The Mercy Seat (24 page)

A bat was bearing down on him held by Mark. He turned, dodged just in time. The blow landed against the wall. Trusting to his survival instinct, he quickly brought his own bat down on Mark’s side. The man cried out, crumpled. Donovan was sure he heard ribs crack.

He swung again, catching Mark on the shoulder. Nothing broke this time, but Donovan felt the reverberation of the blow the length of his arm.

The thug grunted in pain. He turned, swung his bat wildly, pain pushing up his anger, losing his grip on it.

It hit Donovan in the stomach. He bent over as the air was knocked out of him.

Mark leaped at Donovan. He connected, hard, knocking him back into the table, pulling him painfully to the floor, Donovan dropping his bat in the process. Mark kneeled on him, one hand round Donovan’s throat.

Donovan saw the anger and hatred the man held for him, a man he had never met before. The thought momentarily confused him. He was brought back in to focus when he saw Mark pull back his other arm, make his hand a fist.

It was the arm that Donovan had hit, but he was sure it could still do some damage. There was no way Donovan could fight back on his attacker’s terms, meet like with like. He needed to use his own strengths.

Donovan brought his hands up, pushed back into Mark’s twisted face. He forced the heel of his left hand on to his top lip, pushing lip and nose back as far and as hard as he could. Mark dropped his arm, let it join the other, pushing hard round Donovan’s neck.

With his other hand Donovan scratched round the man’s face, trying to get a grip of something he could use. He tried Mark’s neck, but it was too fat and gym-pumped to get a grip. He tried his cheeks. No good.

He found Mark’s eyes, tried to claw at them.

Mark guessed what he was doing, tried to rotate his head away, kept the pressure on Donovan’s neck.

Donovan brought his other hand up, found the other eye. Clawed, raked, tried to get a grip.

Mark kept squeezing Donovan’s neck.

Donovan felt the air being choked from his body, a final constricting gurgle. He felt his strength ebbing away. Black holes, like openings to a universe beyond, began to appear in his vision. He knew he had enough left in him for only one last, desperate chance.

Donovan put his thumbs over Mark’s eyes.

Pushed.

Hard as he could.

Mark screamed. He tried to pull his head back while still maintaining pressure on Donovan’s neck.

Donovan held on, hands like rigored claws.

Mark gave up, pulled away. He rolled off Donovan, lay curled on his side, left arm trailing limply, right covering his face.

‘You’ve blinded me … You’ve fuckin’ blinded me …’ Whimpering.

Gasping and coughing for air, Donovan struggled to his feet, reached for the baseball bat. He swung it into Mark’s kidneys. Once. Twice.

He pulled his arm back for a third swing, found his strength had deserted him. He slumped, back against the upended table, bat cradled in his hands, looked around the rest of the room.

The other three crew members had been similarly disarmed. Amar was kneeling over one of them, arm locked round the man’s throat. The man clawed ineffectually at the hold. Amar’s muscles no longer looked like those of a gym-narcissist. They, and the look on his face, meant business.

The other two lay groaning on the floor.

Peta kneeled down before the captured man. She looked lit up by the violence, truly alive.

‘Listen,’ she said to her captive, ‘I know you’re just the hired help. Get up and leave now and that’s the end of it. But keep going and so will we.’

She looked around. Smiled.

‘And we’ll finish it.’

The man, seeing he had no option, nodded.

Amar tentatively loosened his grip. The man rose warily to his feet.

The others joined him. Donovan’s assailant held his hands over his face, was helped out by one of the others.

‘You nearly fuckin’ blinded him!’ said the man Amar had just released.

‘And I’ll do the same to you,’ said Peta. ‘Get out.’

The man stared at her. She returned his gaze, unblinking.

Eventually he broke the look, left.

‘And tell everyone you were beaten by a blonde girl and a Paki poof,’ shouted Amar.

She and Amar looked at each other, exchanged high fives.

They noticed Donovan. Crossed to him. Peta kneeled down.

‘You OK?’

Donovan managed a weak smile. ‘Should have seen the other feller.’

‘I did.’ She laughed. ‘And you made a right mess of him. Well done.’

Donovan looked at her and Amar. They were buzzing. The violence had energized them. It had just tired him out.

‘Room’s a mess …’ said Donovan.

