Carnal Acts

by Sam Alexander

  ‘I know. Are you working on that brothel killing?’

  ‘I can’t discuss that.’

  ‘So you are.’

  ‘Wow, you really are a witch.’

  ‘Oh, grow up.’

  Joni laughed. ‘Like you?’

  ‘At least I had you. When are you going to—’

  ‘Don’t even go there. Did you really phone me up to hassle me about my fertility?’

  ‘You aren’t getting any younger.’

  ‘I’ll be thirty-five in July. Still quite a springy chicken. Can I go to bed now?’

  Moonbeam sighed. ‘We never see each other, even though I’m only twenty-five miles away. I thought you’d find somewhere closer to live when you came up here.’

  Joni suddenly felt sorry for her mother. ‘Why don’t you come in one evening? We could have dinner.’

  ‘You expect me to drive twenty-five miles, spend half an hour trying to find somewhere to park, all to eat overpriced food in the only vegetarian restaurant in Corham and disagree with you on every subject under the sun?’

  ‘Or moon,’ Joni muttered. ‘What’s the reason for this call, Mother?’

  There was a pause. ‘To find out how you are. Is that so strange?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be if you’d actually asked that.’ Joni recognised the song that was being played, something about Amelia Earhart – it was one of the singer’s less excruciating efforts. ‘Fine is the answer.’

  Moonbeam gave one of her soft but caustic laughs. ‘If you’re fine, I’m a member of the BNP. Why can’t you tell the truth? You’re still upset about what happened in London. It’s time you let it go and got on with your life.’

  Joni kept her mouth closed.

  ‘I’ve been mentioning your name in spells, you know. I can feel your resistance, but eventually I’ll break it down.’

  This time Joni let rip. ‘Leave me out of your crazy magic, Mother. Just because I came up to Northumberland doesn’t mean I want anything to do with that side of your life. Goodbye.’ She broke the connection. Moonbeam’s experimentation with the occult had exasperated her since she was a little girl, leading her to declare at the age of ten – in a manner she now realised was horrendously precocious – that she was an atheist. She’d rehearsed all the arguments, but her mother had only shrugged and said, ‘Whatever does it for you, babe.’

  She got her breathing under control and told herself to calm down. For once, Moonbeam had been helpful when Joni was on gardening leave after she came out of hospital, coming down to stay in her flat in Vauxhall and cooking for her. She’d also worked on her daughter to leave the metropolis and its police force, and she’d been amazed when Joni agreed. The fact was, despite that brief period of solidarity, they had never been close and never would be. Moonbeam was only interested in herself and what she called her ‘sexual being’. That meant Joni had borne witness to dozens of men entering the flat in Hackney when she was growing up, most of them departing rapidly and with hollow cheeks. One of them described Moonbeam to the teenage Joni as ‘a terrifying lover’. That only made her more committed to her studies, the yellow brick road that led away from the ramshackle home she had done her best to clean and keep tidy.

  But her mother had brought the worst night of her life back to her and she lay on the bed, certain that sleep would be long in coming. She ran her fingertips over the scars on her belly. The familiar twinge in the nerves, the automatic tightening of the skin…

  … and she was back in the Homicide Division Southwest squad car in Brixton on the evening of 18 June 2012, talking to the surveillance team leader on the radio.

  ‘All six are in the warehouse,’ he said. ‘We need to go in now. Who knows how long they’ll stay?’

  Joni glanced at blonde-haired Detective Sergeant Roland Malpas, who was at the wheel. Only a year in the unit, he had a tendency to lose his cool in action. She didn’t have to, but she decided to mind his front as well as his back. He had potential, as well as a reasonably pretty face.

  ‘Pax to Tinsley,’ she said, calling her DCI, the senior investigating officer.

  ‘Tinsley receiving.’

  ‘All suspects at location.’

  ‘C019?’

  Joni confirmed that the Authorised Firearms Officers were in position.

  ‘Uniform backup?’

  ‘Ready to move.’

  ‘OK,’ Tinsley said, with a dry laugh. He’d never been a fan of Joni, viewing graduates on the accelerated promotion scheme as bogus police officers. She was pretty sure he suffered from institutional racism too. ‘It’s your call, DI Pax.’

