Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

‘And this was when last week?’

‘Friday, I think.’

‘But Andrew Kent was only nicked last night.’

He craned his neck, looking at me with an angry glint of suspicion in his eyes. ‘How do you know? I never told you that.’

‘Tommy did,’ I lied. ‘And don’t ask me how he knew because I haven’t got a clue. But the point is, what was Alpha doing hiring you to break someone out of custody who wasn’t even in custody at that point? That’s completely illogical.’

‘That’s what happened. And he was paying us big time as well. Half a million for the job. I couldn’t believe it, but he sent me the key to a deposit box and there was a hundred grand in it. He called it a “golden hello”, something to seal the deal. Clarence wasn’t sure about getting involved, because we’d never done anything like that with him before, but I wanted to go for it.’

‘I can’t believe this. And you’re meant to be a careful operator.’

‘I thought it was kosher. And you try and turn down that much money when it’s there in front of you. It ain’t easy. Anyway, Alpha told us all the details, except the name of the prisoner. He said we’d get that later. In the meantime, he wanted us to set everything up.’

‘Who organized this place?’

‘He did. The instructions were to bring Kent back here, get him down into the basement, and make sure he wasn’t roughed up too much. Then wait for him to turn up. We were going to meet him for the first time when he gave us the rest of the money.’

‘Did you ask what he wanted Kent for?’

‘He told me I didn’t need to know.’

‘So all that stuff about us doing it on behalf of a relative of the victim was bullshit?’

He nodded.

‘And you weren’t suspicious it was a set-up?’

‘Why should I be? We did what we were paid to do. There was no reason why he wouldn’t give us the rest of the money.’

I sighed. Wolfe was right. The problem was, it was clear he wasn’t going to. Instead, he seemed to want to make sure that everyone involved in the Kent snatch ended up dead.

Feeling confused and exhausted, I relinquished my grip on Wolfe and took a step back. He turned to face me, making a great play of rubbing his throat, an angry look on his face. ‘When we get out of here. .’ he growled.

‘When we get out of here, Wolfe, we’re quits. But first we’ve got to make it out.’

‘With Lee.’

I nodded, knowing that I was going to have to give her the benefit of the doubt, since if she was innocent, I owed her big time. ‘With Lee.’

‘Come on,’ he ordered. ‘And watch my back this time.’

I followed him as he moved back out into the darkened foyer and stopped, looking round anxiously. ‘She can’t have got far,’ he whispered, before calling her name, his voice reverberating through the silence of the house.

There was no answer.

‘Maybe she’s outside somewhere,’ I said. ‘She could have made a run for it.’

‘You should have stayed with her, you arsehole.’

I felt like arguing the point, but didn’t bother. It didn’t matter what Wolfe thought. As soon as we were out of here, I was going to get him nicked, using the evidence I’d got on the recording device in my watch. And I was going to make sure he knew who’d done it as well.

The bump was faint but audible, and it came from somewhere up on the next floor.

We both stopped and listened. It came again, sounding like movement. Then it stopped.

Wolfe called Lee’s name for a second time. For a second time, there was no answer.

‘You know the layout upstairs, don’t you?’ I said quietly.

He nodded. ‘Yeah. Me and Clarence came here a few days ago to check the place out. There are about a dozen empty rooms up there, but the floor’s pretty flimsy in places so you’ve got to be careful where you tread. Do you think it’s Lee making the noise?’

He suddenly seemed vulnerable and, in spite of myself, I found myself feeling sorry for him, just like I’d felt sorry for Kent earlier when he was being kicked and beaten all the way down into that claustrophobic basement, and I had to remind myself what he’d done to my brother.

‘I’m guessing as soon as she heard me fighting in the basement, she made a run for it. She’s probably halfway to London by now.’

‘I’d try her on her mobile but there’s no bloody reception here.’

‘It’s probably why the place was picked.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘So that we couldn’t call for help.’

Wolfe shook his head. ‘No way. You’re getting paranoid.’

‘Look, two men are dead in here, the man we abducted is missing, and someone — and I’ve got no idea who it was — just tried to kill me as well. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Lee’s up there. I think she ran.’

‘But what if she is? What if the bloke who just tried to kill you’s got her and she can’t answer?’ He paused. ‘I’m going up. Are you coming?’

I looked up into the darkness. ‘OK,’ I said at last. ‘You’ve got the gun. Lead the way.’

Our progress up the staircase was slow and comparatively noisy, each step creaking precariously underfoot. Wolfe stopped at the top and looked both ways. To our right were two doors, both closed. To our left, a long corridor stretched the length of the building with a number of doors, all closed, on either side — including the one that had been used to imprison me — and a large window at the end.

Wolfe started to turn right. Then he stopped. He’d heard something. Coming from down the corridor to the left.

I’d heard it too. A terrible rasping sound that sounded like someone trying desperately to breathe while their mouth, nose and throat steadily filled up with liquid.

Wolfe looked at me, the fear in his eyes obvious, because he knew, just like I knew, that it was the sound of a person dying.

Wolfe ran down the corridor, shouting Lee’s name, losing all sense of danger as he tried to locate her.

‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’ I called after him, but he wasn’t listening.

He paused by a door about halfway along and, without hesitation, flung it open.

‘Oh God! Lee, baby!’ His words came out in a tortured wail as he ran inside.

I was five yards behind him, moving far more cautiously, but as he disappeared from view, I ran forward, knowing I needed to cover his back. Knowing too that if Lee was the victim then it was almost certain the killer was still up here because he wouldn’t have had a chance to leave.

My fears were confirmed before I reached the door. Wolfe let out a sharp grunt of pain, then stumbled backwards into view, putting out his free hand to support himself on the opposite door, the hilt of a knife jutting out of his ribcage, a thick dark stain already visible against the blue of the boiler suit. He stared at me, his eyes wide with fear and confusion, as if he couldn’t accept what was happening to him, and the Sig fell from his hand and clattered on to the floor. He took another step back, trying in vain to steady himself, before falling slowly to one knee, his eyes still locked on mine, mouth silently opening and closing as if he was trying desperately to say something.

He was two yards away from me. The gun was lying on the floor just outside the room from where that terrible rasping sound, much louder now, was coming.

Instinctively I went for it, reaching down to pull it up from the floor.

But I never made it. A shadow appeared in the doorway and a hand shot out and grabbed me by the material of the boiler suit, yanking me upwards with worrying strength. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure beyond my attacker, lying with its head propped up against the far wall. I couldn’t see the face because it was a black mask of blood, but the pink butterfly on the singlet told me immediately it was Lee.