by Andy Wiseman
What Harry was looking at, was a walking butcher’s shop.
Patrick’s entire lower body was blood-red. Large chunks of flesh were missing or hanging loose; sinews, tendons, and bone clearly exposed, the trail of blood on the tiled floor, indicating Patrick’s weakening and unsteady progress.
The face of the attacking dog was slick with red, also.
‘Victor,’ shouted Harry. ‘If he dies, you’ve got no leverage!’
Victor continued to watch Patrick, with excitement in his eyes. He ignored Harry.
‘If he dies, Victor, what’s there to keep the girl here?’ yelled Harry, desperately looking for a way. ‘What’s there to stop Mollie leaving? Walking out?’
‘I’m told she has very attractive mother,’ said Victor, over his shoulder, without taking his eyes off the ailing and weakening Patrick.
‘Patrick,’ screamed Harry. ‘You’ve got to run! You’ve got to get out of there! You’ve got to run towards me, Patrick, it’s too deep at that end! Patrick, you can only get out at this end!’
Patrick was tiring fast, but so was the dog. Harry was amazed Patrick was still on his feet, his loss of blood must be extensive, he thought, and the only thing keeping him going was probably adrenaline, and the alcohol in his body to numb the pain.
‘This way, Patrick! Run this way! Run, Patrick, run!’
Patrick took one last swing at the dog, his foot successfully connecting with its shoulder blade. He only managed to temporarily unbalance the dog, but it gave him the head start he needed. He set off at a stumbling run, head down, shoulders forward, building up momentum, heading towards Harry, but with the dog close on his heels.
‘Patrick, you can do it! Run! Run Patrick!’ called Harry.
As Patrick approached the wall of the shallow end, he launched himself forward, landing face down on the poolside, teetering half in, half out.
Harry instinctively jumped up, but still being tied to the chair, found himself crashing forward onto the floor, and only a short distance from where Patrick lay. ‘Patrick,’ said Harry, looking into the big Irishman’s face, unsure what else to say. He saw Patrick’s brow briefly furrow, then saw his eyes widen in recognition, before beginning to crease at the corners, as if in the start of a smile.
But that smile never came. It was replaced with a highly shined black shoe, the sole of which was placed gently and purposely in the centre of Patrick’s forehead. A heartbeat later, it gave a slight push, toppling Patrick backwards and into the pool, cracking his head on the hard tiled floor, to leave him stunned and defenceless.
He didn’t stand a chance. The remaining dog was on him. It clamped its jaws around his throat, and just as he started to scream, the dog braced its powerful forelegs and worried at the soft exposed flesh, its big, ugly, scarred head thrashing from side to side. Patrick’s scream became a strangled gasp, dying completely, as the dog ripped out his throat, and with it, the remaining life from Patrick’s body.
And Harry saw it all from where he lay.
With its prey now dead, the dog lost interest, trotting away to lie down in the corner of the pool.
It was now very quiet. A hushed silence.
Earring had walked around the pool to join his comrades. The three of them now stared down into the pool, grinning broadly, thoroughly entertained.
Harry lay still and unmoving on the poolside, and just stared down at Patrick’s corpse, watching the blood pool around his body. ‘Victor,’ he said, quietly, but loud enough to be heard, ‘I intend to kill you. I’m going to take your life. And I can assure you, it will be a painful death,’ he said, finally, as he continued to watch Patrick, his gaze never wavering.
The confident smile briefly slipped from Victor’s face, to return seconds later, but only after he’d touched the stun-gun to the back of Harry’s head, sending him back into oblivion.
CHAPTER 38
‘Oh... my... God!’ said Izzy, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. ‘That was yum-yum-pig’s-bum-sex-in-a-dish-deelish!’ she said, before then taking a large gulp of wine.
Steve beamed with pride at Izzy’s compliment. An objective observer would probably describe him as “grinning like an idiot”. He’d lost track of how much alcohol he’d consumed, and frankly, he couldn’t care less. ‘So,’ he said, grinning broadly, ‘why are you really here?’
