On the Hunt Read online

  “Thanks, mate. Let me know if anything changes on either side. Over.”

  Danny took another look at the mess he’d made of Marian’s kitchen and sighed. Couldn’t do anything to fix it now. As best he could, Danny straightened his jacket and polished the toes of his boots on the backs of his trouser legs. No point looking like too much of a tramp. Marian deserved better.

  He shifted the stool and tapped on the hidden panel. It opened silently.

  “Mrs Prentiss? Marian, it’s Danny. You can come up now.”

  Shuffling and scraping filtered up through the darkness. A moment later, his phone light snapped on, peeling away the blackness. Marian appeared around the corner, her pale and frightened face looked up, searching for him.

  “A-Are you okay?”

  He smiled and beckoned her up the stairs. “I’m okay, but your kitchen’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Close your eyes and I’ll take you through to the salon. No need to upset yourself.”

  Marian rushed up the steps, threw herself into his arms, and buried the less injured side of her face into his chest.

  “Oh my God,” she said, her words muffled by his jacket, “the gunshots. I was so scared.”

  Danny patted her back gently before easing her away.

  Tears flowed down her swollen cheeks. He tried to block her view and escort her from the room, but she leaned to one side and stared past him. Marian took in the shattered pane of glass, the stable door, and the bodies leaking various fluids onto her beautifully tiled floor. She gagged. A hand flew up to her mouth. She raced to the sink and vomited, violently. Twice.

  “Poor lady,” Corky mumbled in another rare moment of empathy. “Er … you wanted Corky to let you know if anything changed?”

  Marian ran the cold tap and drank water from her cupped hands, careful not to bump her injuries.

  “What’s happening?” Danny asked.

  “Blondie’s finished his call. He’s heading to the front door. Must be wondering why his minions ain’t opened up yet.”

  Danny turned, said, “Thanks, Corky,” and headed for the entrance hall.

  “Marian, stay here,” he called over his shoulder. “Please don’t touch anything.”

  He left her at the sink. No reason for her to see what happened next.

  Chapter Six

  Wednesday 3rd May – Danny Pinkerton

  Amber Valley, Derbyshire, UK

  Danny reached the window nearest the front doors. With his nose pressed against the wall, he eased the curtain aside no more than a crack and watched Blondie pace the chessboard tiles of the portico. Corky’s description, “tiny little blond bugger”, fitted the man to perfection.

  Skinny bordering on emaciated, Blondie wouldn’t have topped out at more than one-sixty-five centimetres—five feet five inches in old money. Immaculately groomed, his fair hair had been styled by an expert—trimmed short at the back and sides, and tall on top to add a little height. His dark suit screamed “gangster-chic” and fitted him to perfection. Armani? Gucci? Paul Smith? Danny had no idea. The most he’d ever paid for a suit probably wouldn’t have covered the cost of Blondie’s silk shirt and tie. The man’s shoes—black and polished to a mirror shine—sported five centimetre heels. Danny revised his estimation of the man’s height down by the corresponding amount, and took off a little more for the fluffed up hair.

  Blondie reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sleek grey mobile. He hit a button and raised the mobile to his ear. He turned his back to Danny and carried on pacing from where he’d left off.

  Moments later, the dull rumble of a vibrating mobile sounded in the kitchen. Marian yelped. A glass fell into the sink. Smashed. Footsteps clattered on tiles. She stumbled through the doorway and into the hall.

  Danny held a finger to his lips and waved her back into the kitchen. Chin trembling, eyes watering, Marian shook her head. Her hand shot out to the side and found the wall. She shuffled sideways and slid down the wall and onto her haunches. Knees bent to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them, her eyes never left Danny.

  He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to stay in the abattoir he’d made of her kitchen. Even now, the flies would have sniffed out all the nice warm and wet places to lay their eggs. Already, the smell of blood, evacuated bowels, and emptied bladders would have permeated the neighbourhood.

  The mobile’s rumble stopped. Danny turned back to the window, listening for the other dead man’s phone to ring. Blondie growled. Muttered something under his breath and replaced the phone in its pocket. He spun around, marched to the front doors, and started hammering. The wrought iron ring in the lion’s mouth did a sterling job, and the metallic booms thundered through the house. Although they tried their damnedest, the knocks weren’t, in fact, able to raise the dead.

