A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (13 page)

“
Is that significant?”

“
I don’t know.  I imagine most people who go in for this sort of thing have it done over a number of years.  This girl would appear to have wanted a full body job in a very short period of time.”

“
She might have started off with a butterfly on her arse, and got addicted to the needle, or to the guy who was using it.”

Several floors
above where Matt and Tom were finishing up their conversation, DCS Clive Adams and Divisional Commander Gabriel Ransom were also discussing the case.

“
How exactly do you propose to sort out this abysmal pigs’ breakfast that you have dropped me in?”  Gabriel demanded.

“
I resent that,” Clive said.  I did not
drop
you in anything.  I mentioned over a drink that I was seeing Marsha, and you made it quite clear that you would not be averse to making her acquaintance.”

“
You told me that she came highly recommended by that two-bit politician, Villiers. Now it would appear that I’m on film, screwing my brains out for all the world to see.”

“
Only one or two of the investigating officers will ever see it, Gabe.  And they have been told not to bandy any names about, if they want to keep their jobs.”

“
Who have you got heading it up?”

“
A DI, Barnes.  He’s the best in the SCU.”

“
Can he be trusted to keep his mouth shut?”

“
I think so.  I―”

“
You think so!  Not good enough.  Not good enough by half.  I want his file on my desk.  I will not allow my career to be jeopardised by some lowly DI who is probably figuring out how best to use what he has on us to further his career.”

“
Barnes will no doubt clear the case, Gabe.  And another reason I arranged for him to be in charge of it, is because he is not ambitious.  He acts like the hero in some cheap novel; a selfless man driven to seek out and destroy all evil.  A useful tool.”

“
Have you spoken to him?”

“
Yes.  He is not a stupid man.  He has little time for authority, but has enough sense to know that his career is on the line if anything of a sensitive and incriminatory nature gets out.  That doesn’t mean he won’t take a close look at you, me or anyone else that was associated with Marsha.  He follows any and every lead.”

“
Would promoting him keep him on a tighter leash?”

“
I would very much doubt he would even consider a higher rank.  He still thinks that he can make a difference out there, and rates all of us as desk bound lard-arses; under-worked and overpaid.  Maybe in a few years he’ll see the light and set his sights higher.”

“
When this is over with and the dust settles, I want him out, Clive.  Just the fact that he knows what you and I have been doing on our own time is not acceptable to me. How can you demand or be given any respect from a subordinate who has watched you thrashing around bollock-naked on a whore’s bed?”

Arnold followed the red Porsche Boxter to the quiet mews where Lance Parker lived.  He parked his Tahoe on the street a few yards beyond the entrance to the mews, between two other vehicles in deep shadow midway between street lamps.  Got out of the 4x4 and was almost behind Parker as he reached his front door and turned the key in the lock.

Lance had the vague notion that he must have tripped on the steel strip at the foot of the door as he hit the floor and yelped at the pain that shot through his knees and left wrist.  He had instinctively put his hands out to break the fall, and thought that his wrist might have been fractured.

The door was closed behind him and someone gripped him by the back of the neck and pulled him up to his feet.

“
I want you to know that if you make any attempt to resist, I’ll kill you, Parker,” Arnold said.  “Do you understand?”

Lance could not answer.  Fear had immobilised him.  He nodded weakly.

“Good man,” Arnold said warmly.  “Is there anyone else in the house?”

Lance shook his head.  The house was a vacuum since his youn
g lover, Alan, had left him for a biker-type he had met at a gay bar in Croydon.

Arnold
quickly drew Lance’s arms behind his back, handcuffed him and pushed him through to the small lounge.  He reached around the man’s narrow waist, undid the belt, unzipped the trousers and pulled them down to the knees, to make any sudden bid for freedom impossible.  Pushing his captive into a chair, he closed the thick velvet curtains at the window and turned on a chintzy-shaded table lamp.

“
That’s better, Lance,” Arnold said.  “Now we can relax and get down to business.  I’m going to tell you exactly why I’m here, ask you a few questions, then, if I get the right answers, I’ll be on my way.  How does that sound?”

“
Fine,” Lance said in no more than a hoarse whisper.  But it was
not
fine.  He was petrified of the tall American, who seemed to be staring into his mind with eyes that were the same colour as dirty ice.

“
Before I begin, you need to be aware that I’m a little old-fashioned, and find fags offensive to my sensibility.  But I shall do my best to overlook your sexual persuasion.  My name is Arnold Chase, and I look out for the interests of Colin Westin, who I believe you know and have done some work for in the past.  How am I doing so far?”

“
I...I know Mr. Westin, yes,” Lance mumbled.  But he could not understand why an employee of Westin’s would attack him, handcuff him, and act in such a threatening manner.

“
You look a little bewildered, Lance.  I’ll get to the point.  You introduced Mr. Westin to a hooker, Marsha Freeman.  True?”

“
Yes.  We were at a garden party in―”

“
Spare me the incidentals, Lance.  You and this broad did a number on the boss. That’s what this visit is all about.”

“
I don’t know what you mean,” Lance whined in a high voice.  “I just...Ooof!”

Arnold
’s hard fist drove into the nerve centre of Lance’s solar plexus.  The top half of his body snapped forward, and his head lodged between his knees.

Lance could not think or move.  The pain was incredible.  He could not draw a breath, and felt as he imagined it must be like to have a Very pistol fired into his stomach at close range,
and for the phosphorus charge to combust and burn into his stomach.

“
Stop trying to suck your own dick and straighten up, Lance, or I’ll run out of patience with you.” Arnold drawled.  “I need answers.”

