Girl Zero

by A. A. Dhand

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Did you kill my niece?’

  Billy screamed that Tara had been hanging around the taxi rank, wanting free rides. Billy had looked after her.

  ‘Bet you did,’ spat Harry. ‘Why did you lie to me?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You’d think I was taking advantage.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘No.’

  Harry thought about the other pictures on Billy’s phone. He was a nonce. Through and through.

  ‘Look at me,’ said Billy, desperate now. ‘If I knew something, I would tell you.’

  Harry got up suddenly and started to turn the jack.

  Billy felt the force: immediate and life-threatening.

  ‘No!’ he screamed. ‘I know who did it!’

  Billy writhed on the floor. No longer angry, flat-out petrified.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Take this off.’

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Think I’m stupid?’ Harry completed the quarter-turn. Several teeth in Billy’s mouth suddenly cracked. ‘Quit trying to buy yourself time.’

  ‘Ali! Ali!’ groaned Billy, and spat a bloodied tooth on to the floor, coughing wretchedly as more blood oozed from his mouth.

  Harry reversed the turn.

  ‘Ali?’

  Billy spluttered his words. ‘Taxi driver. Not on the books! Let me out, I’ll tell you everything!’

  Although it tallied with what Sarah had said, Harry needed to be sure.

  ‘Bullshit. You did it, Billy. I know you did.’

  ‘When was she killed? Tell me!’

  ‘Saturday night.’

  ‘Call my dispatch! I took a group of girls to Birmingham, stayed at a friend’s house – I was there until Sunday afternoon. It’s all on the tracker!’

  ‘If you’re lying, Billy—’

  Harry was distracted by a car heading towards the derelict estate. Instinctively he crouched and tore off a piece of Billy’s shalwar, stuffing it into his mouth.

  The vehicle skidded to a halt next to the Peugeot.

  Ronnie and Enzo climbed out of the Range Rover. ‘Harry.’

  ‘What the fuck, Ron?’

  ‘Just passing.’

  ‘Don’t do this,’ said Harry.

  Ronnie looked down at Billy. ‘Nice touch.’

  Harry glared at Enzo. ‘You’re tracking me.’

  ‘Prefer to think of it as protecting an asset,’ said Enzo.

  Harry stepped closer to his brother so they were toe to toe. ‘Spying? Really?’

  Ronnie put his foot on Billy. ‘This our guy?’

  ‘This isn’t how it works.’

  ‘Is this our guy?’ Ronnie screamed, shoving Harry square in the chest.

  The smell of whisky hit Harry like a slap. He looked hard into his brother’s eyes.

  Never met an alkie who could fight the thirst …

  Nash had been right.

  Ronnie removed a gun from inside his jacket.

  ‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SARAH’S PHONE WAS out of reach on the other side of the room.

  She waited.

  Fifteen minutes after Harry had left, there was a knock on her door.

  ‘Let yourself in,’ she cried.

  For a moment Percy, the barman of the New Beehive, simply stared at Sarah, who made the handcuffs rattle against the bed frame.

  ‘Could be worse, I suppose,’ he said, before turning to leave.

  He returned with a battered old bag, unzipping it on the dressing table. He removed several metal picks before stepping across to Sarah and sitting on the bed.

  ‘How was he?’ Percy asked.

  ‘Angry,’ she replied. ‘You sure you can open these?’

  He shrugged and smiled at her. ‘Let’s find out.’

  ‘I need to leave, Granddad. Now.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, sighing. ‘Did he buy it?’

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  Percy slipped a pick into the lock of the handcuffs and nodded. ‘Didn’t strike me as a stupid man.’

  ‘He’s not. But when Billy doesn’t talk, Harry will have to come back.’

  ‘If Billy doesn’t talk?’ said Percy, gently manoeuvring the pick inside the lock. ‘Is this whole thing dependent on Billy not talking?’

  ‘Would you?’ she asked.

  ‘Given who the boss is?’ Percy shook his head. ‘Billy’s dead either way.’

  ‘Exactly. He’ll take his chances with Harry.’

