The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [162]
Dave takes him out through a side gate on to waste ground between the motorway and a set of newer factories. Following the fence, Ruiz turns the corner and crosses a forecourt before reaching the Mercedes. Sliding behind the wheel, he borrows Luca’s mobile.
“Campbell?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Ruiz. I’ve got a lead on Holly Knight—an address in Luton. Colin Hackett had it programmed into his satnav when he was following Richard North.”
Campbell seems preoccupied. Ruiz wants him to listen. “Hackett and North were both killed by the same caliber pistol. They both went to Luton and both of them finished up dead.”
“Jesus, Ruiz, I told you to stay out of this.”
“I might need some local backup.”
“I can’t spare anyone. We’re pulling warm bodies into London.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Counter terrorism just raised the threat level to critical. An emergency call: a woman called 999 and said something about an attack on London tonight. Pakistani accent. She hung up before we could get details.”
“A verified threat?”
“We’re tracing the call.”
Campbell has a phone ringing in the background. “Go home, Vincent, and stop acting like some third-rate vigilante. We’ll follow your lead tomorrow.”
Ruiz hangs up and looks at the sky, the trees bending in the wind. A storm coming.
35
LUTON
The rain starts falling just north of Watford, a few spits at first, mixing with dust on the windscreen and bleeding down the wipers. Then the clouds break and sheets of rain are swept across the motorway as if the air has turned to water. Ruiz drives with both hands on the wheel; his head canted forward, wanting the traffic to part. He stays in the overtaking lane, flashing his lights at any slow vehicles.
Luca is next to him, still trying to fathom how quickly the euphoria of yesterday has turned to this. Ruiz didn’t ask him to come, but some decisions have all the momentum and certainty of gravity. Nicola had once accused him of sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to get involved, watching and reporting while sharing none of the pain. Maybe she was right. Maybe this is his moment.
“Do you believe in God?” asks Ruiz.
The question is so unexpected that all Luca does is stare at him. “I have a Catholic father and a Muslim mother. I call myself confused.”
Ruiz drums his fingers on the wheel and they drive another mile in silence.
“But it’s the same God, right? Muslim. Christian. Jewish.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been in two churches in the past week. I couldn’t remember a single prayer.”
“They say it’s just a conversation with God.”
“Guess I’m not much of a talker.”
Luca doesn’t doubt the statement.
Ruiz can hear the tone of his voice thickening. “I’ve never asked for much or felt entitled. Low expectations, less to be disappointed about. Some people talk about fate or karma or say that luck evens out, a little here or a little there, floating around and falling randomly on people like it’s a raincloud. Holly Knight has been swimming in shit her entire life. She lost a brother, both her parents and a boyfriend—violently, pointlessly. When is Lady Luck going to smile on her?”
“Maybe today,” says Luca.
Ruiz nods. “Yeah, maybe today.”
It’s still pouring when they arrive in Luton, the satnav directing them along Airport Way into Windmill Road, taking the Merc through a series of roundabouts that are threaded together like beads on a string.
“In two hundred yards you will have reached your destination.”
Ruiz parks across the street from an abandoned motel in a neighborhood of warehouses, factories, garages and workshops. The two-storey, red-tiled motel is a leftover from the sixties, built around an asphalt forecourt that glitters with shattered glass. Most of the windows are barred