by Tim Weaver
Healy reached down, yanked him to his feet and pulled him in so they were nose to nose. ‘Open the trapdoor.’
‘What are you talk–’
‘Open the trapdoor now.’
Drayton glanced between us. I backed up towards the office door and looked out. The road was dark and quiet; only the sound of rain on the metal roof. When I turned back, Healy had swivelled Drayton around and had a hand locked in place at the back of his neck. He guided him out of the office and along the front of the warehouse to the delivery doors. They were padlocked.
‘Unlock them.’
‘There’s nothing –’
Healy pushed forward and Drayton’s face hit the metal door. The noise passed across the building like a ripple.
‘I’m telling you,’ Drayton said, his voice wavering. ‘Please. I’m telling you – there’s nothing in there.’
‘Open it, and we’ll see.’
Drayton fumbled in his pockets and brought out a ring of keys. He selected a brass one with a red mark on the side and slid it into the padlock. It clicked. Healy reached around him, pulled the padlock out from the metal plate and tossed it into the street. Then he yanked open one of the doors and pushed Drayton inside. The warehouse was completely dark except for one faint rectangle of orange street light filtering in from a window above us.
‘Where are the lights?’
‘There,’ Drayton nodded.
He was looking at a panel of white switches to my left. I flicked them all on. Strip lights buzzed in the darkness, then stark white light fed along the ceiling.
The rear door was the same size as the delivery entrance at the front. Drayton unlocked the padlock with a second brass key, also marked red. Then Healy used him as a battering ram, forcing him forward into the door until it opened enough to let them through. Out in the yard, four security lights flicked on simultaneously, shining down from poles built into the fencing. In their glow, rain sheeted past us.
Healy glanced at me and jabbed his head towards the pile. ‘Show him.’
I looked between him and Drayton, then walked around to the spot I’d glimpsed earlier and pushed aside a couple of the bigger containers. Beneath one, the edge of the trapdoor emerged.
‘What’s that?’ Healy said to Drayton, pushing at his neck.
‘It’s for storage.’
‘No shit.’
I moved some of the other boxes. A minute later, I’d cleared a space. A circle, cut into the floor and about two feet across, was freeze-framed in the security lights. It looked like a manhole cover. There was a handle cut into it and a lock attached. I dropped down, slid my fingers in and pulled. It didn’t budge.
I glanced up at Drayton. ‘Which key unlocks it?’
No reply.
Healy forced Drayton forward, so he was almost standing over the manhole. ‘Which key is it?’ he said through gritted teeth.
Drayton threw the key ring over. It landed in a puddle on the floor next to me. ‘It’s the small silver one, marked with a blue dot.’
I selected the key and slid it into the lock on the manhole cover. It clicked. Sliding my fingers around the handle again, I pulled it out from its surrounds.
The space dropped down less than a foot.
And the only thing inside was a piece of A4 paper, folded in half.
The rain started getting heavier, hitting the corrugated iron of the warehouse. I took out the piece of paper, slid it inside my jacket and nodded to Healy that we should go back inside. He pushed Drayton ahead of him, and we re-entered the building.
I opened up the piece of paper.
‘What is it?’ Healy asked.
It looked like a map of a street. We both recognized the style immediately: black marker pen; just lines. No street names. No places. No identifying marks. It was the same style as the map of the school I’d found on the LCT website. This one was a single straight road, with houses – drawn as identically sized squares – either side. Halfway down, one of the houses was coloured in red. A line came out of it to a number twenty-nine. Apart from that, there was nothing else on it.
I glanced at Drayton. ‘Who gave you this?’
He just stared at me.
‘Who gave you the map?’ Healy said.
Again, Drayton didn’t reply. Healy squeezed his fingers tighter around Drayton’s neck. ‘You tell us who gave you this map, and you tell us what it’s of, or I swear to you the next time you wake up it’ll be with your balls in your mouth.’
