“Would you look at that,” the blond said. “Is this guy smitten, or what?”
He tried to buck, to curse them. They had no idea who they’d crossed. When he was free, they’d be ashes, he’d take off their heads –
A hand gripped his jaw. “Hey, Furious Fred? You ever give it a fucking rest?”
Something hit him in the temple, his vision pulsing black for a second. He bared his teeth and snarled.
“Enough!” Pax said. Not afraid to stand up for him. “You want this to work or not?”
“Look at him, didn’t I tell you?” The other brute, the ugly ashen one, somewhere way behind the chair. “He loves it. Got a complex of some sort, isn’t it. Not right in the head.”
“He went for us like a goddamned wolverine,” the blond said. “And started bawling his eyes out later. Next minute he’s laughing like a jackal.”
“So now you tell me,” the midget leader said, with an air of finality, “if there’s any chance he’ll walk away?”
Silence.
Casaria slowed his breathing. She was looking down at him, arms folded across her chest. Worry on her face. Worry for him. He smiled, a hint of laughter creeping up.
“Here we go,” the blond said.
“Casaria, you hear me?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I need you to promise me something. Can you do that?”
“I promise.” Casaria tasted the words, spit hissing between his teeth. “I’ll bury these motherfuckers.”
“I need the opposite,” Pax said, levelly. “Keep calm. They’re willing to talk, understand?”
Casaria narrowed his eyes. Keep calm. It was always keep calm. Cowards kept calm. He opened his mouth to say it but Pax went first.
“I need you, Casaria,” she said. “I really fucking need you, so please think before you say something we’re all gonna regret.”
He didn’t speak. His eyes were wide. She needed him. But he had his pride. He had his honour. He growled, “I won’t tell them a damn thing.”
“I know” – Pax hurried it out – “and they know, too. You didn’t talk, you won’t talk, we all get that. But...can you keep this quiet?”
He held her gaze. “Why would I?”
“Because I need you to.”
That was all? He was supposed to walk away from thugs who’d attacked him outside his own home? Chained him to a chair and cut off his damned toe?
“There’s no one else who can help me,” Pax reaffirmed.
Casaria took a deep breath, sending pain through his lower ribs. He grinned into it. “You see what they did to my toe?”
“Jesus. Yes.”
“Actually, the story is, the Seventh Street Regulars did it,” the ugly one said, like it wasn’t him who’d levered those rusty secateurs. Casaria twisted but couldn’t find his face, so turned back to Pax. Surely she wouldn’t believe a lie like that? Her face didn’t shift as the brute continued, “Second toe on the left foot, always. Seventh toe, if you’re counting right to left; that’s the message.”
“You had to go that far?” Pax replied, disgusted. So. They were carving him up to make it look like someone else’s work and she knew about it. She wasn’t happy.
“This particular storybook” – the leader crouched in front of Casaria, looking him dead in the eye – “started before we got him, with that knife wound on his face. We were just completing the picture. The Seventh Street Regulars love their knives almost as much as their guns. Show her one.”
“See this?” The blond again. “This kink in the blade makes it so when you pull it out the wound splits wide. Dead hard to stop the bleeding, you can take my word on that.”
“Filthy weapon used by filthy people,” the leader said. “No honour, not if you measured all their blood from here to Jamaica. And they wouldn’t flinch at making a corpse of a powerful government man. But, Pax, the question is, this man wouldn’t talk for us. You honestly believe he’s gonna talk for you?”
She didn’t say anything. Quietly horrified.
“I know your faces.” Casaria couldn’t help himself. “Your fucking names.”
“He knows our faces,” the leader echoed. “Our names. What about that, love?”
“Give him a chance.” Pax pushed past, to look into Casaria’s eyes. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you guys, but I’m guessing you got the drop on them before, didn’t you? You took that weapon from my place.”
Casaria forced a smile. That was a fond memory at least, taking down these thugs. They’d got lucky the second time, catching up to him after an exhausting night.
