Blood tracks, p.27
Blood Tracks, page 27
Tess withdrew her grandfather’s service revolver.
‘Jesus, what are you doing with that thing?’ Alex cast a disapproving glance at Po, as if the ex-con’s bad influence was already rubbing off on her.
‘Nothing to do with me,’ Po said.
Alex glared at the revolver. But in the end he shook his head. ‘OK. You know how to use that thing; I’ll give you that. But it’s for show only. You do not fire it. Understood?’
‘I hope I won’t need to,’ Tess admitted, but remained noncommittal on his instructions. Her vague promise would have to do because she wasn’t going to stand by and watch while anybody important to her got hurt.
‘OK. Put it away for now. Damn thing’s that old it might blow up in your hand,’ Alex muttered, but he was about done with the subject. He pointed along the shoreline. ‘We’ll head along there; once we’re past those pilings we’ll head up the slope. Po, you OK going further along and up the promontory on the far side of the restaurant?’
‘I’m good with that.’
‘If you spot anyone, or if you’re spotted, get out of there, and try to warn us. Use your phone like Tess suggested: we’ll have ours on vibrate so we know there’s an incoming call.’
Po said nothing.
Taking his silence as agreement, Alex turned to Tess. ‘Same for us, Tess. We see Emma, I’ll call it in. But if we’re spotted you get the hell out of here.’
‘While you do what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said I’ve to get the hell out, but what about you?’
‘I show my badge, take things from there.’
‘And you seriously expect them to give up quietly?’
Now Alex said nothing.
But neither did Tess. They all had their instructions, but none of them would abide by the rules. Rules were made to be broken, in this case before they’d even initiated their plan.
It was dark, but an ambient glow was cast from the phosphorous wash of tide, so they kept to the head of the beach to remain invisible. Tess could barely see her companions, so it was unlikely any of them would be spotted. It’d be different once they approached the Macedon, because light spilled from its huge glass walls and on to the promontory it stood abreast. Po must negotiate those pools of light to gain his approach route up the far side of the rocks, and Tess suspected that was why Alex had sent him that way. Nevertheless, she doubted Po would be sighted. She’d jokingly called his garb a ninja costume, but there was value in wearing black on black.
‘Be careful,’ she whispered to him, and touched him gently on the back of his left hand.
‘Don’t worry about me.’ Po loped off, and he was lost among the shadows in seconds. All that pinpointed him was the soft scuff of his boots through loose pebbles, but the sound could be mistaken for the lapping tide. Tess listened a moment longer, and then even that hint of his location vanished.
‘We’ll give him a minute to get in position,’ Alex said close to her ear.
Standing alongside her brother, Tess looked up at the sharp prow of the building rising above them. From their position there was no sign of movement inside, but it was unlikely that Sower’s henchmen would be gathered in the restaurant’s seating area, with Emma Clancy displayed on a platter between them like the ‘special of the day’. If she were there at all – if indeed she were still alive – she would be held out of sight while Sower’s killer completed his work. Did the others have the stomach to watch, or was the mutilation too much even for them? She hoped Jacky Torrance or Welshy would show their faces, because theirs were the only ones she could confidently identify. She now knew of Vasilis Katsaros, and had a vague recollection of his looks from the photo in her file, but there was no proof he was involved, the link to his restaurant being only tenuous until proven otherwise. Concern washed through her; what if she’d brought them to the wrong place? She exhaled, shivering, afraid for Emma if she was wrong. Then again, she was equally afraid for Emma if she was right. But there still remained a trickle of caution running through her. She barely knew the woman, and for all she knew Emma could be as complicit with Sower in the way her boss, Jackson, could prove to be, pulling the strings Sower required to find and eliminate Crawford Wynne. What if Emma had used her, and her brother alike, to get what Sower demanded? If Tess was right and extreme precautions had been taken to cover up Richard Jackson’s collusion with the gang boss, what if Emma’s disappearance was to ensure the same end? But what if, instead of being snatched, Emma had been assisted to disappear? Did Emma need rescuing at all?
‘Are we doing the right thing here?’ she whispered to herself.
