by David Bowker
Rawhead drew his Ruger, knocked off the safety catch, and unlocked the kitchen door. He turned the knob and kicked the door open. There was no one in the kitchen. The cellar door was locked. Rawhead was curious about the cellar but knew he had to secure the house first. So he walked from room to room, searching for signs of an intruder.
In his bedroom, there was that fragrance again. The smell of violets. He scoured the room, sniffing in every corner, until he traced the smell to his pillow. Rawhead was stunned. Who had been sleeping in his bed? The sheets hadn’t been changed for years. Who would want to sleep in his bed?
In the library, he noticed a gap on the shelf reserved for his most precious first editions. With a start, he realized Dracula was missing.
He went down to the cellar. As a precaution, he left both doors open and put the keys in his pocket. Then, head bowed, he walked down the passage to the gap in the wall and surveyed the dead faces below.
It was as he had expected. There was a fresh body down there. A middle-aged female traffic warden in full uniform, her hat at a jaunty angle, face staring upward in cold disapproval. She had been shot in the heart.
Rawhead was amazed. The corpse was so perfectly positioned that it might have been his own work. He, the stalker, was being stalked. It was now obvious to him that he could not leave the house. He must stay here, keeping vigil, until his enemy returned.
As this thought occurred to him, Rawhead heard a quiet bump behind him. He glanced round and saw that the door at the end was now closed.
Holding the Ruger steady, he crept down the passage toward the door.
* * *
On the other side of the door, the Spirit waited, crouching low, the Sig resting on her left knee. Not in front of the door, but slightly to one side. There was a full minute of silence; then three shots ripped through the door, spraying splintered oak over the floor, blasting down dust and gossamer from the ceiling.
The Spirit had expected this.
Moving muscle by muscle, inching sideways with excruciating care, the Spirit crept round until she was in front of the door. And then she waited, eyes fixed on the wooden doorknob. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Her knees and thighs began to ache. She placed her left hand on the floor to take some of the weight.
Not daring to breathe or move. Because she knew what was coming.
Once or twice, she thought she could hear him breathing. A floorboard creaked overhead and she almost fired but held on, knowing she must not act until she saw the door handle move. In the end, she was not prompted to act by any visual warning. The door to the passage tremored. That was enough. The Spirit loosed all seven rounds, aiming at where she guessed Rawhead’s chest would be.
When the sound of the shots died away, the silence returned.
Then she waited for a great deal longer, listening out for telltale moans or sighs. There was nothing. The Spirit knew it must be over, but still she lingered. In the end, it was sheer boredom that brought her to her feet. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes with her scarf, then bound it tightly over her mouth and nostrils. After reloading the Sig, she reached for the handle and opened the door.
* * *
All things considered, Chef didn’t think this woman appreciated the subtle dynamics of their business relationship. He was her employer; it wasn’t the other way around. He could have been doing anything that evening. He could have been setting up a business deal with the heads of all the New York families. OK, so maybe he wasn’t.
The point was, Chef called the shots, no one else.
Because of this, Chef contemplated not traveling to Dudloe at all. If he kept an appointment that she’d called, surely that would compound her view that she held the upper hand? Conversely, not turning up might lead that surly bitch to assume he was scared. In the end, he came up with an excellent compromise.
He was accompanied by Boner, the Philosopher, Bryan, and Average. All five men were packing. Chef was carrying a Derringer, just the kind of dainty little weapon to shoot a woman with.
As the Rolls pulled up outside the dark vicarage, Chef’s mobile rang. It was her. “Is that your car outside?” she said.
“Yes, it’s my car,” he said. Then he hung up.
“What the fuck is going on, Boss?” said the Philosopher.
“You see that house?” said Chef. “You’re going to go inside it.”
“Why me?”
“You know Stoker? The guy that works for Little Malc? The one who told you to go fuck yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to know if he’s in there.”
“You setting me up?”
“No,” said Chef. “The guy can’t hurt you. He’s swooned. I just want you to identify the body.”
“Why me?”
“Because I trust you. Because you’re my number two.”
“Oh, fuck,” said the Philosopher.
“Just go to the front door,” said Chef. “A woman’s going to meet you.”
“What woman?”
“You don’t need to know. Just go in; view the body; come out again.”
The other tools sat in stark silence, relieved that none of them was Chef’s number two. Boner peered at the house and thought he saw a ghostly light flitting from window to window.
Chef patted the Philosopher’s shoulder. “If you’re sure it’s Stoker, hundred percent sure, tell the woman four working days.”
“Who is she?”
“Nobody. A go-between. OK?”
“OK.”
The Philosopher opened the door and got out of the car. “And make sure you don’t fucking drive away.”
Average laughed.
“Hey, man,” said Boner. “Be careful. Don’t get yourself boxed.”
The Philosopher shrugged. “If it happens, it happens.”
No wonder they called him the Philosopher.
* * *
She met him at the door, a small dark woman in black, holding a powerful flashlight. She seemed supremely confident, which made the Philosopher even more nervous. As they walked through the house, she turned on all the lights. In the kitchen, she passed the Philosopher a clean tea towel.
