Carnal Acts (10 page)
Authors: Sam Alexander
Nick and Evie were at the table in the library, the afternoon light shining through the tinted yellow windows. Their shoulders were touching as they studied the laptop screen.
‘Read it,’ Evie said, tugging her ear nervously.
Nick turned and kissed her on the cheek before she could react.
‘What … what was that for?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said, his long eyelashes flicking.
Evie stared at him. She wasn’t surprised – she’d had feelings for him for weeks, but she hadn’t been sure what he felt about her. She’d liked him at school, even though he was in the year below. He was a star of the rugby and cricket teams. Everyone knew him and most people, girls, boys and even some members of staff, looked up to him. At first she’d thought he was a typical good-looking sporty type, but he was smart and hardworking too. And he’d been sweet to her after the accident, visiting her in hospital, though always with others from the Abbey.
‘I know,’ she said, and kissed him back, on the lips. It wasn’t easy for her. Growing up in proximity to her mother had put her sexual development back by years: she’d become aware of Victoria’s eye for men when she was still small. There was no way she wanted men to look at her the way they did at her mother – with desire, of course, but also with contempt. Finally it was Nick who had got to her.
‘You’re going to uni in the autumn,’ he said, when they broke off. ‘And I’ve got my gap year. What’s the point?’
Evie laughed. ‘For a start, there’s the whole summer ahead of us. We’re young, Nick. Every day counts.’
They kissed again and, pushing back their chairs, embraced.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked, seeing her brow furrow.
‘Just my leg. Don’t worry about it.’
So he didn’t. They ended up on the floor under the table, caution tossed to a gale-force wind. Evie expected it would hurt and it did, but it was worth it. With Nick everything was good.
‘I love you,’ he said, when he’d got his breath back.
‘I love you for saying so.’ Her forehead creased. ‘Love’s a big word, but, yes, I love you too.’
They laughed, then got dressed. Sitting together, they were looking at the screen again when the door opened.
‘Don’t you two want to go outside?’ Victoria said, her eyes on Nick. ‘It’s a lovely day.’
‘We’re working, Mother,’ Evie replied.
‘You’re only young once.’ The door closed behind her with a loud click.
‘Cow,’ Evie said. ‘Now, read this. I put together a diary and letters from the first Lord Favon. God, this family makes me sick.’
Nick was surprised by her venom, but did as he was told.
This is the story of a slave called Jaffray. Today he would be seen as high-spirited if he came from a rich home and in prison if his family were poor. But in eighteenth-century Jamaica there was no mercy for black men who took what belonged to their masters. Jaffray was tall and strong, and he worked in the estate sugar-boiling factory. Temperatures were high and the slaves were frequently scalded by spits and splashes of the sweet liquid. Some lost eyes and fingers. Some even dropped dead from the shock of the blazing contact. Jaffray had been two years in the inferno and was trusted for his steady hand and quick reactions. But his fate
was sealed when he fell in love with a black woman, a housemaid in the master’s huge abode. Jaffray looked for her at night, climbing the wall to her garret room and charming her with his devotion. For a while – a month at most – they were happy. Then they were discovered when the master himself came for the woman. He had taken a fancy to her when she was cleaning the drawing room.
The master struck hard with the butt of his pistol before Jaffray could move – no doubt he was protecting his lover from their lord’s violence. When the slave awoke he found himself in the sugar factory, stretched out on a makeshift St Andrew’s cross. Through the steam from the cauldrons he saw his master holding the long shaft of a deep spoon, manoeuvring it over his naked, bound body. His genitals were first to go. He bore that without a sound. Then the boiling liquid was dripped over his belly and he felt it burn through the skin and reach his very entrails. Next went his eyes, but still he did not scream. Then he was left alone for over a day.
When the master returned he spoke to Jaffrey. He told him that his love, the housemaid, had been returned to the cane fields, where she would work until she died from exhaustion or disease. But Jaffray could save her. All he had to do was beg for mercy. His owner would rescind the order and bring the woman back into the big house. He had already had her, of course, had spent all night pleasuring her. He gave Jaffray the full details. ‘So, my brave fellow,’ he said, ‘will you save the woman you love?’
