School's Out Forever (The Afterblight Chronicles: The St Mark's Books)

by Scott K. Andrews

  While she did this James got each woman to stand up as he examined them, scanned a list of outstanding requirements on the clipboard, and decided which of the various distribution points they would be transferred to. The skinny one with the blonde hair was pretty enough for the high rollers, so she’d go to London. The three chubby ones were disposable but functional, they could go to Manchester. There was a special request for a young girl for extraordinary duties. James picked out the redhead, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, for this role.

  Kate felt sick as she watched him do this.

  James tried to present a cheery front as he consigned these women to their various fates. He knew what he was doing; choosing which ones would be raped, which would be murdered, which would vanish into the cellars, and which in the penthouses. But he didn’t want them to know what was going on, so he smiled and joked, even though he knew most of them didn’t understand what he was saying.

  When the allocation was complete, and the injections had all been administered, James told them it was time for sleep because they would be collected early in the morning. He turned off the light as he left them to snuggle together for warmth on the floor, under ragged duvets.

  Kate and he went back downstairs, handed the clipboard to the giant, and waited as he studied it. Eventually, he nodded.

  “Good,” he said. Then he allocated each of the four men a girl or two to transport. James was also given an assignment, driving to Manchester. Kate was dismissed.

  The men left and went up the stairs to collect their by now unconscious cargo. James hung back, drinking coffee with the giant.

  “I thought you were driving one of them?” she asked.

  James stared at his feet, unable to meet her gaze.

  “I am,” he said. “But they’ll... they’ll be a while.”

  The giant laughed. “This is not real man. Not like girls.” He laughed again, as if this was the funniest thing in the whole wide world.

  Kate wanted to grind broken glass into his face.

  “Can I go?” she asked.

  The giant nodded. “Get more medicine. More girls next week,” he said, and he waved her aside, dismissing her.

  Kate stepped out into the night and walked steadily and carefully until she turned a corner and was out of sight. Then she placed her hands on her knees, bent double, and vomited until there was nothing left to come up.

  She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, stood upright, and walked out of the yard in search of a taxi.

  “YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T have gone to all this trouble,” said Cooper, with his mouth full. Kate laughed.

  “If my Gran knew I was playing host to a Detective Inspector and not feeding him, she’d have a heart attack. She feeds everyone who ever knocks on her door. Doctor, postman, Jehovah’s Witness, she doesn’t care. Even if I call her and say I’m stopping by after dinner at a fancy restaurant she opens the door and says ‘ooh love, you’re looking a little peaky, I’ve done your favourite, corned beef pie!’ And she’ll sit there and watch me eat it, no matter how full of Sunday lunch or curry I am.”

  “And you’ve inherited her compulsion?”

  “It what we do oop North, DI Cooper. Just because you Southerners think hospitality begins and ends with a twist of lime in a G and T, doesn’t mean we’re so stingy.”

  “Well this pasta is great, thank you. I’m not sure what my boss would say. He might accuse me of taking bribes.”

  “It’s not that good.”

  “I’m a copper, Miss Booker...”

  “Kate, please.”

  “I live on pies, chips and coffee, Kate. You may not believe me, but I used to be lean and toned. It’s only since I joined the force that I’ve got so flabby.”

  Kate didn’t think he was flabby. Fancies himself, she thought again, but not unkindly. Fishing for compliments.

  “What did you do before?”

  “I was in the army.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you as the soldier type. What were you, admin or engineer?”

  Cooper hesitated. “Not exactly.”

  “Man of mystery, huh.”

  “Something like that.”

  He finished his bowl of pasta and swilled it down with a gulp of lager. Kate collected their crockery and put the kettle on. Cooper browsed her bookcases while she made coffee. Once he’d taken it, he sat down, the informal air almost, but not entirely, banished. She sat opposite him.

  “You gave the girls the injections?” he asked.

  Kate nodded.

  “How many?”

  “Eight. Three for Manchester, two each for London and Birmingham, one for Cardiff.”

  “Good. We’ll track them to their destinations.”

  “And then do nothing because you’re waiting for authorisation.” The bitterness in her voice was hard to disguise.

  “It won’t be long now, I promise.” He paused and Kate could tell he was considering whether to tell her something. He put down his cutlery and leaned forward across the table intently. “We’re tracking a lorry full of girls at the moment. The Ukrainians, for once, actually tipped us off when it left. So far we’ve managed to keep track of it all the way to Dusseldorf. If we don’t lose it before it gets here, we should have the whole trail mapped out clearly. Then we can wrap it all up in one fell swoop.”

  “That’s brilliant!” said Kate. Cooper looked down at the table.

  “But?” she asked, dreading his answer.

  “They’ve decided the south coast ports are getting too dangerous. We think they’re coming in via Grimsby and straight to Manchester.”

  “And that’s a problem, why?”

  “We don’t have anyone on the inside in Manchester.” He looked up at her and took a deep breath. “We don’t think they have a pet doctor up there yet, though.”

  “Right,” said Kate, not quite following his logic.