Izzy’s wineglass halted abruptly midway to her mouth, causing a small droplet of wine to fly out and land on the tip of her nose. She levelled her gaze at Steve, and paused for a moment. ‘I’ll be totally honest with you,’ she said, wiping the droplet of wine away. ‘I’m undercover. I’m on a big story. A massive story.’ She took another sip of her wine, her gaze still holding Steve’s. Steve grinned back at her. ‘Sex trafficking. Women being forced into prostitution. Here in London,’ she told him, waving her wineglass expansively. Both Steve’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Massive! And I’m going to blow it wide open!’ she then said.
‘It does happen,’ said Steve, nodding his head.
‘It does?’ said Izzy, suddenly leaning forward. ‘Fuck-a-duck!’
Steve’s grin disappeared and his eyebrows turned into a frown. ‘I thought you said you were undercover?’
Izzy said nothing.
‘You weren’t being “totally honest” with me, were you?’
After a moment’s hesitation, Izzy made the see-saw hand movement that suggested maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t.
‘Okay,’ said Steve, ‘so what are you really working on?’
‘Well...’ said Izzy, hesitating, ‘officially, it’s a story about a crappy little church in Camden - though I missed the original deadline for that. Unofficially, I’m looking for a missing girl. A student.’
‘And there’s a story for you, behind this missing girl, I take it?’
‘Well...’ said Izzy, drawing out her reply, ‘hopefully, at some point. I’m actually helping out a friend with my investigative journalistic knowledge,’ she said, taking extra care over her pronunciation.
‘Who’s the friend?’ asked Steve.
‘I can’t reveal my source, sorry.’
‘What’s your source’s interest?’
Izzy said nothing.
‘Family member? Friend?’
Izzy smiled back, but still said nothing.
‘Okay,’ said Steve, with resignation, the smile returning to his face. ‘What is it you want from me?’
‘Could you make some enquiries? Sort of, unofficially? ‘on the quiet’?’ she replied, smiling sweetly.
‘I’m a policeman,’ said Steve, in a mock voice of authority. ‘We don’t do unofficial, Isobelle.’
‘Izzy,’ said Izzy, blatantly batting her eyelids.
‘Hang on a second,’ he said, as he carefully climbed off the bar stool to reach for his police notebook and pen. ‘You do know this city has a population of over eight million,’ Steve told her. ‘People go missing all the time.’ He finally found a clean page and readied his pen. ‘Has the girl been officially reported as missing?’
Izzy puffed out her cheeks as she gave this some thought. ‘I’ve only met the girl’s father, and I think it’s unlikely he will have reported it - under the circumstances, that is.’
This last comment drew a curious look from Steve. ‘What’s the girl’s name?’
‘Mollie Dolan.’
Steve started to write, but then stopped. He stared at the page, frowning.
‘What?’ said Izzy, seeing the look on Steve’s face.
‘She has been reported missing,’ replied Steve, trying to remember. ‘By her mother.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Izzy, eagerly.
‘Who?’
‘Mollie Dolan’s mother, of course,’ said Izzy, rolling her eyes and giving Steve a mock exasperated look.
‘Oh, yes, of course. Uniform took the mother’s statement, so I haven’t met her. I was looking at the file only this morning.’
‘What enquiries have you made so far?’
/> ‘Err, none. I didn’t quite get around to it,’ replied Steve, embarrassed. ‘The file said she’d gone missing before - family issues. Spoilt-little-rich-girl, type of thing. You know how it is. Besides, the Post-it note said not to waste too much time on it,’ he added, in justification.
Izzy was about to pick him up on the “Spoilt-little-rich-girl” comment, but instead, said, ‘Post-it note?’ her voice rising slightly.
‘My D.I.’s idea of man-management.’
‘Not very high-tech,’ replied Izzy.
‘He’s not a very “high-tech” type of guy.’
‘Clearly.’
