Consequence (10 page)

The shoe rack was small and homemade, but his weak weight couldn’t crush the minor object and he paid for that disadvantage with agonising pain. His spine twisted awkwardly over the furniture and his upper back bent over the back of the rack. He unleashed a muffled moan as he rolled off the rack and collapsed onto the hard wood floor, unsure whether to grip his crushed wrist or care for his twisted back.

Roach and Morris didn’t waste time. They quickly stepped inside the house and closed the door behind them. Roach strode forth into the rooms beyond as Morris stood over the crumpled ghost in the porch.

Pearce attempted to pull himself to his feet, using the walls and his uninjured arm to propel his body upwards. He slowly found his feet again and slouched against the wall, blinking away the pain.

Morris pounced on the stricken man again. He grabbed his injured arm and manoeuvred around the back of the scrawny individual. He twisted his arm up his back and forced him forwards, shoving him hard and slamming his face into the grey walls.

Wayne Pearce moaned as his nose snapped and began to spill blood and puss over the wall.

In an unkempt, smoky living room James Roach found a young girl lying drugged up on an old and tattered sofa. She looked no more than thirteen; her body was still unformed and on the slight side, her face a collage of spots, blemishes and dried-up makeup.

She wore nothing more than a tank-top -- the words ‘
Little Devil
’ emblazoned in large fiery letters across the chest area -- and a short Denim skirt, which had been stained and marked in various places.

He shook his head as he watched her. Her eyes were gazing at the ceiling, her mind completely lost to the world. Roach doubted she knew that he, or anyone else, was even there -- and by the looks of it, he thought, Pearce had been trying to take advantage of the fact.

Her knickers had been pulled down to her knees and her skirt had been lifted halfway up her pale thighs. Her arms were limp and dangling by her sides, even if she did know what was going on, Roach doubted she could have done anything about it.

Her top had been lifted to expose a black bra which had been roughly tampered with to expose one of her small breasts. Down by her side, inches from her dangling arm, lay an empty syringe. Roach sighed in disgust and quickly checked the rest of the house.

Darren Morris lifted the busted face of Wayne Pearce away from the wall; his broken nose spilled blood down his pale skin and ran rivers through his chest hair.

“I need some information,” he declared directly into Pearce’s ear before ramming his face into the wall again.

29

Howard and Lisa Price laughed their way out of the cinema. Howard had been talked into going to watch an animated comedy after they finished shopping. He had immediately dismissed it as a children’s film, but it had him hooked.

He listened -- with a smile spread across his face -- as his daughter recounted moments from the cartoon classic.

“I told you it would be a good film,” Lisa said proudly.

Howard nodded, “I must admit: I enjoyed it.”

“We should do this more often,” Lisa offered. “I’ve had fun. Maybe we can bring mum along sometime too.”

They looked at each other and paused before speaking simultaneously: “Nah.”

“Mr Price?”

Howard turned away from his smiling daughter and stared straight into the face of a young, unshaven man with gelled hair. He had an expression on his face that seemed to ask questions.

“Can I help you?” Howard quizzed, instinctively holding his daughter closer.

“I work for the Gazette,” the man said, retaining his questionable smile. “Enjoying a day out with your daughter?”

“I was,” Howard said bluntly.

The man winked at Lisa who stuck her tongue out, showing her distaste for the journalist. He smiled at her.

“No need to be like that Mr Price. I’m not really here on work terms,” he paused and pondered his words. “Well, actually I am…but nothing concerning you, I have an interview with a shop owner inside the centre,” he gestured towards the large complex. “Just routine stuff, you know how it is.”

Howard merely nodded.

“Seen as I have you here, do you mind me shooting a few pictures?” seemingly from nowhere he pulled out a large digital camera and fitted an expensive zoom lens.

“For what?” Howard demanded.

“Nothing really. News is a bit slow that’s all, nothing much happening locally…although I’m sure a few pictures of our most famous local out shopping with his sweet little daughter would go down nicely for our readers. Everyone likes the ‘
local man done good
’ story after all.”

“But you’ve run that story hundreds of times.”

“And have we ever failed you Mr Price? Have we ever printed lies, or discriminating stories?”

