Red Mist

by Jan Swick

  "I can tell you that. There's a place where a lot of the girls go. Too much cop activity around, so they don't use the streets. I don't like them to trust cars, either."

  The man snorted. "Don't pretend you're worried about their wellbeing. Where's this place? Is it safe and secure?"

  "It's hidden. No one else goes there. Just the girls. You know the street we saw you on?"

  "Don't tell me," the guy said. He reached behind him, plucked something from the bed and threw it on Carl's chest. A pair of Carl's black jeans. Taken from his wardrobe. It unnerved Carl to know that the guy had been snooping around before he pulled the scissors. "Show me."

  The guy moved the scissors. Carl took a deep breath of relief and grabbed his balls, but there was no blood. The guy shuffled back, got off the bed. He still held the scissors, but the weapon was a much less lethal item now. Carl considered rushing him, naked. Then he remembered that the guy had broken in, found the scissors, crept into the bedroom, taken clothing from the wardrobe, money from his pocket, all while Carl slept. The guy had skills. Better not to risk rushing a guy like that. Better to bide his time.

  "One more thing. My sister died, remember that. So I ain't a guy stepping out of line. I'm doing what any guy would do, I'm sure you understand that. So you stay away from my family. I'll pay you. I just want to see where she worked. I don't want trouble."

  Carl grabbed his jeans and yanked them on, quick. He felt more protected now he wasn't naked. Then he focussed on what the guy had just said. Had he heard that right? "Pay me? To show you? How much?"

  The guy bent, grabbed a jacket off the floor and tossed it at Carl. His black bomber jacket. Carl put it on. He slipped off the side of the bed, stood. His trainers were there, on the floor. Got his feet in them. The guy tossed him Carl's baseball cap with NEW YORK stencilled on the front, told him to put it on. Carl did. His confidence grew.

  "I have five grand. It's yours. You show me where, and you promise not to come after me or my family, and you get five grand."

  "I promise," Carl said, arms open as if for a hug. All fear was gone. A minute earlier, the guy had him by the balls - literally. Sixty seconds later and Carl was the man again.

  "I have to keep the scissors on you, you understand? Until I've seen the place and I'm safe. When I've seen and I'm in my car, I'll drop my bank card for you, with the pin number. Deal?"

  "Deal," Carl said, smiling inside. Any other day of the week, he'd gladly give a guy a pass for five grand. Not some guy who'd sneaked in his house and put a blade to his balls. In some extreme moment of generosity, he might have overlooked a guy pulling a gun or putting a blade to his throat. But the balls? Fuck that. He'd keep half his word: he'd show the guy where his slut sister lay on her back and thought of England's bank notes. But then he'd bury the guy there. Safe and secure it was indeed. A good place for a corpse to lie undiscovered.

  Carl kept his calm and let the guy usher him out of the bedroom, down the stairs, out the back door and into the back yard. The guy followed close behind, scissors at Carl's neck, blades touching his skin all the way. Open scissors. He felt a blade each side, pressing softly. A constant reminder not to try anything smart. Carl saw the busted lock on the back door, where the guy had come in, and wondered how he'd done it so quietly.

  The guy reminded Carl there was a lot of money in this for him. This was by his car, out in the front yard where the world could see, not that any of his posh bastard neighbours would be up at this time. Not that any would race to his rescue anyway. At the car was where the guy knew things might get tricky for him. He had to get two people inside the vehicle, so if there was going to be a moment when his defence was down, when Carl might try to take him, it would be here. But Carl wasn't going to take him, not yet. Couldn't kill a guy in his own front yard, could he? The neighbours would be watching if that happened, for sure. And he was thinking about the money. Five grand. For five grand he would let this guy think he was in control for a little longer.

  The guy forced Carl into the driver's seat then got in the back, right behind. There was a moment when he had to take the scissors away, but he was good, he was quick, and Carl wasn't sure he could have turned the tables in that split second even if he'd wanted to. But he didn't want to, did he? Not yet.

