Bone Machine (36 page)

Turnbull kept watching.

They had trained the CCTV cameras on the warehouse section of the dock. One in particular. Kovacs’. As an importer-exporter
he had his own dedicated warehouse on Tyne Dock.

Turnbull and Grant had focused initially on the containers, thinking something was about to happen there, but when nothing
did they turned their attention to the warehouses.

They didn’t have to wait long.

‘Here we go,’ said Grant.

They watched as a soft-top BMW pulled up to a stop outside the warehouse. Both men sat forward, as if that would make them
see better. The driver got out, closed the door behind him. As he looked around, checking the area, they got a good look at
him on the CCTV.

Grant smiled.

‘Decca Ainsley.’ He laughed. ‘You’re nicked.’ He reached for his radio. ‘Time to rally the troops.’

Turnbull put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Wait.’

Grant looked at him. ‘What for?’

‘Decca Ainsley? He’s nobody. And he’s done nothing. We can pick him up any day of the week. We want what’s inside. We want
who’s inside. Just wait.’

Grant looked at him, ready to argue. Although it was against his core instincts, Turnbull knew he was going to have to use
diplomacy.

‘Get him and we’ve got nothing. The rest’ll probably run. Then wriggle out of it in court if we catch them. Just wait a little
while and we’ll have them bang to rights.’ He smiled, said words that didn’t come naturally to him. ‘Patience. ‘It’ll be worth
it.’

Grant sat back, replaced the radio.

‘Fuckin’ better be,’ he said.

Decca got out of the car, looked around. No one about. The rain had really started now. Coming down in wind-whipped lashes,
catching exposed skin like a slap from icy stinging nettles. He pulled his leather jacket around him, made his way to the
main door. Weighed up his options.

He knew what was about to happen, tried to formulate the best strategy for his personal survival.

He could run. Hope whoever survived wouldn’t come after him. Hunt him down. He rejected that idea. No good. Too many chances.

He could walk away. Have nothing to do with any of it. Again, a rejection. Spend the rest of his life living looking over
his shoulder. He doubted he could run far enough from Kovacs.

Third option: he could walk in there, brave out the shit-storm that was about to hit. Find somewhere to hide, come out when
the fighting was over. No good. Too many variables. Of the stray bullet variety.

Last option: walk tall into there, tell Christopher what was about to happen. Make the signal to Dario and Katya, lure them
in. Get him ready, prepared. Good one. Only problem with that: Christopher might make him fight back. Still, it was a chance
he’d have to take.

The only chance he had. Was that what Clint would do? No. But then Clint wouldn’t get his gun taken off him so easily either.

He knocked. Waited. Heard a muffled response.

‘Decca,’ he said, looking up at the camera mounted above the door. ‘Open the fuckin’ door, it’s freezin’ out here.’

The door opened. Too slowly, Decca thought, like they were taking the piss.

Like they knew something was up.

He swallowed the thought as the door rolled open. Went inside. It rolled shut behind him.

He shook the water from his arms and head, tried not to let his nervousness show.

The warehouse had a wide, central striplit area with shelves on all sides rising high up to the ceiling, going back deep into
shadow. Filled with all manner of appliances Kovacs’ company imported: consumer electricals, household items. Restaurant fixtures
and fittings. Anything and everything that could be bought and sold. All neatly racked, compartmentalized and catalogued.
The whole thing screamed ‘legit’, invited inspections.

In the centre of the space sat an articulated lorry rig, a container fixed to the back. Next to it a large, Transit-sized
people carrier, the windows tinted to blackness. Decca knew the container would have been loaded on to the lorry from the
ship earlier in the day then driven around to the warehouse and parked up until nightfall, when it could be safely dealt with.
That was how they usually did it.

Leaning against the shelves, not bothering to hide the guns they were carrying, were two of Kovacs’ most trusted thugs. Milo
and Lev, Decca knew them as. Both Bosnian, he presumed, both wearing Kovacs’ unofficial henchman uniform of black-leather
jacket, jeans, sweatshirt, steel-toe-capped work boots. Both swarthy and unshaven, with thick black hair. Like an evil Tweedledum
and Tweedledee, distinguishable only by the fact that one’s mullet was slightly shorter than the other’s. Decca had tried,
unsuccessfully, to
hold conversations with them, but they had just nodded and smiled, claiming not to speak English. He had taken their claims
at face value, but at times he had caught smirks and nods between them from the corner of his eye that made him think they
understood more than they were letting on. He could work with them. But he didn’t trust them.

