Closed the door softly behind her. The radio still relentlessly churning anodyne chirpiness into the dead, empty air.
Katya had waited. Planned. She knew what to do. Her chest was tight, her breathing hard. This was the night.
She looked around her room, pacing the floor, measuring, unconsciously counting steps.
The safe house. She had tried to memorize the journey from the Albion office to where she was now, somewhere in a place called Shiremoor. A grim, desolate place, she thought. The kind she had wanted to go to university to escape from. It was flat land, open, spare, semi-industrialized. Dying. Not at all like the countryside surrounding Donovan’s place.
The couple downstairs were watching TV. One of the soap operas that seemed common the world over. They were being paid by the lawyer, Sharkey, to look after her, keep her safe. He had mentioned they were a couple who owed him a favour after some legal work he had undertaken for them. A couple who could care for her and keep their mouths shut.
‘Look at them as foster parents,’ he had said on the drive there.
She didn’t know what he meant but had smiled anyway.
She gingerly pushed open her bedroom door. It creaked slightly: old, like everything else in this draughty old terraced house. She stepped carefully on to the landing, hoping the carpet would muffle her footsteps. She was wearing a new pair of trainers that she had bought on her shopping expedition with Peta; jeans, a sweatshirt and a heavy leather fleece-lined jacket. She didn’t know how cold it was outside or how long she would be out there, but she wasn’t taking chances.
She moved, step after careful step, down the stairs, stopping each time the wood creaked beneath her, listening for any response from the closed door of the living room. None. The TV was on loud, cockney voices loudly venting stunted emotionalism on each other. She moved quickly, almost at the bottom.
She looked around, deciding quickly which door to take: front or back. Back.
Katya turned away from the front room, with its blaring TV, and walked cautiously down the hall towards the kitchen. It was warm in there, the smell of the evening meal still hanging in the air. Spaghetti bolognese. Or at least a local version of it. She crept over to the back door. It led out into a small rectangle of concrete with a wooden shed at the side and a double gate at the far end. The back door, she had noticed previously, tended to stick in the frame. She turned the handle and pulled hard, trying not to overexert herself and pull the door so far back that it clashed against the wall. With a small grunt of effort, the door gave way and opened. She sighed her relief then stepped outside.
The night air was cold, wind biting immediately at her face. She pulled the door to, not closing it completely but jamming it in the frame, and walked towards the back gate.
She turned the handle. Locked. And she didn’t know where the key was.
Katya swore in her mother tongue, looked up at the top of the gate. It was about seven feet tall. She could climb it easily.
She pulled herself up, using the angled wooden bars as leverage, trying not to rattle it too much. Reaching the top, she risked a peek over into the back lane. Up and down, both ways. No one there. Not waiting for the situation to change, she pulled herself up and over, landing easily and safely on the other side.
She looked around. Working out which way to go. She took Donovan’s stolen mobile from the inside pocket of her jacket, speed-dialled a number she had memorized and inputted. The person answered.
‘I’m out,’ she said to the voice at the other end.
The other person spoke. She listened.
She nodded. ‘OK, I’m on my way. See you soon.’
She ended the call, turned the phone off, pocketed it. Looked around again.
Remembered the route they had taken to get there, began to walk back towards Newcastle.
Anita sat in the same bar she had sat in for the last few nights. Not her personal choice, but one that catered for business people staying at the hotel opposite.
The barman walked past on the way to serving someone, winked at her. She returned a smile. He had barely tolerated her presence at first, threatening to throw her out after her second appearance there. Now he couldn’t be more different. He even gave her the nod for potential clients. Supplied her with free drinks. Amazing what a couple of blow jobs in a dank pub cellar could do.
She looked around the bar, scoping for customers, hoping for good-looking, high-paying ones. It was near closing time and it had been a slow night. She had only had two punters. Neither of them good-looking. One with breath and body odour that stank like the devil’s own. But they had paid her adequately and not hurt her. That, she was beginning to believe, would have to be enough for her.
