Shredder (10 page)

Richard glanced over my shoulder and paused in his crouch, wavering, with the knife still primed and ready. I kept my eyes locked on him, and felt rather than saw McGovern's heavies piling into the room behind me. Richard smiled, then laughed, then straightened up. He held his hands wide open in surrender, but he didn't drop the knife; instead he gritted his teeth and held his breath, and with one swift movement drove the point into his own throat.

Blood spurted across Bonnie's bedclothes, and Richard staggered and collapsed in a heap. With a yell of anger and frustration I dived on top of him, grabbing Kelly's jeans and clamping them against his jugular where the knife still protruded, visibly twitching in time to his fading pulse. Nobody offered to help: his former comrades-in-arms stood around
watching, probably figuring out who was going to cop the blame when the Guvnor heard about this. Soon the blood had soaked through Kelly's jeans and was staining my hand; it was spreading across the carpet—I could feel its warm stickiness under my knees. In less than a minute Richard stopped twitching and the light faded from his eyes.

Cherry was practically sleepwalking; she was still stoned and half drunk when she went to fetch the first-aid kit, and I told her not to bother trying to patch me up—I'd sort myself out. She didn't argue, but took the kids up to her bed to comfort them while I taped the slash on my chest shut with surgical tape. Without stitches I was going to end up with a spectacular scar, but I didn't think McGovern would let me go to the emergency room. It was too late for Victoria, the nanny. When I'd led the Guvnor's crew down to Richard's room we found her wide-eyed and staring, her golden hair matted with blood.

The Guvnor had arrived about an hour later, and went up to check on his wife and kids while I sat there waiting in their showroom kitchen with its granite worktops and hand-painted oak cupboards. I was too tired to go back to bed, anyway. I sat there
cursing myself for not saving Victoria, even though I knew if I'd stopped to help her the kids would be dead. It didn't make me feel any better. OK, she was one of McGovern's employees, but she hadn't signed up for a war, any more than I had. She'd loved Bonnie and Kelly, and they'd loved her. I wondered how McGovern would get rid of her corpse. Bury it in the garden? No—they'd want to lose the body and make sure it could never be connected to the Guvnor. They'd smash her face and hands and teeth so she couldn't be identified, and dump her body in water somewhere to destroy any forensic or DNA evidence. Suddenly my stomach heaved, and only the burning pain of the cut to my chest stopped me from bending over and spewing.

Footsteps came striding down the hall: the Guvnor entered, looking scruffier than usual—he must have thrown his clothes on in a hurry—then stopped and peered at me with his chilly gray eyes. Steve was at his shoulder, pale and shocked, and behind them Terry filled the doorway.

“I was wrong about you, Finn,” said McGovern. “Turns out you were some use after all.” He offered me his hand, and I took it. His grasp was cool and firm.

“How are they?” I said. “The kids?”

“Shook up, but they'll survive,” said McGovern. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat, weary and more drawn than I'd ever seen him. “They been asking for Victoria. I told 'em she had to leave in a hurry.” I wondered how many previous employees of McGovern had had to “leave in a hurry.”

“He told me I was working for the Turk,” I said. “Richard, I mean. I think he was planning to pin all of it on me. Kill your family, then me, and tell everyone he'd caught me in the act. Make it look like Trafalgar Square was me setting you up as well.”

“That must have been the Turk's idea too,” said Steve. “Richard was never the brightest bulb in the box.”

“How long had he been working for you?” I said.

“Seven years, on and off,” said McGovern. “Two inside after a job went wrong. Done his bird, never talked, never complained…I trusted him.” He looked at Steve. “If he's been working for the Turk all along, that explains a lot.”

“A lot of what?” I said.

McGovern answered me but ignored my question. “Terry's taking the kids and their mum away to a safe house, a place nobody knows about but me and him. To keep them out of harm's way till
this is over.” His pale eyes drilled into me as if he was trying to figure out my angle, like he couldn't understand why I'd risked my life to save his children. “Thanks for what you did tonight. And in the square. I owe you.”

