Chapter 41
Signs for an exit flashed past in a rainy blur. The Audi’s brake lights flickered on, off, on again. Prem veered across two lanes of furiously honking traffic, swerved to avoid a truck bearing down on him and then left the ring road, heading erratically west at the same dangerous speed.
Ben hit the indicator, sliced the Jaguar smoothly through a gap and followed. Less than a minute later, the Audi’s brake lights were flaring again as Prem sped headlong towards a big intersection with traffic lights burning like beacons through the wet night. For a second it actually appeared as though Prem was going to stop for the lights.
Brooke said, ‘Take him here. Grab him out of his car.’
‘No, I want to see where he’s going.’
Even as Ben said it, Prem changed his mind and went roaring through the red lights, straight out into the ocean of traffic that was rushing perpendicular to the junction. Cars skidded and spun out of control. There were multiple crunches and ricochets. A motorcyclist veered out of the path of a truck and was side slammed by a tuk-tuk.
Ben gritted his teeth and surged right after Prem into the heart of the chaos. Lights and horns and screeching tyres coming at them from all directions. He estimated he had about a five per cent chance of coming through it without a collision taking him out of the chase. Brooke was cringing in her seat, eyes shut. Ben sawed at the steering wheel and pumped the brake and gas like a church organist playing a wild toccata and fugue, and he somehow managed to steer a course through the carnage and out the other side. Part luck, part skill, no time to work out which to feel grateful for. He got clear and put his foot down hard and the Jag surged onwards in pursuit of the disappearing Audi.
‘Now I really am going to shoot him,’ Brooke said. ‘Before he goes and kills somebody.’
It was another six cross-city miles before the insanity of the chase came to an end. The rain was slackening. The traffic was thinning, forcing Ben to hang further and further back so as not to let Prem spot him following. The Audi had led them through a sprawl of urban housing developments and now entered an industrial zone with a roughly equal amount of construction and decay going on. Crumbling warehouses were in the midst of being torn down and replaced with new ones. To the west, whole areas looked like the rubble fields of battlegrounds in Syria, Iraq or the Lebanon. To the east, giant cranes stood tall against the misty horizon, and concrete blocks were piled like skyscrapers. Some construction projects looked as if they had been abandoned, towers of scaffolding red with rust and others collapsed. To Ben’s shock, people were living among the rubble, little makeshift encampments scattered here and there that made the slums of north Delhi look like a holiday resort. Some homeless folks were crowded around a smoky fire burning in a brazier made from an old oil drum. Scrawny dogs prowled through the destruction of the landscape like post-apocalyptic scavengers in search of human bones to gnaw.
Finally forced to slow down just a little, Prem threaded his way through the industrial wasteland, his headlights bobbing and bouncing as the car pattered over potholes and strewn debris. By then Ben had killed his own lights and was following slowly at a safe distance, catching just occasional glimpses of the Audi’s tail-lights ahead and hoping he wouldn’t lose track of it in the maze of unfinished avenues and building site access roads that seemed to stretch out for miles. Prem eventually jammed to a halt outside a dark, looming structure that was part shrouded in scaffolding and looked as though it might be a half-built factory or warehouse complex. Or a block of flats. Or a future hospital, or the early stages of a shopping mall. Or maybe it had already been any one of those things and was in the process of being taken down. From where Ben had stopped in the shadows of another derelict shell of a building a hundred yards away, it was hard to tell. But whatever it was, Prem seemed to have a particular, and extremely pressing, reason for being here.
The Audi’s headlamps turned off. The building fell into darkness, but there was still just enough light for Ben and Brooke, watching from their unseen vantage point, to make out Prem’s silhouetted figure clambering out of his car and hurrying towards a doorless entrance of the building, just a gaping, black concrete arch. He lit up a torch as he went, making a pool of light that bounced and bobbed in front of him and illuminated his outline more clearly. His body language was that of someone burdened with massive acute stress. He was bent over, shoulders hunched up, holding a phone to his ear with his free hand. The distance was too great to hear whether he was talking, or still trying to get through to this Takshak.
