Devour

by L. A. Larkin

  Wolfe feels uneasy again. Why is such a huge chunk of Yushkov’s life unaccounted for?

  ‘When you deserted in Afghanistan, where did you go?’

  ‘Olivia, please. I do not wish to talk about this.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is best you do not know.’

  He turns his back on her.

  Frustrated by his reluctance to talk, Wolfe picks up Harvey’s file and skim-reads it.

  ‘Do you remember Harvey was one of the first aboard Trankov’s plane? He could have handed the stolen cylinder to the pilot.’

  ‘Da. But Grankin does not have it.’

  She sighs. ‘Let’s hope the answer’s in here somewhere.’

  Going through Harvey’s bank statements, Wolfe notices a payment of fifty thousand pounds to Tonbridge School and numerous wedding-related outgoings totalling over thirty thousand. The mortgage is in arrears. Wolfe finds two deposits of twenty-five thousand each, from a bank she has never heard of, made just over a year ago and then one month ago.

  ‘Harvey was drowning in debt. Expensive school fees, I’m guessing a daughter’s wedding. Look.’

  She passes him the statements.

  ‘I think he was spying on us from the beginning,’ says Yushkov.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Harvey wrote an article on the project from the day Heatherton announced it. He followed our progress as we designed and developed the drill and probe. Then Harvey suddenly says he is not coming with us to Antarctica. Michael is very upset. Then, at the last minute, Harvey changes his mind. He gives no reason.’

  ‘So Harvey was paid to steal your designs a year ago and then again to sabotage the project?’

  ‘This is what I think.’

  ‘But I can’t help thinking he had an accomplice.’

  Wolfe turns her attention to the pile of documents on Michael Heatherton. Butcher has managed to secure a private detective’s surveillance report, proving Heatherton had an affair with a Maggie Cameron. His wife commissioned the PI and confronted him. Heatherton seems to have ended the affair before departing for Antarctica, his desire for respectability and success outweighing his need for a bit on the side. But his wife knows, so there’s not much blackmail potential.

  The next file is Bruce Adeyemi. Born in London, parents of Nigerian descent, he studied medicine at University College London but dropped out in the second year and enrolled at the University of York, gaining a Bachelor of Engineering. He’s worked at Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre ever since. His credit card receipts make colourful reading: every Saturday he spends large sums at casinos. He has lost thousands at Southampton’s Grosvenor, Maxims and Mint casinos. But his favourite is clearly the London Hippodrome. On top of that, he’s paying a mortgage in Southampton, rent for a studio flat at a new Canning Town development, and a car loan. Adeyemi is living way beyond his means.

  ‘And he’s got a medical background,’ says Wolfe out loud, remembering that Knox was injected with midazolam.

  Adeyemi had the right motivation and the know-how to kill Knox.

  Her mobile rings: a local area code. It has to be Sinclair.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’ Sinclair’s voice is shrill. ‘I’ve got it.’

  He’s put on loudspeaker.

  ‘Good work, Toby. Just tell me whose line you’re using?’

  ‘Oh, um, a PA’s, in another department. Out to lunch.’

  ‘Good. Is it in a steel container?’

  ‘N . . . no. Glass vial. It’s small.’

  ‘We need it in something that can be thrown from your hotel window.’

  ‘Are you mad? What if it breaks? I can’t do this. I just can’t.’

  His voice trails off as he moves the phone away from his mouth.

  ‘Toby! Don’t hang up on me.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. They’ll find me.’ He pants with fear.

  ‘It’s okay. Bring it to the hotel tonight. At nine exactly, open your window. One of us will stand below and catch the vial.’

  ‘But if it breaks? It’s flesh-eating.’

  ‘That’s our problem. Please, Toby. Promise me you’ll do it.’

  ‘Oh God! All right.’

  Sinclair ends the call.

  ‘So, who will catch the vial?’ asks Yushkov.

  ‘I will,’ she says. ‘Good hand-eye coordination.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She explains to Yushkov her theory that Adeyemi worked with Harvey to kill Knox and steal the missing canister, perhaps double-crossing Harvey and the Russians. But Yushkov is preoccupied with something outside.

  ‘It is possible,’ is all he says.

