A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  Then Keane starts thinking as best he can, his alcohol haze both helping and hindering.

  They like to film it.

  Film has come into this before.

  The Matty Halligan thing.

  Gittings told him about Matty Halligan and Keane tracked down the Vice officer who got the videos from the S&M bust. Those tapes are now part of the evidence.

  Keane goes downstairs, through the silent MIT offices and checks out the box of DVDs. He hauls them back upstairs. He doesn't know what he's looking for but the 'Stevie Wonder' clip has brought them into his mind.

  The first he looks at is the one Gittings mentioned. Matty Halligan strapped naked across some complicated piece of sexual apparatus. There are at least two other men in the room. One of them – dressed from head to toe in black leather, his face entirely hooded – is fucking Halligan. The other man only comes into shot now and again. He too is dressed in leather. There is nothing Keane can use.

  He turns off the DVD and inserts another. He's a few minutes into that one when something clicks.

  He ejects the second DVD, goes back to the first and there it is. The man fucking Halligan is holding his head down from behind, his fingers splayed through Halligan's cropped hair.

  Keane freezes the image and bends close to the screen. He uses the zoom feature to close in on a small section of the image.

  'Fuck me,' he whispers. Sobered up or not, the room seems to tilt and Keane has to steady himself.

  It can't be.

  The hooded man's hand is clear against Halligan's dark hair.

  Missing the tips of two of his fingers.

  'Perch,' breathes Keane.

  67

  Zoe can't see a thing. She has a hood over her head and a ball jammed in her mouth which is cinched in place using a leather strap.

  Zoe knows what it is: a gimp mask, an S&M sex toy. She feels her gorge rising and she wills herself not to vomit. With this thing on she'd choke to death.

  She is nude and has been bound by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. Mel was skilled at knots too and Zoe, from time to time, allowed herself to be tied up, enjoying the frisson of vulnerability as Mel teased her.

  That was nothing like this.

  Her arms have been pulled behind her painfully and roped to her ankles, arching her back and forming her into a rigid bow shape. She's been wedged tightly into some sort of container; one she only just fits into. The madman has grazed her thigh forcing her into it. The container is cold to the touch, metallic, and is inside a vehicle moving at high speed.

  Thankfully the road is smooth. For the first half hour or so Zoe was bounced around violently, banging her head against the roof of her container twice. Then came a smooth section before a long uncomfortable passage where Zoe deduced they were on a dirt road. It is agony.

  And all of this is nothing after what happened to Mel.

  Oh God, Mel.

  In the dark, Zoe sobs.

  Behind the wheel of the truck, Declan North is outwardly calm.

  He drives steadily south through the night, the road unwinding before him in a narrow cone of light, as anonymous as any tradesman going about his business. He keeps to the speed limit and signals when required. He pulls over twice. The first time to take a piss, the second to go through his rituals. It's difficult out there under the great bowl of Australian nothingness, but North improvises by raising the rear gate on the ute and calibrating the angles while kneeling on the dirt.

  No-one passes him.

  He and the bitch are six hours from her home in the middle of nowhere. North has never been anywhere that is as nowhere as this place.

  At 4 am, North pulls off the road and drives two or three kilometres slowly into the scrubby bush, taking care not to get stuck in any unseen ruts. He finds a fold in the land which he's confident makes a perfect hiding spot and parks the truck.

  In the back of the ute he's kept things simple. His supplies take up most of the rear of the four-seat cab along with a lock-box containing the cocaine. The other, larger lock-box with the bitch inside is bolted along one side of the tray of the ute. North has placed a foam mattress down the other side. He'll sleep there tonight.

  North climbs into the back of the truck and unfastens the lock-box. Zoe tries not to tremble.

  It's the hardest thing she's ever had to do.

  North doesn't say a word. He leans in and begins to lift her out of the box. She instinctively resists and North slaps her hard across the face. After that she does as he directs.

  He takes off her hood and Zoe blinks. Even the lights coming from the truck interior seem harsh. North's face is blank. From what she can see he's calm. He unties her legs and fastens a rope around her neck. For a terrifying moment Zoe is sure he's going to hang her, or worse, drag her behind the truck.