Ben said to Brooke, ‘Stay here. I’m going in after him.’
‘You must be kidding. I’m coming too.’
They got out of the car and very softly shut the doors, then trotted across the dark waste ground to the building, splashing through puddles of dirty rainwater. Prem had disappeared inside, and Ben decided it was safe to turn on his own torch. Up close, the site was more obviously a building project in the making, but one in which little progress had been made in a long time. Not entirely unusual in its own right. There could be all kinds of reasons why an unfinished construction job could stall. Planning problems, labour problems, companies going out of business. The crews would just abandon it until further notice, leaving the project looking exactly the way this one did. The wire fence around the building was rickety and half collapsed in places, and a hole had been cut through the mesh that looked like the work of vagrants or squatters using the place for their own purposes. That impression was confirmed by the rubbish and signs of fires having been lit here and there. Hardly unusual either, in a city so crammed with desperately poor people who would huddle into any living space they could find.
The question was, what was Prem doing in a place like this?
He must have slipped through the hole in the wire. Ben reached it ahead of Brooke, and held the gap open wider so she could step through more easily. While he waited for her, he shone his torch up and down, side to side. The wire was mostly red with rust. Ben’s torch beam passed over the face of a rectangular tin construction company sign attached to the fence, hanging lopsided and swaying in the soft breeze. It was as rusted as the wire, the company name partially obscured but still legible.
Then he did a double-take and shone the beam on it again.
He nudged Brooke’s arm. ‘Look.’
She stopped, followed the line of the pointing torch beam and saw it, too.
The rusted lettering on the sign said:
RAY ENTERPRISES CONSTRUCTION DIVISION PRIVATE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT
Chapter 42
Brooke stood there staring at it for a long moment, then turned to Ben with all kinds of questions in her eyes.
‘Come on.’ He shone the torch away from the sign and towards the hole in the wire. She stepped through, and he went in after her and led the way into the pitch darkness of the building.
The interior smelled of damp earth and urine and garbage and stale ash from fires. The ceiling loomed above them and the walls were bare concrete with yawning holes where the architects had planned doors and windows to be. The slab floor was caked in dust and construction dirt. From the general state of neglect the place was in, it was clear that no construction crew had been near the site for at least a year, or two, or maybe five. That was for sure. But there had been plenty of coming and going nonetheless, judging by the quantity of footprints in the dirt. The tracks led into the heart of the empty building, all following the same route, like a path made by animals to a waterhole.
Ben paused and put his finger to a couple of the freshest prints. They were still moist from the rainwater puddles outside. Made just moments ago. He studied the impression of the shoe. Quality footwear, leather soled, no tread pattern. A decent pair of brogues. Just exactly like the expensive handmade items that Prem wore.
‘He came this way,’ Ben said softly. ‘He can’t be far ahead of us.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ she hissed.
‘The innocent explanation? This is
his employer’s building. He’s come to check things out, make sure it’s okay.’
‘You believe that?’
‘Not in a thousand years.’
‘Then what’s he doing here?’ she repeated.
He said nothing. They moved on, following Prem’s tracks. They were just one set out of many on the little pedestrian highway that cut deeper into the building. The tracks led past an empty lift shaft, from which a breeze of cooler, fresher air from outside was wafting. A little way further on, the tracks veered left and reached a concrete stairway, one flight leading upwards and the other leading down.
The tracks went downwards.
They followed. Ben cupped a hand over the end of the torch, turning his fingers blood red and muting the beam to give them just enough light to see by but no more. The steps were bare concrete, and steep. He counted seventy-two of them before they touched down to the floor below. They were in a narrow, curving corridor leading onwards into darkness. The air down here was stifling and stale. Some kind of basement, maybe intended for storage, or offices.
