Panic crept into her voice. ‘They’re watching, they won’t let you go. They will do terrible things to you.’
Joe smiled. ‘You don’t think I came here on my own, do you?’
Katya frowned. Joe stood up, looked again around the room.
‘D’you need to get anything?’
Katya shook her head. She felt like she had stumbled into a dream.
Joe leaned across to a chair in the corner, lifted Katya’s plastic coat, handed it to her. ‘I think you’ll need this.’
Numbly she nodded, put it on over her working clothes. Belted it tight.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Come on, then.’
He opened the bedroom door, held it open for Katya to exit first. She smiled at him as she passed. It felt like the first act of kindness anyone had done for her in a long time. If her heart hadn’t been beating so fast, she might have shed a tear.
Joe walked to the next bedroom, knocked on the door. Katya frowned at him. He just smiled.
‘Are you decent?’ he said as he opened it.
‘Very funny,’ came the reply from inside. It was the girl who had tried to talk to her earlier. She sounded different. Not such a thick accent. She came to the door, closed it behind her.
‘Ready?’ said Joe.
She nodded.
‘Peta – Katya, Katya – Peta,’ he said, gesturing quickly with crossed arms to the two women. ‘Time for proper introductions later. Come on.’
He walked briskly down the stairs. At the bottom, Lenny, the weasel-faced landlord, appeared. His eyes widened as he saw the three of them coming towards him.
‘What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’ he said, twisting his already rodent-like features into a more feral look. ‘Get back upstairs. Now.’
Joe walked right up to him, using his height against him, face impassive. Lenny flinched, stepped back.
‘We’re leaving. All of us. Problem?’ Joe’s tone of voice left no doubt that he hoped there would be.
Lenny tried to laugh. It sounded more like the cry of a sick horse. ‘Try it. Step outside. See what you get.’
‘OK.’
Joe brushed Lenny aside, opened the door. As he stepped through, Lenny made a grab for Peta, the last in line.
‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ he said, his sweaty hand clamped to her wrist.
Peta turned. She twisted her arm, shrugged off Lenny’s grasp and forced his arm behind his back so quickly that Katya barely registered that she had done it. There was no mistaking the snapping sound, though.
Lenny gave out a shrill howl. Peta took her hand away, allowing him to crumple to the floor.
‘Pick on someone your own size next time,’ she said.
And then they were in the street, the door closed behind them, Katya staring at the other woman in admiration and amazement. Joe pointed his keys at the Saab, walked briskly around to the passenger door.
‘You be careful,’ said Peta, standing aside. ‘That car’s my pride and joy. Harm that and you’ll get the same treatment as our friend back there.’
Joe smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He looked up at Katya, then across the road, then opened her door before walking around to the driver’s side. ‘I think you’d better get in. Before the party gets gate-crashed.’
Katya followed his gaze. Her two minders were out of the Peugeot, angrily slamming the doors behind them, setting off across the street.
Panic welled inside her. Touching the door handle, Katya froze.
‘Come on,’ said Joe from inside the car. ‘We’d better get going.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t worry about them, just get in.’
Katya snapped out of her trance, did as she was told as Joe locked the doors. She looked at her two minders while Joe found the key.
They were unable to cross the street. The boy on the BMX had chosen the moment of their crossing to practise his stunts in front of them. They were dodging about trying to get around him. She heard the threats, recognized them from her own language. The boy wouldn’t move; whichever way they went, he went. Their voices rose, the threats intensified.
Another voice joined the fray. The minders, in trying to dodge the boy, had bumped into the drunk man making his way up the street. The man, angry at having his progress impeded, was letting them know what he thought of them. One of the minders threw a punch at the drunk. Katya, having felt the power behind that punch on many occasions, feared the worse for the man. However, what happened next surprised her. The drunk stood his ground, slipped out of the path of the punch with almost nonchalant ease, twisted his body so that he fell against her minder, taking the man’s legs out from under him and leaving him on the pavement. The BMX boy was still zigzagging interference in front of the other one.
