Chasing the Dark (14 page)

CHAPTER 18

V
iktor had done talking. The next time I raised my head, one of his snakeskin boots squashed it into the carpet. OK, so I should have been counting every bump and turn, working out where we were headed. But you try driving anywhere scared witless, with your face rammed into the floor and every brake squeal triggering nightmare flashes of the car crash that killed your mum. Add in the sickening sway of the suspension and it was all I could do not to throw up and drown in my own puke. So it could have been one hour or five, ten miles or fifty by the time the car slowed, nosed sharply downhill and stopped. The clang of iron gates as the car edged forward notched up the fear to a whole new level.

They dragged us out into some kind of goods yard cluttered with rusty car carcasses, discarded machine
parts and massive iron freight containers stacked up like giant Lego. The gates slammed behind us. I spun round and took in a fifteen-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, a grimy old caravan and a dented limo with shattered headlamps, up on blocks, before spotting Shrek hurling a whimpering Oz into a fenced-off area packed with gas canisters and old tyres.

Bogdan pushed me against the limo, emptied my pockets and tossed my phone to Viktor. Then he searched Nina, slapping her and yelling. She didn't seem to hear him, just stood there, head lolling on her chest, blood trickling from her lips. He wouldn't stop. A scary feeling blacker than anger took me over. The only Russian I knew was that
you filthy scum, I'll kill you
stuff that Yuri had been yelling in his sleep but right then it summed up exactly how I felt about Bogdan.

‘Ty gneeda paganaya
!' I shouted.
‘Ya zamochoo tebya.'

Bogdan swung round. His rubbery face contorted and he burst into heaving snorts of laughter like he'd heard the funniest joke in the world. Just as suddenly he whacked me so hard I thought he'd broken my jaw.

Through the blinding pain I heard Shrek and Viktor laughing, too, and saw Bogdan's fist clench to take another swing at me. Viktor snapped an order. Bogdan scowled and dropped his hand. Viktor obviously didn't want him spoiling the Vulture's fun by pulping me before she got there. My phone beeped in Viktor's hand. He checked the text and shoved the screen in my face. It was from Bailey. I blinked hard. The words wobbled into focus.

Where r u call me urgent
.

I looked away. Viktor pinched my throbbing cheeks together with one hand and jerked my head round. ‘Who's Bailey?'

The mist cleared a bit. If he didn't know who Bailey was, that was the way I was going to keep it. I groped for a lie.

‘He's my . . . uncle . . .' Tiny scraps of a plan were floating round my head, coming together then falling apart when I tried to grab hold of them. ‘He runs the off-licence next to the flats. He looks out for me.'

‘What's he want you for?' Viktor demanded.

Don't lose it, Joe, keep going . . 
.

‘I . . . stack crates for him. I was s'posed to do a shift this afternoon.'

My phone beeped again. His lip curled. ‘Your uncle's getting anxious.'

Come on, Joe, this is your one chance to let Bailey know you're in trouble . . . don't blow it
.

‘He's . . . he's an ex-cop. I told him I was going to Catford . . . to help a mate track down some stolen gear. He warned me there might be trouble.'

Slow down. Don't overdo it
.

‘If I don't turn up he might . . . call his mates at the cop shop . . . so maybe I should . . . um . . . text him back.'

My acting was about as convincing as a picture of Elvis on a slice of burnt toast but I could see from his eyes that Viktor's nasty brain was weighing this up. I pushed it some more.

‘If they check the CCTV and see you hustling us into your cars they might trace where you've taken us.'

I was guessing that Viktor had enough bent lawyers on his payroll not to worry about a couple of cops sniffing round but he definitely wouldn't want anything disturbing the Vulture's visit. He eyeballed me for a bit then he grunted and said, ‘So we tell him you're OK.'

Yes!
The first tiny bit of plan had worked but I couldn't see Viktor letting me follow it up by texting ‘Help I've been kidnapped.'
Think of something that Bailey will get and Viktor won't. You can do this
. My skull ached with the effort of whizzing through lyrics, jokes, movies, catchphrases, books, characters – I spooled back, breathing fast.
Got it!

I reached for the handset. Viktor jerked it away. ‘I will write it. What shall I say?' One minute it was like he was asking me what to put on his nan's birthday card, the next he was slamming me in the stomach, screaming, ‘I said, what shall I say?'

