House of Birds: Forget who you were before... (The Azo Coke thrillers Book 2)

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  He was holding onto Dicey. At first I thought he was hugging her, but only one of his hands was clinging to her arm. The other was moving. Fiddling with her sleeve.

  Her wrist.

  Like I’d taught him. The last time I’d seen him. That afternoon at Frank’s.

  Dicey didn’t spot what he was up to. She was larking about reading and laughing with the others. He was working her sleeve back up her wrist.

  The little scally.

  Just like his dad.

  He was after her watch.

  I froze as I watched him. She had some chunky rubber Swatch or something. But that wasn’t all there was up her sleeve.

  He was fingering gently around in there but still looking at the book and smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Then he stopped smiling. He frowned and looked clever. He glanced at Dicey’s wrist and yanked something.

  The switch came out in his hand. The handle and two inches of the wire.

  Dicey looked down at him.

  She didn’t blink. She batted him with the book. He didn’t let go. She yanked her wrist and slapped at him but he kept tight hold. He tugged the switch back towards him. Dicey’s arm went forward with it. He jerked again, stepping away from her. He was strong. She stumbled and fell.

  I turned the doorknob and stepped into the classroom with the knife in my hand. The kids screamed and cried at the sight of me.

  Not Ali though. He stared at me. He didn’t let go of the switch. He had his fingers around the handle. His thumb was clear of the toggle. For now. I’d caught his eye.

  He smiled.

  Dicey made another snatch for the switch handle.

  Ali tightened his grip on it. Her fist wrapped around his. She scrabbled at his fingers. Tried to prise just the top one off the switch.

  Ali was yelling. She was hurting him.

  I walked towards her. Passed the knife to my left hand and reached my arms round her from behind. Grabbed her right wrist and scraped the blade across her knuckles. She gasped and let Ali go. Blood beaded and smeared over the back of her hand.

  Ali let go of the switch.

  The kids were clattering out of the door. The teacher came up, grabbed Ali’s hand and yanked him out after her.

  The switch dangled loose but Dicey’s hand wasn’t free to reach it. I dropped to my knees and forced her to the ground. The whole hard, wiry frame of her. I smelt sweat and smoke.

  I craned my head round to try and look in her eyes. Got a glimpse into the left one. It was open. Staring at the floor. Waiting. No feeling. No fear. It was like she was asleep with her eyes open. No smile, no grimace. A blank page.

  I took a breath. She moved dead quick. Thrust her right elbow back into my ribs, then forward, reaching out.

  My grip on her wrist slackened a sec. She had the switch back. I got my hand back over hers again. Squashed her fist into the floor. Tried to peel her fingers back.

  The toggle was buried in her palm but her thumb was free. She was trying to curl it into the hole to flick it.

  She thrust back against me off the floor, looking for an extra inch to work her hand.

  I pleaded. Threatened. Made promises. My same old book of tricks.

  “I can help you,” I said.

  She wriggled. Thrust forward with her switch-hand, twisting inwards to yank it free.

  That fizzing, snapping feeling in my mind. Like when I’d made up my mind in a second to do my dad.

  I had my left hand braced round her waist with the knife in it.

  I brought it up under her chin.

  She wriggled her left hand out from under her and tried to grab my wrist.

  A flash of black flame in my head.

  “I’m a good person,” I said.

  “I know what you are.”

  I squeezed the blade into her throat. Let out a breath as I drew my left hand across.

  28

  I dropped the knife on the floor.

  Ali’s classmates had run outside. Not Ali though. He was standing in the corridor, watching the classroom door. He’d not let the teacher take him. He was waiting for me.

  I picked him up. I carried him along to the next room and looked through the door.

  That class were lying still under the tables. The teacher was crouching on the floor with a kid in her arms. Her curly red hair piled on the floor. Her eyes were on me.

  “’Ey,” I called. “’Ey, love. Love!”

  No one moved. No one spoke.