“You did that to their faces?” Pax said. He couldn’t see them, but he imagined it well enough. Cut up and bruised, weren’t they? “I’ve never seen anyone hurt these two before.”
“Nutcase,” the ugly one commented. “Came at us both at the same time.”
“That true?” Pax looked into Casaria’s eyes again.
Yeah, it was true. They could cut him, they could take his toe, but they weren’t undoing his victory over them. He said, “I could’ve killed them. Landon got in the way.”
“It’s why you’re here,” Pax said. “Do you even realise that? You shamed them.”
Casaria paused. No. They had been in his apartment, looking for information. They demanded answers. Who did he work for? What did he do? Like hell he’d ever speak.
“They did their homework,” Pax said, reading his face, “to try and explain why some civil servant was able to take down two of their finest. All these two found out” – her eyes locked on his, begging him to go along with this – “is you’re just a dangerous nobody. You’ve been punished, right? This can end, now, if you accept that. They’re satisfied, as long as you’re willing to drop this.”
Casaria couldn’t respond, her face inches from his. Drop this? Whose pride would be more injured, here?
“Fuck!” She slapped the arm of the chair and he flinched. “Say it! You understand, don’t you?”
Casaria nodded quickly.
“Say it!”
“It’s what I do, isn’t it!” He let it out louder than he intended. “Keeping secrets – spreading lies. It’s what I’m good at!” He looked past her to the men. “You think I want anyone knowing about this?”
No one responded, their faces confused. Like it wasn’t obvious how pathetic this was, him cornered, captured, humiliated in this chair. Like they expected him to run crying to the first authority figure he could find. The leader got it first, and his face softened in satisfied smugness. Casaria wanted to tear his skull out.
“This guy’s something else,” the man said.
“And?” Pax stood up straight again.
“I actually believe you, love. This nutter genuinely might not talk. But I didn’t get where I am taking chances. You want him, he comes with the message. Bees, Jones, make the arrangements.”
“What’s that mean?” Pax said, with alarm.
The leader walked away. “Turn him loose in Seventh Street territory. Then he’s your burden. Good luck, Pax. You tell us how this all works out for you. And if he gives you a lick of trouble.”
The blond one moved in front of Casaria, wearing that stupid grin. “Ah hell. Didn’t I always say it? Women are the real torture. Pax, we could put you to work.”
Pax sat squeezed between the two massive men in the bench that formed the front seat of Bees’ van, leaving the warehouse district for ever-more-threatening locations. She recognised some of these streets from when Casaria had first driven her to an MEE hide-out. Either St Alphege’s or the rough neighbourhoods that flanked it.
The men hadn’t said much while tying Casaria and flinging him in the van with her scooter. Jones had given Casaria a stack of photos of dark-skinned faces, telling him to identify them as the ones that hurt him. Casaria barely registered the instructions, face full of malice. He was a mess, and Pax had no idea if he could be trusted, but this was working. She almost let herself believe she’d performed
some kind of miracle, though Monroe clearly wasn’t bothered if Casaria lived or died, as long as the taint was far away from him. But it was clear that Casaria’s anger was mixed with shame. He was likely to keep this quiet for the sake of his pride; Monroe had seen that.
“How much further?” Pax asked, as they drove down an unlit street. She feigned searching for lights in the dead buildings, actually checking for a sign that Letty was nearby.
“Border of West Quay, that’ll do it,” Jones said. “Somewhere along the viaduct. Jerry Rise, maybe? What do you think, Bees, we gonna go as far as Jerry Rise?”
“Sounds good to me. It’s a small jump to the hospital from there.”
“I go to a hospital,” Pax said, “I get picked up.”
“Give them a fake name, say you lost your ID, who’s gonna know,” Jones said. “And do us a solid, get in the A&E screaming, say you fought off some psycho Yardie bear to get this guy safe.”
“I’m not gonna do that.”
