Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective: Ultimate Omnibus Volume 1 of 4 (Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective Ultimate Omnibus)

by Adam Carter

  The man did not speak for several moments. Then he said, “I’m very lonely tonight. Hop in.”

  “That’s a great chat-up line you got there, pal.”

  “Wasn’t aware I needed anything other than money.”

  Holly leaned upon the wound-down window, making sure he got a good look at her chest. She was looking for a reaction in his eyes, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention to her charms. “I think you’re making assumptions,” she said playfully. “I’m a respectable girl, just going for a walk.”

  “And I love Christmas,” he said flatly. “You want to see my money, is that it?”

  He reached into an inside pocket, but she stopped him with an upraised hand. “Not a good idea to wave money around.” Her instincts were telling her to steer clear of this one, but it was getting late and she needed one more punter in order to meet her quota. Then she could go home and get some sleep in before Christmas. Maybe she’d even sleep in and spend the day relaxing.

  “No offence,” the man said, “but is there a problem? I didn’t expect all these evasions.”

  Holly took a deep breath. It was decision time. She chewed her lower lip in thought. Early night and bright morning looked good, and the guy was handsome in a rugged kind of way. Sure, she figured, why not?

  She walked around the car, waving to one of the other girls as she opened the passenger door and climbed in. The car was cold, the heating wasn’t on, and she shuddered at the chill as the man started moving the car again. “Seatbelt,” he told her in bored tones. “Safety first.”

  “That’s sort of the motto on the street,” Holly said, fastening her belt. “Uh, you couldn’t turn the heater on could you? It’s freezing in here.”

  “Sorry. I don’t feel the cold.” He flicked a switch and a red light indicated the heating was active. Holly held her hands before it, rubbing them furiously. Touting for business at Christmas wasn’t fun when you had to wear as little as possible.

  “No music?” she asked.

  “Jeez, you don’t ask for much. See what you can find.”

  Holly found a tape of Christmas music and inserted it. It started to play and was halfway through Last Christmas. She laughed. “When I first heard this song I thought it meant final Christmas. Thought it was about a guy intending to kill his ex.” Her smile faded when her companion did not laugh, just kept staring straight ahead. She squirmed in her seat, aware they had picked up speed now. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t got into the car. “Where we going?”

  “Not far.”

  “Only, I have to get back home after and I don’t live out this way.”

  “I don’t care where you live.”

  “Oh. That’s ... nice.” She was beginning to wonder why she had got in the car; in fact, ordinarily she would not have. But there had been something in her mind telling her to, like the angels and devils on people’s shoulders in the cartoons. She had been stupid, she realised that now. She did not know what had come over her, but she had been very stupid and suddenly she knew she would not be relaxing on Christmas morning after all. “I’d like to get out please,” she said in a cracking voice.

  The driver ignored her.

  “Look,” she said, “I’m not comfortable with this. Let me out right now or I’m calling the cops.”

  Silence.

  “You don’t want to mess with me, pal,” she said, annoyed at how high her voice had become. “The girl I waved to? She took your car reg. When I don’t come back she’ll report you. You won’t be able to get away.” She could feel her lips trembling as she spoke. If the man had said a word it would have calmed her, but he seemed to have forgotten she was even in the car with him.

  The cassette broke into God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.

  It was suddenly very dark outside and the car started jolting. Holly realised they had left the road and she could see trees crowding just outside. She grabbed the door, struggling with it, but it was locked. Tears came to her eyes, her heart was racing, and she looked back to see that her driver still hadn’t reacted at all. She knew if she went any further there wouldn’t be any chance of escape. If she was going to do anything it would have to be now.

  Holly launched herself at the stranger, but he reacted far more quickly than she had expected. Even as her nails reached for his face, his hand snapped out without his eyes being taken off the track. The hand clutching about her throat was stronger than any she had ever known and sudden visions flashed through her mind of the alleyway so long ago. She grasped the fingers, trying to prise them loose; she could feel her mind swimming with both panic and lack of oxygen.

