Killing Pretties

by Rob Ashman

  ‘How about something quick and easy?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, that would be good.’

  I open the back door and step out onto the patio. We have a large garden with a couple of fruit trees, a weeping willow next to the pond and a vegetable patch over to one side. At the back is a large brick building with a fat chimney poking at the sky from the tiled roof. It has no windows and a single door. I step inside and flick the switch. The place floods with light from the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.

  I have three potting wheels, two large wooden benches and my tools and formers are hung on a board on the wall. In the corner is my glazing station where I keep my oxides, slips and dyes. In the opposite corner is the kiln; a floor to ceiling box-like structure measuring six feet square with a door in the front wall. My kiln is my pride and joy. I built it by hand and it fires to a temperature of one thousand degrees centigrade. I had considered buying one but they weren’t big enough.

  In the other corner is my hotbox. This is where the clay is proved prior to going into the kiln. As a potter, you soon realise that moisture is your enemy and this room dries out the material. I built this as well because I wanted a room large enough for me to walk around inside. Two electric heaters provide me with a temperature-controlled environment. There is shelving on three of the walls which already have pots and plates waiting for the next part of the process.

  I grab hold of the metal shelving and wheel a section of it away from the wall. Behind it is a stud wall which has been insulated to retain the heat. I take the hook, which is dangling from a ring, and slot it into the small hole; a twist to the right and the wall opens up. The room beyond is long and narrow with an open drain in the floor covered with a metal grid. The pipework below runs through a macerator to the septic tank buried at the side of the house. I hit the switch and a single bulb lights up the space. At the one end of the room is a chest freezer.

  I rummage around inside and bring out a number of packages wrapped in paper and tied with string. Some are small, others large. I take them to one of the work benches and after several trips back and forth to the freezer I have seven parcels lined up.

  Taking a pair of scissors, I cut the string and carefully peel away the wrapping. This is a critical part of the process as any contamination can ruin the effect. I carefully put the paper and string into a pile and walk over to the kiln and step inside. Brick shelves line the walls which are used to support the pots during the firing process. I put the paper and string onto one of the lower shelves and go back to my bench.

  The remaining items are carefully placed on metal dishes. One by one I arrange them in the kiln and close the door.

  I’ve won a number of awards for my pottery work. Whether it’s vases, crockery or abstract sculptures, I always get a special mention for the quality of my glaze. It’s become my trademark. Every firing is different, and every firing will produce a different glaze depending on the mixture of impurities and chemicals you paint on the clay.

  Other potters have asked how I do it.

  How do you achieve such a unique glaze? How do you get that glistening sheen of reds, blues, greens and purples? What’s your secret?

  Of course, I never tell them.

  The kiln is loaded up and ready to go. I open the isolation valves, push a couple of buttons on the control panel and it whooshes into life. Fifteen minutes on full burn normally does the trick. To achieve the right consistency, it is important not to overload the process so a number of firings is required. One more, I reckon. Plus, a final blast to dispose of what’s left.

  Belinda Garrett was a wisp of a woman. A slip of a girl with the outward persona of butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But Elsa told me stories to the contrary. I uncork a bottle of red from my stash in the corner, fill my glass and watch the temperature gauge rise.

  With what remains in the freezer, I’ll be done by ten o’clock. One more careful firing, then a final blast. That should do the trick.

  Chapter 8

  M alice glanced at the clock in the bottom corner of the screen — 18.20. He was cutting it fine.

  He swept the paperwork off his desk into a drawer, logged off and hurried from the office to find Superintendent Waite in the corridor.

  Shit!

  ‘Hey boss, how did you get on today?’ His tactic was always to ask her a question first, in an attempt to stop her asking him.

  Waite looked tired and irritable, an expression she carried around with her most days.

  ‘We picked up twenty-six people. The interpreter said they were mostly Hungarian and Polish. It looks like forced labour but until we formally process them we won’t know for sure.’

  ‘Any idea on the gangmaster?’

  ‘They haven’t given up a name… yet.’

  ‘When they do, let me know and I’ll put out some feelers.’

  ‘A few of them said they were in the building trade, doing up houses and flats. It shouldn’t take us long to get the full picture. How did you get on with the missing person?’

  Bollocks, I need to leave…

  ‘I talked to her house mate and she confirmed that Belinda’s disappearance is out of character. I spent the rest of the day doing the leg work on her last known whereabouts and tracking down her contacts and friends. I have a few items of interest with forensics and should get those back in the morning. Maybe that will shed some light.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘Night, boss.’

  Malice cursed under his breath as he ran to the changing room. He stripped off and hung his clothes on a hanger, then pulled on his gym gear from this morning. A man turned up next to him wrapped in a towel and opened a locker.

  ‘Bloody hell, Mally, that gear stinks,’ he said waving his hand in front of his face.

  ‘Cheeky bastard that’s my best aftershave – Eau de Shitbag.’

  ‘Phew. You’re not on the pull that’s for sure.’

  ‘It’s not my clothes they’re after.’

  Malice bundled the hanger into the locker and slammed the door, rushing for the exit.

