Unforgiving

by Nick Oldham

  Except Overwall was not there.

  It was Spencer Bartle, and his arm was elevated and arcing down towards Henry’s head with the crowbar in his hand. Henry did not even have time to raise his own forearm in defence to try and deflect the blow. Clearly, he hadn’t, because Bartle had smashed the crowbar across Henry’s head in a truly stunning blow that had sent a shock wave through him and poleaxed him into oblivion, from which he was now surfacing.

  Although he tried not to, he emitted a groan.

  The two voices stopped instantly. They knew he was awake.

  More clarity returned to Henry’s head, and he opened his eyes, which were crusted over with his own blood, but there was nothing to see. He realized that he had a hood or a sack pulled over his head and he was actually hanging upside down like a bat.

  He tried to squirm to free himself, but as even more clarity came back, he realized his legs had been taped tight together at the knees and ankles, and his hands were fastened behind his back; he was trussed up like a rolled carpet.

  He stopped moving, knowing he did not have the strength to break free, and sensed someone standing close to him. He strained to listen, but his ears were blocked, he assumed, with his own coagulated blood, and they hissed like bad tinnitus.

  Something touched him, then with a flourish the hood was whipped from his head.

  And Henry screamed as the steaming-hot head of a dead horse swung towards him, with its massive purple tongue lolling obscenely out of its mouth, fresh blood dribbling from his wide nostrils.

  Henry tried to writhe out of the way, but the horse’s head crashed into his face, hard, smearing him with its thick blood and other disgusting fluids. He screamed again in horror as the huge, brown head swung away, then back into his face again, crashing into him, causing him to cringe with revulsion. It swung away again, and Henry steeled himself for another contact, but this time the head was replaced by Spencer Bartle’s face as he squatted down in front of Henry with a cruel, terrible expression on his face and placed the muzzle of a captive bolt gun against Henry’s forehead.

  ‘What the hell have you done that for?’ Owen Overwall had demanded of Spencer Bartle as he stared numbly down at the prone, unmoving body of Henry Christie on the forecourt of the unit, blood gushing out of the massive cut Bartle had inflicted in Henry’s temple. ‘I had it under control, you freaking idiot.’

  Bartle’s face was engorged with his own pulsating blood pounding through his body as he towered over Henry’s prostrate form, the crowbar dangling from his right hand. He panted with the exertion of delivering the blow; he’d put everything he had into it.

  ‘Had it coming,’ Bartle gasped and turned malevolently to Overwall, who shied away slightly. ‘Bastard was harassin’ me.’

  ‘He’s not even a fucking cop any more.’

  ‘And that’s the beauty of it … No one’ll be looking for him; not for a while … Gives us time to sort him.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’ Overwall stared at the amount of blood collecting under Henry’s head.

  Bartle knelt down and inspected Henry. ‘Yeah, still breathing, sort of.’ He grimaced, hearing Henry’s snorting breaths. He turned slowly to Overwall, his face evil. ‘Shall I just kill him? I could. I could do that.’ He flaunted the crowbar. ‘Just smash his head to nothing? I could.’

  ‘I know you could, but no. Not here, at least … Someone might spot blood and brains all over the place.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Bartle sounded disappointed, then flashed a smile – although ‘flashed’ was pushing it slightly. His mouth was crammed with brown and black misshapen teeth. ‘I wanna have some fun with him first, anyway.’

  ‘Get him in the boot. We’ll stick his car in the garage for the time being,’ Overwall said.

  Bartle clicked the remote unlock for the boot of the Skoda, then picked up Henry’s legs between his armpits and dragged him to the back of the taxi, scraping his head along the concrete. He dropped the legs before heaving Henry into a ragdoll sitting position, then scooped him up, arms under his armpits, lifted him and rocked his body over so the top portion of Henry’s torso overbalanced into the empty boot. He completed the task by pulling up Henry’s legs and shoving them in next.

  ‘I need his car keys,’ Overwall said.

  Bartle went through Henry’s pockets, found the keys for the Audi and tossed them to Overwall, who was already opening the shutter door. There was just enough space in the garage behind the other Skoda to squeeze in the Audi and close the shutter.