Stunned by the pain I could barely squeeze enough air out to speak. ‘Put “Sorry Uncle Balfour, Can't come today . . . Ebenezer sick.”'

‘Balfour? Ebenezer?'

‘Balfour Bailey – that's my uncle's name. And Ebenezer's my . . . dog . . .'

I watched him key in the words and press send, feeling a tiny twitch of triumph. I don't know why. Even if Bailey cracked my coded message what was he going to do about it, stuck on his couch without a clue where I was?

Viktor stumped off to the caravan leaving us in the loving care of Shrek and Bogdan who hauled us over to one of the containers. My heart emptied. Bogdan pushed up the horizontal locking bar, jerked open the doors and
shoved us inside. I tripped and turned. A flash of the outside world cut the darkness before the door slammed, the locking bar clamped shut and we were swallowed up by blackness and the choking stench of vomit, pee, and rotting food.

I reached for Nina, struggling to prop her slumped body against the wall. Somewhere at the back of that stinking box I'd glimpsed dark shapes littering the floor. I stumbled towards them, waving my hands about till I touched the musty softness of a pile of cardboard packing cases, empty except for what felt like a couple of dresses still on their hangers. I stamped one of the biggest boxes flat to give her something to lie on and rolled the dresses into a damp, smelly pillow. She keeled over and lay there, not making a sound.

‘You OK?' I whispered.

No answer. I shook her shoulder, desperate to hear another voice in that black, stinking silence.

‘Come on, Nina. Speak to me.'

‘This is . . . how they do it,' she breathed.

‘Do what?'

‘Smuggle people.'

‘You can't carry
people
in one of these.'

‘It is huge business for Viktor. Many people who want new life give him all their money. Then he packs them in box like this and puts it on ship or lorry. It is dark. They run out of food and water. They cannot breathe. But he does not care if they die.'

The darkness closed in. The air was getting heavier. I tried channel hopping in my head but the horrible scene
Nina had just described was jamming all networks. A scream crawled up the inside of my throat. I shut my eyes and clamped my jaws, pushing my fist against my mouth. The scream pushed back, fighting to get out. A sound like scuttling rats rustled the cardboard. I pulled in my legs, unable to bear it, unable to breathe.
If I'm going to die, please, please don't let it be like this
.

With a superhuman effort I bit on the scream and forced my eyes open. A milky glow was spotlighting Nina's thin bruised face, filtering up from the phone she'd got cupped in her hands. It was only a feeble gleam but it blew away the terror just like one of those night lights Mum used to get me as a kid.

‘How d'you manage that?' I said.

‘Hid it in my boot.'

I think she was trying to smile. The blood caked round her lips made it difficult to tell. Her eyes met mine, dazed and glassy.

‘Who do we call, Joe? Not police, they will put my father in prison. What about . . . Jackson?'

His text flashed in my head.

Jackson: comin to catford to help where r u?

Reply: julies caff swains lane off hi street
.

He'd set me up! Jackson Duval had set me up! What was left of my world was closing down. All along I'd been kidding myself that Jackson was like family, which just about summed up my pathetic excuse for a life. Joe Slattery, the waste of space whose so-called mate was ready to sell him out to evil trash like Viktor Kozek.

Footsteps sounded outside, the locking bar slid
upwards with a clunk, and Shrek, Viktor and Bogdan barged in. As I threw myself across Nina, Shrek caught me in a car-crusher grip and hurled me across the container. Spitting a mouthful of ugly sounds in Nina's face Viktor threw her phone on the floor, smashed it under his heel and raised his hand to strike her. I lunged for his arm and got a back-handed slap across the mouth from Bogdan. It was only a flick, like swatting a fly, but it banged me back against the wall with the force of a wrecking ball.

Viktor was pulling up Nina's crumpled body, ready to lay into her, when his own phone went off, filling the container with the screechy wail of a girl band, which would have been funny if I hadn't been terrified and coughing blood.

He answered it with a grunt, listened for barely a moment then spewed out a stream of furious Russian, firing half of it down the handset and the rest at Shrek and Bogdan. Within seconds all three of them were out of there. The doors slammed and the locking bar clamped down, sealing us in. Outside, engines revved, gravel crunched and the iron gates clanged shut. Inside, Nina started making this weird bleating noise.

