The Secret Angels: Rutter Books, #5

PROLOGUE

Franz-Josefs Höhe, Carinthia, Austria

Wednesday, December 23rd 1998

1.17 AM (Central European Time)

THE HUGE, BELL-SHAPED mountain stood stark against an ink-black sky, punctured by a billion stars. A faint moon highlighted the shimmering veils that slipped, in crawling cascades, from the cloven crown to the vast river of ice at its foot.

The car park was deserted. Weeks before, tourists had gathered for that year’s final gaze at one of the grandest views on earth. The mightiest glacier of the Eastern Alps crept from the great snow dome of the Johannisberg past the Grossglockner — the Great Bell, Austria’s highest summit ― as a vast frozen flood on its way to the Black Sea.

The restaurants were closed, their ovens cold, chairs piled on tables and covered with dust sheets. The gift shops were closed and shuttered, empty within. The generators were powered down. Windows were boarded up and the flags returned to their lockers for the winter.

A solitary pair of headlamps sliced through the darkness, skittering from side to side as the chained wheels fought for traction on the icy surface. More than once, the vehicle slithered dangerously close to the edge, where a terrifying drop, roll and bounce right down to the valley floor lurked.

Careful! muttered the passenger, his hand groping for a panic handle that did not exist.

Relax, returned the driver in a heavy Allemanic accent, I know what I’m doing.

A second passenger, sitting in the back seat, kept his eyes closed and his fists clenched, lest he should panic.

The Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse had closed for the winter more than a month previously. It was utterly impassable further up, where the snowdrifts would be twenty feet deep by now, the tunnel under the saddle sealed off by massive doors. The road was still navigable — just — as far as Franz Josefs Höhe, by the right vehicle, with low ratio four-wheel drive engaged, and snow chains. It had taken a heavy bribe to leave the toll station above Heiligenblut unlocked to allow them through. It would be locked again at 5.00 AM, so they had barely three hours in which to complete their task.

The Range Rover rolled to a halt just outside the upper station of the funicular down to the glacier: the Gletscherbahn. All three occupants alighted, the larger man producing a jemmy from his coat pocket and forcing the door. All the evidence would suggest that someone had taken an illicit free ride down to the glacier during the winter. Nothing more. That was what he had told the bribed official. Their tracks would be obliterated by the billions of tons of snow that would fall on the mountains before the road reopened the following spring.

The driver, a tall woman with shoulder-length fair hair gathered under a fur hat, opened the tailgate and dragged out two heavy bundles on sledges, both tightly wrapped in thick plastic and held together with duct tape. They landed on the frozen tarmac with heavy crunches.

Mind the noise! admonished the man over his shoulder.

Who will hear? she answered. There is nobody within ten kilometres.

The door gave with a dull splinter, allowing them to drag the two bundles inside.

All right, said the larger man to his weedy counterpart, I’ll check the lights; you start the generator.

The smaller man, grumbling that he was a hacker, not a housebreaker, forced the door to the operations room. Moments later, the hum and whine of a reviving generator announced that the electricity was back on. The car remained in darkness. The steel-shuttered door rose, clanking, to reveal the track, plunging away at a suicidal angle down the mountain face. He dragged the first sledge inside. Peering forward, he sought out the snub front of the other car, standing at the valley station, seven hundred feet below. Its lights were off as well. Turning, he signalled to her to join him.

She took the second sledge herself.

There is a thirty-second delay, announced the other man from the operations room.

With a jerk, the car began to move steeply downhill, the rumble of the wheels on the icy rails dominating all other sounds. Together the man and woman craned forward, watching the other car ascend automatically and pass them at the halfway stage. Now their view was filled by the rectangular black hole of the valley station’s entrance as it loomed ever closer against the blue-white backdrop of ice and snow.

Emerging at the bottom, the man forced the exit door and the pair of them dragged the heavy sledges out, hauling them with mountaineers’ ropes. He had never stood on a glacier before, and the experience was initially overwhelming. From above, it had looked huge, but from here, it was immeasurable. For the first time in his life, he realised that the vast river of ice was not flat but domed. It rose in a graceful curve from the sides, where the ice was thinnest and melted more quickly, to a higher central point. Despite the hour, the night was startlingly clear, the abundance of ice and snow reflecting and magnifying the moon’s feeble rays and the starlight. Silence surrounded them like a cloak. Even their condensing breath sounded loud.

