Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (31 page)

‘Dammit,’ Jack snapped and instantly regretted it as Carla’s face fell. She was a good kid, eager to help. She’d make a good copper too, if grumpy sods like him didn’t put her off.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It was always going to be a long shot with this one. That’s precisely how he stays untouchable.’

Her face brightened. ‘And a Doctor Cheney’s been trying to get you.’

Jack wondered why Cheney hadn’t called his mobile. He pulled it out and discovered the battery had finally died.

‘He said he’ll be incommunicado for the next hour, something about a new piece of art,’ she told him. ‘But that you might be interested to know that he found someone else’s DNA on the knife.’

Jack’s chest contracted. Surely Annabelle’s cock and bull story couldn’t be true. But if it was, what did that mean for Tanisha? Nothing good, that was for sure. He checked his watch. It would take twenty minutes for him to get to Cheney. Twenty minutes he didn’t want to waste, but right now he didn’t have an alternative.

‘Can I borrow your phone, Carla?’ Jack asked.

She smiled and handed it over.

‘I owe you a drink,’ he said.

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Lilly rolled a five-pence piece between her forefinger and thumb, letting it catch the glare from the spotlight above her head. She wasn’t good at waiting. When her mobile rang, she rushed to answer it, gratefully.

At first, the caller didn’t speak and all Lilly could hear was
passing
traffic in the background.

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me.’ Tanisha’s voice was small. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.’

‘Tanisha,’ Lilly exclaimed.

Annabelle gasped and her hands flew to her face.

‘Tanisha where are you?’ Lilly asked. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m …’ Tanisha paused, obviously struggling with the word
fine
. ‘I’ve got to sort some things out. I just wanted to like,
apologize
, for all the shit I’ve put you through.’

‘Never mind about that Tanisha, just tell me where you are.’

‘I can’t do that, Lilly.’

‘I know this is all very frightening,’ Lilly jumped to her feet, ‘but you’ve got to let me come and get you. Under no
circumstances
should you go to see the father of your child.’

‘How do you know about Danny?’

Lilly glanced at Annabelle. ‘That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that you keep yourself safe.’

Lilly was about to explain why Daniel Kanio was the last
person
Tanisha should trust right now, but the line was already dead. She screwed her eyes shut, knowing there was no point in pressing the reply button. Tanisha had said what she’d had to say and the conversation was over.

Her mind was running in double time, fast forwarding past the possibility that Kanio had dispatched Chika like an annoying wasp, to the point where he might hurt a pregnant girl who got in his way.

‘Annabelle,’ she spoke slowly, ‘you need to think very carefully about where Daniel took you in his car.’

Annabelle’s cheeks reddened and her mouth began to twitch.

Lilly held up a warning finger. ‘I said carefully.’

Annabelle nodded and gulped down her haste. She took three breaths to steady herself.

‘I could probably show you.’

Jack had been very clear that they should stay put. But Lilly wasn’t any better at taking orders than she was at waiting.

When Jamie wakes up he can only open one eye. The other feels wet and heavy. He tries to wipe it, but his hand won’t move. It’s numb and caught in an odd position behind his back. Never mind. He’ll go back to sleep. He’s so very exhausted.

Then he hears the squealing. High pitched and annoying. It whistles in his ear and around his brain like one of those
old-fashioned
kettles. Or an animal. He once watched a documentary about an organic pig farmer. It was meant to show you that his ‘girls’ had led a happy life, rolling around in their own shit and eating acorns. But the sound of their screaming when the farmer cut their throats put Jamie off ham for ever.

The noise gets so loud Jamie is forced to look.

Suddenly, he is thrust back into the present. He knows exactly where he is and why he can’t move his arms.

Trick is lying at the other end of the room, his hands and feet bound with wire. The black guy who picked them up in the park is standing above him, the weird eye, lifeless and white, staring down. He’s calm and still, and seems almost puzzled at Trick writhing around at his feet. He examines the cigarette in his hand and blows on the lit end until it glows a deep red.

‘No, please, no.’ Trick tries to roll away.

