Chasing the Dark

by Sam Hepburn

  ‘We’ll come back.’

  Nina tugged the tie-clip out of his hand and we made for the exit.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Fat Marty called. ‘You never know, if you make it worth his while, Robbie might even remember your mate.’

  I shut the door behind us.

  ‘I am sure he recognised Yuri’s face,’ Nina whispered, fixing the tie-clip back on her sock.

  Half of me wanted to agree with her. The other half was scared of getting my hopes up. ‘He was dead shifty, that’s for sure. But I couldn’t work out if he was just trying to rip us off or if there was something else going on. Let’s get some food then we’ll go back and see what his brother says.’

  We cut through the back roads till we found a greasy spoon tucked down a little lane near the High Street. It wasn’t just the spoons in that caff that were greasy. Everything, from the fogged-up windows and cracked formica tables to the red-faced woman behind the counter, was coated in a shiny layer of fat. Even the air felt sticky. But at least the management weren’t fussed about customers bringing dogs in. It wasn’t very busy, just a bloke in overalls getting a sausage roll and a takeaway tea, and an old couple sharing a round of toast. While I was at the counter ordering two all-day breakfasts my phone beeped again. My guts jumped. It was a text from Jackson. I felt sick. But it didn’t last long.

  Hey kid sorry I dissed u comin to catford to help where r u?

  Jackson had to be feeling bad because he never apologised, never called anyone kid and, if he could help it, never set foot in South London.

  Feeling like a twenty-ton weight had been lifted off my mind, I texted back.

  julies caff swains lane off hi street.

  Things were looking up. If Fat Marty and his brother did know anything about Yuri, Jackson would know exactly how to get it out of them. All I had to do now was convince Nina she could trust him.

  Even the way Jackson drove I reckoned it would take him a while to get across London and I decided to let her chill for a bit before I broke the news. She’d picked the table furthest from the window and she was sitting with her head down and her back to the street. I brought over the teas and sat next to her. Once we’d gone over everything Fat Marty had said we took turns trying to guess how much the tie-pin was really worth.

  The old couple toddled off just as our fry-ups arrived, and as Nina bent down to give Oz a bit of bacon I reached for the ketchup. It was in one of those plastic dispensers, the kind that looks like a fake tomato, and I’d got it upside down, squeezing it and thwacking it, trying to unblock the spout, when a blast of cold air hit my neck and some more customers strolled in. I caught a waft of sweat and cigarette smoke as a huge bloke in a leather jacket brushed past our table, on his way to the counter. He had this funny rolling walk and thick, muscly arms that were a bit too short for his barrel-shaped body. I whispered to Nina that from the back he reminded me of Shrek. He must have ordered something special because the red-faced woman looked a bit surprised, dropped the cup she was drying and disappeared out back.

  As I gave the fake tomato another thump, a black-gloved hand shoved a ketchup bottle over my shoulder and a gruff voice said, ‘Here, try this, Erroll. Or is it Joe?’

  Next thing I know Viktor Kozek’s got me by the hair and Shrek’s lunging at Nina, shaking her like he’s emptying a sack of potatoes and screaming at her in Russian.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ I yelled.

  Kozek whacked me round the head, shooting fire through my brain. As they dragged us outside I reached wildly for Oz, but my world was exploding into splinters and he was just a blurry white streak and a jangle of echoey barks. Viktor clamped his arm around me, like I was sick and he was helping me to walk, and Shrek did the same with Nina, not that any of the passers-by seemed to notice or care. Two cars floated into focus, a black Lexus with Bogdan at the wheel and the flash Jeep I’d seen cruising down the High Street. I got a glimpse of Shrek’s face and recognised the show-off who’d been driving it. He pushed Nina into the back of the Lexus, pounding her with his fists. She crumpled into the footwell, shaking, crying, pleading, bleeding.

  ‘Stop it!’ I screamed. ‘She hasn’t done anything. I just bumped into her in the caff.’

  ‘Save your breath,’ Viktor growled. ‘He doesn’t speak English.’

  He shoved me in after her, landing his foot on my back, squishing my nose into the carpet and working grit into my mouth. I heard laughter. Coughing and spitting, I twisted round towards the window and caught Shrek heading for the Jeep. He was dangling Oz by his collar, grinning into his face and mimicking his frenzied yelps. Viktor was lounging back in his seat holding the photo of Yuri.

