by Mark A. King
“Why use a tracking device? Why not just use a ‘find my phone’ option on the internet?”
“I thought about that. It would have been easy to do that with a smartphone, but then whoever we gave the phone to would have sold it. That piece of junk I gave him won’t be worth anything to anyone. Apart from us, of course. We now have two paths to follow. If we can’t find Maria through a process of search and elimination, we can track Archie. Helena, the shelter shift manager, said that homelessness is lonely and the only other people who understand it, fully understand it, are others in the same position. More so for homeless children. He’s our best chance at the moment. There’s a chance, however small, that he’ll see her again, and if he does, we’ll know where he is. Worst case scenario is that it allows him to call us if he’s in trouble, and it’s not like the money was mine anyway—I syphoned it from the usual places.”
“Tax-avoiding corporates?”
Raf nodded, “Of course. I’m using it for good causes, not to line the fat wallets of shareholders.”
“Nice work,” Iona said. “It’s just like the old days. Redistributing money is one thing, if you do it properly, they barely even notice. But tracing a personal phone using a tracking device is something even governments deny doing.”
“Not really. Not if it’s my phone. Not if I had a tracker on it to find it if it went missing. I took the phone apart. Replaced some of the components to make space for a self-powered GPS tracker and a Wi-Fi detector. Fairly cheap stuff anyone can buy on the internet.”
“The sort of thing people buy to track their keys?”
“Exactly. It’s sending a signal to my phone every few minutes.”
It was Iona’s turn to smile. “I’m glad you’re my friend rather than my enemy, Raf.”
Iona realised just how much she missed Raf, but having feelings for him made her vulnerable. She needed to feel strong and in control. Never again would she put him in danger, and if that meant not being as close to him as she wanted, then that was the sacrifice she’d have to make.
“Let’s check the station out,” she said.
They walked through the station, looking in places where Maria might hide. In a small area that housed maintenance or storage, they found a door ajar, only by a few inches, but enough to make Iona think: It shouldn’t be open.
They walked towards it.
They heard the muffled sounds of struggle. There was more than one person inside and whoever they were, they weren’t friends having tea and cucumber sandwiches.
Robbie
Robbie dragged Leo Jeffers by his blood-splattered collar from the bushes to the space between the bus stop and the wall. The air smelt of cigarettes and piss. There was a small chance that Leo could choke, but maybe the junkie waster deserved it. It wasn’t like he would be missed by anyone.
Had he really said that he’d attacked Charlie? Bloody psycho. Two people had died in that same attack. Yet Leo was walking around like nothing happened. And the scumbag had the balls to ask me for help?
Robbie moved his feet a few steps closer to Leo, his pulse pounding and the flight-or-flight pump of adrenaline surging through him. He hadn’t felt this good, this alive, for years. He was tempted to finish the job. But he needed to leave, quickly—and get somewhere far away from Leo and the freaks he called his mates. Robbie hadn’t fully appreciated just how far Leo had gone, how he’d lost any fear of the law or the police—the only thing he was scared of was his employer.
Need to move on. If there were people watching him and they think I’m someone who will help him, then they’ll come looking for me, and nothing I can say will stop them. Robbie marched away. He tried not to look behind him; he knew what was there. Ahead, the path was danger and uncertainty. Robbie’s eyes scanned the road. Every movement of a tree, a car, a shadow, he examined and analysed. He stayed alert to sounds, too—would his end come in a short burst of squealing tyres, or would it be a silent knife in the back?
Walking the street at night, Robbie Hawke saw himself in the reflections of the street windows. Earlier that day he would have seen a beaten man, but this image showed one tall and strong—someone he hardly remembered. His reflection was the return of an old forgotten friend.
Robbie rubbed his palms. Leo’s blood had already dried and was starting to flake and crack. He continued over the amber-puddled pavements, but now Robbie walked with verve and swagger.
His heightened paranoia started to ease. Let them come, I can handle myself. I’m no loser. Not like Leo. I would have made something of myself if I’d been in Leo’s position, but he wasted his chances.
Robbie thought about Charlie. Fucking bitch. After everything I’ve done for her. I took her on, and her kid. Put up with all the domestic crap. Homework with Noah, clearing up after them. Giving up my mates. Robbie rubbed and scratched at the flaked blood on his hands. Working stupid hours for no money, putting up with creeps like Wallace telling me what to do. All for what? For some cow that gets herself involved in fights that aren’t hers? Then she dumps me and hands Noah—the kid I started to raise—to some dumbarse mate who always hated my guts. Robbie felt the friction burns and scratch-marks claw him. He looked at his hand. It was an angry traffic-light red. You can’t treat people like that, Charlie. You’ll get what’s coming to you.
Robbie noticed the car headlights creeping along behind him and hoped beyond reason that the driver was lost—or looking for street-walkers—both of which seemed unlikely in this neighbourhood.
Robbie increased his speed, trying to find paths ahead where he could turn and the car couldn’t. The car accelerated so it was just a few feet behind him. Running was not an option. Robbie bent down and picked up a discarded beer bottle. He clasped his fingers around the sticky glass and clawed his hand, masking that he was carrying the makeshift weapon.
