Cog in the Machine

  Copyright © Nigel Shinner 2019.

  The right of Nigel Shinner to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The author would like to stress that this is a work of fiction and no resemblance to any actual individual or institution is intended or implied.

  Also by Nigel Shinner

  The Mindsweeper Series

  From Within (Book 1)

  No Angel (Book 2)

  Crimes Thrillers

  The Legacy

  Blood on Blue Stone

  COG

  In the

  MACHINE

  By

  NIGEL SHINNER

  Acknowledgements

  Cog in the Machine has been an arduous book to construct but one of my favourites to write. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried and I’ve been angered by the weaving of such a complex story, with such a cast of amazing characters. The journey of writing a book should never be ventured alone and I have been very lucky to have an amazing bunch of people to assist and support me alone the way.

  Thank you, Lauren Greenway, for listening to all my rambling and being the first to read and proof anything I produce – good and bad: your input and approval is vital to my efforts. Thank you also to David Walker, Audrey Curtis and Angela Newman for beta-reading my fifth book: to have someone read the raw, unfinished work is an agony I must endure and you guys make it painless. And thank you to Tony J Fyler, editor-in-chief at Jefferson Franklin Editing: thank you for making this amateur look more like a professional.

  There is also a large group of people I’d like to acknowledge as a significant part of my writing journey – The readers. Without your praise, your anticipation, your encouragement, your reviews and your loyalty, I would just be writing books for my shelf and mine alone. Thank you each and every one of you who took a chance on this unknown and purchased a book, or at least, picked one up and gave your time to read and digest: it means more than you’ll ever know.

  For my children,

  Megan, Daniel, Hayden & Brody.

  You make me proud and you keep me humble.

  For Lauren,

  My companion on this journey.

  Chapter 1

  Nobody ever chooses their nightmare but they are usually similar in construction.

  There is a place. There is a demon. There is a victim.

  The place was just a room - a soundproofed room with a door which only locked from the outside - an eight by eight room, uncomfortably warm with a single low wattage bulb dangling from an aged wire in the dead centre of the stained ceiling. The walls and floor were stained too. The stains were left there deliberately, so that anyone who found themselves in the small space would be in no doubt what happened within.

  The demon was circling the victim, picking his moment. There was no rush, no rush at all. The demon liked to take his time. This demon was five feet eleven, heavily muscled, and enjoyed his work. Pleasure should be savoured, and this was his. Punching the victim unconscious, waiting for them to recover, and then punching them again and again, until they passed out again. Beautiful.

  The victim was slumped on a plastic chair, his hands taped behind his back. Cable ties left marks, gaffer tape didn’t. It might seem bizarre to the armchair psychologists who had never been in a room like this that so much care and attention would be taken on how the victim was restrained, when the victim was beaten to within an inch of their life, but that was how the demon liked it. If the victim were to die, they could be dumped somewhere and signs of restraint were less likely to show if the wrists had been taped.

  An audible groan escaped the victim’s lips. He was awake.

  Swiftly, the demon jabbed a left hand to the cheekbone. Another groan.

  “Have you learned your lesson?”

  No sound.

  Another jab.

  “I said - Have you learned your lesson?”

  The head moved. It rocked back and forth loosely on the stem of his neck - a nod of agreement.

  “Good!”

  The demon banged three times in rapid succession on the blood-splattered door.

  A clunk of a lock being slid across was followed by the creak of the door. Light poured in from the bright exterior.

  A tall man stood in the doorway. “Have you finished?” he asked.

  “I have,” the demon replied. “I think he’ll be a good boy from now on.”

  The Tall Man turned to speak to somebody behind him.

  “Clean him up, take him home, and stick a hundred quid in his pocket for the trouble.”

  There was no agreement. This wasn’t a request. It was an instruction. And the Tall Man’s instructions were always obeyed. Evidence of what would happen if they didn’t was sitting on the chair in the centre of the room, bleeding. It was harsh, but in light of the victim’s crime, it was fair.

  The victim had been lucky. He was alive, his crime forgiven, but not forgotten. Next time, if there was a next time, he might not fare so well. Others hadn’t been so lucky in the past. Others would never have the chance to be lucky in the future. That was the game and those were the rules.

  And the Tall Man was always the winner.

  Chapter 2

  The air was somehow sweeter. Maybe that’s how free air tastes, he thought. It had been so long since he had stood on the right side of the walls and the doors that he’d forgotten what it felt like to be free.

  Dom Carver was a free man again. It had been twelve very long years since he had stood outside the prison without a set of handcuffs on or a prison guard gripping his arm. It felt alien.

  More than a quarter of his life had been spent behind a locked door with a peephole, sharing showers with a dozen men at a time, and dodging the trouble that prisoners serving longer sentences often got themselves into.

  Had he learned his lesson?

  Yes, he thought so. Twelve years of dodging trouble when it was everywhere, around every corner, in every cell. How hard could it be on the outside?

