Candleland (29 page)

Karen laughed. Larkin could see that she was burning with anger, but she was channelling it, using it. Enjoying it.

“Oh, I know lots of things, Lenny. Lots of secrets. Want to hear another?”

Lenny didn't reply.

“Remember all those times you used to force me to have sex with you?”

“I didn't force you –”

Karen didn't let him speak. “What, you think I enjoyed it? I did it by choice? No, Lenny. All those fuckin' awful things you used to like. All the stuff you did that made me physically ill afterwards. All those body fluids. Remember?” Her voice began to crack. “Well, I've got news for you. I'm HIV positive, Lenny.” There was a brittle kind of triumph in her eyes.

Lenny's face, already pallid, became chalk-white. “You … you can't be. You were tested. All the girls were.”

Karen smiled. It was like an arctic frost. “Melissa faked it for me. She also gave me the CD. Nice of her, eh?”

Lenny was lost, staring into space.

“HIV, Lenny. And you've got it. That means one day you'll get full-blown AIDS. Then it'll be a horrible, slow, painful death.” There were tears in her eyes. “Just like mine.”

Lenny looked at her, stunned. “I might not … it might not have infected me.”

“You think so?” asked Karen. “Then this will.”

She spat right into his eyes.

Larkin's mouth fell open. That wasn't in the script, he hadn't been expecting that. Neither had Lenny. He reacted as if he'd just been hit with acid, pitching himself backwards off the stool, clawing at his face. He landed in a heap on the floor, writhing and struggling, frantically wiping his face with his overcoat.

Larkin looked at Karen. Her face was shining with the kind of righteous vengeance that only the oppressed overthrowing the oppressor can ever feel.

“Bitch!” screamed Lenny. “You're gonna fuckin' pay!” He grabbed hold of his Walkman, shouted into it. “Now! Now!”

Larkin moved quickly. He tore open Lenny's jacket and coat, ripped the Walkman out and examined it.

“Fuck!” he shouted to the men in the pub. “This isn't a Walkman! It's a transmitter! He knows how many people we've got in here! And he's just called for reinforcements!”

The men dotted round the pub jumped to their feet, guns drawn. They scanned the pub, keyed up, ready.

They didn't have long to wait. Outside there was the screech of tyres, the sound of a car roaring nearer and the squeal of suddenly applied brakes.

Then all hell let loose.

Rifle shots were heard from an upstairs window, aiming into the street. In reply came bursts of automatic weapons fire. The rifle shots stopped. Silence.

Suddenly, the windows of the pub shattered in a hail of rapid fire.

“Down!” shouted one of the men. Most of the men dived for cover, upturning tables and pulling out wall seats, and began to return fire.

Larkin dived to the floor, face down, hands over his head. He knew they would have no effect against bullets, but at least he could shield himself from raining glass.

A couple of the men who didn't reach cover in time were hit; spinning and dancing, the bullets jerking them around, blood paintwheeling from their bodies as they fell.

Larkin was terrified. He had been in some rough situations before, but nothing like this. The noise, the movement, the terror … this was a war zone, as brutal as it was sudden.

A sudden thought struck him: Karen, where was she? He risked a glance up. Lenny was pulling her along the floor, one arm round her neck, the other with a gun pointing at her head. The laptop was slung over his shoulder and he was slithering along the floor on his back, the heavy overcoat absorbing any glass, his legs powering his movement, Karen clutched on top of him.

Larkin started to crawl, commando-style, towards them. Bullets popped and thudded into the wood of the bar, centimetres above his head. Lenny caught the movement, swung the gun towards Larkin, and fired.

Larkin didn't have time to think. With speed that amazed even himself, he rolled out of the way and under a nearby table, the bullets embedding themselves in the floor where he had been. Lenny noted his new position and took aim again, a look of intense manic glee on his face.

There was nowhere for Larkin to turn to, so he pulled the table down in front of him as a makeshift shield, hoping that Lenny's gun wouldn't be powerful enough to penetrate the wood, but knowing that at this short distance it would blow the table to matchwood. He was trapped.

Karen saved him. Just as Lenny was about to fire, she reached up and grabbed his gun hand. She didn't succeed in wresting the weapon from his grasp or stopping the shot, but the pull she gave his arm sent the shot harmlessly wide.

