NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) (26 page)

By
Riley’s reckoning, the journey couldn’t have lasted more than thirty minutes,
but it felt like an hour. Once the man holding her seemed satisfied she wasn’t
going to kick and scream, he let go of her, but made her lie down with her head
pressed into the back seat. To make sure she complied, he held a gun across her
neck, buried under her hair. It felt cold and greasy against her skin, and she
tried to recall what Palmer had told her about safety catches and the
sensitivity of trigger mechanisms.

A stream of
furious words in Russian and the occasional obscenity in English came from the
driver, and Riley guessed it was the man she had hit with the baton.
Eventually, the man holding her tired of it and said something short and sharp.
The complaining ceased.

When the
vehicle stopped, Riley was dragged from the car and marched across a short
expanse of concrete. She had no opportunity to escape. Her captor kept one arm
across her shoulders, his other hand holding her face in a vice-like grip and
pressed into his chest. To an onlooker, Riley decided grimly, they might look
like lovers, and she felt as sickened at that dreadful irony as she was by the
man’s proximity and the smell of his unwashed clothing.

In the
background, the car door slammed and the vehicle moved away.

Seconds later,
a door creaked and she caught a brief glimpse of bright lights. When her feet
echoed over tiled flooring, she knew instinctively where she was.

Pantile House.

The man let go
of her face to palm the door open, and for the first time Riley managed to get
a look at him. Her stomach went cold.

It was Pechov.

The lift hummed
and the floor shifted. They were going up. The close atmosphere held nothing
but the sound of the man’s breathing and the creaking of the lift mechanism.
When it stopped, Pechov bundled her out into a short corridor. One of her shoes
came off, but he forced her on, making no move to retrieve it. He stopped at a
door and kicked it open, pushing her through. She caught the sharp tang of
disinfectant and saw more bright lights, and a row of sinks and several
cubicles with thin walls. A tall metal rubbish bin stood beneath a hand drier.
An extractor fan hummed, giving out an intermittent clatter. A tampon dispenser
was fixed to one wall. They were in a women’s washroom.

A hard chair
was positioned ominously in front of the sinks. Pechov pushed Riley into it.
Yanking her jacket down off her shoulders, he produced a roll of gaffer tape, and
in seconds, had her taped to the chair with her hands immobilised behind her
back.

When he was
satisfied Riley couldn’t move, he took out a mobile and dialled a number. He
spoke briefly, then hung up and looked at her with an evil smile. ‘You in big
trouble,’ he breathed thickly, and took a toffee from his pocket. He unwrapped
it and popped it into his mouth, sucking noisily. ‘Boss is not happy man.’

Footsteps
echoed along the corridor outside the washroom door. For a brief moment, Riley
hoped that it might represent rescue; that someone had seen what was happening
and had come to take her away from this.

Then the door
swung open and Grigori Fedorov entered.

He murmured to
Pechov, who nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Fedorov walked across
and stood looking down at Riley. Up close, she thought he looked slightly
ruffled, the collar of his shirt slightly grey. Or maybe it was the lights.

‘This is not
productive, Miss Gavin,’ he said at last, his dry voice echoing off the tiled
walls. ‘I have not the time for this.’

‘Tell me about
it,’ she replied, surprised at how level her own voice sounded. She felt a
tremor going through her left leg and fought to still it.

He stood for a
moment, before turning away. Almost casually, he picked up the rubbish bin.
Then, with a vicious surge of rage, he swung it in an arc over his head and
brought it crashing down on the end sink. Shards of porcelain flew into the air
as the front edge of the basin disintegrated, and a large piece fell to the
floor and lay spinning raggedly, like a demented top.

Riley couldn’t
help it; she closed her eyes, stunned by the unexpected display of violence.
When she opened them again, Fedorov was standing in front of her, breathing
heavily, his eyes glittering.

‘You did not
call,’ he said quietly, a tremor in his voice. ‘I was disappointed.’ He stepped
over to the sinks, his shoes crunching on splinters of porcelain, and studied
his reflection in the mirror, turning his face left and right. Then he turned
on one of the hot taps and let the water run. He tested the temperature, but
turned it off again with a hiss of irritation.

