A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series) (32 page)

Danny looked up from his reverie as Hanlon, following the instructions on her satnav, turned off the main road on to the track that led down to the Huss farm. Towards the top of the track was a small stone building that stood near to where Joad had blocked Huss’s path the other day. Huss’s car was parked outside and Hanlon pulled in next to it.

Huss heard the engine noise of Hanlon’s Audi and opened the door of the outhouse. Hanlon parked and she and Danny got out and joined her. The storehouse was large inside, tools and bags of feed for pheasant and various other agricultural products were stacked round the walls. There was a table in the middle of the room under the single, bare light bulb and Huss had spread out an Ordnance Survey map of the area.

She pointed out the layout of the farm. Access was similar to her own property, down a tarmacked private drive. They looked at an image from Google Earth on Huss’s laptop, also open on the table. The fields on either side were large, wide and flat.

At the end of the fields was the farm itself. It was small. The aerial view showed a barn, some outhouses and the farmhouse itself. Like most farms, everything centred around the farmyard. Farms looked inward, not outward. They were introspective places. Huss pointed at the farmhouse.

‘The stockman who works for my dad, Derek, used to work for Old Man Miller who had Tragoes Farm till he died about twenty years ago. He said the house was in a real mess, nothing had been done to it since the Second World War. The electrics were lethal. But he did say that off the kitchen there was an old-style meat store, no windows, to keep flies and insects out, really thick stone walls, big old door. It’s probably there they’ve put Enver. It’d be soundproof as well as escape proof.’

She thought briefly back a few hours. Dimitri had phoned Joad on some pretext, and at some point he had stopped and said, ‘Say hi to the police, Enver.’ Through her tears, tears that she’d held back so Joad wouldn’t see, Huss had heard Enver swear at him, then a gasp of pain as Dimitri had kicked him. You’ll pay for that, she said to herself.

Chantal, too, had told them that it was Dimitri who had tortured Enver. The Huss family don’t forget things like that, she thought. Huss’s family had been in their village for at least six hundred years, almost certainly much, much longer. Huss’s ancestors had fought in the Civil War at Oxford, dying by the side of Colonel John Hampden the Parliamentarian, at Blenheim, and in both world wars. Their bones had littered battlefields before now and, if necessary, would again, thought Melinda Huss savagely. The Huss clan knew how to fight; the Huss clan knew how to die.

Hanlon nodded. ‘Access?’ she asked.

Huss pointed at the track. ‘Down here obviously, but, as you can see, there’s this wood here.’ She pointed at the image. ‘And there’s a path through the woods, quite well used, it’s part of some sort of heritage trail. Anyway, it comes out down here, the other side of the farm. Then it skirts the farm itself and runs more or less parallel with the track, up to the main road.’

Huss and Danny looked expectantly at Hanlon, the de facto leader. Quickly, Hanlon explained what they would do. It didn’t take long.

When she was finished, Huss said, ‘I think we should call the police, get backup. I don’t see the point in us doing this alone.’

Hanlon looked at her. The point was that she was hoping to kill Arkady Belanov, and Myasnikov were he around, and, if not, to find out where they were so she could get at them. She could hardly tell Huss that.

But it wasn’t going to be straightforward. Simply finding the Butcher could be a problem. Myasnikov would have to be very careful where he slept at night. Anderson was a formidable enemy. He too had contacts in the police as well as his own extensive criminal connections. Then there was Serg Surikov. It wasn’t just Anderson interested in his movements; the FSB were – that meant either the Russian state or Myasnikov’s Russian rivals. And, of course, to a lesser extent, Corrigan.

It was all too simple to see Myasnikov as some sort of deadly, criminal mastermind, which in a sense he was. But as well as being the hunter, he was himself the hunted. Easy, too, to forget, in the wake of the deaths he had caused and the human misery, that Myasnikov was in Britain because Russia was too dangerous for him. Bigger and more dangerous predators swam in those cold, faraway seas.

So finding Myasnikov might be far from easy. But in Myasnikov’s death lay Mark Whiteside’s potential rebirth.

‘The point is that the Russians’ man in the force will tip them off, Melinda,’ said Hanlon. ‘And we’ll end up with either them moving him so we’ll never find him, and he’ll be dead, or there will be some sort of shoot-out or a prolonged hostage situation. Then, when – if – they are all nicked, they’ll be out on bail and I would imagine they’ll come looking for you and your lovely family, who have conspired to deprive them of their liberty and put them inside where Anderson can probably get to them. Isn’t that right, Danny?’

