Cucumber Coolie (9 page)

“Ecstacia.”

“Hmm?” Martha said. “I have some in my handbag if you want some. It’ll knock you out for a few hours though. Strong stuff.”

“No, look.” My heart picked up. “The box on his back seat. Ecstacia. Right there, see?”

I froze the frame. Fast-forwarded through it as slow as I could, as the bold black lettering on the side of the box came into view.

Martha squinted at the shots. Colour invaded her cheeks. “Weird,” she said.

“Where did you say you bought this stuff? Online?”

Martha gulped. Looked me in the eyes. “Don’t judge, hun, but… well, it’s not exactly a
legal
substance.”

I shrugged. “Same with many herbal remedies. So did you get it online? Maybe we can—we can contact the website. Ask them about recent orders. That box, it looks like a load of the stuff. Maybe that’s what he’s using to put the victims to sleep. It has to be. It—”

“You can’t get Ecstacia online, Blake. It’s… it’s a local brew, let’s say.”

Martha lowered her head. Cleared her throat.

“Local brew? What does that mean?”

She looked me in my eyes. A half-smile crept up her face. “There’s only one guy in the world who produces and deals Ecstacia. And I know where to find him.”

FIFTEEN

“I thought this drug dealer of yours was supposed to have a stall here?”

Martha sighed. “I told you. He’s not a drug dealer. He’s just a pill supplier.”

“Pill supplier. Right. Got that.”

We stood in the middle of Preston Market. It was filled with stalls selling knock-off DVDs, knock-off clothes, knock-off everything. Every day, the sounds of shouting radiated through this grim, closed-top area, the smell of pigeon-shit strong in the air.

“He’s usually just here,” Martha said. She pointed at a stall that was filled with old football programmes. Liverpool, Wigan, Bolton—loads of old programmes all from the seventies and the eighties onwards. A suspicious brown stain clung to the front of one of the Wigan ones. Very fitting.

“Well it doesn’t look like he’s here to me,” I said.

“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ll call him.”

I looked around. Everyone in here except for me and Martha was wearing trackie bottoms, or missing a few teeth. They all seemed to be looking at us like we had a big “OUTSIDER” placard above our heads.

“I just don’t like this bloody place.”

“Oh you don’t like
bloody
anywhere so that’s no surprise. Yeah, Donny. It’s… it’s Martha. You in town?”

I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back against the stall. The sounds of shouting, the smells of piss and damp cardboard… all of it was just noise and stench. Just noise and stench, when I considered what might be happening to Danielle right now.

No. Not “might.” What
would
be happening to her.

I had to face up to that reality. I had to accept it.

And I had to do everything I could to stop it getting any worse. If I had to play this camera-wielding nutjob’s little game, then I was bringing my bloody top drawer performance.

“You have a problem, man? You retard?”

The voice came from behind me. I turned around, climbing off the stall.

I was greeted—loose meaning to the word—by a bearded man with short black hair and big ears. He was wearing a white Fred Perry shirt that had discoloured, and blue trackie bottoms that looked like they had birdshit on them.

“Oh, Donny—this is Blake. He’s the one who—”

“You don’t’a lean on my’a stall!” he said, in his weird Italian accent. Forced? Most probably.

“I’ll lean where I bloody want.”

“He won’t,” Martha said. She pinched my side. “He’s sorry. Look, Donny, we have questions. Big questions about—”

“You want’a more of the good stuff?”

Martha smiled. Shook her head. “No, Donny. I’m weening off it, as delicious as it is. But we’ve got a problem.”

“Then you buy a programme or you go. If you want’a no good stuff, you no business with me.”

I scratched my head. Great. Another lunatic associate of Martha’s. Like this was going to help.

“Donny, there’s been… something terrible’s happened.”

“I told’a you: side effects include the shitty-bum. Shitty-bum for days sometimes, sometimes weeks.”

“I’ve not got a shitty bum, Donny.”

“Then you have no’a problem if you have no’a shitty bum. So go!”

I clenched my fists and stepped up to Donny.

“My girlfriend’s been kidnapped. Heard about those little murders these last two days? Well believe it or not, mate, the victims were spiked with your little shitty-bum potion.” I wiped the dust off some of his programmes. “Say, you don’t happen to have an interest in camcorders, do you?”

