She removed the key and turned away.
Which was the moment when the door was yanked open from the inside.
Tina turned and broke into a run, heading for the stairwell at the end of the corridor.
‘Tina!’
Milne was standing in the open doorway. He looked as tired and rough as she felt.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said quietly.
She felt a lurch of relief so strong it almost knocked her over. ‘Dennis.’ She walked up and had to stop herself from hugging him. In the end, she settled for putting a hand on his arm. ‘When did you get back here?’
‘Ten minutes ago.’ He motioned her to step inside, and shut the door behind them. ‘I knocked on your door, and when you weren’t there I thought I’d check that you didn’t have any unwanted visitors.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks. And thanks for earlier too. You saved my life.’
‘You saved mine as well. If you hadn’t intervened outside the house, those cops would have put a bullet in me. So I guess we’re quits.’
‘How did you get away?’
‘I killed them,’ he said simply, then saw the look on her face. ‘I had to do it. They were going to kill me. You’ve got to understand that.’
They looked at each other for a few seconds without speaking, and once again Tina noticed the haunted look in his pale blue eyes, and the pain he was carrying with him. ‘I understand,’ she said at last. And she did. She’d killed before, when she’d believed it necessary, and she’d lost sleep over what she’d done. That didn’t make her the same as him – and she was still sickened by some of the crimes he’d committed over the years – but there were definitely similarities between them.
‘We’ve got one serious lead,’ he said, sitting down on a rickety chair next to the bed. ‘The man Tomboy delivered this mysterious briefcase to. Heed.’
‘And Tomboy had no idea at all what was in the briefcase?’
‘No. But because he worked for Paul Wise, and Wise is in the country, I assume it must be en route to him.’
‘So we need to go and see Heed.’
Milne yawned. ‘I’m too tired to go and see him now. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow. And I’m going to go alone.’
Tina immediately opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand, and she let him continue.
‘This is over for you, Tina,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t care what you say. You can still walk away from all this. Go home, back to your life, and your job. I can’t. The chances are Bertie Schagel’s already betrayed me to the authorities in Manila, and I’m guessing I’m going to be getting the blame for the murders tonight, as well as Pat O’Riordan. I’m finished. I’ve been finished ever since the moment I made the decision not to shoot you.’
Tina looked at him, startled, as he continued to speak.
‘Which was my choice. I don’t expect you to thank me. But . . .’ He sighed, looking up at Tina with a rueful smile. ‘I’m glad I did it.’
She didn’t know what to say. But she felt for him, then, the intensity of her emotions a surprise to her, even after all that had happened.
‘When I go and see Heed, he’s not going to want to talk,’ he continued. ‘But he’s got the information we need. He knows about Lene Haagen, and I bet he knows what happened to her, and where she’s buried. He also knows why O’Riordan died, who the person or people he was going to meet were. And I’m guessing he also knows what’s in the briefcase. In other words, he’s the man with all the answers. But I’m going to have to force them out of him, and it’s not going to be pretty. And when I’m finished, I’m going to have to kill him. In cold blood. I don’t want you there when I do that. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I do. But we don’t have to kill him, do we? We can find out what evidence we need to put Wise behind bars, then tie him up, put in an anonymous call to the authorities, and get him arrested.’
Milne gave her an incredulous look. ‘Be serious, Tina. What hard evidence do you really think we’re going to turn up that stands even the remotest chance of convicting Paul Wise in a court of law? Especially in a country like this? You said it yourself: he’s escaped justice for years. He’s obviously good at it. I – and I mean I – need to track down Wise and kill him too. That’s what you want, isn’t it? When it comes down to it.’
And she had to admit that it was. A year or so ago it had been very different. She’d genuinely thought she’d see the day when she could face her nemesis across a British courtroom and see his face crumple as he was sentenced to the rest of his life in prison. But now she knew that would never happen. In the few days she’d spent in Manila, she’d been kidding herself that she could indeed uncover ‘the smoking gun’ that would bring Wise down. Milne was right. He was going to have to die.
He sighed. ‘If I kill him, you’ll get the justice you want. So will I. And you’ll still be alive and free at the end of it.’
Tina sat down on the end of the bed. Once again, she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she took out her cigarettes, and offered him one for the first time.
‘No thanks. I quit a few years back. For health reasons.’ He leaned back in the chair and gave a hollow laugh. ‘I guess it seems a bit pointless, given my current situation.’
‘Is there really no way out for you?’ she asked, lighting her cigarette. ‘Couldn’t you get hold of a false passport and disappear until everything dies down? You’re good at that sort of thing. You’ve got to be. You’ve survived the best part of a decade on the run.’
He shook his head. ‘Not this time. Schagel knows what I look like, as well as the name I’ve been travelling under. He even controls my bank account. I’m trapped here in the Philippines, and he’s going to make sure I don’t get out.’
‘I still don’t understand what Schagel’s part in all this is.’
‘Neither do I.I think he and Wise must be in business together, but what their business is, I’ve no idea.’
‘Children?’
