No Kiss For The Devil

39

By Riley’s reckoning, the journey couldn’t have lasted more than thirty minutes, but it felt like an hour. Once the man holding her seemed satisfied she wasn’t going to kick and scream, he let go of her, but made her lie down with her head pressed into the back seat. To make sure she complied, he held a gun across her neck, buried under her hair. It felt cold and greasy against her skin, and she tried to recall what Palmer had told her about safety catches and the sensitivity of trigger mechanisms.

A stream of furious words in Russian and the occasional obscenity in English came from the driver, and Riley guessed it was the man she had hit with the baton. Eventually, the man holding her tired of it and said something short and sharp. The complaining ceased.

When the vehicle stopped, Riley was dragged from the car and marched across a short expanse of concrete. She had no opportunity to escape. Her captor kept one arm across her shoulders, his other hand holding her face in a vice-like grip and pressed into his chest. To an onlooker, Riley decided grimly, they might look like lovers, and she felt as sickened at that dreadful irony as she was by the man’s proximity and the smell of his unwashed clothing.

In the background, the car door slammed and the vehicle moved away.

Seconds later, a door creaked and she caught a brief glimpse of bright lights. When her feet echoed over tiled flooring, she knew instinctively where she was.

Pantile House.

The man let go of her face to palm the door open, and for the first time Riley managed to get a look at him. Her stomach went cold.

It was Pechov.

The lift hummed and the floor shifted. They were going up. The close atmosphere held nothing but the sound of the man’s breathing and the creaking of the lift mechanism. When it stopped, Pechov bundled her out into a short corridor. One of her shoes came off, but he forced her on, making no move to retrieve it. He stopped at a door and kicked it open, pushing her through. She caught the sharp tang of disinfectant and saw more bright lights, and a row of sinks and several cubicles with thin walls. A tall metal rubbish bin stood beneath a hand drier. An extractor fan hummed, giving out an intermittent clatter. A tampon dispenser was fixed to one wall. They were in a women’s washroom.

A hard chair was positioned ominously in front of the sinks. Pechov pushed Riley into it. Yanking her jacket down off her shoulders, he produced a roll of gaffer tape, and in seconds, had her taped to the chair with her hands immobilised behind her back.

When he was satisfied Riley couldn’t move, he took out a mobile and dialled a number. He spoke briefly, then hung up and looked at her with an evil smile. ‘You in big trouble,’ he breathed thickly, and took a toffee from his pocket. He unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth, sucking noisily. ‘Boss is not happy man.’

Footsteps echoed along the corridor outside the washroom door. For a brief moment, Riley hoped that it might represent rescue; that someone had seen what was happening and had come to take her away from this.

Then the door swung open and Grigori Fedorov entered.

He murmured to Pechov, who nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Fedorov walked across and stood looking down at Riley. Up close, she thought he looked slightly ruffled, the collar of his shirt slightly grey. Or maybe it was the lights.

‘This is not productive, Miss Gavin,’ he said at last, his dry voice echoing off the tiled walls. ‘I have not the time for this.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she replied, surprised at how level her own voice sounded. She felt a tremor going through her left leg and fought to still it.

He stood for a moment, before turning away. Almost casually, he picked up the rubbish bin. Then, with a vicious surge of rage, he swung it in an arc over his head and brought it crashing down on the end sink. Shards of porcelain flew into the air as the front edge of the basin disintegrated, and a large piece fell to the floor and lay spinning raggedly, like a demented top.

Riley couldn’t help it; she closed her eyes, stunned by the unexpected display of violence. When she opened them again, Fedorov was standing in front of her, breathing heavily, his eyes glittering.

‘You did not call,’ he said quietly, a tremor in his voice. ‘I was disappointed.’ He stepped over to the sinks, his shoes crunching on splinters of porcelain, and studied his reflection in the mirror, turning his face left and right. Then he turned on one of the hot taps and let the water run. He tested the temperature, but turned it off again with a hiss of irritation.

Bending down, he picked up a sliver of porcelain. It was the length of a finger, with a razor-sharp edge. He ran his thumb along it. The skin opened as if sliced with a surgeon’s scalpel, and a hairline of blood welled up. Turning to Riley, he touched the sliver to her face with almost gentle care, and drew it slowly across her cheek from one side to the other. It felt ice-cold to the touch. Riley froze, not daring to move or imagine what it might be doing to her skin.

Dreading what was coming next, she felt herself shrink inside.

Then footsteps approached and Pechov appeared. He was carrying a steaming kettle.

‘I wonder if you remember what I said to you, the last time we met?’ Fedorov murmured. He sounded almost disappointed, as if a spell had been broken. He tossed the porcelain to one side and took the kettle, dismissing Pechov with a jerk of his head. ‘I believe I told you of the custom we have for people who do not do what they have agreed?’

