Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2)

by Lewis Hastings

  Pity.

  “You pretty young thing. You have a lot of equipment here. Far too many chemicals for such a small space. Oh well, you live and you learn.”

  He located the exhaust fan, turned it on and laughed as he started to open up the containers, gently distributing liquids and powders in the various trays that existed for such purposes. She had sagaciously installed the exhaust fan to extract the gases that would be emitted during the process. He would be deliberately less prudent, ensuring the wiring to the master switch was partially disconnected, appearing to the trained eye as if it had worked itself loose over time.

  He should wear a mask and safety goggles, probably. He had spent so long working with and absorbing the impacts of commonly acquired chemicals that he appeared immune to their effects.

  He wore gloves. He was reckless, but not stupid. Why leave obvious clues for her irritating boyfriend and his band of brothers?

  He opened the bottle of hydrochloric acid and allowed it to vent.

  Hydrochloric acid and potassium cyanide. Simple chemicals with potentially catastrophic side effects, and here they were in her own home. He didn’t even need to bring the evidence to the scene of the crime. How perfectly fortuitous.

  Once the two started to mix, to co-exist, to evolve, his work was done.

  He carefully disconnected the wire on the fan. Turned off the light, eased the door shut behind him and left the room.

  As he walked back along the street, away from the apartment building and further away from The Sanctuary he placed his hand into his pocket to avoid the cold night air. His hand stopped against the silk and he involuntarily rubbed it between his fingers once more.

  He also carried out pointless but entertaining calculations in his head. It was how he had occupied his mind in prison when things had got so bad that he had contemplated suicide, not once, or twice, but daily.

  If she weighed, for argument’s sake about sixty kilogrammes she only need ingest half a gram of potassium cyanide to ensure her painful and untimely death, and, if Lady Luck were on his side, it would happen within two to three days.

  Yes, the authorities would probably locate it as a cause of death, but they would attribute it to her carelessness, or better still, the hurried work of an inferior tradesman who never bothered to double-check his wiring.

  He knew that around ninety percent of healthy people who weighed a little more than she did would die as a result of consuming a single teaspoon of the chemical. Furthermore, he knew that in many cases death occurred within hours.

  That amount of the crystalline powder – a little more than most people would sprinkle on their breakfast cereals – was enough to ruin anyone’s day. Both were readily absorbed into hot drinks, making it a perfect ally to the serial killer and willing accomplice to the suicidal.

  He also knew that she would ingest the toxin even more effectively via the gas that was rapidly forming, and it would be this method that he chose rather than placing it into her drink in the bar.

  The latter was far too risky in a building so clearly full of curious witnesses, of police officers, and, importantly, he knew that even the Russians had failed to kill the legendary Rasputin by placing cyanide into his wine.

  Put simply, the alcohol and sugar in her drink would mix with the cyanide to form a less stable compound known as Amygdalin. And this alone would be unlikely to kill her. However, the hydrochloric acid, quietly mixing with the cyanide in the darkroom of her London flat would.

  Her home was insidiously filling with the gases present in hydrocyanic acid; a ruthless cocktail that had claimed so many lives in as many varied and tragic ways as one could imagine.

  O’Shea looked at her watch, on this occasion, not discreetly as she had done a dozen times during the last half an hour.

  Fox spotted the last three veiled attempts and relented.

  “It’s OK, I know you need to head home. You said an hour and I’ve had twenty-eight more minutes than I deserved. Carrie, it’s been wonderful catching up. Can we stay in touch, if only so I can say I know a younger woman?”

  She nodded, finishing her drink and walking up the bar to hand the glass over the counter.

  “Goodnight all.”

  The darts contest had stepped up a gear, and the debate about Arsenal’s chances against Chelsea had entered its next phase. It had been a somewhat unexpectedly pleasant evening.

  Fox helped O’Shea on with her navy blue jacket, adjusted his own and held the door open.

  They walked outside, O’Shea gathered her jacket together at the seams for there was a subtle chill to the air, as she was zipping it up Fox spoke.

  “Allow me to walk you home, Carrie?”

  “No, Derek, I’m fine, honestly. It’s a few hundred metres, half a mile at best.”

  “I know, that’s why I want to escort you home. This city is full of nutters…say nothing, Carrie!”

  “Fine! But if you try anything, I’ll stab you with a writing instrument.”

  “Ah, the famous, or should that be infamous pencil! Of course you have my permission to drive it into my carotid if I should so much as ask the fair lady for a kiss. Seriously, there was a guy in the pub I didn’t like the look of. I think he was a pickpocket who chose the wrong watering hole, but you never know. To the door and then we part until we meet again. Deal?”

  He held out his hand. She took hold of it and squeezed as hard as she could.

  “Deal.”

  Cade and Roberts were on their second drink, having been convinced to play a game of pool with a couple of Roberts’ old colleagues. Although only a room away, they had been oblivious to O’Shea’s presence.

  “Ten more minutes Jason and I need to get back. It’s been a ferociously long day, and I promised Carrie we’d spent at least an hour together.”

