Betrayed Read online

  Nate dropped the phone.

  ‘Someone’s in biiiig trouble,’ the girl sang. ‘Can’t run to the police now.’

  He didn’t even hear her. The truth was finally taking root in his brain. This wasn’t just a case of mistaken assumptions on the part of the police, based on the fact that he was missing from a crime scene. The dumped car was the final piece of unshakable proof for Nate.

  He had been set-up. Kaushal’s people had wanted to make sure that Nate got the blame for the arson murder, and had done a stellar job of dropping him head first into a vat of shit. And it now made perfect sense why. Leave two dead brothers in a burned house and the cops are going to search for people who might have held a grudge, and eventually hear your name. Leave one brother dead and make the other look like the culprit, and the cops never look your way.

  Nate took a few seconds to let his mind settle. And a question popped in there. ‘What did you do with my car?’ he shouted at the girl.

  Now her eyes registered – not fear, but at least surprise. Shock that he thought she could be so deeply involved. Her tone was almost pleading when she said, ‘Hey, we left it at the warehouse, as instructed. I don’t know anything about who took it after that, or where.’

  Pleading, but not scared. Not in fear of reprisal. Just injured pride. Upset that she’d been falsely accused, nothing more. And he believed her denial. She was just someone on the payroll, low down on the ladder. He needed the people at the top. He was beginning to worry that this girl would not be able to help him climb towards them.

  ‘Are you going to eat that other burger?’ she said.

  He wasn’t. Appetite gone. Still angry, he turned and threw it at her. It struck her shoulder and landed six inches from her face. She grabbed it.

  ‘Now you have no clue what to do, do you? We were all over that warehouse, but I bet my people cleaned it up. A million pieces of evidence that could tell you why they did this to you, all gone.’

  He started the engine. Eight minutes later, he turned into a residential road. Where the houses ended, the road surface worsened and metal palisade fencing took over on both sides, wild scrubland beyond. Fifty metres later the fencing halted and the land opened up: the industrial park. Nate pulled up to the kerb. No-one around. He climbed into the back, carrying the two teas.

  ‘No sugar or milk,’ he said as he put a tea near the two empty burger wrappers. He stood right over her, staring down. In profile, she looked handsome. Rounded chin, sharp nose, and a bottom lip that stuck out a little further than the top one. He noticed she had a tiny portion of the right earlobe missing right at the bottom, as if an earring had been violently ripped away a long time ago.

  He sipped his tea, staring down. Her eyes turned to look up at him because her head had virtually no movement, already twisted far to one side because she lay on her front.

  ‘God, you’re not going to masturbate over me, are you?’ she said.

  In his pocket, the hidden goodies from the chemist’s: cotton wool balls and acetone-based nail polish remover. The idea to restrain her with glue had appeared while he was leaving the store with painkillers and plasters.

  He put down the tea and knelt by her head. He laid cotton balls on the floor and poured the nail polish remover over them. She watched, realising his plan. She said nothing as he mopped at the hair stuck to the floor, except to hiss in pain as he twisted and scraped and peeled and plucked at it with his fingernails, until the glue came away and she could lift her head from the floor. Hair got left behind. The rest was soaking wet. Then he backed off and pulled out the landlady’s knife.

  He waited until she had calmed down. When she had, she grabbed the sodden cotton balls and worked her glued hand, wrenching the fingers slowly, until she could raise them enough to dab beneath. Then beneath her palm. Minutes passed. The going was slow because of her busted arm. Nate said nothing, just watched. The girl ignored him. She got impatient near the end and ripped her hand free, which left skin behind and caused a yelp of pain.

  But then it was done. His enemy was free. She arched her aching back and gave him a look like she was trying to burn him up by telekinesis.

  ‘Don’t get up or try anything,’ he said, waving the knife. He backed up to the seats.

  She glared at him, then seemed to relax. Or to realise she didn’t have telekinetic powers. She examined her injured hand, then tried to run her good one through her hair. But it was crusted solid in bends and twists and folds. She looked like Medusa. She started to mop at it, crushing cotton balls around a tangle of strands and massaging, dissolving the glue. While she did this, she used her teeth to bite away jagged icicle-like glue from her hand, pausing after a minute to say:

  ‘Damar–’

  ‘Going to kill me for this, I know.’

  He watched, she worked. A few minutes later, she stopped. Used her jacket to dry her hair as best she could, then tossed it aside. She clenched her frozen fist and glue dust fell away. Nate watched. It was fascinating, for some reason. She picked up the tea and drank it in one go. The empty paper cup bounced off Nate’s stomach a second later.

  ‘Now that you’ve had some food and a nice cup of tea, we’re going inside. Try nothing. Give me your back.’

  She didn’t seem to understand. He held up a cable tie taken from the glove box, spotted when he’d put his supplies inside. One of a bunch. It was going to feel good binding her with the same item she and Damar had used on him. ‘Turn around.’