  Blondie leaned closer to the woodwork. “Bence, Milán, hol a faszban vagy?”

  “Corky? Translate, please. Over.”

  “Blondie’s asking where his buddies have gone,” Corky answered through a chuckle. “Only he didn’t use them exact words.”

  Blondie stepped away from the door, looked left and right, and yelled again. “Válaszolj neked, kibaszott morók!”

  He undid the button of his lovely jacket, reached around to the small of his back, and pulled out a Sig P226—an exact match for the one Danny liberated from Man Two. In Blondie’s right fist it looked more like a Desert Eagle carrying .44 Magnum shells than a slim-built 9mm. Either way, they could both be just as deadly.

  “More of the same, but now he’s calling them morons as well,” Corky said, still chuckling. “Nasty little man ain’t a happy bunny.”

  Danny glanced at Marian, held up a hand to keep her in place, and stepped around to the front door. He raised his Beretta. Blondie may be small and might have looked comical in his expensive suit and with his fancy haircut, but he’d ordered Marian’s death and deserved no compassion.

  And being short didn’t mean he shouldn’t be taken seriously. The captain wasn’t exactly a giant and Danny had seen him in action plenty of times. Ryan Kaine was both fearless and fearsome. A man to have at your side in battle.

  Blondie hammered on the door again, shouting some more.

  Danny worked the bolts top and bottom. They each slid back against their mountings, making a satisfying clunk.

  The hammering stopped.

  “A kibaszott időről, idióták,” Blondie shouted, sounding slightly further away.

  Danny didn’t need a translation to understand the relief mixed with frustration and anger in the words. He turned the key in the lock, twisted the handle, and stepped back.

  He raised his cocked Beretta to Blondie’s chest level—somewhere around Danny’s midriff—curled his finger around the trigger, took up the slack, waited.

  Still shouting, ranting, Blondie burst through the door, his weapon lowered, unprepared. With one foot over the threshold, half inside the house, he stopped mid-rant and stared at Danny, eyes wide, puzzled. His gun hand twitched.

  Danny shook his head and smiled. He pushed out the Beretta, trigger finger ready. It only needed a couple of grams more pressure and …

  “Drop the gun.”

  He spoke quietly, calmly.

  “Who the fuck—?”

  Blondie’s Sig started to rise.

  Danny changed his aim, squeezed the trigger. The Beretta bucked in his hand.

  Blondie’s right elbow exploded, blood spurted. His Sig popped and the bullet buried itself into the tiles, mere centimetres from his right foot. Razor sharp pieces of ceramic flew up around Blondie’s right foot, cutting, slicing. Blood flowed from both elbow and ankle.

  The short man squealed, spun, staggered backwards through the doorway. The Sig fell from his lifeless hand, skittered across the chessboard into the shadow thrown by the canopy. It rattled to a stop at the foot of a planter, pointing back at the squealing, rolling Hungarian. His fancy suit no longer held its sharp creases, and the blond hair no longer looked so beau
tifully coiffed.

  Blondie stared in horror at the blood flowing from his shattered elbow, apparently unaware of the claret oozing from the torn ankle. His good hand shot across, clamped over the pumping wound, trying to stem the flow. He turned to Danny, eyes pleading.

  “Segíts kérlek! … Help me, please!” he called. His legs gave way and he slumped to the tiles.

  Blondie spoke decent English.

  Good.

  It would make things easier.

  “Please!” Blondie shrieked.

  The bleeding had slowed. Blondie’s hand helped to reduce the blood loss. One arm shattered, the other busy, the little man was no longer a threat. Without help to stem the arterial flow, he’d survive another five minutes, maybe ten. There was no need to rush.

  Scuffling to Danny’s left. Movement. He spun, levelled the Beretta.

  Marian. She gasped, raised a hand to her mouth.

  Danny lowered his gun, smiled. “Stay there, Marian. Things are cool.”

  He faced Blondie again.

  Panting hard, sweat shone on a face that had lost even more colour. His lips peeled back to expose gritted teeth.

