Severed (31 page)

I take a long gulp of wine. It's a light Rioja, and it goes down well. I also pour myself a pint glass of water and drink half of it before retiring to the lounge. I need to sit down and recharge my batteries.

It strikes me that at no point today have I watched the news to find out how the mayhem I've been involved in has been reported, so I collapse onto the sofa and switch on the TV. Sky News is doing a sports round-up, so I use Sky Plus to bring up a recording of the latest headlines. I join it in the middle of a feature on the brothel fire. There's aerial footage of the building as it burns, thick cloying smoke taking up much of the screen. The commentator says that four people were taken to hospital suffering
from smoke inhalation and that firefighters and investigators are currently sifting through the wreckage to see if there are any bodies inside. He adds that police are still not confirming any connection between the fire and the discovery of the body of a man who'd been stabbed to death fifty yards away.

The next story centres on some supermodel having been filmed snorting cocaine, which doesn't seem like news to me, but then what the hell do I know? She's followed by a piece on a spaniel called Egremont who can apparently do simple arithmetic by barking the total of two added numbers. Egremont's shown successfully adding two and three, and then the music comes on to signal the end of the headlines and the recording loops back to the beginning.

I'm still trying to work out how the dog's owner first realized he could add up when an image appears on the screen that causes me to choke on my wine.

It's a close-up shot taken by a CCTV camera. And the person in it is me.

It's not a perfect picture, thank God. I'm running, which blurs the image very slightly, and looking down and away from the camera so
that my face is partially obscured, but it's clear enough for anyone who knows me. The commentator says that police are anxious to trace the man in the image in connection with the deaths of four men in a shooting incident in east London earlier today. I am, apparently, armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached by members of the public. My picture disappears from the screen to be replaced by daylight footage of the house where I met Iain Ferrie. Scene-of-crime tape surrounds it, and white-overalled SOCO officers can be seen going in and out of the front door while a uniformed officer stands guard outside.

I don't wait around for the next story. I suspect it'll be the Eddie Cosick murders, but that's not important now. What's important is that I get the hell out of here, because every moment I remain makes my capture more likely. I can only assume that the police who were interviewing me tonight haven't seen this CCTV image, otherwise there's no way they'd have let me go. But that's not going to remain the case for long.

I have no grand strategy for a way out of this, certainly no chance of a long-term escape. But I
have two key advantages. One, I don't give up. And two, for the moment at least, I'm free. If I keep moving, I'm going to make it hard for them.

I drain my glass and stand up. Not for the first time in the past twelve hours, it's time to start running.

The mobile phones I was carrying when I was arrested have been kept by the police for further analysis, so I use the landline to phone the local taxi firm, who've always been a reliable outfit. The controller says he'll have a cab with me in five minutes.

I run up the stairs, grab a change of clothes and a few toiletries, and thrust them into an overnight bag. I put on an old black leather jacket and a cap to act as camouflage, and arm myself with a large buck knife and a can of pepper spray, both of which I keep in a drawer by the bed in case of unwelcome night-time visitors (even my quiet area of London can be a dangerous place). I hide them both in the inside
pockets of the jacket, knowing they're not going to be a great deal of use to me, but they're better than nothing. By this time I can hear the sound of a car stopping in front of my house. I poke my head out of the window and feel a surge of relief as I see it's the taxi. Bang on time.

I'm out the front door quickly and straight into the back of the cab. I give the driver the address of my showroom, and he pulls away without speaking. I wonder when I'll see my house again, or indeed if I ever will. Whether Adine gave me sensible advice or not, now that the police can connect me with yet more killings, convincing them of my innocence will be even harder. Just the fact that I keep popping up at all the murder scenes is way too coincidental.

The journey to the showroom takes under ten minutes at this time of night. It's not safe here either, but I'm not going to be stopping long. I just need a car, then I'll be off again.

I get out and pay the driver, giving him a couple of quid as a tip, then unlock the heavy steel gates and go inside. I hurry through the car park, past the cheaper models we sell, and open up the office.

Immediately I know that something's wrong.

There's no telltale beep to warn me to switch off the alarm, and I always set the alarm when I leave the office. Without exception. In the nearly four years I've run this franchise, I have never forgotten to switch it on. Why would I? In this room are the keys to every vehicle in the place, and that's getting on for a million pounds' worth of stock - a fact I never let slip from my mind.

I switch on the light and look around. The office is tidy, looking much the same as it does when I enter it each morning. Nothing appears to be missing, and everything's in its proper place. The drawers on the desk are all locked, and there's been no attempt to force them, and the strongbox beneath the desk, which contains all the keys to the cars in the showroom, is untouched. But somebody's been here. I'm sure of that.

There are no signs of forced entry, so whoever it was used keys. There are only two showroom keyholders in the world. One is me. The other is my brother, John, who lives in Kent. He hasn't been here. He would have told me. And even though much of the rest of the world seems to
be on my back today, I'm not going to count him among that number. He's a quantity surveyor, for Christ's sake, and married with three young kids.

So that only leaves me. I own two sets of keys. One set I keep hidden in a false wall at home, the other I carry with me, and they're the ones I've just opened up with now. I can't be sure I didn't come here on Thursday, but if I did, I would have re-set the alarm. That leaves only one possibility: someone stole my keys when I was drugged. It was someone good as well, because not only did he let himself in, he also disabled a complicated (not to mention expensive) alarm system. Unable to re-set the alarm without the code, he simply locked up, came back and replaced the keys.

But what was he looking for?