Surprised to hear his name, Danny almost jumped.

‘Oh, yeah. If they end up on remand they might as well top themselves, save someone the bother of doing it. The Russians are dead men if they get banged up. Anderson will see to that.’ He shrugged. ‘But they’ve got a lot of money, a lot of pull probably. They’ll be able to buy a judge to keep them out, I’d have thought, or good enough lawyers. They can claim their human rights would be infringed, that they won’t be treated fairly inside. I bet someone like Cunningham could get them out. The human rights issue will probably do the trick. Lack of a fair trial, questionably obtained evidence, that kind of thing. Plus they’d have a good chance of getting at the jury.’

Hanlon looked at Huss levelly. ‘So, who do you trust more to keep Enver alive? Us, or the British justice system?’

Huss rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not happy about this,’ she said. She stood up and walked over to where the tools were propped against fertilizer sacks, and came back to the table with a bundle wrapped in a plaid blanket in her arms. She put it down on the table and opened it up.

‘None of us are happy, Huss,’ said Hanlon.

Huss passed Hanlon the .22 rifle that had been wrapped in the blanket. ‘It’s Derek’s. He uses it for foxes. That’s a night scope on it; sights are set to two fifty metres.’

Hanlon nodded. She’d have preferred her own gun, still in the boot of her car, but she needed a night scope.

Next to the rifle was an up-and-under pump-action shotgun. ‘Is that for me?’ asked Danny.

‘No, it’s mine,’ said Huss.

‘Can you use it?’ asked Danny.

Huss shook her head disbelievingly. ‘I live on a farm, Danny, and I’m the third best shot with a twelve bore in South Oxfordshire. That’s official. Have you won many cups for shooting?’

Danny was silent.

Huss leaned forward aggressively, her sleeves rolled up over her powerful forearms. ‘I said, how many trophies have you won for shooting, Danny? I’ve got lots. Have you ever shot anything at all. . . ? I’m sorry, what did you say?’

‘No. No, I haven’t.’

‘There you are, then,’ said Huss angrily. ‘I suggest you keep your mouth shut unless you’ve got something useful to say.’

The two of them squared up at each other across the table. Hanlon could see they were both so on edge, so keyed up, that they were practically hysterical. There was a prospect of very real violence.

‘Perhaps I’d better tell you how to use a shotgun or rifle,’ Huss carried on with heavy sarcasm. ‘You put a cartridge in this end, bullets or shot come out of the end with a hole, this wiggly thing is called a tri—’

‘Let’s all calm down,’ said Hanlon acidly. ‘Now, can we please go and find Enver.’

Huss and Danny glared at each other.

‘Danny, you’re coming in my car,’ said Hanlon firmly. Huss and Danny exchanged looks of implacable dislike.

Joad was in Arkady Belanov’s office. He was busy doing what no sane man would ever dream of doing. He was burgling the safe.

When Huss had told him that Hanlon had found the address to the farm and it was tonight it was all going down, he suddenly realized that it would be practically impossible to get any more money out of Belanov.

It hadn’t slipped Joad’s mind that it wasn’t primarily money that had caused him to want to betray the Russians. It was the fact that they were going to kill him. It was ironic really, thought Joad. The seeds of Myasnikov’s destruction lay in the fact that he was too ruthless, too obsessed with housekeeping. If he hadn’t decided to remove him for security reasons, then Joad wouldn’t be busy digging a trap to catch him. If Joad hadn’t stepped up to the plate, who knows where they’d be.
If, if, if.
Joad didn’t deal in ifs.

DI Ian Joad was not the kind of man who dealt with conditional hypotheses and he certainly wasn’t one to buckle under pressure. He was used to the idea that the world was out to get him. He knew that Huss certainly was. Myasnikov’s threat was just one more example of what he was up against. Business as usual.

Belanov’s safe was operated by a standard keypad. It wasn’t particularly large; it wasn’t particularly sophisticated. It contained the takings for the brothel for two or three days, which was a great deal of money. Two hundred pounds an hour, per girl, and there were ten girls working. Clients preferred to pay in cash. Card payments would be listed as the Bulgakov Treatment Clinic to make it sound more therapeutic. But cash was king. No customers wanted awkward questions.

