Gregor nodded and then elaborated the plan in Georgian to Ronaldo and Soprano.

  ‘Okay, so I think it looks totally staged,’ said Karl. ‘I mean, it looks like what it is: a mannequin wearing a hoodie, propped up on a fricking chair.’

  Jay nodded. The camp chair was a bad idea. It looked like a poorly crafted diorama in a rundown museum. ‘Yeah, it’s a bit much. Right, back to plan A, then: I’ll just lie him down in the sleeping bag.’ He lifted the bulky thing off the chair and laid it down on the floor of the vat.

  The vat had an access hatch at the bottom, there presumably to allow someone inside to clean it out between batches of whatever hooch they’d once brewed here. Jay squatted down and peered out at the dark labyrinth outside.

  They only needed it to appear convincing enough for one of the Russians to crawl in to get a closer look. Jay would be waiting inside, out of view – and whoever had drawn the short straw and looked inside was going to get a plank to the head.

  Meanwhile, Karl would be tucked away in a dark nook further within the tangle of pipes and abandoned furniture with a clear sniper’s view of the vat’s crawl-space entrance. The moment Jay whacked the first one, he’d take out the next with his crossbow. With two men down, the odds of success would be way better.

  Jay propped a balled-up jumper under the mannequin’s head and pulled the sleeping bag over the oversized Pinocchio figure. He switched on the camping lamp and the radio, dialling it to Heart FM and dipping the volume so that it was little more than the leaking tsk-tsk-tsk of a pair of large, ill-fitting headphones.

  ‘All right,’ said Karl. ‘We’d better hide.’

  ‘That’s the entrance,’ said Boyd.

  Warren turned off St George’s Road, then drove through a narrow archway and down a gently sloping ramp into the cobblestone mews.

  ‘Just here will do,’ he said.

  Warren parked up and turned off the engine.

  ‘What now, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Sit tight,’ Boyd replied. ‘I’m going to do a recce. Keep your eyes peeled for an SUV.’

  He got out of the car, gently closed the door and poked his head round the corner to check out the enclosed area. It was 7.41 p.m. The row of boutiques opposite the old brewery were closed, but several lights from inside them spilled across the damp cobblestones. A light aerosol drizzle was producing a bloom of amber around the single street light and a gentle soothing hiss. He could hear the muted sound of music coming from a cabaret bar on the corner of St George’s Road and Paston Place and the occasional swish of passing tyres on wet tarmac.

  He couldn’t see any other parked vehicles in the mews, nor, more to the point, any suspicious, lurking figures. It looked as if they’d beaten the Salikovs there. He pulled back out of view and sent a quick text to Jay’s phone.

  Boyd here – outside Karl’s. Where are you?

  A moment later the reply buzzed back.

  Inside. Trap set. Hiding. Locked and Loaded.

  Boyd couldn’t help a fleeting smile. Jay’s naively cavalier banter felt like a reassuring force field; fate or fortune tended to take care of the recklessly optimistic. It was the wary, worried or vexed who tended to wind up splattered. Just ask Wile E. Coyote.

  We’re waiting on Sam. Going to check her ETA. Sec…

  Jay’s reply came back swiftly.

  Copy that, guv.

  Boyd dialled her phone. She answered after the fourth ring.

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Yup,’ he replied softly. ‘Me and Warren are parked outside Karl’s place. It looks like we’ve got here first.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she replied.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes out. I’m just entering Brighton now. How’s Jay doing?’

  Boyd managed another smile. ‘He’s ready. Look, park up on St George’s Road outside the mews. Come on foot to join us. Let’s have a car outside the area that we can get to if we can’t get to mine.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘I’m going to speak to Jay, to see what their set-up is, and I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He ended the call and dialled Jay. It took a while for him to answer.

  ‘Guv? I thought we’re on silent running. Texts only?’ he said.

  ‘Just don’t shout,’ Boyd replied. ‘How have you rigged things in there?’

  Jay explained. It sounded clever. Very clever.

