Vendetta

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  A woman in a suit walked by and Mac beamed at her and said, ‘Good to see you again. How are the kids?’

  Baffled, but unwilling to embarrass herself by admitting she didn’t know who Mac was, the woman smiled back and answered, ‘I’m good and the boys are fine, thank you.’

  As she went by, Mac gestured with his thumb at the woman and said to the receptionist, ‘She’s great, isn’t she?’

  Mac didn’t know the woman from Adam, but it was worth a shot.

  The girl on the desk seemed half convinced but still unsure. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  Mac decided to clear away any remaining doubts. ‘Brand – known to the LYZ boys as “Fire” Brand.’ He flicked his wrist up to check the time on his watch. ‘Look sweetheart, I don’t want to be rude, but time is money and I’m on the police dollar here. If you’ve got any doubts about me, call Phil Delaney – or get security down here, they’ll sort me out.’

  She checked him out on her computer system, discovering there was indeed a DI Brand – Mac was always careful to use real names. So she buzzed him through the security doors and into a smaller space with twin lifts. Mac punched the up button on the first lift. The lift made a whooing sound from somewhere above. A few seconds later, its metal doors opened in front of him. Mac stepped inside. Pressed 2. He dropped his head as he leaned against the coolness of the back of the lift as the doors started to close.

  Abruptly a hand thrust between the doors. The lift made a juddering sound. The doors froze. Pulled back. The person on the other side walked into the lift.

  ‘Mac?’

  He looked up into the face of DI Rio Wray.

  Rio held on tightly to the e-Photofit of the cab driver’s passenger as she looked at Mac.

  ‘Surprised to see you here,’ she said as she pressed 3. ‘Heard on the grapevine that you were off your case and told to take some quality time at home.’

  The doors closed as she moved to stand beside him. She looked at his face and battered clothes. Whatever he’d been up to, it certainly hadn’t been quality time. And the baseball cap made him look like a street hood.

  Mac said nothing for a few moments. Then, ‘Office gossip Rio. I’m very much on the case.’ He noticed she was looking at his face and added, ‘Hence the injuries . . .’

  She believed that. Knew he’d want to be working on the anniversary of his son’s death. It was better than the alternative.

  Her hand tightened on the Photofit. ‘If you want me to come with you at some stage to Stevie’s . . . ?’

  Her question fizzled out and the stubborn tilt of his face told her his dead son was still off limits.

  ‘How are you getting on with that case? The tart in the bath?’ he asked lightly.

  Rio opened her mouth. Almost told him what the Germans had come back with, but she shut the words back behind her lips. Phil was hiding something and blabbing to Mac, one of his men, was not a smart move. No, it was time to play the game her way.

  So she innocently asked, ‘Do you know which one of your team uses a C in their 1402 code?’

  Rio wasn’t expecting the surprised look on Mac’s face. ‘Never heard of anyone having a letter attached to their code . . .’

  ‘But why give someone a different code?’

  This time he shrugged. ‘Come on Rio, you know better than that. Even if I knew, I couldn’t give you that kind of Intel.’

  ‘Hmmm, that’s what Philip Delaney . . .’

  He gazed deeply at her. ‘You’ve been talking to Phil?’

  She blushed, which she was thankful her dark skin didn’t reveal. No one knew about her special connection to Philip Delaney. ‘You know who it is, don’t you? You can tell me, Mac, I’ll be finding out in a little while anyway. Go on – give me a hint.’ She finished with a cocky smile.

  ‘I thought you were one of those by-the-book detectives. Now you’re asking police officers to reveal confidential information without authorisation? You’ll end up like Calum if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Like Calum?’ Her smile vanished. She shoved the Photofit in front of him. ‘That’s someone in your team, isn’t it? Do you know who it is?’

  Mac looked down. Kept his eyes on the computer-generated image. ‘Could be anyone. There are dozens of people on my team and all the other UC units.’

  The lift doors opened. Mac moved ahead of her. Stepped out onto the second floor.

