The Blood Whisperer (20 page)

She shouldered into the straps of the backpack as she went, hardly able to see for the sudden blurring of her vision.

Uppermost was anger, she realised. Anger at herself that she’d slid into trust so easily. She’d thought after David that trusting a man—being attracted to him—would not happen without a long association. And yet she’d found herself going to Lytton within days of their first meeting. She remembered curling into the side of him on the sofa at his apartment and cursed herself for a weak-minded fool.

She kept heading down, eventually finding an open door that led out onto a walkway at the base of the huge covered stands. In front of her was a set of railings that looked down onto the paddock area. Doors at each end of the walkway were marked EXIT. Kelly hesitated a moment then went left.

As she stepped out she glanced upwards. Somewhere above her Lytton and Warwick were still sitting at the table in the members’ bar, hopefully oblivious to her premature departure.

She felt guilty ducking out and leaving him with the bill until she realised she didn’t have a hope of paying it anyway.

Kelly paused, looked around. She swore under her breath that she hadn’t taken enough note of the way in to have an exit strategy planned. How many times had she listened to other inmates explaining their capture because of just such a mistake. Sitting there listening to their stories it had seemed so elementary. Now she wasn’t so sure.

But Lytton had lulled her into a false sense of security.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
! It echoed in her head to the beat of her own footsteps.
Just because he’s charming and attractive, it doesn’t mean he’s not a monster under the skin.

She should have learned
that
from being inside, if nothing else.

The sign above the double doors lied. When Kelly reached them they were firmly locked, providing no way out. She turned, began to head for the other end.

If they were locked too she was going to have to go back inside, try and find another way that didn’t involve going out past the security man on the desk. She broke into a jog. This was all taking far too long.

As if providing an answer to her prayers the far doors opened and a man came through. Kelly dropped back to a fast walk not wanting to give him cause for a second glance.

He was young, bearded, wearing a black leather coat that bulked out his shoulders. His hair was long enough to wave slightly as he moved.

As he moved . . .

Something stabbed into Kelly’s subconscious with enough of a jolt to make her gasp. A memory that was somehow deeper than a memory. More an inbuilt sense of fear, a primeval instinct.

Predator.

Her body language must have given her away. At the very moment the word formed in her mind she saw the change in him. He abandoned all pretence of being just another visitor there by chance and became the hunter, arrowing in on her.

He was already closer than she was to the door she’d last come through and she knew the one behind her was locked. It only took a fraction of a second to realise she had only one option left.

Kelly put both hands on top of the railing and launched herself over into the space below.

Dmitry darted forwards and made a grab for the woman’s hooded sweatshirt as she jumped. His fingers just brushed the small backpack she carried then she was plunging downwards away from him.

Holy Mary, she has a death wish!

The irony of that thought did not immediately occur to him as he hit the railings leaning out to watch her descent. It was at least five metres to the ground and he expected the worst.

To his amazement she landed feet first, neat as a cat, onto the lid of a big green wheelie bin that was directly below. The plastic deformed like a trampoline to break her fall. She catapulted from there to the ground with hardly a break in stride and took off running.

For a second it was all Dmitry could do to watch her go with his mouth open. He closed it with a snap, slapped the railing hard with both hands in sheer frustration and sprinted back the way he’d come. As he did so he reached for the baton in his jacket pocket.

Nobody had warned him he was after Catwoman.

OK bitch, let’s see you dodge this.

Kelly bolted through the deserted parade ring keeping close in to the line of the building so she’d be harder to track from above. At least she was out in the open although she wondered if that was a good thing or not. Every instinct screamed at her to go to ground.

She’d had no clue when she made her desperate leap what lay beneath. It was entirely by chance that she’d landed squarely on the lid of the bin squashing it inwards as she did so. A foot or so either way and she’d be on her way to hospital by now. Or prison.

Or—if the mystery man had succeeded in getting hold of her—more likely to the mortuary.

A cold shiver sliced across her skin. She’d no idea who he was but at the same time she
did
know him. She just didn’t know
how.

She ducked into a tunnel that led under the stands and out towards the car park and the exits. At the far end was a set of iron gates. Even from here she could tell they were padlocked shut.

She cursed and spun. As she did so she saw a door bounce open further along the stand maybe a hundred yards away. The man in the leather jacket emerged, head swinging as he searched for her.

Kelly retreated into the tunnel again, looked in vain for other doorways leading off it. There weren’t any.

Double stupid . . .

Looking over her shoulder she ran towards the gates. If she’d any hopes that the padlock might be looped through just for show they were dashed as soon as she got close. The lock was snapped firmly shut and threaded through a hefty piece of chain.

Kelly grabbed the padlock. It was old, oiled but worn. She scrabbled out of her pack and dug right to the bottom of the lining for a couple of the grips she’d taken out of her hair.

She prised one of them almost straight and stripped the blob of protective resin off the end with her teeth, spitting it out. Then she knelt to the padlock trying to remember all the secrets her last cellmate had taught her during long days of boredom about the gentle art of lock-picking.

Awkwardly she wedged the end of one grip against the central tumbler to hold it under tension and slid the straightened end of the other into the barrel of the lock itself, raking the pins. It was a tricky balance of force and persuasion not helped by sweaty hands and the rampant fear of imminent discovery.

“Come on come on!” she muttered as she fumbled, almost weeping as the hairgrip slipped. She wiped her hands on the leg of her trousers and tried again.

Then behind her she heard the grit of approaching footsteps suddenly echoing loudly in the tunnel. The rhythm of them changed, picked up, as their owner began to run.

Kelly risked a glance over her shoulder, saw the man in the leather coat closing rapidly, and gave the lock one last frantic try.

