‘You’re in luck, bonnie lad. Her highness wants another dose.’ He looked at Gaz’s groin. ‘I hope you’re clean.’ He laughed. ‘If you aren’t, that’ll make a fine sausage for my dog.’
That did it. Gaz had no idea what the woman was planning for him, but he was getting a bad vibe from her enforcer.
‘I’m clean, me,’ he said softly, dropping his head.
‘Lie down then. Cuff time.’
Gaz made his move, grabbing the knife and pressing the point against his captor’s belly.
‘Back!’ he shouted. ‘Get away from me! And take that fucking balaclava off!’
The man was a couple of yards from him now and the knife wasn’t an immediate threat any more, but he uncovered his face all the same. It was that of a classic hard man, gaze unwavering, square jaw, nose broken, heavy moustache.
‘You think you’ll get far, bonnie lad?’ he asked contemptuously.
Gaz had thought it through. He knew there would be more doors. ‘Keys,’ he said. ‘Now!’
‘You really don’t want to be doing this,’ the gorilla said.
‘Oh, yes, I fucking do. Take off your boots an’ all.’ Although he’d been given clothes, Gaz had no footwear – not even slippers. ‘Sit down while you do it!’ The man’s boots were thick-soled and heavy, and would do damage if he threw them.
A couple of minutes later Gaz had the keys and the boots, though he didn’t waste time putting the latter on now. He took a step towards his former captor, the knife extended. ‘I should cuff you and slash your wrists,’ he said. ‘But I’m not like you. I’ll just lock you in here.’
He turned and ran for the door, slamming it hard and fumbling to get the key in the lock and turn it. He shot the bolts too. Then he laughed and sat down to put on the boots. They rang loudly on the first stone steps.
The whistle from inside the room was loud and high-pitched. Gaz looked round, then turned to the front again. The dog – he recognised it immediately as a Doberman – was already in the air, its spittle-flecked jaws wide open.
Gaz’s head hit the floor hard and he lost consciousness. In that, he was lucky. The dog tore his throat out.
8
Joni had followed the crowd to the Old Bridge, where it split. The Northies hung around the riverside park, waiting for the firework display, while the Southies crossed the refurbished medieval structure, claiming that the view was much better from their side. She looked around, taking in the willows whose branches were touching the water, and the lights on the wall that had been built along the bank. Some idiot teenagers – the males dressed as well-endowed schoolgirls in short skirts and the females as mechanics in gaping overalls – climbed up, but they were soon shouted down by the few adults who weren’t the worse for alcohol. Joni had only drunk from the water bottle in her pocket, not having a head for booze. That had been another thing that differentiated her from her colleagues in the Met. She had never smoked either, let alone touched drugs. Growing up in Hackney, she’d seen the damage they did.
‘Hey, Nick, get up on the wall!’
She turned when she heard the shouts to her right. The guy in the traffic light rig was being carried towards the riverbank. As she watched the group of lively young people, a tingling started at the top of her spine and then invaded her mind. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. A month after she’d started in plain clothes, she’d reacted without conscious thought. She’d become aware of a small boy at the edge of the pavement near her flat in Vauxhall. She got to him as he had one leg in the air, pulling him back as a white van flashed past.
‘Let him go!’ a thin woman with rat-tail hair shouted from a shop doorway. ‘Help! The brown bitch is taking my son!’
Fortunately a well-spoken middle-aged man in a suit, white like the woman, had seen the whole thing and told the mother she should be thanking Joni for saving her boy, and what did she think she was doing letting him so near the road unattended? The woman eventually mumbled thanks. Back home, Joni sat down and closed her eyes. The boy was still there, his back to her as it had been before she’d clutched him. The boy. He was mixed-race too. Would she ever have a son or daughter? Her mother was forever pressing her. They said the stabbing hadn’t damaged any of the relevant organs, but she was still wary.
