Broken Heart: David Raker #7

by Tim Weaver

  She paused, as if she thought she might have said too much. Then her eyes moved to the handcuffs, to my bound wrists, and she seemed to figure it made no difference now. But, as her eyes met mine again, an idea started to form. I thought of Korin. I thought of the surveillance tapes from Stoke Point – how she’d manipulated them, how she’d planned everything out.

  ‘Korin found out what “Ring of Roses” really means,’ I said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? She must have found out in the weeks after she did that interview for Cine. That’s why she chose to disappear – and that’s why you’re trying to find her.’

  Neither of them reacted.

  But I knew I was right.

  Except something didn’t make sense. ‘If she’s got something on you, if that’s the reason she vanished, why the hell has she been sitting on it for the past ten months? Why not tell the world what she knows?’

  Finally, Alex moved, rubbing at an eye.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s the big question, isn’t it?’

  She wasn’t toying with me now. She genuinely didn’t know why Korin had so flawlessly planned her departure, knowing that – eventually – she would be hunted, then proceeded to spend the last ten months doing absolutely nothing in response. Maybe Korin was ill. Maybe she was quietly wasting away somewhere.

  Maybe she really was dead.

  Alex took a last drag on her cigarette and dropped it into the empty mug. ‘You know, I am genuinely sorry, David,’ she said softly, almost tenderly. ‘I know it doesn’t mean much, but the couple of times we’ve met over the past few days, I’ve come away thinking, “I hope he gives up. I hope he fails to get anywhere,” because I didn’t want to see this.’ She opened and closed the lid of her cigarette packet. ‘My brother did warn us about you. He said you’d become a problem. Your stubbornness, your tenacity. I looked at your history, and I’m not saying you don’t have a very strong, very worthy moral centre – I can see that you do – but some of the stuff you’ve done down the years, some of the risks you’ve taken?’ She shrugged. ‘I guess my brother was right. It was always going to come to this.’

  Egan took a step forward.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I wanted to come here and look you in the eye, because I felt you deserved that. I’m a pretty good judge of character these days. You tend to get good at picking liars when you do a lot of lying yourself.’ A smile – small, almost contrite. ‘I had to be sure you didn’t know more than you were letting on.’

  She meant Korin. She meant she needed to be sure I hadn’t actually found out where she’d holed up, or what ‘Ring of Roses’ really was. The finality to her words sent nerves scattering along my back, and my heart started to pump hard in my chest. I looked around me, realizing I was out of time. I tried to seek a way out, a plan, a strategy. But there was nothing.

  I was handcuffed to a radiator.

  She stared at me, her eyes lingering on me for the last time, and then got up, walking to one of the windows. She parted two of the slats with her thumb and forefinger. ‘You know what the irony is? My brother will make you disappear like the people you find. You, any trace of the life you lived, your car, your belongings, this case. It’ll all be gone. You’ll be gone. There’ll be nothing. And you know what? That’s going to upset me. I like you, David.’ She let the slats snap back into place and then returned to the desk she’d been sitting on, not looking at me, but reaching for her jacket and shrugging it on. ‘In a different life, I’d have loved to have got to know you better.’

  She returned to the door without once making eye contact with me. It was a weird, discordant moment: it felt like she genuinely meant what she was saying – and yet she was reading me my last rites.

  ‘You know what the old man told you,’ she said, talking to Egan this time. For a second she stood there, staring at the floor of the Portakabin. ‘Wherever you put him, make sure he never gets found.’

  42

  After Alex was gone, her heels clinking against the Portakabin steps, Egan just looked at me, almost sizing me up: a mortician at a slab; a butcher at a carcass. A moment later, he said, ‘I need to go and get my tools.’

  His tools.

  The words seemed to hover there, a noxious cloud of smoke, and then, with a smile, he added, ‘Don’t go anywhere, okay?’ He exited the room, blocking my view of what lay outside, and slammed the door behind him.

  Do something. Do something now.

