Never Coming Home

by Evonne Wareham

  ‘No!’ The voice shuddered. ‘It was you. Just as if you’d used the hammer yourself. But now you’ll know.’

  Devlin threw himself to the side as the knife whistled through the air. He rolled and was on his feet as Luce slid the other from the sheath at his wrist. Devlin kicked the blade out of Luce’s hold and moved in.

  It was close, brutal and dirty. Another knife clattered away, pushed aside inches from Devlin’s face. They jabbed and punched and kicked. Devlin’s body was soaked in sweat. Head ringing from a sideswipe that he dodged a second too late, Devlin staggered before catching his foot behind Luce’s knee and yanking hard. Luce pulled him with him as he fell, and kept pulling.

  Devlin controlled panic. His assessment had been right. Luce was much slower, but he had the weight. If he got it across Devlin’s body – Devlin squirmed into an ungainly move that flung him clear, splattering him on the deck, at the expense of most of the breath in his lungs. His ear was bleeding. Luce was already scrambling to his feet. Devlin was almost too winded to roll aside as Luce’s boot stomped into the space where his abdomen had been, two seconds before. He rolled again, and again and then again, gaining precious space. Luce had stopped advancing, standing still to watch, his chest heaving. Devlin shuddered as the pale eyes raked his prone form, deciding where to strike first. His hand scrabbled, of its own volition, searching frantically around on the floor. Something to hit out with. Something to throw. Any bloody thing.

  Luce was walking forward. Devlin nearly sobbed in relief as his fingers connected with a thick cable, snaking across the floor. Desperation powered his arm as Luce set his foot on the loose end. He jerked the cable, hard. Luce went down with a thud that rocked the floor.

  Devlin was on his knees and then his feet, circling. Luce wasn’t moving. There was a portion of a broken desk under his head. Had he –

  With a roar, Luce came up off the carpet and straight at him. Devlin jumped back, catching his foot and falling, arms flailing. He hit the ground again as Luce advanced, a piece of the desk held out like a spear. Devlin grabbed it, feeling splinters bite into his palm, and ripped it away. But Luce was too close to avoid. He grabbed, lifting Devlin bodily, to slam him down.

  Kicking out at Luce’s groin, and turning in the air, Devlin miraculously got his feet under him, only to stagger as he landed. He sprawled, all his weight on his left wrist, and felt the ominous crack as the bone impacted against the floor. Pain shot up his arm. On his knees as Luce loomed over him, he grasped his useless left hand in his right and powered both up into Luce’s face, clamping his teeth down over the hot needles stabbing his forearm.

  He was upright and backing off, panting, as Luce swayed, blood dripping over his mouth from a smashed nose. Devlin heard something between a groan and a whimper. He wasn’t sure who it was coming from. He was flagging, his left hand hanging powerless.

  They’d edged, slowly, towards the windows. Behind the mangled glass the sun was rising. Bobby’s body swung eerily in the breeze from a partially shattered pane. Devlin feinted to one side, just missing the slick pool of blood that would have taken his foot from under him.

  He had to end this. His strength was failing and his hand was useless. Which left low, animal cunning.

  He backed away, nursing his arm. Luce’s head was up again, his gaze hard and focused. Devlin powered in, fingers of his right hand stiff, going for the eyes, only to be flung back. He let himself relax, collapsing slowly against the bank of windows. Cracked glass juddered. His head flopped to one side. Luce was coming for him, hands outstretched, horrible triumph on the ravaged face.

  At the very last second, just as Luce reached him, Devlin bent his knees up to his chest and pitched himself sideways, with all the strength of his screaming calf muscles. Luce hit the damaged window, headfirst.

  For a silent second it seemed as if nothing had happened. Then the glass shattered into fragments and Luce hurtled through it, screaming.

  Devlin flopped over onto his hip to watch, stomach like ice. Luce’s body rocketed forward, in a hail of splintered glass, then described a wide, lazy arc, out over the rail line and right into the path of the approaching goods engine.

  The sound of protesting metal and screaming brakes drifted skywards, curiously divorced from the scene playing out below, as the train ground ponderously to a halt.