The traffic light was on the wall now, showing green. The youth’s mates were chanting, ‘Red! Red! Red!’ None of them noticed that his legs were unsteady and his back was angling towards the river. He was very close to falling.
Joni came at him from the side, leaping on to the wall before she grabbed him, and lowering her left shoulder so that he would topple towards the others. They were caught before they hit the ground.
‘What the…’
‘Jesus, Nick,’ one of the boys laughed. ‘What have you pulled now?’
The laughter died in their mouths when Joni got up and stared at them. She pulled the traffic light to his feet.
‘That was dumb,’ she said, peering at the eyes through the slit in the cardboard. ‘Grow up before you do yourself an injury.’ She looked round the made-up male and dirt-streaked female faces. ‘Now go away.’
The young people started muttering but did what she said, moving eastwards along the bank. Joni watched them go, suddenly aware that she’d put her body on the line for the first time since the Met operation that had finished her career down south. She was expecting the tingling to fade. It didn’t, and that hadn’t happened before. She suspected she needed to see a shrink again. She should go to the police doctor, but that was the last thing she wanted so soon after she’d taken the job in Corham. Besides, the sensation seemed to have a purpose. It was some kind of warning. She moved through the jovial crowd, keeping the top of the traffic light in sight.
‘Hello, lass,’ came a soft voice to Joni’s left.
She turned and saw the small figure of Maureen Hughes, her sixteen-year-old son looming behind.
‘Maureen. How are you?’
‘Oh, you know,’ the woman said, grimacing. The bruises on her face had almost gone, though her right arm was still in a sling. ‘Wayne here’s been helping out.’
Joni nodded at the boy, who avoided her eyes. He’d been knocked out by his father when he came to the aid of his mother. It had been Joni’s first significant case in Corham and the trial was coming up.
Maureen looked down. ‘He’ll … he’ll be sent away for a long time, won’t he?’
‘I’ll make sure of that,’ Joni said, though she knew how random the justice system could be.
‘I canna … I canna thank you enough for what you did,’ the woman said. ‘He’s been hurting us for years.’
Joni nodded, trying to keep sight of the traffic light bobbing through the crowd. She had tracked Vince Hughes down to an abandoned shed on the moors and broken his arm after he laid out the DC accompanying her. She’d had her photo in the Corham Bugle and been door-stepped by a reporter from Newcastle, as well as being required to do a press conference by Assistant Chief Constable Ruth Dickie, who was keen to publicise the new force’s commitment to gender equality and racial diversity.
‘I’m sorry, Maureen, I’ve got to go.’
‘That’s all right.’ The woman squeezed her arm. ‘Work to do, no doubt.’
Joni did her best to conceal the shock of being touched, her skin hyper-sensitive even through the layers of leather and cotton. The intense feeling that something important was about to happen was making her jumpy.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said, nodding to Wayne and his mother, and set off again through the crowd. What were Nick and his friends up to now? Surely they’d have learned from what had nearly happened on the wall. Some of them were drunk, but none was raving or raging; yet. She knew that could change at any moment. She followed the group down the road that led to the former tanning and distillery district, now being redeveloped but still the location of several dodgy bars and clubs. This was old Corham’s dope-dealing centre, though most of the serious business w
ent on across the river in Ironflatts. Was that what the kids were doing down here? If so, she was going to step in.
9
Suzana felt the weight of the man, then his prick. He was the eighth, she reckoned, and it was more painful than usual – as if her body, aware of what she was planning, was resisting the abuse it had become accustomed to. At least the man with long hair and moustache was the one wearing the nipple clamps, but he might soon attach them to her. The street light was making yellow rectangles around the blacked-out glass, but she had no clear idea of the time. Evening, and a lot of noise. Leka had been right. There was some sort of festival going on.
