by Shaun Hutson
'So who's done this?' Carter demanded. 'Barbieri's dead, so are Cleary, Sullivan and Hayes.'
'Someone trying to put the frighteners on you, Frank?' Billy offered.
'Like who?' Tina asked, but her question went unanswered.
'There's something else, Frank,' Carter observed. 'You said that you, Drake, Joule and Mendham did the killing that day, right? Well, the other three have already been murdered.'
'One of Ross's gang?' Billy offered.
Harrison shook his head.
'After he was killed the others left London. Besides, why wait two years? If any of them had been left, they'd have come after us sooner.'
'I know that place you're on about, there was something about it in the paper,' said Carter. 'Langley Towers it was called. It's being demolished.'
'So?' Harrison said.
'Maybe they found the bodies,' Billy suggested.
'I told you, no one would know who they were, there's no way of linking the deaths of Ross and his men with me,' Harrison muttered.
'Well somebody knew Charlie Ross,' Carter added. 'Someone with a grudge against you, Frank. My bet is you're next on the list.'
The gang boss glared at Carter.
He was about to say something when the phone rang.
Harrison hesitated before picking it up.
'Yeah,' he barked.
Silence.
'Hello, who is this?'
There was a soft, gurgling sound at the other end and then a liquid rattle.
'Harrison,' the voice said and the gang boss almost dropped the phone. 'Did you see my message? Did you see it; you fucker?'
'I saw it,' he replied. 'Who is this?'
'Who do you think?' There was anger in the words but something more. Triumph? 'You're going to die, Harrison. Soon. You won't know when but I want you to look into my face before I kill you, something you never had the guts to do before. Do you hear me?'
The gang boss gripped the receiver hard, his knuckles turning white.
'Now listen to me, you cunt, if you think you can scare me...'
He was cut short.
'I'm not trying to scare you,' the voice rasped. 'I just want to kill you. I've waited long enough.'
The line went dead.
Harrison slammed the receiver down, his hand shaking.
His face was deathly white and he was forced to lean against the desk for support. Tina stood watching as he spun round to face Carter and Billy.
'Carter, you and Billy, you go to Langley Towers, under- stand?' he hissed. 'You search it. Search every fucking inch of it. Take Duggan with you.' His breath was coming in low, quick gasps. 'Find those bodies.'
Carter frowned.
'Frank, what the hell are you talking about?' he asked, irritably. 'Ross is dead. That message is from someone trying to wind you up.' He pointed at the blood-drawn words on the wall.
'Find the bodies,' Harrison bellowed. 'I have to see them. I have to know he's dead.'
'You killed him yourself,' Carter roared back. 'Charlie Ross is dead and buried.'
'Check that site, got it?' Harrison snarled. 'I'll be at my flat with Tina. You report back there.'
'This is fucking crazy,' snapped Carter.
Harrison lunged forward, grabbing him by the collar, but Carter gripped his boss's wrists and threw him backwards.
Even as he staggered two or three paces, Harrison slid his right hand inside his jacket and pulled out the.357. He aimed it at Carter's head and thumbed back the hammer.
'You check that fucking site or so help me I'll kill you,' the gang boss said.
Tina looked anxiously at Carter and at the gaping barrel of the revolver.
'So, we go looking for dead men?' Carter mused.
Harrison didn't speak, he merely lowered the gun slowly and then carefully released the hammer, disarming the.357.
He slid it back into its holster. The gang boss grabbed Tina by the arm and pulled her towards the door.
'Clean this fucking place up. Then do what I told you,' Harrison snapped. Then he was gone.
Carter looked at Billy Stripes and shrugged.
'He's fucking mad,' said Carter, shaking his head.
'So, who do you think it is, Ray?' Billy wanted to know.
Carter crossed to the body of Drake and looked down at it.
'I'm not paid to think, Billy,' he said quietly.
Drake's eyes gazed at him blindly.
They called McAuslan and began their task.
