Vendetta (8 page)

At the top of the bin was the strip of towelling that had once covered his wound, and below it piles of pill bottles – some empty, others not. He rummaged through, like a kid on a treasure hunt, until he came across three distinct purple bottles that contained what were known on the drugs circuit as ‘steady pills’. Popular with soldiers, criminals and others facing battle stress or extreme pressure, steady pills made you calm but alert and ready for business. Illegal in most Western countries because of their unpredictable side effects, they were still produced in the Far East and South America, but you had to know where to go and who to ask in order to get some. And Dr Mo Masri was obviously one of those people. Only when Mac tried to read the writing on the label did he realise that they were in Chinese, which meant he couldn’t be sure if they were ‘steady pills’ at all.

The door opened. Mac dropped two bottles and shoved one into his pocket. Casually he went back to the examination table as the doctor walked further into the room.

‘The gentlemen in the Mercedes are here on official business. No need for concern,’ the other man reassured him.

Instead of approaching Mac, the doctor moved to one of the filing cabinets. A slight creak sounded as he pulled open the second drawer. ‘You might want to take this so your scalp doesn’t attract any attention.’

He showed Mac a black baseball cap. Being a dedicated follower of Arsenal, Mac almost declined because it had ‘Man U’ scrawled on the front. But he took it. Settled it on his head. Pulled the peak low.

Then asked, ‘Do you remember a girl in my outfit called Elena?’

‘Do you mean Miss Romanov? I treated her for an injury she sustained at her gym once.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have her address in your records?’

The skin around the doctor’s mouth tightened. ‘Even if I did, which I don’t, I would not be able to give it to you, patient–doctor privilege . . .’

‘Playing the good citizen all of a sudden doesn’t become you, doc,’ Mac sneered.

If the doctor didn’t have her address, he was going to have to find it another way. But how?

Mac walked to the door. He turned to see the doctor studying the road from a window. He looked nervous. ‘Expecting trouble?’

The doctor turned away hurriedly and pretended to inspect some files. ‘No, why should there be any trouble?’

‘I don’t know – you tell me.’

The doctor whispered. ‘There’s no trouble.’

His words sounded like a prayer over a dead body.

‘We’ve waited too long.’

One of the two men in the Merc was getting impatient. The driver lit a cigarette.

‘It takes as long as it takes, you know that. We wait until the man in the hoodie comes outside.’

They waited five minutes more, but when Mac didn’t reappear, the driver decided he couldn’t wait any longer.

‘It’s time.’

They got out of the car, heads covered. Picked up speed as they approached the Sihaa Centre
.
Took the steps two at a time. Barged into the reception area, pulling snub-nosed .38 revolvers from their jackets.

Mac didn’t leave by the front. He walked down a corridor. Pushed down the emergency bar on the back door and ran through the small, but ornate, back garden and scaled the wall. Dropped to the other side. That dodgy doc might be relaxed about the guys in the Merc, but Mac wasn’t. As he hurried down the street he thought about ways of finding Elena’s address. But nothing came to him.

His brain kept moving in pace with his feet. Then he slowly smiled as he realised that the good doctor had given him the clue he needed to find where Elena had lived. It might put him smack-bang in the firing line but he didn’t care. All that mattered was avenging her death.

fifteen

10:34 a.m.

Mac walked into Work Dat Body Health Spa. He’d never have figured out to check out Elena’s gym to find her address if doctor Mo hadn’t inadvertently mentioned he’d treated an injury she’d sustained while working out. That’s when Mac had recalled that she’d used it once a week and sometimes on Sundays. He’d even given her a lift there, a couple of weeks after they’d started sleeping together. She’d been running late so he’d offered to take her. Elena had made a bit of a fuss about not wanting him to go out of his way for her, but he’d subdued her reluctance with soft kisses and teased her about not telling anyone about her secret passion to become Miss Body Builder. Elena had playfully smacked him on the arm and they’d fallen about laughing. That was only five months ago, one month after he’d met her. Now she was dead.

Mac cruelly swiped the good times from his mind as he took in the reception area. He spotted the security camera pretty much straight away, perched just above a large framed shot of some guy with buff pecs. His gaze did another quick scan. No more lenses trailed him – well, not any he could see. Still he flipped his hood over the cap and kept his head low. The place was all chrome and spotless white. Chrome reception desk and light fittings and white walls and ceiling. Only the white tiled floor spoiled the look with a veined pattern that looked like it was leaking blue blood. The reception was empty, no one behind the desk. Good, that meant if the computer was on he could get on with his work without any interruptions. But he’d have to be quick.

He kept his stride easy, but long. As he got closer, quick, soft, techno-synth adrenalin music pumped from another room. He reached the half-moon desk. On top sat a flatscreen computer near a cash register. As he reached to spin the computer round, he heard a woman’s giggle coming from somewhere in the back. He snapped his hand back as a young woman appeared from a door behind the reception desk.

Spotting him, she stopped. ‘Can I help you?’ she offered as she started towards him. She had that sprayed look – tan, the gleaming white teeth and fluffed-up hair.

He caught the name on her name badge as she took the chair on the other side of the desk. Trish.

Mac was all smiles. ‘Yeah. I desperately need to contact a friend of mine, but I don’t have her address. I know that she uses this gym and I wondered if you could just give me her address from your files.’

Trish raised a finely plucked eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry sir, but that’s against the gym’s policy. All members’ information is strictly confidential.’

Mac leaned forward, dropped his voice. ‘It’s urgent that I contact her. Something to do with her family.’

Trish shook her head. ‘Sorry, sir. Maybe you can find a phone number? An email?’

Her email or phone number weren’t going to help him locate her address. Mac felt the heat rising in his face. His next words were delivered with a snap and a bite. ‘Can you help me or not?’

