I stuck my head out into the corridor. Silence. Nothing was happening, except for faint noise from Le Foxy Kebab, two stories down. I left the room. Closed the door and locked it by pushing gently until the spring was compressed and then released into the door jamb. It made a solid click. The third floor corridor had an extra dimension that the second did not. Another office down the hall where the stairwell would be if there had been a fourth floor. I walked over to the office door. Which was sound-proofed, evidently, because I couldn’t hear anything and no light leaked from underneath. Inside the door was the Woodcutter, whoever that was.

I weighed the options. I could feasibly break the door down and try to kill everyone inside. But it was risky, because I didn’t know who or what was in there. One fat and bald Woodcutter, maybe, if all of that Woodcutter nonsense could be believed. One tall and skinny guy, who had taken the laptop and phone, almost certainly. The other unknowns remained unknowns. Could be three in there, could be five. I’d heard two voices at least, but maybe there was an army of mutes. Second, even if I did succeed in killing everyone in the room, Nazari would be on the hook, which is what decided the question. I’d have to come back, and next time I’d at least bring a screwdriver.

I walked down the stairs to the ground floor. The restaurant’s bathroom access door had been closed in the meantime. I opened it a crack. The baseball hat counter guy wasn’t there. I walked into Le Foxy Kebab. The teenagers had gone and had left their booth a mess of ketchup. It looked like a murder scene. The two women were eating kebab wraps held gingerly in front of them by long nail extensions. They ate clean. No drip, no mess, no fuss. Acrylic fingernails punctured the wraps like talons dug into prey. The three young guys were slumped into their booth enraptured by their phones. They didn’t bother looking up as I walked out of Le Foxy Kebab.

Nazari’s Peugeot 206 was gone, replaced by an empty parking spot.

I glanced around for a few seconds but knew that I hadn’t mistaken the parking spot, her car was gone. Then I remembered the battery had come out of the phone when I’d used it to get out of the locked office. I pulled the burner phone and the loose battery from my pocket. Slid the battery into place and pressed the little power button on top. After a while the phone powered on. I saw five missed calls from Nazari, ten seconds apart.

There was one text message, ‘Tried calling. At the police station.’

Chapter Twenty-Six