A kitchen contains all kinds of things that can be useful in close combat, from serving forks to carving knives, but I guess I see red and just attack the bastard with my bare hands.
Before he has a chance to even turn around, I send my right fist slamming into his torso. My strike starts low, builds power and crashes into his body just below his elbow. It’s a sharp, stabbing kidney punch. My fist hits him directly below his ribcage and keeps going, driving into his renal cortex. He drops Julia immediately, of course, yelps in pain and tries to fall to the floor. But I’m not letting him off that easy and follow up with a left-handed blow to his other kidney. It’s not as effective as my first punch, but he’ll be pissing blood for a week.
He shrieks as he collapses. In the movies, he’d spring to his feet, but in real life, he won’t be springing anywhere for a fortnight. There’s a reason kidney punches are illegal in boxing and the gibbering gym bunny at my feet is a pretty big clue.
But Julia points over my shoulder. ‘Look out!’
I spin around. The man reaching for his shoulder holster is lightly built, but if he’s armed with the SR-1 Vektor he’s going for, well, his diminutive size won’t come into play. It’s a Russian-made pistol, similar to a Beretta 92. Very efficient. Very destructive. His fingers reach its grip.
As he pulls the piece from its holster, I reach him. I’m looking him in the eyes and moving my right hand towards his chin, so he’s expecting a blow to the face. But if he’s armed with a Vektor, I need to take him down immediately.
So my left fist delivers a powerful shovel punch up and into his body, landing just beneath his lower ribs. It’s a liver shot, one of the very few strikes that’s even more painful than a blow to the kidneys. He’s not expecting the move so doesn’t defend for it and I see at once it’s landed strongly and right on target. The guy looks at me like I’ve zapped him with a cattle prod.
You see, the kidneys are surrounded by nerves connected to the autonomic control system. This regulates the functions that keep us alive. Little things like breathing and heart rate. The body’s response to an attack on it is to register extreme pain and, more often than not, enter shut-down mode. All of which means the man reaching for his pistol screams in searing agony as he crumples to the floor, where he whimpers, writhes and, given time, will probably re-evaluate his career path.
‘Are you all right?’
Julia nods.
‘Good,’ I tell her. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Julia assures me there’s nothing remotely incriminating on her phone. So I take it and we swing by the local National Express station. I get aboard one of the coaches and have a quick word with the driver. As I ask about journey times, I drop the phone into the ticket bin and then make my way back to Stacey’s Austin Morris J4. Julia is hidden in the back. She asks, ‘What were you doing?’
‘Making sure that if they’re trying to locate you by tracking your phone . . .’ I pause as I start the engine. ‘Right now, they’ll be on their way to Thurso. That’s the northernmost town in Scotland and—’
‘I know Thurso,’ she snaps. ‘There’s a nice beach there. We took Willow last half-term.’
We head south in silence. Julia doesn’t thank me for saving her life, but, to be fair, she doesn’t chastise me for endangering it in the first place.
As we cross into England, she climbs over the passenger seat and sits next to me. ‘What will happen to my daughter? And my partner?’
‘They’re together and they’re being looked after. They’re both OK.’
‘When can I see them again?’
‘Honestly? I don’t know. I’m going to hand you over to British Intelligence. They’ll question you and take it from there.’
Julia tuts. ‘I have nothing that would interest them. This whole thing is crazy.’
‘I agree. Why the hell would Colonel Maksim Bulatov send men round to kill you, simply because I’d visited you?’
‘He might think we’re working together.’
‘No, I don’t buy that. I’ve never met Bulatov, but we crossed paths when he was running guns out of Copenhagen.’
‘Copenhagen?’
‘Long story. Anyway, the point is, he’s a tactician. I mean, he’s ruthless and driven, but he’s a cool, clinical thinker. This makes him look paranoid at best. Psychotic at worst. Can you think of anyone else who would benefit from your death?’
‘You don’t get it! No! Alive or dead, I don’t matter! I worked very hard to be a nobody. God . . .’ Her voice trails off. ‘They never let you go.’
‘Do you know a woman called Ekaterina Karpin?’
‘Kat?’ Julia shrugs. ‘Yeah, sure.’ She’s astonishingly casual about it. ‘She was in the game when I was on the scene. It’s a small world.’
‘Did you work together?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t remember.’
‘This is important, Julia.’
She shouts, ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ and although I keep my eyes on the road, I feel her glaring at me.
We continue in silence for a couple of miles, and after several minutes, I sense Julia’s anger ebb away.
‘I was just a mule. She was always more important, you know? We never worked side by side, but we were involved in the same operations once or twice. Low-level stuff.’
‘What did you make of her?’
‘Scary lady.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You ask a lot of questions.’
‘Let me know when you fancy answering one.’
Julia gives the tiniest of laughs. ‘Ekaterina was so focused. There’s something scary about that, because it suggests other things don’t matter. And now you’re going to ask, what was she focused on?’ She pauses. ‘Looking back, she was bothered about the operations, sure. But she was obsessed with the Romanov treasure. I mean, like a child. Stupidly.’
‘Why stupidly?’
She’s quiet again, but this time I infer she’s thinking up the right response. Eventually, she replies, ‘When I was a mule, I mostly shifted guns, drugs, money . . . The obvious stuff. But occasionally it was artefacts, you know? I was supposed not to look, but I always did. Sometimes I was taking artwork from one side of the world to the other. When I got bored, I researched it. I suppose I became fascinated with it. The secret world.’
‘Go on.’
‘There is something very strange. For well over a hundred years, mankind’s greatest artistic achievements and its treasures have been vanishing. The crown jewels of Ireland were stolen from Dublin Castle in 1907. Michelangelo’s priceless Mask of a Faun was lifted from a Tuscan castle in the 1940s. The Florentine Diamond – poof! Gone! All of them are still missing. Have you heard of the Eagle Diamond?’
‘Can’t say that I have.’
‘It was the second-largest diamond ever found in America. The thieves who took it in 1964 were found, but the gem itself was never recovered. Same story with the Comtesse de Vendôme necklace – valued at over thirty million dollars. And the men who seized the Marlborough Diamond were also caught, but the jewel disappeared.’
‘Point taken,’ I tell her. ‘I’m starting to see a pattern here . . .’
‘This isn’t a pattern! Don’t you understand? It is a process.’ Julia is on a roll and continues without pausing for breath. ‘The Ivory Coast Crown Jewels were stolen in 2011. Never recovered. Most of the treasure stolen from the palace of Prince Faisal in the so-called Blue Diamond Affair were never found. The Great Mogul Diamond, Tucker’s Cross – the most valuable single object ever found in a shipwreck – all lost. And—’
I interrupt her. ‘Wildly expensive treasures are stolen. Is it really so strange?’
Julia shakes her head. ‘No, the strange thing is . . . nobody is interested! Missing items worth billions of dollars and do you hear about anyone trying to actually find them? I’m late on a council tax payment of a hundred pounds and the authorities are on it by return of post. The world’s greatest jewels? No one even looks for them! Or, if they do, the search is so inept that nothing is ever found. Ever.’ With an edge of triumph, she adds, ‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’
‘I suppose when you look at it not as a series of one-off thefts, but as a long-standing ongoing process . . . yeah, it’s strange.’
‘And guess what? It gets stranger . . .’