  “Come ’ead,” I called. “I'll get yous out.”

  She got up and walked towards us. Trembling. She came right up to the glass and looked me up and down.

  She looked at Ali clinging to me.

  I kissed him.

  For a split second, I felt like a real person.

  She got a key out of her cardigan pocket and opened the door.

  I put Ali down and held his hand.

  She led the kids out one by one from under the tables.

  We filed along to the next class. The teacher looked through the next classroom door. They opened up and fell into line behind us.

  We went to the last classroom and did the same.

  I led them all through the gym. No sign of Hanzi. The blood smears on the floor were mine.

  My side was numb. Rodney and Dicey had given me a big shot of morpho before they sent me out with Maya. It would be wearing off soon.

  We reached the door to the playground. I stopped. High French window kind of one it was, with white blinds over the glass. One side of it was open, but pulled to, clacking in the draft.

  I poked my head through into the playground.

  The road beyond was rammed with yellow riot vans. Fresh bizzies were spilling into the yard. Guns. Bullet-proof vests.

  I ducked back into the gym. Stood by the door with my back to the wall, hugging Ali to me. I counted the kids as the teacher led them through into the light.

  When the last one was out I put Ali down and held his hand. One half of the doors was hanging open. I peeped round the frame again. The kids were heading in a line for the gate. Bizzies were counting them.

  I hung back there in the gym, catching my breath. I kneeled and hugged Ali to me again and kissed him.

  I peeped out into the yard again. The teacher at the front of the line was talking to one of the bizzies. She was pointing my way.

  I stood up with Ali in my arms. I kissed him again. I told him I loved him. I’d look after him. It was all I ever did. Made promises and then ran away.

  I stepped out into the playground and put Ali down on his feet. I nipped back into the gym and swung the door shut.

  Ali twigged at the last second that I was leaving him. He yelled. He screamed for me. He ran to the door and banged his palms on the glass.

  His voice had got deeper and louder since I’d last seen him. It came through the doors. They were shaking as he banged them. I nearly opened them again. I nearly did. Through a gap at the side of one of the blinds I saw a flash of a bizzie’s yellow vest.

  There was a key in the hole where the two doors met in the middle. I stepped forward and turned it. I peeped through the blind for just a second and saw them dragging Ali away.

  I listened to him howling. Someone rattled the doors, trying to get through.

  I ran.

  Across the gym and down the corridor. Back along to Ali’s classroom.

  I didn’t look at Dicey lying there. I went to the window and pulled it up. Hoiked myself through and dropped down into the dingy yard. I landed crouched on my feet. I stood up.

  I pulled the window down behind me and turned to look around.

  The yard was all closed in between the front wing of classrooms and the back wall of the canteen. A lecky power box in the middle. Drinks cartons on the ground and a burst football.

  I looked up and around. This red brick wall across from me. Green moss and painted black drainpipes. There was one fat one running up across the wall from one corner to another. Thick enough to s
tand on.

  I climbed on and rested both feet on it. I flattened my back against the bricks.

  I inched my right foot up it and followed with my left, bracing and balancing myself against the wall.

  A couple of feet higher up there was an overflow pipe sticking right out of the wall. I got hold of it in one hand as I worked my way up. I swung a foot onto it. Pushed up with that leg and got my hands over the edge. The placky pipe started to bend. I heaved myself onto the flat roof. Turned to face the east.

  The old school building loomed behind me. Ahead lay the back playground, for the bigger kids. Two new classroom blocks built along the sides, glass fronts shining in the winter sun. At the far end of the playground, a line of trees and bushes in front of a brick wall twelve feet high. A road ran past beyond it.

  Noises came through all the way from the front yard. Ali’s voice. Screaming at the grown-ups to leave him alone. Yelling for his dad.

  Yelling for me.

  They’d never calm him down when he was like that.

  Good lad. Keeping them all busy while his old man slipped away again.

  I wanted to see him.

