The Chop Shop Read online

  Michael tightened the collar on his coat. His watch said one-twenty. Their guide led them through a mess of twisting and turning back alleys formed from buildings that had been left unfinished for God knows how long.

  Neon displays flashed, trying to burn advertisements for beauty products onto his retinas. They gave the world a strange kind of red hue, casting hard shadows that shifted and changed with every frame of video played. Scores of bicycle bells rang from a nearby road.

  Their journey was further than the lance corporal implied. The house stood separate and detached from the surrounding urban sprawl in Upper Richmond. A private garden and vegetable allotment was penned in by chain fence and barbed wire. Security cameras watched the perimeter.

  Further on was a rectangular hole in the platform, sealed off by construction signs and safety barriers. He saw down into the streets below. Policemen stood guard outside, talking to two members of a forensics team clad in white plastic suits. A dead bodyguard was still slumped against the wall, leaving a trail of blood down the brickwork where he'd fallen.

  “We'll be outside,” Corporal Hill said.

  They pulled on gloves and shoe covers before going inside. The floor was laminated wood and littered with spent shell casings, so many that the forensics team hadn't even bothered trying to preserve their location.

  Michael knelt down, picked one up and held it to the light. “.45, Chinese made.”

  “I expect most of them ended up in him,” Richard said, gesturing to the bodyguard lying dead.

  Another member of the forensics team stepped into the hallway. “Don't know why you're wasting your time coming up here, we can send the reports down to you.”

  “Sometimes it's better to see things for yourself. Information has a habit of getting lost when you send it down to us,” Michael said.

  “I love it. Somebody thinks the killer is in your garden, so you come swarming up here like flies on shit thinking you're something special,” the man said. He raised his gloved hands in surrender. “You know what, mate? Be my guest. Check the place out for yourselves and then go back under whatever rock you crawled out from.”

  He pushed his way past the detectives.

  “Looks like they had a small war in here, and the bodyguards did a lot of missing,” Richard said. He pointed to the holes in the walls.

  “Panic fire. But what made them panic? They were trained for this kind of stuff,” Michael said.

  They walked into the foyer. The guard in here was slumped in the corner, missing everything above the jaw. White wallpaper had been turned red by the contents of his skull. Little lumps of brain collected on top of the skirting board.

  “Careful, Rich. Don't step on that eyeball,” Helen said.

  “Shit,” he said, when he saw it. “That's nasty.”

  “I guess this is what a late-term abortion looks like,” David said.

  Maria jabbed him in the arm with her elbow.

  Michael grimaced and tried not to look at the corpse. He pointed to an empty casing. “Shotgun. Twelve gauge. The .45s would have come from a submachine gun, so he probably emptied the entire magazine into the previous two guys. In a place like this, there's no time to reload, so he swaps to a backup weapon. He must have charged right in here, no stopping.”

  “Just one guy? With all these bullets flying about, he was bound to get hit sooner or later,” Richard said.

  Michael shrugged. A man from forensics was checking for prints in the lounge under the watchful stare of another policeman. He turned, adjusting his mask, and pointed to the two corpses bleeding over the African rug. “The woman was Jim Belton's wife. That guy there is just another guard.”

  Dark mahogany shelves held countless hardback books. The television display was nearly as big as the wall it was mounted upon.

  “Shotguns really make a mess,” David said.

  “Did they take anything?” Michael said.

  “Not that I can tell,” said the forensics man. “Seems like it's just a straight up massacre. Don't bother asking about those security cameras; the guy knew what he was doing. The storage unit is smashed to pieces. Some of the lads are trying to pull something of worth from the remains, but we just don't have the technical capability for that kind of thing.

  “What's upstairs?”

  “Another guard and Jim Belton's son. You'll want to take a look at the latter, but I hope you have a strong stomach. Three other bodies out back by the pool. More guards. Nobody of note.”

  Michael went up the stairs. The wooden steps were firm and didn't creak. A line of family photos hung on the walls with an odd piece of abstract art placed between them here and there. Another body. More shell casings.

  “5.56. I guess he shot the guys out back first before coming up here. How many guns did he bring?” Richard said.

  “It is a lot to carry. Two guys, maybe, but one? No way,” Helen said.

  David pushed on ahead. “Bathroom to the left, God knows what’s to the right.”

  It turned out to be a study filled with more pieces of art. Bookshelves sagged under the weight of scholarly books. The laptop on the desk had been tagged with a police note.

  “They should just turn this whole place into an art gallery.

  People would flock to it,” David said.

  “And the dead bodies?” Richard said.

  “Especially with the bodies. When they begin to decompose, some quack from the papers will be falling all over himself to ascribe some kind of meaning to it all. Perhaps they'll consider it a symbolic representation of natural selection. Black and white, life and death, beginning and end. It's a guaranteed hit."

  “There's nothing natural about dying in a hail of machine gun fire, Dave,” Helen said.

  Michael went into the first bedroom, but like the study, it was untouched. David opened some of the drawers. He crammed a handful of jewellery into his coat pocket.

  “Can you not do that, please? It really messes with the whole idea of a God damn crime scene,” Michael said.

