The Second Murderer by Denise Mina

Author:Denise Mina [Mina, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2023-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

21.

The clerk in the lobby was flattened to the mirrored wall looking left and right, gasping and cursing.

I ran up the stairs and turned to the corridor on my left. Thirty feet down, at the corner, an open door was spilling light into the dark corridor.

I ran towards it.

He was on his back, his stockinged feet toward the open door. He’d been shot twice with a small-calibre pistol, once through the heart, once through the jaw. It made holes, sprayed blood up the wall and the window, but caused little damage otherwise. He was just a man on his back. A man with holes in him.

A dead man.

Chrissie Montgomery was behind him, standing between the bed and the window. The blood dripped down the drapes behind her. She was frozen there, the dead man lying between her and the door out, her shaking hands hung limp by her side. Her eyes were open wide, as if she was trying to see more, see something else, something that would make this not real. Her breathing was shallow and jagged.

I looked down.

The man was Mussolini-jawed, in a silk smoking jacket over a dress shirt and pants. This was his room. Two glasses were set out on a small table next to a bottle of clear schnapps but they were clean and unused. He’d been expecting company. A suitcase sat on the floor with an empty string looped around the handle where the name tag should be.

On the dresser behind Chrissie an expensive wristwatch lay on its back, the leather strap still holding the shape of the wrist, like a two-legged spider, crouching.

‘He’s… shot.’ She pointed at the body. ‘Is he moving?’

She raised a hand at his chest. Blood was pumping lazily from his injured chest, darkening his shirt. He wasn’t dead yet but the widening stain spreading under his body meant he would be any moment now.

I looked at his face. The eyes were open in surprise. I could see under his top lip two jagged canines on either side, undescended, little white nubs above the row of perfectly straight teeth. Pavel Viscom.

‘Come here.’ My voice set off a tremble through her body. She tried to speak but nothing came out. ‘Come with me.’

She looked at me for the first time and blinked, confused, ‘Mr Allan? From Collector Monthly ?’

‘Chrissie, I’ve been sent to look after you. Come with me.’

Dazed, she shook her head.

I reached over the bed, wrapped my hands around her skinny waist, dragged her across to me and stood her on her feet, then picked up her purse and hat from a chair.

From the distant city came the mournful wail of a cop car, heading our way.

I pushed Chrissie out of the room, turning her stiff shoulders away from the stairs to the lobby. She caliper-walked down the corridor to a corner. The window at the end was open out to a fire escape at the back of the building. We took the turn as the myopic gunslinger from the lobby arrived at the door to the room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.