‘Can you get him up here?’
The judge nodded. He moved his head so he was looking at an old-fashioned bell pull. ‘With that,’ he said. He was eager to be cooperative now.
Hanlon looked around the room. The only weapon she had with her was her knife and she did not want to be in a fight in close proximity to the massively muscled Robbo. She guessed, well, she knew, he would be no stranger to violence. She would bet it was Robbo who had slammed Mehmet’s head into the kitchen counter, shattering his skull. If he managed to pin her down with his weight, she would in all probability lose. To lose meant to lose everything. She had no intention of doing that.
The bedroom was dominated by a huge Victorian fireplace, its hearth decorated with glazed tileware. There was a set of fire irons of a scale in keeping with the large fireplace, including a poker the length and thickness of a crowbar. Hanlon replaced the gag in the judge’s mouth and went over and picked it up. She hefted it thoughtfully in her hand, feeling its solid weight. It was perfect.
She covered the judge with a blanket so only his bound wrists and ankles were visible; the rest of him, including his head, was an amorphous mass under the cloth. Then she unbolted the bedroom door, tugged the bell-pull and stood behind the old-fashioned screen. The judge’s mask stared at her balefully with its faceted eyes.
A couple of minutes later, she heard the stairs creak under a man’s heavy weight and the handle of the bedroom started to turn. Her grip tightened on the iron bar as she waited.
36
DCS Ludgate slowly followed the twin sets of footprints down the stream. For a solidly built man, he moved silently and gracefully. The gun with its double barrels was comfortingly heavy in his hands. One for you, Hanlon, he thought, and one for you, Sergeant. He had no doubt that the other set of prints belonged to Demirel. Hanlon attracted these hangers-on, he thought dismissively. Other women have dogs, she has Metropolitan Police sergeants. She should get them chipped for when she loses them. Not that Whiteside was exactly lost. Not geographically anyway. How that stupid bitch Clarissa had managed to cock up shooting him in the head, God only knew. It wasn’t the kind of mistake he’d make.
He came to where Hanlon and Demirel had climbed up the steep muddy bank to look at the lodge. He stood and looked at the prints and divined what had happened. Two sets up, two sets down. He moved slightly downstream and sure enough he picked up their tracks again. He was puzzled now as to what they would find or do on the beach. Had Hanlon arranged a boat? She was certainly far-sighted enough to do that. He was creeping forward now, every nerve strained. They had to be very close.
The banks of the stream widened and flattened as it spread out to the sea, and then suddenly visible in front of him, he saw Demirel. He was crouched by a sand dune, his back to Ludgate, staring at the house on the island through binoculars. Ludgate noticed prints in the wet sand amongst the shingle and they led to the sea. They were footprints now as opposed to shoe prints. He shook his head in wonder. The crazy bitch must have swum over there. He hated Hanlon’s guts, but he had to admire her bravery and astonishing physical fitness. It would have been understandable for Ludgate to speculate wishfully that she might have been swept away by the powerful current, but he had absolutely no doubt Hanlon would be equal to the challenge. Keeping an eye on Demirel, he fished his iPhone out of his pocket. Still no signal. He’d have to call Conquest from the lodge. He put the phone back in his pocket and slowly and quietly walked up behind Demirel. The noise of the wind from the sea masked any sound he made.
He walked to within two metres of Demirel. ‘Stand up, Sergeant, and don’t turn round,’ he said quietly. He watched, satisfied, as Demirel froze. ‘I’m armed. If you turn, I’ll fire.’ He watched as Demirel painfully, slowly got to his feet, keeping his back to him as instructed. Ludgate shook his head. And I thought I was unfit, he thought. ‘Turn round slowly now, hands outstretched where I can see them. I’m sure you know the drill.’
