The Child Taker & Slow Burn (13 page)

“He was when I last saw him.”

“Is he likely to be able to deliver the next consignment in three weeks time?”

“That’s debatable.” Alfie wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was one thing getting lippy with Hajj, but another all-together crossing the Moroccan Mafioso. His life would be shortened considerably, and his death would be a slow and painful one.

“Stop fucking me around, Alfie,” Hajj snarled. His temper was being tested to the limit.

“He’s had a good kicking which is what you wanted, but Brian might have gone too far,” Alfie mumbled.

“Explain.”

“He was unconscious and coughing blood,” Alfie said.

Hajj walked around the Mercedes puffing on the cigar. He stopped in front of Alfie and he blew smoke in his face. Alfie stepped back but did not react. The Moroccan walked past Rahid and tutted. He was shaking his head in fake dismay as he approached Brian. The big Para couldn’t make eye contact with Hajj. Despite being a much bigger man than Hajj, he was scared. Hajj had an air of menace about him which made him uneasy.

“You have seen action many times, yes?” Hajj spoke to Brian.

“Yes, so what if I have?” Brian tried to maintain his composure. Showing fear would not be good now.

“You will have seen many men injured, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I have never been to war, but I’ve seen many men die. Can you tell when a man is about to die?”

“What are you asking me?” Brian said nervously.

“I’m asking you a simple question.” Hajj blew smoke into Brian’s face. “Will Jack Howarth live to fulfil his commitments to my employers?” Hajj smiled and puffed smoke through a false smile.

“He’ll need medical attention,” Brian confessed.

“And what if he doesn’t stumble across a doctor?”

Brian remained silent and shook his head slowly, indicating the worst. Hajj tugged deeply on the cigar and looked at the glowing tip. He moved like lightening and stabbed the glowing cigar into Brian’s left eye. Brian screamed and grabbed at the burning object. He dropped the Mach 10 in the process. Hajj chopped him in the windpipe with a knife hand karate strike, and the big man buckled at the knees.

“Whoah!” Alfie shouted as the attack began. He moved quickly, but Rahid was quicker. He swooped behind him and clubbed his gun from his hand. A swift kick to the back of knees had Alfie neutralised on the floor in seconds.

“Where was Jack when you left him?” Hajj picked up Brian’s machine pistol, and he switched it to single shot mode. Brian didn’t respond; he was writhing on the floor clutching his ruined eye, and gasping for breath.

“Alfie, where was Jack?”

“He was in a caravan on the outskirts of Warrington.” Alfie was on his back with his hands raised in surrender, staring down the barrel of Rashid’s pistol.

“How long would it take you to get back there?”

“You can’t be serious?” Alfie spat the words.

Hajj squeezed the trigger of the Mach 10, and a fat nine millimetre bullet smashed into Brian’s left foot. He screamed like a banshee. The gunshot and the screaming had disturbed the stabled horses and they whinnied and stamped their hooves on the concrete. Brian cursed Hajj in a stream of expletives that Alfie couldn’t even understand.

“How long, Alfie?”

“For fuck’s sake, Hajj! About an hour.” Alfie was more frightened than he’d ever been in his life.

“Do you have any idea what is at stake?” Hajj asked calmly.

“I don’t give a fuck Hajj, just leave him alone!”

“Over two million Euros, every month,” Hajj explained. He pulled the trigger again and another bullet ripped through Brian’s left kneecap, shattering the bone, ripping ligaments and liquidising cartilage as it bounced around inside him.

“Jesus Christ!” Brian’s scream was a sickening wail. Alfie wanted to get up and run as fast as he could but he couldn’t move for fear of his own life. “Stop!” He cried again.

“Hajj, I’ll go back and get Jack Just stop this now,” Alfie pleaded. He glanced across at his injured colleague and grimaced as he saw a dark pool of blood spreading beneath him.

“Two million Euros, every month, guaranteed. Easy money for everyone, ruined by this gorilla.” Hajj fired a third bullet. It penetrated his left elbow and shattered the joint into a dozen fragments. The arm bent backwards on itself in the wrong direction. Brian cried out in agony and writhed like an eel across the stable yard.

“Hajj, you’ll kill him, please stop, I’ll do anything you ask.” Alfie thought that it was already too late for Brian. He was more concerned for his own safety.