  So the scissors were back. Left side of his neck, beside the driver's seat's headrest. The guy said something about not trying a trick like hard braking, because the scissors were tight and he'd get his head cut off. But Carl was planning no such silly move. Didn't want to have to spend all that five grand on fixing up his ride.

  They drove to Barker Street and took a turn, heading inward, deeper into Carl's "zone." In the rear-view mirror, Carl watched the guy's face. All the way to Barker Street, the guy's face hardly changed, and his eyes never left the scissors or Carl's head. But now that they had driven deeper into the estate, those eyes darted about, scanning the area. Carl could tell this was an environment the guy hadn't seen before. Soon Carl pulled the car to the kerb.

  The street was dim. On both sides the houses had high hedges, no break in the greenery, as if the road were a path inside a giant garden maze. Flash executive cars lurked behind iron gates set into the hedges, like inmates in a row of prison cells.

  One of the gates opened and a man emerged. He looked shifty, nervous. He ran to a six year-old Focus, slipped in as fast as he could, and tore away. Then a girl exited through the gateway. She wore high-heels and a skirt that looked like it was made of tinfoil. Her top was equally shiny and flimsy.

  "There's one of your cash cows, I see," the man said. "What's behind that gate? They do their shagging in some accountant's back yard? Bonnet of his Merc?"

  The guy sounded angrier than before. It didn't bother Carl. The scissors weren't around his balls anymore.

  "There's a place, dead centre of my zone. Through there is a short-cut. Past the houses."

  He opened his door to get out, then froze as the pain in his neck increased. He closed the door.

  "Tell me what the place is."

  "It's just a shop, man. Just some shop."

  "Is there a front way? Can we park right next to the shop?"

  Carl knew the guy didn't want to be seen. Carl was happy enough to drive right there, no problem. This would all be over in ten minutes. Pro rata, that was thirty grand an hour.

  Along the two kilometre loop made by Barker Street, Albert Road and Edison Avenue there were a total of nineteen side streets leading inwards. These terminated or fused until, right at the centre, there were just three roads that connected to a roundabout like spokes in a wheel. Three-storey Victorian houses overlooked the roundabout on one side, while facing them across the grass was a terrace of shops in a low, old stone building. The area was quiet and empty.

  Carl pointed out a chip shop at the end of the terrace. Closed and shuttered like its neighbours. There was a driveway between the chippy and a wall. The man ordered Carl to back in. Carl did. He was told to stop, now, and he did. The back half of the car was hidden in darkness while the front half poked out into the light cast by lamps arranged high along the front of the old stone building.

  Carl was told to get out and open the hatch. He stepped out into the light and moved to the back of the car, into the darkness. For the second time the man had no control over Carl, and this time Carl had a much better opportunity to take the guy, but again he decided to bide his time. The guy would lead himself to a better place for the table-turning. So Carl did exactly as ordered, and stood watching as the guy collapsed half of the split rear seat's backrest and crawled out through the car's ass.

  Carl knew that anyone watching from the big houses across the way would have seen only a guy in a cap exit the car. It made him grin. And all they're gonna see is one guy in a cap leave, dickhead.

  *

  The rear of the chippy was grimy, rubbish-strewn. A large wheeled bin overflowed. There was a wall separating the chippy's back yard from the next, but it had a hole in it. Matt presumed
this was the route from the fancy houses a few streets away.

  The chippy had two back doors. One, modern wood, with a window of frosted glass. The other was a small iron door, badly rusted. Ancient. It was this door that the pimp dragged open. It opened silently, as if freshly oiled. Matt watched him, ever alert for some quick move. He didn't trust the guy an inch. The pimp stepped aside and waved a hand, like a hotel doorman. Matt stepped forward and peeked inside, one eye still on the pimp. The door led to some kind of small storage unit, an outhouse, but the brick wall at the back was broken. There was a great hole, easily big enough for a man to walk upright through. Matt nodded at the pimp to go first. He followed the man inside, then through the hole in the back wall, and was surprised to find himself in a large, open area.

