Resolution (The CRIME series), page 29
But it heralds the return of Mona, flanked by an edgy Marco and an inscrutable Phil.
— So, you two were in this together? Lennox asks Carmel, as they approach.
— We were, Mona says.
— Mona told me that Mat was involved with a couple of lowlifes, one of whom did the acid attack, Carmel explains. — He had everything, what was he doing in with that sort of company? Putting the knife in her back pocket, she goes over to Mona. Places a consoling arm around her stiff shoulders. — I’m sorry, honey …
Lennox moves over to the table, sets the glass down on it. — So, what are we going to do now? he muses. A sudden sense somebody is up close behind him. Before awareness can become reaction, a chunky fist tattooed with a blood-red rose flashes past his gaze, as an arm locks around his windpipe. He can’t breathe … reaches for the wine glass but it’s inches from his grasp. When he feels his feet leave the ground, knows Phil has lodged his hip into his back. The air his vocal cords require to reverberate has been shoved out of him. All he can do is be the silent deponent of the horror in Carmel’s eyes as Mona slaps her hard across the face, before Marco grabs her in an armlock. Mona screams at her, — You fucking murdering whore!
Then Ray Lennox is no longer feeling anything, just the oxygen that departed his lungs vacating his brain as coloured rumbling shapes spin around in his head. A sweet-sickness curdles in his gut. The lights go out.
49
Dreaming Forces
Our friends in China, they really really really did try, in their own way, to make me feel at home there, but sometimes you just need to be with your own lot, don’t you, Ray?
I do admire your spirit, Raymond … as your most famous countryman said, keep right on to the end of the road … but, well, you’ve done it now, haven’t you?
Once again, you are guilty of some bad decision-making, Raymond Lennox. Sometimes the panic button is there for a reason … I like to think of myself as a cool-under-fire sort – oops, perhaps not the best metaphor in my case given Mr Baxter’s relentless use of that dreadful element, but even I know when that switch needs to be flipped!
Alas, it now looks like your fate is not mine to decide … I wash my hands, Raymond Lennox, I really do!
Takes all sorts, I suppose.
So unfortunately, it appears we won’t get to meet again after all.
Well, all I can say is: boo-hoo-hoo.
50
The Concrete Evidence
The cold. Seeping through his clothes. Holding him with a shivering tenderness, like a flower in a nervous, gently enclosing palm. Drops of moisture brushing his face. In his ear, the gently shimmering sounds of a cascading waterfall. Then a soft crying, begging, — Please, no, Mona …
But it’s being drowned out by a grating, truculent roar; harsh and fearsome.
You can’t move.
You know how that feels.
It’s pushing on you.
Get up.
Get on your feet.
— RAY!
Lennox opens his eyes, and sinks back into a comforting pillow. Then a thick, tainted broth spills into his mouth … he splutters it out, instinctively wrenching his head back up. Even as his blurred vision slowly clears, he can’t begin to conceive of what’s happening to him. Tries to move, but his arms and legs won’t cooperate. This quicksand, but like neither water nor earth; it wants him, pulling his head and shoulders back. But he’s not falling into it; it is rising around him and he has to fight to keep his mouth out of it. Blinks through the constant splashes on his face and eyes. And the noise. Though held fast, he sees torchlight ahead, cutting through the darkness, where a motor clamours in anger, seemingly bypassing his ears to drill its roar into his skull.
Holding the light is Mona. She stands elevated, looking down on his prostrate figure. But the voice trying to fight over the engine’s rumpus is not hers. — Mona, please … please don’t do this … don’t …
Struggles to hear over the long, growling furore of the machinery, but identifies it as Carmel. Then a splash on his genitals: heavy, freezing, encroaching. Senses burn into operation, as he realises this is from a thick, grey sludge. It flies down a chute, splashing between his legs.
Lennox is lying in what looks and feels like cold porridge. Twists his neck left. Carmel lies next to him, a foot away, her own head and shoulders arched up, smaller body almost covered in what he now computes to be wet cement. A struggle evidences that his wrists are once again locked behind his back. Eyes itch and water, as he further strains his head upwards to witness the sludge massing around him.