The woman brandished an ice axe. The glacier is covered with snow, and treacherous. Follow in my footprints. I will test each step, she explained, plunging the handle of her ice axe into the snow at her feet. Choose your own path and you will join those two in a crevasse. Do as I do, Bein will bring us back up and we will all be in Salzburg for lunch.

PART ONE

*

THE SECRET

CHAPTER 1

Salzburg, Austria

Friday, December 25th 1998

7.18 AM (Central European Time)

A FAINT GLIMMER — orange, tinged with green — crept over the dark crown of the Kapuzinerberg. As it strengthened, the green tint yielded to a pale gold that trickled over the baroque city’s silver-grey stonework, from dome to spire, from square to alley, gilding the wet cobbles and setting dewdrops aglitter.

Julian Radcliffe stood by the window of his suite in the Getreidegasse, watching the dawn kindle sparks in the ornate scrollwork of the street’s many overhanging shop signs. He would choose this city for his home when all was done. Mozart had been born two and a half centuries and four doors away. What better heritage?

Salzburg stood at the edge of the Northern Alps, which became one of Europe’s natural deep freezes each winter. That explained its attraction to shallow-minded adrenalin junkies who clamped strips of wood to their feet and flung themselves down mountains but not to him. It was the grandeur of the old city that seduced him.

He chose to remain indoors, nonetheless. He had changed his appearance again. His natural gingery hair was darker, and he had removed his beard but allowed the moustache to grow. His tell-tale cold eyes hid behind medically unnecessary photochromic spectacles. He dressed, as was his habit, in a sober grey suit.

Even now, he found it hard to truly believe what he had done. He had redirected years of painstaking groundwork with a single thought. Dictators dreamed of world domination, but how many had achieved it? How many of them lived long enough to die, old and peaceful, in their beds? His new resolve was not a moral issue — morals were for morons — but at least he had to acknowledge that it had a chance of success, which was more than could be said for his doomed Fourth Reich fantasy. To him, Bible stories belonged among myths and legends, yet he could not deny that he had experienced his own Road to Damascus revelation, nonetheless.

Doubts still nagged him, though. The plan was so unlikely as to be ludicrous unless handled with absolute precision. He had to be sure. Everything must be calculated to the second. He opened a blank document on his laptop and set down his reasons, for and against, yet again. Minutes later, it came to the same four pages of cross-referenced observations and logical deductions as before and reached the same inevitable conclusion. Serial killing had lost its appeal, and his new Nazi revolution was doomed to fail. Next, he set forth his plan of action, step by step, confirming that it would work, if carried out to the letter.

He saved the document without thinking. Then, snorting in disgust, he deleted it. No need for anyone ever to see that. He finally acknowledged that he knew what the monster within him truly craved.

Instead of dominating the world, he had chosen to save it and it would forgive him. And then forget him. Either that or he would escape to Argentina with massively increased loot and find his peace there. That was the key to true freedom: the freedom to be ordinary. Never before had such a thing been attempted.

To achieve it all, he must gather the Damned and deliver them to Hell.

Viewed dispassionately, even he conceded that a rational man would think the plan madness — but how many rational men were geniuses?

A dark shadow passed through his eyes as a sudden, familiar chill gripped his stomach. Either way, Rutter still blocked his path. Even more so now that she had flown her love nest. She was a fly to be swatted, but ― sadly ― not by him. The joy of her destruction would be another’s to savour. It had to be so.

And it had to be soon.

Setting the laptop aside, he pored over the printed material that had been delivered to Herr Friedrich Karst — him, so far as the senders knew — days previously.

The excellent coloured photographs showed an Eighteenth-Century castle in Carinthia, the country’s most southerly province. The Schloss Blitzenfels — the Lightning Rock Castle — had a pretentious name, but the setting lived up to it. Set on a cliff above a monstrous waterfall, it looked north to the glaciers and snowfields of the Hohe Tauern, and south to the sculptured majesty of the Karawanken and the Julian Alps.

