Unspoken Truths

by Liz Mistry

  It was a packet of painkillers.

  ‘You look like you need these.’ Lulu, leaned back in the chair making it groan in protest. She raised one leg and rested her calf on the opposite knee. ‘You gonna tell me what happened? Fucking Hairy Mary said Jane bit off your nipple. That right?’

  Alice nodded once – abrupt.

  ‘… And swallowed it?’

  Alice couldn’t suppress her shudder. Since it happened, she’d tried not to think about it. Tried to shut it out of her mind, to push to the recesses of her mind, the memory of Jane’s chin dripping with her blood, her nipple between her teeth. Now, Lulu’s words made her gag in reflex and acid flooded her throat.

  ‘Hell Alice, didn’t mean to upset you, love. Wouldn’t do that for all the world. You just lie there and I’ll get you some water for your pills.’ Hauling herself to her feet, Lulu shuffled over and laid her gnarled, arthritic hand on Alice’s forehead. Alice closed her eyes and turned her face to the wall. The sound of Lulu shuffling towards the door was a relief. Her fists unclenched by her side and with effort Alice swallowed down the bile that stung the back of her throat.

  Lulu’s words, just before she exited the cell, were the final straw for Alice.

  ‘I got your back, Alice. Nobody touches you on my watch and gets away with it. Not Hairy Mary, or Baby Jane, okay? I got this.’

  A tear snuck out the corner of Alice’s eye. Before all this, she’d held Lulu in check. Told her she was fine, could handle it herself. Now though, she was done protecting folk. Done with being the police officer. As far as she was concerned, Lulu could do her worst. Hairy Mary had known she was under Lulu’s protection, yet whatever Kennedy had paid her, had made the other woman greedy and she’d taken the risk. Now she’d pay for it.

  Alice raised her hand and wiped away her tears. They deserved it, the lot of them. They were all well aware of the reach that Lulu had. The contacts she had inside and outside the prison. Hell, they’d seen her have other inmates dealt with in the past – shivs in the shower, glass in their meals, overdoses of heroin. Whatever Lulu wanted, Lulu got. Her notoriety as a gang leader in Brixton was well-documented. For Alice, the fact that she saw Sean Kennedy as a competitor, had meant Lulu had protected her as much as she could.

  Alice had refused to enlist Lulu’s help. Until now, she’d been determined not to go down that road. All her instincts had told her that if she succumbed to that, the road back would be full of potholes and obstacles. Once you’ve dabbled with the dark side, it wouldn’t be easy to come back.

  As Lulu shuffled back in, Alice turned to her and watched the older woman slosh water over the floor as she approached with a plastic cup, now half empty. Alice smiled, her mind made up. ‘Sit down, Lulu. I need your help. Let me tell you exactly what’s been going on…’

  By the time Alice had finished her story a good hour later, she was exhausted. Lulu on the other hand was alive and alert. Firing questions at Alice, clarifying details and at last making her promise. ‘I’ll keep your folks safe Alice. But in return, you’re going to have to help me with something!’

  Alice sighed. She’d half expected this. Nothing in prison came without cost.

  She nodded once and lay down on her bunk, her eyes closed immediately and as she drifted off to sleep she heard Lulu making arrangements on the illegal phone she somehow or other managed to keep hidden from the guard.

  MONDAY

  44

  02:45 Travelodge, Stalybridge

  Lewis Gore snored like a volcano about to erupt. For long seconds at a time he’d stop, lulling Gus into a false sense of security, only to start up again with a crescendo of rumbles that seemed to start in his toes and bounce off every one of his bones on the way up to his snout. By which time the snores had built in volume until they rattled in Gus’ head, sending any thought of sleep out the window.

  Gus turned over in the narrow single bed and pulled a pillow round his ears, determined to drown out the noise once and for all, only to nudge his nose, which, of course, just had to start bleeding again. Fuck’s sake! While hopping out of bed, he cupped his hands under his nostrils, cursing Gore as he moved towards the bathroom, drips of blood making his hand sticky. Gore had spent a sizeable portion of their journey from Bradford to Stalybridge moaning about sleep deprivation on account of his baby. Having spent a mere few hours with Gore, Gus suspected that the only person getting any sleep in the Gore household must be the big man himself, for how anyone – baby included – could sleep through that racket, he’d no idea.

