Carnal Acts (15 page)

Nick and Evie were in the back of Lord Favon’s Toyota Land Cruiser, on the way back from the Hall. Nick had cycled up and done a couple of hours’ revision with Evie. Although English was the only subject they shared, she had a great system for consolidating notes that was helping him with all his work.

They held hands in the dark, but kept a distance between them, aware that Andrew Favon was glancing at them in the mirror. Neither was keen on her parents knowing that they were together. This time Evie had turned the key in the library door before they made love. Nick trembled as he remembered what they had done to each other and squeezed her hand. He heard her inhale deeply and understood she was thinking about their time under the table too.

‘I hope you appreciate this, Nick,’ the broad-backed driver said. He was wearing the wide leather hat he favoured. Baldness was spreading over his large head. ‘I don’t normally drive around at this time of night.’

‘My grandfather would have come to pick me up.’

‘It’s all right.’ He looked in the mirror. ‘Anything for my Evie.’

Evie laughed out loud. ‘I should think so. If you hadn’t broken my legs, I’d be driving this thing myself. Except I’d be in Africa.’

Nick stared at her. He’d never heard her be so sharp with her father.

‘Steady, girl,’ Favon said. ‘It was an accident.’

‘And what do you mean you don’t normally drive around this
late?’ she continued. ‘I’ve often woken up in the middle of the night and seen no sign of the Land Cruiser in front of the Hall.’

‘You know I sometimes park round by the tower.’ Her father’s tone, normally abrupt, had hardened even more.

Evie pushed her fingers between Nick’s. ‘Whatever,’ she said, leaning back. Her body remained tense.

‘What did you get up to on Sunday night, Nick?’ Andrew Favon asked.

Nick was immediately suspicious. Was this why Evie’s father had offered to drive him home?

‘I went as a traffic light.’

‘What?’ Was the surprise genuine, Nick wondered.

‘With fully functioning red, amber and green panels. The problem was, I got picked up by the police.’

Favon’s laugh was high-pitched, like a donkey in season. ‘That must have gone down well with the general.’

‘He was OK about it.’

‘Where did this happen?’

Nick was unsure if the question was as innocent as it sounded. ‘Somewhere in the old industrial area. I don’t know where exactly. I had the odd pint.’

‘You weren’t charged, though?’

‘No.’

‘Experiences like that are part of growing up.’

Nick didn’t answer. He was trying to decide if Favon had lost interest or if he was playing a more subtle game. He gave the impression of being a dim-witted aristocrat, but Nick had never been convinced by that. Just as he’d never believed that Lady Favon was the man-eater she was said to be – until he found out otherwise. The way she looked at him was embarrassing. Tonight Evie had noticed and, later, told him to ignore her mother. She was an airhead and besides, Evie would look after him.

They didn’t kiss when he got out of the 4×4. Nick watched as the bulky vehicle turned outside the house and went back the way it had come. He wasn’t only sad to have parted from
Evie; he was worried about leaving her alone with her distinctly strange father.

Heck and Ag often went to sleep spooned against each other. That night she dropped off quickly, but he was restless. He slipped away and went down to the kitchen. Since he’d come out of hospital, he regularly had disturbed nights. The only thing that helped was a mug of chamomile tea and honey – recommended by Ag – and recourse to his armchair. He had to manhandle Cass off it, the dog’s eyes fixed on him pathetically. As he finally sat down, he felt a twinge in his abdomen. That was what this was all about. He’d been recommended counselling after the operation, but had declined, much to Ag’s exasperation. He had to work through it himself, he told her. What he didn’t say was that he had to confront his fear.

Heck had been a good amateur rugby player into his late thirties, captaining the Corham team for eleven years. He wasn’t some fly-boy winger who kept himself out of the action; his place was at the back of the scrum and he was renowned for the devastating hits he made. He’d never been afraid of anything on the pitch, nor in Newcastle, a city that wasn’t short of headbangers, many of them in street gangs or more organised crime operations. The problem was, he’d allowed himself to be moved up the ladder in the Force. When he was in his early thirties, he spent six months undercover. They’d been the most exciting of his life.

