Sacrifice

by Paul Finch

  Weird could never be good.

  ‘What … what do you want with me?’ she stammered.

  He didn’t look at her, merely signalled her to stand. At the same time, he fished a roll of something from his pocket and unravelled it. It looked like a tape measure.

  Slowly, nauseated, Gracie managed to get to her feet. ‘Look, I … I don’t know what this is about. If you’d just talk to me …’

  But he remained silent, concentrating carefully as he extended the tape and dangled it alongside her, evidently taking note of her five feet, five inches. With a snap of his fingers, he indicated the scales.

  ‘You want to weigh me?’ She almost laughed at the craziness of it.

  He snapped his fingers again, irritably, still not meeting her gaze though his eyes, whatever they were focused on, were suddenly bright, as if filled with intense but suppressed rage. Frightened again, though dizzy and awkward in her thigh-boots, Gracie stepped gingerly onto the horizontal scales and stood there, teetering; the whole thing would have been too ridiculous for words if she hadn’t felt so sick with fear and exhaustion. A second later, he nudged her aside with his elbow, picked the implement up and shoved it back under his waterproofs.

  ‘Look,’ she pleaded. ‘Just stop … stop this madness. I beg you … you’ve surely nothing to gain from it.’ As he turned back to the ladder, her voice rose, becoming shrill. ‘For God’s sake, you’re not leaving me here in the darkness again?’

  She lurched forward, hooking her hands into his clothing, trying to cling on to him. He swung back to face her, and slowly and patiently, but with crushingly superior strength, took her wrists in his big, gloved paws and forcibly pulled her loose. Fleetingly, their faces were only inches apart – Gracie’s scrawny and tear-stained, her captor’s flawless, and icily indifferent. With a single shove, he sent her tottering backwards. She fell, landing hard on her bottom, though she barely felt the pain that jolted through her weakened body.

  ‘Just … just don’t,’ she wept. ‘Don’t leave me down here. Please, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it …’

  ‘It won’t be for long.’

  These were the first words he’d spoken to her – the first that anyone had spoken to her since Chantelle had disappeared – and initially Gracie was so shocked that she clamped her lips together, gazing up at him with mute disbelief.

  He smiled at her reaction, but it was the least warm, least enticing smile she’d ever seen. It wasn’t even what she’d have called an evil smile – it was more an utterly blank smile. There was no emotion behind it at all.

  ‘And … and what then?’ she asked in a quavering voice, only too late realising what a mistake it might be to ask such a question.

  He placed one foot on the rope-ladder, but paused as if to think, his head bowed. ‘Do you know May Day?’ He sounded educated; there was no accent there – but suddenly there was feeling. Tension maybe. Indignation.

  ‘May Day?’

  He glanced over his shoulder, eyes gleaming like polished buttons. ‘A rancid political event in our time … espoused by those who’ve replaced our beloved religious and cultural ideology with a soulless humanist doctrine of their own manufacture, a doctrine which in practice has proved to be the most vicious in human history …’

  Dear God, she wondered, ever more bewildered. What is he talking about? He has to be insane.

  ‘I … I know May Day,’ she ventured. ‘I think.’

  ‘Good.’ He began to climb, the hellish glow rising around him, leaving only blackness below. ‘We … or rather you will restore it to its former glory.’

  ‘Wait please … tell me what you mean!’

  But he said no more, and a few seconds later had vanished. Something heavy and wooden thudded into place overhead, and to Gracie’s hopeless wails, the last vestige of crimson light was extinguished.

  Chapter 34

  The Moorside was a tall, narrow, redbrick building, located next to a humpbacked bridge and a disused station on the Manchester to Buxton railway line. A vast Victorian cemetery, complete with sooty sepulchres and crabby, moss-covered angels, lay to one side of it, while on the other was a sprawling council estate. No doubt this latter had once been the moor that The Moorside had overlooked.

  Heck appraised it from his car. Without doubt, this was the dreariest-looking pub the investigation had brought him to thus far. Of course, the turbulent, rain-filled sky made a gloomy backdrop, and his own mood didn’t help.