Joe started the engine. Katya looked around, side to side, frantically.
‘Please, hurry …’
‘Don’t worry.’ The car started. Joe sped away. Katya looked behind her as she went. The BMX boy had turned and was pedalling away, the drunk man, who she now realized was Asian, had floored one of her minders and looked ready to take on the other one. He no longer looked unsteady on his feet. Peta, she noticed, had crossed the road to join him.
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Joe as the car sped along, ‘I’m Joe Donovan.’ He awkwardly extended his hand. She shook it.
‘Katya Tokic.’ She smiled. ‘You gave me your real name.’
‘I didn’t think telling you lies was a good way to earn your trust.’
Katya thought, nodded. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far,’ he said. ‘But far enough away from them.’
They drove around, Katya unfamiliar with the streets, the area, to know where they were going. She looked out of the window, became aware of change in the environment. Red-brick and stone houses gave way to greenery. Donovan drove down towards the river, past a pub and restaurant, its lights sending out a warm glow over the surrounding trees and bushes, then further on towards the water, coming to a stop in a secluded, gravelled car park.
Katya looked at him, a seed of apprehension taking root.
‘What now?’
‘We wait. But not for long, hopefully.’ He sat back, sighed. ‘Well. That was exciting, wasn’t it?’
Katya smiled. The apprehension died within her.
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Donovan, digging into his inside pocket, ‘this is for you.’
He took out an envelope, handed it to her, looked away, giving her what privacy he could in the confined space of the car.
She opened it, read the letter. Before she reached the end, tears were streaming down her cheeks. Everything tumbled out of her: her life in the old country before the soldiers, her new one with the horrible men, and everything in between. The hopelessness. The hope. Falling out in huge, racking sobs.
When the other car came, a nondescript saloon sidling up alongside, she barely registered it. She had read the letter four times, tried to memorize the words. She looked up. Donovan was standing by the side of the car, opening the door.
‘You OK?’
She rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. She nodded.
‘Good. Come and meet the gang.’
He held open the door for her, helped her out. Standing in the car park, illuminated by the headlights of the two cars, stood the three people she had seen earlier, the cold turning their breath to smoking vapour.
‘Peta you know,’ he said, pointing to the blonde woman who smiled in return.
‘What you did to Lenny …’ Katya began.
Peta shrugged. She had managed to scrape off most of the make-up and throw a padded jacket over her clothes. Without her high-heeled shoes she looked much smaller. Wiry and taut. ‘All in a day’s work,’ she said.
‘This is Amar,’ said Donovan. The Asian man nodded. He was young, she noticed, about medium height. His designer parka was open, displaying a chest-hug
ging T-shirt that showed off his well-defined muscles. He was also flexing fingers that looked bruised and swollen.
‘Are you hurt?’ asked Katya.
Amar smiled. ‘Only my pride.’ His voice, when he spoke, was quite light. ‘I must be out of practice.’
Peta laughed. ‘He needed a girl to help him out. Doesn’t want to admit it.’
Katya smiled. Adrenalin was still coming off them in palpable waves.
‘And,’ Donovan said, pointing to the young light-skinned black boy in the street clothes, ‘the BMX bandit here is Jamal.’
Jamal, now wearing a hooded sweatshirt, extended his hand, the formal gesture belying the teenager’s urban appearance. She shook it.
‘Well,’ said Donovan, ‘that’s the introductions made.’ He looked at the others, smiled. ‘Well done, team. A good night’s work.’
Katya looked at the four of them, then at her surroundings. The trees shifting in the breeze, the river beyond. She breathed in deeply, took air fresh and unpolluted into her lungs. She smiled.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you all …’
She felt the tears begin again and made no attempt to hold them back. Because right there, in that place, at that moment, she felt safe.
Safe.
3
‘Jesus. Aw, Jesus …’ The uniform turned away, vomited.