His first marriage, which he hadn’t thought about for years, was already on the rocks. He’d suspected Lindsey of shagging the next-door neighbour when he was on night shift, so the offer of taking on an assignment that would look good on his record came at the right time. He was taken off normal duties and
treated like a VIP rather than a detective constable with only a few arrests. They briefed him about the crew of armed robbers he was to infiltrate, giving him basic firearms training and a fake background as a London heavy who’d moved north after five years inside.

‘Like Jack Carter?’ he said to the DI who was monitoring him.

‘Fuck Jack Carter. He only got shot once, at the end of the film. If MacLean’s crew get on to you, they’ll turn you into a sieve before you’ve finished your popcorn.’

No Lard MacLean was a hard man of the old school, his nickname referring to his muscle-bound frame. His team was experienced in emptying banks, security vans, post offices, even a North Shields to Norway ferry’s safe. What Heck – nom de crime, Jimmy ‘the Juice’ Joyce – brought to the party was a foolproof plan. He’d been supplied with the architects’ drawings for a bank in Gateshead that had recently been completed.

‘Where did you get these, bonnie lad?’ No Lard asked, after Heck had been plied with spirits. Years of post-match boozing meant he could hold his drink.

‘Nicked ’em,’ he said, in the best London Irish accent he could manage. ‘From the guy who got me sent down.’ He grinned. ‘He won’t be using his legs again.’

‘Tell us more,’ said No Lard, with a sick grin.

Heck held his nerve and ran through the story he’d memorised. No Lard made some calls which checked out, thanks to the undercover squad’s careful planning.

‘So you’ll be coming with us then, Juice,’ the muscle man said, a statement rather than a question.

‘Sure I will,’ Heck replied. He didn’t get much sleep that night, or the following three. The squad wasn’t contacting him and he was only to use the dead letter drop if he was in immediate danger – this was in the days before mobile phones.

And so he found himself in a beaten-up van with No Lard and his men at two in the morning. They thought they knew exactly where to lay the explosives and they were tooled up with
sawn-offs and semi-automatic pistols in case things went pear-shaped. Heck himself was carrying a Browning High Power he’d been supplied with by the Northumbria Police armourer. No Lard gave the word and they took up their positions, Heck by the leader’s side – it had been made very clear that was a condition of his involvement. As the guy with the Semtex headed for the rear wall of the building, the undercover squad, bolstered by an armed response unit, moved in.

The subsequent inquiry found that two of the gang members had decided this was the perfect opportunity to dispose of No Lard. He hit the ground, riddled with bullets in his back. Heck threw himself to the side and managed to get round a corner as the rest of the gang started firing at each other. When the shotgun and pistol blasts ended, no one was left standing. Heck peered out and was met with a scene from a Peckinpah movie. Only the shooter who had disposed of No Lard was still alive. He had three bullets in his abdomen and only lasted two hours in hospital, but he managed to brag about what he’d done, saying his name would last longer than his victim’s. Heck had forgotten it a few weeks later.

He hadn’t been taken off the job. His celebrity status as the only survivor of what became known as the Gunfight at the Gateshead Corral meant he was soon recruited by another gang. Heck was involved in several big busts until things got too dangerous and he was withdrawn. But his knowledge of Newcastle’s most dangerous crews was second to none and he ended up running operations against them. His target was the Bad Shepherds (they hated the former owner of Newcastle United). This lot were careful, taking months to set up a bullion raid. Heck had an undercover man participating in the planning, as well as in a post office robbery to keep the gang in ready cash. That officer, a DC playing the part of postmaster, managed to warn his colleagues and the takings were kept below five hundred quid. There was no shooting and no one was injured.

As time passed, Heck got more and more excited. Lindsey
commented on it, saying not entirely in jest that he must have a mistress. In a way she was right. Heck loved the danger, even at arm’s length. At the same time he was repelled as never before by the brutality, the complete lack of humanity shown by the Shepherds and their kind. They treated each other like animals, they beat up their women – years back Heck had intervened and took a heavy blow to the side of his head – and they ignored their kids. But they knew how to behave when it counted. The Bad Shepherds’ leader, a vicious streak of piss called Ned Sacker, kept them in line.

