Rat Run: Hamelin's Child, #6

Rat Run

by

DJ Bennett

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www.debbiebennett.co.uk

copyright © 2015 DJ Bennett

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Digital Edition

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

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All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblances to real people, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

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Cover design by JT Lindroos

Cover photo by Aaron Amat

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Thanks to John Hudspith & John Males for their input and support

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This novella continues Lenny’s story and follows on from Rat’s Tale and Ratline.

Michael’s story can be read in the series of three novels:

Hamelin’s Child, Paying The Piper and Calling The Tune.

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Note this book contains adult material and is not suitable for minors.

1 – LENNY

Lenny dropped the widget-thingy-whatever-the-fuck-it-is for the third time, threw the plastic box on the warehouse floor and kicked the shelving. ‘Fuck!’ The metal shelves rattled and something fell off one end.

He took a calming breath. It was just a job, like normal people had. Real life.

‘Hey!’ One of his work colleagues bounced around the corner, impossibly cheerful. ‘You OK? Drop something?’

What does it fucking look like? Lenny swore again – under his breath this time – and picked up the box. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not really feeling the love for this, are you?’ The kid grinned.

Lenny wanted to hit him with the box. ‘Is it that obvious?’ Could they not have found him a job that didn’t involve the fiddly sorting of small objects? He simply didn’t have the dexterity for this sort of thing – not since wannabe gangster, hard-man, tosser Mick Carlotti crushed his hand in the door of a shipping container a year ago.

The terms of his prison licence required him to work how, where and when his offender manager dictated. He’d tried arguing with her and got precisely nowhere, so he was stuck in this crappy dead-end job quite possibly forever, until he could convince both her and DI Darwin that he was completely rehabilitated and reintegrated into the community. Like I was ever a part of the community in the first place? Jesus fucking Christ. And Darwin knew him far too well to fall for any bullshit.

He sighed. ‘I need a smoke.’

The kid shook his head. ‘Still ten minutes until lunch.’

Ryan, isn’t it? God, I hate the fucking Irish. And he could easily kill somebody in ten minutes – like the smug supervisor in this shitty warehouse, who kept creeping up on him and watching him as if he suspected he was about to start stuffing his pockets with car parts to sell down the docks later on. ‘Selling smack is far more lucrative,’ Lenny wanted to say to the tosser. Or maybe: ‘I could do you a nice line in used handguns.’ But he couldn’t. Up here in Liverpool, he was just another petty crook, with history including the six months he’d spent in HMP Risley. A compromise the Crown Prosecution Service had offered him, thanks to Darwin’s intervention – a rubber-stamped sentence, new identity and a relocation, albeit on licence, or he could go to trial. Lenny had chosen the former and done his time without complaint; considering he’d shot and killed the Irish nutter Carlotti – not to mention wounding Rich and that nasty little shit Charlie – he reckoned he’d come out of it all fairly well. Until Phillips finds me. And that would be another bastard bridge to cross. At the moment going on the run just wasn’t an option, not with an electronic tag around his ankle.

He was rubbing his hand unconsciously, feeling the faint scars. Ryan was watching him. Lenny rolled his eyes, checked the list on his clipboard and picked out another bolt from the dumper on the shelf. This time he got two together and while one successfully landed in his box, the other hit the floor, skittered across the concrete and came to rest by Ryan’s boot.

Focus.

Ryan picked it up easily, dropping it back in the dumper. ‘What’s up with your hand?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Only you’re holding it funny and dropping everything.’

Lenny snorted. ‘Trapped it in a door last year. Never been right since.’

‘You should get it looked at.’

D’you reckon? The thought never occurred to me. ‘I had three operations.’

‘Cool. You want to go for a pint after work?’

I’m twenty-fucking-nine. I don’t do cool. But the kid was only trying to be friendly. ‘Can’t,’ he said, pasting an artificial smile onto his face. ‘Sorry.’ What kind of after-work drink would that be, when he had to be back at his poky one-bedroom flat by seven or he’d trip the alarm on the fucking tag? Twelve hours a day under home curfew and he was bored shitless most evenings. Darwin had simply laughed and told him to join the library; Lenny had argued that he couldn’t even do that without any form of identification.

Ryan wasn’t taking no for an answer. ‘You look like you could use a drink. We could get pissed.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘I know where to get some weed.’

For fuck’s sake. ‘Really, I can’t. I have to go see a man about a dog.’ Woo. A hot date with his counsellor. Weekly sessions, the DI had ordered. No negotiation – yet another condition of his licence – so he played head-games with the girl for an hour one night a week after work. Truth be told, he was starting to enjoy the intellectual challenge; there wasn’t much other stimulation in his life right now and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a sensible conversation with anybody outside of Claire’s consulting room.

‘You’re getting a dog? It’s Tony, isn’t it?’ asked Ryan, taking the clipboard from him.

Is it? Oh, yeah. He kept forgetting his new name.

‘I’ll give you a hand. I’ve finished up my list. What you doing here anyway? This doesn’t seem like your kind of job?’