Enver did so. He recognized the voice immediately and was surprised by how unsurprised he was. It was as if he had known all along that if Conquest did have a man in the Met, it would be him. He looked now at Ludgate, saw his sparse, reddish-brown hair blown over his balding head, his fleshy face with the small, piggy eyes unwavering as they held Enver in their stare, the shotgun rock steady in his freckled hands. Enver knew that Ludgate wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. Now Enver knew Ludgate was implicated, he wouldn’t be allowed to live. That much was certain. The only reason Ludgate hadn’t pulled the trigger was almost certainly because he didn’t want the messy business of clearing up afterwards. At this range, bits of him, chunks, would be spread all over the place. Enver was sure Ludgate had a cleaner death lined up for him than blowing him into shreds with a shotgun.
He was surprised by how unafraid he felt, surprised and grateful. Although he’d climbed into a boxing ring many times, a thing most people would be terrified to do, he’d never thought of himself as brave. He was pleased to find he was. He’d have hated to go to pieces in front of Ludgate. If anything, he was strangely calm. Barring a miracle, he was a dead man. He breathed deeply and looked around him at the enormous expanse of sea and sky. They were beautiful. There were worse places to die. What did upset him was the feeling he had let Hanlon down. She would be relying on him and he was useless.
‘Take your jacket off, Sergeant. Good. Now your shirt and tie.’ Ludgate was concerned about two things; concealed weapons was one of these. The other was a key. Police handcuffs have a universal key and Ludgate did not want to have to body search Demirel to check he didn’t have one concealed about his person. He made the sergeant strip down to his boxer shorts. His clothes lay in an untidy pile on the beach as if he’d gone for a midnight dip. He shivered in the cold wind, his skin covered with goosebumps.
‘Good, Sergeant. Now turn round facing the sea. Good. Arms behind your back.’ Holding the shotgun with one hand, Ludgate advanced towards him and, both barrels pressed upwards into the rear of Enver’s skull, handcuffed his hands one by one behind his back.
‘Now sit down on the ground, back to me. Slowly now.’ Enver did so and Ludgate gathered up the sergeant’s clothes and shoes, and hung the binoculars around his neck.
‘OK, Sergeant. Stand up now. That’s good. Now head for the house.’ Enver winced as his naked feet scrunched painfully on the stony beach. Ludgate followed behind him, the shotgun cradled in one hand.
Back on the island there was a discreet knock on the oak-panelled door of the bedroom. Robbo had arrived. Hanlon waited, the door opened and Robbo came in. He stopped uncertainly, looking at the bed in puzzlement. Seeing the hands and feet, the body covered with the blanket, he assumed it was the boy, but where was the judge?
Hanlon sprang from behind the screen and brought the poker down in an overhead arc aimed at Robbo’s head. Robbo sensed, rather than saw, the movement. His response was instinctive, born of years, decades, of violence. His left arm, coated in heavy, protective muscle, swung upwards to block the blow. He grunted in pain as the heavy, iron poker smashed into his arm, fracturing the bone, and his right fist swung at Hanlon. She ducked and felt it graze the top of her head, and then she straightened up and drop-kicked Robbo in the groin.
It was exactly the same kick that Enver had seen in the gym in South London. The same kick that had lifted the heavy bag, all forty kilos of it, up high on its chains. Robbo gasped in agony and doubled over, his face contorted with pain. Hanlon stepped forward, her left knee scythed upwards into his face, and as she did so she dropped the iron poker, clasped her hands together, fingers interlaced, and slammed his head downwards to meet her knee coming up. There was a dull thud, a muted breaking sound, as the bones in his nose, his gum, upper teeth and cheekbones smashed, and Robbo went down. Even then he wasn’t finished. He tried to pick himself up off the floor, his face a bloody mask, and as he did so Hanlon snatched the poker from the floor and struck him as hard as she could in the right temple, driving the shattered bone of his skull into his brain. He collapsed on to the carpet face down. A thick, dark red pool of blood slowly formed around his head. His breathing sounded ragged and wet and then slowly ebbed away into silence.