James Craig - Shoot to Kill

‘I’m sure that makes them feel much better.’

‘Paul’s lawyer reckons he’ll get twelve years, absolute max. If he’s out in, say, six, he can still have a decent career.’

‘Is that why Blitz took him on?’

Devine said, ‘That’s got to be a question for him, don’t you think?’

‘So you were happy to let him go?’

‘It comes with the territory.’ Devine made an effort to sound philosophical. ‘You have to move on. Paul won’t be earning anything for the foreseeable. Maybe Mr Blitz thinks he’s doing the right thing by standing by him.’

‘Maybe,’ said Carlyle, sounding doubtful.

‘I’m sure he will get Paul something when he gets out.’

‘And what about you?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Things are looking good,’ Devine said, as if reciting a set of lines lines that he’d been busy learning for public consumption. ‘I have just joined forces with Marcus Angelides and will be representing a considerably expanded portfolio of talent.’

Angelides? The name rang a bell. ‘Who’s he?’

‘One of the leading agents in the country,’ Devine explained happily. ‘Runs an agency based in Mayfair.’

‘Nice.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Leaning across the table, Devine confided, ‘That’s the great thing about my business, Inspector; there are young lads appearing over the horizon all the time. It’s a never-ending conveyor belt of opportunity.’

Sitting outside Dr Wolf’s office, Carlyle looked at his watch and sighed. He was due to meet Dom at four thirty and it was already approaching ten past three.

Wolf might not be a particularly engaging fellow but he was usually quite punctual. On the one hand, Carlyle had no desire to sit through another fifty minutes, or rather, forty minutes and counting, of navel gazing. On the other hand, he was here now. Someone was paying for the session, even if it wasn’t him, and just to abandon it felt like a waste of sorts.

The doctor’s secretary had disappeared on some unspecified errand. The thought suddenly occurred to Carlyle that Wolf himself might be having an afternoon nap. During their sessions, Carlyle had got used to the doctor nodding off or, at least, giving every impression of having fallen asleep. A couple of boring patients in the morning and a decent lunch – perhaps washed down by a glass or two of Rioja – would probably do the trick quite easily.

Another minute passed and the inspector felt his irritation solidifying in his gut. He couldn’t sit here like a lemon forever. Getting to his feet, he stepped stealthily towards the door, on the alert for sounds of snoring. All he could hear, however, was the comforting hum of traffic noise outside. He had started to step away from the door before he realized it was ever so slightly ajar. Giving it the gentlest of pushes, he peered into the room.

Five minutes later, Carlyle finished his call to the station and took one last look at Wolf. The shrink was hanging from a length of black rubber flex that had been attached to the light fitting in the middle of the ceiling. It looked like he had stood on his desk, tied himself up and jumped. Stapled to the left leg of his olive corduroy trousers was a small sheet of paper on which had been written, in blue ink: This is a suicide note .

Nice penmanship , Carlyle thought. He wanted to feel some sympathy for the doctor but all that was forthcoming was a kind of generic dismay. Maybe the guy should have had therapy himself. In the distance, he could hear a siren approaching from the direction of the Euston Road. The first uniforms would be here in about a minute, which was just as well; he needed to get going.

‘Where are we going?’ Carlyle stood shivering on an empty jetty in Brighton Marina. Not dressed for the occasion, he hopped from foot to foot as the biting wind cut through him.

‘Here you go.’ Dom threw him a pair of black leather gloves. ‘Put these on. And keep them on.’

With his fingers going numb, Carlyle clumsily obliged.

Dom gestured in front of them. ‘Time to get on board.’

Carlyle looked at the 49-foot vessel with the name El Nino emblazoned in blue script on the stern. ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding.’

‘This is a great boat,’ said Dom, pulling on his own gloves, ‘a tough and no-nonsense long-distance cruiser, with good speed and sail characteristics. The Germans built it with a high ballast-to-weight ratio for safe offshore work,’ he gazed up into the light-polluted darkness, ‘which will be handy tonight.’

‘What did you do,’ Carlyle said grumpily, ‘swallow the manual?’

‘Sailing is one of my passions,’ Dom said simply.

‘Since when?’

‘Since about thirty years ago, when I could first afford a decent boat.’ He gave Carlyle a look. ‘You don’t know everything about me, Inspector.’

Gideon stuck his head out of the cabin. ‘We’re good to go.’

‘Okay,’ Dom gave him a thumbs-up.

Not for the first time, Carlyle cursed his total stupidity. What the fuck was he playing at? ‘So we’re just going to tootle over to France,’ he asked, ‘and . . . what? Murder Martinez.’

‘RIP the Samurai,’ Dom grinned.

‘But I’m a fucking copper,’ Carlyle wailed.

‘A copper who is just protecting his family.’ Dom gave him a light punch on the shoulder. ‘Wake up and grow a pair.’

Carlyle scowled like a ten year old being told it was time for bed. ‘What happens if we don’t get him?’

Dom threw a comforting arm around him. ‘Remember Sol Abramyan?’

‘The arms dealer?’ Carlyle nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, course I do.’ Sol was the last man who had tried to kill him. He shuddered at the memory of staring down the barrel of a gun thinking what he truly imagined would be his last ever thoughts in this, or any other, life.

What had those thoughts been? All he could remember now was the sense of crushing failure; how he had let Helen and Alice down, completely.

It was not the kind of feeling that you ever forgot.

‘I stood shoulder to shoulder with you then,’ Dom reminded him. ‘And we got through it.’

‘True.’ Feeling more reluctant than he had ever done about anything in his life, Carlyle fell in step with Dom as they edged slowly towards the boat. As he did so, another name from the past came to mind.

‘Remember Sam Hooper?’

Silver nodded. ‘Sure.’

Hooper had been a member of the Met’s Middle Market Drugs Project. Dominic Silver had been in the unit’s sights. Carlyle was, at the very least, 90 per cent certain that Hooper had been killed at Dom’s insistence. ‘What about him?’ he asked warily.

‘I had to get the job done,’ Dom replied, ‘and I got the job done. I always get the job done, Johnny boy. Always.’

Stepping on board, Carlyle immediately felt queasy. ‘Is this your boat?’

‘No,’ Dom said brusquely. ‘Of course not. It’s owned by a Spanish family and was rented out a month ago under a false name using a credit card that will never come back to me. I have it for another two months, with an option to buy,’ he grinned, ‘which, you won’t be surprised to learn, I will not be taking up.’

Carlyle thought about that for a moment. ‘So this has been in the works for a while?’

‘I’m not slow to admit when I’ve made a mistake. After hooking up with Tuco in Paris, I knew that it wasn’t going to work out.’

Despite his discomfort, Carlyle managed to muster an I told you so smirk.

‘You were right,’ Dom sighed. ‘Eva was right. I was a mug for looking to get back into the game at this level.’

‘So now you have to take him out?’

‘He’s a complete nut job. I’m not going to sit around and wait for the next parcel bomb.’