we’re getting somewhere,’ he said.
He opened the cupboard first. Inside it there was a steel rack containing a variety of automatic weapons. Various pistols and revolvers were ranged along the top: Glocks, Brownings, Berettas. Below those, there were heavier-duty items: rifles and submachine guns. Heck recognised a Kurtz, two Armalites, a Kalashnikov, even a high-powered Dragunov sniper rifle.
‘Good God,’ Lauren said slowly.
Heck turned to the filing cabinet and yanked open its drawers. They were packed with paperwork filed in buff folders. A reference code had been scrawled on each one with felt pen. The codes were the sort you used when listing electronic data and wishing to keep it orderly and chronological; for example, ‘a’ through to ‘z’, followed by ‘za’ through to ‘zz’, followed by ‘zza’ through to ‘zzz’, and so on. There was also a leather-bound ledger. Heck flicked it open. It was filled, page after page, with lists of scribbled notations. At first glance it looked like gibberish, but there were numbers in there with pound signs attached, big numbers, each one struck through with biro (possibly to indicate that the full fee had now been paid). On one occasion, Ezekial – because this was evidently a ledger of his accounts – had earned twenty-five thousand pounds for a single job. On another he’d earned forty-five thousand pounds.
Lauren stiffened. She thought she’d just heard movement outside the house.
Heck continued to flick pages. Each separate list clearly referred to a different employer – at least that was the way it appeared. She hooked his arm with her hand. He shook her loose; he was too preoccupied.
‘Someone’s coming in,’ she whispered, dashing to the top of the loft stair. She strained her ears to hear more – a key was turning in the front lock. This time Heck heard it too.
‘We’ve got to go!’ Lauren hissed.
He nodded, but his eyes scanned quickly down the very last page in the ledger. At the bottom of the final list, the reference to the most recent job was ‘RO’.
Ron O’Hoorigan?
The figure alongside it read ten thousand pounds.
‘Heck!’ Lauren had been halfway down the stair and now stuck her head back into the room.
He glanced at the top of the list. Whoever these particular jobs had been performed for, he – or they – were referred to simply as ‘Nice Guys’.
‘Heck, for Christ’s sake!’
He nodded, switched the light off and followed her down the stairs.
Just as they did, the cottage’s front door slammed open, and yellow streetlight flooded into the darkened ground floor. Lauren dashed across the sleeping area on cat-like feet. She made straight for the bathroom, but Heck didn’t immediately pursue. He paused halfway, and moved towards the balustrade. Even the sound of someone blundering around downstairs, and then the loud clack-click of what could be a firearm being cocked made no apparent impression on him. He loitered there as though uncertain about something. It took Lauren to hurtle back in, grab him by the collar, haul him into the bathroom and push him out through the window.
They both landed on their feet, and raced down the garden towards the rear gate. As they reached it, full lighting came on in the house behind. They didn’t glance back, but crashed out into the alley and raced away into the London night.
They ran north up Kingston Road, crossed the river at Teddington Lock and only slowed to a walk when they reached Petersham Road. By now they were sweaty-faced and panting. The few late evening pedestrians gave them a wide berth.
‘Why did you hesitate like that?’ Lauren asked.
Heck shook his head.
‘You’re not going to start going barmy on me, I hope?’
‘He was there, wasn’t he? Right there, right in our grasp. If we’d jumped him then, it could’ve been the key to everything.’
‘You’re kidding, right? You saw the way he beat the shit out of those idiots in Salford. Besides, it sounded like he was armed.’
‘Yeah, that might’ve been a problem. But we could still have nabbed him if we’d been canny. The thing is … it’s not him we’re after. It’s whoever’s paying him.’
They were now entering Richmond. At weekend these privileged streets would be alive with well-heeled revellers, even late at night. But midweek it was quiet, its jazzy bars and swish restaurants closed and silent. A mist was forming, rolling in from the river. They glanced behind them a couple of times, but there was no sign anyone was following.
‘This is a lot bigger than I thought, Lauren,’ Heck said. ‘This guy, Deke … I don’t think he’s just some brainless bit of underworld muscle. I think he’s a hit-man. A proper one, a pro.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Doesn’t it make sense, with the weapons he had? The fact that he’s ex-special forces supports that theory.’
‘In which case, doesn’t it rule him out of our investigation?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘But we’re just looking for a missing woman.’
‘Look, Lauren …’ He mopped his sweat-damp hair from his forehead as they walked. ‘There’s something you need to know … I haven’t been entirely straight with you about this. I’m not just investigating Genene’s abduction. A whole bunch of women have gone missing in similar circumstances in the last few years. Genene’s only one of them.’
She glanced sidelong at him, at first looking as if she didn’t quite know how to react. ‘You mean … you mean this is some kind of serial killer?’
‘I don’t know. I considered that possibility at first, but we’ve never found any bodies. You understand that what I’m telling you here is classified? You can’t go spreading it around.’
‘Who am I going to spread it to, Heck?’ She blew out a long, slow breath. ‘That’s not good news, but I don’t suppose I should be any more upset than I was before. All respect to these other birds, Genene is still my priority. But just out of interest, how many are we talking?’
‘Upwards of thirty.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Maybe more.’
‘And this Shane Klim is the one who’s …’
‘He’s probably not been acting alone. It’s increasingly difficult to see how anyone could be doing this alone. And now we know that a professional hit-man is involved … I mean, that puts it into a different category altogether.’ Heck rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘Always assuming I’m on the right track. This is all still theory, I’m afraid. If it’s wrong, and we’ve blundered into some totally different criminal conspiracy, I’m back to square one in a big way.’