  He’d woken that morning cold and alone.

  The glimpses afforded to him last night through Claire’s open bathrobe had aroused him the way they would any other red-blooded male, but she’d been drunk and vulnerable at the time. He’d kissed her long and deep, but had come to his senses before things had gone too far, and, despite her slurred protests – and a voice inside shouting hoarsely that desperate bastards like him couldn’t afford to be so bloody ethical! – had tied the flaps of her robe together, and steered her back down the passages to her own room, laying her on the bed himself when they got there because she’d passed out in the doorway. It was the sort of gallant deed that might get him a reward in heaven but probably not on earth, he reflected morosely. Not only had he got up alone that morning, he’d then found a note pushed under his door from the lady in question, reiterating that she wasn’t sticking with the job. It was just too much for her, she said, and though she expected that she’d probably get hardened to it eventually, all she could visualise at present was a future of being taken places where she didn’t want to go. She hoped he understood and didn’t think too much the less of her.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ Claire’s note had concluded.

  Heck locked the door to his Volkswagen, and walked into the pub. Though a large building, only a fraction of the place was in use. Doors leading into other sections were closed and locked, chairs and tables stacked in front of them. The bar counter itself was small, eight feet long at the most, with a stack of well-thumbed newspapers at one end and a portable television at the other, on which the day’s first race-meets were screening. It wasn’t yet lunchtime, but several forlorn, unemployed drinkers were already gathered in there.

  The barmaid was pleasant enough: young and pretty, wearing her blonde hair in a long ponytail. Her white t-shirt and tight jeans accentuated her buxom figure. When she spoke, it was in a Polish accent. ‘Hi. What can I get you?’

  Heck flashed his warrant card, and the welcome faded from her smile. ‘DS Heckenburg,’ he said. ‘I understand you have a lad works here, name of Pete Dwyer?’

  She nodded uncertainly. ‘Yes … erm, Pete is not working today.’

  ‘I understand he lives upstairs?’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘Well does he, or doesn’t he?’ Heck had long passed the stage where he was prepared to tolerate the runaround.

  ‘I … erm …’ Suddenly it seemed that she didn’t understand English.

  ‘Miss … if you expect me to believe that you don’t know whether one of your co-workers lives on these premises, then you’re taking me for a fool, and that’s not something I appreciate. In fact, I so don’t appreciate it that if you refuse to tell me exactly what I want to know right now, you could find yourself under arrest for obstructing an investigation. Pete Dwyer? Where is he?’

  She glanced nervously at the other drinkers, though no one else was paying them much attention. Still not wanting to take chances, the barmaid produced a pen and scratched a number on a beer mat. It read ‘19’.

  Heck nodded and moved away.

  Access to the pub’s upper floors was gained by a door to the left of the toilet passage. The stairwell was dingy and unlit, its paper mouldering, its carpet threadbare. He passed several other rooms on his way up. A couple stood open, their interiors dark and musty, smelling of stale beer. When he finally found number nineteen, it was at the very top of the building, on a narrow, creaky landing illuminated by a single, dust-covered skylight. From beyond the lone door came a
low pulse of music: hard rock, accompanied by a repetitive gasping and grunting.

  That bedsit of his is like a backroom in Bangkok, Cameron Boyd had said.

  Heck knocked.

  ‘Who is it?’ came a gruff voice.

  ‘Pete, I need a quick word.’

  ‘I said who is it?’

  ‘Can you just come out? Won’t take a sec.’

  There was a shuffling of feet on the other side of the door, and it opened a crack. The bloke peeking out was tall and thin. He had a bush of dark hair, a long, acne-scarred face and a lantern jaw. He was clad only in boxer shorts and mismatched socks.

  Heck lunged forward, shouldering the door open and shoving him backwards. ‘DS Heckenburg, Serial Crimes Unit. Can I come in? Oh … thanks.’