But Jaffray, owner of a spirit considerably stronger than the white man’s, would not speak. Perhaps he thought the woman was better in the plantation than near the master. Some said his mind had already broken, but that is disproved by the action Jaffray took next: he spat in the white man’s face. The slaves at the cauldrons could not believe what they had seen. The owner’s fury was terrible. He ordered the tongues cut out of the four men who had witnessed his shame. Then he had Jaffray smothered in hot but not boiling sugar, before hanging him from a gibbet by a rope tied tight around his midriff. There are no reports of how long he bore the attentions of birds and insects. No one knew when his ribcage
finally cracked and his innards ruptured completely. The master, my ancestor, rode by the gallows frequently and taunted Jaffray, but the black man never responded. His silence was his power and his glory.
Nick looked at Evie. ‘It’s fantastic. I mean, the writing. This really happened?’
‘So it seems.’ Now that she had finally shown the first fruits of her research to someone, Evie felt drained. ‘Like I said, the Favons are disgusting people.’
‘Not you.’
‘I … thank you.’ She kissed him on the lips again. ‘You’d better go. I’m very tired.’ When she saw his face, she laughed softly. ‘That isn’t a brush-off. I really am ready to keel over.’
‘It’s OK.’ Nick helped her up.
A few minutes later he was on his bike, his heart and mind ready to burst.
‘Ow!’ Luke Rutherford yelled, falling backwards as if he’d been axed by a particularly unbending pole.
‘Bloody hell, Kat,’ Heck said, under his breath. He went over to his son, who was clutching his lower abdomen and writhing on the lawn.
‘Sorry!’ Kat said, running across the grass. ‘I didn’t mean it, Luke. Honest.’
‘Piss … off,’ the twelve-year-old gasped.
Heck picked up the rugby ball that his daughter had accurately kicked into her brother’s groin and chucked it at her without much force. ‘Go and practise grubber kicks against the garage wall, will you?’ He kneeled down. ‘Come on, lad. Deep breaths.’ He pretended he hadn’t seen the tears in Luke’s eyes.
‘It was an accident,’ he said, even though he suspected it wasn’t. Luke had been winding Kat up and she’d let it get to her. She wasn’t in any of the girls’ teams at the local club – too worried about her looks – but she’d followed plenty of Heck’s coaching sessions in the garden.
‘I’ll … I’ll kill her,’ Luke said, getting unsteadily to his feet.
‘Don’t talk daft. Come on, I’ll test you under the high ball.’ Heck sent up a few mini Garryowens, which his son took with aplomb. There was no doubt the boy had talent.
Ag appeared on the terrace with a tray of tea and biscuits.
‘One of the usual injuries, I saw,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Maybe you could let his balls drop before they get atomised.’
‘If you were watching, you know your daughter’s the guilty party.’
‘I saw you hand her the ball and point in Luke’s direction, Heck Rutherford.’
Her husband’s head dropped. ‘Well, he’s got to learn how to—’
‘Suffer?’ Ag asked sharply.
‘Ah, Dad,’ Heck said, relieved by the distraction of the old man as he came out of his quarters. He had an amazing ability to detect sweet food – it was a miracle he wasn’t diabetic. ‘Fancy packing down against Luke?’
‘He’s seventy-six, Heck,’ Ag said. ‘This place is going to turn into Corham General.’
Activities on the lawn turned into a general rabble with no reference to the ball, David joining in. Cass ran across, chased by Adolf, who had also smelled food.
‘Tea’s up!’ Ag called, pouring out the last of the pot. ‘Get away, you stupid dog. And stupider cat. You can’t have chocolate digestives.’ But she surreptitiously broke one up and slipped pieces to both animals under the table.
‘Ah bliss,’ Heck said, stretching out his legs and taking a mug.
‘I suppose this is what they call family time,’ Ag said, watching as her son pushed his grandfather backwards, the old man slipping and falling flat. ‘More like mad people time.’
Heck smiled at the kids. They were dragging his old man to the table, their faces wreathed with smiles. David was laughing, though it didn’t sound too healthy.
Ag stood up. ‘I forgot the cake.’
‘Has it got cream?’ Luke asked.
‘Wait and see.’
‘Oh, Mum.’
Kat repeated the words sarcastically.
‘Calm down, jungle creatures,’ Heck said. ‘Where did you find that decrepit giraffe?’
His father gave him two fingers, dropping his hand rapidly when Ag came back from the kitchen.
‘No cake for you then,’ Heck said, prompting loud laughter from Kat and Luke.
