‘You didn’t miss us last time. You gave up the chase, hoping for an easier go at the old guys first. You cowardly piece of shit,’ I said.
Without warning, I hooked my arm around his ankle and bent knee. I twisted savagely. The bruiser howled, but then his face slipped into a calmer state as he realised I hadn’t ripped his leg off entirely. The pop of his joint realigning was horrible, but must have brought him some relief. I dragged him up. Shoved him towards his friend. ‘I’d love to put a bullet in both of you. Wake up your buddy, and then get the hell away from here before I change my mind. And here’s something else: tell Chaney he’d best leave town.’
When I turned to regard Rink my buddy was gone. I glanced back at the shambling thug who was hopping on his good leg as he struggled to waken his colleague. For what they’d planned to do to Parnell and Faulks, they’d have deserved a bullet in the skull, except their corpses would only complicate matters. I thought it best to leave him to it: I wanted them out of here before the police descended on Hayes Tower. There was the more pressing urgency of making sure that neither Rink nor I was tied to the dead man lying at the back of the building and I didn’t trust the thugs not to blab as soon as they were pressed. I thought about offering to help carry the sleeping brute out of the apartment, but saw that he was coming round. I gathered up their dropped weapons and shoved them in a sideboard drawer, covering them with some of Parnell’s belongings. By the time I was done, the two men were stumbling from the apartment. ‘Best you get a move on,’ I said, showing them my SIG. It proved good motivation, as did the approaching police sirens.
I closed Parnell’s door as best I could, then backtracked to close the door I’d left open in the neighbouring apartment. When next I looked the men were piling into the elevator, wary of Rink who stood looking over the balustrade. He was unconcerned by their presence so close by, and didn’t give them as much as a look.
I jogged towards him.
He turned and saw me coming.
‘You said you shot the killer.’ He nodded at a sprinkle of blood on the railing. ‘But did you kill him?’
I had no firm answer, and judging by his face I could tell I wouldn’t like what I found when I leaned over the railing.
The point was, I found nothing.
If Markus Colby had fallen to the earth six floors below us then he’d landed on his feet like a cat, because there was no sign of him.
Chapter 29
‘Let’s get outta here.’
‘Give me another second, Rink. I just want to check down here.’
Sirens were filling the air, echoing back and forth from the high-rise block and the smaller apartment complexes across the way. We were risking being caught red-faced — if not red-handed — though it was necessary to check that Markus wasn’t lying out of sight against the lowest point of the building. There was a pebble drainage gully adjacent to the wall, with a slight overhang formed by the first balcony that butted out over it. When we checked I expected to find that when the killer slammed to the ground, the impact had bounced him against the base of the tower and his body would be found there.
It wasn’t.
There was no sign of where the body hit the dirt either. There was no indentation, no sign of blood. I scanned the building overhead. The lights on each landing threw the outer walls into shadow so I could make out no indication of blood. Unfortunately, now that the sounds of conflict had ended, the residents of Hayes Tower had come out on the landings, hailing each other as they tried to determine what had just occurred. A couple of the more courageous tenants were already scouting out the uppermost corner of the building, calling out to anyone in the rooms that might be injured. Thankfully no one looked down at where we lurked at the foot of the tower, but it was only a matter of time. Rink was correct: we had to get out of there, and quick. My only concern was that Markus was still there somewhere, injured but possibly a danger to the unlucky resident who came across him. We should have completed a check of each landing on our way down, cornered and finished the bastard once and for all. The opportunity was missed. Now we had to get away.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Rink led the way, loping across the fallow ground. He moved with a determined ease that I couldn’t match. The battering I’d taken during the car crash manifested itself in aches and pains throughout my body. I ignored them all and jogged after Rink. He reached the tall mesh fence, pausing while I caught up to him. Maybe he could tell I wasn’t working at one hundred per cent because he cupped his hands to help boost me over. I stepped into his palms and experienced a heady sensation as he heaved me up. I grabbed at the top of the fence, swung over and began scrambling down the other side. Rink swarmed over the obstruction like it was barely there. We ran, using the fence as a guide, avoiding obstacles on the fallow ground that would trip us in the dark. Andrew’s car was parked beyond the adjoining book depository stockyard, half a minute away at most. A quick glance back over my shoulder assured me that any responding police cruisers were at the front of the building, and as yet there were no flashlights seeking us out.
‘Our detective buddies are going to suspect it was us,’ I said between breaths.
Rink didn’t respond. I was stating the obvious.
‘Without a body, there’s no sign of a crime. Maybe it’s a good job the killer escaped, considering the circumstances.’
‘I’m glad.’
I shook my head as I ran, fighting to conceal a smile. The only reason Rink was happy the killer had escaped was that he could have his own shot at him.
I reassessed my earlier concern. The cops didn’t know about our connection to Parnell yet. ‘I don’t think we need worry about Jones and Tyler,’ I puffed. ‘There’s nothing in the apartments that they can use against us. We can always deny being there, and if they find prints or DNA we can claim it was from previous visits. Don’t know what we can do about the blood from where I shot Markus, though.’
‘His blood won’t mean a damn thing if he’s not already on record. By the time they can make a match, the bastard will be dead. That’s if they ever find his body to match it to.’ Rink had reached a connecting fence. This one wasn’t as tall as the one we’d climbed earlier, and he went over it without stopping. I had to grab at the wire, shove it down and then straddle it before dragging myself over. I hadn’t felt as sore for months; not since taking a pounding from a lunatic called Samuel Logan who didn’t share my sensitivity to pain.
‘I hope those idiots got clear before the cops arrived.’ I was referring to Sean Chaney’s heavies. If there were a scale for measuring criminal excellence, those guys wouldn’t even hit the lowest level. If they were caught fleeing the scene then they’d immediately do one of two things: concoct a totally ridiculous story demonstrating their innocence or blame everything on us. I trusted it would be the latter. Best-case scenario was that they got well away, but time would tell. I had to stop worrying about them and concentrate on the main issue. Despite my shooting Markus Colby or Peterson — or whichever name he was using — and the man tumbling from the tower block, somehow he had survived. It told me something I hadn’t considered before: that he was more resilient than I gave him credit for. On most counts his victims had been elderly and not exactly a match for an armed man; what was more some of them — in particular Takumi — were infirm and it didn’t take a pro to murder them. I’d been thinking of him in terms of a reckless amateur, who’d managed to avoid capture before now due to his anonymity, Yukiko’s reluctance to speak about what occurred all those years ago helping him, and a healthy dose of luck. Now I had to see him as a dangerous and capable adversary.