Drayton’s eyes fixed on me. For a moment it looked like he was going to say something. Then he stopped, glanced as best he could at Healy and shrugged.
Healy smashed a fist into the side of his head. The impact sounded dull, like a wet flannel hitting a wall. Drayton didn’t make much noise; just collapsed on to all fours, and then rolled on to his back. He looked up at Healy, blood leaking from his nose.
‘Healy.’
He turned to me. ‘What?’
I stepped forward, closer to him. Calm down. He saw my expression, and then glanced at my feet, as if I’d just stepped into his personal space. He took off his jacket and threw it on top of the nearest box. ‘Who gave you the map?’
No reply.
‘Who gave you the fucking map?’
Drayton glanced between us, but remained quiet.
Healy blew out some air. ‘You’re one stupid piece of shit, you know that?’
‘Drayton,’ I said, trying to rein Healy in. ‘This is easy. Tell us who gave you the map, and then we walk out of here and you never see us again.’
He looked at me from the floor; a look that said he couldn’t tell us, and that I was the only one who could intervene. Then he turned back to Healy, blood filling the gaps between his teeth, and looked him in the eyes.
Silence.
‘I think we need to clean out your ears,’ Healy said. Across from us, a set of metal stairs wound up to a viewing platform, where a desk and chair sat looking down across the warehouse. Healy’s eyes locked on the chair, and then on a roll of duct tape on a box near to us.
He reached down, pulled Drayton up and dragged him across the warehouse, scooping up the duct tape on the way. When they got to the stairs leading to the platform, Healy shoved him up them. Drayton looked back at me, the same message in his face: Stop this.
‘Healy –’
He flashed a look at me. ‘If you don’t like it, go and sit in the car.’
When they got to the top, they marched across the platform and Healy pushed Drayton into the chair. I followed.
‘You wanna play games?’ Healy said, unravelling the tape.
He used one of his hands to secure Drayton’s wrist to the arm of the chair and started circling with the duct tape. Once that was done, he did the same to the other wrist. Then both legs. Drayton looked at me, then back to Healy, who was taking a handkerchief from his jacket and screwing it into a ball. He shoved it into Drayton’s mouth, ripped off another strip of duct tape and secured the gag in place.
‘You don’t have kids,’ Healy said, leaning in to Drayton, nose to nose. ‘I mean, look at you: you’re just a kid yourself. You’ve got no idea what you feel for something you created. The bond you have. What lengths you’ll be prepared to go to, to protect them. What you’ll do to avenge them.’ He straightened, rolling his shirt sleeves up even further. ‘But you’re about to find out.’
He shifted forward quickly, arcing a fist up into Drayton’s stomach. Drayton doubled over, the wind bursting out of him, arms locking into place on the chair.
This was starting to get out of control. I stepped forward. ‘Drayton – stop screwing around. Just tell us who gave you the map and all this ends.’
He was leaning over, saliva and blood leaking from his lips.
‘Drayton,’ I said again.
Nothing.
Healy smiled at Drayton. ‘You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?’
Not even movement now. Just silence and blood and saliva and the sounds of shall
ow breathing.
Healy turned around and started going through one of the drawers of the desk. In the third one down, he found something. A letter opener. Long and thin. Double edged. He removed it and then lifted Drayton up by his hair so they were facing one another.
‘You remember what I told you?’ Healy asked him.
Drayton said nothing.
‘That you’ll wake up with your balls in your mouth?’
A flash of fear in Drayton’s face now. Air jetted out of his nostrils. He tried to shift in the chair, looking between the letter opener and Healy.
‘Well, now you get to find out I wasn’t joking.’
53
‘Healy,’ I said, but he ignored me, reaching to the belt on Drayton’s trousers and loosening it. ‘Healy.’
This time he stopped, studying me. ‘You think he’s going to tell us anything if we ask him nicely? Does it look like that to you?’
‘He’s a fucking kid.’
‘So what?’
‘So, take a look at yourself.’