  ‘You two think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? Only you’re not smart enough. Yuri’s nowhere near Catford. He’s hiding out in East London. I’ve got people picking him up right now.’

  ‘So let us go.’

  ‘Why would I do that when I’ve got a very important client who’s just dying to meet you?’

  ‘Let Nina go. She didn’t want to help me. I forced her.’

  He laughed. Then his face turned stony. ‘She knows the score. You cross Viktor Kozek, you pay the price.’ His foot jabbed into her side. She was hunched so far down that I couldn’t see her face but I heard her gasp. ‘Anyway, I’m sure my client will want to know exactly who Nina has told about our friend Yuri.’

  ‘Who . . . who is your client?’

  ‘They call her the Vulture.’ He grinned. ‘They say she likes her victims dead before she picks them clean of everything they’ve got. And she knows plenty about you already. Real name – Joe Slattery. Mother killed in a car crash. Doesn’t know when to mind his own business. That is you, isn’t it?’ He yanked my head back. ‘Well?’

  I wanted to shout at him and tell him he was slime, but I just whimpered a pathetic ‘Yeah. That’s me.’

  He let go and smiled. ‘I suppose I should be thanking you for the tip-off about Yuri. It’s not often a kid walks into my office and puts me on to a deal worth a million pounds.’

  I sucked in a gulp of air and let it out as slow as I could, trying to control my voice. ‘Why did she kill Sadie Slattery?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know. Inquiring too closely into the Vulture’s business isn’t good for your health. But if you care that much you can ask her yourself. She’s coming over to deal with you and Yuri in person.’

  Excitement welled up through the pain and terror. If I didn’t get out of this alive at least I’d get the chance to look Mum’s killer in the eye before I died.

  CHAPTER 18

  Viktor had done talking. The next time I raised my head, one of his snakeskin boots squashed it into the carpet. OK, so I should have been counting every bump and turn, working out where we were headed. But you try driving anywhere scared witless, with your face rammed into the floor and every brake squeal triggering nightmare flashes of the car crash that killed your mum. Add in the sickening sway of the suspension and it was all I could do not to throw up and drown in my own puke. So it could have been one hour or five, ten miles or fifty by the time the car slowed, nosed sharply downhill and stopped. The clang of iron gates as the car edged forward notched up the fear to a whole new level.

  They dragged us out into some kind of goods yard cluttered with rusty car carcasses, discarded machine parts and massive iron freight containers stacked up like giant Lego. The gates slammed behind us. I spun round and took in a fifteen-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, a grimy old caravan and a dented limo with shattered headlamps, up on blocks, before spotting Shrek hurling a whimpering Oz into a fenced-off area packed with gas canisters and old tyres.

  Bogdan pushed me against the limo, emptied my pockets and tossed my phone to Viktor. Then he searched Nina, slapping her and yelling. She didn’t seem to hear him, just stood there, head lolling on her chest, blood trickling from her lips. He wouldn’t stop. A scary feeling blacker than anger took me over. The only Russian I knew was
that you filthy scum, I’ll kill you stuff that Yuri had been yelling in his sleep but right then it summed up exactly how I felt about Bogdan.

  ‘Ty gneeda paganaya !’ I shouted. ‘Ya zamochoo tebya.’

  Bogdan swung round. His rubbery face contorted and he burst into heaving snorts of laughter like he’d heard the funniest joke in the world. Just as suddenly he whacked me so hard I thought he’d broken my jaw.

  Through the blinding pain I heard Shrek and Viktor laughing, too, and saw Bogdan’s fist clench to take another swing at me. Viktor snapped an order. Bogdan scowled and dropped his hand. Viktor obviously didn’t want him spoiling the Vulture’s fun by pulping me before she got there. My phone beeped in Viktor’s hand. He checked the text and shoved the screen in my face. It was from Bailey. I blinked hard. The words wobbled into focus.

  Where r u call me urgent.

  I looked away. Viktor pinched my throbbing cheeks together with one hand and jerked my head round. ‘Who’s Bailey?’