Joni’s phone rang as she was getting ready for bed.
‘Mother,’ she said, seeing the number on the screen. ‘I thought you’d be out on a blasted heath boiling up frogs’ eyes and bats’ spleens. It’s late enough.’
‘Very droll.’ Moonbeam Pax, who had changed her name by deed poll from Mary Higgins during her hippy days, wasn’t endowed with a sense of humour. ‘For your information Beltane, also known as Walpurgis Night, was last Wednesday.’
‘And did you go to a blasted heath?’
‘If you’d ever shown the slightest interest in modern paganism, I’d answer your question. As it is, you mock things you don’t understand.’
Joni heard plangent music in the background and felt her skin prickle. Moonbeam knew how much she hated Joni Mitchell’s music, but she never missed an opportunity to play it when her daughter was in earshot. The fact that she’d been given the
singer’s assumed first name and her real one, Roberta, as her middle name was another sore point. Joni had sworn she’d change all three when she came of age but, in the end, she hadn’t. The irony of her mother’s hippy adopted surname being used by a cop amused her. But, for all the tension between them, her mother was the only person she’d had any kind of lasting relationship with. Her father, an African-American, had left before she was born and had never been in touch since.
‘Turn that racket down, will you?’ she said. ‘So what have you been up to? No, let me rephrase that. What do you want?’
‘Some idiots are riding motorbikes up and down my road.’
Joni took a deep breath. ‘Is that so? And what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Throw the dolts in jail.’
‘That’s hardly very liberal of you. Anyway, public order’s not my responsibility. I’m a detective, remember?’ Her mother had never come to terms with her choice of career or with her refusal to countenance any kind of illegal drug use.
‘I know. Are you working on that brothel killing?’
‘I can’t discuss that.’
‘So you are.’
‘Wow, you really are a witch.’
‘Oh, grow up.’
Joni laughed. ‘Like you?’
‘At least I had you. When are you going to—’
‘Don’t even go there. Did you really phone me up to hassle me about my fertility?’
‘You aren’t getting any younger.’
‘I’ll be thirty-five in July. Still quite a springy chicken. Can I go to bed now?’
Moonbeam sighed. ‘We never see each other, even though I’m only twenty-five miles away. I thought you’d find somewhere closer to live when you came up here.’
Joni suddenly felt sorry for her mother. ‘Why don’t you come in one evening? We could have dinner.’
‘You expect me to drive twenty-five miles, spend half an hour trying to find somewhere to park, all to eat overpriced food in the only vegetarian restaurant in Corham and disagree with you on every subject under the sun?’
‘Or moon,’ Joni muttered. ‘What’s the reason for this call, Mother?’
There was a pause. ‘To find out how you are. Is that so strange?’
‘It wouldn’t be if you’d actually asked that.’ Joni recognised the song that was being played, something about Amelia Earhart – it was one of the singer’s less excruciating efforts. ‘Fine is the answer.’
Moonbeam gave one of her soft but caustic laughs. ‘If you’re fine, I’m a member of the BNP. Why can’t you tell the truth? You’re still upset about what happened in London. It’s time you let it go and got on with your life.’
Joni kept her mouth closed.
‘I’ve been mentioning your name in spells, you know. I can feel your resistance, but eventually I’ll break it down.’
This time Joni let rip. ‘Leave me out of your crazy magic, Mother. Just because I came up to Northumberland doesn’t mean I want anything to do with that side of your life. Goodbye.’ She broke the connection. Moonbeam’s experimentation with the occult had exasperated her since she was a little girl, leading her to declare at the age of ten – in a manner she now realised was horrendously precocious – that she was an atheist. She’d rehearsed all the arguments, but her mother had only shrugged and said, ‘Whatever does it for you, babe.’
She got her breathing under control and told herself to calm down. For once, Moonbeam had been helpful when Joni was on gardening leave after she came out of hospital, coming down to stay in her flat in Vauxhall and cooking for her. She’d also worked on her daughter to leave the metropolis and its police force, and she’d been amazed when Joni agreed. The fact was, despite that brief period of solidarity, they had never been close and never would be. Moonbeam was only interested in herself and what
she called her ‘sexual being’. That meant Joni had borne witness to dozens of men entering the flat in Hackney when she was growing up, most of them departing rapidly and with hollow cheeks. One of them described Moonbeam to the teenage Joni as ‘a terrifying lover’. That only made her more committed to her studies, the yellow brick road that led away from the ramshackle home she had done her best to clean and keep tidy.