‘Where’s Christopher?’ he asked one of them. Lev, he thought. The one with the shorter mullet.

Lev shrugged, made a vague gesture to the back of the warehouse which was both directional and dismissive.

Decca swallowed hard. ‘Is he here?’

An imperceptible nod. Mocking eyes fixing him with a condescending look.

‘He says get doors open,’ said the other one. Milo, thought Decca. His mullet was longer. ‘Get going.’

Decca looked around, saw no sign of Christopher. ‘I want to speak to him. Now.’

Milo detached himself from the shelf he had been leaning against, started a slow walk towards Decca. There was menace in it.
Danger. He stood next to Decca, face to face. Close enough for Decca to know what he had been eating. Close enough to know
it wasn’t very fragrant.

‘Open doors,’ he repeated.

Decca swallowed hard. Opened his mouth to speak again then thought better of it.

Milo turned, walked towards the back of the lorry, started to undo the locks.

Third option, he thought.

Everyone for himself.

Michael Nell was becoming frantic.

He emerged from the shadows feeling refreshed. His libido wasn’t diminished; if anything it was heightened. He
couldn’t wait to see her. He hadn’t felt excitement like that for years. Like a kid with a new toy.

But there was no sign of Anita anywhere.

He checked his watch. Surely she should have finished by now? It couldn’t have taken him that long. He ran into the bar, had
a look around. No sign of her. He stood in the middle of the road, literally not knowing which way to turn, barely aware of
the rain lashing down on him. Taking ragged, panic-filled breaths. Running between the hotel and the bar.

Had she run away? Was she still in the room? He didn’t know. And the not-knowing was beginning to consume him.

He looked at the hotel doorway. Anita’s client was coming out, heading back to the bar across the road. He ran towards him.
The man saw him coming, a look of fear spreading over his face. He turned, tried to make it back inside the safety of the
glass double doors. Nell was too quick for him. He reached the man, grabbed hold of his jacket lapels.

‘Where is she?’ He almost spat the words into the man’s terrified face.

‘Whuh – who?’

‘You know who. The girl you’ve just fucked. Where is she?’

‘I … I don’t know. She came out ages ago. I … I let her go first. Phoned home afterwards, talked to my wife …’

Nell let him go, turned away from him.

Panic was rising, threatening to engulf him. He looked over to the badly lit street corner, an old, disused warehouse, which
the quayside’s gentrification process hadn’t yet reached, bordering the steep incline of Forth Banks. Saw something lying
on the pavement, glinting in the meagre streetlighting. The rain making it glisten like a diamond. He crossed over, picked
it up.

Felt his legs go weak.

Anita’s chain. The one he had given her.

You belong to me now
…

He gripped it hard, felt the wet metal dig into the palm of his hand. Turned left and right, hoping for a glimpse of her,
a clue to where she could have gone.

He ran to the end of the block, looked up Long Stairs. No one there. He listened: no footfalls.

He ran to the other end of the block, looked up the steep slope of Forth Banks.

Saw a figure near the top, pushing a wheelchair. Hurrying.

Like he was trying to get away. Make an escape.

‘Hey, stop …’ he shouted.

The figure didn’t stop. If anything, he ran faster.

Nell, with no option left, began to run up the hill.

Nattrass was buzzing. Almost physically vibrating. So much and so fast she felt she could levitate from the earth.

She stood in the incident room, the majority of the murder investigation team around her. They had come in bleary-eyed, disgruntled,
several of them smelling of post-work alcohol. All of them resentful of the hours, all of them grateful for the overtime.

She had talked to them, told them what they would be doing, set them in motion. Now there were no more bleary eyes, no more
disgruntled faces. And they all had a better buzz than the alcohol had given them. They shared the same one as her.

The anticipation of being close to catching a murderer.

The righteous thrill of nailing a killer.

And they would. Soon.

She could feel it.

