A Dark Place to Die Page 6

  Koop leans across and shakes Wheater's hand.

  'Now what's this all about? Is anyone hurt?'

  Sullivan hesitates and glances at Zoe. 'No, no-one's hurt, Mr Koopman,' he says. 'Well, no, that's not quite accurate.'

  'For God's sake,' says Koop. 'What is it?'

  Zoe steps forward and puts a hand on Koop's arm.

  'It's Stevie.'

  8

  Stevie is such a very long time ago, and so far away, that the story has acquired the air of a fairy tale that happened to someone else. Except it wasn't a fairy tale. It had happened, and it had happened to him, and is still the most painful thing Menno Koopman has ever experienced.

  The music of the period sometimes jolts him backwards in a vertiginous flush of synaptic connections. Something like the snap drum intro to Bowie's 'Young Americans' can take Koopman right back to 1975 and to Sharon and Stevie.

  Sharon had been a looker, not a doubt about that. Koop doesn't really remember the physical details of what she looked like, other than a vague recollection of blonde hair, flicked back Farrah Fawcett-style, but he remembers the feeling he got when he saw her. It could be summed up in one word.

  Sex.

  Sweet sixteen but Sharon had most definitely been kissed. Koop hadn't had any illusions that he was the first, but he was the first who'd managed to get Sharon Carroll pregnant. They'd been standing against the iron gates of Hillside High up on Breeze Hill when she told him. He still had pimples.

  'We'll get married,' he'd said, not knowing what else to say and not wanting to appear as he was: a scared-shitless teenager. 'I'm goin' in the police. It'll be alright.' It was an assertion, nothing more. Even as the words came out of his mouth Koop remembers thinking that things probably wouldn't be alright. Fucking pregnant! Jesus.

  If Sharon noticed his hesitation she didn't say anything. She'd agreed. It had felt like a plan. Grown up. It would be alright.

  'Alright,' she said. 'OK.'

  Sharon's family had other ideas.

  After a gut-churning scene between his and Sharon's parents one night in their cramped terraced house – an evening that still had the power to bring a blush to Koop's face – almost as soon as Stevie was born, the Carrolls had emigrated, seemingly overnight, to Australia; one of the last contingent of the ten-pound Poms.

  Koop had formed half-baked heroic ideas about following Sharon over there, of becoming an Australian, of making his new life with his woman and his baby. He'd even got as far as turning up at the Cunard Buildings to find out about applications.

  But he was seventeen. And at seventeen the pain had subsided shamefully quickly.

  A year after Stevie's birth Koop heard through a school friend, who'd also made the move down under, that Sharon was pregnant again and had married a local. She discouraged Koop's attempts to contact Stevie as he grew older and, in all honesty, Koop had been glad. He hadn't the heart to interfere. He hoped Sharon and Stevie were making a go of things and, once he'd started work as a cadet, had begun sending money to Australia. The envelopes came back, scrawled 'return to sender' and, year after year, little by little, Koop's will lessened. Doing the right thing was complicated, slippery, and he'd never been sure he'd managed it, or even come close.

  It hadn't, in the end, been his to do. It was up to Sharon and Sharon's new family to decide, and what they'd decided was best was for Koop to fade from Stevie's life as if he'd never existed.

  Koop had supposed that Stevie might, if told, eventually show some interest in following up the trail of his real father, but it had never happened. Years became decades, the details of Stevie's life being drip-fed in ever-decreasing snippets of hard-won information, and although Koop tried to conjure up the appropriate feelings it had always felt false, as if he were feigning interest. He thought of Stevie frequently, often in idealised terms. And, ever since moving to Australia himself, had once or twice entertained fanciful notions of tracing him (it would be easy) and entering his life, a late flowering of filial affection.

  It had been Zoe who'd gently shown him how potentially destructive this could be, not just for Stevie but for Koop himself. Zoe who –

  'Mr Koopman?'

  It's Sullivan and Koop is back in his kitchen. He coughs and straightens his back.

  'Stevie?' he says, looking Sullivan in the eye. 'What's happened? Why are you guys here?'

