Time to Play (North East Police) (15 page)

‘No way. Flat E? You’re the Luke Bryan fan?’

'I play it too loud then,' said Ali with a rueful grin.

'Never too much volume for Luke Bryan. I have all his music. Love him. Wouldn't have pegged you for a country fan, like?'

'Always have been. Dad brought us up on the likes of Don Williams and Kenny Rodgers. He always said it was music that spoke to the soul.'

Marlo grinned at him as he handed her a bag full of tins. 'Would you mind returning the favour and carrying them to my apartment for me? Could do without having to chase them all down the corridor.'

'Sure,' he smiled back.

Wow, when he smiles his face changes completely. It's like he's a different person.

She unlocked her front door and pushed the door open with her hip, holding it open to allow Ali past. 'Thanks, Ali. You wanna stay for a coffee?' It was an impulsive question and she felt her cheeks flush with colour. She didn't do that, ask men to her apartment for coffee. It was almost unheard of.

But she got a reprieve as Ali replied, 'I'd love to but actually I have plans. I'm just on my way out. Rain check?'

'No problem,' said Marlo, 'thanks for the hand with my shopping.'

'Least I could do seeing as how I knocked it all out of your hands. See you later.'

Marlo closed the door thoughtfully. In that few minutes she'd learned more about him than she suspected most people learnt in a long time. Ali always came across as a good inspector, but he could also be standoffish, distancing himself from his colleagues. Or so she'd heard anyway. Shaking her head, she decided it was none of her business. She never listened to the rumour mill anyway, she made her own judgements. And her judgement about Ali was that he was a good man. Turning back to the kitchen, she turned the CD player on and smiled as Luke Bryan's voice came from the speakers.

Chapter Fourteen

8
^th
November, 2205 hours – Ryhope, Sunderland

He sighed as he unlocked the door to the room. It had been a helluva day and the last thing he wanted to do was check on the girl. He wanted to go to bed.

He was tired right through to the core of his bones, the kind of exhaustion you got from being mentally and physically challenged all day. He felt the beginnings of a migraine niggle at the side of his head.

Maybe I should just leave her today; she’ll still be here tomorrow.
But he shook his head, if he didn’t do the breaks today then his schedule would be all to pot. He already felt behind because he was more than a day late doing the breakages.

Why do I do this? I could just stop, let the girl go and not get any more.

But he knew he wouldn’t: how would he get his teachings across if not to these girls who were so in need of guidance.

He felt his nose wrinkle as he entered; she’d soiled herself. He couldn’t expect anything else really, he supposed. He had been thoughtful, though, and given this one a bucket: better a vessel to hold the waste than finding it all over the floor again. Such a simple idea really, he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Still, it smelt ripe.

His memory faded back to a time when he was a child. He’d been given a dog off his mum, an old dog not a puppy like he’d asked for. It had grey all round it’s muzzle, and she’d said he could name it himself. It only took hours to realise that the dog had a chronic wind problem, the smell so bad that he’d found himself pinching his nose and trying not to breath. He’d quickly decided on the name Stinky, and once named, the dog and he were inseparable. At least until Stinky disappeared. He frowned as he remembered his brother had been the last to see the dog. He’d denied hurting Stinky but he’d always wondered. It wouldn’t surprise him. His brother had always been a nasty piece of work.

His mood changed and he found himself grinning as he closed the door behind him. He’d thought of the perfect name for the girl.

Pulling her from the cage, he said, ‘Come on now, Stinky. It’s time to play.’

8
^th
November, 2210 hours – Ryhope, Sunderland

Nita was finally starting to feel more human. The shaking had stopped, the gnawing hunger was easing and despite the fear she had for the man, it was less than she’d felt in the house. In there she wouldn’t have managed to survive much longer, she knew that.

She hated that her body had craved the drug so much though, despised the fact that she’d felt like she needed it, and worse would have done anything to get it.

This man might keep her locked in a cage, but surely it was preferable to needing brown liquid, and accepting the things the men had done to her in that house. Nita shuddered: it didn’t even bear thinking about. All she could do now was try and get away, find out where she was, and then see what she could do about her situation.

