Nameless Kill (20 page)

Brian’s stomach knotted. He knew he should just walk away. He knew he should just get out of here and report this for further investigation.

But tomorrow was Thursday. It didn’t leave him with a lot of time before his holiday.

Fucking hell, Brian. Fucking hell.

He rose to his feet slowly. He felt dizzy as he did. And then his feet and legs started taking him towards this open gate, the men now inside it, but the gate still open.

He crept across the street, his training shoes barely making a sound, as chilly rain started to patter down on him.

He crept onto the pavement, getting closer to the open, rusty gate, and the sounds of struggling and whispering just down this alleyway.

He crept up to the gate, and moved into the darkness, no idea what the fuck he was thinking, only that the answers hid somewhere beyond.

Chapter Thirty Three

Brian was only a few steps down the dark alleyway beside African Connection when it dawned on him what an idiot he was being.

The alleyway stank of piss. Every elongated step he took, he splashed into something damp. Probably piss. He couldn’t see too far ahead, just darkness. But he figured that was a good thing. The men that were walking down the alley, they weren’t down it anymore. He couldn’t hear them struggling along with the body-like mound in their hands. They’d gone inside.

At least, Brian hoped.

He pressed his hand against the solid, rough brick wall for support. Every now and then, as he drifted further and further down the alleyway, his fingers rubbed against soft and gooey substances. He didn’t even want to think what they might be. He’d wash his hands later. Wash them when he got back to Hannah. When he’d found out what was happening at African Connection.

If
he got back to Hannah.

No. Stupid thoughts. Don’t think that way.
He took a few sharp inhalations, trying not to splash through the puddles underfoot, trying to be as quiet as possible. He could see something emerging on the left. Something with a slight speck of light peeking out. An open door?

And then, as his fingers touched the edges of it, the rough wall suddenly becoming smooth, he realised it wasn’t a door‌—‌it was a window.

For a split second, his entire body froze other than his neck, which twisted to look in through the glass that he was completely exposed to.

It was a good job he did look, because there were three men inside the room, and luckily for Brian, none of them were facing him.

Brian immediately crouched down. Water splashed over his knees as he descended to the ground. The damp soaked right through his trousers and sent a chill down his legs. He got another strong whiff of piss as he made contact with the fluid, but he tried to get that out of his mind.

What mattered were the three men inside that back room of African Connection.

What mattered was the body-like mound covered in a white blanket.

Brian rose carefully, his pulse racing through his arms and legs and head. His mouth was dry like sandpaper. The three men were inside, talking. He could hear them mumbling now, making out the occasional word.

“…Keep this quiet…”

“…Not with them sniffing around…”

Brian’s stomach lurched, the Chinese takeaway weighing him down. Note to self: don’t eat a Chinese takeaway before doing something fucking stupid in future. He’d seen it so many times before‌—‌officers on the job eating hearty meals before going out on chases. If they didn’t barf before the chase was up, it was a miracle.

He lifted himself higher, so that just his forehead was poking up and looking through the glass into the dimly lit room.

That’s when he recognised one of the people.

The recognisable height and skinniness of Winston Moya.

Winston wasn’t one of the two men who’d approached the door of African Connection. Both of those men had their hoods down, both of them sporting perfectly bald heads. Both of them were black, perhaps a little lighter on the colour palette than Winston.

Brian recognised neither of them.

He cast his mind back to what Wayne Jenkins had said about the character called Stag. He’d said he didn’t reveal his face. Well, this guy was showing off his face. But perhaps he thought he was safe. Perhaps he
was
safe. Maybe these people were part of Yemi Moya’s old child-napping cult, and Winston was Yemi’s protege.

What else had Wayne said? Something about him smelling. Smelling of a new house, or something like that. Brian sniffed up. Sniffed to see if he could get a whiff of the guys who’d just walked through this alleyway and were now behind the glass.

All he got was piss and cigarette smoke.