She would have to live with that.
She looked over into the far corner. It was kept deliberately dark there, perfect for couples who weren’t necessarily with their own partner and could enjoy a bit of semi-private alcoholic foreplay before moving over the road to give the hotel bedsprings a good pounding.
But there were no couples there tonight. Only a single drinker. Tall, thin and young, as much as Anita could gather, who seemed content to let the shadows claim him. His hair hung down over his face but occasionally he would look over at her and his eyes, catching a steely reflected glint from the bar lights, would connect with her.
This sent a frisson through her. Her heart skipped a beat the first time it happened. She didn’t know why, just felt like there was some kind of connection.
She watched him on his rare excursions to the bar. His lanky, black-clad frame moving slowly, almost ghost-like through the half-empty bar. Like he didn’t want to be touched or seen. He would silently pay for his drink, then resume his position in the shadows. Taking slow sips. Pulling on a cigarette, the glowing tip like a demon’s eye in the gloom.
Watching Anita.
She went out with her two punters, returned. He remained there throughout. She should have been scared, she thought the way he was looking at her. But she felt no fear. Only a sense of thrilling inevitability.
She downed the last of her drink, placed it on the bar. The barman was hovering nearby, hopeful for another freebie, she thought. She gave a small shake of her head. Not tonight. He shrugged, walked away.
She got off the bar stool, gathered up her cigarettes and lighter, put them in her bag. Two punters. Good in one respect, not in others. She walked to the door, then outside.
The cold air hit her but the alcohol inside her body both warmed her and numbed her. She walked along the street towards the Tyne Bridge, thinking she would treat herself to a taxi home. Maybe stop for some food on the way.
The street was weekday-deserted. The only sounds she heard were the faint music trails coming from closing bars, distant cars, the occasional rumble of a Metro train overhead and her own shoes clacking along the pavement.
And something else.
She stopped, sensing more than hearing another person behind her. She turned, knowing, in a way she couldn’t explain, who it would be. There, tall and lanky and smelling of cigarette smoke and alcohol, was the young man from the bar.
‘Hello,’ she said, slipping into business mode. ‘Did you want me?’
He thought for a few seconds, then nodded.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Your place or a hotel?’
He laughed. She didn’t know what at. Must have been a private joke.
‘What about your place,’ he said.
She thought for a moment. They often tried that one. She usually had a few quickly learned lines she could trot out to put them off. But not this time. He was different somehow. Again she couldn’t explain. It was something she just sensed.
‘OK,’ she said, surprising herself as the words came out. ‘Mine.’
He looked at her. She returned the look. She felt that if she touched him electricity would arc between them. She wasn’t even thinking of money. Neither of them moved.
‘So,’ she said, ‘what’s your name?’
‘Michael,’ he replied.
And Michael Nell smiled.
Nattrass was tired. Beyond tired. She should have gone home hours ago, as she had been told several times, but she couldn’t. There was something on her mind, something infuriatingly beyond her grasp. A connection, a solution. Every time she reached for it, tried to bring it forward, it danced off into the dark recesses.
She sat at her desk, poring over witness reports. Statements. The results of door-to-door enquiries, eyewitness accounts taken from homes, volunteered from passers-by, anyone. All of this came through the inquiry coordinator, DC Stone, and he was a very good gatekeeper, but Nattrass couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he had missed. Something everyone had missed, including herself.
She didn’t know what it was, wouldn’t know until she found it.
She sat back, rubbed her eyes, stretched her arms over her head. She wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t go home; this would just haunt her, stop her relaxing.
She picked up the next statement, started to read. Not expecting this one to yield more than the last, beginning to believe she was imagining things.
She read down. And there it was.
She read over it again, checked it against another statement she had pulled from an earlier pile.
There it was.
She sat back, light-headed, the information buzzing through her. She made notes in a pad at her side. She kept going.
