Christopher Heffernan The Chop Shop (epub)

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.Michael pushed through the outer ranks.“Morning, Ward,” Corporal Hill said.“Have you seen this?”“Yeah.”“They still haven't put the damn thing out.Talk about hitting the bullseye,” Richard said.“Aviation fuel burns quickly; the fire would've gone out long ago.It's whatever they have in that facility which is still burning.Makes you wonder what it is,” Hill said.“It does, doesn't it? Major, can I have a word?” Michael said.Harris kept his eyes on the television.“You can have two: not now.There's a murder I need you to check out.Get going.Richard will fill you in on the details.”“Yeah, yeah, we better go,” Richard said, running a hand through his hair.They went outside to his car.“Want to tell me what's going on?” Michael said, as they drove out of the compound.“A guy called Jeremy Miller turned up dead.I know, dead people turn up all the time, but this guy was the son of a respectable businessman.Nothing international or anything like that, but he did have some money and a few connections with members of the government.Hey, what's wrong?”“Nothing, just wondering what happened to that other murder case you were on.”Richard shrugged.“Pain in the arse.Little evidence except for the body and no witnesses, so I handed it off to detectives from station three at the first opportunity.The bonus wasn't worth the time and effort.”“I don't know about you, but it would be nice to get something solved for once.It doesn't look good on our records, and it's bad for the bank account.”“Maybe we'll get lucky with this one for once.”“Maybe.Where's the body?”“Ealing, just off the main high-street.Dead from a slit throat.”An armoured personnel carrier was parked across the road, and its occupants had set up a cordon in the street.One policeman stood at the end of the road, redirecting traffic.Michael and Richard got out of the car and showed their identity cards, as they approached the unit.The policeman had his visor up, but a balaclava still hid his identity.He sipped from his canteen through a straw.“This way, sir.I'm Corporal Vickers.We had to shoot some wild dogs trying to eat the body, so be careful where you step.”He led them twenty meters down the pavement to an alley between two abandoned office buildings.The buildings had once possessed sleek modern façades of plastic, metal and glass.Now the façades lay scattered in chunks across the street.They stepped over old rubbish bins, piles of litter and two dead dogs.Jeremy Miller's body lay partially covered by a cardboard box of rancid beef burgers.“Burger Bonanza? I went there the other month and got food poisoning.This box of shit was probably what they served me,” Richard said.“I'm a vegetarian.Besides, you never know what they might use to make burgers these days.Horse, dog, cat, maybe a bit of human thrown in there as well,” Corporal Vickers said.“But you just plugged two animals.”“Just because I don't like eating meat doesn't mean I want to turn my flat into fucking Battersea Dogs Home by rehousing rabid filth off the street.Do you know how much disease Fido the friendly plague carrier here harbours? If it ain't rabies, then it's probably something even worse.”Richard pointed at the flow of blood.“Yeah, and now he's trickling down the drain.Pity the poor guy that will have to go down there eventually.”“How did you find the body?” Michael said.“What do you mean?” Vickers said.“I was the one who shot the beasties.”“The person, Corporal.The murder victim.This corpse right here by my foot.”Corporal Vickers screwed the cap back on his canteen.“We didn't.This homeless guy holed up on the third floor of that office saw it all.Apparently, a white van pulls up on the pavement and two guys drag the victim into this alley, so they can cut his throat.”“Well, where is he?” Michael said.“Did you bring him down to your vehicle?”“He's still up there.”“Why didn't you bring him down?”“He's on the third floor.I couldn't be bothered to climb up there, and he wouldn't come down on his own.”“Well let's go up there, then.”They stepped over the corpses and went back out onto the street, taking a left to enter through the office block's missing front doors.Glass and rubble crunched beneath their feet, and a handful of rats scurried into dark holes.Yellow emergency tape covered up the trio of lifts opposite the reception desk, and a number of different gangs had taken turns in spraying over each other's tags on the opposite wall.They climbed the stairs.“What do you think, Mike? They could have killed the guy a thousand different ways, but they do it with a knife.It's cheap, I guess, and quiet.”Michael nodded.“We'll need more than a tramp in an office cubicle to take this anywhere, though.”“You might want to show some respect,” a man shouted down at them.He looked down through the third floor bannister, but darkness hid his face.A single slither of light shone through one of the windows and lit the edge of his silhouette.“Sorry.We're detectives from Richmond station.I was hoping you could fill us in on what happened in that alley,” Michael said.“Sure, come on up.Maybe we can cut a deal,” the man said.They continued their ascent.“He's not dangerous or anything, is he? I'm not wearing body armour, and I don't want to get stabbed by some nut job hiding out in this dump,” Richard said.“The guy's a cripple.He'd do more damage to himself if he tried to kill you,” Vickers said.They reached the third floor and found the man had gone.“Hey, where are you?” Michael said.“Through here.Come on in and join the party.”Michael stepped out of the stairwell and into a corridor.The man called to them again, and he followed the echo of the voice to another ruined reception area for the segment of rented offices.A camp fired burned in the middle of the floor.The flames crackled and danced, casting sharp shadows onto a white wall, and wind blew in through the shattered windows overlooking the street below.The man leaned closer to his fire, beckoning for them to come and sit.An orange glow lit his weathered old face and wild hair.Crutches lay on the floor beside him, and he had removed his prosthetic leg to adjust the straps on the flesh stump that remained.“You live here?” Michael said.He grinned.A few teeth were missing from his mouth.“Yeah, I got the biggest house in all of London and nobody can be bothered to evict me.I can tell you what happened in the alley, but everything has its price.”The man spoke in a harsh voice, as though he'd smoked one too many cigarettes over the years.“Hey, arsehole.You see this on my belt? This is a stun gun.And you see this? This is a baton.You think life is hard with just one leg? Start talking now or you're going to need another prosthetic,” Vickers said.The man snickered at him.He removed the spit from its place above the fire and prodded at the cooked rat, grimacing as he burnt a finger.“You can threaten me all you like, but I don't care.Look at me; sooner or later I'll be dead, and even if I'm not, I've got no way up from here.I think death scares you a lot more than it does me.”“Ease up, Corporal.He's not going to be of any use to us if he's dead or crippled.What's it going to take to get you to talk?” Michael said.The man rubbed his hands together, and his eyes glinted in the fire as that toothy grin returned.“Well, let's see.Do you know that pizza place on the corner? I want the extra-large meat mash up.It's got to have the stuffed crust as well.Get a pen and paper, you'll need to write it all down [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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