He paused, glanced down at the sweat coming through his shirt, and Drayton’s blood dotted across the cotton. Then he studied me, his face blank. For a second, it felt like the fuse had gone out. Then he turned back to Drayton. ‘I don’t care if he’s a kid,’ he said quietly, and I realized the only way this was going to end was if I stopped it.
Drayton squirmed in his seat as Healy started fiddling with the belt again. Fear clouded his eyes. His breath came in short bursts through his nose. After a few seconds, Healy had undone the trousers and pulled them along Drayton’s thighs, and the kid had started screaming. One long, terrible noise that was worse through the gag, like an animal in distress. Healy glanced at me, tugged at Drayton’s boxer shorts and reached under his shirt, grabbing the penis. Drayton screamed even longer and harder this time, eyes like saucers: wide and terrified, and glistening with tears. When he saw he’d got the reaction he wanted, Healy let go, ripped the gag away and leaned in again.
‘Talk,’ he said.
‘Okay, okay,’ Drayton said, short of breath. ‘Okay.’
‘Talk,’ Healy repeated.
‘A man,’ Drayton said, looking between us.
‘What man?’
‘He didn’t tell me his name.’
‘So what did he tell you?’
Drayton glanced to his left, a minor movement. Healy didn’t seem to notice. He was boiling over. Fuelled by adrenalin. But I spotted it the first time, and then again a couple of seconds later: a swivel of the eyes, over his shoulder to the warehouse below.
‘What did he tell you?’
‘He just told me to keep the map safe, not to show anybody, never try to replicate it, photocopy it or write it down. Basically, just keep it under lock and key.’
‘Why?’
Drayton hesitated.
‘Why?’
‘He’s …’
Drayton’s eyes drifted again. A split-second movement.
‘He’s what?’ Healy said.
‘He’s a regular customer.’
‘A regular whose name you don’t know?’ Healy snorted. He leaned in, placing a hand on either arm of the chair. ‘You got two seconds, or I really will cut your balls off.’
Drayton sniffed. Moved his head from side to side gently, like he was trying to decide the best course of action. Then, quietly, he said, ‘I don’t know his name.’
Healy shook his head again. ‘Wrong answer.’
‘Wait a second,’ Drayton said. ‘Wait a sec–’
Grabbing the handkerchief off the floor, Healy shoved it back into Drayton’s mouth and secured it in place again with the duct tape. Drayton started shouting through the gag. I stepped towards Healy, crossing the line into his personal space. He looked at me and then rocked back. ‘You gonna try and stop me?’
I looked past him, out through the rear doors of the warehouse. It was hammering down outside, rain lashing in across the yard. The wind had picked up too, whipping in over the fences and lifting the plastic sheeting away from the boxes.
‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘And don’t do anything.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just stay here.’
I headed down the stairs and outside, pulling the hood up on my jacket. The boxes I’d already moved were stained darker with rain. I took out my pocket knife and stabbed the blade down through the top of the nearest box, edging it around in an L-shape and peeling it away. Inside were woks, each separated by a layer of foam. I pushed the box aside and went for the next one. Porcelain dishes. The next one along: frying pans. I stepped back and looked further into the pile, under the plastic sheeting. A wind carved in from behind me and lifted the tarpaulin away. Right in the middle, surrounded on all sides, was a tall, thin box, with a small black symbol in the corner.
Shoving boxes aside, I moved further into the centre of the pile, trying to create a space where I could drag the box back out with me. When I got to it, I tried to move it. It was heavy. At least forty or fifty pounds. I dug the knife blade into each side and cut out a couple of finger holes, then tightened my grip again and pulled the box out. As it moved, even as the rain pelted down and the wind howled, I could hear something moving around inside. Liquid sloshing.
Back inside the warehouse, Healy looked down, a frown on his face. I could see Drayton trying to turn.
‘What’s that?’
