There was no response, except for more shadowy movement on the annexe wall. Unconsciously fingering the baton at his belt, Belshaw walked forward. The shadow moved again – a sharp, flirting motion from one side of the room to the other. There were more sounds: more
clicks
and now
creaks
, as if weight was being furtively adjusted.
The bristles on Belshaw’s neck stiffened. They knew he was here. Which meant there was only one course of action.
He approached the door swiftly, drawing the baton from his belt. As he rounded into the room, his other hand clamped on his radio – only for him to find the room empty. He halted, confused. There was nothing in here at all. Not even any side furniture. The bed was just a bare frame, a skeleton. He glanced at the window, the top panel of which was open. Another slight breeze intruded, and the Venetian blind hanging there
clicked
and
creaked
as it swung; more of its shadows flickered across the walls.
Feeling a prize fool, Belshaw backed into the dimly lit treatment area and turned.
Someone was standing directly behind him.
He half-shouted.
In return, the slim, blonde figure in the blue hospital scrubs yelped.
Then she laughed; a delightful cheeky titter. Belshaw also laughed, though in his case more from embarrassment.
‘My God, constable,’ Nurse Goldenway said. She’d evidently just collected two clean urine bottles from a side cupboard, and hadn’t noticed that somebody was nearby. ‘My God … you gave me a turn.’
‘Yeah … sorry …’
‘Like graveyards at night, these places, aren’t they?’
‘Erm … yeah.’
She nodded at his drawn baton. ‘And what were you planning to do with that?’
‘Oh, nothing …’
‘You know what I’d be wondering if it was mine?’
‘Sorry, what …?’
‘Where do the batteries go?’ She winked, then turned and bustled prettily out, leaving Belshaw feeling strangely abashed.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said, sliding the baton back into his belt. ‘Course.’
If nothing else at least he was wide awake, he thought, as he wandered back to his post. And now he’d ensure that he stayed that way. He stuck his head into the private room, where Hallam was half-dozing in the armchair just inside the door.
‘Brew?’ Belshaw asked.
Hallam jerked upright, but on seeing it was only his partner, nodded and rubbed at his sallow face. ‘Yeah, yeah … that’d be good. Ta.’
Belshaw walked back along the passage. Thanks to the light over the top of the vending machine, he was able to find the right change, insert it and then wait patiently while milk and boiling water gurgled into the two paper cups. He took them from the machine – and then noticed that the curtains drawn on an alcove opposite were fluttering.
This time he hesitated before responding, but finally, with a sigh, he approached. He was here to do a job, after all. With two coffee cups in his hands, he had to use his elbows to draw the curtains back. Beyond, he saw the open entrance to what looked like a storage facility. It was a closet-sized room with steel cabinets down one side and a rack of surgical gowns down the other. There was a window in its facing wall, wide open.
Belshaw moved wearily towards it, bending down to peek through. On the other side, he saw a small garden, a little bedraggled – as if it didn’t get much attention. On the far side of that, dim lights were visible in other sections of the hospital. Yet again, all was still and extremely quiet. Deciding that now he
was
taking things a little too far, he rose up again and turned – and was hit in the face by a gloved fist that was more like a mallet of flesh and bone.
With one punch, it crushed his nose to pulp and shattered both his cheekbones.
Five minutes later, Hallam was still struggling to stay awake. He continually readjusted his position but it was having progressively less effect. When he finally heard the heavy feet tramping back down the corridor and into the room, he thanked his lucky stars. Hot coffee – that would do the trick. He looked up, smiling, and just had time to glimpse two figures in green surgical gowns, glaring maniacally down at him over masks stretched taut across noses and mouths, before receiving that scalding hot coffee right in his eyes.
Hallam didn’t get a chance to scream before PC Belshaw’s baton smashed down on his cranium. Not once, but two, three, four times; on each occasion with greater savagery, so that when he finally dropped from the chair his blood crossed the entire room in a thick, flowing stream.
The men around the table sniggered.