“No, surprisingly,” Howard agreed, understanding that although telling the truth wasn’t typically a newspapers’ concern, the local paper had been very kind to him.

“So come on, do me this favour,” the journalist pleaded. “Either that or our main headline tomorrow will be about a serial shoplifter with a fetish for rabbit food.”

Howard raised his eyebrows then shrugged and agreed to the journalist’s request.

30

Darren Morris kicked at the limp figure of Wayne Pearce -- his foot thudded into his unconscious chest and Pearce gurgled unpleasantly.

“We’re not going to get much out of him if he keeps passing out,” Roach said, his eyes studying the blood-riddled form by their feet.

Morris turned to his colleague with a distasteful look then he rammed his foot into Pearce’s rib cage. “I know,” he said in anger. “He’ll soon fucking wake up.”

He knelt down and grabbed the injured wrist of the scarlet ghost.

“What
did
he tell you anyway?” Roach inquired as he watched Morris push Pearce against the wall and hold him there with a strong arm around his waist -- his other hand still grasping the damaged wrist.

“He mumbled some shit about not knowing anything,” Morris replied. “Then he started babbling about ‘
not knowing how old she was
’ or some shit. Before I even asked about the shipments he was fucking telling me some bollocks about a girl on smack.” Morris paused as he pushed Pearce against the wall and took a firm grip on his wrist, “Then he mumbled ‘
sorry’
a few dozen times. I hit him; he blacked out…”

“There’s a young girl in there,” Roach ventured with a flick of his head. “Looks like he got her doped up then tried to rape her; he probably thinks you’re her father coming to castrate him.”

Morris laughed, “If he doesn’t wake the fuck up I might just do that.” He yanked Pearce’s wrist, pushing it up his back. A small popping sound echoed in the porch, followed by a muffled scream blasting from Pearce’s blood-filled mouth.

“Did you find anyone else in the house?” he smiled as the drug dealer trembled -- waking up to the horrific ordeal.

“No, just the young girl,” Roach said. “The place is a fucking sty,” he added with disgust. “For some reason there’s a sleeping bag in the bathroom, and it looks like someone’s been using the bedroom as a toilet.”

Morris forced Pearce’s head into the wall again -- blood poured from his crushed nose and a large cut on his upper lip.

“I told you,” the suddenly conscious addict uttered through a stream of blood, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know--”

“I know what you told me and I doubt very much that you’re sorry
Mr
Pearce,” Morris said. “But, luckily for you, we aint on fucking peado patrol -- we couldn’t really give a shit about you and some underage tart.”

Pearce sighed with relief.

“Although...” Morris continued with a tweak of sadistic pleasure, “What
we
have planned for you will be a lot worse than a pissed-off father with a machete and an eye for your crotch. If you don’t tell us what we need to know, we’ll turn castration into a walk in the park. You’ll be wishing your father had
his
balls cut off before the fateful day when he found your mothers number in a phone box and decided he would give wanking a miss for one night and splash out a bit.”

Pearce trembled like a vibrating toy in Morris’s strong hands.

“What do you, you-” he stuttered as he tried to speak through the blood that curdled in his throat, “y--you want?”

Morris yanked his head away from the wall and brought it parallel with his own. Blood flowed easily down Pearce’s face and he coughed it away from his mouth, spitting occasionally.

“Well,” Morris began, grabbing Pearce’s thin hair and pulling his head back so his eyes bore into the ceiling. “Word is, you’re a dealer.”

“Me? No!” Pearce blistered instinctively. “I don’t touch drugs.”

Morris rolled up Pearce’s shirt and exposed an array of scabs, blisters and fresh holes around a slightly blued forearm.

“And this is eczema I suppose?”

Pearce struggled to regain his thoughts. For a man of low intelligence he was surprisingly good at denying his recreational habits, but with a head full of sharp daggers, a mouth loaded with blood, a nose which felt like it had been crushed in a vice and a strong grip on his head, he was finding it difficult to cultivate lies.

“It’s--it’s a medical problem,” he declared unsurely.

“Looks bad, does your doctor know about this?”

