Read Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2) Online
Authors: Iain Rob Wright
IV.
'Okay,' says Nicola, still texting while Mandy drives,
weaving in and out of traffic like she's trying to kill us, like we're being
followed by guys with guns or something. Of course we aren't. I think peg-leg
probably has friends, but I don't think drug dealers really get into shoot-outs
on slip roads that lead off the M4 and down country lanes.
London's behind us, and we're driving south from the M4
into Mandy's village. She and her husband live in a great, sprawling house
that's pretty much a mansion. They have grounds.
All the way, the girls relay what's going to happen, and I
let them take charge for a while. I'm too damn tired to do anything else.
'New Year's Party is going to happen,' Mandy says. 'It's
set in stone. But here's the thing...you're staying with me, and the place is
going to be full of people. Right now, it's going to be the safest place on the
planet.'
I nod. 'What if this man finds me? He's got friends...it's
dangerous...'
'Honey, you'll be surrounded by people. Safest place you
could be right now...right?
'This guy...he's dangerous,' I say again. It's true, I
know. A man that can have a house stripped bare in a night, that hides a gun in
his false foot at an airport, probably? A guy that can write off a kilogram of
drugs, and laugh about it?
'Oh, Honey...that's why we love you...you think my husband
earns his money in the bank? Nicola's?'
I look at Mandy, and she swerves. 'We've got company,' she
says.
V.
It distracts me for just an instant from what she said. I
whip my head around, looking out of the rear window and see a big black Range
Rover bearing down right behind us.
'Good,' says Nicola.
'Good?' Suddenly, inexplicably, Nicola's smiling. I'm
shitting myself, and Mandy's slowing down and Nicola's smiling and they don't
make their money from what now?
'We're being followed...speed up!'
'No, we'll lose him. He's a shit driver.'
'What? What?'
I don't have anywhere to go with this. So I say it again,
in case she doesn't get it. I don't. I'm confused, like I've been drinking. I
haven't been drunk for two days now...maybe. But maybe this is a cold turkey
trip, like the DT's, like seeing spiders crawling from the walls, but instead
of that, it turns out all your friends are nutters.
'What?'
Third time's the charm.
'Nicola text Brian, honey. Brian told him to watch out for
us. Don't panic.'
'Brian called the Range Rover man?'
Mandy laughs, but it's not a mean laugh. Just a laugh, like
she's taking a breath.
'Yes. Range Rover man is Colin. He can't drive for shit.
He's a thug. Like a kind of tank, I suppose. We're good all the way back home.
He's got us covered.'
'Thug? Tank? Covered? Mandy...Nicola...what the fucking
fuck are you talking about?'
'Colin's security, don't sweat it. He's good at what he
does.'
'Security?'
'He works for my husband,' says Mandy. 'You
know...security.'
'Oh,' I say. But I don't get anything at all. 'Oh...oh?'
'Honey,' she says so softly I want to cry. 'Time to wake
up.'
She sounds just like my mum. Like everyone, in fact, that's
called me honey...in exactly the same tone. This is the first time anyone's
voiced the undertone that's always, it seems, been there.
Wake up...
VI.
Wake up, I think, as I lay down to sleep that night. Bed
after midnight for the second day in a row, it's New Year's Eve by the time I
go to sleep.
I go to bed confused on New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve,
though, is also the day I finally wake up. All the way, like I should have
twenty years ago.
I.
On the seventh day of Christmas, I've been robbed, my
husband's missing, I've got some weird gangster after me for doping him with
ketamine and pegging him with his own leg, and I'm at a New Year's Party
drinking Rum and Coke whenever the punch bowls' being refreshed with whatever the
hell Mandy's putting in it. The room's spinning. I'm wearing clothes borrowed
from god knows where. There are adults laughing and drinking, women dancing in
the snow out on a big veranda, some areas covered and some not. The veranda and
the women, too, at this stage.
