Crusher (24 page)

By the time I made it to the entrance of the breaker’s yard my trainers were two lumps of mud on the end of my legs. The gate was lying open; I stepped out and looked up and down the long, empty stretch of dual carriageway. No road signs, no tube stations, nothing. The sky was clouded over, so I couldn’t work out which way was north, even if I’d been able to see the stars beyond the sodium glare. Just inside the front gate was an office, a prefab shed raised up on cement block stilts, and now I went back to take a look. It was empty, and locked, but a rock through the window soon sorted that. The owners wouldn’t worry about a broken window—they’d count themselves lucky I hadn’t burned the office down. It did occur to me, but I couldn’t find a lighter. It was very unlikely that James had chosen this place at random to get rid of me—I bet a lot of his problems had vanished into that crusher.

I found the number of a cab firm, and used the office phone to get someone to pick me up. Then I went outside to wait at the gates, filthy, exhausted and aching. The cab driver who eventually turned up hesitated
when he saw the state of my clothes, but when I offered him a huge wad of cash just to drop me at the nearest tube station he let me get in, although not before he’d taken an old fleece blanket out of his boot and spread it over the back seat for me to sit on. I didn’t mind the expense of the cab—Greasy Hair and his mate were paying. I’d cleaned out their wallets before I left.

Pale cold dawn was starting to glow in the charcoal sky when I got home, and I was so tired I felt barely there, like a ghost haunting my own house. Dragging my feet up each stair, I finally staggered into the bathroom and set the bath running. It always took hours to fill, and I wasn’t sure I could stay awake that long. As I headed for my bedroom I started to pull my shirt off, and winced. Every move I made seemed to open a wound or wrench a twisted muscle or add a new bruise onto an old one.

Zoe was asleep on my bed, fully dressed, as if she’d dropped off while waiting for me. My pillow lay lengthways beside her, and she’d thrown her arm over it, like she never did when we lay together. She looked so peaceful and innocent as she slept; her full lips were slightly parted and each breath was like a sigh. I wanted to grab her by the hair and drag her out into the street, but I didn’t have the strength left.

She opened her eyes, and I could see her wondering
where she was. Then she noticed me, and tensed, and sat up blinking, and her eyes focused on my face.

“Oh my God—”

“Why did you take the keys?” I said. “Yesterday morning. You thought you’d never see me again. Were you planning to move in or something? Squat here?”

Her eyes were brimming as she looked at me. Christ, that girl could turn it on when she wanted to.

“No, of course,” I said. “You had to take them. You had to pretend you didn’t know what was waiting for me.”

“I’m sorry, Finn. I asked you not to go.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I hoped you’d be all right somehow.”

“If you’d warned me, you wouldn’t have had to hope,” I said. “Was it all an act? Was any of it real? Are you even Prendergast’s daughter?”

She pulled a plastic CD case from under the pillow behind her and held it out to me. I didn’t move. She gave up and tossed it at me, and I let it fall at the foot of my bed.

“My mum died when I was twelve,” Zoe said. “Overdose. After that it was just me and my dad, and he didn’t have a clue. When I started to grow up, it was like he resented it. If I put make-up on he’d tell me I looked like a whore. And just to spite him I started acting like one, and the more he shouted at me and took my phone
away and grounded me and bullied me the further I’d push it. I’d go with anyone, get out of my head every chance I got.

“Then this guy I knew—thought I knew—invited me to a party at his parents’ place, their country getaway. But it wasn’t really his parents’ place, and it wasn’t really a party. I was the only girl there. His name was James.”

I looked down at the DVD in the plastic case. I could guess where this was going. Zoe was staring at the wall, her jaw set, determined to get through her story without sobbing or feeling sorry for herself.

“It started as soon as I got there. There was a guy with a video camera following us everywhere. And when James started pawing at me, the cameraman made sure he got a close-up. I’d had a few glasses of champagne by then. And when James offered me some pills …”

“He drugged you?”

“He didn’t force me to take them. He didn’t have to. I wanted to try everything, and I wanted not to care. And for a few days I did try everything. Two guys at once. Three. Spit roasting, footballers call it. They even got me to—”

“Enough,” I said. “I’m not interested.”

