by Ben Onslow
He strode up the next ramp, and to his left the doors to the lifts were closed. They didn’t look damaged. He hit the button between the two doors just in case. No sound of the lift coming, and the doors didn’t budge. No surprise there. The power would have been cut off months ago.
Beside the lift doors, there was another door. Smaller. Like a cupboard. Maybe for maintenance or cleaning gear. He turned the handle, and it moved. But the door wouldn’t open. A steering column was jammed against it and somehow tangled up with the stainless kickplate at the bottom and the twisted handrail leading to the lift.
This time he did hear something. It could be just rats, but the small noise meant there was something in the cupboard.
He knocked quietly against the door. “Charlie?”
No answer again. Must have been rats. He went to move on and check each car at this level. There were only five. But they all looked undamaged. Even if Charlie had been sleeping when the explosion happened, she’d have been woken, but she might have decided to lay low.
Then he heard it.
“Matt?”
Charlie was in the cupboard. How the hell did that happen?”
He wrenched the steering column away from the kickplate. It rolled down the ramp and got stuck in the gap where the ramp should have been attached to the floor. He turned the handle, and this time the door opened.
Using the flashlight on his phone, he could see Charlie crumpled on the floor in amongst the brooms and buckets. Above her, on the wall the meter board, to control the lifts he guessed, with circuits and switches, sat menacingly.
“How come you’re in here?” he asked.
“Hiding,” she said as she struggled to stand.
“What happened? Something went bang, and everything shook, then I couldn’t get the door open.”
“One of the cars blew up.” He nodded at the steering column at the bottom of the ramp. “That was wedged up against the door.” He helped Charlie out of the cupboard. Her ankle had been bound, but it still looked like it hurt too much to put any weight on it. She leaned against the lift door to get her balance.
“I told him it wouldn’t work. I told him not to do it. I told him Fraser could just wait,” she murmured.
“Shouldn’t do what?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her face ghostly in the pulsing light coming from the street below.
“Take the P for a ride.”
“Take the P for a ride?” He heard voices from below. He could just make out what they were saying. Someone was being sent up to look around. Did he want to be found here? Did he want Charlie mixed up in the investigation?
No. He’d get her away and then find out what she knew.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you somewhere safe, and then you can tell me what’s going on.”
Charlie nodded, and he helped her to stand. He considered carrying her. But even though she was small, it would be hard to avoid the debris and the cracks, and he didn’t want to stumble and drop her.
“Can you walk if I help you?”
She nodded. “But I need my pack.”
“I thought you left it on the railway lines.”
“Billy gave me another one.” She looked at the wreckage. “Where is he?”
“We’ll talk about that later.” He didn’t want to get into it now. No telling how Charlie would react to Billy’s death.
“We need to get out of here.” The voices of the security guards patrolling the building were getting closer. “Where’s the pack?”
“In there.” She nodded behind her at the cupboard she’d been hiding in.
He could see it at the back. “Can you stand on your own?”
She nodded and hopped across to a wall and leaned against it.
He got the pack and slung it over his shoulder. The voices were close now.
She nodded at where they were coming from.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll get you out without them seeing us. Come on.”
“You won’t take me to Barnes?”
“No, I’m not working with Barnes.”
She hesitated and then nodded.
“I still think Billy was right about you.”
He shrugged. That was probably most of the reason she was willing to trust him.
He put his arm around her, and after a bit of hesitation, felt hers go around his waist.
“Let’s get out of here without being seen,” he said.
She nodded, and they carefully made their way down the exit ramp. At the level where the explosion was, it was hard to move quietly, but once they were on the second level, it was just a matter of staying in the shadows and moving steadily around the cars parked there.
The security guards stuck to the ramps and talked as they moved through the building, so it was easy to avoid them. With a cursory wave of the torch at each level, they moved onto the next. It felt like they didn’t think anyone was around and were just going through the routine of checking.
Matt pointed down the alley.
“My car is down there.” He climbed over the half wall then turned back to help her down.
She looked around to make sure no one was watching and lowered herself enough for him to catch her.
Back at his apartment, Matt made Charlie a cup of chocolate. She sat quietly on the couch sipping the drink. When they arrived back, she’d been shivering. He wasn’t sure whether it was from the cold or from shock. But he’d found a rug and given it to her. She’d wrapped it around herself, and once she seemed settled, he sat in the chair opposite her and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists.
This was going to be hard.
“Was anyone hurt?” Charlie asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, six kids.”
“Billy?”
He nodded again.
“Will he be all right?’”
This time he shook his head.
“Is he dead?” she asked slowly.
He nodded again, and she slumped down and slid to the floor, curled up small, clutching her legs, her head on her knees looking broken.
Then she looked up, her hair over her face, sticking to the tears on her cheeks. “Was he in the car when it exploded?”
