“Only amateurs think a house fire reliably burns hot enough to get rid of a corpse. No sense risking the forensic team getting curious about bullet holes.”
She took a small sip of her coffee through the plastic lid, and then peeled it off the top of the cup. “Hm. You learn something new every day. Did you bring any sugar?”
I fished in my back pocket and pulled out a couple of paper sticks of demerara, which I tossed over to her along with a wooden coffee stirrer.
“You’re an angel.”
“Only for you.”
She met my eyes, teeth worrying her lower lip, probably to hide her smile. Even though it didn’t work. “Good. I like it that way around.” She set the cup down once she’d stirred the sugar in, and set to work dismantling the croissant, pulling the pastry apart before she ate it.
I sat down on the edge of the mattress next to her and leaned in to give her a coffee flavoured kiss. “Do you want to come with me?”
Her brow wrinkled and she looked down at the sugar-dusted paper bag. “Honestly, Maxim. I never want to see the bastard again for as long as I live even if all that’s left of him is bones.”
I nodded shortly. “When I’m done with him there won’t be anything left to see.”
CHAPTER 21
Maxim
Valentin had hackers access Sutherland’s email account and go through every deleted file. It took two days for them to send me the restored PDF receipt that Elizabeth had seen on the computer in his study right before she killed him.
The pen drive she’d gone in with only had a partial download of his system on it. They were still ploughing through the contents to find anything useful.
In the meantime, we had something to go on at least.
The left luggage section of St Pancras station was bustling and busy and the staff hadn’t paid any notice to us when we walked in. We’d scanned down the rows of lockers, looking for the number on the keyfob.
And realised the key was never going to fit. The locker we needed wasn’t in the station.
Elizabeth looked despondent when I glanced back at her with a weary grimace.
The disappointment with the locker should have meant more to me than to her, but she was taking it to heart as though she had a stake in all this that went deeper than wanting Sutherland dead. For her, it had never been about stopping the unmasking of the shell companies that acted as a vehicle for the Bratva’s funds.
“Come on.”
I took her hand and lead her through the red brick arches to the side of the station that stretched up tall above us, windows on the level above even taller, like some great cathedral to steam.
The St Pancras Hotel occupied one end of the station’s Victorian splendour and the Booking Hall was now a bar and restaurant. Higher up on the modern, glass balcony there was a terrace of tables overlooking the magnificent arch of the glass and steel roof curved over the tracks, giving the pigeons premier addresses, high above the bustle of the station. The Eurostar terminal was across the other side, the gateway to the Continent.
In the middle of the week, past lunchtime, it was deserted. A rare thing for London.
But I wanted the intimacy of being tucked into a corner with her, the space of the leather seats and old world brass fittings on the bar of the Booking Hall bar hemming us in. Victorian opulence paired with clean modern lines, dark wood and moody leather. It suited us better to be here, in the shadows.
I watched her slide into the seat across from me at the table the waiter showed us to with more poise that I thought it was possible to embody in an oversized t-shirt with no bra underneath. I shifted, adjusting myself what I thought was discreetly beneath the table top as the thought of her naked inside my t-shirt made me harden. I couldn’t have been that subtle, because her brow arched up as she picked up the menu.
“Alright there, Maxim?”
I’d watched her pull that bloody t-shirt out of my closet and knot it around her waist this morning, rolling up the sleeves so it all looked intentional. A tank top, oversized, devastatingly cool over her high waisted jeans. I knew then she could have styled a black bag. In my line of work, the kind of presence she could embody was worth a thousand hours of experience. Maybe I was biasd, but every inch of Elizabeth was pure sex appeal.
I wasn’t entirely sure she should be let out on the streets on her own ever again. I certainly didn’t want her to.
I could picture her working her way into any setting. In the right outfit, she could Breakfast at Tiffany’s her way in anywhere. And she wouldn’t have to do more than smile alluringly, with that twinkle in her eye. God knew I wouldn’t let anyone touch her. But she could make any number of men think she’d let them, to get ahold of whatever they knew.