  I thought of going back down again. Climbing back in the window and going to him. They’d never let me near him, would they. I couldn’t turn back. I had to keep on swimming, like always. Stepping on others to keep my head above water.

  I looked down at my side. My white t-shirt was splodged with blood. I didn’t dare lift it to see the wound. It was starting to sting.

  I looked down into the playground. Something was moving there. I flattened myself on my belly, leaning to my good side, and crept over to look.

  Four bizzies with rifles, spaced around the edges of the yard.

  None of them were looking my way. I got up to my knees and shuffled to the right for a better view.

  Hanzi was sitting there on the flagstones in his fleece.

  Paterson was there, squatting on his heels, two yards from Hanzi. Talking to him.

  I let myself down over the side of the canteen roof. I dangled for a sec, hanging on with my fingertips.

  It was a heavy drop, a few feet down to the playground. I huffed and panted as I hit.

  I grazed my palms but my wrists and ankles made it.

  The bizzies turned their heads. Paterson didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes locked on the lad. Hanzi looked though. He stared at me.

  Our eyes met across the yard for the shortest sec. A last glimpse down that bottomless well. That dark space where a lad’s childhood and all his goodness gets tipped and he never gets it back.

  A split sec was all Paterson needed. He sprang. He closed the gap. He was on Hanzi before the lad had time to look. He had his arms, his hands. The switch.

  Hanzi screamed, but he wasn’t hurt. Worse: he was safe.

  They had him.

  The bizzies yelled. Two of them turned.

  I was into the trees and up the far wall.

  I dropped over into the road.

  A white beamer was parked there. The back door opened.

  A hand beckoned me in.

  29

  I looked at the back of the driver’s head. Clipped mousey hair. Three-stripe top. Sanky’s eyebrows in the rearview.

  I looked to my right, at Pazzer.

  He tugged one of the cuffs on his shirt under the sleeve of his suit. Sankey put his foot down. I held onto the handle above the door. He took a couple of corners and pulled up in the car park of a glazing shop.

  Pazzer looked me over. The blood splodge on my side. I lifted my shirt up.

  An inch-long snick, slick and pink like a little gob. Rolls of squishy flesh showing inside. The blood had dribbled and streaked down to my waist and dried.

  Sanky took a first aidie out of the glove box. He thumbed it open and twisted round in his seat. He sloshed the gash with TCP straight from the bottle. I hissed and swore. He tipped some onto a gauze and swabbed around it, rubbing away clots of gack.

  He made it look like he knew what he was doing, but he wasn’t gentle. I honked in pain. Pazzer put an arm around me, squeezed my shoulder, rubbed a palm on my head. It was a nice thought. It didn’t stop the stinging.

  Sankey snipped off some lengths of surgie tape with a pair of nail scissors. He laid wads of gauze on me and tamped them down with the strips.

  He potched open some placky bubbles of Nurofen. Handed me six of them. He reached down in front of the passenger seat and picked up an open tinnie of Strongbow. He knew what I liked, the smooth bastard. He passed it to me to swallow the tablets with.

  I glugged the whole can down as he drove.

  I looked out the window at the semis on Park Road whizzing by.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Dingly Dell.”

  We ragged along the dock road. For fuck’s sake. The Grace, again? No. Sanky pulled off onto the waste ground by the docks.

  He stopped near the mouth of the tunnel.

  “You off your head?” I said.

  The two of them looked at each other and laughed. Pazzer nodded.

  “I can’t drop you at the big house. It’s crawling with bizzies. You’ll have to go the long way in.”

  “Why? Rodney’s nicked.”

  “Now there’s just that bird Maya to take care of.”

  I sank back onto the car seat and looked at him. He had a yellow tie on and a tight blue shirt under his grey suit. The shirt collar dug into his neck and scraped on his acne.

  “You know who Maya is?” I said.

  “I know her name. I know where she’s been.”

  He winked.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Paterson tell you?” I said.

  He tried to stare me out. It didn’t work. He was a tough bastard. But he’d no clue what I’d been through.

