Paternoster
Authors: Kim Fleet
To Mike, for everything
PROLOGUE
Thursday, 1 November 2012
01:19 hours
The warehouse was gloomy, haunted by shadows and strange splashes as unseen objects bumped against the dock. Fog slunk in off the Thames and picked at Jackie’s bones. She tugged her jacket tighter, the ends of her fingers numb with cold. Impatient, she rasped her thumb against her index finger. Her cuticles were nibbled to rags.
Soon it would all be over. She dreamed of sleeping in her own bed at last, desperate to scram from the hostel she’d called home for too long. Her own toasty bed and a good meal. Steak and chips and a creamy pepper sauce. She’d been starving herself for months, creating the jutting collarbone, pallid skin and skinny arse of a heroin addict. It’d worked: they all thought she was shooting up. She sighed loudly.
‘Give it a rest, Jackie,’ growled one of the men. A thick bull’s neck, his bald head jutting forwards. Known to his friends as Dave the Nutter.
Jackie flicked two fingers at him. ‘Piss off, Dave.’
‘Bitch,’ Nutter muttered.
‘Why can’t we have more lights?’ A chewed-string bit of man-boy, sitting on a packing case. A book of wordsearch puzzles lay in his lap. In one hand he clutched a blue inhaler. Nineteen, with the mental age of a pork pie.
‘So’s you can do your puzzles?’ Nutter said, cracking his knuckles. Each finger was freighted with a sovereign ring.
‘Wha’s wrong wi’ that?’ Chewed-string boy said, his Scots accent plaintive.
‘Little Jimmy wants his colouring book.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Come over here, Jimmy,’ Jackie said, ‘sit with me.’
He dragged the crate over. ‘Thanks, Jackie.’
‘Don’t annoy Nutter, eh?’ Last thing she wanted was him going off on one his tantrums. Could cost her the whole operation.
She ran her hand over her head: her scalp prickled. She’d shaved her head on one side, with a long piece hanging down beside the other cheek. When this was over, she’d shave the lot off and grow her hair back again. Well fed, a proper hairstyle: she’d be a different woman. Just a few hours left to go.
‘When’s the lorry coming, Hammond?’ she said, quietly.
Hammond stepped into the light. Tall, with fair hair, his dark suit bespoke, his jaw professionally barbered. Good looking, the sort of man you could take home to meet your mum, if you didn’t care where his money came from. Hammond had charm in spades when he wanted.
‘Got a date, have you, Jackie?’ he said, smoothly. ‘Somewhere you’d rather be?’
Jackie cast a glance round the warehouse. ‘Nowhere I’d rather be, Boss. Just getting cold, s’all.’
God, she’d be glad to see the back of the gang. She hadn’t had a break from them for ages. All that leave was piling up and she was going to take it. A holiday somewhere hot; sandy beaches; a stack of paperbacks to dive into. She could be there in a few days, soaking up the sun and letting the past two years melt away.
They fell silent again. Far off, a police siren howled and receded. Closer, there was a splash of water. And coming closer still, an engine.
‘Put the lights on,’ Hammond ordered. ‘No fuck-ups this time. Remember what happened to the Russian.’
Dave the Nutter yanked the handle and the warehouse flooded with light. They blinked at the sudden brightness, and turned towards the wide doors. A lorry chugged outside.
‘Let them in, Jackie,’ Hammond said.
Jackie heaved one door open, then the other. Outside, the night was inky black. The lorry extinguished its lights and rolled past her into the warehouse. She slid the doors closed behind it as Hammond, Dave the Nutter and Little Jimmy sprang to open the back.
The driver jumped down from the cab and helped them unload case after case, stacking them in a pile at the back of the warehouse. Jackie cranked open the cases and checked the contents, hefting out weapons and weighing them in her hands. As she lifted the lids on the crates, she gave a verbal audit.
‘Semi-automatic, twelve cases of twenty. Handguns one hundred. Ground assault anti-aircraft four.’ She paused. ‘Hey, weren’t there supposed to be six of these?’
The driver shrugged and swore. ‘Our supplier couldn’t get them,’ he said in a thick Eastern European accent. ‘He sends more Russian automatics instead. Plus some grenades, with his compliments.’
Hammond gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘So that’s how he trades with me, is it?’ He approached the driver and grabbed his chin. ‘Then you give him this, with my compliments.’ A knife slashed across the driver’s face. He fell back, clutching his cheek, blood pouring between his fingers, screaming a torrent of abuse.
Jackie lurched forwards, remembered herself, and halted, her heart banging. Let it soon be over.
‘Yes, yes, but none of us speaks monkey here,’ Hammond said mildly, wiping the blade on the driver’s coat. ‘You tell him he double-crosses me again, and I’ll do to him what I did to the Russian. Understand?’
The driver’s eyes widened in fear. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘The Russian. I know. I tell him, my Boss. I make him understand.’ He gulped and glanced round the warehouse. His eyes rested on Jackie.
Hammond saw the direction of his gaze. ‘You like that, eh? You want some?’
‘I mean no disrespect, she is yours,’ the driver said, backing away, his hand pressed to his face.
Hammond laughed. ‘Yes, she is. But you can do me a favour. I have a problem.’
Dave the Nutter straightened and glanced at Hammond. ‘Boss?’
‘One of my little team has got above themselves,’ Hammond said. ‘Thought they could double-cross me.’
