The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  Carver felt his face spasm, and he clenched his fists. Get a grip, Carver. “That would be bloody marvelous,” he managed through gritted teeth.

  “Well then,” Halmead said. “It’s time we made a start.”

  41

  Day 9, 10 p.m.

  Almost five full days since she’d first seen Adam Black, Ruth Lake was running out of places to look; he’d vanished into the shadows—and Liverpool still had plenty of those, despite its little renaissance over the past decade.

  Or maybe he isn’t here at all. She stared, dispirited, at the tiled frontage of a pub across the road from her. She was in the seedier streets around Wavertree; they used to say there was a pub on every corner in this part of town. Ruth felt like she’d visited every one of them, but she wasn’t even two-thirds of the way through.

  She trotted across the street to the next corner pub and was about to open the door, when her work phone rang. She checked the screen; it was Carver, and her heart picked up a pace. Surely the Ferryman couldn’t have come up with another exhibit so soon after the last?

  “Ruth, I know it’s late.”

  This was Carver’s version of an apology. She reevaluated, mentally labeling the call “work-related, but not urgent.”

  A motorbike roared past and Carver said, “Are you out and about?” Then, “Anything I should know about?”

  “No,” she said. Sometimes keeping it simple was the best way to hide the truth.

  “Okay,” he said. “Look, I’m not going to hound you—”

  Ruth gave a short laugh. It was rude, and unlike her—a measure, perhaps, of how tired and tense she was. “Sorry, boss,” she said. “What d’you need?”

  “To blow off steam, if I’m honest,” he said. “It seems the only concrete evidence we’ve got is footwear marks.”

  “Not true,” she said. “We’ve got sightings of the Ferryman using victims’ credit cards; we’ve got the van; a possible sighting at Norris’s place—and we’ve identified Kharon. The Ferryman is forensically savvy—he wears gloves. Maybe possibly overalls, too. But he’s not infallible—he didn’t wear overshoes—and since this isn’t Mission: Impossible, he had to stand somewhere. That’s something. And I’ll take something over nothing, any day.”

  “It hasn’t gotten us any closer to identifying the bastard, though,” Carver said.

  “Well, we do know for sure he’s not a ghost,” she said, “or Tom Cruise.”

  It was good to hear him laugh: it had been a while since Ruth had heard Greg Carver laugh.

  “Well, if you think of anything—”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” she said. She was about to end the call, when something did occur to her. “Greg, wait—there was one thing we haven’t tried.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “How about sending the Hutton Institute a sample of the dirt the forensics team found on the balcony of Steve Norris’s place?”

  “I can’t believe it—we’re back to the footwear marks again!”

  “Hey,” she said. “You’ve gotta make the best of what you’ve got.”

  “Will it give us an ID?”

  “You know it won’t,” she said, hearing sarcasm, but also a smile in his tone. “It might give us a location, however.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “Budget-wise? They don’t come cheap, but . . .”

  Ruth was distracted by a car. It drew up at the curb a few feet from her, right on a busy junction.

  Audi 4x4, she registered—high end, the side and rear windows heavily tinted. A major Matrix police operation had seized a whole fleet of Audi 4x4s and sports cars from gangs running drugs a couple of years ago, and Audis were still the vehicle of choice for criminals in the city.

  The homeless man’s warning came to mind: Bad men, he’d said, and you’re a moving target.

  Ruth assessed the level of threat: three men, judging by the bulkiness of the shadows behind the tinted glass. She’d caught a glimpse of the driver as he’d skimmed past: bat-eared, youngish, with the narrow nose and pinched nostrils of a macaque monkey—enough for her to identify him again, if anything kicked off.

  “Are you still there, Ruth?” asked Carver.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  A man got out of the rear of the car. He was big across the shoulders and the bulk under his badly fitting suit jacket suggested long hours in the gym, plus a fair amount of testosterone boosting.

  “Are you all right?” Carver said.

  Ruth backed to the pub door. “I may have to get back to you on that,” she said.

  The pub door opened and, keeping her eye on the car, she turned sideways to slide past the drinker on his way out, but he filled the frame with his height and heft.

  “Ruth,” Carver said, “talk to me.” His voice was tight with concern.

  The driver stayed where he was, but another man got out of the Audi. This one, though skinny and small, frightened her most: the rage in his eyes and the twist of his mouth said he was capable of anything.

  “What’s she up to?” he said, looking over her head to the bouncer on the door.

  The big man looked over her shoulder. “Talking to her boss.”

  “Hang up,” the skinny man said, addressing Ruth.

  “I’ll call you back in thirty minutes,” Ruth said into the phone. “If I don’t, call the cavalry.”

  The big man plucked the phone from her fingers.

  “You know I’m a police officer,” Ruth said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  The big man lobbed her phone over the top of the car to the gym bunny in the suit jacket. He caught it, cracked the back, dropped the battery into his palm, and pocketed the pieces like he could do it on a foggy night in a blackout.

  Her left arm went dead from the shoulder to the elbow as the doorman’s hand closed around her upper arm. He bent to whisper in her ear, his mouth so close to her skin that she could feel the heat of his breath.