  “No. Nobody is going to miss it, and it meant nothing to the killer. I can get something for all this crap from the local pawnshop.”

  “For God's sake.”

  David ignored him.

  “Kid's bedroom at the end of the hall. You all need to see this,” Richard said.

  “Yes, but you'll regret it afterwards,” said Helen.

  Michael hurried after the others. He stopped short in the doorway, transfixed by the sight of a young boy pinned to the wall by a barrage of industrial-sized nails.

  “It seems like somebody really wanted to hammer their point home,” David said.

  Michael went to the window. It looked out over the back to where the swimming pool was, where three corpses floated in the bloody water. Just past the swimming pool was a small shack where he supposed the security detail lived when off duty.

  "He used a nail gun, not a hammer," Michael said.

  "Yeah, well, a single shot to the head would have been nicer," Richard said.

  "Doesn't matter. The end result is the same," David said.

  Michael moved closer to the body. “Okay, look; he's been deliberately killed in a different fashion to everybody else. Obviously we can all see that the gunman wanted to send a message, but check this out. The boy's weight should be heavier than the nails can bare. They haven't penetrated far enough into the wall. It's like he weighs nothing at all. There's something wrong with him, look at his bones.”

  Helen opened some of the drawers. “Medicines in here. Already tagged by forensics. Nice of them to forget to mention those to us. Looks like that's everything. The guys who did this are professionals. We won't get them. Let's bin the case now and move onto something we can solve.”

  “Good. I want to get some lunch,” David said.

  One of the policemen stopped them on the way out. He pushed a card folder into Michael's hands. “Preliminary report. Don't ask me how, but somebody managed to pull a single image from the camera drive
s. We're still waiting to see if they can clean the picture up. Have fun. I reckon you'll last a day tops before you give up.”

  He flicked straight to the black and white picture. The image was broken up with strips of print banding, and the paper still felt damp from the ink application. It came from the first interior camera, dark, blurry with just enough definition to show a single figure gripping a submachine gun in his hand.

  The shot had caught the muzzle flare at full intensity. Michael inhaled slowly through the nose. He felt the others crowding around him for a better look. The gunman was tall, dressed in a trench coat that sagged from pockets full of ammunition. Rifles and shotguns hung off his shoulders by their straps.

  “One guy. Just like you said,” Richard said.

  Helen tutted. “He's not even flinching. Look at those eyes; creepy as hell.”

  Chapter 3.

  The gunman was still on his mind when he sat down in the cafeteria. Rickety chairs and unclean tables reminded him of the lunch hall at school. All it needed now was a bowl of dessert with a few strands of the dinner lady's hair and a broken nail or two in it to complete the illusion.

  Michael opened the folder and scattered the papers across the table, before unwrapping his cheese sandwiches. He took a bite, chewed, and found his gaze drawn back to the set of photos. There were four now, cleaned up and printed on matte-surface card. Three of them came from security cameras at a commercial supply lift.

  The man's eyes seemed as off in these photos as the first. They had an emptiness to them, sometimes seeming like cat eyes when the light caught them at a certain angle. A final shot caught him riding the lift down, radio in hand, but minus the guns.

  A shadow loomed over the photographs. “Mind if I sit?”

  Michael glanced up and recognised her as the blonde woman from the office. He nodded, gathering up the papers and stacking them to one side. “Sure.”

  She flashed him a brief sickly smile and sat down in the opposite chair. “I'm Samantha. That argument earlier wasn't the best of introductions. Things have a habit of getting heated in there very easily. Sorry, just call me Sam.”

  “It's fine. I'm Michael,” he said, shaking her hand across the table.

  Sam looked at his sandwiches. “I wouldn't eat the food here either. You can get away with the pre-packaged stuff if you're desperate; they make it off site. How has your first day been here?”

  “Strange is probably a good word. To tell you the truth, I liked it better at my previous station. Before the part where somebody took it upon themselves to remodel the building with high-explosives. A lot of good people worked there.”

  She brushed away a strand of hair that had slipped loose from her hair band. “Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. Looks like you've already got yourself a new case.”

  Michael showed her the photographs. “Bits and pieces of one. A lot of bodies, but not much to go on.”

  Sam grimaced at the sight of them. “Grizzly stuff. What's up with those eyes? They look terrible. I don't envy you on this one, or any of them, actually. Filing reports on this stuff in admin is enough for me.”

  “You're not the first person to have mentioned the eyes. I don't know, though. Before the war people were managing to do some pretty advanced stuff with eyes, but now? Not so much. I think it's too early to make a judgement. Bad for the investigation. Look at this last one, though. All those floodlights around the lift. His eyes are doing something there, like they're reacting in some way.”

  “Well, here's hoping that neither of us run into him in a dark alley.”

  Michael nodded. “Agreed, but I expect it's a contract hit of some kind. People like this are professionals, and they don't sit around in dark alleys waiting for victims like a serial killer.”

  She ate some of the salad from its plastic packaging and then paused. “Think you can catch him?”

