Carnal Acts

by Sam Alexander

  The darkness was not her friend. Suzana had known that since she was a small girl, when she had hidden in the most outlying of the village’s abandoned houses. Bad things went on around her, bad men gambling, fighting, hurting women.

  The problem now was getting away from Cor-ham without being seen. She tried several roads, but all had cars passing along them. Even though she wasn’t wearing the dark red robe, she was aware that the bags she was carrying made her look like a person of the streets, and therefore someone that people might report to those who were after her, including the police. She presumed her description had been broadcast on TV and radio, and printed in the newspapers.

  So she got off the road she had chosen, the one signposted to Jed-burg-h, and followed it from the field beyond. It was slow work, especially once the last of the light had gone, but she kept her eye on the shifting headlights as she moved. Eventually she walked into one barbed wire fence too many and decided to stop for the night. There were only the lights of the cars in the distance to help and, with difficulty, she opened some tins with the largest of her knives, having forgotten to take the utensil from the hut or buy a new one. She ate quickly, stopping herself before she used too much of her supplies. She had enough for two more days at most. Then she would have to buy or steal, both of which could bring her into the open.

  Wrapping herself in the robe and pulling the hat down low, she tried to sleep. Her legs were aching from the kilometres she had covered, but she knew they weren’t enough. Even if the police hadn’t alerted everyone in the area, her own countrymen were relentless. They might not be expecting her to head north, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be on the lookout up here. For all she knew, they ran brothels in Jed-burg-h and the towns on the way or were selling drugs like the ones she’d seen Leka hand to the men who abused her. They would pour the white powder on her chair, then separate it into lines with plastic cards like the ones she had thrown away, before sniffing it up their noses. One of them, a fat man with black and white on his belly like the boy in the park’s shirt, had tried to make her take some. When she struggled, he licked his finger, dabbed it in the powder and rubbed it between her legs. He seemed to think she would feel something, but that part of her body had lost sensitivity. She thought it would be that way for the rest of her life. Better like that if they caught her…

  The night grew colder and Suzana couldn’t stop shivering. She sneezed three times and searched for something to wipe her nose. There were broad leaves on some of the ground plants.

  The cold got worse and, for the first time, she thought about giving up. She remembered the policewoman’s card. Jo-ni Pax. Would there be any peace for her if she got in touch with the policewoman? They would send her to jail, even if she hadn’t killed any of the animals. She was sure that stabbing people was not acceptable in this country. In the mountains men would fight when their honour was brought into question. As a child, she had witnessed several such blood-matches, the combatants surrounded by a wide ring of villagers. They would strip to the waist, the men, though they were often little more than boys, and slash at each other until one would collapse from loss of blood. Once, when a senior man’s wife had been caught with another man, the fight had ended in death, the guilty lover castrated and left writhing his way to death. The authorities – police, local politicians, army commanders – had stayed away and the wife was never seen again.

  No, Suzana thought, she would not surrender. The clan would track her down in jail and she would have no means of fighting back. Out here, despite the cold and the damp, she had her weapons and she was free. She breathed in the air. Despite the tang of car exhaust, she was in the country again, the smell of plants and soil in the air. She heard the hooting of an owl and took some comfort from it, though she knew the creature was a merciless hunter. She remembered the pellets she and the other children would find under the trees beyond the village – tiny bones, pieces of skin and tail.

  She knew she would end up a sack of rotting flesh and broken bones herself, but she would take the men who’d enslaved her into the darkness with her.

  50

  ‘That must be him. Look at that splattered nose.’

  ‘If you say so, Kyle,’ Hot Rod said from the back of the car. He had a baseball bat between his thighs like the rest.

  ‘His mate and him’ll be carrying.’

  ‘If you keep the bats behind you, we’ll have them down before they can do anything about it. Besides, we’ve got the knives an’ all.’

  ‘How are we going to talk to this guy if he’s Albanian?’

  ‘He’s on the fucking door, Pumpkinhead. He’s gonna speak some English. Anyway, all he has to do is take us to where they’ve got Gaz.’