“I told myself it was a laugh, I didn’t care who saw the video. But I did, really. They sent me that”—she
nodded at the DVD, and now her voice caught—“and then I knew I did care, that I’d been totally stupid, but it was too late. They said they’d put it on the Net. Show it to my dad. I couldn’t let them do that. It would end him, I know it would, and even after everything … I couldn’t do that to him. I begged them not to. Told them I’d do anything.”

“Anything being me,” I said.

“I’m really sorry, Finn. I did—I do like you. You’re really sweet, and you’ve been good to me.”

“Go home,” I said.

“Please don’t send me away.”

I took the DVD out of its case and bent it until it snapped in two. I tossed the pieces back to her.

“You know what they were doing with that van?” I said. “Smuggling kids, little girls from Europe. Christ knows what would have become of them. And when I walked in there James and his mates worked me over, really well. Then they drove me out to the East End and tried to fit me into the glove compartment of a Jag. You want me to feel sorry for you because you let yourself get shagged on camera and didn’t fancy your dad finding out? When you fucking hate the prick and he hates me? You know what—stay or go, I don’t give a shit. I need a bath.”

I headed for the bathroom, peeled off my stinking
trousers and shorts, and stepped into the tub. The water was so hot it nearly took my skin off. As I eased myself into it, feeling my bruises and scars tingle in the scalding water, I heard Zoe stumble down the stairs. She paused briefly at the foot of the staircase and I heard keys drop on the floor. Then the front door slammed.

I sighed as I lay back, enveloped in the steam that had condensed in the cold air of the bathroom. I wondered how much of Zoe’s story had been true. Maybe she had come to care about me, a little. I heard farmers grow fond of their pigs sometimes, and get a lump in their throat when they send them for slaughter. I could imagine how funny James found it, filming a girl for a porn video, knowing she was the daughter of a detective inspector. Passing the video round at his chimpanzees’ tea party so they could all have a laugh and a wank. Or maybe he’d kept it for his personal collection. After all, if the word got out that it even existed, DI Prendergast would have become a joke. He’d have had to quit the force. And what a waste that would be, when the Guvnor could have had a DI in his pocket.

Shit. Prendergast
did
know about it. He had to. Why would the Guvnor go to all that effort to blackmail a schoolgirl like Zoe, when he could blackmail her dad? I remembered what Amobi had said—
McGovern will find a way to get to you, whatever it takes
.

Prendergast was the chief liaison officer with the Serious Crimes squad, Zoe had told me. That meant he’d be briefed on every move they planned against the Guvnor. That’s how McGovern always knew what the cops were planning before they knew themselves—Prendergast was feeding him info from inside.

And what had Prendergast told the Guvnor about me? What was he telling him now? Amobi would have reported to him that I’d found the van with the kids in and called the cops, and now Prendergast would report that to the Guvnor.

And I’d found the van because it was fitted with a tracking device, and Eccles had known that, but he hadn’t told James when James “borrowed” it. The Guvnor was going to be seriously pissed off when he found out. I’d be ready for his heavies if and when they came for me again, but they’d come for Eccles too, unless someone warned him. They’d feed him feet first into his own meat grinder.

I didn’t owe Eccles anything.

Dammit
.

I clambered out of the bath, dripping.

Of course Eccles wasn’t answering his phone, the pillock. I left a voice message, but I had no idea if he’d get it before the Guvnor got to him. That’s how I found myself riding the Tube east again to Pimlico, when it was still so early half the carriages were empty. I stood all the way to make sure I didn’t fall asleep and wake up in Cockfosters. I felt like I was sleepwalking, but I had to tell Eccles to talk to the cops before McGovern came to talk to him.

I knew the celebrity chef had a classy flat with a view of the river, but that lay on the other side of the restaurant from the tube station, so I tried the restaurant first. The rear gates lay open, and Eccles’s flashy high-wheelbase estate car had been backed into the yard, but there was no sign of the man himself. I knew he did a lot of his own shopping in the London produce markets, getting up at four and lugging crates of fresh fish and
meat and veg into the restaurant’s walk-in fridge at the crack of dawn by himself.