  “Help me, te rohadék. I’m … dying.”

  Corky translated another cuss.

  Danny tutted, wagged a finger, and strode out into the morning light. The temperature had risen quite a bit since he’d last been outside. Some might even consider the day balmy. He breathed deeply, enjoying the fragrance wafting across from the flower garden.

  So good to be alive.

  Danny stood over the writhing Blondie, but kept well outside arm’s reach. He’d seen plenty of apparently dying men using their final breaths to take someone with them to hell. Imminent death gave some men superhuman strength and Danny wasn’t about to give the little killer any sort of chance.

  “Calling me a bastard isn’t likely to elicit my sympathy or encourage me to help.”

  The dying man blinked rapidly. For a moment, he stopped squirming. “Y-You … you understand Hungarian?”

  Danny ignored the question and scratched at the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave.

  “So, what am I going to do with you?” He raised the Beretta, aiming at the man’s right eye.

  Blondie squealed, tried to scramble away. The heels of his expensive shoes scraped the black and white tiles. Still gripping the wound, he propped himself up on his good elbow and wriggled, squirmed, using the elbow as a crutch to force himself away. Danny allowed him to reach the wall, before squeezing the trigger. The bullet shattered the planter next to Blondie’s head, missing him by a few centimetres.

  “In case you’re wondering, that was shot number six,” Danny said speaking quietly. “There are still thirteen left.”

  Blondie swallowed, recovered some poise.

  “Bastard. Do you know who I am?”

  “Not yet. Give me a moment. Corky?”

  “This is interesting. Facial recognition just matched Blondie to another Interpol Red Notice. Danny, you are looking at a geezer what goes by the name, Lajos Pataki. The little guy is Vadik’s half-brother. Way to keep things in the family, yeah? Lajos is wanted on money-laundering charges, but he ain’t had his day in court yet. Want old Corky to dig a little deeper into the Pataki family?”

  “Only if you can spare the time, mate. Over.”

  Another chuckle. “Corky’s got plenty of time for his friends, Danny-boy.”

  “Speaking of friends, things are getting a little hairy here, Corky. Would you mind briefing the captain? Think I might need some backup. Over.”

  “Yeah. Corky did that the moment facial recognition identified Csaba Nemeth.”

  “What did he say? Over.”

  “You can ask me yourself, Alpha One. Over.”

  The captain’s voice over the comms system made Danny smile. He pulled in a deep breath and allowed his shoulders to fall. The captain had spoken over wind noise and the steady rumble of a motorbike’s engine—Danny’s Triumph Tiger. As far as they knew, the captain’s own bike, a Honda Africa Twin, was languishing in a police car impound somewhere in Nottingham.

  “Alpha One?” Danny asked. “When was I ever Alpha One? Over.”

  “This is your operation, Sergeant. You get the top designation. I’m Alpha Two, for now. Over.”

  Danny allowed his smile to grow.

  “Good to hear your voice, Alpha Two. Where are you? Over.”

  “Close. Alpha Two, out.”

  The comms unit clicked, but the throaty rumble of the Triumph’s engine remained. The rumble grew louder, coming from the direction of Derby. Danny followed the noise as it passed along the outside of the garden wall and slowed to approach the entrance to make the turn.

  Moments later, the captain rode through the open gates and hammered along the driveway. Rear wheel sliding, gravel-spraying, he pulled the Triumph to a stop within centimetres of the portico steps. He propped the bike on its side stand and removed his gloves to unfasten his helmet’s chinstrap. A moment later, he yanked off the skid lid, stuffed the gloves inside, and rested it on his lap. Dressed head-to-toe in black leathers, he took in the scene swiftly, paying particular attention to the man bleeding all over the chessboard tiles.

  Fixing his brown eyes on Danny, he dipped his head.

  “Morning, Sergeant.”

  Danny released his pent up breath.

  “Morning, sir. Thanks for coming.”

  No doubt about it, Ryan Kaine knew how to make an entrance.

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday 3rd May – Morning

  Amber Valley, Derbyshire, UK

  Kaine tore off the snug-fitting bike helmet and rested it in his lap. Beneath him, the Triumph’s crinkling-hot engine smouldered, cooling quickly after the breakneck cross-country journey.