Donny glared me in the eye. He shrugged. He really did look dense, in his defence. “I… I do a good photo if you want. Fifty pound, super sexy model shoot. Make’a you look very pretty.”

“He doesn’t want a super sexy model shoot,” Martha said. “Look, Donny—we need to know who you… anyone you sold any large boxes of Ecstacia to since it went on sale?”

Donny shook his head. “No. No’a way. Client confidence.”

I stepped closer to Donny. “The only thing you need to be bloody confident about is an arrest warrant coming your way if you don’t spill the beans. People are dying, Donny. People are being spiked with your product, and then they’re being killed. A white box. A box of the pure stuff, not the pills. Who’ve you sold to?”

Donny sighed. Muttered a few harsh sounding words in a language I swore was gibberish, glaring at Martha. “I sell a lot’a people. Lot’a batch of good stuff.”

“In big amounts?”

Donny looked from left to right. Scratched the back of his neck. “There was’a one man. But I er…” He wafted his hands over the programmes. “Need to shift some a these.”

Martha glared at me.

“What? Me? I don’t want a load of shitty programmes.”

“Just twenty,” Donny said. “Enough’a for my dinner.”

I reluctantly fished out my wallet and planted a twenty pound note down atop the programmes.

“Take’a your pick,” Donny said, wafting his hand out over the programmes.

“Oh no it’s fine. You keep your programmes. Now about this guy.”

He sniffed at the twenty pound note. “Ah yes. This’a guy. Very interesting guy.”

“Interesting in what way?”

Donny took a few moments to think. Tapped his index finger against his chin. “He was very… very wrapped.”

“Very wrapped?”

Donny smiled. “Yes, very wrapped. Covered’a up. Like, he has big black coat on. And he says, ‘I want whole box of pure Ecstacia.’”

“So you say…?”

“Okay, I say. I give you’a big box if you pay. And then he pays me in big fifty notes! Special notes I never’a seen in all my time in England.”

My stomach sank. “Great. So he paid cash. Of course he did.”

“Wait,” Martha said. “He paid in fifties?”

Donny nodded fast. “Yes. Fifties! So special notes that I’a like them a lot.”

“And did he… was this wrapped-up guy wearing gloves?” I asked.

Donny squinted. “Gloves? No gloves.”

“Did you bank the fifties?” Martha asked

Donny laughed. “Bank? No. I keep’a them. No bank.”

My awareness picked up. “Wait, you… you still have the fifties?”

Donny smiled. He reached under the counter and checked either side to see nobody was looking. “Here we go. No touch. All my fifties.”

He held five fifty pound notes between his fingers.

“You… We’re gonna need to see those,” I said. “Prints. The police, they can—”

“Wait, you not police are you?” Donny snapped the notes away. His face turned serious.

I shook my head fast. “No, we’re just—we need to see those—”

“You say police? You say you police?”

“I didn’t say I was—”

“He’s not police, but I am.”

The voice came from behind us. It was a voice that made my heart pick up, and my muscles tighten.

I turned around and saw a grinning Lenny, sunglasses on, standing there. Two other officers were beside him.

“Holy hell, Blakey! Didn’t realise it was you.”

“Lenny, you can’t… you can’t be with me. You can’t—”

“I’m not here, Blake. Invisible as they come. I’m here for Mr. Petrowski, anyway. Mr. Petrowski! How you doing’ old buddy?”

Donny glared at Lenny, then at the police, then at Martha and then at me. “You police. Pig shits. No more shitty-bum stuff for you, Mar-ta. No more.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lenny said, stepping towards Donny. “You’ve got other things to worry about. Like why your product Ecstacia was in the bloodstream of Dave Wilding? You know, husband of Janet Wilding, second victim in the Hose killings.”

Donny shrugged. “I know no killing. I tell them about strange man with notes—”

“The fifties,” I said to Lenny. “The… Hose, he paid Donny in fifties. They’ll have prints on them, Lenny. We can find…” I stopped speaking. Noticed the other officers looking at me strangely. They didn’t know about Danielle.

The police couldn’t know about Danielle.

Lenny winked at me. “We’ll check those notes out, Mr. Anon. Good tip.”

