Stolen Souls jli-3

by Stuart Neville

  “I’m sorry,” Uprichard said. “That’s just the way it is. I want you here in an hour.”

  * * *

  SUSAN OPENED THE door wearing a dressing gown pulled tight around her. In the few minutes between Lennon phoning her and knocking her door, she had tidied her hair and applied as much makeup as she could manage. Either that or she went to bed wearing lip gloss.

  Ellen huffed and mewled in Lennon’s arms, her bare feet kicking at his sides.

  “You’re a diamond,” he said to Susan. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Susan gave him a smile that was at once warm and weary. “It’s all right. I hadn’t gotten to sleep yet.”

  Lennon knew a lie when he heard one, but still he was glad of it. “I’ll be back before you get up in the morning.”

  Susan reached for Ellen. “C’mere, pet, I’ve got you.”

  Ellen whimpered and rubbed her eyes.

  Susan kissed her hair. “You can sleep in with Lucy, all right?”

  Ellen buried her head beneath Susan’s chin. She had been ferried here while she slept many times before.

  Lennon touched Susan’s forearm. “Thank you,” he said.

  She smiled again. “When you come back, why don’t you come in for breakfast?”

  “The neighbors might talk,” Lennon said.

  “Let them,” she said.

  3

  THE PLASTIC-COVERED CORPSE rolled against Galya as the car jerked to a standstill, its bloody odors forcing her to gag against the cloth that had been shoved in her mouth. She wedged her shoulders against the rear wall of the trunk and pushed the body back with her knees. They’d used some sort of thin electrical cord to bind her wrists, but already it worked loose on her blood-slicked skin. She could easily slip free from it, but instead chose to keep it there until her hands could do her some good.

  Galya felt the car rock as the men alighted, heard the doors slam shut. The last few minutes of the journey had been slow, with sharp turns and sudden stops, before a final lurch and judder as the car came to a halt on rough ground. She strained to listen to the environment beyond the darkness that encased her. Traffic noise somewhere, but closer, the soft sigh of water.

  As soon as she’d woken in the black, her head throbbing with the car’s engine, she knew they meant to kill her. There was no question. The sound of water only confirmed it. They would dump the dead man in it, then throw her in after. Maybe they’d kill her first, or maybe they’d drown her. Either way, she would be in the water soon.

  Voices now, outside, the Irishman’s high and panicky, the Lithuanian’s low and angry. They exchanged accusations and curses as they came closer. A key scraped against metal, the lock turned, and cold air flooded in.

  A cloud of mist formed between Darius and Sam as their breath mingled. The Lithuanian grabbed his countryman’s body and hauled it from the trunk, grunted as he let it drop to the ground with a wet thump.

  Galya did not resist when Sam reached for her. The icy ground seemed to bite at her soles as he held her upright. She bucked with the intensity of the shivers that shot through her, and he gripped her arms tighter.

  The car, an old BMW, stood feet from a stretch of water, parked on a narrow band of waste ground separated from the empty road by a low curb. All around were warehouses and cranes, quiet and still in the cold night. Lazy waves lapped at the embankment. Across the channel, more warehouses, and the lights of the city beyond them. Galya tried to turn her head to see more of the surroundings, but Sam squeezed and jerked her arm.

  “Quit it,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

  Darius stooped and grabbed his dead friend’s ankles. He pulled, but managed no more than two feet, the plastic snagging and tearing on the rubble. He cursed and dropped the legs.

  “Help,” he said.

  “What?” Sam said.

  “Help,” the Lithuanian said. “Put Tomas in water.”

  “I’m keeping hold of her,” Sam said, tightening his grip on Galya’s arm.”

  “Where she go?” Darius asked, holding his hands out, indicating the expanse of water and low buildings. He pointed at the corpse on the ground. “You help.”

  A clammy heat lingered on Galya’s arm when Sam released it. He pushed her back against the car.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  He crossed the few feet to the body, hunkered down, gripped the shoulders.

