The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  19

  About the time Matthew Lytton was going hand-to-hand with the thickening rush of traffic near St James’s Park—and Steve Warwick was sitting alone at his desk—the glamorous Myshka was still in bed.

  She lay quietly luxuriating in a dockside penthouse that gave just as panoramic a view of London as Kelly’s rooftop aerie, minutely aware of the silk sheets against her naked skin. And Myshka remembered a time when she’d been forced to don every piece of clothing she owned before climbing into bed at night. When not to do so was to risk freezing to death in her sleep.

  She had vowed never to be cold like that again.

  She stretched enjoying the sensuality of her surroundings. The bedroom was decadently large and decorated in a palette of muted creams and mushroom greys from the glossy doors of the wardrobes that stretched across one wall to the ridiculously deep pile carpet.

  On the wall opposite the king-size bed hung a fifty-inch flatscreen TV. This, Myshka felt was an unnecessary indulgence. She had never got a kick out of porn—either watching it or taking part. So who needed a television that size in the bedroom where there were so many other avenues to be explored? But it was a small price to pay.

  She turned her head on the pillow towards the wall of glass that looked out onto the immaculate roof garden and beyond over the river and the city. Lying between her and this magnificent view, snoring gustily, was the man she’d had sex with last night.

  The price.

  Myshka was ambivalent about sex, was neither enthralled nor appalled by it. It was simply a physical activity like Pilates or using a step machine—something that might be a little boring to undertake but the results were worth it. She’d learned to fake a convincing reaction she could never feel and viewed it simply as a means to an end.

  On the bedside table her iPhone lit up and began to vibrate. She rolled over carefully and checked the display.

  Dmitry.

  Myshka slipped softly out of bed and thrust her arms into the sleeves of a thin emerald green kimono as she hurried out into the open living area with the phone still buzzing in her hand.

  Dmitry sat at one end of the huge dining table, a copy of one of the financial papers spread out in front of him. He glanced up briefly and cancelled the call he’d made from his own phone.

  Myshka hid her outrage and finished putting on the robe without hurry or embarrassment. She was after all used to men seeing her naked. Dmitry, to her amusement—or was it irritation?—studiously kept his eyes on the newsprint in front of him.

  “Let yourself in, why do you not?” she said haughtily as she swept past him into the ultramodern stark white kitchen area. “Make yourself at home.”

  “As you do,” Dmitry fired back. He indicated the closed bedroom door with a sullen jerk of his head. “You’d rather I rang the doorbell?”

  Just because he had a valid point that didn’t mean Myshka was prepared to let him off the hook. “Why are you here?”

  He showed his teeth, more snarl than smile. “Duty calls. I answer.”

  Her annoyance waned. She crossed to him put her arms around his neck and kissed the top of his head, rocking him to her breast. He gripped her arm and squeezed tight for a second and she felt the tension go out of him.

  “I do not like to think of you . . . with him,” he said at last, his voice muffled against her chest.

  “Soon, Dmitry,” she murmured.

  He stiffened, frowning. “Myshka—”

  “Hush.” She bent her face close to his roughened cheek and put a finger to his lips. “Soon this will all be over and we will be free together I promise.”

  He twitched and she let him go, straightened. For the first time she saw doubt in his eyes and with a flash of intuition knew the cause. Whatever faults and flaws Dmitry might possess, disloyalty was not one of them.

  “He does not appreciate all that you do for him,” she said then, fiercely. “He wastes your talents.”

  Dmitry raked a hand through his hair and stared back down at the newspaper columns. A bitter smile twisted the side of his face. “Perhaps you could speak with him—put in a good word on my behalf then it would not be—”

  “If I thought for a moment he would listen to me I would do so.”

  Dmitry gave a short laugh. “If you do not have his ear who does?”

  “You know as well as I do that he listens only to the sound of money,” she dismissed. “And he thinks only of how to increase it.”

  Not entirely true but true enough for this purpose. Besides it was entirely true that Dmitry was being taken advantage of. His contacts had been plundered, his authority frittered away until all he could be was his new master’s lap dog.

  She moved back into the kitchen area partly so he wouldn’t see the sudden clench of her fingers and busied herself with the espresso machine. While it gurgled through its cycle she picked up her cigarettes and gold lighter from the countertop, headed for one of the huge sliding panels of glass. There she turned, struck an imperious pose, flicked her fingers.

  “Come.”

  Dmitry raised his head and looked at her with the blank cold stare of the killer she knew him to be. She shivered in glorious relief.

  “Good,” she said with a short nod. “So you have not yet acquired the spine of a jelly baby.”

  For a moment he stiffened then a gradual smile widened his mouth. And although he made an annoyed sound in his throat she knew the moment of strain between them had passed.

  “Do you not mean jellyfish?”