The glee became equally intense anger as Lenny, with a cry of rage, tightened his gip on Karen's throat and banged the handle of the gun against her head. She gagged, trying to pull her head away from a follow-up blow, legs thrashing wildly. Lenny refocused his efforts on escaping, his legs propelling his body faster along the floor.

Larkin watched from behind the table as Lenny dragged Karen behind the counter, all the way to the door at the back of the bar. Larkin scrambled across to the corner of the bar, following them, but was dissuaded from venturing further by the bullet Lenny fired that splintered the wood at the side of his head. He pulled himself back sharply. By the time he felt it safe enough to chance another look, they had gone.

Larkin pulled himself up into a crouching position and ran behind the bar, head down to avoid stray bullets and exploding bottles. He reached the door at the back of the bar and found a prone Mickey Falco; dazed, blood gathering from a cut over his left eye. Mickey was still wearing his barman's apron.

“They came past here,” Mickey gasped. “I tried to stop them but Lenny smacked me one with his gun. He's gone, Steve. An' 'e's got Karen an' all.”

“I know, Mickey. That bastard's won,” spat Larkin, slumping down beside him. In the bar the fight was starting to wind down. They would count the bodies later.

“The bastard's –” Larkin stopped in mid-sentence. “No he hasn't.” Larkin stood up, newly energised. “I know where they're going. Come on.” He stuck out his hand, helped Mickey to his feet.

They left the pub by the back door and made their way cautiously round the side. What was left of Charlie Rook's team were bundling themselves into a black Merc, paintwork pitted, glass spiderwebbed, with bullet holes. There were a couple of bodies, their own men, sprawled in the road. They were left where they had fallen. Job done, the survivors were getting ready to squeal away.

As soon as they'd gone, Larkin ran and Mickey limped over to where Larkin had parked the Saab. Luckily it hadn't been in the line of fire and so wasn't damaged. They got in: Larkin as driver, Mickey as passenger.

“Where we goin', then?” asked Mickey.

“To where Lenny's taken Karen.” Larkin started the car. “Mickey, how the hell do I get to Dagenham?”

“Here we are,” said Mickey. “Dagenham. City of dreams.”

“Yeah,” said Larkin. “I've had dreams like this before.”

They had driven out of London on the A13, past the overdeveloped Isle of Dogs, the squandered glory of the Dome, and outwards. Dagenham itself could have defined the word depressing. A collection of drive-thru McDonald's, run-down retail parks acned with rust, with boarded-up bingo halls and health-threatening nightclubs, choked by the industrial clouds from the Ford plant and the exhaust fumes from the never-ending stream of M25-dodging juggernauts. Larkin wouldn't have been surprised if the letters DEAD END had materialised in the sky in huge neon letters. To make matters worse, the long-threatened rain had now turned up, throwing a dull, grey tarpaulin over everything.

Mickey directed Larkin to an industrial estate. Even given the fact that it was six o'clock and most people should have left for the day, the whole place looked deserted, if not abandoned. Most of the industry on the estate had long since ceased. They drove down broken concrete roadways looking for the yard. The buildings were all ex-factories, now reduced to crumbling empty shells. Every other site they drove past had a ‘For Sale' board pinned to the wire; weathered and faded, they seemed to have been there as long as the buildings.

With no man-made order, nature was re-asserting itself. Weeds pushed through the broken concrete, moon-cratering the once flat surface, while more sturdy plants challenged the remaining structures. The land was being reclaimed.

The place they wanted was right at the end of the road, far away from any remaining inhabited units. As they approached, Larkin killed the headlights and rolled the car to a slow stop.

A high, barbed wire-topped fence, now browned with rust, surrounded the perimeter. Its base was obscured by wild grasses and plants, roses and vines. A huge pair of sturdy iron gates, newer than the fence, stood chained and padlocked, barring any entrance.

“This the place?” Larkin asked.

“Supposed to be,” replied Mickey. “Looks deserted.”

“That's probably the idea.” Larkin pointed to the gates. “D'you reckon you could climb them?”

Mickey sighed in anger and exasperation. “Looks like you're on your own, mate.”