They are lying in a two-foot-deep trench chiselled out of the concrete floor. The depth indicates they have to be on the ground level. This cavity is being filled in by cement aggregate from the chute, pouring in around them, the cacophonous mixer rattling behind it.
— Please, Mona, Lennox hears Carmel’s muffled squeal, — we were in this together … Ray, tell her who Mat was … he’s not what you think he is, Mona … Mat helps paedophiles. He tried to kill Ray … they killed Ralph … dismembered him … she fades into a croaky gasp.
— Fuck you, Carmel, Mona sneers, — you would say anything to save your miserable fucking two-faced arse!
For the first time Carmel sees that Lennox is conscious. — RAY! Tell her!
Ray Lennox can only keep forcing his head up, struggling to fill his lungs with sweet air. — IT’S TRUE, MONA, he screams out over the engine’s implacable snarl. — Why else am I here, for fuck sake? Phil fucked me up and cut Ralph Trench into pieces with his own sword, the one he also attacked me with!
— Phil and Marco are with us, and she points in scorn at Carmel: — They aren’t the cheating liars!
— They played Cardingworth, Lennox snaps, fighting to prevent desperation from overwhelming his tones as the concrete keeps splashing into their pen. He can see only his toes protrude out. — They’ll be playing you! They can serve more than one master!
Mona again points at Carmel: — She fucking killed Mat!
— This is not you, Carmel pleads.
Lennox decides to go for broke. Shouts across at Carmel, — Aye it is. It’s exactly who she is!
Mona’s head rocks back as if from a physical blow, but she looks at Lennox as if now actually seeing him. — What do you know?!
— They’ve beaten us, Lennox says to her, fusing resignation into his voice as his neck muscles strain to keep out of the concrete pouring up over his bound body. — They’ve won. They’ve put their poison into us. Controlling us. Those murdering, acid-throwing, noncing cunts! We’re all exactly what they want us to be, and he twists his head at Carmel. — All of us!
Mona’s solitary eye glowers, first at Lennox, then at the liquid cement sluicing onto him. She stands up, hauls in a breath and pushes a red button. The roar of the engine cuts, rapidly slowing the sludge to a merciful trickle.
A ringing silence in his ears is broken by Carmel. — Thank God! Now please, help us out of here, Mona!
— Fuck you, you murdering psycho bitch, work it out for yourself, Lennox watches Mona snarl at Carmel. — Darren is on his way here! He can’t touch me as I’ve paid Marco and Phil to take his son hostage. But when he finds you two, it’ll be a sickos’ convention. Unlike you, I’m no killer, she whips to Lennox, — thanks for reminding me, Ray, but Darren Knowles certainly fucking well is, and she turns and departs.
— Carmel … Lennox twists his head to her.
Only her face in profile sticks out of the aggregate around her. — Ray! This is … I can’t …
— Listen, try and keep your head up. Lennox steers for serenity, all the time thinking of how futile the situation is. They are about to be encased in concrete. If they somehow didn’t suffocate they would be prisoners of a psychopath who would exact terrible punishment. But again, there was his body, detached from his cerebral musings, screaming: NEVER SURRENDER. — Don’t let it fall back into the cement!
— I’m trying, but it’s fucking sore, Ray, Carmel hisses in anger, — my neck … Listen, the knife’s still in my back pocket, and I’ve managed to get it out … I’m trying to saw through the ties on my hands …
— Fucking hell, yes, Carmel! That’s it, baby, he hears himself coo. — Keep your head up, but try and move it side to side, he says, making the motion himself. But the cement is beginning to set, slapping coldly against his ears. The good thing is that it is stiffening behind his head, making it less easy to completely sink back into it.
— Can’t get any traction on this as all my fucking weight is on it, Carmel gasps. Then she coughs and spits out a mouthful of wet aggregate. — Fuck …
Lennox feels himself urinate through his underpants and trousers. Wonders if it’ll marginally hinder the progress of the setting concrete. — Keep filing, he offers, while believing Knowles is their only alternative to suffocation. With just their faces and toes exposed in a binding amalgam, he cannot dwell on the grim torture that could be exacted.