‘I suppose it could be. But this briefcase that they’re so interested in isn’t a child.’ He shrugged. ‘Heed knows the answers. I’ll get them out of him.’
They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Tina stubbed out her cigarette in the room’s cheap glass ashtray. ‘I need to turn in,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m shattered.’
‘Me too.’ Milne got to his feet.
‘Do you think we’re safe here?’ she asked.
‘I think so. But I can’t say for sure. Schagel’s got the number of the phone I was carrying when we booked in here, so it’s possible if he’s got the right contacts he could triangulate our location to this address, but it wouldn’t be easy.’
‘Do you think we should stay together tonight?’
He looked taken aback by the suggestion, and was clearly trying hard not to show it. ‘Possibly. To be on the safe side. But I guess that’s up to you.’
Tina wasn’t sure if she was being over-cautious or if it was something more than that, but she said that it would probably be a good idea.
‘I’ll sleep in the chair.’
‘It’s OK,’ she told him. ‘We can share. But I’m warning you,’ she added, with a smile, ‘don’t try anything.’
He smiled back. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’
Later, as they lay side by side in the darkness under the single sheet, both still partly dressed, she felt an urge for some human warmth. It had been weeks since she’d shared a bed with a man. That man had been Nick Penny, and she was immediately reminded of what had happened to him, and how desperate she was to make Paul Wise pay.
Milne wasn’t moving, but she could tell he was awake. ‘Thanks again for today,’ she whispered.
‘And thank you,’ he whispered back.
Instinctively, she put an arm round his chest and pulled him close, and then he turned round and their lips met, and for a few moments all her fear and stress and anger disappeared, and she surrendered to more primal urges.
<
br /> Their lovemaking was natural and intense, and afterwards they clung to each other for a long time, each afraid to let go, because they both knew in their hearts that this could well be the first and last time they were ever together. That tomorrow they might be parted for ever. Neither spoke. They didn’t need to. Somehow, it made their fragile intimacy even stronger.
At last Milne pulled away from her and turned over, and a few minutes later, as she lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering what kind of person she’d become to be sleeping with a murderer, she heard him cry out in his sleep. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, the words full of pain. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she wondered if he was talking about her, or Emma, the woman he’d left behind.
She reached across and pulled him close, burying her face in his shoulder, her eyes wet with tears, until finally sleep overwhelmed her too.
Forty-one
Nargen was in a foul mood as he walked into the club. It was noisy and full of scantily clad teenage Filipina girls and middle-aged western men, the former outnumbering the latter by at least five to one.
As soon as they spotted him, a dozen of the girls surrounded him like locusts. They screeched their hellos above the heavy beat of the music, asking if he’d like a drink or some fun, but he pushed his way through them as if they didn’t exist. Oriental women did nothing for him. Especially uneducated whores.
He walked past the long stage in the middle of the room, on which more girls in knee-length boots and leather bikinis danced and pouted, trying and failing to look sexy and sophisticated.
He let out an audible growl as he thought back to the evening’s events. Once again, his attempt to kill the woman, Boyd, had failed, and in the process he’d lost his right-hand man. Tumanov could be replaced easily enough, of course – there were plenty of ex-special forces men looking for work – but that wasn’t the point. No, the point was that his professional pride had been hurt. For a man who’d always been so successful in executing his orders, it was embarrassing to have been thwarted not once, but twice – and by a woman. He’d wanted to continue the hunt for her, to prove that he was capable of putting her in the ground, but he’d been overruled by Schagel. Which was why he was here now, being pestered by worthless little whores.
At the furthest end of the club from the main entrance there was an unmarked door painted the same black as the walls. It had no handle, only a small keypad, also painted black, and it took Nargen a few seconds to find it. He typed in the four-digit code he’d been given, and listened as it set off a buzzer on the other side of the door.
A few seconds later, the raspy voice of Mr Heed, the strange man who’d picked him and Tumanov up from the airport, came over the intercom, demanding identification.
Looking up so he could be seen by the camera that pointed down from the ceiling, Nargen introduced himself, and a second later the door clicked open. He went inside and found himself in a narrow, dimly lit corridor, with a flight of stone steps to his left. The door closed and locked behind him, immediately shutting out the noise of the club. Trying to ignore the vague unease he felt, Nargen descended the steps, aware of a dank smell, similar to an old wet raincoat, filling his nostrils.
Heed was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps, clad in a long black dressing gown, a hand in one of the pockets. His nicotine-coloured hair was slicked back, thin and wet against the scalp, and he wore a smug, satisfied expression. His feet were bare, and Nargen, who always prided himself on his appearance, was vaguely disgusted to see that the toenails jutted out like gnarled, yellowing talons.
‘I’m here for the package,’ he said.
‘I know you are,’ said Heed with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. He took a couple of steps backwards to allow Nargen into the cellar-like hallway. ‘It’s in there,’ he added, motioning towards an open door.
Nargen looked at him carefully, wondering if this was some kind of trick. He didn’t like turning his back on men he didn’t know, especially when they looked as cunning as this one.
Heed met his gaze with the same mocking smile. ‘It’s all right. Go, go.’