  Percy cursed under his breath. ‘Almost had it,’ he said, moving back to his bag and selecting another tool.

  ‘You could unscrew the bottom of the frame so the cuffs will slide off,’ she said.

  ‘Twenty years in this trade, never found a lock I couldn’t open yet. What time’s your meet?’

  ‘Soon,’ she said, trying not to sound impatient.

  ‘Easy,’ whispered Percy almost lovingly at the lock. ‘Easy …’ The handcuffs slipped open.

  ‘Thanks, Granddad. Did you sort his car?’ she asked.

  ‘As briefed,’ he said. ‘It should be showing on your phone.’

  While Harry had been in the basement with Sarah, Percy had left the bar, walked across the street and stuck a magnetic GPS tracker to the underside of Harry’s car.

  ‘Technology’s amazing, huh?’ he said.

  Sarah reached for her phone, checked the tracker app.

  ‘Got him,’ she said. ‘He took my key. Said he was coming back. You can’t let him in while I’m gone.’

  ‘I’ll have the night-staff bolt the back door from the inside so he has to buzz. He comes back before you do? They’ll ignore him and you can come through the front. OK?’

  ‘Perfect,’ she said.

  Percy got off the bed and rearranged his tools in his bag. Before he zipped it closed, he removed a knife with sharp serrated edges. He paused then handed it to Sarah.

  ‘There’s no going back after this,’ he said solemnly.

  Sarah typed a hurried text message then took the knife from him and concealed it under her burka.

  ‘Are you having second—’

  ‘Never,’ said Percy coldly.

  ‘Has Victor called?’

  ‘Aye. The farmhouse is quiet. They’re still there. I’ll close up and head out to see him now.’

  Sarah concealed herself inside her burka with practised efficiency.

  ‘Kid?’ said Percy quietly.

  She paused and looked at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m proud of you and of what you’re doing,’ he whispered, nodding and wiping his eyes.

  Sarah pulled the top of the burka over her head, tucking her blonde curls inside, then walked over to him, her steely eyes momentarily softening as she slipped her arms around her granddad. ‘What we’re doing,’ she said, burrowing her face into his chest.

  Sarah walked down the hill opposite the New Beehive Inn. A bitter wind chilled her skin, combating the burning in her cheeks, and a light drizzle continued to fall. Eighteen months’ work, and it all came down to the next twenty-four hours.

  She passed the Jamiyat Tabligh-ul-Islam mosque and kept her head down, her feet quickening, her heart racing as she saw her destination in the distance, one of the largest derelict mills in the city: Conditioning House. Each year ambitious plans to redevelop the colossal structure faded into familiar broken promises.

  Outside, towering iron gates kept out the drug addicts and whores who used the many dilapidated mills in the city as shelter. Sarah paused to check she was alone.

  The chain securing the gates had been cut open; he was already here.

  She hurried across the open courtyard, the metal gates casting a shadow across the yellow stone walls of the crumbling building.

  This place had a haunting quietness to it.

  She reached the central courtyard, whe
re four floors rose dramatically on all sides, casting ground level into an unearthly darkness. Three metal bridges crossed the space, each one above the other on the way up to a web of interlinked steel meshes that once formed a ceiling. Sarah was always struck by the vast emptiness. This is what the end of the world would look like.

  At the far end of the mill, she saw a torch flashing in her direction.

  ‘Salaam alaikum,’ she said.

  He had waited for her, his Asian garment thin against the cold, black wavy hair flopping down the side of his handsome face.

  Yasser simply nodded, turned off his torch and pushed a black bag towards her with his foot. Sarah glanced at it, then at him. ‘I feel ready,’ she said. ‘You?’

  ‘I do,’ he nodded, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the wall. A gentle breeze revealed the muscular physique beneath his clothes. ‘Next time we meet?’ He looked up, through the crisscross of metal girders supporting the ceiling to where, high above, dark clouds moved across the sky.

  Sarah joined him, looking at the heavens. ‘Anywhere is better than here,’ she said, unwavering in her resolve to see their plan through.

  Sarah crouched and unzipped the bag. ‘May I?’ she asked.

