The Slaughter Man (28 page)

Fingers in the night air, then one hand, then one arm flailing above ground, pulling myself up, the top of my head and then my face, retching dirt and sucking air, vomiting dirt, sucking it back in, feeling it clinging to tongue and teeth and throat, gasping like a drowning man breaking the surface with the last of his strength, and suddenly I was lying there, panting and gagging, half-buried and half-free, the pain everywhere, still with the dirt of the grave in my throat and eyes and nose.

Alive.

A pair of fierce yellow eyes bored into me. The scarred old fox and I stared at each other in disbelief. Then the fox ran. And I slept. Or I fainted. Or there was still enough of the Rohypnol in my bloodstream to make me cling to the darkness as if it was my lover.

I did not move until I shuddered with cold and suddenly knew that I would freeze to death if I did not move.

Watched by all the angels with no faces, I pulled myself from the grave and found that I could not even begin to stand. Nowhere near it. Forget standing. So I crawled. Dragging myself slowly, feeling the rough ground beneath my knees and elbows and forearms and shins and feet, the pain without respite, glad for the remains of the duct tape that still clung to my limbs and gave me some protection.

I crawled hoping that the night would end and that help would come. But the night was without end and no help came. When I could crawl no more I lay down and trembled with the cold, whimpering like a wounded animal.

The last thing I remember was looking up at the monument where I had stopped. Rising out of the undergrowth was a statue of a sleeping dog. It was a massive thing, more the size of a car than a dog, and I wondered if it was really there or just inside my dreams. It didn’t matter now.

Beyond the dog there was a stone plinth with words that shone in the last full moon of winter.

TOM SAYERS

PUGILIST

CHAMPION OF ENGLAND
BORN
1826

PIMLICO, BRIGHTON, SUSSEX
.

‘IT’S A MAN’S GAME.

IT TAKES A GAME MAN

TO PLAY IT.’

I closed my eyes and passed out with one hand on Tom Sayers’ dog.

‘Oh, God Almighty,’ Rocky said. ‘What have they done to you?’

It was freezing cold in Highgate Cemetery. The hour before dawn. He came jogging out of the freezing mist, for it was the time that boxers do their lonely running, the insurance against the catastrophe of total physical exhaustion when there is still fighting to be done.

I was lifted by hands that felt both strong and gentle, and I stared at faceless angels in the undergrowth as the remains of the duct tape were pulled from my body and he began to dress me in his tracksuit, zipping up the top to my chin, easing me to the ground and struggling to pull up the bottoms. He helped me to my feet and I held on to him for support as we slowly walked downhill to the gates where his elderly white van was waiting.

‘Twenty-seven Savile Row,’ I said, repeating it when he did not react. ‘
Twenty-seven Savile Row. West End Central
.’

‘No,’ he said.

Then we were heading south, the traffic already building around Archway, and I may have slept because we were around the Angel when I glanced at his face and saw it set in hard lines as we turned east for the City and the East End and Essex. And I knew that the last place in the world Rocky would ever take me was a police station.

I cursed him once. For not taking me where I wanted to go. For all the things he had not told me. He smiled grimly at me and shook his head, and I closed my eyes knowing that he had saved my life.

Then I slept.

I awoke to the sound of skipping.

The leather rope whipping through the air, faster and faster as thin-soled boxing boots lightly touched the ground. I flexed my body, feeling where it hurt, and tried to stretch my arms and legs. My hands touched the wall. The bed was tiny, and so was the room. I was in a small caravan. There was a baseball bat in one corner. My hand reached out for it.

‘You’re safe here,’ Echo said.

She was standing in the doorway. As always she was dressed for summer and courting. White shorts. A T-shirt that didn’t quite reach the jewel in her navel. High, clunky heels. But she seemed older now, and her pregnancy was unmistakable.

‘You don’t need a baseball bat,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘Rocky’s not going to let them hurt you any more.’

I lay back on the bed, reflecting that baseball bats are a vastly overrated form of personal protection.

‘What happened to you?’ Echo said.

I took a breath. From the fading light outside, it looked like I had slept for most of the day. The remains of the Rohypnol felt like the worst hangover in the world. But I could remember everything. And I could think clearly.

