‘Yes, if you know how to use it.’
‘I’m qualified.’
‘Qualified and foolhardy,’ Roberts suggested, ‘from the sound of things.’
‘Maybe, but do you want to wait him out for a day or two, only to find that he wasn’t there after all?’
The chief inspector grimaced. ‘Okay, if that’s what you want to do, go ahead. I’ll have two of my shooters give you cover from the top of the bank.’
‘Sure,’ Steele chuckled, with dark humour, ‘and that way I’ll be between them and the target if he makes a break for it. Thanks, but I’d rather trust my luck; it’s been pretty good so far.’
‘Fair enough.’ Roberts eased off his own flak jacket and held it up for Steele to slip on, then took a revolver from his belt and handed it to him. ‘Six shots,’ he said.
‘If I have to use it,’ the Scot told him, ‘I’ll only need one.’ He took the heavy weapon and flicked off the safety.
The chief inspector unstrapped his military-style helmet, and began to take it off. ‘Here, you should wear this too.’
‘By the book, yes, but if I do, it would just make it easier for him to spot me.’
‘It’s Kevlar, man: bulletproof. Are you sure about that?’
‘Certain.’
‘Even if I ordered you to wear it?’
‘As DCC Cairns said, this is my shout.’
‘On your own head. .’
Stevie grinned. ‘. . be it not.’
Roberts laughed. ‘Touché. Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Make your way round the edge of the circle, otherwise you’ll make a noise on the gravel.’
‘Where’s your sniper on this side?’
‘She’s hidden over there in the trees, watching the door in the far gable. It’s the only way in and out of the place.’
‘Do you have a two-way?’
The chief inspector nodded, unclipped a transceiver from his belt, fastened it to the flak jacket, then flicked a switch. ‘That’s it on transmit.’
‘Okay,’ said Steele. ‘I’m off.’
He felt his pulse quicken as he stepped carefully around the edge of the car park, then across, in front of the garage. As he looked around he had his first full view of the long, narrow cottage. The gully in which it sat was so deep that the ridge of its roof was at his eye level. He looked along the building’s length and counted four windows. Below them ran a narrow walkway, no more than a yard wide.
Satisfied that he was out of sight of all the windows, he began to ease his way slowly down the bank. It was so steep that it was almost sheer, and he had to lean backwards to avoid slipping, and sliding noisily down to the foot. His shoes had corrugated soles, or the task would have been impossible, but finally he reached the path. He crouched there, until his breathing and his gun hand were both steady.
‘Living room first,’ he whispered into the transceiver, even though he was really talking to himself.
The window was around fifteen feet from the end wall of the house; it was set low, no more than three feet from the ground. He walked silently along, then crouched down, below the level of the ledge, until finally he held his breath and, literally, stuck his head above the parapet, as fast as he could.
A face stared back at him. Instinctively he threw himself to the side, more than half expecting a bullet to shatter the glass.
And then his brain finally registered what it was that he had seen. He stood to his full height, holding the gun in both hands, in a marksman’s grip, and stepped back in front of the window.
The face that he had seen was black and distorted. Its owner was hanging from a hook set firmly in the ceiling to support a light fitting and, on that day, much more.
‘Fuck it!’ he yelled into the transceiver. ‘He’s topped himself. Marksmen, stand down, I’m going in!’
He sprinted along to the end of the house, and through a black wooden gate, which led to the entrance porch. As Roberts had said, the cottage had only a single door. He grabbed its handle and turned it, expecting to have to shoulder his way inside, but it opened under a single firm push.
In the second after he stepped inside, Stevie Steele knew that something was wrong. His heightened senses alerted him to one tiny shred of resistance as the half-glazed door swung inwards, and then to a metallic click from above his head.
He looked up at the ceiling, and saw the black round object that was taped there.
‘Oh dear,’ he whispered.
And then he saw the blinding flash.
He never heard the noise of the explosion that followed it.
Sixty
Ray Wilding gazed up at the ceiling. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like that,’ he said, in a tone that was little short of awestruck.
‘I don’t imagine you have,’ Becky Stallings conceded. Her face was slick with the perspiration of strenuous physical activity, and strands of her dark hair were plastered to her forehead.
From her bed, they were gazing up at a colour representation of the view across the treetops of the north embankment of the Thames, from Nelson’s Column on the right to the Palace of Westminster on the left, a shot taken from a gondola at the very top of the London Eye.
‘I’m very proud of that,’ she told him. ‘It was my own idea, from start to finish. A photographer mate of mine took the picture with one of those special lenses, then a girl I know who works in an advertising agency had it printed for me on about eight sheets, and finally I found a poster fixer-upper to paste it up there for me. It’s got to be one of the sights of the city.’
‘It beats a mirror, that’s for sure,’ the Scot admitted. ‘My ex used to go on about wanting a mirror on the ceiling. I always reckoned it was so she could do her nails at the same time.’
‘That’s the usual reason, they tell me. I did think about a flat-screen telly, until I had this idea.’
‘You’re not your run-of-the-mill detective inspector, are you, Becky?’ Wilding yawned contentedly.
‘No, I don’t suppose I am. But I’ll tell you a secret, Ray. Since the poster fixer-upper fixed it up, you’re the first bloke to have seen that.’
‘How long’s it been up there?’ he asked. ‘A week?’
‘Cheeky bastard,’ she exclaimed, the second word elongated by her slight Cockney accent. ‘Nearly a year, since you’re unchivalrous enough to force me to admit it. Shocked? Or surprised?’
‘Amazed, more like. You’re an attractive woman, working in a male environment, and, if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t exactly hang about once you’ve made your mind up.’
‘I don’t mind at all. I’m pretty choosy about my blokes, but I’ve always believed in the unconventional approach. From fairly early on you and I both knew that this was going to happen. Much better that we got straight to it than that we edge around it all night and waste a nice meal by thinking about something else all the time we’re eating. Do you agree?’
‘With all my heart. What do we do now?’
‘We go out and have that meal, and a nice bottle of wine, then come back here and get back to the action, with the ice well and truly broken.’
‘Inspector, you are a bloody genius, if you don’t mind me saying so again.’›
‘I don’t mind that either,’ she told him cheerfully, then sat up in bed. ‘A quick shower before we go out would be in order, I reckon. It’ll save time if we have it together.’
‘In theory it will.’
‘Let’s chance it.’ She swung her feet on to the floor and jumped up, just as her phone rang. ‘Bugger,’ she said. ‘You know I can’t just let it ring, Ray, don’t you?’
‘Am I a copper or not?’
She picked it up. ‘Stallings.’
‘Inspector,’ said a thick voice, with a Scottish accent, a voice under stress, she recognised, a voice with a lot bearing down in it. ‘My name’s Tarvil Singh. I’m a DC and I need to contact my sergeant, Ray Wilding. Your office thought that he might have told you what hotel he’s booked into.’
It did not occur to her for a moment that she might prevaricate, and tell him that she would contact Wilding and have him call back. ‘He isn’t,’ she replied. ‘He’s here. Hold on.’