He went over to the Baltimore-Washington desk where Hank O’Donnell and Don Clutesi were already taking calls, phones pressed against their ears as they made notes on large pads. Cole Howard looked up. “It’s working, Ed,” he said.
“There was never any doubt, Cole,” answered Mulholland. “We’ll have them, don’t you worry.”
The phone in front of Howard rang and he picked it up.
Joker clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to get the circulation flowing. His arms felt as if they would pop out of their sockets at any moment and he stood up on the tips of his toes in an attempt to ease the pain. The movement reopened the wounds on his chest and back and he felt warm blood ooze from under the fresh scabs. He knew that his time was limited, that Mary Hennessy was preparing to end it. He had watched her toy with Mick Newmarch for several agonising hours before ending his life with a savage castration. Joker was determined that he wouldn’t go the same way. If she came close enough he was prepared to lash out with his feet, and even if he wasn’t lucky enough to land a killing blow he might be able to disable her for a while. He flexed his legs one at a time as he looked around the basement. The pipe he was chained to was as thick as his thigh, and sturdy. There were brackets holding it to the concrete ceiling every six feet or so. Just beyond one of the brackets was a bend in the pipe, and just before the bend was a joint, where a straight section had been connected to a piece which curved through ninety degrees, off to the left. Joker wondered if the joint might be a weak point. If he could get up to the pipe and crawl along it, maybe his weight would be enough to pull the sections apart. He leant his head back and looked up. His hands were about twelve inches away from the pipe and he wouldn’t be able to get enough leverage to jump up. If he could swing himself up, he might be able to grasp the pipe with his feet, but he’d been hanging for so long he doubted that he’d have enough strength in his stomach muscles. He began lifting his legs one at a time, drawing his knees up to his stomach. He could do it, just, but the pain was almost more than he could bear. And he could only imagine what effect it would have on his injured wrists when it came to lifting both legs off the ground.
He had no way of knowing how long Hennessy would be away. Something had clearly spooked Bailey. Perhaps he’d be better trying to break the pipe before she came back. He breathed slowly and deeply, bracing himself for the pain he knew would come. His preparations were interrupted when the door to the basement opened and he heard footsteps on the stairs. He looked up like a schoolboy with a naughty secret, expecting to see Mary Hennessy. He was surprised to see a young woman, skinny with long, dark hair. She stopped halfway down the steps and he heard the click-clack of a round being chambered in a handgun. As she got closer he saw her eyes were narrow, almost Oriental, and her face was thin and pointed. She wasn’t conventionally pretty but she had an animal presence which was both attractive and disturbing. She was wearing tight black leather jeans and a purple T-shirt, cut low at the arms so he could see that she didn’t shave her armpits. In her right hand was a matt black handgun. At first glance it looked like the P228 which he’d taken from the men in New York, but without the silencer. As she got closer he saw that it was a Smith amp; Wesson model 411. It was a lightweight handgun with a four-inch barrel but it was more than capable of blowing a sizeable hole in his body.
“Hello, Mr Cramer,” she said, her voice heavily accented. “We haven’t been introduced. My name’s Dina.” Joker said nothing as she looked him up and down, her gaze concentrating on his groin. She smiled coyly. “You don’t seem very pleased to see me.” She transferred the gun to her left hand, then reached out to touch his stomach with her free hand. She ran her hand down to his groin and stroked his pubic hair, a sly grin on her face. “I bet I could make you glad to see me,” she said. Her fingers tightened around him and she squeezed. Joker brought his knee up, hard, powering it into her groin. All the breath went from her lungs and she pitched forward, her legs buckling. Bolts of pain shot through his wrists and Joker yelped involuntarily. The woman staggered forward, her head banging into his chest, his blood smearing against her face. The gun clattered to the floor at his feet and her hands went to her groin as her breath came back in small, puppy-like, gasps. Joker leant back, taking more of his weight on the chain, and slammed his knee up into her chin, snapping her head back with an audible crack. Her eyes rolled up and she made a wheezing sound, then she slumped to the ground, stunned rather than unconscious. She fell face down and she tried to pull herself away from Joker, her fingernails scrabbling along the concrete floor. Joker looked down. His right ankle was next to her neck and he lifted it and placed his foot against the back of her head, trying to hold her still. She pushed up against him and tried to get to her knees and he thrust down harder. Her breathing was steadier and he knew she was getting her strength back — he wouldn’t be able to hold her down for much longer. He raised his leg and before she could react he drove down with all his might, slamming his heel into her temple so hard that he heard bone and cartilage splinter. He felt something warm and sticky gush over his foot. He lifted his knee and brought his heel down again, smashing into the same place and feeling the skull break. Her feet beat a rapid tattoo on the floor and he knew she was dead, it was just that her body hadn’t realised it yet.
He looked around for the gun and couldn’t see it. He realised she must be lying on it. He levered his foot under her arm and with a grunt he forced her over. As her head lifted from the floor her left eye plopped out of its socket and hung grotesquely on her cheek, gelatinous fluid dripping from it. Her hair was matted with brain tissue and blood and as he flipped her onto her back it spread out in a pool around her head like a scarlet halo. The gun was by his feet, its safety off.
She’d closed the door when she’d come down into the basement and she’d made very little noise as she died, so Joker reckoned no-one upstairs would have heard. He used the tip of his right foot to slide the gun so that it was between his feet, careful not to touch the trigger. He was finding it difficult to focus, and sweat was pouring off his forehead and dripping into his eyes. He shuffled his feet together and manoeuvred the firearm so that its butt was angled up, its barrel away from him. It was going to hurt, he knew, and he tried to prepare himself. He doubted that he’d have the energy for more than one attempt, and he prayed that he wouldn’t pass out. He took a deep breath, then brought both feet off the ground, swinging them up and taking all his weight on his bound wrists. It felt as if his hands were being ripped from his wrists and he screamed before he bit down on his lip. He contracted the aching muscles in his stomach and pushed up with his legs, trying to maintain his momentum. His legs were dead and his abdomen felt as if it was going to collapse. He screamed, partly in agony and partly out of frustration. He tried to blank out the pain and imagined that he was back in basic training, hanging from wall bars and doing repetitions of leg-lifts, building strength and stamina. He grunted and sweated and held on to the image, remembering the old sergeant-major who’d cursed out any of the recruits who couldn’t manage at least fifty of the torturous leg-lifts. He screamed again and realised that his knee was banging against his chin. He opened his eyes and saw his legs were up, the gun almost slipping from between his feet. Two more inches and it would be in his hands. He held his fingers wide like a child trying to catch a ball and brought his knees closer to his face, the pain in his wrists like red-hot manacles searing down to the bone. He felt something warm and hard against his fingers and he grabbed the butt of the pistol — just in time because his legs fell back to the floor, his stomach and leg muscles cramped and strained.