  My wrists were bound at my back – my hands level with the base of my spine. Keeping my eyes fixed on the door, I tried prising my hands apart, pulling them in opposite directions, but Egan had bound them so tightly I wasn’t only failing to shift the tape, I could feel it cutting off my blood supply. I pulled again, teeth clenched, muscles taut, every ounce of energy focused in my fingers, my wrists, my arms, but my skin needled with pain and I started to feel light-headed. I shifted on the seat, trying to clear the haze behind my eyes – and, as I did, I felt something cool tug at my ankles. Dread filled my guts like a sludge. I’d forgotten about the handcuffs.

  I stood up, keeping an eye on the door – turning as best as I could with a handcuff clasped around my ankle – and looked at the chair I’d been sitting on. Was there anything I could use? Any sharp edges I could try to snag the duct tape on? There was a tiny screw halfway up one of the legs, rusty and frilled at its circumference, and not sitting quite flush to the frame. But it was difficult to get at, and when I sat again I struggled to even find it with my fingers.

  Eventually I did, and with the handcuff tugging at my ankle, I tried to get a clumsy sawing motion going. If Egan walked in now he’d know instantly what I was up to. I was at a forty-five-degree angle, with my wrists three-quarters of the way down a chair leg. He’d see what I was trying to do. But I was out of options.

  It was this or nothing.

  I sawed as fast as I could, repeatedly catching my skin on the edges of the screw. Before long, I’d opened up cuts on both arms, and there was blood in the creases of my palms. Undeterred, I kept going. The faster I went, the less accurate my movements got, and the more damage I was doing to my skin. When I slowed, I gained back accuracy but ate into whatever time I had left. I tried to mix it up – fast and then slow, repeat, repeat – and a minute later, I could feel the first tentative signs of give in the binds. I fumbled around with my thumbs, running them both along the edges of the duct tape. I’d torn it slightly – but, when I tried to prise my arms apart, the tape still didn’t budge.

  I started again, slowly getting into a rhythm, the chair wheezing under my movements. I’d been going about a minute when there was a subtle shift in the shadows around me. I glanced through the mottled glass of the door and heard Egan coming back up the steps, his silhouette distorting as he reappeared there.

  Come on.

  I kept going, even faster now, feeling the screw shredding my skin, the leg of the chair slick with my blood. Come on, come on. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to fixate on the movement of my wrists, on catching the screw against the edges of the duct tape – and then, suddenly, pain seared up my arm. I stopped, sucking in a breath. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Egan right outside the door, his silhouette perfectly formed, the handle starting to turn. Yet it was hard to fully focus on that because my left arm felt like it was on fire. I could feel blood all over it, carving a series of trails down the inside of my forearm – over the duct tape, into the lines of my hands, along my fingers to the floor. I’d ripped something, lacerated skin. I didn’t need to see it to know that it was bad.

  The door opened.

  Egan appeared in the doorway, the knife in one hand, some sort of rolled leather pouch in the other. Inside, I could hear tools clinking against each other.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said.

  43

  I sat up straight and tried to erase all emotion from my face. I wasn’t sure if Egan could see any blood from where he was standing – I wasn’t even sure how much blood there was – but, as he ent
ered and clicked the door shut behind him, he eyed me without paying particular attention to the carpet or the chair.

  Instead, he ran his tongue along the top of his gums, like he was trying to rid himself of the lingering taste of something sour, and waved the knife in front of him, disturbing the still air, testing it out. He held it up to the sun coming through the blinds, the blade winking in the dusty light, then placed it on the desk nearest to him along with the leather pouch. The pouch rattled, clanged.

  ‘My sister is more emotional than me,’ he said, looking down at it. He undid a tie and it unfurled like a blanket. I could see scalpels and pliers, a hammer, clamps, strap wrenches. I swallowed, trying not to show him any fear, but he didn’t look at me. ‘Thing is, emotion can cloud judgement. She was quite taken with you, so when she said she had to look you in the eye to make sure you weren’t lying to her, I’m sure she believed that you really weren’t lying about what you’d found out.’ He stopped, wriggling a scalpel free of its binding. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not as trusting. So you’re going to tell me what you know about Lynda Korin’s location.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know where she is.’

