Part 22 (1/2)

And again. It was dental floss, Sarah realized with a curious absence of shock. He was unreeling yards of dental floss, and folding it into a loose rope.

'Sadly, I'll have to make do with the foreplay.'

He snapped the cord and let its plastic box drop to the floor; then, with a quick twist of his hands, took a firm grip on the ends of his rope. It looked laughable, somehow. It was also quite enough to kill her.

'Shocking area. Do you know, they had two murders round here last year? Some mastermind put away his wife. The other one, they never caught him. Robbery gone wrong, they said.'

'Was that you?' she whispered.

'Course not. You've got it upside down. n.o.body's gunna think I did that. They're gunna think whoever did that did you.' He experimented with his noose, giving it slack, then pulling it taut. Something in the process satisfied him.

The only way out was the front way, through him, and to get through him she'd need a weapon. This was the kitchen, the most dangerous room, but the knives hung in a rack by the fridge, well out of reach. She threw her tea instead, and he hardly noticed. Still hot, it splashed into his face, and he laughed. The cup glanced off a shoulder and bounced to the floor. Sarah rushed him. She didn't make it.

Somehow he was behind her; he had her in his arms and the dental rope looped round her neck was already strangling. She kicked, stamped, and thought she connected, but his grip did not weaken and he gave no hint of pain. When she tried again, he had moved. And he was right, he was her bad dream; one in which all her struggling left her more securely knotted in its grasp. Her throat was on fire now, and her tongue too big for her mouth. Strange pictures rushed to and fro in her mind as her frantic brain searched for a solution; meanwhile her body thrashed in panic, her hands grabbing at anything in reach. She pulled on the fridge door, which opened with a jolt. A carton of milk leaped out and burst on the floor. The white puddle spread out before her eyes just as a black pool opened behind them. She could feel herself falling into one or other: black, white, it didn't matter. No use crying over . . . Her hand closed round something. It felt absurdly like an asthma inhaler.

And this was Joe, come back from the dead to save her. The rape alarm he'd given her fitted like a grenade in her palm.

She raised her hand above her head, to Rufus's head, and depressed the trigger. And there was her banshee, wailing into the world just as the pain in her head exploded: an explosion that came like a gush of air as he released his grip while the noise bust his ears; came with light too, as the black pool vanished, and familiar objects swam back into view. There was no time to cherish them now. She struggled free of his grasp, dropped the alarm; its scream whipped once round the room and died. Sarah had sunk to her knees.

She tried to stand, but slipped in the milk and fell headlong to the floor. Behind her Rufus cursed, something insane and biblical, before reaching down; intending to beat her to death with his fists. Which was not how she wanted to die. But the slick floor defeated her attempts to flee, and her throat hurt, and there was not enough air in the room to feed her lungs . . .

The back door splintered open. It was like watching a gla.s.s firework. And Sarah saw hair and teeth and a man in a crouch, his arms outstretched to make a point that was ugly, black and useful. It coughed twice. Above her Rufus bloomed red, his throat a holy mess of blood. And then, leaving a fine pink spray behind him, he was down, forever out of view, while she lay in a mess on the floor, wondering if she'd faint.

In the event, she didn't.

V.

Some hours later, Amos Crane stood where she'd been standing, looking down on the vacant s.p.a.ce where his brother had died. A faint misting of blood on the floor described the shape of Axel's head, as if death had reduced him to little more than a stencil, though it took a brother, probably, to read Axel into it rather than any other damaged head. Howard was there, and a number of local cops, and a man in a suit in the corner, his own head safe in his hands, who'd turn out to be the householder, Amos expected. The owner of the house where his brother had died. Looked at dispa.s.sionately, it had long been on the cards that Axel was going to die a violent death: no point blaming the b.a.s.t.a.r.d in whose house it actually happened. Looked at less dispa.s.sionately: f.u.c.k that. Amos would blame who he liked.

Howard came over. 'I thought this was a loose end Axel had dealt with.'

'It must have frayed.'

'It's the same woman, right? I mean, please tell me this is just a continuation of the same f.u.c.k-up, not a whole new one?'

