‘Fuck off!’ Jay yelled, shaking his head from side to side, trying to dislodge the man’s probing razor-sharp fingers. He flailed blindly with his big fists, aiming punches at where he guessed the man’s face was, but kept missing or landing ineffective glancing blows.

  I need to see, I need to see…! The bastard could be pulling out a knife for all he knew. Jay pulled his head up and forward and managed to catch a couple of the probing fingers in his mouth. He bit down hard.

  He heard the man scream as his mouth filled with blood and his teeth scissored down on yielding gristle and bone.

  Karl heard the thwack and grunt of Jay launching his attack inside the vat. He could make out a second, thickset, man crouching down low just outside the hatchway, peering into see what the fuck was going on.

  Now, mate! If you’re doing this… it has to be now!

  He lined up the sight of the crossbow on the side of the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The bolt thudded home, but into his shoulder. The beefy man let out a howl of shock and staggered back from the open hatch.

  Karl frantically pulled on the stirrup to recock the crossbow and fumbled for another bolt. With both of his hands shaking violently, he made a pig’s ear out of setting the bolt the right way round on the barrel track, giving the startled Russian time to pull out a torch and aim it squarely at him.

  He was dimly aware that he probably looked like an idiotic deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. He didn’t have time to check whether the bolt was set properly. Karl fired again. This time the shot went completely wide of the mark and clanged off something somewhere out in the darkness. Barely a second later, the wooden desk he’d been hiding behind lurched as a ragged hole appeared amid a shower of splinters.

  Karl scrambled backwards out from his hiding place, but the crossbow’s left arm got caught on the leg of an upended bar stool. He wriggled it frantically to free it, just as another ragged hole burst through the table right next to his head.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ he hissed as he struggled to free the crossbow from the clutter around him.

  A third hole exploded through the desk, this time lower… He felt something punch his thigh. He screamed with the shock of it.

  He finally managed to free the crossbow and stagger out of the sniper’s nest of furniture. He needed to find another hiding place and quickly, so he could reload the crossbow and see how bad his leg was. He’d learned enough from films to know that if there was any spurting, he needed get pressure on it fast.

  They heard the scream echo from within the building, and so did the third man waiting just outside the doorway. Boyd saw him step warily inside.

  ‘Shit, they’re going to need our help.’ He got up and immediately felt Okeke’s hand on his wrist. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘It’s Jay in there,’ she hissed. ‘Your focus is Emma.’

  She was right, of course. ‘Swap,’ she said, holding the taser out for him. With her other hand, she grabbed the handle of Warren’s katana and pulled it out of its sheath with a coarse rasp. She held her hand out for the PAVA spray.

  ‘Sam…’ he said, handing it over.

  ‘You get Emma,’ she replied, and she was gone, sprinting towards the brewery’s open door.

  Boyd looked back at the SUV. The dark windows were giving nothing away. If Hammond had heard the scream, he hadn’t reacted yet.

  Boyd emerged from the alleyway and hugged the pools of shadow as he sprinted across to the far side of the mews where the closed business units were. He waited for a moment in a doorway to see if his dash across the cobblestones had been spotted. But, still, there was no response: no car doors swinging open, no headlights. Nothing. Hammond wasn’t paying close enough attention.

  He began to creep forward, staying close to the doorways and shop windows, using the wheelie bins, pallets, empty delivery boxes as cover between his duck-and-run advances. He was now just a dozen yards from the side of the SUV and there was still no response from inside.

  From where he was crouched, Boyd only had sight of the front bumper and hood of the vehicle. If he made a dash for it, one of several bad things was likely to happen: a door would open and a shot would come his way; the SUV would growl to life and reverse back out of the mews, taking his daughter with it; or, worst of all, he’d here the muted crack of a gunshot and his daughter’s lifeless body would come tumbling out.

  He ducked down low and dialled Warren’s number.

  The lad answered immediately. ‘Boss?’

