The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) Read online

  Fabian was tracing his finger across the photocopy of Eddie’s confession. He was considering his response.

  Milton tried to nudge him in the right direction. “Can I make a suggestion? Don’t look at this and call it blackmail. You need to think of it as a business proposition. It’s not what I get out of it. It’s what we all get out of it. You get the confession. But we’ll be in a vault, Mr. Fabian. I can only imagine what else is down there. You’re not going to leave without opening a few other boxes, are you?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  MILTON WAITED A WEEK without hearing from Fabian. He thought he might have to wait three days, maybe four. But a week? It felt bad. He went over their meeting again and again, trying to diagnose the moment when Fabian must have decided not to consider his proposal. There must have been a point when he had lost him. Maybe he didn’t accord Milton with enough credibility to take his suggestion seriously. Maybe he was going to call his bluff.

  Hicks had called him the day after he had returned from Withington to ask, again, for his help. Milton told him that he was still investigating his options and that he would get back to him when he was ready. Hicks sounded desperate, almost pleading for movement, but Milton reminded himself that Hicks wasn’t his fault or his responsibility. He would help him, if he could, but only if that meant that he was able to do what he wanted to do for Eddie.

  And, to do that, he needed Frankie Fabian’s help.

  By day eight, he had started to doubt that the plan would work. Fabian had seen through his ruse. The proposal was too difficult to pull off, or the risks outweighed the threat that Milton had presented. There was the possibility, of course, that Fabian would decide to follow a different course. Milton knew that he had put himself in danger by threatening him that way, and had stepped up his own security accordingly. He was cautious by nature, but he had examined his routines and eliminated all of the small bad habits that he had allowed himself to fall into. He took a different route to work every day. He stopped going to his usual meetings, travelling to alternatives in the West End instead. He had parked his car in a long-stay car park and taken public transport instead. He had been very aware of counter-surveillance when he had travelled back from Withington to London on the day of their meeting, and he was sure that he had not been followed. The only link between him and Fabian was Eddie, but now that Eddie was dead, he couldn’t think of any other way in which he might betray himself. But that didn’t mean that he was prepared to take any chances by being slapdash with his behaviour. He took a small kitchen knife from the shelter, sharpened it until the edge was as keen as he could make it, wrapped it in a dishcloth, and kept it in his pocket.

  #

  HE WAS in the shelter one evening when his phone finally rang with a number that he did not recognise. He served his only customer with a plate of beans on toast and a tea, took the phone outside, and shut the door behind him. It was a cold night, the damp seeping into his clothes and chilling his skin. He took out his phone and accepted the call.

  “Mr. Smith?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Be at Bethnal Green station at midnight.”

  Milton tried to respond, but there was no reply. The line was dead.

  #

  MILTON CLOSED UP at eleven. The drivers would be annoyed, but he had no other choice. He took the Central Line from Oxford Circus to Bethnal Green and emerged at midnight, just as the guard rattled the station’s iron cage door closed behind him.

  Milton sheltered from the rain in the doorway of a betting shop and waited, staring into the night and smoking cigarettes. He had no idea how the next few hours would play out. He hadn’t recognised the voice of the man who had called him, but he assumed that he was connected to Fabian. He must have considered his offer, and now he was going to deliver his verdict. Milton hoped that it would be the answer that he needed. If it was something else, he was going to have to come up with another angle. And that, of course, ignored the very real possibility that Frankie Fabian might not give him the chance to pivot and try something else. Milton had read as much as he could find about the head of the Fabian family. There was a lot of conflicting information about him, but one thing was constant: he was unpredictable. There was no way to foresee how the meeting Milton assumed he was about to have was going to play out. He would have to adapt to whatever came his way.

  Milton looked out over the crossroads where Bethnal Green Road met Cambridge Heath Road. There was a church, St John on Bethnal Green, where Milton had attended meetings of the fellowship when he had first tried to leave Group Fifteen behind him. It was a dark, ugly building, reaching up to a dome with a golden cross atop it, fenced in from the street by iron railings. There was a park on the opposite side of the road to the church, and, opposite Milton, the landlord of the Salmon and Ball was just ejecting the last stragglers from the pub. There was a small concourse of shops, including a unisex hair salon and an off-licence. There were a few pedestrians passing by, and the queues of traffic that formed at the junction quickly dispersed once the lights turned green. A group of youngsters, wearing puffer jackets with the hoods pulled up, loitered in the park. Milton could see the red tips of the joints as they toked on them, passing them around.

  He finished his second cigarette and was about to light a third when his phone rang.

  Milton put the phone to his ear. “Yes?” he said.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m here.”

  Milton looked left and right and saw a parked Audi flash its lights.

  “I see you,” Milton said.

  “Hurry up.”

  He put the cigarette back in the packet, crossed the road and got into the car. There were two men inside. He recognised them from the funeral. Marcus and Spencer Fabian, Eddie’s brothers. Marcus was driving. Spencer was sitting in the back. Neither looked pleased to see him.

  “Hello,” Milton said.

  Spencer looked across the cabin at him. “We’re going for a drive.”