The words of blood on the wall remained in plain view.
An accusation.
A challenge.
Sixty-Six
2.49 p.m.
Harrison looked across at the wall clock and muttered under his breath. He downed what was left in the glass, crossed to the cabinet and poured himself another large measure of Haig.
Tina sat on the sofa, one leg drawn up beneath her, watching as the gang boss paced agitatedly back and forth pausing occasionally to glance at the phone.
'What the hell's taking them so long?' he hissed. 'They should have been there by now.'
'Give them time, Frank,' Tina said, her own nerves frayed after the events of the past few days. 'Why don't you just sit down and...’
'Sit down,' he snarled, turning on her. 'Sit down and what? Relax?' He took another large gulp of whisky. He'd already got through half a bottle since they'd arrived at the fiat two hours earlier and now, as he paced up and down, his steps weren't so assured. Once or twice he almost stumbled, cursing when he spilled the whisky.
'You're getting yourself worked up,' she told him.
'Somebody's trying to kill me,' he said. 'What the fuck do you expect me to do, have a sing-song?' He finished what was left in the glass and hurriedly poured himself some more.
'Drinking isn't going to help,' Tina protested.
'Button it,' Harrison growled. 'Just shut up.' The bottle cracked hard against the glass, almost chipping the delicate crystal. He could smell the drink on his own breath.
Tina got to her feet, tired of Harrison's abuse.
'Where are you going?' he demanded.
'Into the kitchen,' she told him.
He snaked out a hand and gripped her arm, squeezing hard. Tina tried to shake free but Harrison held on, finally pushing her back on to the sofa.
'You stay with me,' he said, lurching over to the sofa and slumping down beside her.
She slid to one end, anxious to get away from his whisky smelling breath.
'What's wrong with you, Frank?' she wanted to know.
'Somebody's trying to kill me, have you forgotten that? If I'd been in the casino this morning the bastards would have had me then.' He rubbed his forehead with a thumbnail.
'That fucking Charlie Ross, he always was a devious sod.'
'Ross is dead. Ray said that the message was from someone trying to scare you ...'
'Ray. Ray. Ray said. I don't give a fuck what Carter said,' Harrison growled. 'So, you believe him and not me do you? Why? What makes him so fucking special?' He gripped a handful of her hair in his fist and pulled her towards him.
Tina recoiled both from the pain and also from the stink of liquor on Harrison's breath. He finally pushed her aside.
'Why should Carter be right?' the gang boss wanted to know.
'Frank, be sensible about it,' she said, irritably. 'If Ross is dead ...'
'Yeah, if he's dead,' Harrison interrupted.
'But you said you killed him yourself, and buried his body. How could it be Ross who's after you now? Be logical for Christ's sake.'
He glared at her.
'You weren't like this after the restaurant attack,' she told him. 'You were angry not scared.'
Harrison chuckled humourlessly.
'And you think that when they come for me they're going to leave you alone, is that it?' he asked. 'Is it?'
'When who comes for you?'
'Ross,' he bellowed, jumping to his feet.
'Ross is dead. For the last time,
he's dead.'
'I won't believe that until I see his fucking body.'
Ray Carter took a long draw on the cigarette and held the smoke in his mouth for a moment before blowing it out in a long bluish stream.
He watched as the JCB's and the bulldozers rumbled over the piles of rubble which had once been Langley Towers, crushing stone beneath their huge caterpillar tracks, scooping debris up in their buckets, dumping it into the huge Scania lorries which waited obediently on the site.
Beside him Billy Stripes looked at his watch and sighed.
'How much longer do you think they're going to work?' he mused.
'A couple of hours,' Carter said, scanning the ruins.
Most of the first block and at least half of the second had been demolished. The third stood as a last defiant monument to the idiocy of modem planning, the late afternoon sunshine reflecting off its windows as if it were bouncing off so many blind eyes. The buildings which surrounded the three blocks were also still intact. Carter glanced at the supermarket, watching it for a moment before taking a last drag on his cigarette and tossing the butt out of the window.
