Bone Machine

by Martyn Waites

  ‘Got one.’

  The whole team looked around. A PC on secondment, Davy Hutton, she thought his name was, looked up. He was sitting at his computer, connected to the National Crime Computer. ‘Got him,’ he said again. ‘This is him. I bet this is him.’

  Nattrass felt she should say something, advise caution, but she didn’t. Swept up in the atmosphere, she joined the rest of the team in gathering around him.

  ‘Tell us,’ she said.

  Davy Hutton looked at the screen, read off what he had found.

  ‘Graham Harris,’ he said, barely able to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Lives in the west end of Newcastle. The triangle you said, boss. Shares a home with his crippled mother.’ He looked harder at the screen. ‘No, wait a minute, she died. Two years ago, nearly three. Still lives in the same house, though.’

  ‘What have you got on him?’ asked Nattrass, trying to read the screen.

  Hutton scrolled the information down, read it off. ‘Exposing himself. Got off with a caution. That was a bit ago, mind. Low level. But he’s been building himself up. Here’s another. Attempted rape. Dropped. Another caution.’

  ‘Sounds like our man.’ Nattrass struggled to keep the triumphalism from her voice.

  ‘Why hasn’t he been flagged up earlier, then?’ asked a DS at the back, not bothering to hide the anger in his voice. ‘Why isn’t he on the register?’

  ‘No charges, no record,’ said Nattrass, looking at the screen, reading. ‘The attempted rape … What about that …?’ She read on. Knowing there would be a reason why they hadn’t looked at him sooner. Hoping the screen would show her it.

  ‘Don’t think … Here. Yes, here it is. Altercation with a prostitute. Charges dropped. Well, one word against another there. How hard are those cases to prove? But look after this. Schizophrenia. Mental illness, history of it. Hearing voices, the lot. It’s all here.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘Referred for psychiatric help. Given medication.’

  The same DS snorted. ‘Can’t be much good.’

  ‘Or he hasn’t been taking it,’ said Nattrass. ‘That’s how he kept under the radar. No further charges. Let’s see if he’s got a job …’

  Hutton scrolled further down.

  A frisson ran through Nattrass.

  ‘Centurion Security,’ she said. ‘Didn’t have to declare a criminal record because he hasn’t got one. Centurion Security …’

  Hutton frowned. Then got it.

  ‘Centurion Security. They provide security guards for—’

  Nattrass finished the sentence for him. ‘The university.’

  That news ran around the room like an electric current.

  ‘Crippled mother …’ Nattrass frowned. ‘Fuck … Crippled. She would have had a wheelchair.’

  Nattrass took deep breaths. She straightened up, felt suddenly light-headed. Fenton appeared next to her, looked at her. She could see he was feeling the same way too.

  ‘Let’s get the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted,’ he said, addressing the room. ‘Do it properly. No room for error. We don’t want to fuck this one up.’

  ‘And we won’t,’ said Nattrass, addressing both the room and Fenton. ‘Let’s get it sorted. Let’s go get the fucker.’

  It was an order she wouldn’t have to make twice.

  Jamal stood at the front desk of the Accident and Emergency Department at Newcastle General Hospital. He looked around anxiously, hoping to catch a glimpse of Amar.

  He had ridden in the ambulance, the paramedics not asking too many awkward questions, just concentrating on keeping Amar alive. He imagined the police would arrive sometime, would deal with that when it happened.

  The paramedics had stretchered Amar, attached various drips and tubes and moved him into the back of the ambulance, taking off, sirens and lights going, for the General.

  Then it was straight through the double doors and away. Jamal had tried to follow, but his route had been barred. The desk staff had fired questions at him, and he had answered as best he could, writing down his answers. Then pointed him to a seat, left him alone to wait.

  He looked around at the other people waiting, sitting on plastic chairs, balancing boredom with pain. Most of them, with bloodied clothes and wadding held against their faces, looked like the results of pub fights. Some of home accidents. A couple of children sat there, younger than Jamal, looking very scared. They were waved through before the others.