Until then Alex had remained silent. Perhaps counting down the minute he’d given Po. But he must’ve heard her doubt, because he patted her on her lower back. ‘C’mon, Tess, we’ll only find out if we go take a look.’
‘How well do you know Emma?’ she asked. ‘Really know her, I mean.’
‘Enough to know it’ll destroy me if anything bad has happened to her.’
That was enough for Tess. ‘Let’s go get her, then.’
Accompanied by a uniformed presence, Tess felt different than when she’d followed Po inside Rutterman Logistics. It was a throwback to the old days, like being a cop again, and as doubt diminished confidence swelled. She trotted alongside Alex, making their way up a sloping footpath used by diners who enjoyed after-dinner strolls on the beach. As they crested the rise and onto the parking lot adjacent to the Macedon they crouched and surveyed the land. A driveway followed the back slope of the promontory, down to a service track that led to Shore Road. There was a number of assorted vehicles parked at the front of the building. The restaurant was closed to the public, so the presence of so many cars spoke volumes. One of the vehicles was a large refrigerated van. Tess and Alex shared a glance. ‘Ideal for transporting a subdued woman in?’ Tess whispered.
‘Or maybe it delivers chilled food to the restaurant,’ Alex cautioned. The presence of a suspicious van wasn’t enough to go on, it didn’t give him probable cause to enter and search the premises.
‘We have to get closer. We have to get a look inside.’ Tess made to rise, but Alex’s hand on her shoulder stalled her.
‘Wait up, sis. We have to think this through. We can’t just sneak inside and hope for the best.’
‘We’ve no option.’
‘I should call in backup. Hell, we need a team here to conduct a full search. We could always claim we received an anonymous tip-off that a woman is being held against her will. But what if we’re wrong and Emma isn’t here? What then?’
‘Listen,’ Tess said to waylay his growing doubt, ‘wasn’t that just a scream?’
There was no scream.
‘Good try, but we need something more.’
‘I’m just trying to cover your ass, Alex. I don’t care about the legality, I just want to get in there.’
Alex remained crouched. His breath whistled in his throat. ‘OK, we get closer. But you don’t go inside unless I allow it.’
Tess shrugged, and before he changed his mind she rushed across the lot and bent low, hiding between two parked cars. A series of scuffs confirmed that Alex had followed, and was close. She checked over her shoulder and found him a few feet away, his face set. ‘You’re supposed to be sticking close to me,’ he whispered, ‘not the other way around.’
She held up a finger. There was a soft buzz against her side. Tess dipped her hand in her purse and brought out her cell, cupping her other hand over the screen to douse the soft glow. It was Po calling.
‘I’ve got eyes on a couple of guys around this side. One of them’s an old pal of ours. Blondie, the guy who put the transponder on the Chicken Shack.’
He meant Kenneth Jones – Welshy – and Tess felt instant vindication for bringing them here.
‘What about Torrance?’
‘No sign of him. No sign of Emma Clancy either, but that’s not to say she isn’t here. Blondie and this other dude have stepped outside for a smoke, but when they came out I heard other voices from inside.’ Po waited. ‘I can get by them. Better still, I can have a quiet word in Blondie’s ear.’
‘Wait, I’d best check with Alex first.’
‘He’s not the boss of me,’ Po said, and she caught the subtle hint in his announcement. On occasion she’d questioned Po’s loyalty, even to a point of fearing he might be working for the opposition, playing her for a fool, but that had never been it. She understood the simple truth from his statement: he was his own man and did things his own way, and conforming to her way of working must have been frustrating for him. He’d trusted her safety to Alex so he could do his thing again – without the hindrance of having to worry about her. Before she could caution him about doing anything rash, Po hung up.
Tess looked at Alex, and he read her expression.
‘Damn it,’ he wheezed. ‘That’s what comes of working with an asshole. You could stick a bunch of flowers in their butt but it doesn’t make them a Ming vase.’
Under any other circumstance Tess would’ve laughed. Not now though. She wondered what the hell Po was about to do, and more than anything she wanted to join him on the far side of the building. She swapped her phone for her grandfather’s revolver.
