Bone Machine (2 page)

Joe started the engine. Katya looked around, side to side, frantically.

‘Please, hurry …’

‘Don’t worry.’ The car started. Joe sped away. Katya looked behind her as she went. The BMX boy had turned and was pedalling
away, the drunk man, who she now realized was Asian, had floored one of her minders and looked ready to take on the other
one. He no longer looked unsteady on his feet. Peta, she noticed, had crossed the road to join him.

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Joe as the car sped along, ‘I’m Joe Donovan.’ He awkwardly extended his hand. She shook it.

‘Katya Tokic.’ She smiled. ‘You gave me your real name.’

‘I didn’t think telling you lies was a good way to earn your trust.’

Katya thought, nodded. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Not far,’ he said. ‘But far enough away from them.’

They drove around, Katya unfamiliar with the streets, the area, to know where they were going. She looked out of the window,
became aware of change in the environment. Red-brick and stone houses gave way to greenery. Donovan drove down towards the
river, past a pub and restaurant, its lights sending out a warm glow over the surrounding trees and bushes, then further on
towards the water, coming to a stop in a secluded, gravelled car park.

Katya looked at him, a seed of apprehension taking root.

‘What now?’

‘We wait. But not for long, hopefully.’ He sat back, sighed. ‘Well. That was exciting, wasn’t it?’

Katya smiled. The apprehension died within her.

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Donovan, digging into his inside pocket, ‘this is for you.’

He took out an envelope, handed it to her, looked away, giving her what privacy he could in the confined space of the car.

She opened it, read the letter. Before she reached the end, tears were streaming down her cheeks. Everything tumbled out of
her: her life in the old country before the soldiers, her new one with the horrible men, and everything in between. The hopelessness.
The hope. Falling out in huge, racking sobs.

When the other car came, a nondescript saloon sidling up alongside, she barely registered it. She had read the letter four
times, tried to memorize the words. She looked up. Donovan was standing by the side of the car, opening the door.

‘You OK?’

She rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. She nodded.

‘Good. Come and meet the gang.’

He held open the door for her, helped her out. Standing in the car park, illuminated by the headlights of the two cars, stood
the three people she had seen earlier, the cold turning their breath to smoking vapour.

‘Peta you know,’ he said, pointing to the blonde woman who smiled in return.

‘What you did to Lenny …’ Katya began.

Peta shrugged. She had managed to scrape off most of the make-up and throw a padded jacket over her clothes. Without her high-heeled
shoes she looked much smaller. Wiry and taut. ‘All in a day’s work,’ she said.

‘This is Amar,’ said Donovan. The Asian man nodded. He was young, she noticed, about medium height. His designer parka was
open, displaying a chest-hugging T-shirt that showed off his well-defined muscles. He was also flexing fingers that looked
bruised and swollen.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked Katya.

Amar smiled. ‘Only my pride.’ His voice, when he spoke, was quite light. ‘I must be out of practice.’

Peta laughed. ‘He needed a girl to help him out. Doesn’t want to admit it.’

Katya smiled. Adrenalin was still coming off them in palpable waves.

‘And,’ Donovan said, pointing to the young light-skinned black boy in the street clothes, ‘the BMX bandit here is Jamal.’

Jamal, now wearing a hooded sweatshirt, extended his hand, the formal gesture belying the teenager’s urban appearance. She
shook it.

‘Well,’ said Donovan, ‘that’s the introductions made.’ He looked at the others, smiled. ‘Well done, team. A good night’s work.’

Katya looked at the four of them, then at her surroundings. The trees shifting in the breeze, the river beyond. She
breathed in deeply, took air fresh and unpolluted into her lungs. She smiled.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you all …’

She felt the tears begin again and made no attempt to hold them back. Because right there, in that place, at that moment,
she felt safe.

Safe.

‘Jesus. Aw, Jesus …’ The uniform turned away, vomited.

‘Well done.’ DI Diane Nattrass looked at him, face professionally blank. ‘You waited until you were outside the tape. Well
done. You’ll go far.’

The young man, kneeling in the gutter, hand outstretched, grasping for something to steady himself against, looked up. Red-faced,
he wiped his mouth along the back of his hand, began mumbling the prologue to an apology.

‘Never mind,’ Nattrass said. She put out her arm, helped him up. ‘First time?’

He nodded. Once he was on his decidedly shaky feet, she looked at him. Even under the orange streetlight he looked pale. He
didn’t look old enough to drink, vote or fight for his country. He certainly wasn’t old enough to be exposed to what lay before
him. Nattrass doubted there came an age when anyone should.

‘I won’t say you get used to it, because I hope you never do.’

She looked ahead, past the tape:
POLICE: DO NOT CROSS
. She saw the outline of what had made the young man vomit. Sighed. ‘Can’t say I blame you, though,’ she said.