  ‘What if he won’t?’

  ‘Jesus, Daryll, look on the fucking bright side. Anyway, we have ways of making him talk.’

  ‘Very fucking funny.’

  ‘What, you too, Jackie? Suppose you’d rather be sticking it up that skinny lass.’

  ‘Fucking right I would. Then again, I like good barney, especially when we outnumber the cunts.’

  ‘Look at that mob of students. Fucking ponces. Probably play rugby and think they’re hard. Get in behind them, quick.’

  ‘Hurry up, Pumpkinhead.’

  ‘Fuck off, I’m coming.’

  ‘Ow! Watch that bat, Daryll.’

  ‘Kylie, cool it. You look like you’re going to explode.’

  ‘I fucking am. These fuckers taking our mate…’

  ‘Deep breathing, you cunt.’

  ‘Ready, everyone?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen.’

  Crack.

  ‘Ach!’

  Thud.

  ‘Fuck, Jackie, you’ve busted his head.’

  ‘Get him in the car.’

  Thunk.

  ‘He’s coming quietly now, Kylie.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Somewhere quiet, wait for the fucker to wake up.’

  ‘Shit, that went well. Ale, anyone?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Give it here.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Aaaaah!’

  51

  Joni lay awake, listening to the movements of the Abbey clock. Her thoughts were at surface level initially – the Albanian women, her mother, Heck, Pete Rokeby. Then she found herself recalling the first time she’d gone for a run by the Roman Wall. It was cold and she was pumping hard to keep warm. When she hurdled a low wall, a voice came out of nowhere.

  ‘Careful, lass!’ called an elderly man, sitting in the lee of the wind.

  She raised an arm as she turned to the front again. Solicitude had never been a feature of the remarks directed at her when she ran in London. Lust and casual racism were the norm. When she was new on the job, she would stop and flash her warrant card, but she soon learned that was more trouble than it was worth. Ignoring the tossers was the best option. The old guy she’d passed was taken aback to see a black woman, she was certain. As a shopkeeper had pointed out the first week she was in Corham, there weren’t ‘many of her kind around here’; though there didn’t seem to be any malice in the words.

  …then Zak Cotter came back to her. They had been lovers for five years. He was seven years older and six inches shorter; a black man who successfully produced black music acts – mainly hip-hop and rap, not that she appreciated either the sounds or the distinction. She met him via an online dating service, having decided against getting involved again with any of her colleagues in the Met; when she was on the beat, she’d had a short and uncomfortable relationship with a white guy who boasted to his mates that he’d bedded a black woman.

  Zak, the man she’d loved, the man she’d shared a flat with for two years – until she’d come home early one afternoon and found him in bed with his latest discovery, a seventeen-year-old singer called Kimalia. The girl was shameles
s, calling Joni by her Met nickname ‘Pam’, which Zak, a fan of blaxploitation movies, had obviously passed on. Joni would have broken her nose, put her in an arm lock and thrown her out, but she managed to keep her cool. She got rid of her by staring icily and saying nothing. Afterwards, Zak started to gabble about how Joni didn’t want him in bed any more and she was only interested in her career, and look where that was heading. She grabbed him by his detumescent dick and hauled him outside, slamming the door and locking it. He rang the bell, begging for his trousers and his phone, but she ignored him, turning Wagner’s ‘Liebestod’ up to full volume. The last time she saw him was when he moved out his gear, including the expensive stereo system. Love was dead in every sense, though she soon bought a cheaper music centre. Life without the classical composers wasn’t worth living. Their music kept her going in the bad times; the music and the thought that something intangible lay over the horizon, calling to her and biding its time.

  ‘Come on,’ she muttered, turning over.

  Then she found herself thinking of the time she’d met her boss up by the Wall…

  ‘Hallo, sir,’ she said, as Heck Rutherford approached.

  ‘Hallo, Joni,’ he replied. ‘I told you to use first names when we’re on our own, especially off duty.’