  “Only stupid people call me stupid,” he said.

  Ruth said nothing.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She looked into his face and recognized him with a sick lurch.

  “You know me?” he said.

  “I know who you work for.”

  “Well then.”

  The skinny thug held the rear passenger door open and the big man walked her to it.

  42

  Carver paced the floor of his apartment.

  She’s in trouble.

  He ran a hand over his face. Give it thirty minutes, then call the cavalry, she had said. “Call the cavalry” was a phrase DS Lake had used once before, and that time, she had barely survived what followed.

  He could ask for a trace on her phone, but he sensed that Ruth wanted time to see if she could manage the situation. Yeah, and how did that turn out last time?

  Even so . . . he had a horrible feeling that this was all wrapped up in her search for Adam Black. If he’d been more on the ball, he’d have worked out exactly who Black was days ago—or forced the truth out of her.

  Shit.

  Ten minutes, he told himself. So, he waited, agonizing over every second. But when he called her, the phone went straight to voice mail.

  “Ruth, call me as soon as you get this,” he said.

  You didn’t agree to her terms—you don’t have to wait thirty minutes. But even as the thought formed in his mind, he knew he would wait those long minutes for her call.

  43

  They didn’t blindfold her or bind her hands—didn’t even confiscate her Casco baton—but Ruth Lake did not underestimate the trouble she was in. They drove a mile or so west on Edge Lane, turning off the main road into the grounds of what had once been a wealthy merchant’s house. Since the nineteenth century it had been an orphanage, a convent, a girl’s college, and for the past twenty years, a hotel and family-friendly restaurant. At least, that was the front-of-house business. Dave Ryan, the man she was expecting to see, had many business interests
—most of which were not family friendly at all.

  Merseyside Police had targeted the place at various times, but neither covert surveillance nor raids had turned up any solid evidence of criminal behavior. Local folklorists spoke of the extensive tunnel network constructed by “the Mole of Edge Hill,” a real-life philanthropist and eccentric of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, speculating that Ryan was using the tunnels to both transport and hide contraband.

  The bat-eared driver pulled the car around to the back of the building, and the three passengers walked Ruth through the kitchens, where the staff were scrubbing down, ready to finish for the night. A few heads turned, but most avoided eye contact with the men, and they quickly got back to work.

  Swing doors opened onto a tiled corridor lit by too-bright neon strip lighting. Ruth guessed that the door directly opposite probably gave onto the main restaurant. The walls were scuffed and scraped, and a few reddish stains splashed the walls. She hoped it was spaghetti sauce.

  She considered stepping through into the restaurant, daring her captors to drag her away in front of witnesses, but the low hum of conversation beyond the door told her that the room was still relatively full, and she didn’t want to risk civilian casualties in the fallout. She glanced quickly up and down the corridor. One door to her right, two more to the left, one of which was at the far end of the passage.

  “Go left,” the skinny man said—the first words he’d spoken since he’d told her to hang up on Carver. “All the way to the end.”

  Ruth felt a sinking dread at the finality of those words: the farther they went into the back-of-house areas, the worse her chances of getting out in one piece if things turned nasty. But with three men barring the way she’d come, she had no choice but to do as she was told.

  The door was an extrawide, paneled affair in some rich wood, slightly warped with age, but surprisingly polished; it gleamed despite its dingy surroundings.

  “Go ’ead, then,” the skinny man said.

  She turned the brass doorknob and let the door swing wide. The room was dimly lit after the glaring brightness of the corridor, and she took a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The skinny thug gave her a shove in the small of her back that sent her stumbling two steps forward, but she regained her balance fast, taking in a large square room, hung with what looked like original artwork. A door on the left, near the back of the room, stood closed. Two huge, moonlit windows to her right seemed a possible escape route, but on second glance, she realized that the garden borders, lawn, and ghost-white cherry blossom tree were in fact a series of paintings, skillfully applied to the wood shutter panels, which were closed and barred against the night.

  No help there, then.

  Dave Ryan sat at an antique desk at the far end of the room, drinking scotch from a tulip-shaped glass. He was a gray-haired man in his midfifties, with faded blue eyes that had a kindly look. Even so, when he fixed his gaze on her, Ruth’s heart gave a little shudder.

  “You’ve been making waves, Sergeant.” He was soft-spoken, courteous.

  “Have I?”

  He smiled. Meet him in a city bar, you might mistake Ryan for an ordinary dad, out for a couple of pints and a trip down memory lane with the lads to revisit the glory days of his youth. But looks can deceive.

  “Upsetting the street vendors, scaring off punters? Yeah, I’d say so,” he said.

  Cheeky sod had the nerve to call his drug peddlers and sex workers “street vendors.” Ruth matched his smile, though her stomach roiled. “That’s my job, making things difficult for criminals.”

  The smile didn’t waver. “Just doing your job, then?” he said.

  Ruth didn’t see the need to answer the question twice, so she gazed guilelessly into his face, while her thoughts scurried. Had he brought her here to give her a literal or metaphorical slap? He must know she couldn’t let that pass.

  He tipped the glass in his hand and stared into it. “You’re not being honest with me, Sergeant Lake,” he said. “See, I know you’re off duty.”