  Although it was standard procedure to hand operations over to the senior officer on the ground, Joni got the impression he was washing his hands of her but she knew she could be oversensitive – after all, she was a woman in the Met. Maybe things weren’t as bad as she thought.

  ‘Pax to AFO commander. Ready?’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  Joni nodded to DS Malpas. ‘Move in. Slowly.’ She advised the other units that they were on their way.

  The last of daylight was greying the walls of the former bonded warehouse. According to the council’s records, it had been empty for five years and the rust on the gate suggested that was right. A young ex-con Joni had been cultivating for over a year told her that Peter ‘the Cricketer’ Souter’s gang of hard men had recently taken to using it, a fact confirmed by surveillance from the abandoned scrap yard across the road. Souter was suspected of dispatching more than one of his enemies with a cricket bat, as well as organising the raid on a security van at Waterloo that had cost both driver and guard their lives.

  Because the information came from her informant, Joni was given the responsibility of planning the operation. She’d taken advice from officers with greater experience – that was one of her strong points – and left nothing to chance. Except, as she knew well enough, things could always turn to shit when armed headbangers with little to lose were confronted.

  She took a deep breath as the unmarked Mondeo, showing no lights, moved slowly down the street. Other members of her team were approaching from different directions, covering all the building’s known doors – the original bars were still on all the windows.

  Joni looked at her watch. The street lights in the vicinity had been disabled, her plan being to hit the gang when twilight was at its darkest without raising suspicion among the men inside.

  ‘Ram squad?’ she said.

  ‘Ready,’ responded the leader.

  She nodded at Malpas, who was looking avidly at the wide door fifty yards ahead. ‘Stay with me at all times, Ro, all right?’

  ‘Sure, ma’am.’

  She nodded, then ordered, ‘Assault units, move in!’

  Officers in dark blue overalls and helmets piled out of a van that pulled up in front of the warehouse entrance, tyres screeching. Two of them approached the doors and smashed the heavy steel cylinders against the wooden panels. When they gave way, AFOs rushed in, pistols raised in two-handed grips. There was immediately a lot of shouting, but no shots were fired. Joni held her breath, then slowly let it out. Her worry had been that Souter’s men would have had time to reach the sawn-off shotguns they had used against the security guards – they had been loaded with magnum 12 gauge shells.

  ‘AFO commander,’ Joni heard. ‘Warehouse secured. All six suspects apprehended.’

  ‘Yay!’ said Malpas, getting out of the car.

  ‘Cool it,’ Joni said, opening her door. ‘Let the AFOs bring them out.’ She looked over to the van. ‘Lights on the doors!’

  The driver manoeuvred the vehicle so it was facing the warehouse, dipping the headlights. Soon afterwards, men started to emerge, hands behind their heads and eyes towards the ground. AFOs had each of them covered.

  Joni and Malpas went forward. Peter Souter was at the front, grimacing as uniformed officers seized him and fastened his wrists behind his back with plastic restraints.

  ‘FUCK!’ he yelled, provoking laugh
ter from some of the uniforms.

  ‘Quiet!’ Joni shouted, looking at the faces on her iPad as the men came out. Five of them matched the photos from their Met and Prison Service files, while the sixth, Marcus Ainsworth, a twenty-eight-year-old Mancunian without a record, glanced at the police officers nervously, shoulders slumped. His face was spattered with acne.

  ‘Read them their rights, Ro,’ Joni said, as Ainsworth reached the officers with the restraints.

  Malpas had moved close to the prisoners and was only a few feet from them when it happened. Suddenly a knife appeared in Ainsworth’s right hand from behind his back and he brought it down in a blur, causing the policeman holding the plastic cuffs to scream and clutch his face. At the same time, Peter Souter stuck out a heavy leg and tripped Malpas, so that he stumbled forward into Ainsworth’s grasp. He had his back to the wall as he held the knife against the DS’s throat, shielding himself from the AFOs’ weapons.

