Bone Machine

by Martyn Waites

  She reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, the air taken from her lungs.

  She couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t speak.

  Because of what she saw before her.

  Behind her, footfalls on the steps. Slow. Heavy. No need to hurry.

  He knew what she was seeing. What she would be experiencing.

  Knew there was no escape down there.

  He reached the bottom of the steps.

  Peta turned, looked at him.

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said, chest heaving from exertion.

  He smiled.

  ‘Yes.’

  He came towards her.

  46

  Christopher was gone. Kovacs was gone. Now there was only the Snake. And the Snake was back where he belonged. Back in the war.

  A healthy way to live. A natural way to live. Survival of the fittest, the best.

  And he was the best.

  He strode through the warehouse holding his gun before him. Milo and Lev’s fires beginning behind him. And he was back on the streets, in the towns, the villages. Houses, barns burning behind him. Fearful crying and angry shouts all around him. The satiation of all desires. Life and death at his fingertips.

  The power. The fear.

  There was no need for pretence now. No need to hide behind false names, assumed identities. The war proved that to him. Gave men licence to be themselves. Their true selves. And he knew who he was.

  His empire here was crumbling. No matter. He would get away, start somewhere else. He was resourceful. He was strong. He had plans in place. And he had to leave now.

  He looked around. Smiled. Felt the comforting heaviness of the gun in his hands. It was cold. It was the power of life or death at his fingertips.

  He stepped over the body of Decca Ainsley. Another one who promised so much yet delivered so little.

  Of the screaming girl whose name he had never learned. Another expendable in a whole list of them.

  He bent down, picked up Decca’s discarded car keys. As he stood up, he looked at the flames. They were starting to take hold. The girls were sitting in the people carrier, too terrified to do anything else. Expendable.

  He smiled. He should have some fun now.

  Really give them something to remember him by.

  Donovan opened his eyes. He was still alive.

  He undid the strap of his seat belt, pushed at the door of the car. It was jammed, wedged into the frame. A couple more strong pushes and he had it. It swung open. He got out of the car. The front was crumpled where it had ploughed into the doors, the windows gone. A complete write-off. It wouldn’t need a mechanic to get it going again; it would need a priest.

  He looked around. Listened. Heard screaming and what he took to be gunfire from inside the warehouse.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said aloud.

  He looked through the partially open doors. Saw flames licking their way up the back wall, building in intensity, the fires being fed by two identikit dark-mullet-haired thugs in leather jackets. He turned away, back to the dockside. Caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows to the side of the warehouse. He ran towards it.

  And was greeted with two .45s pointed at his face.

  Donovan stepped back, kept his arms by his side. The man holding the guns spoke.

  ‘Please stay where you are. I do not want to kill you.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Donovan. He looked again at the man, recognizing the accent. ‘I know you. Dario? Dario Tokic?’

  The man moved uneasily. ‘Yes. And I know you, Joe Donovan. You have been a good man to my sister. I am going to go around to the front of the warehouse. Do not try and stop me. I do not want to kill you. But I will.’

  ‘OK,’ said Donovan. ‘Where’s Katya? Is she with you? Is she all right?’

  ‘I am here.’

  She stepped out of the shadows behind Dario. Even in the half-light Donovan could see she looked traumatized. Donovan made to cross towards her. Dario stopped him with the gun.

  ‘She comes with me.’ Dario held her by the hand. ‘There are things we must do. She and I.’ He looked at her. Placed one of his guns in her free hand. ‘Together.’ She made no reply. He pulled her with him. She allowed herself to go. She was too tired to argue.

  Donovan stood aside, let them go.

  They went around to the front of the building. Donovan stayed where he was. He cocked his head, heard something: sirens. Police. Saw a shadow flit across the front of the warehouse that belonged to neither Katya nor Dario. He waited a few seconds, then followed the path Dario and Katya had taken.

  Katya reached the front of the warehouse with her brother. She looked between the double doors. And gasped.