  You and half of Liverpool, what with the Ferryman’s spies lurking on every corner, Ruth thought.

  “So I’m wondering, why are you going around waving your warrant card, asking bizzie questions, like you’re on actual, official police business?”

  Ruth considered the question. Since she’d caused a stir among his “vendors,” Ryan must know the “bizzie” questions she’d been asking. Her inner voice of reason whispered. No harm in telling him, then. But a second, stubborn voice countered: No point in telling him, either—except to boost his fat ego.

  She lifted her chin and remained silent.

  The next moment, she was on her knees, her head booming.

  “Hey!”

  At first Ruth thought Ryan was shouting at her, but he scowled at one of the men behind her. “Behave, will you? Show some manners.”

  She heard a shuffle of feet and the oppressive shadows of the men retreated a step.

  “Get the sergeant a glass of water,” Ryan ordered, all pretense at smiling pleasantry gone.

  Born and raised Roman Catholic, Ryan had been rigorously educated and ruthlessly brutalized in equal measure by the Christian Brothers at a time when they still ruled their institutions of learning with the strap and holy terror. He’d always fancied himself a cut above the average Scouse villain, having stayed on at school to the age of eighteen and achieved good advanced-level grades. There were rumors he’d got an Open University degree in business studies during a stint in prison, too.

  Ruth forced herself to her feet. Nausea rolled up from her stomach, and saliva flooded her mouth. She swallowed hard against the urge to vomit but refused the proffered glass.

  “You know damn well I’m trying to find Adam Black.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “I do. I do know that. But here’s the thing.” He placed his whisky glass to one side and leaned across the desk. “You’re treading on toes—I don’t like that.”

  “You seem confused, Mr. Ryan,” she said. “See, I don’t answer to you.”

  The smile returned to his face, a complex mix of admiration and scorn. “Even so, it’s got to stop.”

  Ryan was third-generation gangster. His great-grandfather had come over from Ireland during the potato famine and rose rapidly from petty thieving to smuggling contraband through the port of Liverpool. The family business had evolved in the years since, and cannabis and cocaine had largely replaced the tobacco and booze shipments that had been his great-grandfather’s specialty, but the Ryan family had maintained their traditions of criminality, so when he said, “It’s got to stop,” the command was backed by the weight of nearly two hundred years of violence and intimidation.

  Her heart raced and stuttered, but Ruth kept her hands still and her eyes on a spot on the wall behind Ryan.

  “I can’t promise that,” she said.

  A fluster of movement from the three thugs standing behind her told her she was pushing her luck. Ryan wasn’t smiling anymore, but he was listening, so she forced herself to go on and was pleased to hear some power in her voice:

  “I need to find Adam Black—on the quiet—or taking a more official route.”

  She thought Ryan’s eyes widened—only a fraction, and hard to be certain—but either way, Ryan was sharp enough to know that the official route meant more police, and a hell of a lot more disruption to his activities on the street.

  “So the sooner I find him, the better for both of us.” It was hard to see what was going on behind those faded eyes; she gave him a moment, then asked, “Do you know where he is?”

  He tilted his head. “I might.”

  “Don’t mess with me, Ryan.”

  “Oh, I don’t play games. Sergeant.” The air chilled by ten degrees. “But we’re both busy people, so let’s get this over with. I know his precise location.” Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him: “Question is, are you sure you want to know?”

  Ruth’s heart contracted. Pleas
e, don’t let him be in the life. Thief, addict, “street vendor”—they all passed through her mind. She wished she had the option to turn her back, say, You’re right—I don’t want to know. But in truth, she had no choice in the matter: she had to know, because if she didn’t trace Adam Black, Carver would, and Ruth owed it to Adam to hear his side of the story before her boss got anywhere near him.

  Pride, and an instinct that Ryan would respond better to an ultimatum than to pleading, made her say, “If you’ve got information, let’s hear it. If not, I’ve got better things to do.”

  He laughed softly. Still watching her, he made brief eye contact with one of his thugs. The skinny man took a few steps to the door to her left and opened it. A few seconds later, Adam was ushered in by a large, mono-browed man.

  Adam was nearly six feet tall, but he looked small next to Ryan’s goon.

  His hair, so carefully styled into a man bun on the crime scene video, had come loose and hung in rattails over his right ear. His cheek was bruised, his eyes glistened with unshed tears, and he looked badly scared.

  She saw a momentary relief at seeing her. He glanced, bewildered, to Ryan, and back to her. Then the shutters came down, as they always did, and he looked away, letting the big minder position him next to Ruth, his entire demeanor screaming defeat.

  “He’s all yours,” Ryan said. “For what he’s worth.”

  Her heart still tripping, Ruth straightened her back and waited for the quid pro quo.

  But Ryan made a shooing gesture with one hand. “Go on then—piss off.”

  “That’s it?” she said.

  His eyes gleamed with mischief. “That’s it.”

  There had to be more.

  “You’re just letting us walk away?”

  “Let’s call it the return of a favor.”

  Ruth sensed a sideways glance from Adam and felt a knot form just below her breastbone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”