Close Quarters

THIRTY-TWO

By the position of his body it was evident that his neck had broken. Whoever had killed him had curled him up tight, forcing his thin legs in against his chest and wedging them in place with the armchair. He didn’t take up much space and looked even skinnier dead than alive. Killing him must have been a simple task.

I checked his pockets. They were empty. Nothing to identify him.

As I flipped back one side of his jacket, I saw a rip in his shirt. I also pinpointed the gamey smell I’d picked up earlier. He’d soiled his pants. I could see why, too. His shirt wasn’t ripped — it was cut. And there was the deep black-red colour of blood soaking his hip and the carpet beneath him.

I peeled back the shirt. 24d had been tortured. Somebody had used a knife on him, jamming the blade in his side and making a hole just above the hip bone. The pain must have been unbearable. I lifted his head, wondering if he’d had a chance to cry out. But that had been impossible; the corner of a bright yellow handkerchief protruded from between his lips, with the rest stuffed down his throat.

Torture. The kind of thing people do with only two aims in mind.

Information or revenge.

I discounted the second; as far as I knew, 24d was a stranger here and hadn’t seemed the sort to hurt a fly. But the information he had which would have made this worthwhile was the whereabouts of Edwin Travis.

And the location of the local cut-out.

I had to get out of here. But finding Travis was a priority. Without him, my job was over. I stood up and made sure the body wasn’t visible from a casual look through the door. I didn’t want the maid coming back and screaming the place down before I was clear and away.

I stepped out into the corridor and three doors down almost walked into a man coming out of another room. He was tall and heavily muscled, with a bullet head. He moved like a club bouncer, all shoulders and arms, and was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. As he turned to pull the door shut, his jacket swung open to reveal the leather strap of a shoulder harness across his chest and the butt of a semi-automatic in a holster. Then he saw me.

His mouth dropped open in surprise, and I could see him trying to compute whether I was a threat or not. Then a light came on and he lashed out with a fist like a bucket while reaching for the gun.

I didn’t know how, but somehow he’d recognized my face, and that worried me.

As fast as his reactions were, my appearance had caught him off-balance. I ducked beneath the punch and turned, kicking his right knee from under him. It gave with a sharp crack of bone and he started to fall, a scream of pain building in his throat. I hit him across the side of the neck and bounced him off the wall as he went down, out for the count. Then I grabbed him under the shoulders and dragged him back into the room he’d just left and rolled him behind the bed. As I did so I heard a sound behind me and swung round, expecting trouble number two and ready to go again.

It was Ed Travis looking at me from the next bed.

His eyes were rolling imploringly above a strip of tape wrapped around his head and over his mouth, and his hands and feet were taped up tight so he could barely move. He was sweating freely and looked like a man living a nightmare.

I peeled away the tape from his mouth and he yelped as it took off some skin from his lips.

‘Sorry. Who’s your friend?’ I asked him.

He shook his head without replying, and I saw why. His lips were dry and cracked, and he was having trouble breathing. The heavy must have had him taped up for some time without water. He also had a heavy bruise under one eye and possibly other injuries I couldn’t see.

I made him stay where he was and got a glass of water from the bathroom and dribbled a little over his mouth. ‘Take it easy,’ I said, when he tried to grab the glass from me. ‘Where are you hurt?’

He flapped a hand over his ribs. I told him not to talk and peeled back his shirt. He had some vivid bruising across his chest and stomach where he’d been punched repeatedly, and I didn’t want to speculate on how much internal damage might have been done. Whatever it was, there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

Once I was sure he’d drunk just enough to keep him going I went over to check the windows. If the unconscious man now snoring behind the bed had any colleagues about, they were out of sight. But staying here was now even more risky with a dead body down the corridor and the likelihood of someone coming up here to join the muscle-man.

I turned round just as Travis finished the water and nodded. ‘It’s OK. Thanks. I’m good.’ He shook some feeling back into his arms and feet, and gingerly tucked his shirt in, wincing as he touched his stomach. He stared down at the thug behind the other bed. ‘I thought I was dead. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t tell him. He was like a madman — but controlled. Sadistic.’ He took a deep breath as the shock suddenly hit him, and his face, which was already pale, went a shade of grey. He rolled off the bed and just about made the bathroom, where he threw up noisily in the sink. Sudden rehydration will do that to you.

He came back out wiping his face with a tissue and looked at me with a vacant expression. I’d seen that look before in others. It’s the kind of phase a person goes through just prior to sinking into a state of severe shock. He had tear streaks down his cheeks and when he spoke his voice was shaky. ‘He wouldn’t believe me. He told me what he’d done to Denys and he’d do the same to me if I didn’t tell him the address.’

‘Hold it. Denys? Denys who?’ I had to keep him talking, keep him thinking about putting words together. The alternative was for him to go catatonic.

‘The man from the apartment who brought me here. His name was Denys. He wouldn’t tell me his family name. You didn’t know?’

‘I didn’t need to. What address was he talking about?’

He coughed with difficulty and cleared his throat. ‘The next in line. The cut-out. I tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen—’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘No!’ He looked offended. ‘I couldn’t. I was only given the first address — that was Denys’. He said it was best if I didn’t know who he was delivering me to in case we ran into a roadblock. He said if that happened I should call the US Embassy in Kiev and find somewhere to hide until they could arrange a pick-up, and not to trust anybody.’

‘And he left you here?’

‘Yes. He said he had to go out and that I should stay inside. I think he was going to make contact with the local asset, but I didn’t hear from him again. Oh, God, that noise.’ His mouth fell open and he looked sicker than ever.

‘What noise?’

‘I heard something in the night. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it sounded like somebody hitting a pillow. You know … the way you do when you can’t sleep? Jesus, I’ve only just realized—’ He stopped speaking as imagery in his head told him what it must have been.

‘Don’t think about it,’ I told him. ‘And then this guy turned up?’

He looked distraught. ‘He said he’d killed Denys because he refused to talk. Is that right — he’s dead?’

I nodded. It was pointless hiding the truth and he had to know how serious things were. I was still puzzled about who bullet-head was and why he was here — and how he’d obviously known who I was. I bent and searched his pockets. He had some cash, a cell phone, a wallet with a couple of credit cards and a plastic ID card which gave his name as Greb Voloshyn. A business card described him as a private investigator and security guard with a company called BJ Group based in Kiev.

In his inside jacket pocket I found two photos. One was of Edwin Travis.

‘Come on,’ I said, and stuffed both photos in my pocket. I helped Travis to his feet, taking care not to put any strain on his ribs. ‘We have to get out of here.’

As we moved towards the door, I glanced out of the window. In the distance, two cars were approaching at speed with headlights on. One had a red light flashing on the roof. The other was a military jeep. It was just what we didn’t need right now.

But what also worried me was the second photo I’d found in Voloshyn’s pocket.

It was of me.