Triggers

TRIGGERS By Stephen Leather ALSO BY STEPHEN LEATHER Pay Off, The Fireman, Hungry Ghost, The Chinaman, The Vets, The Long Shot, The Birthday Girl, The Double Tap, The Solitary Man, The Tunnel Rats, The Bombmaker, The Stretch, Tango One, The Eyewitness, Penalties, Takedown, The Shout, The Bag Carrier, Plausible Deniability, Last Man Standing, Rogue Warrior, The Runner, Breakout, The Hunting, Desperate Measures, Standing Alone, The Chase, Still StandingSpider Shepherd thrillers: Hard Landing, Soft Target, Cold Kill, Hot Blood, Dead Men, Live Fire, Rough Justice, Fair Game, False Friends, True Colours, White Lies, Black Ops, Dark Forces, Light Touch, Tall Order, Short Range, Slow Burn, Fast Track, Dirty WarSpider Shepherd: SAS thrillers: The Sandpit, Moving Targets, Drop Zone, Russian RouletteJack Nightingale supernatural thrillers: Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade, Lastnight, San Francisco Night, New York Night, Tennessee Night, New Orleans Night, Las Vegas Night Table of Contents Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Chapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57Chapter 58Chapter 59Chapter 60Chapter 61Chapter 62Chapter 63Chapter 64Chapter 65Chapter 66Chapter 67Chapter 68Chapter 69Chapter 70Chapter 71Chapter 72Chapter 73Chapter 74Chapter 75Chapter 76Chapter 77Chapter 78Chapter 79 CHAPTER 1Eighteen years ago.MARIANNE turned her back to the bedroom door and curled up into a tight ball, her eyes firmly shut. ‘Please, no. Please, no. Please, no,’ she whispered as she clutched her teddy bear to her stomach.Her father was downstairs. She had heard him walk along the hall to the kitchen, and heard him open and close the fridge. Then she had heard the hiss of a can of lager being opened, and his footsteps as he went back to the sitting room. It was his third can, and it was after his third can that he usually came upstairs. She would smell the lager the moment he opened the door. Lager and cigarettes and sweat. He would open the door and stand looking at her. What happened then depended on whether or not he switched on the light.If the light stayed off he would take off his clothes and get into bed with her. He would touch her and caress her and she knew from experience that there was nothing that she could say that would stop him.Bad as it was, if he switched on the light it would be worse. He would make her get out of bed and he would make her dress and then he would take her downstairs. There would be a van outside and she would have to get into the back. There would be another man driving the van and her father would get in the back with her. She never cried. If she cried he would slap her so she would just curl up into a ball and wait for it to be over.Sometimes he took her to a house. Sometimes to a hotel. Once he took her to a castle. A real castle with suits of armour in the hall. But no matter where he took her, bad things happened to her. Things that she shouldn’t bear to think about, things that she tried to blot out‘Woody, please. CHAPTER 2Present dayJASMINE smiled as she saw him walk into the club, just as she was starting her second set. Boris Morozov. Russian oligarch and gangster. He was a big man, with a shaved head that glistened in the candlelight and a Savile Row suit cut to emphasise his broad shoulders and weight lifter forearms. She allowed her eyes to hold his gaze for a couple of seconds, she gave him the faintest of smiles, then looked over at her pianist. He was a young guy, barely in his twenties, but he was one of the best jazz pianists she had sung with. He knew every song that she threw at him and was able to follow her whenever she improvised. His name was Ben and he played with her most weekends. During the week he taught music at a North London private school so Jasmine’s accompanist Monday to Friday was much older and less talented. She came to the end of the song and mouthed ‘You don’t know what love is.’ He smiled and nodded and immediately started to play.It was one of the sexiest songs in her repertoire, written by Don Raye and Gene de Paul. It became a jazz classic when Miles Davies recorded an instrumental version in 1954 and Dinah Washington released the definitive vocal version the following year. Jasmine, though, based her rendition on the style of the late great Billie Holiday. She waited until the third verse before she looked over at the Russian again. He was sitting at a table close to the entrance, his back to the wall. There were two men sitting with him, a few years younger but just as big. One was bearded with thick-lensed glasses, the other had a wicked scar across one cheek. On the table in front of them was a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket and Ronnie the maitre d’ was pouring for them. The Russian smiled at her and she