  He released her and she fell, gasping, back into her seat.

  The car stopped and the man unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out the car. Holly was trying to come to terms with what was happening, and it didn’t occur to her to grab the wheel until he was opening the door on her side. He reached in and clicked her seatbelt open. She fought him, but he picked her up and tossed her out the car. She stumbled, falling to her knees in the snow. It was dark, the only light coming from the car’s headlights, the only sounds the gently thrumming motor and the faded tones of Tom Jones’s My Prayer coming from the radio.

  The stranger silenced all of that and closed the door. Holly lay shivering in the snow, her mind screaming at how foolish she had been to even get into the car. She knew she was going to suffer and she knew she was going to die. She wouldn’t see Christmas, she wouldn’t see Carl or Tammy or anyone ever again. Her dreams of being a ballerina, still somehow lingering in the background of her hopes, were dashed. She was going to die in the woods; cold, alone and terrified.

  The stranger took her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Walk,” he commanded and strode in one particular direction. Holly had no choice, stumbling as he dragged her. She could see a faint light ahead now and realised there was a cabin ahead of them. A cabin deep in the woods. “No, no,” she muttered, shaking her head, her tears flowing. She fought the iron grip, but it was no use. The stranger did not even seem to realise she was fighting him and continued walking. He pushed open the door and flung her in before him, closing the door. She fell upon the wooden floor. It was hot within, the crackle of a roaring fire filling her ears. She looked up to see a well-fed hearth, a rug lying before it. There were a couple of tables in the cabin, no decorations at all. There were several places to sit, a rocking chair gently swaying, its occupant sitting calmly, fingers forming a steeple while he waited.

  Holly looked fearfully into his eyes. He was somewhere in his fifties, she figured, with short dark hair and cold craggy features. He wore casual-smart clothes, like his accomplice. His expression was equally as stony.

  “God no,” she whimpered where she knelt, her fingers foraging through her pockets for the spray Tammy always insisted she carried. The driver took her by the elbow and helped her to her feet. She had the can now and pulled it out, but the driver reached with a steady hand and took it from her. He let her go and went to the pile of logs. She watched, trembling, as he reached for the axe. Her legs turned to jelly and she would have fallen, had not the driver suddenly placed a chair behind to catch her fall. She glanced back to the axe to see that it hadn’t been touched.

  The driver positioned her close to the fire. “Should be able to warm yourself there,” he said and stepped back a pace.

  “Miss Anderson,” the older man said, and it took Holly a few moments to realise he was talking. She looked upon him in terror.

  “How do you know my ...?” She didn’t manage to finish the sentence and broke into sobs.

  The older man sighed, glanced angrily to his companion. “My apologies for the less than sterling treatment, Miss Anderson. I told my associate to bring you here and not to tell you anything, but it seems he’s taken that to mean he’s allowed to scare the living hell out of you.”

  “Sorry,” the driver replied. “I get off on young women’s terror. Sue me.”

  Holly looked from one man to the other. She had no
idea who they were, but was under the impression suddenly they had brought her here for a reason. They knew who she was: perhaps her parents had hired them to find her. Perhaps they didn’t mean her harm after all. “What do you want?” she asked in a stammer.

  “We want your help, Miss Anderson,” the older man said. “We have a mutual friend. Tamara Uddin.”

  “Tammy?” Holly’s mind was fighting to fill in the blanks. “She’s gone. She ... she’s spending Christmas with her folks.”

  “Tamara’s father is dead, her mother’s in prison,” the older man said.

  “But she said ...”

