“When it comes to threatening, you damn well started it,” Kelly fired back.

Grogan was leaning in the open doorway apparently relaxed but carefully blocking her exit at the same time. He’d told everyone else to make themselves scarce, including the hulking Russian who’d clobbered her. Kelly wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or not by his desire to banish potential witnesses.

Now Grogan sighed and fixed her with an implacable stare. “I think you’d best explain that—while there’s still a chance we can sort this out . . . amicably.”

Kelly felt laughter bubbling up in her throat, recognised a wisp of underlying hysteria and swallowed it back down again.

She had taken her foot away from the grey colt’s foreleg and he’d twitched himself out from her grasp to stretch towards his owner near the doorway, hopeful of some treat or other. Grogan rubbed the animal’s sleek head without taking his eyes off Kelly.

“Where do I start?” she queried. “How about with the warning you sent to my boss Ray McCarron—to keep his nose out of your business? A warning that came wrapped in a beating bad enough for him to need surgery.”

“Ray McCarron? Never heard of him,” Grogan said flatly. “Next?”

The blatant denial shocked but at the same time didn’t surprise her. She pressed on. “What about setting me up to take the fall for Tyrone Douet’s murder?”

“Now that does ring a bell. I believe I saw it on the news,” he said without a flicker. “But I believe the police were fairly sure you were the one they were after. So how exactly did I manage that little party trick?”

“By having one of your Russian thugs stick the knife in my hand after they’d dosed me with ketamine—probably supplied by your crooked vet.”

“Ah that’s why you were asking for Stubbsy,” Grogan said. “Who happens to be a very good vet I’ll have you know. He may have one or two personal weaknesses but as long as he indulges them in his own time then quite honestly I don’t give a monkey’s.”

“I notice you don’t deny the Russian thugs are yours.”

Grogan shrugged. “I have offered employment opportunities to a number of people from the former Soviet Union,” he agreed blandly. “And if they’re lacking in the social niceties, shall we say, that’s only to be expected. Practically a Third World country these days isn’t it?”

Kelly thought of Steve Warwick’s wife Yana who’d apparently been traded like a chattel. Third World was too advanced, she decided. Medieval was more like it.

“Are you trying to tell me you have no control over your own men?” Kelly demanded. “That you let them rampage around London beating up whoever they like and using your name as justification for it?”

The grey colt had taken another step forwards and was nuzzling Grogan’s pockets now, impatient for his due. Grogan ignored him.

“My name carries weight in certain circles,” he said. “If people choose to bandy it about without my knowledge that doesn’t mean I’m responsible.”

“I suppose you’re not responsible for the ten grand price you put on my head either?” she threw back at him.

The mention of money finally seemed to have some effect. Grogan raised an eyebrow, looked her up and down. “What is it you’re supposed to have done that makes you worth that kind of money?”

Kelly knew she should take her time about replying. That now she had actually provoked a response, however slight, she should make the most of it, play her cards close to her chest. Instead she allowed him to exasperate an answer straight out of her.

“What have I done?” she repeated. “I spotted the botched job your men made of Veronica Lytton’s so-called suicide. And ever since then you’ve been trying to shut me up—one way or another. Well, it may have worked last time but there’s no way anybody’s putting me away again for something I didn’t do.”

Grogan took a breath. She saw his chest rise, his mouth open, then a large figure stepped suddenly into view, grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and yanked him away, spinning him against the outside wall of the loose box.

The grey colt scuttled backwards swinging his hindquarters dangerously close to Kelly. She jumped out of the way.

When she looked back at the doorway the big Russian who’d thumped her was standing firmly planted in the aperture. The double-barrelled shotgun Kelly had seen earlier was pulled up hard into his shoulder. He was aiming it square at Kelly’s chest.

She watched dumbfounded as the knuckles of his fingers began to whiten around the first of the triggers.

94

Dmitry flashed an Audi saloon that was dawdling in the outside lane of the M4, muttering furiously under his breath as the offending vehicle moved over with leisurely arrogance.

He had pushed and bullied his way out of London in record time and was now heading west at slightly over a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It was the kind of speed where other traffic was constantly in his way and his temper was in shreds.

But he had told Viktor to use his imagination when it came to dealing with Kelly Jacks and that, he realised, could well turn out to be a huge error of judgement on his part.

Viktor was a man whose imagination usually leaned towards extreme violence.

Dmitry took his hand off the wheel just long enough to stab the redial button on his iPhone but Viktor was still not answering. Dmitry’s own imagination painted all kinds of nasty pictures about why that might be.

He pressed his right foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

95

Harry Grogan stood in the stable doorway staring down at the inert figure lying face down in the horse’s bedding. There was surprisingly little blood but what there was, the shavings were doing a good job of soaking up.

“Is he dead?” the girl asked, her voice strangely composed.

Grogan gave her an assessing glance. “Take more than a shovel round the back of the head to kill old Viktor,” he said. “Stupid bugger, waving a bloody shotgun around near my colt.”

He set the shovel down to one side of the doorway and glanced at his horse. The animal was going spare, clattering against the kickboards at the back of the box as if trying to climb out over the walls. Grogan winced at every knock against those priceless legs.

The grey colt was not happy about being approached. His fear translated into a display of temper with ears laid flat and back hunched, stamping his feet down. Sweat darkened his coat in patches, the veins popping through.

There was movement in the stable doorway and the lad who looked after the colt elbowed Grogan aside as he went to his charge, making soothing noises in his throat. Any other time, Grogan would have sacked him for behaviour like that, but the way the horse was immediately reassured made him hold his tongue.