  Devlin sat up slowly. His whole body was shaking. It took three attempts, with unsteady fingers, to get the phone out of his pocket, two to tap out the number he’d never expected to use again. He hadn’t forgotten it. And it hadn’t been changed.

  The call was answered on the second ring. Devlin spoke the required words. There was a pause, and another voice came on the line, controlled and unruffled, the questions brief and incisive. Devlin breathed deep, riding on that clarity and letting it focus him, stirring responses that he hadn’t called on in years.

  Eyes averted from Bobby’s body, he made his report in terse sentences. Heard the almost imperceptible silence at the other end, when he came to the part about the train. There was another pause, a couple of clicks, and a new voice.

  ‘If there’s chaos and mayhem at this time of the morning I might have known it would be you, Michael.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He rubbed his ear. His hand came away with blood on it.

  ‘Damage?’

  He flexed his hand, wincing. ‘Some.’

  ‘You can still move?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Then, as our American friends would say, haul your butt out of the building and into the street. Move away. Then wait. We’ll be along.’

  The line went dead.

  Devlin folded the phone and stuck it back into his pocket. Painfully he pulled himself to his feet, took a step towards Bobby, then shrugging, changed his mind.

  He turned and walked slowly back to the stairs.

  Following orders.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  There was a small group of onlookers, hovering beside the outer barrier. Early morning passers-by, a couple of joggers. The police had been briefed to expect her. The metal barrier was moved aside. Kaz drove in, as she’d been told, and stopped the car. A police vehicle was parked crosswise, ahead of her, blocking most of the road. She could see another, in an identical position, further along the street. Car-top lights winked and there was an occasional garbled burst of chatter from a radio, but otherwise the scene had a strange, hushed quality about it. A uniformed officer standing beyond the stationary car beckoned her forward. She edged gingerly past its bonnet, two wheels on the pavement, a blank brick wall too close for comfort on her other side.

  She stopped again, then nosed the car into a space, opposite a set of gates, as directed by the policeman. There were other vehicles within the barrier, and a few more scattered in an empty parking area, behind a wall. Through the sagging gates she could see a couple of cars and two large vans, one black, one blue. The centre of attention seemed to be a derelict building. As she watched, a group of men emerged, pushing a black-wrapped bundle on a trolley. Kaz was dimly aware of some sort of muffled mechanical noise coming intermittently from the direction of the railway line. She couldn’t hear any trains.

  She got out of the car, hunching her shoulders at the early morning chill. The policeman guarding the gate stepped forward, but before he could intercept her another man had slipped past him and was walking towards her. Something in his build, and the way he moved, reminded her of Devlin.

  ‘Mrs Elmore?’ He stopped about a foot away from her. Kaz registered a round, unremarkable face, with ice-shard eyes. This time the shudder had nothing to do with the cold.

  ‘I had a phone call.’ She winced over the recollection. Phone jolting her out of sleep. Handset, clock, fumbling. Scooping her hair from off her face. Hands trembling. Nothing good at 5:57 a.m.

  It was a stranger, clipped, precise, who knew h
er name. Then his voice, husky strained, subdued.

  ‘I’m here to collect Mr Devlin,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Mr … Devlin. Ah … yes.’ He looked as if he hadn’t heard the name before. ‘If you’d like to follow me.’ There was some nudging and pushing going on amongst the gawpers around the barrier. A couple of mobile phones were raised, to take pictures, before a burly policeman stepped in to block the view.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Elmore.’ Her escort spoke over his shoulder. ‘As I believe he explained, Mr … Devlin has been slightly hurt. In the circumstances it was felt advisable to contact you to pick him up.’

  Kaz chewed down the questions that were seething under her tongue. The guarded way Devlin had spoken, when they’d handed him the phone, had alerted her. She’d wondered, for a giddy second, if she was being invited to bail him out. But he had just asked her to come for him. No explanations, and she’d known not to ask. The first voice had told her where, and how to get there.

