You hear footsteps and you turn your head again. The bald man is walking towards you. He has taken off his jacket and there’s a gun in a shoulder holster under his left arm. He barks at the other men. ‘They’re awake,’ he says, but you realise that he’s not speaking in English, it’s Russian. ‘Ublyudki prosypayutsya.’ The bastards are waking up. You realise for the first time that you can speak Russian. How did you not know that?

  The bald man stands over you, looking down. He sneers at you, then walks over to Peter. He kicks Peter in the ribs. The duct tape barely muffles Peter’s scream. The bald man laughs and then goes to stand over Maggie. He pours his drink over her face and she wakes up, shaking her head and coughing through her duct tape gag.

  You hear the sound of chairs scraping on concrete. The three men get up from the table and walk over to the bald man. You guess that he’s the leader. The bald man waves his empty glass at Peter. ‘Etot ublyudok,’ he says. This bastard.

  Two of the three men grab Peter and haul him to his feet. The other walks to the side of the warehouse and picks up a length of chain. He throws it over one of the girders. He pulls the loose end down and then ties it around Peter’s ankles. The three men pull on the chain, yanking Peter up into the air where he swings from side to side. The bald man bends down and rips the duct tape from Peter’s mouth. Peter starts babbling. ‘Please...no...don’t do this...’

  One of the men takes the loose end of the chain over to the wall and tie it to the pipe of a large cast iron radiator. Then they amble over to the table and pick up their cards again. The one who had been smoking walks over to join them.

  The bald man walks over to Maggie and pulls the tape from her mouth, then does the same with you. He drags us both up so that we are sitting facing Peter.

  ‘Where’s the money?’ the bald man asks you.

  ‘I don’t know,’ you say. It’s the truth but it’s obviously not what he wants to hear and he slaps you.

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ says Maggie. ‘He’s lost his memory.’

  The bald man walks up to Peter. ‘What about you? Do you know?’

  Peter shakes his head. ‘We don’t have it.’

  ‘But you moved it, didn’t you?’

  Peter points at you. ‘He did.’

  The bald man walks over to the table, bends down and picks something up. He swings it from side to side as he walks towards you. It’s a baseball bat. A metal one. He reaches you and taps the end of the bat on the floor by your feet. ‘Where is the money?’

  ‘Look, you’re wasting your time. I’ve lost my memory.’

  The man frowned. ‘You what?’

  ‘I was in an accident. I’ve got amnesia.’

  He frowns, clearly not understanding the word. You repeat in in Russian, the word is pretty much the same. ‘Amneziya. Moya pamyat polnostyu utrachena.’ My memory has completely gone.

  ‘You speak Russian?’ he says, in Russian.

  ‘Vidimo,’ you say. Apparently.

  He starts speaking to you in Russian, fast and with a lot of slang thrown in. You understand everything. You must be fluent, or close to it. You reply in Russian. ‘We were leaving the house, there was a car crash. I was in a coma. When I woke up, all my memories had gone.’

  ‘How can you speak Russian if you lost your memory?’ he barks.

  ‘I don’t know. I remember stuff, I remember the world, but I can’t remember anything I did before the crash. That’s why we went back to the house, to see if it would jog my memory.’

  ‘Eto srabotalo?’ Did it work?

  ‘We weren’t there long enough to find out. You interrupted everything.’

  The bald man screws up his face for a few seconds, then he shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he says.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you do to me, there’s nothing I can tell you,’ you say.

  He slaps the baseball bat against his shovel-like hand. He grins, showing grey slab-like teeth, then turns and whacks the bat against Peter’s right leg. Peter screams in pain.

  ‘No!’ wails Maggie.

  The man hits Peter again, the left leg this time, you can hear the sound of splintering bone before Peter’s eyes roll back into his head. The man screams at Peter to wake up but he’s out for the count.

  The Russian looks over at you. ‘Is your memory coming back?’ he asks.

  ‘Hurting him won’t make it come back,’ you say.

