Until Death

by Knight, Ali

  9

  Georgie watched Mo log on to Google Maps to find the address on the paperwork that was attached to the container of rosewood. She was surprised to see it was almost within walking distance. Mo used the zoom feature to expand a square on a map of east London. The river’s irregular, pale blue expanse was flat and calming, so unlike the real thing. Mo played around making the map smaller and larger.

  ‘I’ve always thought zooming in makes it look like a slow-motion bomb drop,’ Georgie said.

  Mo swivelled round with mock seriousness. ‘Careful – I don’t want you to report that.’

  ‘You’re safe, there’s no one to hear you today.’ Georgie gestured round the half empty office. It was Saturday morning, and a skeleton shift were at work. ‘Come on, West End boy.’

  Mo reached to the back of his chair for his coat. ‘You’re on, East End girl.’

  Differences attract, Georgie felt. Working with Mo was one of the highlights of the job. He had been in the service a year longer and was three years older than her but he didn’t mind being paired with her in the least. The third son of Afghan immigrant parents, he had an ability to let insults and setbacks bounce off him without a care. He was never without his iPod buds shoved in his ears and as they got in the car – he let her drive – he belted out their favourite song of the week: ‘East End Boys, West End Girls’. United over the Pet Shop Boys was a good way to start the day.

  Even though the address was in walking distance along the dock, they needed to negotiate a warren of streets that were dead-ends or blocked off or one-way to get to their destination. Eventually they found Casson Street, a faded Victorian terrace and a set of low-rise fifties council blocks, some in the process of being dismantled, that ended in a dead-end by the river. The new shopping complex loomed over the housing. The end of the street also housed a children’s indoor play area that, Georgie assumed, you could walk to from the newly built shopping centre, enjoying the fine view of next to nothing bar the grain silos on the opposite bank of the river as you did so. In ten years she knew her commute to work would be longer as the docks were pushed further east, the pressure on property prices driving trade further downriver. They’d be laying cobbles over the expanses of tarmac and installing fancy floor-level lighting here in a few years. She parked and they got out. A St George’s flag hung from a council balcony; a minaret of the local mosque poked over the terrace.

  ‘We’re looking for number four.’ They walked along to the play area and a grinning clown’s head stared back at them.

  ‘That’s number three, I think,’ Mo said. They both turned round and looked across the road. ‘And that’s number four.’

  ‘Or that’s where number four should be.’ They crossed the road and walked on to a gravel space between a three-storey estate and another building. Weeds broke through the rough ground, puddles reflected the sky. Whatever had stood here years before had probably been destroyed or damaged in the Blitz, and nobody had got round to rebuilding. Part of an ancient chain-link fence still clung to the edges of the space, but the pretence of keeping anyone out had long since been abandoned.

  ‘How disappointing,’ Mo said flatly.

  Georgie walked into the middle and looked down at the large truck tyre marks in the mud. ‘What do you think the chances are that anyone in these flats here has seen anything?’ she asked Mo.

  He paused for a moment. ‘Oh, nil to zero.’

  Georgie looked around for CCTV cameras. You could always hope. The shopping centre would have them, but out here was unlikely.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Georgie said. ‘Why does anyone need a whole shipping container worth of wood? For a floor, you’d use Indonesian plantation wood, you wouldn’t run the risk with this stuff, would you?’

  ‘And guitar makers don’t need this quantity.’ Mo stood quite still, thinking it over. ‘It must be a cover for something else. The question is, what?’

  Georgie thought for a moment. ‘You’re looking at this the wrong way round. The question isn’t what is he really shipping into London? The question is how is he hiding whatever it is, so we can’t find it?’

  10

  Across town in the solid comfort of Marylebone, Kelly sat on a chair outside the headmaster’s office and watched the morning sun slide across the parquet. It was so quiet here, so different from her own memories of school. The headmaster’s door opened and he came out. ‘Mrs Malamatos? Please come in.’ The headmaster was in his late fifties and wore thick glasses and, even on Saturday, an academic gown. She stood and he ushered her into his office. ‘This is Mrs Weaver, who deals with pastoral care of our children. She really understands the pressures on parents these days.’

