Bone Machine

by Martyn Waites

  They moved slowly, stealthily, using the darkness as cover. Vehicles out of sight, radio chatter to the minimum. Communication by hand signal only. All in protective body armour.

  A light in the front room, none in the hall or upstairs.

  Nattrass stopped, two doors down, crouched behind a hedgerow. Her team did likewise. She spoke into her radio. Waited. Got an affirmative answer. Turned to her team, nodded. They were all in place. A sudden gust of wind blew rain into her face. She squinted, rubbed it away. She was energized, on fire. The tiredness of earlier forgotten, the surprise of Turnbull’s phone call put out of her mind. She was focused, blinkered to anything and everyone else but the task in hand. This was what she did.

  This was what she loved.

  She would go first. As senior member of the team, that was her prerogative, but also because she wanted to. She opened the metal gate as slowly as possible, thankful that the hinges let out only a tiny squeal, hidden beneath the wind and the rain, moved cautiously up the path, positioned herself at the side of the door. The other three did likewise, taking their places on either side, behind her, as pre-arranged.

  She looked at them, making eye contact, getting visual assent of their preparedness. They nodded in turn.

  She felt her heart beating, the blood pumping around her body, the breath coming out of her lungs in hot clouds.

  Gave the final nod.

  Reached over and knocked on the door.

  The Historian froze, hands in midair.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  He looked around: fear lanced him like a bolt of lightning.

  The blonde was before him, propped upright in the wheelchair. No time to lay her out, no time to even strip her. He was still in his coat and hat, water dripping down his glasses.

  And again: knock, knock, knock.

  He looked around the room madly. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to hide the body. This was it. The end. Maybe that’s how the end came, he thought grimly. In the middle of something. When you weren’t expecting it. With all your questions still to be answered.

  He turned from the girl, walked towards the door, undid the locks. Opened it.

  ‘Oh, you’re in. Sorry to disturb you at this time of night.’

  She smiled.

  So did he. In recognition. But she hadn’t placed him yet.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, smiling, putting on his most inoffensive, unthreatening voice. ‘What can I do for you?’ He stepped back into the shadow of the doorway, masking his face but careful to keep himself between the girl’s body and the eye-line of the woman at the door.

  ‘I believe,’ she said, gesturing to the building, ‘that this is a photographic studio. Is that right?’

  Another wave of fear ran through him. She knew. She knew. The bitch knew. This changed everything. He had to do something.

  He kept the smile in place, the voice mild. ‘It is, yes. Of sorts.’

  ‘Good. I have come to the right place. I believe someone called Michael Nell took some pictures here. Ring any bells?’

  He frowned as if in concentration, hoped his inner turmoil didn’t show. ‘Michael Nell … Michael Nell …’ The name did it. He had no choice now but to act fast. And decisively. He felt in his coat pocket, fingered the stun gun. It was still there. Charged up. The decision was made for him. ‘Perhaps. Would you like to come in?’

  He opened the door wide.

  ‘Warmer inside,’ he said, hint of a chuckle in his voice. ‘And drier.’

  Peta Knight smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said and walked in.

  He shut the door behind her.

  She stepped into the room. Saw the wheelchair. And froze.

  She turned.

  The stun gun was in his hand, the blue light arcing down towards her.

  45

  A split second of indecision: Turnbull didn’t know what to do. Donovan had complicated matters no end.

  ‘Is he one of yours?’ asked Grant, looking frantically around as if searching for answers anywhere.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Turnbull.

  ‘What, neither of them?’

  ‘Neither,’ he said, then, looking at the Mondeo on the screen, muttered under his breath: ‘Stupid bastard.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Grant, turning to him. ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied, much stronger now, squaring his body up in case there was going to be some action. ‘Didn’t call you anything. I was lookin’ at those two. On the screen.’ The words sounded weak even to his own ears.

  Grant held his eyes, unblinking for a few seconds, then turned away, shaking his head. Mouthing dark mutterings of his own, no mistaking who they were directed against. He focused back on the screen.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, reaching for his radio. ‘He’s got a gun.’ He looked closer. ‘Fuck a duck. Two guns.’

  The radio was at Grant’s lips. Turnbull reached across and pulled it away.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Grant stared at him, as if he was about to explode. He slammed the radio down on the desk, kept it in his fist like a weapon. ‘This your arrest, eh? You in charge now?’

  Turnbull felt the familiar red mist rise once again. Fought hard to keep it down. ‘No, I’m fuckin’ not. But if I was I wouldn’t lose sight of why I was here and what I was doin’. Unless those two are the targets, we’re not after them. I think we should wait. Just a little while longer.’

  Grant stared at him, looking like the only things holding him back from attacking Turnbull was a thin veneer of professionalism and a desire for the collar. ‘We’ve got someone we don’t know waving a gun around. You think that doesn’t fall into the remit?’

  ‘We don’t know what’s goin’ on in there. We don’t know who those people are. But we know something’s about to happen. So we don’t move in yet, pre-empt it.’

  Grant’s stare was unwavering.

  Turnbull attempted a smile. He grimaced as if he had been impaled on razor wire. ‘Get the top guy, be a bigger collar for you.’