But her mother had brought the worst night of her life back to her and she lay on the bed, certain that sleep would be long in coming. She ran her fingertips over the scars on her belly. The familiar twinge in the nerves, the automatic tightening of the skin…
… and she was back in the Homicide Division Southwest squad car in Brixton on the evening of 18 June 2012, talking to the surveillance team leader on the radio.
‘All six are in the warehouse,’ he said. ‘We need to go in now. Who knows how long they’ll stay?’
Joni glanced at blonde-haired Detective Sergeant Roland Malpas, who was at the wheel. Only a year in the unit, he had a tendency to lose his cool in action. She didn’t have to, but she decided to mind his front as well as his back. He had potential, as well as a reasonably pretty face.
‘Pax to Tinsley,’ she said, calling her DCI, the senior investigating officer.
‘Tinsley receiving.’
‘All suspects at location.’
‘C019?’
Joni confirmed that the Authorised Firearms Officers were in position.
‘Uniform backup?’
‘Ready to move.’
‘OK,’ Tinsley said, with a dry laugh. He’d never been a fan of Joni, viewing graduates on the accelerated promotion scheme as bogus police officers. She was pretty sure he suffered from institutional racism too. ‘It’s your call, DI Pax.’
Although it was standard procedure to hand operations over to the senior officer on the ground, Joni got the impression he was washing his hands of her but she knew she could be oversensitive – after all, she was a woman in the Met. Maybe things weren’t as bad as she thought.
‘Pax to AFO commander. Ready?’
‘Confirmed.’
Joni nodded to DS Malpas. ‘Move in. Slowly.’ She advised the other units that they were on their way.
The last of daylight was greying the walls of the former bonded warehouse. According to the council’s records, it had been empty for five years and the rust on the gate suggested that was right. A young ex-con Joni had been cultivating for over a year told her that Peter ‘the Cricketer’ Souter’s gang of hard men had recently taken to using it, a fact confirmed by surveillance from the abandoned scrap yard across the road. Souter was suspected of dispatching more than one of his enemies with a cricket bat, as well as organising the raid on a security van at Waterloo that had cost both driver and guard their lives.
Because the information came from her informant, Joni was given the responsibility of planning the operation. She’d taken advice from officers with greater experience – that was one of her strong points – and left nothing to chance. Except, as she knew well enough, things could always turn to shit when armed headbangers with little to lose were confronted.
She took a deep breath as the unmarked Mondeo, showing no lights, moved slowly down the street. Other members of her team were approaching from different directions, covering all the building’s known doors – the original bars were still on all the windows.
Joni looked at her watch. The street lights in the vicinity had been disabled, her plan being to hit the gang when twilight was at its darkest without raising suspicion among the men inside.
‘Ram squad?’ she said.
‘Ready,’ responded the leader.
She nodded at Malpas, who was looking avidly at the wide door fifty yards ahead. ‘Stay with me at all times, Ro, all right?’
‘Sure, ma’am.’
She nodded, then ordered, ‘Assault units, move in!’
Officers in dark blue overalls and helmets piled out of a van that pulled up in front of the warehouse entrance, tyres screeching. Two of them approached the doors and smashed the heavy steel cylinders against the wooden panels. When they gave way, AFOs rushed in, pistols raised in two-handed grips. There was immediately a lot of shouting, but no shots were fired. Joni held her breath, then slowly let it out. Her worry had been that Souter’s men would have had time to reach the sawn-off shotguns they had used against the security guards – they had been loaded with magnum 12 gauge shells.
‘AFO commander,’ Joni heard. ‘Warehouse secured. All six suspects apprehended.’
‘Yay!’ said Malpas, getting out of the car.
‘Cool it,’ Joni said, opening her door. ‘Let the AFOs bring them out.’ She looked over to the van. ‘Lights on the doors!’
The driver manoeuvred the vehicle so it was facing the warehouse, dipping the headlights. Soon afterwards, men started to emerge, hands behind their heads and eyes towards the ground. AFOs had each of them covered.
Joni and Malpas went forward. Peter Souter was at the front, grimacing as uniformed officers seized him and fastened his wrists behind his back with plastic restraints.