  Setting aside Adeyemi’s file, Wolfe grabs the nearest one: Toby Sinclair. She doesn’t open it; she can’t stop thinking about Adeyemi. Muscular, he’d have no problem getting an unconscious Knox on a snowmobile. He’d also know how to disable the boiler. The more she thinks about it, the more she’s convinced. But where is Adeyemi now? Sinclair would know.

  The stuffy room is making her lethargic and, like Yushkov, she’s getting cabin fever. She stretches, then skims the documents on Sinclair. Born and educated in Edinburgh, worked in environmental microbiology, microbial biodiversity, environmental genomics, and life in extreme environments since graduating. Shy and socially inept, Sinclair has barely got his feet on the bottom rung of the career ladder, despite his brilliance. Both his parents are still alive. Brother, Hector, joined the Royal Navy and at the end of his commission moved to Sydney, Australia. Toby met his wife, Huma, at Edinburgh University. The name sounds Afghani to Wolfe and, as she reads on, she discovers Huma and her family were Afghani refugees who settled in Scotland. Sinclair’s life is organised, routine and suburban. Nothing out of the ordinary. The mortgage and credit cards are paid off each month. One speeding ticket and two parking fines. Bored, Wolfe is about to move on to another file when she notices photocopies of three death certificates.

  Her phone rings again. Yushkov leaps at it and answers. ‘Okay, we will come now,’ Yushkov says. ‘It is the same plan, okay? You will throw it down to Olivia. But one more thing. Can you bring sulphur powder? Enough to fill a food tin?’

  Toby sounds flustered.

  ‘When you get to the hotel, leave it under the van you arrive in. Okay?’

  The call over, Yushkov fills her in.

  ‘They are all being moved. Your calls from Salisbury, they were traced.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘They go to the motel now to pack their things, then to a safe house. We must get the vial from Toby now.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? In broad daylight?’

  ‘We have no choice.’ He shrugs. ‘I need an empty food tin and aluminium foil. Can you ask the publican?’

  Yushkov undoes one of his boots and removes a shoelace.

  ‘What are you going to do with that?’ she asks.

  58

  The Ford Transit van is stolen. Wolfe drives, Yushkov in the passenger seat. The van belongs to U-Bend Plumbing and has two tinted windows in the rear doors. When the plumber leaves the Porton Arms after lunch he’s going to get a nasty surprise. Wolfe feels bad about this; when they no longer need it, she plans to phone the number painted on the van and tell him where to find it. A large police van pulls into a parking spot at the front of the motel and half a dozen uniformed officers spill out.

  ‘Jesus!’ Wolfe says. ‘We can’t get near.’

  Wolfe drives past, watching the activity in her rear-view mirror. A grey Ford Galaxy MPV pulls up. The doors open and two plain-clothes officers step out, followed by Price, Matthews and Sinclair. Heatherton appears reluctant to leave the car, and the officer takes his upper arm, applying unmistakable pressure.

  She glances at Yushkov. ‘I like a challenge, but this?’

  ‘You do not have to do this. You can stay in the van.’

  ‘You’re a stubborn bastard.’

  ‘How do you say? We a
re peas in a pod.’

  She can’t help but smile. ‘Okay, what’s your plan?’

  He points to their right. ‘Pull into the petrol station.’

  She parks near the tyre pump, as far away from the CCTV cameras and the shop as possible.

  ‘We attack the air conditioning. The pumps are around the back. We park next to them. I will put this tin inside the unit and light it. The sulphur stink will reach every room. People will leave the hotel, I promise you.’

  ‘A diversion?’

  ‘Yes. You wear this.’ He points to a fluorescent yellow hi-vis vest with reflective silver stripes and the logo of U-Bend Plumbing. ‘If somebody challenges us, you do the talking. Yes?’

  ‘I’ll be recognised.’

  ‘Nyet. You look like a plumber, you behave like one. Then you are one. Just act the part.’

  ‘But this only works if Toby’s dropped the bag of sulphur?’

  ‘Correct. We swap now. I drive. I park next to the Ford Galaxy. The cops will come up to us, tell us to move on. You must distract them.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  They swap seats and Yushkov sets off.

  ‘Here’s hoping the space next to the Galaxy is still available,’ she says.