The light's flashing on the desk phone. Not surprisingly, I've got messages. I put them on. There are twelve messages from Friday, but all are from existing clients or potential clients, and nothing's out of the ordinary. There's also a message from Thursday, timed at 5.03 p.m., from a private seller with a second-hand model he wants to get rid of. So, I must have left
early. Perhaps to meet Leah. Or someone else.

I remember the number I wrote down when I was in Lucas's apartment earlier. Dorriel Graham, IT security consultant, the hacker guy Lucas claimed could find anyone. I put it in my wallet, and I'm hoping it's still there now.

It is. The folded slip of paper pokes out from one of the sleeves, and I remove it. I want him to find two people for me, but I'm also wondering if he can do something else as well.

I pick up the desk phone and dial. He answers after three rings, his voice a slow yet breathless drawl, as if the very act of speaking is an effort.

'Yes.'

'I was given your name by Martin Lukersson.'

'I know no-one of that name. I think you've got the wrong number.'

'You're Dorriel Graham?'

'Sorry,' he says, not sounding it at all, 'I don't know a Dorriel Graham either. Goodbye.'

'Please, listen. This is a quick job. It'll take you ten minutes and I'll pay you five hundred pounds.'

There's a pause.

'Lukersson should be more careful who he gives out my number to.'

'I need addresses for two people, and I need them urgently. Like now.'

'I don't like being woken up.'

'No-one does. But this is worth five hundred pounds.'

'Five hundred pounds isn't that much money,' he says, sounding bored.

'It's for ten minutes' work,' I remind him, my voice hardening.

'Do you have a credit card?'

'Visa.'

'Give me the card number, the expiry date, your name as it appears on the card, and the three-digit security code on the reverse. Now.'

It's not a great idea to be doling out my credit card details to a man I don't know, but right now that's the least of my worries. I give him the details, and wait impatiently while he writes them down.

'And what are the names of the people whose addresses you want?'

I tell him, and he writes this information down as well.

'Your card's authorized the payment of five hundred pounds. I'll phone you back when I have the information.'

'Can you also do something else?'

'What?'

'If I give you a landline number, can you get me an itemized list of the calls that have been received on it in the last two days, with the names of the callers and the times they called?'

'That'll take hours and cost you a lot more than five hundred pounds.'

I make a quick calculation. 'How about if you can just get me the numbers for Thursday afternoon? Say, between midday and 5.04 p.m.?'

'I can get you the numbers and the times, not the names. What's the landline number, and who's the account with?'

I give him my office number. I know it's a long shot, but I'm hoping that whoever I met last night left a message on the phone, which they then broke in here to delete.

'It might take a bit more time, and it'll cost another five hundred pounds.'

I tell him that's fine.

He hangs up, and I'm left waiting. In the distance I can hear the sound of a siren, and I tense. I really don't want to hang around here much longer. It's way too dangerous, but without a mobile phone, I can't move. I open up the
strongbox, find the keys to an old BMW 5-Series in the car park, and put them in my pocket. Even now I'm loath to take one of the better cars, just in case I crash it.

The siren's getting closer, and it's been joined by another one coming from the south. Waiting here's too much of a risk. I rip the phone out of its socket so that Dorriel Graham doesn't end up talking to the police rather than me, and run out of the office and over to the car, switching off the alarm en route. The sirens are louder out here, both only a matter of seconds away.

I jump in the 5-Series, flick on the lights and fire up the engine. There's not a lot of room to get out, so I back straight into the car behind, which thankfully is an ancient 3-Series that's on the market for less than two grand, then turn the wheel hard right and tear off in a screech of tyres, going straight through the half-open gates with only a couple of inches of room on either side, and out onto the road, turning south and taking the first left. I've left the car lot completely open, but I'm figuring the police'll be there very soon and will be able to secure the place. And if not . . . Well, frankly, that's the least of my worries.

I drive for about fifteen minutes, heading in a northerly direction, until I pass one of those rare sights these days: a phone box. It's on the fore-court of a twenty-four-hour petrol station, and I use it to call Dorriel Graham.

This time he answers on the first ring.

'It's me. Have you got what I want?'

The moment of truth.

'Yes, I do,' he answers in his bored monotone, and gives me two addresses. One is in Fife, the other in Hertfordshire. He also gives me their home phone numbers.

I write the information down while keeping the receiver propped in the crook of my neck.

'I also have a print-out of the calls received by the landline number you gave me. Where do you want me to send it to?'

'I'm on the move at the moment. Are there many of them?'

'Between midday and 5.04 p.m., there are thirteen.'

There were twelve messages, so that sounds about right. I get him to read them out. They're a mixture of landlines and mobiles, and one of the landlines is from out of town, and immediately familiar.

And that's because I've just written it down. It's the number belonging to the address in Hertfordshire.

I feel a numb sense of shock, even though I shouldn't really. He's certainly intelligent enough to have pulled this off. It's just that I really hadn't wanted it to be him. Not after everything we've been through together. I was hoping it would be Rafo, the Fijian now living in Fife, who'd served six years for his part in the pub attack.

Not my mentor. My commanding officer.

Major Leo Ryan.

It's 2.30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Dark clouds are scudding across the sky, and it's starting to rain - the heavy, soaking drops you get in the tropics. The initial shock I felt has already metamorphosed into different emotions. First, sadness, that someone I respected so much and for so long could hate me enough to have put me through this. And there's an acute sense of anticipation, too. At last, I think I know the identity of the man behind Leah's death, and that of so many others. He will have all the answers I'm looking for.