Loss (26 page)

‘Uh-uh, check it.’ Hod pointed to the window in the second floor. A light was burning; a bloke in a white hoodie paced the floor.

I tried to get a deck at the fella. He was dark-haired and heavy, that was about all I could see. He passed the window another couple of times then disappeared. The light went out after him.

‘Think that’s our man?’ said Mac.

‘Our . . . Radek?’ said Hod. ‘Couldn’t tell.’

‘Well, let’s give the cunt a pull anyway,’ said Mac. He leaned forward in his seat, twisted. ‘Come on, Gus . . . get the door open.’

I put a hand on his chest, shoved him back down. ‘Just give it time.’

‘What do you mean, give it time?’ Mac scented blood: he was gantin’ to burst some heads, any he could get his hands to.

‘I want to see what the lie of the land is,’ I said. ‘Trust me, I have a game plan here.’

Mac sat back in his seat, mouthed off, ‘I thought we came here to go in, no’ just sit outside.’ He picked up the bolt-cutters, started to snap them.

I spoke over him: ‘Hod, tell me about this guy again.’

‘Radek’s a nut-job . . . seriously off his cake. I spoke to a few more boys off the sites – no one’s got a different opinion. Although there’s quite a bit of guesswork going on around town as to why he’s over here.’

‘Oh, aye . . .’

‘Rumour has it he’s a wanted man back home. You get that shite a lot on the sites when someone appears from elsewhere, but mostly it’s talk, someone biggin’ himself up. Nobody doubts it’s true in Radek’s case.’

Like this mattered now. But I was interested. ‘What do they say he’s wanted for?’

‘That’s the thing, nobody knows.’ Hod shrugged. ‘If it was just bullshit, folk would know all about it.’

Mac tapped on the dash. ‘Aye, aye.’ The door of the house eased open, our man in the white hoodie appeared. He spoke into a mobile phone as he locked the door. When he jumped down the steps we all saw that he fitted the description of Radek perfectly.

‘Right, let’s nash,’ said Hod. He opened his door.

‘Wait,’ I yelled. A black Pajero pulled up in front of the house. The bloke tugged the hoodie over his head as he jumped in the front. The driver gave a quick glance into the road and spun wheels.

‘Fucking hell, he’s on the move,’ said Mac.

Hod slammed his door, put the key back in the ignition, said, ‘We going after him, then?’

‘SIT TIGHT.’

‘Gus,
Jesus
, the fucker’s getting away,’ said Mac.

We watched the Pajero speed up. The driver did a left-to-right at the end of the street, then burned it. We got close enough to see into Radek’s eyes as he passed us.

‘That’s our man,’ said Hod.

‘That
was
our man,’ said Mac.

I pulled the door handle, stepped out onto the street. The pair of them looked at me like I’d suggested colonic irrigation all round. ‘Come on, then.’ I held the door, waved them out, ‘Are you coming or not? And you better get those bolt-cutters.’

My foot struck a Lech lager can as I walked to the house – they’d replaced the Omega cider ones round here. I kicked out, put the can in the air. Mac and Hod followed from the truck. I had a hand jemmy in the pocket of my Crombie, but I wondered if I might have been better getting hold of something with a little more firepower. I’d passed the point where I gave a shit for myself, but I worried about the pair behind me. If we ran into any grief, I knew they could handle themselves better than most, but I replayed those pictures of Andy’s face. The sight of his tongue, cut out and attached to his chest with a knife, wasn’t an image I was going to forget any time soon.

‘What you thinking here, Gus?’ said Hod.

‘He locked the door behind him, so I’m guessing the joint’s empty.’

Hod jogged up to my side. ‘That’s no’ much fucking use to us.’

He was well wrong. I said, ‘You don’t know what might be in there, Hod . . . Might be the belly of the whale.’

He looked at me like I’d gone scripto, turned to Mac and raised a finger in a swirling motion at his ear. Mac firmed his jaw and focused on the front door of the house.

As we left the road and started up the driveway my guts tightened. I gripped the jemmy in my pocket and took a sketch down the street. The place was quiet; it was too cold to be venturing out of doors unless totally necessary.

The house looked like a doss, the paint peeling from the door and every window frame. There was only one set of curtains hanging: the rest of the windows were covered by taped-down newspaper and pinned-up, faded pieces of cloth. It was an end terrace. The house next door had been recently whitewashed, but this joint was painted grey and hadn’t been touched up for a few years. A pallet of cement sat in the front garden, a tarpaulin stretched over it, and what looked like a rusty alternator had been left by the doorstep.

