The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (26 page)

Milton collected his shirt. It was soaked through, but he put it on anyway. He pulled on the balaclava, put his head and shoulders into the hole and slithered ahead. It was an uncomfortable sensation again, made worse by the thought of the three men behind him and the clamour that announced that the emergency services must be on their way, and he was grateful when he managed to force his way through and into the corridor beyond.

He slid beneath the two doors that they had forced and reached for the rope.

He put the bag over his shoulder and started to climb.

THE WHITE TRANSIT van drove away before Hicks could confront the driver. The sound of the alarm from inside the vault was loud, and smoke belched out from the gap beneath the door and a letterbox that didn’t close all the way. Hicks guessed that the driver had made the assessment that there was nothing to be done, so she had evacuated the area to save herself before the arrival of the authorities.

That moment was close at hand. As Hicks slid back into the stolen car and started the engine, he saw the flashing blue and red lights of a fire engine as it turned off Holborn and started north up Hatton Garden. Milton and Hicks had looked at the map of the area and added the locations of the nearest fire stations. It was one and a half miles to Soho, the location of the station they thought most likely to respond. With no traffic on the road and travelling under blue lights, they had estimated that the engines would take five minutes to arrive.

That was going to be cutting it very tight.

The truck killed its siren and pulled to a stop outside the vault.

“They’re here, Milton,” he said into the microphone of the headset. “You need to be out of there.”

No response.

The fire-fighters spilled out of the engine and hurried to the door, the tendrils of smoke uncurling into the light from the streetlamps. One of the men tried the door; a second went back to the truck and returned with a sledgehammer.

Hicks couldn’t wait any longer. He put the car into gear and pulled out, driving carefully so as to avoid drawing attention to himself. As he turned into St Cross Street, he saw another fire truck and a police car racing north along Hatton Garden.

“Milton,” he said, “respond.”

Still nothing.

“You’ve got to get out, Milton. Now. I’m going to wait on Kirby Street for as long as I can.”

Nothing.

MILTON STARTED the climb back up to the fifth floor. Smoke was dribbling into the lift shaft from ventilation shafts and between the imperfect seal of the lobby doors on the first floor. The sound of the alarm was louder as he ascended past the ground floor. The smoke thickened and he was glad of the wool of the balaclava over his mouth. He moved slowly and purposefully, hauling the rope hand over hand. There were plenty of footholds on his ascent, but the muscles in his arms and shoulders were burning by the time he reached the open doors. He stepped out and pulled the rope up behind him. He didn’t think that the men in the vault would be able to free themselves, but, in the event that they managed it, he wanted to make sure that they would find it as difficult as possible to follow him. He was confident that they would still be there when the authorities arrived and, as he rolled his shoulders to relieve the ache, he heard the sound of sirens from outside.

He needed to move faster.

Milton took the bag and ran to the sixth floor. He jogged through the office and pulled himself up the rope that they had used to enter the office. He braced himself on the lip of the opened skylight and pushed until he was out and on the roof, inhaling the cool air. He crept to the edge and looked down. Blue light flashed against the walls of the narrow canyon that was formed by the buildings on either side of the road. Fire-fighters were disembarking from two tenders, and, as he watched, a police car raced from the direction of Holborn. It screeched to a stop as another car pulled away from the kerb, rolled up to St Cross Street and turned to the east.

Hicks.

The street was too busy for Milton to exit through the coffee shop without drawing attention to himself. He had anticipated that.

Milton quickly undid the knot that had fastened the rope to the chimney, coiled it around his arm and, with the bag over his shoulder, ran across the rooftop to the west. The block was wide, around eighty metres from one edge to the other, and the heights of the rooftops varied from building to building. Milton clambered up some and slithered down others, leaping gaps and vaulting over obstructions, moving as quickly as he dared while still maintaining his footing. It took him three minutes to reach the opposite edge. He looked down on Leather Lane. It was empty. He knew that it wouldn’t stay that way for long, especially when the men in the vault had been discovered, so he quickly looped the rope around an air-conditioning unit and tossed the rest over the side. The roof was around twelve metres above the street, and the rope was only six metres long.

