Playfair

by Jamie Tuck

  ~

  KP heads back up from the subway black hole with the retrieved Tizer can in hand.

  ‘Droopy’s comin back,’ he says. ‘Looker’

  The foreigner ambles down the grey stone chips with a grey paper parcel and a bottle of Thunderbird wine in his hands. Red label, the mean stuff. The blue label version is for pussies.

  He arrives.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ he asks.

  Berry does, but moves along the seat anyway - gripping the Adidas bag between his ankles as he goes.

  KP takes a shot at goal.

  ‘Aw fuck,’ he says, as the can spins up onto the busy road.

  Vwoosh.

  Vwoosh.

  Crunch.

  Game over.

  ‘Your friends are not so good at football, no?’ the foreigner says, unwrapping the package. The bottom of the chip parcel is turning beige as the fat, gravy and vinegar fuse with the paper.

  ‘Seen the fuckin clip of them? Cunts should be in a circus.’

  Then nods at Runt.

  ‘Mute boy over there,’ Berry says. ‘He can be the fuckin ringmaster.’

  Steam bursts out from the package.

  ‘Uzut? I asked him to go easy on the hair, Mr Berry,’ he says, tilting the paper in his direction. ‘I can’t see any, can you?’

  KP looks confused.

  The stottie sits like a round cushion made from bread - cut in half, filled with chips then soaked in diarrhoea.

  ‘Y’need to have a rummage about a bit.’

  ‘Aye mister,’ KP says. ‘Have a look under the lid.’

  The man lifts the top layer of bread and stares at the chips and gravy below. He scowls, jowls collapsing.

  ‘Well, I?’

  He nips finger to thumb, moves a chip and lifts up a tiny, almost manicured hand.

  ‘Is this?’

  He’d never make it as a guitarist.

  ‘A red head? Ah fosure.’

  He holds a long ginger hair, a flake of batter clings to it like an abseilor.

  ‘Aw, aye,’ Berry says. ‘That’ll be Gordon.’

  ‘I am sorry?’

  ‘Gordon must be on the fryer, he’s a ginga.’

  ‘Probably plucked fresh from his fat ginga ring,’ KP adds.

  ‘Or his bollocks. Ha heh heh.’

  ‘What is this word ‘ginga’?’

  He opens the bottle of Thunderbird and takes a long, long but careful sip.

  His eyes never move from Berry.

  ‘Like fuckin Runt boy there,’ Berry nods across the gap.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Runt awakens with a squeak. ‘I’m not a ginga. Me mam says I’m strawberry blonde.’

  The man offers the bottle to Berry.

  ‘Nah thanks.’

  Berry stands up onto the path.

  Wedge takes his place on the bench, locking the bag between his ankles.

  ‘Would you like,’ the foreigner compresses a burp. ‘Excuse me. Would you like some alcohol?’

  ‘Aye, go on,’ Wedge says. ‘Ta.’

  He tilts the bottle of hooch.

  ‘Baaaarp,’ Wedge passes it back. ‘Ta.’

  ‘They safe to eat now?’ says the foreigner.

  ‘Aye, y’only get one pube per order,’ Berry says. ‘They gotta make sure there’s nuf to go round.’

  Wedge puts his hand in the pack and pulls out three gravy-soaked chips.

  ‘Fuck! Shit! Wank!’

  He blows on his fingers.

  ‘Hot.’

  ‘You boys swear a lot,’ Kristiaan says. ‘Ah fosure. It is very cool, no?’

  Berry’s even cooler spit – thwock - is on its way towards the wire goal. It hits then hangs from the Prestos trolley handle, it drips down to the ground like an ever-thinning goalkeeper.

  The foreigner pulls out a chip, splits it in half, blows then puts it gently on his tongue. He chews about a thousand billion times before his Adam’s Apple finally pistons it away. The stottie will take a week to eat, at this rate.

  He wipes his hand clean on the dry part of the wrapper.

  ‘I am Kristiaan.’

  Wedge shakes it.

  ‘You’re a christian?’ Wedge says.

  Berry turns to KP.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he whispers. ‘Fuckin God botherer. I knew he was sellin somethin.’

  His curtain face falls down around those black eyes. He still has hold of Wedge’s hand.

  ‘A christian? Me? No. I am circumcised. It is my name. My name is Kristiaan. Krist-ee-aan. With two As.’

  ‘Ah,’ Berry says embarrassed. ‘Right.’

  ‘And your name?’ he turns to Wedge.

  ‘Jason. Jason Wujkowski.’

  ‘Ah, Wujkowski,’ he pronounces it perfectly. ‘Uzut. You are Polish?’

  Wedge smiles.

  ‘Grandad.’

  ‘Ah the war. The war. Yes, yes. I see.’

  Kristiaan lets go of Wedge’s hand.

  ‘Polish?’ KP says.

  He makes the Universal Wanker gesture with his right hand.

  ‘Leave him alone two minutes and he’ll give himself a polish, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I am sorry?’

  ‘Thirty seconds, more like,’ Berry adds. ‘He’s called Wedge.’

  ‘Veg?’ Kristiaan says, wiping his hand clean of Wedge’s gravy stained handshake. ‘Nice to meet you Veg.’

  ‘Veg!’ Berry and KP snort in tandem. ‘Veg!’

  ‘I am sorry?’ says Kristiaan.

  ‘Ha fuckin ha,’ Wedge sighs. ‘Cheers mister.’

  ‘I think they are ripping you?’ Kristiaan says to Wedge. ‘They are not so nice. Uzut? You are not nice to your strange little friend here. Why do you laugh at him?’

  ‘Y’seen his fuckin head?’ KP says.

  ‘Masseev,’ Berry says. ‘Napper!’

  ‘‘Massive napper’? What does this mean?’

  ‘His head,’ Berry points. ‘Sniper’s fuckin dream.’

  Kristiaan sharpens his eyes on Wedge.

  ‘Oh, I see. It is very large, yes?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Wedge says.

  ‘Ah, do not worry. It is a fine head. You are very handsome.’

  ‘Y’speak funny mister.’

  Kristiaan pulls off a piece of gravy-soaked bread and the piston in his throat bounces.

  ‘I am from the Netherlands,’ he answers. ‘Holland, as you call it. I am here to train.’

  ‘On the train?’

  ‘To train,’ Kristiaan rolls out the syllables, nods up to the cars flashing along the dual carriageway. ‘At the fire station.’

  ‘Ah, cool!’

  Berry looks up to the fire station’s five storey practise tower on the other side of the dual carriageway, a much climbed thing.

  ‘At home, I am a fireman. I am here to learn about a new machine.’

  ‘A fireman?’ Wedge says. ‘Cool. I wouldn’t mind bein a fireman.’

  ‘It is a very rewarding profession.’

  ‘Seen many dead people?’ he asks, reaching again into the chip wrapper.

  ‘Many. Many.’

  ‘Bet they stink.’

  The switch in Kristiaan’s face flicks off and the flesh falls down – it’s as if his face muscles need to disengage, like a clutch, while his mind changes gear. But the black eyes never change.

  ‘Yes. Very much. Like roasting bacon.’

  He puts a brown chip into his mouth and chews.

  Slowly.

  He takes another long slow drink from the bottle.

  ‘Okay, bru,’ he says, he puts his hand on Wedge’s thigh and uses it to stand up. ‘I must go, it is the end of my lunch break.’

  ‘Dodgy fuckin t-shirt mister,’ KP says.

  Kristiaan looks down at it.

  ‘My t-shirt?’

  ‘Who the fuck are The Scorpions?’

  ‘The Scorps? They are the greatest rock band in the world, ever,’ he smiles like a teenager, a smile that includes his eyes this tim
e. ‘Ah fosure. This is one of their concert t-shirts. I saw them in Rotterdam recently. Five times. I have seen them many, many times. Perhaps one hundred.’

  His fingers spread out from his chest – he gives a quick burst of air guitar, rocks his perm back and forward.

  ‘Fuckinhell,’ Berry snorts. ‘Ha heh heh.’

  Kristiaan turns around to show a long list on his back like the end credits of a film. Little red ice-pop dots head up in the white space between the opening dates and his stupid fucking haircut.

  ‘I hope to catch them in England.’

  A Sony Walkman is clipped to his belt, a wire heads up under his t-shirt, the headphone halo grips his throat like a necklace.

  ‘Shit the fuckin bed!’ Berry turns away – it’s the bloke from the fuckin supermarket.

  ‘What’s with the perm?’ Wedge says. ‘Did y’do it y’self like, at home? You look like Chrissy Waddle.’

  Kristiaan laughs.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Footballer.’

  ‘I think you boys are needling me, yes? Why are you not at school?’

  ‘It’s Saturday mister and anyway,’ Wedge says grabbing another chip. ‘It’s the summer holidays.’

  ‘Ah fosure,’ says Kristiaan. ‘I see. You must enjoy yourselves. Enjoy the sunshine, it is not often sunny here, no?’

  He passes the remains of his barely touched chip stottie to Wedge.

  ‘For you.’

  KP sits in his place on the bench.

  ‘Have a nice day.’

  He puts his earphones back over his ears, presses ‘play’ on a guitar solo, and crunches down the stone path and into the black tunnnel.

  ‘Cock,’ KP says.

  Berry lines up the Thunderbird bottle on the path.

  ‘Bez?’ KP says, face returned to its state of perpetual confusion.

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I might be goin mental, hearing things but?’

  Berry boots the bottle at the goal, it hits the back of the trolley.

  Smashes.

  ‘How did that bloke know ya name?’

  Up on the crumbling housing estate, and Billy ‘Hash’ Brown bangs on Foggy’s door.

  ‘Arf, Arf, Arf!’

  The dog Nigel’s awake, somewhere in the back of the house.

  ‘Foggy?’ he shouts. ‘Foggy? Wake up y’cunt.’

  ‘Arf, Arf, Arf.’

  He peers through the window, there’s a Foggy shape still embedded in the sofa, but there’s no sign of him.

  ‘Jesus fuckin Christ.

  ‘Foggy!’

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  He attacks the door.

  ‘Howay man, y’lanky streak o piss. I need a fuckin spliff.’

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  His skin throbs now, two pints of lager a poor substitute for a half-dozen spliffs.

  ‘Arf, Arf, Arf!’

  Hash kicks the door twice.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  ‘Fuckin FOGGY!’

  It’s all he has left.

  The floppy rim of his hat bends into the door as he parks his forehead against the wood.

  Three blisters burst.

  ‘Spliff.’

  Then good news, sort of.

  Nigel comes racing towards the door.

  ‘Arf! Arf!’

  Bang.

  The pitbull hits the door.

  ‘Arf! Arf! Arf!’

  ‘Nigel! Arf, calm down boy. Calm down!’

  He leaps.

  Bang bang.

  ‘Arf! Arf!’

  Bang.

  Scratch.

  Bang.

  ‘Arf!’

  ‘Billy?’ says a severely stoned Mark Fogarty.

  ‘Fuck. Foggy. Put Nigel out in the yard man. Foggy!’

  Bang.

  Scratch.

  Bang.

  ‘Arf! Arf! Arf!’

  The chain is pulled back from the door, the Yale lock released.

  Hash turns and tries to hobble back to his car.

  He gets two steps up the path.

  ‘Arf! Arf!’

  Scratch.

  Scratch.

  Bang.

  The door opens.

  Scratch.

  ‘Jesus! Fuckin!’

  ‘I’m comin man, fuckin calm down.’

  Nigel launches himself skyward – claws harvesting the empty air.

  ‘Arf! Arf! Arf!’

  ‘Huh huh huh!’

  ‘Aaaayaz man!’

