“I thought she was Russian rather than Transylvanian.”

He managed a half smile. “Russian, Ukranian—something like that. But she sucked the life out of everybody she came into contact with,” he said. “Steve, Vee, even that brother of hers Dmitry, and Grogan of course.”

She sat up suddenly. “I never asked. Did his colt win the race?”

“By a nose.”

“Oh thank God for that,” she said. “He’d never have forgiven me otherwise.”

Lytton didn’t quite get how it would have been Kelly’s fault but he let that one go. Instead he sighed, rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. “Christ, I need a holiday.”

“You and me both,” she agreed. “But I have a feeling mine might be spent at Her Majesty’s pleasure.”

157

Frank Allardice was having a late supper at Heathrow when his cellphone rang. He’d spent an agonising afternoon and evening waiting for a standby seat that never materialised before finally succumbing to airport food.

He fished the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, still shovelling overpriced shepherd’s pie into his mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Frank? Where are you?”

As soon as he recognised Vince O’Neill’s voice Allardice thought about lying. Then the public address started squawking about passengers not leaving baggage unattended and that idea was well and truly buggered.

He chewed and swallowed. “At Heathrow, sampling their culinary delights—although ‘delights’ is perhaps putting it a bit strong,” he said easily. “What can I do for you Vince?”

“We picked up Kelly Jacks this afternoon,” he said. “Thought you’d like to know, seeing as you had such a special interest.”

Shit! What do you know?

“Good job,” Allardice said. “Knew you’d get her in the end. Any . . . trouble?”

“You haven’t been watching the news have you?” O’Neill said, amusement in his voice. “Guy got beaten to death at a racecourse, a woman fell from the stands and we found enough explosives to blow the place sky high.”

Allardice whistled, hoped it sounded convincing as surprise. “And Jacks was involved in all that? She’s gone up in the world.”

“Nearly did—she was in the stands at the time,” O’Neill said.

He paused and Allardice had to force himself not to jump into the silence like a guilty man. At the next table a fractious family were scarfing down chips with everything, surrounded by enough carry-on luggage to outfit a small town. Allardice hoped they were not on his flight—when he eventually got one.

“So pat-on-the-back time from old man Quinlan,” he said at last. “Feather in his cap to have Jacks safely under lock and key before he hangs up his spurs eh?” He was suddenly aware that he was using one cliché after another but O’Neill didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah . . . listen Frank, I was hoping to be able to deal with Jacks quietly but with everything that’s happened, well, it’s all going to have to go by the book. We’ve been giving her the third degree and I have to tell you that your name keeps coming up.”

Allardice felt his heart suddenly start to punch against the inside of his ribs. “Stands to reason,” he said gruffly. “I put her away last time. You’d expect her to hold a grudge.”

“Hmm, but it’s getting harder to keep a lid on things and I’m sure the last thing you want is to end up helping us with our enquiries.” O’Neill sighed. “I would have thought there’s sod all we can prove after all this time but I just wanted to give you a heads up. It’s opening a bit of a can of worms to be honest.”

Allardice put his fork down slowly. “Thanks Vince,” he said. “I mean, obviously there’s nothing in what she says but I appreciate the warning.”

“No sweat,” O’Neill said. “I’ll do my best to minimise the damage, shall we say?”

“Yeah,” Allardice said. “Thanks again. I owe you.”

O’Neill’s laugh was jarring. “And I’ll collect—you can be sure of that. You can show me the sights next time I grab a cheap last-minute package to Spain.”

Allardice tried to put the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach down to the shepherd’s pie but he forced a cheerful note into his voice.

“The beer’s on me, old son,” he said. “Definitely.”

158

“He’s on the move!”

DC Dempsey followed former DCI Allardice’s progress through the airport on a series of CCTV monitors. He was in the security control room at Heathrow surrounded by more surveillance equipment than he’d ever seen in his life.

The camera operators were slick he had to admit. They kept track of Allardice as he moved from one zone to another, always overlapping. Dempsey was amazed anybody managed to get away with anything.

Half of him was a little freaked out by it all and the other half was bubbling with suppressed excitement. The kind of thrill you only get when you’re closing in on a target and he has no idea whatsoever that he’s been rumbled.

“He’s heading for the payphones,” his liaison officer said. A youngish guy, thickset and purposeful.

“Can you move your people in close enough to hear anything?”

The liaison grinned at him. It would have been smug had he not been young enough to be buzzed by the job. “Better than that,” he said. “Bill, give me audio and filter out whatever background chatter you can.”

The camera zoomed in unobtrusively to show Allardice looking around, all casual, before he picked up the receiver and dialled.

“Hello? You know who this is . . . I’m on my way back to sunny Spain mate. Job’s done. Looks like we can rely on young Vince to put it to bed all neat and tidy . . . Yeah well, you owe me—big time—and I’m like a bloody elephant. I never forget to collect on my debts . . . Yeah, cash is always ‘acceptable’ mate. You know where to find me.”

He put the phone down, looked around again and wiped his hand on the leg of his trousers before striding away.

“Sweating about it, weren’t you Frank?” Dempsey murmured.

“They’re calling his flight,” the liaison said. “Do you want an intercept?”

Dempsey shook his head. “Watching brief only—them’s my orders.”

The liaison grinned again. “Well the Spanish authorities are a lot more amenable about extradition these days aren’t they?”

“Too right.”

One of the techs—the guy called Bill—broke off from his computer keyboard long enough to scrawl something on a pad and rip off the sheet, handing it across. “That’s the number your man called. You should be able to trace it easily enough.”