Riley said nothing, her eyes fixed on the wisp of steam coming from the spout of the kettle.

Fedorov nodded. ‘Of course. How silly of me. You are a journalist, trained to remember things.’ His accent had become thicker, the final word pronounced as ‘thinks’. He poured the boiled water into the sink, steam billowing into the air and clouding the mirrors. Then he dropped the kettle casually on the floor. Immersing his fingers in the water, he held them there, gently sucking in air through his teeth in a lengthy hiss.

Riley was stunned. She could see Fedorov’s skin turning red with the heat, but beyond the initial reaction, it didn’t seem to bother him.

‘When I was young boy,’ he explained calmly, ‘I was made to stand out in the cold for hours, as punishment. No coat, no gloves. Arms above my head. It was very cold where I come from. My hands became numb. After a while, they lost most of their feeling. It never quite came back. What it taught me, Miss Gavin, was how to deal with extreme pain. How to close off the mind. How resistant are you to pain, Miss Gavin? Hmm?’

‘What do you want?’ she demanded, her voice shaking. ‘I’m not going to write that article, so you might as well let me go.’

‘Oh, I know that, Miss Gavin. I know that. But that is no longer the issue. Nor, sadly, is letting you go.’

Without warning, he flicked a spray of water into her face.

Riley screamed as the hot liquid stung her skin. Her eyes were saved only by instinctively turning away a split second before the water hit her. She kept her head turned, but Fedorov continued relentlessly, repeatedly flicking droplets at her, content to aim them at the side of her neck, where it burned into the soft skin of her throat and just behind her ears where the tissue was at its most sensitive. Riley clamped her teeth together, struggling as small rivulets began to run down inside her clothing, searing across her upper body and down over her stomach. The effect was like a line of fiery little ants scuttling over her skin, leaving her instantly chilled as the heat diminished. She tried not to scream, but in the end, could not prevent a low, agonised moan from escaping.

Fedorov examined his scalded fingers, which were a vivid, reddened hue. One or two were showing signs of blistering, and he blew on them gently, turning his hand, his intense stare on Riley as she fought in vain against the tape holding her.

‘I can keep this up for a long time,’ he commented. ‘Hurting you slowly. Making you suffer. Or I can save us both a lot of unnecessary pain and effort.’ He moved round behind her and shunted the chair closer to the sink, making her recoil inwardly as his hips thrust against her. His stale breath washed over her as he leaned closer. Then, with slow deliberation, he placed a hand behind her head and forced her forward until she was staring down into the basin, the steam rising to envelope her face and hair.

‘No…please…!’ Riley gasped. She tried to resist, but the Russian was stronger than he looked. Her chest was pressing against the lip of the sink, and she knew that with one push, her face would be Suddenly he stopped. ‘Wait — I nearly forgot something.’ He stepped to one side and picked up a plastic bottle from beneath the sink. ‘A little… elaboration of mine.’ He unscrewed the top and dumped the contents of the bottle into the water.

The smell rose, harsh and acrid, and Riley gagged as her throat clamped shut against the familiar fumes.

Neat bleach.

Fedorov took hold of her once more, and began to push her face down to the water. ‘Now,’ he said softly. ‘Where were we?’

Vasiliyev barged through the front door of Pantile House and came face to face with Olek, one of the two tall security guards. The man was rubbing at his face with a more sullen expression than usual, and wincing. He had few conversational powers, but he knew what was expected of him and was unemotional in his work. It was Olek who had been sent to despatch the building’s supervisor, Goricz, and his family.

Vasiliyev noticed a nasty red weal across the man’s cheek. It was peppered with a line of blood dots showing where the skin had broken. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

‘I walked into a door,’ Olek replied sourly.

‘You should be more careful. Where is the boss?’

‘Upstairs. He’s been waiting for you.’

‘Why? I’ve been waiting for him to call me.’ Vasiliyev wondered what was going on. Fedorov liked to keep a tight team around him, yet he’d ordered Vasiliyev to wait at the hotel until he was needed. But that had been hours ago. It had been an ominous development, following on Fedorov’s earlier display of anger. In the end, the waiting had become unbearable and he’d come here to find out what was happening.

He turned towards the lift and found Olek right behind him.

‘Where are you going?’

‘The boss said to show you up,’ Olek replied. He had a nasty smirk on his face. ‘Roychev will be along in a moment; he can watch the doors.’

Vasiliyev shrugged, but felt a worm of unease in his belly. There was something going on here. Fedorov was unpredictable, mostly because he rarely took anyone into his confidence — not even Vasiliyev. But this didn’t feel right.

He stepped into the lift, and Olek followed him, punching the button for the fourth floor.