Her sidekicks climb out, stomp round to the back and open the boot. Then they haul something out onto the ground. It’s a man, big, wearing nothing but a dirty towelling dressing gown that flaps in the wind, hands fastened behind his back, something tartan over his head.
So they got Danby after all…It’s almost enough to make Richard smile.
They drag the DSI to his feet, then towards the front of the house.
Down the hall, Richard can hear the ‘gang’ still arguing about what to do to him.
The doorbell’s harsh artificial
Richard presses his ear against the door. Muffled sounds. A clunk.
Matt says,
A painful grunt. A thump.
And then that Home Counties accent:
Logan’s little Fiat made a grinding, rattling noise.
‘You hear that?’ Butler coaxed them around the roundabout and onto South College Street. ‘That’s the sound of the transmission eating itself.’
There was a bang, and another cloud of grey smoke spiralled out into the dark afternoon. But the car kept on going.
He dug out his phone. Should really call Steel and find out if Susan was OK. Might not have her mobile on though, not in the hospital. And what if it was bad news…?
He called FHQ instead and asked for Constable Guthrie. There was a pause, then,
‘Have you got that info I asked for?’
‘What about him?’
About to get even unluckier.
‘What about the man in the picture: Lowe?’
Butler hooked a left onto Portland Street, bypassing the long queue of traffic waiting at the lights, the Fiat towing a growing pillar of smoke behind it. Even in a dying car they’d made pretty decent time. It wasn’t even four yet.
‘Did you do the property search?’
‘What’s it say?’
Logan smiled.
Richard Knox falls to his knees on the cold hard kitchen tiles. Tries not to cry out. The kitchen’s all rosewood units, green marble worktops and stainless steel appliances. A big enough room, but it’s already pretty crowded, you know?
The gang that snatched him from the Sacro flat are standing behind him – down the end with the cooker, where there aren’t any exits. Matt: a tall, thin man with grey hair; Bruce: pale leather jacket, even paler skin; and a plain, dumpy woman called Ellen.
On the other side of the room are the three people Richard really hoped never to see again. Julie and her pet thugs. Not that she
A breakfast bar juts out of the wall, partitioning the kitchen in two. Danby’s slumped over it. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, just lies there, shivering, his legs a deep angry pink. That tartan bag still over his head.
Knox gathers the quilt around himself, hiding his shrivelled naked cock.
Julie smiles at him. ‘Hey, Babe. You miss me?’
Matt steps forward. ‘Look, I don’t know what you think you’re playing at but—’
