‘Look, someone’s at the door,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll be back in a moment. If I’m not, call the police. I’m coming, I’m coming!’
His voice faded away, and Pavel’s thoughts remained with the blonde, who had slipped out of his flat this morning leaving a tangle of sheets imbued with her smell. Before going, she had borrowed his camera to take his post-coital picture and, more by luck than judgment, she’d done a decent enough job. He examined his face in the resulting images impartially, noting the lack of symmetry between his eyes, the severe angularity of the nose. It was, however, a beautiful face. It must be: it got the job done, as witnessed by the rumpled sheets upstairs. He thought of it as another tool of his trade, like the hands that were so good with wires and switches.
Pavel wondered in passing how Henry had got on with the ‘posh totty’ he’d just mentioned. Henry wasn’t usually successful with women, unless they happened to have a thing for tweed jackets and cord trousers. It was the uniform they’d worn at prep school together aged seven, and that Henry had yet to grow out of. Which probably explained a lot.
Pavel looked round. Something was off. Behind him, the house had gone very quiet.
Where was Henry? What had happened to him?
‘Hello?’ he called out.
Hadn’t Henry mentioned being followed? Pavel had automatically ignored his friend’s mentions of ‘dark forces of the Establishment’. He didn’t believe in such things. Still, Henry was very good at making enemies and apparently he’d trash-talked the Queen’s sister in a public restaurant. Pavel felt a prickle of unease.
‘Henry?’ He left the darkroom and walked over to the microphone, which sat on a teetering stack of unreturned library books. ‘Henry?’
There was a strange, muffled sound through the speaker.
‘All present and correct,’ Henry said, through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘I just had to go to the cake tin for a little something. Fruit cake. Wedding last weekend. Whisky makes me peckish. And Mrs Jones was very miserly with the canapés. What was I saying?’
‘Someone was at your door.’
‘Oh yes. The mad old bat downstairs wanted to tell me off for dancing around in hobnail boots. By which she means walking in stockinged feet across my own floorboards. I swear I’ll kill her one of these days. What was I saying before that? Oh, God, tonight’s cabaret. Bloody Cole Porter. I’ll have to put something in my column on Friday. What shall I say? “Charming’” “gracious”, “tuneful”, grovel grovel grovel … “Her Royal Highness, in sparkling form, accompanied herself on the piano with the skill of a seasoned performer . . .” “The blooming cheek of a fresh young bride . . .” Blooming cheek indeed. God, I hate myself. I said, I hate myself, Pav! Are you there?’
But this time, Pavel had gone to answer a knock at his own door. He lived in the heart of Belgravia and it wasn’t unusual for friends who’d been tipped out of pubs and clubs or girlfriends’ flats to show up in need of an overnight place on his sofa. However, to his surprise, the two darkly-dressed men standing on the threshold were strangers. Without preamble, the taller of the pair said, ‘We have a message from Mirny. Hand delivered.’
‘Pav! Honestly!’ Henry boomed out behind him. ‘I don’t think I can do it. I need another job. D’you think the Socialist Worker will hire me?’
The tall man frowned. His eyes flicked past Pavel’s shoulder to the lamplit room. He seemed to hesitate. ‘You’re not alone?’
‘I am,’ Pavel assured him.
He’d had a brief moment of panic, but the mention of Mirny reassured him. He needed to talk to these visitors undisturbed. He ushered them in and indicated the empty room with a sweep of his hand. As they stepped inside, the shorter man closed the door quietly behind them.
‘You’re not listening. I’m hanging up!’ Henry threatened. ‘Honestly, all you do is berate me anyway, when I’m just speaking for the common man.’
They all looked towards the speaker and the two strangers’ eyes lit up with relief. They were alone.
‘Mirny?’ Pavel asked, sotto voce.
The taller man indicated the speaker, and Pavel went over to the telephone, depressing the exposed hook switch with his finger and cutting Henry off mid-flow. As he turned back, the taller man took two athletic strides towards him and caught him on the jaw with an upper cut so powerful that he heard his brain rattle in his skull.
The pain was secondary to the shock. Pavel’s legs gave way and he began to fall. Scrabbling hands clutched at thin air. So it had happened after all. He should have been paying attention.
As he hit the ground, he felt someone grip his forearm, and the sharp prick of a needle through the crisp, thin cotton of his shirt. His vision was blurred and the two men seemed to swim above him, as through water. He said a prayer, but no words came out of his mouth.
‘Nice speaker setup,’ one of the men observed.
‘Shut up,’ the other one told him.
Seconds later, the world faded to a pinprick and turned black.
Click here to find out more about THE QUEEN WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by S.J. Bennett.