Hoping it would work in her favour, she flashed a quick smile at the man as he opened the cage door and extended his hand to help her out.

She glanced round the room he held her in.

The wall behind the chair held tools mounted on hooks, and a work bench that was dusty but clear of debris. It wasn’t a large room; the cage, the bench and the chair in the middle pretty much filling it, though there was a gap to the right of the doorway.
Something was there when I arrived..
.
something plastic? Where’s it gone?

The man applied the straps of the chair to her wrists and ankles, then went into the corner and turned on the video camera.
Why does he video me? I don’t get what he does with it. I don’t know why I’m here. If I could understand him, maybe he would let me go.

She heard him say the words softly to her, she didn’t know what they meant but they were the same words he spoke every time he came into the room. She felt his hand touch her cheek gently, then withdraw.

The explosion of pain she felt as his fist hit her nose was unexpected and sharp, and even as blood dripped down the back of her throat she gasped. This caused her to gag, and she coughed loudly, blood exiting her mouth at speed and landing on the man’s trousers.

Through the red haze, she heard him curse and looked up to see his anger. She pulled her hand back as he roughly bent her thumb until it cracked. Nita screamed.
Why is he doing this? Please stop. It hurts.

Blood poured from her nose, she felt its warmth on her lips and her chest as she struggled to breath. Her thumb was pulsing with pain, she didn’t even know if she could move it, but she didn’t want to.

She hadn’t even realised he’d unhooked her hand until she felt him pull her arm taut. Her mouth dropped into a wide ‘O’ as she saw him raise his other hand in the air, the hand that held a large mallet.

Blood gargled in her throat as she tried to scream, and attempted to pull her arm from his grasp. But he held fast and the mallet connected with a crack. She knew instantly the bones had shattered, feeling them crunch beneath his fingers as he reapplied the restraints, as if she was going to pull away with the agony coursing up her arm. Nita couldn’t stop the tears falling down her face, she could barely breath through the blood in her throat, and felt it thicken as her body tried it’s best to stop the blood flowing by clotting and congealing.
Why was he doing this? What kind of freak did this?

As he put his hand back on her cheek, she pulled her head away, shaking her head vehemently from side to side.
Please let me go, please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.
She felt herself whimper, her breath quickening as her body went into a panic. Within seconds she was hyperventilating, unable to stop the reaction as she struggled to draw breath. Black stars appeared in her vision as her panic grew, and suddenly, it all went black.

8
^th
November, 2230 hours – Ryhope, Sunderland

He hadn’t expected that; the blood flying from her mouth and covering his grey trousers with red spots. He knew they would wash out but still, it wasn’t pleasant. Maybe he should invest in some clothes just for use out here. That way he wouldn’t have to worry that someone would see.

Working methodically, he cleaned up the blood from the floor, putting the cloth in the bin under the work bench. He wiped down the chair and replaced the mallet on its hook on the wall.

Finally he opened the cage and placed a salad bowl, a sandwich, water and a section of a strip of paracetamol inside.

And now he sighed deeply. He knew he would sleep tonight. There was rarely a night he didn’t sleep, but he didn’t particularly want to. He had a sudden urge to go to a bar and get shit-faced. It had been a long time since he’d been so drunk he’d managed to force himself to forget everything. The last time had been about three years previously, and he’d been so drunk he couldn’t even remember where he lived. He’d sat in the taxi and giggled to himself as the meter had ran onwards, the taxi driver charging for every minute he couldn’t remember. Eventually the woman he’d picked up in the bar had told the taxi driver her address, and had let him go with her. He’d woken up the next morning in a strange bed, with a strange woman lying beside him and no recollection of how he’d even gotten there.

Maybe getting drunk was a bad idea. He had so little control over his life; he definitely didn’t need to lose the control he had over himself now as well.

He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the initial stage of the migraine progress into what was going to become a whopper. Locking the door behind him, he acknowledged it was time for his medication. It was sleep he needed, not alcohol.
 Decision made, he headed home.