Brian’s recklessness dawned on him once again. What the fuck was he doing down this alleyway all on his own? If they saw him, surely they wouldn’t hesitate to take action. If this was the sick, murderous nonce cult that Yemi was once the head of, then what issue would they have with a middle-aged man standing in the alleyway? He had to get away. He had to call for backup of some sort. He had to‌—‌

That was when Winston Moya crouched down to the white blankets and pulled them open.

What Brian saw made his Chinese rise closer to his throat.

There was a girl wrapped up in the blankets. A black girl, probably in her early teens from the looks of things. She was wearing a baggy blue baseball shirt. She had her eyes closed. Sleeping. Sleeping, or dead.

Brian’s throat burned. His stomach groaned. His vision blurred.

Winston Moya crouched down with a sad expression on his face. And then he lifted his hand and pressed it against the bare skin on the girl’s arm, stroking it.

Brian’s knees turned to jelly. He couldn’t crouch here and watch. He couldn’t crouch here and watch Winston Moya and these men do whatever they were going to do to this girl. He had to call the station. Get somebody down here. Get them down here before this went any further.

He stumbled backwards and fumbled around his pocket with his shaky hands for his phone.

That’s when he heard the footsteps at the bottom end of the alleyway.

For a moment, Brian was perfectly still, just staring at the illuminated screen of his phone.

The footsteps got closer. Pattered against the puddled ground.

Coming in his direction.

He tried to gulp but his throat tightened. Tightened tighter than he’d ever felt it in his life.

And then he felt something else.

It was a vaguely familiar sensation. A tightness in his chest and a shortness of breath, like many of the turns he’d been having lately.

Only this time, it felt like something just popped in his chest. Like a Christmas cracker that had been tugged on from either side for months, finally giving way.

That’s when the pain kicked in.

He fell back against the soggy ground. A hot, burning sensation engulfed his entire left-hand side. His arms burned. His chest felt like a thousand knives were stabbing into it. He could hear the footsteps coming his way still, but they were muffled out, and all of a sudden they seemed irrelevant‌—‌irrelevant compared to the pain in his chest, the taste of blood in his mouth, the fuzziness of his thoughts.

He could just about still feel his phone in his right hand. He tried to lift it up. Tried with all his force, getting it partly up in the air.

Then it slipped out of his fingers, like his iPad did when he held it above him before sleep.

His phone hit the hard ground beside him but he didn’t care. It was irrelevant. Irrelevant next to the burning, the stabbing. The taste in his mouth got hotter, more acidic. Vomit, like all the times he’d been hungover after lonely nights in the pub. But that didn’t matter either.

Just the pain. Just the searing. The burning.

He stared up at the stars, colours floating through his vision, when he saw a dark silhouette stand over him.

And then another.

And another.

And another.

He knew what it meant. He knew who they were. Winston Moya. The men from inside. Stag. Another man that must’ve been outside scouting for spies.

Scouting for people like him.

But, as the men crouched down, some of them shouting muffled words, this didn’t matter to Brian either.

All that mattered was the pain.

The stabbing, getting more and more intense.

And then nothing mattered at all when the darkness surrounded him.

The last thing he felt was the hands of the figures grabbing him and lifting him up, lifting him towards the stars…

Chapter Thirty Four

There was a field. A field on a hot day. Brian felt sweat dripping down his forehead. Heard the shouting and excited screaming of children around him. He looked down. Saw he was wearing a white shirt, white shorts, white trainers. P.E. kit. It was Sports Day.

Parents applauded. Shouted out at the crowd of children. Cheered them on.

And then the whistle went off. A huge, screeching sound, which seared right through Brian’s mind. And then he felt the footsteps at the sides of him. The vibrations of the feet of his competitors storming into action. Smelled the dust from the hard ground, earthy and rich.

But he was rooted to the spot.

He tried to walk a few steps. Tried his best to put one foot in front of the other, but it was just too much effort. His legs were numb. No‌—‌they were tingling. Tingling and heavy.

And in his mouth, he could taste the lingering metallic tang of…‌was that blood?