'Shouldn't we tell Frank we're here?' asked Joe Duggan from the back seat.
Carter didn't answer. He merely glanced into the rear view mirror at Duggan.
'We'll call him if we find anything,' Billy said.
'Amongst all that rubbish,' said Carter, nodding towards the mountains of debris, a note of desperation in his voice.
'And what the hell are we supposed to do even if we do find Ross's body? Take it back to his fiat?'
Billy reached for the packet of cigarettes lying on the parcel shelf. It was empty. He swore and screwed it up.
'Fuck this,' said Carter finally, starting the engine of the car. 'Let's go and get a cup of tea. We'll come back when the site's quiet.' He put it into first gear. 'If Ross is there he's not going to go far anyway, is he?'
The other two men chuckled as Carter spun the wheel and drove away.
Behind them, the destruction continued.
The sun sank lower in the sky.
It would be dark in three hours.
Sixty-Seven
The skies above London were mottled grey with cloud, the approaching rain combining with the night to make the gloom totally impenetrable.
Thousands of lights glowed like grounded stars in the buildings which surrounded the derelict site. Across the water the lights of the City itself seemed to cast a glow up towards the lowering heavens as if trying to keep the darkness at bay.
But, on the wreckage of Langley Towers, there was only blackness.
Except for the spear-like shafts of torch-light which swept back and forth over the rubble like hand-held searchlights.
Carter, Billy Stripes and Joe Duggan moved down the steep incline from where they had parked the car, picking their way over piles of shattered masonry, endeavouring to keep their balance. Duggan cursed as he slipped and twisted his ankle on a piece of rock.
Carter gave him only a cursory glance as he kicked the offending stone to one side, hissing once more as he stubbed his toe on the lump of concrete. The torch beam waved erratically through the air as he struggled to prevent himself falling.
The earth movers now stood unattended, metal carcasses amongst the carnage they had wrought. The wind moved the bucket of a JCB and it squeaked rhythmically, adding a background to the steady crunching sound made by the men's feet as they continued to struggle over the bricks and concrete.
`Where the hell do we start?' said Duggan, surveying the huge expanse of desolation. 'We could be here all night.'
'The bodies were buried in concrete weren't they?' Billy added. 'How deep?'
Carter could only shrug.
'Christ knows,' he grunted. 'Even if we find them we'll probably need a bloody JCB to dig them out.'
'I reckon Harrison's gone mental,' Billy added.
'You mean it's taken this long for you to notice,' Carter muttered cryptically. 'He's always been a fucking headcase.'
'We must be pretty bloody stupid, wandering around a demolition site looking for blokes who've been dead for two years,' Duggan added.
'Tell Harrison that.'
The three men came to a halt, gazing around them.
'We might as well split up,' said Carter. 'I'll look around here, you two try over by the other blocks.'
'How long are we going to look?' Duggan wanted to know. 'Until we find something?'
'Bollocks,' snapped Carter. 'We'll meet back at the car in three hours.'
'But what if we don't find anything?' Duggan protested. 'Frank isn't going to be very happy.'
'Then let him come down here with a shovel and look for his bloody self,' Carter snapped.
The men stood in the silence of the night for a moment and then Billy and Duggan picked their way over the rubble, visible only by their torch beams. Carter turned and began shining his own torch over the pockmarked ground, picking out pieces of broken glass and masses of pulverized rock in the process. It was like walking through a huge quarry. As he moved about he shivered, saw his breath clouding in the air. He would pause occasionally, overturning large lumps of concrete as if expecting to find Ross or one of his men beneath it.
His search continued.
On the other side of the site Duggan and Billy were having no luck either. They, like Carter, weren't even sure what they were looking for but, nevertheless, they continued their vigil, moving amongst mounds of rubble.
'I feel a right prat doing this,' said Duggan.
