Rat Runners Read online

  “It’s not a murder case,” Nimmo said, shaking his head. “They reckon Brundle’s death was accidental. Or they’re not treating it as suspicious, at least.”

  Manikin felt a lift of relief. No crime meant it was less likely that there were cops hanging around. She hoped.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Friends in low places. Come on, let’s get back to your place—figure out what to do next.”

  Manikin was about to nod in agreement when she frowned. “Hang on. What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to get a view of our competition. Didn’t see anybody I’d connect with the guy I met in Veronica’s place, but I made two of Move-Easy’s drones and two I’ve seen before but don’t know: a guy with a bottle-bleach-job in a leather jacket at the bus stop and a redhead with a face like someone suckin’ a lemon.”

  “Punkin and Bunny, yeah.” Manikin sniffed. “I don’t know what they’re doing here, but they’re not serious players.”

  “Too small-time for the competition?”

  “Time doesn’t get much smaller. But I’d steer clear of them. They’re just big enough to trip up everyone around them. See anything that might actually be useful?”

  “I saw you. I stopped lookin’ around then.”

  “What, did I distract you?” she asked with the hint of a smile.

  “I just thought you looked familiar, and I don’t know any Environmental Health Officers. So … what is ‘FX syndrome’ anyway?”

  Manikin turned to stare at him, a look of thinly disguised fascination on her face.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I was just thinkin’ the same thing,” Punkin asked from behind them. They turned to find him standing at the corner, his face raised slightly, his eyes holding them with a suspicious gaze. Bunny was behind and to one side of him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

  “You,” he said, nodding towards Manikin, “you, I know from somewhere, I just can’t place your face. And you”—he looked at Nimmo—“I don’t know who you are, but I’ve seen you in one of the Voids. Tubby Reach’s, maybe? You’re a player. And here you are, hanging around the edges of a big game. And this trollop was right in there, pokin’ her nose around, if I’m any judge. What you doing here?”

  “Minding our own business,” Nimmo retorted. “You should try it.”

  “Look at ’em, Punkin,” Bunny said in a whisper that everyone could hear. “They’re up to summink, I can feel it. They know summink. Nobody else has seen ’em yet. They’re ours. This is good.”

  Punkin nodded. He pointed towards a narrow alleyway that led off the side street they were standing in.

  “OK, you two. Step into my office—we got some questions for you. Answer up quick and it’ll be easier all around.”

  “Who are you?” Manikin asked, putting on an anxious expression, and gripping her console tightly to her. “Why would we walk into some alleyway just ’cos you say so? What’s going on here?”

  Punkin sighed and held up his right hand. He twisted the silver ring on his thumb and from the back of his hand an eighteen-centimeter blade slid out of a sheath implanted beneath the skin of his forearm.

  “Like Wolverine’s,” he said with a twisted grin. “Like it?”

  “Wolverine has three blades,” Nimmo pointed out. “On each hand.”

  “I could only afford the one,” Punkin snapped, looking somewhat hurt and defensive. “I’m savin’ up for the rest. Now that I’m workin’ for Mister Easy, I’ll have ’em in no time. This is high-end kit—slides right in along the bone so it’s hard to see on x-ray. It’s sharp enough to shave with.”

  “That’ll be well handy … once you’re old enough to shave,” Manikin observed. Then, determined to stay in character, she added: “Who’s Mister Easy?”

  “Into the alley,” Punkin growled. “We can be polite, or we can get nasty. It’s up to you.”

  Bunny’s hair was pinned up in a loose bun, and she reached up to draw the two pins out and shake her hair loose. Each steel pin was nearly sixteen centimeters long. The way she held them made it clear she knew how to use them as weapons.

  “What did you think of Chelsea on Saturday?” Manikin asked quickly.

  “What?” Punkin scowled.

  Manikin looked pointedly past him, towards the main road at the end of the street. He glanced back and saw the Safe-Guard walking slowly past on the far side of the main road. Bunny gave a soft gasp.

  “Don’t fancy their chances in the semi-final, with their form,” Nimmo commented.

  With its highly sensitive mikes, the Safe-Guard could hear what they were saying, but it wasn’t looking their way … yet.