  Whoever this guy ahead was, and he had high-end spook written all over him, he certainly wouldn’t be bothering to answer questions. It was fine to turn her out of bed, when it was barely morning, and expect her to drive immediately to an unfamiliar part of London, but God help anyone who told her why.

  At least she knew Devlin was alive. The body bag hadn’t been him. They weren’t handing her a corpse to dispose of. She stepped cautiously through the broken gates. Something nasty had happened in this derelict office block, and Devlin had somehow got right in the middle of it. Which meant she was right in the middle of it. She put her hand to her temple, massaging it. Devlin had left her last night – about ten hours ago – to get a hotel room. Now he was here, on the outskirts of London, after some sort of incident. It was her job to get him out. Then she could kill him.

  Her escort took her to the blue van parked inside the perimeter wall and produced a pile of forms from somewhere. Incredulous and impatient Kaz signed where he indicated, shoving the copy he offered her into her bag. He frowned, started to say something, then closed his mouth abruptly when a woman glided out from behind the van. She was short, even dumpy, with a long thin face and curly grey hair. Eyes like razors. The effect on Kaz’s escort was electric. She watched, fascinated, as his whole languid body tightened and straightened. It was a salute, in all but the hand gesture. This, then, was the boss. She was smiling. Nice teeth. All the better to eat you with? The smile, surprisingly, reached her eyes. Kaz wasn’t reassured.

  ‘Mrs Elmore?’ The woman put her hand briefly on Kaz’s elbow to urge her forward. All these people had her name. None of them had offered her theirs.

  Devlin was slumped, half in, half out, of the back seat of a dark grey car, parked out of view at the side of the building. Kaz’s heart spiked. He was pale, there was a smear of blood on his face and more on the front of his shirt. He was nursing one arm in the crook of the other.

  Kaz took a very deep breath. She felt it all the way down to the scruffy trainers she’d stuffed her feet into, in the daze of early morning. If she’d known that she was going to meet a woman dressed in an Armani jacket, that looked as if she only wore it to walk her dog, she’d have taken more care in her choices. But then again, perhaps not.

  Devlin was squinting up at her. Possibly he looked a little apprehensive. Good. The woman had melted away again.

  ‘Is much of that blood yours?’ she asked, after a while.

  ‘Not much.’ He shifted and grimaced. ‘At least I don’t think that it is.’

  Kaz nodded. ‘Is this the point where I ask what the other guy looks like?’

  Devlin swallowed. ‘The other guy’s over there.’ He jerked his head towards the railway line. ‘Under a train.’

  ‘Ah.’ Now it was beginning to come together. ‘And you –?’

  ‘Put him there? Yeah.’ He was studying his hands. ‘We fought. If I … it could have been me.’

  Kaz felt dizzy. She and Devlin, here in the early morning, discussing violent death. As if it were a stock order from the nursery.

  Devlin was staring at the side of the building. ‘There’s a lot of stuff I need to tell you, Kaz, explain.’

  ‘Like your whole life, maybe?’

  He chewed his lip. ‘Something like that, but not here.’

  She nodded again. Scratched her nose. ‘When you said last night that you’d see me today, I didn’t expect it to be this early.’

  ‘Uh, neither did I.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’ She moved her weight from one foot to the other. Looked at the trainers. Wondered whether Armani woman was watching, from somewhere behind them. Probably. ‘I think I’m supposed to take you home now.’

  ‘A&E, first. This –’ he indicated his left wrist – ‘is broken.’

  ‘Oh.’ She rocked back a little on her heels. ‘Did you know, last night, when you left? That this was going to happen?’

  ‘No. He called me. He had Bobby.’ Devlin shuddered, looking away again. ‘Bobby is dead, too.’

  Kaz thought about the black bag on the trolley. Her fingers twisted. She wanted to touch Devlin. And then again, not. ‘Shall we go now?’

  There was unmistakable relief in Devlin’s eyes as he shrugged himself carefully out of the car and on to his feet. There was other damage, besides the wrist. She could see that. And more. Mental, not physical. But now wasn’t the time. Will it ever be?

  Ignoring the tell-tale flutter her stomach gave, she led the way to the car.