  ‘Let him go!’ Joni cried, putting down her iPad and stepping forward.

  ‘Screw you, bitch!’ Ainsworth replied. ‘He’s my ticket out of here.’

  Joni looked at the AFO commander. His lips were tight, suggesting his men didn’t have anything close to a clear shot. Then she took in Roland Malpas. He was bulkier than his captor, providing an effective shield. He was also visibly terrified.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Pax, officer in command,’ she said. ‘Take me instead.’

  Marcus Ainsworth drew blood with the knife and looked round Malpas’s head, sizing Joni up. She was six feet, but a lot thinner than her colleague. He moved his head behind Malpas again.

  ‘All right, DI Pax,’ he said, his voice steady. ‘Be my guest. But no fast moves or yer man here’ll turn into a blood fountain.’ He gave an empty laugh.

  Joni gave Roland Malpas what she hoped was an encouraging look and moved nearer, taking off her leather jacket to show she was unarmed.

  ‘You won’t be needing that either,’ Ainsworth said, thumbing the top of Malpas’s stab vest.

  ‘Wha…’ Joni lost the end of the word as her heart leapt. ‘I…’

  ‘Come on!’ Ainsworth yelled. ‘I’m slicing this fucker up!’

  Joni pulled away the vest and dropped it to the ground as more blood ran down her DS’s neck. ‘All right, it’s off,’ she said. ‘Please don’t cut any more.’ She heard Malpas’s breath coming in short bursts. ‘How do you want to do this?’

  ‘Simple,’ said the knife man. ‘Stand next to him and then push him gently in the other direction.’

  Joni followed the instructions and Malpas moved sideways until she was where he had been.

  ‘Guv…’ he began.

  ‘Fuck off now if you want her to stay alive,’ Ainsworth said. ‘Now, you brown bitch, tell these shitheads to stay where they are. You and I are going for a stroll.’ Again the dead laugh.

  ‘You heard him,’ Joni said, the blade pressing against her throat. ‘Keep your distance. I’ll be OK.’

  ‘Yes, she will,’ her captor shouted. ‘Unless anyone tries be a smartarse.’ He circled her chest with his free hand and kneaded her breasts. ‘Nice,’ he muttered. ‘What’d’you call them where you come from? Mangoes?’

  ‘Coconuts,’ Joni replied, trying to humour him. She knew she had a chance if she got him off his guard. She stumbled as her boots hit a rough patch of road.

  ‘Careful,’ Ainsworth said, drawing blood. ‘Walk like a crab. It’s not that difficult.’

  But for Joni it was. Her long legs were awkward going sideways and she almost stumbled again. The blade cut deeper and she wondered how much blood she was losing. Mustn’t lose much blood, need all I’ve got for…

  ‘Keep going, DI Pax,’ the knife man said, his breath strangely sweet. ‘When we reach the corner, I might even let you go.’

  Joni swivelled her right eye as far as she could. The junction ahead was in full darkness, out of reach of the lights from the van. No vehicles passed as the access roads had been closed by the traffic police.

  ‘There’s nowhere for you to go,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the whole area locked down.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Ainsworth laughed. ‘Thanks for telling me. Now, round the corner.’

  Joni made up her mind. Once she was out of view of the others, she would be completely at his mercy. She had a Judo black belt, she could easily take this joker. Except she might…

  She threw him, simultaneously punching upwards to knock the knife from her throat. He landed heavily, but was on his feet in a flash, dragging her out of sight of her colleagues and kicking her hard between the legs.

  ‘Stupid,’ he said, coming close and narrowing his eyes. ‘Really fucking stupid.’

  Joni felt the knife pierce her gut once and then again. She tried to call out, but she heard no sound; felt only a rush of wind as she was shoved backwards and her head made solid contact with the wall.