  He folded the paper neatly, rose with the economy of movement she’d always admired and opened the window for her, standing aside with a mockingly gallant bow.

  She gave him another slight regal nod and stepped out onto the roof terrace. It was too chilly to be comfortable and she shivered again with less enjoyment this time and wrapped the kimono closer to her body.

  Dmitry shrugged out of his leather coat and draped it around her shoulders. She took it as her due, folded herself into one of the cushioned rattan chairs and reached for the cigarette pack. Dmitry lit for both of them.

  As the first hit of nicotine curled into her lungs Myshka regarded him through a whisper of smoke.

  “The danger from Veronica Lytton may not be over,” she said.

  Dmitry raised an eyebrow. “I do not think McCarron will pursue things,” he said easily. “I was very . . . persuasive.”

  “He is not the problem. The bitch who works for him, she may be.”

  “London can be a dangerous city for a woman to live in,” Dmitry said meaningfully, sitting back in his chair. “Anyone can become a victim of violent crime. It’s shocking.”

  Myshka smiled. Sometimes Dmitry had such a simple answer to every question. If she wasn’t around to rein him in, she mused there would be a trail of blood behind him wherever he went.

  “It cannot be handled like that. Not this time.” She shook her head, regretful. “There is a policeman—how do you say?—sniffing around her. Another ‘accident’ and even he may become suspicious.”

  Dmitry showed his teeth. “Being a policeman can be a dangerous job also,” he offered.

  Myshka laughed out loud, put a hand on his knee briefly. “There is no need,” she said. “Certain information has come to light about the woman. If we are clever we can use it to deal with everyone involved at one time.”

  She leaned forwards in her chair tilted her cigarette into an ashtray and told him, keeping her voice low and focused, everything that Steve Warwick had uncovered about an ex-CSI called Kelly Jacks. And about the plan that had come to Myshka after she had climbed back into bed this morning and lay sleeplessly alongside her lover.

  When she was done, her cigarette had smouldered into ash and Dmitry’s face was creased in concentration.

  “It’s too complicated,” he said doubtfully.

  “No—don’t you see? Is simple,” she argued, conviction in her voice. “Dmitry, is perfect. There will not be a better way.”

  H
e was silent, staring downward into empty space. She knew him well enough to let him think it through in his own time. So she rose, leaving his leather coat on the chair, and went back indoors closing the sliding window behind her.

  She was pouring coffee when Dmitry opened the glass and stepped back inside.

  “You are right—as always,” he said without expression. “It is perfect. But—”

  “What is?”

  The voice made them both turn. Harry Grogan stood in the bedroom doorway, his skin still pink from too hot a shower, fastening cufflinks at the wrists of another handmade shirt.

  “A gift,” Myshka said smoothly. “Dmitry has a special girl. He asked my advice on what would . . . please her.”

  Grogan regarded the pair of them for a moment unsmiling, adjusted his tie. “Well you should know sweetheart.” He nodded to Dmitry. “Tell Viktor to bring the car round and wait,” he said. “I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  Dmitry nodded, his own face carefully expressionless. “Of course.”

  But Grogan’s eyes were on Myshka. She had allowed the front edges of the green kimono to slide provocatively apart almost to her naval. “Is that coffee fresh?” he asked. “Bring me a cup into the study there’s a love. I’ve a couple of calls to make.” And with that he disappeared back into the bedroom.

  Myshka tightened the thin robe again, aware of an aching stab both of relief and disappointment.

  Dmitry gathered up his newspaper from the table and nudged her under the chin with his forefinger as he came past.

  “Do not worry,” he murmured. “I know what needs to be done and I will see to it.”

  And if there had been any lingering uncertainty in his tone when he had come back in from the roof terrace it was gone now.

  20

  Kelly lifted the steam vacuum into the back of the van and peeled off her nitrile gloves. Behind her, Tyrone appeared in the doorway leading to the flats carrying a drum of enzyme cleaner and the sharps’ bin.

  He swung the two items easily up into the back of the van and hopped in after to secure them. Kelly noticed he’d split the back seam of another Tyvek suit. She really would have to speak to Ray about getting hold of a better range of sizes.

  Her face clouded briefly at the thought of her boss. They’d kept him in awaiting surgery on his shattered elbow. She’d been to the hospital to see him again this morning. He was still groggy and in a lot of pain although they were talking about letting him out at the weekend. She made a mental note to go round if they did, take him some food. He wouldn’t be up to looking after himself for a while.

  The letting agent hovered from foot to foot while she filled in the paperwork for him to sign. He was far less appreciative of their efforts than Gary and his mate at the flat south of the River. Kelly didn’t need to be told that he was desperate to get them out of here now the job was done.

  The flat they’d just sanitised had not been the scene of a crime other than bad judgement. It had been mistakenly let to a pair of drug addicts who had eventually trashed the place before scarpering, several months behind on the rent.