Ben stopped. He could hear something. The muffled rumble of a diesel generator, not too far away. Then around the next corner, they saw a glow of light that grew brighter as they moved on down the corridor. The walls were bare, solid concrete. No doors to the left or right. Only one way forward, only one way back. Not a safe place to enter. He wished that he’d done more to persuade Brooke to stay in the car, but it was too late to worry about that now. He killed his torch, slipped it in his pocket and eased the Browning from his belt. Round in the chamber, hammer back, safety off, index finger straight along the side of the trigger guard, low ready position, two-hand grip. Eyes fixed on the light coming from the curve of the corridor ahead. Waiting for the slightest sign of impending threat. Calm and ready.
The footprints had petered out by now as the rainwater dried off Prem’s soles, but Ben no longer needed tracks to guide him. A door came up on the left, open a crack with light shining from inside. He motioned for Brooke to hold back, then padded cautiously towards the door and spent a full thirty seconds listening hard. Nothing. But that didn’t mean Prem wasn’t lurking inside, perhaps aware that he was being followed and prepared to do something about it. Ben took his left hand from the gun and nudged the door softly open.
Prem wasn’t there. The room was lit but empty, though it had been used not too long ago. There was a cheap table inside, and four cheap chairs. Empty drinks containers and fast food packaging were littered about the rough concrete floor. Ben picked up a bottle of Coke off the table and shook it. Still fizzy. He put it down and glanced about him. Taking in the signs. There were two cardboard boxes sitting in the corner. One contained a roll of duct tape and a coil of paracord and a collection of disposable paper plates and plastic cups. The other was full of tinned food, beans and stewed beef and soup. There was a bag of sugar, a carton of long-life milk, a half-finished jar of decaffeinated instant coffee, a dirty metal teaspoon.
Ben examined each in turn, then went over to a couple of plastic garbage sacks that lay on the floor nearby, tied at the mouth. He gave each one a nudge with his foot to feel what was inside. Dismembered body parts felt heavier than garbage. This was just garbage. Still, good to check.
Brooke whispered, ‘What is this place?’
Ben said nothing. He’d seen places like it before, many times. He turned back towards the door and peered out into the corridor.
No Prem. No nobody.
They moved on. The next door they came to was on the opposite side. It was quite unlike the first. Heavier, more secure, and fitted with thick bolts to lock it shut from outside. At the foot of the door someone had fashioned a crude hatch that hinged upwards and outwards, like a one-way-only cat flap, except it was held securely closed with a hasp and strong padlock. As Ben got closer to the door he could see the big, heavy bolts were drawn back and a thin crack of light was visible from within. He paused again, listened, like before. Then reached for the door handle and swung it softly, gently open.
What he saw beyond the doorway confirmed what he already knew. Before him, a short flight of steps led down to a sub-basement, maybe thirty feet square, brightly lit. The walls had been painted white, in a slapdash effort. The furniture was minimal and functional. Near the centre of the room stood a single chair left over from the same set as the ones in the first room, along with a similar cheap table on which rested a plastic cup and an empty paper plate. A basic metal-framed bed occupied the left-hand wall. A partitioned-off plywood corner section had been knocked up over to the right, forming a little space that Ben didn’t need to look inside to identify as a crude, makeshift bathroom. All highly temporary, thrown together in a hurry, intended purely to meet the most basic living needs of its occupant. Which fitted the typical pattern Ben had seen a hundred times before, back in the day when he used to do this for a living.
It was a kidnap room. A holding cell.
And there was someone inside it.
Chapter 43
Prem was at the far end of the room, thirty feet from the bottom of the steps. He was wearing designer blue jeans and a tan leather flight jacket, which was probably as casual as it got for a well-to-do young guy of fashionable tastes. But he obviously had much more on his mind right now as he paced up and down the breadth of the room, talking on the phone with such intense focus that he was completely oblivious of the fact that he had company. He was clasping the phone tightly to his ear in one hand, the other pressed downwards to the top of his head with clawed fingers buried in his thick black hair, as though he had a migraine. Or was going crazy with stress. That was certainly the impression conveyed by his tone of voice, strained to breaking point. Whatever the phone call was about, it wasn’t making him happy.