  She looked away. ‘I’m … I’m not comfortable with that. Sorry.’ She felt his eyes on her and turned to the lake. ‘Did you see the swans? The cygnets are growing fast.’

  ‘Aye. You like the birds, don’t you?’

  Joni wasn’t sure if there was innuendo in the question. People at work had soon found out she didn’t have a boyfriend and inevitably had started wondering if she was a lesbian. She found her superior’s tone hard to read. ‘City girl,’ she replied. ‘It’s a whole new world up here.’

  Heck laughed. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He shivered. ‘You don’t find it too cold?’

  This time Joni didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Black people can handle low temperatures perfectly well.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s not what I meant. London’s far off and, anyway, cities are warmer.’

  Joni raised a hand. ‘Sorry, hair trigger. Can we let it go?’

  Heck nodded, though he looked aggrieved.

  They parted at Joni’s nine-year-old white Land Rover Discovery.

  ‘Can’t you find a newer model?’ Heck demanded. ‘You make the Major Crime Unit look like a bunch of farmers when you arrive at crime scenes in that thing.’

  Joni caught his eye. ‘Ar,’ she said, before getting in and reversing away at speed.

  At last her eyes closed. There was a smile on her lips.

  52

  Brian Sweeney had been trying to keep up with his two-year-old red setter since he’d parked the car by the River Coquet west of Rothbury. He was sixty-nine and only slightly overweight, but his knees had started playing up and the dog pulled the retractable lead to its limit before he could react.

  ‘Bristle!’ he shouted. ‘Come back! Come, girl!’

  He hobbled down the rough path, oblivious of the beautiful setting: willows bowing to kiss the water, birds singing in the trees, the sunlight casting its shafts between the leaves.

  ‘Bristle!’

  Brian came here most days – that was why the dog was so quick to find familiar smells – and he was sick to the back teeth of it. They’d got Bristle because his doctor had told him to walk regularly and Beryl used that as an excuse to get him out of the house so she could sit in front of the telly knitting for their three grandchildren. Brian had been a bank teller, never ambitious to rise higher in the company, which he had little affection for. He’d never had much affection for anything. Drinking was for louts, football for morons and smoking for those with a death wish. He liked to look at art books; they were his primary pleasure. He’d even developed an interest in abstract expressionism and was particularly fond of Arshile Gorky. No small part of his enjoyment came from the fact that Beryl, a former pay clerk at Corham Steel, couldn’t stand the weird, bright paintings.

  Brian heard a bark from Bristle. She was standing at the edge of the riverbank, her muzzle lowered. At first he thought someone had dumped a mattress or large sack in the water. Then he understood and moved forwards as fast as he could, dropping the lead.

  ‘Back, Bristle!’ he panted. ‘Back, girl.’

  The red setter walked around in circles and then sat down a yard away, whining softly.

  Brian Sweeney extended a hand tentatively. The naked body was on its front, feet towards the bank. He gritted his teeth and put his hand round one ankle. He tugged and the lumpen object turned over. Brian jerked back in horror. The man – that much was obvious – had no head. After he’d vomited his breakfast on the path, he looked back and realised that the hands were missing too. He heard a lapping sound by his side and gagged again. Bristle was avidly consuming the contents of his stomach.

  53

  ACC Dickie didn’t slip into the MCU morning briefing as before. She stood next to Heck from the start.

  ‘DI Sutton?’ Heck said. ‘You’ve given a preliminary report to the CPS?’

  ‘He has,’ said a bright-faced young man from the rear. Roger Underwood was one of the Crown Prosecution Service’s rising stars in the area. ‘Blerim Dost has been transferred to the medical wing of Durham Prison while a full list of charges is prepared. High on that will be attempted murder of a police officer.’ He gave Joni a predatory smile.

  Morrie Sutton stood with his mouth open, registering his displeasure at being pre-empted. He thought Underwood was a premier league smartarse and was envious of the way female officers fawned over him. At least Jackie Brown wasn’t doing that.