  A big black fist catches Nigel by the collar.

  ‘Huh huh huh!’ the fist laughs, wide and deep like Darth Vadar – were there any jokes on the Dark Side.

  Hash cowers but the flaying paws don’t land.

  ‘Arf! Arf! Arf!’

  ‘Aleet Billy,’ Foggy says. ‘This is Jackson. Y’met Jackson?’

  ‘Huh huh huh. Don’t y’like Nigel then? He’s a lush little doggy man. Huh huh huh.’

  Hash turns to the doorway.

  A big black man, his face cut in half beneath the nose by a joyous smile, holds the dog by the collar. Nigel’s equally happy paws and slobbering tongue reaching out for his best mate - Billy ‘Hash’ Brown.

  Jackson holds out his other hand.

  Hash shakes it. His hand is soft and cold, gentle.

  ‘Alreet Jackson,’ Hash says.

  ‘Hullo.’

  Jackson puts Nigel on the path, he makes a lunge for Hash, Foggy grabs his collar.

  ‘Billy’s a bit disabled and that,’ Foggy snorts.

  ‘Huh huh huh,’ Jackson says. ‘Sunbathin?’

  ‘Aye,’ Hash says. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jackson says. ‘I have to go. Nightshift. A nice reefer will help me through. Huh huh huh.’

  ‘Aye, does the trick mate,’ Foggy says. ‘Always does the fuckin trick for me any rate.’

  Jackson steps over the front yard fence towards his own door.

  ‘See you later. Huh huh huh.’

  ‘Aye, siya Jackson,’ Foggy says.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Hash says, pushing Foggy and Nigel’s licking tongue out of the way.

  ‘I need a fuckin spliff.’

  Foggy pushes Nigel into the front room as Hash walks through the peeling forest towards the kitchen table, the ash tray is piled high like Indira Gandhi’s funeral pyre.

  ‘Where?’ Hash asks.

  Foggy walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Been busy as fuck all day mate.’

  He has a big stupid grin on his stoned face – no trace of guilt.

  ‘Busy? What y’mean ‘busy’?’

  Foggy looks at him, walks over to the cupboard and pulls down the embossed BISCUIT jar.

  ‘People been comin back and forward all day. Jackson there was the last one.’

  Hash sits down on the nearest chair and stares up like a slapped child.

  He knows what’s coming.

  ‘Don’t tell me?’

  Foggy pulls out a sheath of notes.

  ‘Fifteen hundred fuckin quid mate. In one day.’

  He tips the money towards Hash.

  ‘Ehm?’ Foggy says. ‘Halfies?’

  ‘Halfies? Are you fucked in the head or what? You’ve sold ALL the fuckin gear haven’t ya?’

  ‘Ehm?’

  ‘Are y’fuckin mental or what!’

  Hash knocks the money out of Foggy’s hand, it flutters to the lino.

  ‘Now every cunt knows you’ve got gear?’

  ‘Ehm?’

  ‘Where the FUCK did y’get it from, eh?’

  ‘Ehm?’

  ‘Who d’y’always get y’fuckin gear from, eh? Who KNOWS where y’supply comes from? Me, you, and . . .?

  ‘Talbot. Fuck!’

  ‘Jesus fuckin Christ,’ Hash puts his fucked face in his hands. Half a dozen blisters burst, dampening his palms with warm goo.

  Hash takes in a deep breath of broiled, fetid air from the f
estering bins outside the open back door.

  ‘I need a fuckin spliff,’ he lifts his ruined head and wipes his hands on the sides of his hat.

  ‘I NEED a fuckin spliff.’

  Down in the subway, and the trainee drug barons negotiate their first deal.

  ‘I hear y’got some gear?’ Crosby says to Wedge through his nostrils, gold curtain rings shining against the erupting flesh of his cheeks.

  When their final year starts in September, Sean Crosby will officially be the hardest in the school.

  Berry sits beside KP on the park bench.

  ‘Open y’mouth properly,’ Berry mutters, clutching the red Adidas bag between his ankles. ‘Y’fuckin spastic.’

  ‘Look at his stupid fuckin tash,’ KP whispers. ‘What a twat.’

  Wedge stands beside the trolley, facing his first customers.

  He lights a cigarette.

  ‘How much y’after?’ he asks, breathing the smoke out his nose.

  ‘Fuckinhell,’ Berry sighs, trying to catch Wedge by the eye - but he’s avoiding the hook.

  He knows it’s there.

  Mason stands at Crosby’s side like a good dog, orange hearing aid smeared into the conch of his ear.

  ‘We’ll take it ALL off ya, reet!’ Mason commands.

  His tongue is just too fat for his mouth as if he’d been caught licking a rat trap. It takes an extra fraction of a second to make sense of the spongey syllables.

  ‘How much y’got?’ Crosby says.

  Thwock.

  He spits out across the path.

  Runt’s right arse cheek hangs over the side of his BMX seat as he watches, right foot on his pedal, poised at the tip of its arc for a full throttle getaway.

  Berry glares at him.

  Wedge smiles.

  ‘Enough. How much y’want?’

  ‘This little cunt said you’ve got loads,’ Crosby nods to Runt. ‘It’s probably fuckin rubber.’

  ‘Aye!’ Mason, of course, agrees.

  ‘Rubber? What? Why’d it be rubber?’

  ‘Some cunt sold me a bit of rubber the other day.’

  Everyone looks at him, his mythical hardest-fucker-in-the-world status slipping a notch.

  Crosby puts his cigarette to his mouth and pulls hard - through his teeth.

  Hiss.

  His Indian woman’s moustache twitches down to the cigarette’s white paper barrel.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get the cunt.’

  Exhales.

  ‘Aye!’ Mason adds. ‘He’s fuckin dead, reet!’

  Crosby pulls hard again on the cigarette.

  ‘I wanna start dealin mesel like.’

  Finally Wedge looks towards Berry on the seat.

  And so does Runt.

  Everybodys’ eyes – even Mason’s – follow their trajectory.

  ‘Fuck’s sakes.’

  To the red bag between Berry’s legs.

  His ankles lock.

  ‘Aye, we’ll take the lot.’ Masons says. His eyes dart down between Berry’s legs. Then across to Crosby.

  Message received and understood – even plankton brain got it.

  Berry closes his knees like a girl with her first pubes.

  ‘Two heads,’ KP whispers. ‘One brain cell.’

  ‘What y’fuckin say?’ Crosby says.

  ‘Nothin, nothin.’

  ‘Nothin? Think y’fuckin funny Donnelly, don’t ya?’

  ‘Aye. Hilarious.’

  Crosby looks down at Berry.

  ‘Alreet Bez? Why so quiet?’

  ‘Quiet? Nothin to do with me mate. I’m just a spectator.’

  ‘Spectator? Why don’t you two fuck off somewhere else then? Me and Wedge have got business.’

  Berry snorts.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Aye, okay then,’ KP says, standing. ‘Let’s go to Prestos Bez. I’ll buy y’a Mars bar.’

  Berry stares for a second at the ugly half-man.

  ‘Fair nuf,’ he sighs. ‘Don’t wanna be messin with these fuckin gangsters.’

  He steps up from the bench and reaches underneath for the bag.

  ‘See y’later then lads,’ he says.

  ‘What’s in the bag,’ says the retard with the fat tongue.

  ‘Bag?’

  ‘Fuckin bag, there man,’ he points.

  ‘It’s me swimmin stuff. I’m goin swimmin.’

  He picks up Adidas.

  ‘Towel and that,’ he says, turning his back. ‘I’ll see you fuckin young entrepreneurs later.’

  Wallop.

  Stars light up a rotating sky.

  ‘How man!’ KP shouts.‘What the fuck y’doin?’

  Crosby punches Berry again.

  Wallop.

  Gold sovereign rings crack into the side of his head.

  Mason grabs at the bag.

  Berry twists low to the side, anger flaring through him like an orgasm, full flame.

  ‘Y’fuckin!’

  He swings his left fist - his weakest - and cracks it into Mason’s fucked ear.

  It catches him sweet.

  Burying his hearing aid way beyond the depth of its design.

  ‘Aaaaieee.’

  Nostra Dam’s bells toll inside the retard’s head.

  ‘Aaaiieeee!’

  Another punch comes in from Crosby.

  Berry falls.

  His back smashes into the rungs of the park bench.

  Winding him.

  ‘Uaggh. Fuck me.’

  ‘Aiiiieee!’ Mason keeps trying to pull the hearing aid out of his brain.

  Crosby reaches behind his back.

  ‘Bez! He’s got a fuckin knife!’

  The flash is nearby, it whips through his peripheral vision splitting the air around it like a fighter jet.

  ‘Fuck me!’

  It whips by again, closer.

  It’s long and thick.

  Military.

  A Bowie knife.

  Berry rolls backwards, his head and vital organs under the wooden sanctuary of the park bench.

  ‘Aiiiiee!’

  Crosby is above him, he can see him through the slats as if from inside a wooden jail.

  He grabs the bag.

  ‘Mine,’ he smiles.

  Crosby puts the knife back in its brown leather sheath and tucks it into the back of his pants. He opens the bag and pulls out a brown block, and smiles.

  Mason has finally freed the hearing aid from his ear.

  ‘Nice doin business with ya,’ he says and turns and walks up the hill, Mason following like a kicked dog.

  Berry looks up, he can see Wedge through the slats of the chair.

  ‘Fuck him,’ Wedge says. ‘There’s loads more where that came from.’

  Berry lies his head on the ground.

  ‘Fuckinhell man,’ he sighs.

  Up in a city centre office, and the best-reporter-in-the-world - ever - arrives early afternoon for yet another Shit Shift.

  ‘Poo,’ Ellen Carter says as she types LO – log off – on her keyboard then switches off the terminal.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  Rick E. Delaney sits, switches on and logs in.

  Password; GENIUS.

  ‘It’s not me,’ he replies.

  The late weekend reporter shift on The Evening Kernel is completely pointless. By early afternoon the paper is already in bed and there’s no other edition until Monday.

  If a story breaks, there’s nowhere to put it.

  But a reporter and photographer remain on duty.

  Always.

  ‘Bloody reeks,’ Ellen says, sniffing at the air, as she approaches his desk with a sheath of fax paper.

  Even the crap ‘Sunday for Monday’ stories that aren’t really stories at all have already been turned into plates for Monday’s first edition.

  The office is surprisingly busy - the Sports Editor and all the sport reporters are at their desks. And they’re all on the phone, their mutterings in competition with
the screams of Formula One engines on all the TV screens.

  ‘What they doing here?’ Delaney asks.

  It’s mid-July.

  A ball won’t be kicked in anger for weeks. And only about 14 people in the entire north east give half-a-fuck about cricket or motor racing. The Evening Kernel newspaper may as well keep the same holidays as the football team. Its sales only kept solvent by those who have it delivered to the door every afternoon. Most kick it away, unread.

  ‘Haven’t you seen the first edition?’ she asks.

  ‘Erm, not yet no.’

  All this activity can mean only one thing - a footballer has been bought or, more likely with Newcastle United, sold.

  ‘Chris Waddle’s leaving,’ Ellen says. ‘Well, it’s not 100 per cent yet but Munroe went with it anyway. It’s the splash.’

  Delaney’s eyes are on fast cars.

  ‘Chris who?’ Delaney says. ‘Is he a sub-editor?’

  ‘Rick, for God’s sake. Waddle. Chris Waddle. The footballer. Plays on the left wing? Just started playing for England?’

  She drops a still wet and warm copy of the final edition on his desk.

  ‘Oh, right? Right. Ugly bloke with the stupid haircut?’