“Don't worry about it,” I said, and not just from politeness—I didn't want the Guvnor owing me anything. “I just want to go home.”

“You sure about that?” said McGovern. “When the Turk finds out it was you who stopped Richard, you'll be better off in here than out there.”

“So don't tell him,” I said. Just then a thought occurred to me, but I didn't voice it. If McGovern was willing to consider letting me walk away, I wasn't going to distract him.

“If I'd let you go last time you asked, my kids would be dead.” McGovern grinned like a wolf. “So let me think about it.” He turned to Terry and sighed. “Search him,” he said.

Terry stepped forward, grabbed the back of my chair, dragged it back and tipped me out of it so I had to stand.

“What the hell—?” I said. Terry's meaty paws slapped me down: one trouser leg, then the other, and finally he took a good handful of my backside
and crotch. “You think I've been stealing the spoons or something?” I asked McGovern.

“If Richard was talking to the Turk, he must have had a second phone,” said McGovern. “Have you seen it?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Just before he slashed my chest open he ordered a pizza with extra mushrooms.”

“We found his smartphone,” said McGovern. “Nothing on that. So he must have used a burner.”

“If he did, I don't have it,” I said. “Shall I drop my pants? You can check up my ass.”

McGovern looked like he was considering it. “Leave it,” he said to Terry finally. “Go turn his room over.” He stood up.

“This needs stitches,” I said, pointing to the badly bandaged slash on my chest. “I have to go to the emergency room.”

“No you don't,” said the Guvnor. “One of the lads is good with a needle and thread. He'll sort you out. Steve, get Chris onto that.”

Steve nodded, and without another glance at me, McGovern headed off up the corridor.

“Chris?” I said to Steve. “He a nurse or something?”

“Na,” said Steve, taking the seat his father had vacated. “His dad was a vet.”

“Great,” I said. “He can sort out my fleas while he's at it.”

“I wanted to say sorry,” said Steve. “For everything earlier.” That shut me up. Steve was staring at the table in embarrassment, clearly unaccustomed to apologizing. Then he seemed to realize that was rude, and with an effort he lifted his head and looked me in the eye. “For smacking you about that time, and all the accusations, and waving that gun about…I've been a total jerk. You saved the kids, and my dad, and I appreciate it. It was me who shoulda been there, both times, and I wasn't, and I feel so awful about it, and took it out on you…. Anyway, thanks, sorry.”

“Forget about it,” I said, and this time I meant it. Maybe he wasn't as big a prat as I'd thought. It must have been hard growing up the shadow of a dad like McGovern, constantly having to prove yourself vicious enough to be worthy of the family name.

“My dad's grateful too,” Steve went on. “More than he let on. It's just, things aren't going our way. If that had gone down tonight…What a fucking savage the Turk is, attacking children.”

I wondered if he could hear what he was saying. Not two days ago McGovern had been demanding information on Pirbal's family, and it wasn't because
he planned to send them a bouquet. Amobi had told me once how the Guvnor had had enemies and even former friends maimed and raped and blinded—for him there were no innocent bystanders, and no act was too atrocious. That was what had won him his reputation, and had made him untouchable, until now.

Now he had an opponent ruthless enough to play by the same rules, and smart enough to strike first.

“Your dad said Richard's working for Pirbal explained a lot,” I said. “What was that about?”

Steve glanced at the door to check if anyone there might overhear. “His name's not Pirbal,” he said at last. “Everything we thought we had on him was wrong. We don't know who he is, who's working with him, nothing.”

“What about your contact at the Border Agency?”

“He's been nicked,” said Steve. He dug a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, flipped it open and muttered a curse—it was empty. He crushed the box in his hand, kicked his chair back and went wandering round the kitchen, looking for the bin concealed behind one of the dozens of identical exquisite hand-painted cabinets.

“That's one hell of a coincidence,” I said.

