“You slept there all night?” asked Larkin incredulously; it wasn’t like Andy to abandon his creature comforts.
“Yeah,” said Andy, puffing his chest up with pride. “All three nights. SAS-trained, me. Survival expert.”
Larkin scrutinised his mate. Greasy hair, stubble, black-rimmed eyes and a funny smell emanating from his general direction. From the way he had polished off both his passion cake and half of Larkin’s, Larkin reckoned Andy hadn’t eaten since Friday. Or if he had, the Mars and Snickers wrappers and empty Pepsi cans that decorated the jeep’s floor were a pretty good indication of his diet.
“Yeah, right,” said Larkin, suppressing a grin. “Keep going.”
Andy had resumed his vigil on Saturday morning: same spot in the bushes. He could plainly see the three men moving about the house, the boys too. The men had been strolling around clad only in their swimming trunks.
“Pretty disgusting really,” Andy elaborated. “I mean, these two old geezers had their best years behind them, know what I mean? You can do without all the wobbly-belly, droopy-tit stuff, can’t you?”
“Your uncanny ability to paint vivid word pictures is beyond doubt,” said Larkin, “but …”
“Oh yeah.”
Andy continued. All day Saturday the men and the boys stayed in and around the house. The boys were now wearing trunks too. Everyone seemed fine; laughing, happy, having a good time. Nothing untoward seemed to be going on. Andy began to think perhaps Larkin had been mistaken.
Then on Saturday night, the three men settled themselves in the sitting room. Beercans in hand, they sat facing the TV. One of the older men had put on a video and they got comfortable.
Whatever they were watching seemed to arouse them; Andy suspected they might have been masturbating. Once the tape finished, they had all left the room.
“Now the kids had disappeared at this point, I couldn’t see them anywhere,” Andy said, his face grave, “I reckoned they’d gone to bed. No lights went on in the rest of the house, so I didn’t know what was goin’ on. An’ I hadn’t seen anythin’ I could call the cops about.”
The men never reappeared, so it was another night in the Vitara, with resumed surveillance on Sunday morning. Andy arrived back at the house just in time to see an expensive car pull up and an expensively-dressed, middle-aged man hurry from it and go inside. Andy had snapped away at the newcomer, but the man’s features were obscured by bushes and trees. “It was like he was hidin’ his face, just in case he was bein’ watched. Know what I mean?”
“He must be pretty high-profile.”
“I reckon so. I tried to get a shot of him once he was inside the house, but he just wouldn’t come to the window.”
Andy watched the house all day, with the next notable movement on Sunday night when Noble, all smiles, left the house with one of the middle-aged men. They had said their goodbyes to the others and piled into the Fiesta. Flash Harry came out later, alone, the darkness ruining Andy’s shot, and drove off. The two boys never emerged.
“I thought I must’ve missed somethin’. Thought the kids had gone back to Newcastle when I wasn’t lookin’. So I kipped in the Vitara, checked the place this mornin’ – nothin’ doin’ – and then it clicked. These old houses must have big cellars, right?” continued Andy grimly. “So I put two an’ two together. I reckon that’s where they been all along.”
“The cellar …” Something tightened in Larkin’s stomach when he heard that. Something sickening, but unfocussed, ill-defined. There was a connection there, though it was just out of his mind’s reach. He mentally put it aside. If it was important it would come to him. “Keep going.”
“When I thought of that I phoned you. An’ ’ere we are. What d’you reckon?” Andy sat back, looking pleased with himself.
“Well done,” said Larkin, impressed. “I can see all those industrial espionage jobs have paid off.”
“Not to mention the porn jobs I did before them.”
“Well, you may get a chance to use those skills too, one day,” said Larkin cynically. “But not today, sadly.” Larkin shook his head. “I think you’re right. This looks like something big and nasty.”
“So what now? Take all this to the Old Bill?”
Larkin thought. He could feel the anger rising within him. “Fuck no!” he said in mock-outrage. “We’ve both got a fair idea of what’s going on in that place. I reckon we ought to pay the owner-occupier a visit, Mr Brennan.”
Andy’s eyes lit up. “You think there’ll be lots of gratuitous violence and plenty of aggro, Mr Larkin?”
“I fucking hope so, Mr Brennan. I fucking hope so.”