‘What was that about?' I gasped.

‘Yuri. They found him in East London, down near Olympic Park. But he got away.'

‘Is that where they've gone?'

‘Yes. To help find him. Viktor wants his million pounds.'

I shut my eyes, willing Yuri to get away.

‘What if something happens and they don't come back?'

‘Then we will suffocate or die of thirst.'

Her words dried all the spit in my mouth and brought back the panic.

Keep it together, Joe. Give up now and you're dead
.

CHAPTER 19

N
ina had gone quiet and when I touched her she was curled up stiff like a dead thing.

‘I do not feel good, Joe,' she whispered.

‘What hurts?'

‘Everything. I think Bogdan broke my rib.'

I had to get us out of there. I did a fingertip search of the walls, hoping for a loose panel or a hidden hatch, and ended up punching the cold, sealed panels till they rang. Hating the thick dirty darkness, I threw my weight against the doors, detonating fresh explosions of pain down my side. I moved on, kicking cardboard, sending a coat hanger twanging across the floor and stretching up to test every inch of reachable space. After a complete circuit I sank down next to Nina.

‘Anything?' she said.

‘Nope.'

I took stock. It wasn't looking good. But when you're banged up in a tin coffin, hurting all over and waiting your turn to get worked over by a psycho crime boss, it's funny how it's the little things that get to you. Like, and this is just ‘for instance', how come Viktor walked in the minute Nina got her phone out? I ran that by her. She didn't speak.

‘Nina?'

‘I heard you. I am thinking.'

‘And?'

Groaning, she pulled herself upright. ‘They are filming us.'

‘How?'

‘There must be night-vision camera in here.'

I had the feeling Viktor got regular use out of this little holding cell so a camera made sense. In fact, I could just see him lolling back on one of his velvet chairs, downing beers and watching re-runs of his favourite interrogations on that giant screen in his office.

I flicked to a re-run of my own – the view I'd got of the container just before they shoved us inside. It's amazing how desperation sharpens your mind. By stopping breathing and blanking everything else I got it into focus. Nine or ten feet high, eight or so feet wide, peeling brown paintwork rusted round the base, a silver locking bar running horizontally across the double doors. And . . . tucked under the roof, a little black box with a grey, plastic-coated wire poking out the back and trailing down the side.

‘It's above the doors, slightly to the right,' I said.

‘How do you know this?'

‘I saw the wiring outside. Check if you want. Stand on my back.'

I got on all fours. Breathing in short, painful gasps, she climbed up, light as a bag of rags, and all I could think of was Bogdan's huge fist smashing into her skinny frame.

‘I have got it,' she said from the darkness above me. ‘Stay still . . . Yes. It is thermal for seeing in dark – no lens, just heat sensitive plate. My father, he installs these sometimes.' She made a funny little sound. ‘Maybe he installed this one.'

We braced ourselves for one of Viktor's thugs to come running in to stop us messing with it. Nothing. They'd all gone to find Yuri. But if they found him how long would we have before the Vulture turned up and started her interrogation?

We huddled in the blackness thinking about that camera capturing thermal images of our long slow deaths if no one came back for us, or our quicker, more agonising ones if they did. Telly programmes about hostage situations always go on about keeping your spirits up, which is fine if you're in a TV studio. Not so easy if you're sitting in the pitch black and it's your spirits that are spiralling into freefall. They got one thing right though, silence is a killer. Nina was all out of small talk and the only thing I could think of to say was, ‘You seem pretty clued up about your dad's work.'

She took a while to answer. ‘I had reasons for learning.'

For all she was so shaky there was a definite hint of
pride in her voice.

‘Am I missing something here?' I said.

‘How do you think I know so much about Viktor's business?'

‘I had wondered.'

‘I used my father's equipment to bug his office. I hoped that if I got enough – what is word –
dirt
on him, one day I would find way to use it.'

She wasn't bragging, just telling it like it was. No wonder she'd scoffed at my pathetic attempt to bug her with my phone.

‘You won't get the chance if we die in here,' I said, searching my pockets. ‘Maybe we can unscrew the camera and let in some air. You got a coin?'

I felt her lean forward and fiddle with her boot. ‘No, but I have still got tie-clip.'

Right then I'd have swapped all the diamond tie-clips in the world for a screwdriver. But it was better than nothing.

