Bone Machine (32 page)

Amar was tired. His limbs ached, his stomach groaned and his head hurt. His body was filmed in dried sweat, the smell mingling
with that all-too-familiar post-drug comedown odour. His skin felt like it belonged to someone else. And, he thought with
a kind of twisted pride, he was still working.

He let out a groan. Jamal, in the passenger seat, looked at him, concern in his eyes.

‘You OK, man?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Just tired. You know how it is.’

‘Don’t I? This stakeout shit. Ain’t like on TV. Never see those cops from
The Shield
pissin’ in no bottle.’

Amar gave a weary smile. They had spent the day looking for Decca Ainsley. Without any success. They had tried Decca’s café,
sitting there in turn nursing cappuccino after cappuccino, eating croissants until Amar thought his skin would turn into flaky
pastry and Jamal got sugar rush after sugar rush, Amar reading every page of every newspaper they had in there, Jamal with
his head stuck in gaming magazines. No sign of Decca Ainsley, just a host of office workers being served by a bevy of pretty
girls for whom English clearly wasn’t a first language.

After that they had driven around what they had been assured were Decca’s haunts. The bars he frequented, the places he was
known to eat lunch at. All the time observing only. Amar did most of that as Jamal was underage for the bars. The boy sat
in the car, sullenly playing games on his mobile. Amar spotted Decca’s friends, or known associates as
he was required to call them, but couldn’t speak to any of them, ask any of them where his target was. He couldn’t come up
with some story, invent an official reason for his visit. That would arouse too much suspicion. Neither could he pass himself
off as a friend of Decca’s. He doubted Decca was the kind of person who had any Asian friends. So he had to content himself
with just watching, straining to pick up any snatches of dialogue that would give him a clue to Decca’s whereabouts. He heard
plenty of other stuff, but nothing to do with Decca.

So now they sat in Amar’s battered Volvo outside Marco Kovacs’ house in Ponteland. It was a last resort, but they didn’t know
where else to go. Amar certainly didn’t want to go home. And he certainly didn’t want to go out. He had made a promise to
Jamal. And he had to stick to it.

So they sat and watched, flattened down in the seat so as not to attract attention, ignoring the rumblings of their stomachs,
the ache of their bladders. The car was pulled away from the house slightly, positioned in a small patch of semi-darkness
between two streetlights but still with enough of a view of the main gate. It was a private road, and Amar was surprised that
no one had called the police, or whatever rent-a-cop outfit patrolled the place, to report an unknown car in their street.
It was a good job they didn’t know he was Asian, or Jamal was a light-skinned black boy, he thought. It was the kind of area
where things like that still mattered.

He looked at the house and wondered again what kind of defences Kovacs had installed. He could see the CCTV cameras on the
high wall by the front gate, sweeping the street every so often, the sharpened staves above the wall, the huge double gates.
He wondered how many people patrolled the grounds, what they were armed with. How many dogs.

He broke off his calculations, yawned and stretched, careful not to extend his arms too far over his head. He couldn’t
play the stereo in case it ran the battery down, couldn’t read in case he missed something happening before him, couldn’t
talk to Jamal because boredom had dried up conversation to post-I Spy levels. He could do nothing but wait and watch.

And then they saw it.

‘Who’s that?’ Jamal was sitting up.

Amar joined him. Watched. A car pulled up to the gates, stopped before the intercom and the driver spoke into it.

‘Camera,’ he snapped at Jamal. Jamal handed it over. Amar grabbed it off him, focused through the telephoto.

‘It’s him. Decca Ainsley.’

A thrill of adrenalin ran through Amar’s body. His body no longer ached, his bladder no longer felt full. He felt like he
was in his own skin again. He kept watching, caught a movement from the back seat of the car, swung the lens towards it. A
figure sitting behind Decca, holding something to his neck. Focus in further. A gun. An automatic with a man’s finger on the
trigger. Amar trained the lens on the gunman’s face.

Dario Tokic.

‘Shit.’

Amar swallowed hard, ran his tongue over his lips, tried to quell the rising excitement within him, let his professionalism
take over. He refocused the lens, looked along the back seat. Next to Dario Tokic was his sister Katya. Holding a knife.

