Steel City 03 - Justice For The Damned Page 3

  They carried their captives to the farmhouse. To a casual observer the house would have looked almost derelict – its walls were studded with mould and moss; several windows were boarded up; rainwater dripped from guttering sagging over the porch. But a closer inspection would have revealed that its front door was newish, some of the slate roof tiles had recently been replaced, and all the unbroken windows were fitted with iron bars. Tyler lowered his end of Bryan to the ground, unlocked the door and switched on a light, illuminating a filthy, threadbare hall carpet and peeling wallpaper. A mildewy scent wafted out the door.

  Stan dragged Bryan inside. A muffled groan came from the gangster as his head bumped up several steps. Tyler locked the door and they made their way to a room that was empty except for an old chest of drawers against one of the walls and a chair in the centre of the floor. The chair was metal and bolted to floorboards mottled with dark stains.

  ‘Put that one in the chair first,’ said Tyler, indicating Les. ‘We might as well see if we can get anything out of him before he gives up the ghost.’

  Liam dumped Les on to the chair. He secured Les’s wrists to the armrests with steel handcuffs, and lashed his upper body to the back of the chair with a leather strap, cranking it so taut that he couldn’t slump to one side no matter how hard he was hit. Stan propped Bryan up against a wall in front of the chair. ‘There you go, matey, we don’t want you to miss the show, do we now?’

  ‘Right, let’s have a look-see who we’ve snagged,’ said Tyler.

  Liam and Stan peeled away their captives’ balaclavas. For a long moment, they stared at the unveiled faces. Then they exchanged troubled glances, before giving Tyler a What the hell do we do now look.

  In response, Tyler slowly shook his head and murmured through his teeth, ‘Oh fuck.’

  5

  Reece parked outside a two-up two-down terraced house perched at the top of a steep cobbled street overlooking the bright lights of the city centre. Staci led him along a hallway, its woodchip-papered walls yellowed with damp, up some narrow stairs to a room just big enough for a single bed and a wardrobe. An assortment of perfumes, lipsticks, eyeliners and other cosmetics cluttered the carpet in front of a rectangle of mirrored glass propped against the wall. On the window ledge there was an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts – since going cold turkey Staci had taken to smoking two or three times her usual daily number of cigarettes. She drew some thin curtains that barely kept out the draught from the rotten, rattling window frame, and flopped on to the bed. She patted the duvet, indicating for Reece to lie down next to her.

  With a slight hesitancy, he did so. He didn’t reach to touch Staci. It wasn’t only the meanness of the room that dampened his desire, it was the photos pinned to the corkboard on the wall above the head of the bed. They were all of the same young girl. In some of them she was only two or three years old, in others she was maybe six or seven. She had strawberry-blond hair with a slight curl, sparkling blue eyes, chubby cheeks and an ever-present mischievous gap-toothed grin. In most of the photos she was alone, but in several a woman was squatted next to her, arms wrapped around her shoulders. The woman was unmistakably Staci, but her face was fuller, her eyes brighter, her figure more curvaceous. And she was smiling, a wide smile that showed her gums. Reece had seen her smile, but never like that.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ said Staci, following Reece’s line of sight.

  ‘Yes. Like her mother. How long has it been since you saw her?’

  ‘One month and nine days,’ Staci answered without needing to think. ‘They placed her with a new foster family last week.’

  ‘That’s good. I mean, at least it’s better than her being in a home.’

  Creases of pain spread from the corners of Staci’s eyes. ‘I’m going to get her back. Once I’ve paid off Wayne and got on my feet again, I’m going to get my Amelia back and start being the mum she deserves.’

  Reece rested one of his hands across both of Staci’s. ‘I know you are. All you’ve got to do is stay clean.’

  Staci glanced at Reece, hope and doubt churning in her eyes. He squeezed her hands. ‘You can do it, Staci. I know you’ve done it before and relapsed. But that’s not going to happen this time, because I won’t let it. I promise.’

