Vicious Circle (25 page)

‘How did it go, old son?’ he asked as Paddy climbed into the seat beside him.

‘If I had smoked, sniffed and swallowed everything I was offered tonight I would be flying higher than the morning star up there.’

They drove on to the Portals of Paradise and when Nastiya appeared she looked as though she had spent the time in a beauty salon.

‘No luck, Queen of my Heart?’ Paddy enquired anxiously.

‘I could have made a fortune. One dear old man of about ninety offered me ten thousand pounds for just a look and no touch.’

‘You should have taken the offer,’ Paddy told her, and she gave him a level stare through eyes that were as frosty blue as a tundra sky. When they got back to No. 11 all three of them slept until noon.

The next night was a repetition of the first. Only the clientele in the clubs had changed.

On the third night Hector strolled into the bedlam of Fusion Fire a little after midnight. It was Saturday night and it was shoulder to shoulder on the dance floor. The volume of the music numbed the senses. The huge mirrored light balls suspended from the ceiling bounced in time to the pounding feet of the dancers below.

So as to blend into the scenery, Hector was wearing a black satin Spanish bolero jacket over a frilled white shirt and a black string tie. His toreador sequinned pants were skin tight. Once again this costume had been assembled for him by Nastiya. He seated himself at his usual table and a girl in a mini-skirt with a pretty pixie face and pouting lips, who he had never seen before, immediately plumped herself down on his lap.

‘You are so gorgeous I want to marry you,’ she told him. ‘You are rich, aren’t you?’

‘I am a multimillionaire,’ he told her gravely.

‘Oh my God!’ she said breathlessly. ‘I swear to God that you’ve just made me come.’

He found her really quite amusing. He laughed and glanced over her shoulder and looked straight at the dark sullen face that he remembered so well from Victoria Vusamazulu’s videos.

Aleutian was standing on the far side of the dance floor, at the top of the stairs that led down to the entrance lobby. He was with a girl who was looking up at him but her face was turned away from Hector. Aleutian was looking down at her patronizingly. Although the crowd swirled around the pair he stood a full head above any of them. This was how Hector had picked him out so readily. He stared at him for a few seconds only, making utterly certain he had the right man, but even that was too long.

If you stare intently at a wild animal in the jungle it will often sense your gaze and react to it. Aleutian was just that, a savage predator in his own domain. His eyes flashed up from the girl’s face and his gaze locked with Hector’s. He recognized Hector instantly. He whirled and darted away down the staircase.

Hector jumped to his feet, dumping the girl from his lap in a heap at his feet. He jumped over her and ran onto the dance floor and fought his way through the dancers to the head of the stairs down which Aleutian had disappeared.

The stairs were almost as crowded as the dance floor. When Hector reached the entrance door and burst through it into the street there was no sign of him. Hector checked the blind instinct to rush through the dark streets searching at random.

He thought of the girl Aleutian had been with. Perhaps he could find her. Perhaps she could point him to where Aleutian was holing up. He abandoned that idea in the same instant as it came to him. Fusion Fire was overflowing with dollies like her. He had not even seen her face. He would never recognize her in the pack. Anyway, she was probably a hooker that Aleutian had picked up this very same evening.

How did Aleutian get here? Car? Taxi? If so, he is already long gone.
He was thinking furiously.
Underground? Yes, of course!

He knew from his online research that the north bank entrance to Blackfriars station was perhaps four hundred yards from where he now stood. He started to run. He raced to the first corner and saw the entrance to the station at the end of the block ahead. The street was almost deserted at this hour. There was only a handful of late-night revellers making their way homeward. One of these was Aleutian. He was sprinting away from Hector towards the tube station. As Hector started in pursuit Aleutian reached the entrance and disappeared like a jack rabbit into its warren. Hector followed him into the entrance. He went down the stairs three at a time with his footsteps echoing in an empty tunnel. He reached the T-junction at the bottom. The left-hand tunnel was signposted Richmond and the right was signed Upminster. He had no way of telling which one Aleutian had chosen. At random, he started down the right-hand tunnel and then he heard a train rumbling in on the Richmond line. He spun around and raced in that direction. He came out on the landing and looked down on the platform. The train was already standing stationary and the doors were open. There was a small crowd of late-night commuters and revellers climbing aboard. Hector saw at once that his hunch had been good. Aleutian was pushing his way through the other passengers. Hector watched him clamber into one of the carriages.