  ‘Mullet. It’s called a mullet. Yes, that’s him.’

  ‘Oh, right. And that’s good is it?’

  ‘No Rick. It’s bad. For Newcastle fans. Very bad. It seems he’s signed for Tottenham.’

  ‘Ah, MY team! In London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh cool. London. Right. Cool.’

  Ellen sighs.

  ‘Yes, well. Maybe you can look him up when you get there. Take him to the barbers.’

  She offers him a pile of fax paper, press releases.

  ‘We need a couple of fillers. A three par and a six par. Have a shuffle through these and knock something out.’

  Delaney ignores her.

  She’s been helping run the newsdesk today, she’s on her way, Ellen Carter - ten years time, she’ll be editor for sure.

  Munroe steps out of the Editor’s office and turns to look at the name on the door. A stand in for the day, getting a lucky big story – from such good fortune careers are made.

  ‘Dream on fat boy,’ Delaney mutters. ‘Dream on.’

  Munroe looks over, Delaney grabs the offered faxes.

  Gareth Long, fresh meat from the graduate journalism course and Delaney’s rival in the foppish hair stakes, hovers behind Ellen.

  ‘What you smirking at?’ Delaney asks him. ‘You little turd.’

  Long’s name is the one crossed out on Munroe’s Cunts Rota - freeing him for the rest of the weekend. Delaney’s name now in poll position on the starting grid – probably forever. The baby reporter turns his hair curtains, flicks his computer off and stands behind Ellen.

  ‘Ready?’ he asks her.

  ‘Where you off to then?’ Delaney asks, the news desk phone singing at his feet – he turns to watch Munroe pick it up.

  Technically, answering the phone is now Delaney’s job.

  ‘News desk,’ the editor-for-the-day says, picking up one of his squeezy stress balls.

  ‘Down the Pie for a quickie,’ she looks at the office junior, he smiles. ‘Then I’m off home to Derby for the weekend. Well, for what’s left of it.’

  ‘Off home for a quickie?’ Delaney winks at Long.

  Ellen stares at him, neutral.

  ‘What about you, Rick?’ she smiles. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’

  Ellen looks around.

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry. You’re busy.’

  The trainee smiles.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he says, sniffing the air. ‘Man, it really does stink round here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellen says. ‘It always does. Okay, good luck with it Rick. See you Monday. Don’t forget those fillers.’

  ‘Yeah, see you lay . . .’

  ‘Delaney!’

  Delaney’s hands come down from the crown of his head and he turns on his swivel chair to face the brittle scream. Munroe holds the phone’s two craters towards him in accusation.

  ‘The garage is on the line. You been using the fuckin pool car again? Eh?’

  Ellen raises her shoulders in an ‘ouch’ and steps away from the condemned man.

  ‘There’s a crate of fish in the fuckin boot!’

  Delaney catches the duet burst of laughter in the corridor as the office door swishes through its hinge.

  ‘Fuckin FISH! Fish? What the fuck . . ?’

  By the river, and two teenage boys scuff down the bank and out onto the concrete prairie of the Neptune dry dock yard.

  They stop behind Tully the drunk’s shed like toy soldiers, a roll of black plastic bin liners under their arms instead of rifles.

  ‘He there?’ Wedge hisses.

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ Berry replies.

  ‘Have a look then!’

  ‘You have a fuckin look!’

  ‘I didn’t see him y’know, properly and that. Not up close like you did.’

  Berry stares into Wedge’s blue pools.

  ‘Fuck’s sakes.’

  He edges around the side to the door.

  ‘We must be mental,’ he says to no one. ‘Radio fuckin Rental.’

  Berry jabs his head in front of the scummed up window - too fast for his eyes to even focus.

  ‘Fuck’s sakes.’

  He does it again, keeping it there a beat longer.

  There’s nobody around.

  He puts his hand to the glass, rubs and looks in.

  The pubs are open, the shed is empty.

  ‘He there?’ Wedge hisses.

  ‘Nah. Nobody’s here.’

  ‘Cool!’ Wedge says, standing up tall – he strolls out towards the stack of pipes over by the red crane.

  They take the steps down the dry dock wall to the vast hole in the ground.

  ‘Me uncle used to work here,’ Berry says.

  ‘Fat Mick?’ Wedge snorts.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘No wonder this place is fucked.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Y’seen the cunt?’

  Wedge nods to the crane, overhead now as they walk down the steps.

  ‘That thing couldn’t lift him.’

  ‘He’s got a problem wi his glands.’

  ‘He’s got a problem wi fuckin pies.’

  Berry coughs and his face opens.

  ‘And beer. Ha heh heh.’

  ‘And chips.’

  Wedge reaches over and pats Berry’s gut.

  ‘Y’wanna watch y’self son,’ he says. ‘It’s in the genes.’

  They come to the bottom of the concrete stairs, the sun beaming down on them like an oversized searchlight.

  ‘Genes?’ Berry stops at the concrete floor and examines Wedge’s head like a granny in a grocer’s – trying to work out the weight, after a good price.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Holly hasn’t got a massive swede, has she?’

  ‘Eh?’

  Berry leaps and grabs Wedge’s head like a medicine ball.

  ‘Veg!’

  Berry starts to rub heat into his ears.

  ‘Mr fuckin Veg!’

  ‘Ah man! Get off! Y’prick.’

  Berry’s boosters fire.

  ‘Woo hoo!’

  He sprints across the open dock to the little wooden trawler.

  ‘Woo . . . ?’

  He slows, halfway. Walks a little then stops, confused.

  ‘Maybes we should torch the bastard?’ Wedge says when he arrives.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Y'know. Nick all the hash. Set light to it, nobody'll even know.’

  ‘What hash?’

  Berry points.

  The place has been tidied up.

  ‘Eh?’

  The herbal coal spill has gone and the door screwed sideways to the hull is closed. Even the bobbin fragments have been neatly stacked like kindling up close to the boat.

  ‘What?’ Wedg
e says. ‘Oh aye? It must be inside man.’

  He walks forward and pushes his hand through a busted slat and releases the latch.

  The door falls open like a heavy letterbox.

  They both stick their heads in, up to the shoulders.

  Slashes of light burn like lasers through the darkness, picking out the pink spawn of some kind of alien creature, stacked in a pile against the stern.

  ‘What the fuck are they?’ Wedge says.

  Dozens of baby monsters, waiting to hatch.

  ‘They’re just buoys,’ Berry says. ‘Bunk me up.’

  Wedge pushes him inside.

  The inside of Play Fair’s broken hull curves forward to a wooden ladder screwed to the wall. The ladder leads up to the hatch on the deck floor where Berry and Smithy read the wank mag yesterday.

  ‘Fuck me, it’s bigger than y’think.’

  A long cable runs down from the wheelhouse floor and across half-a-dozen pulleys to a thick wooden tray, hinged at the base. Fat springs nicked from a truck’s suspension are coiled underneath the tray.

  When the clasps are set, the pressure keeps the underwater door closed.

  Until the lever is pulled.

  Then the plinth’s compressed springs release, the door opens – everything goes for a swim like a fat man on a diving board. The natural pressure of the water then closes the door.

  Simple.

  All the weighted evidence gone, floating down to the bottom of the North Sea.

  ‘Clever bastards,’ Berry says.

  ‘Eh?’ Wedge says, his head peering through the door.

  ‘Pulley thing here,’ Berry says. ‘If they got nicked out to sea, they’d just pull the fuckin cord, shed the load. No proof or fuck all.’

  ‘Fascinatin. Any fuckin hash or what?’

  Berry looks around.

  ‘Nah, fuck all.’

  ‘There MUST be some man. There was shit loads.’

  ‘Not any more. Looker.’

  ‘I can smell it!’

  ‘There’s fuckin none here man, have a look for y’self.’

  Wedge jumps up, Berry pulls him aboard.

  ‘Where the fuck'd it go?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘This is well fuckin dodgy man.’

  Fear, finally, grips them.

  ‘Fuck?’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘We should fuck off?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Berry bends and jumps out of the hole.

  Wedge follows.

  ‘We should definitely fuckin torch it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Y’know, set fire to the bastard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno. Why not?’

  Something catches Berry’s eye.

  A shadow.

  A movement between the gaps between the trellis metal of the red crane – high above Wedge’s head on the outer rim of the dry dock.

  ‘What is it with you and fuckin fires?’

  Berry cups his hand to make shade over his eyes.

  Wedge flicks his lighter, puts a cigarette to his lips.

  ‘Dunno. Maybes I’m one of them fire-oh-maniacs.’

  He rolls the barrel again over the flint.

  Wedge turns to look.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  He follows the trajectory of Berry’s eyes up the steps and copies him, cupping his hand over his eyes.

  Two human figures emerge from behind the crane and cast massive shadows down into the dock.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  ‘Fuck!’

  Berry pulls Wedge hard by his threads and down to his knees, into the shadow of the boat’s keel.

  ‘Shit the fuckin bed!’

  Berry nips his eyes closed then looks up again.

  A tall gangly bloke in a white shellsuit strides along smoking a cigarette, followed by a shorter bloke, overdressed for the weather in a white hat and brown tracksuit top.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’ Berry says. ‘Quick.’

  He pushes Wedge into the boat’s open door.

  The shadows keep moving.

  ‘Maybes they're just workers or somethin?’ Berry says. ‘They might walk passed . . .’

  The taller lad takes the first step down and turns to his shuffling, shambling friend.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  Berry dives into the boat.

  ‘Maybes not.’

  Billy ‘Hash’ Brown steps out with Foggy across the smooth concrete floor of the dry dock.

  ‘Man,’ Foggy says, a roll of black bin liners under an armpit. ‘It looks different in the daytime. It’s totally fucked.’

  A shadow cast by the king crane reaches out across the concrete to the tip of the little boat’s bow, as if pointing the way.

  ‘Aye,’ Hash says. ‘It’s fucked.’

  ‘Silly fucker must’ve dropped it from a canny height eh?’

  The boat’s bow is sniffing the air and, no longer structurally sound, the strain of bearing her own cracked weight is opening dark joins between the whitewashed slats.

  ‘It's fallen off the wood thing it was balanced on at the back, looker,’ Foggy continues, pointing to where the corkscrew has ground a deep grey gash into the brown concrete.

  ‘Let’s just get all the gear off the bastard,’ Hash says. ‘And fuck off home.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Then torch the fuckin thing.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye. Good fuckin riddance.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Foggy says. ‘Man, we’re gonna be stoned for fuckin months! Years! Woo hoo!’

  Hash locks his eyes on him.

  ‘You? You’re getting fuck all, y’fuckin idiot.’

  ‘What?

  ‘You. Y’silly cunt. Sellin all the gear and that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What the fuck’s gonna happen when Talbot finds out you’re the only cunt in town with gear?’

  ‘He can kiss me fuckin arse.’

  ‘Aye? Cool. Good idea. He’ll just think it was you that nicked it.’

  ‘Eh?’ Foggy’s face collapses. ‘Fuck that!’

  ‘And I’ll have enough blow to keep ME stoned for the rest of me life,’ Hash says.

  ‘Get it y’fuckin self then?’ Foggy mutters.

  Hash smiles.

  ‘Y’wanker,’ he says.

  ‘Dick.’

  They reach the boat.

  Hash shivers like a cat throwing off water.

  ‘Someone step on y’grave?’ Foggy says.

  ‘Place gives me the fuckin willies.’

  Hash stops ten feet from the boat.

  ‘Fuck?’ he says. ‘Where’s the pile gone?’

  He almost leaps the last few steps.

  ‘The trapdoor thingy is shut, looker,’ Foggy says.

