopped back, his line of vision coming into contact with a framed document on the wall opposite. It was an enlarged copy of Calum’s confidentiality agreement, which he’d signed, promising not to divulge any information about his ‘resignation’ from the police. It had formed part of his settlement when he’d left The Met for good. No one, not even Mac, had understood why Calum had been booted out of the Force. Of course there were rumours – a backhander, decked his superior, or been sharing whiskey shots with the wrong crowd. But no one really knew and Calum wasn’t telling. He wasn’t even telling why he wasn’t telling. A confidentiality agreement meant nothing to him. None of it had made any sense. Sure Calum had been a bit fly, occasionally massaged the rules, but he’d been a good cop. No, he’d been great. Outstanding. Upstanding.

‘This isn’t police business if that makes a difference . . .’ Mac started.

‘A difference?’ the other man slammed back, the muscles in his cheeks contorting madly. ‘Do you know how many of my former
colleagues
shook my hand before I left? Zero. Do you know how many of my former
colleagues
rang me up to wish me luck for the future? Zero. Fuck-all.’

Calum didn’t need to point out that Mac had been part of the ‘fuck-all’ crowd. Mac wasn’t proud of not getting in touch with someone who’d been one of his closest friends, but Phil had warned him to stay well clear. If you breathe polluted air then everyone’s going to think you’re filled with poison, was the way his senior officer had put it to him. So he’d stayed away, tossed their friendship out of the window, blackballed him along with everyone else.

‘I suppose it was too much to hope that anyone would stand up for me when I got kicked out.
That
I could take. The whole world is spineless, so I don’t blame anyone for
that
. It’s their idiocy I couldn’t stand. Do you recall that nuclear shelter under HQ where the code for the door was so secret, it couldn’t be written down? So they made it “9999” so the relevant people could remember it? Idiots, fucking idiots. No wonder there’s so much demand for people like me.’ Calum was seething but he added in an undertone. ‘I could’ve used a few friends back then, you know . . .’ His eyes were fierce, like green dynamite.

Mac leaned forward. ‘Maybe some of those friends were waiting for you to tell your side of the story?’

For the first time Mac saw confidence replaced by uncertainty on the other man’s face. ‘Yeah . . . well . . . it was no one’s bloody business.’

Mac slightly raised his hands. ‘Yeah . . . well . . . I need to know if you’re going to help me out with my bloody business?’

There was a long silence before Calum asked, ‘Still playing naked cop?’

Most undercover cops were called UCs but a few called them naked because they were stripped of their former life in order to assume another ID.

‘Who are you deep in with this time? Do I know them?’ Calum persisted.

Mac didn’t answer. An undercover cop, who answers questions like that, isn’t an undercover cop any more. But he knew he had to say something.

Leaning back, Mac answered. ‘I’m doing some work in the London end of an arms trafficking gang.’

That was vague enough.

‘Let me guess?’ Calum said with a gleam in his eyes. ‘That’ll be Russians, then. Must be a big mob to attract your superiors’ interest. So that’ll be AK Reuben’s crew. If only because Reuben has put all the other gunrunners out of business . . .’

Mac kept his expression blank. ‘How do you know all of this?’

‘I’m a security consultant, it’s my business to know that sort of thing.’ Calum enjoyed the look on Mac’s face. He looked at the phone. ‘Why have you brought this to me? Any kid on the street could open that for you, never mind your techy colleagues. In some sort of trouble, are you?’ He looked at Mac’s exposed wound. ‘Got into a gunfight with someone you shouldn’t? No, it can’t be that, your superiors would cover that up for you.’ He sighed. ‘Not that it matters, I’m not choosy about my customers. My fees are five hundred an hour plus expenses.’

Mac was overwhelmed with a strong urge to ram his fist into the other man’s face. To see his jeering mouth shoved to the backside of his brain. How could he joke when Elena was dead? Dead . . . Dead.

He was back in the bathroom. Standing at the foot of the bath, facing Elena who was sitting inside it. Reuben stood behind her. And it was like Mac was chained to the floor because he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything as Reuben raised Mac’s gun. Luger and hand moved almost in slo-mo towards the back of Elena’s head. Her eyes caught Mac’s. It gave him the time to see her terror. To hear her scream. To see the tattoo as she stretched her arm, in a pleading motion, towards him . . . Bang. A bullet tore into the back of her head. The richest red he’d ever seen splashed against the wall. Hit him in the face. A drop landed on his tongue . . .

‘Mac? Mac?’

He came to with his forehead on the desk, with Calum’s loud voice beating over his head. He couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t breathe . . . Mac knew he’d blacked out again.

‘Easy, easy.’ This time Calum’s voice was in his ear. The other man circled his hands around Mac’s upper arms and gently raised him.

‘What’s going on, Mac?’ For the first time there was no mockery in Calum’s words.