  “Lightweight! Actually looking at the time I’d better make tracks or my Cathy will string me up.” He looked at his old teammate from his uniform days and smiled, “Black ball, middle pocket.”

  He struck the blue powdered cue tip against the white ball, causing it to fly across the baize. It clipped the edge of the black, kissing it softly into the intended target.

  “That, my dear boys, is how you play the noble game of pocket billiards. Thank you and goodnight!” He downed the remainder of his pint and grabbed his jacket.

  “Come on, you old dog, I’ll drop you off. Carrie will be slipping into something silky as we speak, and the night is still young.”

  They got to the door when the barman called out.

  “Night boys, have fun together!”

  It was Cade who responded first, knowing the banter was just that, harmless fun between males.

  “Roger, you have no idea what I am going to do with this fine specimen of a man when I get him home, no idea at all.” He playfully tapped him on the backside to enforce the point.

  “Good job you’ve got him to fall back on Jack, what with your missus seeing another bloke!”

  The banter stopped. There. And then.

  Cade was back in his old police force area, at a barbeque and staring straight into Grant Cooke’s conceited little eyes. Life had just rewound to his earlier life, his old force and his old colleagues. The waves of deceit came crashing over him, and all he could see was the end of a futile marriage.

  It seemed like only a few hours ago, but time had a way of compressing, and now it was unravelling once more.

  He turned, like a self-assured western gunslinger in an arid street, and spoke quietly but loud enough to deliver his message.

  “Say that again Roger, but be very careful how you phrase things, I’ve had a very long month and my temper is far shorter.”

  Roger Walsh paused, realising that he had unwittingly overstepped the mark and recognising that he was about to be outgunned he quickly apologised.

  “Sorry, Jack. I thought you knew Carrie was in the other bar? She was here for about an hour, with a bloke. Tall, straight back, older than her, but they clearly k
new each other. He looked like ex-job. I asked around. Someone said he was ex-SB, fella called Foxy.”

  “You say they left together?”

  “They did mate yes, arm in arm, all cosy like. I just assumed…” He paused, “…sorry.”

  “No problem Rog, none at all. None at all.”

  Roberts looked at his boss and knew he needed to say something profound.

  He placed his hand on his shoulder before continuing, “Jack, I know what happened up north. This is not the same. Carrie is not like that.”

  “Like what Jas?”

  “You know, like you are imagining?”

  “Mate, you have no idea what I am imagining. When you’ve found your naked wife, who you adore, frolicking around in a swimming pool, her perfect breasts, that I paid for, bouncing around in the waves, with three or four of your closest colleagues leering over her, and all you can possibly do is walk away, leaving her to her own fate… Then, and only then can you offer advice.”

  “But…”

  “No buts, Jason. Drop me off at work, will you? I’ve got some paperwork to do. Perhaps by the time I get to the flat they will have finished whatever it is they have planned and he will have gone.”

  “Say he’s still there? Then what?”

  “Then I don’t care how tall he is or what his background is, he’s going to need more than a few plasters for his dented pride. Come on, take me to the office.”

  The man they called The Child of the Shadows didn’t like what he saw. He respected the English officer and had made a pact to support him. The last week had taught him that he had made a sound judgement.

  Watching the wireless close circuit camera he had had installed in an adjacent building weeks before, he inhaled a measured breath.

  The device had appeared overnight, piggy-backing onto an existing surveillance camera, making it appear legitimate. It was an early prototype that he had ‘borrowed’ from a government agency with the primary intention of perhaps, one day, returning.

  Whilst the quality was far from world class it provided him with a tactical view of the street, of Cade and anyone else arriving or departing the Old Queen Street address.

  He had seen the British officer and his girlfriend arriving at all hours and generally, as the creatures of habit that they were, he would watch them leaving at the same time most mornings. He had observed their frantic attempts to avoid detection as they fell into one another’s arms, through the heavy door and beyond. They made a splendid couple.

  Tonight was different. Tonight there was a genuine chill in the air. He could tell the lens was slightly fogged and the people, oblivious and yet acceptant of the Orwellian scrutiny that surrounded them, pulled up their jackets to shield themselves from the northerly wind that whispered along the streets and probed into darkened doorways.

  He chastised himself for not borrowing a system with a better lens, but what he saw was clear enough. A male entered the building, without a key, that is, without a conventional key. He was very proficient and hyper-aware of his surroundings, paranoid, and at best, distrustful.

  Valentin Iliescu stared into the all-too-small monitor, which was remotely stationed, but allowed a bird's-eye view of the target address. The Romanian former operative had a number of these systems placed around the city – those that he didn’t own, he controlled, and it was actually very easy, for a man with his background and latter-day contacts.

  Roberts and Daniel were not immune from his watchful eye, but their existence, and that of their wives, never offered anything worth recording.

  His plan – his task – had been to enter their lives discreetly and ruin them in any way that he saw fit. The Jackdaw had given him carte blanche to do so, ‘do what you like, I am bored with the whole thing, cause them misery, but leave Cade for me.’