  “And in the next few days he’s got a massive shipment of girls arriving there, the first to go direct, bypassing London.”

  “Which would mean they’d send for me to help process the girls.”

  “We hope so, yes.”

  “And you’d follow me so I could lead you straight to them?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  Kate considered this for a moment. “I’d still be in there when you stormed the place, right?”

  Cooper held her gaze firmly. “It’s the only way. You’ll be away from home so they’ll let you sleep the night there, I guess, before driving you back.”

  “Oh great. That’s just what I want, a night stuck in a portacabin with those bastards.”

  “Which is why we’ll take them as soon as you lead us there.”

  “And how exactly will I do that?”

  “You’ll need to carry some kind of tracking device.”

  Kate shook her head firmly. “They frisked me last time. They’d find something like that.”

  “This will be well disguised. Trust me, they’ll have no idea it’s there.”

  “Wait a minute. You’ll take them as soon as I get there? You mean I’m going to be in the middle of a police raid?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be there and I’ll make it my first priority to get you to safety.”

  Kate did not feel reassured.

  “So I should expect to get a phone call in the next couple of days,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  Cooper considered her, biting his lip. “I’ve still not told my boss about you, you know. I’m keeping you completely off the books. With the operation nearing completion, the risk of a leak from within the Met is too great. I still don’t know who Spider’s got on the inside and until I do, I’m playing my cards very close to my chest.”

  “But surely the operation you’re proposing is going to require a lot of manpower.”

  “Yeah. I’m bending the rules a bit there.” Kate waited for him to elaborate, but “it’s not exactly ethical”was all he said.

  “Fuck ethics,�
�� said Kate, suddenly impassioned. “If this works, you’ll be in a position to shut him down for good.”

  Cooper smiled. “Let’s hope so. As they say in all the good movies: so now we wait.”

  “However shall we pass the time?”

  Cooper looked surprised and Kate cursed inwardly. Too obvious. Inappropriate. Stupid. Damn.

  He registered her embarrassment and smiled. “I have an idea or two,” he said.

  KATE LIFTED HER face out off the blue crash mat and groaned.

  “This,” she said pointedly, “was not what I had in mind, Detective Inspector Cooper.”

  Cooper laughed as he bent down and held out a hand. She grabbed it and allowed herself to be helped to her feet.

  “Again, Sanders. And stop going easy on her,” he said.

  “Sir,” said the massive, muscled soldier who had just thrown Kate to the floor like she weighed less than a feather pillow. “Now remember what I said, Miss Booker, duck under the attack, grab, pivot and throw.”

  “Soldier, you’re three times the size of me. I don’t have to duck under your attack, I just have to stand here and let it pass over my head.”

  The soldier smiled and held out his great meaty hands, ready to attack once more. Kate sighed and prepared to meet his attack. She placed her feet wide apart and raised her own hands, practically doll like in comparison. “Come on then, let’s...”

  But he was already moving, and once again Kate didn’t manage even the most rudimentary defensive manoeuvre. She was face down on the mat again before the second was out.

  “Perhaps we should...”

  “No,” said Kate firmly as she peeled her face away from the sticky plastic. “Let’s go again.” She got to her feet. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, Cooper,” she said. The policeman just smiled and waved from the bench at the side of the dojo.

  Five more attacks, five more humiliations until finally, on the sixth go around, she managed to get a hand to his wrist and a shoulder to his stomach. She tried the lift, but it was like trying to topple a solid granite statue. After straining for a few moments, she gave up and allowed herself to be flattened once more.

  “Better,” said Sanders. “Anyone not trained would have been thrown by that.”

  Kate scowled at him. “The men I’m dealing with are ex-Serbian military, Sanders, and one of them is even bigger than you.”

  Sanders cast a curious glance across at Cooper, who nodded once.

  “Right,” said the soldier. “In which case, I think we’re taking the wrong tack. Tell me, Miss Booker, have you ever fired a gun?”

  “She won’t be armed, Sanders,” said Cooper. “Too dangerous.”

  “Still, they’ll be carrying guns, yeah?” Sanders countered.

  Again Cooper nodded.

  “Then it can’t hurt, can it? Come on, Miss Booker, let’s get you kitted up.”

  Sanders led Kate out of the gym and across a sparse concrete courtyard ringed with old single storey buildings. It was about midday but although Cooper had driven her here some hours before, she still had little clue where exactly here was. It was only when she saw a group of men in the distance, running into woods dressed entirely in black, carrying guns, that the penny dropped.

  “Not exactly an engineer,” she muttered as she entered the long building that housed one of the SAS firing ranges.

  “WHY DID YOU do that?” Kate asked as they pulled out of the driveway, several hours later.

  She had been thrown and chased, beaten and bruised, and taught how to shoot a variety of weapons. She had, she reluctantly admitted to herself, rather enjoyed firing guns. The power of it was exciting.

  “If anything goes wrong, you could find yourself in the middle of a firefight. It’s important you be ready.”

  “Of course I’m not ready. You think a day like that is all it takes to get me ready for a warzone?”