  ‘Nice one,’ said Boyd. ‘We’re going to find a place nearby to hide the car.’

  ‘There’s, like, a narrow rat-run beside the building,’ Jay told him.

  Boyd squinted into the orange gloom. He could see a narrow alleyway running down the right-hand side of the old brewery. ‘I’m looking at it,’ he confirmed. ‘We might tuck ourselves down there. That’ll give us eyes on the entrance.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Jay asked.

  ‘No. We’ll be the early warning,’ Boyd said. ‘If all four men get out of the car and enter the brewery, Okeke can grab Emma, and me and Warren will sneak into the brewery behind them as backup.’

  ‘What if they split into pairs?’ Jay wondered.

  Boyd suspected Hammond was likely to do that – send in the heavies while he sat tight in his SUV. ‘Then I’ll figure something out. You just focus on jumping whoever sticks their ugly mugs into your trap.’

  ‘No probs, guv. Me and Karl have got this.’

  ‘Okay.’ Boyd smiled. ‘Thanks again, Jay.’

  ‘It’s just like old times, eh, guv? This time last year or thereabouts? Team Boyd versus the bad dudes!’

  Boyd shook his head. ‘Right, yup, we should plan to do this every year.’

  He heard Jay chuckle.

  ‘Stay sharp, big man.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  Boyd ended the call and returned to the car. ‘Warren, take the car to the end of that alley. We need to get it off the mews,’ he said. The entrance was cluttered with wheelie bins and a stack of wooden pallets. Good. He could put those back after Warren had driven through, to try to disguise the entrance. It would also be a handy place to observe the old brewery from.

  Boyd got out. ‘I’ll clear a way through. Take the car down as far as you can go. See if there’s an exit at the far end as well. This might be our run-like-hell escape.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He closed the door gently, jogged over towards the bins and began to clear an opening for the car. A moment later Warren eased it through the gap and rolled slowly into the cluttered alley. He paused beside Boyd and lowered the window.

  ‘You want some help?’ he asked.

  ‘No, you stay with the car,’ Boyd replied. ‘If this situation goes tits up, I want you already behind a wheel and good to go.’

  ‘Right.’ Warren leant over the back seat and picked up his samurai sword. ‘Do you want this?’

  Boyd looked at it sceptically. ‘Is it – no offence, Warren – a proper sword?’

  ‘You mean, is it sharp?’ Warren nodded. ‘Very. You can actually cut paper with it.’

  Boyd winced. He imagined he’d end up doing more damage to himself than anyone else. All the same, at the moment he was armed with nothing more than his fists.

  ‘All right, I’ll take it. Thanks,’ he said.

  50

  They entered Brighton on the Moulsecoomb road, heading south towards the seafront.

  Gregor twisted in the front seat. ‘We nearly here.’

  Roland nodded. They had several hours to go before the pubs served last orders and began turfing out their customers. He was in two minds as to whether or not to head straight for the What3words location Boyd had given him, to try his luck. Maybe Turner was already tucked up for the night? It probably made more sense to sit tight and wait for the rest of Brighton to settle down and go to sleep, especially if he was going to burn Turner’s hidey-hole to the ground.

  He glanced at the jerrycan of petrol in the footwell. He was right: firebombing the place after they’d capped Turner was the right move. It would destroy any forensics left behind and delay, if not prevent, the body’s identification. Fires tended to hide a multitude of sins and left in their wake a useful and prolonged smokescreen.

  ‘Tell him to find somewhere nearby that we can park,’ said Roland. ‘We’ll sit tight for a bit.’

  Jay was getting bloody cold inside the damp metal vat and was beginning to cramp up. He wondered if this hastily thrown-together plan was going to wind up getting them all killed. He’d spent an hour so far crouched on the wet floor beside ‘Steve’ – his wooden sleeping wooden companion – which had proved more than enough time for second thoughts to kick in. The four of them – five, if Sam’s colleague, DC Warren had come along – had chosen to square up to four Russian mobsters. If this had been a film, they’d have been pretty good odds…

  Because, let’s face it, bad guys in movies can’t hit shit with their guns.

