The Blood Whisperer (14 page)

It was answered with a short female, “
Da?
”

“It is done,” Dmitry said by way of equally short reply then hit End without waiting for a response. He smiled into the empty car.

“And now it begins.”

Getting down from the roof did not present Kelly with as much difficulty as getting up there. Rooftops were her playground and she knew how to pick her way across fragile slate and tile using the timber skeleton underneath. In this case, staying low and avoiding the skylights she shadowed the ridge line to the end furthest away from the entrance.

The next building was butted up against the one she’d escaped from but was one storey lower. Kelly dangled herself carefully over the gable and edged her way down the brickwork by fingers and toes until she was on the lower level. Her arm throbbed fiercely all the way.

This building was occupied so in a better state of repair. It was also reasonably compliant with the current regulations regarding fire escapes—in this case a sturdy metal staircase. Fortunately this was mounted on the far side, so while the occupants gaped out of the windows at the activity below, Kelly was able to slip past on the opposite side of the building without being noticed.

Good job too,
Kelly thought. Even without her tattered oversuit she knew she must present quite a picture of a fleeing fugitive. She half-ran, half-tiptoed her way down the old cast-iron treads, moving as fast as she dared.

The pull-down ladder at the bottom was rusted closed and refused to open out all the way to the ground but jumping the last few feet and rolling through the impact was a small price to pay for freedom.

Kelly dusted herself down and walked quickly east trying not to look guilty as another police car came barrelling into the estate. She crossed the road, trotted past a modern-designed junior school and yet more developments of high-rise flats. Half a glimpse of the river and the prices rose accordingly, even out here.

All the way her mind keened for the dead boy she’d left behind. He’d been gauche as a puppy in some ways but as close to a friend as Kelly allowed herself these days, and fervently loyal. She remembered his attack on DI O’Neill at the hospital in defence of Ray. Had he tried to protect her too or was he always the intended victim?

Aware of Tyrone’s crush on her she’d tried to be gentle of his feelings.
And now he’ll never know what it is to fall in love—properly truly in love.

Eyes blurring, Kelly turned down the first available side street and headed along its length, past the doorway to a small swimming baths that let out a damp belch of heavily chlorinated air across the pavement.

The street was long and straight enough for Kelly to keep a wary eye out for anyone following. As far as she could tell, she was alone.

An abandoned shopping trolley next to the fence at the far end sparked an idea. She hurried through a half-empty parade of new shops and crossed over the Inner Dock using the Pepper Street bridge, making for the supermarket on the other side of the railway line.

She grabbed a bottle of cola and ducked into the customer toilets as soon as she was inside the store, locking herself into the disabled cubicle which had its own sink. The blood on her bare arms and hands had dried and without an abrasive cleaner the cola was the most effective thing she could find.

She was thankful that she always kept her wallet in a back pocket rather than a handbag which would most likely have been left in the van. At least she had a bit of cash on her even if it wasn’t enough to get her much beyond south Croydon—never mind South America.

Even the thought of exile made her sink down onto the closed lid of the toilet, her knees suddenly rubbery.

I am not running away,
she told herself sternly.
This is a tactical retreat.

She made sure she brought the empty cola bottle out with her to pay for. No point in getting nabbed by in-store security. In the clothing section she picked up a cheap baseball hat and a hooded sweatshirt discarding the labels in the first waste bin she came across once she was through the self-service checkout and back outside.

The disguise, such as it was, would not hold for long. As soon as they ran her prints and DNA through the system it would light up like Bond Street at Christmas. All she needed to gain was a little time and distance to find somewhere safe to hide at least until she could get her own blood sample tested—and by someone she could trust over the result.

She bought a Day Travelcard from one of the machines in the Tube station at Coldharbour and boarded the first northbound Docklands Light Rail train that pulled in.

Kelly sat next to the window, swaying to the motion as the train briefly picked up speed again. Her face was turned to the glass so that she watched her own reflection more than the shifting scenery outside. She wasn’t sure she either liked or recognised who she saw there.

She watched the reflections of the other passengers as they got on and took the seats around her, too. Nobody seemed to be paying her undue attention.

Good, so they haven’t put it together yet or they’d be screaming it from the rooftops.

The DLR train was heading for Bank station. There she hopped across onto the Central line for West Ruislip and rode it out to Hanger Lane, close to the McCarron office.

She had hesitated briefly over going back there but by the time she’d changed trains her mind was made up.

It’s not like I have many options.

She walked the short distance from the station down to the office keeping her cap pulled down, her hood up and her hands stuffed into her pockets. Her arm under the makeshift dressing had subsided into dull painfulness and she still had a vile headache. It had receded with the adrenaline of evading capture but now it was back with a vengeance and making up for lost time.

Kelly reached the office doorway and let out a long shaky breath as she slipped the keys from her pocket. She hoped the place was empty, weighed up the risk and thought it likely. The chatty woman who’d given her location to Matthew Lytton worked from home. With Ray in hospital the rest of his crew had been working flat out, taking it in turns to pick up messages from the answering service while they were out on jobs.

Today, she recalled it was the turn of Les and Graham. They were Ray’s most experienced team and specialised in what were referred to round the office as Hoarding Houses which made up a big chunk of the firm’s business. They should be down in Purley clearing a place that had belonged to an elderly eccentric who didn’t seem to have thrown anything away during the thirty years leading up to his death. Les’s estimate had run to five one-ton skips needed to cart away the accumulated rubbish. This had included what seemed to be at least twelve months’ worth of the old guy’s own faeces, carefully bagged and labelled.

They’d be gone some time.

