I left before she woke up. I felt both used and abuser. Having sex with Simone felt plain wrong when I knew that McCallen was out there alone somewhere. As long as I stayed alive, dodged the bullet with my name on it, I stood a chance of finding her. I had less than twenty-four hours before I hooked up with Titus. I needed to give him something if I was to keep him off my back and I needed him off my case if I were to find McCallen.
I crossed town in the pouring rain, wondering if she was wet and cold, if she was hungry and beaten, and how Lars Pallenberg fitted into the picture, if he’d been used as bait. I was looking at one story when there was another rotting narrative beneath. I had strands and events. It was clear to me now that China Hayes was working his own agenda while trying to stay alive, but nothing quite gelled in my mind. I needed McCallen. Our shared history with Billy Squeeze meant we were inextricably linked. We bled the same. She was the key and today I had to find her.
I passed the watchmaker’s and turned as usual to greet him. He looked up, laid aside the timepiece he was working on, took the magnifier from his eye, climbed to his feet and tapped once on the window. I met his eye, nodded thanks, didn’t break stride.
Cutting down a side street, I entered the back alley, walking on the balls of my feet past rear entrances and garages until I reached the back of my own house. The only way to get inside without a key was to vault the gate. Easy for a ten-stone burglar, not so easy for a fifteen-stone assassin. A scrap of cloth attached to the top spike told me that my intruder was heavy, athletic and determined.
I unlocked the gate and slipped inside. The Z4 was parked in the carport where I’d last left it. It was pretty filthy, and any handprints would be easy to distinguish. There were none. Taking no chances, I stayed back, looked for tripwires, booby-traps, cables protruding from somewhere that couldn’t be explained. I moved in closer, dropped down on my haunches and checked each wheel for pressure switches – all clean. Next, I examined the underside. It was still possible that unlocking the car would trigger an explosion, that hidden trigger wires were secreted inside the doorframes or an electrical circuit trigger had been inserted into the steering column. I wasn’t going to open the car. Not yet. What had happened to Daragh Dwyer was not going to happen to me.
Odds-on, my intruder banked on me coming home in the usual fashion, through the front entrance. If I were he, I’d be sitting at the rear, away from the window, in the living room, gun cocked, eye on the door. I had no idea how long he’d been there. He could have been waiting a couple of hours, all night, or a couple of days. I hoped he’d been there a long time. Boredom makes people restless, then lazy.
Staying down low, I moved like a crab across the patch of grass that passed for a lawn. Rain had softened the edges, muffling my tread. The back door was double-locked, but as I’d anticipated, he’d shot through the bolts and shattered the wood and stupidly left spent cartridges as evidence of his crime. Not a pro then. I picked one up, sniffed it. Large calibre, recently ejected, it had travelled from something heavy, like a Smith and Wesson Magnum, and as Dirty Harry said probably the most powerful handgun in the world. Gunfire in Cheltenham is as rare as witches’ brew, the blare of sirens commonplace. A smart man would have timed his entry. I didn’t think he was that clever. This was no heavy-duty visit from the security services. More likely, a call from organised crime.
I had two weapons at my disposal: surprise and knowledge, not much of a defence against a man armed with one of the most formidable revolvers there is.
Undeterred, I sneaked in through the broken door, took a saucepan from the drainer, crossed the floor and moved up the two steps to the hall corridor and waited. It could have been my imagination, yet I was as sure as I could be that my contract killer was sitting on the other side of the wall in my best easy chair, feet apart, locked and loaded.
I threw the pan high and hard. It soared through the air, smashing against the front door and dropped with a tremendous clatter. A figure shot out in front of me, his entire being focused on the entrance, his back to me. I launched myself at him, my right arm around and across his throat, my left hand clasping my right to apply maximum pressure. Thin, penetrating pain in my left arm seared through my body, yet I hung on. I needed him alive and co-operative to find out who his paymaster was.
‘Who sent you?’ I shouted in his ear.
His answer was to shift his weight and attempt to curve his body forward. I tightened my grip, repeated the question. Still he bucked and writhed, his strength convincing me that, at any moment, he would break my hold and I’d be finished.
‘Tell me!’ I yelled. A shot exploded from the gun and into the wall. The recoil was so strong it powered through his hand and up my left arm, the pain excruciating. ‘Was it one of Billy’s mates?’ I gasped.
He smashed the barrel of the gun against my right arm to weaken my grasp. Still I clung on. My desire to talk did me no favours. His reluctance to oblige made me weak. Ironic that by trying to be good I made myself more vulnerable.
Pumped up, he went for my left and wounded arm just as my survival instinct kicked in. No way was he going to utter a single word. Desolation swept over me as I realised that I had no choice.
With one chance left, I had to be as accurate as powerful. Clamping my gloved hands both side of his neck, I exerted maximum force and twisted hard, heard the crack and thunder. As I let go, doubled over and retching, he tumbled to the floor.
Adrenalin spiked my system. Nausea, in sickening waves, forced burning bile up and into the back of my throat. I hadn’t wanted to kill, but there’d been no alternative.
Toeing the dead man over with my shoe revealed China Hayes’s attack dog, the goon who’d frisked me and punched me hard.
It made no sense to me.