And then finally the lights flicked off in the office window above the line of roller-shutter doors.
At last!
Dmitry was out of the car and across the road in a few seconds, moving fast without seeming to hurry. He made sure to blip the locks on the Mercedes as he walked away from it. It would be bad news if the car was stolen while he was otherwise engaged.
He was only a few strides away from the main door to the building when it opened. Dmitry tucked in close to the wall so he merged with the shadows. The light that flooded out of the doorway briefly illuminated the figure of a man, just enough to confirm his target.
Dmitry already had one hand wrapped around the short baton in his coat pocket. Now he pulled it out and extended it with a sharp upward flick of his wrist. The sound of the baton’s segments telescoping outwards and locking into position was designed to resemble that of a shell being racked into the chamber of a pump-action shotgun. The sound alone made most people freeze but this guy ducked and swung on a reflex.
The first blow landed short. It was still enough to send the man back and down, grabbing hold of the door frame in an attempt to keep his balance. He gave out a grunt and brought his left arm up instinctively to protect his head. Dmitry aimed for the exposed elbow, hearing the muffled crack as the joint exploded.
This time the man let loose an enraged bellow as he collapsed onto the laminate floor, rolling to escape the pain. Dmitry followed him inside, kicking the man’s legs clear of the door so he could close it behind them. No point doing this in full view of the empty car park.
Now he could take his time to coldly and scientifically deliver blows that inflicted misery as much as lasting damage. Killing the man would be counterproductive he knew. All he needed to do was scare him into silence.
When Dmitry figured he was scared enough he stood over him staring down as if to read meaning in the jerky spasms of his limbs. The man’s cries had dribbled away to groans. He lay with his face against the wall in a greasy puddle of his own spittle and blood.
Dmitry nudged him over onto his back with his foot, leaned in close.
“You see me?” he demanded.
The man opened the eye that wasn’t completely swollen shut, swallowed before he could speak. Even then he hesitated as if this might be a trick question.
Dmitry sighed. “Remember my face, friend. You have poked your nose into something that’s none of your business and my boss is very upset. So let it lie—or you will be seeing my face again for sure. Yes? And next time I will not ask so . . . politely.”
There was another hesitation, then a slow fractional nod.
The hesitancy might have been due to pain or confusion but Dmitry did not leave that to chance. Just in case, he repeated his message with several more, brutal blows and followed them up with another verbal warning, laying on a dose of extra threat.
When he was done he carefully wiped the baton on the man’s clothing and forced it shut against the powerful spring in the base.
Then he walked out of the building and pulled the door neatly closed behind him. Halfway back to the Merc he lit his first cigarette of the evening and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs.
A job well done, he considered.
Yes, perhaps after all he did miss it.
Getting back to central London took less than an hour. Dmitry cruised with the stereo on and didn’t go out of his way to attract attention.
As he pulled up to the underground parking garage the transponder behind the Merc’s front grille sent out a signal that opened the security gates. A few minutes later Dmitry had slotted the car into its bay and was taking the plush lift to the penthouse apartment high above.
He let himself in and pocketed his keys. Voices came from the living area. When he pushed open the doors he found Harry Grogan sitting alone at the head of the dining table with one of the twenty-four-hour news channels playing on the huge flatscreen TV on the far wall. Grogan was eating a steak so rare it still bled onto his plate.
He was a big man wearing a three-grand suit and a hand-finished shirt that Dmitry felt did a passable job of disguising the middle-aged slide of muscle into fat. When his hair started to grey and thin he’d shaved his head down to the scalp. It gleamed now under the ceiling spotlights.
“You’re late,” Grogan said.
Dmitry bowed his head briefly. Partly in acknowledgement of the rebuke and partly to hide the flare in his eyes.
“I am sorry boss,” he said. “I was dealing with a . . . minor problem.”
Grogan stared at him steadily while he chewed another mouthful then picked up his wine glass. “Anything I should know about?”
Dmitry shook his head. “No,” he said stonily. “It is nothing I cannot handle.”
10
Tyrone came to with a start and realised groggily that he was lying face down in something wet. He must have drooled something awful while he’d slept because his pillow was soggy as his football shirt after a tough Wednesday night game.
He rolled over, his eyes going to the bright figures of his alarm clock on the chest of drawers. It took him a moment to work out that the 4:06 on the display was AM not PM and he stifled a groan.
There wasn’t even a sniff of daylight outside. Tyrone rubbed his hands across his face and tried to work out what had woken him. Then his cellphone bleeped again to tell him he had a waiting text.
He scrabbled for it so as not to wake his little brother Brendan who shared the same bedroom. Tyrone flipped open the phone and stabbed the buttons to retrieve the message. It was from Kelly—brief and to the point.
Ray attacked. Bad way. Central Middx Hosp’l. Pk Royal.
“Shi-ite,” Tyrone murmured.
“Tellin’ Ma on you,” came the mumbled response from somewhere under the far duvet.
“And I’m telling Ma you was awake when you wasn’t supposed to be, yeah?” Tyrone shot back in a harsh whisper. “Go to sleep.”
The walls in the flat were paper thin and he didn’t want to wake his mum or his sister as well. His mum cleaned other people’s offices half the night. Less messy than the jobs Tyrone tackled but hard slog just the same. She didn’t deserve to be woken by something like this.
He threw back the covers, grabbed his clothes off the chair at the end of his bed and slipped out of the room. In the bathroom he splashed cold water on his face and dressed hurriedly, stabbing out a brief return message while he cleaned his teeth.
On way.