  Would he reoffend?

  Not if he could help it.

  In his head, he was mulling over the questions he knew he’d be asked frequently now he was an ‘ex-con’ trying to make his way in the outside world, a world that had changed utterly from the one he’d left behind. The truth was he didn’t know. One day at a time, that would be his mantra until this new world became his normality.

  He had decided to walk to the railway station. The prison guard who had filled in the release paperwork and sent him on his way had offered to call him a taxi, but Dom had declined. He wanted to see what the outside looked like for himself and you couldn’t do that from the backseat of a minicab. Fresh eyes, for a fresh new start, in the fresh air.

  For the most part, many things seemed the same. There had been no vast changes to the outside world. But the inside world, the world behind closed doors, still remained to be seen.

  Some of the cars were very different. A bright lime green Ford Focus caught his eye – how could it not? He had seen cars on television and in papers and magazines but not seen a car up close since his sentence started. Cars had become a taboo subject, although he was eager to drive one again. That’s how he had come to be in prison - because of his ability to drive, and drive well.

  Back then. Back in the day, as the younger prisoners would often say, Dom was just a regular guy, working in a warehouse forty hours a week, breaking his back for the minimum wage. He had flirted with a few of the smaller gangs in Bri
stol. Dealing a bit of weed here, fencing some ‘warm’ items there, and generally making a bit of small time money wherever and whenever he could. He had also made the occasional killing – in the financial sense - on the underground street racing circuit. Driving was his thing.

  He had never been obsessed with cars, no more than usual. Yes, he liked cars. What young man didn’t? But he wasn’t one of the car crazies who would watch Top Gear like it was some kind of religious ceremony. He liked cars and he could drive them well. That was it.

  But his skill behind the steering wheel had caught the attention of one of the more ambitious crime gangs. A promise of some fast cash – a lot of it – and no questions asked was too good to resist.

  Dom thought that every possible angle had been covered. That the plan couldn’t go wrong, and even if it did, he was merely the driver.

  Shows what I knew, he thought.

  There’s driving, and there’s driving the getaway vehicle in an armed robbery. He agreed to do it for an upfront payment of two hundred quid and a cut of the haul. It was just supposed to be thirty minutes of his day. Instead, he ended up spending his thirties behind bars.

  Dom wasn’t naïve but he had trusted the gang leader, Kevin Dunstan, when he’d said the guns were just for show and they weren’t loaded.

  That was a lie, but then most of the plan turned out to be a lie. It wasn’t a meticulously planned heist, with every eventuality covered. It wasn’t the low risk/ big gain job that would be over in time for tea.

  It was a shambles.

  When Dom was sitting in the stolen getaway car in the back alley behind the bookies on Grand National day, he thought he was going to be driving a carefully prepared vehicle to a safe house in a remote location. He thought that the three guys doing the heist - Dunstan, hard-man wannabe Mark Robbins, and Larry Morgan, a nervous looking stooge who would follow a lemming off a cliff if he thought there was a quid in it for him – were experienced, shrewd operators.

  They were idiots.

  In the criminal fraternity, bragging, bullshit and bravado were the norm. Dom had been taken in by these would-be wise guys. They’d made money doing whatever the hell it was they did before he met them. But when it came to a heist, they had more bullshit than balls.

  The stolen car, taken especially for its performance, was a 1999 Audi S6. Zero to sixty in less than six seconds, yet just short of two tons kerb weight made it a rapid tank of a car, but one that had been ragged to death by the legal owner, causing an unforeseen engine management problem.

  Dom had redlined the car up through the gears, skilfully negotiating the bright red sports saloon through the busy urban landscape to make a swift getaway, only to have the engine management system put the car into safe mode and drop the exit plan down to a tedious forty miles per hour.

  When the police eventually caught up with the stricken vehicle, Dunstan thought it would be a splendid idea to shoot at the police cars attempting a TPAC manoeuvre. The gang leader shot through the driver’s side window, literally putting the gun in front of Dom’s face, blocking his view. The blast from the sawn-off shotgun deafened and stunned Dom, and he crashed, albeit at low speed, into a stationary police vehicle, critically injuring a police officer.

  The officer recovered, but sustained life altering injuries. They were life-altering for Dom too - because of the casualty, he’d been handed a significantly harsher sentence.

  Twelve years taken, twelve years served. Now it was time to start his life over again. It sounded simple.

  It always did.

  Chapter 3

  The train ride home was interesting to say the least. Dom hadn’t been on a train in years, not since he was a teenager. The last time he went anywhere by rail, the carriages had been fitted with basic coach seating, brown velour that created static shocks for all who sat on them, all facing the same way, with cigarette stubbing plates dead centre of every seat back.

  The train he caught today had plush upholstery. Tables seating up to four, dotted sporadically along the carriage. He imagined it would be a great way to travel any distance with a group of friends, all facing each other, able to chat and view the scenery if they wanted.