  Staci’s eyes searched Reece’s face as though she desperately wanted to believe him, to trust in him, but the life she’d led made it almost impossible to do so. And yet she had to trust someone. Bitter experience had taught her that she couldn’t do what needed to be done alone. The thought knotted her stomach. She lowered her eyes momentarily. And when she raised them it was as if a shutter had opened, only slightly, but it was open. Tentatively, almost cautiously, she leaned in to kiss Reece. Heat rose again in his heart and groin. But it was tempered by the feeling that the girl in the photos was watching him. He reached past Staci and turned the corkboard to face the wall. In an instant, the shutter clicked back shut.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Staci snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry, Staci. I can’t do this with her looking at us. It doesn’t feel right somehow.’

  ‘It’s never bothered you before.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because I didn’t feel like I do now.’

  Staci’s eyes narrowed. ‘And how exactly do you feel?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s hard to put into words.’

  Staci made a contemptuous little noise in the back of her throat. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Reece. You’re scared. Scared I’ll actually pull this off and get Amelia back. You don’t want some kid getting in the way of your fun.’

  ‘That’s not it at all.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘I…’ Reece trailed off awkwardly. He’d never been particularly good at expressing his feelings. In the past, he hadn’t had much reason to do so. Sure, there’d been other women – casual flings, even one or two serious relationships. But nothing had prepared him for anything approaching what he felt for Staci.

  A sharp light came into her eyes. ‘Tell you what, Reece, just forget it. Fucking forget I’ve even got a daughter.’ With a practised, mechanical movement, she peeled off her vest top. ‘So what’s it going to be? A wank, a blowjob, the full monty?’

  Reece’s thick black eyebrows bunched together. ‘Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not a punter.’

  ‘Aren’t you? You’ve paid for me.’

  ‘I didn’t pay to fuck you, I paid so you wouldn’t have to fuck any other men tonight.’

  ‘Well you shouldn’t have bothered. I’d rather be turning tricks. At least the punters are only fucking with my body, not my head.’

  Reece heaved a sigh. Generally he was good at reading people, but he was confused by the mixed messages he got from Staci. It wasn’t simply that she blew hot and cold. There seemed to be an almost schizophrenic split to her character. Sometimes she was as hard as the gritstone edges that delineated the southern border of Yorkshire, impervious to insults. Other times she would blow up or collapse into tears at the slightest thing. It was difficult to say which version of her he found more attractive. Or why he found her attractive in more than a passing-fancy kind of way at all. He’d been around prostitutes long enough to know they were nothing but trouble. She should have made him want to run away as fast as he could. But instead she made him want to risk everything for the chance to be with her. The power she had over him already was frightening. He was afraid that if he told her how it hurt like a physical ache to be apart from her, how he wanted to keep her and everything she loved safe from and uncorrupted by this squalid world they inhabited, then he would lose what little control he had left of his emotions. And he wasn’t sure he was ready for that to happen, not while she was still under Wayne’s thumb.

  ‘I want to be with you and everything that comes with you, Staci,’ said Reece. ‘You believe that, don’t you?’

  Staci looked at him with that searching gaze again. There was something almost pathetic about the puppyish roundness of his eyes. The harshness faded from her features but the shutters behind her eyes remained closed. With a slight nod, she slid his suit jacket off his bearish shoulders, loosened his tie and lifted it over his head. He caught hold of one of her small hands and tried to kiss it, but she slipped free of his grasp and expertly unbuttoned his shirt and trousers. He shuddered as her fingers, then her lips, traced the outline of the taut muscles of his chest. He lifted her head and kissed her. She allowed him to do so for a moment, before gently but firmly pushing him onto his back and straddling him.

