Reuben snarled. ‘I don’t care if she does or not . . .’
Mac leaned urgently forward. ‘But what would Sergei care about? I know you loved your brother, and surely he would’ve wanted her to know what had happened to him?’
Mac watched as the emotions on Reuben’s face changed from fury to simple grief. ‘There’s no point going to her home. Remember Sergei couldn’t find her anywhere.’
‘I’ve got some time to kill before the delivery – let me go and see if she’s back at her place.’
Reuben said, ‘She lives in north London. Camden. Eight Calvin Street.’
sixty-seven
8:55 p.m.
Rio’s Black Magic Woman hit the street where Katia lived. Stopped outside the address she’d been given and was surprised. She’d been expecting some type of tatty hostel or block of flats. Number Eight Calvin Street was a house. Four storeys. Plain-bricked Georgian. And worth well over a couple of mill, if Rio’s guess was right. So Elena Romanov’s sister was either a woman with money to burn, or knew where to get her hands on a hot stash of cash?
The front yard had been replaced by a carport; sitting there was a red Mini. Rio turned to Detective Martin. ‘Make a note of the plates and we’ll phone them in after.’
The street was empty as Rio pulled back the solid knocker on the front door of the house. The door shook. The rain eased up slightly as she waited with Martin for someone to answer. No one came. Rio tried again.
‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s in. We’ll have to come back.’
Instead of answering him, Rio moved towards the large front window. The Roman blind was up. She cupped her hand around her face and peered inside. No sign of anyone. Rio took two steps back and stared up at the twin windows on the next floor. Curtains drawn. Her gaze skated to the top floor. Curtains closed.
She moved back to stand with Martin in front of the door and said, ‘Give me your jacket.’
‘What?’ came his startled response.
She held out her hand. He shrugged out of his deep blue jacket in an awkward set of movements. Handed it to her.
‘Step back,’ Rio ordered.
She wrapped the jacket round her right hand and wrist. Stepped close to the door. Turned her face away as she punched her material-protected hand against the door’s glass panel. The glass shattered, with a few shards falling onto the street but the majority of it dropping inside.
‘Boss, I don’t think we should be doing this,’ Martin said, nervously looking at Rio, but also casting his gaze along the street.
‘This case is going to be solved today,’ was all she said as she unwrapped the jacket from her hand.
‘But don’t we need a search warrant?’
She handed him back his jacket. ‘Wait in my car.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve just got an outstanding performance review, which means you can’t afford to have any red strikes against your name. So wait in the car.’
Without waiting for his response, Rio shoved her arm through the broken door panel and stretched it out along the inside of the door until she found the lock. Turned. Opened.
She stepped inside. The hall was narrow, with lemon painted walls and a white carpet. Despite its colour, the carpet was stain-free. The staircase was tight and wound upwards and down to a floor below street level. Rio stopped at the first room she came across, the same one she’d peered into from outside. The door was already open. Three-piece suite. Low-level round table. Old-style jet-black fireplace. Bare floorboards. No photos, no ornaments, no sign that someone had put their own brand of love in this place. More a showroom than somewhere lived in and . . . Rio jerked round when she heard a noise behind her.
‘Crap,’ she let out, seeing Martin standing there. ‘I told you not to come in here.’
He gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Sorry – but you know I’m always going to cover your back.’
Rio wasn’t sure whether to cuff him round the ear or be grateful for his loyalty.
‘Check through all this stuff here and the floor below.’
‘And what am I looking for?’
‘Anything.’ She wasn’t sure herself. ‘Just anything.’
As soon as Rio took the stairs up, the quiet intensified. A sweet fragrance drifted to meet her as she neared the first landing. At the top of the stairs was a small table on long legs, with a vase of flowers. Lilies. Oriental, if she had the scent right. A few of the off-white buds had yet to bloom, but most of the flowers were open. Rio noticed small, drying drops of water. Someone had been in this house not that long ago.
She made her way along the landing and opened up the first room. A bed and a built-in wardrobe. Nothing else. Then she noticed the cream cross above the bed on the wall. The same type of cross her grandmother would make with the palm she got from church on Palm Sunday. So Katia was a Catholic. She checked the wardrobe. Nothing inside. Not even hangers.
Abruptly Rio turned when she heard what she was sure were footsteps outside on the landing.
‘Martin?’ she called, as she moved towards the door. Stepped outside. No one. Must be the old house talking, Rio decided, with its unexpected creaks and groans. She checked the second room. The same as the one before; nothing in the wardrobe, but a palm cross above a bed.
The third room was different. On the bed lay an open rucksack. Squirrel grey. The type with a pull-out handle in the top and mini wheels at the bottom for easier transportation. Clothes were stuffed inside. Not too many, just enough for a weekend away. Was that why the rooms were so empty? Elena’s sister going out of town? Rio sorted through the clothes, but found nothing else. She needed to get a search warrant ASAP to do a thorough search of the house.
