Devil You Know (16 page)

I’d been tricked. Two of them had come after me. I just hadn’t considered that there might be a third down here. He was a big man, a flick of brown hair over his forehead, a long face and great fat cheeks. He looked like a horse – that was my thought at that moment. Then I had a sudden cold feeling. I had seen him somewhere before. I swayed when I realised who he was.

This was Mad Mike Machan himself.

He just stood there, watching me, and smiling. I couldn’t see any way out of this now. I sat up, dragged myself back so I had my back against the wall.

And that was when I saw Baz.

He was stepping softly behind Machan. I tried not to look at him. Maybe Machan didn’t know Baz was there. Maybe Baz had an escape plan. He’d get out, get the police.

He looked up at me. He looked nervous. Could I blame him for that? No.

I dared a glance and saw him run his tongue along his lips.

“Can I go now?” His voice echoed in that tin coffin of a building. “I told you where he was. Can I go now?”

Now I looked straight at him. I stared at him. I’m sure my jaw dropped. What was he saying? What did he mean?

Machan followed my eyes. Baz began to back away from him. “You said you wouldn’t do anything to me if I told you where he was. You promised.”

Baz was leaving. Leaving me alone.

“Baz!” I shouted after him.

Machan turned back to me. His smile was a slash of menace. “No one’s going to help you now, son,” he said.

And when I looked back, Baz was no longer there. I could still hear him, hear his footsteps pounding away. He was hauling open the door, knew he could get out that way. He hadn’t even looked back.

Baz was gone.

He’d betrayed me. Baz had betrayed me. Someone I had trusted so much had betrayed me? Had he led me here, knowing they would come? I remembered that phone call I had seen him making – no text message to Auntie Dorothy. Of course not. How did he know how to contact them? How long had it been going on? Was he the black figure who had attacked Claude? Wasn’t that what I had feared? Was that how he had known exactly what Claude had said? Because he was there? And had he been the one who poisoned Mickey’s dog? Had it all started then? Had he contacted them, told them he knew how to get us all, as long as they let him be? Brave bold Baz, the boy I had admired so much, had been the most cowardly of us all.

In those first seconds it was all I could think about. He had raced out of this warehouse, leaving me alone.

Alone.

It was the clatter of feet on the steel stairs that brought me out of that nightmare, and into another. I swung round. Two men stood on the stairs. The one who had been trapped under the steel was trying to brush himself down. He glared at me and called me a few names I can’t repeat here. “You’re not making this easy on yourself, son,” he finished.

“Take your medicine like a man,” the sumo wrestler said. He sounded Welsh, a big broad Welshman – a bull of a man. Was that the same voice Claude had heard? “It’ll be over soon.”

I tried to stop my voice, my whole body, from shaking. “What are you going to do to me?” I tried to get to my feet. My knees were buckling under me. I gripped the stair rail to stop myself from falling. I didn’t wait
for their answer. Didn’t want it really. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why you’re after me. I never done nothing.” Why couldn’t I stop my voice from whining? I had always wanted to be like Baz – bold, cheeky, unafraid. But Baz had betrayed me. Baz was more of a coward than I was. There was no one I could be like now. He had run out of here, terrified. He had brought them here to get me, so he could be safe.

The men behind me suddenly closed in. Their hands gripped my elbows, lifted me off my feet. “I’m sorry, for whatever you think I’ve done. I’m sorry.” Was I screaming? I hope not. “Let me go.”

“’Fraid that’s not an option,” Machan said. “You boys have caused me no end of problems. Destroying my property, stealing what was mine. Getting the police interested in me. I can’t let anybody off with that.” He took a step closer. “And
you
, you were the worst of them.”

Me?
I wanted to shout out to him.
It was Baz, not me!
Had he blamed me for everything? What had Baz told them?

I shook my head, but I couldn’t get any words out.

“And that’s why I had to come to deal with you for myself. You should be honoured. I don’t often do that.”

All the time he spoke, I struggled, but they were so strong, used to handling struggling victims.

Victims
. The word itself made me feel faint.

I was sweating blood. Images flooded my mind from films I’d seen, documentaries I’d watched, images of what these people were capable of. Noses slashed off, bodies in cement, bullets in the brain, and Claude with his two broken legs.

“You’ve given me a lot of trouble. But after this, you’ll have learned your lesson. You’ll never give me any trouble again.”

He was enjoying it. He was enjoying seeing my fear, and I so wanted to be brave.

My feet dragged along the floor as the men pulled me into the middle of the warehouse. Machan stepped aside, and what I saw made me yell
with terror and struggle even more.

A solitary chair, ropes round the arms and legs to secure me. And the chair was sitting on a big square of plastic sheeting.

Oh dear Lord, what were they going to do to me?

That plastic sheeting scared me more than anything else. How I struggled, trying to pull away from them.

Machan only laughed. “Come on,
man up
, son, as they say.” Every word was a growl.

