Little Triggers (26 page)

His choking screams and the man’s coarse, rhythmic grunting forced Larkin to turn his head from the screen. He thought he might actually be sick. He looked towards Swanson. The politician’s eyes were unfocused and his lips were moving in a silent conversation
with himself. Or his past, thought Larkin.

Larkin looked at their two captors. They were watching the screen impassively: eyes, faces, bodies motionless, like things of stone, guns still clenched in their fists. Impossible to tell if they were enjoying it, or if they too were repelled. Larkin knew, though, that if he made a bolt for the door they’d be on him like a collapsing brick wall.

Drawn by the sort of morbid interest that compels an onlooker to a road crash, Larkin’s eyes reluctantly returned to the screen.

Jason was putting up quite a fight. He was scratching and clawing at the masked man, with all the strength his small form could muster. His tormenter had had enough. He took the boy firmly by his shoulders, fingernails biting deep enough to draw blood, and brutally smacked his head against the wall.

Immediately the lights went out in Jason’s eyes. Free of the man’s steadying hands, the boy slid down the wall, leaving a glistening slug-trail of blood just visible on the black brickwork.

The man, panting with excitement and exhaustion, pulled off his hood. DCI David McMahon. His eyes were lit by a dark light, and his lips were drawn back into a feral grimace. He carefully moved Jason back onto the mattress. Then, smiling, he knelt down and went to work.

What happened next was the most clinical and all-encompassing form of lust and brutality Larkin had ever witnessed. Jason was sadistically beaten, his fingers snapped, his bones broken. He was repeatedly buggered. One man’s hatred and self-loathing was forced into and on the young boy’s body. As the attacks built to a frenzied crescendo, Jason began to regain consciousness; McMahon, seeing this, put his hands round Jason’s neck, squeezing hard, lips drawn tightly back over his teeth exposing white, bloodless gums. As the final sparks of life were leaving the boy, McMahon reached orgasm. Then the body fell, lifeless and limp, from the man’s hands.

McMahon straightened up and made his way round the room, like a victorious athlete doing a lap of honour in the Bizarro Olympics. After that, he moved to the camera, leered into the lens, and switched it off.

The screen returned to static.

As Grice removed the tape, Larkin realised his face was wet with tears. Grice noticed this and turned on him.

“You fuckin’ soft shite,” Grice sneered. “Look at the state of you.”

“I always cry at love stories,” Larkin snarled back.

“You soft shite,” Grice repeated contemptuously.

“Is that what your dad used to say to you when he was fucking you up the arse?” Larkin spat.

Grice landed Larkin a left-handed hook which connected with his cheekbone, knocking him off his chair and sending blinding flashes to his eyes. Larkin immediately sprang up and lunged for Grice’s right arm, the one holding the automatic. Slow-witted, Grice didn’t have the speed to defend himself successfully, and Larkin made a grab for the gun, yanking his wrist down hard, praying he could do some damage. Grice groaned, his hand went limp and he dropped the gun. Larkin swiftly fell to his hands and knees, reaching for it, but Grice countered with a vicious, booted kick that caught Larkin under his left collarbone and sent him sprawling.

He lay there on the floor, holding his injured shoulder. All he could see was the barrel of Umpleby’s automatic, pointed straight at him, the black tunnel an unblinking eye watching his every movement.

“Finished your lovemaking have you, boys?” Umpleby jeered. He turned to Swanson, who was so still he could have been struck by paralysis. “Not much of a mate, are you? Where’s your sense of loyalty?”

Swanson flinched; Larkin could tell that the politician was almost catatonic with fear.

“So this tape,” said Larkin, pulling himself painfully to his feet, “is this what you were looking for at my place the other night?”

“Yes,” replied Umpleby. “And we’ll pay you back for what you did to us.”

“What
I
did to
you
? You destroyed my CD collection. If anyone is entitled to revenge, it’s me!”

“You’re not in a position to do anything,” said Umpleby smugly.

“I can set a few things straight,” Larkin continued. “I didn’t have a clue until tonight what was going on. I suppose I should be flattered by the attention.”

“Be what you like,” replied Umpleby, sneering.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Larkin.

