Lennox

Craig Russell
PROLOGUE

In my life, I have had to explain my way out of a lot of tight corners, but this tops them all.

I am leaning against the wall of an upper-storey room in an empty dockside warehouse. I am leaning against the wall because I doubt if I can stand up without support. I am trying to work out if there are any vital organs in the lower left of my abdomen, just above the hip. I try to remember anatomy diagrams from every encyclopaedia I ever opened as a kid because, if there are vital organs down there, I am pretty much fucked.

I am leaning against a wall in an empty dockside warehouse trying to remember anatomy diagrams and there is a woman on the floor, about three yards in front of me. I don’t need to remember childhood encyclopaedias to know that there is a pretty vital organ in your skull, not that I seem to have made much use of it over the last four weeks. Anyway, the woman on the floor hasn’t got much of a skull left, and no face at all. Which is a shame, because it was a beautiful face. A truly beautiful face. Next to the woman without her face is a large canvas bag that has been dropped onto the grubby floor, spilling half of its contents, which comprise a ridiculously large quantity of used, large-denomination banknotes.

I am leaning against a wall in an empty dockside warehouse with a hole in my side trying to remember anatomy diagrams, while a dead woman without her beautiful face and a large bag of cash lie on the floor. That should be enough of a pickle to be in, but there is also a large bear of a man looking down at the girl, the bag and now, at me. And he is holding a shotgun: the same one that took her face off.

I have been in better situations.

I think I need to explain.