  Jamal waited. He played over the scene again and again in his mind. Each time thinking of something he could have done, a way he could have saved Amar. If only he had been quicker. If only he had been able to warn Amar. If only. If only. Every permutation until he had just about driven himself insane with it.

  A nurse was crossing the floor, striding purposefully towards him. She looked as if she would have been pretty under less stressful circumstances. He stood up immediately.

  ‘Mr Miah is in surgery,’ she said.

  ‘Is he …?’ He couldn’t bring himself to complete the question. Not caring how much like a cheap TV cliché he sounded.

  ‘He’s critical but stable.’

  ‘Right.’ He had heard those words used on TV too. He knew they could mean anything.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Not yet, I’m afraid. He’s still in surgery.’ She reached over the desk, produced a clipboard. ‘We’ll need to get some more information.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Right. First off, next of kin?’ she asked, looking directly at him.

  Jamal thought. Remembered words from earlier in the day. About how families were more than just biology.

  ‘Me,’ he said. ‘That’ll be me.’

  Felt his heart swell with pride when he said it.

  43

  ‘What was that? Down there?’ Turnbull pointed at the screen.

  Grant followed his finger. ‘Where?’

  ‘Side of the warehouse. Thought I saw something. Or someone. Movement. In the shadows.’ He turned to Grant. ‘One of our boys?’

  Grant shook his head. ‘Too close. Embedded further back. Waiting for the call.’

  The two of them kept looking. Hard. Eyes screwed up, squinting.

  ‘See it again?’ asked Grant, blinking.

  Turnbull shook his head, kept his eyes on the screen.

  ‘Keep looking, then.’

  Turnbull bit back his reply.

  He didn’t need to be told what to do.

  Katya and Dario Tokic made their way through the alleyways between the warehouses. Katya had Decca’s gun clenched tightly in her fist, her brother his. They hadn’t spoken since Dario had made Decca pull over and they had got out, walking to Kovacs’ warehouse, using shadows and the night for cover. The rain hid their footsteps.

  They reached the warehouse they wanted. Dario risked a glimpse around the corner. He pulled back into the darkness quickly.

  ‘It is there,’ he whispered. ‘The car is there. He did not run away.’

  ‘Do we go in yet?’ asked Katya, breathing shallowly, hard.

  ‘We wait. For the signal. Then we go in.’

  Dario looked around. Took in the cranes, the river beyond. Rain hit hard, drops smashing down like machine-gun spray, making the water jump as if in an agonizing dance of death.

  ‘We wait,’ he said again, his hot breath turning to vapour in the cold. ‘We wait.’

  The double doors of the container were opened. Inside, packed floor to ceiling and seemingly front to far back, were cardboard boxes containing flatscreen plasma TVs. Decca climbed up, pulled out the box nearest to him, handed it down to Milo. Or Lev. Then another box. Then another. Until a makeshift walkway had been created leading to the back. He walked along it.

  Three-quarters along the length of the container he came to the back wall. Hidden by the boxes and looking to an enquiring eye like a seamless part of the interior was a concealed door, overlapped by the metal corrugations of the wall. Decca knew where it was, felt along for the latch. Found it. Flip
ped open a concealed lock, was presented with a padlock. He reached into his pocket, brought out the key. Undid it and, not without effort, pulled the door open.

  The stink that hit him made him recoil. A mixture of unwashed, confined bodies and all the human smells associated with them. He swallowed hard, tried to breathe shallowly, put a defensive hand across his mouth.

  ‘Come on, ladies, out you get.’

  One by one they emerged: slowly, cautiously. Fearfully. Made their way down the cardboard box passage on unsteady legs, were helped down from the container by Milo and Lev. They stood on the concrete floor, squinting in the harsh striplighting, holding their small bags, the sum total of their possessions, before their bodies like shields.

  Decca followed them out, stood on the ground before them. Did a head count. Twelve. The correct number.

  ‘Welcome to Britain,’ he said, starting his usual spiel. ‘Please hand your papers to my two associates.’