Jamie can see three or four angry burns on his face, each a
perfect
circle. He wants to say something to help but knows there is nothing to say. His few days of freedom are over and he and Trick are going to die here, in this airless place.

The guy crouches down and holds the ember millimetres from Trick’s cheek.

‘Please,’ Trick screams, ‘you’ve got your money back. It’s all there. We didn’t spend any of it.’

The guy shakes his head. ‘This isn’t about the money. Do you really think I give a fuck about a poxy grand?’

‘What then?’ Tears are pouring down Trick’s face. ‘What do you want?’

Poor Trick. He doesn’t get it. The guy doesn’t want anything. They’ve taken from him and now they have to pay. Simple cause and effect.

Behind him, Jamie hears a groan of disgust. He finds the
schoolgirl
in her uniform, squatting against the wall, playing with her tie, her mouth a repulsed scowl. He’d forgotten she was there. When he woke up in the park she was standing over him, a
mixture
of sadness and confusion on her face. She wore the same expression when the guy with the freaky eye kicked him in the face. What will she do when it’s Jamie’s turn to be an ashtray?

At last, the guy is forced to take a break when another man enters the room.

‘Boss,’ the second man says, ‘there’s someone here for you. Says it’s important.’

‘Who?’

The second man glances at the schoolgirl. ‘Tanisha.’

‘What does she want?’ The schoolgirl looks up from her tie.

Both men glare at her and walk out of the room.

Trick is whispering to himself, his body convulsing.

‘Trick,’ Jamie calls out his name. He has nothing useful to say, just wants Trick to know he’s there. That he’s not alone.

The schoolgirl hits her head against the wall behind her. ‘This is all wrong. Totally fucked.’

She bangs it again and again, getting harder and harder.

Lilly drove through the Clayhill.

‘Do you recognize anything?’ she asked Annabelle.

Annabelle gazed through the windscreen at the row of shops. A Spar, a florist and a Help the Aged were on their left.

‘I remember the café.’ She pointed to an all-night place, the windows misty with steam and grease. ‘Then we went straight on.’

Lilly drove at a crawl, scouring the pavements for any sign of Tanisha. The car behind overtook and hooted at her.

‘There.’ Annabelle indicated to a quad in front of two blocks of flats. ‘We definitely pulled over just there.’

Lilly parked the Mini and they jumped out. The tower blocks loomed over them, grey and uninviting, each floor as ugly and demoralizing as the last. Hopelessness piled upon hopelessness.

‘Do you think Daniel lives here?’ Annabelle asked.

Lilly opened her palms. ‘The police avoid it, so the gangs have a pretty free rein.’

‘It’s horrible.’

Lilly couldn’t argue. ‘Let’s split up. You take the left and I’ll take the right. If either of us finds Tanisha, we grab her.’

Annabelle bobbed her head, zipped up her waterproof and strode to the lift. Lilly turned to the right and headed to the entrance nearest to her, where she read a sign.

* * *

Sandwiched between a sex shop and a bookies was Skin2Skin, a so-called body art salon.

Jack pushed open the door and entered a reception garlanded in purple drapes. Candles and joss sticks burned on a low table.

‘Yeah?’ a woman with shocking pink hair and a matching vest looked up from a magazine.

Jack flashed his warrant card.

‘What do you want this time?’ The woman’s vest displayed arms covered from knuckles to shoulders in tattoos.

‘I need to speak to Phil Cheney,’ said Jack.

The woman leaned behind Jack to lock the door and jerked her head that he should follow her through a velvet curtain
hanging
from a pole. The back of her vest gaped and the head of a mermaid inked in ocean greens and blues smiled up at him.

The room behind the curtain was in complete contrast. Tiled floors and walls painted white, lit by spotlights in the ceiling. In the centre was a chair, not unlike one you’d find in a dentist. Cheney was sat in it, his left arm outstretched, the bald and shiny head of the tattooist bent over it.

‘Nice,’ said Jack.

Cheney and the man, tattoo gun still in hand, looked up.

‘Police,’ the woman told them.

‘It’s fine,’ said Cheney. ‘Just work.’

The woman sloped away and the man went back to his design, the gun droning. Cheney flinched as the needle pierced his skin.