  The people carrier was still in the centre of the floor, unmoving, flames moving closer towards it. She saw terrified faces inside it, heard screams. The women were trying the doors: they had been locked. She turned to her brother.

  ‘Dario, you must do something!’ She pointed.

  He ignored her.

  She pulled at his sleeve. ‘They will die in there! Do something!’

  He shrugged her off. ‘No. We have things to do first.’

  He walked away from her, eyes darting all the time, a hunter looking for his prey.

  Katya looked again at the people carrier. Two men got in the front seats. A shiver of recognition ran through her. Milo and Lev. She remembered them. Remembered what they had done to the girls. Done to her.

  They started the engine, drove the carrier towards the doors. She moved out of the way, back into the shadows again, as it sped past her and away. Breathed a sigh of relief that the women had got out alive. Then stopped herself.

  She knew where they were going.

  She tried to shake off the thought, join her brother.

  An arm around her neck stopped her.

  She tried to kick, to scream. Couldn’t. Tried to run away. Couldn’t. The grip was too strong, too powerful. She could do nothing to resist.

  Her assailant plucked the gun she was holding from her grasp, flung it behind her.

  ‘Well.’ A voice spoke to her. A shudder went through her. She knew who it was. Just from that one word she knew who it was. ‘Don’t struggle. Don’t scream. We’re going to have some fun, you and I.’

  She knew.

  The Snake.

  Dario, on the other side of the doors, looking down the other side of the warehouse, turned. Saw what was happening. Raised his gun.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said the Snake. ‘You might hit your precious sister. And you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?’

  ‘Let her go,’ shouted Dario. ‘Just you and me. Man to man.’

  The Snake laughed.

  ‘Kovacs is dead,’ said Dario. ‘The little man I saw in the photograph with you. The snakes took him.’

  The Snake smiled. ‘Then you have destroyed my business here, see? Look around. Congratulations. Is that enough for you?’

  ‘Never enough for what you did to our family.’ Dario was shouting now. ‘For what you did to our lives.’

  The Snake said nothing. The sirens were getting louder, coming closer. He stepped forward. Dario stepped back, collided with Donovan’s abandoned car. He quickly righted himself.

  Too late. The Snake fired a single shot from his gun. It hit Dario square in the chest. He fell backwards against the Mondeo, blood fountaining from the wound. Katya screamed, tried to run to him. The grip around her just tightened.

  ‘Are you still alive?’ shouted the Snake. ‘Eh? Good. I want you to watch what I do to your sister. That can be your final image you take with you into death. When you see the devil, send him my regards.’

  Dario struggled to get up, anger powering his body. He couldn’t.

  The Snake laughed.

  Then stopped dead.

  ‘Touch her or make just one move and I’ll blow your fucking head off.’

  Donovan pointed Katya’s discarded gun at the base of t
he Snake’s skull.

  Pressed in hard.

  Peta stared. Eyes unable to comprehend the full horror of what she was seeing.

  The room was laid out as if for a film or theatre set. In the centre was a heavy table, the wood matching the old cabinets in the shop upstairs. On it were what she assumed were wrist and ankle restraints. The wood was old, scarred. Darker in patches than in other places.

  She knew what the dark patches were. She felt nauseous.

  Around the space were mannequins, posed in different positions and decorated with dried, lumpen objects. She couldn’t make out what the objects were. At strategic intervals were arc lamps, increasing the feel of theatricality. All centred on the table. A workbench ran along the back wall. On it were various bladed instruments, all home-made-looking. Next to them were several bobbins of heavy black thread and large needles.

  She stepped closer to one of the mannequins, examined the misshapen objects draped around it. Recoiled once she realized what they were.

  Body parts. Skin. Internal organs.

  ‘This is my room,’ said a voice behind her. Oily, quavering with barely suppressed twisted joy. ‘This is where I do all my experiments.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Peta. ‘The Historian.’

  He frowned, puzzled. Then smiled. ‘Yes. I suppose I am. The Historian. Yes.’ He seemed proud of the description.