He was saying, ‘What the fuck are you people doing? This wasn’t part of the plan. Why are you doing this? I can’t—’
A pause as the voice on the other end of the line interrupted him to reply. Prem stopped pacing and screwed his eyes shut with frustration, listening hard. Then he started shaking his head furiously. ‘No, no, no. No fucking way, man. That’s not the deal. That isn’t what you’re getting paid for. Listen to me—’
Ben had come halfway down the steps in total silence. He said softly, ‘Prem.’
He might as well have let off a shotgun blast in the confines of the room. Prem wheeled around and froze rigid and helpless, like a lamped rabbit caught out in the open with nowhere to bolt to. His eyes boggled in Ben’s direction, then towards Brooke, who was still at the top of the steps and watching him in cold rage and disbelief. The phone dropped out of Prem’s hand and bounced off the concrete floor. His mouth opened to speak, but no words came out.
Ben reached the bottom step and walked slowly towards him. ‘Imagine our surprise, finding you here like this. Where’s Amal?’
Prem turned fish belly blue-white. ‘He’s not here.’
‘But he was here. Wasn’t he, Prem?’
Prem began to bluster, then must have realised there was no point. He just nodded, once, a slight rise and fall of his chin. His shoulders drooped in total defeat. He let out a heavy sigh and stared at the floor.
Brooke suddenly burst back to life. She came racing down the steps, as though she wanted to throw herself at Prem and rip his eyes out with her fingernails. Ben gently put out an arm to hold her back. He said to Prem, ‘Who were you talking to just now? Takshak? I know it’s not Dhruv, Vijay, Sanjay or Ramesh. Because they won’t be doing a lot of talking to anyone any more, as of earlier this evening. But you are. You’re going to tell us everything, Prem. About your involvement in this, about who took Amal, about him being brought here and about where he is now. So let’s have it.’
Prem just stood there, so rigid he was quivering. His eyes were darting left and right as though he was desperately trying to decide which way to go. Considering his options. He had only two. He could confess to whatever was the ugly truth, abandon himself to his fate and pray for lenie
ncy. Or he could attempt to force a way out of this.
A second later, Prem made his choice. Not the wisest one. But perhaps the most reckless gamble seemed like the only option he could pick. He darted a slender hand inside his tan leather flight jacket and came out holding a pistol.
But Ben had seen that move coming before Prem had even made his mind up. The gun was still in motion between its concealed holster and its aiming point when Prem’s wrist was intercepted, blocked, trapped and twisted and his fingers opened involuntarily and lost their grip on the weapon. Which was now suddenly in Ben’s hand. Prem let out a primal yell of terror and loathing and fury, all rolled into one. He jumped back half a step, then lashed out at Ben with the toecap of one of his expensive handmade brogues. Ben sidestepped the kick and hit Prem a savage blow across the side of the head with the frame of his own gun. Prem went instantly limp and slumped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. He lay very still at Ben’s feet, oozing blood from a gashed scalp.
Brooke stared down at the inert form on the floor, then looked wide-eyed at Ben. ‘Jesus. You killed him.’
Prem’s gun was in keeping with his stylish, top-priced wardrobe: a Colt Delta Elite 10mm auto, stainless steel, brand new and shiny, in a class of its own next to Haani Bhandarkar’s worn old clunkers. Fully loaded, but too immaculate to have ever been fired since it left the factory in Hartford, Connecticut. Ben flipped on the safety and stuck it in his belt next to the Browning, then stooped to pick Prem’s phone off the floor. Whoever Prem had been talking with had hung up. For later, Ben thought, and slipped the phone in his pocket.
He replied to Brooke, ‘No, I didn’t kill him. But when he wakes up he’ll wish I had.’
He stepped away from Prem, walked over to the makeshift plywood construction on the right side of the room, and opened the flimsy door. A bathroom, as he’d guessed. Rigged up with a chemical toilet and a basin for washing in, with a plank shelf for some basic toiletries, toothbrush and toothpaste. Not exactly the Leela Palace, but it was considerably more luxury than a lot of kidnap victims got to enjoy, in Ben’s experience. Brooke peered in the bathroom doorway and seemed to reach the same conclusion. ‘This place is weird,’ she said.
Valley of Death Page 21