— I’m trying … I’m not sure it’s doing any good … it’s fucking useless, Ray … Carmel moans, then instantly, a startled, — Fuck, slips from her, — I think something’s happened, she squeals, — I think my hand is loose!
— Yes! Can you move it out from under you?
— I think so … it’s so hard, it’s pinned beneath me and this fucking concrete is really setting!
— Keep trying, honey … Lennox can barely move his head to the side now. It’s as if it’s being held in place by a set of jammed airplane headrests. Then he swivels his eyes to the left just as a grey hand and arm springs out. — Yes! Baby, you fucking did it!
— Right … now I’m going to free my other hand using this hand, and Carmel takes her left arm across her body and plunges it into the thickening cement. She finds her right arm and assists it out. — Good, she puffs, as both hands rise into Lennox’s sightline.
But his neck is giving way. It’s as if a hand is pushing firmly, evenly, on his forehead, as he sinks slowly …
… becoming one with the walls of the tunnel, with the darkness.
His mouth and nose fill with sludge as his breaths bubble to the surface of the thick soup. Body surrendering, its defiant spasms rendered an internal vibration by the thickening mass around it.
Let go, Raymond. It really is for the best …
Just step back into the dark, Ray …
Yes … back in the dark …
Then a force, external to him, insinuates itself, resisting on his behalf. It’s wrenching him up out of the quagmire …
… his dripping eyes blink open to see Carmel straddling him, pulling him by his shoulders, up out of the cement coffin. Her sopping grey figure stands above him, as if emerging like a bizarre statue from the mire. Lennox screams in pain; sludge explodes from his lungs.
— You have to stand, Ray!
Yes, Raymond, stand, we have to meet!
He can only nod like a demented toy dog in the back of a car, trying to force air into his lungs, his tear-gushing eyeballs burning like coal in their sockets as Carmel helps him to his feet. She takes the knife from her belt. Hacks at his bonds, as he wheezily ingests the rancid chemical-stinking air like it was mountain spring water. The cement is solidifying around their shins as they trudge through the thickening gruel, pulling themselves and each other out of the furrow. The thick sludge drips from them, trailing all over the floor. — Thank … fuck … Lennox gratefully coughs out more mouthfuls of the choking compound.
— Let’s get our clothes off, Carmel says, her moon face protruding from a hippo suit, — we have to get this toxic shit off us.
— We need to get the fuck away from here. Lennox hesitates, looking to the stairs. — My phone and those tapes might still be up there in my coat. I need to get them. You go!
— No way, Carmel declares. — We’re seeing this out together.
Lennox sees no currency in trying to debate this point. He always suspected that the will of others would seldom dissuade Carmel from her chosen course of action. This has since been underlined. They climb the remaining good staircase, but as its creaks tell them it’s going the same way as its neighbour, Lennox wonders about the wisdom of surrendering to his instincts.
Poor decision-making again …
— We’re taking the fucking lift back down, Carmel whispers. A long groan rips out from under their feet in a stair bend, the platform wobbling.
— Yes.
— Trench told me my research project was just a Trojan Horse for Cardingworth, Carmel hisses as they tentatively advance. — He planned to flip the land to Chinese investment people to build apartment complexes for their students. Four years he strung me along. Bastards like him, entitled rich pricks playing games with people’s livelihoods …
— So, you killed him for that? Lennox whips round to look at her as they advance upwards into the darkness.
— A fucking pre-emptive strike, Ray! You heard what they did to Trench, she says, her grey figure now looking to him like a petulant sports mascot, — You don’t think I wouldn’t be on their hit list? And … she shakes off her hooded top and throws its silvery weight into the void, exposing her T-shirt with WE’VE GOT THE CHEMISTRY RIGHT emblazoned on it, — I couldn’t let him hurt you. I just couldn’t!
Struggling in his own heavy cement suit, Lennox is relieved when they step out onto solid flooring. Follows Carmel, ditching his hoodie. — We’ll talk about this later.
