Killing for the Company (13 page)

Almost.

He squinted in the gloom. Through the windscreen he could see a figure up ahead. Twenty metres away, max, and walking towards him.

Instinctively, Chet felt his fingers creeping towards the ignition key. The figure was moving quickly. At fifteen metres, he could make out that it was a woman. Slim. He couldn’t see her face, not in the darkness.

The angry features of the intruder in his flat flashed through his mind.

Ten metres. Chet started the engine and put the lights on full beam. The figure stopped, throwing her hands up to her face, alarmed by the sudden glare. When her hands moved away, Chet saw that her skin was elderly and wrinkled, her hair grey and her clothes old. She cast a fearful look in Chet’s direction, then turned heel and hurried off.

Just an old woman wandering the streets at night. Chet turned off the engine and the lights, aware of a damp patch of sweat against his back despite the coldness of the air. He cursed his paranoia. Of
course
nobody knew where he was.

He checked his watch. 03.28. Three hours till he RV’d with Doug. It couldn’t come soon enough.

06.23 hrs.

Early, but the main roads of London were already crammed with traffic. The bus drivers were beeping their horns in frustration at each other as their headlamps glowed in the semi-darkness.

Commuters were already hurrying into Clapham Junction in their suits and overcoats, beating the crowds as they gripped their briefcases and free sheets and paper cups from Starbucks with plastic lids. Their breath steamed in the cold morning air, and nobody seemed in any way interested in anyone else around them.

Certainly nobody gave Chet a second glance as he queued up to buy a ticket from the machine. He decided to use cash rather than his card – too easy to trace.

Ticket in hand, he walked along the covered walkway from which a number of flights of wide stairs led down to the platforms. The sound of trains arriving and departing was everywhere. Station announcements echoed over the Tannoy. Chet checked his watch. 06.29. Platform 15 was at the other end of the walkway. He limped towards it as commuters hurried past.

He was at the top of the steps leading down to Platform 15 when he heard the sound of a train coming into the station, its wheels making the familiar, rhythmic sound over the tracks, blotting out the sound of a station announcement; and he was just hauling himself down the steps when he heard a man scream.

Chet stopped. He could hear the train braking quickly, then there was shouting. He limped quickly to the top of the stairs, where he saw an already crowded platform. There was a commotion at the end of the platform from which the train had arrived and it sent a sick feeling through Chet’s body. ‘Get out of my way,’ he roared as he barged past a couple of commuters. ‘Move!’

The train had stopped now. Chet turned left, towards the front end. The other travellers were giving each other anxious looks, as if they didn’t know quite what to do; a few made angry remarks as Chet stormed through them.

He was alongside the front carriage when he heard a second scream. A woman. Hysterical. ‘Oh my God! Oh my
God!
’

Chet continued to push his way through.

‘Someone
help
him,’ the woman sobbed.

He reached the edge of the platform and pulled the sobbing woman out of the way. There was a streak of blood on the front of the train, and through the windscreen glass he could see the driver with a horrified look on his face.

Chet stared down at the track. It was impossible to make out the features on the mangled body that lay there. The side of the face that was visible was just an oozing welt of gore. One arm was pinned behind the figure’s back in a gruesomely unnatural position, the shoulder joint and the elbow obviously snapped and splintered; the other arm was simply crushed.

But Chet didn’t need to see the face. All he needed to see was the prosthetic leg, almost identical to his own. It was still vaguely attached to Doug’s knee, but pointing out at a ninety-degree angle, and split about halfway down.

Dread and anger seeped through Chet’s bones in equal measure. He staggered back from the edge of the platform to allow two Transport Police officers to take his place. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,
please
step back from the platform,’ one said loudly. ‘Please step back – the emergency services need to come through.’

Chet hardly heard them. He pressed his back against a rail map on the platform wall as the chaos unfolded, trying to suppress the sickness, trying to think clearly.

Was his friend dead by coincidence? Like hell he was.

But with the possible exception of Doug’s girlfriend, nobody knew they were meeting. Nobody knew they were there.

Suddenly Chet felt his blood turn cold. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and stared at it.

Somebody must have been listening in to their conversation.

He cursed himself for being so stupid, then quickly fumbled with the handset’s rear panel and removed the battery and SIM card so that the phone couldn’t be tracked. He stuffed the SIM card into his wallet; the phone he could dump when he found a bin.

Quickly he replayed in his head what he and his friend had said on the phone. Would any eavesdropper have known that Doug was an amputee too? Chet didn’t think so. And there was only one conclusion to draw from that . . .

‘
Jesus, mate
,’ he whispered to himself. ‘
They were after me, not you. I’m so fucking sorry.
’

Then his skin prickled as another realisation hit him.

He’d made more than one call using this phone the night before.

A face rose in his mind. Red hair. A small silver stud in her pretty, turned-up nose.

Suze McArthur
.

Chet stuffed the dismembered phone in his pocket and started to push his way hurriedly back along the platform. He had no idea where the young woman lived. He had no idea what she knew. But he had to get to her now. And fast.

Before someone else did.

TEN

Chet had a name. He had a phone number. Ten minutes later, after a call from a public phone box to an old army mate of his who had access to the Police National Computer, he had an address committed to memory.

Flat 6, 124 Wimbourne Terrace, W2. He consulted his mental map of the capital. Suze McArthur, whoever she was, lived on the other side of London. It would take him the best part of an hour to get there, and an hour could easily be too long. He called her number: maybe he could persuade her to get the hell out of her flat. But the phone rang out. Was that good or bad? Chet didn’t know. He slammed the receiver down and limped back to his car. His only option was to struggle through the rush-hour traffic.