Bees gave her an uncertain look. She avoided his gaze. Casaria’s toe was cauterised and, as they’d said, everything else was superficial. Chances were no one was checking the wounds to see what knife had been used to cut them. They could keep their gangland narrative. Her only goal would be to get far away from West Quay. People only passed by its pebble-dash estates and razor-wire-lined storage facilities to catch a boat, and that was limited to industrial-scale shipping.
“You’ll be doing the whole city a solid,” Jones said. “About time the Quay got shaken up. It used to be real cosmopolitan out there. Shipments coming in from the Baltic, the Atlantic, sometimes the Med. I mean, we still get them, but now the docks are staffed by a particular kind of person, real particular.”
“Linked to the Seventh Street Regulars,” Pax guessed.
“Among a few others,” Bees said. “Outsiders. Lowlifes, dragging our whole city down. You know what I read a few weeks back? This article, see, said people are calling Ordshaw Gun City. I never heard anyone say that, did you?”
Pax didn’t answer. He’d keep talking anyway.
“Apparently North Ordshaw General Hospital’s got the highest incidence of gunshot care in the UK. More than a lot of Europe. But there’s a fallacy there, right, because in NOGH we’ve also got the best gunshot wound specialists, don’t we? People chopper them in knowing that. It’s all a bit chicken and egg.”
She was only half listening, waiting for this particular chapter in her nightmare to close, so she could take Casaria back to the safety of Broadplain Plaza and start persuading him to work on resolving her problems.
“Those tunnels would be damn helpful, I can tell you.” Jones changed tack, drawing Pax’s attention again. “Imagine us being able to get in under their feet. Get around the shipping channels. We can’t get boats through no more. Man, with tunnels. The things we could do with tunnels. Damn shame they’re polluted, I say.”
“Damn shame,” Bees agreed.
Both of them, Pax feared, sounded unconvinced. She said nothing, hoping the topic would fade away. She expected their friendship might, too.
Bees pulled the van over at the base of a steep hill of houses, the black brick viaduct rising ominously over the road. At least there was a light under that, deep yellow and casting grim shadows. The big men got out and led Pax to the rear of the van, where they hauled her scooter onto the road. Bees rubbed his hands together as Jones bent in around the sliding door, fussing with Casaria’s restraints.
“The hospital,” Bees said, pointing, “is that way. Hit the main road and you won’t miss it for signs. Or if you want to call an ambulance, you’re at the south end of Jerry Rise.”
“I’ll make do,” Pax said. Jones pulled Casaria to his feet, and Pax leant around Bees to see. The agent looked terrible, but he was upright, with colour in his face, and his expression was at least less than totally violent.
Jones straightened him out, big hands on his shoulders, saying, “Now you remember, we know who you are. We know where you live. Hell, you know what we know.”
Jones gave him a sick grin and shoved past to the van.
“And remember those faces,” Bees said. “You want to tell anyone who came for you, it was them. And no hard feelings, hey?”
Pax frowned at the last comment, directed at her, and caught a glint of light reflecting from inside the van, where Jones was drawing his arm back out. She met Bees’ eyes, begging it not to be what she thought. He stared back impassively, unapologetic, as Jones turned on Casaria, knife in hand. Of course – this had been too easy.
“No!” Pax yelled, but she hit a wall as Bees’ arm blocked her. Casaria hissed like a cornered cat, moving to evade, not quick enough. As Jones lurched at him with the curved knife, a gunshot sounded. The van twanged. Another shot sparked off the curb. Bees and Jones were down, crouching, both familiar with gunfire. Jones rolled into the van’s open door. “Fucking Yardies, go, go!”
Bees scuttled like a crab, hands over his head as a shot hit the tarmac and another glanced off the van. Pax flattened herself against the road, twisting to see where the shots were coming from. A wing mirror shattered.
“Drive, drive!” Bees shouted, pulling himself into the passenger seat, big legs flailing. The engine shuddered as the van careered away. The gunshots stopped. Pax sucked in breaths as shadows moved in the windows, hunched shapes of people peering out.