And then he zipped his mouth and turned away.

“Come on, Mr. Petrowski. Time to have a serious discussion about the types of people you’re dealing with. Ooh, a Wigan programme! Can I have this one?”

Martha and I walked away and watched as Donny was escorted away by the police.

“This could be it, hun,” Martha said, as Lenny stuck the fifty pound notes in his front pocket. “Fingerprints. DNA. This could really be it.”

I watched as Donny got into the back of Lenny’s squad car, listened as the roar of the market swallowed up my thoughts.

Thoughts of Danielle.

Thoughts of what she was going through.

“I hope so,” I said, as we walked away. “I really hope so.”

SIXTEEN

It feels strange to be out here in the open.

He smiles as he walks through the city centre. Smiles at a little old lady propping herself on her walking stick. Smiles at the two young boys chasing one another, giggling and shouting.

He is just like the rest of the city as he walks. Invisible. A face in the crowd.

A normal human being.

But he is not a normal human being. He knows that. He has always known that. His tastes, they have always been… different. And there was never any real reason for his differences in tastes. Not that he could think of.

He just enjoys ending lives. Always has enjoyed watching the light of life come to a flickering halt. Always will.

He scratches his face as he walks up towards the market. He doesn’t usually come out when he is in the middle of a killing, but today is different. Subject C passed out when he plucked out her fourth fingernail. But she was so gutsy. So resilient. So… untearful.

Which means he’ll have even more fun breaking her down.

He walks past the row of shops, heads just outside the market.

Next, he will get to work on her eyelids. Or maybe he’ll do some dentistry on her mouth. He enjoys that part. Plucking out their teeth, propping open their jaws with his metal contraptions…

Or maybe it’s time for him to wrap the hose around Subject C’s neck for the first time.

He can’t stop himself smiling. The possibilities are endless.

“Woah, sorry,” he says, as he almost bumps into a hooded kid on a bicycle.

The kid glares at him. Shoots a threatening look in his direction.

Hose only smiles. The kid has no idea what he could do if he wanted to.

He has no idea what he is capable of. Nobody does.

Alas, he is running low on Ecstacia. It’s all fair and well entering a subject’s house, but if they are wide awake when he drags them away, all sorts of things could go wrong.

He has to restock in time for tonight. In time for Subject D.

Assuming, of course, Preston’s little “hero” doesn’t figure out how to find Subject C in time. Time to find out just how much of a hero he is after all. A test of his qualifications, his credentials.

He shuffles into the market, squeezes past a few people gathered around the discount CD stall, keeps his head down, his hood up. He looks for Donny. He should be nearby. Nearby, with his supply. And Hose has plenty more fifty pound notes. Enough for another boxful of pure Ecstacia. Poor old Donny looked like he’d died and gone to heaven the last time Hose waved some fifties in his face.

Not yet, Donny. Your time will come.

It takes him a few minutes to see Donny through the crowd of discount-buying, sweat-stinking tramps.

But when he does, he stops.

Donny is being taken away by police officers. An idiot-faced police officer with a horrifying grin, as well as two others.

But there are two more people with the police.

One of which he recognises very well.

He grits his teeth together. Anger fills up his stomach.

Blake Dent, the city’s little “hero”—boyfriend of Subject C—is walking away from the stall.

Walking away from the police.

Blake walks towards Hose. Hose lowers his head. Lowers it and stares at the ground, trying his best not to shake too hard.

Blake walks past him at such a close distance that he almost brushes against him.

The shit. The arrogant, foolish shit. Does he not take his police threat seriously? So much for a hero. What kind of hero involves the police department at the first opportunity?

Not only that, but Donny is being taken away by police, too. Donny, who he relies on for Ecstacia. Donny, who he relies on for his plan to play out successfully.

His neck tingles.

This is not good.

He is being made a mockery of.

He takes a few deep breaths as colours fill his eyes. He tastes something metallic and realises he is biting his lip.

“You okay, mate?”

A man’s voice. Just in front of him to the left.

He looks and sees a black guy looking at him with concern.

He takes another deep breath of the smokey, polluted air. Looks ahead, as Blake Dent and his friend walk away.

“Yes,” he says. “Just fine. Thanks for asking.”

He wasn’t fine just yet.