Matt squatted down beside her. “I’m not sure. But probably.”
She rested her forehead on her knees again.
“Why was there P in the car?” he asked.
Charlie looked at him deciding how much to tell him or whether to tell him anything.
Then she shrugged. Either she’d decided he could be trusted or that she had nothing to lose.
“Billy and the others were cooking P for Barnes,” she said.
“Where?”
“In the car boots. They are secure and the temperature stays the same inside them. No one can see what’s inside, and no one comes into the parking building anyway. So, they are the perfect place.”
Matt nodded. That seemed reasonable, and if the kids were using every car boot at every level there were a thousand-odd little labs in that parking building. It was ingenious.
“Whose idea was that?” he asked.
Charlie sipped at her hot chocolate, then shrugged.
“Billy’s, I think. I don’t know. He was already doing it when I arrived. I’ve only been living there three weeks.”
“Where does he get the raw ingredients?”
“Fraser. He delivers the stuff every week and picks up what Billy and the others have made.”
That seemed sensible. Then he remembered the pickup at the shunting yards. Maybe the raw ingredients were in the package he saw Fraser collect.
“Did Fraser drop some off tonight?”
Charlie nodded again. “That’s why I was in the cupboard. Billy said since I couldn’t run, and Fraser was likely to be pissed about what happened at the café, I should hide.”
He could understand that too. He was pretty sure waking up on a tile floor with a splitting he
adache wasn’t the way Fraser wanted his little excursion to the ladies’ restroom to end.
“What did you mean you’d told Billy not to take the P for a ride?”
Charlie released her breath slowly between her teeth, and Matt saw her eyes fill with tears again. Then she breathed in and swallowed.
“Fraser wanted Billy to hurry the next batch up. He said it was taking too long to manufacture, and Billy had read on the internet that driving around would make the chemicals work faster.”
Matt scratched the top of his head. He didn’t know anything about how to manufacture P, but he guessed giving the chemicals a stir would help.
“So, he hotwired up one of the cars and gave it a shot?”
“I think so,” said Charlie. “He’d been talking about doing it for a few days. Maybe when Fraser came, he told him to work faster, so Billy decided to do it.”
“I guess he did.” That explained why it looked like the main explosion had come from the car in the middle of the level and not in a parking bay.
“Why would the others have been in the car?”
“Maybe they went along for a ride. But Billy said he’d need someone to put planks across the gaps so he could drive around the whole building. He wanted to go all the way up and then all the way down.” Charlie lifted the mug up and then circled it down again.
Matt grinned. Yeah, that would be what he’d have wanted to do too once he’d got the car going. Just driving back and forth at one level would have been no challenge. Billy probably saw himself doing handbrake slides and drifting at each turn.
And if the rest of those cars still had P brewing in the boots, he needed to let Draper know so when the crime scene guys turned up, they knew what to expect. If some of the cars could blow up unexpectedly, so could the others.
“What happens now?” asked Charlie with a sob, the tears still trickling down her cheeks. She brushed them away roughly with her sleeve.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for sleep.” He nodded at the spare bedroom door. “You sleep in there. There’s a bed made up. In the morning, we’ll figure out what to do with you.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep.” Charlie caught her lip between her teeth.
He frowned. Poor kid.
“Just try to rest. At least you’ll be warm. Do you need anything?”
“A toothbrush?”
“Okay. That I can do.” He went to the bathroom and got her one. He didn’t have sleeping pills or anything to give her, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure that would be right. She was pretty young.
She’d just have to cope tonight. Poor kid.
Once Charlie was settled in the spare bedroom with the door closed, he pulled his phone out and rang Draper.
“I’ve got a bit of information you might want to pass onto crime scene investigation and forensics.” He explained about the boots full of chemicals, silently brewing batches of P.
“All of them?” Draper asked.
“Most of them, I think.”
“I’ll pass that on. We don’t want anyone else hurt. Did you find out who is running this?”
Matt nodded, then realised Draper couldn’t see him.
“Barnes and Fraser, like you thought,” he said. “They supply the chemicals, and then the kids cook for them.”
“Who’s the cook?”
“Billy. The dead kid. He was the one with the experience.”
“Okay,” said Draper. “Leave this with me. I’ll deal with it. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Yeah,” said Matt and ended the call, then put his phone on the bench. He stared out the window into the dark. He could hear Charlie sobbing in the spare room. He could go and comfort her. Hold her, but that would get weird. She was just a kid, and he was an adult male she hardly knew.
Maybe she’d cry herself to sleep soon. She’d had one hell of a day. In the morning, he’d tell Draper he was finished with undercover work. He’d solved this case by accident. And it turned out working undercover was the same as being a normal cop, long periods of boredom interspersed with extreme horror.
And at least with normal policing, there were people to talk to about it.