The man grunted and then cuffed the side of her head, saying words she didn’t understand. Except she did. Bitch, whore, cocksucker, cunt. The tone meant they didn’t need translation. She lay still for a moment and then something broke inside her, a zigzag crack across the surface of her mind. Using all her strength to shove him off, she went to the floorboard and pulled it up, then ran back and jabbed the fork at the pig’s groin. He let out a shriek like a lamb that had been castrated, though she could see the fork hadn’t done that much damage. She stood over him, the weapon quivering as she aimed at his eyes. He curled up in a ball and didn’t see as she grabbed his jacket, the wallet weighing down the breast pocket.
Trying to control her breathing, Suzana opened the door. A burst of noise came from the men on the ground and first floors. Leka was standing on the top step down the hall. She was at him before he realised, ramming the fork into where she hoped his right kidney was and wrenching it out. He screamed and went down the stairs head first, his chin bouncing on the uncovered wood. She ran barefoot over his prone form, waving the fork around and making the men move back – many were dressed as women or what looked like old-fashioned fighters. One of Leka’s pig friends was guarding the next stairs. He stepped forward to see what was going on. She missed his eye, but the fork pierced the side of his forehead. She let it go and it vibrated as he bellowed. That gave her the chance to pull the combat knife from his belt and slash it at him as she slipped past.
It was impossible to calm her heart or regulate her breathing now. She heard herself screech like a witch in the folk tales, men retreating in panic as she headed for the street door. There stood the skinny runt who gave Leka orders, a long knife in his hand. He had once made her stick a finger up his ass before he ejaculated over her breasts.
‘What have you done, shit girl?’ he said, in Albanian. ‘You’re dead meat.’ He made a horizontal cut that drew blood on her upper chest, narrowly missing her neck.
Suzana lowered her head and charged him, straightening her right arm. The knife sank into something soft and she felt an expulsion of breath on her scalp. She tried to pull the knife out but the bastard had a hand on it. Stepping to the side, she screamed again to scare off the nearby men, pushed the bloodied whoremaster aside before pulling open the front door. There were more men on the steps leading to the street. She ran past them, shrieking, and bounced off a traffic light in the middle of the road. It was only as she made contact that she realised it was someone in a cardboard costume. Then she was running away across the asphalt.
After she turned several corners and found herself in a quiet area, she remembered that she was naked apart from the jacket she had stolen. Naked, with her feet and chest bleeding, but free. Then she heard pounding feet behind her and scrabbled for purchase on a high gate.
10
Joni kept her distance from the group of young people as they went past the high walls of a run-down factory. It seemed they’d lost interest in the fireworks – or perhaps they knew a good viewpoint down here. She looked over her shoulder. The golden abbey in its shroud of lights was still visible, but not much else of the town centre stood out. The tingling had turned into a more painful prickling sensation, as if insects were crawling around in her brain. There seemed to be some connection with the youth in the traffic light she’d tackled on the embankment. He and his friends turned left behind a dilapidated building. Others followed them. Joni kept her distance as they reached a narrow street of three-storey Victorian buildings that would have been occupied in the old days by people who had worked their way up from the slum housing further out from the centre of Corham. At the far end were the lights of a dingy pub, people standing outside to smoke. About a hundred yards before it, on the left-hand side, a crowd of men was gathered on the steps of one of the houses. The crawling sensation in Joni’s head worsened, then she heard a high-pitched scream. A few seconds later the people outside the house, who now included Nick and his mates, parted suddenly and a slim figure appeared.
The woman had tousled black hair that reached down to an over-large leather jacket. She wasn’t wearing anything on the bottom half of her body and her right hand was covered in blood. She shrieked and ran into the cardboard traffic light, then continued in the opposite direction, turning right at the corner thirty yards before the pub. Joni sprinted to the steps and saw a thin man at the top. He was on his back, groaning and clutching a knife in his abdomen. The words he spoke were in a strange language.
‘Nobody move!’ Joni ordered, pulling out her warrant card. In the first few weeks she had felt that it was someone else’s despite the presence of her photograph – she was only gradually getting used to the Pofnee crest. She knelt by the wounded man, aware that people were rapidly taking their leave, brushing past her as she went. ‘I said, nobody move.’ She pointed at the traffic light. ‘Especially not you, Nick. You’re a witness.’