The operation ended with a whimper and only one bang – the blank round fired at the undercover man by an armed response officer when the gang was caught and disarmed as the members moved in on the shipment in the docks. They were all sent down for long stretches. Heck had been threatened outside court by Sacker’s brother Ian, a waster known as Not So Lucky because the outsiders he habitually bet on never even placed.

Cass gave a quiet bark when Heck stifled a cry. He was shaking, his belly on fire: he was terrified of sustaining more damage to his abdomen and he was sure he could never face another suspect in the field again.

The darkness was not her friend. Suzana had known that since she was a small girl, when she had hidden in the most outlying of the village’s abandoned houses. Bad things went on around her, bad men gambling, fighting, hurting women.

The problem now was getting away from Cor-ham without being seen. She tried several roads, but all had cars passing along them. Even though she wasn’t wearing the dark red robe, she was aware that the bags she was carrying made her look like a person of the streets, and therefore someone that people might
report to those who were after her, including the police. She presumed her description had been broadcast on TV and radio, and printed in the newspapers.

So she got off the road she had chosen, the one signposted to Jed-burg-h, and followed it from the field beyond. It was slow work, especially once the last of the light had gone, but she kept her eye on the shifting headlights as she moved. Eventually she walked into one barbed wire fence too many and decided to stop for the night. There were only the lights of the cars in the distance to help and, with difficulty, she opened some tins with the largest of her knives, having forgotten to take the utensil from the hut or buy a new one. She ate quickly, stopping herself before she used too much of her supplies. She had enough for two more days at most. Then she would have to buy or steal, both of which could bring her into the open.

Wrapping herself in the robe and pulling the hat down low, she tried to sleep. Her legs were aching from the kilometres she had covered, but she knew they weren’t enough. Even if the police hadn’t alerted everyone in the area, her own countrymen were relentless. They might not be expecting her to head north, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be on the lookout up here. For all she knew, they ran brothels in Jed-burg-h and the towns on the way or were selling drugs like the ones she’d seen Leka hand to the men who abused her. They would pour the white powder on her chair, then separate it into lines with plastic cards like the ones she had thrown away, before sniffing it up their noses. One of them, a fat man with black and white on his belly like the boy in the park’s shirt, had tried to make her take some. When she struggled, he licked his finger, dabbed it in the powder and rubbed it between her legs. He seemed to think she would feel something, but that part of her body had lost sensitivity. She thought it would be that way for the rest of her life. Better like that if they caught her…

The night grew colder and Suzana couldn’t stop shivering. She sneezed three times and searched for something to wipe
her nose. There were broad leaves on some of the ground plants.

The cold got worse and, for the first time, she thought about giving up. She remembered the policewoman’s card. Jo-ni Pax. Would there be any peace for her if she got in touch with the policewoman? They would send her to jail, even if she hadn’t killed any of the animals. She was sure that stabbing people was not acceptable in this country. In the mountains men would fight when their honour was brought into question. As a child, she had witnessed several such blood-matches, the combatants surrounded by a wide ring of villagers. They would strip to the waist, the men, though they were often little more than boys, and slash at each other until one would collapse from loss of blood. Once, when a senior man’s wife had been caught with another man, the fight had ended in death, the guilty lover castrated and left writhing his way to death. The authorities – police, local politicians, army commanders – had stayed away and the wife was never seen again.

No, Suzana thought, she would not surrender. The clan would track her down in jail and she would have no means of
fighting
back. Out here, despite the cold and the damp, she had her weapons and she was free. She breathed in the air. Despite the tang of car exhaust, she was in the country again, the smell of plants and soil in the air. She heard the hooting of an owl and took some comfort from it, though she knew the creature was a merciless hunter. She remembered the pellets she and the other children would find under the trees beyond the village – tiny bones, pieces of skin and tail.

She knew she would end up a sack of rotting flesh and broken bones herself, but she would take the men who’d enslaved her into the darkness with her.