‘Why?’ Jack asked.

‘Self-expression,’ Cheney answered. ‘Now what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘I got a message that you’d found something else on the knife.’

Cheney looked down at the picture appearing on his arm. An outline of flowers poking through barbed wire.

‘I found a small amount of blood not belonging to our victim,’ he said. ‘Could be our killer cut themselves during the attack.’

The bald guy looked up from his work, stared first at Cheney, then Jack. His face, too, was hairless, his brow bones smooth and protruding. Cheney twitched his biceps, nudging the guy back to the job in hand.

‘Do you have a match?’ asked Jack, praying it was Tanisha.

‘Nothing on the database,’ said Cheney.

Jack’s heart sank. It was inconclusive, certainly didn’t mean Tanisha was innocent, but it would give the defence another
foothold
. He could just imagine Lilly spinning her story about some unknown person stealing the knife and committing the crime, how she’d point a jury to the unidentified blood.

‘Could it be Annabelle O’Leary’s?’ Jack asked. ‘It’s her kitchen and her knife. Maybe she cut herself before Tanisha took it.’

‘Perfectly possible. Get me a sample and I’ll rule her in or out,’ said Cheney.

Why the hell were lifts always out of order?

Lilly puffed her way to the fourth floor, leaning against the exit of the stairwell as she tried to catch her breath. She’d never been very fit. A few lessons in martial arts, the odd lunchtime walk, but never any serious exercise.

A woman with a toddler passed, looking Lilly up and down in contempt. As they hit the top of the stairs, she took her son’s hand and whispered to him.

‘Never ever speak to these people, understand. They come here for bad things.’

The little boy nodded and they hurried down.

Lilly wondered what the woman meant, until she realized that in the dark, sweating and heaving, she must have looked like any other junkie after a fix. She stood straight and pushed her hair from her face.

Then she thought about it. The woman had been very quick to assume Lilly was an addict chasing some drugs. The Clayhill was full of them of course, but it was almost as if the woman had expected it.

Lilly looked along the walkway at the flats. The two at the far end were boarded up, metal sheets over their doors and windows. One had a slit cut into it, reminding Lilly of the openings in cell doors. Small enough to pass things through, too small for anyone to fit through. In prison it was to keep people in. On the estates it was to keep the police out.

A drug house.

Was it possible that this place was Daniel Kanio’s? Lilly lifted her chin. There were sixteen more floors. No doubt half a dozen flats would be derelict and taken over by dealers.

She sighed. It was a long shot, but she had to try.

‘Tell me what the fuck she’s doing here.’

The schoolgirl has left the room and is screaming in the
hallway
. There’s the tell-tale smack of a punch being landed and a groan that makes Jamie shiver. Then the door slams shut.

More voices are raised outside. And there’s more screaming. Something very bad is going on out there, but whatever it is, Jamie knows this is his only chance.

He tries to push himself to his feet, but can’t get enough
purchase
with his shoulder. He can get his feet flat but can’t get his torso off the ground. He strains with the effort. It’s no use. With his feet and hands tied, it’s impossible.

Instead, he rolls towards Trick like a worm, undulating his body in the fag ends and shards of glass. He feels a sharp sting in his upper arm and gasps. He risks a glance and finds a sliver, three centimetres long sticking out of his sweater. The trickle of blood and the pain tell Jamie it’s caught deep in his flesh.

‘Trick,’ he pants, ‘you’ve got to help me.’

Trick is still babbling to himself, his head rocking from side to side.

‘Listen to me, Trick,’ says Jamie. ‘I need you to concentrate on what I’m saying.’

Trick looks over, but his eyes are unfocused.

‘Trick.’ Gritting his teeth against the burn, Jamie holds out his hands. ‘I need you to move over here and untie me.’

Another thud, followed by a scream, comes from the hallway, making Trick flinch. At least that means he can hear.

‘We have to get out of here.’ Blood falls from the gash in Jamie’s arm.

‘How?’ Trick’s voice is full of wonder.

‘I don’t know,’ Jamie admits, ‘but if you untie me, I’ll think of something.’