She called the dispatcher at Force HQ and asked for an ambulance, as well as for DI Sutton and the Corham Major Crime Unit. But the tingling was still with her. The woman – she had to find the woman. Looking through the open door, she saw other scantily clad females peering out. It was obvious what the house was. Then a man staggered along the corridor with what looked like the handle of a piece of cutlery sticking out from the side of his brow.
Joni glanced around. Heads down, men were hurrying away, including one with a beard and monk’s robe and another she’d seen recently. She couldn’t keep them all there, but Nick wasn’t going anywhere. She pulled out her cuffs – she never went anywhere without them – and closed one round his wrist and the other round the railing outside the house.
The moment she started after the half-naked woman, the crawling in her skull faded. She was a couple of back streets away from the brothel when there was a series of tremendous cracks and booms. The night sky filled with coloured lights that briefly blinded her: fireworks just when she didn’t need them.
When she could see again, she made out the woman climbing over a high gate and dropping into the dark.
11
Heck and Ag were in front of the TV, paying minimal attention to the news. After tea, they had played Cluedo and Heck had duly lost. The kids had complained about their bed times, but Ag was firm. In the end they went mildly enough, Cass following them to the foot of the stairs, her tail thumping against the wall. Kat seemed to have made up with her current beau and was all smiles, looking forward to a chapter of Malorie Blackman before she dropped off. She picked Adolf up when her mother turned away and took him to her room. He would sleep half the night on her duvet and then go out the window to crunch baby rabbits’ heads.
David had declined to play, preferring to consume a bottle of murky local ale while reading a book about industrial architecture. He had worked his way up to a low-level management position at the steel works before they were shut down and he hankered after the old times. At seventy-six, he still worked three shifts a week at a DIY store outside Corham. His wife, Olive, had died in 2001 after suffering from emphysema. When Heck had been seriously wounded, David had thought his world would end. But his elder son was tough, even if he wasn’t yet what he had been. Peter, two years younger than Heck, was all right, but he was practising law in Chicago and rarely came home.
‘I’m off,’ the old man said, closing his book. ‘Get to bed, lad. You’re worn out
.’
‘Night,’ Heck said, waving a hand. He was glad Ag had agreed that David could live with them after Olive died, but sometimes the old bugger got on his nerves. He had his own sitting room in what had been the cow shed, but he liked company. ‘Don’t forget to brush your hair,’ he called after him.
David laughed. There was no brush in existence that could get through his tangled locks and that was the way he liked it. Heck had threatened to take sheep clippers to him when he was asleep, but he knew his son wouldn’t dare. They lived to take the mickey out of each other and without the thatch Heck would be bereft.
‘Honestly,’ Ag said, squeezing her husband’s arm. ‘I’ve got boys in Year Three who are more mature than you two.’ She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
‘It was Year Two last week,’ Heck said, returning the kiss.
Ag settled back on the sofa and pulled him closer, then planted her lips on his. ‘Fancy messing around?’ she said, when she came up for air.
Heck frowned before he could stop himself. ‘Well, Mrs Rutherford, this is most irregular.’ In truth, it was. His interest in sex had gone walkabout when he was on sick leave and it hadn’t really returned. On the few occasions they’d made love he struggled to reach orgasm, though he made sure Ag did. She was loving, imaginative, even daring in her suggestions, but he wasn’t able to respond fully. The thirteen years he had on her and the surgical violence done to his gut were undermining him in the worst possible way.
Ag had managed to get his zip open and was doing things with her tongue that most men of his age would have to pay for. And she was definitely having an effect. Then his mobile rang.
‘Ignore it,’ Ag said indistinctly.
But, of course, he couldn’t. He wasn’t on duty, but he was still responsible for major crime across a huge area. And it was May Sunday…
Carnal Acts Page 3