  He turned, the scalpel clasped inside his hand.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ I said. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘I love cooking.’ He paused, watching me. ‘But have you ever cut yourself chopping vegetables? You know the type of cut I mean: the ones where you just nick the skin. Man, those cuts hurt the absolute worst. Those really painful small cuts – the ones here, right on the end of your finger – they throb for hours.’ He held up his other hand, revealing the flat of his palm. ‘Now imagine one cut on every finger. Imagine twenty. Imagine an arm full of them, a leg. Imagine them all over your face.’ He smiled at me, the dying tooth visible at his gum. ‘And you know the really bad news? By the time I’m done showing you what else I’ve got in that pouch, you’ll be begging me to go back to this scalpel.’

  ‘No,’ I said, looking beyond him, searching for a plan – for anything – but then I looked down at my ankle chained to the radiator, and I realized there was no way out. My heart began a savage thump against the inside of my ribs, battering the bars of its cage like an animal trying to escape. I felt weakened and tired. I felt woozy.

  Focus.

  Egan moved closer, the scalpel out in front of him like an extension of his body. I went to hold up a hand, an automatic reaction to the weapon, to Egan, to everything that was about to come – but then I felt the binds tug. They locked in place and pain flashed through my left arm, shoulder down to hand. I twitched, sucking in a breath, listing slightly to the side.

  As I did, I felt something tear.

  The duct tape.

  Some of it had come away – a fractional abating of the pressure on my right wrist. I straightened as adrenalin charged through my body.

  ‘Wait a second,’ I said.

  Lightly, I pulled my wrists apart, disguising the movement behind a roll of the shoulders. Egan paused briefly, then came forward again, the tip of the blade no more than four feet from my body. I shifted from side to side, as if scared, and used it to hide another attempt to pull my hands apart. This time, I felt more of the duct tape split, my right hand dropping away, as if totally freed, my body lurching. Egan stopped, frowning, eyes flicking to the floor beneath me.

  For the first time, he saw the blood.

  I sprang from my seat, whipping my right arm round from behind me, and drilled a punch into the centre of his throat. As Egan staggered back, clutching his neck, air wheezing out of him, the handcuffs locked against the radiator and hauled me back towards them. I fell clumsily, into the radiator, into the wall, and then into the chair I’d been sitting on. It tipped as I hit it, and I tumbled across it.

  Scrambling to my feet, I looked for Egan again.

  He was beyond my reach – bent over about five feet from me – fingers at his throat, the scalpel still in his right hand, its point dragging against the carpet. I looked around me, desperate, knowing I couldn’t get to him, knowing that all I was doing now was waiting for him to regain control – and then I thought of something.

  The chair.

  I picked it up, gripped the legs and drew it back. Egan glanced up, his eyes – marbled with blood vessels – widening as he saw what was coming. Swinging with every ounce of energy I had, I felt the impact tremor up my arms as it caught him in the head. He staggered sideways into the desk, the pouch shifting, its tools rattling, and the scalpel dropped to the floor with a faint ping. As he rebounded, his back leg seemed to collapse from under him and he folded.

  He hit the floor face-first.

  Pausing there for a moment, chair still gripped in my hands, I watched for any sign of movement, any indication this was part of the game. But he was out cold. I could see him breathing, a mixture of blood and saliva bubbling at his lips.

  I need to get the hell out of here.

  Putting the chair down, I checked my left arm. There was a four-inch gash gouged into it, the wound still oozing, blood criss-crossing like routes on a map. My hands and wrists were all marked with smaller cuts, bruises and grazes, dirt and grease from the screw smudged among them. Dropping to my hands and knees, I shuffled in Egan’s direction as far as the handcuffs would allow me to go, then got down on to my belly. Flat on the floor, I could reach his midriff, his arm, his waist.

