For the first time, a prickle of unease came to him.
“Myshka, what the—?”
But as he opened his mouth to protest she stuffed the balled-up tie inside. It was Hermes and not only would such treatment see it ruined, but she shoved it so deep he started to choke at once. He shook his head angrily, tried to regurgitate the tie without spitting on it too much. What the bloody hell was the mad bitch playing at—today of all days?
“What is matter, darling—not having fun?” she asked, her voice icy. “Maybe it is not so nice having something pushed down throat, yes?”
He snarled his fury behind the gag.
The sudden staccato knock on the door made him jerk in panicked surprise. Suppose it was Matt? Or, worse still, someone from the racecourse?
He heard Myshka’s footsteps again, heading for the door and his protests rose in pitch and volume.
Don’t let anyone in, you stupid bitch. I’ll die of embarrassment, being caught like this.
She opened the door and a man walked in without showing any apparent surprise at what lay before him. With a cold wash of shock Warwick recognised the young thug with the dead-cold eyes who’d scared him so badly that day he met with Grogan out on the Downs.
“You remember Dmitry, of course,” Myshka said.
The young thug stared at him without expression. After a moment he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a long black cylinder which he handed to Myshka.
A throaty murmur of appreciation emerged from between her lips. She flicked her wrist sharply to extend the baton to its full, lethal length and admired it with chillingly sensual delight in her face.
She tried an experimental slash and the air zizzed with the power of this new weapon.
“All this time we are together you think you are big dog, in control,” she mocked. “Now I am big dog, yes?”
For the first time since he’d entered the private box and delivered himself into her hands, Steve Warwick realised he might just have made the biggest mistake of his life.
Or the last one.
125
“Oh Stevie boy, I’m going to make you suffer for this!”
Matthew Lytton uttered the threat under his breath as he stalked the corridors of the main building. He and Warwick should be out in the paddock, mixing with the VIPs, glad-handing and hobnobbing and doing all the rest of the things they’d originally conceived this damned event for in the first place.
But still there was no sign of the man.
Lytton tried Warwick’s cellphone for the twentieth time. Switched off. The answering machine on his home number picked up after half-a-dozen empty rings.
Lytton thrust his own phone back into his inside pocket and let out a fast annoyed breath.
“Something troubling you Mr Lytton?”
Lytton turned to see the cocky DI O’Neill approaching from the direction of the stairwell. With him was a younger man who also had “copper” written all over him.
What the hell are you lot doing here?
“I’m the main sponsor for this event,” Lytton returned with creditable calm. “You’d expect a few hiccups.”
“Anything you’d like to share?”
“No. Anything you’d like to share?” He glanced from one detective to the other, letting annoyance win out over concern. “Why are you here?”
O’Neill pursed his lips for a moment, clearly debating how much to tell him. Lytton saw a twitch of consternation cross the younger detective’s face as if he thought O’Neill might withhold something vital. Lytton waited, not patiently but refusing to be manipulated.
“Big day for you then,” O’Neill said at last. “Where’s your partner—Mr Warwick isn’t it?”
So they were not here to tell him Warwick had been involved in some kind of accident. Lytton’s relief turned back to irritation. Where is he?
“That’s one of the hiccups,” he said, deciding nothing would be gained by evasion. “I’m trying to find him. I suppose he could have been caught in traffic.”
O’Neill pulled a face. “We had no problems on the way down,” he said. “Mind you, DC Dempsey here thinks he’s the next Lewis Hamilton so maybe that might have had something to do with it.”
Lytton stepped in close, getting in O’Neill’s face.
“I’m busy, detective inspector. Get to the point.” He didn’t miss the way the younger guy Dempsey shifted to intervene if he had to.
“Get on all right with your partner do you, Mr Lytton?”
That rocked him back. “Well enough. Why?”
“What about his wife?”
“Yana? I hardly see anything of her. She helps out in the office sometimes—she was giving Veronica a hand to organise the hospitality for this event.”
“They get on?”
Lytton sighed, could tell from O’Neill’s stubborn expression that asking questions of his own was not going to speed things up. “Veronica thought Yana was a little mouse who needed to stand up for herself more. She thought Steve bullied her.”
“Russian, isn’t she? One of these mail-order brides?”
“Russian, Ukrainian—something like that,” he agreed shortly. “I don’t know how they met. Steve was in Russia for a time looking at property deals, trying to cultivate some contacts. When he came back he brought Yana with him.”
“You suspicious about that?”
Lytton gave a short laugh. “Wouldn’t you have been? I thought she was after him for a passport and would be off like a shot as soon as they’d made it legal.”
O’Neill and Dempsey exchanged a look. “Maybe she was after him for more than that.”
“Meaning?”
“You and Mr Warwick have company life insurance on each other don’t you?” O’Neill said. “Quite sizeable sums.”
Lytton shrugged. “Key-man policies are standard business practice for companies like ours with a small number of vital personnel,” he said. “And it’s the company that holds the policies, not us.”
“But not so long ago you upped the payout from half-a-million to ten, I understand. Whose idea was that?”
“Steve’s. He said we should keep up with inflation although I don’t see what the hell business that is of yours,” Lytton snapped. “It’s all perfectly legal.”
“I’ve no doubt,” O’Neill said mildly. He paused and then added in an almost careless tone, “Now your wife is deceased you have no living relatives.”