Men drink, smoke. The women smoke, but they're smoking
cigarettes from purple or green packs, menthol cigarettes, or ones with gold
bands between the filter and the business end. The men are smoking cigars or
cigarettes from France, like Gauloises, or something from further afield, Lucky
Strike, cigarettes in paper, rather than card packets.
I'm inside, in the warm. I've borrowed make-up, even. I
don't have anything, but I don't feel bad about it. I'm with friends. Most of
these people I've known for years, more years than I can remember. I kind of
wish it was a small affair, with mum and the girls, maybe. But I'm so drunk I
don't really care that I stumble and slur a fair bit and probably laugh too
loud. Most of the others here are laughing and enjoying themselves, too. I
don't know what the time is, but kids are still running around everywhere. It's
a family do, and a big one.
It feels warm, like I'm welcome, and like I belong.
II.
I wander into the kitchen to find something else to drink.
The punch has some kind of fizz and it's making me uncomfortable, like I've a
burp or hiccups waiting somewhere in the wings.
Bottles are lined up like little soldiers along the
counter.
'Hello, boys,' I say. There's Gordon and Bombay and Glenfiddich
and Johnny Walker, Captain Morgan's keeping the crew shipshape. There's a bunch
of chaps I know very well.
'Hey, Johnny...miss me?' I say, kissing the bottle.
'Wow...it really has been a while, eh?'
'Mandy! Fucking hell I love you!'
'Why are you shouting?'
'Am I? Oh...'
'How are you?' she asks. I can't tell if she's asking with
concern, or looking concerned. She's a bit wobbly, to be honest. Actually, I
think I am, too. But that's good. Mr. Wobble's a great friend when I'm
drinking. We often dance together while we share a drink or two.
'Cheers!'
'Seriously...honey? How are you?'
Oh, I think, hazily. She is concerned. That's her concerned
face. I hug her, kiss her, because her face is lovely and scrunchy and it's
making me want to cry.
'Ew!'
I thought I kissed her. Turns out I stuck my tongue up her
nose instead.
She tastes OK.
'I'm better. Friends,' I say, waving a wide, dangerous hand
toward the row of bottles. 'Friends here...friends everywhere!' This time I
wave both hands in the air, indicating, perhaps, everyone in the entire world,
but mostly meaning all the people at the party I've known for years.
'I missed you,' I say after catching myself on the kitchen
counter before I fall on my arse.
'Oh, honey...you're so sweet. I love you, you know that?'
I'm going to cry, but I'm determined to make a good show of
things before I go and find somewhere quiet to collapse. That burp or hiccup
feeling's gone, but somewhere lower down, right underneath the last thing I
ate.
'Mandy...what do you mean...when you said why you love me?
I mean...I love you...I really love you...'
'I love you...'
'I love both of you...'
I look around and Nicola's there, like a warship, swaying
in a heavy storm. She looks about as pissed as I feel.
'I love you both...but...what...I mean...I...what?'
I'm determined not to puke. I've had a lot of practice at
not puking.
'When you say you love me, girls, and you say, 'ah, honey,
we love you...'...what does that mean?'
'Oh...' says Mandy. Nicola belches and takes a swig from a
can of Red Stripe she picks up off the counter.
Mandy opens her mouth to talk, but at that moment her
husband's behind her. He puts a finger to his lips, like, shh...making me a
conspirator when he grabs Mandy's behind and makes her jump.
'Twat!' she says, laughing, and he grabs her and kisses her
hard like I think I'd quite like to be kissed, but Nicola's out of the
question. I don't fancy her at all, and she's also turning a funny shade of
green as she spits out a cigarette butt from the can of beer she just drank.
'Murp,' she says. 'Excuse...'
She doesn't bother with the 'me' bit, but cuts a wide swath
through the kitchen in search, I think, of a toilet.