  Sullivan licks his lips and flicks a glance in Zoe's direction. Koop knows what's coming isn't going to be any kind of good.

  'They found a body,' says Zoe. 'In Liverpool.'

  9

  It's taken six weeks for the container ship Scanda-Hap, registered under an Indonesian flag, to make the trip from Liverpool via Hamburg and Singapore. Right now she's pushing south hard down the east coast of Australia and is less than three days from berthing in Brisbane. The ship rolls easily through a moderate swell, the bulk of her load automotive, almost all of it cars from the Jaguar and Ford factories in Liverpool. In Singapore they'd unloaded a third of the cargo and filled up with an assortment of other goods, all sealed in containers and only distinguishable by the coded tracking system.

  Three particular containers, stowed by prior arrangement in the centre of a three-storeyed stack, are of special interest to the ship's cargo officer who is receiving a large sum of money to ensure that they're delivered to the right person without attracting the attention of customs officials.

  The cargo officer, a jittery Pole who makes more from this trip than he makes in a year of regular work, had inspected the containers himself once the voyage was underway and had found them to contain exactly what they specified: three expensive, brand new Jaguars. No doubt there is more to it than that but he knows enough to reseal the containers and think about it no more.

  At Brisbane the ship docks and, despite the acid tension knot in the cargo officer's gut, clears the customs inspection without incident. The Pole had expected nothing else, but he races to the head and unloads his stomach when the customs men have left. Later, marginally more relaxed, he leans over the side and watches the three containers being unloaded before heading below decks, his part in whatever this was over.

  Once off the ship, the containers make their stately way to a huge dockside container storage park to the west of the Port of Brisbane terminal where they sit for two days unmolested. On the third day a number of legitimate car dealership delivery drivers arrive and, again after undergoing scrupulous documentation checks, drive the vehicles inside the containers a short distance to a dealership car pound where the cars sit in the sun in neat rows, waiting to be transported across Australia. It's cheaper to transport the vehicles on double-decked car transporters than for them to remain in the containers.

  The three vehicles from the three special containers so carefully handled by the Pole are parked at the end of the first row nearest to the perimeter fence. They are there not so that they can be taken out under cover of darkness – that would be foolish; the vehicles can be moved easily when required – but in order that Max Kolomiets and Anton Bytchkov, who pull up on the perimeter road in a tricked-out Jeep Cherokee, can check their safe arrival. The two are very anxious to see the cars for themselves.

  Between them the Jaguars contain eight hundred kilos of cocaine.

  They are worth keeping an eye on.

  10

  'That's where the kids must have got in.' Em Harris stops, her hand on the heavy lever attached to the container door, her voice barely above a whisper, and points to a section of the mostly well-maintained fence that has one tiny piece missing, revealing a small gap at its foot just big enough for a child to fit through. Keane acknowledges what she says with a twitch of his head but can't help thinking Em is delaying going inside. He pushes past her, suddenly anxious to see if their feeling about the container is right. Keane takes the lever and leans back using his weight to open the heavy door. He lowers the lever to anchor the door and steps inside.

  'Careful, Frank,' says Harris. 'This is the place, you kn
ow that, right?'

  Keane raises his hand in acknowledgment. He hasn't got a superstitious bone in his body, but a space where someone has met a violent death has an atmosphere unlike that found anywhere else. A kind of low-level psychological hum, a suppressed howl. Keane's been in too many of them for it to be all bull.

  He pauses at the entrance, produces a powerful penlight from his jacket and sweeps the beam around the interior quickly, a first pass. It's empty apart from a metal pole which has been jacked tightly into place, braced at roof and floor in the same way Keane has seen builders supporting ceilings in houses under repair. Around the base of the pole, and leading from there in a thick ragged line towards the door of the container, is the blood trail that had frightened the kids enough to make a call to their natural enemy, the police.

  Keane takes out some latex gloves and hands Harris a pair. They exchange a glance and both suppress a feeling of elation. The case is achieving momentum. The murder happened in here. There will be something useful.