‘Your father and Nils Gatling,’ I said. ‘They happened to me. They know each other, don’t they?’

She shrugged. ‘My dad’s done work for him for years. Gatling’s got property all over London. It’s been a steady earner for my old man.’

I almost laughed.

‘And you didn’t tell me?’ I said. ‘And Rocky didn’t tell me?’

Her gaze never wavered.

‘You’re the law,’ she said. ‘We try not to tell you anything.’ Then a flicker of the old anger. ‘But I
did
try to tell you about my uncle, didn’t I? I
told
you my uncle was innocent. But you wouldn’t listen.’

‘You don’t want to talk to us but you want us to listen,’ I said. ‘You can see how that might cause problems, right?’

She took a breath and let it go.

‘My father and Nils Gatling,’ she said. ‘What have they done?’

‘They did each other a favour. That’s what they did. Gatling wanted to silence his sister. And your father wanted to punish his brother.’

I saw the shock on her face. Her hand protectively rubbed her belly and the baby that was growing inside her.

I sat up and looked out of the window. Rocky was skipping, stripped to the waist, He radiated supreme fitness, and I wondered when his first professional fight was happening. It had to be soon.

‘Why would Nils Gatling want to kill his sister?’ Echo said.

‘He wanted to stop her from going to the police about historic sex abuse. Horrible things, revealed at last. Her family – they were collateral damage.’

She did not ask me why her father had wanted to punish his brother. She didn’t need to.

‘You knew Peter Nawkins didn’t kill them because on New Year’s Eve he was with you,’ I said. ‘I should have believed you. And I think I would have – if you had told me.’ I thought of Sergeant Ross Sallis of Tottenham Hale, and the way he had looked after having a shotgun fired near his face at close range. And I thought of the Burns family, the father and his three grown-up sons, and what Peter Nawkins had done to them after they tried to castrate him.

‘Your uncle didn’t kill Mary Wood and her family,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bit of a stretch to call him innocent.’

She laughed bitterly.

‘So it’s never over then?’ she said. ‘My uncle did his time but it’s never forgotten by you people?’

‘Not if it makes enough headlines,’ I said. ‘Fame comes and goes. Infamy last forever.’

I noticed she had a fresh black eye and I knew her father must be close by. I looked again at the baseball bat. Vastly overrated, but better than nothing.

‘When’s your baby due?’ I said.

‘The end of the summer,’ she said.

‘Who’s the father?’ I asked.

She shook her head quickly as the caravan door opened and Rocky appeared in the doorway. He slipped an arm around Echo’s waist and placed a kiss on her lips.

‘They’re back,’ he said. ‘Outside the wire. One of them chucked a bottle at me so I’ve come inside. It’s been bad since your Uncle Peter died.’

I looked out the window and I saw a large group of locals gathering on the far side of the wire. A solitary female police officer was among them, her hands raised, pleading for calm.

‘What do they want?’ I said.

He grinned. ‘Same as always,’ he said. ‘They want us out. Are you all right?’

I nodded. ‘Thanks,’ I said. Then I shook my head. ‘You should have talked to me, Rocky. You should have told me that you worked at The Garden. You should have told me everything. You ever see Nils Gatling around Sean Nawkins?’

He shrugged and looked away, even now reluctant to give up what he knew.

‘You really should have told me that,’ I said. ‘You should have told me what you knew about Echo’s father.’

‘I don’t know anything about her old man,’ he said. ‘Apart from the fact that he’s a fucking psycho.’

‘He’s more than that,’ I said. ‘Sean Nawkins is a murderer. And now he’s going down.’

Rocky nodded, attempting a grin that failed miserably, and I found myself hoping that it was his child she was carrying. Suddenly an awkward silence came between us. He didn’t feel he could ask me who had given me a beating, and I could not talk to him about Echo’s baby.

‘I can’t believe you two are still here,’ I said. Echo’s black eye looked fresh. ‘So close to your father,’ I said.

‘That’s ending,’ Rocky said. ‘Got my first pro fight on Friday. York Hall. A six-rounder against a Serbian who’s 6 and O.’

Rocky had the kind of fitness that glows. Fighting fit, they call it. I had no doubt the he was ready for his life to begin.

‘Good luck with that,’ I said, and indicated the pair of them. ‘Good luck with everything.’