  Allowing the blood to drip into the ceramic sink, Gus put on the cold tap and – eyes glazed – stared mesmerised at the patterns made by the spatters. As if he hadn’t seen enough blood spatters today to last him a lifetime. His thoughts drifted to Jordan Beaumont’s daughter. No matter what her dad had done, the kid didn’t deserve this. If there was one kind of criminal Gus detested above all others, it was the kind who took their revenge by hurting the loved ones of their targets. Sheer cowardice as far as Gus was concerned – but the crime scene at the Beaumont’s home showed something worse than cowardice. It stank of evil enjoyment.

  The men who’d tortured Marcia Beaumont and exacted further revenge on the child had done it to get off on it. Beaumont would have caved – Gus was sure of it. The photos on the man’s phone showed that, whether or not his relationship with his wife was strong, he loved his daughter. Photo after photo after photo showed that; Beaumont and his daughter eating ice-cream each with a dab of raspberry on their noses and round their lips, pictures of them making googly eyes at animals at Knowsley Safari Park, photos with silly animal ears and tongues superimposed on top. Mo’s kids were always sending him Snap Chats like that. These were all indications of a man who loved his daughter. Beaumont, Gus was sure, would have done anything to save Missy from her fate. The purpose in torturing Marcia Beaumont had been beyond revenge or manipulation – it had been purely for fun, for enjoyment, for sexual gratification. But what they’d done to Missy had been beyond even that. Gus couldn’t forget what they’d done to that little girl. When he found them, they’d pay for that.

  Gus switched off the tap, rolled a length of loo roll round his hand and pushed it under his dripping nose. With the fingers of his other hand he nipped the bridge of his nose. Rumbles followed by muffled murmurs drifted in from the bedroom. Oh Hell, now he’s sleep-talking too. Gus raised his head and looked at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His nose was still swollen and had started to turn a delightful purple colour – aubergine? He had a flashback of Alice laughing at him one time when a drunk witness had given him a black eye. He’d moaned about it being purple and she’d punched him, none too gently, on the arm – as was her way – and said ‘idiot, that’s not purple, its aubergine.’

  What the hell had happened to them? Here he was in a pokey little room in a Travelodge with a rumbling volcano and Alice was in a pokey room in Stanton sharing a cell with God only knew who. He still thought she’d have been safer in hospital, but Nancy said she’d demanded to be returned to the prison. Alice had said that’s what she wanted. How the hell could she think she was safer there? Not after what had happened to her a few weeks ago. Maybe they’d put her in solitary – keep her away from Sean Kennedy’s cronies. He really hoped Compo would come up with something – anything to throw doubt on her admission.

  From the bedroom he could hear his phone ringing. Compo? He threw the bloody tissue in the loo, grabbed some fresh loo roll and flushed, before rushing to get his phone, stubbing his toe on the way. Bloody Gore hadn’t even flinched. He was still there murmuring to himself between snores whilst Gus hopped about like an idiot and all because he’d not wanted the ringing to wake up his companion. After throwing himself onto the bed and flicking on the bedside light, Gus answered, ‘Compo, what’ve we got?’

  As soon as Compo spoke Gus could tell he was excited – that he’d caught something good. He visualised the lad pacing back and forth, an item of food in one of his han
ds, the phone in the other; various empty cans dotted around his work station. He remembered he’d sent him home to do dark deeds on the darknet.

  ‘Boss, we’ve cracked it. Me and Taffy.’

  The sound of two over-excited lads high-fiving sounded down the line, and Gus nearly cracked a smile. Taffy and Compo were a good combination. Maybe as good as Compo and Sampson had been – before Sampson played the damn hero and ended up dead, that is.

  ‘It’s singin’ pure and sweet,’ said Compo, elongating the ‘a’ in ‘and’.

  Gus glanced at Gore and wished he could say the same about him. ‘Any chance of sharing the song then, Comps?’

  ‘Eh? What song?’