  ‘Have you got anything to be late for in the morning?’ the guy in the towel called after him.

  ‘Piss off!’

  Malice ran down the stairs, out the building and fired up his car. The barrier went up and he roared away. The Claxton Estate was fifteen minutes’ drive away and he had an appointment to keep.

  His meeting with Burko earlier had bothered him. Burko was old-school and not one to get into fights or arguments. So, how he came to be sporting a bruised eye and cut lip was cause for concern. He let his mind wander to when they had first crossed paths.

  Malice had been a detective for nine years, moving out of uniform and into plain clothes on a whim. He quickly gained the rank of sergeant and that’s where his career progression ground to a halt. After failing his Inspector’s exams three times he decided to give the whole ‘climbing the corporate ladder’ a miss; choosing instead to sit back and enjoy the ride.

  Then his life took a turn for the worse when his marriage fell apart. Looking back, he was a shit husband and a crap father. They divorced when his daughter was four years old and the pressures of maintaining a roof over his family’s head while trying to keep one over his own had proved almost impossible. So, he decided to diversify.

  Malice had recognised that the criminal fraternity were no more scared of getting caught and going through the judicial process than he was of opening his front door to a bunch of kids on Halloween. Suspended sentences, community service and cautions were the sanctions of choice — handed out like sweets to alleviate the burgeoning prison population. But without the resources to adequately enforce the court orders it was like getting a slap on the wrist and being sent to bed with no supper.

  Malice decided that if the police weren’t prepared to help him get on in life, then he had better make his own arrangements.

  It was the week before Christmas when Malice decided Burko was go
ing to be his first recruit. He’d followed him to Broadbent Avenue, a favourite location for the drug fraternity where anything you wanted was readily on sale. Even the cops knew this place was like going to Asda, but because it was in a rundown area, they chose to look the other way. Choosing instead to commit bodies to investigating internet hate crimes rather than keeping drugs off the streets.

  Malice had never read the force’s drugs strategy but figured it must go along the lines of so long as the drugs don’t have an adverse impact on ‘decent’ folk, all is well with the world. And if the powers that be didn’t care, he didn’t see why he should either.

  He’d found Burko lurking on a corner, bundled him into his car and drove him to a disused warehouse. Burko was babbling like an idiot on nitrous oxide, which on reflection he probably was.

  Malice and Burko had history. Malice had nicked him on four separate occasions and in each case Burko had walked out of the station straight back onto the streets. Being arrested was nothing more than an occupational hazard, a temporary break in service.

  When they arrived at the warehouse Malice had manhandled Burko inside.

  ‘Don’t, don’t.’ Burko had said, his knees visibly shaking.

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Don’t do whatever it is you’re going to do.’

  Malice had walked around him watching the bloke crumble.

  ‘I’m going to help you.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That’s right, I’m going to help you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The force is planning a massive crackdown on street dealers,’ Malice lied, moving in close to Burko and getting in his face. ‘This will go one of two ways. Either I will be breathing down your neck every minute of every day and effectively shut you down, or, I can feed you tit-bits of information which will allow you to stay out of trouble.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘It’s easy, which one would you prefer?’

  ‘The one where I stay out of trouble.’

  ‘That’s good, because that’s the one I prefer too. But there’s a teeny-weeny catch.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want a cut from what you take.’

  ‘Shit, I can’t do that, man.’

  ‘The other option is I close you down.’

  ‘Hell, man. I got people I need to report to and they aren’t going to be happy.’

  ‘That’s not my problem. It’s a good deal. I tell you how to keep one step ahead, your business flourishes and I get a little something in return. Simple.’

  Burko took a while to process the information, then said ‘yes’ more times than was necessary to make the point.

  And that was it. Malice’s Christmas present to himself was that he had recruited his first dealer. Money in exchange for information — everybody wins. That was three years ago and now he had another five dealers under his belt. In a perverted way, Malice considered that he was depleting their ability to purchase drugs by relieving them of their hard-earned cash. In his head he was carrying out his own policing strategy, and in his opinion, this one that was more effective.

  Malice snapped his mind back to the present; he pulled his car over to the kerb, popped the boot open and dug out a long, filthy trench coat. He slipped it on and eyed the vast expanse of houses that made up the Claxton Estate. Even in his dirty gym gear he would be over-dressed for this locality.

  He locked his car and set off. The regimented layout of the houses must have looked good when the designer drew them on a plan. Fifty years later, the estate looked like something out of an apocalypse movie. Every other property had its windows and doors boarded up with metal sheeting, not that it stopped people getting in. Gangs of teenagers on bikes hung around the street corners while others burned rubber on the road, wheel-spinning their boy-racer cars. The acrid smell of burned tyres hung in the air, a permanent reminder of where you were.

  Malice turned into a back street that ran between two sets of houses. Half-way down he hopped over a wall into a garden overgrown with weeds and peppered with beer bottles. He reached the back door, prised the metal shuttering away from the frame and squeezed through.

  The stench of stale drugs smacked him in the back of the throat, making his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. He coughed and spat on the floor.

