The Wages of Sin (A Detective India Kane & AJ Colt Crime Thriller) Read online

  THE WAGES OF SIN

  BY

  BO BRENNAN

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organisations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of authenticity and reality. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © Bo Brennan 2016

  Bo Brennan asserts the moral right

  to be identified as the author of this work.

  Cover Design by rockingbookcovers.com

  Other books by this author:

  STEALING POWER

  BABY SNATCHERS

  “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life.”

  ~ Romans 6:23

  Chapter 1

  Monday, 5th March

  Winchester

  Her vision blurred as her gloved hands fumbled with the combination lock securing her bike. She swiped at her eyes, kidding herself it was the brightness of the morning making them run.

  It wasn’t, it was self-pity.

  She didn’t want to go back there, not today. The constant drunken comings and goings were becoming increasingly unnerving as more workers arrived. Naz had sympathised, but she couldn’t help. Couldn’t make it better, easier, or safer. With property prices high and funds low, she knew she should be grateful for a job and a home, but today she was struggling. Today she wanted more.

  She wanted a life.

  She wasn’t sure she could stand this one. Her breath caught in her throat as the emptiness and isolation she faced overwhelmed her.

  “The first one is the worst one,” Naz had said, hugging her as she tied the knitted scarf around her neck. “Be brave.”

  She wanted to be brave, as brave as Naz, but she felt weak and lonely and lost. Discreetly dabbing her eyes with her new scarf, she took a furtive glance back at the building. Naz stood at the window, watching her. With a half-hearted smile, she dropped her backpack at her feet to fasten her bicycle helmet. Naz smiled back and pressed a hand to the glass. In the time it took to pick up her backpack and hook it over her shoulders, Naz had gone.

  With a heavy, resigned sigh, she pushed her bike down the long shingle drive to the entrance gates. Once outside she propped the bike against the kerb and cautiously glanced up and down the quiet tree-lined avenue – almost jumped out of her skin when a car door slammed somewhere up ahead. Seeing a blue light poking up from the row of parked cars, she pressed herself into the shadow of a tall oak tree, heart stuttering in her chest.

  Her eyes followed the police officer as he strolled across the road and let himself into a house.

  She didn’t know a police officer lived there. She didn’t know she’d been holding her breath either, until it juddered from her body when the door shut behind him.

  Hands trembling, she drew a deep, steadying breath, mounted her bike and set out for the short journey home.

  Home. Memories stabbed at her heart and stung at her eyes.

  She shook them away as she cycled onto the main road and into the safety of the crowded morning traffic, feeling her shoulders finally relax. Relaxation was dangerous. Naz said it would get her killed. The words echoed in her head, causing her body to tighten once more. Gritting her teeth, she peddled harder. Kept her head down as she passed the last of the picturesque shop fronts adorned with nice things she’d never own, and concealing aisles she’d never browse. She hated this life. Wished so much that she could go back, back to before she knew. But now that she did know, back wasn’t an option. Her only option was forward. Her only option was to run.

  At first, the angry chorus of blaring horns seemed normal background noise, the same as every Monday morning approaching the Winchester bottleneck. It was the sound of a high revving engine that had her glancing over her shoulder to glimpse a white van pushing aggressively through the traffic.

  Her mouth went dry.

  A white van. There were probably millions of them, billions even.

  It was probably nothing, just the bog standard enemy of regular road users trying to get ahead, but she never knew when or where they would come for her. And she knew what they’d done. Knew what they were capable of.

  As a precaution, she bumped her bike out of the bus lane and onto the pavement, meandering slowly and carefully, wary of the pedestrians heading her way. Behind her she heard the prolonged guttural torque of an engine racing at breaking point. A split second later, a single heartbeat, her world span upside down in a silent slow motion strobe of black and white as she rotated endlessly past trees filtering sunlight.

  This is it, she thought, spinning through the air. This is The End.

  It wasn’t how she’d imagined it to be. And she’d imagined it a million times. Thought it would be painful. They’d promised it would be painful. They’d given her every graphic gory detail of how her end would be.

  But it was nothing like they’d promised.

  A serene sense of calm engulfed her as she closed her eyes and accepted her fate, her everlasting freedom.

  Chapter 2

  Monday, 5th March

  Winchester

  “Looks like we’re first again, folks.” Gray Davies threw the fire engine door open and jumped to the road. “Get this scene secured,” he ordered his team, as he set off towards the assembled crowd.

  A pale faced young woman broke free from the onlookers and hurried towards him. “He just, he just . . . he just mowed her down.” Gray touched her arm and steered her into the embrace of one of his crew, already unfurling a silver shock blanket to cover her.

  He strode on, eyes scanning the chaos, seeking out the one sensible person who’d hopefully taken control. Past a geeky looking bloke spewing in the gutter. The passenger. Past a small huddle of hysterical, streaky-faced schoolgirls being comforted by a woman with a pram. The bystanders. Past an ashen-faced middle-aged man yanking at his tie as if it were a noose, huge sweat patches spreading at the armpits of his short-sleeved shirt. “There was nothing I could do,” he cried. “She was just there.” The driver.