  “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Punkin said, hurriedly holding his knife down against his leg. “Chelsea are going all the way. They’ll take the Champions League this year.”

  “In your dreams!” Manikin scoffed. “That bunch of hairdressers haven’t got a straight foot between them. They were lucky against Spurs—they’d have been trounced by a full-strength side.”

  “You a Spurs fan?”

  “Arsenal, till the day I die.”

  “Poor choice of words,” Punkin sneered, casting his eyes back to check that the peeper had carried on down the street. He raised his knife again. “All right. Down the alley, and let’s have a chat. I want to know what you’re doin’ here. And if we’re not happy with the answers, Bunny here’s gonna start givin’ you the needle, you get me?”

  Bunny brandished her stiletto-like pins with a disturbingly eager expression. Nimmo’s eyes met Manikin’s, and a silent signal of agreement passed between them.

  “I’m done waitin’,” Punkin said through gritted teeth.

  Nimmo shook his head and turned into the alley. Manikin followed. Punkin and Bunny followed them. They followed too closely.

  Nimmo stopped abruptly. Punkin put his left hand on Nimmo’s shoulder and brandished the knife, to remind him of the threat. Nimmo scraped his foot down Punkin’s left shin, slamming it down onto the top of the Punkin’s foot. He deflected the knife strike he knew was coming, caught the hand and bent the wrist in hard against the forearm, forcing a cry of pain out of Punkin. Then he drove Punkin’s blade into the wooden door beside him. Punkin tried to pull it free, but it was stuck. With the heel of his right hand, Nimmo struck Punkin on the elbow to jam the blade in a bit more, then a couple of times in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

  Bunny let out a squeal of outrage, turning on Nimmo with the steel spikes. Manikin pulled a plastic and steel rod from the edge of her console and jammed the tip of it into Bunny’s side. There was a crackle, Bunny’s body went rigid, and then she collapsed back against the wall, dropping the pins.

  “What was that?” Nimmo asked, as he pushed Punkin back into the same wall.

  “One of my brother’s little numbers,” Manikin said, holding it up. “A shock-stick—gives you an electric jolt. You only get a few shots, but it’s not bad for what it is.” She looked down at Bunny. “Handy for prodding cattle too.”

  He was about to respond when she put a finger to her lips, slipped the rod back into place in her console, and sat down beside Bunny. She straightened Bunny’s head up, and held up her console as if to show the stunned girl something on the screen. Nimmo glanced towards the main road and saw the Safe-Guard was walking past on the far side of the street. It was looking straight ahead, but if it turned, it could see right down into the alley. Punkin still had his blade jammed in the door, and Nimmo leaned back against the wall beside him to make it less obvious, blocking Punkin’s contorted face from view. Putting Punkin’s other wrist in a painful arm lock, he aimed his own gaze at Manikin’s console, pretending to show Punkin what was on the screen—just four friends discussing a picture or a piece of video. As the peeper passed by, it looked briefly in their direction, but then carried on down the road.

  “Time to go,” Nimmo said softly.

  “Bloody right,” Manikin murmured.
>
  Standing up, she faced Punkin, who was still struggling to get his breath back.

  “These two reesed us the other day. It was his left foot you stood on, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Nimmo said, as he released the wristlock that held Punkin in place.

  Punkin squealed in pain as Manikin stamped on his right foot with her low, but sharp, heel.

  “That’s for packing guns on a job, you monkey,” she snapped, knowing Easy was watching through the camera hidden in Punkin’s eyebrow piercing. “And for the caterpillar. You reesed the wrong chickens, wide-boy. This is the second time you’ve crossed me. Try it a third time and I’ll feed you your eyeballs, you got me, you wazzock?”

  Turning to Nimmo, she straightened her jacket and patted her hair down.

  “Now,” she said. “Shall we?”

  CHAPTER 15

  HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

  WHEN MANIKIN AND Nimmo got back to the warehouse on Brill Alley, they found Scope vacuuming the floor under the desks of the Hide, and FX making cries of protest.

  “Stop!” he shouted over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. “There could be important stuff down there!”

  “Then why would it be lying around on the floor?” Scope sniped back, as she pushed the head of the nozzle in among the mass of wires and plug sockets.

