“Hello?”
A rush of relief hit him when he heard her real voice. “Lesnik was lying,” he said.
“What?”
“On the day of the killings the toilet on the second floor was busted and the door was locked shut. He’d have to have used the one in the basement or the first floor near the rear entrance. He would’ve run right into the killers. He’d be dead. He was lying about the whole thing. You were set up, Katie.”
There was only silence on the other end. He wondered if she’d hung up on him.
“You’re sure?” she said shakily.
“They briefed him well otherwise. But for the slip about the john, which they obviously forgot to check and assumed it was working, and a bit of luck, I’d never have known.”
“My story. It was a lie?” she gasped in disbelief.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t. I told that idiot Gallagher I didn’t have corroboration.”
“Katie, where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because now that you’ve written the story you’re dispensable.”
“I’m safe.”
“No, you’re not safe! They probably know exactly where you are. Now tell me.”
She gave him the address.
“Do not open the door to anybody. And be ready to run.”
He sprinted into the middle of the street, stopping a taxi dead, ripped open the door, hauled the surprised passenger out, jumped in, and told the stunned driver exactly where to go. The diminutive cabbie took one look at Shaw’s massive size and glowering expression and the taxi roared off.
CHAPTER 67
ONLY TWENTY MINUTES HAD PASSED since Shaw’s call when the buzzer on the entrance to Katie’s building went off. She ran to the door of her flat and spoke into the call box.
“Shaw?”
“Yep.”
She hit the button to release the door and then froze. Had that been Shaw’s voice? In her excitement she’d just assumed…
From down below she heard measured footfalls coming up. That didn’t sound like…
She bolted the door, grabbed her hastily packed bag, and looked frantically around for another way out. There was only one. The window overlooking the back alley.
She threw it open and peered out. It was a two-story drop. In the movies there would’ve been a convenient fire escape or mounds of soft garbage down below, but in real life there never were. And she had no time to knot sheets into a rope. What there was on the alley level was a guy, a big guy wearing jeans and a rugby sweater and reading a newspaper in the fading light while sitting in a beat-up lawn chair.
“A hundred quid if you catch me,” she called out.
“Pardon me?” he said, gazing up at her quizzically.
She climbed onto the windowsill, her bag slung over her back. “I’m going to jump and you’re going to catch me. Understood?”
The man dropped his newspaper and stood up looking around, perhaps to see if this was some sort of prank.