  The mist cleared a bit. If he didn’t know who Bailey was, that was the way I was going to keep it. I groped for a lie.

  ‘He’s my . . . uncle . . .’ Tiny scraps of a plan were floating round my head, coming together then falling apart when I tried to grab hold of them. ‘He runs the off-licence next to the flats. He looks out for me.’

  ‘What’s he want you for?’ Viktor demanded.

  Don’t lose it, Joe, keep going . . .

  ‘I . . . stack crates for him. I was s’posed to do a shift this afternoon.’

  My phone beeped again. His lip curled. ‘Your uncle’s getting anxious.’

  Come on, Joe, this is your one chance to let Bailey know you’re in trouble . . . don’t blow it.

  ‘He’s . . . he’s an ex-cop. I told him I was going to Catford . . . to help a mate track down some stolen gear. He warned me there might be trouble.’

  Slow down. Don’t overdo it.

  ‘If I don’t turn up he might . . . call his mates at the cop shop . . . so maybe I should . . . um . . . text him back.’

  My acting was about as convincing as a picture of Elvis on a slice of burnt toast but I could see from his eyes that Viktor’s nasty brain was weighing this up. I pushed it some more.

  ‘If they check the CCTV and see you hustling us into your cars they might trace where you’ve taken us.’

  I was guessing that Viktor had enough bent lawyers on his payroll not to worry about a couple of cops sniffing round but he definitely wouldn’t want anything disturbing the Vulture’s visit. He eyeballed me for a bit then he grunted and said, ‘So we tell him you’re OK.’

  Yes! The first tiny bit of plan had worked but I couldn’t see Viktor letting me follow it up by texting ‘Help I’ve been kidnapped.’ Think of something that Bailey will get and Viktor won’t. You can do this. My skull ached with the effort of whizzing through lyrics, jokes, movies, catchphrases, books, characters – I spooled back, breathing fast. Got it!

  I reached for the handset. Viktor jerked it away. ‘I will write it. What shall I say?’ One minute it was like he was asking me what to put on his nan’s birthday card, the next he was slamming me in the stomach, screaming, ‘I said, what shall I say?’

  Stunned by the pain I could barely squeeze enough air out to speak. ‘Put “Sorry Uncle Balfour, Can’t come today . . . Ebenezer sick.”’

  ‘Balfour? Ebenezer?’

  ‘Balfour Bailey – that’s my uncle’s name. And Ebenezer’s my . . . dog . . .’

  I watched him key in the words and press send, feeling a tiny twitch of triumph. I don’t know why. Even if Bailey cracked my coded message what was he going to do about it, stuck on his couch without a clue where I was?

  Viktor stumped off to the caravan leaving us in the loving care of Shrek and Bogdan who hauled us over to one of the containers. My heart emptied. Bogdan pushed up the horizontal locking bar, jerked open the doors and shoved us inside. I tripped and turned. A flash of the outside world cut the darkness before the door slammed, the locking bar clamped shut and we were swallowed up by blackness and the choking stench of vomit, pee, and rotting food.

  I reached for Nina, struggling to prop her slumped body against the wall. Somewhere at the back of that stinking box I’d glimpsed dark shapes littering the floor. I stumbled towards them, waving my hands about till I touched the musty softness of a pile of cardboard packing cases, empty except for what felt like a couple of dresses still on their hangers. I stamped one of the biggest boxes flat to give her something to lie on and rolled the dresses into a damp, smelly pillow. She keeled over and lay there, not making a sound.

  ‘You OK?’ I whispered.

  No answer. I shook her shoulder, desperate to hear another voice in that black, stinking silence.

  ‘Come on, Nina. Speak to me.’

  ‘This is . . . how they do it,’ she breathed.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Smuggle people.’

  ‘You can’t carry people in one of these.’

  ‘It is huge business for Viktor. Many people who want new life give him all their money. Then he packs them in box like this and puts it on ship or lorry. It is dark. They run out of food and water. They cannot breathe. But he does not care if they die.’

  The darkness closed in. The air was getting heavier. I tried channel hopping in my head but the horrible scene Nina had just described was jamming all networks. A scream crawled up the inside of my throat. I shut my eyes and clamped my jaws, pushing my fist against my mouth. The scream pushed back, fighting to get out. A sound like scuttling rats rustled the cardboard. I pulled in my legs, unable to bear it, unable to breathe. If I’m going to die, please, please don’t let it be like this.