  Rio watched him go. ‘I admire the way you stick to the rules, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll have my answers pretty soon . . .’

  He stopped. Twisted his head to the side and caught her with the corner of his eye. He didn’t speak, waiting for her to finish her sentence.

  The doors started closing. ‘I’ve got an expert working on the security camera footage from the hotel right now. I’ll have a face in less than twenty minutes.’

  The doors slid shut.

  fifty-three

  6:05 p.m.

  He had twenty minutes. No, fifteen, if he was lucky. He couldn’t run – that would only draw attention to him. He couldn’t believe that Rio had thrust a Photofit of him right in front of his eyes. Was she blind? He power-walked down the narrow, light corridor. Didn’t make eye contact with any of the people who passed by. He entered Room F4:8, a large, open-plan office, which was buzzing with activity. People talking. Phones ringing. The tap-tap of someone at a keyboard near the entrance.

  He swung his gaze to the left wall, where the hot-desk computers were located. Six of them, on a narrow counter that ran underneath the length of the window sill. Only one other person was at a terminal, on the far right-hand side. Mac knew her. Melody Strauss, a woman who ran a team similar to Phil’s, but one which specialised in hunting down people traffickers. Mac averted his face as he walked by in case she recognised him, but she was engrossed in her work and didn’t look up.

  Mac took the high-backed stool in front of the one on the far left. Firstly, he logged into the computer as Rio Wray to see if she’d updated her notes. Several years earlier he’d sat beside her as she’d done some work on a case. They’d shared a little joke about her inability to remember PIN and phone numbers and how she’d been repeatedly unable to access her satellite TV service because she couldn’t remember her password. So she’d chosen her birthplace ‘Plaistow’ as her password for nearly everything. Only it was ‘Plaistow1’. Of course she was supposed to change her password every couple of months and choose something unguessable. But Mac knew Rio better than that. He also knew that the system was only going to give him three goes at using a password and then it would log him out for good.

  He tried Plaistow1. Rejected.

  Plaistow2. Rejected.

  One chance left.

  Plaistow3.

  Like getting a row of bells on a fruit machine, he’d hit the jackpot. He smiled to himself and accessed the ‘Homicide: Rose Hotel’ in the Murder Squad’s files. There, neatly organised, was the information that had been collected to date. That was the great thing about Rio; she always did a job properly. He didn’t look at the photos of Elena’s body, but he was unable to resist the temptation to run the CCTV clip that showed the footage of him that morning. How could Rio not have realised that was him? Or perhaps she had and their little chat in the lift had all been a performance. She knew he was in the building. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  Mac’s fingers turned to ash when he read the initial inspection report on the body. ‘Victim was pregnant.’

  That punched him in the gut. He ran off as much information as he could on the printer. Looked around. Checked the clock on the wall.

  Ten minutes gone.

  He logged out of Rio’s account and tried to enter his own. Up came the message ‘Access Denied’. Whatever else Phil had managed to get up to during the day, he’d found time to do that. Helpless, Mac looked around the office until his gaze found Melody Strauss.

  It was a long shot but it was all he had, and he was too desperate to assess the risks.

 
; He got out of his chair and left the office. He made a mental note of the number on the door and then walked down the corridor. Taking out his mobile he called The Fort’s reception and asked to be connected to the extension in room F4:8. A woman answered.

  ‘F4:8 . . .’

  Mac kept his tone smooth. ‘Reception here. I’m trying to track down Melody Strauss and someone thought she might be in this office. Is she there?’

  The line went dead for half a minute before another woman picked up the phone. ‘Hello – this is Melody Strauss.’

  Mac turned the pitch of his voice higher. ‘Ms Strauss, this is reception. I’ve got a man at the desk who says he needs to speak to you urgently on a police matter.’

  Melody sounded baffled. ‘Well, who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. He won’t give a name. But he says it’s very important. Information on the case you’re currently working on.’