I dropped back on all fours. Unsteadily, Nina heaved herself up and poked around in the dark, her breathing getting scratchier by the minute.

‘The camera is on bracket but I can only reach one screw and I cannot make it turn.' She toppled off. ‘You must do it.'

She handed me the tie-clip and I felt her curling into a crouch. Kicking off my trainers I prodded her back with my toe, gentle as I could. Her spine felt bony and brittle, like it was about to snap. She let out a hiss of pain.

I jerked my foot away. ‘I can't. I'll break you in two.'

‘Do it, Joe.'

So I stood on her back and fumbled in the dark, working my stiff cold fingers in quick bursts and stepping down every few minutes to give her a break. The end of the tie-clip was too thin to be any use but wedging the longer side in the screw slots and jerking it round bit by bit for what seemed like hours got three of the screws undone. A hard twist loosened the fourth. I gave the bracket a tug, and a shaft of light punctured the darkness as it fell forward with the camera, still attached, dangling from its cable. With a whoop I leapt off Nina's back. She rolled over, gasping for breath. For all the blood round her mouth she was definitely smiling this time.

If you've never been locked up in a dark, airless box you'll never understand how beautiful that little round hole looked to us, or how good it felt to cross suffocation off the list of ways we were going to die. OK, so it still left plenty of alternatives but that wasn't the point.

My brain hit rewind again, playing back the sight and sound of Shrek's fat fingers slamming down the locking bar and the grating thud of clamping metal.
Slam clunk
,
slam clunk
. I played it over and over, trying to take in the details. The locking bar was roughly the height of his chest and the pressure he'd used had barely rippled the muscles of his thick neck.
Slam clunk. Slam clunk
.

A crazy idea crept into my mind. I lurched round in the gloom, seized on the coat hanger and started unbending the stiff metal till I had a long straight-ish piece of wire with a hook at one end.

Nina watched me, puzzled. ‘What are you doing?'

‘You're going to use this to pull up the locking bar.'

‘Me?' She shook her head. ‘You are taller
and
stronger.'

Holding her breath, she let me clamber on her back again, barely buckling when I got her to raise herself higher so I could double check there was no one patrolling the yard. It was deserted. Beyond the wire fence a steep ridge sloped up to a line of tall, skinny trees that flickered as a lone car sped along the road behind. The only sound was Oz's furious yapping from the tyre store.

Slowly, I fed the wire through the hole. Trouble was, this job called for precision and I was working blind, with three fingers squeezed into a space the size of a tea cup, with nothing to guide me but the clink of the hanger bouncing off the bar. The wire kept slipping, my fingers were going numb and Nina was gasping that she couldn't take it much longer. Then the hook bit. For a second I understood the obsession people get with fishing. I jerked hard and felt the bar give, just a little. Gripping the taut wire I tugged again. Something slackened. The hook was uncurling. Swearing loudly I shifted my fingers to yank the wire back inside, lost hold and heard it clatter on to the yard.

Game over.

I jumped off Nina's back and slithered into a heap beside her. If there'd been any one out there who cared if I lived or died I'd have scratched a goodbye message on the wall. Instead, I handed Nina the tie-clip and told her to write something to her mum and dad.

She threw me this annoyed frown, grabbed the dangling bracket and started unscrewing the little nuts and bolts that fixed it to the camera. Once the bracket was
free she held it up. It was a heavy strip of metal, about an inch wide and L-shaped. ‘If we make smaller we can use this as hook,' she said.

Game on again.

I took the bracket and stamped it into more of a V-shape. ‘We can use our belts to lower it down,' I said, trying to sound like I'd never lost the will to live.

Her belt was thin white plastic; mine was leather but badly worn. I buckled them together, worried how much strain they could take and began to wonder the same about me and Nina. We used a screw and nut to fix the belts to the bracket and stood back to admire our handiwork. It didn't look like much but it was all that stood between us and death. Nina was pale and trembly, too weak to stand up straight, let alone take my weight again.

‘You do it,' I said.

She shook her head and got down in a crouch. If willpower was all it took to survive, Nina was in there with a chance. I wound the end of her belt tight round my hand, stepped on her back and passed the bracket out through the hole, with the angle facing away from the container. Carefully, I fed the belts out after it, inch by inch until our DIY grappling hook just
had
to be hanging lower than the bar.