Hope and fear. They went hand in hand for Diane Nattrass. She had hoped for a night out; cruise along towards five o’clock,
knocking-off time, on a tide of mundane paperwork then go home, change and go out on the first date she had had for ages with
a solicitor she had been introduced to by friends desperate she was going to grow old
alone and childless. But, as she had feared, her date hadn’t happened.

As a reactive detective inspector working out of Market Street station, in the centre of Newcastle, she had to respond to
calls that came in. Murder, theft and, since she was female and trained in sexual offences, rape. She was also investigating
the disappearance and possible abduction of the college student Ashley Malcolm. She would expect to be top of the list for
an out-of-hours call for something like this.

She stood up, pulling her long coat tight around her, hoping it would hide her party clothes underneath as much as keep out
the cold. With her long brown hair teased into something she considered stylish, her make-up expertly applied, she felt overdressed
for a murder scene. She scoped around. Westgate Road cemetery was a small, disused, triangular-shaped burial ground at the
corner of Elswick Road and Westgate Road in the west end of Newcastle. Once the area’s main necropolis, it was now overgrown
and ruined, the railings surrounding it long since stolen and melted down. Gravestones lichened and crumbling, broken, prone
or resting at irregular geometric angles as tree roots nourished themselves on the composted bodies and dust-returned bones
of previous inhabitants. Now it provided both a dumping ground for passing pedestrian refuse and temporary accommodation and
respite from the daily grind for the local junkie and wino population. Given the area’s general condition, that was a growing
population.

Outside the cemetery were homes, the streets now cordoned off with blue and white police tape securing the crime scene, uniforms
directing traffic away from the area. On two sides were old brick and stone tenements, untouched by the city’s creeping gentrification;
on the third loomed a collection of 1960s high-rises, etched tombstone-like against the night sky, the darkness hiding their
decay.

Melting, wet, slushy snow covered everything, rendering the scene in stark, depressing monochrome.

But there was nothing hiding the body. Nattrass looked, trying to peer in, but couldn’t see it. Just as well. Once she had
attended the post-mortem and stared at the accompanying photos, she would have seen more than enough. All she could see were
the SOCO team going slowly about their work, their white-paper, hooded suits making it look as if they were clearing up after
a chemical attack.

Discovering and protecting the route, in and out, that the perpetrator must have made. Picking up anything, no matter how
inconsequential, that may suggest a link that could tie the dumped body in with the dumper, or an accomplice, or at the very
least a witness. Making the radius as wide as possible, bringing it down eventually to a small, manageable level.

Nattrass wasn’t allowed in, she knew that. Didn’t expect to be. She couldn’t lean in close, peer at the body, prod and examine.
She could destroy evidence, contaminate the scene. It wasn’t like the movies. It wasn’t like TV. Clues weren’t left out in
the open. Life, for her, wasn’t like that.

‘What’s up, boss? Havin’ a seance?’

Knowing the voice, she turned. It was her partner, DS Paul Turnbull. Awkwardly rolling on a pair of surgical gloves. Nattrass
looked at his hands.

‘Having trouble with the latex, Paul?’

Turnbull smiled. ‘You know me, boss. Can’t beat bare-backin’. Anythin’ else is unnatural.’

Nattrass swallowed her retort. ‘Well, you won’t need them,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t arrived yet. Forensic scientist.’

‘Is he on the way? Wetherby?’

Nattrass nodded.

‘I’m looking forward to the day when the Home Office can email one to us.’

‘I’m looking forward to the day when we won’t need one at all.’

‘You’re going to have a long wait.’

Nattrass sighed. ‘I know.’

Nattrass looked at her younger colleague. He was still suited, collared and tied. His hair short and tidy. A straight-down-the-line
copper, no grey, just black and white. She imagined he slept standing up in his clothes, just in case he should get a call
like this one, just in case he was needed. For him, she thought, the job came first. Always.

Turnbull was looking at her. ‘Interrupt you doing something special?’ he asked with a smile. The kind of smile, she thought,
that indicated he was looking at her in a new light. And not necessarily a light she would want him to regard her in.

For work, she usually dressed in as professional and sexless a manner as she could manage. Nothing that would detract from
doing her job. Straight hair, straight clothes. She didn’t just have to compete with her male colleagues; she had to be twice
the men they were. However, after work, her time, what there was of it, was her own. And Turnbull wasn’t used to seeing her,
made up and dressed up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As it happens.’

‘Anyone I know?’ He was almost smirking, unable to contain his surprise at the revelation that his boss was also a woman.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Now let’s concentrate, shall we?’

‘OK, then,’ he said, businesslike again. ‘Catch me up.’

Nattrass looked at him. Hid a smile, even. ‘Have we been watching
CSI
again?’

Even in the dark she could see him reddening. ‘
NYPD Blue
,’ he mumbled. ‘Repeats on Sky.’

