Heck hung his head. He almost felt sick at how simple it was. Even when there was a major search for a missing person, he couldn’t imagine many police forces thinking to check the canal traffic, not when the boat-owner in question was a bloke with a walking stick, who from a distance looked quite a bit older than he was.
‘When you’re out at sea, even if it’s only a mile or so,’ Silver added, ‘it’s astonishing how useful bin-liners, twine and a few lumps of cement can be.’
‘You’ll still get found out!’ Heck snapped. ‘At some point you’ll be caught.’
‘Maybe. But we obviously have to do everything we can to reduce that possibility. Which brings us rather neatly to you.’ Silver produced the two phones, Deke’s and Heck’s own. ‘Your mobile is clearly beyond repair, and we’ve been through Trooper Ezekial’s data from the last few days and found no sign that you’ve put a message or text out. All of this is in your favour, but you could have made a call from a landline before you left London, and let someone know roughly where you were headed for.’ He gave Heck a frank stare. ‘So … did you or didn’t you?’
‘You know I haven’t contacted anyone at Scotland Yard. If I had, your man inside would have informed you.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you didn’t contact someone else, or someone in a different police department.’
So the insider was
definitely
a member of the NCG. Heck made a mental note of this. Not that it made a lot of difference at present.
‘You see, my problem, Sergeant Heckenburg,’ Silver added, ‘is that though I’m well aware you’re a bit of a chancer, I find it hard to believe you’re so stupid that you’d come after us entirely alone.’
That was the second time in the last few days he’d been called a ‘chancer’, Heck realised.
‘Now okay,’ Silver said, ‘granted … whoever your back-up people are, they aren’t very close, or they’d have intervened when we ambushed you. But I still need to know who they are, and where they are, and how much, exactly, they know about our operation.’
‘No one else knows anything about you. I knew you had a man inside. So I couldn’t risk spreading the word.’
‘You expect us to believe that you don’t trust anyone at all?’
‘No, I have friends. But I’m wanted for murder, I’m AWOL … and if I’d gone to them I’d have put them in an impossible position.’
Silver pondered this. ‘That has a ring of truth about it, but unfortunately I can’t just take your word for it.’
‘You’re going to have to.’
‘No … I’m afraid I don’t.’ Silver signalled to Hobbs, who stepped forward again. ‘Trooper Hobbs here used to have a specific role inside his unit. Can you guess what it was?’
‘Never,’ Heck said, his body tensing.
‘Scorpion Company made great use of him in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everyone talks in the end, of course. But Trooper Hobbs made it happen more quickly than most, as you’ll discover. Well … you won’t discover
personally
.’ Silver turned to Lauren, whose eyes were closed again. ‘But your friend here will.’
Heck went rigid. ‘Don’t be crazy!’
‘Sergeant, we’re playing for very high stakes.’
‘
Silver, for Christ’s sake!’
Silver merely shrugged. ‘Like it or not, everyone’s involved – your friend, your sister. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. The longer you hold your tongue, the longer you’ll hold off the inevitable. With that in mind, I imagine you’d be able to resist us for quite some time. But the inevitable is going to happen eventually, to all three of you. It’s only a matter of how.’ Silver smiled. ‘If we commence it now – on those you care most about, and prolong it and prolong it and prolong it
–
then you holding out will become rather pointless, don’t you think? Especially if I give you my solemn guarantee that the moment you tell us what we want to know, we’ll end it very quickly.’
‘The inevitable will happen to you too, you fucking maniac,’ Heck replied. ‘Everyone gets theirs in the end.’
Silver sighed. ‘Have it your own way. Mr Klim, Trooper Kilmor, let’s leave Trooper Hobbs to work.’
Hobbs drew the two hooked blades from his belt and began to strop them together the way a butcher does before carving a joint.
‘Believe it or not, sergeant,’ Silver said, as he and the other two moved to a door at the end of the room, ‘there are some things even we can’t stomach.’
‘You ever seen someone skinned alive?’ Trooper Hobbs asked. ‘Being slowly peeled, layer after glistening layer?’
‘I thought you Scorpion Company faggots liked to work from the inside out?’ Heck said, hoping he sounded cooler than he felt.