  He steps forward to try and open the door, but it’s locked tight. There’s no handle or even anywhere to grip.

  They both turn sharply to the yellow slash of steps.

  ‘Talbot!’

  ‘Fuck,’ Foggy says, wilting. ‘What?’

  Dark shapes play out scenes across the perfectly sunlit concrete stage, two beasts at opposite ends, edging closer.

  Metal face to metal face.

  But there’s no sign of Talbot.

  ‘What we gonna do?’ Foggy says.

  ‘Fuck? I dunno?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Man? Fuck. I dunno. We’re here now, I’m not fuckin comin back down here again.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No fuckin way mate.’

  ‘It’ll be inside?’

  ‘Maybes?’

  ‘We’ll fill the fuckin car and torch the bastard?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘He’ll never know.’

  ‘Aye? Fuck. Right. Okay, okay. How do we get in?’

  ‘The hatch on the deck, I broke the lock,’ Hash says, walking to the ladder screwed to the dock wall. ‘Gizza bunk up.

  ‘And be
fuckin careful.’

  Inside the boat, and Ted Berry feels like a powder monkey aboard HMS Victory, waiting for the first cannon ball to strike.

  ‘Shit the fuckin bed.’

  He grips the chain that holds the door closed.

  ‘The trapdoor thingy is shut, looker,’ says a voice outside.

  Berry grips the chain harder as the man’s brown stained fingers come through a gap in the wood.

  The voices muffle.

  ‘Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!’ Berry grips the chain. ‘Fuckinhell!’

  Slashes of light beam through the cracked hull, drawing shapes on the far wall.

  Berry’s chest inflates to its furthest extent, his lungs seeking clean air in the confined space.

  ‘Aye? Fuck. Right. Aye. Okay, okay. How do we get in?’

  ‘The hatch on the deck,’ the second man sounds like he’s swallowed sand. ‘Gizza bunk up. And be fuckin careful.’

  The boat moves off the wall a little as the two men squeeze between it and the concrete dock.

  ‘Wedge,’ Berry whispers. ‘When they get on the deck, I’ll open this door and we fuckin leg it. Right?’

  No answer.

  ‘Wedge?’

  ‘Oh, oh kay.’

  Wedge’s voice is nipped tight like a kid slowly letting the air out of a balloon.

  Footsteps shuffle on the other side of the strips of wood.

  The boat jerks again, further from the wall.

  ‘Ayaz man,’ croaks the man. ‘For fuck’s sake Foggy! Be fuckin careful.’

  ‘Foggy?’

  ‘Get y’fuckin foot off me head!’

  ‘Ayaz, ayaz, ayaz man!’

  ‘What’s he fuckin whingein on about?’ Berry mutters.

  ‘Careful man. You'll tip the cunt over.’

  The boat moves again as the whining man lands on the deck.

  Wedge’s breaths are fracturing, going in an out in pieces.

  ‘Fuck, y’alright?’ Berry says.

  He can hear the mucus flying in from all four corners of his chest like a plague of locusts from the African plains.

  They gather in his windpipe.

  ‘Wedge?’

  He can see him in one of the shafts of light, he looks like someone has a hand at his throat pinning him to the wall.

  ‘Fuck! Where’s y’hooter?’

  Wedge shuffles through his pockets and pulls out the blue grey ventalin inhaler.

  He drops it.

  ‘Fuck’s sakes,’ Berry says.

  He lets go of the chain and fishes around on the floor, finds it.

  Shakes it.

  Berry steps across the deck to him, it moves slightly.

  ‘Fuckin breathe.’

  Wedge sucks the medication down into his constricting chest.

  ‘I'm all, I’m all,’ he wheezes through the roasted air. ‘I’m alright man.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Berry says. ‘Even I can’t breathe in here man.’

  Berry shakes the hooter.

  ‘Again,’ he puts it up to his friend’s mouth.

  Drops it.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He watches it go – it bounces on one side of a sunlit crack on the side of the boat, bounces to the other side then falls out of the slit.

  And onto the concrete floor below.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  Out of reach.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Big red fuckin splat on the wall there. It looks like somebody’s had their head blown off.’

  Shoes are coming heavily up the deck.

  One of the men falls up the slope.

  ‘Ayaz man!’

  ‘Howay Hash man.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  The steps come almost over head, creaking the wooden slats.

  ‘We'll get it and go. Piece of piss.’

  Now they’re right overhead where the metal box is nailed to the deck, the boat leans forward slightly.

  Wedge wheezes, shooing at the locusts.

  ‘Fuck this,’ Berry says. ‘Let’s go.’

  Berry yanks the chain.

  Nothing happens.

  The door stays closed.

  ‘Fuckin thing!’

  Berry yanks the chain as hard as he can, the boat jerks away from the dock wall.

  Nothing.

  Wedge is sliding down the opposite wall, his lungs collapsing in on themselves like two smokey bacon crisp packets plumbed to a tube.

  The trapdoor remains firmly closed.

  ‘Wedge! Fuck?’

  Berry yanks the chain.

  Yanks the chain.

  Nothing.

  Yanks the chain.

  The boat rocks to the side but the door is jammed closed – Wedge’s misplaced foot locking one of the pulleys.

  ‘It’s not locked man,’ says the voice, right overhead now. ‘I bust it. It’s open.’

  ‘Ah, aye.’

  The hatch rattles as the man overhead lifts off the metal lid, spears of light jab into the bulkhead – through the gaps in the wood that make up the false bottom of the box.

  ‘The wood underneath isn’t real. It isn’t nailed down, pull it.’

  A hand starts fussing at the planks, trying to peel them away.

  Berry yanks the chain.

  ‘Come on . .

  Yanks the chain.

  ‘ . . . you . .

  Yanks the chain.

  ‘ . . fuckin . .

  Yanks the chain.

  ‘ . . CUNT!’

  Then all the world's ablaze, light bursting into their cell.

  From overhead.

  A hand fishes around.

  A tuft of blonde hair then a long, thin face like a friendly white horse peers into the dark.

  His hand swims around.

  Right in front of Berry’s face.

  ‘Man, oh man . . .’

  The man’s eyes are like piss holes in the snow - the deep black marks of the Olympic-standard stoner.

  ‘What the fuck?’ the face disappears. ‘Hash! Hash man! Looker! It's fuckin empty.’

  A scabby hand attached to a brown sleeve swims around in the gap, and then a blistered, sweating face peers down inside. He stares straight at the two boys - but can’t see yet, his eyes still switched to ‘light’ instead of ‘dark.’

  He looks like an inept foreign legionnaire lost somewhere in the Sahara, a manky hat stuck to his head.

  Berry yanks the chain with his full fifteen-year-old force, feet high in the air.

  The boat jerks from the wall.

  ‘Stop movin the fuckin boat!’ says the first man.

  ‘Eh?’ says scabby hands. ‘Where the fuck is it?’

  Wedge starts to make heaving noises – his chest convulsing.

  A death rattle.

  ‘Bez,’ he wheezes, ‘Fuck, Bez.’

  Berry gives up on the chain, catches him as he falls.

  ‘Help!’ he shouts up at the sky.

  The scabby man peers back inside.

  ‘Help! Y'stupid fuckin wanker!’ Berry commands. ‘He’s dyin!’

  ‘What. The. Fuck?’

  Chained to a city centre desk, Rick E. Delaney watches Munroe stand and stretch his arms an inch short of the ceiling tiles then gather his jacket from the back of his chair. He brushes Tudor crisp crumbs from his pants.

  ‘Go on fatboy,’ Delaney mumbles. ‘Go home. I won’t be far behind.’

  Delaney has his Saturday night all mapped out – he rips the TV listings out of today’s paper and sticks it in his pocket.

  Sorted.

  Munroe tinkers with his keyboard, checking the wires and copy baskets a final time then types LO - log off.

  A good day at the office.

  Time for a drink.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he throws the jacket over his shoulder, a finger through the loop hole.

  ‘Offskies.’

  He steps away from his desk, ready now to join Evans and Lee at The Printer’s Pi
e pub.

  But?

  He can’t, not just yet.

  Munroe leans forward and logs back in – LO, password; STALAGMITE - keen to chase a doubt, unable to shake the leash that comes with the job. It’s tied there around the leg of the Editor’s desk.

  He glances over to the door.

  Delaney forces his eyes through a press release about a Boy Scout trip up a mountain.

  ‘Middle aged men in tents with pre-pubescent boys in shorts,’ he says. ‘Sounds like a formative experience.’

  He can’t do it, he just can’t even try to turn this into a story – not even three paragraphs for the kids’ mothers.

  ‘Oh God,’ he sighs, dropping the faxes into the bin.

  The church bells in the alley chime six times.

  Munroe turns and looks over at his reporter then up at the rota.

  He sighs, shakes his head.

  ‘Cunt,’ he mutters.

  Delaney needs something to do.

  Quick.

  His eyes snag on telephone numbers; The Calls, the photocopied sheet of paper Sellotaped to the side of every terminal.

  ‘Eek!’

  Delaney has been in the office four hours, and has yet to make any.

  Not good.

  First, he dials the police. The press information line - The Voicebank. A Dalek drones a recorded message, ‘1735 hours and two units responded to’ - the details of a minor road traffic accident follow.

  ‘Boring.’

  Delaney clicks down the button on top of the phone then dials the fire service control room, tapping the digits hard for Munroe’s ears.

  It rings twice in his ear.

  ‘Control,’ a woman answers.

  Always a human being, the fire service people not sharing the same rigid need for absolute control as the freemasons over at Northumbria Constabulary.

  A different gene pool.

  ‘Hello, Rick E. Delaney here from The Evening Kernel,’ he says. ‘How are you this fine evening?’

  ‘What?’

  Delaney clears his throat.

  ‘Anything appertaining?’

  ‘Apper-whatty?’ she says, clearing her ear of camembert.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Delaney projects. ‘Very interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Uhum. I see.’

  ‘What?

  ‘Uhum?’

  She sighs.

  ‘We have two appliances and a turntable ladder at The Neptune yard, next to Swan Hunters. If you’re interested.’

  ‘Uhum, yes,’ Delaney says, his eyes on Munroe, striding towards him en route to the door, the jacket over his shoulder.

  He rolls passed him, five steps closer to his heart attack. Soon he’s out the door.

  Gone.

  ‘Phew!’

  Delaney relaxes.

  ‘Home time,’ he says.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Okay, thank you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Oh, what were you saying?’

  ‘A fishing boat has been found, looks like arson,’ the girl on the phone continues. ‘The Star has got somebody there . . .’

  The Enemy – the Star, the Sunday flagship of the city’s other newspaper group - finally tunes Delaney’s attention.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Did you say fire?’

  ‘Yes. This is the fire service, son. It’s what we do.’

  ‘Oh, and?’

  ‘Have you been listenin?’ she sighs, familiar with the idiocies of young journalists. ‘There’s a fire at Neptune dry docks. Know it?’

  ‘Erm? And?’

  ‘It’s derelict, pretty much. At the far end of Swan Hunters.

  ‘Yes, yes. A boat you say?’

  ‘Aye, son. Suspected arson. A boat. A trawler.’

  ‘Fishing boat?’

  ‘Kennedy from the Star is there. Oh, that boy knows what he’s doin. He’s been there ages. He came to our Christmas do, lovely boy. Paul Kennedy. Brought us a big box of biscuits. Expensive ones too. Belgian, first time I ever . . .’

  Delaney jerks upright.

  ‘Suspected arson? Trawler? Fishing boat? Did you say fishing boat?’

  ‘Yes. A fishing boat. A trawler. It’s still burning. Lots of fuel. It’s a little odd. It’s an odd place for a little fishing boat. That’s where they make ships. Well, they used to.’