  ‘I know who else you are,’ she continued. ‘That weaselly little nobody of a security guard who kept trying to stare at my tits.’

  Anger flashed across his face. Hot and bubbling. He looked about to lunge but held himself in check. Peta watched him, braced to run again. His head was cocked to one side as if listening to something only he could hear. His lips were moving as if in conversation. He was nodding. Talking. He stopped, looked back at her.

  ‘They say you should be my last experiment,’ he said. ‘Instead of that whore up there.’

  ‘Do they?’ she said, edging away around the table.

  ‘They do,’ he said. ‘They also say you’ll be the one to tell me for definite. You’ll give me the answers I’m seeking.’

  ‘Is that right?’ she said, playing for time, trying to humour him. ‘And what answers would they be?’

  ‘The answers I’ve been trying to find,’ he said, as if it was obvious. ‘Life. Death. What happens to us when we die. Where our spirit goes.’ He looked around, gestured to the room, gave a snort of a laugh. ‘What else do you think all this is for?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said.

  She edged her way around the main table. He followed her.

  ‘They told me. Just now. That you’re the one who would tell me for sure.’

  ‘That’s nice of them.’

  ‘Oh, it is. Now, I’m willing to forgive what you’ve done to my hand.’ He held his hand up. The finger Peta had broken had been snapped back into place. It now hung uselessly, like a swollen, mutant appendage. ‘And my eye. Because yours will be the supreme sacrifice.’

  He lifted up his other hand. It was holding the stun gun once again.

  ‘You’re a worthy opponent.’ He smiled. ‘But you won’t get away from me this time.’

  Peta kept slowly moving.

  The Historian kept stealthily advancing.

  He gestured to an alcove on her right. ‘You see in there? There’s all my previous experiments. The ones who failed to make the grade, shall we say?’

  Peta looked. Three walls of the alcove were lined with deep chest freezers. Her knees threatened to give way once she realized what was in them.

  ‘Want to see?’

  Peta shook her head.

  ‘Never mind.’ Closer and closer. ‘This place used to be part of Newgate Street prison. Did you know that?’

  Peta said she didn’t.

  ‘I had to tunnel under the city to find it. We’re miles away from anywhere. Too deep down for anyone to hear you scream.’

  Peta reached the workbench, stood before it. She couldn’t feed his delusions any more.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ she said. ‘We’re in the basement of a shop.’

  Anger flashed again in his eyes. He raised his stun gun. The electrodes crackled.

  ‘You’re just like all the others,’ he said, his voice rising in pitch. ‘Just another lying bitch.’ He smiled. It was like an annexe of hell opening. ‘But you’re still going to be my final experiment. You’re still going to give me all the answers. Just like they said.’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said with a conviction she wished she felt. ‘I said that last time I saw you, and I’m saying it now.’

  He lunged at her.

  She dodged out of the way as the stun gun came harmlessly down on the workbench.

  Peta picked up a knife, tried not to look at the blood encrusted and rusted along the blade, and turned to face him.

  He lunged at her again. She dodged, swiped with the knife. It caught the back of his hand. She pushed deep, forcing it down as hard as she could until it hit the wood of the workbench, became embedded.

  He screamed, tried to pull it out. Couldn’t.

  ‘That’s for Jill,’ she said, and ran.

  Around the table to the bottom of the stairs. Up the stairs as fast as she could go. Through the door at the top.

  She slammed the door shut behind her, turned into the room.

  And there, bending over the girl’s body in the wheelchair, stood Michael Nell.

  He jumped on seeing her, then stood up, angry.

  ‘What have you done to her, you bitch? What have you done?’

  47

  ‘So what do you intend to do?’ asked the Snake. ‘Stand here all night?’

  ‘Just until the police come,’ said Donovan. ‘They’re on their way now.’

  The Snake gave a slight rolling chuckle. ‘And what if I don’t want to wait?’