“I know what’s happening in the cellar,” Larkin said.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea myself,” Andy replied, concentrating on the road. They were in the Vitara, Andy navigating by memory as he drove. Larkin was keyed up, eager for a fight; for once, he thought, there could be no doubt about whether his actions were justified. For once, the target of his anger would be an appropriate one.
“I mean, specifically,” he said. “You aren’t the only one who had a busy weekend, you know.” He told Andy about the trip to Noble’s house, and the discovery of his shrine: in particular the polaroids stuck round the mirror. Home-made, shot against a black-painted bare brick background.
“You reckon they were just for his own benefit, then? Him and his mates?” asked Andy.
“I did at first, but now – I don’t know. All that advance planning, driving up to here and everything, it doesn’t seem worth it if what they’re after is just a quick fuck with an underage boy and a few snaps as mementoes. It’s really risky to take a whole weekend over it, so why not stay in the city, where it’s much more anonymous, and have somebody else take care of the organisation? There’re plenty of people who’ll find you a kid, no questions asked. I think there’s more to it than that. What I figure is, they’ve got a nice little racket going. Those photos I saw had a professional feel. The kids looked posed. I think they pick up kids no one’s going to miss for a few days, have sex with them – and make a few quid into the bargain by recording the occasion. Photos, videos — ” He exhaled sharply, hissing air between his teeth. “Who knows, they probably take commissions.”
“So it’s some sort of paedophile ring?”
“Yeah. Either personal contacts or – well you know what the Internet’s like.”
“Bastards,” spat Andy, nearly veering off the road. “So what happens to the kids? When they’ve served their purpose?”
Larkin looked at him, eyes miniature sunbursts of passion. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Andy floored the accelerator as far as it would go.
The house looked pretty much as Andy had described it. Large, secluded, the charming country-manor atmosphere offset by the all-round security cameras. It managed to look both well-maintained and desolate. With no need now for secrecy, Andy pulled the jeep into the gravel driveway, screeching to a halt bang in front of the main entrance. The two men jumped out and began hammering on the door. No reply.
“Reckon he’s out?” asked Andy.
“Let’s look for another door.”
They hurriedly made their way round the side of the house, peering in the windows as they went. Andy, palms cupping his eyes to the glass, saw a shadowy figure scurrying about inside.
“He’s making’ for the back door! Quick!”
Larkin ran round, reaching the back door just in time to see the figure run through the kitchen and reach the door, hands frantically fumbling the key into the lock. Larkin quickly grabbed the handle, put his shoulder to the wood and pushed as hard as he could. A loud thump, then the door gave and swung open. There, lying on the kitchen floor nursing his right hand, was one of the men Andy had described. Middle-aged, balding, spare tyre. Metal-framed glasses, cords and a checked shirt. Wholly unremarkable.
“I wanna word with you,” said Larkin, catching his breath.
The man tried to shuffle his backside away from Larkin. “Get away from me!” he shouted. “I’ll call the police!”
“Please do,” Larkin replied, “it’ll make our job a lot easier. Mind if we come in?”
The man stopped shuffling and crouched in a heap by a table leg, regarding them with circumspect sullenness. He didn’t reply.
“Hear that, Andy? He hasn’t said we can’t come in, so we’ll take
that as an invitation. OK? Just so – when he’s in the dock – he can’t say we forced our way in.”
The room Larkin and Andy stepped into was big and well-furnished with traditional country pine. But it was lacking in any kind of warmth, any cosy domesticity. Clean, ordered, it was functional, not friendly as most kitchens were.
The man, sensing no immediate physical threat, pulled himself up, and, flexing the wrist he had landed on, sat warily down at the table. “Who are you and what d’you want?” His voice, well-educated, had a nasal quality which Larkin knew was going to get on his nerves very rapidly.
“We’ve come to ask you some questions,” said Larkin, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite him. “This your house, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Been doing a spot of entertaining over the weekend?”
“What business is that of yours?” The nasal whine was more noticeable.
“Look,” said Larkin, leaning forward menacingly, “don’t play the dumb fucker with us. We’ve been watching you. We saw Noble bring a couple of boys here, then two more men joined you. They left – but you and the boys didn’t. So where are they?”
“I – I don’t know what you — ”
“Cut the crap!” Larkin stretched across the table and roughly grabbed the man’s shirtfront. “Where
are
they?”