  Corky’s terse text message, “Danny’s in trouble,” together with the address and GPS coordinates to Prentiss House, had set Kaine off on his mad dash without a moment’s pause for anything but a quick change of clothes.

  If Danny needed Kaine’s help, breaking the speed limit the whole way from Mike’s place to Amber Valley seemed worth the risk.

  He left Lara and Melanie Archer at the farm in the capable and protective hands of Mike and Connor Blake. After all they’d faced over the years, Kaine could afford to spare Danny a few hours of close support.

  He’d earwigged Corky and Danny’s comms traffic the whole way, but kept quiet for fear of breaking Danny’s concentration. Although Danny was more than capable of handling himself, if Corky thought him in trouble, that was good enough for Kaine.

  He took in the scene in a flash.

  Danny, a smoking, short-barrelled Beretta in hand, stood over Lajos Pataki, a man so pale he tilted the scale towards albinism.

  Pataki sat, propped against the mansion’s front wall, his left hand clamped over a shattered elbow. Blood oozed from the wound, squeezing between the man’s fingers. Without treatment, he wouldn’t last long. Even with treatment, his chances of keeping the arm looked slim to non-existent. Still, if Danny Pinkerton had shot Lajos Pataki, the man deserved it. No doubt about that.

  “Morning, Sergeant.”

  “Morning, sir. Thanks for coming.”

  “Not a problem. Having fun?” he said, aiming for levity when none existed.

  “Not really, sir. This arsehole”—he waived the Beretta at Lajos Pataki—“just ordered a couple of thugs to kill an innocent woman and one of his own men. I’m not overly impressed. How much did Corky tell you?”

  Kaine hung the skid lid on the handlebar by its strap, dismounted the Tiger, and marched towards the entrance.

  He tapped the earpiece. “Only that you might have stuck your finger into an electric socket. Trouble with the Magyar Mafia, I understand.”

  “Seems like it, sir,” Danny said. He de-cocked the Beretta and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “I was going to let this fool die, but figured he might come in handy. Assuming he survives.”

  Pataki muttered something
under his breath, but Kaine couldn’t make it out. The pale-skinned man wasn’t showing the same commitment or vitriol he did before being shot. Strange how often that happened.

  “Sergeant,” he said, squatting in front of the bleeding man, who seemed to be fading faster by the minute, “would you mind if I borrowed your belt, please? This unfortunate man seems to require a modicum of assistance.”

  While Kaine removed the injured man’s jacket—without being too careful about it—Danny unfastened his belt, pulled it through the loops on his chinos, and handed it across.

  “By the way, sir,” he said, dropping to his haunches and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Who are you today?”

  Pataki’s eyelids drooped. He was in no condition to hear the conversation or care even if he did.

  “Bill Griffin,” Kaine answered, equally quietly.

  Danny nodded. “Ah yes, I’ve got you.”

  Kaine had used the ID before and Danny knew the legend well enough to wing it if necessary.

  Danny stood and re-entered the house, leaving Kaine to apply the tourniquet. He didn’t bother being overly gentle about it. Pataki’s eyes snapped open, and the poor man managed to summon up the energy to start screaming. Weak screams, though. Nothing powerful enough to startle the local wildlife.

  “Mrs Prentiss,” Danny called over Pataki’s renewed raving, “Marian, you can come out now. I’d like you to meet a … friend of mine.”

  A woman in her late twenties or early thirties emerged from inside the house. She leaned against the closed door, clutching its handle for support. Her gaze flicked between Pataki and Kaine, but finally came to rest on Danny. Judging by the colour of her bruises, she’d suffered a serious beating at some point in the previous two or three days. She had to be the woman Danny spotted when leaving the scene after they’d saved Melanie Archer.

  Inside, Kaine smiled. Like him, Danny had a soft spot for people in danger. In the young man, Kaine had always recognised a kindred spirit.

  “Wh-Who are you people?” Marian Prentiss asked, her voice cracking.

  Bewildered and clearly under stress, she kept her focus on Danny, and spoke only to him.