Numb: A Dark Thriller (18 page)

25

The drive back to the industrial estate was uneventful. The traffic was so light that Riley was able to stay right behind Howden the whole way without any other vehicles coming between them and he only saw one police car, travelling in the opposite direction, and both occupants paid neither the lorry nor the van any attention.

Half an hour after the job had gone down they were safely back on the south side of the river and on the industrial estate that was as dark and deserted as a ghost town. The units here were all used by small businesses, most of whose staff worked the nine ‘till five. Even those that opened earlier and closed later were shut up tight between ten at night and six in the morning. McCabe was the only one who worked that shift, when it was pitch dark and graveyard quiet.

Howden parked the wagon by the side of the unit as Riley steered the van inside the loading doors that were already open. He and McCabe jumped out onto the concrete floor as Howden hurried inside and pressed the button that lowered the doors. They squeaked and cranked as they shut out the night.

McCabe had used this place several times over the years to take care of various problem people; usually a grass or a rival. Its location was perfect, slap bang in the middle of the estate, surrounded by small factories and workshops. The only natural light came in through the small windows that ran along the top of the outer wall. Therefore no one could see in from outside without the use of a ladder or unless they were nine feet tall. Even then, the frosted glass would only allow them to see blurry shapes. There were also no security guards patrolling the area and unless there was a break-in on the estate the police would have no reason to pay any of the buildings a visit. Even then it would be after the crime was reported which would probably be on Monday morning. Yes, this place was ideal for McCabe’s work.

Riley looked around the workshop, and even though it was spotless of blood and body tissue, it wasn’t hard to guess what sort of work actually went on in here.

The room was fifty square feet. There was a table and chairs and a portable television in one corner. Nash and Turner were sat there, a bottle of whiskey between them (they’d headed straight here after McCabe had called them after doing the job and had opened the doors ready to receive their special guest). There was a selection of tools on a portable table in the opposite corner. In another was an oven, the kind used for heating metal or glass, with a huge chimney that disappeared up into the roof. In the centre of the room, next to a work bench, a length of thick, steel chain with handcuffs attached to one end hung from one of the ceiling rafters and connected to a pulley system on the back wall. A shorter length of chain was bolted to the floor beneath it and had home made manacles attached. Plastic sheeting had been laid out on the floor covering an area of about two square metres. There was also a smaller room behind this one, Riley knew, that contained a toilet, shower cubicle and a deep freezing unit. On the books, this place was used as a wrought iron workshop, one that made railings and gates and the odd sculpture – and McCabe certainly sculpted, but only on very specific materials, and none that were as hard or as inanimate as iron.

“Get him out,” Nash ordered as he downed a shot of whisky and approached the van. He was still dressed in his tracksuit, still had the sling over his arm, still looked coked out of his skull and still had that vacant look in his eyes, that distant stare that made him look like he was missing his soul.

Riley unlocked the back of the van and McCabe, still carrying the shotgun, yanked Mark Dainton out.

He dragged him across the floor onto the plastic sheeting and when Dainton struggled McCabe punched him twice in the stomach to subdue him. Then, with Howden’s help, and with such speed it appeared as if they’d trained their whole lives for the task, they stripped Dainton of his clothes, fixed his wrists into the handcuffs and ankles into the manacles.

Dainton twisted and writhed like a wounded snake as McCabe used the pulley system to lift him from the ground, stretching his arms straight up above his head, pulling the shorter chain attached to the manacles taught so that his bare feet were nine inches off the floor, leaving him suspended, unable to struggle and at their mercy. 

Nash walked closer and nodded at Howden to remove the sack from Dainton’s head.

When Howden did so, Dainton jammed his eyes shut as the overhead fluorescent lights blinded him. When Nash ripped the tape from Dainton’s mouth, he spat out the gag and gasped for air.

“You’re all... fucking dead!” he snarled, his eyes still closed. “Do you know... who I am?” His eyes flickered open. He tried to focus on Nash. “I’ll have you fucking killed! I’ll...”

When he suddenly shut up, Riley guessed that Dainton’s vision had returned.

“Whu... what’s going on?” He suddenly sounded scared, the bravado gone from his voice.

Nash wasted no time and smashed his fist into Dainton’s nose, rocking his head back and crunching the bone.

Dainton let out a yelp of pain that tailed off into a whine as blood began to pool from his nostrils almost instantly.

McCabe smirked. Howden snorted a laugh. Turner remained quiet.

Riley looked at the floor. He found no pleasure in witnessing this. The man strung up was a pathetic sight. He was all skin and bones – hardly any muscle at all, and due to the temperature inside the room his nipples were now bigger than his penis.