The man, shocked by the unexpected violence of Larkin’s move, began to hyperventilate so quickly it looked as if he were about to have a seizure. He dropped his head to his chest; gradually his shuddering breaths becoming weak whimpers.
Larkin looked up. “Go search the house, Andy.”
Andy walked to the inside door.
“No, don’t!” The man jerked his head up, suddenly finding his voice; Andy stopped in his tracks. “They’re downstairs. In the cellar …” His voice trailed off.
Larkin stared at him with utter contempt. “Let’s go then, shall we?”
The cellar could apparently be reached by means of an old wooden staircase under the stairs. As they walked down the hall towards it, Larkin assessed the rest of the house. Like the kitchen it was
conservatively, tastefully furnished: dark wooden furniture, expensive rugs over polished floors, framed hunting prints on the walls. Like the kitchen, it gave the impression of being lived in but of having no life.
As the man opened the door and switched on the light, Larkin immediately felt the cold from the cellar hit him. From the wooden steps, he could see the unshaded bulb illuminating the brick, black-painted walls. He hurried on down.
At the far end of the cellar, pushed against the wall, was an old, stained mattress. A tripod-mounted video camera in the centre of the room pointed directly at it. Behind it, towards the opposite wall, sat a couple of old easy chairs, and a playback monitor complete with attendant paraphernalia, cables and lights. To the side, chained to a radiator and lying naked on the floor, were two boys.
Larkin went over to them, knelt down, touched them. At first glance they seemed to be asleep: but they were so still, so cold his stomach suddenly knotted. Larkin gently pulled up one of the boys’ eyelids – Kev, he thought it was – saw only the white of his eye, and let it drop.
“They’re completely out of it,” he said, turning to the man. “What have you given them?”
“Just … something to – to make them sleep,” the man stammered.
Holding his rage in check, Larkin switched his attention to the boys. He touched Raymond’s wrist: limp, cold, wasted, but there was a weak pulse. Kev’s was the same. And the state of them: caked shit and dried blood had left jagged, dribbled tracks down the backs of their legs. Indiscriminate bruises covered their bodies, black rings underlined their eyes. The cockiness they’d shown in the arcade had belonged to two other boys. Now they resembled pieces of meat, chewed up and spat out.
Beside them was a bucket, clearly intended for use as a toilet but, judging by the state of the floor around them, whatever drug they’d been given had caused the boys to lose control over their bodily functions. Larkin, hands clenching into fists, stood up and turned to the man. He knew the boys were alive, that they weren’t in need of urgent attention – now was the time for anger.
“You finished with them? You had your fun?”
The man turned his face away, refusing to meet Larkin’s eyes.
Larkin crossed swiftly to him. “Well, we’ve not finished with
you
!” he shouted, and swung his left fist straight into the man’s face. The man’s head snapped backwards, glasses flying; a bone cracked and he hit the floor, blood geysering from his smashed nose. He tried to cover it with his hands and lay there, moaning.
Andy nodded approvingly. “The righteous red mist descended, did it? Nice one, mate.”
Larkin forced the blubbering, bloody wreck on the floor to unchain the boys; when the man was a little slower in responding than he could have been Larkin had to give his ribs a couple of hefty kicks, after which he was rather more compliant.
The man, escorted by Andy, brought the padlock key down to the cellar along with some blankets. And Larkin and Andy unchained Raymond and Kev, wrapped them up warmly and carried them upstairs, where the man showed them into a bedroom. The room, although fastidiously tidy, like the rest of the house, had a rancid, musky smell about it, as if the aroma of sweat and other bodily fluids outweighed fresh air by two to one. Larkin hoped it wouldn’t evoke too many memories for the boys. Once they were lying in the relative comforts of the musty bedding, it was harder to remember what they had been through.
Larkin rounded on the man, who flinched at his gaze.
“Downstairs, you,” Larkin said. “We’ve got some talking to do.”
And talk he did. Resigned to the inevitability of his situation, he talked freely, spilling it all out, rehearsing his confession. While Andy did a recce of the house, Larkin and the man sat at the kitchen table and began the none too gentle process of fitting answers to questions. He told Larkin his name, mumbling it through the wreck of his broken face. Colin Harvey.