Hell To Pay (14 page)

Chapter 1

As a division of labour, it didn't come more unfair than this. As Tommy sat in a comfy car, heater up full bung, sipping a Starbucks and leisurely munching on a cheese and onion bagel (with extra fried onions), I was standing outside, shivering my barely covered butt off, as the wind whooshed up my skirt and the rain came down like nails.

This was summer in Scotland.

Huddled in a doorway, in a scraggy blonde wig, and my best
Pretty Woman
outfit, I'm already soaked to the skin. And, I know it won’t get any better because there are men who will pull over in their cars and ask how much I charge for a blow job or full sex.

As downward spirals go, this was bad. At least it would have been if I hadn’t been out here to catch a killer and not because I was reduced to turning tricks for a living.

After our last episode together (the word episode's not mine, it's Tommy's; he likes to talk as though we're on a TV show) we should have been desperate to retreat back into our safe, normal lives. We could start again, bound together by the secrets we shared; secrets that could never get out because they’d land us both in the slammer.

But, neither of us wanted that. Dicing with danger had whetted our appetite for a world where we could get justice for those who’d been wronged (I was once one of those people) and ensure scumbags got what they deserved. Our lack of ties meant we could do that without anyone knowing. There was nobody who was expecting us home at a set time; no family waiting for us. My parents and brother were dead and Tommy's only close relative, his dad, was in a nursing home with dementia.

Before the worst night of my life set off a chain of events that changed me forever, I’d been rudderless doing a job I hated, designing those awful leaflets for the inserts they put in newspapers and magazines that nobody wants, advertising all kinds of crap like mobility scooters and over 50’s savings plans. I was a mouse trapped on a wheel that wouldn’t stop turning even when I wanted to get the hell off.

Now I’d found meaning and a sense of purpose and it had all been triggered by a news report about missing sex workers. One of those women had been found dead with the finger of another missing woman wedged in her throat as if it were a hot dog she’d swallowed whole. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that image out of my head or the smarmy newsreader’s dismissive tone as she’d used the word prostitute. The prissy bitch spat out the word like phlegm. So much for the sisterhood.

A car pulls up alongside me and a head comes into view.

"Want some business, darling?"

Scrunching up my face, I try not to laugh when I see that it’s Tommy. "How does a boot to the groin region sound?” A quick smirk. “I’ll even pay you."

Tommy feigns shock. "Jeez, no wonder you’re making no money. You’re customer service is lousy."

If I’d had anything heavy to hand, I’d have flung it at him.

"You try standing on Beverley Hills Boulevard here, with a skirt the size of dental floss and see how you do, pal."

As I climb in the passenger seat, Tommy takes in my outfit. “Doubt I’d look that good in a skirt and fishnets, Nancy." He pats my leg, swiftly removing his hand when I give him a death glare. “But, I prefer you as a redhead. It suits your fiery personality.”

He was being polite; I’d caught sight of myself in the mirror and I looked like something that had been washed up at sea.

Removing the blonde wig, I shook out my real hair, glad to be rid of that wig. "Do you think Kim’s ever going to show?"

Tommy didn’t reply as the smile on his face dimmed.

There was no point in deluding ourselves. After three nights’ walking the same streets where Kim used to ply her trade before she’d disappeared and then reappeared, there was no sign of her. It was beginning to look like she’d been spirited away, again. But this time, just like Sheena and the other women, she might never be coming back.

Maybe they’d find her in a dump somewhere with some other girl’s finger in her stomach too; her eyes and nose pecked out by crows.

Finding Kim was the key to everything, because so far she was the only one who’d come back. Somehow, she’d managed to escape the fate of the other missing women, at least once.

We needed to find out what she knew.

Chapter 2

After we saw the story on the news and listened to a procession of tight-lipped commentators inferring that by their “choice of career” these women had given up any right to expect not to be abducted and murdered, Tommy and I decided to “look into things.” We told ourselves that there was no obligation for us to get involved. We’d already put our lives on the line and weren’t looking to do so again against someone who could well be another Suffolk Strangler. At least that’s what I told myself. The truth was I’d got an adrenaline rush out of getting revenge and being a kick-ass. I wanted more. For me, there was no going back to my old life, because the person in that life was now a stranger to me.

Tommy’s eyes were filled with concentration as we’d worked out a plan. “Before we can do anything we need to know everything we can about the victims. Their families, their friends or any ties they might have."

“We can glean as much as we can from the papers and the news,” I said. “Speak to their families.”

Tommy nodded. "I have a friend in the force. He’ll help us with some info. He worked with our Sammy."