  But it isn’t. There are cars either side.

  ‘I must block them in,’ says Yushkov. ‘You talk on the phone.’

  Yushkov parks across the Galaxy’s rear, gets out, leaving the engine running. Wolfe, hair tucked under her woolly hat and wearing glasses and plumber’s vest, jumps down and starts a loud, fake conversation with a distraught, fake customer.

  ‘You can’t park there,’ shouts one of the plain-clothes officers, jogging towards them. ‘Move your van!’

  ‘So where’s the water coming from?’ says Wolfe into the phone.

  ‘Move, now!’ says the officer, holding up his warrant card.

  Wolfe puts her hand up to tell him to be quiet and turns away from him. ‘Water’s all over the floor, you say? Do you know where the stopcock is, Mrs Brown? You need to turn it off.’

  ‘Hey!’ says the officer. ‘End your call, and move your van. Now.’

  Wolfe covers the face of her phone. ‘All right. Keep your shirt on. Her kitchen’s flooded, poor lady.’ She then calls over the top of the van at Yushkov, who is hidden from view. ‘Time to go, mate. Coppers want us gone.’ Then she directs herself back to the officer. ‘We’re going now, officer.’ She gets back into the passenger seat and pretends to continue talking to Mrs Brown. Yushkov gets in and drives around the back of the hotel, never making eye contact.

  ‘Do you have it?’ she asks.

  ‘I do,’ he says, as he parks next to the air-conditioning unit.

  He pours the sulphur powder into the empty food can, covers the top in aluminium foil, then sticks a severed section of his shoelace through the foil and into the sulphur, which now resembles a wick. Checking his pocket for his lighter, Yushkov leaves the van and opens the back of the air-conditioning unit. He lights the wick, checks it’s burning, then shuts the door so that pumps and stink bomb are hidden. He gets back in the van and drives further along the rear of the hotel until they are directly beneath room 204: Sinclair’s room. They both get out and light up. A casual smoke break.

  ‘Don’t drop the vial,’ he jokes. ‘I don’t want my legs falling off. I need them.’

  At the second-floor window, she spies Sinclair’s nervous face. She catches his eye and he drops his chin once.

  ‘Hey! You two! What’re you doing?’ calls one of two uniformed officers just turning a corner.

  Toby disappears from view.

  ‘Just having a smoke, mate. Been a busy morning,’ Wolfe calls out.

  Yushkov leans nonchalantly against the side of the van, head down. The officer doing the talking is in his thirties and his sidekick looks as if he’s still in training.

  ‘Look, normally, we wouldn’t care. But today we need the car park clear of all vehicles.’

  He glances at her cigarette. Wolfe looks down at his hands and sees nicotine stains. ‘Like one?’ She offers him the packet.

  ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘Can I just finish this?’

  They’re interrupted by a voice through his Airwave, ordering an evacuation.

  ‘Get moving, will you? Possible gas leak,’ the officer says, as he and his young mate run off.

  As soon as they have gone, the curtain twitches and a flushed faced Toby slides open the window. His eyes dart from her face to the length of the car park and back again. Wolfe stands directly beneath his outstretched arm and gives her undivided attention to the test tube in his trembling hand. He screws his face up and coughs at the sulphur fumes. The vial of flesh-eating bacteria jolts, almost giving Wolfe a heart attack.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she calls.

  But he doesn’t release it. He’s frozen.

  ‘Just let go,’ she encourages.

  Toby looks down at her and shakes his head. He slides the window shut and moves out of view.

  Panic rising, Wolfe shoots a look at Yushkov, but he’s fixated on another window, two rooms along. Through his window, Heatherton stares straight at her. No, not at her, through her. He’s not calling for an officer. He’s not scrambling to evacuate his room. He’s still. Wolfe recognises that look: empty, hopeless eyes, slumped shoulders. She’s seen the same expression on civilians brutalised by war, who think there is no end to the atrocities. It’s utter despair. She wants to tell the once-proud Dr Heatherton that it will be all right, but Yushkov drags her away.

  ‘We go.’