‘FUCK!’ he yelled, provoking laughter from some of the uniforms.
‘Quiet!’ Joni shouted, looking at the faces on her iPad as the men came out. Five of them matched the photos from their Met and Prison Service files, while the sixth, Marcus Ainsworth, a twenty-eight-year-old Mancunian without a record, glanced at the police officers nervously, shoulders slumped. His face was spattered with acne.
‘Read them their rights, Ro,’ Joni said, as Ainsworth reached the officers with the restraints.
Malpas had moved close to the prisoners and was only a few feet from them when it happened. Suddenly a knife appeared in Ainsworth’s right hand from behind his back and he brought it down in a blur, causing the policeman holding the plastic cuffs to scream and clutch his face. At the same time, Peter Souter stuck out a heavy leg and tripped Malpas, so that he stumbled forward into Ainsworth’s grasp. He had his back to the wall as he held the knife against the DS’s throat, shielding himself from the AFOs’ weapons.
‘Let him go!’ Joni cried, putting down her iPad and stepping forward.
‘Screw you, bitch!’ Ainsworth replied. ‘He’s my ticket out of here.’
Joni looked at the AFO commander. His lips were tight, suggesting his men didn’t have anything close to a clear shot. Then she took in Roland Malpas. He was bulkier than his captor, providing an effective shield. He was also visibly terrified.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Pax, officer in command,’ she said. ‘Take me instead.’
Marcus Ainsworth drew blood with the knife and looked round Malpas’s head, sizing Joni up. She was six feet, but a lot thinner than her colleague. He moved his head behind Malpas again.
‘All right, DI Pax,’ he said, his voice steady. ‘Be my guest. But no fast moves or yer man here’ll turn into a blood fountain.’ He gave an empty laugh.
Joni gave Roland Malpas what she hoped was an encouraging look and moved nearer, taking off her leather jacket to show she was unarmed.
‘You won’t be needing that either,’ Ainsworth said, thumbing the top of Malpas’s stab vest.
‘Wha…’ Joni lost the end of the word as her heart leapt. ‘I…’
‘Come on!’ Ainsworth yelled. ‘I’m slicing this fucker up!’
Joni pulled away the vest and dropped it to the ground as more blood ran down her DS’s neck. ‘All right, it’s off,’ she said. ‘Please don’t cut any more.’ She heard Malpas’s breath coming in short bursts. ‘How do you want to do this?’
‘Simple,’ said the knife man. ‘Stand next to him and then push him gently in the other direction.’
Joni followed the instructions and Malpas moved sideways until she was where he had been.
‘Guv…’ he began.
‘Fuck off now if you want her to stay alive,’ Ainsworth said. ‘Now, you brown bitch, tell these shitheads to stay where they are. You and I are going for a stroll.’ Again the dead laugh.
‘You heard him,’ Joni said, the blade pressing against her throat. ‘Keep your distance. I’ll be OK.’
‘Yes, she will,’ her captor shouted. ‘Unless anyone tries be a smartarse.’ He circled her chest with his free hand and kneaded her breasts. ‘Nice,’ he muttered. ‘What’d’you call them where you come from? Mangoes?’
‘Coconuts,’ Joni replied, trying to humour him. She knew she had a chance if she got him off his guard. She stumbled as her boots hit a rough patch of road.
‘Careful,’ Ainsworth said, drawing blood. ‘Walk like a crab. It’s not that difficult.’
But for Joni it was. Her long legs were awkward going sideways and she almost stumbled again. The blade cut deeper and she wondered how much blood she was losing. Mustn’t lose much blood, need all I’ve got for…
‘Keep going, DI Pax,’ the knife man said, his breath strangely sweet. ‘When we reach the corner, I might even let you go.’
Joni swivelled her right eye as far as she could. The junction ahead was in full darkness, out of reach of the lights from the van. No vehicles passed as the access roads had been closed by the traffic police.
‘There’s nowhere for you to go,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the whole area locked down.’
‘Is that right?’ Ainsworth laughed. ‘Thanks for telling me. Now, round the corner.’
Joni made up her mind. Once she was out of view of the others, she would be completely at his mercy. She had a Judo black belt, she could easily take this joker. Except she might…
She threw him, simultaneously punching upwards to knock the knife from her throat. He landed heavily, but was on his feet in a flash, dragging her out of sight of her colleagues and kicking her hard between the legs.
