Cahill was at the back of the shop when he heard the bell ring again as the other customer left. He walked over to the counter and smiled at the woman, offering his hand in greeting. She shook it.
‘I’m Elizabeth Holmes. Call me Lizzie. What can I do for you?’
She had a firm handshake and wore a white T-shirt with a Smith amp; Wesson logo. Cahill could see the slender, well-toned muscles of her forearm as she shook his hand. Her hair was short and she had wide-set brown eyes. He made her for late forties.
‘Tom Hardy said I should come see you if I was in town,’ Cahill said.
She held his hand a moment longer then released it, putting both her hands on her hips. It was a girlish pose, but she pulled it off.
‘I’m always happy to meet new friends,’ she said.
‘Likewise.’
‘You an ex-cop or what?’
‘Army then Secret Service.’
‘You get around. What you up to now?’
Getting to know you.
‘Close protection. Corporates, politicians. That kind of thing, you know.’
Her eyes opened wider. ‘Any celebrities?’
‘Sometimes. I mean, try to avoid them.’
‘Very sensible. Bet they pay well, though.’
‘That they do, Lizzie.’
She looked at him for a moment and walked around the counter, heading for the front door.
‘Give me a second to close up and I’ll take you downstairs.’
She turned a lock on the door and put a sign in the window telling her customers that she’d be back in a half-hour.
‘Follow me,’ she said as she went towards a door at the back of the counter area.
He went through the door behind her and down a narrow set of stairs. There was another door at the bottom with three heavy-duty locks which she opened. The door swung inwards and Cahill could tell from the way she held it that it was armoured — the wood fascia intended as a disguise.
He walked past her into a large, well-lit basement. It was a workshop with a couple of long benches and shelving racks on two walls. There was a large metal cabinet on one of the other walls.
‘What’s your story?’ Cahill asked as she picked a key from a chain attached to the belt of her jeans.
She looked back at him from over her shoulder.
‘Boston PD. Twenty years.’
‘Why this now? Why Denver?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Cahill walked over to the cabinet as she opened it, displaying a number of handguns arranged on metal pins. There were two shelves at the bottom filled with boxes of ammunition.
‘Before we go any further,’ she said, turning to him and putting a hand firmly on his chest, ‘I know that you’ve been vouched for, but what’s your intention with my stuff?’
‘Defensive only.’
She looked hard at his eyes.
‘Okay, soldier. I had to ask, you know.’
It came out like: Okay, Soul-jah. Hadda ask, y’know.
Cahill nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘What are you after?’
Wotcha ahftah.
‘Something reliable, like a Glock.’
‘I got plenty of them bad boys. Take your pick.’
Cahill looked at the guns and pointed to the one he wanted. She told him to go ahead and he lifted it from its mount and checked it out.
‘Good for you?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘It’ll do.’
He reached down and grabbed an identical weapon.
‘And this,’ Cahill said. ‘Just, you know…’
She nodded. ‘Can never be too careful. Ammo?’
She was Cahill’s kind of person. Direct. No words wasted.
He paid cash and took a box of bullets and two nylon holsters to go with the weapons. When they were done, she led him back up the stairs and into the main part of the shop.
‘You be careful out there, soldier,’ she told him as she unlocked the front door. ‘Bad people around, you know.’
3
Logan swung his legs out of bed and on to the carpet, scrunching his toes up and releasing them again. He saw that Cahill’s bed had been made up, the cover pulled military tight. A note on hotel paper was lying on the pillow. It was from Cahilclass="underline" said he had gone out on an ‘errand’ and that Logan was to organise getting a car — ‘something with a big engine in case we need it.’
Need it for what?
He went for a shower and towelled dry, dressing in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt. He didn’t feel tired and was glad of getting a long period of uninterrupted sleep. He also felt hungry, so grabbed a lightweight Merrell walking jacket and went down to the restaurant to get something to eat.
He checked his phone after breakfast but he had no messages. It was too early back home to call Ellie so he stuck the phone in his pocket and left to find the rental car place that he had seen in the mall last night.
There wasn’t much foot traffic in the mall. It was a standard working day for most people and the city wasn’t exactly built as a holiday destination — not unless you were staying there to use it as a base for the nearby ski resorts.
He spent an hour in the rental place, most of that time stuck behind a large American woman who insisted on telling the sales agent every detail of her flight down from Chicago and how she was visiting her sister who was ill and how her sister’s no good husband…
Logan zoned out.
After a brief attempt by the agent to sell him a convertible, Logan rented a Cadillac sedan with the biggest engine that they had. It sounded to Logan like it would be powerful enough for whatever Cahill had in mind. The agent gave him directions to the rental parking lot, where the cars were stored, and all the paperwork in a branded folder.
Logan walked the short distance to the lot in the crisp morning air and found the car with the help of one of the attendants who looked about as bored as a person could. He started the car engine and it came to life with a satisfying growl. He spent fifteen minutes getting used to the car’s controls and driving around the lot to acclimatise himself to the automatic gearbox, and also turning left and right from the ‘wrong’ side. When he was happy, he looked in the car’s Sat Nav for a local landmark to give him on-the-road-driving experience and settled for the Denver Broncos’ stadium — Invesco Field at Mile High — because it was a little outside the centre of the city.
The sky was clear again today and it was a pleasant drive to the stadium. He parked the car and went to the small museum to look around at old photos of the football team and learn about its history.
When he was back outside, his phone rang.
‘You get a car?’ Cahill asked.
‘Yeah. A Cadillac.’
‘Sounds good. Where are you?’
‘Out at the football stadium.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason. Just went for a drive. What about you?’
‘Back at the hotel. You coming here now?’
‘Sure. You get your errand done?’
‘Yes.’
‘Probably best if I don’t know what it was.’
‘You got it. Listen, I want to go see if we can speak to these people this afternoon.’
Logan was about to ask what he meant, then remembered it would be to check out the D. Hunter list that Bruce had e-mailed over last night.
‘Okay. I’ll head back now. Ten, fifteen minutes.’
Logan parked on the street near the hotel and bought a local newspaper — The Denver Post — before walking back to meet Cahill.
‘You should drive,’ Logan told Cahill. ‘You’re the native after all.’
‘Sure.’ Cahill nodded. ‘Think you can handle being my passenger?’
Logan looked at his friend and, not for the first time, wondered if there was a tiny spark of madness inside his head — the kind of spark that marked men like Cahill out as different from everyone else.
Men capable of going into battle and coming out the other side.
4
‘We got a hit on the semen sample,’ Murphy told Irvine, perching on the edge of her desk.
‘You sure know the way to a woman’s heart.’ She smiled.