  “I know. And that’s why we need to find her.” His expression softened. “My name is Detective Chief Inspector Edward Sanders. Tamara’s been an informant of mine for several years now. She’s disappeared. And I want to find her before she turns up in the river.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  He sat on the roof, gazing out through the woods. It was almost midnight, almost Christmas. Charles Baronaire had vague memories of Christmas when he was a child. They used to have a giant tree, decorated with a thousand shiny baubles, lights and hidden chocolates. He remembered his father lifting him into the air so he could drop the tinsel onto the tree branches like falling snow. He would be so excited on Christmas morning to find his stocking filled with toys and chocolates, always an orange; while under the tree were huge boxes bearing tags with his name.

  Baronaire had stopped celebrating Christmas a long time ago. When he was a child his father was murdered. He didn’t even remember his mother, and was left without a family. He was taken in by someone who cared for him, someone who raised him. Someone who informed him the name of the man who had killed his father.

  Detective Chief Inspector Edward Sanders.

  He had come to work with Sanders with the express purpose of gaining his trust and then killing him. After ten years of working with him he still had yet to do the former. As the years wore on he even wondered whether he was ever going to do the latter. Sanders was not a good man, but he was a necessity. In a city as vast as London, there had to be someone willing to do the job they did. If Baronaire took Sanders out the picture, his division would crumble and the criminals would win. Throughout the years Baronaire had come to love London, had come to respect his DCI.

  The man who had murdered his father.

  Baronaire shook his head. Snow had been falling all week, but the forecast was not to have any more come tomorrow. Technically another non-white Christmas, even though there was snow everywhere. Just dredges left over from other days.

  Within the hut the girl Holly Anderson was still shaking, still coming to terms with what had happened to her. Perhaps he had been a little harsh in how he had brought her to Sanders, but Baronaire had not lied in what he had said. For all his talk of fighting crime, of cleaning up the streets, of taking down all the scum of society; Baronaire was the worst of them all. He did not know what he was, didn’t even know who he was any more. He could do things ordinary humans could not. His senses were heightened, his reflexes supreme, his strength that of twenty men. And he was a monster with women. It was not something he was proud to admit, but it was a part of who he was. Baronaire delighted in psychological torture, he lovingly drank in the scent of terrified women. Women were his food, his prey, and that was not a human sentiment to have.

  He had taken leave of the cabin under Sanders’s glower. They both knew the girl would calm more quickly if Baronaire was not in the room with her. He could still hear her of course; even over the howling night’s wind his super hearing could pick out every word from inside the hut. Sanders wasn’t doing much talking. He had made her some hot tea, spoke soothingly whenever he spoke at all. The girl wouldn’t be any use to them if she didn’t pull herself together and Baronaire’s argument would be that if had not have put her through what he did, they would never have known how useless she was until it was too late. They needed the girl, and it was far better to find out now if she wasn’t worth the effort.

  Finally he heard Sanders start talking properly and realised the girl was likely more cognisant now. Baronaire froze, listening carefully to every word through the thick wooden roof.

  “Did Tamara ever mention me?” Sanders asked. Baronaire assumed the girl shook her head in response. Sanders continued. “I first ran into Tamara when she was sixteen. She was a runaway, trying to work the streets. But she got into trouble, and there’s nothing a sixteen year old girl can do against a strong determined man. She had no protection, had arranged no back-up. But she was lucky, because she came to my attention at the same time I was cleaning up the area you work. I removed the pimps, cleared out all the hookers who worked there at the time, and sought to establish my own controlled zone. I needed someone to start with, someone to lead the initiative. And Tamara came to my attention.

  “I went to see her in the hospital. The police had come and gone and she’d told them nothing. She was young, but there was strength in her eyes. Fear, revulsion, certainly; but she wasn’t about to let this incident get her down. I drew up a chair and told her who I was. She clammed up of course; she’d just spoken to the police: she certainly didn’t need to go through it all again. Besides, if she told me she was working the streets she would just herself be arrested, right?

  “I took a chance on Tamara. I told her my plan, outlined everything. The streets were mine: I’d bought them through blood and sweat. But she could operate there if she helped me on occasion. She told me precisely where to shove that idea, but I persisted. I reminded her what had happened to her last night, told her to look at her bruises, her cuts, her trembling body. That would never happen again, I promised her. Not if she had my protection.

