It was uttered with a smile, an attempt to lighten a mood that was oppressive but O’Neill gave him no reassurance in return. “Know anything about explosives do you?”

126

Kelly stuck her head round the restaurant door where Shula was placing cutlery on the tables with all the dexterity of a casino croupier dealing cards.

“Hey Shula, I’ve just been asked to take a tray of coffee and stuff along to a Mr Lytton,” she said with as much casual innocence as she could squeeze into the lie. “Any ideas who he is or where I find him?”

“Ooh, he’s one of the bigwigs. Didn’t you see the signs everywhere? He’s got an office on the next floor down, with the admin people, or he might be in his private box—one of the posh ones they use for conference meetings right at the top.”

“Ah,” Kelly said managing to look sheepish. “They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Sorry.”

“Never mind. Here, I’ll give you a hand.”

Shula abandoned her table setting and hurried across to the serving area, quickly assembling a tray of cups, saucers, spoons, sugar, cream and a handful of foil-wrapped mints on a plate. She splashed coffee from the filter machine into an insulated cafetière and fastened the lid. Her movements were fast and sure. Almost as an afterthought Shula added a small vase containing a single carnation.

She caught Kelly’s raised eyebrow and grinned at her. “Well he’s a bit of a looker—and he tips all right.”

Kelly picked up the tray, got the balance of it. “Office or private box,” she murmured. She glanced at Shula. “If it was you, where would you try first?”

127

The emergency stairwell at the east end of the stand was glassed in and afforded a reasonable view down into the VIP car park. Lytton stood on the top landing looking down at the blanket of car roofs parked in serried rows like some bizarre arable crop.

And there in the next-to-the-end line was Steve Warwick’s yellow Porsche. Even allowing for there being more than one yellow Porsche, Warwick could make out the first couple of letters of Warwick’s private registration just to clinch it.

He swore again and spun on his heel. So Warwick was here. Lytton had been mad enough at Warwick’s lateness even before his conversation with the police. Now he was fuming.

Lytton had skated close to the wind quite a few times in his career one way or another and his previous contacts with the law and its officers had not always been happy ones. He was aware therefore that O’Neill and his crony could simply have been trying to drive a wedge between him and Warwick. Why, he didn’t know.

So in some ways he was relieved to recognise Warwick’s car down there among the others. Because that meant this story about insurance payouts and explosives was likely to be bullshit. Why would Warwick turn up at all if he was planning something like that?

On the other hand, arriving without letting anybody know and sneaking off for a quickie with his mistress was just like Stevie boy. And in that case Lytton had a pretty good idea where he’d be doing it.

And he was just in the right roiling bad temper to break up the party.

128

Dmitry caught Myshka’s arm as it was upraised for yet another strike. His fingers dug in hard enough to register through the bloodlust that consumed her.

“That’s enough,” he said quietly.

Breathless and glittering, she tried to wrench free but his grip was steel. Her head—her eyes—whipped to meet his.

“It will never be enough,” Myshka said through her teeth. “Years I have been nothing but plaything to this—this svoloch. Now is my turn.”

Dmitry was silent for a moment, staring down at her. She saw nothing in his gaze and that alone made something of her passion ebb away.

“There is no point beating a man who is past feeling any of it,” he said then as if speaking to a child.

Myshka could have told him the beating was as much her reward as it was a punishment for the man tied to the table but she realised it would not serve her purpose to admit to such emotion. It was . . . self-indulgent.

She relaxed her muscles. He let go and stepped back, peeling the extendible baton from her hand as he did so. He wiped the length of it carefully on Steve Warwick’s carefully discarded jacket. Warwick did not object.

He would never object about anything again.

It was only then, without the fire in her belly, that Myshka looked at what she had done and a cold fear spread slowly up through her. She shrugged it away but her eyes were drawn fascinated to the seep of blood edging across the polished surface.

“It will not spoil things,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

Dmitry twisted the baton’s inner sections back into place with a rough shove that might have signified anger.

“This,” he said with a jerk of his head, “will not look like an accident.”

Myshka dragged her eyes away and turned to him, stroking both hands down his cheeks. “Do not lose heart now, Dmitry. By time we are finished, nobody will be able to tell.”

Dmitry was still frowning when into the silence that hummed between them came the rattle of the door handle being turned.

129

Lytton fumbled in his suit pocket for the box key the racecourse people had given him and jammed it into the lock.

He’d already been into the box several times so he knew the door should be open. But having seen Warwick’s car was here he had a pretty good idea what his partner was probably up to and who with. Barging in unannounced and catching them at it would just about satisfy his bubbling righteous anger.

He pushed the door open and strode through . . . and faltered, still gripping the handle as if to let go would be to have his legs buckle under him.

Warwick was there, all right, up on the broad conference table stark naked. But he was not indulging in some furtive sexual coupling.

Lytton’s mouth dropped open. He tried to tear his eyes away and found he utterly could not. Tiny details imprinted themselves on his brain as if to focus on the whole would send him spinning into hysteria.

Warwick’s ankles were bound. One heel sported a piece of sticking plaster as if to cover a blister. The man’s fingers were curled, relaxed inside the material that held his wrists fast. The onyx and diamond signet ring he always wore gleamed under the overhead lights. Half his face was visible, turned towards the doorway as if seeking rescue. Lytton read a petulant bewilderment in the open lifeless eye.

It was only then as the shock rolled over him and Lytton’s vision widened out that he realised there was a woman sitting in the chair at the head of the table. She was wearing an extravagant dark fur coat. Her legs were crossed elegantly.