Dmitry brought the baton out of his pocket and flicked it upwards to send the inner segments shooting into place.

The woman was on her knees by the gates, facing away from him. He stopped a metre or so from her and laid the baton across her shoulder just at the vulnerable juncture with her neck.

“Stop,” he commanded. “Let me see your hands.”

She froze. Then very slowly she brought both hands up and out to the sides. There was a piece of crumpled wire of some sort in one of them and he realised what she must have been trying to do.

He smiled, slid the baton under his arm and reached for the tie-wraps instead.
Nice and quiet.

“Picking locks is not quite so easy as they make it seem in the movies, huh?” he said, leaning forwards to grab hold of her arm. “OK let’s go. Up.”

She lurched as she rose, stumbled against the gates and put her hands out to steady herself. Dmitry let go briefly. As he did so she whirled, whipping her arm round.

There was a tremendous ringing clatter and something hard and heavy coiled itself stingingly around Dmitry’s knees, pinning them. He tried to stagger back, found he couldn’t move his legs and fell with a roar, spilling the tie-wraps and baton as he went down.

What the . . .?

He realised in a brief flash of intuition that she’d hit him with the chain from the gates. That she had indeed managed to undo the padlock securing it with her makeshift pick.

She tried to hurdle over him but he snagged her ankle and yanked, bringing her down too. The restriction on his legs loosened and he levered up, getting a tight hold of her, pulling her down and rolling her underneath him, using his bodyweight to crush her resistance. She went rigid then began to thrash like a landed shark.

The baton was out of reach but he’d wanted to use it to subdue not kill her here. That would raise far too many difficulties. He’d just have to do this the old-fashioned way.

So he hit her in the face with his closed fist, just once. In Dmitry’s experience that was usually all it took to make a woman compliant enough to handle.

She whimpered and went still under him, trembling.

“That’s better,” he hissed. “Be a good girl and you won’t get any more.”

He stretched sideways for the tie-wraps to secure her but as soon as his body was off centre, her hand darted up clawing her nails into the soft skin behind his ear, dragging him down and away.

At the same time she bucked her hips, getting one knee up and Dmitry found himself sprawling onto his side. He just had time for the anger to flare before the same knee landed hard in his groin and all such thoughts shrivelled in the face of a sickening pain.

She bounced to her feet, snatching up the chain.

“Bastard,” she ground out. “Nobody hits me and gets away with it!” And she kicked him twice in the kidneys. Hard.

Pain encased his torso. For several moments Dmitry lay shallow-breathing around as much of it as he could. He was only dimly aware of the woman snatching up the baton and darting through the gates. On the other side she refastened the chain around them, snapping the padlock shut. He was vaguely aware of her flinging the baton away across the car park with a distant clatter.

Then she was gone. It was some time before Dmitry was able even to consider the possibility of going after her. By then she’d disappeared.

“Where the hell is she?” Warwick grabbed hold of Yana’s shoulders and gave her a rough shake. “What did you say to her?”

“I s-say nothing!” Yana protested. She was crying, the kind of ugly weeping that afflicts some women whose faces go puffy and reddened and their noses stream.

“Leave her alone Steve,” Lytton said tiredly. “It’s not her fault.” But even as he spoke he could not bring himself to feel utterly sorry for a woman who was so damned
passive
all the time. He couldn’t imagine Kelly sitting there sobbing, letting anyone manhandle her.

Kelly.

“She s-say she always plan to run out on y-you,” Yana managed, desperation in her voice. “That s-she taking you for ride.”

“What?”

Yana flinched back at the suppressed anger in Lytton’s voice. Even Warwick flicked him a concerned glance.

“That w-what she s-say!” Yana insisted, hands clutched whitely together around a soggy tissue in her lap, her voice turning sullen. “That she use you.”

Lytton straightened slowly, trying to work out if he was surprised or not.
Not,
he realised after a moment.
Just disappointed.

He turned away, stood by the rail looking down onto the racecourse and sucked up the cold feeling of regret. Behind him he heard Warwick still chastising his wife in low tones, her mumbling replies. He tuned it out.

He’d thought he was good at reading intent. Had to be in this business. People gave you their word and you had to work out instantly whether to take it at face value or not.

But some people you met and just felt a connection. He’d thought Kelly was one of those. Turns out she was little more than a con artist, simply after what she could get and dumping him at the first opportunity.

Question was, why now? What had she learned here or from Veronica’s office that made her decide to up and run?

“Matt?”

He turned, found Warwick hovering by his elbow. “What is it?”

Warwick sighed. “Look, I’m sorry chap. I can see you’re cut up about this.” He paused. “I guess it’s better this way though.”

“Better?” Lytton asked not turning his head.

“Yeah before you get in too deep with this girl.” He glanced around, lowered his voice. “Jesus, Matt she could bring nothing but trouble to us.”

Lytton turned. “You never did explain that one did you?”

Warwick shrugged. “This place, Matt. We’ve got a lot staked on the prestige of this damned race. One breath of scandal and people will stay away in droves. It will finish us.”

“You exaggerate.”

“Oh really?” Warwick leaned on the rail alongside him, close enough to force himself into Lytton’s eyeline. “What is this girl to you? Like Yana says, she was using you and now she’s taken off. Well good riddance. Get over it.” He took a breath, looked about to say more then shut his mouth into a compressed line and went back to his wife.

Lytton was left standing there looking down. Steve was right, he thought. He should forget about Kelly and be thankful the encounter hadn’t cost him more than it had.

So why was that easier said than done?

Kelly sat at the rear of a bus heading back into London, keeping the baseball cap pulled well down over her forehead and her face turned to the glass. Rain was just starting to fall from a darkening sky. It suited her mood.