  Donovan pushed metal harder into skin. ‘I’m the one holding the gun. I’m the one who makes the rules.’

  ‘So you are,’ said the Snake.

  Before Donovan knew what had happened, he had felt a pain in his chest, another in his leg and he was slumped against the side of the warehouse, gun missing from his hand.

  The Snake stood over him, still clutching Katya.

  ‘Amateur,’ he spat.

  The siren sound intensified in volume. They were taking their time, thought Donovan. He knew the dock covered several miles, but how far away had they stationed themselves? Wherever, they couldn’t come soon enough.

  The Snake heard them also, looked around.

  ‘Get up,’ he said.

  Donovan began struggling to his feet.

  ‘I said get up.’ He kicked Donovan in the thigh.

  Donovan got up.

  ‘This woman—’ he gestured with the gun at Katya ‘—she means something to you?’

  Donovan didn’t reply. The Snake smiled.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded towards Decca’s BMW. ‘You will drive me away from here.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  He pushed the gun tighter against Katya’s face. ‘She and I will be in the car with you. Do I need to say any more?’

  He didn’t. He handed Donovan the keys. Donovan crossed to the car, got in, turned the engine over. The Snake threw Katya in the back seat behind Donovan, got in the front next to him.

  The fire had reached the front of the warehouse now. Gaining in strength, the rain would not stop it spreading.

  The Snake put the huge machine gun between his legs, pointed the automatic at Donovan.

  ‘Drive,’ he said.

  Donovan did so. As they pulled away, Katya looked out of the window. Her brother lay sprawled across the bonnet of the Mondeo. He had stopped moving. She tried to bite back her tears. Failed.

  ‘Shut up,’ said the Snake. ‘Stop wailing or I give you something to wail about.’

  Katya screamed, leaned forward. She grabbed hold of the Snake with both hands, raking the skin off his face with her fingernails, shoutin
g curses and profanities in her native tongue. Her fingers reached for his eyes, tried to claw them out. Her right hand found his right eye. She squeezed.

  He turned, swatted her back. He twisted around and fired the gun at her. The sound nearly deafened Donovan. He stopped the car.

  ‘What the fuck have you done? You fucking animal!’

  The Snake swung the gun on to Donovan. ‘You want the same? Eh?’

  Donovan said nothing.

  ‘Then drive, amateur.’

  Donovan turned around to look at Katya. The shot had hit her somewhere in the chest. She hadn’t screamed, just put her hand to the wound, held herself as if she had a bad muscle ache, moaning with the pain. The blood seeped between her fingers.

  ‘She is not dead,’ said the Snake. ‘Get me safely away from here, then you can get her to a hospital.’

  Donovan was seething. His hands were shaking as he gripped the wheel. ‘You cunt.’

  ‘Whatever.’ The Snake pointed the gun at him. ‘Drive.’

  Donovan gunned the car into gear, drove. He had no idea where he was going, whether he was taking the way out or a route that would lead him to Turnbull and his officers. Just round and round.

  Containers were piled high on both sides of him. He drove down the centre. Crates and pallets were waiting at the dockside to be loaded or stored. Huge open-top trailers full of metal sat beside cranes waiting to be lifted on board.

  ‘Drive.’

  He drove.

  He knew what was going to happen. As soon as he had driven away he was going to be killed. And Katya, if she wasn’t dead by then. He was under no illusions. Anger rose all the time. He wanted to scream, to shout. To pummel the steering wheel in rage. He wanted out. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He was angry. He was terrified.

  His desperation increased as he tried to think of something, anything, that could get rid of his passenger, get Katya to a hospital.

  He turned a corner. And saw it before him. Something only the truly mad or the truly desperate would attempt.

  At the end of the road was a forklift truck, the forks about a metre off the ground. He looked at the Snake, back to the forklift. It would be just about right.

  He pushed his foot down on the accelerator, checked his seat belt was on, gave a glance in the back. Katya was lying down, curled up in agony along the leather.