The Invisible Assassin(56)

She picked up the phone and was about to dial, when there was a knocking at her door.

‘It’s them!’ Jake said, horrified.

‘Police!’ called a voice through the door. ‘Open up, please!’

Mrs O’Brien looked at Jake, a bewildered expression on her face.

‘They say they’re police,’ she said.

‘They’re lying,’ said Jake urgently. ‘Ask to see their identification.’

‘I always do,’ said Mrs O’Brien. She put the phone down and called out, ‘All right! I’m coming!’

‘No!’ called Jake, but Mrs O’Brien had already disappeared into the small hallway of her flat. Frantically, Jake looked around. He was trapped!

He heard the door open and then Mrs O’Brien say, ‘Let me see your identification.’

Then a male voice said, ‘Certainly.’

Of course they’d have police ID cards, thought Jake. They’d have everything they needed.

‘Do you know a Mr Jake Wells, your neighbour?’ asked the voice.

‘Why?’ asked Mrs O’Brien.

‘We have reason to believe he may be hiding in one of the other flats in this block . . .’

She’s going to let them in! realised Jake with a shock. Of course she is. She thinks they’re police. And they’ll take me away and find the book, and kill me.

And then he remembered the fire escape which served the whole block, with escape doors from the flats at the back. Mrs O’Brien’s flat was at the back.

As Jake heard Mrs O’Brien saying, ‘He’s here all right. I knew something was up,’ and the sound of the security chain being unfixed, he was already running into the kitchen. Yes, there was the fire-exit door. He rushed to it, pushed it, and almost fell out on to the fire escape. And then he was running, clattering down the metal steps.

He heard a shout behind him, a man calling, ‘Stop him!’ Then the sounds of running feet. A man appeared at the bottom of the fire escape, the same man who’d been keeping watch. The man reached into his jacket and started to pull something out, but he never made it. Jake jumped, kicking out with his foot as he did so, and caught the man full in the face. The man stumbled, and fell back, clutching his face. Jake didn’t wait to see what the man had been pulling from his jacket: a knife or a gun or some other sort of weapon.

Jake ran. His lungs were full to bursting as he reached the pavement and his legs seemed as if they were going to fail him and he would fall, but he could hear the boots close behind him and a voice shout, ‘Get the car!’

A car! He’d never be able to outrun a car!

Only one set of running boots was behind him now; the other had gone to get the car. Then Jake saw a bike, a kid’s mountain bike, leaning against a wall. He grabbed it and carried on running with it, jumped on it and started pedalling, faster and faster, turning rapidly left into one of the side walkways that ran through to the next street. It went between two blocks of flats and had bollards across it to stop cars getting through.

He cycled faster, picking up speed, and he could hear the running boots behind him recede. He did another sharp turn, and another, into a maze of narrow alleyways that he knew no car could get down, and then he cycled as fast as he could until he reached a main road, busy with pedestrians and traffic. He abandoned the bike, and disappeared into a shopping mall, pushing his way through a crowd of shoppers, until he was gone from sight of the main street.

He’d done it! He’d got away! But now what? Who were those men? And where could he go now?





Chapter 25




He was barely inside the shopping mall when his mobile rang. The voice on the phone was a man’s, very coldly businesslike.

‘You have the book. We have Ms Graham. Deliver the book to us, or Ms Graham will die.’

Jake felt sick. They had Lauren.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ demanded the voice.

‘How do I know you’ve got her?’ asked Jake.

‘Wait.’

There was a pause, then Lauren’s voice was heard saying. ‘Jake . . .’ The phone was snatched away from her; but not before Jake had heard her fear and desperation in that one word.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘An exchange. When and where?’

‘We will contact you and give you the location,’ said the voice. ‘But if you make contact with the authorities or anyone else, and bring them with you, she will die.’

‘No authorities,’ promised Jake.

‘And keep your lawyers out of this,’ added the voice. ‘If you contact them, she will die.’

‘No lawyers,’ Jake assured the man.

‘Good,’ said the voice. ‘We understand one another. We will phone you and tell you the location for the exchange.’