couple of ex-SAS grunts. Plus you get to impress your friends in Grozny. Oh,” he said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “don’t forget to film it, Dmitry.”
Shelley knew they were a hair’s breadth from it ending. Bennett was making a lot of sense. Opposite he could see that Lucy was still out for the count, though perhaps beginning to regain consciousness.
And then it came to him. The truth. The truth that had been staring him in the face all the time. “That’s what you told Dmitry, is it?” he said to Bennett.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You told him that you were taking over as inside man, is that it? That you could add the finesse, give him everything Johnson was promising and more, right?”
Perhaps Bennett suspected where Shelley was going with this. “Shut up, Shelley,” he ordered. But a note of disquiet in his voice was enough to alert the Chechen boss.
“Let him speak,” said Dmitry.
“Because you know what I think, Bennett?” continued Shelley.
“I’m not interested in what you think,” snapped Bennett. “Sergei, we really need to get on with this.”
“I think that you were always the inside man,” said Shelley. “Just that you offered Johnson up as a patsy to grease the wheels and give everyone a fall guy. But you were always there.”
“You’re reaching now, my friend. Straws, meet drowning man.”
“Drake going crazy at the cam house—was that part of the plan?”
“I had no idea he was going to do that.”
“Didn’t hurt the cause, though, did it? Tell me, when did the idea first come to you? When you were investigating Emma’s death? You made the connection with the Chechen Mafia way before the cops, right? You knew there was gold in those hills.”
“Time to stop talking,” said Bennett.
“No,” ordered Dmitry.
“You just needed an ally. Dmitry, did Bennett come to you, or did he go through Sergei? Think back now . . .”
“He came through Sergei,” said Dmitry slowly. His gaze went to his second in command.
“And Sergei, you saw your chance, did you?” said Shelley. “What, to avenge your brother Ivan? To do what he had failed to do and stage a takeover? Karen was on the right lines back there, wasn’t she? Just that you weren’t in the market for a partner.”
“Dmitry, let’s finish this,” called Sergei from across the way. He was struggling with Lucy, a deadweight.
“You see, Dmitry, all that housekeeping back in Millharbour? There’s a bit more to come. And you’re it.”
“Sergei?” said Dmitry. And while the hint of suspicion in his voice encouraged Shelley, it terrified Sergei.
“No, Dmitry,” he said, sounding hurt and slightly panicked at the same time, “this is bullshit. We interrogated Johnson, remember? He said nothing about working with others.”
“Exactly. Don’t listen to him, Dmitry,” chimed in Bennett. “He’s just trying to sow the seeds.”
But Bennett hadn’t witnessed the near coup at Millharbour. Bennett hadn’t heard that note of suspicion in Dmitry’s voice. He didn’t know those seeds had already been sown.
What’s more, Shelley was speaking the truth.
Now he directed himself to Dmitry. “This interrogation of Johnson. Did you ask him about his collaborators when you were torturing him?”
“No, I do not recall that we did,” replied Dmitry slowly, thoughtfully.
“That means nothing,” yelped Sergei indignantly. He was struggling to hold Lucy now. Shelley saw her eyes flicker.
“Come on, this is all smoke and mirrors, you must see what he’s doing, for fuck’s sake,” urged Bennett. “Let’s finish this.”
“No,” commanded Dmitry.
“That’s because they wanted you to think he was working alone,” pressed Shelley, “so that Bennett could swoop in with the kidnap idea. That’s how it happened, am I right? Through Sergei again, yes?”
Dmitry nodded.
“Dmitry, this is lies,” pleaded Sergei. The most beautiful sight in the world was the sweat that glistened on his forehead.
“Come on, Dmitry, you can’t seriously believe Bennett just breezed in after Johnson. What did you think was happening? Musical conspirators? You said yourself that Johnson’s plan was short-sighted. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but do you really think he was so stupid that he’d come to you with some half-arsed plan to bag an SAS guy? He was a pathfinder put up to it by Bennett. He did the same thing to his other man, Gurney. They were nothing more than a pair of firewalls thrown up to protect himself and avoid suspicion. Worked a bloody treat as well.”
“This is fiction,” called Bennett, but he sounded unnerved.
“Easy for you to be the hero and go to Johnson when you knew the