‘Think we’ll get our deposit back?’ asked Amar.

They laughed, cleansing the flat of tension.

Donovan sighed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘suppose we should go give Father Jack the good news.’

Hammer was bored.

He sat behind the wheel of his car, his anonymous Vauxhall Vectra, watching the girl’s flat. It felt like he had been there for weeks. It felt like he had been there for ever.

Since leaving Keenyside at the station house he had come back to the same spot. Now it was dark and there had been no movement.

Usually on jobs like this he would fall into a near-fugue state while waiting. Pass the time by playing back all the
injustices ever done to him throughout his life. He would imagine them as short stories. With the holdall on the seat next to him, unzipped, its contents face up, as an audience. The stories had new endings. Ones where his tormentors were terrified by his strength, where he tortured and humiliated them before forcing fearful repentance from their shattered bodies, ultimately finding peace by killing them, even eating their bodies, symbolically taking their souls.

Failing that, there was his iPod, death metal on heavy rotation.

But nothing worked for him today. He knew why. The last few days had fired him up. Regent’s Canal, the Pennines … that was his true calling. His real work. Not this. This bored him.

And when he became bored, he became angry.

And when he got angry, someone had to pay.

‘Let something happen!’ he shouted, pounding the steering wheel.

Soon after that, something did.

He blinked, thought he was seeing things.

He wasn’t.

It was the rent boy. Jamal. Walking up to the block of flats with a woman beside him. He didn’t recognize her, but she wasn’t important. The boy was the important one.

His first thought: phone Keenyside.

The boy and the woman walked up to the block of flats. Rang a bell.

Her bell.

Keenyside’s mobile rang and rang. No answer. Must still be at his house in the countryside. No reception there. Hammer hung up before voicemail kicked in, not risking leaving a message.

He looked around, wondered what to do.

The woman was talking into the entryphone, talking
quite a bit. Eventually the door buzzed open and the two of them were admitted inside.

Hammer rubbed his face. Needed to think.

Make a decision. Use his initiative.

He looked at his mobile one last time, as if the very act of doing that would will a call through from Keenyside.

Nothing.

Hammer gave an angry sigh, zipped up the holdall, opened the car door, swung his body out. He locked the door behind him, pulled his woollen hat down over his ears, scoped the street to see if he was being watched.

He wasn’t.

Turning his collar up to hide his face, he crossed the street to the flats, approached the front door.

Ready to ring the bell.

Donovan saw that the door of the house was unlocked, turned to both Peta and Amar, who shrugged. Exhausted and badly shaken, but not giving up yet, he pushed it open.

The children were gone. A cursory look around downstairs confirmed that. And quickly, too: like looters had ransacked the place, taken CDs, DVDs, anything saleable.

A noise from upstairs: a creak of the floorboards.

Donovan motioned to the other two, pointed at the stairs, began silently to ascend. Peta and Amar nodded, did likewise.

On the landing Donovan paused, looked around. All the rooms were empty, evacuated in the same haste as downstairs. Single items of clothing lay scattered, discarded; hands not quick enough to stuff them into holdalls before running. But a thoroughness amid the mess; these children were used to running.

Donovan stopped before Father Jack’s room. The only door closed. Noises coming from behind it. He touched the handle, pushed it open, stepped into the room.

All round was carnage. Drawers and cupboards pulled out, contents spilled and strewn over every surface. Father Jack’s inner life exposed; like dangerous, guilty secrets confessed aloud.

Blood everywhere. The white furnishings accentuating it. Jackson Pollock gone postal.

On the bed, half lying, half sitting, was Father Jack. The eye of a sickening storm. Cradled in his arms the broken, unmoving body of Si.

Father Jack was sobbing.

The three watched, not knowing how to proceed. Father Jack, eventually registering their presences, looked up. He realized who it was and panic spread across his features. He made a move to run, but something inside him signalled the futility of that. He sighed, nodded.

Donovan almost found pity in the man’s plight.

Almost.

‘We’re calling the police, Jack,’ said Donovan.

‘Well, make sure they get the half-caste,’ said Father Jack, his voice watery and blubbery. ‘Make sure that little cunt pays for what he did to my boy.’