A dog barked ahead of us.

Mac spoke: ‘That’s not up the path, is it?’

I turned, saw the dog over the fence. ‘It’s in the next garden.’

‘Thank fuck for that.’

I nodded towards the side of the house, the others followed. A jerry-built carport was attached to the gable end. I imagine it looked as ramshackle the day it went up. Hod put a hand on the supporting block, shook it. ‘Nobody sneeze,’ he said. ‘That’s bloody rough work.’

At the edge of the path a gate rattled in the wind. It had a hasp-lock secured with a wooden peg; I slid out the peg and opened the gate, its hinges screaming out for oil. ‘Anyone bring the 3-in-1?’ I said.

Mac shoved me through. Hod followed and closed the gate behind us.

More building supplies cluttered the back yard. A cement mixer and a trailer filled with pickaxes that didn’t look as though they’d been used in months. Several layers of frost had settled on them; I’d take bets they’d remain stuck together for the rest of the winter.

Hod peered into the basement window. The steps leading down there lay covered in ice. ‘Looks empty.’

‘You not going to check?’ said Mac.

‘See the state of those stairs? Fuck that . . . I’d be on my arse.’

Mac eased up to the extension, looked as if it might be a kitchen. He checked in the window, said, ‘What a fucking kip house.’

Hod and I joined him. Inside sat a row of bunks; they were made of bare, untreated wood and looked as if they’d been put together with nail guns. On the bunks lay empty sleeping bags, in between them sat a large blue Calor gas bottle. A rubber hose came from the bottle, but it didn’t seem to be connected to anything.

‘Not exactly the Balmoral, is it?’

Hod tried the handle on the back door, then looked at us and shook his head. ‘It’s double-locked.’

I leaned over, tested it. ‘You’re right.’ I put the jemmy in the jamb and prised away. It eased a couple of inches and we heard the first lock give. I pressed the jemmy in again, higher up the frame; I didn’t need to apply any force before the second lock sprung open. I pushed the door in.

The air came thick with a confusion of smells, predominantly paraffin. Beside the back door a wheelie bin had been brought in. It overflowed with takeaway cartons and crushed-up lager cans; someone had tried to flatten them into the bin, succeeded only in spilling them on the floor.

‘It’s Abe Lincoln in here,’ said Hod.

‘Somebody needs to get about with the Shake ’n’ Vac, eh.’ The soles of my Docs stuck to the carpet as I walked. More bunks sat out behind the door, greasy sleeping bags lying on top of them. In the hallway was a spare 4x4 tyre and another two bunks, head to toe.

As we looked about the place we kept our voices down. In every room as many bunks as possible had been crammed in. Odd signs of habitation showed here and there, like a can of deodorant or a pair of socks drying on a radiator, but the bareness of the place was startling.

‘I’ve stayed in better workie huts than this,’ said Hod.

‘I bet you have,’ I said, ‘it’s worse than fucking
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
.’

On the second floor the carpet ran out. We got down to bare boards. The rooms had more bunks, more greasy, filthy sleeping bags. Stacks of rubbish sat about everywhere – pizza boxes and KFC buckets, empty two-litre bottles of Sprite and Coke. Hod opened a cupboard, wheeled out a vacuum cleaner. ‘Bet this gets used a lot.’ He wheeled it back, saw the plug had been removed, laughed. ‘Explains it . . .’ He closed the cupboard door, said, ‘Surprised they never squeezed another bunk in there. Must’ve seen fifty already.’

At the foot of the stairs to the top floor, Mac grew restless. ‘There’s fuck all here, Gus. Is there any need to go further?’

I took his point: it didn’t look like there’d been much left behind. Wondered why Radek had even bothered to lock the door. ‘Well, we’re here now. Might as well check the lot.’

We took the stairs, Mac sighing as we went. There was less headroom on the top floor, but they’d still managed to cram in the bunks. At the end of the hallway lay a pair of rolled-up carpets, that had been flattened – a sleeping bag sat on top of each one.

‘There’s your carpets,’ said Hod. ‘Lifted them for a kip.’

‘This is mental. I can’t believe anyone lives like this in Scotland.’

‘Believe it, mate . . . Believe it.’

Mac had strolled off round the bend in the hallway and started to test the handle on a locked door. When we joined him he had the bolt-cutters on a heavy padlock that had been attached beneath the keyhole.

‘Aye, aye . . . What you found?’ I said.