“You’re in no position to make threats, you cunt,” Nash said, almost a whisper.

When Dainton looked back at Nash, there was genuine terror in his eyes as well as tears.

“Whu... what do you whu... want from me?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“We’re here because of Michael,” Nash said calmly.
Too
calmly. As calmly as a crazy person might talk. “But I think you’ve guessed that by now.”

“Who?”

Nash smashed him in the nose again.

There was no
crack!
this time. Just more blood, followed by sobs.

“My son!” Nash yelled, his temper suddenly exploding out for all to see. “The one your fucking uncle had killed!”

Dainton cried real tears. Rocked his head side to side to try and ease the pain seeing as he couldn’t put his hands to his face.

Trying to ignore the blood running into his mouth he said, “I du... don’t know-”

McCabe pointed the shotgun at his head and said, “If you’re just gonna deny it, then you’re just prolonging the agony, fuck-face.”

“I du... don’t know anything about... your son,” Dainton told Nash, his words coming out quick and panting, like he’d just finished a marathon. His chest was falling and rising so much it looked like he may have a heart attack. If he did, it would probably be a blessing. “I don’t have mu... much to do with my unc... uncle now.”

“We know,” Riley said. He felt he had to speak. Plus, there was something he had to get off his chest. Mark Dainton was going to die – there was no going back now - and Riley had to justify that to himself. Just like himself and the others would one day, little nephew Dainton was going to pay for past crimes. “You haven’t had much to do with your uncle for a few years, have you? And we know why. You’re dumb and you like the girls too much. You don’t like being turned down. Everyone knows that your uncle sacked you after you picked up a sixteen year old girl in a club and forced yourself on her after she changed her mind. You raped her and she had you arrested. But your uncle got you a good lawyer and that poor girl didn’t stand a chance in court. It was her word against yours and she eventually backed down and your arse was spared jail. Then good old Uncle Lenny paid you off and gave you a nice little allowance so that the police wouldn’t get involved in any of his businesses because he had a suspected rapist working for him. You got off easy but the girl became depressed, tried to take her life and ended up in a nut-house.”

“Nu... no, no,” Dainton said, shaking his head. “I didn’t...  rape anyone...”

“But we know you did,” Riley said.

“And that makes you a liar,” said McCabe. “And that’s why we don’t believe you when you say you don’t know anything about the shooting.”

Dainton closed his eyes. Struggled in vein against the handcuffs and manacles.

“I... du... don’t know anything-”

Nash reached up with lightning speed. Grabbed Dainton by the hair and pulled his head down so that they were looking into each other’s eyes.

“Look,” he snarled. “You
are
gonna tell us why your uncle tried to kill me. Then you’re also gonna tell us where he has his meetings, what business deals he has planned - everything.” He pushed Dainton’s head away before turning to McCabe. “Get started. Take as long as you have to. Just make him talk.”

“Whu... what are you... gu... gonna do?” Dainton asked as Nash and Turner headed for the smaller door beside the loading bay.

“Calm down,” McCabe told him. He walked to the table that held the tools and wheeled it into the centre of the room, stopping next to the pile of Dainton’s clothes. They’d be going in the oven later, once McCabe had checked them for any valuables to keep for himself like money or a good mobile phone. That was part of his routine; torture first, clothes and belongings dealt with later.

Nash left. Before Turner followed him out, he turned to Riley and Howden.

“Drop the wagon off at the garage,” he said, “and then come back here to help McCabe clear up.” When he was halfway out the door, he looked back once more. “Good job tonight, lads. Well done.”

The door slammed closed after they left and Dainton began begging for his life as McCabe picked up a hammer. Riley wondered what the parent’s of that sixteen year old girl whose life had been destroyed by this man would think if they were here. Would they stay and watch? Would her father take a hammer himself and take part?

Would Jamie Hudson’s father take revenge on me if he knew...?

“Let’s go get rid of the Audi,” Howden said, snapping Riley from the depressing thought.  “I’ll drive the wagon and you follow in your car.”

“Yeah,” McCabe said over Dainton’s pleading. “You two get yourselves away. I work better alone.”

I bet you do
, Riley thought as he and Howden left, and a second after the door closed behind them he heard McCabe slide the bolt into the lock, giving him the privacy he craved whilst doing the work he loved.

“Do you think we’ll have time to go for a quick drink after dropping the car off?” Howden asked as he lit up a cigarette.

Riley shrugged and walked to his car.

He didn’t care. He just wanted to get away from the unit before the screaming started.