  He handed her the torch.

  ‘This is amazing,’ she whispered.

  Yasser crouched beside her. ‘It is my best work,’ he said, ‘for the greatest thing we shall ever do.’

  His hand found Sarah’s, tentatively enclosing it with his own. She allowed him to feel her skin, turning her hand over and grasping his.

  ‘I can’t begin to express how much you’ve helped me,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said, again glancing to the heavens. ‘Not me.’

  Sarah pulled her hand back and zipped up the bag. As they stood, she looked towards the top of the mill. ‘The roof,’ she said, staring intensely at him and stepping closer until their bodies touched. She ran her hand through his hair. ‘Will you come with me?’

  ‘What for?’

  Sarah took his hand. ‘It’s our last night,’ she said, and looked at him in a way she knew would get his attention. ‘We can’t let this depressing courtyard be our last memory together. Let’s … remember how we used to be.’

  ‘We are not allowed,’ he said, his voice unconvincing even to his own ears.

  ‘We are no longer just soldiers, Yasser,’ she whispered, putting her hand on his chest. ‘We have given so much for the greater good, but tonight? On our last night before we complete, I want to remember what it feels like to have you close to me.’

  For the first time since he had owned the New Beehive Inn, Percy had closed up early.

  He had driven to the Cow and Calf Rocks in silence, using the forty-minute journey to go over the plan.

  The Cow and Calf comprised one large and one smaller sandstone rock sitting close together. In his youth, Percy had scaled the four hundred metres to the top of the Cow for the breathtaking views across Ilkley Moor.

  With the dark shadows of the rocks concealing his presence, Percy walked purposefully from his car into an adjacent field, his boots familiar with the route.

  The field was barren, overgrown marshland which the rain had churned into a bog. A quarter of a mile later, Percy saw a familiar Jeep tucked behind a large row of trees, not exactly hidden but not easy to see from the road.

  ‘It’s bitter out there,’ said Percy, getting into the passenger seat and handing Victor a flask. ‘Any movement?’

  ‘Just the boy, Billy. He came by earlier this evening with their dinner. Other than that, nowt.’

  Victor looked cramped in the driver-side of the Jeep, his six-foot-five, solidly built frame filling the space, knees touching the bottom of the steering column.

  Percy pointed to a puzzle book on the dashboard. ‘That yer war book, is it?’

  Victor grunted, unscrewed the lid of the thermos and poured himself a cup of steaming tea. ‘Keeps my brain sharp.’ He frowned. ‘This got sugar in it?’

  Percy slipped a hand into his bag and removed several sachets he had lifted from the pub. ‘Couldn’t remember.’

  ‘Eleven years in the force, forty-two years of camaraderie and you can’t bloody remember the sugar?’

  ‘Christ, I’ve got to take more pills than I’ve got fingers these days. Be grateful I remember your name.’

  They grunted stifled laughter. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t take my water tablet today so I wouldn’t have to piss out there every hour.’

  ‘Smart thinking.’

  ‘Doc says I’ve got to exercise my bladder,’ continued Victor. ‘Pelvic strengthening, he calls it. I told him: last thing that strengthened my pelvis cost me three hundred grand in a divorce.’

  This time they let themselves howl, Victor only stopping when he spilled tea on his pants.

  ‘Christ!’ he yelled, and spilled even more.

  ‘It’s good to laugh, particularly on a night like this.’

  Victor calmed down. ‘She gone to see the boy?’

  ‘Aye,’ replied Percy. ‘And the detective fella was round earlier.’

  ‘And …?’

  Percy shrugged. ‘As per the brief,’ he said, looking at Victor and forcing a smile. ‘As per the brief.’

  ‘Should hope so. Eighteen months in the planning, I’d expect it to go like clockwork.’

  Victor opened two sachets of sugar, poured them into his tea and used his finger to stir it. ‘If this city – shit, if this country functioned as it should, we could have stayed retired.’

  ‘Different times. Different war,’ said Percy, removing a lunch box from his rucksack and placing it on the dashboard. ‘Cheese and pickle,’ he said.