— Agreed.
— Those fucking tapes … if they’ve taken them …
To his delight the coat is there, draped over the table. He pulls it off to reveal the player, tapes and his phone. — Fuck, he gasps an almighty sigh. — I was shiteing it Mona or those two cunts would have taken the cassettes –
— I’m not saying Mat’s betrayal on the site didn’t influence me, Carmel’s eyes blaze in hunger, as she fills a bucket full of water, — we need to get this shit off us, throwing it over Lennox, urging him to reciprocate, — but it’s much, much bigger than that. Way bigger than your personal hurt. Trench hinted that there’s more kids, buried in the chalk pits behind here. She moves to the rotting-framed window, rubbing a pane of glass to look outside. — This is off-the-charts evil. She turns back to him. — If I’d gone to the cops those bastards would have walked. They always do.
Lennox pulls himself into the coat. — Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about this?
— I had to authenticate it first. Trench was unstable: I thought it could all be delusional nonsense. I did call you, left messages …
Lennox nods. He didn’t check them. — Then poor Ralph was gone.
— Exactly, they fucking well confirmed it for me! Trench told me, ‘I’m finished, and it’ll be Mathew Cardingworth and Darren Knowles who end it,’ Carmel says. She’s about to refill the bucket but stops. A burst of sound: creaking and footsteps echo from the stairs.
They look to each other. There’s nowhere to hide.
Lennox looks around for potential weapons. Sees the broken wine glass.
The first person to step into the light is Mona.
Any minor relief at this is short-lived, as Lennox and Carmel see it’s not their gargoyle presence that scares her. It’s the fact that Phil and Marco flank her, the latter with a tight grip on her shoulder. Marco won’t meet Lennox’s eye. Phil flashes a gallows smile, shakes his head at them. — Fucking mess.
Ray Lennox glances at Carmel Devereaux, sees the fear on her chalky face. Then looks at Mona, calling her name as a question.
Mona turns to him, and then regards the henchmen. Tears run down her cheek from a solitary eye. — You were right, Ray. They betrayed me too.
The duo glance furtively at each other and stand aside, to afford Lennox and Carmel a view of the stair head.
Almost operatic in its ominous build: the creaking on the metal steps like the opening of a coffin lid. Then Raymond Lennox feels everything in him sag and freeze as Darren Knowles, manic stare, clownishly swaggers into the light.
51
Dreaming a Dream of You
Oh, too bad, Raymond! Looks like somebody’s finally going to have to stand in the naughty corner!
52
The Chemistry
The second spectral force from the tunnel is right in front of him. Clutching a long-necked, thick-bodied Erlenmeyer flask in his hand. Full of a chemical. The man he’d repressed. Not Bim, the chunky-headed demon who had cracked his jaw, with that sneering voice: Noice boike.
As it rings out in his head, he now can’t conceive of how he ever let himself forget it. And can’t understand how he eradicated from his mind this unkempt, wild-eyed creature now facing him.
He was like you.
The unloading began in the unlikely surroundings of Miami Beach: a strange, harrowing business he’d got involved in as an off-duty cop. Then another brutal case, and he had decided that for his ongoing sanity he would unload everything. Not just his then fiancée, but also the police force and his life back in Edinburgh. And he thought he had, until Cardingworth crashed back into his consciousness. Immediately filling the entire trio of nonce berths. Now this man, the second of them, more dangerous than Cardingworth ever was, is facing him.
You must remember Daz now, Raymond … must be coming back to you …
— Greetings, dafties. Darren Knowles gazes at Ray Lennox, then Carmel. — The state of youse two cunts!
He’s like you …
… the accent …
His Scottish tones have faded, but remain detectable. As everything moves into focus, Lennox feels it so drastically now, warping his insides like hemlock: he’s never hated anything so much in his life. This is the man who grabbed Les. His features are still finely carved but further hardened, iron filings sprinkled on his dome, and those devious, unyieldingly crazy eyes. A pretty boy turned rough through age and jail, but still in good shape for a man of his years.
