Carnal Acts (30 page)

‘Why do you drive this old wreck of a Landie?’ Morrie Sutton asked, as they left the Force HQ car park.

‘Old wreck? Listen to the engine. I tuned it myself.’ Joni swung the wheel hard left. ‘See how she rolls? I replaced most of the suspension too.’

Morrie tried to disguise his admiration. He drove a beaten-up Mondeo and had no idea what went on under the bonnet and shell.

‘Take the new bridge,’ he said.

As soon as they were over the Derwyne, the urban environment changed. There were run-down parts in the north – Burwell Street and the area around the old sugar mill being prime examples – but they were nothing compared with
Ironflatts
. There was a narrow line of decent houses along the river, but beyond them was the industrial wasteland, only a small part of which had been revamped by the development zone commission. Over to the east stood the sixties blocks of flats, one of them empty. Nearer, two-storey office buildings of pale red brick and small business units in pastel shades of corrugated plastic stood behind a high fence.

‘They’re talking about electrifying that,’ Morrie said, pointing. ‘Thieves can get over it in seconds with expanding ladders and ropes. I reckon they go on training weekends with the SAS.’

Ahead of them was the large flat quarter where the steelworks had been. Grass had sprung up along the concrete tracks and, although it too was fenced off, there were piles of rubbish and rubble everywhere.

‘Fly-tipper’s paradise,’ Morrie said. ‘They get together, decide where they’re going to cut the wire and go for it. They’re in and out in minutes and there’s bugger all we or the council can do about it. Puts companies off, even though the rents are rock bottom. Who’s going to move to Corham when Newcastle and Sunderland have got secure facilities?’

‘Pofnee did,’ Joni said, glancing at the rows of houses that ran up the slope to the west.

Morrie Sutton laughed. ‘Good one, Jack.’ He looked at her. ‘Does it piss you off when I call you that?’

‘If I said it did, would you stop?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Directions,’ she said, as they approached an incongruously large roundabout.

‘Turn right. Ahead is Ironflatts West. Nice, isn’t it?’

Joni had grown up in the urban squalor of eighties Hackney and seen much of the worst of London, but this was something else. The few shops had steel gratings over their windows and there were potholes in the road. Young women were pushing buggies along uneven pavements and dogs with their ribs poking through their coats tugged at the contents of toppled bins.

‘Has Corham Council forgotten this place exists?’

Morrie shrugged. ‘They did a bit here before the spending cuts, but they’ve got other priorities now. They’re Tories, remember? They think the poor should get off their arses.’ He looked at a couple screaming at each other, cigarettes attached to their lips. ‘I voted Tory myself the last time. Look at those fuckers. They always have money for fags, don’t they?’

Joni wasn’t going to get into a political argument. She’d voted Labour when she was young and innocent, but she’d soon become disillusioned. Voting Lib Dem at the last general
election had been another kick in the teeth. The lust for power had turned supposed radicals into well-remunerated lapdogs.

‘Left here,’ Morrie said. ‘Goat Skin’s dump is halfway up.’

She turned the Land Rover into a street that was scarcely wide enough for it. One side was full of clapped-out cars, but she found a space near the top.

‘Am I going to have my wheels nicked?’ she asked, looking around the deserted area. Some houses had their windows and doors boarded up, the roofs having collapsed.

‘You could put your police sign under the windscreen.’

‘Ha-ha.’ Joni watched as a skinny youth wearing a baseball cap backwards emerged from a nearby house. She waved him over.

‘Whatcha want?’ he said sullenly.

‘Make sure nothing happens to the Land Rover?’ She smiled. ‘I’ll make it worth your while. Plus, I saw where you live.’

He scowled. ‘How much?’

‘I’ll decide when I come back.’

‘Why sh’d I believe you?’

‘You’ve got nothing to lose. On the other hand, if my colleague here decides to get nasty…’

She followed Morrie down the road.

‘You might get away with that,’ he said, over his shoulder.

‘I don’t suppose you mind being cast as bad cop.’

‘You don’t suppose correct.’ He stopped at a house. The small space between the front window and the wall by the pavement was piled with rubbish bags, which had been torn open by animals and birds.

‘You sure he isn’t called Pig Skin?’ Joni asked.

‘Jackie Brown!’ Morrie grinned. ‘That’s racist.’

Joni rolled her eyes.

The door opened before either of them knocked.

‘DI Sutton,’ said the obese man in a Newcastle United shirt who filled the space. ‘Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.’ He peered at Joni. ‘Who’s this?’