  'Walk,' he says and it dawns on her: he's exercising her, like a dog. After almost twelve hours in the lock-box she can hardly move. In fact, at first, she can't move. Her legs won't work and she drops painfully to the dirt. North prods her with the toe of his boot.

  'Walk.'

  Zoe, fighting the urge to cry, struggles onto all fours and tries to stand. Gradually her circulation begins to return and she's able to hobble painfully around at the end of the rope, conscious of North's eyes on her.

  Walk. She wills herself to do it. Walk. Endure. Survive.

  He allows her to stray about ten metres before he ties the end of the rope to the towbar on the truck. North loosens the gimp mask and takes out the ball. The pain in her jaw is excruciating and Zoe can't tell if her mouth is open or closed. She thinks about screaming but is unsure she could, even if she wanted to.

  As if reading her thoughts, North speaks. 'Go ahead. Give it a whirl. Why not?'

  When she doesn't reply, he throws his head back and howls like a wolf. He stops and looks up at the empty night. 'See?'

  He holds a litre bottle of water to her lips and Zoe drinks greedily, her world now reduced to the basics. After a few seconds North lifts the bottle and empties it over her head.

  'What?' says Zoe.

  'You smell.' North's voice is non-judgemental. It's as if he's said 'you're tall', or 'you're English'. Somehow it frightens Zoe more than anything since leaving Nashua.

  'You need to piss, go now,' he says.

  Absurdly, after all that's happened, Zoe feels the need for privacy. North watches her, his eyes revealing nothing. She squats behind the front end of the truck and urinates into the red dirt. With her hands behind her, and the pain in her limbs, it's difficult but she manages.

  North takes a second bottle of water and pours it over her. She stands dumbly while he washes her clean under the stars. With a cloth he washes her armpits and her pussy, his eyes on hers. She forces herself to remain expressionless.

  Endure. Survive.

  Eventually he's finished. North removes his clothes and Zoe braces herself for what is to come. He pulls off his boots, folds his jeans and shirt neatly and puts them in the rear of the cab. He slips on a pair of thongs.

  Zoe wanders as far as the rope will let her. Out to where the light is at its dimmest, where she can feel at least a shred of privacy for a few moments more.

  Naked, North uses another litre of water to wash himself thoroughly. Zoe sees the pale lines striping his upper body and looks away. When he's finished, North throws the bottle into the bush and hops up onto the mattress. He lies down and draws a blanket around himself.

  'Get in,' he says to Zoe.

  She says nothing and remains at the end of the rope.

  'Suit yourself,' says North, Zoe registering his Belfast accent properly for the first time. He didn't speak much last night when he did . . . that thing to Mel. Now she can hear it clearly.

  'You'll get in soon enough. It's too cold for you to stay out there all fecking night.'

  Zoe remains silent but the madman is right. The water on her naked skin is adding to the cold as it dries. After a few minutes Zoe draws closer to the
end of the truck.

  'And if you're thinking about getting that rope untied then you can forget about that too,' says North. 'The knots are too good.'

  Zoe knows this is true. The rope hasn't budged a millimetre since she's been tied up.

  With difficulty she steps into the back of the cab and lies down next to her attacker, Mel's killer. Her skin recoils from the places it touches his. It's like getting into bed with a lizard.

  'You know we might have seen each other back in Liverpool?'

  'What?' Zoe can't work out what the freak means. Liverpool?

  'Hope Street,' says North. 'We were at the same college. Eighty-three. I googled you.' His accent seems stronger now she's tuned in. Eighty-tree.

  Is he for real?

  'Is this what this is about? You're a stalker?' It's the first thing that comes into her head.

  'Feck, no!' North laughs. 'Just weird, though, hey?'

  'I was there,' says Zoe. 'We didn't meet.' Thinking: keep him talking. 'What did . . . what subject did you do?'