They numbered ten in total, and, as often happened in circles of this sort, there were several types on show: the snivellers – typical Cockney rat-boys with thin features, greased-back hair and suits that looked second-hand even though they probably weren’t; the bruisers – shaven headed, scar-faced, and invariably sporting chunky, tasteless jewellery. Then there were the nondescripts, the quiet ones – they could be smart or casual, and their ages could vary from thirty to sixty. They might be soldiers or lieutenants, but these were the ones you had to be careful of. They didn’t put on a show, because they didn’t need to.
One of these, a youngish chap with a red goatee beard, wearing a blue silk suit and a white silk shirt buttoned to the collar, was the one who’d finally come to the door and let the callers in. He was now back in his seat, checking his hand of cards. As they all were. Heck’s unexpected arrival was only a minor distraction to them.
‘So let me get this straight,’ Bobby Ballamara said slowly. He too was engrossed in his cards, and in smoking a large cigar, but his lips were taut, his eyes lidded – he looked like a lizard about to strike. ‘You want me to help you … because you have fucked up so much that even your own people are out to nail you?’
‘It’s only for one night.’ Heck stood facing him the way a condemned man might face a deliberating judge.
Lauren had been told to wait in a corner, where she now sat, looking alone and nervous. At first glance, she’d had difficulty working out what the purpose of this room actually was. By the unlagged piping running across its ceiling, and the steel girders in some of the walls, it had once been part of an industrial facility, maybe the ground floor of a warehouse. To get in here, they’d walked through several big, empty chambers with bare brick walls and utilitarian wooden boarding for floors, though this one was a little plusher than those. It had a bar at one end, where more of Ballamara’s heavies were lounging. Beside that was a low stage with a steel pole in the middle. An elderly woman in high heels and a leotard was putting two junior strippers through their paces. Music, downbeat jazz – very soothing and romantic, like something from the late 1940s – was playing. It suited the low lighting and rich pile carpet.
‘You are aware, Heckenburg …’ Ballarama said. ‘It’s okay if I call you “Heckenburg”? I don’t have to bother with the “Detective Sergeant” bit anymore?’
There were more sniggers from the rest of the men.
‘Heckenburg’s fine,’ Heck said.
‘Because it wouldn’t strictly be true to call you “Detective Sergeant Heckenburg” anymore, would it? Perhaps it’d be more appropriate if I called you “Prisoner Heckenburg, 48276983” or whatever the fuck your inmate tag ends up reading.’
‘I told you, it’s a misunderstanding. I can sort this out. I just need a little time.’
Briefly, Ballamara was too occupied with his hand to reply. He finally played it.
‘You see –
Heckenburg,
one of the problems I have is that your usefulness to me only lasts as long as you’re looking for my daughter. So if you now can’t do that, which you clearly can’t – because you’re too busy looking after your own arse – then as far as I’m concerned you’re a non-person. You don’t matter.’ He glanced up with those grey, coin-like eyes. ‘And you coming here uninvited is a right fucking liberty.’
‘I can still find your daughter,’ Heck said. ‘At least, I can find out what happened to her.’
‘I’ve got six private dicks working on that now. I fail to see how
you
– in your current reduced state – could be a better bet than them.’
‘I very much doubt they’ve even got close.’
‘And how would you know?’
‘Because I
am
close, and they’re not in the picture.’
Ballamara looked at his cards again. ‘Three days ago you didn’t have a fucking clue.’
‘A lot can happen in three days.’
Ballamara played his next hand. For Heck, the delay seemed torturous.
‘And this is how you expect to bribe your way into my protection, is it?’ the gangster said. ‘By teasing me with what you think you’ve learned … after stringing me along for the last two years?’
There were no sniggers from the rest of his crew now. They could sense when their boss was becoming agitated, even though his body language remained calm.
Heck held his nerve – this was always going to have been the tough bit. ‘I’m offering a straightforward trade, Mr Ballamara. Refuge for me and Lauren here – for one night. In exchange, I’ll give you everything I’ve got. Down to the last detail.’
Ballamara stubbed his cigar in an ashtray and laid his cards down. ‘And what’s to stop me having it beaten out of you right now?’
‘Feel free to try,’ Heck said. ‘I’ll crack at some point, sure. But how much will I crack? How do you know what I’ll be telling you is kosher? How do you know I won’t give you the best run-around you’ve ever had?’
