Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

He was helpless now. She turned him so that his back faced the bed.

Then she slammed her knee viciously into his groin.

Pope doubled over, gasping for breath, hands between his thighs. Vivie screamed.

Catherine spun and drove her elbow into the bridge of his nose. She could hear the sound of the bone and cartilage snapping. Pope collapsed onto the floor at the foot of the bed, blood pouring from his nostrils. Vivie was kneeling on the bed, screaming. She was no threat to Catherine now.

She turned and moved quickly for the door. Pope, still on the floor, swung his leg.

It smashed into Catherine's right ankle and caused her own legs to become entangled. She crashed to the floor, the heavy fall taking her breath away. She saw stars for a moment and tears spilled into her eyes. She feared she was about to lose consciousness.

She struggled to her hands and knees and was about to climb to her feet when Pope grabbed her ankle in a vise grip and began dragging her toward him. She rolled quickly onto her side and drove the heel of her shoe into his broken nose. Pope screamed in agony, but his grip on her ankle seemed only to tighten.

She kicked him a second time, then a third. Finally, he let her go.

Catherine scrambled to her feet and ran to the couch, where Pope had made her leave her handbag. She opened it and unzipped the inner compartment. The stiletto was there. She took hold of the handle and pressed the release. The blade snapped into place.

Pope was on his feet, plunging through the darkness, hands reaching out for her. Catherine spun around and lashed out wildly with the weapon. The tip of the blade tore a gash across his right shoulder.

Pope grabbed the wound with his left hand, screaming in pain as blood began to pump between his fingers. His arm was across his chest-no way to plunge the stiletto into his heart. The Abwehr had taught her another method that made her cringe just to think about. But she would have to use it now. No other choice.

Catherine took a step closer, drew back the stiletto, and rammed it through Vernon Pope's eye.

Vivie was in the corner of the bedroom, lying on the floor in a fetal position, weeping hysterically. Catherine took her by the arm, pulled her to her feet, and pushed her back against the wall.

"Please-don't hurt me."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"Don't hurt me."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"I promise I won't tell anyone, not even Robert. I swear."

"Nor the police?"

"I won't tell the police."

"Good. I knew I could trust you."

Catherine stroked her hair, touched her face. Vivie seemed to relax. Her body went limp and Catherine had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing onto the floor.

"What are you?" Vivie asked. "How could you do that to him?"

Catherine said nothing, just stroked Vivie's hair while her other hand gently searched for the soft spot at the bottom of the rib cage. Vivie's eyes opened wide as the stiletto slid into her heart. A cry of pain caught in her throat and came out as a low gurgle. She died quickly and quietly, blank eyes staring into Catherine's.

Catherine released her. The motion of the body sliding down the wall pulled the stiletto from her heart. Catherine looked at the human wreckage all around her, the blood. My God, what have they made of me? Then she fell to her knees next to Vivie's dead body and was violently sick.

She conducted the rituals of escape with surprising calmness. In the bathroom, she washed their blood from her hands, from her face, and from the blade of the stiletto. There was nothing she could do about the blood on her sweater except conceal it beneath her leather coat. She walked through the bedroom, past the body of the woman, and into the next room. She went to the window and looked down into the street. Pope, it appeared, had kept his word. There was no one outside the warehouse. They would surely find his body in the morning, though, and when they did, they would come after her. For now, at least, she was safe. She collected her handbag and, from the table, the one hundred pounds in cash she had given Pope. She took the lift down, crossed the warehouse floor, and slipped out into the night.

Detective-Superintendent Andrew Kidlington, unlike most members of his profession, avoided murder scenes when he could. A lay preacher in his local church, he had lost his taste for the more ghoulish side of his profession long ago. He had assembled a thoroughly professional team of officers and believed it best to give them free rein. He had a legendary ability to deduce more about a murder from a good file than from a visit to the crime scene, and he made certain every shred of paper generated by his department crossed his desk. But it wasn't every day that someone stuck a knife in a man like Vernon Pope. This one he had to see for himself.

The uniformed officer standing watch outside the warehouse door moved aside as Kidlington approached. "The lift is at the far end of the warehouse, sir. Take it up one level. There's another man on the landing. He'll show you the way."

Kidlington slowly crossed the warehouse floor. He was tall and angular with a head of woolly gray hair and the look of someone perpetually preparing to break bad news. As a result his men tended to tread lightly around him.

A young detective-sergeant named Meadows was waiting for him on the landing. Meadows was too flashy for Kidlington's taste and put himself about with too many women. But he was an excellent detective and had promotion written all over him.

"Pretty messy in there, sir," Meadows said.

Kidlington could taste blood in the air as Meadows led him inside. Vernon Pope's body lay on an Oriental rug next to the couch. The dark circle of blood extended beyond the gray covering sheet. Kidlington, despite thirty years on the Metropolitan Police, still felt bile rising in his throat when Meadows knelt beside the body and drew back the sheet.

"Good Lord," Kidlington said, beneath his breath. He made a face and turned away for a moment to regain his composure.

"I've never seen one like this," Meadows said.

The dead body of Vernon Pope was lying naked, faceup, in a pool of dried black blood. It was obvious to Kidlington that the fatal wound was struck only after a brutal struggle. There was a large ragged slash across his shoulder. The nose had been badly broken. Blood had drained from both nostrils into the mouth, which had fallen open in death, as if to issue one last scream. Then there was the eye. Kidlington had trouble looking at it. Blood and ocular fluid had drained down the side of his face. The eyeball was destroyed, the pupil no longer visible. It would take an autopsy to determine the true depth of the wound, but it appeared to be the fatal blow. Someone had shoved something through Vernon Pope's eye and into his brain.

Kidlington broke the silence. "Approximate time of death?"

"Sometime last night, perhaps early evening."

"Weapon?"

"Hard to say. Certainly not an ordinary knife. Look at the shoulder. The edges of the wound are ragged."

"Conclusion?"

"Something sharp. A screwdriver, an ice pick perhaps." Kidlington glanced across the room. "Pope's is still on the drinks trolley. Unless your killer is walking around with his own ice pick, I doubt it was the murder weapon." Kidlington looked down at the body again. "I'd say it was a stiletto. It's a stabbing weapon, not a slashing weapon. That would account for the ragged wound on the shoulder and the clean puncture wound in the eye."

"Right, sir."

Kidlington had seen enough. He rose to his feet and gestured for Meadows to cover the body.

"The woman?"

"In the bedroom. This way, sir."

Robert Pope sat in the passenger seat of the van, pale and shaking visibly, as Dicky Dobbs drove at speed toward St. Thomas Hospital. It was Robert who had discovered the bodies of his brother and Vivie earlier that morning. He had waited for Vernon at the East End cafe where they ate breakfast each morning and became alarmed when he didn't appear. He fetched Dicky from his flat and went to the warehouse. When he saw the bodies he screamed and put his foot through the glass table.