It had been modernised within, while retaining its period look. It had a terrace that commanded unforgettable views and an independent power supply. There was space within the courtyard to land a helicopter. That was a particularly vital cog in the plan.

More than any of that, it had a truly vast wine cellar that would serve equally well as his nerve centre. There, he would install one of the most powerful computers on earth and blackmail an entire continent into acquiescence. Best of all, its access road was a death trap. It was the ideal place to lure the loathsome Reiner Gretz and his goose-stepping lackeys. Der Stürmer! What sort of idiot nicknamed himself after a newspaper?

To the best of his knowledge, he was the sole interested party. Still alive. The opposition both lay at the bottom of a crevasse, thanks to Ilse and some effort. Their assets, freshly laundered by his tame hacker, Bein, were on their international travels, from bank to bank, being split up and transferred on before finally nestling in his Swiss account sometime after the New Year. 

 The other bidders, he could ignore, for they could not challenge him. Nevertheless, he needed to send up a smokescreen to keep the Rutters of this world guessing, which was why he had lodged realistic bids on several more properties, two of which he would actually buy. A third he would let go to the fabulously wealthy Anneliese Schell ― the only credible rival remaining. That would keep her happy and distract attention away from him. 

He opened a folder, extracting a sheet of A2 sized paper, which he spread out on the table and scrutinised. It showed a massively complex circuit diagram, the blueprint for his new server. The brainchild of a Ukrainian genius, called Anatolii Tereschenko, it would use easily obtainable components that he would reprogram to create a computer beyond any other. The man currently skulked in some forgotten garret in Slovenia but that would soon change. With him on board, Bein’s hacking prowess would be expanded hugely.

All being well, he would move the Ukrainian into the Schloss within weeks to begin his masterwork.

The slim young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, gathered in a net at the back of her head appeared at the door. The mesh was very fine to deter stray hairs from falling. His hair was heavily gelled for the same reason. She was dressed in tight-fitting black from head to foot. Her face would have been pretty were its expression ever softened by compassion. Like him, she wore surgical gloves and disposable paper booties at all times while in the apartment. They could not afford the risk of leaving fingerprints, or any other traces. The crockery and cutlery were thoroughly washed in piping hot water and bleach immediately after use, lest a scrap of stray material should linger.

She carried a second laptop in her hand.

News? Although fluent in German, and currently resident in Austria, he insisted on English.

There is an email. Ilse handed him the device, which opened to reveal some text and coloured photographs. They have found her.

Interest flared in his eyes as he scanned the images minutely. Where?

She has taken rooms in London. See. She disguises herself.

Radcliffe enlarged the picture to fill the screen. That is definitely a wig. She looks taller. Ah! She is wearing platform shoes. The clothes are a total contrast, as is her demeanour. Obviously. Pass me my glass.

Ilse reached for a large magnifying glass stored in the case of his spare laptop and passed it over, while he clicked his way through the pictures attached to the email. One showed the subject’s face in semi-profile. He hunched right over it, scrutinising it minutely. The skin tone is accurate. She has not tried to alter it, and the nose favours her European heritage more than the African, which is correct. Her eyes are shaded by sunglasses. Well, we can all do that. He pressed even closer. Ah! Difficult to be certain from this angle, but I believe I detect a slight kink in the line of her nose. A legacy from Renner’s fist. Horst Renner was an acolyte, now locked up in the United Kingdom, having broken Rutter’s nose prior to his arrest. The next shot was full-figure. Yes! She is wearing gloves, otherwise, her left hand would be a complete giveaway. Renner’s partner in crime had cut off part of Rutter’s finger in the same incident. He straightened. When were they taken?

Yesterday. She was outside the hospital, where her lover works. He drove out while she was there.

Did they exchange any signals?

Ilse shook her head. "No. They think she was testing her disguise. He drove straight past her. One team stayed with him, but the other followed her back to her rooms in… Plyestov?"

Plaistow, he corrected her.

They await your order.