Hobbs examined Lauren’s inert form, sliding both his gloved hand and the flat of one flensing blade across her bruised flesh. Again he was like a butcher, sizing up a piece of meat. ‘We can work from the outside in just as well.’
‘And what do you expect it to achieve?’ Heck said.
‘If it makes you tell us everything we need to know – who else is investigating us, how close they are, and all that … it’ll have achieved plenty.’
‘I’ve already told you there’s no one else!’
Hobbs shrugged. ‘If you stick to that story, we’ll eventually reach a point where we believe you. But we have to put you to the test first. Just so we can be sure. Now, where shall we start?’ He put a hand on Lauren’s crotch. ‘Loin?’ He slid it round and gripped a buttock. ‘Rump? No, I know where. My favourite – breast.’
He took Lauren’s left breast in one hand and raised the knife as if to slice off the nipple.
‘How’s your little brother?’ Heck asked him.
Something in his tone made Hobbs glance around.
‘Yeah, that’s right … I’m talking about Brian,’ Heck said. ‘He
had
to be related to one of you. That’s the only way he could have got involved with an outfit like yours.’
Hobbs regarded Heck cautiously. ‘Brian’s busy tonight.’
‘What happened … you bring him in when you came back home? He was clearly no soldier. Fought like a fucking girl.’
Slowly, Hobbs lowered the knife.
‘When you say he’s busy, I’m guessing you mean he’s busy up Hampstead way,’ Heck added. ‘But haven’t you wondered why he hasn’t called in yet? I’ll give you a clue, Trooper Hobbs … he’s never going to call in again.’
‘You’re full of shit.’
‘Your Brian’s probably lying in a chalk circle now, with police flashbulbs going off all around him. He won’t need a tent to cover him, because he’s in a cellar. That’s where he met his maker, Hobbsy. A dirty, grubby cellar. I bet there are beetles all over him.’
Hobbs slipped the knife back into his belt, took a mobile phone from his pocket and stabbed in a number. No one answered and it went to voice mail. He tried the number again – it was the same result. He tried again – the same. He was now breathing deeply, almost snorting, like an enraged bull.
‘Never leave a boy to do a man’s job,’ Heck laughed.
‘You lying shit!’ Hobbs shrieked, drawing both blades and rounding furiously on him – which was all the distraction Lauren needed.
Her eyes snapped open and she swung her body up, clamping her muscular thighs around Hobbs’s neck. His head was immediately forced to one side; his eyes bugged with disbelief.
Heck struggled with his bonds, but he was held securely. Hobbs buffeted wildly back and forth, but Lauren levered herself upright on top of his shoulders, releasing her hands from the ceiling hook, which enabled her to ball her fists together and slam them down onto his nose, pulping it in a blow. Meanwhile, the choke-hold she had on his neck was clearly killing him. He dropped the knives, and tried to grab her and throw her off. But Lauren was also fighting for her life, which, weakened though she was from the brutality she’d been subjected to, gave her extra strength. They crashed to the floor together. She still wouldn’t release him. He was turning blue in the face, his lips slathered with froth.
Heck fought desperately with his bonds, but still couldn’t free himself.
Lauren threw her body over. Hobbs twisted with her, but now he was gargling. His eyes were bulging, bloodshot orbs. When she threw herself over a second time, he couldn’t match the manoeuvre. With a
crunch
, his neck broke.
There was a brief, breathless silence, and then Lauren grabbed one of the knives and began tiredly sawing through the ropes binding her wrists.
‘Bloody glad you were fully conscious,’ Heck said. ‘Wasn’t sure whether you could hear me or not. Nice leg-work.’
‘Not going to berate me for taking out another worthless cockroach?’
He shook his head as she cut him loose from the chair. ‘I slotted one myself only a few hours ago.’
‘That stuff about Hampstead wasn’t BS?’
‘My scruples are now on the backburner. This is a fight to the death.’
He got to his feet, though initially it was difficult. He was dizzy and there was no blood in his lower limbs. Lauren had problems too. They’d hanged her by her hands for God knew how long. Momentarily, she had to lean against Heck.
He looked towards the door that the rest of the Nice Guys had exited through. No doubt there was a stair beyond it, leading topside. He listened intently. What sounded like a muffled conversation could be heard. There was a creak of wood; but it was directly overhead rather than descending towards them.