  A large, big-breasted woman with short blonde hair leaned across to shake Kelly’s hand. ‘I’ve got three of my own,’ she puffed and raised her eyebrows to the ceiling, inviting Kelly to agree. Kelly said nothing.

  Yannis sat on a chair next to the headmaster’s desk, his legs too short to reach the floor. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  The room smelled of damp; a large clock that looked like it dated from 1940 loomed over them. ‘We need to have a talk about Yannis, Mrs Malamatos,’ the headmaster said. ‘And the next steps.’

  ‘Please, call me Kelly.’ He smiled at her vaguely, as if she were shifting in and out of focus. ‘What do you mean, next steps?’

  ‘I’m afraid your son’s behaviour has fallen below the high standards we expect of pupils here.’

  ‘And it’s not the first time, is it, Yannis?’ added Mrs Weaver.

  Kelly looked at her son. He sat on his hands and looked at the floor. Christos had been to this school. She knew early on that Yannis would be sent here too. The prospectus had shown a series of solid Victorian buildings and narrow courtyards on its heavy paper and there were long paragraphs about discipline and boundaries and the highest academic standards. She had seen pictures of serious-looking boys wearing protective goggles doing science experiments. She looked at Yannis, the weight of being in the headmaster’s office on a non school day hanging heavy on him.

  Kelly had tried to explain to Christos that she thought their son needed a different kind of school. A nurturing, protective place, where the boys and girls would grow sunflower seeds on the windowsills and there were lots of drama productions. Christos had said no. He demanded competition, rigour and results. She had wanted only love for Yannis, space for him to dream, and as the years had gone on she had had a dream of her own, that maybe his school could be a relaxed place where she could chat to other mothers as they clustered in the playground at home time. Somewhere she could dare to make a friend. But here the school, with its high fees and cramped urban site, was full of au pairs or nannies speaking languages she didn’t understand, and the mothers who might have been her friends jumped from their four-by-fours and harried their offspring, car keys waving in their palms, worried that today they wouldn’t avoid the traffic wardens who hovered over the easy pickings on the double yellows outside the gate. Her relationships were of the most superficial kind. She felt invisible here, too.

  ‘I have to be honest with you, Mrs Malamatos, if this school didn’t have such a long-standing relationship with the Malamatos family, we would have to think quite carefully about whether we could still have Yannis attend,’ continued the headmaster.

  ‘What did he do this time?’ asked Kelly.

  ‘He punched Mrs Inskip,’ said the headmaster.

  Kelly felt a vein twitch behind her eye. ‘I’m astonished that he did such a thing,’ she began, but Mrs Weaver was already talking over her.

  ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Mrs Malamatos, I’ve had a long chat with your husband and I think we can put some things in place that might help Yannis with his behaviour.’

  ‘Chat with my husband?’

  Mrs Weaver smiled. ‘I understand things have been a bit … challenging at home, and in those situations a strong sense of routine can really help children to feel more, adjusted shall we say
.’

  Kelly felt the temperature in the room drop ten degrees. ‘I don’t know what you mean. What issues at home?’

  ‘Yannis and I had a conversation and he was talking about how much he loves animals, horses in particular.’

  Kelly looked at her son’s sad and confused face.

  ‘And I and your husband hit upon an idea that I think it might be useful to try. There are horse-riding lessons in Hyde Park, not far from the school here. The children also have to learn the discipline of mucking out the stables and caring for an animal. A long-term project such as that can have a really positive effect on a child.’

  ‘You spoke to Christos about this earlier?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘He was enthusiastic.’

  Kelly knew she needed to be careful here. She couldn’t be seen not to be at least considering the idea. ‘It seems to me that you’re rewarding bad behaviour. That would send the wrong message, surely.’

