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

  He needed to move faster.

  Milton took the bag and ran to the sixth floor. He jogged through the office and pulled himself up the rope that they had used to enter the office. He braced himself on the lip of the opened skylight and pushed until he was out and on the roof, inhaling the cool air. He crept to the edge and looked down. Blue light flashed against the walls of the narrow canyon that was formed by the buildings on either side of the road. Fire-fighters were disembarking from two tenders, and, as he watched, a police car raced from the direction of Holborn. It screeched to a stop as another car pulled away from the kerb, rolled up to St Cross Street and turned to the east.

  Hicks.

  The street was too busy for Milton to exit through the coffee shop without drawing attention to himself. He had anticipated that.

  Milton quickly undid the knot that had fastened the rope to the chimney, coiled it around his arm and, with the bag over his shoulder, ran across the rooftop to the west. The block was wide, around eighty metres from one edge to the other, and the heights of the rooftops varied from building to building. Milton clambered up some and slithered down others, leaping gaps and vaulting over obstructions, moving as quickly as he dared while still maintaining his footing. It took him three minutes to reach the opposite edge. He looked down on Leather Lane. It was empty. He knew that it wouldn’t stay that way for long, especially when the men in the vault had been discovered, so he quickly looped the rope around an air-conditioning unit and tossed the rest over the side. The roof was around twelve metres above the street, and the rope was only six metres long.

  He lowered himself over the edge, snagged the rope with both hands and then started to slither down it. He moved slowly, passing the rope from one hand to the other. The top two floors were empty offices, marked out by the estate agent’s board that had been fixed to the building below him. The rope ran out when he was at the level of the second storey. He shrugged the straps of the bag off his shoulder and let them slide down his arm. The bag fell, landing with a muffled thump that would not be audible above the din of the engines and alarms from the other side of the building. He looked down. There was a narrow cornice above the fascia of the shop below; Milton could see from the protruding circular sign that it was a restaurant called Soya.

  He rested his boots on the sill of the nearest window and, letting go of the rope, lowered himself so that he was in a squat. He turned, gripped the wet sill as best he could, and, moving slowly, he gradually let his arms bear his weight. When his arms were fully extended, he took one final look down and then, hoping for the best, he let go. Milton’s descent was swift, but he was able to arrest it by grabbing his left hand onto the sign and his right onto the exposed edge of the cornice. His shoulders shrieked from the sudden exertion and the sign creaked as two of the screws that held it into place were torn out of the fascia.

  Milton glanced down to the pavement, let go, and dropped the final two metres to the ground. He landed in a crouch, absorbing the impact easily, collected the bag and then set off at once. He headed north, passing the skeletal struts and corrugated sheets of a temporary market being built for Christmas, following Leather Lane to its junction with St Cross Street.

  The alarms continued to wail behind him and, as he walked, he heard a crash and the sound of splintering wood. The fire brigade were breaking into the building.

  #

  HICKS HAD parked on Kirby Street, opposite the offices of a trendy creative design agency. He saw the figure as it turned right on St Cross Street. It was a man, medium height and build, a bag slung over his shoulder. He walked purposefully towards the car, approaching from the rear. Hicks tapped his foot on the brake two times, signalling with the lights, and then put the car into gear. The figure drew closer and passed through the downward cone of light thrown out by a streetlamp. It was Milton. He left the pavement and crossed into the street, opened the passenger door and got inside.

  “What took you so long?” Milton said. “Any longer and I would’ve been shot.”

  “I didn’t hear you,” Hicks said. “Reception wasn’t great.”

  “Never mind.”

  “You get it?” Hicks said.

  Milton rested his hand on the bag on his lap. “I got it.”

  “The others?”

  “Left them inside.”

  Hicks pulled out and drove south to Greville Street. “You get all of them?”

  “Frankie Fabian wasn’t there. Just his boys and a man he put on the team. His daughter was in the van. What happened to her?”

  “She left when the fire engines came.”

  Milton nodded. “She’s next. Her and her dad.”

  #

  MILTON TOLD HICKS to drive them south, to Peckham Rye. He drove carefully, aware that to invite police attention now would be a very bad idea. Milton was silent, his face lost in concentration. He was soaked through, his shirt and trousers sodden from the extinguishers.

  “What now?” Hicks said.

  “After we’re done, I need to look at what I’ve got. The photos. When that’s done, I’m going to get them published. Higgins is going to find out what happened soon. Tomorrow, most likely. It’ll be on the news. I don’t want to hang on too long.”

  “And Higgins?”

  “Relax, Hicks. I gave you my word. You helped me, I’ll help you.”

  “You still want to play it like we said?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a different way?”

  Milton looked across at him, but didn’t speak.

  “Never mind,” Hicks said.

