Port Vila Blues

Twenty-eight

It had been sweet while it lasted. Now things were slipping away from Springett, De Lisle fucking them around, Lillecrapp fouling up in that Emerald shooting. He’d made appropriate noises of shock and bewilderment around the Department but soon the suits upstairs would want a word with him about Lillecrapp, and he’d just seen Redding in the building, looking grim.

Better to run than wait for confirmation that they suspected him. Fly out before they could alert the airlines. Find De Lisle before the little shit ran with everything. Get Niekirk to help him.

Springett had documents in his desk that related to each of the magnetic drill robberies. It wasn’t incriminating-he was in charge of the investigation, after all. What he shredded were his notes on the alarm systems, security patrols, staffing levels, timetables, the photographs of Wyatt, Jardine and Redding, material that was innocuous on the surface but which he’d be asked to account for if he were arrested.

He had money, false passport and a change of clothes in a gym bag in the bottom drawer of his desk. There was a gym on the top floor; everyone knew that he exercised there once a day, so his walking down the corridor with the bag wasn’t going to excite anyone’s attention.

Too bad he couldn’t risk going home first. There was nothing to incriminate him there but it was a shame he couldn’t take his Glock pistol with him. Austrian, 9mm, constructed mostly of ceramic material, it could pass through a metal detector and not set off the alarm. Now it would sit forever under the floor in his study, or at least until developers demolished the house and erected a huddle of townhouses on his block, something that had been happening up and down his street in the past couple of years. The world was full of arseholes.

Springett hadn’t gone five paces before Redding and that old fart, Montgomery, stepped out of the lift and began heading toward him. Montgomery raised an arm: ‘A word, Inspector Springett.’

Springett knew what about. He slipped his free hand inside his suit coat, wrapped it around the butt of his service.38 and approached them with a friendly bounce in his step, trying to read their faces. But something in him spooked Redding. She shouted a warning and ducked back into the lift. Too bad-she would have made the better hostage. He snatched out the.38, roared: ‘Montgomery. I want you. Stop there.’

Instead, the stupid fool turned to run. He wore shoes with flat, gleaming soles. Springett saw a flash of newish leather as the soles failed to gain purchase on the highly polished linoleum, pitching Montgomery face first into a fire extinguisher and then like a sack of potatoes to the floor.

Fuck. Now he had no hostage at all.

Springett ran back the way he’d come, past his office, into a region of dark storerooms, filing cabinets and spare office furniture. He found a corner and waited and thought.

Springett didn’t actually hear or see anything, but within a couple of minutes he began to register a shift in the atmosphere. He knew how they’d work it: first, activate the one-way staircase locks on each floor, meaning there’d be no way out if he were to try the stairs; second, man all the exit doors; third, lock each elevator at the bottom of the shaft; finally, make a sweep of the building.

They wouldn’t have locked the elevators yet, not this quickly. Springett chose the service elevator because it ran in an unfrequented corner of the building and might be overlooked in the early stages of the hunt. According to the indicator above the doors, it was in the basement. This was the 9th floor. He pushed the button to bring it up to the 9th, then ran down to the 8th floor doors. No one saw him force the safety doors open and step onto the roof of the elevator as it passed the 8th floor and went on up to the 9th.

He waited for five minutes before the elevator was sent to the basement and locked there. He heard the elevator doors being opened. He heard voices and footsteps beneath him as men checked inside the elevator and then through the basement itself, before heading upstairs to continue the search.

Five minutes later, Springett shoved aside a batten in the roof of the elevator and dropped through to the floor. No one saw him cross to the corridor leading to the street at the side of the building. It was only used by undercover officers. People often forgot it was there.