  “That’s just where stuff falls sometimes. Normally there’s no rush picking it up—it’s not going anywhere!”

  “This place is a like a cattle shed! How can you live like this?”

  “You’re talking about my home!”

  “I’m talking about a bloody health hazard!”

  “Will you please stop cleaning up!”

  Manikin walked into the room, took one look around, and walked back out again. Nimmo hovered for a little longer, waiting to catch Scope’s eye. But she was too engrossed in her domestic mission. He blew his cheeks out and pulled his bag from his back. Looking at one of the printers, he saw that FX had printed out Move-Easy’s files on Veronica. Picking them up, he turned his back on the drama and followed Manikin towards the kitchen. She already had the kettle on. He dropped his bag beside the door, where he could keep his eyes on it.

  “FX’ll need coffee after that trauma,” she quipped. “But then, he always needs coffee.”

  “He seems a bit put out all right,” Nimmo commented, studying the files. “Scope’s a little OC—but it kind of comes with her job. Nothing here about what Brundle was working on. I didn’t find anything in the apartment either. If Veronica was involved in any way, I didn’t find any sign of it.”

  “And I presume you didn’t find the case?”

  “Hmm?” Nimmo looked up at her.

  “The case? The box we’re supposed to be looking for?” Manikin pressed him, as she spooned coffee into two mugs, then remembered her visitors, and added another two mugs. “You didn’t find the case, I take it? You seem to be really interested in Brundle and his work and what happened to him. But it’s a pretty simple job we’ve got here—find the case, and get paid. We don’t need to know what Brundle worked on, or who killed him. We just have to find that box. You want coffee?”

  “No, thanks. Just a glass of water. I like looking at the bigger picture. We’re messing in something that’s more than just Move-Easy. Whoever these other guys are, they’re serious. And whether they’re players or coppers, we could get out of our depth before we know it, just by looking for a box that somebody else wants.”

  He was reading a page of Veronica’s medical records. She’d had laser surgery to treat the port-wine birthmark that covered part of her face. Nimmo’s eyes opened a fraction wider as he studied the before and after photos. The birthmark she had now was still disfiguring, but the surgery had reduced the original mark by nearly half. The file said the doctors had serious doubts of Veronica’s birthmark ever being completely removed without the risk of serious scarring. And the mark would most likely get worse from here on in, thickening, darkening and possibly developing lumps as she aged. Nimmo could only imagine what kind of effect it must be having on her.

  Now that he thought about it, he remembered Brundle mentioning something about research he’d once done on repairing scar tissue. Something to do with connecting nerve endings—or disconnecting them. Nimmo wished now that he’d paid more attention.

  “One of the neighbors mentioned the guy who lived on the same floor as Brundle,” Manikin told him. “They confirmed what Easy told us: that he was the one who discovered the body. I didn’t get a name, but the neighbors think he was dodgy. They reckon he did some work for Brundle, but nobody knew much about him. He hasn’t been seen since Brundle died. That’s pretty interesting.”

  Nimmo said nothing for a moment. If they found out Chuck U. Farley’s name, they’d find a picture, and then he’d have to start answering some awkward questions. But there was nothing he could do about that now.

  “We can check him out, but the daughter’s still our best bet,” he muttered. “We need to get into her life—see what she knows.”

  “She goes clubbing on a Friday night,” Manikin said. “Or at least she did, when she could crash at her dad’s. I could get in with her that way. And she’s underage, which means she uses a fake ID. Makes her vulnerable. We can use that. Now we just have to find out where she likes to hit the tiles.”

  “Club Vega,” FX spoke up from behind them. They looked around to see him standing in the door, a bundle of discs, paper manuals and electrical bits and pieces cradled protectively in his arms. “Didn’t even have to hack it. It’s up on her MyFace page. She thinks that only her friends can see it, but, like most people, she’s got her privacy settings cocked up. It’s up there for anyone to see. Even got pictures from her nights out. If her mother ever saw them, she’d be grounded, like, for ever. She’d be grounded into the afterlife. Girl’s a messy drunk. Vega is her favorite hang-out. No surprise, really—the typical bouncer there wouldn’t know a fake ID if someone drew it on his face with a crayon. She’s going there tomorrow night.”