  Darius said, “Vienas, du, trys, hup!”

  Both men hissed as they raised the body a few inches from the ground. They shuffled toward the water’s edge, huffing and grunting as they went. A bloodstained hand flopped from the plastic and brushed its fingertips along the loose stones.

  “Jesus,” Sam said.

  A thin, distorted disco beat erupted from nowhere, and he yelped in fright as he dropped the dead man’s shoulders. Galya took a step away from the car.

  Darius lowered the feet and straightened. Something vibrated on the body. He reached down and tore a hole in the shiny plastic. His hand explored inside for a moment before emerging again, a mobile phone gripped in his thick fingers. His face went slack when he looked at the screen, its light making him look even paler than he already was. He glanced at Sam.

  “Is Arturas,” he said.

  Sam swallowed so hard Galya heard the click in his throat. “Are you going to answer it?” he asked.

  Darius gave him a hard stare. “You a stupid man. I answer, say brother busy? Say he go in water, yes? I say to him this?”

  Sam shifted his weight as if the insult had hit him square in the chest. “Well, fuck, I don’t know. He’s your boss, not ours.”

  Galya moved to the far side of the car.

  “Arturas everybody boss,” the Lithuanian said.

  Sam took a step forward. “He’s your boss, not mine.”

  Darius held out the phone, still blasting its tinny music, his pudgy face swelling with anger. “Okay, you say he not you boss, you say him now.”

  “Fuck yourself,” Sam said.

  Galya flexed her wrists, felt the electrical cord skim the backs of her legs as it slipped away.

  Darius stepped over the body, came face-to-face with Sam.

  “You think you big man?” he asked, the phone still lit up and ringing in his hand.

  Two meters separated Galya from the car now. She pushed the cord aside with her toes, kept her hands behind her back. She pressed her tongue against the rag between her teeth, pushed it out, and let it fall to the ground. She steadied her breathing.

  Sam moved to the other side of the body. “Listen, this isn’t the time for getting the arse with each other, right? We need to get this sorted before anyone comes along and asks us what we’re doing here at this time of the night.”

  Darius would not be placated. “You need take care your mouth, or you go in water also.”

  Sam raised his hands.

  Darius slapped them aside.

  Galya ran.

  4

  ARTURAS STRAZDAS HUNG up without leaving a message. He thought for a moment as the car sped along the motorway toward the city, the driver’s attention fixed on the road ahead. Tomas always answered his phone. It didn’t matter if he was in bed or at a funeral, he never left a call unanswered if his mobile was in reach. Many times Arturas had phoned his brother only to hear hard panting and moaning on the other end as he rutted with one of the whores.

  Once, Tomas hospitalized a cinemagoer for complaining about the disturbance caused by his taking a call during a screening of some romantic comedy. It had taken several days, and some expense, to convince the victim they were mistaken in their identification of the attacker.

  Tomas had always been trouble, but Strazdas had promised his mother he would care for his little brother, no matter what. He had repeated the promise just a few hours ago, before he left her in the Brussels apartment he’d bought for her and caught the flight to Belfast.

  She had complained bitterly about being left alone at Christmas, but it could n
ot be helped. There was business to attend to, and as much as he loved his little brother, Tomas could not be trusted with such a responsibility.

  Strazdas had texted Tomas before he boarded the plane, reminded him to be ready for his arrival, that he needed him at the hotel that night. Now Tomas did not answer. Strazdas returned the mobile to his breast pocket and considered.

  There were many reasons why Tomas might not have answered his phone, of course. But none were good enough for Strazdas. Clearly something was wrong.

  “Herkus,” he called.

  “Yes, boss?” The driver glanced back over his shoulder.

  “When did you last see Tomas?”

  “A few hours ago,” Herkus said. “He and Darius were drinking in town. I had to pick them up in a hurry. They’d gone into the wrong bar, some place for queers. You know how Tomas is about queers.”