'Oh, my,' Mandy's saying while I'm thinking about the next
drink, or bed. Haven't decided. 'Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just
pleased to see me?' She puts a hand on her hip and shoots her husband with her
finger.
'A gun, silly,' he says and kisses her. I hear him whisper.
'Bed?'
Mandy nods and kisses me on the cheek before taking his
hand and being led away.
I'm jealous, smiling, because he's got a gun in his pocket,
alright. I can see the bulge. He's built like a .45, I think.
Then, I think...oh...
Oh, fuck.
III.
I'm so drunk. So drunk. It's like some weird dream. All my
friends, from the last twenty years, mutual friends...
Did I have any friends who didn't know anyone else?
In this weird dream, I feel all shivery and feverish. I
walk around the party, perhaps staggering, but all-in-all, right then, I'm
feeling pretty fucking sober. It's not a nice sober, either.
I look around. Really look.
All the women look like me. Not exact copies, of course,
but they're well turned out. They're younger or older, but with a certain kind
of well-kept look about us. We've got money. Kids run around. Kids with good
teeth. The boys are wearing suits or shirts, the girls are all wearing dresses.
The men sit. They don't dance. They're happy, mostly,
drinking whiskey, or maybe bourbon...and they've got bulges here and there.
Bulges where there shouldn't be bulges. Even well-hung men don't get that horny
that their cocks ruffle their suits under their armpits, or round by their
hips.
Other things, too. In the darkness outside the circle of
light thrown by the party, outside in the snow, men walk dogs. Big men, big
dogs, going for a walk round in circles in the snow while there's a party and
warmth and good drink.
Security.
My head's spinning like mad. Sober's run away from the
sheer volume of drink, been routed. I can see sober's terrified arse jiggling
as it runs away from the battle.
That burp/hiccup is getting about ready to erupt. Either
that, or I'm genuinely sick.
Mandy and Nicola must really...
Really think I'm so...
'That's why we love you, honey...you're so...'
So...stupid.
IV.
I rush to the bathroom. There are gold taps that might
actually be gold set in marble that's definitely marble.
I puke and puke and puke.
V.
When I finish puking, there's a guy there with a towel.
Solicitous, he doesn't try to pull my hair back from the puke or anything, but
just holds the towel there so I can take it if I want it. I don't look round at
him, but rinse my mouth with water that tastes a lot like money. He's got giant
fingers, like he's made of sausages or something.
I wonder if he's a thug, or a tank, or whatever.
'You want to clean up?' he says. He's got a big, heavy
voice.
'Are you...are you...?'
I think I'm trying to say 'one of them'...but I can't quite
get the words out. Did I know? Did I always know I was surrounded by gangsters?
I don't honestly know, but it's easy to fool yourself,
isn't it?
'No,' he says, and smiles a big smile that goes all the way
across his massive face. 'I'm just the butcher. I'm Dave. We met...remember?'
Dave, I think. Dave. I should have married a Dave in the
first place, a simple butcher. There's a name you can trust, a man with a good
steady job...
I fall into his arms.
'Dave...I think I feel a bit...'
When I puke again, down his jacket, he gets my point just
fine.
VI.
A new year, and I wake up on top of a massive guy snoring
beneath me who in turn is laying on a Herculean pile of coats.
I think, possibly, we made out in the cloak room like
teenagers.
I don't remember a damn thing. Apart from the men...the men
with hard steel under their trousers. I shift...
He's not doing so bad in that department, I think, but I
don't know whether it's the kind of gun that makes women happy or blows
people's heads off. Not anymore.
Dave, I remember. The butcher.
Thank Christ. He's big and solid and feels like calm seas
after a storm. I lay my head right back down and he opens one eye, looks at me,
and smiles. Then we go back to sleep for a while.
Sleep's an answer to an awful lot of problems, and
sometimes it's even the right answer.
I.
