Shelley dipped her fingers into her handbag that lay on the soiled carpet in the lounge. She pulled out a cigarette from her packet, reminding herself to clean the surfaces of her bag and case when she got home.
“I don’t think he’s coming back.” Shelley returned to her seat.
“He’ll be back. He said he would.” Nicole walked into the lounge, two purple mugs unsteadily balanced in each hand.
“When did he leave?” Shelley repeated the question she’d been asking ever since she’d found out Len wasn’t in the house.
“Don’t fret, love. He’s only been half an hour,” Nicole replied, passing the mugs to Angel, Tara and Shelley.
“You really think he’s coming back?” Shelley took a sip and burnt her tongue.
“No doubt, babe.” Angel smiled, her dimples making a fleeting appearance.
“He’s a nice chap. I’m sure he’ll come back,” Tara said. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us about him before.”
“Have a ciggie. It’ll calm you down.” Nicole winked at Shelley as she held out her Zippo and lit the unlit cigarette Shelley had been holding.
Shelley took an extended pull. She couldn’t comprehend how her friends had made an immediate assessment of Len’s nature, even more so because he was a smackhead and two of them were members of the AHF. How were they so sure he was going to come back?
She was furious, both with herself and with Len. Herself, because she’d gouched out after her fix and managed to lose an hour, and Len because during that hour he’d taken an action following a discussion in which a decision had been reached on the disposal of the rapist’s remains without her. Granted, none of them had taken into consideration the size of their sports car boots, but there could have been another way. It didn’t mean they could reach an agreement in her absence. Although she was pleased she wouldn’t have to sell her car as she’d intended, it would be of no use to her in prison. Len wasn’t meant to be involved. And now that he was, he embroiled someone else she didn’t know at all, so the risk of getting caught would increase. How this didn’t appear to worry her friends, she couldn’t fathom.
If he’d walked down the road thirty minutes ago to pick up the van, why wasn’t he back? A director told her it was most likely the same reason as the last time he’d disappeared. She hadn’t forgotten that on that occasion, he hadn’t returned.
***
After an hour and a half with Shelley in a state of anxiety, Len staggered into the lounge. He approached Shelley’s chair. He jangled a set of keys in front of her face. She shook her head and tutted. Not only had he been doing something to which she objected, but he was also late in returning, drunk, possibly stoned and he’d definitely had more gear.
“Where the fuck have you been? It’s three a.m,” Shelley said.
“It’s the perfect time to move a body, init?” Len slurred, scratching his stubbly chin.
“You still think this is a good idea?” Shelley looked angrily at her friends.
“I’m an expert at villainery. I know about these things.” Len grinned.
“He’s got a van and it probably is the best time,” Tara said.
“You’re not driving.” Shelley glared at him and walked out of the lounge.
“You better watch it. He doesn’t have to help us,” Angel warned her by the cellar door.
Inside the damp room redolent of dead rodent, Shelley inspected the body. She wondered if she’d be able to help move it. The damage from the shooting was revolting. She reminded herself it was not as repugnant as the man had been alive.
Len stumbled down the cellar stairs then joined the others by the monstrosity at the opposite end of room. He unravelled a roll of black bin liners and struggled as he tried to detach them. Having successfully separated a few from the roll, he passed them round to the others.
“What are we doing with these?” Nicole asked.
“Put his body parts in ’em after we’ve chopped him up.”
“What are you on about?” Shelley said.
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but I can’t cut up a corpse.” Nicole backed away.
“How else are we gonna feed him to the pigs?” Len slipped over sideways, landing hard on the concrete.
“We’re not doing that. Look at him. He’s off his head. If we were gonna cut him up, we would have put him in my boot,” Shelley said.
“I’m having you on, love. ’Course we’re not butchering him.” Len chuckled as he pushed himself off the floor. He picked up a heavy-duty bin liner and ripped it down the middle, creating an irregular shaped sheet. From the floor, he picked up Shelley’s wide roll of brown parcel tape and brandished it in the air. “We’re gonna gift-wrap the cunt.”
***
The Ford Transit van swerved out of Bracewell Road and onto North Pole Road. There was a jolting sound from the back. Either Len or the body had collided with the interior of the van, or perhaps each other.
On the next turn, into Scrubs Lane, Shelley strived to control the vehicle. She’d never driven anything larger than a jeep and felt nervous at the wheel. Driving a van would have been a worry in itself under any circumstances – but in this instance, the pressure was increased. She couldn’t afford the appearance of an erratic driver and worse still, a crash.
“Has he fallen asleep?” Shelley looked to her friends who were squeezed next to her on the front seat.
Angel turned around. “You can’t see into the back, but he’ll be all right, babe. Just keep your eye on the road.”
“How much longer?” Tara asked when they reached the junction of Scrubs Lane and Harrow Road.
“We’ve past Meanwhile Gardens already but I’ve gotta drive round. I only know one way in,” Shelley said.
“Why don’t you ask Len?” Nicole suggested.
“The state he’s in. What’s the point?” Shelley replied.
“I heard that. Where the fuck are you? We should be there by now,” Len shouted from the rear.