  But this wasn’t a film, he reminded himself. It was real-world. Which meant that bad-guy bullets tended to follow the laws of physics rather than the on-screen requirement for a convenient and happy ending.

  There was another alternative here. He could give himself up. Once he heard that oak door creak open, he could emerge from his hiding place and let them know he was there and ready to exchange himself for Emma.

  She was a good kid. Far too young to be involved in something like this. Certainly far too young to end up in a ditch with a bullet in her head. And all this was his fault anyway. If he’d taken Sam’s advice and left this to the police…

  Or maybe he could just charge at them – do a Jason Statham, karate-kick the crap out of them all and save the day.

  Jesus-effing-Christ. You’re not Jason Statham! You’re a part-time furniture restorer and door-monkey for a strip club.

  So maybe not. He’d get a yard towards them and then drop dead like a slab of beef on the ground. His have-a-go hero moment would be over before it had begun. The guv was probably right. He should sit tight and stay quiet. Karl was right too – they had the element of surprise, and this was the perfect place to pull that off.

  Christ, though. All this… all this, because he and Louie had decided to sneak a quick spliff away from the entrance to CuffLinks…

  Louie took a long pull on the joint, leant back against the brick wall and handed him the glowing doobie.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Jay. ‘Hello, you big beauty.’ He grinned as he welcomed the crinkled roll-up.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Louie. ‘Tonight’s really dragging out, isn’t it?’

  Jay nodded. He’d much rather have been back in his workshop, some chilled music on the iPhone, a cup of tea and digestive biscuit on the side, and applying the finishing touches of lacquer to Mrs Patton’s La Rochelle.

  One day, one bloody day, he was going to make his passion pay more than pocket money. Hastings was a treasure trove of antiques locked away in attics and basements, corners of care homes and dusty mezzanine floors. Forgotten lovelies that could be restored with little effort and upsold to gullible DFLs with fat wallets.

  His silent reverie was interrupted by Louie gently nudging him. He was grinning. ‘Hello,’ he whispered, ‘Someone’s throwing their teddies out…’

  Jay cocked his head.

  ‘No, listen! No… stop. STOP! Just listen!!’

  Some bloke was having a hissy fit on his phone. Louie nodded at the entrance to their smoking alley. Someone, maybe the phone guy, had paused just out of view, the breath from their mouth drifting across the entrance like clouds from a steam train.

  ‘You need to keep doing it!’ The voice sounded young. A voice that had either broken late or was eternally doomed to remain marooned in a higher-than-normal register. ‘If you stop, he’ll get better. Don’t you get it?’

  Jay turned to Louie and mouthed ‘fuck’. Louie did the same.

  ‘Oh, you think?’ continued the man. ‘He’s not an idiot.’

  There was another long pause, during which the man finally stepped into view. Jay and Louie instinctively pulled further back into the darkness.

  ‘No, it’s not. Not if you know what to look out for. And he will – trust me. It’s blue tea…’

  Jay realised he was holding his breath in case a cloud of his own breath drifted from the darkness into the light cast from the lamp across the street.

  ‘Just keep your shit together, all right?’ The young man stepped slowly past the alleyway entrance. ‘Right… well, just calm the fuck down.’

  Louie suddenly sneezed. Loudly. ‘Shit,’ he mumbled.

  The man on the phone was now completely silent. Louie gave Jay a nudge to say, ‘I got this,’ and quickly emerged from the alleyway, disappearing round the corner and out of view.

  ‘Hey, mate…’ he heard Louie say in a lowered voice, ‘you might want to watch what you say out loud in future, eh?’

  There was a long pause. Then: ‘What the hell did you just hear?’

  ‘Nothing that I want to know about, old son,’ Louie responded with a friendly laugh. ‘But… I won’t be drinking any tea you make, any time soon.’

  There was another, very, long pause.

  ‘So? Are you coming in or what?’ asked Louie.