I kicked out and caught one of them on the shin, but that only made him angry and I saw he was the one I had stabbed with the screwdriver. The back of his hand still bled. He tightened his hold on me. His fingers bit into my arm. They were pulling, lifting, dragging me toward the chair, I couldn’t stop them. They had their orders. They wouldn’t go against Mad Mike. They would do whatever they were told to do. They had no feelings about it, one way or another. No pity. Nothing was going to stop them. What they’d done to Al Butler, to Claude, to Gary… Oh dear Lord, what had they done to Gary?

I had another burst of strength, fighting against them, terror made me strong. I heard a bird in the rafters, one of the pigeons. One of the men looked up but only for a second, and then he turned back. My arms were pinioned to the chair, and in seconds I was trussed like a chicken. My arms, and my legs held tight.

Machan was standing behind me. I couldn’t see what he was doing. What he was about to do. The others stood before me, their hands clasped in front of them.

Another pigeon flew into the roof. I heard its wings fluttering. Wished I could fly too. Fly off and away.

Let me fly.

“It’ll be all over soon, son,” Machan said, as he came from behind me, and pulled a knife from his pocket. A Swiss army knife. He swivelled it open and the blades came alive. They fluttered apart with wings of steel.

That made me thrash about all the more, pounding my feet on the ground, shaking the chair. All my struggles only seemed to amuse them.

And Machan took a step closer.

And right then, right at that moment, the cavalry arrived.

Black uniforms burst into the warehouse, seemed to come from nowhere, rifles at their shoulders, calling out harsh orders:

“Drop the knife!”

“Get away from the boy!”

The blade was dropped on the plastic. One of the men tried to run. A black uniform stopped him with the butt of his rifle. The man fell to the ground.

Someone ran towards me, I could only see his eyes. I couldn’t talk. My tongue wouldn’t work. I wanted to say, ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’ But I couldn’t talk.

The policeman untied the ropes. His voice was gentle. “Come on, son. You’re safe now.”

I tried to stand up. My legs wouldn’t work either. They buckled under me. The room swam around me. My rescuer held me up so I wouldn’t fall. He called over to another black uniform to help him. Together they just about carried me out of the warehouse. The whole world seemed to be swarming in black. They’d come for me. They’d saved me.

The last thing I saw as I left the warehouse was Machan, hands cuffed behind him, his face dark with anger.

It was only as I sat in the police car, a blanket wrapped round my shoulders that I found my voice. “Where’s Baz?”

The PC in the front seat looked round. “Baz?”

It had been a faint hope. That Baz had been responsible for my rescue.
That he had run from the warehouse, run to the police, brought them here. Saved me.

Of course it hadn’t been Baz. There had been no time. Only minutes had passed from him running away till the police had come crashing in to save me. This had been a well-timed, planned operation. They were too fully prepared with guns and body armour for it not to be.

No, Baz had left me. Betrayed me. I had to face that.

I hated him then. But even hate was overcome by relief. Every other feeling was nothing to that.

I was safe. I had been saved from whatever horror they had in store for me. Nothing else mattered.

They took me to the station, and a doctor came to check me out. All of this passed over me like a dream. People walked past me, they spoke to me, I heard them talk, but I couldn’t tell you what they said. I didn’t ask about Baz. I’d never ask about him again. He was gone, and I was still stupidly loyal enough to him not to get him involved if the police knew nothing about him.

They told me my mother had been informed I was safe and she would be coming soon. I wondered how she would react, and how much they had told her.

A man came along and sat with me. I think he was some kind of child protection officer. He touched my arm to comfort me, but he said little. Then they took me into a room, and that’s where they showed me the CCTV footage. It was night of the fire. The night Al Butler had torched that warehouse. “Do you remember this?”

Of course I did. There was a smoky haze over the fuzzy pictures, almost as if the fire had already been started. And I remembered the eerie red glow of the emergency lighting. And then into plain sight came the guy who had been shot. Al Butler. He turned his face to the camera, just for an instant. His eyes were bright pinpoints of light.

They froze the frame. “Do you recognise him?”

I didn’t have to lie. “He was killed, wasn’t he?”

“Murdered,” the cop said. “Executed.”

“Do you know why?” the other cop said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Because of this.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “The man who owned this warehouse and most of the properties around it is the gentlemen who was about to use you as a pincushion. A certain Michael Machan.”

I nodded.

“Can you see where we’re headed here?” the other policeman said.

And still I said nothing. Not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t know where to start.

“Let’s see some more.” He switched the film on again. The dead man, Al Butler, came alive and moved on. Another figure came into view. He turned and it was Mickey. You could hardly make him out; he had a grimace on his face, trying to look scary. But it was Mickey all right. They didn’t pause the footage at Mickey. He moved off in a blur and then there was Claude. I could tell without even seeing his face it was Claude. Couldn’t mistake that lumbering run of his. The frame froze again.

“You know this boy, don’t you?”

I found my voice at last. But it came out like a scratch. “Claude,” I said.

“Yes, your friend Claude. Him with the two broken legs. And you know now who was responsible for that?”

The man beside me spoke up. “You can’t question him till his mother gets here.”