They shook hands, Mickey wishing Larkin all the best, and he left the car. He pulled his fleece around him, trying to keep out the cold and the rain, ignoring the small slivers of wood and glass that rubbed against his skin. He grabbed hold of the gates, pulled himself up with only the slightest twinge of resistance from his recently injured shoulder, and swung over. He landed on the other side and looked round.

A rough road of gravel chips lay ahead of him, a fence on either side. He walked down it. Straight ahead was a large warehouse, old and redbrick, with a rolling door pulled tightly closed at the front. At the side was a newer addition, a flat-roofed breeze-block building, initially painted white, now several shades of grey.

The warehouse faced onto a large yard. It was divided up into several bays separated on three sides by walls made of old wooden railway sleepers slotted into concrete posts. The bays took up the whole of the back wall, itself strengthened by sleeper and concrete walls. A couple were full of metal skips stacked five or six high, some held smaller square metal crates, themselves full of scrap metal. Some bays just had piles of metal in them, either identifiable objects such as old car radiators and engines, or more obscure industrial waste. The rain lent an oily sheen to everything.

There were two cranes in the yard; one a grabber, the other a grabber and shovel combination. There was also a number of smaller, more dangerous-looking machines with long, heavy metal blades attached to a motor. They couldn't have said ‘Industrial Accident Waiting To Happen' more clearly if they'd had the words printed on the side.

The furthest wall bordered a path. Larkin saw that it led to an old jetty, the wood green and rotten-looking. Above the rain he heard water slapping against its supports. He presumed the sludge-coloured river was the Thames.

He had a quick look around. The warehouse seemed the likeliest place for activity, even though he could see no light emerging from there, so he moved cautiously towards it.

As he approached he heard a noise: a door opening, footsteps crunching gravel.

He looked round for a hiding place, saw a skip to his left, and jumped behind it.

The sound was coming from the side of the warehouse. Larkin tried to see what was happening but couldn't. There was, however, a skip next to him which he could hide behind and get a better view. He crept slowly behind it and looked round the edge.

At the side of the warehouse were two vehicles: a BMW and a Jeep Cherokee. As he watched, Lenny opened the boot of the Cherokee and pulled out a large, heavy bundle. It was blanket-wrapped but unmistakenly human-shaped. He struggled to get it over his shoulder, knees sagging from the weight, then shut the boot and made his way back to the side door.

Larkin planned his next move. There was no way he could just walk in the place, especially unarmed, so he would have to be more subtle than that. After all, although it seemed like an accurate assumption, he wasn't sure Karen was actually in there. He looked around. Not the main warehouse. The breeze-block annex looked the best bet. Crouching down, he made his way around the back of the skips, moved swiftly over the open space of the yard, and flattened himself against the far wall.

He edged round the side, crouching beneath the windows, aiming for the door. He found it: modern, half-panelled with glass, unlocked.

Larkin was about to turn the handle and enter but stopped himself. Why would it be unlocked? Wouldn't there be an alarm? He cupped his eyes to the glass, looked through the window and got his answer.

On the floor of the office was a man, middle-aged, dressed in dirty old workclothes, with a ragged, gaping, meaty red hole in his chest, blood pooled beneath him.

Larkin became lightheaded, his stomach flipped and his knees buckled. There was nothing pretty about the body. Taking deep breaths to steady himself, he turned the handle and entered.

The office had the usual trappings: filing cabinets, a PC, phones, chairs, desks and calendars showing pictures of naked women. Everything was covered with several films of grease and dirt. A working man's office. Larkin gingerly stepped in, trying to avoid looking at the mess on the floor.

To his left was an internal window which afforded a full view of the warehouse. He wanted to see but not be seen, so he crouched down underneath, bringing his head slowly up to eye-level, and peered in.

The place was sparsely lit by overhead lights, but Larkin could make out bins containing metal stacked around the walls, touching the ceiling in some places. Scraps of metal and packing materials littered the floor and in one corner was a cropper, its heavy metal razor edge at rest. Next to it was what looked like a car press in miniature. The press had a small space, about the size of a child's coffin, and two very thick sharp plates to handle the work. Industrial tools that Torquemada would have been proud of.