  Iliescu studied the footage once more, ‘There is something about you, my dark friend, something familiar…’

  And then, as the previously obscure male left the property, it became all too obvious.

  ‘Constantin. What on God’s earth are you doing there? This is not your job. Your job is to blow up bank machines with your ingenious system and to train the younger boys to follow your lead, if you can leave your hands off them for a moment. You are not supposed to be getting so close. Your goal was clear; steal from the capitalist’s, rip their financial hearts out, a thousand at a time’

  Copil de umbra found himself facing a new challenge and a test of his loyalty. He had to make a choice. The new-found brother within the intelligence community who might be able to offer some semblance of immunity, or, more money, more than he had, which for the record was quite enough to lead a healthy and comfortable lifestyle in his provincial French home, where no one cared who he was – and never asked.

  As always, he made a decision based on gut instinct.

  He picked up his phone and dialled Cade’s number. No answer.

  O’Shea reached her flat, swiped her entry card on the reader and stepped inside. She trembled, trying to rid herself of the cold night air, then turned and smiled at Fox.

  “Derek, it has been genuinely wonderful to catch up. I am not going to invite you in for coffee, as that will only mean you won’t sleep tonight. And besides, Jack will be home soon, and as much as he would like you he’s been hurt in the past and I don’t want to give him the wrong signals – nor you. But we can meet again for coffee. Thank you for escorting me home on these mean streets, my white knight, in shining armour.”

  She stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  From afar Valentin watched, intrigued, but what he saw was not the actions of a woman with her lover, but a woman saying goodbye to an old friend, and contrary to what was apparently happening, he wanted her to invite him in. Constantin had been in her flat for a reason, and it would not be a pleasant one.

  He spoke to the camera, to an audience of one. “Get out. Wait for backup. Do not let this friend go.”

  He saw her kiss him on the cheek before turning away and closing the door. The male looked up and down the street before turning left onto Storey’s Gate and flagging down a black cab.

  He dialled Cade’s number once more. This time it transferred to an answerphone with a simple, soulless message. He cleared the line. He had to speak to him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her mind was awash with images of the past. She found herself reminiscing about her days at Hendon, the Metropolitan Police training centre.

  She was a young girl when she had left home, after yet another argument with her belligerent father. He had been a veteran of the same force but had steadfastly refused to endorse her application to be a police officer – worse still, a police woman.

  Leaving her troubles behind she had arrived on a cool March morning, most of her worldly goods packed into two large holdalls. Sliding the bags under her rudimentary bed she ran her eyes around the basic accommodation, imagining the ghosts of those who had gone before her. Far from being intimidated she was ready for the challenge, more ready than most of her male colleagues and that would earn her a reputation as a valiant, strong-willed foot soldier who would quickly become as popular with her peers as she would her superiors.

  She was second in her intake, destined for greatness when her career was savagely cut short – the direct result of a stubborn, foolhardy and allegedly more experienced colleague. She had so much potential. The ‘accident’ had deprived her of her calling, of a future as a naturally gifted investigator and myriad other avenues, all closed and never to be re-opened.

  Her training sergeant had made reference to her uncanny ability to join the dots, to observe a trend, and had already pencilled her in as a worthy contender for a highly fought-over place on a subsequent Criminal Investigation Department course.

  ‘Constable O’Shea has an eye for detail that many of her more senior peers crave. Example: Show her an unrecognisable crime scene and she will study it intensely, overlay a map and within hours will have located the exact lo
cation. What her local knowledge and technical expertise can’t achieve, her human source skills can. Hers is an uncanny talent and one which the police would do well to nurture.’

  That would cause her dear father even more consternation – a female bloody detective. What next? Promotion? For Carrie it was all going so well.

  The noise of her own footsteps on the staircase jolted her back into the current time and place. Something in her sub-conscious alerted her to the intense awareness that she appeared to have for her surroundings. She had taught herself to walk around it in the dark, using her fingertips to gauge where she was.

  She could almost hear the soles of her feet brushing against the woollen carpet, the breath exiting her lungs and her heart, quietly beating.

  As always, since the crash she was working at nine-tenths – if only that selfish bastard had slowed down on that ill-fated day she would be one of the force’s best thief-takers, with an assured and perfect mind for criminal investigation. Now, instead, she was trapped behind a desk and striving to get to the start of the food chain.

  What most mortals failed to acknowledge was that Carrie O’Shea’s nine tenths was the equal of most people working way above their capacity. When it came to pure analysis, she had few equals.

  She hated the arrogant male who had done this to her and she hated the organisation for the way they had covered things up.

  She opened the door to her flat, paused, reached around and perfectly located the main light switch. The room was bathed in cool light, familiar territory. An exquisite flat in an exclusive location and one, thanks to her benefactor she could fortuitously call home.

  She scanned the room as she always did – the by-product of living alone. This evening the microscopic fibres in her nose sensed something unusual, untoward and foreign. It had a familiar note but she couldn’t place it.

  She shrugged off the ill-feeling but her head began to hurt, a mild pain, her eyes burned a little, but again nothing a dash of chilled water wouldn’t resolve. But she felt slightly light-headed too.