  By the time Overwall had done this, switched off all the lights and locked up the unit, Bartle was in the driving seat of the taxi, the engine ticking over.

  Overwall slid into the passenger seat and noticed Henry’s blood staining the front of Bartle’s jacket. ‘You’ll need to get rid of that.’ Overwall pointed at the jacket.

  ‘Yup – but we’re good at that, aren’t we?’

  Then, with Henry out cold in the boot, Bartle reversed off the forecourt, spun the car around and floored the accelerator.

  There wasn’t far to go.

  He drove to the far, bleak, back corner of the industrial estate, through the gates of Bartle’s abattoir, and pulled up by the unloading bay. Bartle whizzed the car around with a flourish and drove backwards to the door. He yanked on the handbrake, stopping the car with a rocking lurch, and laughed hysterically at the thudding noise made by Henry’s body rolling sloppily around in the boot. He climbed out, opened the boot and dragged the loose-limbed form of his victim out by grabbing the front of his jacket. With Henry under one arm he half carried, half dragged him through the front door of the abattoir – similar to Overwall’s taxi unit, but much larger – and along the corridor through to the abattoir itself. He then went further into the building, to a huge, cold storage room where dozens of animal carcases hung down from sliding rails on meat hooks: sheep, pigs and horses.

  Without requiring any assistance from Overwall, the big, strong Bartle trussed Henry up with duct tape, fastening his legs together and pulling and securing his arms behind his back. Then he fitted a sack over his head with a tie at the throat, and hung him head down from one of the hooks, so that Henry swung there next to a dead horse.

  Other than the fact he was dealing with a human being, this was the sort of work Bartle did almost every day, without effort.

  Satisfied, he looked at Overwall, who had watched the process, and smiled. ‘Every time I see this guy, he waves at me.’

  ‘And that’s harassment?’

  ‘Good as.’

  Overwall considered Bartle, then asked plaintively, ‘What exactly have you done?’

  Bartle grinned widely, and although he knew what Overwall meant, he replied, ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean, where is she?’

  ‘Where is who?’ he teased.

  ‘You know … I asked you to step in and help me out cos my regular driver didn’t show and I was busy … then when this bastard came snooping and asking awkward questions it became bloody obvious, bloody quickly, that you’d taken the girl you were supposed to pick up and drop off at home. A cop’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. I had to ad-lib like mad … I can put two and two together!’ Overwall’s voice started to rise.

  ‘So what? I’d got to that point again,’ Bartle said mournfully. He bunched his fists and held them against his chest, over his heart. ‘When I needed to do something.’

  ‘You can’t just take who you want, when you want, Spence, just because you’re starting to feel it.’ Overwall mimicked him by crossing his arms over his own chest and bunching his fists. ‘And especially not my customers. These things have to be thought out.’

  ‘You haven’t complained before.’ Bartle smirked knowingly.

  ‘We don’t shit on our own doorstep.’

  ‘What about the cop-woman?’

  ‘Again, risky … Cops’re still sniffing around. They will be forever, mate … Jeez, you got to control yourself.’

  ‘Som
etimes I can’t.’

  Overwall shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘We’ve been lucky so far.’

  ‘Like I said, you didn’t complain,’ Bartle said with his nostrils flaring. ‘She was too good to miss today, and so what if she’s a cop’s kid? What did you tell him?’ Bartle thumbed at Henry’s upside-down body. ‘Not that it matters; he isn’t going to tell anyone, not going to get the chance.’

  Bartle picked up a captive bolt gun from the floor. It was dirty, blood caked, animal hairs bristling around the muzzle.

  ‘This has gone too far, Spencer,’ Overwall whined.

  ‘Stop moaning. You—’ Bartle shoved the barrel of the gun into Overwall’s chest – ‘have had your fun. It’ll be right … No one’ll ever find him … You know how good I am at disposing of bodies.’

  That was the moment at which Henry groaned and regained consciousness. They turned to look, and Bartle pulled the hood off Henry’s head and cruelly swung the horse’s head into his face; the hanging man screamed like a baby as the bloodied head of the dead beast smashed disgustingly into his face twice, then was replaced by Bartle staring at him and the captive bolt gun being skewered into his forehead.