“What’s this for?”
“Hold it over your face,” she said. “The smell down there is pretty extreme.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about, not until she unlocked the door to the passage. When he saw the rats and the flies, the Philosopher didn’t want to go in there.
“Where the fuck is he?” he said, his voice muffled by the tea towel.
“Just follow me,” she said. “Mind your head.”
At the end of the passage, she shone her lamp down into the pit and told the Philosopher to take a look. The sight of all the bodies made the Philosopher reel. He covered his face with his hands and felt something crawling over his knuckles.
“Did you see him?” said the woman.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He peered at her through his fingers. “What’s going on?”
“Did you see Stoker?”
He shivered. “What is this fucking place?”
She repeated her question.
“No,” he admitted.
“Take another look.”
She shone the torch into the vault. With a monumental effort of will, the Philosopher leaned through the gap and looked down. The cadavers were all colors; black, blue, green, and yellow. And in the center of the corpses, dead but uncorrupted, lay the man who had accompanied Little Malc to the restaurant.
The Philosopher was sure it was the same guy. Stoker. Hands joined over his open belly, intestines erupting through his fingers.
“Is that him?” said the woman.
“Yeah,” said the Philosopher weakly, already turning away. All he wanted to do now was breathe clean air.
When he got back to the car, he couldn’t talk. Not at first. He sat in the front seat next to Chef, sweating and breathing heavily. Chef had to give him brandy.
“Did you see him?” said Chef
.
The Philosopher nodded.
“You’re sure it was him?”
The Philosopher opened his mouth to say, “Yes.” Instead he threw up, all over Chef, the windscreen, and the beautiful cream upholstery.
Fifteen
Oft have I sigh’d for him that heares me not;
Who absent hath both love and mee forgot.
—“THIRD BOOK OF AYRES” THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620)
As soon as Hughes had shown Harrop his homework assignment, she picked up the phone and put an internal call through to Alan Cheetham, the assistant chief constable. Twenty minutes later, Hughes and Harrop were sitting in Cheetham’s office, surrounded by framed certificates. Top of his year at Hendon College, record fund-raiser for the Police Benevolent Fund, winner of the Manchester City Council Humanitarian Policing Award. It made Harrop feel sick.
Cheetham and Harrop didn’t like each other much, but Cheetham always pretended she was a personal favorite of his.
“Janet, what can I do for you?”
Cheetham had pale blue eyes and thinning hair the color of wet sand. He parted his hair at the side, combing it unconvincingly over his bare scalp. He liked to smile and engage in direct eye contact, as if hoping, by an effort of will, to divert attention from his comb-over.
“Or what can you do for me?”
“Well, it’s Detective Sergeant Hughes, really,” said Harrop. “He’s the one who’s been up all night.”
“Not quite all night,” protested Hughes modestly.
Harrop supplied Cheetham with the background. Then Hughes, flustered by the knowledge that the next few minutes might exert a crucial influence over the rest of his career, consulted a single typed page resting in his lap.
“So I did some research into Mr. Dye’s past, sir. It makes alarming reading. Two years ago, his literary agent was murdered. Her head was cut off and left in her office. The rest of her body was never found. At the time, Dye was known to be unhappy with his agent and his career. Which might account for the disappearance of his publisher at about the same time. The publisher has also never been found.”
Cheetham opened his mouth to speak. But Hughes hadn’t finished.
“About the same time, Dye’s closest friend, a constable in the Cheshire Constabulary, mysteriously vanishes. Also never found. This January a headless man is found hanging in a wood while Dye is staying in a nearby hotel. Then two police officers and Dye’s next-door neighbors are shot dead. And that’s not all.
“Last week the producer of Dye’s TV show disappears—this happens after Dye tells the producer to ‘go fuck himself’ during a meeting. This morning I contacted our colleagues in Cheshire to find out if they had anything to add. And, lo and behold, I learn that Mr. Dye’s wife has now joined the ranks of the disappeared. He reported her missing yesterday.”
By the time Hughes had concluded his litany of misfortunes, the bland smile on Cheetham’s face had been replaced by a look of consternation. “I must say, I find this rather incredible. Janet, why hasn’t this person been arrested?”
Hughes looked at Harrop. Harrop coughed and stared down at her shoes.
* * *
On Cheetham’s authorization, two Armed Response Vehicles were dispatched to Billy Dye’s Prestbury home. Each vehicle contained four officers, armed with Heckler and Koch MP5s, capable of firing 800 rounds a minute. In addition to these assault rifles, the officers had access to M1 carbines and Walther P990 handguns.
The road outside Billy’s house was cordoned off. A police helicopter, also containing a marksman, hovered overhead in case the suspect attempted a getaway. Harrop and Hughes, watching the proceedings from a safe distance, used radios to liaise with officers on the ground and in the air. But the actual arrest was commandeered by the Armed Response Unit. Four officers circled the house while the remaining four kicked down the door.
The ground floor was clear. They found a locked door upstairs. An officer fired a burst of three to remove the lock, then kicked the door open. Inside the room, they found Billy Dye sitting on the lavatory. Billy exhibited no surprise. He was smiling inanely, stoned out of his brain.