Bending down,
he picked up a sliver of porcelain. It was the length of a finger, with a
razor-sharp edge. He ran his thumb along it. The skin opened as if sliced with
a surgeon’s scalpel, and a hairline of blood welled up. Turning to Riley, he
touched the sliver to her face with almost gentle care, and drew it slowly
across her cheek from one side to the other. It felt ice-cold to the touch.
Riley froze, not daring to move or imagine what it might be doing to her skin.

Dreading what
was coming next, she felt herself shrink inside.

Then footsteps
approached and Pechov appeared. He was carrying a steaming kettle.

‘I wonder if
you remember what I said to you, the last time we met?’ Fedorov murmured. He
sounded almost disappointed, as if a spell had been broken. He tossed the
porcelain to one side and took the kettle, dismissing Pechov with a jerk of his
head. ‘I believe I told you of the custom we have for people who do not do what
they have agreed?’

Riley said
nothing, her eyes fixed on the wisp of steam coming from the spout of the
kettle.

Fedorov nodded.
‘Of course. How silly of me. You are a journalist, trained to remember things.’
His accent had become thicker, the final word pronounced as ‘thinks’. He poured
the boiled water into the sink, steam billowing into the air and clouding the
mirrors. Then he dropped the kettle casually on the floor. Immersing his
fingers in the water, he held them there, gently sucking in air through his
teeth in a lengthy hiss.

Riley was
stunned. She could see Fedorov’s skin turning red with the heat, but beyond the
initial reaction, it didn’t seem to bother him.

‘When I was
young boy,’ he explained calmly, ‘I was made to stand out in the cold for
hours, as punishment. No coat, no gloves. Arms above my head. It was very cold
where I come from. My hands became numb. After a while, they lost most of their
feeling. It never quite came back. What it taught me, Miss Gavin, was how to
deal with extreme pain. How to close off the mind. How resistant are you to
pain, Miss Gavin? Hmm?’

‘What do you
want?’ she demanded, her voice shaking. ‘I’m not going to write that article,
so you might as well let me go.’

‘Oh, I know
that, Miss Gavin. I know that. But that is no longer the issue. Nor, sadly, is
letting you go.’

Without
warning, he flicked a spray of water into her face.

Riley screamed
as the hot liquid stung her skin. Her eyes were saved only by instinctively
turning away a split second before the water hit her. She kept her head turned,
but Fedorov continued relentlessly, repeatedly flicking droplets at her,
content to aim them at the side of her neck, where it burned into the soft skin
of her throat and just behind her ears where the tissue was at its most
sensitive. Riley clamped her teeth together, struggling as small rivulets began
to run down inside her clothing, searing across her upper body and down over
her stomach. The effect was like a line of fiery little ants scuttling over her
skin, leaving her instantly chilled as the heat diminished. She tried not to
scream, but in the end, could not prevent a low, agonised moan from escaping.

Fedorov
examined his scalded fingers, which were a vivid, reddened hue. One or two were
showing signs of blistering, and he blew on them gently, turning his hand, his
intense stare on Riley as she fought in vain against the tape holding her.

‘I can keep
this up for a long time,’ he commented. ‘Hurting you slowly. Making you suffer.
Or I can save us both a lot of unnecessary pain and effort.’ He moved round
behind her and shunted the chair closer to the sink, making her recoil inwardly
as his hips thrust against her. His stale breath washed over her as he leaned
closer. Then, with slow deliberation, he placed a hand behind her head and
forced her forward until she was staring down into the basin, the steam rising
to envelope her face and hair.

‘No…please…!’ Riley
gasped. She tried to resist, but the Russian was stronger than he looked. Her
chest was pressing against the lip of the sink, and she knew that with one
push, her face would be-

Suddenly he
stopped. ‘Wait - I nearly forgot something.’ He stepped to one side and picked
up a plastic bottle from beneath the sink. ‘A little… elaboration of mine.’ He
unscrewed the top and dumped the contents of the bottle into the water.