Tell me about it. ‘I have no fucking idea, mate,’ he said. Either the Met cops knew the owner of this dead-end car parts business, or else they were doing their bit for the community by employing ex-cons. Favours and back-handers; either way, he doubted the rest of the staff had a clue he was anyone other than the ex-benefits-junkie he was pretending to be. It pissed him off that they probably thought he was a lazy shit who’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. OK – so cut the word honest, but he was a grafter, he always had been since his teenage years, when Martin Reilly had him out shadowing the older guys until he had enough of a reputation to handle the deals by himself. And then he’d been on his own.

Lenny didn’t much care what people thought about him, but he did know that if word got out, it would filter back to whatever organised crime gang was running this part of Liverpool, and then they’d be looking to claim whatever reward money was still out for him. Pissing off both Phillips and Jackson meant he really would be looking over his shoulder forever.

Ryan was looking at him expectantly.

What?

‘Pass me your list.’

He handed it over and traipsed round after the kid while he did Lenny’s job, and Lenny realised he couldn’t do this for another day, never mind six months or more. They’d have to find him something else.

‘Hold that.’ Ryan shoved something at him and he grabbed at it instinctively. The glass bottle slipped through his fingers, bounced off a shelf, hit a metal strut and shattered, splashing him with blue liquid of some sort.

Lenny jumped back. ‘Fuck me!’

‘You were supposed to hold it. It’s only lubricant. It won’t hurt you.’

‘I’m just sodding wet, that’s all. Sorry,’ Lenny added. ‘My fault.’

Ryan shook his head, as if Lenny was a particularly stupid child. ‘I’ve got a spare T shirt you can borrow.’ He picked another bottle and put it in the box. ‘We’re done. Come on, I’ll fix you up, clear up the mess and you can buy me a pint tomorrow night.’

I don’t want to be your new best friend. He didn’t want to be anybody’s anything. Lenny wondered why Ryan would have spare clothes at work; it wasn’t like there was a uniform in this place. He followed the kid into the toilets where there was a small changing room and a few battered lockers. This place clearly hadn’t always been a car-parts warehouse.

Ryan opened a gym bag and handed him a white T shirt.

He works out? Lenny was interested now. He needed to start running again, keep up the fitness level he’d regained in prison. Maybe a partner would be useful. Yeah, and he gets to see the tag, and I spend the next six months with them all watching me like I’m about to nick their frigging teabags.

Ryan was watching him curiously. ‘It should fit you.’

Lenny glanced at the door.

‘You don’t want to change in front of me? Are you gay? Only you don’t look gay.’

‘No.’

Ryan reddened. ‘Not that it’d be a problem if you were. I mean I’ve got nothing against—’

‘I’m not. It’s fine.’

‘OK. I’ll go make a brew.’

Lenny sighed and turned his back on the kid. Why can’t I just do normal interaction with people? He stripped off his wet T shirt and dropped it on the floor. It stank of chemicals; he wiped his hands on his jeans.

‘Tony?’

Lenny swung round. ‘What?’

‘How many ...’ Ryan trailed off. ‘Christ. What happened to you?’

He followed Ryan’s eyes and looked down at the long messy scar across his body. Fuck, how do I explain that? ‘An accident.’

‘You have a lot of accidents, don’t you?’

Yeah. You could say that.

‘What happened?’

‘It’s a long story.’ He pulled Ryan’s white T shirt over his head. It was too tight but it would have to do. ‘I’ll tell you sometime. When we have that pint.’

‘You’ve got a scar on your back as well. Underneath the tattoo.’

‘Have I?’ He’d forgotten that one, had no idea where it had come from.

‘Another accident?’

Jesus. Just drop it, will you?

Ryan looked suddenly horrified. ‘Oh, shit. It wasn’t your folks, or something, was it? I had a friend at school whose dad beat him up every night. Only—’

Lenny had had enough. He shook his head, touching the kid’s shoulder as he passed. ‘I was shot, mate. All right? With my own fucking gun. Now do us both a favour and shut the fuck up.’

2 – STEPH

‘There’s a woman at the front desk to see you.’

Steph doodled on the desk pad in front of her, the phone wedged between ear and shoulder. ‘Did she give a name?’

‘No. But she looks like it might be urgent.’

‘All right. Give me five.’ She put the phone down and doodled some more. It was ten minutes before the end of her shift and she was looking forward to going out for dinner with Rob later on. Having a life again was at least some compensation for being bounced back to a desk job on fixed shifts; it was a novelty being able to plan weekends away and know where she’d be at any given moment. After everything she’d done with Lenny and the civvy woman Samantha last year, the thing that had bitten hardest had been forging the guv’s signature to get another handgun from the armoury. If she hadn’t given it to Lenny and he hadn’t shot somebody with it – killed somebody with it – it might not have been quite so bad, but she wasn’t convinced that Darwin believed her version of events. She’d kept her rank, but was back behind a computer for the foreseeable future. If I wanted to work on a project team, I’d have joined a bloody IT company.