By disappearing, Rutter had moved beyond his control. She was a civilian again. Her friends were all guarded like film stars and presidents. As a loose cannon, she could act on impulse, which meant that she was evolving inexorably from prey into predator. Until that moment, he had no idea of her whereabouts. What was to stop her from moving beyond his reach again before he could act? Nothing, other than that it was Christmas Day, and she would have a devil of a job going anywhere, given that she had left her car behind when she moved out.

He began to pace the room. He had made a fundamental blunder in commissioning the kidnap and killing of the newsreader. Sally Ferguson had been her close friend for a decade. It was to have been another devastating step in his slow destruction of her. Instead of breaking her down, however, it had steeled her resolve. In trying to undermine her, he had handed her the very weapon that she needed to tear him apart.

Julian Radcliffe felt a faint echo of the terror, the horror, the despair that his victims had known as he extinguished them.

Send them in to complete the job immediately, he snapped. I want visual confirmation within the hour. Make it thorough. Tell them to destroy their laptop afterwards, then buy a new one. Strip the bed and make ready to leave.

*

MORE THAN TWO thousand miles away, a pair of alert eyes raised themselves from the laptop screen that they had been scrutinising minutely. No, you don’t, you bastard, their owner muttered, no quick fix for you.

*

London, United Kingdom

6.30 AM (Greenwich Mean Time)

ALEX LAWSON WAS momentarily disorientated. The ringtone of his mobile phone had woken him from the only reasonable period of sleep in a night that he had spent failing to find a comfortable position. His back ached and his scalp felt itchy. A bleary glance at the clock radio told him that the hour was still unacceptably early for a man who did not have to go to work that day. He reached for the vibrating phone, fumbled, and almost dropped it on the floor. Then he saw that the name displayed on the screen was that of a great aunt who had died more than twenty years previously. The sight brought a tell-tale tightness to his throat.

Hi, Julie, he murmured into the handset as he pressed Accept and put it to his ear.

The voice in the earpiece was as soft and warm as honey.

Merry Christmas, she said.

He closed his eyes. The pain of separation was still sharp. Merry Christmas back. Have you any idea what time it is? There was no harshness in his enquiry. He was grateful to hear her voice.

Her laugh brought a small smile to his face. If you go back to when you were a little boy, you would have either been up and unwrapping your presents by now or plaguing your parents’ lives out with demands to know whether Santa had been yet. It’s half-past six.

And I would have had about as much genuine sleep as I did last night, but for a much better reason. He yawned, rising stiffly from his bed and crossing to the window, he ran his fingers through his mop of tousled fair hair. Furthermore, I no longer have a six-year-old’s powers of recovery. Peeping through a tiny gap in the curtains, he noted that lamps were already glowing in several neighbours’ living rooms, glittering arrays of fairy lights, some of them flashing rhythmically: evidence that young children lived there and were already embroiled in the communal glee of Christmas Morning.

Yep, it’s Christmas Day, he affirmed with a yawn, the only day off in the whole year when the entire country gets up early of its own free will.

There was a brief pause. Did my present arrive? she asked at last.

He scratched his head, trying to remember. A parcel came a couple of days ago with a Henley postmark. Would that be it?

Sounds like, she replied. The label should read, Merry Xmas from Auntie Maude. It isn’t much, but I can’t just go throwing Marie’s money around. Now that she was in hiding from the psychopathic killer, Julian Radcliffe, her friend, Marie Burnett, was keeping her afloat financially. She did not dare touch any of her own money lest he should track her through it. I’ll buy you a better one when this is over.

Any idea when that will be?

There was a pause. The voice at the other end sounded apologetic. You know I don’t. Don’t hold your breath. It’ll take time.

The fog was lifting from Alex’s mind as full awareness returned. So, is that where you are? Henley?

He could almost hear her head shake. She had anticipated that question. No. It was posted there.

Awake now, he listened to the tone of her voice, his analytical mind tuned to its cadences. All that his psychiatric training discovered was that he was being told the truth. She was no longer in Henley, a small town on the Thames, west of London.

How’s your minder?

Efficient to a point, replied Alex. No doubt he’ll be in here when he hears my voice. Apparently, Lord Hammond is paying him treble to work on Christmas Day. He has no family to get up for, so it’s all one to him.