‘Now there’s no need for you to take that tone . . .’

Mac pulled his Luger and pushed it into her face, his anger darkening his skin. He needed that address; whatever he had to do to get it from this woman, he was going to do. Bang a gun in someone’s face and one of two things can happen – the person freezes or screams. If Trish screamed, the game was up. She froze.

‘Keep your mouth shut and nothing will happen to you,’ he ground out. ‘Get under the desk.’

But she didn’t move, just gazed back at him, eyes wide with terror and shock.

‘Now.’

She scrambled up and down, the harsh beat of her breathing filling the air. Mac vaulted the desk. Made sure that the receptionist couldn’t see him put his piece away.

‘Where do I find the members’ details?’ he growled down at her.

All he got back was a whimper.

‘I’m not going to hurt you, just tell me what I want to know. But don’t make a sound, not even a tear, or I’ll really give you something to wail about.’

Her voice came back muffled, high and shaking. ‘On the desktop there’s a directory marked “Members”. Go into it and click on a folder called “Details”.’

Quickly Mac followed the instructions. Soon the list of members and their details came up on the screen. It was set out alphabetically, surnames first and personal details below. Rapidly he scrolled down the screen.

A. B. C. He kept going until he found R.

Raab.

Rabinovitch.

Rahman.

Romanov. He’d found her. But when he checked the first name it was someone called Katia.

He pushed the file up so he could read the name in the next entry.

Surname: Romanov.

First name: Elena

Address: 17 Fountain Road London SE15

No phone number. No email.

Suddenly voices hit the reception as two women carrying towels and talking came into view. Still chatting away, they walked towards the desk. Mac straightened up, but kept his hand on the computer.

‘Hi,’ one of the women said. ‘We’re looking for Trish.’ Her gaze darted around.

He gave her a professional look when she caught his eye again. ‘She’s gone off somewhere while I sort this computer out.’

‘But she said to renew my membership when I finished my session.’

He smiled. ‘Best come back after you’ve had a shower and got dressed.’

For a second she hesitated. Then, ‘OK, will do.’

As she turned away with her partner, Mac whispered, ‘Take it easy, Trish, and everything’s gonna be all right.’

No sound greeted his command, so he got back on with the job. Calmly closed the file. Head low, he vaulted the desk and headed for the door. Abruptly he stopped and swung back around. Headed back towards the desk. Jumped it again. This time he hit some buttons on the cash register. Ping. It opened. He grabbed all of the notes, mainly twenties and tens. Shoved them into his pocket. Then he was back on the other side of the desk. Hood swaying, head down, moving with speed to the door. As he opened it, Trish the freezer became Trish the screamer. The shrill noise she made followed him as he calmly walked down the street on his way to find out if Elena’s home would yield any clues about her death.

sixteen

11 a.m.

Elena’s home was in a bog-standard Victorian terrace divided into one-up, one-down apartments. On the doorframe were two buzzers. The one for the lower flat had the initials ‘JB’ on a card in a slot, while the other had no indication who the current occupant might be. Mac figured the apartment with no name must be Elena’s. He stood back and looked up at the windows above. Curtains shut tight, no sign of life. No easy way of getting in either. The front door was solid and getting round the back would involve climbing through a whole series of back gardens, which would expose him to being clocked by some of the neighbours. And nosey neighbours usually called the cops.

So he went with the last alternative left to him, he rang JB’s buzzer. A face appeared behind a bamboo blind on the downstairs bay window. Young woman who didn’t look especially welcoming. Mac put on his best smile. She looked at him, hesitated for a few moments and then let the blind go. Seconds later, the door opened a fraction, guarded by a secure chain. The woman was pretty, with two blonde pigtails, which should’ve looked silly on someone her age but suited her small face.

‘Yes?’ she asked in a nervous, foreign accent.

‘Hi. You don’t know me but I’m Elena’s boyfriend and I haven’t been able to get in touch with her for the past few days. She hasn’t been to work either. I’m desperately worried something’s happened to her. She’s not answering her phone or her mobile.’ Mac looked upwards. ‘And I’m afraid something’s happened to her upstairs in her flat, that’s she’s had an accident or she’s ill. I’ve called the police but they say they can’t come for a couple of hours and I can’t wait that long.’

Mac sounded desperate, panicky and strained. He didn’t need to fake it; he was all those things anyway. But the girl looked unconvinced.

Mac pressed on. ‘So I was wondering if you could let me in? Just to make sure she’s not unconscious upstairs.’

The woman arched her eyebrow, so Mac pleaded, ‘Please . . . I can’t wait for the cops and I don’t have a key.’

His hand drifted downwards and backwards towards his gun. He didn’t want to have to wave his gun in front of anyone else, but he’d decided he was going into the flat by any means necessary. But as he did so the door was closed in his face before he had a chance to get his foot into the gap. He rested his forehead on the door in despair. Then he heard the clang of the chain being pulled on the other side. He lifted his head at the same time the door opened up. Ordinarily, he would have noticed the woman’s beauty, but instead he looked down the hall to where another door blocked the entrance up to Elena’s flat.

He looked back at the woman, ‘Do you know Elena?’

‘Only to say hello to. I haven’t seen her for a couple of days.’ She sounded deeply uncomfortable.

He walked past her to the door to Elena’s home and tried to tug it, but it was locked. ‘I’ll have to force my way in.’

‘There’s no need – she keeps a spare on the ledge over the door.’

Mac reached up and felt along the ledge and found the key. Turned the lock and opened the door. Wooden stairs led upwards in front of him. When he looked back at the neighbour, she was staring intently at him, suspicion back on her face. He gave it less than ten minutes before she called the cops, so he needed to work fast. He took the stairs two at a time, leaving the door open behind him so he could hear anyone coming through the front door.