  Normal cleaning firms baulked at dealing with contaminated needle debris. The letting agent had admitted—eventually—that he’d discovered one of the tenants was positive for either HIV or hepatitis. He claimed not to know which.

  Kelly made a guess that he’d failed to report any of this to his superiors or the building owner and was paying for the clean-up out of his own pocket. Hence the undue haggling about the price.

  Even now he had a nervous twitch about him that Kelly recognised.

  “You’ve agreed you’re satisfied with the job and we specified payment on completion so I’ll take that now OK?” she said offering him the clipboard and pen. “Cash or credit card will be fine.”

  “Look if I don’t need an official receipt surely we can . . . come to some kind of arrangement about the price eh?” he said with a nervous laugh. “I mean you guys aren’t cheap but if it’s cash you must be able to do better than the estimate.”

  Without taking her eyes off him Kelly said over her shoulder, “Tyrone take the sharps’ bin of contaminated needles back upstairs and empty it out will you?”

  “No problem Kel,” Tyrone said cheerfully. “I’ll spread ’em around the place just like we found ’em. You want me to dump the lot?”

  “That depends on how much discount we’re being asked to give,” she said.

  The letting agent stared in horror as Tyrone stepped down out of the van carrying the container plastered with large yellow warning labels for blood-borne infection.

  “Now wait a minute—”

  Kelly held up a finger cutting him dead. “A hundred percent of the price you agreed to gets you a hundred percent of the job,” she said firmly. “Any less and you’ll need to get your rubber gloves out and hope your shots are up to date. Your choice.”

  The man was small and thin, narrow-featured except for his ears which stuck out far enough to glow pinkly when he stood with his back to the light. He scowled furiously but couldn’t take his eyes off the additional stickers on the bin that warned of serious health risks from the contents. He scrabbled for his wallet and waited impatiently while Kelly ran his credit card details.

  As soon as she was done he snatched back the card and hurried away to lock up, looking over his shoulder furtively as he did so.

  Tyrone heaved the sharps’ bin back into the van and grinned at her. “Don’t think we’ll get much word of mouth from this one, yeah?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said sitting on the edge of the load bay to strip her own suit over the booties, making sure it stayed inside out as it came off. Ray was fanatical about ensuring not just his licences stayed unblemished but that his staff protected themselves from infection as well. “You’d be amazed who he might come into contact with.”

  Tyrone’s own gear went into the bin for biohazard waste disposal too. “Might have been talking already,” he said then quietly leaning towards her. “There’s a guy sitting in an old Merc across the road—been watching this place all day.”

  Kelly followed his casual nod and noticed a pimped-up black Mercedes coupé on wheels so large they barely fitted under the chrome spats on the arches. The limo-black tint on the glass made it impossible to see the driver but as she turned to follow Tyrone’s gaze the engine fired and the car pulled out sharply into traffic.

  She stared after the disappearing taillights, frowning. The car was distinctive and she could have sworn she’d seen it earlier in the day as they headed out towards Dartford but hadn’t caught the reg number.

  Coincidence?

  She felt cold fingers walk slowly and deliberately down her spine.

  What else could it be?

  “That us done for this afternoon, is it?” Tyrone asked then, trying and failing to keep the hopeful note out of his voice. “Only, I’m playing in a pub league five-a-side this Sunday. I said I’d try and get to practice early tonight.”

  Kelly checked her watch. “You can scoot off as soon as we get back to the office if you like,” she offered. “I’ll put the report in and restock the van.”

  He grinned. “You’re a real star Kel, y’know that?”

  She cocked her head on one side. “What—very dim and far away?”

  Traffic was bad on the way home and driving the large van took up most of Kelly’s concentration. She kept a watchful eye out for the black Mercedes but decided that either it was indeed a coincidence or the driver had been more interested in the property they’d just cleaned.

  Either way, she didn’t see it again.

  21

  Dmitry had no need to observe the two cleaners more than he had done. He’d seen enough to know they turned up together and worked without outside supervision.

  What more did he need to know?

  So he waited until it was dark before heading out to the East End listening to hip-hop on the Merc’s expensive stereo. He kept the volume at a level where it
would not intrude outside the car. It irritated him to sit next to some vibrating boom-box at traffic lights, the occupants’ baseball-capped heads bobbing in time with the distorted music.

  Back home he’d have killed them for such an intrusion.

  But he liked driving at night through the darkened streets of the city. It made him feel like some kind of avenging angel searching out the weak and the damaged.

  In this case the weak and damaged were to be found on waste ground near the river on the Isle of Dogs, huddled round perforated oil drums filled with scavenged timber lit for warmth. The homeless, the hopeless, the repossessed and the dispossessed. They shuffled together after dark like the walking dead to remember old stories and forget new ones with any kind of brew that would fire them from the inside out.