I know how he feels. It was the same for me until this year. So how are you spending Christmas?

Alex yawned again. Not with you, sadly. God, I miss you, Julie…

Don’t! He heard her voice crack. Don’t go there. It hurts me just as much. I will come back, I promise. I live for that day, but until then just tell me how you will spend today.

He sighed resignedly. Marcus is coming around later this morning, with his minder, and I am making Christmas Dinner for the four of us. Later, we are all going off to Marie’s for the evening.

That sounds good.

And what will you be doing?

Nothing much. I have a frozen Christmas Dinner. Five minutes in the microwave, but I should be able to tart it up with a couple of pigs in blankets and some half-decent stuffing. It’ll have to do this once. I have some cranberry sauce and mustard to breathe a bit of life into it. I can always imagine what one cooked by you would be like as I stuff it down. And I have our little old telly, so I can watch the rubbishy seasonal programmes and wish you were there with me.

He grimaced. That sounds awful.

Oh, it is. She laughed involuntarily. Let’s do it properly when this is over.

Why don’t we do New Year properly? he asked, a sudden longing gilding his voice. We could meet up in a secret location. I wouldn’t tell anyone. There’ll be so much partying going on that we’d never be noticed… He tailed off. He knew it was a forlorn hope.

Can’t, came the tearful response. Much as I’d love to, but that is the last thing we should do. Get away from the window and sit down.

His eyes widened. How do you know I’m at the window? Can you see me?

I know you. The first thing you do every morning is look out through the curtains. I hope you didn’t open them.

Her words struck a chord. He retreated from the window and sat at the end of the bed.

I didn’t. Why? Do you think I’m being watched?

I know you are. Don’t let them see you on the phone at this hour in the morning.

His heart began to beat faster. You know this for certain?

The answer was flat. I saw them watching you leave work yesterday. They had a camera on you. That is why we can’t meet up. You would be followed. You have to carry on as normally as you can. But don’t try to find me because I won’t let you. You can’t stop them, so let it happen. They want you to lead them to me, but you can’t do that if you don’t know where I am.

You have just told me you are in London.

There was a soft chuckle. I was yesterday, she replied. Today’s another day.

Okay, he said at last, your present is under the tree.

I hope it isn’t perishable.

He shook his head and laughed softly. It isn’t. It’ll be here waiting for you when you return.

I’ll open it then and we can have our Christmas, whenever it is. Got to go. Love you. Give my love to everyone but tell them not to mention it to anyone else. Bye.

Love you too. Bye. The tears choked his voice.

The door opened and a dark, severe head appeared in the gap.

Everything all right, Dr Lawson? enquired his minder.

Alex smiled and shrugged. Everything’s fine, Harry, he lied. My old maiden aunt has just rung me up to wish me a Merry Christmas.

Alex was not the only one who had lied. Rutter felt remorse as she laid her phone down beside her bed. Three of their friends knew exactly where she was, as did another — not a friend exactly, but he was an ally now. One friend had left her artist’s pad and returned to her ancestral home in her father’s Buckinghamshire mansion, to endure Christmas with her blue-blooded family. Her annual penance for her sins, she called it. She would return in a couple of days, whereupon the hunt for Radcliffe would recommence. The other two were spending Christmas with their son in their Chelsea home and would welcome Alex and Marcus later. The ally was a hacker, released from prison a couple of days previously, but he would be in his new lodgings. He, too, would return on the 27th.

She was doomed to spend yet another Christmas alone. Usually, she had volunteered to work on Christmas Day because it was easier. Now, she couldn’t even do that.

Her room was still in darkness. She rose from her bed and crossed to her window. Peeping past the blind, she beheld the usual street, empty of everything except the occasional parked car and stray wheelie bin. There were flashing fairy lights in several windows, but no people outside.