Nargen went through the door and into a small, airless kitchen, lit only by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. He wondered if Heed actually lived down here, without any natural light, and thought that if he did, then there must be something terribly wrong with him.
The package, a large black briefcase, was on a small table in the middle of the room.
Nargen stopped and took a deep breath. His mouth was dry. It was so innocuous-looking. But he knew what was inside it. Schagel had told him. It was too valuable for him not to, and it was why he was being paid so much money to deliver it.
Slowly, carefully, he picked it up from the table, tensing his muscles to take the weight, but when he turned round he saw that Heed had a pistol in his hand.
He put the case back down on the table, contemplating going for the Sig Sauer in his jacket pocket, before deciding against it. He was quick, but not that quick.
‘Why are you pointing that at me?’ he demanded.
‘Insurance,’ said Heed. ‘I want you to let the people you’re working for know that there is no point trying to kill me.’
‘I wasn’t aware they did want to kill you.’
‘I have a strange feeling about that case,’ Heed said quietly, his narrow little fish eyes moving towards it like magnets. ‘I think that whatever is in it spells great trouble. And knowing its recipient, Mr Wise, as I do, I’m concerned that he might decide to eliminate anyone who’s come into contact with it, a list that as you know includes me. So I’m telling you this. I have no idea what’s in it, nor do I want to know. If anyone should ask me about it, I will deny all knowledge of ever being in possession of it. In other words, the people you work for have nothing to fear from me. But’ – and here he raised a liver-spotted hand, and fixed Nargen with a malignant glare – ‘if anything should happen to me – were I to meet an unpleasant end – then things that I know about Mr Wise, and also Mr Schagel, the man who sent you – very bad things, I might add – will become public. And that will be unfortunate for both of them.’
‘I’m here to collect the case, that’s all,’ said Nargen, thinking that Heed was wise to be so wary. Earlier that evening, Nargen had been given instructions to kill him when he collected the package. Unfortunately, this no longer looked a possibility. It was another black mark against Nargen’s name, but there was nothing he could do about that. He would have to carry out the task some other time when Heed’s guard had slipped sufficiently; although for the first time he felt a slither of concern that he too might be expendable. He would have to watch his own back over the next twenty-four hours.
Apparently satisfied with Nargen’s answer, Heed took a step backwards so that he was no longer blocking the doorway while Nargen picked up the case for a second time and walked out into the hallway. A corridor snaked off into the darkness to his left, and he thought he could hear the sound of a child’s whimpering coming from somewhere down there. It was, he decided, time to get out of this claustrophobic, tomb-like place.
He took a last look at Heed, searching for an opportunity to take him quickly, but the other man had settled back against the far wall, his gun still trained on Nargen, and the look on his jaundiced, parchment-dry face told him that Heed knew exactly what he was thinking.
With the child’s whimpering growing louder in his ears, Nargen turned and walked back up the steps, feeling Heed’s eyes burning into him.
The briefcase weighed heavily in his hand, as if its terrible contents were trying to drag him down.
The sooner he was rid of it, the happier he would be.
Three
THE AXE FALLS
Forty-two
The bed was empty when I woke up. Daylight streamed in through the open window, beyond which came the steady sound of traffic. It was hot in the room and I threw off the single sheet, remembering what had happened between Tina and me the previous night. It had bee
n a long time since I’d made such frantic, desperate love. The last time had been with Emma.
I’d dreamed of her in the night. It was the same dream I often had. In it, I would hear knocking on the front door of my house in Laos, and when I opened it, I would see Emma standing there. A two-year-old child would be by her side, clutching her hand tightly. Almost always the child was a boy, only on rare occasions a girl, but the child never looked at me. He or she always stood there, head down. Emma would have a look of utter sadness on her face as she asked me why I’d abandoned them both. And I was always so desperate to tell her that it was because of all the bad things I’d done – things that I now felt truly sorry for. But I knew that I couldn’t, because she’d be too sickened by what she heard ever to want to see me again. So in the dream I never spoke. I would stand at the door in silence, my eyes wet with tears, until finally she turned and led our child away. Sometimes I would follow them a little way, trying desperately to think of words that would make her understand. Other times I would stand rooted to the spot, watching them go, until finally they faded from view altogether. And then the words would come in a great, painful flurry, and I would shout how much I loved her, how much I loved both of them, and how sorry I was that it had come to this, before, mercifully, the dream ended and the blackness of deep sleep took hold.
Sitting up in bed, I took a deep breath, allowing the wave of sadness to wash over me, before forcing myself back to the present. I looked at my watch, and saw that it was almost ten o’clock. Ironically, given everything that had happened, I’d slept a hell of a lot better than I’d done in a long time.
Tina was nowhere to be seen and I wondered if she regretted what we’d done. I hoped not. Although I’d felt guilty about sleeping with her afterwards, as I did when I slept with anyone other than Emma, it had still been an intense and emotional experience, and it struck me that in other circumstances, Tina was the kind of woman who could have dragged me out of the darkness, allowing me to put the past where it belonged – in the past.
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