The Stone Wife
- Автор: Ловси Питер
- Серия: Peter Diamond #14
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Sphere
- ISBN: 978-0-7515-5405-2
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «The Stone Wife». Краткое содержание книги:
‘Keep going,’ Marcus said, and she felt his hand against the small of her back. She started forward. There was just a chance she could let the man know with a look that he should allow them to pass. No one else was on the footbridge at this time.
She hadn’t taken more than three steps when a voice from behind called out, ‘Got you, Marcus. Let the woman go.’
She swung around. Nathan had blocked off their retreat.
Marcus reacted fast — and mistakenly. He said, ‘You crafty bitch’ — and grabbed a fistful of Ingeborg’s long hair close to her scalp. ‘Come any closer,’ he shouted at Nathan, ‘and she goes over.’
She was trained in martial combat, but when your head is forced back to the point where your spine feels ready to snap there is little you can do except kick aimlessly. She tried and didn’t connect. She was his hostage now.
She heard Nathan shout, ‘Where’s Lily?’
To hell with Lily, Ingeborg was thinking. I’m the victim here.
‘Let me pass,’ Marcus said. He was desperate and outnumbered.
‘Sod off. What have you done with her?’
She was trying to go limp as her training taught, ready for a surprise counter-attack, but as long as her head was held back at this agonizing angle, she could do nothing.
Marcus dragged her to the side of the bridge. It felt as if he’d pulled a hank of hair out by the roots. She caught him in the ribs with her elbow and he gave a grunt of discomfort, no more. He still had the advantage.
Now it appeared he meant to force her off the bridge into the river. He slammed her against the side rail. A little below shoulder height, the ironwork had an angled top to dissuade people from climbing over.
‘I’m on your side,’ Ingeborg tried to tell him.
‘You suckered me into this,’ he said.
‘How could I? I didn’t even know where we were going.’
The logic seemed to penetrate his brain. Ingeborg felt his grip relax a little. At the same time she got some purchase from the railing. With her shoulder hard against it she kicked with her left leg and felt the toe of her shoe sink into the soft flesh behind his knee. His leg jackknifed and he lost balance. Still gripping her hair, he toppled backwards, taking her with him. But he must have landed on his arm, because his fingers opened and her head was freed.
On the floor of the bridge, she wrestled him, sliding her right thigh across his hip and bringing her weight to bear on him. She grabbed his arm and forced it upwards in a half-nelson.
She was in charge now.
She heard the thud of footsteps.
‘Okay,’ Nathan rasped in her ear. ‘We’ll deal with him.’
‘What was that about?’ she said as she disentangled herself from Marcus. He made no attempt to rise.
‘You did good,’ Nathan said.
‘You ruined everything. He was taking me to Lee.’
She got to her feet and brushed off her clothes. Her neck ached and her cheek was sore from the contact with Marcus’s coarse beard.
Four of Nathan’s henchmen were standing there.
‘Thanks for coming to the rescue, guys,’ she said with sarcasm.
‘Stand back.’ Nathan forced his foot under Marcus’s shoulder and tipped him face upwards. ‘Where’s Lily?’
‘How would I know?’ Marcus said, eyes stretched wide in alarm. ‘She’ll have run a mile by now.’
Nathan stooped and slapped his face and hit the other cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Have you been shagging her, you dickhead?’
‘No,’ Marcus said in a yelp of denial. ‘Absolutely not.’ His lip was starting to bleed.
‘Because if you have, you’re never shagging anything again.’
‘I offered her a place to stay last night, that’s all. She appealed to me for help. She sounded desperate.’
‘So desperate she still wants to do her bloody interview.’
‘It was important to her, a career opportunity.’
‘She was at your place? Where’s that?’
‘Clifton. She isn’t there.’
‘Where were you heading just now, then? What was the meeting place?’
‘I honestly don’t know. She didn’t trust anyone. She said we were to cross the bridge to the other side and she’d meet us.’
‘Right here?’
‘Yes.’
Nathan straightened up and took a long look at the small, interested crowd that had started to gather on the Watershed side of Bordeaux Quay. Some of them took this as the cue to move on.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ he said to his team of heavies. ‘If she’s here, we’ll give her something to look at. We’ll tip this piece of shit over the side.’
Marcus yelped in protest, but they moved in fast, keen for some action after standing by for so long.
‘Don’t,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He could drown.’
But they already had him by the arms and legs and hoisted him off the floor ready to swing him high over the railing.
‘On a count of three,’ Nathan said.
‘You’re mad,’ Ingeborg said. ‘This won’t help us find Lee.’ She knew the gravity of what was happening in full view of witnesses and she was implicated. She’d fought Marcus to the ground and disabled him. The cardinal rule of going undercover is that you don’t get involved in violence. Serving officers had got sent down for long terms for conniving at the commission of a crime.
Marcus was whimpering like a puppy. They swung him back at the count of one.
‘Two.’
There was a scream of, ‘Don’t do it,’ from the crowd and somebody sprinted to the bridge and towards them.
A woman. Dark hair, slim, East Asian.
Lee Li.
She must have been among the bystanders, uncertain what to do until the brutality to Marcus got to this intolerable point.
Nathan dropped the leg he was holding and said, ‘Get her.’
Marcus hit the floor with a thud and the team dashed after their new quarry.
Lee turned to escape, but she only got a few yards. The quickest of the henchmen grabbed her by the shoulder and swung her about. With ease, he grasped her round the waist and carried her, struggling, back to his employer.
‘Put her down.’
For a moment, Ingeborg thought Lee Li was going to get a face-slapping, but she did not.
Nathan opened his arms and embraced her. The man really was besotted.
Lee looked dazed and not at all happy.
This touching reunion came to a stop when a police siren sounded. One of the watchers must have used a phone.
‘We’re leaving,’ Nathan said.
In the black limousine, Ingeborg was allowed to sit beside the driver. Nathan was in the back seat with his arm around Lee, who was grim-faced and silent.
‘Some hard things were said back there,’ he said to Ingeborg. ‘Heat of the moment.’
She turned her head. ‘Is that an apology? I could have been badly hurt.’
‘You looked after yourself pretty good. Where did you learn to fight?’
‘I did a course,’ she said. ‘Every woman needs to know the basics, journalists even more so.’
‘You hear that, Lily?’ he said. ‘If you’d learned self-defence, none of this would have happened.’ Apparently he’d persuaded himself that she had been abducted by Marcus, who right now was probably giving his account of the affray to the police response team. And if Marcus had any care for his future well-being, he’d deny all knowledge of his attackers.
‘Where are we going now?’ Lee asked, staring ahead.
‘Back to the house,’ Nathan said. ‘You still want to do that piece for the Sunday Times, don’t you?’
‘Not right away. I’m a mess. I need a shower and a change of clothes.’
‘No pressure,’ Ingeborg said, thinking ahead. ‘We could do this tomorrow and I’ll still make my deadline.’