  Grant, despite everything, saw the sense in that. ‘And what do you get out of this?’

  My career back, thought Turnbull. My pride and self-respect.

  ‘Satisfaction of a job well done.’

  Grant slowly placed the radio on the desk, put his eyes back on the screen. Still wary of Turnbull. ‘We’ll wait,’ he said. ‘A little while longer.’

  Turnbull nodded. ‘Good.’

  Yeah, he thought, I’ll get my career back. If I can stop that interfering twat Donovan from making this go tits up. He looked at the screen again, gave a grim smile.

  Maybe the bastard with the guns will do it for me.

  Dario shielded his eyes with his forearm, turned away from the headlights, guns still clutched in both fists.

  He had no idea who this was, ally or enemy. And he didn’t have the luxury of carefully reasoned contemplation. He had to assume the driver was hostile to him and act accordingly.

  He took aim and, squinting against the blinding, widening light, fired.

  Donovan saw the figure jump out from the side of a warehouse, stand in front of the car. He couldn’t place the person – he had his arm over his face – but he looked familiar in some way.

  Donovan slowed the car.

  Then his right headlight went out.

  The windscreen to his left cracked, splintered.

  He looked again at the figure ahead. Saw the gun.

  Shit, he thought, fear and surprise vying for equal attention within him, the bastard’s trying to kill me.

  Dario cursed. The shots had gone wide. Those fucking headlights. And now the driver knew what was happening.

  The car speeded up.

  Dario jumped out of the way.

  Donovan pulled the car over to the left, desperately trying to avoid the shooting man. His foot became lodged on the accelerator. Panic held it there.

  Time moved at different speed, both faster and slower than normal.

>   The big, wide, metal doors of a warehouse loomed up before him.

  His speed increased.

  Time warped. He had what seemed like an age to study the approaching door in minutest detail yet was still travelling too fast to change his course.

  He braced himself, closed his eyes.

  The car hit.

  *

  It was like a bomb had been detonated inside the warehouse.

  It shook with the impact, sound amplified, echoed and boomed all around, vibrating discordantly off the corrugated-metal walls, like a thousand different Hendrix guitar solos played at concert pitch in surround sound. The doors buckled, split like tinfoil in a fake circus strongman act. Chaos broke out.

  The girls screaming and running, anywhere and everywhere, survival instincts kicking in, not knowing what was happening but looking desperately for cover.

  Decca looked around, too stunned to speak. He thought of Dario and Katya, thought they must have had something big planned. Was suddenly more scared than he had been all night.

  Christopher recovered his composure first. He was barking orders at Milo and Lev, telling them to round up the girls, get them into the people carrier and away. Milo and Lev did as they were asked, running and reaching out, trying to grab the terrified females, hold on to them and drag them back. It was like an episode of Benny Hill out of A Clockwork Orange, thought Decca. He would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so potentially ruinous for himself.

  He looked at Christopher again. He was standing in the centre of the warehouse now, no longer skulking in the shadows. Issuing orders, commands, expecting to be heard, obeyed. Everything else happening around him, taking their cues from him. Like an old-school Shakespearian actor giving his Macbeth.

  Like a general on a battlefield fighting one last war.

  Christopher was lost to the moment. Decca watched as he produced a huge machine gun from underneath his long overcoat. His eyes somewhere else, fighting another war in another place, full of rage, hatred.

  Full of joy. Exhilarated.

  And in that second came realization to Decca: he would never be a gangster. Not like in the films. Because real life was different. Pimping, drug dealing, throwing his weight around and getting respect for it was one thing. But Christopher was another. Christopher was different.

  And Decca didn’t want any part of that.

  Christopher raised the gun.

  Decca didn’t intend to wait around to find out what he was going to do with it.

  The spirit of Clint had well and truly deserted him. He turned, ran to the double doors, pressed the button at the side to open them. Hoping that whatever had happened outside hadn’t damaged them too much. Felt in his pocket for his car keys.

  The doors began to open. Gears and metal creaked as they were prised apart, squealing like some giant wounded mechanical animal in its death throes.

  Nearly there. Moving with agonizing slowness. His heart was pounding, pulse racing. Breath coming out in ragged gasps, like he had just run a marathon. A bit more and he could squeeze through, run, put miles between himself and here.

  And Clint Eastwood be fucked.

  A bit more.

  The night was appearing through the gap now, big enough to get through. He ran to that gap.

  ‘Derek.’

  He froze at the voice. Didn’t want to turn.

  ‘Derek. Where are you going?’

  The breath came out of Decca like a punctured football that had been kicked one time too many. He turned. Christopher was standing there, legs apart, machine gun held before him, eyes lit by that manic light.

  Evil. That was the word to describe it. Evil.

  ‘You aren’t running away, are you?’

  Decca opened his mouth to speak. No sound would come out. It didn’t matter. No answer would be right.

  ‘There is only one way anyone leaves my employment.’

  The bullets hit his body. Forcing him to dance, blood spraying and arcing upwards and outwards like cut, red marionette strings.