  “Please, keep back,” a male voice pleaded. “You’re not helping. Give me some space here!” That’s the one. Gray stepped over a mangled bike, and pushed his way through the gang of ghouls congregated at the back of the bus, mobile phones raised as they filmed the single white plimsoll protruding from the undercarriage. He knelt down next to the overweight man sprawled on the pavement beside it, blood smeared across his forehead like battle paint. “Thank God you’re here,” the man cried. “I can’t reach her. I don’t even know if she’s dead or alive.”

  Gray took off his helmet and rested it on the pavement to peer underneath the double-decker bus. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured, shining his torch into the void. The young cyclist looked like a tiny macabre rag doll. Pinned on her right side between the asphalt and the back axle, her weirdly elevated head lolled against her chest with every judder of the engine. A dark pool of blood was forming on the ground around her, seeping steadily from her left arm which jutted up, and out of sight, at an unnatural angle.

  “You did well, mate,” Gray said, patting the man’s shoulder. “We’ll take it from here.” He shrugged free of his fire jacket as the man in control vanished from his field of vision, and into the embrace of another silver blanket.

  “Someone get this engine off!” Gray didn’t wait for it to happen. He secured his torch between his teeth and slid beneath the
bus, holding his breath as he crawled on his elbows through blue diesel spume towards her. As he got closer, the gap got narrower. The engine vibrations pressed his body against cold tarmac, pushing the breath from his lungs and forcing him to take shallow gasps of hot, toxic air.

  If the girl was still alive, she wouldn’t last long breathing the poisonous exhaust fumes. Neither would he.

  When he reached the point where the undercarriage vibrated crushingly close to the ground, he pressed his cheek to the floor and angled his light up at her left arm. He winced as the torch glare illuminated mangled flesh caught in the wheel arch, the crisp white of splintered, exposed bone brilliant in its beam. As the engine finally ceased he heard ambulance sirens in the distance. The amount of blood surrounding them indicated this girl couldn’t wait that long.

  “I need a knife under here,” he called out. Within seconds a blade rattled across the asphalt towards him. He eased a braces strap free of his shoulder, grappled with the knife, and cut it from his trousers. Wishing he was on his back but with no room to turn, he reached blindly into the narrow gap, grunting as he tightly tied off her biceps with the makeshift tourniquet. Pressing his cheek back to the tarmac, he angled the torchlight back at her arm to see the blood flow stemmed.

  “What we got, boss?” Charlie Riggs’ voice came from the opposite side of the bus where several pairs of expert eyes peered in, surveying the situation from every possible angle. “You want jacks or blocks?”

  “Both. We’ll need cutting gear too. Her arm’s trapped in the wheel arch.”

  He ran a hand over his dripping brow and shimmied around her broken body, hoping to find the faintest spark of life in her limp left wrist, but knowing the odds of finding one were slim to non-existent.

  Everlasting freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It was hot and dark and oppressive. And it bloody well hurt. She squirmed at the sensation of a coarse hand against her skin. Oh God, she was still alive. She opened her eyes to see a fair-haired man gripping her wrist.

  “Please make it quick,” she pleaded, and felt instantly consumed by shame. Not the shame they demanded of her, but shame for her own cowardice. She’d promised herself she would not give them satisfaction by begging for her life in her final moments.

  The man’s lips parted in surprise, dropping his torch as his startled green eyes flashed up to meet hers. “Hey,” he said with a concerned smile. “We’re going to get you out of here as fast as we can. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  His voice was gentle, his words kind. “Who are you?” she asked warily.

  “Gray Davies,” he replied. “I’m a fireman.”

  Her heart pounded hard and fast in her chest. They’d said they’d burn her when they’d finished with her. She supposed being alive and burnt was better than being dead, but if the pain was anything to go by, right now, it sure didn’t feel like it. “D-d-did they burn me?” she spluttered as acrid air filled her nostrils, clawing at the back of her throat. “I smell burning. Am I burning?”

  “It’s all right, don’t panic,” he said, calmly edging closer. “There’s no fire, you haven’t been burned. You got knocked off your bike. The smell’s just engine oil from the traffic. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  He’d asked her name for a second time. If they’d sent him, he’d know her name. “Shayla. My name is Shayla. Shayla Begum,” she said mechanically. Her eyes roamed the dim alien void. “Where am I?”

  He grunted with the effort it took to bring his hands up to his face and slide them under his chin. “Nice to meet you, Shayla,” he said. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, but you’ve got yourself into a bit of a pickle. You’re underneath the number 52 bus. We’re going to have to cut you out.”

  “Please don’t cut me. I haven’t done anything wrong. Please don’t…” She tried to pull away from him and found herself unable to move, unable to kick, punch, run. The panic reduced her breaths to short shallow gasps.