Umpleby rounded on him. “Why d’you think? We get paid. You spend all your life being ambitious, working your bollocks off to get to CID, up to Special Crimes – because they’re the tops, they’re the best coppers there are,” said Umpleby bitterly. “You specialise in murder cases because that’s where the prestige is. And then you get there and you find … what? Nothing. You notice other cops have got nice little sidelines going; Drugs, Vice, Robbery … all on nice little earners. Chances to skim. But not us. We just get less money and the satisfaction of a job well done.”

Umpleby sat down, seizing the opportunity for self-justification. “McMahon got wind of how we felt. And he made a proposition to us. Bit of looking the other way, bit of strongarm – that sort of thing.”

“By strongarm, I take it you mean murdering Houchen? And Noble and Harvey?”

Umpleby looked, slightly, embarrassed. “Well … yeah. Houchen – that wasn’t really meant to happen. And the other two – you can’t tell me anyone’ll miss them. We just – did a bit of tidying up. For McMahon.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” asked Larkin. “Covering up for a child killer and a nonce?”

“Did at first. You get used to it,” Umpleby’s brow furrowed. “As I said, we get handsomely rewarded for it. And McMahon’s takin’ too many chances. He’s not going to be around forever.”

“I suppose you’ll see to that.”

Umpleby shrugged non-committally.

“You’re telling me an awful lot,” ventured Larkin, his heart sinking as he began to realise why.

Umpleby gave a cruel smile. “Thought I’d satisfy your curiosity. Wouldn’t want you to die unfulfilled.”

“May I ask what will happen to me?”

Umpleby pointed out the window. “That’s where you’re going – you and your chatty friend. Up there.” He gestured to the ten-storey-high steel skeleton. “You’re going midnight bungee jumping. Without a rope.”

Before they left the site office for the long climb, Umpleby knelt down in front of Swanson.

“Wakey wakey,” he said and slapped the man’s face. Swanson’s eyes were startled back into focus, his hand going instinctively to his reddening and stinging cheek; Umpleby held the tape up, directly in front of his eyes. “Any more at home like this?”

Swanson shook his head.

“You sure about that?” Grice asked.

Swanson nodded. “Yes.” His voice was scratchy, as if speech were unfamiliar to him. “It’s the only one. I couldn’t copy it myself and I … I didn’t know who to trust with it.”

Umpleby nodded; that was the right answer. He motioned to Grice who took the videotape and laid it on the table before bringing the handle of his automatic down on it hard, shattering the case. He unspooled the tape from the casing, tore it up and dropped it together with the casing into a metal wastebin. Then he chucked the surveillance tape after it. He pulled a small can of lighter fluid from his jacket. After dousing the contents of the bin with the fluid and throwing the tin in for good measure, he struck a match, tossed it in, and stood back.

The whoosh of flame made everybody flinch. The excess fluid burnt off quickly and the bin’s contents settled down to be consumed, to the accompaniment of acrid smoke and a stench that penetrated deep into the nose and lungs.

Once the tapes had reduced themselves to an unsalvageable, molten mess, Grice got a kettle of water from the sink in the office and doused the flames.

“Of course,” said Umpleby, “we could have burnt this place down, left you inside — ”

“But you’ve done that once before,” interrupted Larkin, “and you’d hate to repeat yourself.”

“Something like that,” Umpleby replied. He wasn’t in the mood for repartee. “Now get going. I don’t want this to take longer than it has to.”

At first the climb was relatively easy: metal and concrete flights of stairs in a half-finished stairwell made for a brisk walk. Even the constant prodding of Grice’s gun in Larkin’s back – and Umpleby’s in Swanson’s – wasn’t too disconcerting. The worst thing was looking down; you were suddenly hit by a feeling of exposure, of isolation. However, halfway-up the stairwell ended abruptly and was replaced by a more temporary, flimsy arrangement: a set of wooden ladders leading to a platform consisting of heavy-duty planking secured onto tubular scaffolding bars. Another ladder on that platform led up to the next one. And so on, right to the top. If the feeling of emptiness and vulnerability on the stairwell was bad, on the ladders it was absolutely chilling.

Larkin began by keeping count of the floors as he made his way up, but exhaustion soon prevented him from keeping a tally. The fronts of his thighs and the backs of his calves were aching; his new suit and shirt were soaked through. The constant rapid upwards movement and the extreme height conspired to make him dizzy and lightheaded; his chest heaved. As his palms turned slick with sweat, his grip on the rungs became white-knuckled.