  Gus sighed, and as Gore’s ‘singing’ reached an all-time high, he reached over and prodded his sleeping companion in the arm, which served to make his yodelling soften to a splutter of puffs, for the time being. God, sometimes being the boss was hard work. He squeezed his eyes tightly together and then opened them as wide as they would go in the hope it would wake him up a bit. Sensing a dribble at his nose again, he dabbed at it, got to his feet, padded over to the kettle and flicked it on. A coffee might make him focus and it didn’t look like he was in any danger of getting any more sleep anyway. ‘I just meant tell me what you’ve got.’

  He listened to Compo chomping on something as he ripped the sachet of coffee open and tipped it into the mug. His stomach rumbled. When was the last time he’d eaten? Yesterday morning? He grabbed two sugar sachets and tipped their contents into the mug too. Maybe the sugar rush would see him through the next few hours. A slurp from Compo as he took a drink and – at last, he spoke. ‘She was a whistle blower.’ He paused, presumably for effect.

  Gus poured the water into his mug, gave it a few stirs with a teaspoon and sat down on the plastic chair, wincing at the coldness on his bare legs. It was going to be a long night. ‘A whistle blower?’

  ‘Yep. Don’t get all the science or owt, but the university Izzie Dimou was employed at in Northern Cyprus, as we know, has some sort of reciprocal agreement with Rubeus Pharmaceuticals who are a government-backed company. Reckon that means they’re all official secrets and that. They’re looking at developing effective treatments for biological diseases that fall under the Category A classification.’

  ‘Category A?’

  ‘Stuff like smallpox, anthrax and that.’

  Shit, that was some serious stuff. Abaci and Doukus had said as much, but they’d categorically denied that Izzie could have access to anything critical. Makes you wonder why her colleagues at the university had chosen to be so vague.

  Compo continued. ‘Well, all this stuff in the wrong hands can be used as bio-weapons.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that from my Skye interview yesterday. Still don’t see how any of that indicates Izzie is a whistle-blower.’

  ‘Well… seems that Izzie came across some tests and experiments that were flying under the radar. Seems like one of the scientists was developing something he shouldn’t and Izzie – who was a senior researcher – stumbled across it.’

  Gus frowned, ‘You telling me that one of the scientists at Izzie’s University in Cyprus was developing some sort of biological weapon and Izzie found out?’

  ‘Yep. That’s how it looks. One of Izzie’s colleagues was developing a vaccine to counter a new bio-weapon developed in Syria – something by the name of AX22. However… according to Izzie’s data, it seems that this scientist was simultaneously using AX22 to develop a deadlier, more complex, more resistant strain – AX23.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘But do you want the punchline?’

  Gus rolled his eyes bloody punchline! ‘Just tell me, Comps.’

  ‘If I’m reading this right, the AX22 vaccine actually included some sort of accelerant – they called it ACC22. From Izzie’s notes the two compounds were to be used as part of a two-pronged weaponry by whichever country gained access to it.’

  Shit! That little USB stick held a lot of extremely sensitive information. Gus shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about what could have happened if the Romanians had found it. Their dead bodies in Keighley indicated that all of this information would have fallen into the wrong hands – but who’s? This was a lot to take in. ‘Not sure I get the two-pronged bit.’

  Compo crunched on something, swallowed and said, ‘Well, looks like whoever had the AX22 could use it to attack a target – maybe a city hosting a summit or summat. The AX22 vaccine with the accelerant ACC22 would be administered. This, instead of protecting the vaccinated population, would actually weaken them. The bastards would follow up with the even deadlier AX22EX – BOOM! An-iA-fucking-lation!’

  Gus was speechless. This was huge. No wonder MI6 were keeping things so tightly under their belt. It made everything so much clearer. It also brought Daniel’s well-being into question. Izzie had been killed for access to this USB. Gus could only hope that Daniel’s MI6 training would kick in and he’d be able to hang on till they located him. That, of course, was assuming he wasn’t already dead. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, our Izzie was a bit of a techie geek – not as good as me, but good. She’d managed to clone the scientist’s lap top and mobile phone and downloaded everything she found to this USB, and – if I’m right – to a protected location on the cloud.’

  Gus slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. What was he thinking? Lack of sleep was making him unfocussed. ‘Is it Doukus? Is that who’s behind all of this? I thought he was hiding something yesterday.’