'Join the club,' Billy added wearily. He nodded in the direction of the half-demolished second block. 'I'm going to try in there. You stay here, have a scout round through the crap.'
Duggan nodded and shone his torch over the ground while Billy headed off towards the second of the towers. As he walked a fine shroud of dust rose up around his feet, settling like mist as he moved towards the building. The place was thick with dust and Billy coughed as he entered, waving a hand in front of him. Dust particles swirled and danced in the torch-light and he moved slowly across what had once been the lobby, avoiding cracks in the floor as best he could, stopping to peer down into them every now and then. Maybe Ross or one of his men would be down there waiting to be discovered, he thought and chuckled to himself.
Unknown to him, his every movement was being watched.
Carter traced the outline of what he took to be the foundations of the first block with the torch, pausing once to light a cigarette. He sucked hard on it, the end glowing red in the darkness as he walked. What a waste of time, he thought irritably. Wandering around freezing his nuts off just to satisfy his idiot boss. Harrison was cracking up, his outburst earlier in the day had convinced Carter of that. Sending them out to hunt for dead men. Jesus, the bastard was ready for a straitjacket. Carter shook his head and walked on, his thoughts turning to Tina. She was alone with Harrison. What if he got impatient? Roughed her up? Carter gritted his teeth and tried to push the thoughts to the back of his mind. If Harrison dared to hurt her again...
The weight of the automatic beneath his left armpit felt comforting.
He paused by a particularly large hole in the foundations and shone his torch into it, scanning the cracked concrete for anything vaguely human. Bones, clothes, anything.
The hole was empty.
He walked on, taking another suck on his cigarette.
He turned and headed back in the direction he'd seen Billy and Duggan take, wondering if they'd had any joy in what he was convinced was a fruitless search.
It was as he was climbing over a mound of debris that he saw something move.
A figure?
It was difficult to tell in the gloom.
Carter shone his torch in its direction but picked out only more bricks.
'Billy,' he called, his voice echoing in the stillness. 'Joe.'
Silence.
Carter shook his head and continued scrambling over the ruins.
More movement, to his
right this time.
He spun round, torch cutting through the gloom.
Nothing.
'If either of you two silly sods are having a joke ...' he called, allowing the sentence to trail off.
Ahead of him a pile of bricks fell, slowly at first then with a dull thud.
Carter sprinted forward towards the rubble. Dust was still rising from it. It had been only recently disturbed.
If one of his colleagues was pissing about he'd be mad. It was bad enough trekking about in the cold looking for the remains of dead men without them playing tricks on him.
Carter advanced towards the supermarket.
He was within fifty yards when he saw the figure slip through one of the open doors.
`Right, you bastard,' Carter muttered under his breath.
He'd get his own back now. See how the other two liked a bloody joke. Ducking low, hidden by the shadows, he flicked off his torch and scuttled towards the supermarket, pausing at the door, listening.
There was no sound from inside.
He pushed the door with one hand and stepped in.
The smell which hit him was like an invisible wall. So rank and putrid in its intensity that he was forced to put a hand over his mouth. All thoughts of the figure vanished as he concentrated on trying not to vomit. The smell was incredible. He took a step inside, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to cover his nose and mouth.
Broken glass crackled beneath his feet, dust swirled up around his shoes.
Carter played the beam of the torch over the huge empty shelves which seemed to stretch for miles, so far that the beam could not reach the end of the aisles. The check-outs stood long abandoned, covered by dust nearly an inch thick. He stood motionless, torchlight bouncing off the dirty shelves, squinting to catch any movement in the gloom.
He saw nothing.
It was then that the hand closed on his shoulder.
Sixty-Eight
Carter's heart raced madly as he felt the hand touch him and he spun round, reaching for the automatic.
His torchlight illuminated the face of Joe Duggan.
`Jesus Christ,' gasped Carter, sucking in a deep breath. `What the hell are you playing at? I nearly shit a brick.' He raised the torch in mock anger, as if to hit Duggan who recoiled momentarily.