  There was an agonising wait before Melody sighed, ‘OK. I’ll come down.’

  Mac stood against the corridor wall, playing with his phone, stealing glances at the door to room F4:8. Sure enough, a few moments later Melody emerged and walked towards the lifts. Mac walked back and went through the door. Made a beeline for the computer that Melody had been sitting at and where she’d left various files and notes lying around. He smiled in triumph when he realised that she hadn’t logged herself out. He was in, on a superior’s level of access.

  Mac began a search for any mention of Bolshoi. It came up blank. No mention of him anywhere. But in the list of personnel associated with Reuben’s crew, Calum’s name appeared. There were details on his role as a freelance associate of the gang. Mac attempted to view Calum’s individual file.

  ‘Access Restricted’.

  That meant information about Calum was only available when you had the highest level of clearance, and neither Rio nor Melody had it.

  The trouble was, it could be for an infinite number of possibilities. But one thing was certain. Calum’s role in the whole affair was far bigger than either the man himself had admitted or Mac had yet guessed. And the police were aware of Calum’s involvement.

  In the links to the operation against Reuben, Mac discovered something else that interested him. It was a connection to another set of files associated with the case. The final extension on the folder name showed that it had been compiled at the highest levels of the Home Office. Mac pressed the cursor against the file to get into it.

  ‘Access Denied’.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Mac had one last card to play in his hunt for Intel on Bolshoi. The previous month he had been liaising with the German police on an arms case possibly connected to Reuben’s gang, and had been given temporary access to their intelligence files. Bolshoi was in Hamburg and it was possible that he might turn up on them.

  Mac checked the clock. Eighteen minutes gone. It was possible – indeed it was likely – that Rio was already searching the building to arrest him for the murder of Elena. Melody would be back shortly. Now was the time to seize his slim chance to escape.

  But he had to chance it.

  Mac turned back to the computer, even though time was running out.

  fifty-four

  6:23 p.m.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Rio’s foot beat impatiently against the ground as she sat in the chair. The techy was doing as techys do and proudly explaining the myriad ways in which software was aiding police work, instead of swiftly attending to the business at hand.

  Rio cut him short. ‘Yeah, it’s a wonderful world. Now what have you got for me?’

  Hurt, her guy ran the footage and stopped it at the appropriate moment. He began to click his mouse and draw lines.

  ‘So, as you can see, if we define this more closely here . . . cut out the light and shade . . . ask the computer to refine and coordinate the colouring at that stage . . . slow down the glare here and use the background image to fill in the gaps . . . eliminate the judder there . . . we can get what I think is more than a passable image of your suspect. Here you go, detective. There’s your man.’

  Rio leaned in close. ‘You are shitting me . . .’

  But she didn’t finish her sentence as she leapt out of her chair and ran for the door.

  fifty-five

  6:25 p.m.

  Mac accessed the German files and pressed the button that translated them into English. If the British reports were a bit short of information on Bolshoi, these ones didn’t seem to know where to start because of their volume of information. There was no first name, just Bolshoi. He was mentioned in arms, drugs and corruption cases all over Europe. And murder. But whenever Mac tried to access the details, it was the same story as in England.

  ‘Zugriff abgelehnt’. Access denied.

  Mac narrowed his search down to references to England. The machine seemed to be taking its time but Mac hardly dared look at the clock.

  ‘Come on, come on . . .’

  But, once again, everything seemed to be ‘Zugriff abgelehnt’.

  Except for an innocent notice to a surveillance team that was watching Bolshoi at his apartment in Hamburg:

  ‘Urgent Notification: Bolshoi will be travelling to London. British Police advised (Liaison: Philip Delaney X2245X). Date of Return: To Be Advised by the British. Surveillance Suspended.’

  There was a case file associated with Bolshoi’s trip. As he tried to access it, Mac whispered, ‘Zugriff abgelehnt‘ under his breath. And he was right.