  ‘You say that like it’s something for me to look forward to.’ Victor smiled.

  ‘I’m going to miss these times, old boy.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that. We’re not going anywhere. Plenty of life in these veins yet,’ said Victor, raising a wrinkled fist.

  ‘For you, maybe.’ Percy removed a crumpled packet of Capstan Full Strength cigarettes from his pocket.

  ‘How many left now?’ asked Victor.

  ‘Three.’

  Victor took the packet from him. ‘Greatest pack of cigarettes in existence.’

  ‘Absolutely; opened on a war-torn field in eighty-two. Lasted thirty-four years. Let’s have a couple.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘The night before we experience the night to end them all? It’s time.’

  Victor nodded solemnly, removing one and handing the pack to Percy.

  They wound their windows down a little, smoking in silence, staring into the darkness where half a mile away Olivia Goodwin and her mother were spending what might be their last night in Bradford.

  ‘Tastes like eighty-two,’ said Percy.

  ‘Nothing tastes like eighty-two,’ whispered Victor.

  ‘Not that part.’

  ‘It’s only ever that part for me. Eighteen good ’uns, we lost. If Thatcher had’ve of waited instead of throwing her weight behind a war to save her political career, well …?’ Victor stirred his tea with his finger again, then repeated, ‘Eighteen good ’uns.’

  ‘We were taking fire from all corners. You ever wondered why we didn’t fall?’

  ‘Suppose not. Never seen a man face death in quite the way you did. Held ‘em off for what? Thirty minutes?’

  ‘I had the ammunition hoard.’

  ‘And I had you.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed there, friend.’ Percy took a deep drag on his cigarette and coughed.

  Victor smiled. ‘Been a while?’

  ‘Maybe ten, eleven years?’

  ‘Still taste as good as they always did?’

  ‘Tastes like a barman’s backside to me.’ Percy wheezed a laugh.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Victor said. ‘Are we certain?’

  The weight of everything they’d left unsaid bore down on them both.

  Percy nodded stiffly. ‘We
didn’t come this far to stop now.’

  ‘And Sarah?’ said Victor.

  ‘Without this, she’d have tried to slit her wrists again.’

  Percy struggled to remove a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Victor.

  ‘I didn’t just come to see if you could still see through those binoculars,’ said Percy, nodding at the pair hanging around Victor’s neck and keeping hold of the document. ‘We … need to talk.’

  ‘I don’t like that look,’ Victor replied. ‘What you got there?’

  ‘A change. For tomorrow.’

  ‘Late in the day.’

  ‘I know. Listen …’ Percy faltered now it came to the next part. ‘What I’m going to say? It stays here. Sarah doesn’t need to know.’

  ‘I don’t like that look on your face.’

  ‘Then you definitely won’t like what I’m about to show you,’ said Percy, and he handed over the paper.

  Standing hundreds of feet above the ground on the roof of Conditioning House, Sarah and Yasser could see for miles in every direction. The wind had calmed and the black plastic sheeting across sections of the roof was rattling softly. Bradford almost looked beautiful. Yasser pointed to St George’s Hall in the distance. The oldest concert hall in the UK with a capacity of fifteen hundred people, tomorrow night it would be packed for a Bonfire Night theatre extravaganza.

  ‘They won’t know what hit them,’ he said. ‘Can you picture it?’

  ‘Forget about that for now. This is our moment,’ replied Sarah, putting her hands on his face and turning it towards her.

  ‘If I closed my eyes, wiped this city from my mind and opened them again, I could almost believe I was back in Islamabad,’ said Yasser, facing her and holding her hands.

  ‘Big city. Bright lights. We could be anywhere,’ she replied. ‘Close your eyes,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trust me.’ She smiled.

  Sarah removed a white rag from her pocket and wrapped it around his eyes, tying a loose knot at the back of his head.

  ‘Are you going to throw me off the roof?’ he asked teasingly.

  ‘Remember the game we used to play when we were training?’

  He smiled as she took his hand and slipped it underneath her clothes, placing it on her skin. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered, stepping closer to him.