She took a slow shower and dressed in a clean tee-shirt and jeans. Standing in front of her mirror, she pulled her tawny afro wig over her head, put on a pair of swish-looking tinted spectacles, and examined herself closely. The plucked eyebrows, glasses, and wig did serve to alter her appearance substantially. The platform shoes that she wore outside raised her height from its usual five feet seven by two inches. She had left her entire wardrobe at home. Marie had provided her with a completely new one that reflected the African aspect of her heritage more than the European, with its flamboyant colours and enticing cut. All had been delivered to her nondescript Plaistow bedsit, addressed to Ms A. Mould, her new identity: Andrea Mould. Marie had suggested supplying her with credit and debit cards in her new name, but Rutter had refused. It was illegal. Instead, she paid cash for everything. She had receipts in the name of A. Mould in the flat.

Andrea never went out without full war paint applied. Rutter rarely did. She owned hardly any jewellery. Andrea owned boxes of it. Marie had unearthed a costume jeweller, whose products looked far more expensive than they really were. All in the cause of hiding who you truly are, she had said. She wore that whenever she ventured out as well but left it off in the flat.

Her already lean frame was further toned by daily use of the multi-gym that her friend had installed in her living room, plus additional Karate training from Trudi.

The disguise was adequate, she decided, in that it did make her look different. She wore gloves whenever she went out to disguise the fact that her left little finger sported but a single joint these days. She had stuffed the digit with cotton wool to make it less obvious, but a woman who never removes her gloves in public is usually wearing them for a reason. At least it was winter, so she had one. There was nothing she could do about the kink in her nose.

She had deliberately walked past Alex as he left work the previous day. He glanced at her, momentarily distracted by the colourful outfit and free-flowing stride, but then he had driven off in the direction of St. John’s Wood without a second look. That showed he was faithful at least. If it could fool him, there was a chance that Radcliffe’s spies might also be taken in.

Of course, she cut a rather distinctive figure, but — as Trudi had pointed out — Detective Chief Inspector Rutter had worn nondescript grey suits, kept her hair severely short and her heels low. Her old wardrobe was designed to blend in and look professional. Her new look was a complete contrast. On the artist’s instructions, she had developed a way of walking that reflected the swagger of her costume. Trudi had put it more simply than that. Swing your bum. Radcliffe’s men won’t see your face if they’re watching your arse.

Consequently, she had adopted a relaxed, swinging gait set off by a shoulder bag that contained two cans of pepper spray and a loaded gun, along with the usual tissues and other feminine paraphernalia. For all that, she did not dare appear in empty streets. She would not venture abroad that day at all for the simple reason that very few other people would either.

In a risky addendum to fooling Alex, she had deliberately walked past Radcliffe’s spies as they watched him leave the Lambeth Hospital. She pretended to be wiping her nose and checking her makeup in a hand mirror. In truth, it was slightly tilted to give her a view over her right shoulder. The men had paid her no attention, other than to admire the undulations of her rear end as she walked. That had been a relief.

She removed the wig and glasses again, ran her fingers through her natural hair and examined her true appearance in the bathroom mirror.

So, I am out of his sight, she told herself. Now, how to bring him down?

She turned to discover two silent men in suits behind her.

CHAPTER 2

Hamburg, Germany

7.54 AM (Central European time)

REINER GRETZ GRUNTED and shifted his bulky carcase sideways in the bed. This enabled the undernourished waif at his side to reverse her position, and duck under the quilt so that she could use her tongue to better effect and present her unadorned crotch to his mouth.

This suited her because it also meant that she did not have to look at his face, with its ragged scar — courtesy of a broken bottle in the hand of the previous leader of the Hamburg Brotherhood — his savagely cropped yellow hair and those terrible blue eyes. Nor would she be reminded of the swastikas, SS flags and Hitler portraits that cluttered his bedroom walls. She was all too aware of the perilousness of her position. Better not to think about that. Better to do as he wanted. Better to keep him happy and hope that he would let her go. Do what you do well, she told herself.

He allowed her to begin. He had fucked her to within a hair’s breadth of unconsciousness the previous night. Therefore, he was content for her to make the initial explorations with her tongue. He would respond with a few prods of his own, but he never allowed her to forget that she was there to pleasure him, not the other way around.

Schlampe! he grunted. He had addressed her only as ‘slut’ since she came under his dominion two days previously. A runaway, a drug addict, a whore. She was all of those and more. If she had a name, he did not know it, and, for all he knew, neither did she. Wie alt bist du? Her age, however, was of more than passing interest to him.