  “She did not answer and I said I’d leave her to think about it. I left her my card and returned to work. Four days later I drove by the streets, my streets, she was working. She thought I was a client pulling up, and I could see the nervousness in her slender frame even as she walked. There was true fear to her eyes as I spoke to her through the window. I told her to get in, that I had something to show her. She was nervous, didn’t want to trust a pig. So I listed every client she had had since coming out of the hospital. It wasn’t a long list. Her face was cut, she was psychologically scarred and she hardly exuded sex appeal any more. She asked if I had been following her and I said I didn’t have to. These were my streets, as I’d already told her. I knew everything that went on in them.

  “Tamara noticed something in the back seat; a body-bag. She asked what that was and I told her it was her present. I could see indecision in her eyes, but she got in the car anyway. We drove only a short while, stopping at a garage. I owned the area, I said, and the guy working the garage that night was one of my officers. He came out to help me with the body-bag, and together we got it inside. Dumping it on the floor, I motioned Tamara to open her gift.

  “I think she knew what to expect; she was always a bright girl that one. The guy who’d attacked her was bound with duct tape, his taped mouth emitting muffled squeals of panicked terror, his eyes reflecting his fear. ‘He’s all yours,’ I told her. ‘I’m the law on these streets and you can be my deputy, Miss Uddin.’

  “I left with my officer, returning to the car to wait. Tamara didn’t kill him, which just shows she’s a nice person. I could hear screaming from inside the garage shop, could see Tamara’s foot coming back again and again as she kicked the man countless times. I watched her face, could see all her fear, all her frustration, flooding out in the form of aggression. After half an hour I went back inside to find her weeping on the floor. The man was a bloody pulp, his face barely recognisable, but he was alive. I zipped the bag back up and crouched in front of Tamara. I didn’t try to touch her in a consoling way. We did not speak, but I could see a change in her now. She was growing calm, now that she was back in control. Her knuckles were bloodied, her body was trembling with sweat and adrenalin. But she wasn’t terrified any more.

  “We made a pact on that day. Sh
e would continue to work the streets, together we would recruit more girls. They would act as informants for me whenever I needed it, but for the most part there would be no contact with me or my officers. In return I would protect her, protect them all. They would be the safest streets in the city. It’s an arrangement which has worked well for some years now. And you, Holly Anderson, are a part of it. Whether you knew it or not, you work for me.”

  There was silence in the cabin for some moments and Baronaire wished he could see through solid objects.

  “What happened to the guy in the body-bag?” Holly asked as last, tremulously.

  “Tamara wouldn’t let me just throw him in the river. So I found a place for him in prison.”

  “You mean you arrested him?”

  “Heavens no. I just slipped him in. He arrived as a new inmate, telling everyone he hadn’t even had a trial. No one believed him, of course they didn’t, no more than they believed anyone else who turned up claiming to be innocent. He’s in for a stretch of forty-five years. After that ... we’ll see.”

  “You don’t get forty-five for rape.”

  Baronaire could imagine Sanders’s eyes turn to liquid fire. “You do on my watch.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Miss Anderson, I can do anything.”

  Baronaire decided story-time was over and dropped from the roof, his feet impacting soundlessly in the snow. He strolled back into the cabin and Holly barely glanced at him. Now she knew she wasn’t in any danger of being killed she was decidedly gutsier. “What about him?” she asked as she sipped at a cup of hot cocoa. It seemed Sanders was playing the cordial host to a tee.

  “He’s bad cop,” Sanders said.

  “So this is an interrogation?”

  “No, he’s just not a nice person.”

  “Oh. So what do you want me for?”

  “Recruitment,” Sanders replied. “I want to find Tamara. I think she’s dead, which means we have to find her body. And someone to replace her.”