‘Well done.’ DI Diane Nattrass looked at him, face professionally blank. ‘You waited until you were outside the tape. Well done. You’ll go far.’
The young man, kneeling in the gutter, hand outstretched, grasping for something to steady himself against, looked up. Red-faced, he wiped his mouth along the back of his hand, began mumbling the prologue to an apology.
‘Never mind,’ Nattrass said. She put out her arm, helped him up. ‘First time?’
He nodded. Once he was on his decidedly shaky feet, she looked at him. Even under the orange streetlight he looked pale. He didn’t look old enough to drink, vote or fight for his country. He certainly wasn’t old enough to be exposed to what lay before him. Nattrass doubted there came an age when anyone should.
‘I won’t say you get used to it, because I hope you never do.’
She looked ahead, past the tape: POLICE: DO NOT CROSS. She saw the outline of what had made the young man vomit. Sighed. ‘Can’t say I blame you, though,’ she said.
Hope and fear. They went hand in hand for Diane Nattrass. She had hoped for a night out; cruise along towards five o’clock, knocking-off time, on a tide of mundane paperwork then go home, change and go out on the first date she had had for ages with a solicitor she had been introduced to by friends desperate she was going to grow old alone and childless. But, as she had feared, her date hadn’t happened.
As a reactive detective inspector working out of Market Street station, in the centre of Newcastle, she had to respond to calls that came in. Murder, theft and, since she was female and trained in sexual offences, rape. She was also investigating the disappearance and possible abduction of the college student Ashley Malcolm. She would expect to be top of the list for an out-of-hours call for something like this.
She stood up, pulling her long coat tight around her, hoping it would hide her party clothes underneath as much as keep out the cold. With her long brown hair teased into something she considered stylish, her make-up expertly applied, she felt overdressed for a murder scene. She scoped around. Westgate Road cemetery was a small, disused, triangular-shaped burial ground at the corner of Elswick Road and Westgate Road in the west end of Newcastle. Once the area’s main necropolis, it was now overgrown and ruined, the railings surrounding it long since stolen and melted down. Gravestones lichened and crumbling, broken, prone or resting at irregular geometric angles as tree roots nourished themselves on the composted bodies and dust-returned bones of previous inhabitants. Now it provided both a dumping ground for passing pedestrian refuse and temporary accommodation and respite from the daily grind for the local junkie and wino population. Given the area’s general condition, that was a growing population.
Outside the cemetery were homes, the streets now cordoned off with blue and white police tape securing the crime scene, uniforms directing traffic away from the area. On two sides were old brick and stone tenements, untouched by the city’s creeping gentrification; on the third loomed a collection of 1960s high-rises, etched tombstone-like against the night sky, the darkness hiding their decay.
Melting, wet, slushy snow covered everything, rendering the scene in stark, depressing monochrome.
But there was nothing hiding the body. Nattrass looked, trying to peer in, but couldn’t see it. Just as well. Once she had attended the post-mortem and stared at the accompanying photos, she would have seen more than enough. All she could see were the SOCO team going slowly about their work, their white-paper, hooded suits making it look as if they were clearing up after a chemical attack.
Discovering and protecting the route, in and out, that the perpetrator must have made. Picking up anything, no matter how inconsequential, that may suggest a link that could tie the dumped body in with the dumper, or an accomplice, or at the very least a witness. Making the radius as wide as possible, bringing it down eventually to a small, manageable level.
Nattrass wasn’t allowed in, she knew that. Didn’t expect to be. She couldn’t lean in close, peer at the body, prod and examine. She could destroy evidence, contaminate the scene. It wasn’t like the movies. It wasn’t like TV. Clues weren’t left out in the open. Life, for her, wasn’t like that.
‘What’s up, boss? Havin’ a seance?’
Knowing the voice, she turned. It was her partner, DS Paul Turnbull. Awkwardly rolling on a pair of surgical gloves. Nattrass looked at his hands.
‘Having trouble with the latex, Paul?’
Turnbull smiled. ‘You know me, boss. Can’t beat bare-backin’. Anythin’ else is unnatural.’