  Dancing to someone else’s tune. I’m always—

  His final thought. Half-finished.

  The firing stopped. Decca’s body, with nothing to hold it up, slumped to the floor. The door slick and shining with dark red.

  The girls had stopped screaming.

  Christopher looked around.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said. ‘Torch it.’

  Turnbull and Grant looked at each other. They had seen the car plough into the doors, heard screams and firing from inside.

  Grant picked up the radio.

  ‘Go! Go! All units! Go!’

  There was no argument from Turnbull.

  Peta saw the light, didn’t know what would be following it, but knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. She dived out of the way, hitting the floor hard with her left shoulder, the impact sending a jolt of pain down her arm, a loud gasp from her lips. She ignored it, moved quickly out of the way of her assailant, scuttling across the floor like a cornered spider.

  He made a frenzied exclamation that she couldn’t understand, but there was no mistaking the rage behind it. She risked a look at him. A nondescript man in raincoat and glasses. His hat had fallen off and there was something familiar about his features. Familiar, but not particularly memorable. She couldn’t place him. She shoved the thought out of her mind. That was for later.

  He was advancing towards her, hand outstretched, holding a long black object, the end of which was both giving off light and fizzing. Some kind of stun gun, she thought. He was clearly angry that he had failed to subdue her and was making his way towards her, ready to try again.

  She looked around. The place was an old shop, mediumsized, the plate-glass windows boarded from the outside with wood, smashed in places. Old display cabinets, sturdy, of heavy wood, had been piled into one corner by the glass. A shop counter with a huge old-fashioned till in front of them. The far back wall had been painted white, with various hooks and other attachments mounted on it, a space cleared before it for camera equipment. A camera-less tripod stood, flanked by two large lamps. They provided the only illumination to the room. At the back wall was a girl in a wheelchair, her arms and legs strapped to the frame by plastic disposable handcuffs, her mouth taped over. An old, rain-wet blanket wrapped around her. She seemed only barely aware of what was going on, eyes flickering slowly between half-wakefulness and sleep, her head lazily lolling, pulling away from the bright light.

  Peta’s assailant was running now.

  She jumped over to the tripod, picked it up and, ignoring the complaints of the muscles in her damaged arm, swung it towards him in one smooth movement. It connected with his arm: he screamed, dropped the weapon.

  She pulled it back to try again but didn’t have the same strength. He blocked it this time, caught it with his hand. She pushed it towards him, tried to make a break around him.

  It fell at his feet. He tried to make a move for her. His feet found the tripod; he twisted and fell. But his reflexes were good: he stuck out an arm as she passed, missed her.

  She jumped over him, made her way to the door. Had he locked it? She couldn’t remember. She fell against the door, grabbed the handle with shaking hands, twisted and turned.

  Locked.

  She pulled hard, again ignoring the pain in her shoulder.

  Stopped.

  It was a Yale lock. He had only put it on the snib. Manually locked it from inside. It was just a question of pressing the button, turning the knob. She pressed the button, felt the lock mechanism free up. She turned the knob.

  And he was on her again.

  Pulling her back from the door, the force of his attack taking her by surprise. He pulled her backwards, on to the floor.

  And was on her.

  Pounding at her body, tearing at her clothing. Ripping, rending. Growling.

  She was being suffocated by malevolence. Peta couldn’t get free, couldn’t lever her body from the floor to try anything that would get h
im off her. Insane rage had more than doubled his strength. She felt his hands scrape her, his teeth bite her skin. Her face was forced into the dirty, bare, cold boards. She couldn’t breathe.

  But she had to survive. She couldn’t die here. Not like this.

  She would have to fight him on his own terms.

  She pushed against his weight, forced as hard as she could, managed to snake an arm free of his body. He tried to shift his weight, trap it again, but she wouldn’t let him.

  If insane rage was giving him strength, then the will to live was doing the same for her.

  Her arm free, she found one of his hands that was scratching away at her cheek, digging his nails in, seemingly trying to rake the flesh from her face. She grabbed one finger. Just one finger. And pulled. Away from her face. All the way back. Until she heard the snapping sound in her ear.

  He howled, took his hand away from her. She tried to press the advantage. Where his arm had been, where there was now a space, she pushed her elbow back as hard as she could, felt it connect with something. His face.

  He yowled again.

  She felt his weight ease up on her, and twisted round. Managed to pull herself out from underneath him.

  He made a desperate grab for her with his good arm. But missed. She risked a look at him: one eye was closed. It had been a lucky shot.

  Pain and anger were still twisting his features. He pulled himself up off the floor.

  Peta made a dash for the front door, but he was there before her.

  She turned, looking around frantically for another exit.

  Saw a door at the back of the shop. Ran for it.

  He saw what she was doing, where she was going. Ran after her. Peta reached it first, turned the handle. It was open. She ran through, almost tripping as she did so as the floor disappeared beneath her. She stopped. Felt around with her foot. A set of steps leading down. A doorway to a basement.

  She turned. He was right behind her. She had no choice.

  Hitting her arm against the side wall to find a light switch, she ran as fast as she could down the steps, lights coming on as she did so.