Amar couldn’t believe his luck.

Jamal grabbed the camera off Amar, looked for himself.

‘Fuckrees, man, look at that …’

The gates swung open. Dario Tokic said something to Decca, Decca gave a solemn nod and drove in. The gates began to swing
shut behind them.

Without pausing to think his course of action through, Amar started scrambling out of the car.

‘Where the fuck you goin’, man?’

‘Over there. Got to be quick. You stay here. I mean it, stay here.’

‘You can’t. You ain’t fit enough today, bro. Your head ain’t together.’

‘Yes, I can. Yes, I am. Yes, it is. Now, stay here.’

And Amar was running across the road.

He didn’t think about the guards, armed or otherwise; he didn’t think about the dogs or the CCTV cameras or any potential
booby traps within. He just knew he had to get into the grounds of that house. He would deal with everything else as and when
it happened.

He reached the gates just as they were swinging shut and squeezed himself between them. He fell to his knees, feeling the
sharp gravel through his jeans as the gates clanged behind him. He stayed like that for a few moments, getting his breath,
assessing his options. He looked up the driveway. Decca’s BMW had reached the front of the house and Decca was parking it.
Amar stood up, looked around, listened. No dogs, no sirens, no sounds of running feet. He was undetected. For the moment.

Decca was getting out of the car, Katya and her brother following. Walking towards the front door.

Amar gave one more quick look around, then, using the evergreen foliage for cover, made his way cautiously up the drive.

Decca was scared. It wasn’t something that happened often, not something he had much experience of or knew how to cope with.
So scared it was taking all his willpower not to wet himself.

He had driven to Ponteland from North Shields as carefully as possible, keeping well within the speed limit. He had seen films
when the hero had been in a similar situation
and had gunned the car as fast as he could, throwing it around the road, dislodging the villain’s gun, gaining the upper hand
and after a struggle throwing him bodily from the vehicle. The cold metal of the gun against his neck, the cold, dead eyes
in the mirror and the words by Tokic before they had driven off reminded him just how far his Hollywood fantasies were from
real life.

He had pulled up before Kovacs’ house, stopped before the intercom.

‘No tricks,’ said Tokic. ‘No code words, nothing out of the ordinary. Do that, you die.’

Decca didn’t doubt it. He spoke into the intercom, asked to be admitted, told them he wanted to see Kovacs. The gate swung
open. Decca expelling a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding, drove in.

He parked before the house.

‘Feeling brave, Mr Gangster?’ asked Tokic, pressing the gun harder on his skin.

Decca couldn’t find the words to answer him with. He shook his head instead.

‘Good. Let’s keep it that way.’

Decca fought hard, found his voice. He felt there were words he had to say. ‘Whuh … why d’you … What d’you want with … with
Mr Kovacs, anyway? Is it him, or is it me … me as well?’

‘Kovacs killed our family.’ Katya’s voice. A voice filled with damage and resolution yet also softness. ‘While we watched.
While we hid and watched.’

‘Killed. Raped. Our whole family. Our whole village. And we saw him. And we will never forget him. And now we come to make
things even.’ Tokic’s voice was laden with conflicting emotions; he was clearly struggling to keep them in check.

Decca nodded. ‘So … so it’s not with me, then?’

‘You traffic girls. You exploit them.’ Katya again. ‘You use them. And when you have no use for them, you kill them.’

‘Aw, no, now, not me. I don’t do that.’ Decca was sweating again. The urge to empty his bladder was becoming overwhelming.

‘Maybe you don’t kill them. But you give them over to someone who does.’ Katya’s knife glinted in the night light. ‘I know
this. For fact. You have someone to dispose of the bodies.’

Decca said nothing. Kovacs’ ‘efficient disposal scheme’. Decca knew all about it. He could see that anything more he said
or did was useless. Their minds were made up. His fate rested entirely with them.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, getting out of the car.

They followed him. He walked up the steps, rang the bell. A shadow from the other side of the door was approaching. A slight
hope rose within Decca. Kovacs usually had a staff of two or three on duty guarding him. And they were always armed. And this
was one of them coming now.