  Delaney hangs up the phone and stares into his eyes, reflected in the green Atex screen. Not a good place to find inspiration.

  He turns and looks out across the news room.

  The door to the photographers’ dark room is open. A big man has his back to him, holding a long strip of negatives up to a light. He disappears behind the door.

  Delaney launches himself towards him.

  ‘Daz?’ Delaney says. ‘Dazza?’

  Darren James – DJ - is hunched over a light table, looking at photographs. Beautiful shots of a shit story. A star footballer squats down beside a kid in a wheechair, signed football on his lap.

  ‘’Dazza’? Who the fuck’s ‘Dazza’?’

  DJ clips the strip of film to the wall above a metal set of drawers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fuckin ‘Dazza’. Dickie. Who’s ‘Dazza’?’

  ‘Erm? Are you on weekend shift?’

  DJ had fallen out with the Picture Editor at the Christmas party, both had hit - and missed – on the work experience girl.

  Delaney had taken her home.

  ‘It’s a sunny Sat’day fuckin night, Dickie,’ DJ says, attaching another strip of negatives to the clip. ‘Pissed up fanny fallin out every doorway in town. Short skirts and no fuckin knickers.’

  ‘And?’

  DJ pauses, looks at Delaney then nods at the hanging strip.

  ‘I like to spend every Sat’day night with me fuckin first love,’ he sighs and hangs another strip of negs. ‘Spastic kids and dumb fuckin footballers.’

  The small, windowless room fumes with chemicals. But DJ’s nose twitches at a new smell.

  ‘Man?’ he says. ‘What’s that fuckin stink? Y’pissed y’self?’

  DJ looks around the film strip.

  Smiles.

  ‘Y’wanna give y’bell end a scrape mate.’

  A nerve twitches in Delaney’s left eye.

  ‘You made The Calls lately?’ he asks.

  ‘The Calls?’ the snapper coughs. ‘Fuck off. You’re the reporter, Dickie. That’s your job.’

  Delaney looks back through the open door and the empty open plan newsroom.

  ‘We’re going out.’

  Before Playfair burns.

  And Wedge is lying across the deck with his head tilted back over Berry’s knee, airway wide open to the sky like some sort of damsel in distress.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Foggy says. ‘He dyin?’

  Since nature first choked him as a small child, Jason Wujkowski had grasped the true value of air.

  His bruised lungs grab at it like surfacing baby whales.

  Air is life.

  ‘He’s got asthma.’

  Foggy looks across to Hash.

  ‘Asthma? That bad then?’

  ‘Dunno?’ Hash says.

  There’s a noise coming up the Tyne on the other side of the gate, a low engine rumble.

  Out of place - too far from the mouth of the Tyne for a fishing boat . . .

  The engines relax to a hum.

  Very close by, now.

  A mast rocks above the dock gate over their heads, ticking a thin strip of shade back and forth across the sunlit dry dock’s floor like a pendulum.

  Kirrin.

  Talbot.

  Nobody notices.

  Hash stares down on the two boys.

  ‘Where’s the fuckin gear?’

  He lifts a foot and pushes Berry’s shoulder.

  ‘Eh?’ he says. ‘Where’s me fuckin gear?’

  ‘Me mate needs help. He needs a doctor.’


  The air down here is cooler, chilled by the mighty river on the other side of the metal gate.

  Berry can hear the locusts leaving Wedge’s chest, flying back to their dark corners.

  To wait.

  ‘Fuck y’mate,’ Hash says. ‘Where’s me gear?’

  ‘Hash man,’ Foggy says. ‘The lad’s not well.’

  ‘What?’ Hash turns on him. ‘The fuckin gear’s gone man, these little cunts took it.’

  ‘Honest, honest mister,’ Wedge rasps. ‘We were just, we were just playin. We haven’t pinched any clothes.’

  ‘Clothes?’ Hash says, his crinkle-cut face curling. ‘What y’fuckin talkin about, ‘clothes’?’

  ‘Y’said we’d pinched y’gear?’ Wedge continues. ‘What would we be wantin with y’clothes? They’d not even fit man.’

  ‘Gear!’ y’little cunt,’ Hash shouts, losing it. ‘GEAR!’

  He makes to kick out at Nurse Berry, a childish tantrum.

  It doesn’t do him any good.

  ‘Ayaaaaz! Man!’ he seethes. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Jesus mister,’ Wedge says. ‘It’s not me needs the doctor.’

  Hash’s eyes sharpen.

  There’s a tear there among the cream and blisters.

  The sun inches over the lip of the dock and spills over the broken boat.

  It sucks the spirit from the man.

  ‘Honest mister,’ Berry says, he reaches out his hand but stops before it connects with damaged skin. ‘We didn’t take it. It must’ve been someone else.’

  ‘Who? Eh?’

  Hash shuffles across the deck to the shade.

  He stops, stands, like a Roman orator.

  ‘I need a fuckin spliff!’ he shouts.

  He’s no Cicero.

  ‘I NEED a fuckin spliff!’

  ‘Maybe that cunt Talbot’s been back for it?’ Foggy says.

  Everyone looks over to the yellow slash of stairs running up the far dock wall.

  Nobody sees Kirrin’s mast overhead, out there on the river.

  Silence.

  Berry breaks it.

  ‘Talbot? This is Wade fuckin TALBOT’s boat?’

  Hash and Foggy look at their new shipmates.

  Silence.

  ‘Crosby,’ Wedge heaves.

  Pink blood in his face now.

  His chest spasms and he coughs up a heavy green mess, he fires it towards the open dock; it clips the boat’s top handrail, spins once around like a mucus gymnast then hangs there – stretching out for the ground but never letting go.

  ‘What?’ Foggy says.

  ‘Crosby,’ Wedge repeats, shuffling his back up into a sitting position.

  ‘Crosby?’ a chorus.

  ‘Sean Crosby. He’s runnin around sellin drugs. Bez?’

  Berry smiles.

  ‘Fuck, aye,’ he says. ‘He is. Big red Adidas bag. Full of the stuff.’

  ‘Crosby?’ Hash turns to Foggy.

  ‘Ugly little prick with spots and a crap tash?’ Foggy asks. ‘Stupid fuckin earrings? Reckons he’s rock?’

  ‘That’s him,’ Wedge says.

  ‘Cunt,’ Berry adds.

  ‘Total cunt,’ Foggy nods in agreement, turns to Hash. ‘Aye, I know him. I sold him that shit weed the other day, remember? When y’were at mine.’

  Hash takes cover against the far wall.

  He sighs.

  ‘Either of you little bastards got a tab?’

  Wedge pulls his Regal Kingsize from his pocket, he takes one himself then throws the pack across the deck. Wedge lights up first and drags down the smoke.

  ‘Should you be smokin?’ Hash asks, pulling a cigarette out of the packet.

  ‘Nah,’ Wedge shrugs, looking at the fag in his hand.

  Hash lights his cigarette.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘How come you two found this thing, then?’

  He gestures across the boat’s deck.

  ‘Just happened to be fuckin passin?’

  ‘We were just playin,’ Berry says.

  ‘‘Just playin?’’

  ‘Aye, y’know. Just messin.’

  ‘‘Messin?’’

  ‘Aye. We were fuckin around up there in Rome, like, first,’ Berry nods up the hill at the sharp end of the dock. ‘Came down and climbed one of those cranes and just, y’know, saw it.’

  Hash looks up to the crane, raised overhead like a rusted sword.

  ‘Aaayaz, man,’ he whispers. ‘Aaaayaz.’

  ‘Mister,’ Berry asks. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Sunburn kid,’ he sighs and then - almost silently - ‘Fell asleep in the sun.’

  ‘What we gonna do?’ Foggy says.

  Hash sits like a sunburnt swami, his eyes narrowing on the two boys. Fag hanging from the side of his mouth.

  ‘We’ll stick these two cunts in the hold.’

  Hash pauses for effect, drags on his cigarette.

  ‘Then torch the bastard.’

  ‘What?’ Foggy says.

  Berry loads his right fist, reckoning they’ve got a more than fair chance against Foggy the emaciated stoner and the cripple with the skin complaint.

  The other trawler’s pendulum continues to tick tock across the dock floor.

  ‘Or we could make them walk the plank,’ he sighs. ‘Little fuckin wankers.’

  ‘Y’dickhead,’ Foggy breathes. ‘I thought y’were serious there, for a second.’

  Hash sucks hard on the cigarette – it’s down to the cork. He flicks the butt across the deck then closes his eyes. He doesn’t believe a word of this shit, but he’s not built for an alternative.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he says. ‘I need a spliff.’

  Hash looks destroyed.

  All hope gone.

  ‘Crosby,’ Berry says.

  Hash looks at him.

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Crosby mate, Crosby’s got shitloads.’

  ‘Crosby?’ Hash says, eyes suddenly aflame.

  Hope making a comeback.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Y’know where this little prick is?’

  Berry looks out across the expanse of dock and up the yellow slash rising to the sky, he follows it to the lip and squints his eyes.

  Nothing.

  Safe exit.

  ‘Aye. The subway.’

  ‘Subway?’

  The dark shadow of a big man drifts across the bright open dock floor like a kid making shapes with his hands.

  But nobody’s looking at the screen.

  ‘Aye. Y’know, the subway. Next to Norther Park.’

  Hash grabs the rail and – ‘Ayaz man’ - rises to his feet.

  ‘Offskies?’ Foggy says.

  ‘Aye, fuck it. Howay. Let’s find this Crosby prick.’

  ‘Mint. I fuckin hate it down here, place gives me the fuckin willies.’

  ‘We’ll give y’a lift,’ Hash says. ‘You two cunts wanna get stoned with the big boys?’

  They all turn towards the ladder that runs down the wall from the busted little boat.

  ‘Me first,’ Foggy says, grabbing the rail. ‘Y’trampled all over me fuckin heed on the way up.’

  He steps up the rail to grab the ladder.

  Berry turns for a last look out across the dock. He puts his hand to his brow.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’ he says ‘Somebody’s comin!’

  Hash turns and smiles from the rail.

  ‘Not that old chestnut,’ he says.

  Foggy turns his head and repeats Berry’s hail to the sky, hanging above the deck from the dock wall ladder like a lookout.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he hisses. ‘It’s Talbot!’

  Wedge jumps to his feet.

  Fully recovered.

  ‘Fuckin TALBOT?’

  He looks.

  Hash is the last to salute, casting darkness over his ravaged face.

  Sure enough, there he is – Wade Talbot - shuffling along the lip of the dry dock carrying something square, red and
heavy in his right hand.

  ‘Leg it!’ Wedge shouts.

  Foggy is first to take to toes.

  He leaps from the ladder and runs to the wheelhouse door like a startled gazelle.

  Hash isnt far behind, his skin problems trumped by more pressing concerns.

  They shuffle around inside the broken wheelhouse above the trapdoor.

  ‘Ayaz man. Y’fuckin dickhead.’

  Berry and Wedge follow, for want of a better idea.

  Hash - ‘Ayaz man’ - heads down the ladder to the living quarters.

  Twong!

  Foggy is already down there, playing the dead hippy’s guitar with his feet.

  ‘Hurry the fuck up man!’ Wedge says to Hash, glancing up the dock to the figure at the top of the steps.

  ‘Piss off,’ Hash says. ‘You can fuckin deal with him.’

  He pulls the trapdoor closed.

  Shards of light slice through the darkness in the boat’s living quarters as Hash and Foggy look for a place to hide.

  Twong!

  Twong!

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Twang!

  Brrrrang. Trang.