Rocky looked at Echo proudly.

‘Get a few wins under my belt and then we’re moving out of here,’ he said. ‘It’s no life for a fighter. Not knowing when you’re getting moved on. You need stability. You need routine. Get a little flat in Billericay. Somewhere with a bit of green for the kid but that’s handy for the London trains.’

I nodded. It seemed like a good plan.

Then I stood up, shrugging my shoulders, feeling where it hurt. I did not have any injuries that would stop me doing what I needed to do. Better get on with it, I thought.

‘I need you to do one more thing,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to give you a direct number for DCI Patricia Whitestone at West End Central. I want you to call her right now and tell her that I have arrested Sean Nawkins for the murders of Mary Wood, Brad Wood, Marlon Wood and Piper Wood. Can you remember that?’

They were silent.

Rocky looked at Echo.

‘I can remember it,’ she said.

I gave her the number.

Then I nodded at the pair of them and stepped outside their little caravan. I was still wearing the hoody he had put me in. It said KRONK GYM – DETROIT on the front. I zipped it up as far as it would go.

I was close to the front gate of Oak Hill Farm, a part of the camp where there were smaller caravans. The crowds beyond the wire seemed to have increased. I looked for the reassuring sight of blue uniforms but all I saw was the young woman I had watched from the caravan and her colleague, a young man who was at the main gate, talking into the radio on his shoulder. He looked scared.

They had parked their car inside the gates. That was a mistake. You park where you inform the public that they are going no further. Parking inside the gates was lousy tactics.

From somewhere close by I heard the sound of breaking glass, followed by ironic cheers. Then more breaking glass.

I walked faster. I wanted this done.

I saw the smoke before I saw Sean Nawkins. Thick black smoke rising from the skip behind his bungalow.

Screams. I turned to look at the wire. The young copper was in the middle of the crowd. Now the woman was talking urgently into her radio, calling for backup. I listened for sirens. Nothing. I stared at them for a moment, knowing they needed my help.

But I kept walking.

More breaking glass. And a much louder cheer this time, as a small burst of fire exploded on the scrappy patch of grass where I had seen the horses on that first day. I stopped again, waiting to see if they were going to throw more petrol bombs. But when a couple of beer bottles came over, shattering harmlessly against the roof of a caravan, I kept going.

The front door to Sean Nawkins’ bungalow was open. I walked round the side of the building to where the skip was burning. Nawkins was emptying petrol from a plastic jerrycan onto perhaps a dozen black bin bags that he had tossed into the skip. I wondered what was in the bin bags apart from the clothes he had worn last night.

I wondered if Zina was in them.

‘I’m arresting you for murder,’ I said, and he looked up at me as if he was staring at a dead man, taking a terrified half-step backwards, his jaw suddenly slack with terror.

‘No,’ he said, denying my existence more than his crimes. ‘Not you.’

‘You do not have to say anything,’ I said, moving towards him as a bottle smashed against the side of the skip, and then another bounced off the roof of his bungalow without breaking.

He clutched the jerrycan to his chest, as if defending himself from a ghost, and all at once a burning bottle hit his shoulder and there was a soft pop of air –
whap!
– and Sean Nawkins erupted into a ball of flames.

He staggered towards me, his head a corona of flame and his flesh already melting, his hair on fire, his eyebrows and hair the first to burn, his mouth twisted and screaming, one hand holding the side of the skip, his body stooped by the all-consuming agony, his face blackening as his features burned away.

Then a bottle must have struck me because I was momentarily stunned, dizzy and sick, a searing pain in the back of my skull and broken glass glistening on the front of Rocky’s tracksuit top.

Sean Nawkins was lying at my feet.

Flat on his face, the flames subsiding, most of his clothes gone revealing that every inch of his flesh was the colour and the texture and the stink of badly burned meat.

I backed away, one hand on the back of my head, another over my mouth, and I stumbled round the side of the bungalow and into a full-scale riot.

The locals had entered the camp.

The residents of Oak Hill Farm were pouring out of their caravans and bungalows to meet them. There were men with lead pipes, women with baseball bats, dogs barking and children screaming. Just inside the main gates the two sides clashed like medieval armies, coming together in a sickening collision of metal and flesh, broken glass and blood.