THIRTY-FIVE
Blood leaked from Emma Clancy’s hairline, invading her eyes, making it difficult to see. For that contradictory blessing, a tiny part of her was grateful. She couldn’t bear to meet the gaze of her torturer any longer and she screwed her lids tight. It was akin to proverbially burying your head in the sand; it didn’t defy the horrifying reality. Hector still delighted in tormenting her, making the smallest of painful cuts long before he was prepared to deliver the coup de grâce. In fact, there was no hope of a stroke of mercy, because delivering a decisive cut to end her suffering was an alien concept to him. He wanted her to experience agony, and for it to linger. As far as the cutting went, it was only part of his devilish plan, and her torture was as much mental as physical. He’d sliced along her hairline while explaining how he was going to peel her face from her skull like a mask. With a male victim, he targeted the genitals, taking away his masculinity; with a woman he was more interested in destroying her through vanity. He’d nipped and stabbed at her breasts, the cuts and bruises superficial, but incredibly painful and soul destroying. Twice already he’d promised to slice off her nipples, but twice he’d held off, but the attack on her femininity and possibility of future motherhood was still on the cards.
As a career-driven woman, with her eye on continual advancement, becoming a mother had never rated highly on her ‘to do’ list before, and she blamed that on the breakdown of her marriage, but since entering a relationship with Alex Grey, her maternal instincts had stirred, blossomed, and she had begun to yearn for a baby. Until her divorce was finalized, Alex had agreed to keep their relationship a secret, despite how much he wanted to shout about their love. She loved Alex with equal passion, and for the first time in her life hopes of a future family were as important as succeeding in this man’s world. Would Alex still love her if she were grotesque and violated, unable to bear his children? It was as if the monster knew her deepest desires and was determined to wrench them from her. More than once he’d inserted his hands in her panties, threatening to spoil her, and the presence of the thick rubber gloves denying his flesh from hers were no less invasive. She’d travelled beyond screaming, both in anger and terror, and now barely mewled as he continued his assault. She couldn’t see the knife he wielded, but she could feel its icy presence alongside her skin. A pinprick in the flesh told her he was testing it against her lower abdomen.
‘I’m going to cut you long, deep, and wide,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I’m going to pull out your womb and make you eat it while I watch you swallow every mouthful.’
She believed he would too.
But his attention had fastened on her breasts again.
‘I’m going to take off your tatas: one of them I will make into a pouch for my cell phone, the other I’ll stretch over your skinned head.’ He giggled at the loathsome image, and directed his next words at the other person in the room. ‘She would look cute in a tata hat, no?’ Welshy had left the torture room on some personal errand, but another man attended to Hector’s whims and his disgusting humour, labouring to keep the area clean with a mop and bucket while he forced out a strangled laugh. Hector had proven to be fastidious about cleanliness, a total abstraction considering the amount of blood and viscera he intended spilling. The cleaner was an unwilling participant in Emma’s treatment, but he was wise enough to keep his opinion to himself, and to laugh on cue. Emma hated the stranger for his cowardice almost as much as she despised Hector Suarez.
The flat of Hector’s palm smacked off Emma’s backside.
‘Pay attention,’ he told her.
‘G-get away from me you … you … animal.’
‘Ha! So there is some spirit left in you? That is good. Eso es bueno, la señora Clancy.’
There was a noise from beyond the room.
An angry shout followed.
Then the distinctive crack of a gun.
Hector’s prattling fell silent, and the atmosphere grew sharp with expectation.
There came a series of thuds and clatters, the pained yelp of a man, and Emma’s eyes snapped open.
‘Qué fue eso?’ Hector breathed. When got no reply, he switched to English, directing his question at the cleaner. ‘You. What was that?’
‘Beats me, man. But you heard the gunshot, right?’
‘I’m not fucking deaf,’ Hector snapped. ‘Go find out what is happening.’
‘You want me to go out there? Isn’t it obvious what’s happening?’ The cleaner aimed an accusatory nod at Emma. ‘My guess is they’ve come for her.’
