The Suitcase Man by Michael K Foster

Author:Michael K Foster [Foster, Michael K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UK Book Publishing
Published: 2018-05-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

A compromise had been reached, and Jack Mason’s undercover surveillance team had been called off. Carlisle’s only remit, if he could call it that, was to unlock this woman’s dark secrets and get the hell out of there. If police backup was required during his meeting with Angelica, then a small group of specially trained officers were on hand. Eastern European gangs were notoriously dangerous people to deal with; it’s what drove the crime figures up, according to Jack Mason. Sudden deaths and people going missing were all too common place nowadays.

Despite Jack Mason’s last-minute interventions, the rush hour traffic had gone when Carlisle drove into Bensham that evening. Turning right at the bottom of a steep bank, he pulled up in front of an old nineteenth century stone building and switched off the car’s engine. Hands gripping the steering wheel, the tension inside him mounting, he tried to steady himself. This area was no longer considered safe and was full of troublemakers according to DS Holt.

At the back of the building he found a door. He placed his shoulder against it and gave it a gentle shove. It opened.

‘Is anyone there?’ he called out.

Silence.

Reaching the end of a long narrow corridor his wind-up torch went dead. Eyes straining through darkness, he frantically wound it up again. It was pitch black inside, humid, and all the windows had been boarded up. Why anyone would want to meet him here beggared belief. Still no sign of Angelica showing, his mouth felt dry and the lump at the back of his throat threatened to choke him.

Given the choice, he would have preferred backup. Spent needles everywhere, a strong smell of urine, this wasn’t a safe environment to hang around in. As his mind began to drift, he searched for signs of life. The room was large and spacious, with cathedral ceilings and graffiti filled walls. Existence in the gutter could be tough, it seemed, and full of unpleasant things.

As the last rays of daylight played through a gap in one of the window panels, he made his way into the next room. Not the best place to be caught up in, he figured, the denizens who hung around here were full of hopelessness and despair. No room had been left untouched, each the same as the last. Floorboards ripped up, copper piping torn away, and doors used as makeshift drug mixing tables. He often wondered how owners could allow such terrible things to happen to their properties, and why they didn’t get involved. If this building was anything to go by, then no wonder drugs had a bad reputation.

Then he heard footsteps from another part of the building.

‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.

Uncertainty gripped him.

‘It’s me, Mr Carlisle,’ a familiar voice called out.

‘Are you alone?’

‘I should be asking you that question.’

At last, he sighed.

Now picked out in his torch light, Angelica looked the epitome of innocence. But there was a darker side, unexplained, that he craved to get to the bottom of.

‘What is it you wish to talk to me about?’

‘I bumped into that man again.

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