‘Right. Well, here’s what I know.’ Nattrass swept the area with her eyes, took in the whole scene. The uniform was
still hovering at her shoulder, as if unwilling to move too far from her, out of his comfort zone. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Snell,’ he said on the second attempt. ‘PC Snell.’

‘Right. Well, we received a 999 call just after nine thirty. Saying a body had been sighted in the cemetery. Anonymous. No
name given.’

‘Tracing the call?’ asked Turnbull.

‘Of course.’ If the call came from a callbox, then the caller may have been picked up on CCTV. If it was a mobile, the caller
could perhaps be traced by billing. A landline likewise. If the call came from the killer, then all bets were off. ‘Never
know, we might get lucky.’ She looked around the towerblocks. ‘We’ll have a word with the community managers in the morning.
Get their teams to go around, do a door to door. See how that goes. Maybe think about setting up a mobile unit if all else
fails.’

Turnbull nodded. ‘Better them than us. Land of the bloody blind for us around here.’

Nattrass didn’t comment. ‘Anyway, PC Snell here was the first on the scene. Saw the state of the body and called for the area
to be cordoned off. Quick thinking.’

PC Snell took the praise with a small smile.

Turnbull turned to him. Asked him if he had seen anyone in the area. Snell shook his head. ‘Just a couple at the bus stop.
We’ve taken statements.’ He swallowed, finding his voice. ‘The first they knew of it was when I questioned them.’ They had
been dismissed, he said, a contact address taken. They weren’t serious contenders for killers.

‘What does the body look like?’ asked Turnbull.

Snell looked as if he was about to be sick again. He held it down. Described what he could remember. ‘Young, blonde. Naked.’
His voice began to shake again. ‘Cut … several wounds. I didn’t count how many … and the eyes, the mouth …’

‘What about them?’ asked Turnbull.

Nattrass stepped in. ‘Sewn shut. Not prettily, either.’

Turnbull expelled air. It seemed to leave his body in a hard mass. ‘Jesus …’ He shook his head as if to shake loose the image
that was starting to take up residence there. ‘Anything else? The body arranged in some kind of shape?’

Snell shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell. She looked … all … contorted.’ He outstretched his fingers into talons. Held them
rigid. ‘Like that. I didn’t touch it, though.’

‘Good work,’ said Nattrass. She and Turnbull exchanged glances.

‘A bad one,’ he said.

‘They all are,’ she said, ‘but this one is worse than most. Cadaverous spasm, it sounds like. She didn’t go gently.’

Turnbull suppressed a shudder.

She sighed. ‘Any more than that, we’ll have to wait for the Home Office bod to get here.’

‘Any ID?’

Snell shook his head. ‘Not that I could see. I didn’t want to—’

‘I know,’ said Turnbull, cutting him off. He turned to Nattrass. ‘You think it’s …’ He left the name hanging.

The facts, unspoken, were embedded in both of their brains. For the last week they had taken priority over everything else.

Ashley Malcolm. Nineteen. First-year student at the University of Northumbria, studying photography. Disappeared six days
ago leaving no word, no note, no clues. Like she had just vanished into thin air from a street in Fenham.

CCTV tapes had been watched and rewatched; witnesses, friends, lecturers and boyfriend had been questioned and requestioned.
All with no positive outcome. For a time suspicion had fallen on her boyfriend, Michael Nell. They
had found him uncooperative and obnoxious, two things that are guaranteed to make the police take a deeper than casual interest
in a person. Nattrass and Turnbull had obliged, leaning on him somewhat in an effort to ascertain guilt or innocence, find
his breaking point, but ultimately nothing had come of it. Despite their dislike of him, with no body there was a limit to
how far they could go.

And now this.

‘So what d’you reckon?’ said Turnbull. ‘Should we assume it’s her? Or wait?’

‘What is it they tell us in training courses?’ said Nattrass. ‘Never assume. It makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”.’

‘But those wankers have never had to do this for a livin’.’

‘True.’ Nattrass tried to look anywhere but at the cemetery. She failed. ‘Instinct tells me it
is
her. I mean, I hope it’s not but in a way I suppose I hope it is too.’

Turnbull looked at her, nodded. ‘I know what you mean. If it’s her we can get going. If it’s not … we’ve got a nutter on the
loose.’

‘I think it’s safe to say we’ve got that anyway, Paul.’

Turnbull stood up. ‘Hope for the best, fear the worst, eh?’

Nattrass looked around. She had to call it in. Wait for an SIO to be assigned. Contact the General Hospital, arrange for the
body to be transferred to the mortuary there. Accompany the body along with the pathologist. Maintain the chain of evidence.

She sighed. What she hoped. What she feared. Rarely the same.

‘Always the same, isn’t it, Paul?’ Nattrass said. ‘Hope and fear.’

She and her team were going to be in for a very long night.