‘I don’t think they’ve sussed us,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be long. You seen Dana at all?’
Lauren pointed to a door at the opposite end of the cabin.
Heck opened it, and saw a small, luxurious bedroom. Dana was on the bed. She was wearing pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, but she seemed to be out cold. He approached nervously. Her hair was disarrayed, but there were no visible signs of harm. Her pulse at least was strong. He smelled at her breath, which was tainted with something faintly chemical.
‘Gamma hydroxbutyrate,’ he said grimly. ‘The date-rapist’s drug of choice. I hope to God they haven’t …’ A belated thought occurred to him. He spun around to face Lauren.
‘If they did I didn’t notice,’ she said, before he could ask. ‘Not that we can rely on that, a set of dickless bastards like this lot. Heck, what the fuck are we going to do?’
‘There must be another way off this boat.’
There was one other door in the bedroom, but it only connected to a dressing room filled with gaudy clothes. Heck cursed as he padded back down the main cabin. At the far end, he opened the exit door a crack and listened. The conversation was clearer, but still sounded as though it was taking place on the deck above. He risked a peek. A tight stairway led up, but alongside it there was a recess in which several coats and rain-slickers hung. He climbed into a pair of waterproof pants, threw a slicker over his shoulders and zipped it. He’d have grabbed one for Lauren, but she’d now stripped Hobbs’s body and was pulling on his khaki vest and trousers.
‘No exit this way,’ Heck said. ‘We’ll have to go through one of these windows.’
There were six in total, three down either side of the cabin. As he’d already observed, there were steel shutters on each one, all fastened with padlocks.
‘Don’t suppose they’ve been daft enough to leave a key lying round?’ he asked.
‘No. But they’ve left us these.’ Lauren picked up one of Hobbs’s flensing knives. ‘This is sharp enough to stick up a gnat’s chuff.’
‘Can you make it work?’
‘I can try.’
They chose the window farthest from the exit, and on the starboard side of the cabin, which they guessed was the one against the canal bank. Lauren worked feverishly. She couldn’t do anything about the padlock, but the shutter was part of a steel frame, which had been screwed into the wooden bulkhead. It was these screws that she went for. Initially nothing happened. She pumped sweat as she strained and twisted the knife. When the point of its blade snapped off, she had to try the other knife, but the first had loosened the screw sufficiently for it to finally give way. With the frame’s grip on the bulkhead weakened, and pulled out a little to weaken it further, the second screw came more quickly and the final two were almost easy. Behind it was a curtain, and then a glass window with a movable panel. Lauren flipped the catch and slid the panel open. Beyond it lay the canal bank, the tow-path and a mass of darkened foliage.
Heck had now brought Dana in from the dressing room. He was carrying her, but she was stirring slightly.
‘If we can get her walking,’ Lauren whispered, ‘it’ll save us a lot of trouble.’
‘Depends how long she’s been out for. It can take hours to recover from a stupor like this.’ He patted Dana’s face a couple of times, but she stayed under the influence.
Lauren shook her head. ‘I’ll go out first. You pass her up to me.’
Once she’d got out onto the bank, she crouched and listened. Their captors were congregated down at the far end, talking quietly. There were no other night sounds.
‘Okay,’ Lauren breathed.
With much struggling, Heck passed Dana’s comatose form through the aperture, at which point she moaned loudly.
They froze.
There was no response.
They continued at speed. Lauren threw Dana over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, but remained crouched. From this angle, it was difficult to see over the top of the boat to where their captors were. What position were they actually in? Were their backs turned? These questions remained unanswered. It was going to be another big gamble. Heck slid up onto the bank beside her.
‘We’ve got to dash to the undergrowth,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘It’s only a couple of yards, but we’ll be fully exposed.’
He nodded, sweating hard. ‘You want me to take Dana?’
‘I’ve carried bigger, heavier fellas than your sister out of the battle-zone, Heck. Don’t worry, I can handle it.’
They counted down from five to one, before rising to their feet and scurrying towards the bushes. At first it seemed as though they’d made it. But when they entered the wood, it was impossible for leaves not to rustle and branches not to thresh.
‘Hey!’ came a gruff shout from behind. It sounded like Klim. ‘
FUCK
!
’