26

Alan Anderson, who owned the garage that the lorry had been borrowed from, knew Nash and Turner from way back when they were tough little teenagers who fought on the terraces on Saturday afternoons when football hooligans were all the rage. Back then he’d been quite a handful in a scuffle and by the time he was nineteen had been jailed for biting off the end of a rival supporter’s nose and swallowing it down so that the poor bloke couldn’t have it stitched back on. After his four years inside (out early for good behaviour) he’d went to work for his father who’d owned the garage at the time, and when the old man’s arteries were so clogged his heart finally gave way, the ex-con suddenly found himself with a decent little business to run and so had kept out of trouble. Well, out of trouble by not getting heavily involved in anything seriously dodgy.  He still kept in touch with the wrong crowd and was still open to business that offered easy money. If you wanted a vehicle that couldn’t be traced, Anderson was the guy to see, and if you needed to get rid of a vehicle quickly, good old Al was the man.

As Riley pulled into the forecourt behind the lorry, Anderson appeared at the office door and waved them around the back towards the workshop. He was a little, fat, bearded man whose belly was so large he was probably at his tallest when he lay on his back. His shirt sleeves were rolled up showing clumsy prison tattoos on both his forearms and his forefingers and thumbs on either hand were stained nicotine yellow. A self-rolled cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and when the walking heart attack followed them around to the lock-up in what could only be described as a very slow jog, he started to cough and hack up phlegm after about three steps and began breathing heavier than an asthmatic pervert making his first dirty phone call.

Riley climbed out the Merc as Howden jumped down from the lorry and shook hands with the fat man, two chain-smokers together. When Anderson found his breath, he walked to Riley and offered him his hand also.

“Everything go well?” he asked, clearing his throat at the same time as speaking.

Riley shook the sweaty hand and nodded.

“There’s a present in the back for you,” Howden said and opened the back of the lorry.

Anderson tossed his cigarette away and looked inside. Whistled as if there was a naked supermodel in there.

“Audi A5, nice,” he said. “What does Nash want me to do with it?”

“That’s up to you,” Riley said. “It’s your problem now.”

“I wouldn’t call it a problem. So, Nash is just giving it to me?”

Riley nodded again.

“Nash doesn’t even know it exists.” Howden laughed.

Anderson laughed too - for about a second before his breath caught in his throat and he had a coughing fit. Then, as the fit trailed off into a tremor, he took a small tin from his trouser pocket, pulled out another home-made cigarette and lit it.

“Tell my old mate that if he ever needs to lend anything again he’s welcome to it.” He closed the back of the lorry. “And tell him I was sorry to hear about his kid. I hope the fuckers get what they deserve.” He jumped in the cab and drove inside the workshop, so Riley and Howden climbed back in the Merc.

Before they’d gotten out of the garage forecourt, Howden had lit up a cigarette of his own to stink the car out and asked, “So, where do you wanna go for a drink?”

Riley didn’t want a drink. However, he didn’t want to go back to the unit and watch Mark Dainton get hacked up.

“Wherever,” he said, uninterested.

“What’s up with you, you miserable bastard? Tonight went well. You should want to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what? This is just the start of things.”

Howden exhaled smoke. Nodded. “Yeah, this is going to be big. But Dainton and his boys don’t stand a chance against us. He fucked up big style this time.”

“You can say that again.”

“Dainton fucked up big style,” Howden repeated for effect. Then, surprisingly, the big man pulled a strange face, one he rarely wore. One that suggested he was thinking about something. When he spoke next, his voice was quiet, as if he were talking to himself. “Everything’s fucked up.”

Riley shot him a glance.

“What do you mean ‘
everything’s
fucked up?’”

Howden took a long drag on his cigarette. Blew the smoke in Riley’s direction. Not to be rude, but just because he’d obviously stopped thinking. The few seconds earlier must have been his quota for the night.

“It’s fucked up the way it happened,” he said.

“In what way?” Riley wanted to know if Howden felt the same as he did. That Dainton wouldn’t have pulled such a messy job as the one last night.

“Well I just think the timing’s a bit weird. Why now, after there’s been no trouble with Dainton for years? I mean, Dainton’s getting old and he has enough money. Why would he be bothered about taking Nash out now? Why cause all the trouble for himself?”

Riley nodded. Decided to take a chance.

“You ever thought it might not be Dainton?”

Howden paused, the cigarette clamped between his lips.

“Who else would it be?” he asked, but before Riley could answer (which was lucky because he didn’t really know what to say) Howden held up a hand to tell him to wait and rummaged in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and looked at the display as he tossed his cigarette out the window.

“It’s McCabe. A text.”

“And...?” Riley asked.

“The drink’ll have to wait.  He was right when he said it wouldn’t take long. Dainton must’ve been as soft as he looked. He’s finished already. We better head back.”