  ‘Mr Christie,’ Bartle said.

  Henry glared at the upside-down face. ‘You need to let me go.’

  Bartle guffawed. ‘Nah.’

  ‘People know I’m here.’

  ‘What? Here? In my slaughterhouse? I don’t think so.’

  ‘They know I went to see your mate.’ Henry’s eyes shifted to Overwall.

  ‘So what? Let me tell you this.’ Bartle removed the muzzle from Henry’s head. ‘By the time anyone figures anything out, you won’t even exist, Mr Christie. You’ll have been dismembered – professionally, obviously – and minced, your flesh ground up and your bones gone to dust,’ he said, relishing every word, ‘and in about a week’s time, some poor fucker is going to buy a meat pie from their local butcher, thinking it’s beef, but it won’t be. It’ll be horse meat and human flesh – yours. Yummy!’ He held the captive bolt gun in front of Henry’s eyes. ‘Know what this is?’

  Henry did an upside-down nod.

  ‘I’ve been using one of these since I was twelve.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘This is a penetrating one.’

  ‘OK.’

  Henry knew about captive bolt guns: a device used to stun animals prior to their slaughter, though he always thought the use of the word ‘stun’ was arguable. The one that Bartle had in his hand used a bolt that penetrated the skull of the animal, into the cranium, and smashed into the brain, basically destroying that organ – hence Henry’s dispute with ‘stun’. The animal was essentially dead, but the brain stem remained intact, so the heart could continue to beat during the bleeding process to make it flow out easier.

  This piece of usually useless information was confirmed by Bartle.

  ‘It’ll smash the fuck out of your brain, then when I cut your throat you’ll bleed out like a stuck pig.’

  ‘OK,’ Henry said again. ‘Is that what you did with Laura Marshall?’

  ‘Who? Her from today?’

  ‘The policewoman.’

  ‘Nah, why would I do that? Not yet, anyway.’

  It didn’t help Henry that his soon to be destroyed brain was already a mush from being whacked with a length of iron, so he was puzzled. ‘She’s still alive?’

  ‘My harem,’ Bartle said proudly and winked at Henry, then glanced at Overwall. ‘Our harem.’

  ‘And the one from today?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Too good to miss, that one. Little girl, all alone, in the back of my taxi … She’s on tonight’s menu.’

  ‘I don’t believe you haven’t killed her,’ Henry challenged him. ‘You’ve killed them both, haven’t you?’

  ‘Nah, why should I? Not yet, anyway,’ Bartle said, as though offended.

  ‘Show me,’ Henry demanded. ‘Before you kill me, show me.’

  Bartle considered the request. ‘OK.’

  ‘Jeez, Spencer, what you playin’ at?’ Overwall asked. ‘He’s just tryin’ to waste time … If you’re going to kill him, get it done. The longer he stays alive, the more chance there is of us getting caught.’

  ‘Show me,’ Henry pleaded, seeing the possibility of Bartle changing his mind under pressure from his running mate. ‘Like you said, why should anybody know I’m here? I’m tied up, can’t go anywhere … I just want to know they’re alive, that’s all.’ Truth was he was playing for time, even if it only meant delaying the inevitable, and he was purposely pandering to Bartle’s obvious power trip. Bartle was a psychopath and proud of his achievements, however sick they were. Henry could only speculate, but he knew he had stumbled into something here that was very awful in the extreme. A harem? ‘Show me,’ he insisted again.

  The two men looked at each other. Then Overwall said, ‘I need to get his car. I can’t leave it in the garage … If what he says is true and others know he went there, they’ll come looking at some point. And I need to power wash that blood away.’

  ‘You go, do that, then.’ Bartle stood up. ‘I’ll give him a little display before I slit his throat and gut him.’

  Rik and Jake stood by the open shutter door of the taxi unit. Jake was speaking into his PR, calling the comms room at Lancaster, trying to tell them concisely what had happened – his daughter had gone missing, and now Henry Christie had also disappeared, and though the incidents may or may not be connected, there was a genuine reason to be concerned for the welfare of both. He was requesting uniform to attend and for other bosses further up the chain of command to be informed.