Kelly locked the door behind her. Ray, she remembered, had been jumped at the very spot where she was standing.

Is this a vendetta against all of us rather than just me?

She shook her head—a mistake—and wearily climbed the stairs to the upper floor.

There she stepped into the small galley kitchen and lifted the bag of blood out from under her shirt. The seal had proved up to the job. For want of anything better Kelly slid the bag into the fridge. She’d already written the date, time and her name on it in indelible marker. It wasn’t quite chain-of-custody, but it would have to do.

She raided the office First-Aid kit and properly cleaned her arm. Removing the duct tape hurt like the devil and peeling away the adhesive made the whole thing open up again. It took Kelly a while to slow the bleeding enough to close the edges of the wound with four or five Steri-Strips and wind a sterile dressing in place around it. At least working this job she knew all her jabs were up to date.

She was tempted by the heavy duty painkillers in the kit but in the end settled for nothing stronger than a couple of paracetamol just to take the edge off it. She thought briefly of the bottle of vodka in the bottom of Ray’s desk but rejected that too.

If there was one thing she needed now, above all else, it was a clear head.

Just to sit for a few minutes and catch her thoughts she sank slowly onto one of the chairs around the table where the team gathered to eat their lunches, discuss jobs and write up their reports. Her eyes slid to the places where Tyrone and Ray always sat.

“Two down,” she said out loud. “Who’s next?”

Stupid question. It was supposed to be me.

Reluctantly she got to her feet. If she was going to stay ahead of the police long enough to find answers of her own she was going to need money—of the kind that could not be obtained via a photographed and instantly traceable hole-in-the-wall cash machine.

The petty cash tin was in the bottom drawer of Ray’s desk next to the vodka bottle. It was secured by a spindly padlock that Kelly had never had the heart to tell her boss could be picked in seconds. As she finessed the tumblers with a safety pin and re-bent paperclip she was thankful she’d spared his feelings.

There were some skills Kelly had learned in prison that she would be forever grateful for.

The cash tin held a couple of hundred in mixed notes and maybe twenty quid in loose change. Kelly took the lot, folding it into the leg pocket of her cargoes. She was just looking round on Ray’s cluttered desktop for a scrap of paper she could use to write an apologetic IOU when her eye lighted on a familiar name on the top of a pile of invoices.

Matthew Lytton.

She picked up the invoice slowly. It was marked ‘Paid in Full’. Kelly noted the amount Ray had charged Lytton for the cleanup after his wife’s alleged suicide and calculated he’d taken one look at the scope of the country place and doubled the number he’d first thought of.

But what really caught her attention was the address on the invoice. The country house with the luxury bathroom, it seemed, was not Lytton’s only residence. He’d asked for the paperwork to be sent to another address—in central London.

Suddenly her next move was clear. Not sensible by any means, but definitely clear.

Kelly memorised the address and put the invoice back—not on top but a couple down in the stack. After all there was no point in leaving
too
many clues for the likes of DI O’Neill to follow.

As soon as Matthew Lytton opened the door to his apartment, he knew something was wrong.

For one thing it had been daylight when he left so there would have been no reason to switch on the lamps in the living area. And for another he was pretty sure he would have remembered leaving the VH1 music channel playing on the TV, even at low volume.

His first instinct as he paused in the hallway with one hand still on the open front door was to retreat to a safe distance and call the police. He quickly dismissed that option.

One way or another he’d had his fill of the police lately.

That and the fact he’d never heard of burglars who broke in and then made themselves at home to the point of cooking up a meal. The distinctive smell of frying onions drifted out from the kitchen. It was all he could do to stop his stomach growling.

Lytton cautiously checked his watch. It was close to 2:00
AM
. He’d put in another eighteen-hour day at the office and it seemed a hell of a long time since lunch.

Silently he closed the front door behind him. He kept his car keys and cellphone in his hand as he ventured further inside, moving softly on the hardwood floor.

As he reached the kitchen he heard the sound of rapid chopping, the sizzle of something fresh being added to a hot pan.

He edged an eye around the door jamb. Kelly Jacks was cracking eggs into a glass mixing bowl. Her back was towards him but still he recognised her. She was wearing a skinny halter top over baggy cargoes and her feet were bare. He knew he should have been furious at the sheer arrogance of the woman. Instead he found himself admiring her audacity.

Lytton slipped the keys and phone into his jacket pocket and stepped into the room.

“I don’t suppose there’s enough for two is there?” he asked tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

She gave a gasp and spun round. The next thing he knew, the hand he’d laid on her was grabbed, wrenched away and twisted up his back hard and fast. He felt the tearing graunch of overstressed ligaments in his elbow and wrist.

The force of it drove him down to his knees in an attempt to yield. All that did was allow her to put the lock on more firmly. The spike of pain took his breath away.

“Christ! What the—?”

She froze, finally recognising his voice, relaxed her grip then released him altogether and stepped back quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she said sounding shaky. “You startled me.”

Lytton got to his feet slowly, rubbing his wrist. “Yeah well that makes two of us,” he said warily. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

“Prison.”

He’d frightened her, he realised and she’d reacted instinctively—almost without conscious thought.

“I’m sorry,” she said then, unable to meet his gaze. “Not just for that . . . I know I’m being bloody cheeky coming here like this but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Lytton pulled a wry face, flexing his fingers experimentally. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” He nodded to the debris-strewn countertop aware that he was still teetering on the far reaches of anger. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered again. “I waited but when you didn’t come back after normal close of play I sort of assumed you weren’t going to and—” she shrugged, “—I haven’t eaten.”