‘DI Pax,’ Joni said. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Shackleton.’

‘Nice manners,’ he said to Morrie, with a wink. ‘Obviously not from round here.’

‘Actually, we’ve encountered each other before,’ Joni said. ‘If you let us in, I’ll tell you when.’

The big man went into reverse and beckoned them into the front room. It was surprisingly tidy, the furniture newish and a display cabinet full of thimbles and small ornaments in one corner.

‘I remember,’ Shackleton said, rubbing his shaved head. ‘Sunday night.’

‘Too cold to show off your tattoo today?’

‘Aye. The wife doesn’t like me putting the heating on during the day. Says I should be out looking for a job.’

Morrie Sutton laughed. ‘You’ve got a job, Goat Skin. Mind, I can understand why you don’t tell Muriel about it.’

Shackleton looked between Morrie and Joni. ‘DI Sutton’s always been a joker, DI Pax. Interesting name, that, for an officer of the peace.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Joni said. ‘You’re Catholic?’

‘Very lapsed,’ Morrie put in. ‘Tell the lady what it is you do, Goat Skin.’ He waited. ‘No? All right, allow me. Mr Shackleton here is a leading light in the Steel Toe Caps…’ He held up a hand as the fat man began to protest. ‘Without him they’d have been given a good kicking by the other gangs this side of the river.’ He smiled. ‘Goat Skin gives quality kicking and he gets his retaliation in first.’

‘I hear you were a regular at the Burwell Street brothel,’ Joni said. Suddenly she had a flash of another man in costume who had been outside the brothel. She made sure her expression didn’t change. ‘And the Steel Toe Caps were planning on taking on the Albanians.’

Goat Skin looked at Morrie Sutton. ‘Where’s this little chat going?’

Joni shrugged. ‘Nowhere unpleasant. You scratch our back…’

The big man grinned. ‘Oh, it’s like that. Well, you tell me what you want to know and I’ll think about providing it.’

‘OK,’ Joni said lightly. ‘Do you know Michael Etherington?’

Shackleton wasn’t quick enough to disguise his surprise. ‘Etherington? Yeah, he’s that general who used to be on the telly from some Balkan shithole, isn’t he?’

She nodded and waited for him to continue.

‘He’s from around Corham, isn’t he?’

Another nod.

‘His grandson got himself killed a couple of days ago, I saw in the
Bugle.
’

‘You keep up with the news, Mr Shackleton.’ Joni leaned forward. ‘When were you last in touch with the general?’

‘What? I don’t—’

Joni raised her hand. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t waste my time. You spoke to him outside the brothel on Sunday night.’ She was aware that Morrie Sutton was staring at her. ‘Was that the last contact you had?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.’ Goat Skin turned to Morrie. ‘You need to get your colleague under…’

‘I saw you
and
him,’ Joni said. ‘He was wearing a monk’s robe and half a beard. You left together.’

‘Wha—’ Shackleton broke off. ‘Well, so what? It was May Sunday. Anything goes.’

‘Including murder?’

‘What murder?’

‘This is the second time I’ve broken the general’s alibi today. He’s hiding something and so are you. Tell us now and I’ll keep you in the background.’

The big man looked desperately at Morrie, who shook his head.

‘For fuck’s sake.’ Shackleton turned back to Joni. ‘It’s in the records anyway. I served under the general – colonel as he was then – in Bosnia and Kosovo. I was a communications specialist and a decent one. He looked after me and I ended up a sergeant.’ He raised his heavy shoulders. ‘We’ve kept up, that’s all.’

‘You served together in Kosovo, where ninety per cent plus of the population is Albanian and you’ve been checking out an Albanian-run brothel on behalf of your gang. That sound like a coincidence to you, Morrie?’

‘Not enormously, no.’

‘Tell me what the general’s up to.’

Shackleton looked down. ‘Couldn’t say.’

‘Tell me!’ Joni yelled, her spittle landing on the unshaven face.

He wiped it away distractedly. ‘Can’t say.’

‘Won’t say, you mean.’ Joni looked at her colleague. ‘What shall we do him for, Morrie? Obstructing an inquiry?’

‘Definitely.’ He grinned. ‘We can put him in the same cell as those two Albanians and all.’

‘Good plan.’ Joni took the handcuffs from her pocket.

‘No, wait.’ Goat Skin’s face was a swamp of sweat. ‘Wait! I don’t know much, honestly. The colonel … he got messed around badly by the KLA – the Kosovo Liberation Army. It had links with organised crime, particularly a clan called the…’

‘Spahia.’