Nattrass swallowed her retort. ‘Well, you won’t need them,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t arrived yet. Forensic scientist.’
‘Is he on the way? Wetherby?’
Nattrass nodded.
‘I’m looking forward to the day when the Home Office can email one to us.’
‘I’m looking forward to the day when we won’t need one at all.’
‘You’re going to have a long wait.’
Nattrass sighed. ‘I know.’
Nattrass looked at her younger colleague. He was still suited, collared and tied. His hair short and tidy. A straight-down-the-line copper, no grey, just black and white. She imagined he slept standing up in his clothes, just in case he should get a call like this one, just in case he was needed. For him, she thought, the job came first. Always.
Turnbull was looking at her. ‘Interrupt you doing something special?’ he asked with a smile. The kind of smile, she thought, that indicated he was looking at her in a new light. And not necessarily a light she would want him to regard her in.
For work, she usually dressed in as professional and sexless a manner as she could manage. Nothing that would detract from doing her job. Straight hair, straight clothes. She didn’t just have to compete with her male colleagues; she had to be twice the men they were. However, after work, her time, what there was of it, was her own. And Turnbull wasn’t used to seeing her, made up and dressed up.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As it happens.’
‘Anyone I know?’ He was almost smirking, unable to contain his surprise at the revelation that his boss was also a woman.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Now let’s concentrate, shall we?’
‘OK, then,’ he said, businesslike again. ‘Catch me up.’
Nattrass looked at him. Hid a smile, even. ‘Have we been watching CSI again?’
Even in the dark she could see him reddening. ‘NYPD Blue,’ he mumbled. ‘Repeats on Sky.’
‘Right. Well, here’s what I know.’ Nattrass swept the area with her eyes, took in the whole scene. The uniform was still hovering at her shoulder, as if unwilling to move too far
from her, out of his comfort zone. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Snell,’ he said on the second attempt. ‘PC Snell.’
‘Right. Well, we received a 999 call just after nine thirty. Saying a body had been sighted in the cemetery. Anonymous. No name given.’
‘Tracing the call?’ asked Turnbull.
‘Of course.’ If the call came from a callbox, then the caller may have been picked up on CCTV. If it was a mobile, the caller could perhaps be traced by billing. A landline likewise. If the call came from the killer, then all bets were off. ‘Never know, we might get lucky.’ She looked around the towerblocks. ‘We’ll have a word with the community managers in the morning. Get their teams to go around, do a door to door. See how that goes. Maybe think about setting up a mobile unit if all else fails.’
Turnbull nodded. ‘Better them than us. Land of the bloody blind for us around here.’
Nattrass didn’t comment. ‘Anyway, PC Snell here was the first on the scene. Saw the state of the body and called for the area to be cordoned off. Quick thinking.’
PC Snell took the praise with a small smile.
Turnbull turned to him. Asked him if he had seen anyone in the area. Snell shook his head. ‘Just a couple at the bus stop. We’ve taken statements.’ He swallowed, finding his voice. ‘The first they knew of it was when I questioned them.’ They had been dismissed, he said, a contact address taken. They weren’t serious contenders for killers.
‘What does the body look like?’ asked Turnbull.
Snell looked as if he was about to be sick again. He held it down. Described what he could remember. ‘Young, blonde. Naked.’ His voice began to shake again. ‘Cut … several wounds. I didn’t count how many … and the eyes, the mouth …’
‘What about them?’ asked Turnbull.
Nattrass stepped in. ‘Sewn shut. Not prettily, either.’
Turnbull expelled air. It seemed to leave his body in a hard mass. ‘Jesus …’ He shook his head as if to shake loose the image that was starting to take up residence there. ‘Anything else? The body arranged in some kind of shape?’
Snell shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell. She looked … all … contorted.’ He outstretched his fingers into talons. Held them rigid. ‘Like that. I didn’t touch it, though.’
Bone Machine Page 2