  I checked his jacket. His phone, a set of car keys, my wallet. Removing them and setting them aside, I tried his trouser pockets. In one I found my own mobile. In the other was a silver key with a distinctive O head. It had to be for the handcuffs. I shuffled back towards the radiator and then slid the key into the lock. They popped open.

  Getting to my feet, I moved to the sink – keeping half an eye on Egan – and washed down the wound on my arm, then headed to the toilet to get some paper towels. Wrapping my arm to try and stem the blood flow, I used an elastic band from the other desk to keep everything in place, and then returned for my phone and wallet, Egan’s mobile and his keys. I had no idea where he’d put my own car key, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  Grabbing my boot, which they’d removed, I glanced back at Egan again. He was starting to stir, his breathing becoming less cadenced, his eyelids flickering. Hopping into my boot, I laced it up and headed to the door, yanking it open.

  Sunlight erupted past me, painting the interior of the cabin a chalk-white and blinding me for a moment. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was.

  A scrapyard.

  Towers of vehicles, cadaverous and rusting, rose like metal buildings. I stepped on to the stairs and tried to get a sense of where I was, in what direction I should be heading, but it was like a maze. Rutted mud tracks wove in and out of countless vehicles, some of the stacks eight or nine cars high, huge pieces of scaffolding erected with more cars lying inside – as well as doors, tyres, wheel trims, bonnets.

  I moved down the stairs, looking left and right. It was a labyrinth, nothing visible beyond the scrapyard except the vague hint of distant rooftops. I began moving right, towards the place where the rooftops seemed closest. The tracks had been baked in months of summer sun, hardened and calcified, and a couple of times I almost turned my ankle. But the further I went, the more something else started to dawn on me. There was no one around. No employees, no customers.

  Because it’s bank holiday Monday.

  It was why they’d brought me here. This place was shut for the weekend. No one was working today, no one was coming. No one would hear me, see me.

  Egan had this place to himself.

  I glanced at my watch, and then recalled that Egan had removed it – he’d kept it, dumped it, got rid of it somewhere. I wasn’t sure which and I wasn’t going back to check, so I got my phone out instead. There were twenty missed calls, a mix of friends and potential clients, a central London number I didn’t recognize, and three from Craw. I remembered, then, how she’d wanted to talk to me about something.
She’d also sent me a text.

  Where are you? We really

  need to talk asap x

  It was 10.52 a.m. She hadn’t heard from me in nearly forty hours. I hadn’t returned her calls or her texts. But I couldn’t worry about that for now.

  I had to get out of here.

  In front of me, the tower of cars finally ended and a massive corrugated-iron fence emerged. This close to it, the rooftops beyond the scrapyard, the ones I’d glimpsed earlier, had disappeared and all I could see were the bones of the dying vehicles that encircled me. I tried to listen for telltale sounds beyond the fence, but there were no voices, no hint that this place was close to suburbia, to houses, to people, to signs of life. Instead, all that came back was the distant hum of traffic, a monotonous rumble that made me think it might be a motorway.

  I got out my phone and went to Maps and, as it loaded, I looked along the fence, trying to figure out a plan of attack. If I followed it around, there had to be an entrance somewhere. This place was big, but if we’d come in, I could get back out again. Returning my attention to the phone, I watched as the map continued its slow load in, chunk by chunk, a weak signal making the process a frustrating crawl. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something else – a movement from light to dark.

  I glanced back at the Portakabin.

  Egan, knife in hand, was coming for me.

  44

  I headed right, following the path of the corrugated-iron fence. In front of me was a canyon of cars, a stack of six propped against the fence itself, another tower of eight – windowless, engineless – slotted into holes in purpose-built scaffolding.

  As I sprinted between them, shadows started to settle around me, the sun vanishing behind barricades of oxidized metal. The track softened beneath my feet where the sunlight couldn’t get to it and, in this stretch of scrapyard, the path was littered with small, shallow puddles, grey with mud. At the end, the canyon kinked left like a turn in a maze, and I glanced back over my shoulder to see how far behind Egan was. Except he wasn’t there.