  Joni slapped herself hard on the cheek. She had been fighting for months to keep the memory of the raid out of her mind, but it still came back with as much intensity as ever. The tap was open now, events gushing out, swamping her. At first it had been a blank. She was in a coma for three days, the haematoma that had started to form in her brain from the blow she had sustained to the back of her skull gradually – to the surprise of the neurologists – subsiding. Then she had blurred vision and crushing headaches for a week. Then she went mad. They didn’t call it that, and the Met was very understanding, paying for psychotherapy and granting her six months’ convalescent leave. Although she had played the strong woman effectively towards the end of the course, even convincing the shrink that she was ready for duty, she had known from the beginning that she wouldn’t go back to Homicide Southwest. London was dead to her and, despite a major manhunt, Marcus Ainsworth had never been found. He had seriously injured a uniformed officer after he left her, proving that her carefully planned operation had failed to cover every eventuality – a point DCI Tinsley emphasised in his report. She had to get out and, to her mother’s amazement, she agreed to move to Northumberland: to Corham and the newly formed Police Force of North East England.

  But she still felt Marcus Ainsworth’s stony gaze on her every night before sleep begrudgingly came.

  35

  Nick Etherington slept fitfully. He was too excited by what had happened with Evie. He hadn’t really believed that she would return his feelings. It wasn’t that he was inexperienced with girls – he’d spent the last couple of years fighting them off and had been in several short-term but fun relationships. But Evie wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t just that she was older. Although she’d had plenty of friends in her year, she maintained a distance from them. He suspected it was something to do with being as different from her mother as possible. Victoria, she just wouldn’t give up. He felt like the flesh had been stripped from his bones when she looked at him and the way she called him ‘Nicholas’ – something not even his mother did – made him feel like a naughty child who needed punishment. Not that the punishment would necessarily be unpleasant…

  And Evie was right. Who cared about the autumn? They had months to spend together, especially after he’d finished his exams. Evie. She was so sweet. Then he remembered the story of the slave that she’d written. No wonder she had problems with her family if that was how they had treated their workforce. ‘Their slaves,’ Evie had corrected. ‘Favon Hall was built with blood money.’ Nick agreed, but he didn’t understand why she was so worked up about it. Britain was full of big houses whose owners had exploited workers and peasants. Such was life.

  He hadn’t felt so good for along time. Even gathering together his school books was a pleasure. He whistled a Coldplay tune as he went down to breakfast. His mother and grandfather smiled at him. Gramps had realised as soon as Nick came in the door last night that something had happened. His mother was less observant. She was still upset that he’d been questioned by the police.

  ‘Back to work today, young man,’ Rosie said, with unu
sual severity. ‘You’ve had your fun. It isn’t long till exams.’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he mumbled, mouth full of bacon and egg. He saw Gramps wink at him.

  A few minutes later they were in the major general’s Jaguar. An unofficial routine had set in after Michael had moved in: he took Nick to the Abbey in the mornings and Rosie picked him up in the afternoons, unless her charity work got in the way.

  ‘Your mother’s right, you know,’ his grandfather said. ‘You really have to nail those exams.’ He smiled. ‘Like you’ve nailed so many tackles and tries. Half-centuries too. That reminds me. Is it cricket practice as usual this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. I can get a lift home if you like.’

  ‘No, one of us will come down.’

  As they neared Corham, Nick found himself thinking about Sunday night. Even with his vision restricted by the traffic light, he’d seen things he’d rather not have – the man with the knife in his belly, the skinny bodies of the women, the one who’d run into him, her lower half bare and blood on her hand… But something else troubled him: the heavy man with no jacket who’d come down the steps after the woman left screaming. Was it really him? There was blood on the fingers of the hand he was holding over his upper thigh and his features were twisted in pain. No, it couldn’t be right. What would a man of his status be doing in a brothel in one of north Corham’s dodgiest areas? And then there was the hair. If it was him, he must have been wearing a wig. The problem was its length. Rather than disguising him, it made someone of his age stick out. Would he really have taken the risk of being recognised to screw one of those sad women? Nick’s eyes had met his through the slit. His heart missed a beat. What if he found out who’d been wearing the cardboard costume? It wouldn’t be hard for a man in his position.

  ‘You look worried. Tell me what you’re thinking.’ His grandfather’s voice was a mixture of command and concern.

  ‘I … oh, it’s nothing. Exam tension.’

  ‘You can take it. You’re a hard one.’