  ‘No, not Doukus. This scientist wasn’t one of the two you interviewed yesterday. This one is third in line in terms of seniority at the university. Name’s Dr Young. If Izzie’s data is right, he was out to sell the AX22 vaccine and the AX23 bio weapon. He was in talks with Syria, Russia, and Pakistan.

  ‘Shit, Comps. You need to get Nancy onto Interpol. We need to pick him up.’

  ‘Too late, Boss. I ran him and he’s dead – hit and run four days ago apparently. His flat had been ransacked – who knows who’s behind the attack, or for that matter whether they got the formulas. The thing is, we’ve got everything Izzie downloaded, but there’s some code that I’ve not managed to decipher yet, so whether that’s everything there is or not, I don’t know. We don’t have the final chemical compound, so nobody can start working on a cure for this until we get the rest of the information.’

  ‘Right Compo, I’ll get onto Nancy, anything else?’

  ‘Anything else? Izzie’s death and his disappearance are linked. How do you think Daniel’s disappearance fits in?’

  Gus’ hopes for Daniel’s safe return had been diminishing over the past hours. Now he was sure that Gabriella’s brother was dead. Whoever had tortured and killed Izzie, the Romanians and Jordan Beaumont’s family wouldn’t hesitate to kill Daniel when he’d given them all he had. When the snow cleared, he fully expected that some dog walker or other would come across both Jordan Beaumont’s and Daniel Farrier’s bodies in due course. ‘Reckon they took Daniel as leverage to encourage Izzie to hand over the USB. They don’t have it yet and they clearly don’t have Young’s data either, that’s why they came to Alice’s place in the night – they were still looking for it.’

  ‘Yes, but was that Izzie’s only copy?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it was. Izzie would have kept a backup which, I suspect, is the one you’re working on. I suspect she was going to disseminate the intelligence she had collected with the pharmaceutical company – after all they are government funded. She probably thought Beaumont would be an ally. Perhaps she going to share her findings with him? Or, perhaps she was going to confront him. MI6 know a lot more than they’re letting on, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Maybe she handed the evidence to him and that’s why he was abducted.’

  That didn’t sit right with Gus, but he let it lie for now. He had the idea that Izzie being followed after her meeting with Beaumont somehow linked up. ‘Keep trying to identify those two dead bodies in Keigh
ley. I want as much information on them as possible.’

  Gus phoned Nancy and brought her up to date all the while Gore remained asleep, giving a mostly rhythmic – though still irritating – accompaniment to the proceedings. No way would Gore wake up if his baby cried during the night. Fat lot of good he’d be! Taking great pleasure in it, Gus – in perfect synchronicity with the snoring – whipped the duvet off Gore’s snoring frame, flicked the lights to full power and put the telly on full boom.

  ‘Whilst Storm Emma is heading north, leaving a trail of destruction behind her throughout the Manchester district, we aren’t out of the woods yet. The forecast indicates more blizzards and snow storms with estimated lows of minus ten degrees. Snake Pass is still unpassable and the Met Office’s Red Alert is set to remain in place for the foreseeable future. School closures throughout the North of England look likely, meaning another day of sledging – but don’t forget to wrap up warm. That’s it for now from Manchester News. Next update at six am.’

  Gore, like a slumbering bear awakened in mid hibernation, growled and extended his massive arms in a stretch that threatened to knock Gus’ cooling drink off the bedside table. ‘What’s up, Gus? Had a good sleep?’

  Gus grimaced and ignored the question, choosing instead to dive straight into the information Compo had found. He’d just reached the end when his phone rang again.

  ‘What’s up, Comps?’

  ‘Two things. First is we’ve managed – or rather Taffy has managed – to isolate a likely vehicle for the Beaumont abduction. Caught it leaving the end of Blundering Lane and managed to follow it through to the edge of Saddleworth Moor. Looks like a Discovery. Big fucker with snow chains – probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise. It disappeared for a good three hours and we thought we’d lost it – maybe it got jammed in the snow or summat. Anyway, we caught up with it again and it continued on for another couple of miles. We lost track of it again for another few hours. The weather’s playing havoc on the roads. We’ve not seen it since one o’clock this morning. Still waiting for it to reappear.’