  ‘It’s all kicking off here. Warren… can you get the car out at the far end?’

  ‘Yes. It’s clear.’

  ‘Bring it round. Block the archway to this place!’

  ‘I’ll... try, but…’

  ‘Do it!’ Boyd ended the call, unsure what his next move should be. Should he sprint for the vehicle or wait for Warren to block its escape?

  Okeke stepped in through the open door. She could hear objects clattering and falling in the darkness and the grunting and straining of two men locked in a close struggle somewhere nearby.

  One of them was almost certainly her Jay.

  She tried to map the layout inside from the faint outlines she could make out, and swiftly began to pick her way forward, heading towards the sound of the struggle – towards the flickering beam of torchlight that was sending confused, Escher-like shadows leaping across the brewery’s low ceiling.

  She held the can of PAVA spray out in front of her, finger on the nozzle, desperately regretting that she’d given the taser to Boyd. The sword she had in the other hand, the blade raised, but resting on her shoulder, ready to swing down if needed.

  Oh, fuck, it’ll be needed. She had just better be sure she didn’t decapitate Jay or Karl by mistake.

  She took several more cautious steps into the bowels of the ground floor, stopping suddenly as she bumped noisily against a metal drum that grated loudly along the brick floor. She stopped dead in her tracks and ducked down.

  A torch snapped on just beyond the drum and swung wildly around. She heard a young man’s voice calling out. ‘Gregor? Hector?’

  Footsteps approached and a moment later the young man who’d been waiting outside the door came into view, stepping past her, crouched in the rapidly diminishing shadow cast by his torch. He had his gun and torch aimed in parallel, checking the corners and nooks around him, just like in the films.

  Then he began to turn her way.

  She got up, leapt towards him and, as the dazzling torch beam illuminated her, she sprayed the PAVA where she hoped his face would be. The young man instantly let out a yelp of surprise and pain. The torch dropped from his grasp and clattered to the ground, but not the gun. Light strobed as he fired off four shots in rapid succession, aiming blindly, manically.

  The torch was spinning on the ground like a sped-up lighthouse beam, picking out her, then him, then her, then… She got a glimpse of his face contorted with agony, eyes clamped shut, both hands holding the gun, the long barrel swinging wildly.

  She brought the sword down instinctively, the blade biting deep into one of his wrists. The gun flickered again; this time she thought she felt the puff of displaced air whistle past her ear and she heard the clang of the bullet finding metalwork.

  Without thinking, she jerked the blade free of his arm, pulled back and swung it horizontally. It made a whooshing sound. A sound that she knew was going to stay with her if she managed to survive tonight. Then it made contact, the momentum carrying it well into whatever part of him she’d managed to catch with her wild swing.

  The gun clattered to the floor beside the torch.

  It was immediately followed by her assailant, his legs buckling as he dropped to the ground, tugging the sword out of her hand and down with him.

  As the spinning torch slowed down like a Wheel of Fortune, its beam settled on the man. He was on his knees, both hands holding onto the sword as if it was a lifeline. The blade was embedded in his left side, six inches below his armpit. His mouth was opening and closing; his eyes were rounded and glazed with shock.

  He slowly wilted, like a time-lapse video of a snowman melting, and collapsed onto his side.

  Okeke looked down at him and realised that he was young, barely in his twenties.

  ‘Karl!! For fuck’s sake… Gimme a hand!!!’

  Jay’s voice jerked Okeke out of her shock. She bent down, scooped up the gun and torch and hurried towards the sound of the fight.

  Jay had finally managed to leverage his bulk and strength to get on top of the older man and now had both his big hands around his throat. He was still unable to see what he was doing; his right eye was filled with blood streaming from a deep gash above his brow, the other eye was filled with grit, dust and tears. The scrawny little Russian goblin had managed to fumble blindly with his good hand, found the table leg and cracked Jay on the side of the head with it. The sharp end of a nail or screw sticking out of the wood had gashed his skin, but luckily not embedded itself into his skull.