  Some kind of tunnel. Tubular, with a flat floor. The floor was concrete, the walls and roof brick. It was lit by kerosene lamps arranged along the floor, by the walls. Shadows danced on the walls, thrown by the flickering flames. The hole they'd walked through was in one of the walls. To the right, the tunnel sloped downwards to a sharp corner some seven or eight metres away. Immediately to the left it terminated at a decrepit metal shutter. A rent in the shutter exposed a brick wall. Beyond that wall, the chippy, Matt guessed.

  He heard noises down the tunnel: people talking, coming towards them. Two elongated shadows slid across the wall seconds before a prostitute and her punter turned the corner and stepped into view. Both shut their mouths instantly when they saw the two men by the exit. The guy kept his head down and made a quick exit from the tunnel, out into the night and away. The prostitute approached the pimp. She handed him folded money and looked happy to do so. Look at how well I did. Matt watched with disgust. The pimp grabbed her ass, one quick squeeze, and gave a playful slap in the same spot to send her on her way. Matt thought of Karen. Right here, kowtowing to this guy in the same pathetic manner. Money exchanging hands. A slap of the ass and away. The image put a new rush of anger in him.

  "Go, down," he snapped at the pimp, pointing with the scissors. The woman's face fell. He saw it as she passed him. He saw the look on the pimp's face, too. Hers: surprise that some guy had spoken to him like that. His: anger that she'd seen such a thing.

  Down the tunnel they went. They took the sharp turn to the right. Matt noted holes in the walls where things had hung. He saw the floor was littered with plaster and there were spots on the walls where obstinate bits of plaster still hung. He had worked out where he was before they took the turn and looked down the next tunnel and a new area opened out before them.

  He was in an abandoned underground train station. London had lots of them. Their overground entrances were either gone or changed; this one's had become a chippy. The tubular shape and platform were the only clues, though. There was nothing here bar a large cavity in the ground. The station was bricked up at the far end, just past the platform. Candles arranged along the opposite wall to the platform cast dancing orange light along the grimy brickwork. Spaced along the length of the platform were wooden panels at right angles to the wall, private spots where, presumably, the girls could work their clients. It was pathetic. How terrified of the police must these girls be to come so far from their working area, to sneak down underground, to get down and dirty in some tomb-like old station? And how desperate were their punters for a bit of flesh? Matt had been in some of the worst hellholes on earth, and even he didn't like this place. How a guy could get hard here was beyond him.

  He tossed those thought away and got back to the moment. His eyes flicked, his brain working. Where the tunnel opened out onto the platform, the floor was pitted, the concrete churned, is if items planted there had been uprooted. Turnstiles, maybe. That was when he saw the door. In the left wall, right near the spot where the tunnel became a station. It was old iron, like the one they'd used to enter this cesspit. By lamplight he made out an area of new bricks in a square by the door, where a window had once been. A ticket office. Some guy would have been there eighty years ago, fake-smiling out at customers as he unloaded tickets, but now there was only that door. And a room beyond.

  Matt moved towards the door. He dropped the scissors and pushed the door. It took effort, but it moved. Opened two inches.

  "Push this open, I want to see inside," he said, stepping back.

  The pimp looked at him. Glanced at the discarded scissors for a half second, then gave a sly grin. Matt knew the guy was planning to kill him. Knew the guy was thinking Matt was making it easy for him by voluntarily entering some lost room in an old station. So the pimp gladly went to the door and started pushing. Thinking about the bullshit five grand he expected to be paid, for sure. Thinking he could beat the pin number out of Matt and leave him dead, and no one would ever find the body. Turned his back to Matt and put both hands on the door to push, just like some guy who didn't realise he was two steps behind no matter how far ahead he thought he was.

  Matt grabbed him from behind. Right forearm across the throat, hand in the crook of his left elbow. Left hand in the guy's blonde hair where it stuck out the back of the baseball cap. Squeezed. Rear-naked choke, they called it. Or the carotid takedown. The guy thrashed. He tried to pull the arms away and he tried to batter Matt's head. His oxygen was rerouted. His brain wondered what the hell was going on. It was asleep before it could formulate a plan.

