Revenge (David Shelley #1) - James Patterson Page 0,53

taken with a long-range lens or were screen grabs from CCTV footage, but there was something about this particular woman . . .

“Her name is Karen,” said Claridge. The pictures showed her getting in and out of a BMW. Going about her business, a handbag in the crook of her arm. “As far as we know she is married to Dmitry Kraviz.”

“Another Russian?” asked Shelley.

“No,” said Claridge slowly, aware of Shelley’s interest, “she’s British.”

“Shelley?” asked Lucy. “Something you need to share with the group?”

“Just that she seems familiar,” said Shelley.

“Could you have been briefed about her on a previous operation?” asked Claridge.

“Possibly,” said Shelley. “Wait, can you loop the pictures? Can I just see them again?”

Claridge did as he was asked, the pictures going round and round, a carousel.

“I know her,” said Shelley. He was racking his brains.

And then it hit him. “Christ,” he said. “I think I know who she is.”

CHAPTER 44

SUSIE DRAKE HAD often wondered what it would be like to be a prisoner. Now she knew.

Driving away from the spa, a state of shock had descended over the Range Rover’s occupants. One of the men had been hit and was bleeding, his breathing shallow. The car interior reeked of sweat and blood and what she took to be either gunpowder or cordite, and everywhere she looked was bullet damage.

As for her kidnappers, their sullen attitude was testament to the fact that the operation hadn’t been a total success. On the other hand, she was their prisoner, so nor had it been a failure. All that dissonance they handled in the time-honored manner of staying silent and sulking—apart from the injured man, who sat by her side with his eyes half closed, breathing hard through his nose, grunting occasionally and gripping his shoulder.

Outside, through smoked glass, the streets of London sped by. Inside was sealed off, silent and hermetic. She gathered herself, needing to speak, praying her voice wouldn’t shake. She didn’t want them to know she was afraid.

“It is you, then?” she said.

The woman in the front had been massaging her jaw, having flipped down the vanity mirror to inspect the damage done by Lucy Shelley, but when Susie spoke she glanced at the driver and then in her mirror at the two heavies on either side of Susie. The injured guy lay slumped against the door, pale but conserving his energy; the other one returned her gaze impassively, perhaps knowing better than to show undue interest. There was no doubt in Susie’s mind who the boss was.

The woman turned in her seat. The side of her face was red and swollen where Lucy had hit her. “Who are you talking to?” she said, in what Susie realized was her real voice, brassy and peevish-sounding, like a permanently indignant woman in a soap opera. Quite different from the measured, polite tones she’d been affecting in the spa.

“I’m talking to you,” said Susie.

“Well, address me then,” the woman hit back.

“I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Karen,” said the woman, twisting around in her seat to face front once more, turning her attention to her phone, adding over her shoulder, “And if you want to talk to me, you say, ‘Excuse me, Karen.’”

Silence descended. Susie let the build-up of tension subside before she spoke again. “Excuse me, Karen?” she began.

A pause.

“Yes,” said Karen.

“Is it you?”

“Don’t know what you’re on about. Next question.”

Susie was about to say, You know exactly what I’m talking about, but bit her tongue, saying instead, “All right, then. Are you going to kill me?”

Karen sighed. “If we were going to kill you we would have done it just now, back there. Fuck’s sake. Is that it? Is that all you want to know?”

“Then what are you going to do with me?”

Karen gave a short snorting laugh, like a horse sneezing. “Your husband’s one of the richest men in the country, what the bloody hell do you think we’re going to do with you?” She turned to regard Susie. “He’d better love you. Does he love you? Would you say you’ve got a strong marriage, you and the microchip man?”

There was an edge of bitterness to Karen’s voice that made Susie wonder if she had issues of her own in that department. Still, this wasn’t the time or place for a girlish heart-to-heart. Instead Susie simply said, “We do.”

Karen faced front again. “Good. In that case, he’ll want to pay up, and you get to go home alive and . . . well, maybe not with every single one of your fingers and toes,