Chapter Fifteen

9
^th
November, 0820 hours – alleyway, Sunderland City Centre

Ali pulled the car over alongside the two marked vehicles that were already in the alleyway. He and Charlie clambered out, signed in with the loggist stood beside the police tape that worked as a cordon, and made their way over to the body.

‘Wow, looks like he’s had a number done on him. How’d his lip end up like that?’ Ali asked the pathologist, Nigel Evans, who had just arrived at the scene. He’d seen the gaping wound across the male’s neck, of course, but there was just something off about his lip. It was hanging, looked like it had been ripped.

‘Give me a few minutes to look over him. Don’t want to jump to any assumptions.’

Ali nodded and made his way over to the uniformed sergeant. ‘Harry, how’s things? What have we got here then?’

‘Body dump I reckon, gov. His throat’s been cut, but no way he bled out here. ID in his pocket says he’s Daniel Burton, lives over Southwick way. I’ve got someone heading to the home address now, unless you wanna do the notification?’

‘No thanks, I’ll let your guy handle that. I’ll see what happens next then head over later. He married, do we know?’

‘Not married, no, but he lives with his girlfriend and their baby. PNC shows warnings for drugs, but that was a few years back.’

‘No problem, we’ll be looking into every angle. Wonder who he pissed off? His face is a mess.’

‘Rats,’ muttered Harry under his breath.

‘Rats? What do you mean?’

‘Some of the wounds look like gnaw marks. Attended a death years ago. Rat breeder had had a stroke in the shed where he kept the horrid little things. He was still alive and they’d just eaten him. He was found a few days later. When I got there a huge white one crawled out of a hole in his gut. Was disgusting, gov. He’d cared for them since they were babies, always handled them and made sure they were friendly. Then they turned on him in his moment of need. He haemorrhaged and bled out from the wounds .’

Ali felt his lip curl, ‘Rats? That’s gross. You really think that’s what happened to him?’

‘Honestly don’t know, gov. Looks that way to me. Guess we’ll find out in the PM.’

Ali nodded thoughtfully. He hoped it would end up being later this afternoon and not tomorrow. He was finally on his rest days and he had every intention of hiding away, possibly even going home to see his mum. Alex was due back today so there was no reason for him not to go. He’d even been invited for dinner at Cass and Alex’s cottage that evening.

Making his way back over to the body, he waited for Nigel to finish looking around.

‘I’ve got a slot this afternoon for a PM as long as the mortuary technician can get prepped in time. It’ll be 2 p.m. at Sunderland Royal.’ Nigel’s voice was efficient and to the point as he addressed Alex.

‘Initial thoughts, Nigel?’

‘Looks to me like he’s been gnawed on by something, possibly rodents of some kind. He has some bruising and lacerations consistent with being beaten, but I’d hazard a guess he bled out from the neck wound. We’ll know more after the PM.’

Ali turned and made his way back over to Charlie who was stood talking to Deena, one of the CSIs.

‘Hey, Deena. Anything to tell me?’

‘No, not really. I’ve seized the plastic sheeting he was dumped in. Chemical lab might get some prints off the plastic itself. Couldn’t really touch the body ’til Nigel had been so nothing there yet, but Kev, Johnny and Faith are doing the PM later. You gunna be there?’

‘Aye I’ll try and make it over. Just while I’ve got you, anything come back yet from the wee lassie we found over Washington? There wasn’t much to work with I know. We haven’t even managed to come up with an ID as yet.’

‘No. To be honest the samples I recovered at the scene were all general debris stuff, I doubt very much it’ll come to anything. More than likely it was just from people walking along the river.’

‘Bummer. I’ve copied you in on the email regarding the strategy meeting, haven’t I?’

‘Honestly couldn’t tell you, Ali. Haven’t had time to scratch my backside today let alone read any emails. This is my second job already, I had a list of about ten to head out with when this came in. I’ve got staff drafted in from the Volume Crime Team dealing with a spate of theft from vehicles over Silksworth; some little scrote’s been on an allotment rampage in Houghton that Kevin’s gone out to, and Cass is on her way here after being summoned in the early hours and dealing with a rape case.’