Tania Carver - Choked

‘She … was involved in an accident. A shooting accident. I did what I could for her, tried to rescue her, rebuild her … I did what I could.’

‘And she’s dead?’

‘She’s … no longer with us.’

She knew what he meant.

And the more she became what he wanted her to be, the more he told her. Dee had been his sister. Did she have anything to say about that? She didn’t. In fact it just gave her an added frisson. The shooting wasn’t accidental. It had been planned. She had guessed as much. And did she mind? Why would she mind?

‘Perfect,’ he said.

And they were.

Now she wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of their relationship. No matter what it took.

She stepped into the house. It stank of decay, neglect. Corruption. The air felt cold and damp. Things darted away out of the corners of her eyes. She moved forward to where Michael had told her to go. Into the main living room.

She would be there, he had said. After what had happened, she wouldn’t be anywhere else.

She stepped into the living room. Something moved at the far end, over by the wall. Something bigger than a rat. Dee fought the urge to turn, to run away. Stood her ground.

‘So.’ A cracked voice came out of the darkness. ‘The second wife meets the first wife. At last.’

A light went on. Sharp, blinding after such darkness. Dee screwed her eyes tight shut. Opened them again slowly. The figure before her was holding a gun on her. She looked at that, felt fear. Then looked at the figure itself.

And her stomach churned.

‘DI May.’ The handshake was firm, strong. Balding, grey-haired and bearded, DI May seemed like an old-school copper. His accent was rough, working-class Essex tempered by learning and experience.

Mickey gave his own name. Anni did likewise. ‘Right,’ Mickey said. ‘What have we got?’

‘We believe DS James and DC Shah were working the same street as you two,’ May said.

‘Yeah,’ confirmed Mickey. ‘Couple of murders, missing person, kidnapped child and the Sloane family involved somehow.’

‘Ah,’ said May, smiling, ‘Suffolk’s Howard Hughes. Local royalty. The untouchables.’

‘So we believe,’ said Anni.

They were standing at the gates to the freight port at Harwich. The mist had returned, and with it the cold. Mickey and Anni were shivering. The parking bays were virtually empty, the lorries and trucks all loaded and left. Ahead of them stood berthed cargo ships and tankers. The floodlights ringing the walls shone down hard, making the scene look bleak and desolate.

May was bundled up inside a quilted jacket, but he still looked cold. ‘And you … what?’ he said to Mickey. ‘What happened exactly?’

Mickey told him about the phone call. The message. May nodded.

‘Well we’ve pinpointed DC Shah’s GPS signal. That’s a bonus. Weak. So we’d better get a move on.’

‘Whereabouts is it?’ asked Mickey.

May pointed at one of the cargo ships. ‘Over there, apparently.’

‘The ship?’ asked Anni. ‘That one there?’

May nodded. ‘Far as we can make out. Had our experts in analysing it. Wanted to get it checked as quickly as possible before his battery went.’

‘Who’s the ship registered to?’ asked Mickey.

May smiled. ‘Good question. Sloane Holdings.’

‘I think that confirms it, then. Do we need a warrant?’

‘Acting on information received, DS Philips.’ May looked round. There were another three officers with him. Both looking as thrilled as Mickey and Anni to have been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.

‘You ready?’ he said.

They were.

‘Let’s go, then.’

‘Where is he, then?’

The woman was speaking, but Dee wasn’t hearing her. She was staring, open-mouthed. The woman before her, the one who used to be Dee Sloane, was completely naked.

‘Where is he?’ Screaming now.

Dee managed to recover enough from the sight in front of her to force some words out. ‘He’s … busy. He sent me.’

‘Busy? Busy?’ Body vibrating in anger. ‘Too busy to see me? Bastard … ’ The words were spat out. She moved closer to Dee. ‘Too busy.’ She smiled. ‘Like what you see? Do you?’

Dee was trying not to look, wanted to turn her head away, close her eyes. Anything. But she kept on staring, eyes drawn to the sight before her as to a car crash. Wanting to see the mutilation, the destruction. Wanting to say, thank God that’s not me there.

‘This is what it looks like. When you’ve been brought back from the dead … ’

Her body had once been female. There was only one breast, and even that looked mangled. In place of the other one was a collection of grafted skin and scar tissue, by turns smooth and ridged, in varying shades of red. The scars stretched down the side of her body, creating a swirling vortex of flesh on her side.

But it was her face that was the worst. Her face and her head.

She was bald but for a few odd tufts of hair sprouting in between healed scars and grafts. Her skull was uneven, misshapen, covered in crests and craters, like a shattered egg that had been put together again without the instruction manual. Without make-up, the lines on her patchwork skin were vivid and throbbing. She had taken out the partial palate that held her false teeth, letting her mouth collapse in on itself on one side. One ear was just a curled stub.

And her hand, clawed and gnarled, was shaking as it held the gun on Dee.

‘This is what he did to me … Take a good look, go on. Stare. This is his creation. This is what he made of me.’

Dee’s mouth worked furiously but no sound emerged. No words seemed adequate.

‘And he’s not coming … ’ Amy shook her head. ‘Not coming … ’ She dropped her head and with it the light.

Dee thought she would be thankful that the beam had been taken away from the deformed body, but the shadows it cast made the sight even worse.

Amy looked up once more. ‘Why you? I don’t want to see you. Why you and not him?’

Dee felt she had to answer this time. ‘Because I … I wanted to see you.’

‘You wanted to see me?’ Her voice was getting louder. ‘You wanted to see me?’ She stepped closer. ‘Well now you’ve seen me. Look. Go on, look.’ She swung the torch over her body again. ‘And don’t stop looking.’ Her voice reduced down to a hiss now. ‘This will be you. Oh yes … this will be you’

‘What … what d’you mean?’

‘When he gets bored of you. When he wants rid of you.’

Amy stepped closer. Reached out a hand.

‘I want to touch you … ’

Dee tried hard not to scream.

‘Here.’ Sloane held out his hand. A thick pile of notes in it.

The money was taken without even a smile.

‘Enough?’ Sloane knew the answer already. He wouldn’t have asked the question otherwise.

The other man nodded, as expected. ‘Quite sufficient, thank you.’

‘Good.’

Sloane looked round. Listened. He could hear nothing but the low hum of the ship’s motors as they turned over. The slap of water against the side of the hull. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.

Good.

The ship’s captain was a man used to asking no questions. He had as many blind eyes to turn as Sloane had notes to give him. Working for the Sloanes, he had discovered it a useful commodity.

Sloane watched the money disappear inside the man’s coat. ‘You know what to do?’

The captain nodded. ‘Same as usual. I know.’

‘Yes, I know you know.’ Sloane’s eyes lit up with annoyance. ‘Humour me. Imagine I’m the man paying you and I want to make sure you know what’s happening. Go over it one more time.’