  “That’s our way in,” Manikin said, cupping her hands around the hot mug of coffee. “Veronica’s about to make a new friend.”

  “I’m delighted for her,” Scope said, appearing behind FX with a dustpan and brush in her hand. “Nimmo, can you get me into Brundle’s lab? I need to see his work first-hand—I’m getting nowhere here. And I need to get out of this slob’s space before I catch foot-and-mouth disease or something. I found a bloody laundry basket in behind an old set of speakers. The stuff had mold on it. I need to see Brundle’s lab, Nimmo. It’s either that or I set fire to this place to prevent an epidemic like the world has never seen.”

  “I’ve told you about the goddamned laundry,” Manikin gasped as she handed her brother a mug of coffee and walked out of the door. “She’s right, you’re a pissin’ slob. Come on and show me these pics of the girl—let’s see what she’s into.”

  “There is one thing I found in the apartment,” Nimmo said abruptly. “She’s into books. Dodgy ones. There’s a stash of pirate editions of recalled books: A Clockwork Orange, Catch 22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She even has Fahrenheit 451 sitting out on a shelf in her room. I don’t know if the mother’s involved, and the books could be for personal use, or the pair of them could be dealing.”

  He didn’t say anything more. As the WatchWorld motto went: “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”—but everyone had something to hide. The possession of these kinds of pirate books wasn’t a criminal offense, but it was the kind of behavior that could attract a Life Audit—the kind of investigation and surveillance of every aspect of your life that everyone dreaded. And nobody wanted all their secrets dug up; nobody lived a perfect life.

  The other three were looking at each other. Nimmo saw a wariness on their faces. The expression a person wore when they had discovered dirt on someone, and were weighing up whether to use it or not.

  “If that’s as serious as she’s got, she’s just dabbling in t
he game,” FX said, flicking his eyes towards his sister. “But if Move-Easy finds out, that’s a bad habit he could blackmail her with. That’s how he gets a hold on people.”

  “And once he’s got his claws in her, he’d drag her into his world,” Manikin sniffed. “That’s how he got us. We thought he was doing us a favor, when we needed help. We did a job for him, and then he had us. He pulls you in, and twists it so that you’re always in debt to him, you’re always working it off. Let him get a piece of you, and you’re a criminal for life.”

  Scope nodded, her eyes trained on the floor.

  “My family lives in a Void,” she said in a subdued voice. “But they’re not hardcore criminals—they just want to stay out of the way of WatchWorld. They’re pretty organized, but just a bunch of new-age hippies, really, who make their living from selling art. I was home-schooled by my parents and my gran, before she died. Science was more my thing, and Gran used to work in forensics, so she taught me a lot about that side of it.

  “What we never knew was that my gran also worked for Move-Easy. He could’ve taken over our Void, but he left us alone because she helped his men fool the police forensics teams. Gran also used to fake evidence to put his rivals in prison, or collected real evidence against anybody he wanted to control. Move-Easy has dirt on coppers, judges, WatchWorld officials, but especially other criminals. He’s a master blackmailer—that’s how he’s stayed out of prison so long.

  “A few years ago, my gran died. A couple of days after her funeral, some of Move-Easy’s apes showed up. Without Gran working for them, we were going to have to pay protection money. If we didn’t pay, they’d burn the place down. We weren’t criminals—we were terrified of these guys. They knew we wouldn’t go to the police. Right then, my folks knew Easy was going to bleed them dry of all the money they had. I was too big for my boots. I wanted to help.

  “I spotted that two of the trolls had contact lenses with fake irises covering their eyes, and like the good girl I was, I explained the flaws in the lenses. Not ones my gran would’ve made. I told them how to make the irises look more real. Shouldn’t have opened my mouth. They checked up on me. Found out some of the stuff I’d done. They picked me up one night, and got me to examine some counterfeit money they’d printed. I found the flaws in that too—I mean, the foil wasn’t even woven through the paper properly. After that, Move-Easy decided I was going to be working for him. As long as I do, he leaves my family alone. When Dad tried to argue, they broke his arm.