On the eighth day of Christmas, I'm comfortable as hell
waking up on top of an extremely big man named Dave the butcher. His sausage
fingers are wrapped around me, and he peeks, smiles, then goes straight back to
sleep with some kind of gargantuan rumbling deep in his chest, like a bear
might breathe, but it's just him snoring. It's a comfort. I fall back to sleep,
too.
II.
I haven't slept like this for such a long time, I've forgotten
what true sleep is like, comfortable, unworried, not a care, just a gentle
vibration beneath me. It's not erotic, it's not like I'm riding some kind of
machine...well, maybe a little.
When the annoying, shrill little vibration of my phone
wakes me for the second time, I fumble around for the phone, yank it, and he
wakes with a start. I'm still a little drunk, it turns out, and it's not the
phone I'm yanking, but the lump in his suit trousers...
'Morning,' he says. He grins when I realise what I'm
tugging. I'm flustered, like a little girl...but not that flustered.
'Shut up,' I say, but not in a harsh way. I get the phone
on the next go around, then groan.
It's like waking from a lovely dream into a world that's
nothing but nightmare.
Today.
Nothing else. Just that.
Peg-leg.
Dave turns the phone toward him so he can see it. It's
familiar, maybe, but an easy gesture and I'm not offended. Besides, I puked on
him. We're past that stage.
'Friend?' he asks.
'Not even a bit,' I say. My mouth feels like pretty flowers
standing on a casket. I turn my head away from him a little, because I don't
want him to smell the grave on my breath. I am zombie! I think. I think, then,
about biting him, to drive home the point.
I'm flustered again, and shuffle myself right off the edge
on the bed and land on some bastard's shoes, upturned, the heel of which sticks
right into my arse cheek so hard I yelp.
Turns out they're my shoes.
He's still smiling, and lays there and puts his hands
behind his head, watching me flitting around like some kind of hung over
groupie.
My phone's on the edge of the bed. I need to show it to
Mandy, Nicola...one of the...men.
Dave sees me move and he's faster than me. Of course he
would be. He's a butcher, right? Must spend all day chopping and slicing...bet
he's pretty good with...with...
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Not the first time I think that, or the last.
III.
He's an actually butcher...just not of...cows and edible
things...
Just a butcher, I tell myself.
'Don't worry about the phone,' he says. 'People spend so
long staring at these things...there's more to life. Come on, let's go get a
coffee.'
He's sitting up now, and even on the bed his head's above
mine.
'Are you...are you...?'
Since figuring out I'm in the middle of some gangster
family, me and mine included, I seem to have lost the ability to speak without
sounding like I've got a serious head injury.
'Asking you out for coffee? Why, yes, ma'am. I am.'
'You're taking the piss, aren't you?'
'Maybe a little,' he says. 'But not so much as you'd miss
it.'
Takes me a while to figure that out.
'I can't,' I say. 'I have to deal with this.'
He's big, fast. Probably a very good...butcher. But he
doesn't understand. My husband's about to be killed. Maybe I'm about to be
killed.
That bit, I'm sure he gets just fine. But what I can't
explain is why I spent the night on top of this giant with a grin on my face
and not a single thought about anything else at all.
I can't explain, because everything else is confusing, and
this big, grinning bear is making me feel weird.
Weird is what I tell myself. Safe is what I mean.
IV.
'Morning,' says Mandy with a smile and a cup of tea ready
and waiting for me. She's sitting at her breakfast counter, surrounded by her
two boys, her daughter and her husband. The boys are young, the eldest, her
daughter, is suffering them because it's the holidays. Mandy and her husband
look like they had a good night, and they both look like they've showered and
tucked themselves away satisfied.
It's a good look on them. I kiss Mandy and her man on the
cheek.
I tell them about the text.
'Don't sweat it,' says Mandy's man. 'We'll sort it.'
'They can get him back?' I don't know quite who I mean by
'they'. They look as though they don't know who I mean by 'him'.
'Sure,' says Mandy. 'They can do pretty much anything.'