  Hash kicks the guitar out of the way.

  ‘Fuckin hippies.’

  He heads to where Foggy stands next to the fridge at the back of the cramped little cabin, listing heavily to starboard.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t fuckin know, do I?’

  Dust universes float from one slash of light to the next. One of the light beams picks out a hair-rock star on the far wall masturbating a V shaped piece of wood.

  Hash looks out of a wide crack in the hull.

  ‘Is he there?’

  He can see the yellow concrete stage pretty well from behind this wooden curtain.

  There’s nobody there.

  Yet.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘He’s comin though, isn’t he?’

  Hash turns.

  ‘Nah, he’s gone fuckin shoppin.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  Foggy freaks, needs a good place to hide.

  He lifts one of the two dead men’s sleeping bags, but he’s too big to lie on the cot and cover himself.

  ‘Fuck!’

  And, anyway - it wouldn’t do any good.

  ‘Fuck? Maybes we should, y’know, just give ourselves up?’

  ‘Stop fuckin panickin man, for fuck’s sake. He’ll blame them little fuckers. He doesn’t even know we’re here, does he?’

  ‘S’pose?’

  Hash eases himself up to a thinner crack further up the hull, he puts his eye to it. All he can see is the brown concrete.

  ‘He there?’ Foggy asks.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know? Jesus fuckin Christ, man.’

  ‘Where’d them little cunts go?’

  ‘Must still be on the deck.’

  ‘Fuck! What y’think he’ll do to them?’

  Hash turns to look at him.

  The masturbator continues his silent solo behind him against the wall.

  ‘They’re fucked.’

  ‘Man, why the fuck did y’get involved with that psycho?’

  The back of the boat jerks to the side.

  ‘Ooof!’

  Something hits the ground.

  ‘Jump, I’ll catch ya!’ says a young voice on the other side of the wooden wall.

  Even from here, Hash can tell he’s lying.

  ‘Sounds like they’re makin a run for it?’

  Foggy walks across towards the exit.

  ‘Fuck this.’

  Hash watches Foggy pass from one slash to the next, to the next – heading towards the ladder.

  ‘What y’doin?’

  ‘Let’s just give ourselves up man. How fuckin bad can it be?’

  ‘How bad? Y’really wanna know?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘This boat belongs to the Steyns.’

  ‘The fuckin STEYNS? They’re not real.’

  ‘Aye? Just like this boat isn’t real then, eh?’

  ‘Fuck?’

  ‘Aye, ‘fuck’. They’re fuckin real mate, believe me.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Their mam even does the radio bit.’

  ‘Their mam?’ Foggy says. ‘Get fucked.’

  ‘The main man nowadays is Mordechai, Mordechai Steyn. The eldest son.’

  ‘Sounds like a devil worshipper.’

  ‘May as well be mate, may as fuckin well be.’

  Hash has another look through the slash.

  Nothing.

  ‘Old man Steyn started it all in the ‘70s.’

  ‘And Talbot?’

  ‘Talbot was in the Marines, did y’know that?’

  ‘Nah?’

  ‘Aye. For years. He started fishing on his old man’s boat when he was a bairn then joined the Marines, cunt’s been at sea his whole life, pretty much. He was in Oman.’

  ‘Oh man? What y’mean? ‘Oh man’?’

  ‘It’s a place y’fuckin numpty. Arab place, desert shit hole. We were fightin over there in the 70s, fuck knows why. Hot as fuck. Talbot met Steyn out there. He was in Mossad.’

  ‘Mossad?’

  ‘Fuck me, do you know anthin? Secret service? Israeli?’

  ‘Sounds like bollocks to me.’

  ‘Aye, well. Steyn and Talbot were mates and came up with a plan like, after they fucked off out of it.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Float out to the North Sea some-fuckin-where. Co-ordinates and all that bollocks. Pick up a buoy. Special delivery!’

  ‘Loaded with hash?’ Foggy asks.

  ‘Aye,’ Hash says. ‘Tied on the line to the buoy. Just bobbin around. All he had to do was fish it out. Haul the gear onboard, leave the cash attached to the buoy and fuck off. Watertight mate.’

  ‘Watertight?’

  ‘Aye, fool proof.’

  Foggy has another look through the slash.

  ‘Not cunt proof though, eh?’

  They both look out through their own cracks in the shattered little boat’s hull.

  ‘Nah. Nothin’s cunt proof.’

  Still nothing.

  He has another glance.

  ‘Piece of piss man. And when does the law ever check fishing boats? Fuckin never mate, that’s when. Can’t keep stoppin boats can ya? And even if they did, you can see them comin for fuckin miles.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Foggy snorts. ‘Apart from your fuckin sea legs.’

  ‘Ah mate,’ Hash says. ‘You’ve no fuckin idea. We couldn’t take any crew. Just me and Talbot. Two or three days at sea. No spliffs allowed. I had to fuckin work!’

  ‘You? A fuckin fisherman?’ Foggy snorts. ‘Y’don’t even eat fuckin fish.’

  ‘He’d never take his full crew with him, he didn’t trust them. Just Robbo. Remember Robbo?’

  ‘Aye, the old bloke who died. Heart attack?’

  ‘Aye. Robbo’s the one told me all this shit.’

  ‘He was a good lad.’

  ‘So, Robbo croaks – and Talbot fuckin asked me along instead. He needed a helper. Chose me coz of Kath like, keep it in the family and that. I’ve been around there since I was 13.’

  ‘Aye, yous were courtin a long time before yous got married like, right enough.’

  ‘We had to catch fuckin fish on the way back to dump on top like, for the market. I’ve never worked so hard in me fuckin life.’

  Foggy has a look out of a cracked slat, then looks at the poster on the wall and the ruffled bunk bed.

  ‘What happened to the, the y’know. The drivers.’

  Hash nods to the open concrete on the other side of the slice in the hull.

  ‘He killed them,’ he whispers.

  ‘Did he fuck!’ Foggy snorts. ‘Hah. Y’fuckin idiot.’

  Hash looks at him.

  And Foggy shuffles two cracked slats back from his exit plan.

  ‘There was a boat there already. When we got there. Thi
s fuckin thing. Talbot fuckin flipped. FLIPPED mate. He thought they were nickin the gear.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘What were they doin?’

  ‘Fuckin stoners mate.’

  ‘Ah, right.’

  ‘The sun came up, slowed everythin the fuck down. Sea was calm, I wasn’t even pukin. I’d even started to enjoy the fuckin ride.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘It took a while to get to them y’know, even fast boats like Talbot’s are fuckin slow like, compared to cars and that. You see things miles ahead before you even get there. Talbot’s fuckin head just overheated. Never seen anythin like it. He fucked off to get his box of Coastguard fireworks, for when boats sink. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Ah man. I think I know what happens!’

  ‘We pulled up alongside.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Bloke came on the deck. Stoned as fuck. Battered. I didn’t have a chance to tell Talbot I knew why the boat was there. I didn’t know what the fuck he was plannin, did I? Why would I? Eh? It’s not fuckin normal behaviour, is it? It’s not what you, y’know, expect in the normal course of y’fuckin day like, is it?’

  Foggy looks at Hash, nailed to the slats.

  ‘Normal?’

  ‘He shot him with the distress flare. It hit him in the mouth.’

  ‘Fuck me. Aye, I guessed.’

  ‘Y’know what I mean don’t ya? One of them big fuckin fireworks fishermen have to catch the eye of the Coastguard 200 fuckin miles away or whatever.’

  Hash nods his head up towards the steps.

  ‘On the deck there, next to the lifebuoy.’

  ‘Jesus. The splat? I knew it was blood.’

  ‘Aye. Poor cunt’s head fuckin exploded. I had to hose his brains off the deck.’

  ‘Ah man! That’s fuckin sick.’

  ‘The sound of it mate. The fuckin sound of it. It was sort of muffled like y’know, I dunno. By his skull and fuckin brains and that.’

  ‘Ah mate, man, fuckin stop.’

  Foggy has a glance at the open dock.

  ‘And?’ Foggy sighs. ‘The other lad?’

  ‘Talbot threw him overboard.’

  ‘Fuckin hell.’

  ‘The lad kept tryin to grab hold of the side of the boat and that.’

  ‘Aye,’ Foggy winces.

  ‘But Talbot just hit him with a big stick, the thing with a hook on the end they use to grab the buoys and nets and that out of the water.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Eventually got hold of him with the hook.’

  Silence.

  ‘Held him under.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’

  They both look through the gap at the dry dock shadows.

  ‘Best not give ourselves up then eh?’

  ‘I’m stayin right fuckin here, mate,’ Foggy replies. ‘I’m with y’on that one.’

  They stare at the slash.

  Hoping.

  ‘Somebody should put the cunt down,’ Foggy says.

  Hash sighs.

  ‘How long have I been goin out with Kath?’

  ‘Dunno mate, years. Since school and that.’

  ‘Man, I know y’gonna think I’m fucked in the head. But Talbot’s not that bad y’know? He just fuckin flipped.’

  ‘Just fuckin flipped? He blew some cunt’s head off and drowned another bloke! Just fuckin flipped?’

  ‘But he’s alright when it’s cold. It’s somethin about the sun. He can’t handle it. Sends him fuckin loopy.’

  ‘Fuckin sun? Bollocks. He should be put to sleep.’

  ‘Man. I like the bloke, y’know. I can’t help it. He’s not a bad fella man, not really.’

  Foggy shakes his head through the slash of sunlight.

  ‘You’re right, you are.’

  ‘What?’

  He twiddles a finger at his temple.

  ‘Fucked in the head.’

  ‘Aye. Probably.’

  ‘And that’s how y’burnt y’self? On the way back? Y’had to drive?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Foggy touches his arm, gently.

  They look together through the slash.

  ‘Fuck me. That’s a proper real life fuckin horror story.’

  And now, the monster’s outside.

  On deck, and Berry pulls Wedge into the tangle of brown metal at the stern. The winch and its steel ropes seized up from too much salt water, too little work.

  ‘We can jump off here, looker,’ he says. ‘It’s not that high.’

  ‘Y’fuckin jokin.’

  Berry looks over to the yellow slash that leads up to the descending apeman, struggling down the steps with a big red jerry can.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Berry says.

  He leaps.

  ‘Fuuuck!’

  The ground races to meet him.

  Wallop.

  ‘Ooof!’

  He stumbles forward like a clown tripping onto a stage.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  And out into the sunlight - the open dry dock.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  He brakes and falls to his hands and knees, three metres clear of the boat’s stern.

  Out in the open.

  He looks up to where Talbot labours down the steps with the industrial petrol canister, the kind you only ever find on trucks and boats.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He scuffles into the shade between the boat’s stern and the dock gate.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  He looks out from the side of the hull.

  If Talbot saw his performance, he’s not applauding.

  Still he comes.

  ‘Fuckin come on!’ he hisses up to Wedge.

  ‘Piece of piss. Come on! NOW! Before he fuckin sees ya!’

  Wedge teeters at the edge, thinking himself out of it.

  Berry stands up.

  ‘JUMP!’ he says, holding out his arms. ‘I’ll catch ya.’

  Wedge turns and looks over to Talbot – motivation.

  ‘Fuck!’ he steps out into the void.

  Berry moves out of his way.

  Wedge lands and falls forward, stumbles and scuffs a shoulder along the gate and out into the open dry dock. Exactly the same as Berry just did. He falls onto palms and knees in the dust.

  ‘Aaagh. Y’fuckin bastard.’

  Talbot isn’t looking.

  Berry pulls him back behind the boat.

  ‘He’ll fuckin see ya man.’