  ‘Your mother know you treat girls like this, does she?’ She shuffled around on her knees, and for that he was glad. Because there was horror and shame on his face, and he didn’t want her to see it. The mention of his mother had put her in his mind. He hadn’t thought about her since this had all kicked off. His father had left many years ago and Karen had been on her own since then, living back up in her Scottish hometown, where she knew people. It was a small community, and he wondered how they were treating her. For sure she had heard what had happened. How were they reacting to the news that one of her sons was a hunted man, possibly a mur–

  Pete. He cursed himself. How could he worry what she thought about Nate when she feared Pete might be dead? And by his brother’s hand.

  The girl turned her head and stared at him. No mirth in her expression, though. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she said. A genuine question. Real curiosity.

  He cleared his head. This was not the time to dwell on family affairs. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

  The left hand made the journey just fine, but her dislocated right arm barely moved. He knew the injury was real, but so was her desire to escape him. So, he grabbed both of her wrists and tried to force them together. She yelped.

  ‘This won’t work, you damned idiot. You’ll have to tie them in front.’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ he snapped. He pulled her left arm tight across her back, as far as it would go, and secured it to her left hip by slipping the cable tie through a belt loop. As he tested the bond by yanking, her left hand gave him the middle finger. He grabbed it tight in his fist and gave a little twist that elicited a barrage of insults.

  He opened the back doors and got out and hauled her with him, using that offending finger. She came willingly. On the ground, she winced against the bright morning light. It was an industrial district of daytime workers, but he couldn’t see anyone around. Heavy machinery thunked and whacked somewhere, and he could hear a revving car engine. He hugged her close to him, on his right side to hide her tied arm. Hopefully, to any distant viewers, they would look like a loved-up couple. For the first time, he noticed she was only a couple of inches shorter than his six-one.

  He waited for her to scream for help, but she didn’t. He figured she wanted the police involved just as little as he did. Probably a career criminal. They started walking. Again, she went willingly. Too willingly. He recalled something she’d said earlier, which she’d had no reason to share with him: A million pieces of evidence that could tell you why they did this
to you… His anxiety upped a level. ‘You’re too eager,’ he said. ‘Slow down. Maybe we should forget this place. You’re right. There will be nothing here that can help me.’

  She turned her head and her eyes were ten inches from his. He saw the concern in them, and the last jigsaw piece slotted nicely in.

  She wanted him here, wanted him inside that warehouse. It was why she’d been so willing to give this place up. Not outright, because that might have made him suspicious. Instead, she had given him the satnav clue like a piece of bait and waited for him to snatch it and work it, and think he’d been clever.

  And why? Was Damar here? Maybe their plan, if separated, was to get back to the warehouse and wait for the other, no matter how long it took. So, in they’d go, and Damar would be there, and he would be on his guard because a separation meant a problem, and two minutes later Nate would be naked again and cursing the day his mum met his dad.

  He hauled her to a stop.

  ‘Don’t you want to find out who killed your brother?’ she said. Clear worry in her tone now.

  He looked at the warehouse. A new day. Would Damar have waited around all night? Would he have sat around in the dark, not knowing if the cops might turn up instead of the girl? And if he was still awaiting her, surely he’d wait outside, so he wouldn’t be trapped if a team of men in blue came for him. That would be the way to do it. That was how Nate would do it. And there was no-one outside the warehouse.

  He had no choice. They had to go inside.

  ‘I bet this brings back memories,’ he said, and yanked her and started walking again.

  The warehouse was a squat block on the riverfront, three parts rust to one part corrugated metal sheeting. Fun could be had seeing who was first to spot a window that wasn’t broken. The riverfront was lined with warehouses, but it seemed as if all the others were in good nick, and the biggest gap between them was right here, as if the others had shifted position to get away from this eyesore.

  Out front was a road cutting between this row of warehouses and a football pitch on the other side, both barred by a chain-link fence. The gate for Saturn Printworks was a sliding affair whose wheels had slipped their runner, but thankfully some soul in the past had used muscle or maybe a bulldozer to open it a perpetual eight feet. Around one of the gateposts was a remnant of police crime scene tape, so they weren’t the only ones to have chosen this place for nefarious undertakings.

  The road to the front door was broken and pitted. Same bulldozer entering, maybe, or that long-ago crime had been some kind of artillery warfare. The BMW got itself six months closer to a change of suspension by the time it stopped before the big twin doors, also corrugated metal sheeting.

  Once the doors were open, the car entered and turned and stopped parallel to the front wall, and the driver got out. The driver was met at the boot of the car by someone else.

  ‘You dead yet?’ said one, slapping the man inside the boot around the face. The man stirred, moaned, tried to rise. In his hand was a spanner. He swung it, but the two people standing over him stepped back in plenty of time because his attempt to crush their skulls was weak, slow.

  ‘Out you come,’ said the female of the pair. She slammed a fist into his face, then both grabbed him and yanked. The man fell hard onto the dusty concrete floor, and the spanner skidded away.

  Nate kicked the spanner with his toe and watched it skid away. He then tripped the girl to the ground and barely held back from kicking her. He still remembered that punch she had thrown at him, although it had somehow been hidden in his memory’s recesses until this very moment.