Tommy’s brother had been an undercover cop. He’d been killed by the same man who’d ordered the murder of my parents and brother. The bastard had eventually been killed by his own daughter, but only because I couldn’t kill him first. Whilst I was sad about her death, I’d have danced on her father’s grave, after lighting a bonfire and having a barbecue. Hate wasn’t a strong enough word to describe my thoughts towards him. He’d taken so much from me.

“We should talk to the women who work the same streets as they do," I said. "Maybe they’ll know something.” Tommy didn’t look so sure, so I carried on. “It wasn’t like those women worked as city bankers. They were mixing with sordid little men who can only get their rocks off with a woman they paid to go down an alleyway for a quick fumble. Pathetic bastards.”

Tommy grinned. “Christ, Nancy you’re pretty judgemental about the punters.”

The vein in my forehead throbbed. “And, I shouldn’t be? Don’t you read the papers? These punters couldn’t care less that they’re fuelling those women’s addictions. Or that they’re no better than rapists because they have sex with girls who’ve been sex trafficked; many of them kids."

Tommy held up his hand in surrender. "Fair enough. But, we'll need to tread carefully. They’ll already be jittery; I don’t want a stiletto heel through my skull.”

“We could always offer money for information,” I said. “That might get them to tell us things that they wouldn’t tell the cops.”

Tommy sucked in his cheeks. “Nah. These women are scared shitless. It’d be better if…”

He paused mid-sentence.

“If what?”

I hated it when he clammed up like this.

There was an awkward moment as he stared off into the distance, flexing his arm until it cracked. Eventually he said, “Nah, you couldn’t do that.”

Reaching over, I pinched his arm. He didn’t flinch, but then with biceps like his it probably hadn’t registered.

He swallowed and this time he met my gaze. “They’d be more likely to talk to you if you were one of them.”

He was right. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Seeing his serious expression, I couldn’t risk a jibe. I needed something to lighten the atmosphere, because the thought of walking the same streets as a murdered woman sickened me. “Crikey, a few months into our relationship and you’re already pimping me out. Should I be worried?”

Now he smiled, but it quickly faded. “Obviously it’d be as a last resort,” said Tommy, his mouth tight, “You wouldn’t have to actually turn tricks. Just act like you are. Put on a show. Make yourself believable. We need the other girls to see you as one of them, so they’ll confide in you and tell you where to find Kim.”

Shit.
The full implication of what I’d agreed to do started to sink in, and my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a lump of lead. "What am I meant to say if a punter comes over and rolls down the window?"

"Tell them you have a regular appointment to keep with a cop. That'll scare them off."

Tommy had an answer for everything.

“But, you going on the streets is a last resort, Nancy. You know that even with me nearby, it’s dangerous. Anything could happen.”

He’d get no argument from me on that score.

“You know I’d do it, but my hairy legs would give me away. Glasgow’s not ready for the Ladyboys.” The glint in his eyes made me chuckle.

Tommy went back to being serious “It might not even come to that. Most people are harmed by people they know. Husbands, boyfriends, relations, even parents. So, we concentrate on family first.” He paused. “We’ll need a cover story.”

I’d come up with a plan that I thought would work. "We can say we're journalists doing a story on their daughters; trying to find out what happened to them."

Tommy didn’t agree. "The press have been door-stepping these poor bastards for weeks now, writing all sorts of lurid tales about their daughters descent into prostitution. Painting them as junkie whores. They’ll just slam their doors in our faces and tell us to fuck off. Who can blame them? I’d do the same thing."

He had a point. "But how else do we get them to talk to us? We can't say we're the police. They'll expect to see some ID and when we don't have it they'll call the cops on us."

The last thing I needed was the ever diligent Detective Inspector Waddell on my case; the man was as tenacious as a terrier down a rabbit hole. He already suspected I’d been up to no good, which was hardly surprising when one of the men who murdered my parents and raped me, ended up tied to a bed, in his manky boxers, with the word “RAPIST” carved into his stomach Lisbeth Salander style. Not that I’d been a complete psycho. I’d shown him some mercy and had drugged him first. He and his mate had shown me no such mercy when they’d raped me again and again, before abandoning me to die alone in a puddle of my own blood.

Tommy outlined his plan. "We tell them we're relatives of one of the missing girls and we want to find out what happened to her and the others. That way the families of the other women might talk to us.”

“That might work,” I said. At least they’d be sympathetic and less likely to chase us from their doors.

So, that’s what we agreed to do. But, first, we had to learn as much about the missing women as we could before we spoke to anyone.

Whilst I headed off to the Mitchell reference library where they kept newspapers on microfiche, Tommy went off to speak to his police contact. Between us, we’d get what we needed.

To be continued...