Hector swore under his breath. He slipped his knife into his slicker coat pocket, reached for the pulley holding her upright. To Emma he promised, ‘You’re mine.’ He began unlatching her bonds, zipping apart the Velcro from one of her wrists. Emma sagged to her knees. Hector glared at the cleaner.
‘You. I told you to find out what is happening.’
‘I’m unarmed, man. I’m not going out there to get shot.’
‘Coward! Dog! Do something useful. Do not let anyone in that door before I am finished with this puta.’ He tore the last strap from Emma’s wrist, and now she almost went down on her face. He fisted a hand in her hair, hauling her up. Emma grasped at his fingers, but his grip was remorseless. He dragged her across the tiles, her toes scrabbling for purchase as he headed for a door in the far corner.
As they reached the door, Emma tried to dig in, pressing her elbows against the jamb. Hector yanked her head savagely, and a clump of hair ripped loose. She collapsed on one hip, spinning on to her backside.
Against the pearlescent tiles and stark strip lights, the figure that swept into the room was a living shadow. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black, and he wielded a knife. His face held some colour, but it was a sickly pale green under the unnatural lights. His eyes were shards of turquoise when they swept the room, registered the man stabbing towards him with the broom handle, the monster in the yellow coat, and then settled for a fraction of a beat on Emma.
‘Help me!’ she screeched.
Then she was being dragged away, and was lost to her would-be saviour.
Hector grunted and cursed as he hauled her along, and the noise of his exertions almost covered the scuffle back in the torture room. Emma listened keenly, hoping to hear the slap of boots in pursuit. But the sounds of combat were indefinable. Bumps, bangs, the ringing clang of something metallic. A solid thud as someone went down, and in that moment she was lost.
All faith in an eleventh-hour rescue fled her, and she truly collapsed now. Her mind closed down to a point, a single lucid spark that danced in her vision, like a candle flame at the far end of a tunnel. The light receded, dimming, and she knew that it was a symbol of hope she must grasp at. But she didn’t have the strength to lift her hands, or even the will to struggle against the inevitable. Hector doubled his efforts, dragging her dead weight without care that she banged forcefully against each riser as he manhandled her up a flight of stairs. She couldn’t feel the bruising impacts; she’d sunk into oblivion.
THIRTY-SIX
‘Alex, we can’t just sit here all night,’ Tess had whispered only moments ago. She watched her brother chew his lips in indecision, and decided enough was enough. She exhaled, and shifted so she could move easier.
‘Wait!’
Alex’s hand jerked up. Tess followed his nod, and saw a figure emerge from the front door of the Macedon. He was short, stocky, dressed in jeans and a football jersey hanging outside his pants. Even partially silhouetted by the internal lights, the man’s face was pale. He bent at the waist, hands on his thighs, and Tess waited for him to vomit. He didn’t throw up, but he was on the verge of losing his last meal. What had he witnessed to induce such nausea? She dreaded to think. She was tempted to rush over, stick her gun in his face, and demand answers. But Alex fisted his hand around the tail of her jacket.
The man wiped his hands over his face, pushed them through his hair, and stood. He rocked back on his heels, face to the sky. His exhalation was vocalized loud enough to carry to them. Woo!
The man scratched through his pockets and came out with a pack of cigarettes. He lit up, stood there drawing on the cigarette as if it were a lifeline. With each inhalation the glow lit his face, adding a demonic caste to Vasilis Katsaros. Actually, he didn’t so much look like a demon as someone who’d peered into hell and seen it staring back.
Finally, the restaurant owner flicked away his stub, turning back for the door reluctantly. Tess raised a few inches on the balls of her feet, but Alex still controlled her. Good job. In the next instant Katsaros stepped aside, giving clearance for the door to swing open. Jacky Torrance almost staggered out on to the front step. Tess heard Alex’s breath catch in recognition. Torrance snapped his hand at Katsaros, demanding a smoke. His face was as pale and sweaty as the Greek’s. There was also a dark smudge on his shirt and it didn’t take much imagination to colour it red.
