The Chop Shop (17 page)

Michael turned
his torch off and moved back downstairs to the kitchen with Richard. They
removed one of the curtains from its railing and tossed it out the window to
cover the shattered glass. A muffled clink sounded as they climbed outside.

Michael heard
garbled voices on the radio and one of the security team speaking. He padded
across the patio stones to the end of the garden, craning his neck, and caught
a glimpse of their entry point in the darkness. A flash of torchlight
illuminated the side of the house.

Richard removed
the bamboo stakes from the gravel. The drone of another engine approached in
the distance, and Michael wiped the sweat from his forehead on a coat sleeve.
“You ready?”

Richard nodded
and locked his fingers together again. He lifted Michael up to cut another hole
in the concertina wire. They landed in an alleyway of broken fencing and
rubble, and behind that was a stretch of ruined street, covered in bits and
pieces of Russian aircraft.

Michael stepped
over the debris, trying not to disturb any of it. More voices came from around
the corner, and he paused to look back, watching three silhouettes climb over
the original entry point with their guns.

They cleared the
rest of the ruins and found themselves on the next street, disappearing into
the darkness before anyone could see them.

It was icy cold
in the office, and they sat in near darkness, light coming in through the
window blinds from a floodlight on the underside of the platform. Michael
listened to the sounds of the next shift arriving.

Richard scraped
more mud from his shoe. “You ever think about the war much?”

“Sometimes.
What's up?” Michael said. He continued eyeing the phone.

“Just wondering;
those planes reminded me of it. I was still at school when the war happened.
That one we saw today? The exact same model crash landed in the playground.
It's that ugly turquoise colour they paint the interior of the cockpits with,
like some bad DIY job on a council estate, you know what I mean?”

Michael yawned.
His eyelids felt heavy. “It wasn't the planes we had to worry about so much in
Germany; they went by so fast they never had much of a chance to spot us in the
rubble. Helicopter gunships were the worst. They could spot us scurrying about
with their thermal sights, and we never had enough MANPADs.”

“I never used to
feel very lucky about avoiding the fighting in Germany. Didn't seem to count
for much when they were levelling a new city every month. Have you got a place
to stay?”

“Are you
offering?”

“No, I was going
to tell you about this cheap little hotel nearby. The area seems pretty safe.
Can't ask for much more than that these days.”

“I'm good.”

“Does that mean
you're fucking Samantha? I've got to get going,” Richard said, pulling on his
coat. “Hope Harris doesn't keep screwing you around; he's got the taste of
blood now. Maybe some of the others will come back and pick up some of the
slack around here.”

“I wouldn't
count on it anytime soon.”

Richard waved
and left the office. Harris phoned several minutes later. “Okay, come on up. We
need to talk.”

The major hung
up before Michael could respond. He shut his eyes and sighed. It was even
colder in the corridor outside, and he shivered as he ran up the stairs and
found Harris's daughter mopping the floors. Each time she cleaned it, somebody
else passed on through and left a fresh set of muddy footprints. She eyed him
suspiciously as he knocked on the major's door.

Michael went
inside without waiting for an answer. “Have you finished looking through what
we found, sir?”

“There's a ton of
stuff there; it'll take a long time to go through it all. I had a team filter
what they could and what they found makes for some interesting reading. I hope
you haven't made plans for tonight; we're going to be here a while.”

He sat down
opposite the major. “What's new? To be frank, sir, I wish you'd let this thing
go. There's other things just as worthy of my time that we might actually
solve.”

“There's nothing
on the drives or in the folders that you took that helps our investigation.
What that journalist gave us was probably just a piece of bait, something to
keep us busy. I shouldn't be surprised. That was always the risk of dealing
with them.”

Michael let his
shoulders relax as he reclined further in the chair. “So we're done? We can
shutter this case now. There's nothing else to go on.”

“Don't you want
to know what was in those files?”

“Not really,
sir, but I expect you're going to tell me anyway.”

“An Eratech
production facility. Information about a business contract.”

“Two of us
managed to break into that property. It's a nice house, and as far some places
go around here, fairly safe, but it's not the kind of place you'd keep
confidential information related to your job.”

“It's still
something. What do you know about the new defence contract the government has
been passing about?”

“What defence
contract? They're so deep in financial mismanagement they couldn't buy a crate
of rifles for the army even if they wanted to. What good will it do them?”

“It's for some
kind of remote-controlled drone. I don't think they ordering a weapon. The
references are vague, but it looks like something designed to clear up toxic
waste and radiation.”

