Dead Man’s Footsteps

46

At 6.45 Abby was beginning to worry that the courier company had forgotten her. She had been ready and waiting since 5.30, her suitcase by the door, coat slung over it, Jiffy bag addressed and sealed.

It was completely dark outside now and, with the rain still torrenting down, she could see very little. She was watching for a Global Express van to come down the street. For the umpteenth time she removed the Mace pepper spray canister from the hip pocket of her jeans and examined it.

The small red cylinder with its finger-grip indents, key chain and belt clip was reassuringly heavy. She repeatedly flipped open the safety lid and practised aiming the nozzle. The guy who had sold it to her in Los Angeles, on her way back to England, told her it contained ten one-second bursts and would blind a human for ten seconds. She had smuggled it into England inside her make-up bag in her suitcase.

She put it back in her pocket, stood up and took her mobile phone out of her handbag. She was about to dial Global Express when the intercom finally buzzed.

She hurried down the hall to the front door. On the small black and white monitor she could see a motorcycle helmet. Her heart sank. That twerp assistant, Jonathan, had told her it would be a van. She had been banking on a van.

Shit.

She pressed the intercom button. ‘Come up, eighth floor,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid the lift’s not working.’

Her brain was racing again, trying to do a fast rethink. She picked up the Jiffy bag. Have to revert to her original plan, she decided, thinking it through in the two long minutes that passed before the sharp rap on the door.

Vigilant as ever, she peered through the spyhole and saw a motorcyclist, clad in leather, in a black helmet, with a dark visor that was down, holding some kind of clipboard.

She unlocked the door, removed the safety chains and opened it.

‘I – I thought you were coming in a van,’ she said.

He dropped the clipboard, which fell to the ground with a clank, then punched Abby hard in the stomach. It caught her totally off guard, doubling her up in winded pain. She stumbled sideways into the wall.

‘Nice to see you, Abby,’ he said. ‘Not crazy about your new look.’

Then he punched her again.