Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 24

‘Can you zoom in on her gun?’ Koenig said.

‘I can, but it’ll lose definition,’ Bernice said. ‘I’ll get tech to clean it up later, but even they won’t get it clear enough to read a serial number.’

‘It’ll have been removed anyway,’ Draper said. ‘Filed off with a grinder or burned off with acid.’

‘I’m not interested in the serial number,’ Koenig said.

Bernice fiddled with her laptop’s trackpad and pressed a button. The gun now filled the monitor’s screen.

Koenig studied the picture, then stepped back. Satisfied.

‘This is where we start,’ he said. ‘That’s a derringer. Probably a COP .357, judging by the mess it made of their heads. You can tell by the shape of the muzzle. It’s square, not round. Bulky. And that’s because it has four barrels. Stacked in a two-by-two block, like the holes on a button. It’s an unusual weapon. I think I’ve only ever seen them in cowboy movies. Normally used to settle poker disputes. Some guy accuses another of having aces up his sleeve. Reaches into his boot, pulls out a derringer. Shoots the card cheat dead.’

‘So?’

‘The Brits banned private ownership of handguns after a mass shooting in 1997. Get caught with a handgun over here and you go to jail for ten years. They’re extremely rare, derringers even rarer. It’s a signature weapon. I’d be surprised if there are more than two or three in the whole country.’

‘I’ll do some digging,’ Bernice said. ‘See who’s selling guns in London.’

‘She won’t have bought it in London,’ Koenig said. ‘Scotland Yard has LFR capabilities. Live facial recognition. Similar system to the one in New York. They use it to keep a continuous lookout for anyone on a watch list.’

‘Where then?’

A familiar feeling washed over Koenig. Tracking people had been his thing in the SOG. He’d had a peculiar knack for it. He could get inside the heads of the people he was hunting. Think like them. Wear their shoes. And even though it felt voyeuristic, he found himself slipping inside Jane Doe’s mind. She’d wanted a weapon. Probably didn’t feel complete without one. But she was keeping a low profile in a country that hated handguns. So, it had had to be small enough to be permanently hidden. That was hugely limiting in the UK. The gangbangers didn’t want small, easily concealable weapons. They wanted big shiny things with cool names like ‘Glock’ and ‘MAC-10’. They didn’t want a boot pistol, even one as powerful as the COP .357.

That meant she hadn’t gone to the guy who sold crap from the trunk of his 2011 Nissan. She’d gone to the kind of arms dealer who imported from Continental Europe or the States. Who had a select clientele. Only sold to people he knew. Hundreds of guys like that in the States, probably only one or two in the UK.

‘I need a map and a marker pen,’ Koenig said.