THROWAWAYS (Die Hard for Girls Book 2) IS AVAILABLE NOW
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READ ON FO
R
AN EXTRACT FROM THE RESTLESS DEAD

The Restless Dead

A zombie novel by Jenny Thomson

(An excerpt)

We couldn’t handle Archie staring back at us with accusing eyes, and he stank, so I covered him up with a duvet. A pink one with polka dots, which is the only spare one we have.

Scott spotted what he called the girly duvet and screwed up his face. “He’s my mate. We need to show him some respect.”

I’m irritated his pal has bled all over the new rug, yet I’m the one getting all the agro for using a pink duvet.

Instead of coming up with an alternative to cover up his friend, Scott stood there with a stern expression on his face and shook his head. “It’s just no right.” Then his eyes grew wide and staring as he gawped at the duvet. “I think it moved.”

I snorted and shook my head. “How can it have moved? He’s deid. His stomach’s on our carpet.”

Just because Scott didn’t consider the duvet manly enough for his pal, didn’t give him the right to try to freak me out. But I looked down anyway.

At first, I didn’t see any movement, but I carried on watching. Then Archie’s feet started moving, making a tapping motion as if dancing in time to music. Before I’d seen it for myself, I thought that what happened to all those others on TV was not the same as what happened to Archie, because making that connection would open a whole Pandora’s Box of trouble.

Denial is after all a way of shielding myself from the truth. But eventually realisation dawns, especially when Archie started doing a tap dance on my living room floor. “Fuck, he’s no deid.”

While he’s doing this I realised there’s one last thing we can do for him: cave in his head.

Scott gives me his teacher-doesn’t-approve stare. “Wish you wouldn’t swear, Emma. It makes you ugly.”

As if my swearing was our biggest problem right now.

I wanted to give him an earful for chastising me like I was one of his pupils, but I’m too busy watching as dead Archie takes a hacking breath and tries to get up.

I don’t say anything. I couldn’t breathe. I simply held out my finger and pointed as if auditioning for the National Lottery’s It Could Be You ad. But this was one lottery I sure as hell didn’t want to win.

Archie flung the duvet asunder. His ash-grey face was set in a grimace that reminded me of a Mayan death mask. He looked like hell, which was no surprise considering his innards were spread out all over our carpet. But it’s his eyes that were the real giveaway that Archie wasn’t Archie anymore. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, but now those eyes were gone, replaced by dead orbs, as black as coal. They lacked that spark of humanity and self-awareness, whatever it is that makes us human.

Something clicked in that brain of his. He stared at us like a starving dog eyeing someone's dinner. His mouth dropped open and rancid black sludge spilt out. Then he howled.

I thought I was going to puke.

He grabbed for my arm, his blackened teeth as sharp as knives snapping at me. I managed to sidestep his reach.

A scream shrieked out of my throat before I could stop it.

HOW TO KILL A ZOMBIE

The thing about being confronted by zombies is that we all think we’ll know what to do. We’ve all seen the movies, watched the TV shows. To kill a zombie you need to splatter the brains all over the shop with a gun. But the reality is different for those of us living in Scotland where we don’t have guns in our wardrobes or locked in a box, because we don’t keep guns, period. That makes killing the zombies damn difficult.

My boyfriend is useless as a handyman, so there’s no toolkit in our third floor tenement flat. We have no hammers, chisels, or drills to destroy the brain of the zombie who used to be my boyfriend’s best pal.

Okay, this so-called pal drives me mental, like the time he got Scott, who’s not a big drinker, steamboats one night and dragged him along to a lap dancing bar where he ended up slipping crisp twenties into Monique or Cindi’s g-string. (I know this because he kindly recorded footage on Scott’s mobile phone.) I’m still pissed about that, but I don’t hate him to the extent that I want to cave his head in. 

So when the thing that used to be Archie, struggles to its feet and lumbers towards us, arms outstretched, as if pretending to be rent-a-ghost, I snatch the first thing I can get my mitts on, an iron I’d forgotten to turn off, and I scud him across the head with it.

There’s an almighty hiss as it scorches his flesh, accompanied by the smell of burnt barbecue. The iron trundles onto the floor where it lies, scorching the carpet. I can’t believe what I’ve just done and my hand goes limp.

Archie’s makes a throaty noise and lurches towards me. That's when Scott gets busy, bludgeoning his best mate over the head with an ugly, heavy lamp his parents had bought us as a housewarming present.

Globs of sticky brain matter splatter the wall as though someone dumped mince in a blender without the lid on and switched it to turbo, but Scott still keeps whacking dead Archie, because dead Archie keeps coming at me.

My back's to the wall. Will he not die, again?

TO BE CONTINUED…

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