  As always with Reece, Staci was the one in control. That was how he liked it. He hadn’t said so. She just knew. Years of screwing for a living had made her finely attuned to reading a man’s desires. They’d also left her unsure of what she wanted from a man. Physically, he was the kind of man she’d always been attracted to – dark, roughly handsome, powerfully built. The attraction was psychological too – at least partly so. In public, he gave off an air of brooding strength that made her feel safe. In private, there was a vulnerability, a neediness about him that she was less comfortable with. Amelia’s father had been the same. His love and need had been all-consuming until the birth of their daughter. No longer able to get the attention he desired from Staci, he’d sought what he needed elsewhere. The memory made her wonder whether what Reece felt for her was real and lasting or just a passing infatuation.

  They made love slowly, both forgetting – if only for the briefest of moments – the things that prevented them from giving themselves to each other completely. Then they lay with her head in the crook of his shoulder, sharing a cigarette.

  Staci reached under the bed and took out a little black notebook and biro. Inside the book was a list of numbers that gradually decreased as she turned the pages. She subtracted
her own takings for the night plus the five hundred quid Reece had given her from the previous number on the list and wrote down the new tally.

  ‘So how much do you owe him now?’ asked Reece.

  ‘Fourteen thousand, three hundred and fifty quid.’

  Reece’s voice took on an edge of bitterness. ‘How many more men do you need to fuck to come up with that?’

  Staci shot him a sharp look. ‘I’ve told you before, Reece, if we’re going to be together you can’t be asking questions like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Staci. It’s just that it kills me to think of you with other men.’

  ‘I’m not with them.’ She touched her temple. ‘Not in there. I’m with you.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘But nothing. I don’t have a choice. This is what I have to do. Either you get your head around it or this isn’t going to work.’

  ‘It’s not simply that I’m jealous. I worry about you.’

  ‘Well you don’t need to, I can take care of myself.’ Staci snuggled into Reece’s chest, pushing her fingers through its darkly curling hair. ‘Although I have to admit, it’s kind of nice to have someone worry about me.’ She jerked her head up suddenly, as if their conversation had reminded her of something she’d been meaning to say. Her mouth opened, but before she could speak Reece’s phone rang.

  He retrieved it from his jacket. The name ‘Doug Brody’ flashed up on its screen. He put it to his ear. ‘What’s up?’

  A deep, gravelly voice responded. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘With Staci.’

  Doug made a little snorting noise, as if to say, I should have known. ‘You need to go see Wayne. He’s dragging his feet about paying up.’

  The muscles of Reece’s forehead twitched. ‘I’m not sure I’m the best bloke for that job. You know how I feel about that arsehole. If he gives me any shit I might not be able to keep my hands off his throat.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck how you feel about him. It’s because of you he’s pissing us about. So you’re going to sort this out and make things right. Knock him around a little if you really need to, but nothing too serious. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And Reece, remember what I said, you’ve been doing a good job. Keep it that way and you might get in on the real money.’

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as I’ve spoken to him.’ A slight tightness in Reece’s voice hinted at some inner tension other than his dislike for Wayne.

  ‘Good lad.’

  Reece hung up. He stared at the phone for a few seconds as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to pocket it or hurl it against the wall. He returned it to his pocket and started to pull on his trousers. ‘I’ve got to go. Work to do.’

  ‘Stay a bit longer,’ said Staci. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘It’ll have to wait.’

  ‘It can’t wait. It’s important.’

  There was a troubled note in Staci’s voice that caused Reece to pause and look at her as she went on, ‘You remember I said my friend Melinda had gone AWOL? Well, she’s still not turned up.’

  ‘Refresh my memory. When did you last see this Melinda?’

  ‘Nine days ago. I was the last person to talk to her before she went missing.’

  ‘We don’t know that she’s missing.’ Reece’s tone was soft, reassuring. ‘She could be anywhere. Is she a local girl?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she came from further north. Leeds or Bradford or somewhere around there.’

  ‘What about friends?’

  ‘She didn’t have any besides me. Not that I know of anyway.’

