Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(85)

‘It seems like just the other day when Maria died. Thirteen years go by in a flash.’ He could feel the resentment coming down the phone but at least the line was still live. At least the person at the other end was still there.

‘I have known you many years and I count you as a friend but you are a hard man to love. You kill everything that shows weakness. You demand submission and you kill those that kneel. You are a Praying Mantis. Ha-ha . . . You are a Black Widow spider. Ha-ha . . . you weave your web and you eat your prey and then you wonder why you’re alone.’ He listened in hope of an answer, but he got silence. He could no longer hear the woman singing.

‘Listen to me, old friend, let bygones be bygones. You cannot help who you love. Maria was everything to me.’ Digger listened. He heard an exhalation of breath. He heard the sound of someone’s lips move as if to speak, but no words came.

‘I know what you are going to say: she wasn’t mine to love, but I could not help it. She was nothing to you. In the end we both lost her to madness.

‘I know you didn’t want me to see Nikki but I couldn’t resist it, knowing that she is back in this country and she is the nearest thing I have to kin.’ He heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. ‘But things are moving beyond my control. You must save Nikki. Get her away, take the boy, start a new life. The police are watching me and so is he. I am being squeezed. I will do my best to give you time to get away and I suggest you run far and fast. They will be watching all the airfields, all the hospitals now. They are on your tail, old friend. The police and the devil are coming for you.’

Martingale sat in the dark of his drawing room. He closed his eyes and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair and turned the music back up. A child prodigy was singing Nessun Dorma. Her voice was so rich, so powerful, yet so delicate and beautiful. People marvelled at the little girl’s lungs. Martingale didn’t.

He looked up as she walked down the stairs.

‘Please . . .’ Martingale stood and beckoned her forward as he held out his arms to her. She turned her head from him but she didn’t move away. ‘Come, my little one . . .’ She allowed him closer. ‘That’s it . . .’ He took her in his arms and kissed her head and smoothed his hand down her back, over her hair that was like silk to his touch. He breathed her smell and closed his eyes as he hummed Brahms’ lullaby. He didn’t need to pull back to know that she had closed her eyes and was smiling. ‘It won’t be long now for you and then we’ll be free of all this forever.’ When he lifted his hand from her hair, whole strands of loose hair were stuck to it.

As she felt the warmth of her father, Nikki remembered the last time she had been this close to someone, felt the heartbeat of another. Hart was on her mind. He filled her every sense. He was inside her. She had never felt so close to another and never felt so vulnerable.





Chapter 56


Carmichael watched on the screen and saw the man approach the entrance to the Velvet Lagoon. He looked at the corner of the screen, where Micky was looking at the same screen image at the other end of the video link. The man looked up and into the webcam.

Carmichael logged into instant messenger and typed, You got it?

Yes, no problem. Identification beginning.

The camera zoomed into Justin’s face as the PC searched for feature recognition. Just like the finger-print-identifying program, it was comparing images, taking reference points and aligning them with other images to find a match.

Justin de Lange. Age 46. Managing director of the Mansfield Group of private clinics . . . head of the Mansfield research and development programme. On the board of the Chrissie Newton Foundation.

Carmichael typed in a question:

Was he in the UK thirteen years ago?

Yes he was.

Justin looked at the vacant lots either side. Carmichael knew what he’d be thinking . . . I’m screwed if this goes wrong. He also knew that Justin must want to talk to him very badly. He hadn’t checked Carmichael out thoroughly. He hadn’t met first at a neutral place before coming to see the girls on Carmichael’s home turf. He must want something very bad. Justin pressed the intercom to his left. He heard the door unlock. It opened just enough to let him through.

‘Hey, Hart? You about? Digger gave me your address, said you had something for me. I don’t have a lot of time. Hart?’

Carmichael was playing Green Day over the speakers. It boomed around the empty club; bounced off the walls. He was sitting in his usual place at the bar, his laptop open. He didn’t answer.

Justin stepped further into the club, past the cashier’s box on the left and the cloakrooms. The door swung shut and closed behind him. Inside was completely dark except for a light above the dance floor that circled and zapped randomly from space to space until it settled just in front of Justin’s feet and stayed there. Carmichael closed his laptop and walked across to stand in the dark corner beyond the dance floor, in the DJ’s box.

‘Over here. Follow the light. I’m over here, come across the dance floor,’ Carmichael shouted over the music.

Justin took a look around him. As his eyes got used to the dark he made out the bar, the booths, the blacked-out windows. He walked towards the beam of light now dancing in circles on the floor. He still couldn’t see Carmichael.

‘Yeah . . . you know what . . . not wanting to disturb your work but I’m a busy man. I need to see the girls now. Can we get on with it, Hart? Hart?’