  “No,” replied Cooper quietly. “But it’s all I could think to do.”

  Kate blushed, ashamed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So were you one of them, them, in the army?”

  “If I had been, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. And if I were to cash in some favours by asking old friends to give you a workover, then it would have to be a very well kept secret indeed if I wanted to avoid having my bollocks cut off and fed to me by big men in balaclavas.”

  Kate couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. “My lips are sealed,” she said.

  “Good. But remember what you learned here today. It could save your life.”

  “You promised me...”

  “That nothing could go wrong. I know. And it shouldn’t. But there are always factors that can’t be foreseen.”

  “Cooper, can I ask you something?”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Why is my brother really working for Spider?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a student. He’s nothing special. He has no special skills or contacts. There’s nothing he can do that one of Spider’s normal henchmen can’t. I’m a doctor, I understand why I’m useful to him. But James?”

  There was a long silence as Cooper kept his eyes on the road. Eventually he said: “Spider is gay. And he likes them pretty.”

  Kate hadn’t thought anything about this business could make her feel any more wretched. She had been wrong.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Cooper pulled up outside Kate’s building as the clock on the nearby church struck eight.

  “Home sweet home,” he said.

  “Want to come in for a nightcap?”

  He turned and looked at her, lips pursed, appraising. “No, Kate. Best if I don’t. Maybe once this is all over...”

  “Right, yes, of course. I only meant a coffee anyway. I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Okay, off I go. And thanks for today.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  FOUR DAYS LATER, Kate was sitting in the back of a Ford Focus on the M1 north. The giant was crammed into the front passenger seat and the yellow toothed man who kept smiling at her was driving. The stereo was playing some awful Euro-pop.

  The rain was coming down in sheets and the windscreen wipers were barely able to cope as they weaved in and out of the traffic. She didn’t envy anyone who was trying to follow them through this deluge. She resisted the urge to check the mobile phone in her pocket. The transmitter inside was working, Cooper had checked it himself yesterday. All she could achieve by fingering it was to draw attention to it, which was the last thing she wanted.

  Somewhere out there in the downpour, Cooper and his team were gathering, ready for the kill. After her visit to Hereford, Kate had a suspicion that she knew what Cooper had meant by ‘bending the rules’. She had seen footage of the Iranian Embassy siege. She knew what to expect and she knew what to do. She was pretty sure that she’d be seeing Sanders again by the end of the day and that thought reassured her; he inspired confidence somehow, even more so than Cooper.

  Everything was going to be fine, she told herself. This has all been planned by professionals. Nothing can go wrong.

  The giant turned in his seat and looked back at her. He held out his hand.

  “Give me phone,” he said.

  “Sorry?” she asked, taken by surprise.

  “Phone.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t say anything, just kept his hand held out, impassive.

  Kate gulped and reached into her pocket, removing the phone and handing it to him.

  “Careful with it, eh. That’s top of the range,” she joked, trying not to reveal her sudden terror.

  The giant wound down the window and tossed the phone out onto the motorway. The window closed with a soft buzz of internal motors.

  “What the fuck was that for?” she yelled.

  The giant turned again and held up a little black plastic box with a small LED tha
t flashed red. “Boss not like bugs,” he said, matter of fact. Then he turned back and returned to staring out at the lorries as they sped past, each carrying a cloud of spray behind it.

  Kate sat there knowing with total certainty that she was a dead woman.

  Two hours later they pulled up outside a huge Victorian warehouse in Moss Side. Kate knew where they were because the giant had not told her to look at the floor and had not bothered with the sleep mask. That they didn’t take such rudimentary precautions confirmed to her that she was not going to be allowed to walk out of wherever they were taking her.

  The giant unfolded himself into the street and pulled her door open, ushering her inside the warehouse through big black wooden doors. The rain was still pouring, and the air was saturated with the hoppy aroma of a nearby brewery.

  The ground floor was massive and unsegregated. Racks of cheap clothing stretched away on all sides into the gloom. The giant led Kate to the stairs and they went up two storeys. The second floor was also full of cheap clothes, this time in piles on tables, being sorted by a small group of women, Kate guessed Somali but she couldn’t be sure. This floor had a wall running across it, and the giant led her to a small door which, incongruously, had a keypad lock. He typed in the code and the door clicked open.

  The other side of the door was a different world. Kate walked from a low rent sweatshop into a plush corridor decorated with velvet wallpaper, laid with deep red carpets and decorated with modern art prints and photographs, all soft core, nothing too obvious.

  The next door led into a lobby area that felt more like a lounge or a bar. Leather sofas and armchairs dotted the room, ringing small round tables with table lamps on them, casting a soft glow. There was an unmanned bar in the far corner..

  “Sit,” said the giant without looking at her. She did so as he left by a small door beside the bar, going deeper into this hidden world.

  Kate sat there, collecting her thoughts. The transmitter was gone, so all Cooper knew was that she had been taken. He’d have no idea where she was now unless he’d been able to physically keep the car in sight at all times. She figured the torrential rain made that unlikely.