  The container smells of vomit. Keane points his beam and sees a small pool of the stuff splashed up against a corner. Someone sickened by the killing? He makes a mental note and steps further inside.

  Once in, there is a complete silence. Even the traffic surf has gone.

  The two of them move slowly towards the pole taking great care where they place their feet. Without needing to check with Keane, Harris grabs her mobile and calls for the SOC unit to be sent out. When the call is finished she uses the phone display light to help illuminate the container. Keane traces the blood pattern on the floor.

  'Quite a mess,' says Harris.

  There is a lot of blood. The SOC unit will check for compatibility with the victim, but both of them know they're looking at the torture site.

  The blood is dry, although Keane and Harris both see that it's still fresh enough to be recognisably red. In evocative splatters and dripped ribbons it radiates out from the pole in a circular fashion. Only a narrow strip of floor near the pole has escaped the blood.

  'He moved around,' says Harris. Keane knows she's talking about the killer. It doesn't take a genius to work out the victim was tied to the pole. Harris takes a number of photographs using her iPhone.

  'But he couldn't do the back of his head, the bit against the pole,' says Keane, pointing a latex-clad finger at a relatively clean section of the floor. 'Hence the gap.' He feels a shiver on his neck and hopes the SOC unit doesn't take too long.

  Harris bends low to the floor, careful not to step on any blood.

  'These small splatters.' She points out several curving marks on the floor. 'He's flicking the blood off the blade.' Harris mimes the motion and Keane can almost see the blood falling.

  Keane breathes out slowly and runs his torch over the ceiling and upper walls of the container. He can see nothing of any interest, although the SOC officers will go over the entire place in microscopic detail. Perhaps they'll turn something up.

  Harris moves away from the pole and runs her phone light slowly and deliberately along the base of the metal walls. At one point a small collection of detritus has gathered, blown by the breeze through the open door. She moves along carefully, stopping every few centimetres to take a closer look at the offerings. Two items in particular seem to hold her attention for longer than the rest. She places both in a small plastic evidence bag she produces from her jacket pocket and stands up, holding the bag to the light. Keane can see she's shaken by something but he doesn't ask. Harris will tell him soon enough.

  Behind them the door creaks in the wind and she and Keane both twitch.

  'Let's leave it at that,' he says. 'We don't want to contaminate the scene.' Harris doesn't hesitate. Despite the absence of a body, the site is the creepiest place Keane has ever been in. There's something demented about this one and Keane can feel the container taking a permanent space in his memory, a space he doesn't want it to occupy but is now powerless to stop. It joins all the other unwelcome memories that, on bad days, or on dry-mouthed pre-dawn mornings, seem to be the only ones he has.

  Outside in the welcoming cold, Keane flips open his mobile and calls the container details in to the other members of the MIT team. Siobhan McDonald takes the call and tells him the SOC unit has already buzzed the news in.

  'It's here,' Keane tells McDonald. 'I'd bet my left nut. Get Corner and Rose started on tracing access to the Freeport.' Even as he's giving the order, Keane knows this line of inquiry will be unlikely to produce results. But it has to be done. The Freeport must have CCTV, gate logs, something. Corner and Rose can start digging into who had access. He signs off and pockets his phone.

  'What did you get?' he says to Em, pointing at the plastic bag in her hand with his chin.

  Harris, her equilibrium restored but her face grim, holds it up to Keane's eye level. In the bag is a small lens cap of the kind you'd find on a video camera. The word 'Sony' is etched into the plastic. It looks new.

  'Sweet Jesus,' says Keane, the penny dropping. 'The fuckers taped it.'

  11

  Macksym Kolomiets, known as Max by all who fear and love him (and the former group far outnumbers the latter), has no idea this is to be his last hour. Very few people ever do. For most, the time of their death must always be at some far distant point and Max is no different. If someone had told him he was about to die, and soon, he'd have laughed. What could possibly harm him, the under-14s coach, on this perfect Gold Coast evening, out in the centre of the paddock surrounded by fifteen excited boys kicking footballs?

  A lightning strike?