Chapter 8
THE NEXT MORNING when he woke up, he showered and dressed, then went out into the living area. Charlie was already up and sitting on the couch. She still looked as upset as she’d been when he told her about Billy.
“Want some breakfast?” he asked.
She nodded.
“What do you fancy?”
“Don’t care.”
“I’m having toast and coffee. That do?”
She nodded again. She was still in the same clothes she’d been in when he found her. She’d spent all yesterday in them, got chased in them and then slept in them. He should do something about that.
He turned on the jug and put bread in the toaster.
“I’ve got butter, peanut butter, and marmite,” he said, getting it all out and putting it on the breakfast bar. He bent down and got a couple of plates out of the cupboard and a couple of knives and put them beside everything else. “Come over here and choose what you want.”
Charlie got off the couch and limped over to him.
Bugger, he’d forgotten she was hurt. He should do something about that too.
“I’ve got to go see someone in a few minutes.” He nodded at her ankle. “I’ll take you to A&E afterwards and get that looked at.”
Charlie slid onto a breakfast bar stool. She pulled a plate closer, and he put a couple of slices of toast on it.
“I’ll take you home after that,” he said to her. A test really. He knew she’d been living in the car park with Billy, but surely, she had somewhere she could go.
Charlie ignored the suggestion and slathered butter, then peanut butter on her toast.
That idea went down well.
He made the coffee in the plunger. “Are you having coffee?” he asked.
Charlie shook her head and bit into her toast.
“Tea? Milk? Water?” What the hell does Josh drink in the morning?
“Hot chocolate, please,” Charlie said politely.
That’s what he made her last night. He got that right.
He made her one, poured coffee for himself, and then sat down to eat too.
“Where are your parents?”
Charlie hesitated and bit her lip. After a while, she answered the question.
“Both dead. They died two years ago in a car crash.” Something about the way she said it made him believe her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that.” Poor kid.
Charlie shrugged. “You couldn’t know.”
“You said you’d only been with Billy for three weeks. Who was looking after you before that?
She didn’t answer. He waited, but she stayed silent.
So, it didn’t look like she planned on going back, whoever had been looking after her.
“Do you have aunts, uncles, grandparents you could go and live with?”
Charlie shook her head.
Matt scratched his chin. “What do you want to do then?”
“Drop me back at the CBD. I’ll be all right.”
“No, I’m not doing that.” He didn’t want Fraser finding her. No telling what would happen then.
Well, it probably wasn’t that hard to imagine. With no Billy to protect her, she’d be back in Fraser’s clutches.
And she didn’t want anything to do with the authorities, and the car park would be crawling with cops and security guards.
Charlie started on the next bit of toast waiting him out.
He finished his coffee and tried to think of what to do with her. She couldn’t stay with him. He didn’t need a flatmate. Besides, she was bloody young and needed someone to look after her. He guessed that’s what Billy had been doing. And now he was dead.
Poor kid. Both of them.
He stood up and grabbed his jacket.
“I got to go. Be back in a
n hour or so.” Maybe she could stay a couple of days. “Have a shower if you want to. And there are some clothes that might fit you in the dresser in the room you slept in. They are boy’s clothes, but they’re clean.” Typical Josh, he stays the weekend and leaves half his clothes in the bathroom.
He washed them when he found them and planned to courier them to Josh but hadn’t got around to it.
Draper was waiting at the Irish pub down by the wharf. They hadn’t met there before, but it looked like a good place. Booths widely spaced. Soft music to cover any conversation. When he walked in, a buzz of talking filled the room, but he couldn’t make out anything that was being said.
Draper had found a booth near the window and already had a pint waiting for him. Matt sat down opposite.
“Did you let the crime scene guys know about the meth?” he asked Draper quietly.
His boss nodded. “Thanks for the heads up. How did you know?”
“A good guess.”
“Yeah, right,” said Draper. “What else have you got?”
Matt went through what Charlie had told him about the kids living in the parking building and cooking meth for Fraser and Barnes.”
“How long have they been doing it?” asked Draper.
“At least three weeks, maybe longer.”
Draper let out an explosive puff of breath. “And it’s taken us this long to catch on. What caused the blast? I guess you’re getting all this from somewhere.”
Matt nodded. “He thinks the cook took the meth for a ride. To speed up production. Apparently, Billy had been talking about doing it for a while.”
“That’s one of the kids in the morgue?”
Matt nodded again. “He was the leader and ran the operation. Barnes supplied the ingredients. Fraser oversees what’s going on, does the deliveries and pickup, and Barnes is in charge.”
“How are they getting the ingredients into the city?”
“I think they come in by rail. A couple of the guards seem to be in on it. I followed Barnes and Fraser there last night and saw the pickup.”
“And you didn’t call that in.”
“Got distracted. The kids from the parking building were doing a bit of tagging. One of them needed rescued, and I needed to keep my informant out of jail.”