The door opened. Before them stood one of Kovacs’ inner retinue of bodyguards, a huge, hulking mountain of muscle who was
surprisingly quick on his feet. Decca could attest to that; he had seen him in action. Hope rose further within Decca as he
opened his mouth to speak. He could see the guard taking in the scene. His eyes spotted the gun and he swiftly went for his
own.

Too late.

Decca felt the automatic pulled from the back of his neck, heard the deafening crack of a bullet being fired, and again, and
felt the heat as they whizzed past his cheek and saw them connect with the bodyguard’s head and chest, sending him sprawling
backwards in a spray of blood, bone and brain.

Decca stood as if rooted to the spot. His heart was pumping fit to burst, his ears ringing from the blasts. He was aware of
Tokic’s face next to his.

‘We are not playing games here.’

Decca felt the prod of the gun. He walked into the house like a sleepwalker, stepping over the prone, lifeless body before
him.

‘Where is he?’ Tokic again.

Decca pointed towards the vivarium. ‘Through there.’

‘Will he have heard the shots?’

Decca shook his head. ‘Soundproofed. He likes to be alone in there. With his snakes.’

Tokic laughed. ‘Zmija. The Snake.’ He looked at his sister. ‘Fitting.’

A sudden noise came from the back of the house. The sound of a heavy-footed man running. Another bodyguard. He rounded the
corner and stopped in his tracks, trying to process what he saw before him. He looked up and, mind made up, went for his gun.

Tokic was quicker than him. Three bullets, four, made the bodyguard give a final, grisly dance of death before collapsing
on to the floor.

He waved the gun at Decca. ‘Are there any more—’ he looked down at the dead bodies ‘—like them?’

Decca was close to fainting. ‘There might be another one. I don’t know. Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On … on whether there are three or two. Usually two. Usually.’ He swallowed hard.

‘Where would he be?’

‘I don’t know. Anywhere.’

Tokic looked around, made a decision. ‘We will deal with him if we find him. Katya, get their guns.’ She did so. He turned
to Decca. ‘Lead.’

Decca could barely walk. With great effort he managed to place one foot in front of the other, leading them to the double
doors of the vivarium. He placed two shaking hands on the handles and gripped. The handles were cold and hard. Solid and reassuring.
He wanted to keep on gripping them. Never let go. Just stand there for ever.

‘Move.’

The gun was prodded against his back. Decca had no choice. He opened the doors, went in.

Amar crept up the gravel drive as slowly as possible, trying not to let his feet make too much of an audible impact. He stayed
close to the conifers, feeling the rainwater from that afternoon’s downpour against his face and hands, soaking into his clothes.
Tried hard not to be seen.

He reached the side of the house as Decca and his two passengers were closing the car doors. He looked up: a motion-sensor
light was mounted on the corner of the house. If he rounded it while they were there the light would go on. He would have
to sidestep it or be spotlit by it. He flattened himself against the brickwork, began edging his way along to the corner hoping
not to come into the ambit of the sensor.

Then he heard them: the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Two shots. Amar knew from experience that real guns didn’t sound like
they did in the movies, particularly Michael Mann movies, but that the results were more messy and dangerous than could be
shown. He heard gasps and stifled screams followed by the sound of people moving quickly into the house.

Time for a calculated risk. Thinking they were gone inside, he walked swiftly around the corner of the building, becoming
spotlit as he did so. There was no one in front of the house and the door was open. He hurried towards it. What he saw there
stopped him.

A dead body blocked his path.

He heard voices from inside, flattened himself against the wall. Then more gunshots.

His breathing felt heavier, his heart began doing overtime. They weren’t playing games, this lot, he thought. This was the
real deal.

Voices again from inside, then the sound of feet moving off somewhere else inside the house. He waited until all was still,
then slowly made his way up the steps, over the dead body, being careful not to get blood on his shoes and into the house.

He saw the other body lying on the floor.

‘Jesus …’

He hadn’t meant to speak. He looked around quickly, seeing if he had been heard. No response. He looked around again, listened
hard. Heard voices coming from down a corridor on his right. Walked slowly down that way.