  ‘It’s worth a try, though,’ says the man. He tucks the baseball bat under his arm and unzips his trousers before playing a stream of urine over Peter’s chest and face. Peter coughs and splutters and opens his eyes.

  ‘Stop, please stop!’ shouts Maggie.

  The man turns to face her, still holding his penis. ‘Do you want some?’ he asks and Maggie turns away in disgust. ‘That’s what I thought,’ he says, and zips up his pants. He holds the bat in both hands and stares at you. ‘Where is the money?’ he asks.

  ‘I swear to God, I don’t know.’

  The man turns and smacks the baseball bat against Peter’s buttocks. Peter screams. The man wallops him again and again. Peter’s screams turn into sobs.

  ‘Okay, okay!’ you shout. ‘Enough! I’ll tell you!’

  The Russian grins savagely. ‘So your memory has returned, has it?’

  ‘Just stop hitting him. I’ll show you where the money is.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Telling you won’t help, I need to show you. On a laptop or a phone. I moved it into Bitcoin, I need to show you the crypto wallets.’

  ‘If you are lying to me, I’ll kill him. And her. And you.’

  ‘If you kill me, the money has gone for ever,’ you say. ‘Let me use a phone or a laptop and I’ll show you where the money is.’

  The man shouts over at his colleagues, asking one of them to bring over a knife. One of the Russians ambles over, opening a large pocket knife. He’s tall and thin with a hooked nose and thin lips, curled back to reveal yellowing teeth. ‘Razrezh’te lentu vokrug yego ruk,’ says the bald man, telling him to cut the tape around my arms.

  Maggie is staring wide-eyed at you as she tries to work out what is happening.

  The man with the knife slashes at the tape around your arms until you can move them. You rub your wrists, trying to restore your circulation. ‘Do you have a laptop?’ you ask.

  The bald man shakes his head.

  ‘I need a phone then.’

  ‘Where is your phone?’

  That’s a good question. I didn’t have one at the hospital, I must have lost it in the crash. ‘I don’t have one.’

  The bald man takes an iPhone from his back pocket, turns it on and hands it to you. ‘Try anything funny and I will beat you all to death.’ The man with the knife stands next to him, looking at you as if he would love to plunge it into your throat.

  You breathe slowly and evenly, trying to stay calm. You have only one chance to do this and if you screw it up you’re all dead. You fake a frown as you tap on the screen. You wrinkle your nose, you sigh, and you continue to tap. You don’t look at him to see if he’s buying it or not, you just continue with the charade. The bald man leans towards you but he can’t see what you’re doing.

  ‘So all this time you were faking?’ says Maggie but you ignore her. You have to concentrate on what you’re doing.

  You tap on the screen. Your heart is racing and you try to keep your breathing steady.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, what’s going on?’ Maggie shouts.

  You nod and force a smile. ‘There you go,’ you say and hold out the phone with your left hand. Your hand is shaking and the bald man leans forward to get a better look at the screen. He still can’t see what you’re showing him and he reaches out with his right hand to take the phone from you. You let the phone slip from between your fingers and as he lunges forward to catch it you grab for his gun with your right hand. It slips easily out of his holster. It’s a Glock but you’re not sure what model it is but you instinctively know that there will be at least ten rounds in the magazine. You also know that there is no safety switch to be operated, you know the Glock uses a safety mechanism built into the trigger. The butt settles into your palm and your finger slips around the trigger.

  The bald man’s jaw drops and his eyes widen. He’s about to say something but there’s nothing that he can say that will change the outcome. You don’t have a choice, any hesitation and you’re a dead man. You point the gun at the man’s throat and then tilt it slightly upwards before pulling the trigger. The bullet explodes under his chin and blows the top of his skull off. Brain matter sprays through the air as he slumps to the ground.

  The man with the knife starts to scream either in rage or terror but there’s nothing he can do to stop you from pulling the trigger. You pull it twice, one bullet smacks into his chest and the second makes his face implode. His arms flail as he falls backwards and his knife hits the ground at the same time as he does.