  ‘This would be after two days’ detention.’ Mrs Weaver’s smile hadn’t wavered. Kelly wondered if she could keep it up for an entire term. ‘And then we could start the morning horse-riding. Working in a stables is not for the faint-hearted.’

  Something about that sentence struck Kelly as wrong. ‘This would be once a week, right?’ Kelly asked.

  The headmaster took over. ‘It would be every morning—’

  Kelly shook her head. ‘It’s a nice idea, but I’m afraid it just isn’t practical. I have my daughter to get to school and that’s in north London.’

  ‘Mr Malamatos had a very good suggestion. Sylvie Lockhart, his PA, can take Yannis in the mornings – she’s a great horse-rider, apparently – and then drop him here at school before going to work.’

  Kelly felt like she had been slapped. ‘No, I don’t think that would work at all.’

  The headmaster raised his hands. ‘Why don’t we try it for a month or so? Because the purpose is to improve your behaviour, young man,’ he said, turning to Yannis.

  Kelly felt the anger mushrooming. They had decided all this without her. Christos hadn’t even bothered to mention it to her. And suddenly here was Sylvie, presumptuous enough to think she could slide from her husband’s bed into their family routines – take her son to school. Well, it wasn’t happening. ‘This is all very well, but no. Sylvie doesn’t need the distraction from her job. I will deal with it at home and make sure that Yannis doesn’t do something like this again.’

  The headmaster looked unconvinced, but he turned to Yannis. ‘What do you say, young man? Are you going to make sure your mother and father don’t have to come into the school again? Are you going to follow their good example and never hit anyone again?’

  For the first time in the meeting, all eyes were on her son. He looked up at them, his bottom lip jutting forward in a little pout, a frown of confusion on his face. ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t start a sentence with “but”, Yannis,’ interrupted the headmaster.

  Yannis swallowed and Kelly thought he might cry. ‘When Daddy gets angry … When Daddy and Mummy …’

  Kelly stood, reached over and grabbed Yannis’s hand, yanking him to his feet. She saw Mrs Weaver start back and fold her arms over her big breasts. Kelly’s fear at what Yannis might unwittingly reveal about what Christos did, here, in Christos’s old school … it didn’t bear thinking about. She had to cut this conversation dead at all costs. ‘I’ve changed my mind. We’ll try it for a month, if that’s what everyone wants.’

  ‘I think it’s worth a try,’ Mrs Weaver said carefully.

  Kelly was too ashamed to argue or to answer back. She needed to get out of this claustrophobic office as quickly as possible; she was losing the ability to breathe, feared she might have a panic attack.

  She marched Yannis along the vaulted corridors to the exit. The swing doors sucked closed behind them. She bundled him into the car, mute. She sat gripping the steering wheel so hard she felt she would pass out with fury. Her son had seen. At some point, he had watched what Daddy did to Mummy. She had to save him from what he saw. Shame at how she was aiding and abetting what Christos did almost crushed her. Parents shaped their offspring as surely as a modeller shaped clay. Yet Yannis was being moulded into something foreign to her – picking up and absorbing the worst traits of her situation, and she was letting it happen. If she didn’t get him out he would become an image of his father and all that brought with it.

  ‘Mummy? I’m sorry, Mummy.’

  She turned to look at Yannis sitting in the back of the car, saw his attention caught by something on the seat next to him. He picked up one of his favourite toys, a model of a container ship. He began bouncing it along the seat, tossing it as if it were in a storm. ‘Daddy says this ship will be mine when I grow up.’

  11

  The Wolf glanced once at the stopwatch and then yanked hard on the chainsaw’s starter cord. The noise of a powerful motor bursting into life assaulted his eardrums and he held firm as the saw juddered to attention in his sinewy arms. He bent low and began a slicing action at the top end of the great mahogany trunk, stripping the one-hundred-foot tree of its branches with firm, aggressive strokes. They thumped dully to the forest floor as he worked his way along the tree to its base. He wasn’t wearing ear muffs, he liked to be surrounded by the noise of the chainsaw and he wanted to be able to hear the man’s screams when they reached a pitch that was higher than the motor.