After reaching the top of one set of ladders, he stumbled onto his knees, sprawling over the wooden platform. Grice was right behind him.

“Get up, you lazy cunt,” he said, shoving the toe of his boot into Larkin’s ribs.

“Just a minute …” Larkin replied, glancing over to where Swanson and Umpleby were emerging onto the platform. They both looked as bad as Larkin felt.

“I said, get
up.
” Grice prodded Larkin a second time, harder. “Or — ”

“Or what?” said Larkin. “You’ll kill me?”

“I’m gonna kill you anyway,” Grice replied, “when we get to the top.”

“And you couldn’t throw me off halfway up, could you?” Larkin got to his feet, defiant. “That would be like premature ejaculation.”

Grice’s eyes turned to steel and his finger tightened on the trigger.

“Save it!” shouted Umpleby. “We do this properly. No fuck-ups!”

Grice reluctantly lowered his gun. Larkin grabbed the ladder, ready to resume his climb. “Let’s get it over with,” he said.

Larkin put his hands and feet on the rungs and climbed, going onto automatic pilot. As he reached the top of the ladder and began to lever himself onto the next platform, he saw in front of him, just within his grasp, a full-length, steel spirit level.

Working on pure instinct, he pulled himself clear of the ladder, reached for the level with his left hand and swung it round blindly.

Larkin’s arm was jarred to a sudden standstill by a dull thud. He looked round, down, as a harsh scream issued from Grice’s lips. The spirit level had made contact just above his left eyebrow, the steel edge embedded in the skin. Blood was beginning to bubble down his face. Larkin took another swing, knocking him off balance.

Grice frantically stuck out an arm, managing to grab the ladder as he fell backwards, landing hard on the platform below rather than sailing past to the ground. Larkin wasted no time. He threw the spirit level at Grice’s prone body on the floor below, and ran.

The planking to his right looked the safest bet, so off he went, as fast as he could; aware that if he took one wrong step he would plunge to his death. The boarding faded out after a while, leaving individual planks straddling odd sections of scaffolding. Larkin could hear voices behind him; he had no choice but to keep going forward.

He edged his way along a plank, conscious of the wind whipping his body, trying not to look down. No good: the more he tried not to, the more he wanted to. He did so, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a long, long way to the ground. To his mind, he might as well be walking on a tightrope, without a safety-net.

Suddenly, his feet lost their grip; looking down had made him lose his balance. Quickly he sidled to the end of the plank, arms flailing wildly, desperate to keep himself from falling. He jumped the last couple of steps, landing on scaffolding and gripping the
supporting upright so fiercely his fingers seemed in danger of gouging the metal.

Breathing hard, but refusing to give in, he swiftly worked out the odds. The scaffolding itself began to peter out in only a few metres; clearly, he couldn’t go back. The only alternative was the building itself. At this level, it seemed nothing but a tower of oxidised girders riveted together. No steel reinforcement, no poured concrete, no glass, nothing. Still, he had to take his chance.

His deliberations were interrupted by a couple of popping sounds in quick succession, and two corresponding zings from the scaff bars behind him. That made up his mind for him. Kicking the plank he’d walked along away from the building to slow his pursuer, he immediately set out along the first girder.

Determined not to look down this time, he glanced over his shoulder, and saw a dark figure edging its slow and painstaking way along an outer girder towards him, its progress hindered by a leg injury and the fact that Larkin had disposed of the connecting plank. Larkin thought of shouting at Umpleby, trying to put him off balance, but the surprise might have had the opposite effect: focusing the policeman’s mind, providing him with a target to shoot at.

Opting for caution, Larkin successfully negotiated the next girder, gratefully grabbing the upright that greeted him. But looking ahead he found he was out of girder and he faced nothing but a huge tunnel down to the ground. Lift shaft? Courtyard? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. There was no place to go but down.

Staying in the corner, where the upright met the horizontal beam, he lowered himself tentatively to a crouching position, and swung his legs over the side of the beam. Immediately, vertiginous pins and needles attacked his feet. Trying to concentrate on nothing but the task in hand, he forced his heavy breathing under control. He grasped the beam he was sitting on and slowly lowered his whole body down.