  They turned onto Bellenden Road and Milton told him to slow the car. They passed beneath a railway bridge and Milton pointed to the left, into a narrow road that offered access to the railway arches. Businesses had been established in the arches: a garage that specialised in clutch and gearbox repairs, another that offered MOTs, a warehouse. The two arches farthest away from the road looked as if they were vacant, and Milton told Hicks to pull up alongside them. He stopped the car and killed the engine.

  “Lovely place,” he said, looking out just as a train rumbled over the bridge, squares of light from the brightly lit windows passing across the blue-painted wall to their right.

  They both got out of the car. Milton walked to the door of the nearest unit. The arch had been bricked in, with a metal door set into the middle of the new wall. There was a manual combination lock on the door, and Hicks stood guard as Milton tapped in a code. The door unlocked and Milton pushed it open. He went inside first and Hicks followed.

  It was dark. Hicks couldn’t see anything, but he could hear the sound of a powerful industrial extractor fan. Milton muttered that he couldn’t remember where the light switch was, and Hicks was about to offer to go and collect his flashlight from the boot of the car when two big strip lights flickered on above them. The room was filled with light.

  Hicks looked around. Metal racking had been fitted along three walls of the space. The shelves were empty.

  “What was this?

  “It was the south London armoury for Group Fifteen. They cleared it out years ago, but the code still works.”

  “That was fortunate,” Hicks said. “It’s quiet here.”

  “It’s best that no one sees us.”

  Hicks nodded. He wasn’t looking forward to what he knew was coming next.

  “Your family?” Milton asked.

  “My wife’s taken the kids to a friend’s cottage. Cornwall. Wish I was there, too.”

  “You don’t get to relax yet. We’re only half done.”

  Hicks felt a twist of apprehension. “I know.”

  “You want a recap?”

  “No,” Hicks said. “I got it.”

  “You know what you’ve got to say to Higgins?”

  “I’m fine, Milton. I’ve got it down.”

  “You’ve got to be convincing.”

  “I will be.”

  “If you’re not—”

  “I kn
ow, I know. I will be.”

  “We’ve got to make it look convincing, too.”

  “I’m not arguing. Let’s get it over with.”

  Milton took off his jacket and hung it over the strut of one of the empty racks. He rolled up the sleeves of his wet shirt and balled his hands into fists. “Ready?”

  “Do it.”

  Milton drew back his fist and struck Hicks square in the face. Milton’s knuckles landed flush with Hicks’s cheekbone and the starburst of pain that exploded was sudden and vicious. Hicks shook his head to try to clear it.

  “Fuck,” he said. “That smarts.”

  Milton opened and closed his fist. “Ready?” he said.

  “Again.”

  Part Three: The Amends of Eddie Fabian

  Chapter Forty

  RICHARD HIGGINS had followed his usual routine that morning. He had risen at five thirty, gone for a run in the fields around his village, returned to shower and shave, and dressed in the clothes that he had prepared the night before.

  Satisfied, he checked his appearance in the long free-standing mirror and went downstairs.

  Higgins lived alone. He had never married and had never really been interested in the idea of it. He had always been a solitary person, from his youth throughout his career in the army and beyond, and he couldn’t abide the thought of sharing his time with someone else. He supposed, when he was honest, that it was a selfish trait, but he didn’t care. He was not prepared to sacrifice the life that he had built for himself in order to allow someone else the privilege of sharing it with him.

  His cottage was quiet as he came downstairs. He switched on the breakfast news as he went through into the kitchen to fix his cereal. When he came back, the presenters had handed off to an outside broadcast that was filming on a street that he thought he recognised.

  He turned up the volume.

  He did recognise it. The reporter was standing in front of the doors to the London Vault. He had passed through those doors many times over the course of the last twenty years. He felt as if he was going to be sick.

  The reporter spoke into the camera: “Hundreds of safe deposit boxes were emptied from the London Vault Safe Deposit company in London’s jewellery district over the weekend in a dramatic heist. The thieves reportedly entered the company’s premises through an elevator shaft in the building before using heavy cutting equipment to penetrate the vault. The robbers were also able to disarm the security system, allowing them to cut through the vault over the weekend undisturbed. An estimated two hundred safe deposit boxes were emptied during the robbery.”

  Higgins watched until the end of the report, then collected his phone from the charger and took it outside into the garden. It was a cold morning, dew clinging to the flowers and glistening on the lawn. He dialled Woodward.

  “Have you seen the news?”

  “I was just about to call you, sir,” Woodward said.

  “Do we know anything?”

  “No. I’ve made a couple of calls, but the police are keeping this pretty close.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No,” Woodward said. “I’m trying to find out.”

  “Have you called the vault?”

  “First thing I tried. No answer.”

  “No clue whether our boxes are affected?”

  “None at all.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “We need to go down there. Right now.”

  “You want me to drive you?”

  “Yes. Get here as soon as you can.”