Nutter swallowed. ‘What you talking about?’
‘Someone’s been a little piggy and gone squealing to the police about our business venture.’
Little Jimmy was on his feet. ‘It wasn’t me! I swear it wasn’t me.’
‘Shut up, Jimmy. I know my little piggy, and there’ll be no more roast beef for her, though she may go wee wee wee all the way home.’
The gang stilled.
‘She?’ Little Jimmy said.
Hammond clapped once, twice, three times. ‘He gets it. Give him a chocolate watch.’ He stopped in front of Jackie. ‘How long have you been with me?’
She met his eyes, fighting down panic. ‘Couple of years?’
‘A couple of years.’ Hammond turned away. ‘In it together, I thought, but it seems I was wrong.’ He whipped round and struck her across the face with the back of his hand. Her head snapped back and she staggered. ‘Take her,’ he ordered.
The men hesitated.
‘Take her!’ Hammond shouted. ‘She’s going on a little journey.’
Nutter sprang forwards and pinned Jackie’s hands behind her back. The truck driver dragged a rope from one of the crates and bound her arms to her sides.
‘You’ve got it wrong, Boss,’ she said, kicking as the rope looped her body. ‘I’d never cheat on you.’
‘Very convincing, Jackie, but I know better.’ He advanced on her. ‘You won’t have long, but I’d like you to have something to remember me by.’
The knife flashed as he swung it to and fro in front of her eyes. She tracked its arc, left to right and back again, and trembled with fear. He suspended the knife in front of her a moment longer, then slowly sliced across her arms, high up on the biceps. A slice across each thigh. Blood soaked through her jeans, and ran down her arms to her palms.
‘Boss, you’ve got this wrong, truly,’ she said, wildly. She struggled against the ropes as the blade flashed again.
‘I don’t think so, Jackie,’ Hammond said, and plunged the knife into her stomach. Her knees buckled and she fell. Her face ground against the cement floor as she writhed in pain, each breath agony.
‘She’ll last a little while before she bleeds to death,’ Hammond said. ‘Long enough for her to repent of her actions.’ He motioned to Nutter. ‘Put her in the truck. Our friend here is going to repay the favour he owes me.’
The driver started to say something, then stopped. Drops of blood fell from his face on to the floor. Her blood joined his, her life pumping out.
‘You take her away from here, somewhere quiet, and toss her into the river,’ Hammond said. ‘And don’t make a mess of it. Understand?’
The driver muttered something she couldn’t make out. Her ears rang with her own heartbeat. She heard the cab door open and the engine start. Nutter dragged her across the floor, and hauled her into the back of the lorry. As he slammed the back shut, she saw a figure slipping out of the warehouse and disappearing into the shadows.
She screamed when the lorry started moving. Every jolt knifed through her. Soon the metal floor was slick with her blood. She strained against the ropes, but she was trussed fast. She was dying, and prayed for death to call sooner. She wanted to be dead before the driver slung her into the river.
Time expanded and contracted. She wasn’t sure whether she’d been in the lorry for hours or seconds before it stopped again, the air brakes screeching. Suddenly the back of the lorry was torn open and bright beams strafed her body.
‘She’s here!’ a voice shouted.
The clatter of boots on tarmac. A man heaving himself into the lorry, thundering over to her. She groaned with pain and her vision blurred.
‘S’alright, we’ve got you.’ A male voice. Shouting over his shoulder, ‘Paramedic! Here!’
The ropes being cut from her torso. Pressure against the wound in her stomach. Something puncturing the back of her hand.
‘She’s fading. Push that through faster. We’re losing her.’ Faces overhead. Torchlight. The smell of the river. Corpses bumping against the dock. A splash. Icy water jets up her nose and into her mouth. Swallow the filth. Sink. Drown. Down. Down. Black.
‘Your heart stopped twice,’ the nurse who helped her to bathe informed her. ‘You died twice on the operating theatre. You’re a lucky girl.’
Jackie didn’t feel like a lucky girl. Her arms and legs stung where Hammond had cut them, and she doubled over with the pain from the stab wound in her stomach. The knife had nicked her spleen, and it had been removed during the operation when her soul gave up the ghost twice, only to be dragged back.
Her hospital gown flapping behind her and, aware that everyone was getting a shufti at her bony bottom, Jackie leaned on the nurse as they plodded down the corridor back to her room. A beefy policeman sat outside, his arms crossed. He looked them over as they passed and nodded briefly. His radio crackled and a disembodied voice chuntered. He bent his lips to it and pressed the talk button.
‘Copy that. Everything quiet here.’
As she eased herself into bed and swung her legs painfully under the covers, Jackie could see his bulk in the chair: a meaty left arm and a square head. She flopped back against the pillow, exhausted by the short walk from the bathroom.
‘At least you’ve got a good view,’ the nurse said, hitching her head at the policeman. ‘Brightens up my day, anyway.’
Her face grew serious as she popped a thermometer under Jackie’s tongue. ‘You still in pain?’
Why do nurses always wait until you’ve got a thermometer in your mouth before they ask questions, Jackie thought. Same as the dentist: he waited to start drilling before asking her about her holidays. She nodded. ‘Bit. Here.’ She pressed her hand in her side.
‘I’ll up your medication.’ The nurse brushed her hand over Jackie’s head. ‘Your hair’s growing back, anyway. You’re all stubbly.’