  Your legs are still bound with duct tape so you can’t get up but you turn the gun towards the three men at the table. They push back their chairs, mouths wide open in shock. One of them is pulling a gun from inside his jacket so you shoot him in the chest, twice. His chair clatters to the floor and he he pitches forward across the table, scattering the bottle and glasses.

  Your ears are ringing now and the fumes from the gun are making your eyes water so you blink to try to clear them. Another of the men has raised his hands in the air but there’s no way that you can stop yourself from pulling the trigger again. A bullet hits him in the chest and a red rose blossoms on his shirt but he doesn’t go down so you fire again. The second shot rips into his throat and he falls backwards. The third man at the table, the one who had been smoking, bends double and runs towards a door at the far end of the warehouse. You pull the trigger several times but none of the shots find their mark. He reaches the door and yanks it open. You take a quick breath to steady yourself, aim between his shoulder blades and squeeze the trigger. The gun kicks in your hands and the bullet thwacks into the wall above the door. The man disappears outside and you lower the gun.

  ‘What have you done?’ gasps Maggie as she stares at the two dead men on the ground in front of her.

  ‘Saved our lives,’ you say. You roll over, put down the gun and grab the knife, then use it to cut away the duct tape from around your legs.

  ‘You remembered where you put the money?’

  ‘Of course not. I was bluffing.’ You finish cutting the tape and stand up. ‘They would have killed us all. Peter first, then you, and then me. And only when I was dead would they maybe believe that we didn’t know where the money is.’

  Peter isn’t moving and his eyes are closed. Blood is trickling from between his lips.

  You go over to Maggie and start cutting the duct tape from her arms and legs. ‘You need to get Peter to a hospital,’ you say.

  ‘We can take him together.’

  You shake your head. ‘We need to split up. These guys, they’re hired hands. They were paid to pick us up and interrogate us. When whoever hired them finds out what’s happened here, they’ll send more heavies. They’ll hunt us down and there’s more chance of that happening if we stay together.’

  ‘You can’t survive on your own. Not with your memory loss.’

  ‘We’re here because I was in the car with you.’ You point at the door. ‘The guy who got away knows that we’re together now and once he talks to whoever’s paying him they’ll be looking for the three of us. We’ve more chance of getting out of this if we split up.’

  You finish cutting the tape and she stands up. She looks over at Peter. ‘You’ll have to help me get him down.’

  You nod and go over to where the chain is tied to the radiator. Maggie grabs Peter and takes some of his weight so that you can undo the chain. Then you hurry over to her and help her lower him to the floor. You use the knife to cut away the duct tape around his arms and legs as she feels for a pulse in his neck. ‘He’s still breathing,’ she says.

  You finish cutting the tape and toss the knife onto the floor. Then you realise you should keep hold of it and you close it up and put it into your pocket. You pick up the gun and tuck it into your belt.

  ‘I can’t get him to a hospital on my own,’ says Maggie.

  ‘I’ll help to get him into a car and you can drive him to the nearest A&E.’

  ‘I don’t know where we are,’ she says.

  You kneel down next to the dead bald man and go through his pockets. All he has on him is a set of keys, a Range Rover key fob, and a money clip with a thin wad of banknotes, mainly fifty pounds. You pocket the money and pick up the phone, a new model iPhone. The phone is locked but it had been set up for facial recognition. The man’s eyes are closed so you’re worried that the facial recognition might not work but it does and you go through to Settings and disable facial recognition and set up your own password.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘Just making sure that I can use his phone,’ you say. ‘Though I can’t think of a single person I can call.’

  You go over to the guy who had been holding the knife. Like the bald guy he doesn’t have a wallet but he has a phone and a gold money clip. You take the money but leave the phone. You jog over to the two dead men by the table and quickly go through their pockets. Again there’s nothing to identify them but you pocket several hundred pounds and find another Range Rover key fob.