‘What were “the circumstances” you were referring to?’ asked Steve, remembering.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Izzy, wondering how much to tell Steve without involving Harry, and without Steve or the police taking full control of the case and shutting Izzy out completely. ‘Mollie’s father owes money.’
Steve waited. But when Izzy said no more, he said, ‘I take it we aren’t talking about a High Street bank, here?’ Izzy nodded her head. ‘And the people the father owes money to have taken the daughter as leverage?’
‘Looks that way, though I can’t be totally sure.’
Steve looked thoughtful. Then, ‘Is Cutter involved in this?’
‘Looks that way, though I can’t be totally sure,’ said Izzy, repeating herself and sounding lame.
‘Your “source”, your “friend”. Do you trust him?’ asked Steve.
‘With my life,’ replied Izzy, immediately, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt, then suddenly realising she’d just confirmed to Steve her friend’s gender. Whether that had been his intention or not, he was giving nothing away.
‘That’s good. Trust is very important,’ he said, sombrely.
Izzy watched and waited.
Steve stared down at the almost blank page of his notebook, lost deep in thought. He adjusted the book, aligning it with the edge of the worktop. He seemed to have withdrawn into himself, his carefree mood gone.
‘Steve?’ prompted Izzy, gently. ‘Tell me about the sex trafficking.’
Steve looked up quickly, startled. He shook his head slowly, gesturing with his hands, searching for the words.
Izzy said, ‘I recently Googled ‘missing women’, in the hope of finding a clue on how to go about searching for Mollie. I came across a news article about sex trafficking in Mexico. In a country like that - though I’ve never been there - I would expect it, because there are lots of poor people there. I mean, it’s almost a Third World country, right? But here, in Great Britain, surely not.’
Steve was slowly nodding his head. ‘It’s happening all over the UK. In most major cities, and even in some of the bigger towns. Women, young women, sometimes girls, are brought over illegally and legally. In both cases it’s usually under the promise of a better life. A good job, a nice house or flat, maybe a husband. But when they get here it’s a far different reality. The cost of their passage over to the UK is either paid for them, or loaned to them on the understanding they pay the money back once they are in employment, and earning a wage. Some of the women are pressured to repay the money back almost immediately. Often they are threatened with violence against themselves, or their family, back in the girl’s native homeland. They nearly always turn to prostitution to pay off their debts.’
‘You can’t be serious!’ said Izzy, appalled. ‘Does that happen here, in London?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘But it gets worse. Most of the traffickers aren’t prepared to wait for the girl to turn to prostitution. In fact, they never were going to wait. The vast majority of these women, on their arrival in this country, will be taken to a house where they will be held prisoner and forced to take drugs. In time, they become addicts, and to get the drugs they crave, they have to provide sexual services. In this initial stage, the women are often raped. Sometimes gang raped, forced to have sex with multiple men. This is to break their morale, and to increase their need for and dependency on drugs. I believe the process is called ‘seasoning’.’
Izzy had both hands held up to her mouth, ashen faced. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 39
As Harry regained consciousness, he sensed that something was different. What wasn’t different was he still had a pounding headache, and his body felt like a herd of elephants had trampled over it. It took what seemed like a very long minute to realise he was dressed, and slumped across the driver and passenger seat of a car: Mollie Dolan’s car. It took an equally long minute for him to ease his pain wracked body into a sitting position, gasping every time he moved his head. Sweating and breathing heavily, he looked out through the windscreen. Other than a few ambient orange streetlights, it was dark and quiet.
Harry had no idea as to where he was.
The car appeared to be parked in a quiet backstreet, behind a warehouse and some retail shops. It certainly wasn’t parked across from a gentlemen’s club. For a moment, Harry found himself questioning his own sanity. Had he been at the club? Had he been tortured? And had he just witnessed the violent death of Patrick Dolan? Harry knew the answer to the last question, it wasn’t something he was likely to forget to soon - if ever. He gave a slight shake of his head to remove the image, but only succeeded in causing himself more pain. He eased his head back onto the headrest and closed his eyes to collect his thoughts. After a moment, he slid his hands into his jacket pockets to check their contents: house keys and mobile phone were both there, his cash was not.