“Assurer makes a
ton of money shipping off criminals to clean up this stuff. With drones, they
wouldn't need to use people. Goodbye revenue stream,” Michael said. He
remembered the return journey from Basingstoke and what he'd seen, looking down
at his hands as the realisation dawned upon him.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.
Assurer must know about this.”

Harris nodded.
“Probably. Big company. They all indulge in corporate espionage. You know, Jim
Belton probably knew about some of this stuff. He sat on some of the committees
overseeing defence.”

“He was friendly
with Eratech, though. They paid him money; there was no reason to kill him
unless he changed his mind and went against them.”

“Maybe that's
what he did.”

“And the attacks
on Assurer police units... It's making company shareholders nervous, and the
government too. People are starting to think that Assurer is the wrong company
to run the service for Lower London. A way for Eratech to put more pressure on
Assurer? Shit, this whole thing is a fucking pissing contest between two
multi-national companies.”

“I've got
nothing else to go on for now, so I'm putting the case on the back burner
again. But don't think we're finished. I think you and I are getting somewhere
with this. We're close. I'll keep sifting through what you brought back; there
might be something else amongst it. This guy is going down, so keep thinking
about that bonus cheque.”

Michael frowned.
He looked over his shoulder at the door. “I don't think the bonus really
matches how knee deep in shit we are.”

“I'll give you a
bigger one.”

“The bounties
are fixed, sir, unless you're implying you'll breach company regulations.”

Harris shrugged.
“It's business. You do what you have to stay in the game and some people won't
like that.”

“I'll see you
tomorrow, sir.”

The smell of
last night's Chinese take away still hung in the air as he brushed his teeth.
Michael missed the solitude of his flat and the absence of loud music pounding
through the walls at night. He heard the faint sound of the television coming
through the gap in the doorway.

“Mike, come and
see this,” Samantha said.

“Give me a
minute.” He spat the toothpaste out his mouth and rinsed the brush under the
tap. Samantha opened the door enough to stick her head through.

“You really need
come and see this,” she said.

Michael dropped
the brush in the cup. “What is it?”

He followed her
into the lounge, and the television was tuned to channel one. A footer scrolled
across the bottom of the screen, proclaiming breaking news, and the reporter
spoke excitedly into her microphone at the edge of the motorway.

“Is this live?”
Michael said.

Samantha tightened
the belt on her dressing gown and nodded. Fires rose up behind the reporter,
stretching even higher than the surrounding woods.

“Do you
recognise the place?” Samantha said.

“That's where I
pulled over the other night.”

“Right.”

The news cut
away to a different camera, filming from the edge of the woods, and Michael
felt a lump form in his throat. The flames stretched from one side of the
screen to the other, as firemen sprayed streams of water with little effect.
Two Assurer fire engines from Lower London joined the others.

“Plane crash,”
Samantha said. “They said it had just taken off fully loaded with fuel, and
then the pilots seemed to lose control.”

“It loses
control and ploughs straight into an expensive research facility, constructing
some kind of project for a government contract. That's a very big coincidence.
Why are Assurer fire engines at the scene? They aren't contracted for that
area.”

She sat down on
the arm of the sofa, one of her bare thighs showing through the split in the
gown. “It's a big accident. The reporter said they were bringing in outside
contractors because they didn't have enough manpower. You're right, though. It
is strange; somebody would have to guide that plane in at the right angle and
speed to hit the place. It'd be suicide.”

“Maybe they
didn't do it willingly, or there's something we don't know. How many people
were on that plane?”

Samantha didn't
answer. She watched the fire, and the camera zoomed in on a chunk of the
aircraft's tail that was still intact.  “Full load. Five hundred people.”

“Jesus.”

They walked
through the main entrance together. Samantha continued on up to administration,
but he turned right into the reception area, where some of the police were
stood clustered around the television screen. Michael pushed through the outer
ranks.

“Morning, Ward,”
Corporal Hill said. “Have you seen this?”

“Yeah.”

“They still
haven't put the damn thing out. Talk about hitting the bullseye,” Richard said.

“Aviation fuel
burns quickly; the fire would've gone out long ago. It's whatever they have in
that facility which is still burning. Makes you wonder what it is,” Hill said.

“It does,
doesn't it? Major, can I have a word?” Michael said.

Harris kept his
eyes on the television. “You can have two: not now. There's a murder I need you
to check out. Get going. Richard will fill you in on the details.”

