“A pro,” says Reece. It would take a pro to be this efficient. Or someone living a very ascetic life. Then he says, “Hello.”
There’s something in his tone, and he’s looking at the door. I turn and stare down the barrel of an automatic pistol, held unwaveringly at shoulder height. Behind it stands a youngish woman, slim, fit-looking, with short-cropped, dyed-blonde hair and eyes that tell me I’m in trouble if I try even to breathe loudly.
“Who are you?” she says. Her voice is shaky, but steadier than mine would be in similar circumstances.
“I’m Alec,” I reply. “He’s Reece. By the way, we didn’t do this.” I’m not sure I’d believe me if I was her, but there’s no harm in trying.
She moves sideways and says, “Sit. Both of you.” We sit on the bed, while she looks down at the body. Her air of calm is surprising, and I wonder if I can get out of the way if she starts shooting.
“Unusual piece,” says Reece, nodding at the gun. “Baikal, isn’t it?”
It’s hardly relevant, but that’s Reece all over. If this woman is feeling hormonal, we’re dead meat.
“Why are you here?” she asks. She moves to the chest of drawers and rests her gun on it, still pointing at us. Never believe it when you see people in films standing around holding a gun like a plate of cucumber sandwiches; they’re heavy as hell and play havoc with the wrists and arm muscles.
I explain what we do, and how we just discovered Melinda Blake’s body on the floor. She blinks when I mention the information from Blake’s brother.
“Blake doesn’t have a brother,” she says.
Then Reece says, “That’s not Blake.”
He’s still holding the photo frame. He’s got his finger on the face in the photo. The one we thought was Blake.
It’s the woman with the gun.
“Her name was Cath Barbour,” Melinda Blake explains. “We were in the same unit. She was staying with me for a couple of days.”
“What kind of trouble are you in?” asks Reece.
“Who says I’m in trouble?”
“You must be — for this.” I indicate her dead friend. And the gun.
She sighs, then surprises us by dumping the gun on the chest of drawers and kneeling down by the body. If she thinks we’re a threat, she doesn’t care any more.
“Can we move?” I ask. I don’t, though, in case she has a miniature Uzi tucked in her bra.
“Are you two ex-army?” she murmurs, ignoring my question and running her fingers across the dead woman’s face.
“No. Didn’t like the haircuts.” The closest we ever got was as Ministry of Defence investigators. It took us to Iraq for a while, working undercover, but it’s not something we like to talk about.
“Then this won’t be something you’re used to.” Her voice is soft, almost regretful, as if we’re not what she was hoping for.
“Death, you mean?” I give a shrug when she looks at me. “Actually, we’re more accustomed than you might think.” I explain about Bream, and how two deaths inside twelve hours is a little unusual.
She takes it all in, then nods and gets up, scooping up the gun on the way. “We need to find a photo printer,” she says. “Bring the frame.” Then she walks out.
We get in the car and she directs us to a shopping centre where there’s a medium-size chemist with a photo printer in one corner.
Melinda makes sure nobody is too close, then asks Reece to tear off the back of the photo. There’s a small plastic object taped to the inside. It’s about the size of a postage stamp, with one corner cut off.
“It’s a smart card,” Melinda explains, and points to a slot in the photo printer. “Put it in there.”
Reece does that, too, and when the screen asks us what we want to do, Melinda leans across and taps the screen until it dissolves into a grid of thumbnail snaps of what is on the card.
“Don’t let anyone see these,” says Melinda, and moves out of the way while Reece and I take a look.
Good thing she warned us. We’re looking at a series of still shots. A young woman is lying on a single bed, with two men standing over her. It’s clear what the scenario is, but the scene is given a sharp twist in the final four frames. One of the men is hitting the woman. Only this isn’t some aggrieved punter taking his guilt out on a luckless street girl; he’s twice her size and he’s wielding a set of knuckle-dusters.
Knuckle-dusters? The indents on Bream’s chest.
The final shot shows the woman lying back, lower face destroyed, eyes open and staring. The expression reminds me of Melinda’s friend.
“Jesus,” whispers Reece, who doesn’t shock easily. “He killed her.”
I don’t say anything; I’m not sure I can trust my voice. Instead, I concentrate on the photos and point at two of the frames. “Can we print these?”
Melinda taps the screen. Seconds later, we’re studying the enlarged prints.
“They’re army,” I say.
“Officers.” Reece sounds disgusted.
Just visible in the two shots is a uniform jacket, resplendent with ribbons and braid, hanging on the back of a chair. Beneath the chair is part of a hat brim.
“The hitter’s name is Collinson,” Melinda Blake informs us as we leave the shop. “He’s a major attached to an Intelligence unit. The other is a Major Pullman. They go everywhere together.
“I received a complaint one day from a female private,” she continues as we walk back to the car. “She said Collinson and Pullman had picked her up in a bar and taken her to a hotel. They ordered her to strip off, threatening to end her career if she disobeyed or told anyone. Then they raped her.” She shrugs. “I filed a report, but the following day the complainant backed out. Said she’d made it up.”
“Why would she do that?” I ask.
“That’s what I wondered, so I did some digging. There’s a lot of history on these two, mostly anecdotal. They run a small group called the Hellfire Club. It’s an exclusive gathering for people of similar rank and inclinations, although I think they limit the kind of excesses you just saw to themselves.” She shudders, the first real sign of emotion. “They’re sick, and whoever they touch is left ruined.”
“So how come nobody’s stopped them?” says Reece.
The look she gives him should have withered him to a crisp. “They’re experts, that’s why, good at covering their tracks. It’s what they do.” The way she says it makes my neck tingle.
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve been trained in a branch of the Intelligence Corps dealing with Psychological Operations. They know how to influence people... to find their weaknesses and draw them in. Exploiting circumstances is what they do for a living. It’s how they find the other Hellfire members.” She looks drawn. “After I submitted the report on the rape complaint, things started going wrong. It was like I’d picked up a disease. Weird stuff began to happen... stupid, mostly, but in the army it was enough to get me noticed. Then rumours started to circulate.”
“What rumours?”
“About me... and another female private. And an officer. Neither was true, but that didn’t matter. When somebody reported missing funds and stolen weapons, even my own CO began to doubt me. I was frozen out and threatened with a transfer to some God-forsaken depot in Germany. The only alternative was to leave. I didn’t need the hassle.”
“But you got hold of this memory card,” says Reece. “How come?”
“The private who’d alleged the rape sent it to me later. She’d found their camera bag in the hotel bathroom. Thinking they’d taken photos of her, she took the card. She didn’t look at it until recently. When she did, she brought it to me. They must have found out.”