I sort of half-flick my head to Mandy. She flicks her head
at her husband.
'Come on, kids,' he says. 'Adventure Time.'
I don't know what that is, but it works on the kids. I
think they're all nuts. Kids and adults alike.
'Are there...enforcers...or something...?' I whisper to
Mandy when it's just the two of us.
'Oh, honey,' she says, and that's just about it for me. I
snap. All the way. My patience, my temper, like two great big tits that have
been held up by an old, tired bra. I just can't take it anymore.
'Fucking stop it! Fucking stop that! I...'
I don't know where I'm going with the next sentence, other
than that I intend to make it as un-ladylike as I can, when Dave swoops down
behind me and picks me up round the waist and carries me out and to a car. Like
that...like the whole thing is one simple action for him. Swoop, grab, through
the house, in the car. Like picking up a wallet, or a set of keys.
I jounce under his arm like a sack of potatoes and he
handles me into the car as gently as a person would a carton of eggs.
I'm fuming. Righteously angry, boiling, pounding blood's
making my ears sing.
But I don't get out of the car.
'Sorry,' he says as he slides into the driver's seat. The
seat's all the way back and he still looks cramped. 'But Mandy's a friend.
Sometimes people say things they can't take back. She's a friend, whatever
else. Remember that. She saved your life this Christmas. Three days ago, now.
Just cool off. Okay?'
She saved my life?
And a man said 'sorry'? A man's never said sorry to me in
my entire life. I'm actually speechless.
IV.
The coffee's thick, strong, and smells like it knows
precisely what it's supposed to be. The coffee shop is just a coffee shop. They
sell biscuits and cakes, hot chocolate...but it's mostly about the coffee.
There's an upstairs and a downstairs, and we go upstairs. It's quiet in there.
January sales are in full swing, even though it's New Year's Day. Shops don't
rest enough.
It's still early in the day, but I think it's probably
going to be a long one. We both drink our coffee black, no sugar. It's better
that way. That way, it's coffee. Otherwise it's just flavoured milk.
He tells me about Mandy.
'Her finger? Got bitten off by her horse?'
'Not a horse?' I hazard. I'm getting better at this,
finally. I'm late to the game, but now I know what the game is it turns out
it's far simpler than most people think.
He shakes his head. 'Hostage. I got her out. Could've been
worse.'
'So...you've known her a long time?'
'Sure...but she's a good friend. Good to me, good for you.
That's my point.' He shrugs. It's a big gesture that says just as much as it
moves.
We talk about other things, too. It's easy, comfortable. A
few people walk to the top of the stairs and see him and head right back down
again. It's like he's got this huge 'fuck-off' force field around him...and I'm
inside it.
I like it.
V.
He drives me back to Mandy's. 'Be cool,' he says. 'Sorry
should do it.'
He's right. It's a pretty good word. His apology stopped me
in my tracks, didn't it?
'You?' I ask. I'm not sure I want to know where he's
going...but I do want to know he'll come back. 'Are you...?'
'I'll see you again,' he says.
I pause at the car door, craned down to look at him.
'Good,' I say.
When I get back into the house, Mandy's in the kitchen. She
looks wary, rather than angry.
'Sorry,' I say, and kiss her on the cheek. She nods against
my shoulder, pulls me in tight for a long time.
'Tea?' she says when she eventually lets me go.
'Something stronger,' I say. Brandy, I think. 'Coffee?' I
say.
VI.
I'm on my third cup of coffee for the day, around lunchtime,
when Nicola calls Mandy.
'Oh, shit,' says Mandy to Nicola.
'What?' I ask.
But Nicola tells me when Mandy passes over the phone.
Nicola's calling for me anyway.
'Honey...the police are going to call you in about five
minutes. Your place is clean...but...'
'What?'
'He's not coming home...I'm so sorry...'
'He's...what? What are you saying? Nicky...did he...run off
with the ball-stomper?'