The policeman held up his hand. “I’m not questioning him. I just want him to see this footage. Ok, son?”

The screen moved again. There was me, grinning like an idiot at the camera as if I was so cool, clearly holding those Xbox games. How stupid I looked now. The frame froze again.

“Easy to spot you, Logan.”

I only nodded. The screen moved again. And then there was Gary. We’d been laughing at Mickey and Claude and their ghost dance. And there he was, laughing, leaping, punching the air. The frame stopped again leaving him in mid air.

“Wondering what happened to your pal?”

I’d been terrified to mention him. He was dead. I was waiting for them to say it.

But they didn’t. The policeman stood up and opened the door.

And Gary walked in.

I jumped from my seat. Gary stepped back quickly as if I would attack him. I wanted to hug him.

“I thought you were…” I didn’t finish.

“This is the boy who saved your life,” the cop said.

I looked at the policeman and then back to Gary. I didn’t understand.

“He came to us. Eventually. Told us everything. We’ve been after Machan for a long time. And after that fire, though we didn’t think Machan was behind it – not his style – we got him in for questioning. But we hadn’t a clue you boys were involved in any way. Why should we? We knew Machan must have had the CCTV footage, though he denied it. And if he had it, he’d kept it for a reason. So we began watching him and his enforcers very closely. We knew they were looking for someone, didn’t think it might be boys like you.”

Gary butted in. “So even when Claude was attacked, they didn’t think it had anything to do with the Machans. They really did think it was just another gang.”

The policeman continued. “But then your friend came to us, just in time, as it turns out. So we knew you were in a lot of danger. We didn’t even know you’d left home; we planned to pick you up today. But we were keeping an eye on the two men who came after you. They were looking for somebody, and suddenly we realised it was you, Logan. When our men saw them run, they ran too. Called it in right away, that’s why we were so prepared to rescue you. Machan’s men led us to you. But that’s all thanks to this boy here.” He patted Gary on the back.

I looked at Gary. “You went to the cops.”

Gary’s top lip was moist with perspiration. He wiped it away. “Not at first. I just ran off. I hid. But after a few days, I knew there was nowhere else to go. I was scared.”

“Thank God you did.”

I saw the relief flood through him. “I didn’t know what else to do.” Gary sat down beside me. “They’ve been great.” He nodded at the policeman.

It was the policeman who began to talk. “With that CCTV footage, the Machans managed to identify every one of you. If we’d had it, we could have found you sooner. If you’d come to us right away none of this would have happened.”

“How did you get it?” I asked.

“Search warrant for Machan’s place.”

“Will you be able to make it stick this time?” I remembered that Mad Mike always managed to slip through their fingers.

The policeman smiled. “Yeah, we’ve got that CCTV footage and a couple of Machan’s boys are singing like nightingales about what they’ve done. And of course, the icing on the cake… Mad Mike caught in the act.” He stood up. “You boys must be hungry. How about if I get you something to eat?”

“I could go a sandwich,” Gary said.

Me? I couldn’t think about food. But I asked for a sandwich too. I just wanted the police out of the room. I wanted to be left alone with Gary. I had so much to tell him. I looked at the other man, this child protection officer. He nodded as if he understood. “I’ll let you two boys talk,” he said.

As soon as the door closed, Gary leaned toward me and said softly. “I had to tell them we were at that fire. Honest. I was too scared not to.”

“I don’t care, Gary. You saved me. They had me, that Mad Mike was gonny…” I couldn’t bear thinking of what he had intended to do to me. “Thanks Gary.”

“We were stupid, Logan… but we didn’t deserve all this.”

I was so relieved to hear that. “They rescued me, Gary, right in the nick of time. If they hadn’t come then…” I felt faint again. Paused before I could carry on. “Anyway, the cops burst in. I honestly cannot remember much about what happened next. I think I was probably in shock. Maybe I still am. And before you ask, Gary…” How I hated saying this. I felt it took me an age to go on, but when I did I just rattled everything out. “Baz left me. I don’t know how long he’s been working with the Machans. But he has, I’m sure of it. Did it to save himself. I think he poisoned Mickey’s dog. Maybe even helped them attack Claude, I don’t know. I still hope I’m wrong about that. But he phoned them, told them where I would be, led me to that dead end, to that warehouse, so they could get me. All so they wouldn’t hurt him. He’s a coward. He deserted me.” I swung my hand at the monitor. The screen was still paused at Gary leaping in the air. My voice rose with every word. “And d’ye know what else? He’s the only one who managed to avoid being in any of this CCTV footage. The only one. Eh? What about that? Bet he did that on purpose, Gary. I trusted him. We all trusted him. I even went on the run with him. And he left me. Baz betrayed me. He grassed us all up so they wouldn’t come after him.”

Some stupid loyalty kept me from mentioning Baz to the police, but I wanted Gary to know his treachery.

Gary stared at me. He glanced at the screen, and then he looked at me. Looked for a long time. Couldn’t believe what I was saying, probably.

But then he said the words that changed my life.

“Who’s Baz?”