The other two men were near the conference table in the centre of the box. Former CSI Ray McCarron was sitting down, his skin waxy and grey, as Harry Grogan tightened a belt that was doubling as a makeshift tourniquet around his upper arm.

As unlikely scenarios went, O’Neill considered this had to be right up there.

“About bloody time,” Grogan said glancing up. “Any chance one of you little Dutch boys could stick his finger in this particular dyke? I’ve got a horse to unsaddle.”

“Dempsey—you passed First-Aid a lot more recently than I did,” O’Neill said. “See what you can do.”

Dempsey threw his boss a dark look but hurried across. As soon as he loosened the tourniquet blood welled out of what looked suspiciously like a gunshot wound.

“Bugger it,” McCarron said through thinned lips. “I’d only got the one good arm left.”

Grogan straightened his cuffs and began to move past O’Neill.

“The horse can wait—this is a crime scene. I can’t let you leave until we have a statement.”

Grogan showed his teeth briefly. “Take more than you and the boy to stop me seeing if that bloody colt of mine is worth the money I’ve put into him,” he said. “Either arrest me right now or get out of my way.”

O’Neill knew clout when it was being brandished in front of him but he didn’t have to like it. “I’m sorry sir but I can’t let you leave.”

“Name a station and I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning with my team of lawyers. Try to delay me now and I’ll have ’em running rings round you for months.”

O’Neill hesitated a moment then stepped back with a curt nod.

Grogan had sense enough not to crow in victory. But in the doorway he paused, turned back and gave the room a final visual sweep. “Bloody shame she had to go like that,” he said, no emotion showing in his face, and went out.

O’Neill turned on McCarron. “‘She’?” he demanded. “And a shame she had to go like what?”

By way of answer McCarron flicked his eyes in the direction of the shattered window. It was only when O’Neill leaned out carefully over the long drop that he saw the corpse below. It was too far away and too badly mangled to identify. He wouldn’t even like to confirm the gender with any degree of certainty.

“Shit!” he said. “You were with the force long enough McCarron. Why didn’t you say something before I let Grogan waltz out of here?”

“He had nothing to do with it,” McCarron said quietly. “I—”

“Ray,” said a new voice, low with warning. “Shut up.”

O’Neill looked up and there was Kelly Jacks, dressed as a waitress, emerging from the bathroom with a towel torn into strips as an emergency dressing. Her face was scratched, hands beat up like a boxer after a tough bout but her eyes were clear and her gait was steady. O’Neill felt his shoulders come down without realising he’d tensed them.

A bloody survivor, that’s what she is.

Dempsey, on the other hand, jolted upright like he’d been cattle-prodded. “Kelly Jacks, I am arresting you for—”

“Oh can it Dempsey,” O’Neill snapped.

Kelly Jacks grinned at Dempsey’s hurt incomprehension. “A bit eager to get down to business isn’t he?” she said.

“These youngsters tend to get over-excited and go off at half-cock,” he agreed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dempsey blush to the roots of his hair. “No foreplay.”

“When my fingers have turned blue it means you need to slacken that thing off,” McCarron told him helpfully, nodding to the tourniquet.

“Don’t worry,” Kelly said, eyes still on O’Neill. “I’ll come quietly. It’s all over.”

“Not quite.” O’Neill nudged the man on the floor, rolling him onto his back to get a clear look at his face. “Ah. Dmitry Lyzchko I presume.”

“If you’re looking for his loopy sister, she’s down there,” Kelly said.

O’Neill took a long breath. It was a mess, no doubt about that. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“Dmitry had a gun. We fought. He dropped it. Yana got hold of it, took a pot shot at Ray and went out the window.”

“Just like that, hmm?”

Kelly’s gaze was level. “I’m summarising.”

“It was my fault,” Ray McCarron said suddenly.

“Ray—”

“Now it’s your turn to shut up Kel,” McCarron said with a weary smile. “Like you said, Yana got hold of Dmitry’s gun and I tried to rush her.”

O’Neill raised an eyebrow at the cast arm. “In your condition?”

McCarron gave a tiny shrug, the most he could manage. “I was nearest,” he said. “She got a shot off, winged me, but we struggled and . . . she tripped and fell.” He took a deep breath, glared at Kelly when she would have spoken again. “It was my fault,” he repeated speaking slowly and distinctly so there would be no mistakes. “I was trying to stop her killing us all and I didn’t mean for it to happen but it was entirely down to me that she fell, OK?”

153

Lying propped up on the bed in the room of his small hotel near Earls Court, Frank Allardice watched events at the racecourse unfold on the TV news.

The cameras had lingered on the tall screens they’d erected around the woman’s body in the parade ring. They were usually brought out to protect the public from seeing fallen horses being put to the bolt but they were just as useful for this kind of eventuality. They’d needed a lot of them though. She’d managed to spread herself over a pretty wide area, poor cow.

When Allardice had seen Lytton’s name connected with the event he’d wondered, just briefly, if Kelly Jacks might show up there. And ever since the news had broken that a woman had fallen—jumped or been pushed, take your pick—from a private box high above the stands, he’d wondered about that too.

Well, hoped, more than wondered.

Having Kelly Jacks as the one splattered all over the parade ring would certainly tie up a few annoying loose ends.

Allardice reached into the ice bucket on the bedside table and dragged out a can of lager he’d bought from the open-all-hours place down the road. He wiped the outside of the can on the duvet, cracked open the ring pull and took a swig.

The news cameraman had finally realised that a set of dark green screens were not exactly photogenic and was panning across the mass of police and emergency services and bomb-disposal personnel. If they’d all paid to get in, Allardice reflected, the racecourse would have doubled their gate.