Mac stared back at him. ‘I broke the cardinal rule. I fell for someone who was part of my investigation. Now she’s dead.’

thirteen

Calum set a shot of Hennessey’s in front of Mac. They were back on opposite sides of the desk. Almost like they were back in the old days, in a pub, chit-chatting like the best buddies they’d once been.

Seeing Mac’s wary look Calum said, ‘Forget I’m the cop who got booted out of The Met and think of me as Stevie’s godfather. I’ve got nothing personal against you. It’s the system I hate.’

That jolted Mac. Calum had been the best godfather a man’s son could ask for – right up until the day Stevie was buried.

If it was one cardinal rule not to get involved with people you were investigating, it was another not to talk about your work. To anyone. Never mind a man of Calum’s stripe. But Mac knew too many secrets; soaked in shock and with his head thumping, he was desperate to tell another human being. Someone. Anyone. Even a man like Calum. Perhaps especially a man like Calum. He would understand; he’d been there himself. Mac’s story oozed out like a wound’s poison and pus. He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else.

‘I’ve been under for nine months in Reuben’s crew. My brief was to find out who their major league supplier is. So I got myself introduced to Reuben as an independent armourer and we started doing business. Before I know it, I’m an honorary member of the gang.’

‘Is that how you met her?’ Calum took a gulp from his much larger cognac.

‘Elena was their communications person; you know, the usual, dealing with messages and information.’ Mac’s face pulled into a lopsided, sad smile. ‘That’s how we met one day about six months back. I had to give her some info.’ He shrugged. ‘And that’s how it started.’

What he kept to himself was that he’d also considered her for the role of the person he could get information from. Part of his job was looking for that one person on the inside who could keep him bang up to date with the information he needed; that vulnerable person who realised that the life they’d chosen wasn’t the right way. And he’d found that person in Elena. Sweet Elena. So he’d cultivated her. Coaxed her. Eventually seduced her. But, before he even realised that it was happening, the tables had turned, until he’d broken rule number one – never, ever, get emotionally involved with a player in the game. But that human-to-human emotion had been locked down in him for such a long time that when she’d flooded him with it, it had gone straight to his soul. A soul he didn’t think he possessed any more. He’d got in so deep with her that he’d started wanting to keep her safe. Shield her from the squalid and violent world she’d got involved in, the squalid and violent world of tackling it. So he didn’t tell his superior he’d started screwing the enemy and didn’t tell Elena that he wasn’t the criminal she thought he was. Did he love her? He wasn’t sure. But that didn’t matter. What counted was the guilt. The guilt he felt about her death. And the only way to get rid of that guilt was to hunt down her killer.

‘I woke up a few hours ago in a hotel room with a bullet wound to my head and Elena shot dead, minus her face, in the bath.’ He pulled in a ragged breath. ‘I didn’t do it. It was a set-up.’

Calum sent him a confused stare. ‘And you think AK Reuben is your guy?’

‘It must have been Reuben’s doing. There isn’t anyone else. Is there?’ He was almost begging for support.

Calum went into the detective mode he’d never forgotten. ‘Of course it could be someone else. Say it was something to do with this Elena? Say it’s someone from your past because, let’s face it, you’ve put enough dirty faces behind bars. What if one of them is out now and managed to hunt you down? Shame you don’t know who’s running the investigation into the shooting, they might have been able to help you.’

‘I do know actually. I saw her turn up. It’s Rio Wray.’

Calum almost shook with hatred but said nothing. The hatred was enough.

Mac wasn’t surprised at Calum’s reaction. Once all three of them had been tight but, since Calum’s dramatic exit from the Force, their bonds had frayed and broken. But something deeper had gone on between the other two and Mac didn’t know what it was.

Calum folded his arms in disgust. ‘Well, “Wray gun” won’t put herself out for you; she’ll be too busy polishing her commendations and making tea for her superiors to help an old friend.’

Mac slammed the glass on the table, sending some amber liquid bouncing in the air. ‘I don’t need Rio’s help. I’ll sort this out myself, I know what I’m doing . . .’

‘Do you?’ the other man asked sternly. ‘You’re not a well man, and I’m not just talking about the head wound. If you were thinking straight, you wouldn’t have come here for a start. And as for that blackout you just had . . .’

That made Mac mad as hell. ‘I did not . . .’

But Calum wouldn’t let it go. ‘You looked like you did after Stevie died – fucked up. You couldn’t tell one day from the next and the only way you could get through the days was with a bellyful of meds from the quack. I’m not a shrink, but I know PTSD when I see it. You should be in hospital, not climbing up drainpipes.’

‘Leave Stevie out of this,’ Mac growled.

Calum stared back. ‘I can’t, because the only reason I’m going to help you now is because of him.’

Silence. Mac grabbed for the slice of towel and tied it back round his head. Flipped his hood back into place.

‘Why don’t you just got to this woman’s home . . .’ Calum continued, but Mac cut over him.

‘The way I hear it, Reuben doesn’t like any of his people associating out of business hours, so we always met in hotels. I never asked for her address and she never asked for mine.’