  The man was tied to the length of the trunk, ten feet away from him now. Out of the corner of his eye the Wolf could see him writhing as the chainsaw’s teeth moved closer.

  Five branches away from the man’s head the Wolf glanced up at the stopwatch, forcing the whirring blade through the thick branches, forcing it back upwards as the yellow dust of the trunk flew around. The resiny smell of freshly cut wood hung in the air. All the branches were off now, lying like felled soldiers at his feet. He started on the massive trunk, pitting the teeth against the densest and heaviest part of the tree. He bent his knees low, the strain spreading across his back as he pushed down on the blade. The adrenalin was pumping through his body, driving him to work faster. It was hard, physical work, the humidity high and bugs the size of dessert spoons buzzing. He had to keep the correct angles; always working away from himself. He had seen what those machines could do to a human body. A chainsaw didn’t cut flesh, it shredded it. Each of the many teeth cut its own path, flesh exploding from the wound like streamers from a party popper. Sweat was running from his pores under his safety shirt, heavy with layer upon layer of string to tangle in those vicious teeth and save your limbs. The man was screaming fully now, his mouth a dark hole in the cloud of wood dust, his eyes dark pricks of terror. He cut the trunk a few inches above the guy’s head and jumped across him to chop the last, biggest and heaviest slice below the prone man’s feet.

  He turned off the machine and silence slammed against him, underpinned by the sobbing and gasping of the man on the tree trunk. He looked at his stopwatch. Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds. He was panting hard as he unhooked the heavy machine from the harness hanging at his side and pulled his goggles on to his forehead. He yelled something incoherent, the adrenalin and the smell of the tree fuelling a cocktail of mad joy in him. There was something else, tangy and salty. He looked down at the quivering man, a dark stain of urine spreading across his trousers. A sense of freedom and power overwhelmed him. A lumberjack used to working in the Amazon could fell and chop a giant rosewood or mahogany tree in less than two minutes. He had been used to it once, but he was out of practice now. He wasn’t going to be too hard on himself.

  The Wolf leaned close to the man. ‘Which ship is it on?’

  The man was trying to say something through his sobs, words tumbling too fast from his dry mouth. It sounded like ‘I don’t know’.

  The Wolf picked up the chainsaw again and the man screamed, tears carving a pale line in his wood-dust face. ‘It’s on the Saracen. I heard that—’

  ‘Be more specific. Where o
n the Saracen? There are hundreds of containers on that ship.’

  The man started moaning again, begging for his life. The Wolf looked across the hillside at where the brush had been cleared, the smoke from the burning blocking out the sun. The big trees were still left here, a line of fifteen hardwood trees a hundred feet high, bursting up through the forest canopy. The third tree in towered at least twenty feet above all the others. Its trunk was thicker, its branches higher, its reach wider. An exceptional specimen: a wolf tree.

  ‘Tell me now or I’ll shred you.’ The man had only strength to whisper. The Wolf leaned in and listened for a few moments, drew back and stared down at his captive. You could make a series of cuts in a trunk until it was so finely balanced that you could push over a 500-ton tree with a little finger. It would hit the ground with such force it would obliterate anything in its path. Trees spend centuries growing, and can be cut down in a couple of minutes. People were the same. Christos had been untouchable for nearly ten years, but now he finally had some information he could use. The Wolf just had to get everything into the right position, use his little finger and push.

  He yanked on the starter cord of the chainsaw, the man writhing and screaming with a final desperate intensity. The party poppers of skin rose high in the air. The Wolf cut him right across the middle. It would have been kinder to cut off his head.

  12

  Kelly returned home with Yannis, but after being back for only a few minutes the doorbell rang on the service lift. She checked the video monitor and swore silently. Jason, a production manager who had commissioned her to make the masks and some of the props for his latest play, and Salvatore, his assistant, were downstairs on the garage level.

  ‘Kelly, you ready for us?’ asked Jason. ‘I’ve got the van here for the props.’