Hector started down the last flight of stairs, but before he was halfway to the platform the doors closed and the train pulled away. As the carriages slid by, Hector saw Aleutian standing at one of the windows looking up at him. Hector reached for the pistol in its concealed shoulder holster. Then he checked himself. The angle and the range were extreme. Aleutian was closely surrounded by other passengers. Hector dared not take the risk of hitting one of them as the train accelerated away.

Aleutian knew he was safe. He grinned up at Hector. It was a sardonic grimace, filled with menace. Hector’s skin crawled. He was looking into the eyes of Hazel’s murderer. His legs trembled under him with the strength of his emotions. It took him a few seconds after the train had disappeared into the mouth of the tunnel before he could force himself to think dispassionately again.

He spun around and raced back the way he had come, but he knew that it would take at least ten minutes to reach the parked Q-car. The train was carrying Aleutian away at forty miles an hour. Aleutian’s lead was far too great for him to ever catch up, even in the Q-car. He had to phone ahead and get Paddy or Nastiya to head him off. But there were a dozen or more stops where Aleutian could jump off the train before it reached the terminal at Richmond. It wasn’t possible to cover them all.

But, he was missing something. He knew he was missing something as he stormed back up the tunnel to ground level.

Think!
he exhorted himself.
Lead with your brain and not your balls. Where is the bastard heading for?

He burst out of the tunnel and into the street before it hit him. It stopped him in his tracks. Then he reached for his phone and punched in Nastiya’s number. It rang interminably, but he held it to his ear as he raced on at top speed.

Vicky Vusamazulu is the key.
He knew it with crystal clarity.
I could almost see Aleutian making the connection. With the instinct of a fox he sensed immediately that he had been betrayed. He knew that the odds of me stumbling onto him in Fusion Fire by blind chance were astronomical. He knows that someone had put me onto him. He knows that Vicky is the only one who knew both of us. She was the only one who knew that he frequented Fusion Fire. It didn’t take much for him to work out that she is the only one who could have given me the lead. The odds are ten to one on that he is on his way to revenge himself on Vicky right this minute. Come on, Nazzy sweetheart. Answer your bloody phone.

‘Hector, where are you?’ Nastiya asked suddenly.

‘I have spooked Aleutian. He made a break, and got clean away from me. My best bet is he’s on his way to Vicky. You remember Vicky’s address, don’t you?’

‘Forty-seven Gardens Lane and the postcode is TW9 5LA. It’s about three hundred yards down the road from the Kew Gardens tube station.’ Nastiya’s reply was quick and sharp. She was a pro.

‘At this moment Aleutian is on a train heading directly for Kew Gardens. You are much closer than we are. You can get to Vicky long before we will ever make it. Take a cab. Paddy and I will back you up as soon as we can. Just make it fast, Nazzy. Your pal Vicky is a sitting duck, and that bastard is a killer.’ The phone went dead against his ear. Nastiya was always sparing with her words.

He dialled Paddy and spoke to him while he ran for the Q-car.

‘Paddy, wait for me outside the Rabid Dog. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, maybe less.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Aleutian showed up, but I made a right royal balls-up. He’s bolted and he’s running. Tell you more when I see you.’

Fifteen minutes later, Paddy whipped open the front door of the Q-car and jumped into the passenger seat before Hector came to a full halt. Hector hit the accelerator and powered away again.

‘Forty-seven Gardens Lane, TW9 5LA. That’s Vicky’s address. Punch it into the satnav, Paddy. I am damned sure that’s where Aleutian is headed.’

*

The insistent chimes of the front door of her apartment woke Vicky Vusamazulu. She sat up in bed groggily. She had taken a sleeping tablet. She glanced at the luminous dial of the bedside clock. It was almost two o’clock in the morning.