  It would have to be something cataclysmic, because anything less wouldn't get past Anton Bytchkov, waiting in the car as always. Very few dangerous things in Max's life get past Anton Bytchkov.

  In the unlikely event that anyone or anything did somehow manage that prodigious feat, they would then have to face up to Max Kolomiets himself. The Russian – although Max would have beaten anyone who called him that to his face, proudly hailing as he does from Ukraine – is a man with a big reputation up and down the Goldie. Developer. Party contributor. Criminal.

  No, Max would not have believed his time had come, not even if the devil himself arrived, the Grim Reaper in tow.

  He swats away a mosquito, glad he sprayed himself before coming out, blows his whistle and begins to organise the team into two shooting drills. One of the boys, Mitch Barnes, the captain of the team, trots across to Max and begins talking about the upcoming game. The season proper is over but the summer league is starting this Saturday.

  In the car, Anton sits bolt upright as always, his eyes fixed on the field and his beefy forearm resting on the sill of the Beemer. He looks every inch the attentive bodyguard.

  Apart from the neat hole in his temple from which dribbles a thick line of blood showing black against his lifeless Ukrainian skin.

  He hadn't known a thing, thinks Jimmy Gelagotis, working up a head of steam. Fucking Russians think they're fucking invincible. Not so invincible now, eh, Anton, malaka?

  Gelagotis puts the gun inside his zipper jacket with some difficulty, the silencer bulking out the weapon's snout. Jimmy Gelagotis fucking hates Russians. Or Ukrainians, or whatever the fuck snow-bound fucking hell-hole wasteland they fucking crawled the fuck out of. Especially fucking Russians who have the fucking cheek to fuck about with his fucking business.

  Fifteen years as a card-carrying nasty bastard has taught Jimmy Gelagotis that people never expect those they are in business with to go directly for the nuclear option in the event of a dispute.

  With Jimmy, the nuclear option is the favourite option. He's been brought up to believe in hitting first, hitting fucking hard, and making sure it fucking counts, in that order, and it hasn't let him, or those who depend on him, down yet. Work with Jimmy and you get the benefits: girls, cars, money, the usual shit. Cross Jimmy Gelagotis and what you get is what Anton has just discovered. The motherfucking nuclear option, baby, all the motherfucking way.

  And now Kolomie
ts is going to find out about it too.

  Jimmy puts one hand in the nylon pocket of his heavy black G-Star zip-up. He is sweating lightly in the warm evening air, but the coat is needed to hide the gun. Don't want Kolomiets getting any warning, do we? Jimmy walks casually across the floodlit grass, his hand raised in greeting, the sounds of the boys getting sharper, their voices insistent, passionate about the game. He is smiling.

  About twenty metres away, Max sees him. Jimmy registers The Russian's hesitation as he shades his eyes against the floods. That's right, Max, it's me. Just deal with it.

  Jimmy sees Max glance towards the Beemer. Anton's head and shoulders are silhouetted against the clubhouse lights and Max relaxes a little. He and Gelagotis are in business, after all. True, there have been some minor difficulties lately, Jimmy not happy about taking a smaller cut of the Liverpool thing, but what business doesn't get the odd bump in the road now and again? And with more than one hundred and fifty million dollars floating around, did Jimmy really think he was going to continue on the same percentage?

  Still, Max will have to have a word with Anton later. It doesn't look good letting anyone get so close without him being there, not even a trusted ally like Jimmy Gelagotis.

  'Friend!' says Max, a warm smile crinkling his broad face. 'This is surprise.' He pats Mitch Barnes on the head. 'You come to see future Socceroos?'

  Jimmy doesn't reply. There's no point. Talking is for amateurs.

  Jimmy glances at the boy, draws out his Sig Sauer and shoots Max three times in the face and chest. The boy jerks involuntarily, his eyes wide, his face speckled with blood as Max drops to the grass without a sound. Jimmy Gelagotis bends and places the barrel against Kolomiets's temple and pulls the trigger one more time. Now the boy makes a kind of squeaking sound and begins to tremble violently. Jimmy expects the boy to wet himself but he doesn't. He is paralysed.