  With a superhuman effort I bit on the scream and forced my eyes open. A milky glow was spotlighting Nina’s thin bruised face, filtering up from the phone she’d got cupped in her hands. It was only a feeble gleam but it blew away the terror just like one of those night lights Mum used to get me as a kid.

  ‘How d’you manage that?’ I said.

  ‘Hid it in my boot.’

  I think she was trying to smile. The blood caked round her lips made it difficult to tell. Her eyes met mine, dazed and glassy.

  ‘Who do we call, Joe? Not police, they will put my father in prison. What about . . . Jackson?’

  His text flashed in my head.

  Jackson: comin to catford to help where r u?

  Reply: julies caff swains lane off hi street.

  He’d set me up! Jackson Duval had set me up! What was left of my world was closing down. All along I’d been kidding myself that Jackson was like family, which just about summed up my pathetic excuse for a life. Joe Slattery, the waste of space whose so-called mate was ready to sell him out to evil trash like Viktor Kozek.

  Footsteps sounded outside, the locking bar slid upwards with a clunk, and Shrek, Viktor and Bogdan barged in. As I threw myself across Nina, Shrek caught me in a car-crusher grip and hurled me across the container. Spitting a mouthful of ugly sounds in Nina’s face Viktor threw her phone on the floor, smashed it under his heel and raised his hand to strike her. I lunged for his arm and got a back-handed slap across the mouth from Bogdan. It was only a flick, like swatting a fly, but it banged me back against the wall with the force of a wrecking ball.

  Viktor was pulling up Nina’s crumpled body, ready to lay into her, when his own phone went off, filling the container with the screechy wail of a girl band, which would have been funny if I hadn’t been terrified and coughing blood.

  He answered it with a grunt, listened for barely a moment then spewed out a stream of furious Russian, firing half of it down the handset and the rest at Shrek and Bogdan. Within seconds all three of them were out of there. The doors slammed and the locking bar clamped down, sealing us in. Outside, engines revved, gravel crunched and the iron gates clanged shut. Inside, Nina started making this weird bleating noise.

  ‘What was that about?’ I gasped.

  ‘Yuri. They found him in E
ast London, down near Olympic Park. But he got away.’

  ‘Is that where they’ve gone?’

  ‘Yes. To help find him. Viktor wants his million pounds.’

  I shut my eyes, willing Yuri to get away.

  ‘What if something happens and they don’t come back?’

  ‘Then we will suffocate or die of thirst.’

  Her words dried all the spit in my mouth and brought back the panic.

  Keep it together, Joe. Give up now and you’re dead.

  CHAPTER 19

  Nina had gone quiet and when I touched her she was curled up stiff like a dead thing.

  ‘I do not feel good, Joe,’ she whispered.

  ‘What hurts?’

  ‘Everything. I think Bogdan broke my rib.’

  I had to get us out of there. I did a fingertip search of the walls, hoping for a loose panel or a hidden hatch, and ended up punching the cold, sealed panels till they rang. Hating the thick dirty darkness, I threw my weight against the doors, detonating fresh explosions of pain down my side. I moved on, kicking cardboard, sending a coat hanger twanging across the floor and stretching up to test every inch of reachable space. After a complete circuit I sank down next to Nina.

  ‘Anything?’ she said.

  ‘Nope.’

  I took stock. It wasn’t looking good. But when you’re banged up in a tin coffin, hurting all over and waiting your turn to get worked over by a psycho crime boss, it’s funny how it’s the little things that get to you. Like, and this is just ‘for instance’, how come Viktor walked in the minute Nina got her phone out? I ran that by her. She didn’t speak.

  ‘Nina?’

  ‘I heard you. I am thinking.’

  ‘And?’

  Groaning, she pulled herself upright. ‘They are filming us.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There must be night-vision camera in here.’

  I had the feeling Viktor got regular use out of this little holding cell so a camera made sense. In fact, I could just see him lolling back on one of his velvet chairs, downing beers and watching re-runs of his favourite interrogations on that giant screen in his office.