The building where the killing had occurred was filled with fashionable condominium lofts in a reclaimed industrial building along the south bank of the Thames, two turns of the river away from Parliament, not far from King’s Stairs Gardens.
This was a part of London that had undergone much change since World War II, and its rejuvenation had continued into the twenty-first century, albeit haltingly. Next to the loft, rising forlornly from the earth, there were empty steel girders of what would someday — if the financing could ever again come together — be an office tower to approach the Shard as one of London’s tallest buildings. The superstructure had been completed, but construction had since been halted, a reminder that En gland had not been immune to the economic malaise that had gripped Europe. Storm wondered idly how many millions of dollars of steel had been used in making what was essentially a towering skeleton.
Storm entered the condo building and rode to its top floor, the eighth, which was swarming with officials of all stripes. At the front door, he was handed a pair of latex gloves by a uniformed man, who logged Storm’s entry. He walked through the foyer, into a sitting room, then toward where all the action seemed to be taking place: the office, in the northwest corner of the loft.
At least in the Western world, crime scenes always looked the same. There were people in varying kinds of uniform running around, working on their small piece of the action, doing their duty. And then, somewhere, not in uniform, there was the person in charge.
Storm finally found that person in the office. He was tall, bespectacled, and gentle-looking, with long, chestnut-brown hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked less like a Scotland Yard detective and more like someone you might find in a computer science Ph.D. program. The man was staring at something on a clipboard, looking up as Storm approached.
“Hi, I’m…”
“Derrick Storm,” the man said. “And I’m Nick Walton, Scotland Yard. I’ve been told to cooperate fully with you. Would you like some tea?”
Okay, so maybe there were small differences in crime scenes. “No, thank you,” Storm said. “What do we have here?”
Storm gestured toward the corpse still duct-taped to a desk chair. The man had slumped forward slightly against his restraints, his head lolling to the left. The angle gave Storm more of a view than he needed of the missing portion of the back of the man’s skull. The man’s right hand, which hung at his side, looked like raw meat. Volkov’s work, for sure.
“Victim’s name is Nigel Wormsley,” Walton said. “He was an executive vice president at Queen Royal Bank. I’m told that might be of interest to you.”
Storm just nodded.
“Took two bullets right between the eyes from close range,” Walton continued. “The shots were close enough that the entrance wounds merged into one hole. But from looking at the edges of the one on the left, it appears to be forty-five-caliber. That’s my best guess. As you know, we’re not as accustomed to gun violence as you Yanks, so I don’t get as much practice on that sort of thing.”
Storm let the cheap shot — if, in fact, it was intended as a cheap shot and not merely a statement of fact — pass without comment.
“If you want to have a look, you have to sort of get underneath him and look up,” Walton said. “Obviously, it’s not as hard to see the exit wound. And I’m sure you noticed that his hand is a bloody mess. Whoever did this is some brutal bastard.”
“Any other victims?” Storm asked, braced for the answer.
“No, just Mr. Wormsley,” Walton said. “He has a house in the country where his wife and son stay. This has been described to me as his city crash pad.”
Storm looked around at the office, with its sleek, modern furnishings. Either Wormsley or his decorator had expensive tastes. The office had large, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that offered an expansive view of the city.
“Nice crash pad,” Storm said.
“Mr. Wormsley was a very wealthy man, as you might imagine,” Walton said. “I’m told his bonus alone last year was in the millions of pounds. Not bad, eh?”
“Do you know what kind of work he did at Queen Royal?”
“I don’t know. Banker stuff. Does it matter?”
“It might,” Storm said. “Do you happen to know if he was involved in currency trading?”
Walton’s right eyebrow arched. “Yes, as a matter of fact. He was executive vice president in charge of currency exchange.”
Good old Dad. His hunch had been correct. Of course. It was now no coincidence: four bankers, all involved in currency trading, all tortured for some reason. What that reason was remained unclear.
Storm studied the desk without touching anything. It was a large, open surface, mostly devoid of tchotchkes or mementos. There was a good bit of blood, now congealing or congealed, pooled on top. That must have been where Volkov yanked out the man’s fingernails. There were a few picture frames and a paperweight on the floor nearby, as if someone had swept them off the desk.
“Anything taken?” Storm asked.
“We won’t know until the wife gets here to have a look around. She should be here anytime, and we were hoping to get Mr. Wormsley out of here before she does her walk-through, so if you need to examine him, you might want to do it now.”
Storm did not make a move toward the body. There was nothing it could tell him, unless it suddenly started talking.
Storm looked at the walls, spying an original Modigliani that was staring back at him with that distinctive face — sad and warped. It had to be valued in the millions of dollars. Volkov clearly hadn’t known the painting’s value. It wasn’t like him to pass up an opportunity to enhance his payday. Or maybe he just knew it would slow his getaway unnecessarily.
“So that’s about all I know for now, at least until the labs come back and tell me more,” Walton said. “Is there anything you can tell me?”
Storm decided that there was nothing more for him at the scene, and that therefore he might give Scotland Yard a little parting gift. His gaze drifted out to the London skyline as he spoke.
“Your killer is a Russian national named Gregor Volkov. The ripped-out fingernails are sort of his signature. He is about five-foot-four, powerfully built. He wears an eye patch and has burn scars on his face. My people can provide you a recent picture, but it probably won’t do you much good. He more than likely entered the country under a different name and is almost certainly now gone. He is not the type to linger.”
“I see, and why does Mr. Volkov wish ill on…”
Storm was no longer listening. His eyes stopped on a solitary figure, dressed in black, gripping the side of a column in the unfinished skyscraper next door. It couldn’t be a construction worker or anyone with an authorized reason to be there. The site was inoperative. Whoever it was, he was long and lean and, from the looks of things, not afraid of heights. Storm couldn’t see the man’s feature’s because his face was obscured by a camera with a big chunk of a long lens attached to it.
Walton was still talking when Storm interrupted: “Was Mr. Wormsley famous in some way?”
Storm had already looked away, so the photographer wouldn’t know he had been spotted.
“No, just rich. Not famous.”
“Is there any reason why the paparazzi would be interested in this case?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Look quickly next door, at roughly our height. There’s a man with a camera taking pictures. Don’t look too long. I don’t want him knowing we’re aware of him.”
Walton did as instructed, then said, “That’s not paparazzi, mate.”
“How do you know?”
“After Princess Kate’s bits showed up in print, we finally cracked down on that sort of thing. Part of the crackdown was making sure the paparazzi didn’t tread on private property. The fellow over there is clearly on private property — the angle the pictures are being shot at would make it clear he was close to the same level as us, and it would be impossible to achieve that in a public place around here. If he tried to sell them, he’d be looking at a big fine. So would any media outlet that bought them. He wouldn’t be one of the paparazzi. That said, I don’t know who he is or what he’s doing.”