They’d be gone some time.
Kelly locked the door behind her. Ray, she remembered, had been jumped at the very spot where she was standing.
Is this a vendetta against all of us rather than just me?
She shook her head—a mistake—and wearily climbed the stairs to the upper floor.
There she stepped into the small galley kitchen and lifted the bag of blood out from under her shirt. The seal had proved up to the job. For want of anything better Kelly slid the bag into the fridge. She’d already written the date, time and her name on it in indelible marker. It wasn’t quite chain-of-custody, but it would have to do.
She raided the office First-Aid kit and properly cleaned her arm. Removing the duct tape hurt like the devil and peeling away the adhesive made the whole thing open up again. It took Kelly a while to slow the bleeding enough to close the edges of the wound with four or five Steri-Strips and wind a sterile dressing in place around it. At least working this job she knew all her jabs were up to date.
She was tempted by the heavy duty painkillers in the kit but in the end settled for nothing stronger than a couple of paracetamol just to take the edge off it. She thought briefly of the bottle of vodka in the bottom of Ray’s desk but rejected that too.
If there was one thing she needed now, above all else, it was a clear head.
Just to sit for a few minutes and catch her thoughts she sank slowly onto one of the chairs around the table where the team gathered to eat their lunches, discuss jobs and write up their reports. Her eyes slid to the places where Tyrone and Ray always sat.
“Two down,” she said out loud. “Who’s next?”
Stupid question. It was supposed to be me.
Reluctantly she got to her feet. If she was going to stay ahead of the police long enough to find answers of her own she was going to need money—of the kind that could not be obtained via a photographed and instantly traceable hole-in-the-wall cash machine.
The petty cash tin was in the bottom drawer of Ray’s desk next to the vodka bottle. It was secured by a spindly padlock that Kelly had never had the heart to tell her boss could be picked in seconds. As she finessed the tumblers with a safety pin and re-bent paperclip she was thankful she’d spared his feelings.
There were some skills Kelly had learned in prison that she would be forever grateful for.
The cash tin held a couple of hundred in mixed notes and maybe twenty quid in loose change. Kelly took the lot, folding it into the leg pocket of her cargoes. She was just looking round on Ray’s cluttered desktop for a scrap of paper she could use to write an apologetic IOU when her eye lighted on a familiar name on the top of a pile of invoices.
Matthew Lytton.
She picked up the invoice slowly. It was marked ‘Paid in Full’. Kelly noted the amount Ray had charged Lytton for the cleanup after his wife’s alleged suicide and calculated he’d taken one look at the scope of the country place and doubled the number he’d first thought of.
But what really caught her attention was the address on the invoice. The country house with the luxury bathroom, it seemed, was not Lytton’s only residence. He’d asked for the paperwork to be sent to another address—in central London.
Suddenly her next move was clear. Not sensible by any means, but definitely clear.
Kelly memorised the address and put the invoice back—not on top but a couple down in the stack. After all there was no point in leaving too many clues for the likes of DI O’Neill to follow.
34
As soon as Matthew Lytton opened the door to his apartment, he knew something was wrong.
For one thing it had been daylight when he left so there would have been no reason to switch on the lamps in the living area. And for another he was pretty sure he would have remembered leaving the VH1 music channel playing on the TV, even at low volume.
His first instinct as he paused in the hallway with one hand still on the open front door was to retreat to a safe distance and call the police. He quickly dismissed that option.
One way or another he’d had his fill of the police lately.
That and the fact he’d never heard of burglars who broke in and then made themselves at home to the point of cooking up a meal. The distinctive smell of frying onions drifted out from the kitchen. It was all he could do to stop his stomach growling.
Lytton cautiously checked his watch. It was close to 2:00 AM. He’d put in another eighteen-hour day at the office and it seemed a hell of a long time since lunch.
Silently he closed the front door behind him. He kept his car keys and cellphone in his hand as he ventured further inside, moving softly on the hardwood floor.
As he reached the kitchen he heard the sound of rapid chopping, the sizzle of something fresh being added to a hot pan.
He edged an eye around the door jamb. Kelly Jacks was cracking eggs into a glass mixing bowl. Her back was towards him but still he recognised her. She was wearing a skinny halter top over baggy cargoes and her feet were bare. He knew he should have been furious at the sheer arrogance of the woman. Instead he found himself admiring her audacity.
Lytton slipped the keys and phone into his jacket pocket and stepped into the room.
“I don’t suppose there’s enough for two is there?” he asked tapping her lightly on the shoulder.
She gave a gasp and spun round. The next thing he knew, the hand he’d laid on her was grabbed, wrenched away and twisted up his back hard and fast. He felt the tearing graunch of overstressed ligaments in his elbow and wrist.
The force of it drove him down to his knees in an attempt to yield. All that did was allow her to put the lock on more firmly. The spike of pain took his breath away.
“Christ! What the—?”
She froze, finally recognising his voice, relaxed her grip then released him altogether and stepped back quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said sounding shaky. “You startled me.”
Lytton got to his feet slowly, rubbing his wrist. “Yeah well that makes two of us,” he said warily. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
“Prison.”
He’d frightened her, he realised and she’d reacted instinctively—almost without conscious thought.