  Matt felt the guy go limp but he didn't let go. This was unconsciousness, but he didn't want that. He turned, put his back to the door, hammered it open with his shoulders, all the while keeping his lethal grip and watching the station to make sure no punter or prostitute emerged from behind a wooden panel and looked his way. When the gap was big enough, he backed through and dragged the pimp with him. Opening the door had scraped away debris and created a clear path, so the door closed easily with a single kick. The room fell into utter blackness.

  Fifteen seconds the guy had been out. A few more minutes until the brain was dead, but Matt didn't want that, either. The wait, that was. He dropped the guy. Blind, he stripped off the guy's hat and coat and flipped him onto his front. He put his foot on the back of the guy's neck and balanced himself. He could see nothing. It would all be guesswork. He raised his foot and dropped it hard. Raised it again. A second time it fell like a piston. Four, it took. Three times he heard the thump of his foot on flesh and the scrape of flesh and teeth on concrete as the guy's head moved. Only on the fourth stamp did he also hear a loud crack. He squatted and grabbed the guy's hair and wobbled his head. Bent it this way and that. No resistance. Neck broken.

  He moved down the platform, towards the first wooden panel, tense with anticipation at what he might see. Into view slipped what he expected: a woman earning her money. She was on her knees. Her punter was behind her. There was a thick, dark green rug where they were going at it. No privacy from anyone walking past or even standing at the edge of the platform some way off. But each couple was shielded from view of the next.

  The woman had her elbows on the ground, looking at the fingernails on her left hand in the gloomy light, as if bored. Her right hand held a can of Vimto. Empty Vimto cans were scattered around. There was other rubbish strewn about, but there was also the clutter of personal items. There was a book. There was a lidless shoebox with two shoes inside. There was a brick missing from the wall and a small mirror rested in the cavity. Matt understood. The pimp had said some of his girls didn't like the streets: they came here because they were used to it. The rug. The mirror. The book. The shoes. All suggested a place of relative comfort and safety. One way in, one way out, maybe guarded by one of the pimp's cronies during peak periods. But the most telling piece of evidence was the empty Vimto cans. This wasn't just some nook where any girl could bring her punter. It was Vimto girl's spot. Her own little cubbyhole. A place to work and to hang out when not working. And if she had her own spot, then maybe others did.

  Maybe Karen had had a spot.

  The woman looked at Matt as he approached. He stopped just feet away. The punter had his hea
d bowed as he thrust in and out of the woman. He hadn't noticed a new arrival. He certainly did when Matt spoke.

  "This girl, where's her spot?" he said, showing the photo. The guy jerked, withdrew, fell back, hands going to his groin. He started to protest, but Matt told him to shut up. Glared at him. Back to the girl. Shook the photo, held it closer.

  "You've come out, so that's your lot," she told her punter. She got to her feet, pulled down her skirt. Reached down and pulled up her knickers. Took a swig of her drink. The guy hastily pulled up his trousers. His erection had vanished. All done, he stood there, not knowing what to do. Then he did: he ran.

  Matt handed the girl a twenty pound note, the one with the smiley face. She snatched it and made it vanish. "I ain't seen Josie for a while. You a cop?"

  Josie. So that was the name Karen had used. And this woman, she spoke as if she didn't know. Didn't know Karen was dead. Matt's face must communicated the fact. She changed. The bravado seemed to evaporate. She was looking at him now with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. She nodded deeper into the station. "Union Jack," she said.

  Matt followed the woman's nod. He approached the next "spot." Another rug on the floor. Neater area. No personal trinkets. No prostitute, either.

  He continued down. Passed more spots, only one of which was occupied. Early hour: desperate men only at this time. He passed by the romping couple without looking, onward, and alongside the final spot. Fifteen feet ahead, the large brick wall that closed off the station. Newer bricks, like those blocking the window of the ticket office. Installed long after the station closed to prevent people going down the abandoned and possibly dangerous tunnel.

  In the final spot there was another rug. This one had a Union Flag pattern. Josie's. Karen's. He stared at it. There was nothing personal here, he noted. But a lot of trash. Empty bottles, empty crisps packets, empty cigarette packets. The only item that showed any kind of clue that someone spent a lot of time here was an empty coat hanger, dangling from a rusty nail in the brick wall.