He lowered himself over the edge, snagged the rope with both hands and then started to slither down it. He moved slowly, passing the rope from one hand to the other. The top two floors were empty offices, marked out by the estate agent’s board that had been fixed to the building below him. The rope ran out when he was at the level of the second storey. He shrugged the straps of the bag off his shoulder and let them slide down his arm. The bag fell, landing with a muffled thump that would not be audible above the din of the engines and alarms from the other side of the building. He looked down. There was a narrow cornice above the fascia of the shop below; Milton could see from the protruding circular sign that it was a restaurant called Soya.

He rested his boots on the sill of the nearest window and, letting go of the rope, lowered himself so that he was in a squat. He turned, gripped the wet sill as best he could, and, moving slowly, he gradually let his arms bear his weight. When his arms were fully extended, he took one final look down and then, hoping for the best, he let go. Milton’s descent was swift, but he was able to arrest it by grabbing his left hand onto the sign and his right onto the exposed edge of the cornice. His shoulders shrieked from the sudden exertion and the sign creaked as two of the screws that held it into place were torn out of the fascia.

Milton glanced down to the pavement, let go, and dropped the final two metres to the ground. He landed in a crouch, absorbing the impact easily, collected the bag and then set off at once. He headed north, passing the skeletal struts and corrugated sheets of a temporary market being built for Christmas, following Leather Lane to its junction with St Cross Street.

The alarms continued to wail behind him and, as he walked, he heard a crash and the sound of splintering wood. The fire brigade were breaking into the building.

HICKS HAD parked on Kirby Street, opposite the offices of a trendy creative design agency. He saw the figure as it turned right on St Cross Street. It was a man, medium height and build, a bag slung over his shoulder. He walked purposefully towards the car, approaching from the rear. Hicks tapped his foot on the brake two times, signalling with the lights, and then put the car into gear. The figure drew closer and passed through the downward cone of light thrown out by a streetlamp. It was Milton. He left the pavement and crossed into the street, opened the passenger door and got inside.

“What took you so long?” Milton said. “Any longer and I would’ve been shot.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Hicks said. “Reception wasn’t great.”

“Never mind.”

“You get it?” Hicks said.

Milton rested his hand on the bag on his lap. “I got it.”

“The others?”

“Left them inside.”

Hicks pulled out and drove south to Greville Street. “You get all of them?”

“Frankie Fabian wasn’t there. Just his boys and a man he put on the team. His daughter was in the van. What happened to her?”

“She left when the fire engines came.”

Milton nodded. “She’s next. Her and her dad.”

MILTON TOLD HICKS to drive them south, to Peckham Rye. He drove carefully, aware that to invite police attention now would be a very bad idea. Milton was silent, his face lost in concentration. He was soaked through, his shirt and trousers sodden from the extinguishers.

“What now?” Hicks said.

“After we’re done, I need to look at what I’ve got. The photos. When that’s done, I’m going to get them published. Higgins is going to find out what happened soon. Tomorrow, most likely. It’ll be on the news. I don’t want to hang on too long.”

“And Higgins?”

“Relax, Hicks. I gave you my word. You helped me, I’ll help you.”

“You still want to play it like we said?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a different way?”

Milton looked across at him, but didn’t speak.

“Never mind,” Hicks said.

They turned onto Bellenden Road and Milton told him to slow the car. They passed beneath a railway bridge and Milton pointed to the left, into a narrow road that offered access to the railway arches. Businesses had been established in the arches: a garage that specialised in clutch and gearbox repairs, another that offered MOTs, a warehouse. The two arches farthest away from the road looked as if they were vacant, and Milton told Hicks to pull up alongside them. He stopped the car and killed the engine.

