Before he left the room, he closed the door behind him and spoke to the two girls in hushed tones.
“I realise that you think of me as the enemy, but I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, and what happened downstairs was out of order. We certainly didn’t agree to any of that. My mate and me will be watching you from now on from the office at the other end of the corridor. If you need the toilet just go, but please don’t give them a reason to hurt you again, all right?”
He began to leave, but as an afterthought he added, “If we’re not up here, or if we’re asleep and anyone worries you, yell for help and we’ll come running. We just want you to get home safe. We’re in enough damn trouble as it is.”
Dee was standing up and trying to walk using the fixed table to lean on. If she was being honest it was no more painful than it had been lying down. At least the bullet had missed the artery and the bone. The muscle would repair itself, in time.
***
Rik stood at the office door on the lower floor of the little building, and looked around. Piet was sitting halfway up the stairs to his right, and the soldier was upstairs making sure there were no more escape attempts.
Gregor was asleep in the passenger seat of the Lexus, which was parked next to the Subaru 4x4 with Dutch plates. He would be glad when this was over and they were back on the other side of the Channel. Rik always felt uncomfortable on islands. They were surrounded by sea and too easy to close down if you wanted to escape. No, Rik preferred the mainland where, if you needed to run, you could go thousands of miles whilst avoiding manned border crossings.
Holloway and his friend Johnny were in close conversation at the back of the factory unit, almost halfway between the emergency exit doors on either side of the building.
The factory unit had too much wasted space, in Rik’s opinion. The printing presses and machines were in the middle third of the floor, like an island. On the far side of the unit, opposite the offices, were huge steel racks filled with giant paper rolls and box after box of paper in smaller sheets. Next to the racks stood a heavy duty steel walk in cupboard with a built-in fume extraction box above. Presumably that was where they store or mix ink, he thought.
At the rear of the unit, where the two Englishmen stood talking, there was more open space which housed a few lockers, a coat rack and a few mismatched tables and chairs.
Had it not been for the cars parked just inside the roller shutter doors, that space too would have been empty. They could be paying half the rent and still have plenty of room, he thought to himself.
His musings were disturbed when he heard a click. It appeared to have come from the shutter doors. He looked quickly at the two Englishmen. They had heard it, too. Sonny Holloway shouted over to Rik.
“Don’t worry Rik, it’s probably kids. Johnny’ll go out and scatter them in a minute, before they start spray painting their gang tags on my doors.”
Rik leaned against the door frame and polished his Sig Sauer P226 handgun, specially adapted for left handed users, by rubbing it on his trousers. The two tone Sig Sauer was a compact yet powerful pistol, known to be used by US Navy Seals, and more importantly it was easy to conceal.
Rik returned to the table, laid his gun down and took his seat. He was about to drink his lukewarm coffee when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 75
No. 2 Parliament St, Westminster, London. Sunday, 1:30pm.
Whilst Arthur Hickstead wasn’t under house arrest, his confinement wasn’t far short of it. The police had his passport, his accounts were being monitored and if he wanted to leave the building, Donald on the front door would accompany him whilst one of the back office staff manned the door.
It didn’t really matter. There was nowhere he wanted to be, and by tomorrow night the inevitable deal would have been reached with the authorities. The Establishment didn’t want a newly ennobled peer of the realm all over the tabloid newspaper front pages; the country would become a laughing stock. Whilst he had been very careful, he considered himself fortunate that there was as yet no evidence linking him to the murders of Sir Max or Andrew Cuthbertson. As it had turned out, the deaths were being reported as natural causes and suicide respectively.
He relaxed into the leather upholstery of the wingback chair as he reasoned that since the money and the painting were now in the possession of Van Aart’s men, the police would have trouble persuading the CPS to do any more than prosecute him for the Hammond blackmail. The peer had been told that the CPS would probably recommend a deal on that basis. Still, a deal would be assured if Hammond and Fisher refused to give evidence, hence the temporary absence of Lavender Fisher and Hammond’s girlfriend.
The bright spot of the weekend had been the visit of that awful policeman, Coombes, who had to ‘sadly inform you that your safety deposit box was broken into and your papers have gone’. The message had been delivered with bad grace and more than a hint of malice, because both men knew what had really been in the box and who had initiated the break in.
The Sunday papers hadn’t picked up on the scandal yet, albeit one of the more sensationalist tabloids carried the headline “Unnamed Peer in Criminal Conspiracy” under an ‘Exclusive’ banner on page 2. He read the article twice. It was a mixture of rumour and speculation, but there was no suggestion that he was the peer involved.
He jumped when the phone rang. He hadn’t been expecting any calls. It was Faik, his Iraqi friend.
“The documents you requested are ready. Do you want me to deliver them to the hotel?”
“Yes, Faik, thank you. Are they as discussed?”
“You pay for the best, you get the best. Yussi wants his money.”
“I have it at the hotel. Meet me there at seven o’clock tomorrow evening.”
“OK, I will bring the documents.”
Hickstead terminated the call, and justified the expense to himself. It always paid to have a contingency plan. Anyway, once Van Aart had taken the million pound Churchill painting in payment for his services, he would have a million pounds in cash. A man could travel a long way on a million pounds, and travel in style.
Chapter 7 6
Tottenham Press, Commercial Road, London. Sunday, 1:50pm.
Dee was still trying some tentative walking when she was rocked by two explosions, which occurred almost simultaneously. Seconds later there was pandemonium downstairs. She heard lots of shouting, and a moment later a machine pistol rattled off a dozen rounds.
Lavender was terrified. Dee told her to get under the table because she would be safer there but, without knowing what was happening, she had no real way of knowing. It might turn out that nowhere in this place was safe.
***
Rik grabbed his gun and was at the office door in time to see two armed men in combat gear run into the building, rifles raised, screaming orders. As he turned he saw two more identical figures coming in from the other fire door. Light poured in through the spaces where the fire doors had been, silhouetting the policemen.
The first two people the police approached were Sonny and Johnny, who were so surprised that when they were told to drop their weapons and put their hands on their heads they forgot they weren’t even armed. As a policeman came towards them signalling that he wanted their arms up, three shots rang out from an automatic gun. The policeman was hit and fell to the floor. Sonny and Johnny’s eyes widened in horror, expecting a violent reaction from the police.
Gregor, awakened by the explosions, had slipped out of the car and concealed himself behind a print machine. Confused and still dazed, he was uncertain as to who he was facing. He stood up and fired a controlled burst at the first person he saw. He swore under his breath when he noticed the word ‘police’ painted on the helmet of the man he had just shot.