Robbie rubbed the tattoos on his neck, as if the garish colours were acid on his skin. He squeezed his empty fist, pumping it open and closed, preparing the blood and muscles for action, his tendons tight and primed.
The car overtook him and swerved, blocking his path. The windows slid down.
Robbie turned and started to walk the other way.
The white car reversed sharply, cutting onto the pavement, almost smashing into him.
Robbie held the neck of the beer bottle like it was the handle of a medieval mace. He visualised how he would use it, practising the moves again and again in his head as the driver looked across at him.
“Get in,” the driver ordered. The guy was tall and thin, with slicked-back hair. He looked right at home in his 1980s motor. He wore a suit and a don’t-fuck-with-me expression.
“What if I say no?”
“Don’t be stupid, Robbie. There are no options here. Get in. Listen to what I have to say. You can try to walk away, but you won’t get far, and Then walking will be something you don’t do much of. Get in. Now!”
Robbie reached for the car door. “Do you think I’m stupid, Robbie?” the driver growled. “I need you in the front, where I can keep an eye on you. Do you really think I’d allow you to sit in the back and attack me from behind? You’ve got a lot to learn if you want to work for us, Robbie.”
Work for you? It’s not happening, my Eighties-throwback friend.
Robbie tucked the bottle up his sleeve. He looked in the backseat, checking it for signs that he could also be attacked from behind. The driver glared at him.
“Can’t be too careful,” Robbie said before cautiously lowering himself onto the passenger seat.
“Let’s go for a ride.” The driver said.
They drove through the city. Lightness and darkness dipping and dimming between the streetlamps. Night in the city was never truly black, not like a forest, an ocean, or nightmares.
The summer evening was tense and muggy. Sweaty clothing clung to Robbie’s back like a sheet of Clingfilm. The storm had been rumbling on the horizon for hours, but it was distant, and in the oppressive heat, it was an almost welcome
promise of relief. Robbie felt the change in pressure as the storm rolled in. The cool winds sweeping into the car through the open windows—which he closed using a manual handle. Above, the thunderclouds raged like drunken gods in a street-fight. Then the rain came in a deluge, the ancient wiper-blades of the car only able to clear the water in smeared arcs.
“Listen, mate, I don’t even know Leo that well. He’s a loser. A waste of space,” Robbie said, the bottle resting against his wrist, ready to drop and strike within a second.
“I agree,” the Eighties-guy said. “He’s caused me nothing but trouble. I’m glad you gave him a pasting, he had it coming.”
So, the driver knows I did that, and he hasn’t acted yet. What could he want with me? Looking at the man, Robbie saw nothing but calm. His eyes focused only on the road. His voice was strong and assertive. His stare was icy, his movements, robotic.
The static buzz of the rain made it difficult to hear anything. The chipped radio-cassette player was playing something by Madonna. Robbie reached across and ejected the tape.
The driver hit the brakes, and the car veered to a stop, spraying surface water everywhere.
“Never touch my stuff again! You better fucking understand that I now own you, Robbie. In the food chain, you are the scum that sits on the bottom of an ocean, and I am the shark. You have no right to question me. No right to touch my stuff. You will do everything I tell you to do.”
Robbie lowered the bottle, clasped the neck and swung at the driver’s skull.
His attack was severely limited by the seating position, and the driver saw it coming. Robbie felt the whoosh of air as the driver flung his head back and the bottle hit nothing.
The driver smashed his arm backwards. His oversized watch connected with Robbie’s neck—causing him to drop the bottle. Robbie tried to breathe, but he got nothing but pain and panic.
The driver watched him and laughed. “That’s the first and last time I’ll let you get away with that.”
Robbie managed to scoop in a few breaths. He nodded.
“My name is Ryan Thistle. I used to work for someone important. Someone you might know. Have you heard the name Jimmy Kinsella before?”
Gangland boss of yesteryear, sure I know him. Robbie tried to talk but couldn’t. He nodded.
“That’s good. It’ll save me a lot of time. Jimmy used to head a criminal organisation, but he was old-school. He didn’t understand the new world. Drugs and people are the new money, Robbie. Technology is the new tool. There are no borders or limits. Only the weak and spineless have rules, Robbie. Jimmy had rules. He’s gone now, bless him. He was a gramophone in a digital music age. I am the future, Robbie. I’ve been hedging my bets for some time. It’s better to have an employer who shares the same vision as you, don’t you think? Jimmy would listen to reason and follow principles and values—he was pathetic. My new employers are people you don’t fuck with, Robbie. They make Mr. Kinsella look like a librarian. They control vast areas of the city—businesses and sections of the police and authorities. Hell, I’m sure they even control parts of government. Your friend Leo—”
“He’s not my friend,” Robbie croaked.
“Your best friend Leo fucked up. Not only couldn’t he handle his cravings for tablets and any white powder, he employed someone even more stupid and screwed-up than he was. I’m guessing you know why I’m so interested in getting rid of him?”
Robbie nodded. He thought of the robbery, the deaths, the missing kid, the botched exchange, and the phone that had gone missing. “Yeah. I completely understand.”