  Dwyer hit the floor with such a bang that it sent a vibration across the room, flickers scurrying over the various computer screens. All were playing different types of kinky porn, but on the one directly facing Heck, a freckle-faced redhead in Swedish pigtails was frolicking with a Shetland pony in a manure-filled stable. Fascinated, he looked further afield. Jerry-built shelves sagged beneath the weight of DVDs, some of whose colourful plastic cases made them look legitimate, though others wore cardboard and had homemade labels affixed. In one corner, an open box spilled a host of foreign imports. Heck assumed they were foreign, as they all had photos of Japanese schoolgirls on the covers. Scruffy clothing littered the floor, alongside beer cans and unwashed plates and cutlery. The unmade bed looked damp and dirty.

  ‘Caught you in mid-wank, did I?’ Heck said. ‘Or is this actually more of a business enterprise?’

  Dwyer scrambled angrily to his feet – though he noticeably didn’t approach. ‘Hey … I don’t know who the fuck you think you are …’

  ‘I’ve told you who I am.’ Heck showed his warrant card, but continued to glance from screen to screen. ‘My, my … this is what you call the extreme end of the market, Pete. I guess the regular stuff is too easy to get hold of, eh? Blokes like you need to go the extra mile to make a profit these days?’

  ‘It’s for my own use,’ Dwyer said defensively.

  ‘Even so, I can’t think what the Cyber Crimes Unit will make of all this.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything wrong. There’s nothing illegal here.’

  ‘Maybe not, but they’ll want to take a good look first. Ship everything back to the office – in sterile evidence sacks, obviously.’ Heck pulled out a drawer. It was filled with unmarked computer disks and pen-drives. He shook his head. ‘Got a lot of storage space here, Pete. Gonna take us a long time to trawl our way through this lot. But we have to be safe, you know what I mean?’

  ‘You can’t do this.’ Dwyer pointed a shaking finger. ‘This is an illegal search.’

  ‘What would you say, Pete, if I told you that it’s not you and your collection we’re actually interested in?’

  ‘I don’t fucking care. You can’t threaten me like this. I know my rights.’

  Heck smiled. ‘You don’t have any rights. You’re a dirty little parasite preying on people’s inadequacies. So regardless of whether this is an illegal search or not, the next one won’t be. And if there’s anything in this room that shouldn’t be you’re going to prison. Your choice.’

  Dwyer was still breathing hard. ‘What … what do you want to know?’

  ‘Cameron Boyd.’

  ‘Oh, fuck …’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s in the slammer and he’s likely to stay there for some time.’

  ‘He’s got mates.’

  ‘In a round-about way you’ll be saving Cameron’s arse, so he’ll probably be glad you’ve had a word.’

  ‘What’s he done this time?’

  ‘He gave some blonde bird a knee-trembler outside this pub last November.’

  Dwyer looked perplexed, but nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember that.’

  ‘Okay … so tell me what happened.’

  ‘Well …’ Dwyer still seemed surprised that he wasn’t being asked about something more serious. ‘It was a bit weird, I suppose. She came in the pub and started offering it. She wasn’t charging, if that’s what you’re getting at … least, I don’t think she was.’

  ‘And she just picked Boyd out because she liked the look of him?’

  ‘She picked him out for some reason. No one likes the look of him.’

  ‘You obviously remember this well. Did you film it?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly film it. But we caught it on the outside security camera.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  Dwyer eyed him warily, before digging through another drawer and extricating a pen-drive. ‘I copied what happened, and edited it, so I could put it on one of those compo things. You know … real security footage catches people at it?’

  ‘No. I didn’t know about that.’

  ‘It’s a niche interest.’ Dwyer inserted the drive into a computer port. ‘You can never see much. But even by those standards, this is crap quality.’

  The image that came onscreen was black and white and pixellated constantly. Though it depicted two people against a brick wall, little else was clear. One of them might have been Boyd, while the other looked like a slim, blonde girl – though only the top of her head and part of her profile was visible. There was no facial detail.

  ‘Has she been in since?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

  ‘What about before?’

  Dwyer shrugged. ‘Never seen her once. But I’ll tell you who might have. Mick the Muppet.’

  Heck raised an eyebrow.

  ‘One of our regulars. He’s never out of here.’

