Ben clambered to his feet. Frank was lying sprawled out across the landing. His face was bloody from where Ben had hit him, his eyes were blinking and he was trying to speak. Ben went to haul him to his feet, ready to beat the hell out of the guy for having almost succeeded in getting him killed. But then he saw the bright blood spreading quickly across Frank’s tattered shirt, and he realised that the second shotgun blast had done more than rip up the top step. Several buckshot pellets had penetrated his midsection. Stomach, kidneys, liver, spleen, it was anyone’s guess where all the blood was pumping from. One thing was for sure. Frank didn’t have a lot of time to live. As he moved his lips to speak a red bubble appeared from his mouth, swelled and popped. A wheezing gasp came from deep in his throat.

Ben knelt beside him and grasped him by both shoulders, shaking him. ‘Talk to me, Frank. You do that, I’ll see you get to a hospital. You still have time. Frank? Do you hear me?’ It was a lie. Frank was losing it fast and the best surgeon in the world couldn’t stop it from happening.

The dying man coughed, spraying more red down his chin. His eyes rolled and tried to focus on Ben, then went glazed.

Ben couldn’t let him go. He wouldn’t let him go. ‘Tell me who you work for, Frank. Tell me where I can find them.’

‘He’s done, Ben,’ Wolf said from the bottom of the stairs.

Ben ignored him. He shook the dying man harder. ‘It doesn’t have to end this way. You can still save your own life, and others. Give me names. Places. Anything. Speak to me!’

But Wolf was right, and Ben’s efforts were in vain. Frank sucked in a rasping final breath, then went limp and his eyes dulled into orbs of lifeless porcelain.

Ben let him go. He stared at Frank’s corpse and felt a sharp sense of loss. It wasn’t that he gave a damn about this idiot. With Abbott dead, Frank had been his only possible ticket to tracking down Saunders and the rest of them. Now that was gone, too.

Wolf stepped over the body at the bottom of the stairs and went up to check on the big guy. Crouched over him, took one look at the gunshot wound that Ben had drilled through his skull, and shook his head. ‘Not gonna get much out of this one, either. Sorry, mate.’

Ben said nothing. He sighed. Wondering what the hell he was going to do next.

Then Wolf said, ‘Oh shit.’