Death on the Pont Noir - By Adrian Magson Page 0,55

had. I can’t climb that.’

‘You should have thought of that, shouldn’t you? So tell me, who is it likely to be, out there?’

Bellin swallowed and ducked his head. ‘Them. The ones who arranged the car thing. They’ve come to settle up.’

‘They must have a name?’

Another noise, and Rocco turned towards the front. As he did so, a small shape soared high into the air. It seemed to hang for a moment against the dark grey sky, then fell and bounced with a series of tinny clatters as it penetrated the scrap piles.

Someone had thrown a hubcap.

Another one flew into the air, this one on a lower trajectory. It hit the jib of a crane and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Then another and another, each one aimed at different corners of the yard.

Whoever was throwing them, Rocco decided coolly, had a good arm.

A smaller shape came looping towards them. It tumbled through the air and landed with a crash on a door panel and bounced away, shedding splintered glass like broken fragments of silver.

Scare tactics, Rocco recognised. He glanced at Bellin, who was now a quivering wreck, eyes wide open and waiting for the next one. The tactics were working.

‘Names,’ said Rocco. ‘Quickly.’

‘I can’t.’ Bellin was trembling. A patch of damp had appeared on the front of his trousers and was spreading fast down his legs, but he seemed not to have noticed. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘We have to get out of here.’ Rocco figured Bellin must have a way of slipping away if an angry ‘customer’ came calling. To men like Bellin, in his line of business, a back door was as instinctive as breathing. ‘Where’s your escape route?’

‘Blocked.’ Bellin waved a hand towards the left-hand end of the yard. ‘They left a warning. The dog. Gutted it and left it for me to find.’

‘Oscar?’

A quick nod. ‘Yes.’

Rocco breathed out. Now he tells me, he thought savagely. And whoever was able to handle a big guard dog had to know what they were doing. Somehow he couldn’t picture Bellin with a poodle.

With perfect and grisly timing, another object came soaring over the nearest pile of junk. It bounced, this time with a dull thud, off the car wing Rocco had been sitting on moments earlier. Ricocheting off a door panel, it rolled to stop at Bellin’s feet.

It was a dog’s head. Not a poodle’s, either. Oscar had been a big, ugly Rottweiler.

It was too much for Bellin. The fat man turned with a yelp and ran, surprisingly fast on his feet, out of the protective haven they were in, careering off a car body and nearly falling, but managing to stay upright, his trouser legs flapping around his ankles like flags.

‘Wait!’ Rocco hissed. But it was too late. Bellin was gone.

Rocco chased after him. It was a lunatic thing to do, he decided, but there was no other way to handle it. At least he might be able to catch whoever was out there. If not, they were both dead.

He found himself in another gap between two rows of scrap. There was plenty of cover if he was quick enough, but that counted just as much for the other man as well. He hunkered down for a moment, breathing easily and listening for sounds of Bellin’s progress. Trying to tune in to the atmosphere. He couldn’t hear anything, so he stood up and continued, carefully stepping away from shapes of metal rubbish lying in his path.

As he came level with a row between piles of family saloons heaped one on the other, he saw Bellin disappearing into a virtual tunnel to one side, his fat body burrowing like a rat. He followed him in and saw a flash of movement up ahead. The idiot was digging himself deeper into the metal mountain, no doubt hoping the man or men after him would give up. Or that Rocco would act as a handy decoy.

The thought was accompanied by a car window dissolving right next to him. Rocco dived into the open body of a truck cab, bouncing off the bench seat and disturbing a mound of broken windscreen glass and scraps of metal. He waited, lying on his back, the gun pointing at the source of the shot.

Then he realised: there had been no sound. The gunman was using a silenced weapon.

He slid on through the cab and out the other side, dropping to the ground and waiting.

Whoever was out there, he thought, was being extra careful not