  Dom had taken a seat with no table, observing a group of friends who’d taken one; a group of four young women. Nobody talked to each other. The women all had phones in their hands and were scrolling through pages of whatever. Their eyes were fixed on the trivial information flashing before them.

  Mobile phones were a banned item in prison but many inmates had been able to get hold of them, devising ways to keep them secret. The younger men serving shorter sentences had introduced Dom to the world of social media, explaining the many things that were available to see and do, and all at the tap of a screen.

  That wasn’t for Dom. He preferred to do everything for real. There would be no virtual pool playing or poker or whatever it was they did. Technology was meant to serve mankind, not restrict it.

  As he stepped from the carriage, the group of phone-obsessed women jostled past him, phones still in hands. Dom watched them walk away, estimating their ages to be around eighteen or nineteen, but these days you couldn’t tell. They all had that youthful uniform all generations had; similar clothes, similar hair, similar attitudes. These young ladies all had skin tight high-waist jeans; short clingy tops, two had large lettering across the fronts; and all had long straight hair, all in their natural colours.

  When he was young, all the girls coloured their hair and, regardless of length, heaped on the hairspray for volume - some of the guys too. The most outlandish hairstyle Dom had ever sported was a short ponytail back in his teens. Today, a ponytail wouldn’t be possible, not to look good at least. He ran his hand over the fine grade two trimmed crewcut, thinking back to when a receding hairline hadn’t been an issue for his ego. Now his hairstyle matched his stubble, a kind of purposeful short fur.

  Walking through the station, he noticed the old greasy café where he and a few of his more legitimately-minded friends used to come for a bacon and egg sarnie and a mug of builders’ tea before heading out for a night on the tiles. It had been updated, but was basically the same – the same kind of tables, the same kind of chairs, and the same kind of customers. He missed those days. He missed that life. He had made very different choices to his buddies.

  He swallowed. It was far too late for regrets.

  Stepping through new, automated station doors and out onto the street, he spotted a familiar face peering over the steering wheel of a familiar mark four blue Vauxhall Astra. Both the face and the Astra had aged. Dom thought the car had aged better than the face.

  “You still driving the same car?” asked Dom, the driver stepping out to greet him.

  “Most reliable thing I’ve ever had in my life. I’m never giving it up.”

  The large frame of Bob Deakin waddled over and hugged his newly released friend. Eyes glistening, maybe from a tear or maybe just age, both men felt the emotion of their reunion. It was like a father and son reunion - as close as it would get for both of them. But it wasn’t blood that bound them. It was nostalgia and familiarity.

  Bob had been involved with Dom’s mother for years, first as friends but then in a co-dependent living arrangement. There was no discussion of boyfriend/girlfriend, hubby/missus or whatever the slang for an unmarried couple engaged in a sexual relationship was back then. Louisa, Dom’s mother, had taken up with Bob and that’s how it stayed until she died of cancer.

  The term ‘stepfather’ was never mentioned. For all intents and purposes though, that was who Bob was. Even now, more than ten years after Louisa’s funeral, Bob was still there, almost thirty years after first walking into their lives. Looking out for the wayward son of the woman he loved.

  “Thanks for picking me up.” Dom’s handsome face beamed, it was the first genuine smile he’d had in a very long time. He’d missed the old man.

  “That’s ok, my boy, that’s ok.” Bob lovingly squeezed the younger man’s sho
ulder as he guided him towards the car; a restrained grin was all he would muster.

  “They’ve given me an address for a hostel for me to stay at while I’m finding my feet,” Dom explained as he handed the old man a slip of folded A4 paper.

  “You won’t be needing that,” Bob said gruffly. “You can stay with me tonight. I’ve made some arrangements on your behalf.”

  Dom looked shamefaced. It wasn’t this man’s job to make arrangements. It wasn’t Bob’s place to feel responsible. “You don’t need to do this…”

  “What would your mother say? No, no, you can sleep on my sofa tonight and I’ve got you some digs and a job lined up, if you want them.”

  A broad smile was his way of expressing his gratitude. He owed this man so much. He would owe him so much more in the coming weeks.

  Chapter 4

  The low ceiling room was claustrophobic even when empty, but with fifty, maybe sixty, men chatting, killing time, breathing the second-hand air and bodies warming it up, it felt like something from a nightmare. The combined aroma of the expensive aftershave of the wealthy, the three day-old body odour of the needy and the deep nicotine stench of the anxious was enough to test even the most resilient constitution.

  The Tall Man stood in the corner near the entrance, a standard single width door, one of two of the only features the room had. He had an invisible exclusion zone around him. There wasn’t another body within six feet, which took some doing, as the room only measured fifteen by thirty.

  There was chatter, lots of chatter, but none of it coherent. The words of these would-be spectators merged into a drone – a low whispered drone that bordered on white noise. That’s how it was, the same white noise at the same time every week, the same thing maybe but with different outcomes; at least that was what the punters thought.