Shackleton stared at Joni. ‘How the fuck…’

‘Never mind. Go on.’

‘There are some other lads from the division in the Steel Toe Caps. The general’s had us gathering information about the Albanians’ operations up here. He couldn’t bear that it was the Spahia again. They killed a bunch of non-combatants we’d been protecting for weeks. It was like they wanted to humiliate us, him especially.’

The tension in Joni’s body slackened. ‘OK, this is how I want things to be, if DI Sutton agrees. The Steel Toe Caps do nothing to incite the Albanians. No violence, you hear? And you tell Michael Etherington nothing about this conversation or I’ll play him what you just said.’ She lifted a recording device from her pocket. ‘If you hear from him, call DI Sutton immediately and give him the details.’ She nodded to Morrie. ‘Let’s go.’

Joni waited until Morrie had passed her, then stepped closer
to Shackleton and kicked him hard between the legs. He bent forward, gasping in agony. She squatted down, head close to his. ‘I heard you didn’t enjoy the Albanian woman who’s on the loose. I doubt she enjoyed you either.’

‘Christ, Jack, what the hell was that about?’ Morrie asked as they walked back up the hill. ‘You’re acting like that tart … that girl’s your sister.’

Joni recognised the truth of the observation.

‘And how the fuck did you manage to put Goat Skin together with the general?’

‘What I said was true. I saw them together – but I only realised back there that the man with half a beard was Etherington. A friend of mine shaved off half his beard when I was at uni. I was on the clean side and didn’t recognise him for half an hour. It’s surprisingly disorienting.’

The scrawny boy was leaning against the Land Rover. Joni ran her eye over it.

‘Thanks,’ she said, handing him a fiver.

He nodded and went back inside.

Morrie was shaking his head. ‘You learn that in the Met?’

‘Hardly. Saw people do it on the estate where I grew up.’

When they were seated and buckled up, Morrie Sutton turned to her. ‘This is all very interesting, but where does it leave us?’

‘I don’t really know. Let’s go and discuss it with DCI Rutherford.’ She’d leave it to Heck to tell Morrie the general was gay. Surprises kept people on their toes.

Suzana had woken to the sound of the hatch in the door clanging open. She drank the flask of tea and ate the thick jam sandwich on the bed, shivering in the gloom. There were heavy footsteps on the stair, going down. It had been a man screaming, even
though the sound was high-pitched. Who was he? Was this some kind of crazy prison? Then she heard a car drive away and the barking of dogs. She remembered the black creatures with their slavering jaws and clutched her legs with her arms. They were even worse than men. At least she could deceive the latter – draw them close enough to strike.

She went into the bathroom and removed the plastic-covered knife before taking a shower. She didn’t want to re-insert it, but it was her only salvation. She hoped she wouldn’t get an infection.

Suzana dressed and looked out of the gap in the darkened window. She made out the edge of a large garden and woodland beyond, then steep slopes. The house next to the tower was large, but she had seen no people. Maybe it was uninhabited. Had she exchanged her former place of captivity for one that was even worse – far from people, more secure, equipped for prisoners? She sniffed the air. It was fetid and damp, but there was something else. People had been hurt here, people had bled, perhaps to death. Was that what she had become? Bait for a monster?

Suzana stayed by the window. When the sun was near its zenith, she heard the crush of tyres on gravel and looked down. The red pickup screeched to a halt and a heavy-shouldered man with a moustache got out. She stiffened. Was that the animal from the brothel? No, it couldn’t be. This one didn’t have long hair, though she had sometimes thought that was a wig. The man was carrying a pole of some sort. She had a bad feeling about it.

The steps came up the stairs rapidly; the pig was obviously very fit. Then she heard bolts being pulled back and the key being turned. Dull light flooded in. The man entered, his face now covered by the black hat-mask. He held the pole out. When she didn’t move from the centre of the room, he jabbed it forward and the tip touched her hand. She felt electricity crackle though her and found herself on the floor, screaming. The man was shouting and tugging at his clothes, though not removing them. She understood. She got up and started taking off her
own. When she was naked, he stood staring at her, his eyes on her breasts and then on her groin. She hoped the blue plastic wasn’t showing. Then he lunged forward again and she retreated into the bathroom. The door was slammed and she heard the bolts on the outside slide into place. She sat on the toilet, goose pimples all over her body.

Suzana had learned to focus on a single objective, as she’d done with the escape from the brothel. She was concentrating on getting out of the tower, with or without the help of her neighbour below, but there was one other thing she was going to do first: cut the throat of the man with the shock pole.