The smell rose,
harsh and acrid, and Riley gagged as her throat clamped shut against the
familiar fumes.

Neat bleach.

Fedorov took
hold of her once more, and began to push her face down to the water. ‘Now,’ he
said softly. ‘Where were we?’

Vasiliyev barged
through the front door of Pantile House and came face to face with Olek, one of
the two tall security guards. The man was rubbing at his face with a more
sullen expression than usual, and wincing. He had few conversational powers,
but he knew what was expected of him and was unemotional in his work. It was
Olek who had been sent to despatch the building’s supervisor, Goricz, and his
family.

Vasiliyev
noticed a nasty red weal across the man’s cheek. It was peppered with a line of
blood dots showing where the skin had broken. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

‘I walked into
a door,’ Olek replied sourly.

‘You should be
more careful. Where is the boss?’

‘Upstairs. He’s
been waiting for you.’

‘Why? I’ve been
waiting for him to call me.’ Vasiliyev wondered what was going on. Fedorov
liked to keep a tight team around him, yet he’d ordered Vasiliyev to wait at
the hotel until he was needed. But that had been hours ago. It had been an
ominous development, following on Fedorov’s earlier display of anger. In the
end, the waiting had become unbearable and he’d come here to find out what was
happening.

He turned
towards the lift and found Olek right behind him.

‘Where are you
going?’

‘The boss said
to show you up,’ Olek replied. He had a nasty smirk on his face. ‘Roychev will
be along in a moment; he can watch the doors.’

Vasiliyev
shrugged, but felt a worm of unease in his belly. There was something going on
here. Fedorov was unpredictable, mostly because he rarely took anyone into his
confidence – not even Vasiliyev. But this didn’t feel right.

He stepped into
the lift, and Olek followed him, punching the button for the fourth floor.

*********

Ray
Szulu cruised the last half mile towards Pantile House, eyes alert for
problems. Traffic was light and easy this late in the evening, the same on the
pavements. The fewer people the better, for what he was about to do.

He was driving
a white, unmarked Ford Transit, as common as a London taxi. It offered total
anonymity and had good vision front and sides. The back he wasn’t so worried
about. He’d lifted the van half an hour ago from a deserted sales forecourt in
Islington with a seizure notice on the front door. By the time anyone missed
it, the van would be old news.

As he drew
closer, he began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He couldn’t help
it; he was trying to convince himself that everything was cool, that he was
okay with this. He could do it, no problem. So why, a niggling little voice wheedled
in his innermost ear, was he acting like a virgin on her wedding night?

He gripped the
wheel to stop the drumming, to cut out the voice. This, it was saying, was the
stupidest thing he’d ever agreed to. Doing the surveillance job on the men and
the building was one thing; it was easy money and entailed using his eyes, that
was all. But this was going up another level. This amounted to direct action,
which most definitely wasn’t his thing.

He breathed
deeply, forcing himself to calm down. What was he worried about, anyway?
According to Palmer, Riley Gavin was the one in the fat-fryer. She’d managed to
get herself lifted off the street by some Russian mafia types, and Palmer was
sounding like he was ready to waste the entire north side of London to get her
out. He could probably do it, too. Palmer was like a one-man search-and-rescue
squad.

Szulu smiled
suddenly, seeing himself as a Black Knight to Palmer’s White. Gallant
characters hadn’t figured much in his upbringing, but now he thought about it,
being any kind of knight felt pretty cool. And, if he had to be one, it might
as well be black.

He looked down
at the glove box with a sense of satisfaction. Palmer had told him he had to
create a diversion at a specific time, and to use his initiative. It was an
acknowledgment that he actually trusted him to do something without being told
what.

‘Be creative,’
the ex-army cop had said on the phone, in that lazy way he had of speaking. But
beneath the calm, his voice had been anything but lazy. He’d sounded seriously
pissed, and as cold as permafrost. ‘I need a diversion, and I’m relying on you
to come up with something.’ He’d paused and added, ‘Make it loud. Just don’t
kill anyone. You know what collateral damage is?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

After telling
Szulu precisely when he wanted it, he’d disconnected.