Christopher Fowler - Disturbia

'How could they? Show some fortitude, Bunter. There's very little actual risk involved. Reynolds needs to be frightened into completing his tasks. Does he know about his little helper being taken out of the picture?'

'We lost him for a while in Vauxhall, but I don't see how, no.'

'So, he's not in fear of his life, or anyone else's. We have to change that.'

'The girl downstairs?'

Sebastian considered the option. 'It's the most obvious solution, but my gut reaction is to get rid of someone else. She's on the premises, which makes it risky. Someone might have spotted her coming up here. You can see the house clearly from the road. Besides, we don't know enough about her, who her family is, who she knows. I'm short of facts. Barwick could at least have interrogated her but of course he didn't, and Stevens isn't much better.'

He rose and tensed the muscles in his tired arms. 'Still, we might threaten him with her demise, not that I trust hostage situations. They always seem to end in tears. There's something irredeemably vulgar about kidnap. And I have a feeling it would encourage him to come here rather than concentrate on finishing the game. Where is Xavier, by the way?'

'Right now he's busy tearing up some estate agent's office, searching for Reynolds's copy of his text. The girl told him she'd hidden it there.'

'Get him on the phone and tell him not to bother looking.'

'You don't think he'll find it? He already turned over her flat and found nothing.'

'Just do as I say, will you? Don't try to think.'

It seemed obvious to him that Reynolds would not have risked the life of his best friend by asking her to hide the manuscript in her apartment. Having monitored Goldstone's mobile calls, Sebastian knew that one disk had been left with the agent, who was used to handling such documents, and the other with 'someone who could take care of himself'. Which narrowed it down to the last member of their trio, the one they called Louie.

'What are we going to do about Reynolds?'

Sebastian gave a theatrical sigh. His original plan had been worked out meticulously. He was nervous about extemporising now. He knew that improvisation led to mistakes. This was what happened when he took a nap for twenty minutes – everything went to pot.

'Just leave it to me, all right?' He looked about for his jacket. 'Tell Xavier to stop wasting his time and get over to Covent Garden. Where is he at the moment, Kentish Town? At this time of night he can be there in ten minutes on that monstrous motorcycle of his. And don't take your eye from Reynolds. I want to be kept informed about where he goes and who he talks to. I don't expect anyone to come up and tell me that he's gone missing again, do you understand?'

'Where in Covent Garden do you want Stevens to go?'

Sebastian raised his eyes. 'Where do you think? To the Goldstone agency. We already gave him a key to the place. He's to bring back the other copy of Reynolds's manuscript.' He had planned to retrieve it from the agent one day when she was out of the office, but while Xavier was in a ransacking mood, he could break in and remove the disk tonight. Sebastian had a nebulous idea that news of its theft might encourage Reynolds to continue, in order to protect his last remaining copy. Well, it was worth a try. He had no other stand-by plans.

In truth, he was tired of having to sort out everything by himself. Caton-James and St John Warner were the brightest of the bunch, and that wasn't saying much. They had no initiative. They were full of fine talk, but not one of them was capable of making a decision by himself. It was his own fault for setting this whole night up in the first place. What the League really needed was someone like that soaked kid out there, running through the rainswept city.

Dinner had not been quite the success Esther had hoped for. As an experienced writer-groupie she rarely expected much beyond entertainment from her dates, but her hopes for this one had been a little higher. A sexy thirty-something writer with an axe to grind and the ability to articulate his case was a rare thing these days, but unfortunately it was coupled with an immaturity that coloured his behaviour. He had suffered a mood-swing in the restaurant, sending back his meal and picking a fight with an innocent waiter, and Esther had been forced to reconsider her motives for taking him out, quite apart from the consideration that he was married and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Compounding her first mistake, she went back to his apartment and spent several hours listening to him rant about his absent wife, whom he clearly hated for invading his heart so completely. She wondered if he had even noticed her leave.

It was almost 4:15 a.m. when she placed her key in the lock and heard what sounded like a lamp being clicked off inside her office. Sometimes, when it was this late and the weather was bad, Esther preferred to sleep at the office. It was cosy here, more familiar than the apartment that just reminded her of Morris, her ex-husband. There was a kitchen and a bathroom, and the couch folded out into a comfortable bed, although the garbage trucks ended any chance of sleeping in late.

Esther put her ear to the wall and listened. Her daughter was the only other person who had access to the suite. Warily, she pushed the door wide and found the hall in darkness. Had she left the lights on earlier? She could not remember. Lisa must have called by, she decided. But as she approached the open door of the lounge area and saw the shutters fall back in place a second too late, she knew that a stranger was there with her, and that he had heard her enter.

For a moment she was frozen in the doorway, unable to think of her next move. Then the figure broke free from its hiding place and rushed at her, catching her in the stomach with a projected elbow and knocking her from her feet. She fell back against the jamb of the door, thumping her skull with a wallop that flooded her head with sparkles of pain. The man careened drunkenly towards the front door and was gone. Esther waited until her heart-rate had slowed before hauling herself to her feet and checking what was missing.

Her first thought proved to be correct. Vince's manuscript, labelled and transferred to a Maxell disk, had been taken from the bottom drawer of her desk. She cursed herself for touching the handle of the drawer – it would have to be fingerprinted – and noticed that her hands were shaking.

The next noise she heard puzzled her until she realised that her attacker was still in the flat. It sounded like he was opening and closing a drawer, over and over. Perhaps he thought he had knocked her out. The telephone was on the coffee table, at the other side of the room. She slowly began edging towards it.

Xavier Stevens was looking for a decent knife. He had thrown the one he had used on the dealer into the Thames, and had meant to collect another from Barwick at Sebastian's Chelsea manor. He systematically searched the kitchen and finally found a decent set of Sabatiers. Wickedly sharp, these. You could cut through the breastbone of a twenty-pound turkey with the larger ones. He selected the biggest and walked back towards the lounge.

Anyone looking into the office from the street below would have seen Esther fall, and heard the grisly thump of Stevens hammering the knife through his victim until it pinned her to the floorboards beneath the carpet. But the street was deserted save for a man so drunk that he would remember nothing in the morning. Sensing the frequency of such atrocities and not wishing to become personally involved, the city turned a blind eye to Esther Goldstone's lonely death.

THE CALL was marred by static and the voice kept cutting out, but its identity was unmistakable. Sebastian's louche drawl had tightened with urgency. Vince wondered why it had taken him this long. He checked his watch. 4:22 a.m.