Her tongue ceased its slithering as she withdrew it to speak. She was on the point of gagging anyway. Vierzehn, she gasped before recommencing. Fourteen. She was actually sixteen, but he didn’t know that. She sensed that he liked them very young. Best to distract him. It was stiflingly hot down there among his thighs and secretions, but she fought to please him as best she could. Her life depended on it.

Her legs were thin, her eyes hollow, her buttocks pinched, her ribs too visible, and bruised. Her skin was closer to grey than a healthy flesh tone, but she knew how to use her mouth.

Those talents had kept her alive for the past two days, during which she was chained up, naked, in the cellar when not called upon to amuse him. His menials had hosed her down and rubbed her dry whenever he felt the urge for her physical ministrations. They also went through her hair brutally, delousing it as they probed.

Paradoxically, the inhumanity of her treatment had resulted in her being cleaner than at any time since she had run away from the orphanage at the age of twelve.

Her life on the streets had taught her a few skills of the sort that most girls never acquired. They might keep her alive for a day or two more before he tired of her and went in search of something with a bit more meat on its bones. That all too obvious end, she strove to avoid.

After treating her perineum to a cursory swipe of his tongue, he settled his head back on the pillow, allowing her to do her job while he dreamed of future conquests, beginning with his forthcoming meeting with the immensely rich Anneliese Schell. He wondered whether it might be worth consummating that particular relationship in this same bed after he had decided whether she was a potential rival or an ally. The woman was only twenty-six, and reputedly not ugly. There would be no need to hose her down.

*

Salzburg

8.00 AM (Central European Time)

EIGHT O’CLOCK CHIMED on the venerable clock over the fire. Julian Radcliffe savouring an excellent latte and wiping the rim after each sip with a tissue that he promptly consigned to the flames, checked its accuracy on his watch. The old clock was fast by twenty-six seconds, but even that was a testimony to the skill of the long-dead craftsman who had created it.

Full day now reigned in the Getreidegasse. The time would be seven o’clock in London, the population of which should have decreased by one in the last few minutes. When confirmation arrived, he and Ilse would destroy this laptop and move quickly. She had spent the intervening period ensuring that everything was ready to pick up and go, leaving the apartment as pristine and evidence-free as they had found it.

In the meantime, he sat back, closed his eyes and relaxed. Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was on the radio, playing softly. Mozart was born in Salzburg, but, paradoxically, hated the place, creating most of his greatest music in Vienna and elsewhere. There was no accounting for genius. How could anybody possibly hate Salzburg?

He would miss his current surroundings on taking up residence in the wilds of Carinthia. The mountains there may be even more dramatic, but the towns and villages would display the inevitable twee, fairytale architecture that festered in valleys throughout the Alps, with their overhanging eaves, onion-topped church spires and window boxes, all redolent of lederhosen and yodelling, rather than his preferred dignified baroque magnificence.

The separation need only be temporary, however. The day was coming when the Bundespolizei would leave him alone, and he would no longer need to hide.

The expected tap sounded at the door, which opened to reveal Ilse with the second laptop again. He held out his hand and she passed it over without a word.

Having left his magnifying glass on the table, he picked it up and scrutinised the picture carefully. There was no message, just the visual attachment.

A cold smile spread across his face. She had worn her wig only when outside, of course, so the short, no-nonsense cut was there to see. She lay on her back with her head turned to one side, the tell-tale kink in her nose, where Renner had broken it, clearly visible. Her eyes were closed. He could see that she wore a tee-shirt, sporting four close-range bullet holes, two of them right over her heart. The garment was drenched in her blood, which continued to ooze from the wounds. Most telling of all, she wore no glove, so the mutilated digit was visible. Her left arm stretched away from the body across the floor to make it even more obvious.

Draining his latte, he handed her the cup and saucer to wash and pulled a small screwdriver from his jacket pocket, flipped the laptop over and extracted the hard drive and the battery, both of which he pocketed. The remainder, no more than a useless bundle of microchips and plastic now, he handed to Ilse, who carried it through to the kitchen and treated it to a thorough scrubbing in boiling water, thickly