It was going to be a long night.
But, she felt, a fruitful one.
Antony sang, his plaintive, haunting voice filling the car with songs of loss and desolation, asking questions of hope. The music matched the landscape: dark, spare. Denuded winter trees sketched charcoal black before grey night skies.
Donovan sighed, kept his eyes on the road. He was on his way home, winding through the B-roads of Northumberland. Late. Well past midnight.
He was tired, and it had been a fruitless night. Trailing around the brothels of Newcastle, clutching pictures of beaten-up prostitutes, clutching at straws. His mind wasn’t on the job; his heart wasn’t in it. What with the boy who wasn’t David, the break-in, his behaviour with Katya and Jamal’s and Peta’s reaction, he couldn’t give the task his full attention. Phrases he would have normally used, incisive questions he would have usually asked, charm that he thought never failed, all deserted him. He was stonewalled at every turn, doors slammed in his face, women refusing to talk.
He had tried explaining, saying who he was and what he was doing, but the women, the pimps, sensed vulnerability about him and closed down. No one talked. Eventually he gave up, came home.
He pressed a button, ejected the CD, paged along to find something else. Beautiful though the music was, he felt he needed his dark mood lifting, not reinforcing. He chose the Magic Numbers, waited for the upbeat, retro 1960s guitar combo sound to kick in and lighten him up. Even their songs of loss were upbeat. The music started but it didn’t lighten him, just irritated him. With another sigh he turned the CD player off, continued in silence.
His house wasn’t far off, and he looked forward to getting inside, pulling the door closed behind him. Collapsing on the sofa with a generous measure of Black Bush. Keeping the night out, the darkness at bay.
He approached the ridge before his house, crested it and continued down. He could see it now, a welcoming light glowing from behind the curtains of the sitting room.
Donovan’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t right. He hadn’t left a light on and Jamal, he recalled, was still at Amar’s flat.
He remembered: Decca Ainsley had taken his file. Knew everything about him.
Donovan had argued against moving out, against his house being put under surveillance. Once Decca Ainsley had taken his details, Donovan had claimed, they would have obviously moved Katya somewhere else. He wouldn’t be a target.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Breath beginning to come quicker and heavier, he slowed the car down so the engine sound wouldn’t carry and turned his lights off. He knew the road well, let the Mondeo coast down the last few metres with the motor off.
He pulled up outside his house as quietly as he could, leaving the car door open as he slowly got out, pocketing the keys so no one could steal it for a quick getaway. Kneeling down, he felt under the seat. He stashed an American police torch there in case of emergencies. As heavy and hard as a truncheon, and just as effective. And if he got caught with it, he could quite rightly claim it wasn’t a concealed weapon. He took it out, felt reassured by the heavy heft of it in his hand, looked around. No other cars in sight.
He walked towards the house, staying on grass so his feet made no sound on gravel or pavement. Almost tiptoeing, he reached the front door, listened. The TV was playing quietly. He checked the front door. It had been opened but with minimum force. A professional job. Then closed again. Donovan frowned. That didn’t feel right somehow.
He took his house key out, hands wrapped tightly around the rest of the keys in the bundle to stop them jangling, carefully inserted it into the lock, turned it.
The door opened. Silently. He was glad Jamal had insisted on oiling it when they were renovating the house together. Donovan held his breath, braced himself for the worst, looked inside.
A figure sprawled on the sofa, snoring lightly, empty bottle and glass of whisky on the floor at his side. The TV, unwatched, was showing Argentinian football.
Donovan sighed, slammed the door loudly. With an incoherent shout of either disorientation, distress or both, the figure jumped, sat bolt upright, eyes fluttering, seeking focus.
‘Jesus fuck …’ The figure focused on Donovan. ‘Oh, it’s you. Wondered what time you’d turn up.’
Donovan put the torch down and stared at the sight of DS Paul Turnbull. Drunk on the last of Donovan’s whisky.