Even as I say it...of course he didn't. I know that.
Some part of me imagined peg-leg was calling my bluff.
Wouldn't be a difficult bluff to call, because for a long time I haven't been
playing with a full deck of cards. In fact, I've been playing noughts and
crosses while everyone else was playing gin rummy.
Nicola's silent. 'He didn't, did he?' I don't want to say
the word I know someone's going to have to say. But if I don't say it, I think
that's better.
'The guy with the peg? Your husband...it's not pretty.'
'What?'
'About an hour ago...apparently...the guy with the
peg...turns out he...worked for your husband...they...something went bad.'
'How...what? What?' I'm not sure if I'm going to pass out,
puke, scream...all three. I can't even process what's she's saying. I'm hearing
blah-blah'dy-blah.
'Contacts...don't ask...but there's no doubt. They're both
dead.'
At last, she's said it. I don't have to.
'Mandy'll look after you.'
Mandy is there...she's solid, I realise, as she's not
getting more coffee but a bottle of brandy and two glasses and puts them down
in front of us.
Mandy's solid, Nicola, too.
The room swirls around for a minute, or maybe just a couple
of seconds, and then everything suddenly comes back into focus. Everything.
There's almost an audible click as understand finally settles in.
My husband's dead, peg-leg's dead...they knew each other...
He wasn't just absent...he was playing me...
Why?
Does it matter?
It doesn't upset me as much as I think it should. The fact
that he's dead, or the fact that he tried to fuck me over, like our marriage
was nothing but a joke. Because it was. I was...what? A front?
That feels right.
I take the bottle and pour as I hang up.
'Cheers,' I say. Better than nothing, right? It's not
snappy, it's not a clever line, but I think you have to be some kind of bitch
to toast your husband's death...I don't want to be that bitch.
He's dead.
I take a drink.
My husband's dead. Peg-leg's dead.
I should be thinking about that and nothing else, I think.
I should be sobbing. Been played by a fool by everyone...included myself.
But I'm not sobbing. I'm not. I drink brandy, keep the
glass full, and stay quiet.
For some stupid reason, it's Dave I can't quite push from
my mind. Forgetting my husband's easy enough. It's almost like finding a
distant relative died. Nothing more than that.
VII.
The police do call, but Mandy's a superstar. She fields the
call. I'll be going to identify his body soon enough, talking to the police
soon enough. For now, not dealing with it is just what the doctor ordered.
That, and brandy.
VIII.
I talk to the police, finally, on the ninth day of
Christmas. I don't tell them everything. Probably for the same reason I never
called them on Boxing Day, or all the other chances and times when I could
have.
Because that's not who I am.
That's not how we do things. Dad might have been a
policeman, but he'd understand. I know he would, because when I talk to them
he's right there, expressive in just the right amounts, and I know just what to
say and when. Sometimes it's lying, sometimes it's telling the truth, but for
me, I think somewhere along the way those two things became one.
Best way to tell a lie is if you believe it yourself,
right?
I.
My girls and I are on the tea, on the cakes and Cadbury's
chocolate fingers.
The police try to call round. I hear Mandy ask if they want
to talk to her husband's lawyer. Like some American gangster's moll. Solicitor,
surely? I think. Come on...let's be British about this.
I think about that, think about just going to face the
music, about being British. Standing up, back straight, chin up.
Then I think fuck that, have another chocolate finger and
we laugh when Mandy comes back to the kitchen instead.
An hour later, I figure I should just get it out of the
way, and I call them instead.
II.
'And when was the last time you saw him?'
That's the question, isn't it? I've got the text on my
phone. They don't know about that. They haven't asked. I'm not telling them.
I'm not in an interview room, and my dad was a policeman. They know that.
There's a kind of respect there, from them to me. I think they find it painful,
though, because my husband, it turns out, was quite the big shot in the crime
stakes.