  ‘I’m going to fucking kill you,’ the girl hissed, staring up at him. For someone with her hands bound behind her back, she got to her feet surprisingly quick. He grabbed her hair at the temple, hard enough to make her yelp, and hard enough to dig sharp glue remnants into his palm, and dragged her deeper into the warehouse.

  Three floors. Stairs in two of the corners. Pillars throughout. Nothing but dust and debris. There were square patches of torn-up concrete where print machinery had once been mounted. Against the left wall was a full-width mezzanine raised on steel pillars with a box-like office on top that reached almost to the roof, like a package jammed on a shelf. Underneath the mezzanine, the floor was gone and Nate could see a grid of metal girders, like an exposed skeleton. And by the foot of the stairs leading up to the office there was an area laid with plastic sheeting, whose corners were held down by breeze blocks. He dragged her close and tripped her at the edge of the plastic area, staring at what sat in the centre like an ornament. A moulded plastic garden chair, each of its legs jammed into a hole in a cored house brick. It set his pulse thudding.

  Nate was lifted and dumped onto the chair. His head was spinning, and he knew he’d fall if he tried to stand. But the bearded guy was holding him in place, so there would be no standing. And the woman was tying his ankles to the chair legs, and then his arms behind his back, so there would be no standing for a while now. If ever again.

  ‘Who?’ he managed. That was it.

  The bearded man got on a mobile phone. He paced, and the girl stood before Nate, folded of arms, smug of face.

  ‘We’re here,’ he heard the man say.

  Ninety seconds later, both were standing before Nate, looking down at him. The man had collected a duffel bag from the back of the van, and it was at his feet now.

  ‘Distinguishing marks,’ he said.

  The guy undid Nate’s trousers and pulled them down, exposing everything. Had a good look, then pulled them back up. Next, both of his captors undid his shirt and threw it wide, then checked his arms and chest, and leaned him forward to check his back.

  ‘Just this,’ said the woman from behind him, tapping his shoulder tattoo.

  He was hugged hard by the man and held tight while fire exploded in his hands. Things went vague again here, but he remembered screaming, then biting on a cloth forced into his mouth.

  ‘This little piggy went home and burned in a house fire,’ said the girl from behind him.

  Clearly, nine kin of that piggy rushed into the burning house to save him, and also perished. After, when the man moved away, there was a whirring noise, and this time it was the shoulder, the tattoo. The guy grabbed him again. Fiery pain paid another visit. Finally, he went out.

  But no. Or he was back. Both stood before him, grinning monsters, the engineers of hell. The girl held up a pair of lineman’s pliers, thick ones, industrial types. Wicked jaws. She put a hand on his groin.

  ‘Big here. Maybe we should pull this off. Might be a distinguishing feature.’

  And laughter.

  And after the pliers were forced into his mouth – blackness.

  There was dried blood on the plastic around the feet of the chair, and on the chair itself, stark against the pale blue seat. Behind the chair, sections of the plastic sheet were melted. Acid, dripping from his scorched fingers, trying to burn through the world. He strode over to where the girl lay and grabbed her hair again, two fists this time, and dragged her to her feet. He heard her hair crack and remnant glue snapped.

  He dragged her under the mezzanine, to the exposed skeleton of some buried iron giant. It was flooded, the grid of girders creating six square pools in two rows of three five feet across, like the iron giant’s abdominals.

  He was going to dump her there. Kill her and dump her in the water. Beyond the scope of whatever evil lay in him, but he was going to do it anyway. At the edge, he tripped her, meaning to drop her into the first pool on the left, but she leaped to the right at the same time as she fell and toppled into the pool on the right. She sank, resurfaced after a couple of seconds, and faced him. The water came to her waist.

  Right then, he realised, he was not the first person to have had this idea.

  They cut him loose. She dragged him by the feet across the dusty floor, into the gloom under the mezzanine. The bearded man was following. Then the man bent and they both lifted him, and the world spun, and he la
nded with a splash.

  He struggled to his feet, breaking the surface. He looked up. The girl had the pliers in her hand, and she threw them hard at his head. He managed to twist aside and heard them splash next to him. Then she was laughing. She raised the battery-operated sander that they had torn up his shoulder with. Raised it up high, as if for a hammer strike. He saw blood and bits of skin and meat on the sandpaper. She turned it on. Blood flew off the spinning blade. The whine hurt his ears.

  But then: ‘Shit. Wait.’

  Girl: ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Blood.’

  The sander shut off. Nate and the girl looked at the bearded man at the same time. She still had the sander raised above her head in both hands, like a sportsman showing off a trophy. The bearded man was staring at his fingers. There was a dark smudge on his cheek, as if he had wiped it.

  Girl: ‘You’ll live.’

  ‘Shit, it could be anywhere.’

  He started panicking, looking on the ground around his feet and along the path he’d walked, as if seeking something he’d dropped.

  Girl: ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘DNA. Shit.’

  They bickered. The girl was eager to get Nate all dead; the guy was concerned that a body found here would set the police searching, that they’d find his blood drips on the floor, and that they’d get all excited that they’d found their killer when that blood didn’t match the victim.

  ‘I’m in the shitting system,’ was the deciding cry.