“Yeah, yeah, we
better go,” Richard said, running a hand through his hair.

They went
outside to his car.

“Want to tell me
what's going on?” Michael said, as they drove out of the compound.

“A guy called
Jeremy Miller turned up dead. I know, dead people turn up all the time, but
this guy was the son of a respectable businessman. Nothing international or
anything like that, but he did have some money and a few connections with
members of the government. Hey, what's wrong?”

“Nothing, just
wondering what happened to that other murder case you were on.”

Richard
shrugged. “Pain in the arse. Little evidence except for the body and no
witnesses, so I handed it off to detectives from station three at the first
opportunity. The bonus wasn't worth the time and effort.”

“I don't know
about you, but it would be nice to get something solved for once. It doesn't
look good on our records, and it's bad for the bank account.”

“Maybe we'll get
lucky with this one for once.”

“Maybe. Where's
the body?”

“Ealing, just
off the main high-street. Dead from a slit throat.”

An armoured
personnel carrier was parked across the road, and its occupants had set up a
cordon in the street. One policeman stood at the end of the road, redirecting
traffic. Michael and Richard got out of the car and showed their identity
cards, as they approached the unit.

The policeman
had his visor up, but a balaclava still hid his identity. He sipped from his
canteen through a straw. “This way, sir. I'm Corporal Vickers. We had to shoot
some wild dogs trying to eat the body, so be careful where you step.”

He led them
twenty meters down the pavement to an alley between two abandoned office
buildings. The buildings had once possessed sleek modern façades of plastic,
metal and glass. Now the façades lay scattered in chunks across the street.

They stepped
over old rubbish bins, piles of litter and two dead dogs. Jeremy Miller's body
lay partially covered by a cardboard box of rancid beef burgers.

“Burger Bonanza?
I went there the other month and got food poisoning. This box of shit was
probably what they served me,” Richard said.

“I'm a
vegetarian. Besides, you never know what they might use to make burgers these
days. Horse, dog, cat, maybe a bit of human thrown in there as well,” Corporal
Vickers said.

“But you just
plugged two animals.”

“Just because I
don't like eating meat doesn't mean I want to turn my flat into fucking
Battersea Dogs Home by rehousing rabid filth off the street. Do you know how
much disease Fido the friendly plague carrier here harbours? If it ain't
rabies, then it's probably something even worse.”

Richard pointed
at the flow of blood. “Yeah, and now he's trickling down the drain. Pity the
poor guy that will have to go down there eventually.”

“How did you
find the body?” Michael said.

“What do you
mean?” Vickers said. “I was the one who shot the beasties.”

“The person,
Corporal. The murder victim. This corpse right here by my foot.”

Corporal Vickers
screwed the cap back on his canteen. “We didn't. This homeless guy holed up on
the third floor of that office saw it all. Apparently, a white van pulls up on
the pavement and two guys drag the victim into this alley, so they can cut his
throat.”

“Well, where is
he?” Michael said. “Did you bring him down to your vehicle?”

“He's still up
there.”

“Why didn't you
bring him down?”

“He's on the
third floor. I couldn't be bothered to climb up there, and he wouldn't come
down on his own.”

“Well let's go
up there, then.”

They stepped
over the corpses and went back out onto the street, taking a left to enter
through the office block's missing front doors. Glass and rubble crunched
beneath their feet, and a handful of rats scurried into dark holes.

Yellow emergency
tape covered up the trio of lifts opposite the reception desk, and a number of
different gangs had taken turns in spraying over each other's tags on the
opposite wall. They climbed the stairs.

“What do you
think, Mike? They could have killed the guy a thousand different ways, but they
do it with a knife. It's cheap, I guess, and quiet.”

Michael nodded.
“We'll need more than a tramp in an office cubicle to take this anywhere,
though.”

“You might want
to show some respect,” a man shouted down at them. He looked down through the
third floor bannister, but darkness hid his face. A single slither of light
shone through one of the windows and lit the edge of his silhouette.

“Sorry. We're
detectives from Richmond station. I was hoping you could fill us in on what
happened in that alley,” Michael said.

“Sure, come on
up. Maybe we can cut a deal,” the man said.

They continued
their ascent.

“He's not
dangerous or anything, is he? I'm not wearing body armour, and I don't want to
get stabbed by some nut job hiding out in this dump,” Richard said.

“The guy's a
cripple. He'd do more damage to himself if he tried to kill you,” Vickers said.

They reached the
third floor and found the man had gone.

“Hey, where are
you?” Michael said.