“Lovely place,” he said, looking out just as a train rumbled over the bridge, squares of light from the brightly lit windows passing across the blue-painted wall to their right.

They both got out of the car. Milton walked to the door of the nearest unit. The arch had been bricked in, with a metal door set into the middle of the new wall. There was a manual combination lock on the door, and Hicks stood guard as Milton tapped in a code. The door unlocked and Milton pushed it open. He went inside first and Hicks followed.

It was dark. Hicks couldn’t see anything, but he could hear the sound of a powerful industrial extractor fan. Milton muttered that he couldn’t remember where the light switch was, and Hicks was about to offer to go and collect his flashlight from the boot of the car when two big strip lights flickered on above them. The room was filled with light.

Hicks looked around. Metal racking had been fitted along three walls of the space. The shelves were empty.

“What was this?

“It was the south London armoury for Group Fifteen. They cleared it out years ago, but the code still works.”

“That was fortunate,” Hicks said. “It’s quiet here.”

“It’s best that no one sees us.”

Hicks nodded. He wasn’t looking forward to what he knew was coming next.

“Your family?” Milton asked.

“My wife’s taken the kids to a friend’s cottage. Cornwall. Wish I was there, too.”

“You don’t get to relax yet. We’re only half done.”

Hicks felt a twist of apprehension. “I know.”

“You want a recap?”

“No,” Hicks said. “I got it.”

“You know what you’ve got to say to Higgins?”

“I’m fine, Milton. I’ve got it down.”

“You’ve got to be convincing.”

“I will be.”

“If you’re not—”

“I know, I know. I will be.”

“We’ve got to make it
look
convincing, too.”

“I’m not arguing. Let’s get it over with.”

Milton took off his jacket and hung it over the strut of one of the empty racks. He rolled up the sleeves of his wet shirt and balled his hands into fists. “Ready?”

“Do it.”

Milton drew back his fist and struck Hicks square in the face. Milton’s knuckles landed flush with Hicks’s cheekbone and the starburst of pain that exploded was sudden and vicious. Hicks shook his head to try to clear it.

“Fuck,” he said. “That smarts.”

Milton opened and closed his fist. “Ready?” he said.

“Again.”

RICHARD HIGGINS had followed his usual routine that morning. He had risen at five thirty, gone for a run in the fields around his village, returned to shower and shave, and dressed in the clothes that he had prepared the night before.

Satisfied, he checked his appearance in the long free-standing mirror and went downstairs.

Higgins lived alone. He had never married and had never really been interested in the idea of it. He had always been a solitary person, from his youth throughout his career in the army and beyond, and he couldn’t abide the thought of sharing his time with someone else. He supposed, when he was honest, that it was a selfish trait, but he didn’t care. He was not prepared to sacrifice the life that he had built for himself in order to allow someone else the privilege of sharing it with him.

His cottage was quiet as he came downstairs. He switched on the breakfast news as he went through into the kitchen to fix his cereal. When he came back, the presenters had handed off to an outside broadcast that was filming on a street that he thought he recognised.

He turned up the volume.

He
did
recognise it. The reporter was standing in front of the doors to the London Vault. He had passed through those doors many times over the course of the last twenty years. He felt as if he was going to be sick.

The reporter spoke into the camera: “Hundreds of safe deposit boxes were emptied from the London Vault Safe Deposit company in London’s jewellery district over the weekend in a dramatic heist. The thieves reportedly entered the company’s premises through an elevator shaft in the building before using heavy cutting equipment to penetrate the vault. The robbers were also able to disarm the security system, allowing them to cut through the vault over the weekend undisturbed. An estimated two hundred safe deposit boxes were emptied during the robbery.”

Higgins watched until the end of the report, then collected his phone from the charger and took it outside into the garden. It was a cold morning, dew clinging to the flowers and glistening on the lawn. He dialled Woodward.