‘Dunno, let’s see.’

The bolt-cutters went through the padlock as though it was made of plasticine. It clattered onto the floorboards. The door was still locked but Mac put his boot up – it caved in.

We entered the room.

A double bed sat at one end, a
Playboy
duvet cover on top. ‘Klarse!’ said Hod.

At the other end of the room a PC and a phone sat on a desk. A television and DVD player perched on top of a solid-metal filing cabinet.

‘Think we got the executive suite?’ I said.

‘Bang on,’ said Mac.

Hod turned out the wardrobe, dropped clothes on the floor. He looked to be enjoying it, even let himself tear the odd shirt pocket off. As Mac took the bolt-cutters to a padlock on the filing cabinet I rifled through the drawers running down the left-hand side of the desk and tipped them out on the floor. On the other side of the desk the drawers were locked. I took out the jemmy and bust them open. As they sprung out Mac called me over.

‘Any use to you?’ He held up a bunch of Czech passports.

I took a look at one of them. ‘What else you got in there?’ I walked over to Hod at the wardrobe and picked up a bag, dumped in the passports.

‘Dole books,’ said Mac, ‘some more passports . . . Giros too.’

I took the lot, stuck them in the bag. ‘Gives Fitz something to go on,’ I said.

Mac emptied the files, tipped over the cabinet. I watched Hod tear into a suit jacket as I went back to the drawers I’d just sprung open. They held more documentation, wage slips and written contracts, some stuff in Czech I couldn’t figure. I bagged it all, but I wanted something stronger, something to nail Radek with. As I tipped out the final drawer I found it. Mac and Hod turned with the heavy thud as it landed on the floor. I bent my knees and carefully peered over it.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ said Hod.

I leaned in, cleared away the mess of papers to get a better look. ‘What we have here is . . . a gun.’

THE SHOOTER WAS INSIDE a sealed polythene bag. I grabbed hold of the corner and raised it. Mac and Hod came in closer.

‘Looks like an old Webley,’ said Mac.

I turned it round: it was a revolver, a well-used one. ‘Looks fucking ancient.’

‘It will be, aye. Lot of old guns like that get knocked off. You wouldn’t believe how many are still kicking about from the war.’

Hod spoke: ‘Why’s he got it in a bag?’

I wondered that myself. I edged the seal open, brought the contents up to my nose. ‘It’s been fired . . . I can still smell the burned powder – the bag’s sealed it in.’

‘Doesn’t tell us why it’s in the bag,’ said Hod.

I sealed it up again, my mind sparking, ‘There’s only one reason why you’d put it in a bag – to preserve it.’

‘Maybe wanted to keep it dry,’ said Mac.

‘In a fucking drawer . . .’ I was sticking to my hunch: ‘Somebody’s dabs are on this, maybe the person I’m looking for.’ I placed the shooter in the bag with the passports and paperwork. ‘I need to get this lot to Fitz, soon as . . .’

I felt an adrenaline rush as I headed for the door. I knew I had, potentially, the weapon used to murder my brother in my hands. My thoughts mashed. Did this mean Radek wasn’t the killer? There was no way he would hold on to the gun if he’d offed my brother, so what the fuck was he doing with it? There had to be an angle, but I couldn’t see it.

‘Gus,’ Hod called me as I reached the door. ‘You better check this.’

‘What is it?’

He pointed to the window. I walked back to the desk, looked out into the street – the black Pajero had pulled up. Behind it was a minibus disgorging a stream of hefty blokes; they headed straight for the house.

‘
Shit
.’

‘And you’re the one holding a shooter,’ said Mac.

‘Are you off your fucking nut? We can’t use that, it’s evidence.’

Hod stepped forward, nodded. ‘He’s right.’ He put a fist on Mac’s shoulder. ‘Have to be old school, mate.’

‘I knew we should have got fucking well tooled up,’ said Mac.

I tied a knot in the carrier, said, ‘Just stay calm . . .’

The front door opened, the sound of voices came rattling in. Heavy boots shook the floor beneath us. ‘Come on,’ I whispered, ‘follow me.’

I retraced the way we’d come in, watching over the banister to the blokes below. Their voices grew louder, blasting my ears with a language I didn’t understand. They seemed to be filling up the rooms at the front of the house, but I couldn’t be sure. I heard the bus’s engine ticking over outside and then the driver engaged the clutch and put it into gear. The diesel engine purred loudly then took off. A few seconds later the front door slammed.