  So Jay was now effectively fighting blind, trying to blink through the crap in both his eyes to get a glimpse of what the old bastard was going to try next, while he did his utmost to throttle him.

  Rather than wait to find out, Jay suddenly realised that knocking him senseless might be quicker. He lifted the man’s head up by the neck and cracked it back down onto the ground. The man instantly stopped squirming. Just to be on the safe side, Jay did it a second time, then waited with his hands still around the man’s neck for a few moments longer to see whether or not that had done the trick.

  The man remained still. Jay took a chance and let go with one hand so that he could wipe the streaming blood out of his right eye.

  The man seemed to be out cold.

  He got up and looked around the floor of the vat. There, beside Steve’s shattered wooden head, was the gun. He stepped over the sleeping bag and picked it up.

  He briefly held the gun on the old man, wondering yet again what Jason Statham would advise.

  Put a cap in him, old son. He’d do the same to you.

  If this had been another film, the decision would have been made for him. The old man would have suddenly reached for some hidden weapon and Jay would have had no choice. But instead he remained still. Concussed. Out for the count. Maybe already dead.

  He heard movement outside the hatchway and swung the torch and gun towards it as a face peered in. ‘Is that you, Sam?’ he whispered hopefully.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ she rasped. Then: ‘The gun, sweetie… Lower. The. Gun.’

  Boyd was just beginning to wonder whether Warren had got lost when he heard the screech of tyres and an over-revved engine coming from St George’s Road. The archway suddenly filled with the glare of headlights as Warren parked their car askew across the entrance.

  And that finally triggered a response. The rear door of the SUV swung open beside Boyd and he heard a foot go down hard on the cobbles.

  ‘Hey! Move your ruddy car!’ Hammond screamed.

  Boyd scooted quickly from behind the bin and crouched, hiding behind the open passenger-side door.

  ‘Hey! I said MOVE IT!’ Hammond shouted again.

  Boyd peered over the rim of the door and saw that Hammond was approaching Warren’s parked car, one hand gesticulating at him to move, the other holding a gun behind his back.

  Another couple of steps up the slope and Hammond would be close enough to pop a shot at Warren through the windscreen. He slipped the safety catch off the taser and raised his arm so that the red dot was aimed squarely at Hammond’s back, right between the shoulders. It had been ten years since he’d had any training with one of these things, but the drilled-in procedure was to shout out a warning – ‘officer with taser’ – before pulling the trigger.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The cartridge lid blew off and the attached dart shot across and lodged into Hammond’s back. He yelped in pain, but what he didn’t do was immediately hit the deck and convulse. It had malfunctioned. Instead, Hammond spun round and raised his gun at Boyd’s head.

  ‘You cheeky fucking bastard,’ Hammond actually screeched, and pulled the trigger. The glass of the open door shattered. Boyd decided not to trust the door’s metal panelling to block the next shot and dived – well, more sprawled – over the SUV’s still-warm hood to the far side.

  Now on the driver’s side he crouched, waiting to see if Hammond would come around the rear of the vehicle to finish him off. He tried to peer through the car’s shaded windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of his daughter inside. Her face could have been mere inches away from him, but all he could see was his own frantic reflection.

  ‘Just stay put, Boyd…’ whispered Hammond. ‘I only want to talk. Make a deal.’

  There was a momentary pause. He could hear Hammond’s ragged breathing. Hammond could undoubtedly hear his too.

  ‘Your minders have been taken out,’ Boyd said, hoping they had. ‘So let’s draw a line here. Just give me Emma, and you and me are done.’

  ‘I need Turner dead, Boyd. You know that.’

  ‘It’s all over, mate. I know everything he knows. You’re going to need to kill me too.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘You’re in trouble, Roland. Aren’t you? That’s what this is about, right? What is it? Some side deal? Some arrangement that’s got you in a fix?’