  So Phil did know about Bolshoi; not only that, he knew the man was coming to London. But Phil had never mentioned it to him once during his investigation. Why? He suspected Calum knew too. But how and why? And he was still no closer to working out why Bolshoi had had Elena killed, or how he was going to kill Bolshoi in turn.

  Mac looked up at the clock.

  6:27.

  He needed to get out of here now. He left the terminal and went to the office door and checked the corridor. Clear. He strolled as casually as he could towards the lifts. As he did so, his new phone pinged. Text message. Reuben.

  We need to make arrangements for your role tonight. Call.

  He couldn’t contact him now; he’d do it as soon as he got out of The Fort. Mac looked up and froze. Standing in front of him were Rio Wray and two police officers.

  fifty-six

  6:28 p.m.

  For Mac, running into Rio in the corridor felt somewhat like bumping into a former lover where things had ended badly.

  ‘1402c, we need to have a chat about things,’ Rio said calmly. ‘I’m sure we can sort everything out . . .’

  The statement hung in the air, but Mac’s mind was already on other things. He’d have rated his chances against Rio and her two boys on the street, but in a corridor at The Fort . . . with dozens of officers milling around . . .

  He forced a smile right back. ‘A chat? Sure – why not?’

  All the time, his gaze was over her shoulder, casing the corridor. At the end, by a door that led to a stairwell, two burly detectives were sharing a joke. Mac checked over Rio’s two guys. There was no escape that way. He knew that behind him was a lift to the upper floors. No escape that way either.

  Rio never took her eyes off him as she said to the men with her, ‘Why don’t you assist Mr MacDonagh to my office?’

  They got in position on either side of Mac. The three men set off towards the stairs with Rio bringing up the rear. They walked down the corridor, past the joking detectives, through the doors. Past the lift. Down the stairs.

  As they descended, Rio’s voice said behind him, ‘Mac, whatever’s happened . . .’

  So sudden, no one saw it coming; Mac shoved both palms against the backs of the policemen and pushed them violently forwards. They stumbled and fell like broken puppets down the stairs. As they landed in a heap at the bottom, he twisted round. Grabbed Rio by the front of her blouse and threw her to the ground. He bolted up the stairs as Rio screamed, ‘Don’t be a fucking fool, Mac; you can
’t get out of here . . .’

  But he was gone. Through the doors and back into the corridor. The two joking detectives were still there. He bombed it to the lift. Pressed. It opened. Mac heard the commotion behind him. He jumped inside the lift. The doors slid shut just as his pursuers arrived at the lift with their hands outstretched. The lift hummed upwards and when the doors slid open he pressed one floor down again. When it opened this time, he slid out into an empty corridor.

  A loud, blaring noise shattered the air. Fire alarm . . . no, the intruder-detection warning and he was the intruder. The building would shortly be going into lockdown, exits sealed, and an armed security team in flak jackets would be tearing the place apart looking for him.

  Mac rushed down the corridor, peering through the glass windows of each office he came to. In one, he noticed three women on computers busily working away, apparently unfazed by the alarm. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself, so that he appeared as normal as possible. Then he opened the door to the office and smiled at one of the women. ‘What’s going on? Is there a fire?’

  She smiled back, one of her palms resting behind a love-heart photo frame of two cute boys. ‘No, it’s the intruder alarm. Don’t worry; it’s always going off . . .’ Then she added without being asked, ‘I’m Linda . . .’

  Mac smile broadened. ‘But that’ll mean a lockdown, won’t it? I’m only visiting but I’ve got an appointment somewhere else and I need to leave.’

  Linda warned him, ‘You’re not going anywhere, I’m afraid. But don’t worry about it. In five minutes’ time they’ll realise the intruder is the milkman and you’ll be able to get out. You might as well pull up a chair in the meantime.’

  ‘Have you got a piece of paper and a pen?’ Mac calmly asked.

  She smiled and found what he wanted on her desk. He wrote quickly and then passed the paper to her. Linda read it and laughed. But when she caught his eye, her laughter died. The note read: