Two-Faced (41 page)

Nodding, Liam said, ‘Yeah, but take it easy. It’ll be the woman, don’t forget.’

Easing this door handle down now, Darren slowly opened the door – and found himself looking down the barrel of the gun that was being pointed at him by the smallest woman he’d ever seen in his life. She obviously didn’t really know how to use it, though, because she’d put herself way too close to her target, and Darren was able to kick it out of her hand before she could even think about pulling the trigger.

As Pete made a dive for the gun Darren laughed, and said, ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do with
this
?’

Pete pushed him out of the way, grabbed Tiny by the hair and brought his face right down to hers. Then, shoving the gun beneath her chin, he said, ‘You speakee Eenglish?’

Understanding him perfectly, Tiny shook her head.

‘Like fucking hell she doesn’t!’ Darren snorted. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have known what you just said. Here, let me deal with her.’

Tiny shrank back when Darren pushed his face into hers. She pursed her lips and glared at him defiantly.

‘Don’t bother trying to pull any of that Ma-Triad-defending-her-boys-to-the-death shit on me,’ Darren told her. ‘We know you’ve got a girl locked up in here, and we want the keys –
NOW
!’

Tiny raised her chin, clamped her lips tightly shut and stood her ground. Whatever they did to her, it would be nothing compared to what Mr Dawson would do if he thought she’d given in without a fight.

‘These what we’re looking for?’ Pete said, finding a set of keys hanging on the wall behind the door.

Grinning when he saw the flicker of
Oh, shit!
in the midget woman’s eyes, Darren said, ‘I reckon they are, yeah.’

Taking the keys from Pete, Liam went back out in the corridor. He unlocked the first door, pushed it open and felt around for a light switch on the wall.

‘Jeezus,’ he muttered when he saw the girl on the bed. ‘Guys . . . look at this.’

Darren dragged Tiny along by her hair in case she got any funny ideas about locking them out of the room and calling the troops in. His eyes widened when he saw what Liam had found. The room was bare apart from the double bed that the girl was lying on and a single chair in the corner. In another corner, a small video camera was set up on a tripod facing the bed. But there was no red light on, so filming had obviously stopped for the night.

‘Yo!’ Pete hissed, picking up a small wastepaper bin with several used condoms in it and showing it to the others.

Shaking his head in disgust as he approached the bed, Liam squatted down beside the girl. She only looked about fifteen, in his estimation, and she was definitely foreign – although not Oriental, like most of the girls downstairs. She looked Eastern European; maybe Russian.

Liam picked her hand up and felt for her pulse. ‘Well, at least she’s alive,’ he said, having feared from her pallor and the coldness of her skin that she wasn’t.

‘Look at that,’ Pete said quietly, pointing at the crook of her elbow where, in the middle of a livid bruise, two pinprick holes were clearly visible.

‘You do that?’ Darren demanded, shaking Tiny roughly. ‘Yeah, I bet you fucking
did
, you evil twat,’ he barked when she said nothing.

Liam got up, rushed back out into the corridor and opened the door of the next room. Finding an almost identical girl in there, in the same condition, he opened the third door. This time the girl was Oriental. Pausing only long enough to wonder why she was up here instead of down on the club floor with her sisters, he opened up the last room.

Michelle lay inert on the bed, her face as grey as dishwater. The freckles that Liam had thought so cute stood out like spots of dried blood against her skin. Her lips were dry and cracked, and the skin around her eyes was crusted with yellow gunk. But unlike the pinpricks on the arms of the European girls, her arms were laced with heavy track-marks, indicating that she had been here for far longer than they had.

‘Bastards!’ Liam hissed. ‘You dirty fucking
bastards
!’

‘Yo, someone’s coming,’ Pete whispered, putting his ear against the door at the end of the corridor. He could hear footsteps climbing the stairs.

Darren felt Tiny’s head jerk back and he looked down just as she opened her mouth. He clamped his hand over it, knowing that she’d been about to scream, swept her up off her feet and carried her quietly back to the first room. There, after punching her and knocking her out, he tossed her onto the floor behind the door and dashed back out to switch off the lights that they’d turned on. Surprise was the best element of a successful attack: let whoever was coming in have to step into darkness, then take them out before they realised what was happening.

Tensing at the sound of a key turning in the lock, Liam felt the shroud of calmness that he hadn’t known in a long, long time descend over him. Whatever happened in the next few seconds, he knew that he would be taking Michelle out of here – and if somebody tried to get in his way, so be it.

‘I knew we shouldn’t have left her on her own with the two new girls,’ he heard Steve saying, sounding as if he was angry as he opened the second lock.

‘It’s quiet,’ Vern’s deeper voice pointed out, as if Steve couldn’t hear that for himself.

‘Yeah, well, thanks for that,
Einstein
,’ Steve shot back sarcastically.

‘I just meant that she might have pressed the alarm by mistake and didn’t realise she’d done it,’ Vern said calmly.

‘I’ll tell you what, if she has, I’ll fucking kill her,’ Steve growled, pushing the door open now. ‘Dragging me back round here at this time of the fucking night, like I’ve got nothing better t—’

Silenced by Liam’s vicious punch which caught him flush in the mouth, splitting his lip and chipping his tooth, Steve slammed back against Vern. Shoving Steve back to his feet, Vern reached into his pocket for his gun. Seeing the movement, Darren planted his foot on the other man’s chest and sent him sprawling down the stairs. Vern landed in a heap at the bottom and started firing random shots up the stairwell, most of which embedded themselves in the wall.

Darren snatched the gun that Pete had taken from Tiny and was still holding as Liam and Steve started fighting in the corridor behind him. He squatted down at the side of the door and, reaching his arm round it, fired back at Vern. Hearing a thud when one round hit its target and the shots from downstairs stopped, he peeped around the door, feeling sick when he heard the big man gasping for breath.

‘Fucking hell, man!’ Pete muttered when he heard the same thing. ‘This is bad shit! What d’y’ do that for?’

‘Oh, what . . .’ Darren retorted defensively. ‘’Cos I should have just let him carry on trying to shoot us instead, yeah?’

‘No, I’m not saying that.’

‘Just shut up!’ Darren barked, feeling bad enough already without Pete making it worse. He might have been dreaming about giving the man a kicking, but he’d never meant to
kill
him.

Darren turned to tell Liam that they had to get the fuck out of there and winced when he saw him kicking Steve over and over as the man lay unconscious on the floor at his feet. He jumped up, ran at Liam and pulled him away, hissing, ‘That’s enough, man! You’re gonna kill him – pack it in!’

Breathing deeply, Liam said, ‘All right, all right, I’ve stopped. Get off me.’

Darren let him go and glanced sideways into the first bedroom they had opened. ‘What we gonna do?’ he whispered urgently. ‘We’ve got to get out of here, but we can’t carry them all out.’

‘Leave them,’ Liam said, turning and marching back to Michelle’s room. ‘We’ll take her, and ring the police when we get away – tell them to fetch an ambulance.’

‘Fuck that!’ Darren squawked. ‘I’ve just
killed
someone!’

‘The little bird’s prints are on the gun, not yours,’ Pete reminded him. ‘We’re all wearing gloves, remember? Just shove it in her hand and they’ll think she did it.’

‘You reckon?’ Darren looked at him uncertainly.

‘Yeah, man! Just do it.’

‘Fast,’ Liam added as he scooped Michelle up off the bed with the sheet around her. ‘I’ll take her down to the car. Check in his pockets for keys.’ He jerked his head towards Steve. ‘He’ll have locked the outside door, knowing him.’

Pete found the keys as Darren stepped over Steve and went into the lounge room. He tossed them down the corridor.

‘
I
can’t do it,’ Liam pointed out irritably, his arms full of Michelle.

Sucking his teeth quietly, Pete tugged Steve’s wallet out of his coat and emptied it. Jerking his head at Darren who was just coming out of the lounge, he snatched up the keys he’d thrown and led the way down the stairs.

Pete stepped over Vern’s body at the bottom and inhaled sharply when he saw all the blood. Darren did the same, but Liam was too busy trying to keep his grip on Michelle. Steve had indeed relocked the outside door. Finding the right key after several attempts, Pete let the others out ahead of him.

‘What you doing that for?’ Darren demanded as his brother closed the door and started locking it. ‘The police won’t be able to get in.’

‘No, but the staff will in the morning, then it’ll be their problem, not ours,’ Pete hissed. ‘And now we know what they’re running here, they ain’t gonna want the pigs sniffing round, are they? They’ll just get rid of the body and clean everything up.’

‘And what about the girls?’

‘Not our problem,’ Pete reiterated firmly.

‘I think it is,’ Darren retorted, snatching the keys out of his brother’s hand and reopening the door.

‘Are you off your fucking head?’ Pete snapped. ‘We’ve got to
go
, man!’

‘Just fetch the car round,’ Darren told him. ‘I’ll bring them out by myself if you don’t want to help me.’

‘And do what with them?’ Pete asked exasperatedly. ‘There’s already four of us. You gonna put the rest in the boot?’

‘If I have to, yeah.’

‘Get a grip!’ Pete said, dragging Darren away from the door. ‘Leave it open then. At least they’ll be able to do a runner when they wake up, eh?’

Grudgingly accepting this, Darren ran after him to the car.

‘Where to?’ Darren asked, firing the engine when they were all in.

Liam hadn’t even thought about that, but he knew that he definitely couldn’t take Michelle back to his hotel while she was in this condition. And Darren’s place was out of the question, because he and Pete lived with their parents. And he couldn’t go to Davy’s, either, because he didn’t want Davy to know that he’d had anything to do with this, given Davy’s connection with Steve.

It was starting to get light by now and they pulled their balaclavas off as they turned out of the street and onto the main road. Darren said, ‘You’d best think of somewhere quick, man. We can’t just drive around all day with her in that state.’

‘And you were gonna try and cram another three in!’ Pete reminded him, lighting a cigarette. ‘See what I meant now, do you?’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Darren snapped, snatching the cigarette, forcing Pete to light another one.

When he turned to offer Liam one as an afterthought, Pete saw the expression on his face as he stroked Michelle’s hair with her head in his lap. He nudged Darren, who shook his head when he looked at the couple in the rear-view. Then, a thought occurring to him, Darren said, ‘I know where you can take her.’

‘Oh?’ Liam gave him a hopeful look. ‘Where?’

‘Me grandad’s place.’

‘Nah, man,’ Pete protested. ‘He’s only been dead two fucking weeks, and mam’s talking about going round any day to clear it out.’

‘Leave mam to me,’ Darren told him. ‘I’ll tell her I saw the old man’s ghost – that’ll keep her away for a few more weeks. And you’ll have found somewhere by then, won’t you?’ This last he directed at Liam.

‘Yeah, course,’ Liam agreed, thinking that anywhere would do right now. As long as he had somewhere to lay Michelle down and take care of her, he’d worry about where to go from there later.

27

Steve was stiff and in agony when he came to. When he saw all the open doors, he remembered what had happened and sat up. A whimpering noise was coming from the lounge. Spitting out a shard of broken tooth, he got up and went in to see who it was.

Tiny was curled in a ball behind the door, the gun lying beside her as she rocked to and fro. Steve squatted painfully down beside her and raised her chin with his finger. Her jaw was badly swollen on one side, and there was dried blood caked around her mouth, and down her chin and neck.

‘Jeezus,’ he croaked. ‘You all right?’

She nodded. Then her lips turned down as the tears began to fall. ‘I tink Vern dead.’

‘Stay there,’ Steve told her. Going back out into the hall, he kicked his empty wallet aside and glanced into the bedrooms. The two new girls were still flat out; unused to the heroin, they would probably take a few more hours to come round properly. But the Thai girl was gone, and so was Mia – which brought a flaming ball of fiery anger rising up from Steve’s gut to his head. The rest were just cattle, as far as he was concerned; there to serve a function, and easily replaceable when they had outlived their usefulness. But Mia was personal – and he wanted her back.

Vern was in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. The Thai girl was on top of him, her legs stretched back on the stairs, her head twisted grotesquely around.

Grimacing as he gazed down at her open lifeless eyes, Steve tensed when he heard the squeak of the downstairs back door being pushed open slowly.

‘Steve . . . Vern? You in there?’

‘Noel, thank fuck it’s you!’ Steve called back when he heard the voice. ‘Get up here quick – we’ve got a problem!’

‘Shit on a stick!’ Noel blurted out when he saw the girl. Then, after glancing at Vern, his gaze shot to Steve.

Shaking his head, Steve said, ‘We need to get rid.’

‘What the fuck happened?’ Noel asked, staring at the girl again, whose legs were splayed wide. Shuddering at the sight of knickerless corpse-pussy, he looked away. ‘And how come the door was unlocked?’

‘No idea,’ Steve admitted. ‘Me and Vern were at the casino and Tiny pushed the alarm, so we came back over to see what was up. We thought she’d done it by mistake, because the door was still locked and it was all quiet up here. But some fuckers were waiting in the dark; I got lamped, and Vern got shot.’