  He could hear Hammond breathing heavily.

  ‘Look, backup’s already on its way,’ Boyd said. ‘If you want to sort something out, we need to crack on with it…’

  He heard the car door open and felt the SUV wobble as Hammond jumped in and got into the driver’s seat.

  ‘WAIT!’ Boyd shouted.

  The SUV roared to life and, with tyres screaming, it lurched backwards out of the mews, smashing into the side of Warren’s parked car and pushing it effortlessly aside into the street.

  Boyd hurried after them, just in time to see the SUV’s red tail lights disappearing round a corner.

  ‘FUCK!’

  Jay aimed the torch down at the body. ‘That’s the third one,’ whispered Okeke. ‘One was waiting outside, two went in.’

  A crossbow bolt was lodged in one of the man’s shoulders and another squarely embedded in the middle of his chest. He was dead.

  ‘And you’re sure it was just the three?’

  She nodded. ‘Plus, whoever stayed in the SUV.’

  Jay looked left and right. ‘Karl?’ He raised his voice. ‘Karl?! Where are you?’

  They heard something scraping the ground. Okeke panned her torch around and called out, ‘Karl! You okay?!’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I need an ambulance here.’ Karl’s voice echoed out of the darkness. Her torch rested on him – he was slouched over a metal barrel with the crossbow lying at his feet and blood pooling on the brick floor around one trainer.

  He flexed his foot. ‘I can feel my leg still… That’s a good sign, right?’

  55

  ‘He’s going to live,’ said Okeke. ‘He has a broken femur, but luckily the bullet didn’t hit any arteries as it passed through.’

  Jay glanced at his brother, who was stretched out on his leather sofa. He was groaning softly, despite being loaded up with painkillers. Ozzie, who Warren had picked up, was sitting tidily beside the sofa, head cocking one way then the other with each moan.

  ‘But he’s going to need the hospital, right? Sam?’ Jay said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Stitches, a cast. Antibiotics. And an explanation, by the way, for what is quite clearly a bullet wound.’ She picked up one of the mugs of black coffee on the kitchenette counter and took a slug.

  ‘Guv?’ She looked at Boyd. ‘What now?’

  Boyd cursed and lowered his phone. ‘Hammond’s not ringing.’

  ‘Guv? We need to get a AFW out there. I mean, right now.’

  He shook his head. ‘If we do, we’ll end up with a bloody siege.’ He shook his head again. ‘The bastard’s totally lost it. He’s…’

  ‘At least put in an ANPR alert so we can track his whereabouts.’

  ‘NO!’ snapped Boyd. ‘I don’t…’ He ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Hammond’s panicking. He’s got a gun and he’s got…’ He couldn’t say it; he picked his phone up and looked at it again.

  They heard Warren’s footsteps clunking up the stairs. ‘Boss! I’ve parked the car out of sight, and I just checked –’

  Okeke waved him over. ‘The boss is busy… What is it?’

  ‘I checked on the hitmen. They’re dead. Stone-cold dead.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘Jesus. Okeke… you actually used my sword! I mean, it’s literally lodged in his –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear,’ she cut him off. ‘Really. I’m trying not to think about –’

  ‘The other one’s…’ Warren muttered, and shook his head. ‘It’s a massacre down there.’

  ‘Dammit!’ Boyd slammed his phone down. ‘Ring me, you bastard!’

  ‘He won’t yet,’ said Okeke softly. ‘He’s probably on his way back to Hastings. He’s –’

  ‘Okay, just… shhh,’ said Boyd. ‘Let me think… Let me think.’

  Hammond’s panicking. He’s got Emma, a gun and he’s probably driving like a maniac.

  The last thing Boyd wanted to add on top of that was a frantic high-speed car chase across several counties with Hammond likely to wrap his SUV around a tree, killing his daughter in the process. He just hoped that Emma was keeping cool, keeping her head down, and was strapped in.

  God, please let her be strapped in.