  #

  WOODWARD LIVED nearby and he was at the general’s cottage within half an hour. His Audi was a comfortable and expensive car and it ate up the miles as they headed southeast on the A40 toward Gloucester. Higgins glared out of the window, trying to work out what they needed to do.

  Woodward glanced over at him. “So, what—we go and see the police?”

  “What else can we do?”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I don’t know,” Higgins admitted.

  “You’ll have to register as an owner of a box.”

  Higgins scowled at him. “How can I do that?”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Think,” he snapped. “They’re going to ask what I had in the box, aren’t they? If it’s been taken and they recover it, they’ll need to know what I’ve lost so they can give it back to me. What am I going to say when they ask me that? ‘I have some photographs of some very, very senior public figures doing things they ought not to have been doing.’ How can I possibly say that? Or tell them about the money that I had there—how am I going to explain where I got it from?”

  Woodward was quiet.

  “We do need to talk to them,” Higgins said. “Work out how much was taken. Maybe they didn’t get all the boxes.”

  “They were saying two hundred. There must be twice that in the vault.”

  “There are five hundred,” Higgins said.

  “So maybe we’re lucky. Better than fifty-fifty odds that we are.”

  Higgins grunted and stared out of the window at the bleak landscape that was rolling past the car. He had a very bad feeling about what they were going to find.

  #

  THE INVESTIGATION was headquartered at Holborn police station. It was chaotic. Reporters were setting up outside and broadcast vehicles crammed up against the kerb, and pedestrians were being forced out into the street to bypass the scrum. The atmosphere was fervid, with the more seasoned hacks comparing the raid to other, more famous heists and suggesting that this was a return to a more romantic kind of crime. A victimless heist, carried out with an audacity that some of the reporters were clearly a little breathless to recount.

  Woodward and Higgins shoved through the middle of the pack. The reporters and their cameramen were ready with invective until they saw the expressions on the faces of the two men with the crew cuts and military bearing, and then they stood aside. The station was an ugly sixties construction with a flight of stone steps that led up from the street to the entrance. Higgins and Woodward ascended and went inside. Woodward went to speak to the officer at the front desk and, when he returned, explained that he had registered and that he had been told to take a seat. He led the way to a waiting area that was furnished with hard plastic chairs, garishly orange and sticky with the residue of discarded gum. Higgins sat down, feeling the ache in his muscles from his morning run, and watched Woodward as he stood in a corner and made a call on his phone.

  Higgins struggled to maintain his composure. The delay was intolerable. He watched the plain-clothes detectives and uniformed officers as they hurried through the reception area, and none of them filled him with any confidence. He thought of his brother. Thomas had served in the Metropolitan Police, but that had been in a different time when officers were unconstrained by propriety and before the shackles of politically correct behaviour had been applied. The line between the police and the villains they pursued was blurred then, and the tactics that ambiguity allowed would have meant that there was a better chance that a crime like this would be solved. Now, though? When the police were staffed by fast-tracked university graduates with no experience and denied the tools that would have generated the quickest results? Higgins was not confident.

  Woodward returned and took the seat next to Higgins. Woodward knew the general well enough to see that he was in a foul mood, so he sat quietly with his hands in his lap, fidgeting with his mobile phone. Higgins drummed his fingers against each other until he could bear the silence no more.

  “Get the men together,” he ordered.

  “I just called them, sir. They’re going to meet us tonight. Usual place.”

  Higgins nodded. He looked up at the busy scrum of people at the reception desk. Most of them wore anxious expressions, and several looked anguished. He guessed that some would have been the dealers who stored their diamonds in the vault. That was why the business had been started in Hatton Garden. The local businesses, many of them holding diamonds w
orth millions of pounds, needed somewhere that they could safely leave their stock. They needed somewhere that could offer them complete anonymity, a place where they wouldn’t be asked questions, somewhere that could guarantee that their valuables would be secure. All of those qualities were, after all, what had persuaded Higgins that the vault was the perfect place to secure the evidence. All of those supposed benefits had been exposed now for what they really were: promises that could not be kept. The thought of it made Higgins sick.

  He gazed at the chaos outside. “Could this be more than a coincidence?”

  Woodward turned to him. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “That our boxes were here?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s a vault. It’s been hit for the diamonds. No one knows about us. How could they?”

  “Maybe.” He paused, something nagging at the back of his mind. “Who knows that you’ve got a box there? Apart from me and you?”

  “Shepherd. And I should never have told him.”

  Shepherd liked a drink, and his raucous behaviour during their regular dinners now became a portent for something more ominous.

  Woodward saw the concern on Higgins’s face. “He’s a pain in the arse when he’s drunk, but he’s not a fool.”

  The general shook his head, not convinced, but let it pass. Woodward fell quiet; Higgins could see that there was something else on his mind. “What is it?” he asked.