Drainland (Tunnel Island Book 1) by Iain Ryan Read Free Book Online Page A

people.
    Romano filed further back.
    She remembered giving up.
    And the realisation she’d given up.
    And then the reason behind giving up: the Taradale bust, the compound. The victims they found there. The punishments handed out. The violence. The overwhelming horror of it, of the whole fucking job: all the routine policing between Tradable and Tunnel, all the burnt-out hookers and overdosing teens, the vehicular collisions and suicides, the bodies of old men and women found dead, alone. Decaying lives. Stupid actions. Utter waste. All abetted and protected by dickhead cops. All rats gnawing on an arm, the lot of them.
    She was worn down. She felt it now.
    Each night—bottle after bottle, cigarette after cigarette, one boring station house hangover following the next—Romano listened to herself and it haunted her. The past rang out like a bell and it kept ringing.
    It rang until the call:
    A near-dawn morning.
    Denny’s half-asleep voice on the receiver.
    “You’ve got to go up to the Gold Point, they’ve got some sort of emergency.”
    She knew immediately.
    Romano put down the phone and smiled.
    The big distraction.
    Here at last.

9
Friday, September 3, 2004
    S pring rain thudded hard against the windscreen. Denny put the wipers on and pulled into the Gold Point drive. He was nervous. On the drive over, he’d kept quiet, constantly fastened and unfastened his hands around the wheel. As they moved through The Strip, the Gold Point rose up. It stood between the road and the beach, nestled in a carefully manicured canopy of trees.
    Romano had heard the locals call the place The Lighter , due to its gilded gold exterior. It was true. From a distance the Gold Point looked like a tall Zippo sitting in grass.
    At its base, the tree-line opened up to a lavish square courtyard, and Denny steered the police cruiser across it to a small service car park. “The staff in here are a real pain in the arse,” he said. “They almost towed me last time.”
    Three men stood waiting at the hotel entrance. They each wore crisp black suits and held umbrellas despite the awning overhead.
    Romano stepped from the car.
    “You three waiting for us?”
    They all bore similar features. Jet black hair. A hard jaw. Dark eyes. One was slightly taller than the others. Another smoked a cigarette. Romano noticed his hand was bandaged, the tip of a finger missing.
    The taller one spoke first. “We’ll take you up.”
    In the lift, Romano asked, “Who found them?”
    The taller one answered. “A cleaner.”
    “She still here?”
    He nodded.
    They followed the three of them out the lift and down a long carpeted hallway to a room in the hotel’s beach-side face. “This is one of our deluxe suites,” said one of the shorter ones, unlocking the door with a card attached to his belt.
    Romano did not enter immediately. Instead, she waited and listened. She could hear voices inside. At least two males. She took her notebook out, checked the time, and marked it down.
    “Okay, your names?” she said to the staff.
    “Simon Alo.”
    “Charles Alo.”
    “Leo,” said the taller one.
    “Leo Alo?” said Romano.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “You all brothers?”
    “Cousins,” Leo said.
    “You touch anything in here?”
    “I’ve had a look, just to make sure, before I called,” said Leo. “Our security notified us.”
    “How about you two?”
    The other men shook their heads.
    “Right,” she said. “I’m gonna get you two to stay out here. Leo, you stay with me. It sounds like you’ve got half the hotel in here. Denny, you stay put. No one comes in behind us, okay? No one.”
    Romano stepped inside. Watching her feet, she walked the suite’s hallway, passing a laundry, then a bedroom. An older woman sat on a bed in the second room. She held a glass of water in one hand and a small ball of tissue in the other. The woman was completely still, as if in a daydream.
    “This the cleaner?” whispered Romano.
    Leo nodded.
    “Stay here,” said