“We’re on Harrow Road.”
“You’re mental! There’s always Old Bill down here. I told you to go the back way. You’ve gone right round the houses. Fucking hell.”
Eventually, Shelley arrived on Golborne Road. She pulled up at the side of the Brutalist, concrete high-rise block – Trellick Tower. Though it was quiet, they were not alone. Other junkies and hookers seemed to favour the location.
Shelley turned off the engine, opened her door and jumped down to the street. She walked to the back of the van and swung open the doors. Len was sitting up, holding a lighter under a spoon. She climbed inside, kicked the rapist’s body out of the way with her Nike TNs, then sat down.
“Tell us when they’ve gone,” she shouted to her friends in the front.
“That’s for me,” she mouthed to Len as she pointed at the spoon and then to herself.
He took out a syringe. “I ain’t got another spoon,” he whispered.
“Not my problem.”
“You have got a fucking problem. I’m doing you a favour and you’re being a cunt.”
“Keep your voice down. What do you expect? You weren’t supposed to come back.”
“I wouldn’t have unless I had to.”
“Why did you have to?”
“It’s a long story and I’m not fucking whispering it here.”
“Save me some.” Shelley opened the doors and slipped out of the back. She rushed around to the front.
“We shouldn’t be hanging round here. By the time they’ve gone, there’ll be more people going to work,” Angel said.
“Give it a few more minutes and see what they do.” Shelley picked up her handbag from the footwell.
“It’ll be daylight if we leave it much longer,” Nicole said as Shelley was closing the door.
Clutching her handbag to her chest, Shelley ran around the van and returned to the rear. Once inside, she took out her thin paperback and found the foil. She held it out to Len and he sprinkled on some heroin.
While he injected his fix, she used the tube, which she’d saved since her last chase in the bathroom the morning before, and sucked up the fumes.
“Who let one go? It stinks in here,” Angel said.
Shelley looked wide-eyed at Len.
“Mine don’t smell like that,” Nicole said.
“I don’t fart,” Tara added.
“Don’t be stupid. Everybody farts,” Nicole replied.
“Someone’s been eating some weird shit,” Angel said. “I’m not breathing in any more crap today.”
Shelley heard one of the front doors open. Worriedly, she looked at Len and he began packing his tools into his long, black wallet. She folded her foil and hid it in The Escaped Cock. The back doors were opened, and just in time Len slid his wallet into an inside pocket of his jacket.
“Which one of you was it?” Angel waved her hand in front of her nose before stepping back. “They both look guilty as sin.”
***
Inside Meanwhile Gardens, it was deserted. The five of them carried the dustbin liner and parcel-tape bound cylindrical package through the undergrowth. The fellow hookers and junkies didn’t seem to have paid them any attention when they’d left the van, donning balaclavas and carrying the parcel, which was probably distinguishable as a body. Perhaps they too were fellow killers, though it was more likely that their minds were consumed by the customary junky and hooker preoccupations.
“What if someone sees?” Nicole said as they came out from the copse and onto the footpath by the Grand Union Canal.
“We can’t walk any farther. It’s nearly light.” Shelley looked over at the blocks of flats with their balconies backing on to the other side of the canal. With the sky paling, she could see the colours of the clothes, the bedding and the towels that were hanging over the washing lines. “Do you want to go? We can manage,” she said to Nicole.
“I’ve got no idea where I am,” Nicole replied. “Can’t we just get it done quickly?”
Len directed them to lay the parcel on the grass. He rushed off, then reappeared, carrying bricks.
“Where did you get them from?” Shelley asked.
“I stashed them here the other day.”
“You do know that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” Tara said, with one hand resting on her hips. “But I like it.” She giggled.
Len knelt on the grass, placed a brick on top of the body and secured it with parcel tape. “Gimme a hand then.” He looked up at the others.
They all crouched down and within minutes, they’d attached numerous bricks. Shelley wondered if the tape would hold once it was wet.
When they lifted the body, Shelley struggled; it was far heavier with the added weight. They walked the few steps across the path then dropped the body into the canal. There was a huge splash and something louder, a thump. They ran back into the bushes.
“How deep’s the water?” Angel asked, looking at Len.
“I don’t know. I don’t usually go swimming here.”
“This ain’t no joke, man. What are you on?” Angel said.
Shelley gave Angel an I-told-you-so glance.
“Do you think anyone saw us? It’s so light,” Nicole said.
“No one will recognise us like this,” Tara replied.
“What’ll happen to the parcel tape in the water? Won’t it stop being sticky?” Shelley asked as they walked back to the van.
“I ran some tests in the lab. Don’t worry ma’am, everything will be fine.”
“This isn’t funny. You need to stop fucking around,” Angel told Len as they approached Trellick Tower. “What about your mate’s van? Is there CCTV that could pick up his plate?”
Shelley felt the onset of an episode of shaking. She hadn’t thought of CCTV. She should have done. Recently, she’d noticed new cameras appearing in previously unmonitored streets. They’d also been popping up in some of the shops she used regularly and some of the hotels she worked in. Would there have been CCTV at The Lanesborough?