Читать книгу Final Target - E. Seymour V. - Страница 11

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Part of the job description.’ Her flippant response did not answer my question. If she wanted me to play ball, she’d have to do better.

‘I can’t help if I don’t know what I’m dealing with exactly.’

Nothing gave. Maybe she was thinking. Maybe she was asleep. I tried again.

‘You implied that Lars was threatened. Like to explain?’

She paused, as if weighing up how much to divulge before taking the plunge. ‘He thought he was being followed and believed that his phone was tapped. Someone broke into his house in London.’

‘Little things.’ I hoped to get a lot more out of her now that we were safely separated by a telephone line.

‘I reckoned he was paranoid. It happens sometimes when assets lose their bottle.’

‘But he wasn’t.’

‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘Anything else you’d like to tell me?’ Confess to, admit to, and tell the truth about, I thought.

‘Someone tried to push him underneath a train on the Underground.’

Breath ripped out of my lungs. I wanted to ask her to repeat what she’d said, but I didn’t need to. I’d heard it right the first time. The train trick was the same method I’d used to kill Billy Squeeze. McCallen knew this. I thought she might openly say so. She didn’t. Was someone imitating my methods? Was I seeing patterns and connections that didn’t exist?

‘Did he see who it was?’

‘It happened too quickly. A commuter grabbed him and undoubtedly saved his life. It really put the wind up him.’

And me. This piece of news demanded a step change in my thinking. I wondered whether to tell McCallen about Chester Phipps. McCallen was still speaking.

‘Afterwards I couldn’t shake Lars off. He was becoming a liability.’

Hardly the odd phone call, I thought, remembering our previous conversation. ‘Remind me of the timeline again.’

‘From the end of January until a few days before he died.’ Which wasn’t what she’d originally told me. I almost missed what she said next because I was too wrapped up in the Billy death scenario. ‘We spoke often on the phone. I met him in person twice.’

‘Where?’

‘Remote locations. He insisted on it.’

‘You should have cut off all contact.’ Basic procedure.

‘Fortunately for me I did, which was why I didn’t keep the appointment.’

Something snagged inside me. ‘You were supposed to meet him on the day he died?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the New Forest?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Have you considered the possibility that Lars could have been faking it? You had no independent evidence that the threats to him were real.’

‘Correct.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘The post-mortem on Lars Pallenberg.’

‘What about it?’

‘Was there any reference to the amount of adrenalin in his system?’

‘No.’

Had there been, it would suggest that Lars had known his killer and knew what was about to take place. It indicated to me that Lars had no clue that he was about to be killed. It was all over and done with in moments, which was as it should be with a professional hit. There was an alternative scenario. A distant yet familiar sound, like the echo of ancient gunfire, rattled through my brain.

‘Do you think he deliberately set out to trap you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Either way, he was clearly deemed expendable.’

‘It explains why the killer took a heavy-duty weapon with him instead of a simple handgun.’

‘Because Lars was meant to be eliminated after I’d been taken care of.’

This meant McCallen was on someone’s death list, that her interest in her asset’s killer was of secondary importance. Her real concern stemmed from the danger to herself.

‘Do you have a file on Pallenberg – background, family ties, friends and so on?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘Depends.’

Caught in the grind, I’d spoken before I’d had a proper chance to think through the full implications. ‘Can you get me a false passport?’

‘I can even arrange the flights.’