“Can you tell when a man is about to die, Alfie?”

“Yes, Hajj. Yes I can, please stop, we made a mistake.” Alfie closed his eyes as Hajj raised the machine pistol again.

“Do you think Jack is dying, Alfie?” Hajj walked around Brian’s writhing body.

“No, Hajj. I’ll go back now and get him to a doctor.” Alfie stared at the night sky. The clouds drifted lazily east to west. Bright stars twinkled between them. He wished that he could be up there with them. He had stepped into a world that was far too scary for him. He didn’t mind selling a bit of blow for the Moroccans, but this was getting way out of hand.

“I suggest that you go now, Alfie. Immediately.” Hajj spoke calmly. He didn’t take his eyes from Brian.

Rahid waved the pistol in his face, indicating that Alfie should stand up. He stood up on shaking legs, his knees felt like they were going to buckle at any second.

“What about Brian?”

“I think he’s about to die. What do you think?” Hajj pointed the Mach 10 at the critically injured Para. Brian was fading into unconsciousness, and his life force was spreading across the stable yard towards the drain in its centre. There was so much blood that Alfie didn’t think that Brian would last much longer.

“Let me take him to a hospital, Hajj.” Alfie brushed straw and muck from his suit as he spoke.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hajj pulled the trigger again and Brian’s skull exploded like a ripe melon. Grey brain matter mixed with viscous blood splattered across the concrete in a crimson plume. “Brian won’t be going anywhere. He’s dead, Alfie.”

              Alfie buckled at the knees and he retched. He retched again but nothing came up. The sight of his sidekick still twitching in his death throes was too much to stomach. He felt like he might pass out. Rahid grabbed his elbow and pulled him to his feet roughly. He grabbed the scruff of his neck, turned his head towards his friend’s ruined body, and forced him to look at the sickening scene.

“Tell me, Alfie.” Hajj walked towards him. “How is your father?”

“What?”

“You heard me, Alfie.” Hajj was a foot away from his face now. Alfie could smell Armani aftershave, mixed with the pungent odour of cigars on his breath.

“What about my father?”

“How is he?”

“He’s fine, Hajj.” Alfie tried to break away from Rahid but he’d been badly weakened by the shock, and the Moroccan’s grip was tight.

“Do you still take him to the British Legion on Sundays?”

Alfie tried to pull free again but he was held tightly. Hajj rammed the barrel of the Mach 10 painfully under his chin. His face was just inches away now.

“He asked you a question, arsehole.” Rahid pulled tightly on his collar, choking him.

“Yes, I still take my father for a drink on a Sunday afternoon, Hajj.” Alfie stopped struggling. Talking about his elderly disabled father had frozen him to the core. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he knew that things were about to get considerably worse than they were already.

“He lives in Woolton Village with your mother, yes?”

“What?” Alfie dare not answer.

“You heard him.” Rahid twisted his collar tighter. “They live in Woolton Village, in a bungalow next to the park.”

“Yes.”

“He walks with a stick, yes?”

“How the bloody hell do you know all this?” Alfie was flabbergasted.

“Because we are professionals, Alfie, unlike your dead friend here,” Hajj snarled in his face.

              “Okay, okay. He walks with a stick.” Alfie felt his eyes filling up with tears.

“Well, unless you want to be pushing him for his Sunday pint in a wheelchair, then you’d better get Jack to a doctor, quickly.” Hajj spat the words very slowly. “If Jack dies I’ll send Rahid to Woolton Village and he’ll cut your father’s legs off in front of your mother, understand Alfie?”

Alfie nodded his head in the affirmative and the tears in his eyes spilled over and ran down his face. He retched again and this time thick yellow bile sprayed down the front of his suit. Hajj was not a man to be messed with by any stretch of the imagination, and Alfie knew that he was serious about hurting his father. He had opened a Pandora’s Box, which was threatening everything that was precious to him and all for greed, for money that he didn’t really need. His head span with the events of the night so far.

Had he really taken two sleeping children in the boot of his car and delivered them to the most ruthless men that he’d ever met so that they could be sexually abused for an international audience of paedophiles? His thoughts whirled across his mind in turmoil. Rough hands pushed and dragged him towards the driver’s door of the Mercedes. He sensed the door being opened and his head banged painfully on the roof as he was forced into the vehicle.