  ‘Go on, Morrie,’ Heck prompted.

  ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ the DI said, pushing the sarcasm as far as he dared. ‘The SOCOs have finished in the Burwell Street brothel. We’ve run the fingerprints through the system and have got seven matches – mostly minor charges, affray that kind of thing, but we’ll be following all the men up. None of the six women has been sighted. I’d say there’s a good chance the five we had in the hostel went to Newcastle to hand themselves over to the Albanian pimps there. I’ve circulated descriptions to our colleagues.’

  ‘You’ve included the killer of Leka Asllani in the first number,’ Ruth Dickie said. ‘Surely you don’t think she’ll go back into the fold?’

  Joni was impressed by the intervention. She was convinced that Suzana Noli would stay free as long as she could.

  ‘Er, maybe not, ma’am,’ Morrie stuttered. ‘No one’s reported seeing her, that’s all I know.’

  ‘What about the lads she sliced up yesterday in Star Park?’ Heck asked.

  ‘We caught up with them in Corham General,’ Sutton replied. ‘They claim they only asked her for cigarettes. One of them has a record – six months in young offenders’ for mugging an old woman – so we don’t believe much he says. But you can’t argue with the damage the woman did. He had twenty-three stitches, another of them seventeen, and the third had to have the tip of his little finger reattached. She’s dangerous, but we knew that already.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising,’ Joni said, unable to hold back. ‘She was a sex slave. If I was a man, I’d keep my distance.’

  The ACC gave her a studied but not entirely cold look.

  ‘We’ve got a Pofnee and neighbouring forces alert out for her,’ Heck said. ‘Anything else, Morrie?’

  ‘Yes. An ironmonger on Haydon Street called in. He recognised the woman when he saw her passport photo in the Bugle. He sold her a carving knife and a boning knife in the morning. Said she didn’t speak and smelled bad. She was wearing some kind of cowboy hat – we reckon it’s the one taken from Mrs Liphook’s shed. We’re also checking the council CCTV.’ He nodded at Heck.

  ‘Right, thanks.’ He turned to Joni, but before he could speak, DS Gray raised his arm. He was holding a desk phone in his other hand.

  ‘DI Pa
x, I think you’d better take this,’ he said, with a smirk.

  Joni picked up the nearest phone and pressed the button that was flashing. She identified herself and listened intently. Then she put the phone down and raised her head.

  ‘That was Inspector Parris in Rothbury. A man walking his dog found a male body in the river outside the town.’ She looked at Heck and then at Pete Rokeby. ‘It’s definitely a suspicious death.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded the ACC.

  ‘Because the head and hands have been removed.’

  For a few seconds no one spoke, then Heck took charge. The Force HQ car park soon had several free spaces.

  54

  Evie was making coffee when her mother walked into the kitchen. Victoria was wearing a powder blue jacket and skirt, and a white silk blouse that left little to the imagination.

  ‘God, these heels,’ Victoria said, lifting one leg and adjusting the shoe.

  Evie was in jeans and an Abbey School sweatshirt. ‘Why on earth do you wear them?’ she asked.

  ‘Some women like to look their best.’

  ‘Some women need the attention.’

  Victoria laughed. ‘For goodness sake, darling, lighten up.’

  Evie took her crutch and limped over. ‘I’ll lighten up when you stop staring at Nick like he’s your next meal.’

  ‘Darling! He’s a handsome boy, but he’s far too young for me.’

  ‘Is that right? Charlie Terry was only nineteen.’

  Victoria waved her hand. ‘That was nothing. I was expanding his experience.’

  Evie shook her head and headed for the library. Having spent so much time in close proximity to her mother since the accident, she had seen a side of her that was deeply repellent. On the other hand, she couldn’t really believe Victoria would try to steal Nick from her. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned it. Her mother was very competitive. Oh hell.

  She sat down at the table and opened the books she had marked up. One Favon ancestor had turned out to have more of an artistic bent than all the others put together. She switched on her laptop and opened a new file.