  Wolfe resists. She can’t take her eyes off Heatherton, who rolls up his sleeve and then plunges a syringe into his vein. Wolfe cries out a stifled, ‘Don’t!’ but it’s too late. Heatherton screws up his face in sudden agony. He starts to shake and falls to his knees, his forehead slamming against the windowpane. He looks at her and opens his mouth, as if trying to speak. His spittle bubbles, then slides down the glass. Heatherton collapses out of sight.

  Wolfe rips Yushkov’s hand away. ‘We have to help him.’

  ‘It’s too late. He knows what he’s doing.’

  Yushkov tugs a struggling Wolfe to the van, shoves her into the passenger seat and drives off at a measured pace so as not to draw attention.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ says Yushkov, frowning into his rear-view mirror.

  Wolfe peers round and sees Sinclair fleeing down the fire exit steps and heading for the neighbouring field.

  ‘He’s running! Turn back.’

  ‘Get down!’ yells Yushkov, swerving.

  Armed officers open fire. A bullet hits the front bumper, another tears through the side of the van, slamming somewhere into the plumbing gear stacked on shelves in the back. Bullets pepper the tarmac. They’re aiming for the tyres. Yushkov accelerates into the road, narrowly missing a Renault Clio. The driver honks. More gunfire. Yushkov floors the accelerator as he weaves in and out of the oncoming traffic. It doesn’t take long for a white, unmarked BMW 330d Interceptor to come tearing after them.

  ‘They’ll catch us. We don’t have the speed,’ Wolfe says.

  Yushkov’s eyes dart from the rear-view mirror to the road ahead. The BMW swerves into oncoming traffic, its siren blaring and lights flashing, to overtake a lorry labouring under a load of steel beams, narrowly missing a woman and her two children in a silver Peugeot 308. The road is long and straight with grassy verges and barren hedges on their side. The BMW is specifically configured for high-speed pursuits. The heavily loaded van rolls around like a boat.

  They approach a crossroads.

  ‘Take a right here!’ shouts Wolfe.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Yushkov yanks the steering wheel to the right at the last moment and the van takes the turn on two wheels. Wolfe is convinced they’ll tip over, but Yushkov manages to keep control. Loose tools and PVC pipe offcuts fly around the back of the van. The BMW misses the crossroads and has to do a U-tur
n in a cloud of blue-grey tyre smoke. Yushkov and Wolfe hurtle down the single-track lane surrounded by high grassy banks. If they meet a car coming the other way, they will collide. The van bounces and sways as the road meanders downhill. Wolfe looks to her left and sees a railway track that crosses the road at the bottom of the hill and a freight train on a collision course with them.

  They race through Westbury village. Signs tell them, in vain, to drive carefully. Behind them, the police siren gets louder. The village is little more than a few houses, a pub and a railway crossing. No barriers or train station. Amber lights start flashing and a warning bell sounds.

  ‘Pull up on the line but keep the engine running,’ says Wolfe.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ demands Yushkov.

  ‘The driver will slam on the brakes. Just when it’s about to hit us, drive off. It can’t stop immediately. It’ll block the road.’

  Yushkov shakes his head.

  ‘What? You never played chicken as a kid?’

  ‘You are craziest woman I ever met.’

  He slows the van as they approach the crossing. Wolfe looks to her left. The train is hurtling towards them. It sounds a horn. Yushkov stops the van in the middle of the track but keeps the engine idling.

  ‘If she stalls, we are dead,’ says Yushkov.

  The train keeps coming. The horn screams, louder and repeatedly, then brakes screech. Wolfe sees the driver in his cabin, mouth open, horrified. Yushkov revs the van’s engine.

  ‘Not yet,’ says Wolfe.

  Sparks shoot out from the train’s wheels, metal screeches in protest, there is a deafening gushing sound as the braking system dumps air, and the stink of diesel exhaust almost makes Wolfe gag.

  ‘Now!’ she yells, and Yushkov accelerates.

  The van leaps forward and the train misses smashing into them by a matter of feet. The locomotive comes to a halt six or seven wagons later, completely blocking the road. ‘They’ll radio for help. We have to dump this van,’ says Yushkov, his accelerator foot on the floor.

  More sirens, from all directions. They pass a stand of beech trees on the right and a farmhouse. No opportunity to hide the van: the farmer is in the yard.