Simon Kernick - A Good day to die

I reached the third floor and stepped onto a landing with a large window at the end that looked out onto the industrial estate. A solitary picture — a cheap-looking abstract that was barely visible in the gloom — hung crookedly from the wall. There were corridors to my left and right. The one to my right was where I'd seen the lights earlier. It stretched for about fifty feet, with doors facing each other on either side, all of them wide open, before ending at a windowless wall with part of its brickwork exposed. The second and third doors on the left led into the rooms with the lights on.

Instinctively, I looked over my shoulder and found myself staring back at a perfectly symmetrical corridor going down the other way. Except on this one, all the doors were closed. Barron was not making this very easy for me, but then I'd expected that.

I waited where I was for several seconds, aware that the sirens were getting closer, then slowly walked towards the lights, holding the.45 two-handed in front of me.

I passed the first couple of open doors and peered into empty offices, long since stripped of fittings and furniture. I kept going, conscious of the sound of my footfalls on the linoleum. He had to know I was coming. Even tiptoeing as quietly as possible, my approach must have been audible amidst the dead silence of the corridor.

I came to the second set of doors. To my right, darkness. To my left, light. I took a step forward and looked in.

Something immediately caught my attention. A leg, partly concealed by the angle of the open door.

The sirens had been joined by a third, the whining getting louder as they entered the estate.

A trap. It could be a trap.

With a sudden lunge, I kicked the door wide open and burst into the brightly lit office, gun swinging in a wide arc.

And groaned.

Because I was too late. Had always been too late. And had walked once again into a trap that had been expertly set for me.

For a moment, I simply stared at the corpse, unable to move. Full of regret that yet another innocent life had been taken.

Then I shook myself out of my torpor and walked over to him.

DCI Simon Barron was slumped against the wall at a slightly crooked angle, his eyes closed, his white shirt and pale blue tie drenched in blood. I could see that he'd been stabbed a number of times in the chest and abdomen in what must have been a frenzied attack. The entry wounds were clearly visible, and the blood that had flowed freely from them had now coagulated. A pool had formed round the top of his legs and had dyed the edges of his khaki raincoat crimson. His face was white and I guessed he'd been dead a while. An hour or two, at least.

The noise of the sirens was now continuous and coming closer and closer. Through the window I could see the blue and white flashes of light dancing across the night sky above the estate's buildings. The vehicles were on the main road but no more than a couple of hundred yards away, and as I watched the first police car turned into the cul-de-sac and approached the Tembra Software building at speed.

At that moment, I knew they were coming for me.

I turned and ran like I've never run before, charging along the corridor and across the landing, taking the steps three and even four at a time. The third floor became the second floor, the second the first, and outside I could hear the cars pulling up and the shouts of the arriving police officers as they began to secure the area. I knew they would go round the back and surround the building to make sure their fugitive didn't get out. I had to beat them to it.

I turned left on the first floor and raced down the corridor, trying to remember where I'd seen the broken window. When I got to the last door on the right, I opened it, ran inside, and saw that I'd guessed correctly. Running forward, I kicked the glass jutting up from the base of the window and knocked it flying. It shattered loudly as it hit the ground. I clambered out, cutting my leg in the process, and slid down the nearby guttering. There was a tearing sound as it came away from the wall. I was still five or six feet from the ground and had to jump the rest of the way. I hit the concrete hard, a piece of the guttering landing on my head, then turned to run round the back of the building.

I heard someone shouting 'Stop! Armed police!' from behind me, but I kept running, across the empty car park and up to the wall at the back, taking it in one go. Rather than trying to manoeuvre myself over, I simply went head first and hoped for the best, the best being in this case a painful landing on my hands, followed by an involuntary two-second handstand and then a forward roll into a puddle, during which the.45 fell out of my waistband, though thankfully didn't discharge.

I jumped up again, retrieving and replacing the gun in the process.

I was in a large builders' yard filled with various pieces of plant, a handful of combi vans and a number of metal sea containers. Plenty of places to hide, and no sign of anyone. I was tired, but adrenalin, coupled with the knowledge that the police were right behind me, kept me moving. I could hear one of the coppers shouting that I'd gone over the wall, and he sounded close, so I started running again.

I cleared the builders' yard in the space of thirty seconds and found a hole in the fence at the other end which led onto one of the estate's roads. I went straight through it, ran a further hundred yards, turned into another road and ran down that. When I got to the end, I turned right and slowed to a walk. There weren't many pedestrians about, but there was enough slow-moving traffic to delay any vehicle-bound pursuit.

I knew then that I should have called it a day. I could have walked away and got on the plane back to the Philippines, confident at least that the reason Malik had died was connected somehow with what had happened seven years previously, and that Pope, Blacklip, Slippery Billy and now Blondie had been punished for it. There were unanswered questions, of course, such as exactly what it was that Jason Khan had found out months after the end of Ann's sessions with Dr Cheney that had prompted him to meet Malik and for the killing spree to start, but no one could say that I hadn't done my bit for my old colleague and friend, and that I had given him some measure of justice, even if his family would never know the true story.

I should have called it a day, but of course I didn't. Somewhere out there was a man who had worn a black leather mask and tortured a young girl to death one night, and who, quite possibly, still walked free. I wanted to find him, and those still helping him.

And this time I knew where to look.

I waited for him in the dim, reddish light of the underground car park. I knew he'd come. His car, a Jaguar S-Type Sedan, perfect for a man of his seniority, remained parked in his spot. He was working late that night. It was half past seven and I'd been there close to half an hour, standing in the corner shadows not far from the pedestrian entrance. Men and women in business suits came through every so often, the high-pitched ding of the lift or the tattoo of footfalls in the stairwell announcing their arrival. Their numbers were getting fewer now as the evening wore on, and only a couple of dozen vehicles remained, dotted about the cavernous room.

My leg hurt where I'd cut it on the glass. Before I'd come here, I'd found a pharmacy and bought a basic first-aid kit. I'd then returned to my room in Paddington, strapped it up crudely with the bandage, and finally cleared the place of all the essentials, before checking out. I was now beginning to get used to the dull throbbing of the wound. To be fair, I was now beginning to get used to injuries in general, having received more in the past five days than I'd had in the previous ten years. It was the price I had to pay for operating alone.