  You go to the door and carefully ease it open. There’s a car park outside with two Range Rovers, one black and one grey. The car park is separated from the road by a wire fence and across the road you can see a metal-sided warehouse. You shut the door and go back to Maggie, who is still kneeling next to Peter. ‘Is he okay?’ you ask, but it’s clear that he’s far from okay.

  ‘He won’t wake up, but he’s breathing and his pulse is about ninety. That’s good, right?’

  ‘He might be bleeding internally, you need to get him to a hospital as quickly as possible.’ You kneel down and grip his left arm. She takes his right arm and together we get Peter to his feet. We drape his arms over our shoulders and carry him to the door, his feet scraping along the concrete floor.

  You use your right hand to open the door and you peer out. You take one of the fobs and press it. The black Range Rover beeps. ‘That one,’ you say and you and Maggie carry Peter over to it. You open the tailgate and together you bundle Peter into the back. You slam the door and hand her the fob. ‘You need to take him to the nearest A&E and drop him there. Then take the car and dump it.’

  ‘I’ll stay with him at the hospital.’

  You shake your head. ‘These guys are professionals. Russian professionals. They’ve got guns and they don’t carry any ID. There’s every chance they’ll have trackers on the cars. So you drop Peter at the hospital and then you drive somewhere and dump the vehicle. Then you run. These are serious people, Maggie. If they catch you again, they’ll kill you.’

  ‘What about you? Where will you go?’

  ‘Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, Maggie. From here on in, it’s every man and woman for themselves. I’m sorry.’ I walk over to the grey Range Rover and press the other fob to unlock the doors.

  ‘Tom, I don’t even know where we are? How am I going to find a hospital?’

  ‘Use the SatNav,’ you say and you climb into the grey Range Rover. You don’t have time to argue with her. The Russian who got away almost certainly had a phone so there could be reinforcements heading your way already. You put the car in gear and drive away from the warehouse. You’re on an industrial estate and it only takes a few taps on the SatNav to find out that it’s just outside Croydon in South London. The nearest Tube station is in Wimbledon, just seven miles away, but the SatNav is saying traffic is bad and the journey will take almost an hour on the car. That’s too long. The Russians could be just minutes away. East Croydon is an overland station and that’s only minutes away. You drive in the direction of the station, constantly checking for tails. Your heart is pounding and your hands are sweating on the steering wheel. Every second that passes is a second closer to them catching you.

  You park the car at the side of the road a couple of hundred yards from the station. You open the glove box and find a pack of wet wipes. You use one to wipe the steering wheel clean and then you clean the gun. There’s no way you can be walking around with a Glock sticking in your belt so you wipe it down and drop it under your seat. You take a quick look around. No one is paying you any attention. You put the keyfob on the dashboard. If you’re lucky someone will spot it and steal the vehicle. You use a wipe to open and close the door and walk quickly towards the station.

  CHAPTER 20

  You don’t like waiting outside the hospital but you don’t see that you have a choice. There is a multi-storey car park to the left of the main hospital building. You’re not sure if Adeya has a car but if she has, that’s probably where she would park it. There are bicycle racks there, too, but you didn’t get a cycling vibe from her. There is a Tube station about a hundred yards away but she would have to walk by the car park to get there. You’re not sure what time her shift finishes but she had brought your dinner each night you were there and took away the tray after you’d finished, so you take up position at just before seven o’clock in a Starbucks opposite the hospital. You buy a coffee and sit in the window, a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses shielding your face. You bought the cap, the sunglasses and a North Face fleece before heading onto the station in Croydon.

  Time crawls by. You take the occasional sip of coffee and it’s stone cold by the time that you spot Adeya. She is wearing a black Puffa jacket and has a red tote bag over one shoulder. You leave the coffee shop and jog across the road. You fall into step behind her and smile when she turns into the car park. She heads up the stairs and you follow her to the third floor. You don’t see anyone else around so you call out her name, keeping some distance away because you don’t want to scare her.