‘McCulkin! You think this is going to solve anything, you little shit!’
But McCulkin was already out of earshot.
Heck dragged the blue phone from his pocket and bashed in the number of the red one. Rather to his surprise, it was answered.
‘What the goddamn hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded.
‘I … look, I’m sorry,’ was all McCulkin could say. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t want this, I … I had no choice, I mean … when your family are under threat …’
The words ended mid-sentence. There was a thump in Heck’s ear as the phone at the other end was dropped into the bottom of the boat. He gazed out over the water. The small outboard was still close enough for him to see McCulkin stagger to its gunwale, his head shapeless and lolling, his hair a glinting crimson mass – and topple over the side.
A second of stunned silence followed.
The boat continued towards the distant shore, now under its own volition. McCulkin’s body was briefly visible, bobbing like a buoy, before it sank, leaving his cap floating on the surface alongside a blurred red stain.
‘Fuck,’ Heck said slowly. ‘Fuck … he’s been shot!’
Lauren’s eyes bulged in shock. ‘How was he, but who shot … I mean, out here?’
The answers to these half questions were provided in short order.
Heck had no sooner tapped 999 on the blue phone when a second shot was fired – presumably from a weapon fitted with a silencer, because they didn’t hear its report. The phone was smashed from Heck’s hand, scattering in fragments across the landing platform. He snatched his hand back; the bullet hadn’t penetrated his flesh, but had struck a stinging blow, which felt as if it had come from overhead. Disbelievingly, he peered up towards the topmost parapet of the tower.
Something gleamed up there.
It was the sun. On the barrel of a sniper rifle.
Heck ducked backward, dragging Lauren with him. A silenced slug impacted on the spot where he’d just been standing. The plank footing was punched clean through.
‘Quick!’ Heck charged back up the stairs. Lauren was only a yard behind him, but another shot ricocheted from the stair’s handrail alongside her, hammering it out of shape.
‘Who … who the hell is it?’ she stammered as they plunged back inside the tower.
‘Who the hell do you think?’
‘Deke?’
‘Murdering bastard lured us here. But what really worries me is how he got to McCulkin.’
The full import of this didn’t immediately strike Lauren. Their initial predicament was terrifying enough. Inside the base of the tower, they were sheltered from the parapet above. But of course they were stuck here. There was nowhere else to go, and it surely wouldn’t be long before the sniper descended. Gradually however, the meaning of what Heck had just said dawned on her.
‘What do you mean, “how he got to McCulkin”?’
Heck mopped sweat from his forehead. ‘I’ve been worried there might be a leak in my department. Now I know there is. McCulkin was our confidential informant. No one outside the National Crime Group could possibly know about his connection to me.’
‘But that’s ridiculous; why would some copper …?’
‘Because whoever he is, he must be involved with the Nice Guys.’
‘Heck, you can’t be serious.’
‘It’s the only explanation. It explains a few other things too.’ He glanced out through the entrance. McCulkin’s outboard was a distant dot headed towards the smudged, brown coastline. The bloody traces of McCulkin himself were no longer visible on the rippling waters. ‘Lauren, how good a swimmer are you?’
‘You’re suggesting we swim?’
‘Not to the shore. Round to one of the other gun-towers. It’s only about fifty yards.’
‘Swim in the Thames? What about the current?’
‘The alternative is waiting here until miladdo comes down. There’s nowhere to hide that I can see, and we’ve got no weapons. We’ll be like fish in a barrel.’
Even as Heck said this, there was a clang from somewhere overhead. Then another, and another – heavy feet were descending a metal staircase. Glancing up, they saw shadows of movement flickering through the gaps in the ceiling. Despite this, Lauren was still struggling with Heck’s suggestion.
‘Swim …?’
He took her hand, and met her eye to eye. ‘This guy’s coming down here to kill us, Lauren. Both of us. Even if we swim, I reckon we’ve only got two or three minutes to make it to one of the other towers before he gets us in his crosshairs.’
Slowly, unwillingly, she forced a nod. ‘Okay … okay.’
It was late afternoon, so the incoming tide helped them. Not that an exhausting effort wasn’t required. The nearest of the gun-towers, which was the west one, seemed a nightmarish distance away. Ploughing towards it fully clothed, through ice-cold water, was an ordeal neither of them was prepared for. All the same they swam, shoulders aching, wave after briny wave slapping them in the face and mouth. They constantly craned their necks to look back, to see if a tall, blond-haired figure had appeared on the landing platform behind them, but it was difficult to tell. The stone tower was receding, and the path they were following curved away from it. As the platform was on the south side of the stone tower, it would soon be only partially visible. That was the good news. If the killer didn’t spot them straight away on arriving there, he might not spot them at all. This goaded them to greater efforts, and now at last, the colossal, skeletal structure of the west tower was approaching. Again, the cries of gulls echoed down. The sun glinted red on its rust-covered sides.
‘Heck!’ Lauren tried to shout, coughing out water. ‘Heck … there’s no landing-stage. How do we get onto it?’
Heck didn’t answer, just grunted his way forward, arm over arm.
The four concrete legs of the tower projected outward and down from the huge superstructure on top. They had no visible base, and descended straight into the river. But in the very middle of them, a switchback stair hung swinging and creaking in the wind. It came almost to river-level, but whether they’d be able to reach it and climb up, Heck didn’t know. He trod water as he looked back over his shoulder. The stone tower was now forty yards behind them, and any figure on the landing platform would have to be standing at its southwest corner to see them. From this distance, Deke would be a matchstick man. But if he was equipped with a high-powered rifle – Heck thought again about the Dragunov he’d seen in the house at Kingston – he’d still be able to pick his targets off, especially if they were clambering wearily up this ladder and thus framed against the sky.
The river current seemed to be strengthening; it pushed them past the southeast leg of the west tower and in fact was pushing them towards their target. But now there was a danger it might push them too far. The foot of the hanging stair was about fifteen yards ahead. Its lowest rung, which again was green and slimy with algae, hung a couple of feet above the surface. It was going to be desperately hard just getting onto the thing, let alone climbing all the way to safety. What was worse, with the current at their back, they’d only get a couple of grabs for it, and then they’d be driven past and would be out of reach. Beyond the west tower, of course, there was nothing but the open waters of the estuary.
‘Christ, Heck,’