  They squeeze into the triangle tunnel between the barnacled wood and the stained dock wall, kept green and moist by the leaking dock gates.

  ‘What we gonna do?’ Wedge says.

  The dock floor beneath their hands and knees smells and feels like a festering sink as they crawl between the boat and the wall.

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  They edge forward until they almost reach Play Fair’s bow, still raised in the air from her fall.

  Berry sticks his head in the gap between the hull and the ground.

  Talbot casts a black stain across the concrete ocean.

  ‘Fuckinhell!’

  Berry jerks his head back to shade, slapped about the face by this man’s fearsome reputation.

  ‘I think he seen me.’

  ‘Fuck off?’

  Berry lies his head on the floor again.

  He hears Talbot grunt right in front of his face and the black heal of a heavy brown boot nearly tramples on his nose. Berry pulls his head into his body like a tortoise.

  ‘Where the fuck is he?’ Wedge says, way too loud for Berry’s liking.

  Berry turns and put his index finger to his lips.

  ‘He’s right,’ he mouths, and points out to the light. ‘Fuckin there.’

  They can smell him.

  Fish.

  Fish of every description.

  ‘Leg it,’ Wedge hisses, pushing at Berry’s feet and panting like a dog on a leash.

  ‘Wait!’

  Berr
y turns his head, putting his ear to the space.

  ‘This’ll sort the bastard,’ Talbot says. ‘Nothin but fuckin trouble.’

  Talbot’s feet crunch up the concrete.

  Wedge’s panic is contagious, a wet lick travels from Berry’s anus to the nape of his neck and around both ears.

  ‘Man, oh man.’

  Talbot’s feet crunch closer.

  ‘Fuck,’ Wedge hisses. ‘What’s that smell?’

  Petrol.

  It couldn’t be anything else.

  They can hear it splashing against the hull and dripping down to the concrete.

  ‘This’ll sort it,’ Talbot says. ‘Problem fuckin solved.’

  Talbot’s boot reaches Berry’s nose again as he throws the last of the fuel, it splashes into Berry’s face, filling his bottom lip and seaping into his mouth.

  ‘Fuck!’ he spits. ‘Fuck! Fuckinhell!’

  Berry spits, wipes his face on his shirt

  ‘I’m fuckin goin!’ Wedge says.

  Berry’s inclined to agree.

  Wedge darts out of the gap then jerks back like a rubber band.

  ‘Fuck?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s fuckin off!’

  ‘What?’

  Berry looks.

  And there he is, the legendary Wade Talbot walking back across the dry dock towards the stairs like a lost troll, carrying the petrol canister.

  ‘Fuck! Me!’

  They watch him rise up the steps and along the concrete nip of the dry dock until he disappears.

  He’s soon replaced by his long thin shadow as he walks through the sun above their heads.

  ‘NOW!’

  ‘Aaaaah haaa!’

  Four trainers reaching for warp speed – out across the open ground.

  But.

  ‘Fuck?’

  Berry brakes hard and turns.

  He runs back to the shattered white boat.

  Bang!

  He hits the hull with his fist, as hard as he can.

  Bang!

  Bang!

  Bang!

  ‘Quick!’ he hiss-shouts. ‘He’s gone. Fuckin LEG IT! QUICK!’

  He turns and follows the marks Wedge’s burning rubber left on the concrete. He soon hits the stairs and jumps three at a time, settling into a violent jerking rhythm as he rises out of the dock.

  ‘Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!’ he says, as he goes.

  Wedge is way way ahead, alongside the Portakabin. He burns up the bank and over the Roman wall.

  And he’s gone.

  History.

  Berry looks over to the river.

  Talbot’s boat Kirrin is out there beyond the dry dock’s gate, sitting low in the water – only her mast visible, ticking across the falling sun.

  ‘Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!’

  He looks down to the little white boat in the far corner.

  Two figures are on the deck.

  ‘Thank fuck!’

  Berry pushes the turbo switch on his trainers and skids up the dirt path.

  And away.

  Hash peaks out of the slash, and there’s the sound of liquid splashing around inside a tank. A shadow passes.

  ‘What’s he doin?’ Foggy says. ‘What’s he doin?’

  ‘Shhh man,’ Hash turns on him. ‘Fuck’s sake!’

  He turns back to the light.

  A big breasted mermaid scratched into Talbot’s sunburnt arm briefly fills the the split in the boat’s hull.

  ‘What’s he doin?’ Foggy hisses. ‘Can y’see him? Can y’see him? What’s he doin?’

  Talbot disappears.

  ‘Walkin around the boat, he’s walkin around the boat.’

  One of the shards of light at the back darkens as Talbot passes.

  It goes quiet.

  ‘Where’d he go?’

  Hash peers through the crack. There’s nothing but the open expanse of concrete.

  Time passes.

  Silence.

  ‘What we gonna do?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybes we should . . .’

  Bang!

  Hash and Foggy leap with fright.

  Bang!

  ‘Aah!’ Foggy squeals. ‘What’s that?’

  Bang!

  Bang!

  ‘Quick! He’s gone. Fuckin LEG IT! QUICK!’

  Hash watches the young dark haired lad race across the concrete in the direction of the steps.

  He disappears from view.

  They look at each other.

  ‘He lyin?’ Foggy almost cries.

  ‘Why would he lie?’

  They scramble for the exit.

  Foggy first.

  Twong, twang.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  CLANG.

  He boots the guitar hard against the wall.

  Hash’s hands and feet make the necessary movements and he’s soon in the wheelhouse.

  His skin throbs but the pain has lost its priority.

  ‘I wanna go home,’ Foggy says. ‘I wanna go home.’

  They head out onto the deck.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Up the ladder?’

  Hash looks up – he sees Kirrin’s mast high over the dock gate.

  Right over head.

  ‘Fuck?’

  Foggy looks too.

  ‘Ah, man?’

  A shadow is cast across the far concrete wall and sinks slowly to the floor.

  ‘Ah man!’ Foggy sobs. ‘He’s comin back!’

  Talbot appears at the tip of the dry dock in place of his shadow.

  Hash leans against the rail.

  ‘Jesus fuckin Christ.’

  ‘What we gonna do?’ Foggy says.

  Talbot is down the first half dozen stairs, carrying the big red can.

  Frying pan or fire, frying pan or fire?

  You choose.

  ‘Hide. Just fuckin hide.’

  Pan.

  They run into the wheelhouse and back down the way they came. Hash returns to his post looking through the crack in the hull.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Foggy says. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Dunno, the front somewhere.’

  A shard of light from one of the cracks near the bow darkens, then clears. A second – closer - ray of light darkens.

  Then clears.

  A third.

  Right next to where they cower.

  Hash turns to Foggy with his finger at his lips.

  ‘He’s right fuckin outside,’ he mouths.

  Hash can see him now, Wade Talbot in all his glory standing on the dock floor - man of a thousand photofits.

  Talbot steps forward.

  ‘Fuck, he’s comin this way.’

  He’s right next to their heads, separated only by a half inch thick bit of kindling.

  Play Fair herself.

  ‘What’s that wet noise?’ Foggy whispers.

  A splash of liquid comes through the slash and onto Hash’s ravaged face and into his eye.

  ‘Ah! Fuck, that burns!’ Hash wipes at his eye. ‘Ayaaaz man!’

  He smells it.

  ‘Aw, fuck?’

  Serious.

  ‘Petrol!’ they both say.

  ‘Fuck!’

  They dive for the steps out of the boat’s living quarters.

  ‘Fuck!’

  This time Hash makes it first, his trainers clambering at the rungs before he rises.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He makes it to the wheelhouse.

  ‘Nothin but fuckin grief. Get rid of the fuckin cunt,’ Talbot mutters below. ‘Aye, aye. Bye bye.’

  ‘I don’t wanna die,’ Hash says. ‘I don’t wanna die.’

  ‘What?’ Foggy says.

  ‘I don’t wanna die!’

  Hash stands in the wheelhouse, he looks left. He steps right. He looks out across the deck and up to the sky.

  ‘I’m gonna be a dad.

  ‘I don’t!

  ‘Want!

  ‘To fuckin!
/>
  ‘DIE!’

  ‘Shut up man!’ Foggy cries. ‘Mammy!’

  Foggy loses his grip, slips down the ladder into the cabin.

  Hash flaps his hands at his petrol soaked head.

  ‘Aye aye, bye bye . . .’

  The lit match hits the wet concrete.

  Hash looks up, for the last time.

  ‘I’m not . . .’

  Vrrrrr-whoosh.

  Oxygen races to the little white boat from all four corners of the vast grave, turning the space into a vacuum.

  And the world is a red place.

  No air.

  No pain.

  Billy ‘Hash’ Brown is a candle – his desert hat the first to welcome the flame.

  He pushes his hands through hell’s walls and falls out into the world.

  It’s still this one.

  The dock meets his face.

  Talbot leaps back and falls onto his arse.

  ‘Jesus fuckin Christ!’

  He blinks, trying to work out what the fuck just happened.

  ‘Agh! Ayaz man! Agh! Wade! Uh-agh! Uh-agh! Uh-agh!’

  ‘Billy?

  ‘BILLY!’

  He leaps to his feet.

  ‘What the fuck! Billy? NO!’

  Talbot dives into the bonfire, flames licking at his face and hands.

  He drags Billy ‘Hash’ Brown free of the fire.

  ‘BILLY!’

  They fall to the floor.

  He hugs his son-in-law’s head against his chest.

  ‘Aaaagh!’

  Using his own flesh to quench the flames.

  ‘Aaaaagh!’

  He turns his head to the sun and howls.

  ‘NO!’

  He looks down at the scorched, broken boy.

  Dead now, in his arms.

  ‘Fuck, Billy?’ he whispers to him, rocking him like his own child as the fire rages against the wall. ‘No?’

  And Wade Talbot starts to cry.

  ‘NO! NO!’

  The sobs fall through him like an axe splitting an old oak tree.

  ‘Kidda? Kidda?’

  Heavy it falls.

  Heavy it falls.

  Heavy it falls.

  ‘NO!’

  Chopping the old fisherman in two.

  A little later, and Rick E. Delaney watches DJ bend to a knee and point his lens at the smoking white ash, top lip curled in concentration.

  The trawler no longer exists.

  A scorched white spine runs through the centre, passing an occasional black rib curling up to Valhalla. Delaney taps a cigarette on his silver box and puts it to his lips, pulls out the Zippo and lights up.

  A man in white overalls stands in the mess, sifting.

  ‘How do they even know it was a boat?’ Delaney says.

  DJ grunts.

  Thin ghosts rise from the boat’s ashes, gathering in wisps above the wreck and wafting up the sniffing nose of the rigid metal dinosaur over head.

  ‘Burn baby burn,’ Delaney says.

  DJ grunts again, focusing on an ember glowing in the middle like a lava flow. The crease of his sweaty builder’s arse peaks out of his jeans. It’s dead white, a damp lining of hair heading up and under his t-shirt.

  The forensic scientist bends into his frame.

  Click, click, click.

  The man in the white suit walks through the dust like a spaceman who’s lost his helmet.

  Delaney approaches him, pen and pad in hand.

  ‘Amateur,’ DJ sighs. ‘Rank fuckin amateur.’

  ‘Excuse me officer?’ Delaney says. ‘I’m Rick. Rick E. Delaney, I’m a reporter for The Evening Kernel. Could I have a quick word?’

  The man reverses out of the white pile.

  ‘Oh, I’m not a policeman,’ he answers, long eye lashes swotting smoke.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  The man’s eyebrows are suspiciously tidied with tweezers, he pushes a strip of blonde hair behind an ear.

  ‘Fire.’