  Yes, Strazdas knew how Tomas felt about homosexuals. That particular foible had cost him some money over the years. Between bail and payoffs, caring for Tomas was like keeping an exotic animal. Its prey was expensive.

  “How bad?” Strazdas asked.

  “Not very bad.” Herkus shrugged. “Not much blood on his hands. Darius got him out of there before he did any real damage. I lifted them a few streets away.”

  “And then?”

  “Tomas said he wanted to break in that new whore. The Ukrainian girl. Being around queers always makes him want a whore.”

  Strazdas watched the city lights draw near, buildings solidifying in the dark.

  “Which Ukrainian girl?” he asked.

  “The one Rasa took from the mushroom farm last week,” Herkus said. “The agency put her there, working under Steponas. She’d been there a month or six weeks, maybe, when Rasa spotted her. She was covered head to toe in horse shit, but Rasa can pick a looker out from a hundred meters. The Loyalists paid two thousand for her.”

  “Good money,” Strazdas said.

  “Like I said, she’s a looker. Darius told me. Young, skinny, nice mouth. Good tits. They were putting her to work for the first time today. Tomas said he was going to get her off to a good start.”

  “Where are they keeping her?”

  “Bangor direction,” Herkus said. “Northeast of the city, past the other airport.”

  Strazdas retrieved his phone from his pocket. He looked up Darius’s number and dialed. It went straight to the answering service, didn’t even ring.

  “After you leave me at the hotel, you go looking for Tomas and Darius,” he said.

  “Okay,” Herkus said.

  5

  GALYA HAD BEEN a runner ever since she was small. She’d been the fastest in her school district, winning every medal and trophy the regional championships had to offer. Mama displayed them in the old china cabinet she had inherited from her own grandmother forty years before.

  As Galya reached her teens and her bones lengthened, she found the 5000 meters to be her best event. At fourteen, she trained three times a day, edging ever closer to running the distance in fifteen minutes. She remembered the cold early mornings, closing the door of Mama’s house behind her, jogging to the track in the village, listening to the sounds of the world awaking as she devoured lap after lap.

  The coach had wanted to put her up for the athletic school, said she’d sail through the trials, they might even start grooming her for the Olympic team. But that would have meant going away and leaving Mama to work the few acres of land she owned all by herself. So Galya turned the chance down and ran purely for the heart-racing pleasure of it.

  Now she ran for her life.

  Her arms churned. Frosty tarmac chewed at the naked balls of her feet. Her lungs grabbed at cold air.

  She had a twenty-meter start before they realized she had gone. Sam had tripped over the dead man in his panic to get after her. She heard him hit the ground and cry out in pain, leaving only Darius to pursue her, his footsteps heavy as he propelled his bulk forward.

  Did they have guns? Galya did not believe so; she would have heard them boom by now, felt the bullets slam into her back. How would it feel?

  She dismissed the thought.

  Up ahead, an open gate, a dock beyond. Behind, running feet, lumbering, unable to close the distance. She did not look back. To do so would be to lose her balance and rhythm. Galya knew this was the essence of running. Balance and rhythm granted speed and minimized fatigue. If she lost those, she would lose ground to them. If she lost ground, she would die.

  Breathe.

  In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four …

  She heard the ragged stabs of Darius’s breathing. He was not a sprinter, but had no endurance either. Not like Galya. If she could keep ahead of him long enough, keep out of his reach, his legs would give up, the muscles’ craving for oxygen too great to carry him any further.

  In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four …

  Galya heard him roar as he found a last reserve of speed. But she had more. Despite the pain as the salted ground tore the skin from her feet, she pushed harder. He was closer now, his desperate gasps gaining on her. He cried out again as his pace faltered.

  In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four …

  She spotted the ice in time to lengthen her stride, and she cleared it easily. Darius did not. She heard him slide, then the soggy thump of flesh meeting hard ground, and finally the wheeze of air knocked from his lungs.