The paedophile looked at Si’s face. Spreading purple bruises and whitening of skin. Began tenderly to wipe the blood away from the boy’s eyes, sobs sending flubbery oscillations through his body.

‘Yeah,’ said Donovan, ‘blame Jamal. Blame us. Blame your childhood. Blame fucking
Coronation Street
, if you must. Blame anyone but yourself.’

A howl ripped itself free of Father Jack’s throat.

‘He did it, you cunt! With this! With this!’ He held up the heavy-metal separator and restraint. ‘He hit him with this! He hit …’

His voice trailed away, obscured by sobs.

Donovan was unmoved. ‘Maybe so. But your prints are on it now. Your DNA. A violent child abuser or a phantom boy. Who’s a court more likely to believe? You’re fucked, Jack.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘And not in a good way.’

The sobs continued unabated.

Donovan turned to Peta and Amar. ‘You got enough?’

Peta nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Let’s call the police,’ he said. ‘Then Maria. Get it sorted out.’

He reached inside his jacket pocket for his mobile. His hand stopped halfway. He looked at Peta.

‘Could you do it?’ he said. ‘I’m just too tired to deal with anything.’

Donovan walked out of the room, down the stairs and out of the house. He sat on the pavement outside, sighed. He closed his eyes.

Tried to feel nothing.

‘Caroline Huntley?’ Maria spoke through the metal grille of the entryphone.

‘Yes?’ A weary voice, but expectant with a tiny dash of desperate hope.

‘My name’s Maria Bennett. I’m the editor of the
Herald.
Could I come in and talk to you, please?’

The voice on the other side of the grille sighed, as if suddenly tired beyond hope. ‘I’m not talking to journalists. Please go away.’

‘I understand that, Ms Huntley,’ Maria said quickly before the woman could hang up, walk away. ‘I don’t want anything from you. I might have some information for you. About your father.’

The desperate hope returned to the voice. ‘What sort of information? Is he alive? Have the police found him? Is he all right?’

‘Could I come in and talk to you, please?’

Silence.

Maria knew she was thinking it over, wondering if the words were just a ruse to gain entry. The next thing she said, she knew from experience, would be the thing that either opened the door or locked her out for good.

‘Ms Huntley,’ Maria said, ‘I’m not from one of the tabloids. I’m from the
Herald.
The editor of the
Herald.
If you wanted to check me out, I could give you a number to
call. But I do need to talk to you. And you must hear what I’ve got to say.’

Silence.

Maria looked at Jamal, crossed her fingers. Jamal shrugged.

Then: a sigh through the grille. ‘OK. Third floor. Number eight.’

The door buzzed. Maria opened it, ushered Jamal inside, waited for it to close behind her, lock solidly. Then began to climb the stairs.

Maria had to admit it felt good to be back in the field. She had been a desk jockey too long.

On the third floor, Caroline Huntley was waiting for them, the door to her flat open.

Maria held out her hand to shake, Caroline accepted it. Maria gave what she hoped was a friendly, reassuring smile.

‘Maria Bennett.’

‘Caroline Huntley.’

Caroline was blonde, late twenties, Maria reckoned, tall and attractive if her features hadn’t been ravaged by lack of sleep and excess worry.

‘Could we come in, please?’ said Maria. ‘It’s easier to talk inside.’

Caroline noticed Jamal. ‘Who’s this?’ she said, fear and doubt creeping into her voice as if she had been duped. ‘He’s not a journalist.’

‘This is Jamal. And he’s the reason we’re here talking to you.’ She pointed to the door. ‘Could we?’

Caroline nodded, stepped aside. Maria smiled, thanked her and entered. Jamal nodded shyly, followed.

Caroline closed the door behind them.

Maria looked around. ‘Lovely flat,’ she said.

‘Not at its best,’ said Caroline, sitting down in an armchair. ‘But then neither am I.’

Maria nodded sympathetically. She noticed that Caroline’s sweatshirt and sweatpants were stained, her hair unbrushed.

Caroline shrugged. ‘So?’

Maria and Jamal sat down next to each other on the sofa. At Maria’s instigation, Jamal told Caroline what he had already told her. The facts were the same but his manner more deferential than with Maria: he didn’t want to upset Caroline.

‘OK,’ he said, shrugging as if embarrassed when he had finished, ‘that’s that.’