  North squeezes Zoe's breast. There's a playful tone to his voice that is more sickening than anything she's heard yet. 'Are you trying to keep me talking? Who gives a fuck what subject I did? That was then and this is now and that's all there is to it.'

  Zoe can feel his cock hard against her buttocks.

  She waits for the rape.

  It doesn't come. The madman wraps an arm around her, his breathing close in her ear.

  'Art,' he murmurs. 'I did art. At the Hannemann Buildings.'

  Zoe doesn't say anything in reply. She lies still until she realises he's asleep. Cursing herself for her inability to do anything, she closes her eyes and thinks about Koop until, eventually, she too sleeps.

  68

  The cops are crawling all over Koop's property.

  Sullivan returns, ashen and apologetic, along with a bigger team from Tweed Heads. A second team from the Gold Coast is there too, headed by John Collins who has been tipped off by Warren Eckhardt. While they establish the crime scene, and surreptitiously bicker over jurisdiction, Eckhardt shows up looking like hell.

  Koop is sitting on the old car chair at the back of the fig tree, holding an as yet unopened bottle of booze, when he smells the smoke from Eckhardt's cigarette.

  'I told them everything I know,' says Koop without looking up. 'Everything.'

  'I don't know what to say,' says Eckhardt. He butts his cigarette and lights another. 'It's bad.'

  Koop doesn't say anything for a moment. 'He's got Zoe. North's got her.' His voice is flat.

  'Maybe.'

  'She's not here, Warren.'

  'It's fucked up, Koop. There's no getting around that.' Eckhardt's voice is low. He swats an insect from his face and holds his cigarette out. 'Can you believe it? Persistent little fuckers, eh?'

  Koop looks at Eckhardt. 'What's Collins's take on it?'

  'He thinks that North's involved, although as yet there's only your word that this guy is what you say he is.'

  'They talked to Liverpool?'

  'Of course, and there's some credibility from that end.'

  'But . . .?'

  'But North is clean. On paper at least. There's no way to get around that one. He landed here a few days ago on his own passport. As far as the law is concerned he's an innocent visitor.'

  'Come on, Warren.'

  Eckhardt holds his hands up. 'I know you're right, Koop. Since North's arrived there's been a lot happening and that's what Collins is concentrating on. He knows you're right, if that's any consolation. It's a lot to swallow that all this is a coincidence; North's arrival and World War Three breaking out. We're not idiots here. It's just that . . .'

  'That what?'

  'The whole thing with you and your wife and . . . the victim.'

  'With Mel, you mean?'

  Eckhardt drags heavily on his cigarette and stares into the distance.

  'Look, Koop, what you do in private is none of my business. But put yourself in our shoes. I know you didn't have anything to do with Melumi Ato's death. Collins knows it too. But we have to report upwards and, given that the three of you have been sharing a bed, that's enough for them to want us to not leap to conclusions.'

  'A fucking domestic? You think this is a domestic, Warren? Did you see her?'

  'Yes. I saw her, Koop. We all saw her. And you, more than anyone, should know that we can't just jump because you say, "This is the guy." There's back-up from Liverpool, of a sort, from what we can tell. But they . . . we, have to look at it closely to see if there's anything else. Think back. When you were on the job, if something like this – the information, I mean – came in, what would you have done?'

  Koop doesn't reply. Eckhardt is right, of course. A triangular relationship in a murder inquiry? It's a no-brainer.

  He begins scratching at the black-and-white label on his bottle. 'And in the meantime, Zoe . . .' His voice trails off and the two men wait in silence. Koop looks at the bottle. 'I don't know why I'm holding this thing,' he says.

  'Well, anything we can do to find her, we're doing it,' says Eckhardt. It doesn't sound like much, even to Eckhardt. 'You have somewhere to stay tonight?'

  'Tonight?' says Koop. He turns east to where the sun is brightening the sky. 'Doesn't seem much point.'

  Eckhardt glances at the house which is blazing with lights. 'Fair enough.'

  He traces the point of his shoe through the grass.

  'Sullivan told me they found where she was killed,' says Echkardt quietly.