“His name is out in the news. We made sure that happened. A necessary action. We have no intention of him getting arrested, but even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Accidents and suicides happen in police cells. Nobody will cry for him when he’s gone, Robbie. This is why you are in the car with me. I want you to get rid of him. Then I want you to get rid of the traces of the events at the newsagents’. Life will move on then. My organisation is helping some very powerful people, and this incident has become a distraction. This is not a job offer, it’s a command. You now work for me, Robbie, whether you like it or not.”
The rain started to ease. Robbie could hear the thunder echoing through the city.
“Why me?”
“You got the better of one of my team, Leo Jeffers, and while I applaud your actions, I can’t be seen to let it go. There are consequences when these things happen, otherwise it doesn’t reflect well on me.”
Robbie thought about running from the car, but his throat was only just able to process air—Ryan had proved to be fast and ruthless.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Robbie—I like the cut of your jib. You can handle yourself. You’re homeless and you need money. You’ve been treated like a doormat by your friends, your partner, and your employer. I need a good, dependable employee. Like I say, you have no choice. You start today. Right here. Right now.”
“What do you need me to do, Ryan?”
“Call me ‘Boss.’”
“What do you want me to do, Boss?”
“Leo Jeffers was second in line when God was handing out the stupid gene. Ahead of him was the kid he hired—Leo called him Pug. My employer has a lot to lose. Power and pressure are the sort of conditions that create trust issues, even between husband and wife. My employer’s once-loving spouse might have been keeping records, keeping tabs. Things were hardly marital bliss, if you get my meaning. Leo was hired to break into my employer’s home and remove anything that could contain data—laptops, memory cards, USB sticks, phones—you get the idea. Only Pug, the two-bit tosser, took a shine to a phone and thought he’d keep it for himself. Given that my employer couldn’t find much on the other items retrieved from the break-in, it’s likely this phone has highly incriminating data on it.
“To make matters worse, Pug is probably so fucking stupid he was using the phone to discuss the details of planned activities with Leo. That would have been before the tosser got us in a whole heap of trouble and killed someone, and then got himself killed. The phone is still missing. The girl on the run from the newsagents’, Maria Mathan, has it. She’s a witness who links Leo and possibly my employer back to the crime, and the evidence on that phone she took could bring my employer down. That can’t happen. So, Robbie, my new shining hope, you’re going to make this all better for me, and my employer. Get the phone back. It’s very important. And, of course, you need to get rid of the witnesses. It’s time to move on.”
A throbbing pressure filled Robbie’s head and his vision started to blur.
That would mean killing at least four people.
The shopkeeper.
Leo Jeffers.
The missing girl who had the phone.
And Charlie.
Maria
The real-life monster, the Block Alchemy Crawler respawned, towered over me, puffing out his aniseed-tobacco vapour like smoke from his nostrils.
I knew what he wanted me to do. I was cornered in the small storage room, with nowhere to go. With his stink, his gross fingernails, and his limp, shiny strands of hair, he disgusted me. I did not want to be near him. He was telling me the evil things I had to do to him, and then the more evil things he was going to do to me.
“I’ll scream,” I said.
“Only when I let you,” he replied. “Girls like you rarely call for help. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves. Enough talking. I know your game.”
He sussed me. I just wanted to keep him talking for as long as possible.
I thought about fighting, punching, kicking, biting—
The door flung open and whacked the Crawler hard. I stepped back just in time as he came crashing to the floor, hitting it with a thud.
A man stood in the doorway. He looked confused, like he didn’t understand what he was seeing. He didn’t look as if he’d come to recue me, but he had some other purpose. My eyes were starting to adjust to the light. He looked familiar.
“I’m Callum M
cKinley,” he said. “Call me Cal.”
“Thank you for rescuing me,” I said meekly. I just wanted to go, to get out of the room as quickly as I could and to get as far away as possible from the creep. This new man didn’t look like trouble, but not all creeps look like creeps.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Before I had a chance to reply, the foul-smelling Crawler roused. He stood, far more quickly that I thought he would be able to. He turned and grappled with the guy near the door, Cal.
They threw each other around the storage room. There was no way I was going to stand there and see how it panned out. I squeezed past them. A hand went to grab me, it was dark and clean and must have been Cal’s. Cal snatched his hand back when he realised the Crawler was getting the better of him.
I couldn’t worry about Cal. I needed to worry about myself. That’s what Am’ma would have wanted.
I escaped the room and tried to close the door, but it was damaged and wouldn’t close fully.
I made my way to the stairs and climbed. At the half-way landing, I turned. Two different people approached the room where the Crawler had trapped me.
One of them was the police officer who did nothing as Am’ma was killed.
My heart thudded and my hands started to sweat.
The station was almost empty, and I was able to stand there, just watching and wondering why they wanted to go into the room. Maybe she was a cop after all? Perhaps she’d come to arrest the sicko?
As I watched the policewoman and her companion go in, I noticed a boy about my age walking towards the stairs, coming my way. I thought he looked cute, but the girls back home wouldn’t have glanced at him with that hair and those clothes. Not bae. He smelled like he needed a shower. He looked at the door, but showed no interest in trying to investigate it.