Pearce mulled this question over before answering. “No, I ‘ate ‘ospitals. I’m ‘oping it will go away, it should be okay.”

Morris nodded and examined the scars. “It looks bad. Any medical condition like this could need immediate attention.”

“You’re right,” Pearce reasoned. “I’ll go straight to the ‘ospital shall I?”

“No time,” Morris said. “But, you’re in luck. I did a bit of Biology in school.” He held out his right hand to Roach as Pearce trembled in his left. “Scalpel!” he instructed.

“What are you doing?” Pearce pleaded.

“It needs immediate attention.”

Roach pulled a sharp shaving blade from his pocket, flicked it open and laid it on Darren’s outstretched palm.

He moved the blade to the scarred wrist. “No need to worry,” he assured. “I got this,” he lowered the blade until it touched skin, he could fell Pearce squirming in his grasp. He slowly poked the point of the blade into a fresh puncture wound, teasing the tip of the steel underneath the skin.

“OK! Stop!” Pearce pleaded in fear. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just please don’t ‘urt me.”

Morris smiled, flicked the blade closed, passed it back to Roach then grinned directly into Pearce’s face: “Excellent.”

31

“As I was saying,” Morris’s mouth was inches away from the coppery scented breath of Wayne Pearce. “You’re a dealer aren’t you?”

Taking the psychotic actions of his crazed captor in mind, Pearce guessed he was not a police officer. He’d be beaten up by the police before, but not to this extent, and none of them had ever threatened -- with full intent -- to slice open his arm. He reasoned that whoever this man was, he was not a copper -- but he was clearly insane.

“Yes, I’m a dealer,” Pearce admitted

“Has anything…
exciting
hit the streets recently?”

“What d’you mean?”

“New drugs, new hits, new ways to fuck up the youth of today; you know what I mean.”

“No,” Pearce lied. “Same old shit.”

Morris lifted his head and laughed aloud. He then slammed Pearce’s face into the wall.

“Don’t!”

Pearce’s bottom lit sliced open.

Pulling Pearce’s head back Morris slammed it into the wall again
“Fucking!”

He opened up another cut on his sweaty forehead, where his thinning hair met with, and cluing to, his pallid skin.

“Lie!”
again his beaten face was driven into the blood smeared wall.

“To!”
the plaster began to chip away with the succession of forceful impacts.

“Me!”

Pearce now dripped blood from over a dozen cuts on his face, he trembled in fear. Tears of pain poured from his eyes and mingled with the rivers of blood. Morris held his head back from the wall and prepared to bring the two together again.

“I’ll ask that again shall I?” he said placidly; Pearce’s body shook with fear. “Have you had any new drugs hit the streets?”

“Yes, yes!” he cried. “Some new pills. Not long back.” His words were stuttered and filled with fear. He spat a glob of blood and mucus onto the wall; it clung for a few seconds then began to slide a sticky descent. “Rocket fuel -- they mix ‘em with some other shit, strong stuff. Cheap to come by as well. They’re better than the shit on the streets now, plus we’re getting ‘em so cheap we can afford to sell ‘em cheap.” Pearce told all for he feared another meeting with the wall.

Morris smiled, pleased with what he heard. He slammed Peace’s face into the wall again and then quickly brought it back parallel with his own.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Peace spat a fountain of crimson into the air.

Morris shrugged, “Force of habit,” he said casually. “Where do you get your gear from?”

“Why?”

His front tooth split; another chunk of plaster broke free.

“Someone down south!” Pearce bellowed, spitting mouthfuls of blood and mucus on the floor.

“How much do you know about them?” Morris enquired.

“Not much,” Pearce hesitated and rushed to amend his words in fear of further redecorating. “I’ve been dealing with him for a long time now. I just don’t know him personally.”

“Do you know where he gets
his
supplies?” Morris quizzed.

“Sort of. He has links up and down the country. He says he recently met a supplier who knows some Dutch gangsters; they’ve been shipping the pills in for weeks. Only one person is allowed contact with ‘em though.”

“Who is that?”

“No one knows, or at least me and James don’t, they’re tight with their business.”

“Who is James?”

Pearce paused, realising his accidental namedrop. He struggled to form a lie, and then decided against it.