  He points across the paddock to a distant tent which has been erected over a patch of ground. Two technicians are taking photographs, the flash from their cameras flickering across the night.

  'I know,' says Koop.

  'There was a lot of blood.'

  Koop nods. He, along with everyone else, missed the area on his search earlier. As if he knows what Koop is thinking, Eckhardt speaks. 'You couldn't have done anything to save her.'

  I could, thinks Koop. I could have stayed at home.

  69

  Menno Koopman had wanted Zoe as soon as he saw her.

  1981. Liverpool. Another universe. A party in Gambier Terrace to which Koop has definitely not been invited, but to which he goes anyway – along with the rest of the Saturday Night Squad, nightsticks in hand and full of testosterone.

  The party's in a top-floor flat smack in the middle of the long row of regal Georgian houses sitting opposite the massive bulk of the Anglican cathedral. In any other city, or perhaps at any other time, these houses would have been the most expensive. They'd been built as showpieces by merchants and bankers, on the highest ground overlooking the source of their power and influence: the city and the river. Whenever Koop goes there, it's as a copper on call.

  The police know Gambier Terrace well. The houses have fallen into semi-dereliction as the money moves out of town and the place is filled with dealers, arts students, the odd squatter. The whole place still looks like those early Beatles photos, the good moody ones, the ones by Astrid Kirchherr, with the band in black jeans and leather, before Brian Epstein cleaned them up.

  Koop tries to recall the exact moment he'd seen Zoe.

  A Saturday night, he remembers that. Around twelve, and he and Geoff Suggs have been called to assist officers called to a party at the Terrace. It's easy to find, the music blaring out over the end of Hope Street; Lee Scratch Perry's 'Super Ape'. Reggae is popular amongst the punkers and art students, as well as with its regular West Indian constituency, Gambier Terrace marking the edge of the black section of Liverpool. Thick bass and spaced-out dub fills the air.

  'Fuckin' jungle bunnies.' Suggs pulls a face.

  Even now Koop squirms with embarrassment at the recall of the easy racism. He wasn't embarrassed at the time; he knows that in itself is a cause for some retroactive shame. To be a copper then was to be racist, it was that simple, as normal as breathing; the only question being what degree of bigotry each policeman brought to the job.

 
As the son of a Dutch father and English mother, Koop has been on the end of a milder form of it himself for much of his life. Despite being born and bred in Liverpool, his name marks him out as 'foreign' and therefore not quite right in some intangible way. He is white and European, but even that doesn't stop him getting called a lot of inventively obscene names.

  The worst is when people confuse his heritage with German. In the 1970s, the wartime bombing of the city is as plainly evident as a badly sutured wound, the destruction and devastation remaining as a daily reminder of the Luftwaffe. No-one wants to be German and in Liverpool.

  At twenty, Koop doesn't question the culture – the sub-adolescent canteen banter which he joins in with. The 'jokes', none of which he ever finds funny, but with which he laughs along, a bit of his self-respect ebbing away with each forced smile or chuckle, like sandstone from a crumbling cliff-edge.

  God, the names they use, the way they treat the 'ethnics'. The discriminatory and subsequently volatile abuse of the 'stop and search' law. The truly foul treatment dished out to the only two black recruits he remembers seeing in those pre-riot days.

  It curls his toes to think about it.

  He never goes along with the beatings, or the stitch-ups. He has, perhaps, turned a blind eye on more than one occasion, bad enough in itself, but understandable in the context. The city is simmering. Toxteth will erupt in riots only months later and Koop isn't surprised when it does. He's never been in any doubt why Margaret Thatcher has been upping his pay. Revolution is in the air. Not the theoretical sort talked about by middle-class socialists. Actual revolution. Militant Tendency are in the ascendancy in the ruling Labour Party. There is credible talk of Liverpool declaring itself an independent People's Republic and seceding from the United Kingdom. In cabinet, Thatcher discusses abandoning the city.

  That Saturday night they shoulder their way in through the jeering crowd, Suggs casually slapping a joint out of the mouth of a stumbling student dressed in a suit constructed out of what seems to be polythene sheeting.