  Milo and Lev translated. Not for the first time, Decca wondered what they actually said to them as they forcibly removed passports and identity documents from the girls. They would be kept, collateral against the debt they had incurred by getting out of the trailer. A debt that would never be paid, would be always rising, no matter how long and how hard they worked for Kovacs. And Decca knew they would be worked hard.

  Decca looked at them. Tried not to see them as hungry, tired, scared girls, many not yet out their teens, dehumanized and broken as they tried to make a better life for themselves, but the way Kovacs encouraged him to look at them. The way he had to look at them if he wanted to survive in this business. As commodities. Meat to be bartered, traded. And above all used. He tried. Succeeded.

  And in that moment he saw his way out. He smiled to himself, wondered why he hadn’t spotted it earlier.

  ‘Well, ladies,’ he said, ‘if you would be so kind as to get into this.’ He gestured to the people carrier. ‘Bit of a squeeze, I know, but nothing like what you’ve been used to.’

  He knew they barely understood a word he was saying, but that didn’t matter. He enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Should have been a ringmaster, he thought. All he needed was his top hat and whip.

  Milo and Lev roughly herded them into the people carrier.

  Brilliant, thought Decca. Get in, drive out and be miles away from the docks when anything kicks off.

  But one girl obviously hadn’t read the script. As Milo and Lev tried to force her into the back of the car, copping several rough feels as they did so, she resisted. She pulled her arm away from them, screaming at them to let her go.

  Amazed, they momentarily dropped their grip on her. In that instant she made a bolt for the door, clawing at the frame, frantically trying to find a switch, a lever, anything that would open the door and let her out.

  Decca stood there, too surprised to move. Milo and Lev moved towards her but didn’t reach her.

  A shot rang out. Then another. And another.

  The girl jerked, hit the door three times, then fell to the cold concrete floor. Dead.

  Decca looked at her body. Blood fountained and pooled, arced and sprayed. Flesh and chipped bone came to rest around and about her. He looked up.

  Christopher had detached himself from the shadows, was walking towards the centre of the warehouse, gun extended.

  ‘Shift that,’ he said to Decca, pointing at the body.

  Decca, not wanting to but not daring to argue, tentatively pulled the girl’s body to one side, left her there.

  He turned, his need to get out of there even more imperative. He would drive them away as fast as he could. He didn’t care if he got stopped. He could claim they were workers for the café. Let the lawyers work it out. Just get out of there.

  The girls were in the people carrier, cowering and cowed. Some had screamed, some were sobbing. Some were beyond both.

  ‘Right,’ said Decca, looking at his watch, ‘let’s go.’

  Katya and Dario heard the shots, looked at each other. They didn’t have to speak. They knew the sound.

  For a few seconds Katya was back in her village with Dario, watching their family being butchered, hiding from the Snake. She felt the tightening in her chest, tingling in her body as terror began to overtake her.

  She breathed hard and fast. Felt like she was going to collapse.

  ‘Dario … Dario … I can’t … I can’t …’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ said Dario. ‘Yes, you can. That was him. In there. Doing that. Someone has died. That could have been us he shot. Or our mother. Our father. We have to do this. Understand? We have to.’

  He grabbed her by the shoulders as he spoke, eyes boring into hers. He kept them on her, unblinking, holding her fast, his fingers digging in to clothing, skin. Held her until she sighed, relented.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  Then came the sobbing: muffled by the thick walls of the warehouse but again unmistakable.

  And Katya was back somewhere else. Somewhere closer.

  The warehouse. This warehouse.

  It was where she had come when she first arrived in Britain. Stepping out from the back of a container that had been her residence – she couldn’t call it home – for the previous few weeks. She had thought there was nothing else they could have stripped her of. But she was wrong. They took every last vestige of her humanity. She was only now getting it back.