“Alfie,” Hajj growled at him. He felt like he was in a giant washing machine set to spin.

“Alfie!” A hard slap across the face brought him back to the real world momentarily.

“Go and make sure that Jack is alive and well enough to deliver the next consignments.” Hajj looked straight into his eyes, and Alfie could see madness in them. He looked like he was enjoying every minute of his pain, and feeding off his panic. “Alfie, make sure that the police aren’t involved, and that they don’t know who he is.”

“I will, Hajj,” Alfie croaked. He nodded and tears dripped off his chin onto his dirty suit. Alfie took one last look at Brian before he closed the driver’s door and engaged first gear. One sightless eye stared at him accusingly. The other had rolled towards the grid when his head exploded. Hajj smiled brightly as Alfie pulled away down the farm track. It was going to be a long drive back to make sure that the ‘child taker’ didn’t die in his caravan. Alfie knew that his life and the lives of those precious to him depended on him getting there quickly.

Chapter Sixteen

Jack Howarth drifted in and out of consciousness as waves of pain washed over him. He opened his eyes and tried to gather his composure. Congealed blood caked his face and mouth and there was a sickening ache in his abdomen. Memories of the evening’s events came flooding back to him. The twins had been taken and he’d been beaten badly, but he was alive and that was the main thing. He needed medical attention, of that he had no doubt. His ruptured testicle had swollen to the size of an orange and even the slightest movement sent unbearable stabbing pains through his body. His mobile phone was still in his pocket. He pulled it free, sending a new wave of sharp pain through his groin. He moaned and held his breath until the pain subsided. Jack looked at the telephone screen and realised that two and a half hours had elapsed and that he had six missed calls, all from the same number: Alfie Lesner.

Jack closed his eyes again as a bolt of nausea hit him. The caravan seemed to close in around him, threatening to suffocate him. The faces of children that he’d suffocated over the years floated in and out of his mind. They stared at him accusingly with empty eyes. He could not remember how many there had been as he’d developed his sexual perversions into a lucrative business. Jack was an intelligent man, always thinking of new and ingenious ways to attract children and to distract their guardians. Some had worked better than others had. Puppies and sweets attracted younger children, but older kids were so much more suspicious of strangers these days. Jack was a chameleon, and he adapted his methods to suit his current surroundings. His use of props, such as paddling pools, rope swings, even bicycles left anonymously had always paid dividends. Finding the Moroccans had changed everything. He had been a sexual predator for many years, but now he had turned his hunting into a science. The money was useful, but it was the thrill of the chase that drove him now. Sexual urges were satiated by his success in capturing children to order. His mobile phone vibrated, waking him from his disturbing thoughts. He pressed the green button.

“Jack?” Alfie’s Scouse accent sounded concerned.

“What do you want?” Jack’s voice was thick and slurred. He was confused by the fact that his attackers were making contact.

“Are you alright, Jack?”

“Never felt better,” Jack croaked sarcastically. “What do you want?”

“I’m coming back to take you to hospital.” Alfie was flapping. The events at the stable yard had rattled him badly.

“That’s nice of you.” Jack grinned in the darkness through blood-smeared teeth. “Hajj wasn’t happy with you then I assume?”

“I’m half an hour away, just hang on,” Alfie snarled. He was sickened to the core by the brutal murder of Brian, but more disturbed by the fact that he had been duped into helping an international paedophile ring trafficking children.

“You’ve been lying to me, Jack.” Alfie felt foolish saying it, but he couldn’t believe how gullible he’d been.

“Did you really think all those children were going to be adopted, Alfie?”

“Yes, I did, you sick bastard. I knew you were a fucking pervert, but I didn’t think that you could sink that low.” Alfie wanted to kill him, not get him medical attention. The problem was that Hajj’s threat to hurt his parents was still echoing around his mind, alongside the mental image of Brian’s death mask.

“Alfie, did you really believe what I told you? Come on, are you telling me that doubts never crossed your mind?” Jack’s voice was breaking, and his breathing was laboured.

“You’re sick, Jack.” Alfie was shaking, as the reality of what he’d done began to sink in. He had a large extended family, and visions of his beloved nephews and nieces being kidnapped and abused taunted him.

“You’re as guilty as I am, Alfie, I bet you fancied some of them yourself, eh?”