  “Where to?”

  “Maybe somewhere quiet where we can have a proper chat about what a great idea it is to try to blackmail our father.”

  Milton didn’t respond.

  “Just shut up,” Marcus said from the front of the car. “You’ll find out where we’re going when we get there.”

  The car pulled away from the kerb and into the flow of traffic. Milton was acutely aware that he was barely armed, outnumbered, and being taken somewhere he didn’t know.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THEY DROVE OUT to an industrial estate in Hounslow, beneath the flight path of Heathrow airport. Big jumbos roared overhead at regular intervals and, as Milton turned to watch the latest make its descent, he saw the lights of another four planes stacked up in the darkness behind it.

  Marcus parked the Audi, killed the engine and got out. His brother followed him and Milton did the same. He looked around. There was a line of warehouses in the park, facing onto a narrow parking lot and hemmed in on all sides by a steep wire mesh fence. It was late, and the car park was empty save for their car and three others.

  Spencer and Marcus didn’t speak. Instead, they set off for the building that bore the sign HAMPTON PARK GARDEN FURNITURE. Milton trailed behind them. There was a large roller door at the front of the building, but it was closed. There was a secondary way inside through a door to the right of the building. It opened into a reception area that was furnished with a shabby collection of plastic tables and chairs, the tables bearing local free sheets that were several weeks out of date. There was a plain wooden door at the other end of the room, and Marcus held it open for Milton and then his brother to pass through. He followed them, closing the door behind him. Milton heard a key turning in the lock, but he didn’t look around. He kept walking. If they were going to rough him up, or worse, there wouldn’t be very much that he could do.

  The warehouse was a large, dark space. Most of it was divided into a series of aisles by large storage racks, but there was
an area in the middle of the room where a table and chairs had been arranged. A strip light was suspended high above the table, casting it in a harsh glow. Frankie Fabian was sitting at the table with a man that Milton didn’t recognise. There was a woman there, too, but her face was turned away from him.

  “Mr. Smith.”

  “Mr. Fabian.”

  The woman turned at his approach and Milton recognised her from the funeral. It was Lauren Fabian, Eddie’s adopted sister. It had been to her that Eddie had turned after Hicks had threatened him. He had been found dead on her driveway.

  Milton nodded to her and to the other man. They both glared at him with sullen hostility, but they did not speak. The other man looked comfortable and sat at the table in a relaxed and easy-going fashion. Milton assumed that he knew the family. It seemed likely that he was in their employ. Perhaps, he wondered, he worked with them on jobs like the one that Milton had proposed.

  “You’re Lauren,” Milton said, indicating the woman. He gestured to the man. “But I don’t know you.”

  “Vladimir,” the man said.

  Milton nodded to him. He was dressed in expensive jeans and a neatly pressed shirt. He looked extremely professional.

  Frankie Fabian got up. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “I’ve thought about what you said. You’ve left me with two choices. I could put a bullet in your head and call your bluff. No one knows where you are. We could do that and make your body disappear. I have to tell you, it’s tempting.”

  “I was hoping you might prefer the other option.”

  “Doing what you suggested? Yes, that’s the other choice. I gave it some thought, as I say. My boys here, and Lauren, they were all for option number one. They were persuasive, too. Apart from the fact that you disrespected me in my own house—you threatened me in my own house—what you proposed is not an easy thing to accomplish. But I like a challenge, and the upside is tempting. So I’ve decided that I will humour you. We’ll do it. Marcus, Spencer, Lauren and Vladimir will break into the vault with you. Whatever it is you want, they’ll help you to get.”

  “You’re not coming?” Milton said.

  Fabian shook his head. “I’m a little old for something like that.”

  Milton shrugged, masking his disappointment. He was going to have to amend his plan a little.

  “You said it’s difficult?”

  “Yes, it is. As it happens, I’ve looked at the vault before. Ten years ago. It wouldn’t have been easy then, and they’ve added a better alarm system since. It’s a challenge, but I think it can still be done.”

  He walked over to the wall. Milton noticed that a series of architect’s plans had been attached to it. He got up, went over and looked more closely. There were seven large printouts fixed there with strips of tape. They had been placed in a horizontal arrangement. Each printout was a plan of a particular floor.

  Fabian tapped a finger against the nearest one. “Here’s the building. Six floors and the basement. That’s where the vault is. Very secure. There are two entrances from street level. The front door and one to the side. Both will be difficult to force and, even if we did force them, there are security doors inside plus another door when you get to the stairs. We could cut through them, but it would be very noisy and very messy. Anyone passing by on the street would hear. Not a good plan.”

  “So how are we getting in?”

  Fabian pointed to the plan on the far right of the line. “Top floor. There’s a skylight with a cage. We take off the cage and then take out the skylight and drop in.”

  Milton looked over at the plan. “What’s on the sixth floor?”

  “Just an office,” Marcus said. “Diamond trader. There won’t be anyone there.”

  “Now,” Fabian continued, “there’s a lift for the building, but it doesn’t go all the way down to the basement. So we can’t use it to get down there.”