  Delaney scribbles a Teeline shorthand bubble f, then the upward slash of an r.

  ‘Fire. Erm?’

  ‘Have you spoken to DCI Vickers?’ he says, crushing the C into a THEE.

  ‘Erm, no not yet. Is he still here?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think he might have gone,’ he smiles. ‘It’s Saturday night you know boys. Can’t you come back on Monday?’

  Delaney drops his pen and pad to his side, opening his personal space like splayed buttocks.

  ‘Sorry but. We’ve really messed up. We missed all this,’ he glances over to the squatting photographer, posting him the blame. ‘Because of a mistake.’

  He steps towards the white coat.

  ‘We’ll be in the dog-do with our boss if we don’t get something. Anything. Can’t you just help with a few details? I don’t expect you to tell me any, you know, any secrets.’

  Delaney tilts his head to one side and smiles at the guy, the white shapes of the police lights dancing on his damp eyes.

  The scientist pulls off his rubber gloves like a proctologyst.

  ‘When did you get here?’ Delaney bowls his innocuous opener.

  He lifts his pad.

  ‘Oh, 4.30 or so. I work for forensics. Took the fire service ages to get here.’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘The security guard is an old drunk. Not a guard at all really. What’s there to guard?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He dialled 999. But they just thought he was, you know, drunk.’

  ‘Do you know what he said?’

  ‘Just that there was a fire. Refused to give his name and told an operator to ‘fuck off’. Charming.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Oh. And there’s a crappy old car parked at the top near the gate, a light blue Chevette. And, well . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, D-Thee-I Vickers thinks maybe a boy is involved.’

  ‘A boy?’

  ‘Uhum. The drunk said there’d been a boy hanging around the place. Saw him running away. Twice!’

  ‘Running away? Twice? A teenager? Gosh.’

  ‘Gosh indeed.’

  ‘Arson?’

  ‘Well, there’s petrol been thrown all over the place. Maybe the boy set light to the thing.’

  The smell of petrol and burnt wood is somehow natural in this industrial space.

  The man shrugs.

  ‘I heard D-Thee-I Vickers tell the TV people that he wanted to appeal for a young man to come forward,’ the man from forensics smiles, flicks his eyelashs and puts the stray band of hair behind his ear. ‘I know the feeling.’

  DJ snorts.

  ‘TV?’ Delaney winces.

  ‘Uhum.’

  ‘So, there’ll be an interview with the policeman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On the TV?’

  ‘Yes, is that bad?’

  Delaney glances to DJ.

  ‘Don’t look at me mate,’ he replies. ‘Y’should have made The Calls like a good boy.’

  The man smiles.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he sighs. ‘You really are in trouble? But, look, you did very well. Nobody else was allowed down here. You’re very clever.’

  DJ had steered them away from the security guard hut’s police officialdom and towards the smoke rising from the abyss.

  Despite Delaney’s complaints.

  To get his picture.

  Snappers are always on the frontline – they have no choice.

  ‘Oh? Cool!’ Delaney winks. ‘It’s part of the job.’

  ‘So?’ DJ says. ‘Nobody else got any shots of this mess then?’

  ‘Not that I know of. And, I really shouldn’t but . . .’

  The man in the white coat bends to his knees and opens his black case, he pulls out a small plastic bag and holds it like a purse.

  ‘I think this is human,’ he says proudly, pushing the straggling length of hair back behind his ear. ‘I need to have it checked, but I’ve don
e a few of these now. I found it right in the middle of this thing. There’s a bit of meat left, look.’

  He shakes the bag, to move the flesh around.

  Click, click, click.

  ‘It’s been well cooked.’

  Click, click, click.

  ‘Looks like a pork scratchin,’ DJ says.

  ‘Eugh,’ Delaney turns away.

  ‘Scary isn’t it?’ the scientist says. ‘We’re just vertical pigs you know. That’s all we are. Pigs standing.’

  ‘What was the boat doing here?’ Delaneys asks.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ he says, tilting his head to scan the scene. ‘But, it’s an important case. Interpol’s involved.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Uhum. The locals are worried. They’re on show, you know. Got to look good to the foreigners, haven’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ he whispers, glancing up to the steps. ‘Vickers is their ‘best’ man, a rising star. You know the type, ladder climber. Spends his life going from one meeting to the next, making sure he sounds good. If you want promotion. Delegate. Go to meetings. If you don’t get your hands dirty, you can’t get the blame.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘First time I’ve even met the man and I’ve been doing this job for eight years. He’s never left the office, by the looks of him.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bloody vampire. Looks like he’s never seen daylight,’ the man smiles. ‘A bit like you Ricky. How do you manage to avoid the sun?’

  ‘Oh, I?’

  Delaney pauses his pen and looks at the gay man, disturbed at a new sexual tickle in his prostate.

  ‘You’d never get someone like him down here on a Saturday night. Never. And me, I mean,’ he sighs and looks at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting a friend in Rockshots.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Sorry. We won’t keep you much longer. So, so? What’s so important about this boat then?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  The man smiles and turns to the ashes of Play Fair, smouldering quietly.

  ‘But I’ve been told to look out for any signs of drugs.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Found any?’

  ‘No, not yet. But,’ he looks again to the yellow slash of steps. ‘I shouldn’t really be telling you any of this, you know.’

  ‘Off the record, off the record,’ Delaney says, relaxing his pen, sending extra blood to memory cells. ‘So, so? This is a murder enquiry then?’

  He holds up the pork scratching.

  ‘It is now.’

  ‘Great. I mean, erm. Y’know.’

  ‘Yes. A teenage boy murderer, maybe. How bad is that? What’s the bloody world coming to. Good story?’

  ‘Could I get your name?’ Delaney says. ‘I’ll quote you as a police source or something.’

  ‘Well, then,’ he smiles, tilts his head to one side and pushes the hair behind his ear. ‘What do you need my name for?’

  DJ looks at them both, shakes his head.

  ‘It’s David, Davey. Davey Armstrong.’

  ‘Delaney. Rick E. Delaney, from The Evening Kernel,’ he holds out his hand, Davey takes it and gives it a little squeeze.

  ‘I know. You told me. And what’s the ‘E’ for?’

  ‘Oh, erm, erm?’

  ‘Erm? Nice name. Can I call you Ermie?’

  ‘’Ermie’’ DJ snorts. ‘Nice. Suits ya.’

  Delaney fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a generic Evening Kernel business card – he’d carefully written his name and extension number across a dozen over a year ago.

  This the first to leave the nest.

  He hands him it.

  Davey’s card heads in the other direction.

  ‘You’ve saved our bacon,’ Delaney says. ‘Seriously,’

  ‘Bacon, ha ha,’ Davey says. ‘Yes, well.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t mean. You know. Ha ha.’

  ‘Must be great fun. Being a reporter.’

  ‘Not bad, not bad,’ Delaney agrees, forgetting an office seat perfectly shaped to his arse, a flickering green screen and a never ending pile of shite press releases and local council bilge to rewrite. Only the truly terrible none-story stories ever impaled on the local newspaper’s spike.

  He looks around.

  ‘It certainly has its moments.’

  DJ is putting his camera away in his bag.

  ‘Right, right. Ok. We’ll get out of your hair now Mr, erm, I mean Davey.’

  ‘Any time, Ermie,’ Davey smiles, packing the stray curl away behind his ear. ‘Any time. You’ve got my number.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Okay. See you again sometime hopefully, erm, Davey.’

  Delaney turns to catch up DJ.

  ‘Ermie?’ the gay says.

  He turns back.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What time do you finish work. Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Not until I’ve written this up, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Maybe see you in Rockshots later?’

  ‘Yes,’ Delaney smiles. ‘Maybe.’

  He joins DJ.

  ‘You’re fuckin in there Ermie mate,’ DJ says, bag slung over his shoulder. ‘Want me to get the Metro back? Eh? While you and y’little fella there do a bit more ‘investigatin’ and that? Ermie! Ha ha ha.’

  ‘Get lost.’

  ‘It’s 1985 mate y’know, if y’wanna stick y’little knob up a bloke’s jacksy, y’know. Feel free. It’s perfectly normal and that these days. Don’t mind me. Ha ha ha.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Delaney says, taking an uneasy look at the man back in the embers, having a final sift.

  ‘Why is it, Ermie, right?’ DJ continues as they walk to the steps. ‘Why is it that benders even have them gender roles?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Y’know. There’s always a girlie poof like y’mate there. A man that really just wants to be a woman. Y’know. Likes make-up and dresses and that. Speaks like a proper homo, like he’s got a finger up the shitter like. And then there’s always the manly poof. A Judas Priest type y’know, likes fuckin motorbikes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if y’wanna fuck a man. Right. Why would y’wanna fuck a girlie man? Why not just fuck a girl? The real thing like? With her own lubrication.’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve given it much thought.’

  ‘Liar,’ DJ smiles. ‘Bet it keeps you awake at night. Y’little todger in y’hand and that Ermie, eh. Ha ha ha.’

  ‘Shut up, Dazza.’

  ‘It’s the same with the lezzies, ‘cept the other way round like. There’s always like, a fuckin dog rough dyke, a hairy one in dungarees with a bad attitude who no bloke would wanna fuckin shag anyway. And then a normal, prettier one. Why doesn’t the fit one get fucked by a proper bloke, instead of a minger with a bad attitude and a strap on?’

  Delaney looks at the photo-philosopher, opens his mouth, closes it.

  Two more white jump suits come towards them down the stairs alongside a tall man, suffering in a suit in the heat; Mr I’m-In-Charge-Here - this bloke learnt everything he needed to know right there at his desk.

  The tide has gone out on his hair, now just a carefully trimmed ring of fluff around the back of his head and above his ears.

  He’s very pale.

  The two white jump suits - ‘Excuse me fellas’ - push passed and head down the stairs.

  ‘Hello there,’ Delaney says.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Oh, we’re from The Evening Kernel.’

  ‘You need authorisation to visit a crime scene.’

  ‘Who from?’ DJ snaps at the suit.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Well, y’weren’t fuckin here were ya?’

  ‘Sorry, we’re just, you know - doing our job,’ Delaney interrupts with his camembert smile.

  He holds out his hand.

  ‘Delaney. Rick E. Delaney.’

  ‘The E stands for
Ermie,’ DJ says.

  The officer grabs it and squeezes, a real pent-up-aggression, bone creaking bastard of a handshake.

  ‘Could I ask you a few questions?’ Delaney says.

  ‘Look, I’ve already spoken to the press. You’ve missed your chance. I’m very busy.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’ll only take a second.’

  The policeman reverses three steps to the top of the dock.

  A bad day, out of the office.

  His jacket sits heavy and uncomfortable across his shoulders.

  DJ fiddles around in his bag, pulling out his camera, attaching a lens.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘We received a call at 1530 hours from a member of the public. That’s it.’

  ‘Why’s a boat in here, I thought this was all closed?’

  ‘It is,’ he says. ‘We don’t know why the boat is here, we’re working on our inquiries.’

  ‘Is this a murder enquiry?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I understand you’ve found a dead body.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  Delaney looks down at the man in the white suit.

  The policeman turns back to DJ after the camera flash fires, the second frame captures the emotion.

  Anger.

  Pure, devilish anger.

  Davey Armstrong the forensics man is in for a real bollocking - the kind he doesn’t enjoy.

  ‘No comment. If you’d please include the incident room telephone number in your piece, I’d be grateful. Now if you’d excuse me.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Vickers. DCI Paul Vickers.’

  ‘D Thee I,’ Delaney scribbles. ‘Paul Vickers

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ the officer walks down the steps. ‘I’m very busy.’

  Sunday