It was getting lighter now, but the sky was cloudy and grey. He kept seeing the intruder – her cold face – and Doug’s mangled and broken body. He kept hearing the American voice he’d overheard the day before.
Trust me, Prime Minister Stratton. This war is good to go . . . the Americans are all on board. The question is, how are
you
going to get it through . . . ?

There was something more to it than that. There
had
to be. What
else
had they been saying in that meeting? What was so important that somebody had tried to kill him, and succeeded in taking the life of his friend? There was only one person who might know the answer to that, and Chet had to get to her soonest.

He lost count of the number of cars he cut up, or of red lights that he ran, or of angry shouts from drivers as he forced his way across London. Even with all that, it was still just shy of 07.45 when he pulled into the top of Wimbourne Terrace, a narrow street of mansion-block flats round the back of Edgware Road tube station.

It was a residential road. No shops or cafés, but still a fair number of people walking along either side. Chet drove slowly down the road, looking out for number 124. It would be on the right, and . . .

He took a sharp breath.

Number 124 looked like all the other blocks with its black and white chequerboard pathway leading up to an ornate red-painted door with two frosted-glass panels. But on the other side of the road, sitting in a white VW Golf, was a woman he recognised. Dark, wavy hair. A beautiful face. The last time he’d seen her was in the rear-view mirror of his own car, as she stood outside his flat, pistol in hand.

Chet lowered his head as he passed. Had the intruder clocked him? He fucking hoped not.

At the far end of Wimbourne Terrace, some twenty metres away, he pulled into the kerb. He realised he was breathing deeply, trying to keep his mind and body steady. Was she alone? Were there others conducting surveillance on Suze McArthur’s flat? What was her strategy – to wait until the girl left, then follow her? Or was an accomplice already inside?

Whatever was happening, Chet couldn’t just walk up to the door and ring the bell. The woman in the Golf was, to Chet’s certain knowledge, armed; he wasn’t. She was able-bodied; Chet was far from it. He considered moving round to the back of the block to see if there was another entrance, but there was no way he was going to take his eyes off the woman. He needed a distraction. Something quick.

There was a public phone in a Perspex booth a few metres from the car. Leaving the car on a double yellow – there was no other choice – he hurried over to the booth. He looked around, checking for CCTV. Nothing jumped out, not that that meant much. Whether he was on camera or not, he had to act quickly.

He could still see the Golf as he picked up the receiver and dialled 999.

A female voice answered after two rings. ‘Which service do you require?’

‘Police,’ Chet replied.

‘Please hold the line.’

A pause, then a new voice. ‘Go ahead, caller. You’re through to the police.’

Chet affected a note of panic. ‘I . . . I think I’ve seen someone with a gun.’

‘Where did you see this?’

‘Wimbourne Terrace, W2. It’s a woman. I saw her getting into a white VW Golf.’

‘Do you have the registration number, caller?’

‘No . . . it’s about halfway up the street.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Just up the road. I thought I should call . . .’

‘Please tell me what number you’re calling from.’

Chet recited the number displayed in the phone booth.

‘Stay away from the area, caller. A patrol car will be . . .’

But Chet had already hung up.

He knew the police would be there quickly. Any sniff of gun crime and they were all over it like the clap. Would it be quick enough? He’d have to wait and see. Chet walked back towards where the white Golf was parked. He stopped about twenty metres away from it, on the same side as number 124. From here he could see the entrance to Suze’s building, and also the vehicle. If the intruder made a move, he could intervene. But otherwise he was going to wait.

A minute passed.

Two.

It was faint at first, almost indistinguishable from the general hubbub of London, and the roar of traffic on the flyover. But gradually it got louder: the sound of sirens, two of them, maybe three, it was difficult to tell. Chet had to time it right. Too early and he’d announce his presence to the intruder. Too late and the police would be here, stopping him from gaining access to the flat.

He waited until he could see the first car, its blue light flashing, scream round the corner into Wimbourne Terrace before he moved. He covered the distance to Suze’s flat as quickly as he could, keeping his head down so the intruder wouldn’t recognise him until it was too late. But, stepping on to the chequerboard path, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder.

The driver’s door of the Golf was open. A figure was getting out.

He rang the bottom bell as the sound of the sirens got louder.

Five seconds passed before there was an answer. It felt like five years. ‘Hello.’

‘Police,’ Chet replied, knowing the occupant would be able to hear the sirens. ‘Open the front door and stay in your flat.’

The woman from the Golf had crossed the road.

‘
Open the door, now!
’ Chet barked.

A buzzing sound and the latch clicked. He pushed the door open and slipped inside. As he turned to close it behind him, he saw her: the woman’s eyes were flashing angrily and she was striding towards the door, no more than five metres away. Chet pushed the door closed, hearing the latch click just as she reached the threshold. Through the frosted glass he saw her silhouette, with the blue lights of the police car flashing behind her.

Chet didn’t linger. He moved along the short hallway, past the door of the ground-floor flat and up the thinly carpeted stairs. By the time he’d climbed three flights, his leg was in agony, but he kept going. Less than a minute later he was standing outside the door to the top flat. Flat 6. He hammered on the door: three heavy thumps, followed by another three when there was no answer. But he could hear movement inside. ‘Suze,’ he shouted. ‘Open the door. You’re in danger and you need to let me in.’