The man, McCarron, seemed more shaken. It could have been the gun or simply the fact that they were face to face again for the first time since Dmitry beat him into unconsciousness. Either way the old man had almost shut down, curled in on himself. He would be no threat.
“Steve Warwick I can understand—almost,” Kelly Jacks said. “But did you have to kick Elvis into a brain-damaged coma?”
For a second an image of a quiffed and sneering distant pop star gyrated into his mind. “Who?”
She shook her head. “You didn’t even know his name did you? The kid in the flat in Brixton. He tried his best to give me to you. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t succeed.”
Dmitry stared at her with a lack of emotion that was not an act. Why do you care?
“The race is about to start,” he said to Myshka, not taking his eyes off Kelly Jacks. “Everything is ready. We need to finish this.”
“Of course,” Myshka said. She rose, graceful. “Any last requests?”
“Yes,” Jacks said. “Why did you kill Veronica Lytton and make it look like it was connected to that old murder I investigated?”
Myshka pursed her lips. “Such an ego,” she murmured. “There was no connection except in your own mind. Lady Lytton, she see too much, hear too much and she begin to suspect poor little Yana is not what she seemed, so—” an elegant shrug “—she have to go.”
She made it sound so easy Dmitry thought, when it was not Myshka who had to see it through. But he remembered the way she’d murdered her inconvenient husband. She had not taken the easy way then . . .
“A coincidence?” Kelly Jacks’s face was blank with shock.
“They happen,” Myshka agreed, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “She did not believe in pills, but her husband he shoots and I knew she would so hate to have that lovely face . . . spoiled.”
“But . . . then you killed Tyrone—the same as . . .” Her voice petered out. She took a couple of tottering paces sideways, steadied herself with hands braced on the back of a chair.
“You were pain in ass by then.” Myshka smiled at her again. “You can thank Matthew for that.”
“What?”
“You did not know? He ask Steve to find out about you on Internet and he delegate to me. Perfect way to deal with you was with your own past.”
“Myshka,” Dmitry warned. “We do not have time for this.”
“No,” she agreed. She checked the time. “He will be back soon.” Her eyes drifted over the two of them, the old man and the waitress, as if they were of no account. “Put them with the others.”
Your word is my command. “Dead or alive?”
She raised a disinterested eyebrow. “Does it matter?”
Dmitry considered for a moment then brought the Glock up double-handed and lined up the sights on the centre of the old man’s chest. McCarron caught the movement and his head jerked up, finally coming out of stasis.
“Wait—”
“What?” Dmitry asked over the gun. “You think you can persuade me to sit down and talk about it?” As he began to take up the pressure on the trigger a blur of light and dark hit his peripheral vision as Kelly Jacks heaved up the chair she’d been gripping.
“Take a seat,” she growled and sent it spinning for his head.
Dmitry swung the gun blindly in her direction and pulled the trigger.
145
DI Vince O’Neill was outside on the lower walkway overlooking the parade ring when he heard the shot. He’d been waiting, not patiently, for the head of racecourse security to authorise someone to release him a set of keys for the storerooms when the sound cracked out overhead.
O’Neill had heard enough gunfire in his time to duck instinctively. He knew there was no mistake even before the glass began to fall around him like deadly shards of rain.
The panic was instant, blossoming outwards as people scattered. The fear transferred itself to the horses in the parade ring—highly strung at the best of times and already snapped tight with pre-race nerves. They shied and skittered as the people bellied outwards away from the building.
It was only when the building didn’t follow the glass down—when the rain became a shower rather than a deluge and no bodies fell—that the crowd’s rush ebbed and a morbid curiosity took over. They stopped, began to stare and point.
O’Neill shifted his gaze upwards too. He saw a blank emptiness at the window of one of the private boxes where he should have been able to see only reflection of sky.
“The whole pane’s gone,” said the man next to him. “Damn lucky nobody was killed, eh?”
But O’Neill didn’t share his relief. He knew what he’d heard.
Nobody killed? That remains to be seen.
“Boss!”
O’Neill turned, saw Dempsey approaching at a run. “Did I hear—?”
“Yes.” O’Neill grabbed his arm. “Keep your voice down and come with me.” They headed for the nearest entrance, pushing against the flow. “What did Cheever say?”
“He was a bit less combative this time round,” Dempsey said hurrying to keep up. “No more helpful, mind you, but not as rude with it.”
“Yeah, well maybe this will change his mind.” O’Neill shouldered open the door and punched the call button for the lift. He glanced at the floor indicators, found them both stuck at the upper levels and headed for the stairs with a frustrated grunt.
When he saw the man half a flight above them—staggering and barely upright, clinging to the banister with blood coating his head and one shoulder—O’Neill’s first thought was that he’d been shot. Putting it all together on the fly it was a logical assumption. He took the intervening steps three at a time and caught the man under the armpits just as he would have fallen.
It wasn’t until he’d propped the injured man against the wall that he realised he knew the face under all that gore.
“Lytton? What the hell happened?” he demanded. “Where are you hit?”
“Over the head,” Lytton said sounding blurry but remarkably calm. “That bitch . . .”
“Jacks?”
“Hmm? What? No, not her—that bitch Steve’s married to,” he mumbled. “Who would have thought it?”
Dempsey leaned in. “Mr Lytton we just heard a shot—”