  ‘Yes,’ the man replied slowly. ‘Yes... I am.’

  Jay checked his watch. It was 8.37 p.m. He’d been crouched in the vat for over two hours now and was wondering how much charge was left in the camping lamp’s battery. The lamp was important; it was there to draw them in like moths, to allow them to see that their prey was sparked out on the floor in his sleeping bag and safe to approach.

  He decided to check in with Karl.

  You still there, bro?

  The ellipses bounced several times as he tapped a reply.

  Y. But getting v cold now. Should have brought my own thermos.

  Jay’s memory of that overheard conversation was still playing in his mind. The ‘tea’ comment was a detail he’d completely forgotten about.

  Have you heard of something called ‘blue tea’?

  Blue tea? Nope.

  I think it might a kind of Russian thing?

  Karl’s reply took a few moments coming back.

  It’s blue-T, you muppet. The T stands for trimethyl mercury.

  What’s that?

  VERY dangerous stuff. Why you asking?

  It’s what this bloke mentioned on the phone. I think he’s using it to poison someone.

  There was another long delay, during which Karl’s jiggling ellipses came and went several times. Finally he came back with a reply…

  Shit. It’s a toxin the Russian spooks use. The Salisbury poisoning guys.

  Right. I knew that.

  Sure you did. *eyeroll*

  Jay let the screen on his phone go dark and then he whispered to himself.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  51

  Okeke parked her car on double yellow lines several dozen yards beyond the entrance to the mews. St George’s Road was reassuringly busy. The cabaret club on the corner throbbed with noise from within and the scattering of boutique wine bars and restaurants along the road all seemed to be doing a brisk business. She grabbed her duffel bag from the back seat and slung it over her shoulder, then thumbed a quick text to both Boyd and Jay that she was parked up and coming on foot.

  ‘Right,’ she muttered under her breath. She ran a quick diagnostic on her mental state.

  Anxious? Yes.

  Shitting it? Yes.

  Ready? Ready as I’ll ever be.

  ‘Here we go,’ she said softly.

  She walked as casually as she could back up the street towards the entrance to the mews, just in case the Salikovs were watching. The entrance was signposted with a list of the various little businesses that operated out of the units clustered within: a nail salon, a tattooist, a sandwich place and a few others – none that were likely to be open for business now. She paused by the entrance, lighting a cigarette to give her a reason to linger, and she scanned the faces she could see through the various windows. No one seemed to be looking at her or reaching for a phone.

  Reassured, she ducked out of the drizzle and into the archway, down a short gentle slope of rain-slick cobblestones and into the dark enclosed space beyond.

  Boyd heard the footsteps first, then saw a shadow slanting up the brick wall like some old Hitchcock film. Okeke merged into view and she paused as she stepped into the gloomy cul-de-sac.

  One solitary, fizzing street light bathed the cloistered area in a sinister, sulphurous orange that glistened off every slick surface.

  He whistled to her softly. Her head turned his way and he waved her over.

  ‘Any sign of them?’ she asked.

  ‘None yet,’ he replied.

  She dug into her duffel bag. ‘Taser?’

  ‘You have it. I’ve got Warren’s ninja sword.’

  ‘Then at least take the PAVA spray,’ she insisted. ‘Sword versus gun? I know where I’d put my money.’

  He took it from her gratefully and stashed it in his coat pocket.

  ‘Where’s Warren?’ she asked.

  Boyd thumbed over his shoulder at the alleyway behind him. ‘Down the far end with the car,’ he replied. ‘We’re lucky. It’s not a dead end, so if this all goes wrong, we’ve got that way out too.’ He looked at her. ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ she replied. She looked out at the mews, towered over by the brewery on their side and opposite the grubby rear of a row of business-below, bedsits-above town houses.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked.

  ‘We watch them come in and enter the building.’ He pointed to his right. ‘I’m guessing Hammond will lead from the rear and stay in the car.’

  ‘So we’ll have two, maybe three of them to deal with,’ Okeke added.

  He nodded.

  ‘What about Emma?’