  ‘What’s her surname?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Reece spread his hands as if to illustrate a point. ‘You see, that’s the problem. Your friend lives off the radar. For all you know Melinda might not even be her real name. Whor—’ He stopped himself from saying the word. ‘Women in your line of work change their names and addresses like they change their lipstick. So when one goes AWOL, it’s almost impossible to say whether there’s something sinister behind it or they’ve simply moved on to some other place.’

  Staci waved away Reece’s words with an impatient flick of her wrist. ‘I know all that. Why do you think I haven’t reported her missing?’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘I want you to do what you do fucking best! Sniff around. See what you can find out. Look, I know you think Melinda’s just upped and left. But you’re wrong. Something bad’s happened to her, the same as it’s happened to all those other girls.’

  Reece’s heavy brows angled down into an intrigued, if slightly bemused, frown. ‘What other girls?’

  ‘I don’t know their names or how many of them there are. I just know other girls have gone missing.’

  ‘Are you suggesting there’s someone out there abducting prostitutes?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m stating a fact. It’s been going on for years. Everyone who works the streets around here knows it.’

  Reece pursed his mouth doubtfully. ‘Nothing’s reached my ears.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because you’re not listening,’ Staci retorted with an accusatory ring in her voice. ‘You’re not even hearing what I’m saying. Melinda hasn’t moved on. Some sick fuck who gets his kicks out of hurting prostitutes has taken her. Am I getting through to you? Are you understanding me?’

  ‘Alright, Staci, take it easy. I’ll look into it.’ Reece took a notepad and pen out of his jacket. ‘So tell me what you know about Melinda.’

  ‘She’s a lovely girl, really down to earth. The kind of person who’d do anything for you if—’

  Reece held up a hand to cut her off. ‘Let’s start with the simple stuff. What does she look like?’

  ‘I’ve got a photo of her on my phone.’ Staci scrolled past numerous photos of Amelia until she found what she was looking for. In the photo a girl in her late teens or early twenties was sitting on a stool at a bar, bottle of alcopop in hand. Melinda was a skinny bottle-blonde with a pretty face marred by acne scars visible even through heavy makeup. She had smiling blue eyes and smiling lips. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder black lacy top, a tight black miniskirt and calf-high wet-look PVC boots. A silver stud in the right-hand side of her nose caught the camera’s flash.

  ‘I’m going to need a copy of this.’

  ‘I’ll text it to you.’

  ‘How tall is Melinda?’

  ‘Maybe a couple of inches taller than me.’

  Reece jotted down ‘5′2″, 7½ stone’. He tapped the phone’s screen with his pen. ‘When was this taken?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago. We were celebrating because she’d had an HIV scare that turned out negative.’

  ‘Is it possible this scare made her decide to stop prostituting herself?’

  ‘No way. It wasn’t the first time it’d happened. It’s an occupational hazard.’

  Reece couldn’t help but wince a little.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Staci, reading his expression. ‘I’m clean. I get tested every month.’

  ‘Have you got a phone number for Melinda?’

  Staci nodded. ‘But her phone’s been switched off ever since she disappeared.’

  Staci scrolled through her contacts to Melinda’s number. Reece punched it into his own phone. The call went straight through to an answering service. ‘Hi, Melinda, my name’s Reece Geary. I’m a friend of Staci’s. She asked me to contact you because she’s concerned for your safety. If you’re in trouble, whatever it is, I may be able to help you. Please don’t hesitate to contact me on this number, anytime, night or day.’ Reece left his number and hung up.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ said Staci. ‘I’ve already left her dozens of messages.’

  ‘Not necessarily. People in trouble are often more willing to talk to a stranger than a friend.’ Reece picked up his pen and notepad again. ‘Where did Melinda live?’

  ‘In Wayne’s flat on Wicker. She was his flavour of the month.’

  ‘And how was their relationship?’

  ‘Stormy. You’ve seen how Wayne is. But Melinda knew how to handle him.’ Staci darted a glance at the door. Her voice dropped. ‘If you’re thinking Wayne might have something to do with her disappearance, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The guy’s a nasty prick, but he’s not a killer.’