They drove back to the industrial estate in silence, Riley keeping his eyes on the road and Howden keeping his lungs filled with smoke after lighting up again, and it was a little after two in the morning when they knocked on the door to the unit.

McCabe didn’t answer the door. Instead, he called Howden’s mobile and asked if it was them.

“Yeah, it’s us,” Howden said. “Who the fuck else would it be?”

McCabe soon opened the door. He had stripped down to his vest and was sweating. There was no blood on him but Riley knew a lot would have been spilt.

“Soft fucker told me all he knew before I’d even finished with his legs,” he said. “Spoilt my fun.”

“He admitted Dainton was behind the shooting?” Riley asked. He didn’t know whether to believe it or not. People would admit to anything when they were getting cut up.

McCabe stepped aside to allow them in and said, “Apparently he’s got this big deal going down with a couple of major dealers from the Netherlands. He wanted Nash out the way so he could take over the docks to get the stuff in the country.”

Riley didn’t believe the story one bit. If it was just about getting drugs into the country there would many other ways to do it than via the local docks. No, things didn’t add up. McCabe hadn’t proved his total innocence yet – despite his loyal act tonight.

Riley then saw that Mark Dainton was still strung up, his head hanging down to his chest, clearly dead, his toes broken and bloodied, his lower legs skinned in places, a couple of drill-holes in each kneecap. There was also a patch of dark blood on his chest and his torso was covered in vomit. The blood had pooled beneath him (along with the contents of his bowel and bladder) and the plastic sheeting was doing its job and keeping the slop from staining the floor. The tools were back on the table – a hammer, a pair of bloodstained pliers (for the toenails!), a Stanley knife and a battery-powered drill. Mark Dainton had paid for his past crimes with honours.

McCabe walked behind the corpse, released the pulley system and Dainton’s lifeless body flopped heavily onto the plastic sheeting, smashing bones in his face and loosing teeth.

“Come and give me a hand,” McCabe told Howden as he loosened the chain from the handcuffs, leaving Dainton’s wrists still bound together. Then he unlocked the manacles with a home-made key he grabbed from the table before grabbing the dead man’s ankles and motioning for Howden to get his arms. “Help me get this fucker next door. Riley, throw the plastic sheeting in the oven. I’ll burn it later, along with his clothes.”

When both men began to heave the sagging body into the back room, Riley did as asked.

He rolled up the plastic sheeting, careful not to spill any of the coagulating blood or other contents and equally careful not to get any on himself. Luckily, McCabe had cut the plastic larger than needed and so there was plenty of width around the edges to catch what slopped about on the slick material. Once it was in the oven, Riley headed into the smaller room at the back of the unit.

The scene was so surreal it was almost comical.

Howden was taking a piss in the toilet with the door open as if he didn’t have a care in the world. McCabe was attending to a small package on the bench in front of him like a dedicated office clerk, scribbling something in black marker pen. Behind them both, Mark Dainton had been hung from his wrists, the handcuffs looped over a steel hook that had been fixed above the shower cubical. McCabe had wasted little time in the few minutes it had taken Riley to gather up the plastic sheeting and had slit Dainton’s throat, wrists and thighs, severing the main veins and arteries so that blood was running freely down into the plug hole beneath his dangling feet.

Riley had heard about McCabe’s methods but had never seen them before.

After the torture the person would be killed, usually by a stab wound to the heart, which explained the blood Riley had seen on Dainton’s chest. Then, after being dragged into the shower, the victim would be left to bleed out. Then, usually the next day, the corpse would be bundled into the deep freeze. A couple of days after that, the frozen body would be cut up and the parts scattered all over the place, pieces buried in shallow graves or under concrete or weighed down and chucked in the deepest part of the river and voila – someone’s just disappeared!

“Right,” Howden said, zipping up and taking a final look at Dainton like it was nothing. “I guess that’s it for the night. I’m off. You’ll drop me at home, won’t you, Riley?”

“No,” McCabe said. He picked up the package he’d been writing on. “I’ll drop you at home when I’ve cleaned up. Riley has one more job to do.”

“One more job?” Riley asked, surprised. He’d come back to help tidy up and nothing more. What else was there?

McCabe handed him the package. It was very light, like a small empty box or carton wrapped in an envelope.
DAINTON
was written neatly in black marker on the top.

“I take it I’ve got to deliver this?” Riley said and McCabe nodded. “Why me?”

“Just sharing the duties,” McCabe said. “You deliver this and me and Howden get rid of the body. You wanna swop?”

“No thank you.”

McCabe smiled.

“Thought not.”

Riley looked at the package. Then at the corpse dangling from the rusty hook. He now saw what McCabe had done to the face.

And suddenly he understood what he held in his hands.