  I was smarter than he thought.

  He licked his lips.

  “He wouldn’t have had to tell me, if you’d been in touch,” he said, “Let’s talk about that.”

  “Go on then.”

  “Six weeks without a squeak. What were you up to?”

  I pointed at the grazes on my face. Lifted my shirt and showed him where the cricket ball had bashed me. They looked faded next to the hole they’d just patched up. But you could see the sore pink patches.

  “Held at His Rodnesty’s Pleasure,” I said. “Bit like jail. But with no drop-in days for your ma’.”

  “So he caught you snooping on him.”

  “Worse. He caught me slotting his mate.”

  That gave Pazzer something to chew on. He let it show. He was a big hard twat, but he wasn’t smooth like Paterson. He was crap at hiding things. I could see the thrill on his face. The cogs turning in his head once it sunk in.

  I let them turn. Sure enough, he sussed something.

  “So why didn’t he just do you?” he said. “Why keep you locked up. Just another arse to wipe.”

  “He was putting the screws on me,” I said. “Trying to make me set him up with Paterson.”

  “And did you?”

  I looked down at my lap. Scuzzy stains of blood and snot all over my shirt and trackies. I remembered burbling as Rodney worked on me.

  “They sent Maya to do it.”

  He nodded.

  “Rodney came after me at the school,” I said.

  “So he’s not your bumchum?”

  I looked at him and scraped up a cheeky smile from somewhere.

  “He was saving himself for Mr. Right.”

  Pazzer chuckled. He liked me in spite of everything.

  “Maybe that’s you,” I said. “Nice suit. Big car.” He was looking down and nodding. “Ask him out if you want,” I went on. “I won’t be jealous.”

  He was still looking down and smiling. But he was shaking his head now. I was pushing it.

  “Or does Sanky want to?” I said. I let my voice get louder, madder, like I was about to burst out laughing. I caught Sanky’s eye in the rear view. He was frowning.

  Pazzer had
stopped smiling.

  I packed it in and let out a big breath. My head lolled against the rest.

  I tried not to think of what I’d done at Saint Rock’s.

  “Ah well. She didn’t make it to Paterson anyway,” I said. “He was at the school instead. She’ll be far away now.”

  “No she ain’t la’,” he said. “She's back.”

  “Where?”

  He pointed over to the tunnel mouth. “Wonka's Factory.”

  “I left her at The Grace.”

  “Right, la’. That’s how she got back.”

  “Back?”

  “Under the house.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  He and Sanky looked at each other and sniggered.

  “The pigs are all over the house, lad.”

  “I know, you said. So that’s that then.”

  I looked out the window. A few yards of frosty grass and soil. A grey steel rail with the docks beyond it.

  I’d done my bit. Hadn’t ended the way I’d fancied it, with me and Maya running off into the sunset. But at least Rodney didn’t have her. Getting free? I’d got her free. Maybe not free from the bizzies. Not from every wanker in Liverpool. Not quite. But free of Paterson, Rodney, Raz. Three of the biggest. It wasn’t bad going.

  Pazzer gave a crooked smile.

  I frowned. “Bizzies, eh. Shouldn’t we be legging it then?”

  “We’ve legged it here.”

  He nodded over at the stone mouth of the tunnel.

  “You’re joking,” I said. “Why?”

  “Get hold of Maya. Bring her out.”

  “Who says?”

  He smiled tightly with his lips pressed shut and said nothing.

  “Paterson?” I said.

  He scratched his nose. He sighed and looked out of the window.

  “He sent you to do his mucky work for him,” I said.

  He turned to me and winked.

  I swore to myself softly. “The bizzies will have got her.”

  “Will they?”

  “You said they were going in the house.”

  “House, yeah,” he said. “Not the tunnels.”

  “So they’ll follow her down.” I pointed over to the hole on the waste ground. “They’ll be crawling out of there soon.”

  “Fine. But they won’t have Maya.”