  She broke away from Dario, tears beginning to well in the corners of her eyes. ‘No …’

  Dario turned, looked at her, exasperation etched on his features. ‘We have been through this …’

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘Those screams, those girls … that was me. In there … My God, me …’

  It hadn’t been Decca then, but someone like him. They were all the same. Herding and prodding, using, abusing. Casually and cruelly crushing what dreams remained. She couldn’t go in there. Not again.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t go through with it.’

  ‘Katya …’ Dario grabbed her shoulders again. ‘We were both there. I remember too. That’s why we have to do this. Take the power of those memories away. For ever.’

  She shook him off, close to hysteria. ‘No, Dario, I cannot do it. Please, please do not make me … no.’

  He sighed, expelling angry exasperation. Bit back what he wanted to say. Instead said, ‘Give me the gun.’

  She meekly handed it over. He turned away from her, keeping whatever opinions he had of her to himself. Looked around, took a couple of deep breaths.

  ‘Wait here. Be safe. I go.’

  He began to move, guns ready. Face set hard as granite, eyes as hot as lava. Katya remained where she was.

  Dario stepped from the shadows. And stopped.

  A car was pulling up right in front of the warehouse. Headlights on full, dazzling him.

  He put his arm before his face, squinted. His depth of vision gone.

  He could see light.

  Blinded by light.

  In the control room Grant was off his chair and on his feet.

  ‘Who the fuck is he?’ he shouted. Then pointed at the car on the screen. ‘And who the fuck is that?’

  Turnbull said nothing. He didn’t know who the first man was but he knew who was in the car.

  Joe Donovan.

  44

  Peta pulled her jacket around her, close to her body. But the gesture was futile: the rain had already penetrated the fabric. She felt as if her joints were squeezing out water as she walked.

  She stopped by Grey’s Monument, looked around. Tempted to just go home, leave it until the morning. But she couldn’t. She had given Donovan her word. And besides, she was a professional. It was her job.

  Down Grainger Street, past the Grainger Market. She loved that place. It reminded her of Saturday-afternoon shopping trips when she was a little girl, her mother dragging her around the shops, keeping her from whining by buyi
ng her a toy and an ice cream from Mark Toneys. She smiled at the memory. The toys were cheap and barely lasted the journey home or the Saturday-evening play with them, but the ice cream stayed with her. Thick and white, out of the tub and sculpted around the top of the sugar cone with a wooden spatula. She loved it, could still taste it. And then there was the market itself. Old, neoclassical in design, it smelled and sounded like a proper market should.

  The rich aroma of café coffee, the hot whoosh of steamed milk and water, the clink and chink of smoke-grey glass cups and saucers. The fragrance of the fruit, the earthiness of the veg. A sugar rush as the sarsaparilla and sherbet got in her nostrils passing the sweet shop. The natural, cloying perfume of the florist’s, the sprays, drips and trails of water as stems were taken from tin vases to be wrapped in paper. And most overpoweringly of all, the cheerful whistling of the porters carting whole animal carcasses around, the thunk of the cleaver on the butcher’s block as they were sliced up before her eyes. And all around them the smell of blood and sawdust.

  But it wasn’t special any more. Mark Toneys was gone, as was most of the central, open-plan area and the Green Market backing on to it. It was a prime site for redevelopment in the insatiable corporate hunger to house the city’s young, urban professionals. The shops and pubs skirting its back alleys were boarded up already as if in surrender.

  She rounded the corner. The street was surprisingly empty. She had noticed that crowds just didn’t seem to gather in the city centre as much lately. Probably not safe to with a killer going uncaught.

  Ducked into a doorway to keep the rain off, checked the address again.

  The back of the Grainger Market.

  Nearly there.

  The street deserted.

  Feeling the cold, she made a token gesture of pulling her coat around her once more. Do this quickly, then home to a hot bath.

  Nattrass looked at her team: six of them including herself. Another team of five led by DC Stone were heading around the back of the house.

  Ravensworth Gardens in the west end of Newcastle. Fenham. An anonymous, solid-looking 1930s semi in a street full of them. Perhaps less well cared for than the others, but then that was to be expected. He had other things on his mind, she thought.