Lance was crying, but did not
realise that he was.  His nose was running, and his thin, waxed legs were shaking.  He eventually managed to take in shallow sips of air, and the pain decreased marginally.  He thought he might throw up, but didn’t.  He raised his head and managed to adopt a hunched position.

Arnold
hunkered down and put his hands on the other man’s knees.  “I’ll be brutally honest, Lance.  If you carry on testing my patience I’ll be forced to really hurt you.  The fact is, Marsha kept a book on her clients, and had videos of them in, let’s say compromising positions.  If that wasn’t bad enough, the brain-dead bitch attempted to blackmail Mr. Westin.  Now that she is no longer with us, the police are in possession of all her notes and tapes.”

“
Marsha is dead?” Lance wheezed.

“
Correct.  Someone beat me to it and topped her.  Did you put her up to it, Lance? Was it you who took the videos?”

“
Please, don’t hurt me anymore.  I swear to you, I had no idea that Marsha was doing any of what you’ve told me.  She was making a lot of money on the game.  I just recommended a few people of certain standing to her.  Nothing more.”

Arnold
had a lot of experience in dealing with people under duress.  He figured the little wimp as being too scared to lie and bring more grief on himself.  But he had to be absolutely sure.  An hour later, he was.  Lance was holding nothing back; not after having all the fingers of one hand bent back until they snapped.  Arnold had had to gag him to break them, knowing that the screams would alert neighbours.  It was time-consuming, and only mildly enjoyable.  Just a job.  When he had punctured one of the sobbing man’s testicles with an ice pick, and still not procured an admission of his complicity with the dead whore, he was finally satisfied that Lance was being up front with him.  The little photographer did not have the mettle to suffer so much and withhold anything.

When he came round, Lance wanted to die to escape the agony.

Arnold was all done.  “You do realise that if you contact the police over this, then someone will look you up and start where I’ve just left off,” Arnold said as he removed the gag.  “If you have any sense at all, you’ll put this down to experience and forget you ever met me.  I’m tempted to stick this ice pick in the back of your neck and sever your spinal cord, and then cut your tongue out. How does the prospect of being a dumb quad for the rest of your life strike you?”

“
I...I’ll never say a word,” Lance managed to say between the moans that he could not stifle.

“
Then you have nothing to worry about, my friend,” Arnold said, gently pulling the injured man forward and removing the handcuffs, being careful not to catch the fingers of his right hand, that were purpling and swollen up to a size that reminded Arnold of a favourite Frank stand in Detroit, where the smell of the sizzling pork sausages and frying onions hanging in the damp air of a January morning was a memory he had treasured from childhood.

Arnold
drove to Westin’s mansion and reported on how the meeting with Parker had gone, before going to the kitchen and taking a string of bangers from the fridge and a large onion from the vegetable rack.  He was starving, and wanted to smell that aroma again.  Funny, he thought, how breaking someone’s fingers could be the determining factor as to what he would eat for supper.

The
buzz of the machine and the background music pumping out of wall-mounted speakers blended to fill the studio with two of his favourite sounds.  As the needle moved up and down at the rate of nearly three thousand times per minute, Meatloaf was half way through
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
.

The
client was a teenage girl, probably a minor, but what the hell, he wasn’t going to turn away a slinky dolly bird who wanted to carry his art on her body for the rest of her life.

He was not using the chair.  She wanted a small Celtic design of a bird at the small of her back, just above the crack of her bottom, and so he had her lay face down on what he thought of as an operating table, that was little more than a padded gurney.
  Behind the curtained area at the back of the room, she was now tensing her buttocks against the slight stinging pain that the needle caused as it punctured the skin to a depth of an eighth of an inch, driving insoluble, micrometer-sized particles of ink into the second – dermal – layer of the skin.

He laid down a topknot from the back of the bird
’s head and worked quickly and smoothly to create a one-off freehand design, finishing with the tail feathers entering the crevice that led to her very centre.  He became hard and wanted her, but was not about to mess about in his own backyard.  Not that she wasn’t up for it.  She had slipped off her Nikes and Jeans without any hesitation, and the black thong she wore did not cover the thick curls of mahogany hair that grew up towards her navel and sprouted out from either side of the bulging gusset.  A lot of women liked to be tattooed on intimate areas of their bodies.  They got off on it, and sometimes he did too.  But this pussy was too young to mess with.

Alison felt tingly all over.  It was her first tattoo, and everything about the procedure was totally awesome.  The guy doing it was young, not bad looking, and very muscular. He wore an Iron Maiden T-shirt
– a band that her mother still played – and faded blue jeans that seemed to have been...Ha! Tattooed onto his body.

He had explained the procedure, pointing out that the fresh ink, gloves and needles that he used would be disposed of, and that all other equipment was sterilised in an autoclave; a heat/steam/pressure unit that killed all living organisms.

“All done,” Lucas said, patting her rump.

She pushed herself up to sit astride the narrow table, twisting to look into the large wall mirror.  She liked what she saw.  He used a hand mirror to facilitate a better view of the small, intricate bird design.

“It’s excellent,” she said, turning to face him, conscious that he was making no effort to disguise a healthy interest in her barely covered crotch.  She felt horny as hell.  “What do I need to do now?”

“
I’m going to apply a sterilised pad.  In a couple of hours you can remove it and wash the tattooed area with lukewarm water and a mild antibacterial soap.  Pat it dry and apply a small amount of some ointment that I’ll give you.  And don’t go swimming until it’s healed.  It will scab over.  Don’t pick it.  Let it fall off when it’s good and ready.”