Donovan wasn’t happy.
31
‘So this is it? We’re in?’
‘We’re in.’
Kovacs looked at the computer screen. It was scrolling up through an address book. He pointed at it. ‘What is this?’
His computer expert, Goodge, looked up. Small and overweight, he seemed to be on a quest to turn his body into the perfect sphere. Hunched and wheezing, with greasy hair and greasily smudged glasses, his skin was the colour of tobacco and had a translucent appearance, like his recreation consisted of sitting in front of a screen and smoking. Which it did. His working life too. He stank of sweat, stale roll-up smoke and several bodily secretions, none of them too fresh. He looked like one of the most unhealthy specimens of humanity Decca had ever seen, and he had seen quite a few.
But he was good. That was a given. Probably the best freelancer in the area, if not the country. Kovacs wouldn’t use him if he wasn’t.
‘Address book,’ Goodge said, returning his gaze to the screen. His voice sounded just like he looked. ‘Got some kind of encryption on it. Nothin’ I can’t break.’
‘Will it take you long?’ The merest tic in Kovacs’ cheek displaying impatience.
‘Shouldn’t think so. Though I’m more of a PC than a Mac man. Wanky posers’ machines.’
Decca, standing behind Kovacs, looked around. They were in a converted warehouse on Lime Street just beside the Ouse Burn, part of a development that was being reclaimed and turned into shells for small businesses in what was once one of the most derelict and neglected areas of Newcastle. Kovacs had similar bolt-holes throughout the city, all hidden behind an untraceable papertrail.
The windows were boarded over, completely blocking the morning light. Computer equipment surrounded them. Looping and trailing wires led to stripped-down base units, which in turn fed screens of various shapes and sizes, which in turn excreted yet more wires. The walls looked like a solidly dark, living, malevolent thing, with half-hidden eyes of blinking red and green. It was like a cluttered version of the Batcave with two crucial differences: no sense of aesthetics and no big car.
Or like a huge web
with Goodge the spider at the centre.
Christopher stood next to Decca, watching proceedings, giving small nods of his head at every verbal exchange Kovacs made. Decca still couldn’t read him. Kovacs had appeared almost deferential to him when they had returned with the computers and files. Perhaps he was scared of him, thought Decca. That wouldn’t surprise him.
Goodge was still talking. ‘I just connect this here … run this …’ He looked at the screen of the stolen iMac on the workbench before him and pressed a button. ‘There you go.’ The screen started scrolling a list of figures, stopping occasionally, the cursor flashing like a body pants to get breath, then off again.
‘How long?’ asked Kovacs again.
‘Depends. Could be a minute, could be days. Depends if we hit the right combination at the right time.’
‘I don’t have days.’
Goodge shrugged. It looked like the most exercise his body had taken for days.
‘I have other business to attend to. A new shipment coming in.’
He looked towards Christopher, who slowly shook his head. Kovacs fell silent.
Decca frowned. A shadow of something had passed across Kovacs’ eyes at that moment. It looked to Decca, who fancied himself an expert in finger-breaking and intimidation, like fear. That unnerved Decca. If Kovacs was scared of Christopher, he thought, then everyone should be.
‘Just do it,’ Kovacs said. He pulled at his lapels, straightening his already straight, immaculately tailored jacket, turned away.
The screen stopped scrolling. Goodge gave what passed for a smile. ‘You’re in luck.’
Kovacs turned back to the screen.
‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Now take it away and do with it what you like. Just remember to pay me.’
‘Bank transfer this afternoon,’ Kovacs said, staring at the screen. ‘Can you give me a printout?’
Goodge nodded, pressed a button, sat back. Paper began flowing out of a printer at the opposite end of the room. He made no move to get it. Decca, realizing that would be his job, did so. He collated it in his hands, looked through it. A list of names and addresses.
Bone Machine Page 26