  She had to help him with the seatbelt. With elaborate concentration she turned the car. The on-lookers had drifted away, or been dispersed. The last thing she saw, in the rear-view mirror, was the woman and the man, standing together in the shadow of the wall, watching them leave. A car, large but discreet, pulled up beside them, doors opening.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was full daylight, and the traffic was thicker than when she’d driven down, heart in her mouth.

  ‘The nearest hospital is Hillingdon.’ Devlin roused himself as they approached a junction.

  ‘Fine.’ She glanced up at the road sign. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It will do.’

  Kaz changed gear and got in lane. Devlin had gone back to his intense contemplation of whatever he could see out of the side window. A quick glance showed her an averted profile. Even then, she could see the mouth was pinched.

  ‘How are you going to explain it? When we get to the hospital?’ she asked abruptly. She wanted to hear this.

  ‘What? Oh, whatever.’ He gestured with the good hand. ‘Something. Maybe I fell over the cat.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She pretended to consider. There was a white van behind her, too close, and another in front. She was a white-van sandwich. She could feel the dangerous edge of hysteria. ‘That doesn’t really account for all the blood on your shirt,’ she suggested.

  ‘Nosebleed.’ He was still looking out of the window. ‘It was. Just wasn’t my nose.’

  She digested this. ‘You think the doctor is going to buy that?’ His face was bruised, but only along the jaw and cheekbone.

  ‘Some knackered kid, in their dad’s white coat, at the end of a long night shift? You think he, or she, will care?’

  ‘Well – your experience of this kind of thing is greater than mine.’ She assumed he nodded. Her eyes were on the rear-view mirror. He’d turned towards her now. She felt him shift.

  ‘Afraid they’ll think you belted me?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me!’ Without warning, fright and relief segued effortlessly into fury. Now she’d started, she had a list. ‘Just who the hell are you, Devlin?’ She seared a glance across at him, saw the shock in his eyes. Goodie, goodie.

  ‘I’m hauled out of bed in the middle of the night …’ She gestured away his protest that it had been early morning. Wisely he shut his mouth. ‘Som
eone I’ve never spoken to before insists that I have to come all the way out here to collect you. When I get here there are police. And a scary man and a really scary woman, even scarier than you. And I have to sign for you, like a bloody parcel!’

  ‘Um.’ She could almost hear him thinking about which bit to go for first. ‘I don’t think what you signed was a delivery note, Kaz.’

  They had reached a set of traffic lights. On red. Kaz delved one-handed into her bag. A glance at the heading on the sheet of paper was enough.

  ‘I just bloody well signed the Official Secrets Act!’

  ‘Er, yeah.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ Her voice was shaking. Luckily her hands weren’t. How the hell had she missed that the first time around? Because you were crazy to get to Devlin, terrified of what you would find – and determined that no one else was going to know it.

  Devlin was still keeping quiet. ‘Hah! You think I don’t know,’ she accused. ‘You’re hoping I’ll yell myself to a standstill, aren’t you?’ She let in the clutch with a jerk as the lights changed, splaying her fingers on the steering wheel in a repudiating gesture. ‘Okay. I’m done.’

  They drove on, without speaking. Kaz turned on the radio and pretended to listen to it. An ambulance skated past them. They were nearing the hospital.

  ‘I’m scary, huh?’ Devlin asked conversationally. ‘Even when you’ve got me naked?’

  Kaz clenched her teeth. She was not going to give in to the sudden burst of laughter that was forcing its way up her throat. Oh hell, yes she was.

  ‘Maybe not so scary naked.’ And maybe I’m a liar. It’s just a different kind of scary.

  She swung into the hospital’s car park and stopped, slewed across two spaces. ‘Why the hell am I laughing?’

  It was coming up now in waves, making her body judder. Laughter that wasn’t laughter, but half-way to tears.

  Devlin snapped his seatbelt off, and hers. Wincing, teeth gritted, he gathered her clumsily into his good arm. He couldn’t tell whether the shaking was tears or mirth. Or maybe it was coming from him? ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’