“Two of our contacts in the Met have been busted,” went on Steve. “Another one's suspended from duty. Our people hit a warehouse he was supposed to have been using—turned out to be an abandoned chicken shed, nothing there. Meanwhile, a truckload of merchandise we were bringing in from Austria got hijacked and burned, driver got his legs broken.” He finally pulled at the right handle and a rubbish bin slid silently out from under the counter. He tossed the empty cig packet in and slammed the door shut again with his knee. “And Gary died,” he said. “My dad and him knew each other since they were kids.”

Gary? Sunburned Gary, who'd been shot in Trafalgar Square? I'd liked him. He'd been helpful and polite and considerate, for a thug.

“I thought he was recovering,” I said.

“He was,” said Steve. “He's not anymore.”

“If that was the Turk's lot, how the hell did they get to him? There were cops outside his door.”

Steve shrugged. “You can say it.”

“What?”

“
I told you so
. You tried to warn us. This Turk is the worst thing to come out of Europe since the frigging Common Market. He turned Richard, shopped our
contacts, fed us useless intel. We've been fighting in the dark. But now that Richard's been thwarted—thanks to you—all that's going to change.”

The thought that had bugged me earlier while I'd spoken to the Guvnor came back to me, and this time I voiced it. “If the Turk got to Richard, how do you know he hasn't got to anyone else?”

“We don't,” admitted Steve. “From now on we're taking nothing for granted.”

“What's your dad going to do?”

Steve pulled his nose. “Let's just say we have foreign associates who are very keen to protect their investment. Between them and us, we're going to send this towelhead back to Crapistan or wherever in two-gram plastic bags. Apart from that—sorry, kid. After tonight, it's strictly need-to-know.”

Fine by me, I thought. I didn't need to hear details, and I didn't want to. I wasn't running any more errands for the Turk or trying to gather intelligence for Amobi, and I wasn't going to risk my neck for the Guvnor again. When Steve had mentioned “associates,” I'd guessed he was talking about the Russians, but I said nothing. Sometimes it's safer to be taken for stupid; I wished I'd remembered that earlier.

“Steve,” I said. “Ask your dad to let me go. I must
have done my bit by now. I'm not going to talk to the Turk or the cops. There's nothing useful I could tell them even if I wanted to.”

Steve studied me and sucked his teeth. “All right,” he said finally. “I'll see what I can do.”

He strolled out, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I waited a beat, listening to his footsteps fade, then quickly reached under the table, retrieved Richard's phone and stuffed it down the crotch of my jeans—I wasn't likely to get frisked again.

When I'd led the Guvnor's guards to Victoria's body, still sprawled across Richard's bed, they'd been too disgusted and upset to notice the cheap flip phone lying on the bedside chest of drawers. But I'd seen it, and immediately knew it must be Richard's burner, and I'd slipped it into my pocket unnoticed. I'd guessed the Guvnor would tell his people to find it, so when Cherry had left me alone with the first-aid kit I'd stuck it to the underside of the table with surgical tape. It was my insurance policy: if they didn't let me go, I'd call Amobi to bust me out of there, and if they did…they owed me a phone anyway, since the barmaid at the Horsemonger had trashed my old one.

I had a good idea who'd answer if I pressed redial,
but I wasn't going to do that—I never wanted to talk to the Turk again. I wasn't even going to switch the phone on until I had to; then I'd make one call and drop it down a drain somewhere.

Steve returned. “My dad says yes,” he said, jerking his chin at me. “Go.”

“So how did this happen?” asked the emergency room nurse. He was a bit old for a nurse—fifty-something—with a scruffy graying beard and an Ulster accent like my father's.

“DIY,” I said. “I was mending a broken window, dropped a piece of glass.”

“At this time of night?” The nurse peered at me over his rimless glasses. “Looks more like a knife cut to me.” I didn't answer, and he didn't ask again, but turned to the white metal trolley beside him. “I'll give you something for the pain,” he said. “Otherwise this will sting a bit. A lot, actually.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “Just get on and do it.”

It was five by the time I left the ER and emerged onto the empty street, under an inky blue sky slowly being bleached by the dawn. It had been a long night, but the air was still as hot and motionless and
clammy as it had been the day before, and the day ahead promised to be yet another scorcher.