“Get facedown on the floor,” the officer commanded.
“Aw! I’m having a shit,” complained Billy mildly.
“On the floor. Now!”
Billy lay down, trousers round his ankles. “I suppose this is about me not buying a TV license?”
The first officer cuffed Billy’s hands behind his back while another pointed an MP5 at his head.
“Excuse me,” said Billy politely. “Would one of you be kind enough to wipe my arse?”
* * *
They locked Billy in a cell while they searched his house. Finding nothing more incriminating on the premises than an ounce of antique dope, they took him to an interview room. Irrationally, Billy kept waiting for Rawhead to rescue him. Surely it was only a matter of time before he heard the gunshots and policemen screaming?
As the hours passed, Billy began to see that Rawhead’s intervention was unlikely. His mood passed from disappointment to sorrow, settling on defiance and quiet resolve. Rawhead was right. The police were the enemy, to be resisted at all costs. Lacking the imagination to think for themselves, they merely upheld laws created by the right-wing elite. Like any ordinary bastards, the police didn’t yearn for justice. They yearned for more money, longer holidays, less work, shiny new cars, and sexual intercourse without responsibility. Telling them the truth made no more sense than confessing to a camel turd.
Billy wasn’t sure how long he could protect himself and Rawhead. Billy was a blabbermouth, always had been. Apart from that one time when he was fourteen and the police had asked him to bear witness against Rawhead. To shield his friend, Billy had stayed silent. If he’d done it once, he could do it again.
Hughes offered to provide Billy with a solicitor. Billy declined, knowing he’d end up with Coco the Clown. Harrop and Hughes sat opposite him in the interview room. The two detectives were visibly encouraged by Billy’s refusal to accept legal representation, joking with him and offering him tea and biscuits before the tape started rolling.
“Do you know why you’re here, William?” asked Harrop.
“No one calls me William,” said Billy.
“Why? It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“I don’t like it. Any more than you like being called Ginger Minge.”
Billy expected Harrop to get angry. Instead she smiled, pleased that he was making a twat of himself on tape.
“What would you like us to call you?” said Hughes.
Billy mimed masturbation. Hughes leaned toward the microphone. “At this point, the interviewee made an obscene gesture.”
Then Hughes explained why Billy had been arrested. He talked down to Billy as if he was a child. All those poor people, gone forever. Didn’t Billy realize how naughty it was to kill people?
“I’m in the dark as much as you are,” said Billy. “All I can think is, it’s something to do with the Priesthood.”
“The Priesthood?” repeated Harrop.
And he told them how he’d accepted a commission to ghost Priest’s memoirs, omitting to mention that Priest had ordered his death.
“Can you verify this?” asked Harrop.
“Yep. I’ve still got the interview tapes,” said Billy.
Harrop gave Hughes a glance of disgust. Hughes blushed, knowing what she was thinking. That, despite all his strenuous enterprise, his research into Billy Dye was woefully incomplete.
“The project fizzled out,” said Billy. “Priest and me couldn’t agree on what form the book should take. I wanted to write about a gangster. He wanted to be shown as a humanitarian. Every morning he sent his chauffeur to pick me up. One morning the car didn’t show and Priest stopped returning my calls. It was around this time my agent was murdered and my publisher and my best mate went missing.”
“Who was your best mate?” said Hughes.
“Detective Constable Holt, of
the Cheshire police,” said Billy. “I miss him a lot.”
“Are you still in contact with Mr. Priest’s, er, bedfellows?” asked Hughes.
“No. I’ve had no contact with them since April. Although…”
“Yes?”
“It was probably a bad mistake, but I used my research into Priest and his gang as the basis for a TV series. The show’s been canceled now. The production team have been receiving anonymous threats. And, as you know, Mr. Crème went missing.”
“What about your wife? Where do you think she is?”
“I don’t know. I’m very worried about her. She did exactly the same thing before our daughter was born. Just walked out on me.”
“Can you prove that?” said Harrop wearily.
“Check it with her mum and dad. Talk to her doctor. Nikki suffers from depression. When it gets bad, this is what she does. She runs away.”
Harrop and Hughes sat there in sullen silence. Dye’s story had the depressing ring of truth about it.
“It isn’t illegal, is it?” asked Billy innocently. “To try to write about gangsters? I hope I haven’t broken any laws.”
Pushing his luck as always, Billy winked at Harrop, who felt like vaulting over the table and strangling him. If the Priesthood was involved, she knew that her chances of wrapping up this case were nonexistent. Not only did Chef control crime in Manchester; he controlled the chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police.
Harrop had clashed with Chef once before. A man had been shot in the legs for failing to repay a loan. The Priesthood was clearly responsible. But no one would talk, the victim included. Harrop’s only reward for weeks of work had been razor blades in her mail, derision from her colleagues, and a stern reprimand from her superiors.
Colleagues told Harrop how lucky she’d been. Lucky to have escaped with her job and her life. In the future, they said, don’t pick fights with the big boys. That way, she might live to collect her pension.
But that was the thing about Harrop. She never listened.