I pulled the box to the bottom of the steps, so they could both see. Then I set it straight. Drayton stared at it, something in him receding, as if a great secret had just been blown away in the wind. There had only been a small movement in his eyes before. But it was enough for me to realize he was hiding something. Eyes weren’t just the doorway to the soul. They were the ultimate polygraph test.
‘What’s that?’ Healy said again.
I jabbed my knife down through the top of the box and cut out a hole. ‘Formalin,’ I said, prodding a finger against the symbol on the outside. ‘This is the number eighty in Cyrillic.’ Just like the pi symbol. I’d seen it before on the cardboard boxes in the background of the photo I’d found in the doll. The photograph that had been used to help frame me. ‘There are about eighty canisters of the stuff in here. And I’m willing to bet that whoever drew that map for Drayton was hoping to take delivery of them.’
Drayton made no noise.
I made my way back up the steps.
‘So,’ I said, and picked up the map off the desk. ‘Where’s this?’
He looked at me and I could see he was just as involved in all this as his father; as good a liar as his father too. The problem was, he wasn’t as organized and he wasn’t as good at covering his tracks. He’d got sloppy, keeping the goods he’d imported on his premises rather than shipping them off to another storage unit. He’d thought hiding them among the imported kitchenware would be enough. And maybe it would have been if I’d never spoken to Spike and found out what the symbol in the photograph meant.
Healy reached over and tore off the gag.
‘He said he had information on the business,’ Drayton said. ‘He said he would send evidence of deliveries, of goods we’d imported, to the police. He said he would finish us.’
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Drayton replied, his voice tearful. ‘I can’t run this business like my dad. I can’t do it. I hate it. But I promised him I could meet his expectations. I promised him I would look after the family. I promised him I would never let him down. But I can’t even do that one thing for him.’
I pointed at the map. ‘Where’s this?’
‘Walthamstow. Pine Terrace. Number 29.’
‘You were supposed to drop the formalin off there?’
Drayton nodded.
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘What were your instructions?’
Drayton glanced down. ‘Leave the box on the front steps of the house.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it,’
he said. ‘The same instructions every time. I’ve been importing things for him for months now. When he comes here, he tells me the same thing. Memorize the road name. Don’t write it down. Don’t photocopy it. Keep the map secure. Tell anyone anything and he buries the business.’
‘Is he home when you drop off the package?’
Drayton shook his head. ‘The house is vacant. They had a fire there. Half of it’s boarded up, but you can see in through one of the broken windows. The living room has been burned to shit. No carpet. No furniture. The back garden’s like a jungle, and out front it’s just a dumping ground. Cans and wrappers and dog shit all over the place.’
‘You ever stick around after the drop-off ?’
‘No. He tells us to deliver the package and leave immediately.’
I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and took out a picture I’d torn from one of the youth club personnel files. I held it up for him.
‘Is this the man who comes to see you?’
Drayton studied the picture. ‘Yeah, that’s him.’
It was Daniel Markham.
54
Pine Terrace was a narrow, forgotten row of houses that looked like its best days weren’t just behind it, but had never arrived in the first place. Each home had the same uniform white-bricked garden wall, but the actual houses were painted a mish-mash of clashing colours, like a work of modern art gone wrong: reds, creams, peaches, greens, all visible even under subdued street light and lashing rain. Halfway down, stained with soot and ash, was number twenty-nine. Drayton had been right about its appearance: its concrete path had turned to rubble; its door was blistered and warped; glass was scattered across what lawn there was left; and someone had spray-painted the walls. Council notices warning against entering, once stuck to the front door, had peeled away over time.
Healy pulled up a little way down the street. I got out, turning the collar up on my jacket, and studied the road. If Markham was asking Drayton to drop the box off on the front steps, then he was confident enough about getting to the package before any passers-by took an interest. That meant that when Drayton – or the people who worked for him – turned up at the house, Markham had to be watching. I looked across the street to the houses opposite. They were buildings without life. The whole road had a depressed air about it, a lack of internal light. It was obvious why Markham had chosen this street.