‘OK. Here goes.' I closed my fingers tight round the belts and wrenched with both hands. The bracket caught. I heard it. My heart leapt. The locking bar didn't move. I pulled again straining every muscle. Nothing.

‘I cannot . . .' Nina groaned. Her body shuddered. She swayed for a moment and collapsed, leaving me strung up
like a pig on a butcher's hook, my weight pulling the tightly wound belt so hard it stopped the blood in my hand and nearly wrenched my shoulder out of its socket. I yelled in agony, trying to jerk my fingers free. Suddenly the excruciating pressure released. A length of belt slithered through the hole, my feet hit the floor and with a beautiful clunk, the locking bar lifted. For one long, gobsmacked moment we stared at the strip of silver between the door panels before I kicked them open, letting in a flood of dirty grey light. I tore off the belt, and, flexing my throbbing palm, I burst across the yard to free Oz, who stalked past me in a strop when he saw I hadn't brought him any food.

Nina made straight for the caravan, panting with pain as she ran. She peered through the window and tried the door. It was locked, so get this, she picked up a brick and chucked it through the window. She blushed when she saw me staring.

‘Don't mind me,' I said. Reaching for another brick, I knocked away the splinters of glass round the edge. She folded her hoodie, wedging it across the frame and made me give her a leg-up so she could scramble inside. Two seconds later she was opening the door and letting me and Oz into a poky little space that stank of alcohol, chips and sweat. The telly on the table was tuned to a gripping shot of the floor of the shipping container, glowing flickery and green like a cheap horror movie on account of the thermal imaging. I turned on the tap and sucked at the trickle of tepid water while Nina rummaged through the fridge and cupboards. Except for a couple of squares of
chocolate, a mildewed loaf and a squidgy black banana it was just beer, vodka and a mountain of empty take-out boxes. She handed me half the chocolate and poured some water into a foil container for Oz.

‘What do we do now?' she said, wetting her hand and wiping the worst of the blood off her face.

‘Stay here.' I left her trying to tempt Oz with the banana and did a quick recce of the yard. The gate was the only way out and that was fifteen feet high and locked. I ran back to the caravan.

‘Tools,' I said. ‘Look for anything we can use to cut the fence.'

We hunted through the garbage, pulling open every drawer and cupboard. I heard her gasp. She reached between the beer bottles and fished something out. With a tiny crooked smile she held it out to me. It was a bottle opener attached to a Swiss army knife. I ripped my nail digging out the folding pliers attachment and told her to keep searching while I checked the fence for weak points.

The mesh was thick and heavy, stretched tightly between sturdy metal posts cemented into the ground, except for one place at the far end where it looked like a car had backed up, busted a couple of links and bent one of the posts. Trying not to worry about the fading light, I knelt down and got on with it, using the tiny pliers to gnaw at the damaged wires. From across the yard a car boot slammed.

‘Any luck?' I shouted.

‘Maybe. I find tool box. No cutters for wire though.'

Physically, Nina was built like a dragonfly, mentally she
was pure steel. It was amazing the way she ignored the pain in her ribs and set to with a hacksaw blade. We got into a bit of a rhythm, snipping and sawing. Even so, it took us ages to cut a flap the size of a cereal box. Oz squeezed through it a couple of times and I had to shout to get him to come back.

After we'd cut six more links in each direction the gap was looking more promising. Spurred on, we were working like crazy when Nina let out a shriek and yanked her hand back. I spun round, shocked by the panic in her voice. Blood was gushing out of the deep cut she'd sliced through the curve of skin between her thumb and forefinger.

I ripped a strip off the bottom of my grubby T-shirt, trying not to think about tetanus, lockjaw and blood poisoning. She must have cut through a vein or an artery or something because the blood kept coming thick and red even though I was winding the bandage as tight as I could. Reaching out to steady herself she glanced over my shoulder.

‘Joe. They are back!'

I looked round. Up on the ridge two sets of headlights were swinging off the road and bouncing down the track to the gate. We had to hide. Fast. I hauled Nina across the yard, tugged open the door of the broken-down limo, pushed her on to the back seat and scrambled after her, reaching up a finger to ease the locks shut. I strained my ears for Yuri's voice, wondering if they'd caught him, praying that they hadn't. Nina raised herself up to look through the window.