She took the shorter section of stairs to the next floor. Only one room there. This was empty except for the steam iron in the corner with its cord wrapped neatly around it and the palm cross on the wall. She left the room and walked back to the stairs, but stopped when she felt the carpet dip slightly beneath her shoes. Rio wriggled her toes and the balls of her feet against the carpet. Yeah, the ground was moving. The carpet was a neat fit with the edge of the wall, but was it properly nailed down? She moved towards the edge and dropped to her knees. Started tugging at the carpet, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘Martin,’ she yelled as she kept pulling.
No answer. He must be on the lower floor. She used both hands this time, the muscles in her arms burning as she kept the pressure up. The carpet gave way. In one fluid move, Rio dragged the carpet across until the ground where she’d been standing was bare. Floorboards like downstairs. She took out her keys from her bag. Used one to try to prise a floorboard up, but it wouldn’t move. She did the same to the one next to it. And the next. The fourth board rose up. She pulled it clear and threw it to the side.
Rio looked down into the hole. And smiled. Inside was a frame lying face down, a folded piece of paper and a small plastic bag. Rio started with the picture frame. A photo, almost a replica of the one Europol had sent over with Elena Romanov’s file. Still the two girls, but this time they posed with a man. She figured it was their father. The smallest girl was in his lap, while he had his arm slung around his eldest daughter’s shoulder. Something on his arm caught her eye. She dragged the picture closer. A tattoo. Red star with a yellow border. The tattoo artist said it had something to do with the Red Army. Maybe all new recruits in the army had to have it done? Then why did this man’s murdered daughter have one as well? She decided to leave the questions for now and pick Martin’s brain when she got back downstairs
Placing the photo to the side, Rio opened the sheet of paper. A4-sized street map, the type downloaded from the Internet. She couldn’t make out what it was at first. Carefully she looked it over, trying to identify names written in bolder black writing.
Tower of London.
Royal Mint.
Tower Bridge.
Then she figured out what she was looking at – a map of St Katharine Docks. Why would some
one have hidden a map of the area? Maybe they were planning on stealing the Crown Jewels from The Tower? Yeah, right, Rio told herself sarcastically as she stood up. Next she opened the small plastic bag. Whistled when she saw what was inside – several passports with various names and nationalities. So she’d been right, Katia Romanov was getting ready to leave the country, but as someone else. No one was leaving this city, not on her watch.
She left the evidence scattered on the floor and took the stairs two at a time.
‘Martin? Martin?’ she called out as she reached the ground floor.
No response.
She searched the main room. No one there.
Checked the next room, a morning room that was bare except for the fireplace. No Martin.
She called his name again as she made her way into the long kitchen. She found him with his back to her, sitting at the wooden table.
‘Martin?’ she said as she moved round to face him.
His head was down, his chin brushing his chest.
‘Detective.’ She pushed his head up and stumbled back in shock.
Blood gushed from a deep, thin line around the front of his neck. She swivelled round, but only had time to take one step as she saw a hooded figure standing behind her.
Flash.
Something moved towards her. An arm. Holding something. She tried to move. Too late. Something hard smashed against the side of her head.
As Rio fell into deep blackness she didn’t remember the arm or what hit her. But she did remember what she saw on the arm. A red star tattoo.
sixty-eight
9:05 p.m.
The hit man, now calling himself Felix Bloom, heard the knock on the door just as he’d decided to leave. The contractor had kept him waiting too long, way too long. With or without the money, it was time to get out of town. So the knock at the door – just as he was placing his silencer in his pocket – took him by surprise. Probably the contractor, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
He pulled his gun out. Approached the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Room service.’
He recognised the squeaky voice of the young man who’d brought him a late lunch forty-five minutes earlier. But still . . . He kept the silencer primed behind his back as he slowly opened the door. The young man grinned at him; he held something in his hand.
‘There was a delivery for you, sir.’
The hotel employee held out a mobile phone.
But Felix didn’t touch it; instead asked, ‘Who left it?’
‘I don’t know, sir, I wasn’t there when it arrived, I was just told to bring it up to you.’
Probably the contractor’s way of ensuring they were communicating on a clean channel.
He took the phone. Gave the boy a crisp note. Closed the door. The phone rang almost immediately. He looked at the screen. Number blocked. It rang a second time. He placed the phone to his face. Took the call.
The phone exploded in a shock of light, blowing half his head away.
sixty-nine
Rio woke to a screaming pain in the side of her head and face. Nasty. Deep. Like glass shards digging away at the right side of her brain. Where had the pain come from? She tried to pull herself up, but couldn’t. Tried to scream, but couldn’t. Tried to see, but the world was a desolate black. Something covered her face. No, not just her face, but her whole head, like another layer of unwanted skin. And her lips were stretched wide around something rammed inside her mouth. Her teeth dug into it, her dry tongue curved below it. It was soft and rough but she couldn’t push it out.
Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
Yes you can, yes you can, YES YOU CAN.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Innnnn. Ouuuut. Innnnn. Ouuuut.
She tried moving again. Her arms. But they were stretched away from her body. Held fast by bindings round her wrists that kept her locked to something hard and cold. Her fingers moved, though, but with a stiffness that made them feel like they would snap and break off. She tried moving her legs, but they were tied too. Wide apart.
Flash.
An image shot through her mind.
Her looking down on a dead woman.
Bath.