It also had the bar takings and a large float for the till.

The safe also contained quantities of recreational drugs with which clients could enhance their pleasure, plus Viagra for the older generation. There were a couple of handguns in there, some expensive man jewellery that Belanov liked to wear, and a manila envelope stuffed with euros, dollars and roubles, Belanov’s just-in-case fund.

Tonight, the brothel was in full swing. There were fourteen clients, more men than working girls, as some of the customers liked to watch while they shared a girl with a friend. Joad had recognized a couple of senior figures from the more prominent colleges in the town, eminent dons, enjoying pre-coital drinks at the bar.

Good to see the university represented, he thought. Unbeknown to the customers, security had been ramped up. Myasnikov was concerned that Anderson might stage some kind of revenge attack. There were an extra seven men on duty. Two men at the front and back doors, and three in the room with the CCTV monitors. Myasnikov had been in earlier to give them a little pep talk about what would happen if they failed to spot anything untoward. He’d shown them some footage from his phone that he’d taken in Moscow.

‘If a man can’t use his eyes properly when he’s paid to, why should he be allowed to keep them?’ he had asked, in his reasonable voice.

One of the guards had rushed out of the room to throw up.

The following night all the genuine clients would be replaced by
balbesiy
, foot soldiers, in Hanlon’s honour. Belanov would be taking no chances. And Myasnikov would be on his plane.

Joad had seen Belanov use the safe once and had memorized the combination. It had taken the fat man a while to actually open it. The safe was at floor level, bolted to the wall and boards, and to use it Belanov had had to laboriously get down on his hands and knees, which with his weight and girth had taken some time. Getting up had been even more of a struggle. Joad had had to take one of his enormously fat arms and haul him up. It had been like pulling a dustbin up from the bottom of the sea.

Now Joad crouched down lightly, keyed in the number and heard the click as the safe door sprang open. He took the manila envelope after eyeing the handguns thoughtfully. Better not, he thought, God knows what killings those have been linked to ballistically. He put the envelope away in the inside pocket of his seersucker sports jacket (no laundering required!) and brushed some dandruff off the shoulder.

He closed the safe door and stood up. It was fortunate he had finished. Belanov’s office door opened and Myasnikov stood there, with another man wearing motorcycle leathers. In Joad’s eyes he looked too old to be a biker, but these days even eighty-year-olds seemed to be throwing their aged legs over motorbike saddles.

The cult of youth, thought Joad sadly. Fifty-year-olds dressed as toddlers in Day-Glo T-shirts and granddad rockers. What is the world coming to?

Joad didn’t miss a beat. ‘Good evening, Mr Myasnikov. Can I help you?’

Myasnikov didn’t look remotely surprised to find Joad in Arkady Belanov’s office. He had come firmly to believe in his own myth, that no one would be crazy enough to try to cross them. He assumed the policeman had a valid reason to be there.

‘Actually, you can. You can drive me to farm,’ said Myasnikov. He turned to the other man in the leathers. ‘Coming with us?’

The other man shook his head. ‘I have some things I need to do first,’ he said. ‘I’ll take my bike, meet you there later.’ He nodded to Joad and left the room. He didn’t look overly happy to have met the policeman.

‘I don’t know where the farm is,’ said Joad.

‘Well, I suggest you use satnav,’ said the Butcher. ‘It’ll be on there, won’t it.’

Now why didn’t I think of that? thought Joad as the two of them left the office. The money in Joad’s pocket made a hugely incriminating bulge. As he closed the door behind him he glanced at the grandfather clock in the foyer of the brothel. Arkady thought it lent the place a classy touch.

Eleven thirty p.m.

I hope to God Hanlon’s on time, thought Joad. I wish I’d taken one of those automatics now.

As they got into the Mercedes, his Mercedes, Joad noticed a scuff mark and a small dent by the headlight on the driver’s side. He got in the car and adjusted the seat. It had been pushed far back. Dimitri must have been driving. He was a careless driver. Joad felt a surge of rage at what he’d done to the blameless car with his selfish ineptitude. Dimitri had never really got used to driving on the left.

My car, he thought.

As he started the engine he patted the steering wheel soothingly. He’ll pay for that, he promised the car.