  “Stairs?”

  “Security doors on all floors. We could force them, but it would take time and it would be noisy.”

  “So?”

  “So, what you’ll do, you get inside, send the lift up to the sixth floor and stop it. Go down to the fifth floor and get into the shaft. Then you abseil all the way down to the basement.”

  “Then?”

  “Once you’re down there, you’ll be out of the way. Underground, too. It won’t matter if you make a lot of noise. There’s a shutter and a barred door. You force the shutter and cut through the bars. Neither should give you much of a problem. Then you get to the vault. That’s different. It’s a serious door. Eighteen inches of steel. There’s no point trying to force it. You’ll drill through the wall.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It won’t be easy, but you’ll have the equipment you’ll need and the time to do it.”

  “What equipment?”

  “Industrial drill, angle grinders, everything. It’s all taken care of. You bring it with you to the job and leave it behind when you’re done.”

  Vladimir had been quiet, but now he raised his hand and pointed at the plans. “This is not simple. It will take time.” He spoke with a harsh Eastern European accent. Russian, perhaps, to match his name. Milton wondered who he could be. Someone they had brought in for the job, perhaps?

  “But?” Fabian asked.

  “I agree. It can be done.”

  “You’re going to go in this weekend,” Fabian said. “The building will be empty Saturday and Sunday.”

  Frankie Fabian stood away from the wall, folded his arms across his chest and looked at the five of them. “Any questions?”

  “What about the alarm?” Milton asked.

  “We’ll disable that remotely.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t worry, Smith. It’ll be disabled. Anything else?”

  No one spoke.

  “Smith? Anything else on your mind?”

  “No,” Milton said.

  “Good. Get an early night tonight. You’ll be working through the night tomorrow; you’ll need to be fresh.”

  “What time do we meet?”

  “Back here tomorrow at six. We’ll start at seven.”

  #

  MILTON WAITED for someone to indicate that he was to follow them so that he could be driven away again. Marcus and Spencer said nothing to him, and Milton soon got the impression that he was going to have to find his own way home. He was doing up his jacket when Frankie Fabian walked across to him.

  “Don’t mess up,” Fabian said.

  “I’ll do what I’m told.”

  “You want to be in the vault yourself?”

  “Yes,” Milton said.

  “Why? If it’s money you want, why don’t you just ask me for money? I have plenty.”

  “I doubt you have as much as is sitting in that vault.”

  “No, Smith, there’s something else. There’s something in the vault you want. More than the money. What is it?”

  Milton concentrated on presenting as blank an expression as he could. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? You know my price. I don’t care what else you do when you’re in there, what else you take. That’s not important to me.”

  “You’re very trusting. What’s going to stop me having one of my boys put a bullet in your head?”

  “Because that wouldn’t be good for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I have a backup. If I don’t come out again, the confession is sent to the police.”

  Fabian allowed himself a thin, humourless chuckle. He put his arm around Milton’s shoulders and started toward the door with him. “I can’t decide whether you’re a genius or a fool.”

  Milton allowed his arm to stay there for a moment and then stepped away from him. “We’re about to find out,” he said.

  Fabian opened the door for him and Milton stepped outside into the night. The rain had started to fall again. Fabian closed the door without another word.

  Milton shrugged.

  Hounslow.

  That was
a good distance from his flat.

  He agreed with Fabian on at least one thing: he needed to get a good night’s sleep. He set off across the car park, passed through the gates and onto the quiet road beyond. He took out his phone and checked his location. The last train would have left the station an hour ago. He would have to try to find a taxi. He aimed for the main road and started to walk.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  IT HAD TAKEN MILTON an hour to find a taxi driver who was willing to drive him across the city. He had returned to his flat at two and had gone straight to bed. His mind had been buzzing and it had taken him longer than he would have liked before he had been able to settle. Once he did, he had managed a solid seven hours’ sleep. He woke at ten and considered whether he might be able to get another couple of hours in before he needed to rise. He decided against it. Seven hours would have to be enough. He had a lot of work to do today before the events of the evening could begin, and there was no time to waste.

  Milton decided that he didn’t have time for his morning run. He showered, dressed in his suit and prepared his usual smoothie. He called Cathy and said that he was sick. He hated lying to her, but there was nothing else for it. She asked how long he thought he would need to recover and he said he didn’t know—maybe two or three nights. She told him not to worry and to call her when he was better. Milton ended the call feeling much worse than before he had spoken to her.

  He took a screwdriver and used it to remove one of the floorboards beneath his bed. There was a small void beneath it, and Milton had used the space to store his go-bag. He took out his extensive selection of fake passports and chose one that he hadn’t used for some time. He also had a fake electricity bill that listed his address as an apartment in Kensington. He put both items, plus two hundred pounds in cash, into his pocket, went outside, locked the door to his flat and made the short walk to a local hardware store. He purchased a bunch of ten double-loop cable ties and then stopped at the newsagents next door. He bought two copies of the Mail and a pack of A4 envelopes. Satisfied, he paid for the items and took a bus into the centre of the city.