He heard the breathing behind him a bare second before a machete came swinging through the air at his neck. Strike dived sideways, the mobile flying out of his hand, and slipped on the dirty floor. As he fell, the slashing blade sliced into his ear. The hulking shadow raised the machete again to attack Strike as he landed on the floor; Strike kicked out at its crotch and the killer grunted in pain, backed off a couple of paces, then raised the machete once more.
Scrambling to his knees, Strike punched his assailant hard in the balls. The machete slid out of Laing’s fingers and fell onto Strike’s back, causing him to shout out in pain even as he put his arms around Laing’s knees and toppled him. Laing’s head collided with the cooker door but his thick fingers were scrabbling for Strike’s throat. Strike tried to land a punch but was pinned down by Laing’s considerable weight. The man’s large, powerful hands were closing on his windpipe. With a gigantic effort Strike mustered enough force to headbutt Laing, whose skull again clanged off the oven door—
They rolled over, Strike now on top. He tried to punch Laing in the face but the other’s reactions were as quick as they had been in the ring: one hand deflected the blow and his other was under Strike’s chin, forcing his face upwards—Strike swung again, unable to see where he was aiming, hit bone and heard it crack—
Then Laing’s large fist came out of nowhere, bang into the middle of Strike’s face, and he felt his nose shatter; blood spurted everywhere as he rocked backwards with the force of the punch, his eyes watering so that everything blurred: groaning and panting, Laing threw him off—from nowhere, like a conjuror, he produced a carving knife—
Half blinded, blood pouring into his mouth, Strike saw it glimmer in the moonlight and kicked out with his prosthetic leg—there was a muffled chink of metal on metal as the knife hit the steel rod of his ankle and was raised again—
“No, you don’t, you fucker!”
Shanker had Laing in a headlock from behind. Ill-advisedly, Strike grabbed for the carving knife and got his palm sliced open. Shanker and Laing were wrestling, the Scot by far the larger of the two and rapidly getting the better of it. Strike took another powerful kick at the carving knife with his prosthetic foot and this time knocked it clean out of Laing’s hand. Now he could help Shanker wrestle him to the ground.
“Give it up or I’ll fuckin’ knife ya!” bellowed Shanker, arms around Laing’s neck as the Scot writhed and swore, his heavy fists still clenched, his broken jaw sagging. “You ain’t the only one with a fucking blade, you fat piece of shit!”
Strike tugged out the handcuffs that were the most expensive piece of equipment he had taken away with him from the SIB. It took the combined force of both Strike and Shanker to force Laing into a position where he could be cuffed, securing the thick wrists behind his back while Laing struggled and swore nonstop.
Freed of the necessity to hold Laing down, Shanker kicked him so hard in the diaphragm that the killer emitted a long faint wheeze and was rendered temporarily speechless.
“You all right, Bunsen? Bunsen, where’d he get you?”
Strike had slumped back against the oven. The cut to his ear was bleeding copiously, as was his slashed right palm, but his rapidly swelling nose troubled him most, because the blood pouring out of it into his mouth was making it difficult to breathe.
“There y’go, Bunsen,” said Shanker, returning from a brief search of the small flat with a roll of toilet paper.
“Cheers,” said Strike thickly. He stuffed his nostrils with as much paper as they would hold, then looked down at Laing. “Nice to see you again, Ray.”
The still-winded Laing said nothing. His bald pate was shining faintly in the moonlight that had illuminated his knife.
“Fort you said ’is name was Donald?” asked Shanker curiously as Laing shifted on the ground. Shanker kicked him in the stomach again.
“It is,” said Strike, “and stop bloody kicking him; if you rupture anything I’ll have to answer for it in court.”
“So why you callin’ ’im—?”
“Because,” said Strike, “—and don’t touch anything, either, Shanker, I don’t want your fingerprints in here—because Donnie’s been using a borrowed identity. When he’s not here,” Strike said, approaching the fridge and putting his left hand, with its still-intact latex glove, on the handle, “he’s heroic retired firefighter Ray Williams, who lives in Finchley with Hazel Furley.”
Strike pulled open the fridge door and, still using his left hand, opened the freezer compartment.
Kelsey Platt’s breasts lay inside, dried up now like figs, yellow and leathery. Beside them lay Lila Monkton’s fingers, the nails varnished purple, Laing’s teeth marks imprinted deeply upon them. At the back lay a pair of severed ears from which little plastic ice-cream cones still hung, and a mangled piece of flesh in which nostrils were still distinguishable.
“Holy shit,” said Shanker, who had also bent over to look, from behind him. “Holy shit, Bunsen, they’re bits—”