  As he was talking, trying to keep coherent and sensible despite his rising panic, he noticed a car approaching slowly from the rear of the industrial estate, headlights on. For a moment, Jake did not really focus on it; he was concentrating on getting what could be a vitally important radio message right, until he saw the small plastic sign on the roof. It was a taxi. Even though it was dark now, he recognized the car to be a Skoda and did the sums.

  ‘Stand by,’ he said into his radio. He stepped off the forecourt into the road, raised his right hand and flashed his torch at the car, which stopped twenty metres away from him.

  Rik, who had watched this, started to walk diagonally towards it from the front door of the taxi unit, but Jake held back a shade, cautious.

  ‘Out of the car,’ Rik shouted on his approach. He was waving his mini-Maglite torch in one hand; in the other, he flashed his warrant card. ‘Police officers! Out of the car,’ he repeated.

  When he was five metres from the car, the engine revved, and it shot past Rik and sped towards Jake, driving hard at him. He pirouetted out of its path like a bull fighter, managing to avoid its last moment swerve at him. The car missed him by inches. He caught a glimpse of a very grim faced Owen Overwall, gripping the steering wheel, with his body hunched tightly forwards.

  Using the momentum of his spin, Jake sprinted back to the Land Rover and leapt in behind the wheel, restarting the old engine, which was fitted into a vehicle not designed to chase anything, let alone other cars. He crunched it into first and put his foot down, going after the Skoda.

  The vehicle set off with a kangaroo jump, then Jake took it as far as it could go in first, making the engine scream horribly in protest, before he dropped into second, lurching sickeningly as the gears synchromeshed – just.

  By this time the Skoda was swinging out of the industrial estate, heading towards Thornwell village, less than a quarter of a mile away.

  Jake followed. The Land Rover skittered and rolled as he negotiated a tight bend into a narrow, dark road. Ahead, he saw the brake lights on the Skoda come on, then go off.

  He forced his foot down on the accelerator, and it seemed to take a long time before the message to speed up was passed to, then received and acted upon by, the engine. Jake even had time to smack the steering wheel in frustration, but he also had the chance to call up comms and make them aware
of the situation – which was about all he could do, because any back-up to help out was over twenty minutes away at best, by which time a wide variety of things could have happened.

  Comms said they were going to call out the helicopter, India99, but Jake just shrugged at that. He guessed that might be fifteen minutes away at best.

  On the outskirts of Thornwell, with the Swan’s Neck on Jake’s left, the Skoda had pulled well ahead. Jake was glad to see that Overwall had stuck to the road and gone all the way around the village green; Jake himself could go diagonally across it, even though he knew that the thick Land Rover tyres would leave deep ruts on the well-tended grass. He made up some distance by doing this, but was only halfway across the green by the time Overwall reached the Kendleton Road on the opposite side and was powering the Skoda up the hill and away.

  Jake swore and tried to coax something more out of his vehicle. ‘Come on, you crusty old git,’ he yelled at it, then saw a red warning light pop up on the dashboard. He winced, chose to ignore it.

  He bounced off the far side of the green on to Kendleton Road, having to select second for the hill ahead, knowing he had closed the gap a little on the taxi.

  The road wound up – tight on some bends, unlit and not really suitable for any great speeds, particularly at night. It was a road that demanded skill and concentration. He rolled the Land Rover around the next bend, which unfurled into a long, straight stretch of road, bounded by sloping farmland on the left and a rising, stone-strewn banking on the right, from which rocks and boulders often rolled on to the carriageway.

  He could see the rear lights of the Skoda about two hundred metres ahead and knew that Overwall was outgunning him. He almost gave the chase up at that point, believing it to be futile. It was only a transitory thought, though, and he jammed his foot down again, forcing, willing the lumbering square box on wheels to dig deep.

  He flicked on the roof spotlights to illuminate the road ahead just as it dipped and fell, and he lost sight of the Skoda as it careened around a hairpin bend, with maybe a quarter of a mile to go before hitting Kendleton.