Adrian Magson: No Kiss For The Devil

The woman arrived in a black VW Golf GTi. Her approach was watched by a man on the deserted fourth floor of an anonymous office building just off London’s Euston Road. As the vehicle turned into the car park below, he took out a mobile and pressed a button. He allowed it to ring once before cutting the connection.

The woman who stepped out of the car was tall, with blonde hair, neatly cut. Smart suit, dark court shoes. Professional. A flash of white slip peeped from beneath the hem of her skirt as she reached in for something on the passenger seat. When she ducked back out, she was holding a burgundy leather briefcase with a shoulder strap and gold buckles. She turned to look up at the office building, hand raised to shield her eyes against the setting sun, but the man knew she wouldn’t be able to see him from down there.

A movement behind him showed in the reflection from the window.

‘She’s here.’ He spoke in careful English, trying to flatten his tongue and get the words out of the base of his mouth where he felt his origins always betrayed him. ‘Are we still secure?’ His words were lost across the vast, empty floor space.

‘Yes, Boss. Nobody will bother us.’

‘Good. Take her to the basement. Make sure you get her briefcase.’

The other nodded and moved away. Moments later, a brief snatch of conversation echoed along the corridor, then faded. Elsewhere, silence returned as the building emptied for the day.

The man, who used the name Grigori, walked over to a desk, the only item of furniture in sight. On it was a cardboard folder, a touch telephone and a plastic in-tray. The last two were covered in dust. The folder contained everything he had needed to know about the woman: name, age, background, friends, past jobs, past loves.

Past everything.

He fed the folder into the mouth of a portable shredder on the floor beside the desk, and watched as the cardboard and its contents became strips of spaghetti. As of that moment, its subject ceased to be of interest to him.

Or, more importantly, a threat.

He reached into an inside jacket pocket and took out a sheet of paper and a photograph. The paper was a brief biography, the subject of which was — like the woman downstairs — a freelance reporter. She also had no ties, no close family and no obvious corporate loyalties. Another loner.

He preferred loners. They were uncomplicated.

He studied the photo; it might almost have been the same woman. Not as thin, perhaps, but the same blonde hair and pale skin. The same look of self-reliance.

He returned to the window as the driver of the Golf mounted the steps to the front entrance. Graceful, he thought idly. Elegant, even.

But a dead woman.

She just didn’t know it yet.

‘You’ll have to leave your car down here.’ The constable was a hunched shape looming out of the darkness. Up close, he looked cold, wet and miserable, and sounded in no mood to argue. His gesture indicated which way she should go, a lane behind him, disappearing into the dark. Further on was a distant glow of arc lights, vehicles and movement, the area around it lost in the vastness of the Essex countryside, thirty miles from London. Radios crackled unseen, the voices snatched by the wind and lost in the night air.

It was starting to rain again.

Riley Gavin climbed out of her car and locked the door. She walked away without waiting. If he wanted it moved, he could come and get her.

She wished she’d put on a thicker coat and more suitable shoes. But the officious phone call that had dragged her from bed at three in the morning had omitted to warn her about the prevailing conditions, nor given any details of why she was needed. It had simply urged her to come, and given her careful directions on how to get there. The lack of information had left her with a feeling of dread, overshadowing any thoughts she might have had brought on by her instincts as a freelance reporter.

She trudged up the lane towards the lights, skirting the potholes and ruts she could see, fingers mentally crossed against the ones she couldn’t. It had been raining on and off for three days now, a persistent autumn deluge, and the topsoil was spongy and heavy, incapable of absorbing any more water.

Two men splashed past going the other way, carrying metal cases and muttering about the weather. Both were shrouded from head to toe in white protective suits. Another figure followed, this one in a uniform and peaked cap, dancing across the uneven surface in the wobbling wake of a torch. He was unravelling a roll of scene-of-crime tape as he went, replacing a strip fluttering brokenly amid the bushes bordering the track. He ignored Riley, too intent on his task and keeping his footing on the treacherous surface.

‘Who the hell are you?’ A voice challenged her and she looked up to see another uniform approaching. A torch beam hit her square on, the glare painful on the eyes.

She put up a protective hand just as another voice called out from over by the lights, ‘It’s all right. Miss Gavin? Over here.’

Riley stepped round the constable and decided they must have called out the awkward squad. Or maybe it was the weather making them all tetchy. She found herself alongside a tall figure in a yellow slicker and black rubber boots. He held out an arm to prevent her going too close, and kept himself between her and the focus of lights on a fold in the ground.

‘Sorry about this,’ he said, and introduced himself. ‘DI Craig Pell. We need you to make an identification.’ She recognised his voice from the phone. The spread of light gave her an impression of high cheekbones, a confident chin, and a lick of hair plastered across his forehead. His eyes were pools of shadow

Riley’s stomach lurched at the idea. When he had called, other than giving his rank, name and directions, he had rung off without elaborating. Now she had an instant foreboding.

Pell checked that her hands were empty, then handed her a white coverall suit. It was the same garment worn by SOCOs — Scene of Crime Officers — to preserve the integrity of the scene. He helped her into it, awkward when she stumbled against him and he had to grab at her shoulder to stop her falling. He mumbled an apology and snatched his hands away as if he’d been stung.

Riley wondered if he was always so clumsy.

Once she was zipped up, he handed her some overshoes, then turned and called out to a figure hunched in the hollow. There was an answering grunt and Pell took Riley’s arm and led her forward.

The scene was nightmarish. They were standing on the edge of a wide, shallow ditch bordered by a tangle of coarse bushes. A canopy had been erected to cover the immediate area, and the ghostly glow of lights gave the canvas the appearance of a large lampshade. The man below was hunched over something on the ground, but Riley couldn’t see what it was.

‘Tread between the tapes,’ Pell instructed her. ‘Stop when he tells you. Don’t touch anything you see and don’t take anything out of your pockets.’

Riley stepped down carefully, feeling the ground soft and slick beneath her feet. She came to a stop when the hunched figure raised a hand. He was muttering to himself, and when he stopped and turned his head, she saw he’d been talking into a small voice recorder. He clicked it off and beckoned her closer, moving crab-like to one side and indicating where she should stand.

Riley had seen dead bodies before. It was never pleasant, whether death had come by natural or other causes. Each time, she had to steel herself to remain detached. It was never easy, but in the main, she reckoned on being able to hold it together long enough to not make a fool of herself.