“Fuck you, Jack.” He thought that he could hear Jack choking, but he realised that he was chuckling to himself. Alfie looked at the mobile phone in disgust, and hung up the call.

“Bye, Alfie,” Jack chuckled in the darkness. He coughed and a thick blob of congealed blood and phlegm filled his mouth. He spat the offending liquid onto the floor, and the effort gained him a bolt of pain through his abdomen that brought tears to his eyes. Hajj must have forced Alfie to come back and get him medical attention. At least the Moroccans valued his skills. There was a big problem, which he had to ponder. The Moroccans had ordered the beating. He couldn’t accept that from anyone, he’d suffered at the hands of others long enough as a boy, and he would not tolerate it now, for sure. They had also ordered the electronic tagging of his vehicle. Jack was not happy with that. He wouldn’t be anyone’s puppet ever again. The Moroccans had disrespected him, and treated him like a common drug dealer who peddled their drugs for them. He was better than that, cleverer than that, and he would demand their respect again. In the beginning, he had dealt directly with them, but now that the consignments were to become regular, they had insisted that he dealt with their minions. Jack was not prepared to do that anymore. His days of being beaten and abused without recompense were long over. He decided to take control of the situation himself. Jack punched three numbers into his mobile phone and pressed call: nine, nine, nine. He chuckled throatily in the darkness.

“Hello, emergency, which service do you require?” An operator answered, sounding robotic and disinterested.

“I need an ambulance. I’ve been attacked, I’m badly injured,” Jack croaked.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

“I’m in my caravan, parked in a lay-by near Walton Gardens, on the outskirts of Warrington.”

“Do you know the name of the road you’re on?”

“Chester Road.”

“There’s an ambulance being despatched now. I’ll connect you to the police, please hold.” The line became static for a second.

“Cheshire police emergency, can I take your name please.”

“Jack Howarth.”

“You’ve been attacked?”

“Yes, he’s kicked me, and I’m injured quite badly.”

“Do you know who your attacker was, Jack?”

“Yes, his name is Alfie Lesner, and he’s coming back to finish me off.”

“Okay, Jack, keep calm. How do you know he’s coming back?”

“He called me.”

“We’ll be there in a few minutes, Jack.”

“Be careful, because he’s armed.”

“What is he armed with, Jack?”

“He has a gun.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you shot?”

“No, I’m badly hurt to my stomach and groin.”

“How far away did he say he was?”

“He said he’d be half an hour.”

“Okay, Jack, relax. We’ll send an armed response unit to protect you. Do you know what vehicle he’s driving?”

“It was a dark Mercedes.”

“Okay Jack, that’s very useful.”

“There’s one other thing,” Jack croaked.

“What is it?”

“He took those children.”

There was a shocked silence on the line.

“What children, Jack?”

“He took the twins from the Lake District. The twins that have been on the news all week.” Jack coughed blood and phlegm again. “He took them.”

“How do you know that, Jack?”

“He was staying in my caravan, and he brought them here, I didn’t know anything about them until he turned up with them.”

              “When did you see them, Jack?”

“Two hours ago, that’s why he attacked me, because I saw them.”

“Are the children still there, Jack?”

“No, he took them in the car I think, I was kicked unconscious, so I can’t be certain,” Jack spluttered and pain racked his body. The injured testicle throbbed with white-hot pain, and sweat ran down his face into his eyes.

“Do you have any idea where he’s taken them, Jack?” The police operator was trying to grasp as much information as he could from the injured man. He had no idea how badly hurt he was, and there was no way of knowing if he’d still be alive when the ambulance arrived.

“I don’t know.” Jack grinned in the blackness, and he had to cover the receiver to stop the operator from hearing him chuckle. The movement triggered a bolt of pain, which sliced upward from his groin to his brain. He moaned in agony.

“Are you okay, Jack?”

“No, please hurry.” Jack pressed the red button and ended the call. He curled up into a foetal position and tried to block out the pain while he waited for the emergency services to arrive. The accusations that he had made on the phone would bring an army of armed police officers down on the small caravan. The transit van had been expertly cleaned of any evidence and DNA. All traces of the children had been bleached away from his van, which would leave only the evidence in the bedroom to prove that they’d ever been there at all.  Alfie would walk right into their clutches, and he wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was too late. Jack knew from experience how the police treated paedophiles, and he chuckled again through the pain as he imagined the look on Alfie’s face.