I climbed the steps quietly and pulled at the door that led to the kitchens; it was open. The cooking area was deserted, and something told me not to call out. I could hear a scuffling and rattling, like a trapped rat, but louder … someone thumping a wall in frustration and fear. On one of the steel counters near the walk-in fridge I noticed a polystyrene box overflowing with glistening fresh fish, packed in ice that was slowly melting. The door of the fridge was shut, and a knife-sharpening steel had been shoved into the lock hole on the handle. The scuffling and banging was coming from inside. Whoever was trapped in there wouldn’t starve, or freeze to death—it wasn’t that cold—but they’d run out of air before too long. I reached for the handle of the steel.

“Leave that.”

For a huge man, Terry, the Guvnor’s gorilla, didn’t make a lot of noise. I couldn’t figure out where he had been hiding, but he was here now, standing between me and the back door, blocking out the light like that asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. I could have tried to take him, or I could have pulled the steel out and hit myself over the head with it a few times. It would have been the same in the end.

“He’ll suffocate in there,” I said. Terry just nodded towards the restaurant. I took the hint.

“You asked me for a meet,” McGovern was saying, “and now you come in here giving me fucking orders.”

“I’m not,” said Prendergast. He looked up as I entered, with Terry filling the doorway behind me. “Oh Christ,” he said, and his head drooped, as if he hadn’t thought his day could get any worse. They were seated at a table at the back of the restaurant, among a sea of spotless empty place settings. McGovern had had his back towards me, and now he turned, and when he recognized me his face lit up with surprise and amusement. To his left sat James, in the same dapper outfit I’d seen in the breaker’s yard. I wondered vaguely how he’d managed to keep his clothes so clean. James looked as surprised as the Guvnor, but not as pleased, and he made to get up, but when the Guvnor twitched a finger on his left hand James sank back down into his chair.

“Maguire,” said McGovern. “You get about, don’t you? Wherever you’re least wanted.”

“Hey, Mr. McGovern.”

“Come to do some scrubbing? That’s handy. There’s going to be some teeth on the carpet in a minute.”

“I’ll go fetch a dustpan and brush.”

McGovern grinned at me, a big ice-cold grin.

“Nah, you stay there, wait your turn,” he said. He turned back to Prendergast. “Go on.”

Prendergast looked at me, shame and hate in his eyes, then back to the Guvnor. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m saying if this is what you’re going to do, I don’t want to be involved.”

“Thing is, Inspector, who gives a fuck what you want?” said McGovern.

“Not kids, not little girls,” said Prendergast. “Drugs, guns, fine, I don’t give a fuck. But I’m not turning a blind eye while your people start supplying paedos. I’ll fucking give myself in, you can do what you like with that video.”

“Now you’re threatening me,” said McGovern. “I’ll tell you straight, I fucking hate that, it makes my blood boil, so don’t do that, really don’t. My business is my business, it’s none of your business. What I bring into the country and how I bring it in is nothing to do with you. Giving me fucking orders—I didn’t come all the way down here for a lecture about ethics and responsible fucking parenting. From you of all people.”

“I’m not going to do it any more,” said Prendergast. “I’m not going to be a part of this.” He’d dropped his hands from the table onto his knees, and was rubbing his thighs, as if he was thinking of getting up and walking out. He can’t be that stupid, I thought, he won’t make it halfway to the door.

“What I’m wondering,” said McGovern, “is why you’re sitting here talking about it. If this upsets you so much, if this oversteps the boundaries of common decency, if this breaks some unwritten fucking law, why don’t you just go ahead and shop me? Trying to change my mind, is that it? Make me see the error of my ways?”

“You’re not pond-life,” said Prendergast. “You’re a successful businessman, a family man, respected. You don’t need to do this, is all I’m saying.” He glanced at me again, and it was like he wanted me to do something for him, but knew there was no point in asking because I’d be dead soon too.

“Duly noted,” said McGovern. “Now climb back in your car and fuck off. And next time, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Prendergast nodded in defeat, and his whole body sagged forward almost as if he was going to rest his face on the table. When he got up he moved quickly, and his chair started to fall back, but James moved even quicker. He was on his feet with a pistol in his hand, and he shot Prendergast twice in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards over his chair, the gun in Prendergast’s hand firing one shot wild. The policeman’s head hit the table behind him as he went down, dragging the tablecloth with him, toppling wineglasses that rolled and fell onto him with a cascade of tinkling cutlery. McGovern hadn’t
moved. He hadn’t even flinched as the shots rang out, though the deafening bangs had made me instinctively duck, and I sensed even big Terry behind me twitching.