  “Hey, no one’s going to hurt you, sweetheart. Try to stay calm. Take slow, deep breaths. In and out. In and out. That’s right, good girl,” he said as her breathing fell into line with the calming rhythm of his voice. “Listen to me, Shayla. I promise you, we’re going to get you out of here in one piece. Is there anyone you want me to call?”

  She swallowed hard and thought of Naz. ‘Be brave,’ the words resounded in her head. “No. No one.”

  The fireman frowned. “No one at all?”

  “Boss, the police and paramedics are here,” a voice called from behind her. “You need to get out of there. We’re ready to start jacking.”

  “No! Not the police. Please don’t leave me,” she cried, reaching for him when he glanced beyond her. “I don’t want to die alone. Not on my birthday.”

  He clasped her flailing right hand in his. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly. “You’re stuck with me until the end, okay.” Shayla drew a steadying, relieved breath as he lifted his chin and called out to the people surrounding the bus, “We’ll be coming out together. Use the blocks to clear a space. I want a gas and air line in here before you start jacking.”

  She heard a distant mutter of concerned voices, before someone shouted, “You heard him. Get those blocks in place.”

  Shayla gripped his hand tighter and grimaced. He smiled warmly in return. She stared at him, drawing both comfort and hope from his perfectly relaxed demeanour in what she knew was a life or death situation. “Happy birthday,” he said. “How old are you today?”

  “Twenty-six,” she murmured.

  He raised a brow and seemed surprised. “Some birthday, huh?”

  “I’ve had better,” she admitted, and rolled her eyes towards the sudden clank behind her.

  “Try not to look up,” he said, edging his body into hers and slipping an arm awkwardly under her neck. “Just keep your eyes on mine. Did you get any nice birthday presents?”

  She rumpled her nose as she stared at him. “Not really.”

  “What about flowers? You must’ve got flowers,” he said. “Every woman gets flowers on her birthday – it’s the law.”

  She managed a lame smile at his light-hearted banter before sobering. She loved flowers. No one had ever bought them for her, and no one ever would. “Not this one.”

  “Well, you’re only twenty-six,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of lifetime left to change that.”

  Shayla dropped her eyes and swallowed hard, wincing at the tightness in her neck. “Something’s digging in my throat,” she murmured.

  He glanced down and released her hand to run his fingers across her neck. His brows bunched together in a tight frown when he saw blood wetting his fingertips. “I need to get a better look,” he said shifting down her body.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it,” she spluttered, her hand patting the tarmac for his.

  “It’s only the strap of your helmet,” he said reassuringly. “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Shayla’s eyes widened at the sight of the blade. “No,” she cried. “Please don’t.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, glancing up to meet her gaze. “Close your eyes and trust me, Shayla.”

  She didn’t have a lot of choice. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his hand against her throat, and within seconds the pressure was relieved.

  “All done.” He wrapped her hand in his as he returned to lie beside her. “You’re doing great.”

  The next creak of metal came with an unworldly searing pain as her shoulder was suddenly wrenched upwards from the socket. She screamed out and tried to move with it as the cycle helmet slid from her head and a small sliver of light cut across his face.

  “Look at me, Shayla,” he said, squeezing her hand and repositioning his arm beneath her neck, bracing her head in place so they were nose to nose. “Keep your eyes on mine. The worst is almost over.”

  “Oh God, it hurts so much,” she whimpered, focusing all her attention on his dirt streaked face.

  �
�Something for the pain is on its way,” he softly soothed, and then lifted his chin to shout, “How we doing with the gas and air out there?”

  Shayla heard something rattle across the asphalt behind her. With a look of relief, Gray Davies swivelled the biceps supporting her head and used his fingertips to claw a face mask into the shaft of light.

  “The good stuff’s arrived.” With a mischievous grin, he positioned the mask across her nose and mouth. “Take nice big, deep breaths for me,” he urged. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

  Shayla breathed deeply, taking in the comfort of his voice along with the pain relief, and a pleasant sensation washed over her body, lightening her bones. She smiled at him moronically through the clear plastic mask, enthralled by the sudden silence that descended on their strange micro world of two inhabitants. It wasn’t the ideal place to find yourself trapped in the arms of a stranger, yet in that very moment – Shayla Begum felt the safest she’d felt in a very long time.

  Chapter 3

  Winchester High Street

  The Central Bank had a lunchtime queue that stretched out the door, and a single harried cashier behind the counter. They clearly hadn’t revised their security procedures as promised, even though the branch manager had taken the recommendation with a stoic smile and sterling assurances.

  India Kane walked straight to the head of the queue. Ignoring the woman counting out bags of coins to pay her electric bill, she pressed her police ID to the security glass. “Manager, please.”

  The fresh-faced cashier flustered and phoned through to her boss, as the coin counting customer cursed under her breath, glaring India’s way. “I’ve lost count now.”

  “There’s a queue here, love,” a man suffering a bad case of the moody Monday blues shouted from somewhere near the bank’s front door.