At least Rob understood, she thought, as she trekked down four flights of stairs to the front desk. One advantage to dating within the job meant at least you could talk about work at home, although the strain of both partners working shifts often broke up relationships quicker than you could say cancel that anniversary dinner. Except that she hadn’t even told Rob what really happened that night. And after three years together, they’d never yet managed an anniversary dinner.

She knew who the visitor was before she got anywhere near the reception area. Through the glass door she could see the blonde girl sitting on one of the plastic chairs and fidgeting nervously; for five o’clock in the afternoon the station was strangely quiet.

She buzzed her way through the door. ‘Hello, Becky.’

‘Steph?’ She jumped up, bag clutched in her hands. ‘You look ... different.’

‘Yeah. Fetching uniform, isn’t it? Suits my colouring – not.’ It wasn’t meant to be demotion, but it sure as hell felt like it. ‘What can I do for you, Becky?’

‘I’ve been trying to contact Derek.’ She hesitated as the outside door opened and a youth appeared with an older woman. ‘Can we go somewhere private?’

‘Sure. Here or outside?’ Steph checked her watch. ‘Tell you what, give me ten and meet me in the Rose and Crown around the corner. It’s quite upmarket – you’ll be fine in there on your own.’

Becky nodded. ‘These places are beginning to make me feel uncomfortable.’

‘Me too,’ said Steph, though she wasn’t quite sure what the girl meant. Those who had nothing to hide shouldn’t be scared of a police station – and yet nothing was black and white, was it? Even Steph knew that.

She logged off the computer and sent Rob a quick text to let him know she might be half an hour late. Becky didn’t look that worried and Steph had no intention of letting the job take over her life again, not when the job had so clearly indicated it didn’t appreciate her efforts. She changed into a T shirt and jeans and left her uniform in her locker, before heading out. Too many terrorist warnings lately had meant they’d all been told to keep to plain clothes when off-duty.

It was a warm evening and many of the local wine bars had already spilled out onto the street with people starting their evening early. In the pub, she found Becky nursing what looked like an orange juice and playing with her mobile phone.

Steph bought herself a Coke and sat down opposite. ‘So how are you? It’s been over six months.’

‘Time flies,’ said Becky vaguely.

‘You were asking about Darwin?’

‘Yes. His mobile just goes to voicemail.’

Steph shrugged. ‘I don’t work for him anymore.’

‘But you can get hold of him?’

‘Not right now.’ She shook her head. ‘Last I heard he was off on extended leave somewhere. A honeymoon, I believe.’ She frowned. ‘He married Kate Redford. Weren’t you at the wedding with Michael?’

‘Michael and I split up a few months back.’ Becky hesitated, drawing patterns in the wet circle her glass had left on the table. ‘It wasn’t working out.’

‘Too much shared history?’

‘Something like that.’ Becky took a sip of orange juice. ‘But I didn’t come here to whine about my love-life. I wanted Derek.’

‘To do what? Is there a problem? Can I help?’ Do I even want to get involved?

‘No. I need a man.’

Don’t we all, honey?

‘I wanted Derek to talk to Danny.’ She looked up. ‘He’s my brother; he’s nearly sixteen and he has Asperger’s.’

And? Steph raised her eyebrows.

Becky sighed. ‘Last summer, when it all kicked off, when Michael went to meet Martin Reilly and I all but blackmailed Lenny to drive me out there ...’

Steph stifled a giggle at the thought of anybody blackmailing Lenny Dixon, let alone a five-foot-nothing blonde reporter. But then she remembered the way he’d held her in the ambulance just before Christmas, the way he’d stormed Harper’s flat like a comic-strip hero the minute he’d thought she was in danger. The way he killed one man and wounded another without even hesitating. She still wondered whether she’d done the right thing in giving him a cover-story, an escape from the mess he’d got himself into and a way out of a life sentence for murder.

‘It was Danny who gave me the idea,’ Becky was saying. ‘He found Reilly’s address. He’s obsessed with the internet – he can find anything online.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I think he’s maybe finding things he shouldn’t.’

‘Such as?’ Steph wasn’t sure where this was going.

‘I’m not sure, not enough to say anything yet. I was hoping Derek could have a chat with him – engage him in some way. Once he gets an idea in his head he’s hard to distract, but I thought Derek could maybe give him something else to do and make him feel important, while keeping him away from the other stuff.’ She met Steph’s eyes. ‘He’s nearly sixteen, Steph. He looks like an adult but he isn’t; he’s frighteningly clever in a lot of ways, but he doesn’t have the social awareness that we do. He won’t know what’s dangerous and when to stop.’

So stop him accessing the net, Steph wanted to say. But if it was that easy, Becky would have done it already. ‘Would another man help?’

‘Maybe. He relates better to men.’

Steph pondered. ‘I could ask Rob – my boyfriend?’ she suggested. ‘He’s uniform and working on traffic right now. How about I get Danny a ride in a police car and then they go chat