If you had been more careful he would not be suffering. Dmitry glared at her but held his tongue. “Give me the gun.”
Now it was Myshka’s turn to hesitate. “It was necessary—we agreed,” she said, losing some of her certainty. “You said you would talk to him but if he would not join with us then—” a shrug, “—he must go, yes?”
“Yes,” Dmitry agreed in a low voice. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Myshka dumped the pistol into his outstretched hand. It was a Glock, the barrel still warm even through his gloves.
“Grogan will blame Viktor for whatever the girl has told him has been going on. It will seem he has run away.” She nodded to the gun. “You will bury that with him?”
“Yes.” Dmitry looked the gun over briefly, saw the serial numbers had been professionally removed. “Where did it come from?”
She shrugged again, said carelessly, “I asked Viktor to get it for me.”
There were a thousand questions Dmitry could have asked but he watched her walk away into the trees with all of them unspoken. Her own car would be parked somewhere nearby. She would be back in London in an hour and providing Viktor’s body was never found, no-one would ever know.
Dmitry retraced his steps to the Merc and removed the shovel he’d previously stowed in the boot. He took his time about it. When he returned, Viktor had ceased to gurgle and shudder. The woods surrounding them were suddenly very still and very quiet.
Despite any lingering childhood superstitions, as he struck the blade of the shovel into the earth, Dmitry was glad both of the darkness and his own isolation.
At least there was no-one here to see the tears that ran freely down his face.
104
Afterwards Erin couldn’t be sure exactly what had woken her. One moment she was soundlessly dreamlessly asleep and the next she found herself lying eyes open and scared in the darkness, gasping.
She collected her breath, strained to hear for the repeat of some faint scuffling that must have disturbed her but the flat was apparently quiet as the grave.
She shivered. Why did I have to think of it like that?
For a minute or so she lay primed, ready to launch out of bed but praying she wouldn’t have to. Erin had long ago recognised that she was easily frightened. But children change all that—they bring out courage you never knew you had. Eventually it was the thought of something happening to Jade that had her slipping out from under the warm security of the duvet and groping for the towelling robe she’d dumped across the foot of the bed.
As she crept out into the tiny hallway she could see the faint glow of the night light spilling out through her daughter’s bedroom doorway and her heart rate snagged.
She always closed Jade’s door at night.
Jade was a self-contained child who rarely woke demanding attention but she was also a light sleeper. Erin had treated herself to a chick flick on DVD after she’d put her daughter down and she was certain she’d closed her bedroom door so the low volume didn’t stop her getting off. It was a school night after all.
But now the door was standing ajar.
Erin hovered in an agony of indecision. Maternal instinct won out. On trembling legs she edged closer but as she drew level with the doorway leading to the living room, next to her own bedroom, a figure whirled out into her path and grabbed her.
She would have screamed out of sheer fright but a hand clamped over her mouth to prevent her loosing off anything more than a strangled squawk.
For a moment she was utterly paralysed. But as her attacker began to drag her back towards her own bedroom that was enough to kick-start Erin’s sense of self-preservation. She bucked against the hands that gripped her, struggling ferociously with fists and heels.
“Be still,” hissed a voice in her ear and what shocked her into obedience was the fact it belonged to a woman. “I came to talk, that’s all. Do you want to give your little girl nightmares?”
Mutely Erin shook her head. She allowed herself to be bundled into her bedroom and set free with a shove that had her staggering. The door closed behind them and the overhead light snapped on, dazzling her. Erin cowered against the wardrobe, shielding her eyes from the light and the stranger in equal measure.
“W–who are you? What do you w–want?”
“You know who I am,” the woman said quietly enough for Erin’s curiosity to overcome her caution.
She opened her eyes a sliver and immediately wished she hadn’t. The woman was right—Erin did know her. Not personally, but she certainly recognised the face. Impossible not to if you’d watched the TV news or seen a newspaper in the last few days.
“Oh God,” Erin moaned.
Kelly Jacks.
The woman nodded as if she’d said the name out loud. “Then you’ll know why I’m here.”
“Please! I don’t know anything! He never told me.”
She regretted the words as soon as they were out. Even to her own ears they smacked of evasion if not of outright lies.
Kelly Jacks stared at her for what seemed like a long time. She was dressed in a hooded black sweatshirt and baggy cargoes. The fact that her clothes looked as if she’d worn them to roll around in the dirt made her appear more dangerous, more desperate, than if she’d been clean. Not to mention the bruises on the woman’s face.
Erin remembered seeing bruises like that in the mirror.
Her bag was sitting on the chair next to the bed where she’d dumped it before she undressed. Kelly Jacks stepped across and upended it onto the duvet, giving the spilled contents a cursory skim and eventually picking up her purse.
“You’re after money?” Erin said, surprised into speech. “There’s not much in there but take it. Take it and get out!”
Her bravado was treated with disdain. But instead of the carefully folded notes, Kelly Jacks eased her bank card out of its slot and studied the raised letters on the front. On the whole, Erin would have preferred it if she’d taken the cash.
“Just checking I’d got the right person,” Kelly Jacks murmured. “Six years ago you were Callum Perry’s girlfriend. And if he didn’t tell you what he was about, who did he tell?”
Erin cringed, the fear pressing down deep in her belly. “He never talked about work—”
“But you didn’t work at the bar with him did you?” Kelly Jacks said then shook her head. “No, I would have known about you if you had. Your name would have come up. But you were involved with him—I mean, that is his kid lying asleep next door, isn’t it? So why didn’t your name come up, Erin?”