'To you it's a f.u.c.k-up, Howard. My brother's dead.'

'Oh, Christ.' Howard pulled a tired hand down his tired face. 'I'm sorry, Amos. I didn't mean any of that. Axel he was one of ours. Not just yours.'

'Sure he was, Howard.'

'But this you're aware there are civilians here, Amos? I thought we'd been through this.'

'Maybe you can dock his pay.'

And Amos turned away abruptly, to the back door, to a litter of broken gla.s.s and shards of doorframe. That was where the soldier Michael Downey came in. Not a difficult a.s.sumption to make. If it had been just Axel and the woman, it would have been the woman's blood on the floor, and he Amos would have been home in bed. And Oxford would have had another burglary gone wrong . . .

The fix, this time, would be tricky as sin. More than just the old school tie and the whisper of a gong; it would take serious handshakes and money in envelopes. No wonder Howard was wetting himself.

Oh, Axel, he thought, almost aloud. You stupid f.u.c.king But there was no time for that. This was damage limitation. He felt gla.s.s crunch as he stepped into the dark to look at the night sky: the heaventree of stars in all its evening glory. Think! He thought. Axel had been here, and for reasons best known to himself had decided to terminate the woman. Up until this evening, that hadn't been necessary maybe wasn't necessary; maybe Axel had just been slipping the leash but it was a field decision, and had to be given the benefit of the doubt. And he'd tried, and he'd used dental floss (which was possibly a first), a loop of which was still wrapped round his fist when they'd bagged the body, and he hadn't managed it because somebody had kicked the back door in and taken him down with two bullets.

Had to be Downey.

Which left them where? Which left the woman who'd been looking for Singleton's daughter on the lam with Downey, who was also looking for Singleton's daughter. Put that way, the situation hadn't changed. Downey had company. That was all.

But there was an alternative scenario: The woman screams blue murder, and takes it to the press. But that, too, could be dealt with. Amos Crane went over in his mind what he knew about Sarah Trafford: unemployed, restless, history with drugs. There wasn't a great deal you had to add before you were dealing with a paranoid hysteric finding conspiracies round every corner, and on a day when war had broken out, the press would have better things to think about. As for Downey, he had his own reasons for staying dead. He'd not be bothering the media in this lifetime.

Not going to be a very long lifetime, either.

There was a crunch, and Howard appeared behind him. 'We found this,' he said. Wordlessly, Amos took it: a crumpled sheet of paper, with a London number scrawled across. 'The Ministry,' Howard said.

Amos looked again. It was a copy of the letter Howard had shown him two weeks back. It had been sent by the detective hired by Sarah Trafford, an unwelcome display of persistence forcing Amos to allow Axel to deal with him. Which Axel had done very commendably, to the benefit of all around; following it up with an excellent piece of freelancing which, if there'd been any justice, would have shut Sarah Trafford up without further pain. It was a good rule of thumb not to damage civilians, a rule Axel hadn't always followed, but had produced a textbook example of in this case. And look where it had got him.

Still, it was good to know he'd had reason. In his shoes, Amos would have done exactly the same: killed the silly b.i.t.c.h. n.o.body got two warnings.

Howard s.h.i.+fted uneasily. 'We need a game plan, Amos.'

'I'm thinking.'

'Think faster.'

'Thank you, Howard. That's the husband back there, is it?'

'He's a banker. Works for '

'I know what he does, Howard. I'm asking if that's him.'

'It's him.'

He was problem number one, even Howard had worked that out. But Amos knew something Howard didn't: the husband was dirty. The dirty ones were easiest to deal with.

It was one of Amos's rules: when you had an agent in cover, you researched everyone. Even if the agent wasn't your brother . . .

'The body went out clean. n.o.body knows there was a death here.'

'Except the husband.'

'Well, he found him . . .'

'And the locals.'

'It was the locals he called, Amos. Obviously.'

So n.o.body knew there'd been a death here, apart from absolutely f.u.c.king everyone.

'Where have they taken my brother, Howard?'