  The Lithuanian grunted and cursed behind her as he hauled himself to his feet. He was big and strong, but he was slow. She could outrun him, she had no doubt of that, but the pain dragged at her ankles and the chilled air spiked her lungs.

  In, two, three …

  Galya couldn’t hold it in her chest, it was too cold. Her rhythm skipped.

  Out, two, three …

  The breath hissed from between her teeth, her balance lost along with it. She commanded her mind to concentrate, her body to follow its lead, but the pain wouldn’t stay in her feet. It crept up her ankles to her calves, shortening her stride, speed deserting her.

  The Lithuanian’s thudding footsteps drew closer. He huffed and gasped, but he held his pace.

  The open gate stood only meters away. Inside the yard she could make out great black mounds against the city lights. Coal, maybe, or stones, and towering machines and low huts. Places to hide, if she could reach them.

  But the pain and the cold. They stabbed at her legs, tightened around her chest.

  The Lithuanian came closer still, so close he could touch her if he reached out.

  Galya prayed as she ran.

  Mama, help me, help me, make me faster, let me—

  Blinding light, a screech, a thump and a cry.

  The car, a big four-wheel drive, came from a side road. She felt the displaced air as it missed her and hit the Lithuanian. She heard him hit the ground hard.

  A door opened and a voice called, “Stop!”

  Galya kept running, though her long strides had turned to lopsided lurches.

  The voice called again, “Stop! Police!”

  She slowed, spared a glance over her shoulder.

  The car bore colored markings and had the words HARBOUR POLICE emblazoned on the side. Galya halted, her fear mixing with confusion.

  “Don’t move,” the policeman said. He turned his attention to the man sprawled in front of the car. He spoke into a radio. “Bobby, we better get an ambulance down here.”

  The radio crackled in reply.

  “Because I just ran somebody over.”

  A longer burst of static.

  “I don’t know. He’s alive. He’s moving, like. Corner of Dufferin and Barnet Road.”

  Galya fought the adrenalin, forced herself to be still, to wait.

  The policeman noticed the car by the water, the plasticwrapped bundle on the embankment. He spoke into his radio again. “Better get some PSNI boys down here too.”

  More crackling.

  “That’s what I’m going to try to find out. I don’t like the
look of it, whatever it is.’

  He turned back to Galya. “Right, love. What’s happening here?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but remembered what she’d been told about the police in this country. The gangmasters had warned them all on the farm, and the workers remembered the stories they’d heard from others. The police hated immigrants, would arrest and beat them. The lucky ones got kicked out of the country; the rest went to gray prisons for years, abandoned to a system that would let them rot in the dank bowels of its detention centers.

  Galya looked down at herself and saw blood had soaked through her clothing and coated her hands. She had killed a man not an hour before. If the police got her, she would be treated as a murderer. Did they still hang murderers here? She took a step backward.

  The policeman extended a hand toward her. “Listen, love, no one’s going to hurt you. Just stay—”

  An engine roared. He turned to see the old BMW accelerate toward him.

  Darius got to his knees.

  “What the fuck is going on?” the policeman asked. He reached for the pistol at his hip, but Darius grabbed his wrist. He looked into the policeman’s eyes as he rose to tower over him.

  Once more, Galya ran.

  6

  FOR THE SECOND time tonight, a phone’s shrill call caught Lennon at the edge of slumber. He jerked awake, cold in his darkened office, and reached for the handset.

  “Yes?”

  “Call from Sergeant Connolly,” the duty officer said. “Sounds like a bad one.”

  “Christ,” Lennon said, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “All right, put him through.”

  Lennon listened to clicks and beeps while the call bounced down the wires before he heard Connolly’s strained breath. Sounded like he was fighting the cold. Connolly was a good officer, still young enough to remember why he joined up, but old enough to have had his eyes opened to the realities of the job. He’d made sergeant quicker than most, and was angling for detective. Lennon reckoned he’d have it sooner rather than later, but for now he was stuck on patrols.