Their eyes locked as Ballamara contemplated this.
‘All I’m asking is a bed for the night,’ Heck said. ‘Is that so steep?’
‘I can give you a bed for the night, Heckenburg – and your skirt. But tomorrow morning you’d better be ready to spill your guts.’ Ballamara spoke in a low monotone – he was almost droning, but there was no mistaking the intensity there. ‘You don’t tell me everything I want to hear, I’ll make sure that whoever messed your face up yesterday looks like an absolute novice.’
Heck nodded and tried to swallow, but had almost no saliva. ‘There’s one other thing I could use,’ he said. ‘A couple of mobile phones – clean ones. I only want to borrow them. You can have them back when I’m done.’
Ballamara said nothing, merely nodded to another of his goons, a black guy in a t-shirt and wraparound shades, with a physique that suggested he bench-pressed with heavy machinery. The black guy ambled away, and the gangsters resumed their game. There was muted conversation as more cards were placed and the money pile in the middle grew larger. One of the trainee strippers approached with a tray, to collect the empties and take orders for another round. She was dressed only in a thong and heels, but she was thin and pale, and had a vaguely Eastern European look – she was sixteen years old at the most. Heck caught Lauren’s eye. Neither felt sufficiently comfortable to even imply what they were thinking about their new ‘ally’. Heck glanced towards the bar, where the black guy chatted briefly with Lennie Asquith before lumbering back over. He handed Heck two mobile phones, a red one and a blue one.
‘Thanks,’ Heck said.
‘You’re welcome,’ Ballamara replied without looking up. ‘Goodnight.’
More sniggers followed. Heck beckoned to Lauren, who hurriedly joined him. Asquith was now waiting beside an open door, beyond which stairs led upward.
‘Oh … Heckenburg!’ Ballamara called after them when they were halfway there. They looked back. He continued to lay cards. ‘Do not be fucking me around.’ He took a slug of Scotch. ‘Never make that mistake, Heckenburg. I don’t forget things and I don’t forgive them. You shit on me and I will
seriously
shit on you.’
And that was the end of the conversation.
Asquith led them up the stairs to a first-floor passage that was lit, rather suspiciously, by a crimson light. Numerous doors led off it, but he took them to the one at the end. When he opened it, the room beyond, though plain, was not as seedy as they’d expected. There was one bed, a double – complete with an iron bedstead and duck-down duvet, a writing desk with a chair drawn under it, a sideboard on which a portable television sat, a closet with a slatted door and, besides that, the entrance to a small en suite. The décor was dull – all beige and brown, but at least it was clean. The window looked down on a dismal alley, but they were able to close the blinds and block that out.
‘There’s no hidden camera in here, is there?’ Heck asked Asquith. ‘We don’t want to end up for sale in one of your gaffer’s backstreet DVD shops.’
Asquith almost looked offended. ‘Like we could make money out of you two.’
He banged the door closed as he went out.
Lauren shook her head. ‘Heck, you’re not serious about …’
Heck put a finger to his lips, moved across the room and switched the television on, making sure to turn the volume up. ‘No cameras, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a mike,’ he said quietly.
‘You let someone like Ballamara into this investigation, and he’ll ruin the whole …’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll feed him some fictional bullshit. All I needed to do was buy us a night.’ He got undressed, stripping down to his boxers.
‘Heck, this is a dangerous game we’re playing.’
‘This firm’s like a women’s church group compared to the one we’re after.’
‘That why, five minutes ago, you looked like you were about to cack your pants?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it sorted.’
He went through to the bathroom, to wash. Lauren wasn’t far wrong though. Despite his bravado, this was a risky strategy. He again considered calling Gemma, not just because the guilt he felt about keeping her in the dark was burning a hole through him, but because her support – in fact any kind of support – would be more than useful. But he was now so far out on a limb that just getting in touch with her would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Even if she believed his theories, she would insist that he came in. She’d probably send units to arrest him. It would be career suicide for her to do otherwise. It didn’t matter if the trail went cold as a result of him being taken off the streets. That could never be her priority now.