Why have they let me go? He had expected the Russians to kill him, to tie-up yet another “loose end” because he was a potential witness. Not that he would go to the police; it just wasn’t the done thing - not his style. Had they let him go for a reason? If so, why? Harry’s gut instinct told him that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The car key wasn’t in Harry’s pockets. It wasn’t in the ignition, either.
If the Russians had gone to the effort of dressing him, returning his possessions - except for his money, the thieving bastards - and putting him in the car with the intention of him leaving, why wouldn’t they leave the car key behind?
Harry was having a sense of déjà vu.
His sense of smell was also alerting him. His personal hygiene was not up to its usual standard, he knew that; this was something completely different - yet familiar.
He opened the driver’s door, then slowly and painfully eased himself out of the car, which seemed to be sitting a little lower on its suspension than he recalled. He stood for a moment, palms flat on the roof of the car to steady himself, his vision a little blurred. He felt like he was... drunk! He tried to remember how many times they’d put the stun-gun to his head. Twice? More? He wondered if those things could cause brain damage.
As he stood there, trying to regain some composure, his eyes travelled along the roof of the car from the front to the back. The car was definitely weighted down at the rear end. Using the car for support, he shuffled his way around to its rear. What immediately caught his eye was the oil leak that was pooling on the road beneath the rear of the car, and this was by no means a small oil leak; the pool was the full width of the car, a considerable amount of oil for a car of its size, especially if it had run all the way from the front of the car to the back. In the orange hue of the streetlight, it was dark, thick, and viscous, as it followed the camber of the road into the gutter.
Easing himself down onto his knees, he peered under the car. The oil was at the rear of the car only, and not the front. Harry had to blink a couple of times to focus. The oil appeared to be dripping from the boot of the car. He dipped a forefinger into the pooling oil, and then held his finger up to the streetlight, rubbing forefinger and thumb together. It looked like oil, it felt like oil. Harry sniffed it; once, then twice. It didn’t smell like oil. It smelt like...
Harry suddenly realised what the Russians had done with Patrick’s body. He also had a sneaking suspicion as to why
they’d let him go.
He hauled himself back to his feet. He had to get out of there, and he had to get out of there quickly - he could already hear the wail of the emergency services sirens in the distance. He took a step, stumbled, and then fell. He struggled back to his feet, set off again, before once more stumbling and falling.
CHAPTER 40
Despite having the hangover from Hell, Steve had still managed to make his early morning start to work, and, as usual for that time of morning, the office was empty, which was a good thing, because - having foregone his expensive and exotic coffee for a bottle of water, an antacid tablet to settle his stomach, and painkillers to ease his headache - Steve was slumped at his desk, forehead resting upon his forearm, and promising himself, never again.
Steve’s memories of the previous evening were proving to be vague and elusive. He remembered the reporter, Isobelle Harker, turning up unexpectedly. He remembered cooking for her, and something about a missing girl? His next memory was of waking up in the early hours of the morning on his kitchen floor, still fully clothed, and no sign of the reporter.
CHAPTER 41
Izzy was driving to Willesden, also reflecting. As hangovers went, Izzy’s wasn’t too bad. She had a muzzy head, granted, but it wasn’t on a par with her previous episode. Having fallen asleep on her sofa, she, like Steve, had awoken early in the morning, but to the sound of her mobile phone ringing, violently wrenching her from her slumbers. Massaging the crick in her neck, she’d blinked blearily at the screen, only to see Harry’s name. Conscious of the last telephone conversation she’d had with Harry - or rather, hadn’t - she’d answered it warily. It was the police, and they’d found Harry - or at the very least, a man with his phone - drunk and disorderly and in need of medical attention. The police were trying to locate friends or family to collect him from the station once he’d been discharged. Was she able to take him home?