They had taken the information the Prof had supplied
them with, cross-referenced it with what she herself had learned, plus records they had already been working through. Sifting
through names, addresses, looking for previous form in a specified geographical area. It felt to her like they were lining
up the cross-hairs on the scope of a sniper’s rifle. Framing the suspect, just looking for the final trigger.

‘Got one.’

The whole team looked around. A PC on secondment, Davy Hutton, she thought his name was, looked up. He was sitting at his
computer, connected to the National Crime Computer. ‘Got him,’ he said again. ‘This is him. I bet this is him.’

Nattrass felt she should say something, advise caution, but she didn’t. Swept up in the atmosphere, she joined the rest of
the team in gathering around him.

‘Tell us,’ she said.

Davy Hutton looked at the screen, read off what he had found.

‘Graham Harris,’ he said, barely able to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Lives in the west end of Newcastle. The triangle
you said, boss. Shares a home with his crippled mother.’ He looked harder at the screen. ‘No, wait a minute, she died. Two
years ago, nearly three. Still lives in the same house, though.’

‘What have you got on him?’ asked Nattrass, trying to read the screen.

Hutton scrolled the information down, read it off. ‘Exposing himself. Got off with a caution. That was a bit ago, mind. Low
level. But he’s been building himself up. Here’s another. Attempted rape. Dropped. Another caution.’

‘Sounds like our man.’ Nattrass struggled to keep the triumphalism from her voice.

‘Why hasn’t he been flagged up earlier, then?’ asked a DS
at the back, not bothering to hide the anger in his voice. ‘Why isn’t he on the register?’

‘No charges, no record,’ said Nattrass, looking at the screen, reading. ‘The attempted rape … What about that …?’ She read
on. Knowing there would be a reason why they hadn’t looked at him sooner. Hoping the screen would show her it.

‘Don’t think … Here. Yes, here it is. Altercation with a prostitute. Charges dropped. Well, one word against another there.
How hard are those cases to prove? But look after this. Schizophrenia. Mental illness, history of it. Hearing voices, the
lot. It’s all here.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘Referred for psychiatric help. Given medication.’

The same DS snorted. ‘Can’t be much good.’

‘Or he hasn’t been taking it,’ said Nattrass. ‘That’s how he kept under the radar. No further charges. Let’s see if he’s got
a job …’

Hutton scrolled further down.

A
frisson
ran through Nattrass.

‘Centurion Security,’ she said. ‘Didn’t have to declare a criminal record because he hasn’t got one. Centurion Security …’

Hutton frowned. Then got it.

‘Centurion Security. They provide security guards for—’

Nattrass finished the sentence for him. ‘The university.’

That news ran around the room like an electric current.

‘Crippled mother …’ Nattrass frowned. ‘Fuck … Crippled. She would have had a wheelchair.’

Nattrass took deep breaths. She straightened up, felt suddenly light-headed. Fenton appeared next to her, looked at her. She
could see he was feeling the same way too.

‘Let’s get the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted,’ he said,
addressing the room. ‘Do it properly. No room for error. We don’t want to fuck this one up.’

‘And we won’t,’ said Nattrass, addressing both the room and Fenton. ‘Let’s get it sorted. Let’s go get the fucker.’

It was an order she wouldn’t have to make twice.

Jamal stood at the front desk of the Accident and Emergency Department at Newcastle General Hospital. He looked around anxiously,
hoping to catch a glimpse of Amar.

He had ridden in the ambulance, the paramedics not asking too many awkward questions, just concentrating on keeping Amar alive.
He imagined the police would arrive sometime, would deal with that when it happened.

The paramedics had stretchered Amar, attached various drips and tubes and moved him into the back of the ambulance, taking
off, sirens and lights going, for the General.

Then it was straight through the double doors and away. Jamal had tried to follow, but his route had been barred. The desk
staff had fired questions at him, and he had answered as best he could, writing down his answers. Then pointed him to a seat,
left him alone to wait.

He looked around at the other people waiting, sitting on plastic chairs, balancing boredom with pain. Most of them, with bloodied
clothes and wadding held against their faces, looked like the results of pub fights. Some of home accidents. A couple of children
sat there, younger than Jamal, looking very scared. They were waved through before the others.