Take Two

CHAPTER 18

Richards ran up to Halpin, breathing heavily. ‘Where did she go?’ asked Richards. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He was holding the shoes that the woman had left behind.

Halpin pointed after the truck. ‘He picked her up.’ He’d tucked the gun into his belt.

‘Please tell me you got the registration number,’ said Richards.

Halpin showed him the screen of his mobile phone. ‘Typed it in so I wouldn’t forget it,’ he said.

‘Not as stupid as you look then,’ said Richard. He patted him on the back. ‘Come on, back to the house before someone sees you with that shooter.’ He held up the shoe. ‘We’ve got to get rid of the body and then we can start looking for Cinder-fucking-rella.’

They hurried back to the gate. Richards had opened it and they slipped through. Richards picked up the second shoe. ‘Prada,’ he said. ‘And not a knock-off, either.’

‘Boss, the cops are going to be on their way,’ said Halpin.

‘They’ll be a while yet,’ said Richards. ‘There’s no phone signal for miles. Then, when she gets through to nine nine nine, they’ll probably put her on hold. This time of night all the drunks are out, so the cops are fully stretched. The nearest cop shop is twenty miles away and I’m pretty sure that’s not manned at night. Half an hour at the absolute earliest, probably more like an hour.’

‘She knows I’ve got a gun.’

‘Which means they’ll have to wait for an armed response vehicle and, again, at night there’s not too many of them about in the sticks. We’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes, don’t worry.’

He pushed open the front door and went over to Cohen’s body. ‘Wrap it up in the rug, we’ll take it with us and dump it off the boat at the weekend,’ said Richards. He went through the hi-tech kitchen, all brushed stainless steel and German appliances. He picked up a couple of Marks and Spencer reusable bags and a roll of kitchen towel. As Halpin rolled the body up in the rug, Richards wiped the blood off the window then put the shoes in one carrier bag and the crystal dolphin in another after carefully wiping them clean.

Halpin stood up. ‘Okay, boss, done.’

Richards handed him a piece of kitchen towel. ‘Wipe down everything you touched,’ he said.

The two men moved quickly through the room, cleaning all the places where they might have left fingerprints, then Richards shoved the crumpled paper into the bag with the dolphin. ‘Can you manage that on your own?’ asked Richards, nodding at the body wrapped in the rug.

‘Sure,’ said Halpin. He grunted as he swung it onto his left shoulder.

‘In the boot,’ said Richards. ‘I’ll have a final look around.’

As Halpin carried Cohen’s body out to the Bentley, Richards walked slowly around the room. There was no blood on the carpet, it had been confined to the rug and the window. They were taking the rug away and the window was clean. There had been a few spots on the coffee table but he’d dealt with them.

Cohen lived alone. He had a housekeeper but she only came in twice a week. It was Friday, which meant the accountant probably wouldn’t be missed until Monday by which time he’d be at the bottom of the North Sea. And even though he would be missed, there were no signs of violence in the house, no clues as to what had happened there.

He took the bags through to the kitchen. There was a small black remote control that Cohen used to open the main gates and Richards picked it up. When he got outside, Halpin closed the Bentley’s boot.

‘All good,’ said Richards. ‘Time to get the hell out of Dodge.’ He climbed into the front passenger seat, but then changed his mind and got out of the car. ‘Tell you what, you take the Bentley, I’ll follow you in Cohen’s Merc. If they find the car here, they’ll wonder where he got to. But if the car’s gone, they’ll think he went off somewhere.’

Halpin got into the Bentley while Richards hurried back to the kitchen to get the keys to the Mercedes. The two men drove down the driveway as the electronic gates slowly opened. As they turned into the road and headed for London, the security light above the garage clicked off and the house disappeared into the darkness.