  “Maybe,” Michael said. He finished another sandwich. “If somebody else doesn't find him first. Everybody is wanting a piece of the case at the moment; big bonuses to be had, but it always tails off sooner or later. They disappear, we lose the trail, and we find an easier case to solve. He's using a radio handset, though. We have listening posts for that kind of thing. They might have picked something up.”

  They finished their food. He gathered up the papers and slid them back into the card folder.

  “It was nice meeting you anyway. I'm sure we'll run into each other again sooner or later around here,” she said.

  Michael dumped the remains of his lunch in the bin. He turned around to find a policeman queuing up behind him with an expression of vague amusement. The corporal had a squashed nose and broad jaw that reminded him of the thugs who skulked about at night in gangs clamping people's cars.

  Michael looked at the name tag. “Oh, you. I didn't recognise you.”

  Corporal Hill gave him a wry smile. “Some of the lads are saying there were a dozen people nailed to the wall, with their heads mounted on spikes in that house.

  “Yeah, the usual rumours. All it takes is one person mouthing off. Nobody had their heads cut off, unless you count a close range shotgun wound, and it was just one person nailed to the wall. A kid.”

  “That's a bit harsh. I suppose I'd chuck myself off the platform too if I came home to see that.”

  “You have kids?”

  Hill's smile faded. He nodded. “Two daughters. Biggest regret of my life. This isn't the world I want them to grow up in. Sooner or later they'll run into trouble, and I won't always be around to sort it out for them. Don't have kids, Detective. Not if you're smart.”

  The others had been eating their lunch in the office, but there were only three now. He shut the door behind him and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and green glow of the monitors.

  “Just a heads up. David and Helen have been redeployed to another case; the underclass are getting worked up about it. I'm sick of having to placate these mobs all the time. Every time something happens that they don't like, they turn up at one of the stations and throw a hissy fit,” Maria said.

  “Pretty much,” Richard said. “It's just you and me on the case for now. At least until we can come up with something concrete; the major will wheel out the firepower, then. You should have seen David. He was pissed.”

  “It's more than the money for David. He thrives on this kind of thing because it's the closest he'll ever get to being somebody important. You put a few drinks in him and all he'll go on about is how he was going to become some hot shot banker before the war,” Maria said.

  Richard put a finger to his lips and hushed her. “Do you hear that? It's somebody playing a very, very small violin. I shed a single tear for his dead end career. Put David in charge of a bank and you'd get a second financial crash. We all know how the first one turned out.”

  Michael flipped his briefcase open and took the spiral-bound travel guide from it. “Do you know the nearest listening point for the Wimbledon access lift? I'm heading over there to see if they picked up any radio transmissions after the killing.”

  “Wimbledon? Yeah, let me think for a second,” Richard said. He picked up a red dry marker and flipped through the book. “Right here.”

  Maria left her desk and looked over his shoulder. “It's a little hard to find. I've been down there once or twice. The post isn't on the main street; you'll have to park and take a back alley into this little dead end. There used to be a shop up there, but I can't for the life of me remember its name. Archibald, do you know it?”

  Archibald shook his head. “Not the name. It was a chemist though. You can't miss it.”

  Michael gathered his stuff. “All right, let's go, Richard.”

  "Sorry, but I'm going to have to sit this one out. I'm waiting on a phone call, and I've got to speak to the guy in person. A message isn't going to cut it."

  “Might have been nice if you mentioned it before hand.”

  Richard sighed. “Look, you might not think I take my job seriousl
y, but I do. I've been barking up a few trees while you were eating lunch in the cafeteria.”

  "What kind of trees? The dead one outside on the grass?"

  “Like you said, it was a professional hit. Everyone knows the politicians have dirty hands. He had to have pissed off somebody for that guy to start shooting people up in his house. I'm trying to get some information on any official dealings he might have had, but the people up top aren't exactly eager to talk about anything. I've been asked five times already if I'm from the press.”

  "Because if you were from the press, you would mention it when asked."

  "Exactly."

  “Okay, fine. If something comes up, contact me over the radio.”

  “Hey, you might want to watch your back over there; security is weak. They keep getting redeployed further north. Be ready to get out of there quick if something happens,” Maria said.

  “I'll keep it in mind.”

  Michael went down to his car and set off for the listening point. There was enough traffic on the road to slow him down for once. Office blocks glowed bright in the dark and below them the remains of society walked the streets. He passed small parks devoid of foliage, where mountains of burning litter rose out of the ground like volcanoes spouting lava.

  A gang of skinheads roamed the street. They carried machetes and hammers, and wore necklaces made of bone, bodies lean and emaciated. The local shops had dropped their shutters. The road drained itself of life.

  Wells' chemist had been smashed and looted years ago; dusty shelves lay bent and scattered across the floor. A red logo remained above the entrance, fixed to the wall by brackets that looked about ready to give. Bin fires burned inside, and the silhouettes of homeless people camped around the flames, raising their hands to feel the warmth.

  Michael pulled up onto a curb. His sight drifted to the mirror, watching the reflection of the skinheads further down the street. They had stopped and gathered around a parked car. One of them had a sledge hammer; he put it straight through the windscreen. The others joined in with building materials scavenged from a front garden.