And then he looked up and the crowd of kids and parents were gone and all of a sudden there was darkness. He felt himself being lifted. And then he felt the pain. The sharp pain spreading down his left-hand side. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t Sports Day. This was…

The figures. The four men standing over him. Stag. Winston. His heart started to pound. He saw black. Nothing but black. Heard muffled voices beside him. He was trapped in the dark. Locked away. He tried to shout, but it was nothing but a whimper. He was locked inside African Connection. They’d locked him inside. They were torturing him. They‌—‌

A sudden burst of light filled his eyes. He tried to squeeze them shut, but he didn’t understand where this blast of light was coming from. He focused. Focused on the slight noises around him, the speaking. Focused on the weird salty tang in his mouth.

But the pain in his chest. The intense pins and needles. They were still there.

“…okay, hun. You’re okay…”

He heard the voice from his left. Or was it his right? No. It was his nowhere. He’d got captured by the men inside African Connection. He’d seen them abducting that girl and they were punishing him for it. He was just another statistic, another victim, nameless, faceless, forgotten.

“Bri, keep yourself calm. Don’t work yourself up.”

Brian squinted. Squinted into the searing light, which was getting gradually more bearable by the second. The voice, it was Hannah’s. And it was coming from his left. What was Hannah doing here? Shit. They hadn’t got her, had they? Not Hannah. She couldn’t go through anymore. She couldn’t…

And then he saw her. Not clearly, her edges blurred like he’d had a few too many pints and pills, but she was there. Her brown hair. Her tanned skin. She was standing over him. He could smell her sweet perfume too, so recognisable. Never knew the name of the bloody stuff, but it was definitely Hannah’s.

He opened his dry mouth to speak but no words escaped. He felt like that kid again back on Sports Day. Couldn’t move. Didn’t have the strength. Didn’t have the energy.

And then he felt Hannah’s hand in his. Light, fuzzy, but there. A warmth, that’s what it was. A presence.

“I told them you’re a fighter,” Hannah said, but the words just drifted through Brian as he focused on her, getting clearer and clearer. “I told them you’re a fighter.”

It was then that Brian realised there was something in his mouth stopping him from talking. Something sharp and plastic-tasting. And there was somebody else at his other side, too. Somebody prodding around his arm. A woman. A woman in green. A nurse?

Where was he? What the fuck was happening?

He tried to piece together his last thoughts, but doing so hurt his head. He’d peeked through the window at African Connection. Somebody had walked through the rusty gates of the alleyway and paced towards him. He’d felt a sharp pain…‌had he been stabbed? Shot? What had they done to him? And why didn’t they finish off?

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw the third figure at the foot of his bed.

He had curly brown hair, just like Brian’s used to be when he was younger. His face was peppered with freckles, and he was wearing a white Preston North End football shirt.

For a moment, Brian’s focus on the pain and the plastic in his mouth disappeared when he realised that his son was in the room with him.

Davey. Davey was here. Everything was okay because Davey was here.

He smiled. Did the best impression of a smile he could, anyway, but his lips were sore, and it was even an effort to move his face.

“That’s right,” Hannah’s voice said, a warm hand resting on his head. “Get some more rest. We’ll speak again soon. We’ll…”

Hannah’s words drifted away. The darkness returned.

But Brian didn’t care.

Davey was here. Davey was with him.

He was okay now, wherever he was.

Chapter Thirty Five

The next time Brian drifted into consciousness, everything was a little clearer.

But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

The first thing he noticed when his eyes opened, the brightness of the room invading his vision, was the searing pain in his chest. What had happened? Had he been stabbed? Shot? Something had happened down that alleyway beside African Connection. Something serious.

He looked around. Turned his stiff neck to one side on the plumped-up cushion. Hannah was there. Hannah and Davey. Hannah didn’t look like she was wearing any makeup, her face pale and bare. Davey was still wearing the Preston North End football shirt with blue trackie bottoms on his legs.