“Through here.
Come on in and join the party.”

Michael stepped
out of the stairwell and into a corridor. The man called to them again, and he
followed the echo of the voice to another ruined reception area for the segment
of rented offices.

A camp fired
burned in the middle of the floor. The flames crackled and danced, casting
sharp shadows onto a white wall, and wind blew in through the shattered windows
overlooking the street below.

The man leaned
closer to his fire, beckoning for them to come and sit. An orange glow lit his
weathered old face and wild hair. Crutches lay on the floor beside him, and he
had removed his prosthetic leg to adjust the straps on the flesh stump that
remained.

“You live here?”
Michael said.

He grinned. A
few teeth were missing from his mouth. “Yeah, I got the biggest house in all of
London and nobody can be bothered to evict me. I can tell you what happened in
the alley, but everything has its price.”

The man spoke in
a harsh voice, as though he'd smoked one too many cigarettes over the years.

“Hey, arsehole.
You see this on my belt? This is a stun gun. And you see this? This is a baton.
You think life is hard with just one leg? Start talking now or you're going to
need another prosthetic,” Vickers said.

The man
snickered at him. He removed the spit from its place above the fire and prodded
at the cooked rat, grimacing as he burnt a finger. “You can threaten me all you
like, but I don't care. Look at me; sooner or later I'll be dead, and even if
I'm not, I've got no way up from here. I think death scares you a lot more than
it does me.”

“Ease up,
Corporal. He's not going to be of any use to us if he's dead or crippled.
What's it going to take to get you to talk?” Michael said.

The man rubbed
his hands together, and his eyes glinted in the fire as that toothy grin
returned. “Well, let's see. Do you know that pizza place on the corner? I want
the extra-large meat mash up. It's got to have the stuffed crust as well. Get a
pen and paper, you'll need to write it all down.”

Corporal Vickers
pointed his rifle at the man. “Do we look like a fucking delivery service to
you? I'm going to waste this guy. Find somebody else to question. He's not
worth the hassle.”

“Look, if you're
going to act like a spoilt child, then go and wait outside. I don't need you
and your bunch of trigger happy morons complicating our investigation. What
station are you guys from? Harrow? Yeah, it's Harrow isn't it? You lot are
complete pricks up there.”

“Fine, if you
want to be bitch boys for him, that's your problem.”

Michael turned
back to the tramp. “We'll get you your pizza, but it's going straight out the
window if your information is worthless. The dogs can eat it.”

“I'm not
finished. I want six different kinds of drink and a radio. There's a working
plug socket in here,” the tramp said.

“Forget it.
We're not waiting our time hunting round for a radio. You get a pizza in trade
for information, or we walk and you get nothing.”

The grin faded
from the tramp's face. He hunched forward, shoulders sagging like a deflated
balloon. “You can't blame me for trying, can you? I got nothing here. I'll take
the pizza, okay? Is that a deal?”

“Fine, we'll be
back in the minute,” Michael said.

They headed back
down to the ground floor.

“I can't believe
you're letting us get our arms twisted by a homeless guy with one leg.
Delivering pizza?” Richard said.

“What are you
going to do? Beat it out of him? He looks like he'll be dead in thirty as it
is. If he knows something, then I'll take what I can get; we might actually be
able to solve this one.”

They came out in
time to see the armoured personnel carrier driving off. An old man pushed his
shopping trolley across the road, but the vehicle didn't stop, clipping the
corner and wrenching the trolley from his hands. He fell to the ground, as the
armoured personnel carrier crushed the metal beneath a caterpillar track.

A tin of peaches
rolled along the pavement until it hit Michael's shoe and stopped.

“Jesus,” Richard
muttered.

The old man
staggered to his feet, and he screamed at the vehicle before breaking into
tears. The APC turned the corner and disappeared.

“I told you
Harrow station was full of pricks,” Michael said, bending down to pick up the
tin of peaches. The man had vanished when he looked up again, leaving the
remains of his shopping scattered across the street.

“My car, for
God's sake. Did you have to piss him off like that? Tossers,” Richard said. The
pair of dead dogs lay draped on the bonnet, and their blood was smeared all
over the window. “They're probably carrying the plague or something.”

“Can we clean
this off after we're done?”

Richard
grimaced. “Fine.”

They bought the
pizza and went back up to the third floor. Michael lifted the flap on the box.
“Special delivery. Six thousands calories of God knows what with stuffed crust.
Half the stuff on this doesn't even look edible.”