Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

Fifteen yards, ten yards, nearer and nearer. He quickened his pace, the thrill of the hunt making him want to laugh out loud.

Then the skinny bitch across the street screamed a warning and Dora looked up and saw him, her eyes bulging as they caught sight of the blade.

Panner lifted the razor and charged.

With a scream of her own, she turned and ran, only just managing to keep her balance in her heels. She dodged between two cars and stumbled into the road, swinging her handbag round and catching him in the face as he caught up with her. The blow threw him off kilter, and hurt too. It was harder than he’d thought a little crack whore like her capable of. He lashed out with the razor but she was already running again, making for the other side of the street and what she probably thought was safety.

But her heels let her down. She stumbled in them, trying to run too fast, and her legs went from under her. She fell forwards, landing hard on the tarmac, screaming for help with all the power her lungs could muster.

Too late, bitch. Too fucking late. Shouldn’t have been so busy counting the money like a greedy, selfish whore.

As she tried to scramble to her feet, he grabbed her by her long hair and pulled her roughly upwards, turning her round so she was facing him. She lashed out desperately, catching him in the shin, and he reflexively let go, yelping in pain. She started running again, but he was on her before she could get two paces, and this time he yanked her back with such force that her head ended up tight against his chest.

‘Please!’ he heard her cry out. Panner liked that, the terror in her voice. It made it so much better.

Her hand went up to protect the side of her face closest to the razor, and the blade sliced into the fingers as it tried to find the tender flesh of her cheek and mouth and do some real damage. She screamed, this time in pain as the blood poured onto the palm of her hand, and tried to move her head, knowing full well what was going to come next. Even amid the animal fear, she was vividly aware of the implications disfigurement would have on her career and her living situation. Ahmet wouldn’t go near her, her daughter would cringe when she looked at the deep, ugly slashes, there for the rest of her life as a testimony to her foolishness for thinking she could ever escape him. The tears were stinging her eyes. She couldn’t move. His grip was like iron. She shut them tight and clenched her teeth, waiting for the worst. For the final painful humiliation her life had always been coming to.

But it didn’t happen.

Instead, from somewhere behind her Dora heard the sound of footsteps and an angry female shout. ‘Leave her alone, you fucking bastard!’ There was the tight hiss of aerosol being sprayed, and then it was Panner’s turn to cry out.

‘You bitch, what you done? My eyes! My muthafucking eyes!’

He let go of Dora and she pulled away, looking down at the blood pumping steadily through the deep cuts on all four of her fingers and splattering loudly on the ground. Panner still had the razor but his hands were pressed against his eyes and he was dancing round in circles, yelling and cussing. Her rescuer, a working girl she knew only as Saph, and who’d been across the road earlier, now kneed him hard in the groin, and he fell to his knees.

‘Ohmigod, he’s hurt me. The bastard’s cut my hand!’

A car was coming down the street. They saw the blue lights on the roof and both recognized what it represented.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Saph, grabbing Dora by her good arm, and whistling as she saw the extent of the bleeding. ‘I’ll get you down to St Mary’s. You’re going to be all right.’

They ran into the darkness, leaving Panner incapacitated in the middle of the road.

The cop car stopped in front of him and two officers got out.

Stegs made the call to Flanagan’s mobile from the phone box down the road from the One-Eyed Admiral where, as Tam, he’d stopped in earlier for a restful couple of pints, and to get hold of some speed.

Flanagan picked up before the first ring had finished, and Stegs spoke into the voice-suppressor, introducing himself as the man who had his daughter and asking if he had the address Jack Merriweather was residing at. Flanagan told him to hang on, and he heard the DCS’s wife’s voice in the background asking if it was Judy. She didn’t sound unduly concerned, which meant that he’d kept his mouth shut to her about the kidnap. Good. The last thing he needed was panic. Flanagan told her that it wasn’t and that he wasn’t expecting a call from her for a couple of days yet. His voice was heavily tinged with a forced casualness, and Stegs was surprised that his missus didn’t suspect something. Clearly she had her husband’s non-talent for detective work.

After a few seconds, Stegs heard the sound of a door shutting. ‘All right,’ said Flanagan, breathing heavily into the phone. ‘Is that you, Jenner?’

Christ, thought Stegs. How the hell had he guessed that? Boyd must have talked. ‘Who’s Jenner?’ he demanded.

‘If it’s you, I’ll have you fucking killed. Now, where’s my daughter?’

‘I don’t know who you think I am, but whoever it is, you’re wrong. Now, you change your fucking attitude or I might have to take some unpleasant measures.’ That ought to shut him up. Flanagan had never exactly been Braveheart.

It did. ‘Look, please, don’t do anything to hurt her. She’s my only child.’

‘At the moment, she’s safe and well, I promise you that.’

‘I need some guarantee that she’s OK. Please?’

‘Nothing’ll happen to her as long as, number one: you give me that address; number two: it’s the right one; and, number three, Merriweather’s there when we send our people round to deal with him.’

‘Listen, I can’t get involved in any of this. You’ve got to understand, I’m a police officer. I can’t condone murder.’

‘You will be condoning it if you do nothing,’ Stegs told him evenly through the voicebox. ‘And it’ll be the murder of your daughter.’

The words hit home, just like he knew they would. It was cruel what he was doing. Ruthless. Playing with a father’s love for his only daughter. But Stegs took comfort in the fact that, apart from a very bad hangover, Judy wasn’t going to suffer as a result of what had happened to her, and certainly wasn’t going to die. Still, he thought, Flanagan might. The bastard sounded stressed to the nines, and he wasn’t what you’d call the fittest and healthiest of blokes.

‘I have the address,’ Flanagan said finally, with a loud sigh, ‘but I need some guarantee she’s alive. I’ve told you that.’

‘I’ve got the best guarantee of all: there’s no point in killing her if you do what you’re told. She’s perfectly well, hasn’t seen her captors’ faces, and does not have a single clue as to who might be behind her abduction. As soon as we have confirmation that the address is correct, and have taken steps to deal with Mr Merriweather, your daughter will be released. If you give me the correct address now, that will be in less than twenty-four hours. You will receive instructions on where to find her.’

Flanagan sighed again. ‘Is Neil Vamen behind this?’

‘Don’t keep asking questions. What’s the address?’

‘I don’t want anyone else hurt. No police officers.’

‘How many are there guarding him?’

‘There are two men there round the clock. I don’t want-’

‘I know what you don’t want. No-one else’ll get hurt, and if they do it’ll be their fault, not yours. Now, give me the address.’

Flanagan reeled it out, speaking slowly and painfully as if each word was a sharpened dart hitting him right in the arse. Stegs wrote it down in his spidery handwriting, then asked how to get to it.