  The room was in semi-darkness and Malice allowed his eyes to adjust. As they did the silhouettes of people came into view. Some were sat with their backs against the wall, others were curled up in the foetal position on the floor. He picked his way through the bodies and up the stairs. The same scene greeted him on the landing. A man and two women were slumped in a heap, each of them completely gone, each of them stinking of piss.

  Malice walked through a doorway off to the left to find two men sitting in armchairs both of them smoking cigarettes. One of them had long hair drawn back in a ponytail, a goatee beard and sunken eyes. His bony knees stuck through the rips in his jeans. His jaw was moving in a cow-like chewing action. The second was heavy-set, clad in a leather jacket and jogging bottoms, his shaved head glowing white in the gloom.

  The room had once been a bedroom but now had bare floorboards and yellow papered walls. There was a hole in the ceiling where the light fitting used to be and the door had long since departed. The floor was littered with discarded cigarette boxes, empty beer cans and food cartons. The ideal carpet of choice if you were planning to supply your runners with drugs and wanted ultimate deniability should the police pay a visit.

  ‘Hey, Wrigley,’ said Malice.

  ‘Mally, I thought you weren’t gonna show,’ the man with the pony tail raised his hand.

  ‘I got held up — you know how it is.’

  ‘Yeah, you must be a busy man. How have you been?’

  ‘Pretty good, I can’t stay long.’

  Malice sank down onto his haunches with his back against the wall. Wrigley didn’t bother getting up. He blew plumes of smoke into the air and chomped on the lump of gum in his mouth. He leaned over and murmured something to the second guy who got up and walked out.

  ‘I would tell him to shut the door, but…’ Bullseye went out onto the landing and down the stairs.

  ‘The neighbourhood has gone to shit,’ said Malice, shaking his head.

  ‘Okay. What do you have?’

  ‘Lay low on the Turnbull estate.’

  ‘Fuck, you’re kidding me.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘That’s my best patch.’

  ‘That’s why it’s a target. Give it a few weeks and they’ll move on.’

  ‘Shit, that’s gonna cost me a wedge.’

  ‘They’ll lose interest, then you can move back. You know the score by now.’

  Malice had a sneaking admiration for Wrigley. Out of all the dealers, he was the one who treated it most like a business. As far as Malice knew, Wrigley was clean and didn’t use any of his own product. He ran a network of twelve runners who distributed skunk, heroin, crack, meth amphetamines — you name it — to anyone who wanted to get high. It was a telephone only service, which operated like a well-oiled machine, customer service was his buzz word. ‘If we make it easy, they’ll come back for more. Maintaining repeat business is easier than finding new punters.’ Many a high street retailer would be jealous of his customer loyalty.

  Wrigley fished out a roll of notes and tossed it over to Malice. He caught it in mid-air and stuffed it into his pocket. There was no need to count it.

  An almighty crash came from downstairs and the sound of heavy boots reverberated against the wooden stairs. Two men carrying baseball bats appeared in the doorway.

  Chapter 9

  It was the day Antonio took flight …

  N o sooner had we kicked off the first week of lectures in Madrid than my professor had to head home. A family emergency needed urgent attention and I was going to have to go it alone.

  Perfect.

  The university had found me accommodation in an old block of flats in the ce
ntre of the city. I had four rooms – a lounge, small kitchen, a bedroom and bathroom. The high vaulted ceilings gave the place a regal feel but the furniture and décor looked like they hadn’t been touched in fifty years. The place smelled like an antiques shop.

  When I arrived on my first day, two heavy oak doors welcomed me in from the street into the lobby area where a man dressed in a ridiculous bellboy outfit sat behind a desk. His main job was to nod to the people coming in and out and ogle the women. Other than carrying out those duties, I have no idea why he was there. A massive spiral stairwell corkscrewed its way through the centre of the building from the bottom to the top. A wrought iron bannister topped with a thick oak handrail wound its way skywards.

  My place was on the sixth floor, Antonio a floor above.

  I didn’t know that was his name when I first met him; all I knew was his stereo was too damned loud. It was the third night in a row and the thud, thud, thud of his music was driving me crazy. I remember checking my watch — it was half past one in the morning — throwing myself out of bed, pulling on some clothes and stomping up the stone steps. The noise increased as I neared number 702 and hammered on the door.

  Nothing happened. I hammered again.

  The door cracked open to the extent of the security chain and a pair of glazed eyes stared through the gap.

  ‘Si,’ said the partially hidden face from behind the door.

  ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I live downstairs and your music is too loud.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I heard the chain being pulled across, the door opened to reveal a man dressed in a comedy smoking jacket and cravat. His long, tousled hair would be the envy of any woman, as would his large eyes and long lashes. ‘You live downstairs?’

  ‘That’s right and I can’t sleep with your music playing so loud.’

  I heard a woman laugh and glanced over his shoulder. I could see several people in the lounge where the air was thick with smoke. The smell of something that wasn’t tobacco wafted over me. The woman who had laughed flopped down onto the lap of a man sitting on the sofa. He slid his hand up her thigh and held his glass to her lips.