  Mick the Muppet was so regular a customer at The Moorside that he now had his own personalised seat. It was in a cubby-hole just to the left of the bar, and there was a wooden plaque over the top of it, bearing the legend:

  Mick’s Corner

  He was somewhere in his late eighties, brown-skinned and incredibly wizened, but as per his nickname, he was spookily reminiscent of the TV character, Waldorf. Thick white sideburns grew down either cheek, he had a huge jaw, and his eyes were large, lugubrious and located either side of a bulbous nose covered in excrescences. Somewhat incongruously, he was wearing a bush hat and an age-old camouflaged combat jacket.

  ‘I’m an ex-commando before you ask,’ he grunted, as he finished his pint of mild.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Heck said, pulling up a chair. ‘Mind if I sit?’

  ‘Free country. Thanks to people like me.’

  ‘I’m a police officer.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Can we have a chat?’

  ‘Throat’s a bit dry.’ Mick coughed. ‘Never much of a conversationalist when my throat’s dry.’

  Heck turned to the bar, where Dwyer had appeared alongside the Polish barmaid and was watching nervously as he tucked his shirt flaps into a pair of jeans. ‘Another pint of mild over here, please,’ Heck shouted.

  ‘Thank you kindly,’ Mick said when the brimming glass was placed in front of him. ‘Come about that slip of a tart, have you? That blonde piece from last November?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Weird set-up, that. Pretty young lass doing what she did. Been murdered ’as she?’

  ‘Not as far as we know.’

  Mick looked vaguely surprised. ‘Wouldn’t have trusted that bugger who took her outside, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Someone took her outside, did they?’ Heck asked.

  Mick nodded as he supped. ‘Mean-looking young shithouse from down Longsight. Bad lot down there. Thieves and addicts. Turning this country into a craphole.’

  ‘Do you know who she is, Mick? Because we need to contact her.’

  Mick finished his mild and laid the empty down, smacking his lips.

  ‘This is serious,’ Heck said paiently.

  ‘So’s my thirst, son, so’s my thirst.’ Heck signalled for another pint of mild. When it arrived, Mick gazed down at it s
oulfully. ‘I always think of pints of mild as being like buses.’

  ‘You mean there’s never one around when you need it?’

  ‘Correct. And when there is, they’ve usually come in twos …’

  ‘Bring him another,’ Heck called. ‘So … do you know who she is?’

  ‘Can’t help you with her name, son. She’s not going to say it out loud, is she? Probably be a falsie, even if she did … coming to places like this to get dicks up her twat.’

  ‘Would you recognise her again?’

  ‘I might. Seen her before.’

  Heck regarded him carefully. ‘In this pub?’

  Mick’s lips quivered as he pondered. ‘I visit so many pubs, you see. Can’t recollect.’ He nudged the glasses in front of him, even though one of them was still almost full.

  ‘You’ve recollected okay up to now.’

  ‘When you’re my age, the brain needs oiling regular.’

  ‘Pete!’ Heck called to the bar. ‘Another pint of mild please.’

  ‘She wasn’t in this pub as such,’ Mick said. ‘She was outside. Couple of weeks before that thing with the shithouse from Longsight. Saw her one lunchtime when I was coming in. She wasn’t dressed for shagging that time. Had an anorak on, I think. Only saw the top bit because she was in the passenger seat of this flash motor. Just parked up, it was … like they were looking the place over.’

  ‘Who was driving? The young fella who was with her the second time?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’ Mick ruminated, then smiled with satisfaction as his next pint was placed in front of him. ‘Older bloke, heavier. Couldn’t see him properly. I’m eighty-eight, you know. You’re doing well to get this much out of me.’

  ‘Would you recognise this bloke again?’

  ‘Think he had specs on – small ones, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘What about the car? You said it was a flash job.’

  Mick gazed down. The other empties had been removed. Only one pint glass remained, albeit a full one. ‘Looks lonely that, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Keep drinking like this and you’re genuinely not going to remember anything.’

  ‘You make it to my age, son, you can lecture me about the perils of drink.’