Casaria was down, both hands pressing into his gut where Jones had stabbed him, blood oozing through his fingers.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” Pax pulled herself across the ground towards him.
“Some fucking friends!” Letty said, from above. The fairy buzzed into view, expression grim.
Lightgate joined her, a pistol in each hand, white suit glimmering like a star against the sky. Smiling, she said, “I don’t know, I kind of liked them.”
Pax pressed her hands onto Casaria’s seeping wound, putting all her weight into it. He stared, teeth gritted. Too much pain to get a word out. How deep had the cut gone?
23
Holly brought the barest satisfaction to the day by producing a stew that replaced the telegraph station’s aroma of stagnant mould with a more hearty scent. She had little faith in its nutritional value, as the tinned food’s labels had faded, but it was a distraction, at least, especially when paired with the riddle of finding space in the cluttered workspace to sit and eat. They gathered, in the end, around the small table with the map spread on it, which worked as a lumpy tablecloth, covering bulky objects underneath. For a few minutes, she was treated to the satisfying hungry slurps of her family (and the thin sips of Rimes), and reflected that despite everything, they were doing okay.
Watching Darren eat, she couldn’t deny his bruising and swelling had reduced. Some minor cuts even seemed to have disappeared. Holly wondered if she was being a bad mother by refusing Grace the same toxic-liquid treatment. The girl’s feet had been rubbed raw journeying into the sewers. But Holly suspected offering her daughter that liquid would make her a worse mother. And besides, they didn’t have any more.
Darren sat back from his meal with a deep noise of pleasure, and his eyes fell to the map between them. A wistful look crossed his face as he let himself slip into the memories of his adventures. He looked up, seeing Holly staring. She folded her arms and said, “What did you think I’d say if you revealed all this madness to me? Did you think I’d kick you out? Scream?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t think you’d understand.”
“I don’t understand why you watch football, I don’t understand why you drown yourself in beer. So what?”
He had sad eyes, like he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. She suspected she knew, even if he didn’t. He wanted something to himself. A break from the life they’d created. Their happy, ordinary, comfortable life. Why else?
“I’ve made mistakes, Holly,” he said. “A lot of them. And I’m sorry. But it always felt right, fighting for our city. And it always felt right to shelter you from
that. To give you one less burden.”
“Having a deceitful husband is worse,” Holly told him, plainly. “You could’ve died, and I never would’ve known why. Your daughter would’ve been left in a broken home.” Grace looked up from her stew with surprise, not expecting to be drawn into this.
“That’s why I stopped.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “After it became too dangerous.”
Darren took a breath, and Holly waited. “I’m sorry I kept it from you, but I’m not sorry for what I did. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I shouldn’t be sitting here, I should be doing what I’m good at. It should be me out there, not someone like Pax.”
“Someone like Pax?” Holly arched an eyebrow. “Seems to me you barely survived last night, while she came away unscathed. Perhaps she shouldn’t be out there, but by heavens neither should you.” Holly held back for a moment. “What really hurts, Diz, is that you didn’t think I could help.”
Darren had the barest second to register that, as if the revelation of this thought might have made sense of the world. Then the phone rang.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Pax cursed, tying one severed sleeve of her hoodie tightly around Casaria’s gut to pack the other sleeve into the wound. The pressure she’d applied was enough to stop the bleeding, following Letty’s quick instructions, but Casaria’s eyes were rolling about aimlessly and he wasn’t supporting himself or speaking words that made sense. And there was a lot of blood on the pavement. A lot of blood.
Lights were coming on up the street. The siren of an emergency vehicle was approaching. Pax got under Casaria’s arm, heaved him up onto her shoulder and pivoted him onto the scooter. It threatened to topple, dragging both of them down with it, until Pax got a scrambling leg either side of the vehicle.
A window creaked open nearby. Had someone finally got up the courage to help? “Fuck off with your colours, we don’t need it here!”
The window slammed shut again, leaving Pax unsure what that meant.
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