Elena.
Murder.
All of Rio’s senses kicked in as she finally figured out where she was. Tied spreadeagled to the bed in a house in Camden.
Flash.
She saw the arm moving towards her.
Flash.
Saw the tattoo.
Oh God.
Martin with a mini-waterfall of blood gushing from his throat.
Desperately, Rio arched. Tugged at her arms. Her legs. They wouldn’t move. She tried again, the tendons in her muscles extending to breaking point. She arched the middle of her body up. Struggled in the air as the breath inside her tangled inside her throat. Puke rose from her belly to the back of her mouth. Bitterness soaked her tongue.
Choking. Choking. Choking.
She swallowed the vomit.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
What was that? A noise. A single tap against the floorboards. A light rush of air. A footstep. Breathing.
Oh God. Someone else was in the room.
She collapsed back against the bed. Cringed back into the softness of the mattress beneath her. Tap. Tap. Tap. The footsteps got closer. Then quiet. The type of quiet that only ever bears bad things. The heat of a shadow fell over the bed. Fell over Rio. The mattress dipped near Rio’s left side.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Fucking innnnn. Fucking ouuuut.
She jumped when something touched the skin below her neck. Hard. Cold. Sharp. The pinpoint of a giant needle? Then it moved downwards, towards her blouse. Snapped into the material.
Oh God.
A knife. It moved back up. Dug into the centre of her bra. Slashed her bra wide open. Made quick work of splitting her skirt. Moved down. The blade cut into the elastic of her panties and scraped against the hair and skin underneath them. Rio fought back when she felt the cold air touch her naked vagina. She arched up, twisting frantically from side to side. No fucker was going to put their dirty dick inside her. The knife moved away from her body. She waited for the feel of the hands forcing her legs apart. The body. The stabbing inside her.
Waited.
Tap. Tap. The person stood somewhere near her head. She felt the dreaded other person for the first time as fingers held her left arm, just below where they were bound at the wrist. Rio screamed soundlessly as the knife stabbed into the skin below her wrist and ripped down, slashing skin and veins. Blood pumped out, shooting pain all over her body. Then more pain as the same was done to her other wrist. Dizziness and confusion settled over her as the blood leaked out of her body.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Footsteps. No more sound. No more light breathing. Her attacker was gone. Blood pumping out of her wrists, Rio knew she didn’t have long to live.
seventy
9:15 p.m.
The first thing Mac saw when he reached Katia’s home was Rio’s BMW. Bollocks, that’s all he needed – another confrontation. He needed to think what he was going to do about Rio before he went into the house. He could wait, keep himself low in the car until she left. But he didn’t have time for that. The clock was ticking away towards the delivery. No, somehow, some way, he was going to have to get into that house. Only thing he could do was to hold Rio at gunpoint and spirit Katia away – that’s if Elena’s sister was there, of course. He didn’t like the idea of putting a piece in Rio’s face, but what alternative did he have?
He reached inside his pocket for the pill bottle. Nothing. Frantically he searched his other pockets. Nothing. Bollocks, bollocks, where was the stuff? He needed to be hyped up when he did this. His head was already feeling like it was on a one-way journey of departing his body for good. He checked his watch. No, he didn’t have time to lose.
He eased out of the car and closed the driver’s door as quietly as he cou
ld. On his toes, he approached the house, keeping his footsteps slow and even. When he reached the front door he realised that it was open. He frowned; it wasn’t like Rio to give a person an opportunity to slip in and out or out and in. He remained silent, listening. Nothing. No voice, no telly, no radio. Just an unsettling quiet. He pulled his gun the same time he pushed the door. No one. Crept inside. Silence. Still on the tips of his toes he stepped inside, hiking the gun higher. He stretched out his arms and moved. Darted his gaze around, trying desperately to gather an alertness that his body was fighting hard against him feeling. Long slim passageway, mirror, coat rail, but nothing else. He tipped open the first door he came to. Sitting room, no one inside. Kept moving until he found the open door of the kitchen. There was someone at the table, head snapped over.
‘Don’t move,’ he whispered behind the seated figure.
No response. Not even an automatic reflex. Quickly he stepped round. Faced the person. Couldn’t help the sound that left his mouth when he saw the pool of thick blood dripping over the edges He tipped up the head of the person who he already suspected was dead.
Tipped up the chin. ‘Jee-sus,’ Mac let out when he realised he was staring into the sightless eyes of Rio’s right-hand man, Detective Jamie Martin.
Immediately he swung round and started yelling, ‘Rio. Rio.’
Mac kept the gun high as he shot out of the room. Took the stairs two at a time.
Paused at the top of the landing. No one. He kicked open the first door he came to.
No one.
‘Rio,’ he bellowed again as he shot back onto the landing.
He crashed into the second room and stopped dead. Someone tied to a bed. Blood around them. Clothes ripped down the middle exposing breasts, vagina and skin. Dark brown skin. God, Rio.
He dropped to his knees. Yanked off the pillowcase covering her head. Her head lolled to the side, eyes closed.
‘Fuck,’ he said as he pulled the gag – an orange flannel – from her mouth.
Vendetta Page 22
