And he’d start with bloody Dmitry. Grogan knew he’d told him to make himself scarce but this was taking the piss. He’d expected to be photographed out there with a glamorous woman on his arm and muscle by his shoulder. Instead he’d be facing the cameras alone and that put out the wrong message for a man in his position. It was all about perception. He dealt with people who needed to be convinced he was still a force to be reckoned with or they’d start trying to elbow in and take what he’d fought so hard to acquire.

There would be hell to pay later.

The lift arrived. Grogan checked his watch as he stepped inside. He was cutting it fine but he knew he made the trainer nervous and that in turn communicated itself to the horse. Better for him to arrive at the last moment, stay only as long as necessary then return to his lofty aerie to watch the race itself.

And if he was compelled to spend this moment alone, that was just the price of his success.

Grogan fished in his pocket and dragged out his cellphone, hit the speed dial for Dmitry one last time. The number rang out half a dozen times then disconnected. Grogan blinked and tried again. This time it hardly rang before disappearing into silence.

“Ignore me would you, you ungrateful little bastard?” he murmured. “I’ll cut you off at the knees—you and your—”

The lift doors opened at the ground floor. Standing outside them was a high-ranking member of the Jockey Club who stepped back when he saw the grim expression on Grogan’s face.

“Good God Grogan, you look like you’re off to the gallows. Something I should know about the form of that colt of yours?”

Grogan took a breath, squared his shoulders. “Not at all, my lord,” he managed. “And just to prove it why don’t you come and watch him saddled with me?”

“Eh, of course old chap,” the man said. “Delighted.”

But Grogan did not miss the hesitation and would not forget it either.

One day all these bastards are going to give me the respect I deserve . . .

138

Dmitry was in the stairwell climbing when his phone buzzed. He reached for it, saw Grogan’s name come up on the screen and rejected the call without pausing. It rang again immediately. Dmitry almost threw the phone through the window, stabbing the button to ignore it again.

“Svoloch!” he growled, repeating Myshka’s earlier curse. Scum.

Above him he heard a door slam, glanced upwards but saw nothing. He swore again, in several languages this time, as he took the stairs two at a time.

The lift doors were closing as Dmitry yanked open the door leading from the stairwell. The floor indicator light showed the lift was heading downwards.

He spun and ran back for the stairs.

139

As soon as the lift began to slow, Kelly jammed her finger on the Doors Closed button and sent it back up again praying the software wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown and leave her stranded and exposed.

Fortunately the machinery obeyed without protest, climbing steadily. Kelly had no idea what the word she’d caught actually meant but she’d reacted on inflection and accent. It sounded kind of Russian and filled with invective. Either would have been enough to spook her. Both together sent her fleeing.

The lift reached the top floor and she braced for attack but when the doors parted the corridor was empty. She dived out and ran to the private box where she’d left McCarron and his charge.

She burst in, slammed and locked the door behind her. Someone had pulled the fur coat back over Steve Warwick’s body, she saw. Her imagination had the cover moving slightly as though the corpse under it still breathed.

McCarron rose shakily from a chair. She took one look at his face and knew.

“Where’s Yana?”

“I’m sorry Kelly love,” he said. “I went to use the bathroom. I told her not to open the door for anyone except you but—”

“And she did a runner,” Kelly said flatly.

“No, I think they took her. I heard a scream—by the time I got back out here she’d gone. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Kelly shook her head reluctantly. Yana wasn’t telling her the truth about what happened but that didn’t necessarily make her guilty of anything more than evasion.

McCarron nodded to the locked door. “I’m guessing you didn’t find the cops, then?”

“No but I was almost found by the Russian guy—Grogan called him Dmitry.”

“The one who jumped me?” From his face Kelly couldn’t tell if McCarron was pleased or unnerved at the prospect of meeting his attacker again.

“The one who jumped both of us,” she said.

He dropped back awkwardly into his chair as if exhausted or defeated. Or both. “Christ Kel, if he’s got her . . . we’ve got to do something.”

“I know,” she said. “And as soon as I work out what, I’ll get back to you on that.”

140

Matthew Lytton had worked out in theory how to free himself, but the practice proved long-winded, frustrating and painful.

His wrists were bound behind him with plastic cable-ties, the kind he’d used hundreds of times on site to secure pipes or wiring. Once they were zipped tight the only way to release them should have been with cutters. He’d long ago discovered that jamming something like a nail-head between the locking tab and its ratchet track would loosen them off.

Of course, there was never anything like a protruding nail about when you needed it. He searched fruitlessly, writhing on the concrete floor and ruining his best suit in the process. Something tickled his nose and he twitched away but it was only a shed rose petal from the crushed buttonhole at his lapel.

He froze then squirmed until the miniature bouquet was right to his face. The roses had no scent but he guessed that some varieties were bred only for their colours. What the buttonhole did have, however, was a good sharp pin securing it.

Getting the pin loose with his teeth was the easy part. As was dropping it to the floor and manoeuvring to grasp it between fingers and thumb. But trying to contort his wrists far enough to reach the ties—when he couldn’t see what he was doing and his head felt about to explode—almost defeated him.

Lytton struggled for what seemed like hours. And every time he moved it was as if his head was filled with liquid that sloshed backwards and forwards inside his skull creating an almost unbearable pressure. The effect was motion sickness that left him in constant danger of throwing up.

He gritted his teeth and kept working at it. He had only a hazy picture of what had happened to bring him here. His conversation with that smug copper O’Neill was reasonably in focus but after that it started to blur. He even thought he’d seen . . .