Thank God that Mrs Church is stone deaf.
Vicky tried to knuckle the sleep out of her eyes. Mrs Church was her landlady. She lived upstairs and Vicky knew from experience that she switched off her hearing aid when she went to bed. She was such a strict and mean old harridan that Vicky was her only tenant.

The doorbell rang again. Vicky switched on the lights, threw back the bedclothes, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. She was wearing short pyjamas in a bright floral pattern. She stumbled into the passage and went down to the door at the end.

She checked that the two safety chains were fastened securely before she went up on tip toe to peer through the peephole. The visitor outside was standing with his back to her.

‘Who is it?’ she called irritably. He turned back to face her and she recognized him.

She gasped with shock and delight and she came fully awake. She had not even known that Aleutian was back in town.

‘Open the door, bitch,’ he said.

‘Aleutian! Oh God! Is it really you? I thought you were never coming back.’ She was so excited that she fumbled with the safety chains. ‘Wait! Don’t go away. It won’t take me a second. Wait, Aleutian, my darling.’

She got it open at last and ran out to embrace him, but he pushed her aside and strode into her apartment. He walked down the passage towards her bedroom without looking back at her. She shut the front door but did not waste time re-securing the safety chains. Then she ran after him.

‘I thought you were never coming back. I should never have doubted you. I knew you would keep your word. I missed you. I missed you so very much.’ She was babbling with excitement.

He was sitting on the bed. He was watching her with a strange expression on his face.

‘Have you been good while I was away?’

‘Oh yes, yes. I stayed at home every night waiting for you. I never even looked at another man. I love you so much.’

‘You are lying to me,’ he said in that special soft and deadly tone of his that made her tremble. ‘I think you have been a bad little bitch. I think that I am going to have to punish you.’

She knew this game so well that her nipples came erect under the thin stuff of her pyjama top.

‘Take off your pyjamas!’ he commanded and she pulled the top off over her head, bundled it and threw it onto the bed beside where he was sitting. Then she pulled her short panties down over her hips and let them fall around her ankles. She kicked them away, and stood naked before him.

‘Are you going to beat me, Aleutian?’ she asked fearfully and covered her pubes with cupped hands.

‘Take your hands away and come here.’ He crooked one finger at her and she came and stood close in front of him. ‘Open your legs, bitch.’

She moved her feet apart. He leaned forward and put his hand between her thighs. ‘Open wider!’ he ordered.

She could feel his finger wriggling into her and she wanted it so badly. She thrust her hips towards him and she felt him touch the mouth of her womb.

‘You are as slimy as a bucket of eels down there, you dirty bitch,’ he said. ‘But do you understand that I have to punish you, because you have been so bad?’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Master. You call me Master. Or have you forgotten?’ He did something with his finger that was so painful it made her whimper. It felt as though he had torn something inside her. Her eyes opened wide with the pain. But the pain felt so good that she was already close to the point of her first orgasm.

‘Yes, I understand, Master.’

He slid his finger out of her and held it up in front of her face. ‘Now, look what you have done, you dirty little whore. You have made my nice clean finger dirty with your filthy pussy.’

‘I am sorry, Master. I didn’t mean to do that.’

‘Get down on your knees,’ he ordered and she dropped down in front of him. He held out his finger towards her. ‘Suck it clean.’ She took it into her mouth. He forced it down her throat; so far that her shoulders heaved with the gagging reflex.

‘Admit it; you have been really bad while I was away, haven’t you?’

She made incoherent sounds of denial. Her face was swelling as she suffocated. He leaned back and pulled his finger out of her throat. She sobbed with relief, and her whole body convulsed with the effort as she struggled for air. She looked up at him and her eyes were bloodshot and streaming with tears.

He took his hand out from behind his back and she realized that he held a flick knife. He pressed the release button and the blade snapped out under her nose. It was seven inches long and bright as a sunbeam.

This was something new. He had never shown her this knife before. She tried to back away on her knees, but he picked up her pyjama top from the bed beside him and wound it around her neck and held her like a puppy on a leash.

‘You have been talking to people about me, haven’t you, bitch?’