He stood back, and Jarvis began to manoeuvre the Mondeo towards the kerb. Once again, his eyes ranged across the windows of the apartment block to check whether anyone had been alerted by this second disturbance, but it appeared that all of the residents were either profoundly deaf or none of the flats at the front were inhabited.
‘Second floor.’
‘What?’ Patterson turned to see that Statham was pointing towards the flats.
‘Third from the left,’ he said. ‘Thought I saw somebody.’
Patterson grabbed his wrist and forced his arm downwards. ‘Jesus, Colin, you don’t have to point.’ He looked up at the window Statham had indicated. ‘Well there’s nobody there now, which I must say I find quite surprising. I mean, short of parading up and down with a bloody great banner saying “Hello, we’re from MI5 and we’re after your arses”, I don’t think we could have done a better job of announcing our presence.’
‘Double bluff?’ said Statham with a half-hearted shrug.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well if you think about it from the bad guys’ point of view, they probably wouldn’t take any notice. They’d be expecting the Secret Service or whoever to be a bit more… secret.’
Patterson stared at him and wondered how it was possible that he had been assigned three of the most incompetent agents in the Service to carry out an operation which was supposedly a matter of national importance. – Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the whole thing was about setting him up to fail.
He hadn’t exactly been popular with MI5’s top brass ever since he’d been involved in an investigation into a suspected terrorist plot to assassinate Prince Charles some years back. Despite being a loyal patriot, Patterson had never been a big fan of certain members of the Royal Family and had happened to remark to a colleague that Prince Charles was a gormless tree-hugger with delusions of ordinariness and that his dad was a freeloading waste of space with a talent for insulting people. Unfortunately, the comment was overheard by one of the Prince’s staff, who put in an official complaint questioning whether “an anti-monarchist and probable communist sympathiser” was the right sort of person to be working for the British security services.
Patterson’s superiors were clearly of a similar opinion, and it was only because of the impressive inroads he’d made in a separate ongoing investigation that he wasn’t sacked on the spot. But that investigation had long since been concluded, and every assignment he’d been given from that point on could have been filed under “Largely Pointless and Potentially Dangerous” or occasionally “Successful Outcome Unlikely”. Perhaps his bosses had some knowledge that this current operation came into the second category – if not both – and failure would give them the perfect excuse to get rid of him once and for all.
‘Sod that for a game of soldiers,’ he said aloud and registered Statham’s frown of bewilderment. He had no intention of explaining what he meant, so he pre-empted any enquiry by turning his back and strode towards the entrance to the flats.
‘Stop dawdling, Colin,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Trevor’s eyes still smarted from the pepper spray, but at least his vision had returned to something like normal and he no longer had to rely on Sandra to lead him around by the hand. The hacking cough had also subsided to the occasional need to clear his throat, and when he spoke, the words were accompanied by an asthmatic wheezing sound from deep inside his chest.
‘So what’s with… the underpants?’ he rasped as he and Sandra stood gazing down at the dead man in the armchair and the pair of bright red briefs that lay in his lap.
Sandra picked them up daintily between her forefinger and thumb.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ she said, holding them up to the light to examine them more closely. ‘Maybe some sort of pervy thing. Doesn’t seem to be any sign of semen, though, as far as I can tell.’
‘Oh please,’ said Trevor, his features contorted with repulsion.
Sandra grinned at him. ‘What’s the matter? Not going squeamish on me, are you?’
With that, she flicked her wrist and let go of the underpants, launching them directly at Trevor’s face. He instinctively threw up his arms to defend himself, but his reactions were too slow, and the briefs landed on his shoulder. He brushed them off with the back of his hand as if he were being attacked by a swarm of hornets.
‘Do you not think we could be… serious here for a moment?’ he said, stifling a coughing fit. ‘I mean, we do happen to be in an empty flat with a dead bloke strapped to a chair and God-knows-who about to walk through the door at any second.’