Dead Heat Read Online Free Page B

nearest cupboard. It’s packed with pasta and rice. There are eggs and meat in the humming refrigerator.
    ‘Hungry guy,’ Paz mutters, joining me in the doorway. ‘Nothing in the bathroom, by the way.’
    As we push further along the corridor, I’m vaguely aware of the supervisor’s rotten breath and I realise he’s ignored my instructions to wait outside. Paz pushes through the door at the end of the short corridor and moves slowly into the lounge. The blinds are drawn and the room is dark, except for the television that is sending flickering shadows against the far wall. Nobody is watching. I look at Paz, who looks back at me and shrugs. The television is uncomfortably loud, making it hard to think straight. I can’t find the remote and eventually pull the plug out of the wall. Paz takes a minute to breathe.
    ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘That’s better. So where is he?’
    Sometimes you can feel the bad news coming.
    ‘He’s here, somewhere.’
    Paz nods as the silence begins to settle.
    ‘Well, there’s only the bedroom left.’
    She walks out into the corridor and straight into the supervisor, who is lurking in the gloom.
    ‘Jesus Christ,’ she says. ‘Can you wait outside, please?’
    I take the lead and push into the bedroom. The blinds are wide open, and bright daylight streams in from the opening doorway. As my pupils adjust, I begin to make out the geography. There is a large, neatly made bed in the centre and beyond it a window framing the beautiful interlocking stadia of the Barra da Tijuca Olympic Park. Silhouetted in the window is the giant frame of a colossal man. He is sitting on the floor with his back to us, leaning against the bed. He has the thickest neck of any person I have ever seen in my life. His light hair is tightly cropped, and he’s wearing aplain grey T-shirt stretched over huge slabs of muscle. What I can’t see is his face.
    ‘Lucas Meyer?’
    No response.
    Paz moves into the room beside me and draws her gun, on instinct. She covers me as I step forward. I move around the bed, slowly bringing myself into Meyer’s line of sight. I see his fingertips first. They’re blue. As I walk around in front of him, I spot the pill bottle that he is still clutching. I prise it from his cold fingers and hand it to Paz, who is already holstering her weapon.
    ‘Overdose,’ I say. ‘What are they?’
    She checks the label, as I check without much hope for a pulse in Meyer’s huge neck. I feel nothing. His skin is cold and clammy and his dull eyes are still open. It feels like he’s staring at me as I go about my grim task. His face is pallid and his lips are blue. His head has lolled slightly to one side, and an elastic thread of drool is hanging from the corner of his mouth.
    Paz looks up from the bottle.
    ‘Sleeping pills. Zopiclone.’
    As Paz begins reading through the ingredients, I notice vomit covering Meyer’s grey T-shirt and the legs of his jeans. It’s enough to make me lean in and check his pulse again, because much of what he’s swallowed hasn’t made it into his system. I thrust two fingers as hard as I can into his neck. It’s like trying to get a pulse out of a rhino. I hold my breath, and after a few seconds I look up at Paz.
    ‘Call an ambulance,’ I tell her. ‘He’s still alive.’

CHAPTER 8
    PAZ IS TAILGATING the ambulance as it speeds along the Linha Amarela towards the emergency room at the Hospital Federal de Bonsucesso.
    ‘Think you did enough?’ she asks as we plough through another set of red lights. I am drenched with sweat, after pumping Meyer’s massive chest for fifteen minutes while we waited for the ambulance to arrive.
    ‘I don’t know. It’s pretty difficult to kill yourself with modern sleeping pills. The lethality has been designed out of them. Especially if you’re the size of Lucas Meyer. And especially if your body has ejected half of what you swallowed. But if he pulls through, I’m not sure we’ll have done him any