The Dance of the Pheasodile

by Tim Roux

  “Yeah, £20,000 would buy you several Philippino slappers.”

  “But not too much heroine, or that many weapons. I am not sure about the arms trade. It is bound to be teeming with dangerous psychopaths who come after you just for the sake of it.”

  “So Philippinos or drugs it is.”

  “It rather looks like it. So what drug dealers do you know?”

  “They are only amateurs around here.”

  “And in Leeds, or Manchester, or Liverpool?”

  “Yeah, they are a bit more serious.”

  “Do you know any of them?”

  “As it happens, I was with one of them last week – Kenny Bender. I think he had been sampling too much of his own gear. I spent my time trying to work out whether I was more likely to end up dead before the end of the session, or he was. He gave me a right roughing up, which he had the cheek to tell me meant that he liked me. He doesn’t torture just anyone in that screwy mind of his. He would certainly be up for anything that would make him money. He wouldn’t mind how bent or dodgy it was.”

  “Okay, that is the method of payment sorted out. Now, how do we grab the child, and who?”

  Kathy turned round on me, shocked. “What on earth are you on about, Harry?”

  I explained the scenario. We needed to nab one high profile boy for about a week, milk the frenzy, shock and outrage of the tabloid-reading public, plant him on Plant over in Bransholme, and then cash in on the proceeds – the systematic terrorising of parents so that they each cough up £20,000 in protection money.

  “Harry,” Kathy commented, “you are just as evil as ever, but you have become a lot greedier suddenly.”

  “Transportation. What sort of transportation can we use to move the boy around?”

  “How about a Post Office van?”

  “A Post Office van?”

  “Yeah, there are millions of those around, and there must be one that we could buy for a knock-down price at a car auction.”

  “Don’t they strip them of their livery?”

  “I am sure that the gang can find us someone who can tart it up again. We can tell them that it is for a bank robbery or a postal snatch, or something. They are never going to question that.”

  “Who has enough money to buy a Post Office van at an auction?”

  “It doesn’t need to be a Post Office van exactly. It could be a British Gas van, or a YEB van, or something. They would work too.”

  “So who has the money?”

  “The gang has. They would have it in ready cash. Ask Mike.”

  “Is he trustworthy?”

  “You don’t need to tell him the truth but, as it happens, he probably is. In fact, he is the only one I would trust. The rest are just a bunch of thieving bastards. They all owe me for services rendered, for starters. Mike is the only one who pays up.”

  “What do you think of my idea?”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. I’m in. Now, are you going to do something useful with that stiffened pole of yours, or am I going to have to sing myself to sleep. Having a sister in the trade has to count for something, you know,” and, as I hesitated, “there is no way in buggery I am going to get pregnant this time round. Go on! Do us all a favour. Shove it in. I need a friendly poke for a change.”

  * * *

  It turned out that Harry and Kathy’s residential home had been nothing like ours which was a port in a storm in comparison. In ours, nothing much happened. In theirs, Harry was sodomised a couple of times to keep him in his place, and Kathy was anybody’s by the age of ten, with or without her consent. With that sort of background, who cares what happens next?

  * * *

  I woke up at 6:30, realising that I mustn't be discovered in Kathy's bed by either Tommy or Fran. I needed a shower. All women have noses that smell recent sex, and the trail of other women. But how would I explain that I was up so early? Did I need to?

  I had a lightning shower - enough to cover any tracks - and rushed downstairs. Exercising myself on Kathy had reminded me that I needed to get in touch with Chrissie urgently.

  Chrissie answered the phone herself in a short, distracted proclamation of her identity, warning the caller that every second spent could never be recovered.

  "Chrissie," I said.

  "Oh God, not you again. Can't you leave us alone? For your information, my husband Keith does not have a northern accent, so even if I couldn't see him from where I am standing right now, I would still not be fooled by you."

  I had to make it quick, short and impactful.

  "Attic, Sean cutting you, Seagrave v. Benson, Cordoniu, red, chrysanthemums, 11, South America, Bozo Bill, Lena Marlin, Charlton, Petrus, getting sued for millions, anything happening to the children, sucking your index finger …….” It was a frantic list of Chrissie’s like, dislikes, fears and dreams, delivered at racing commentator speed, but it certainly stopped her in her tracks. Who could know so much about her, except her husband Keith?

  There was a sharp intake of breath at her end as she reacted to my onslaught as if someone had just whacked her in the solar plexus. “Some guesswork,” she said, trying to recover her composure. “Shame that it’s all hopelessly wrong. Those must be your fantasies, but they are not mine.”

  “Do you want me to come up with some more? You know as well as I do that they were spot on.”

  “No, I’ve heard enough already, thanks.”

  “Two more,” I persisted. “Jane Jackson and unknown. Nobody knows who your father was.”

  That really shook her. One sob got loose down the phone before she could stop it. “Who are you?” she asked earnestly.

  “Keith, your husband.”

  “But he is here. He is looking at me.”

  “Ask him the questions to which I gave you the answers, starting with Charlton.”

  She covered the phone for ten seconds, then repeated triumphantly “Not knowing who Bobby Charlton was.” It was my turn to be surprised.

  “Ask him which flowers you cannot bear to be in the same room with.”

  The phone mouthpiece was covered again. “Chrysanthemums.”

  “Not bad. Are you sure that he did not hear me.”

  “How could he have heard you?”

  “Who was Brian Spooner?”

  This time she let me overhear her conversation with the man pretending to be me. “Who was Brian Spooner?”

  I heard my own voice say exactly what I would have said. “The guy as St. Crispin’s who hanged himself from the pipes in the bathroom with a bell rope he had stolen from the church.”

  This man knew everything I knew, without hesitation. How did he manage it?

  “Were you satisfied with the answer Mr. Whoever-You-Are down the phone?”

  “I think I am now as confused as you are. How is the Hollander project coming on?”

  “Great,” Chrissie replied. “Keith showed me some of the preliminary work last night.”

  Damn. This man’s alibi was fireproof. He was me, and I was me too. How could that be?

  “I am baffled,” I said. “How can we both be me?”

  “That I cannot answer,” Chrissie retorted, but gently. “I have to admit that you are spooking me. You don’t sound remotely like Keith, but you are behaving like him, and you know one hell of a lot about me that I don’t think I have ever told anyone apart from Keith. You two didn’t get drunk one night together or something?”

  “Now you are clutching at straws, Chrissie. Appealing to Equity’s Maiden.” It was one of Chrissie’s favourite expressions, ‘Equity’s Maiden’ being the arbiter of an equitable principle mitigating a strict interpretation according to the letter of the law.

  There was such a long silence from the other end of the line that I thought Chrissie must have cut us off. Eventually she said “How can I contact you?”

  I gave her my number, which I knew by now.

  “Give me a couple of days to think things over.”

  What was going through Chrissie’s mind was the cal
culation of whether it would be safe, or advisable, for us to meet up.

  “Of course, Chrissie. It is safe to meet me, but I haven’t any money. The guy whose body I seem to have adopted is absolutely skint, unemployed, and a petty crook to boot. If we are going to meet up, you will have to come and find me.” I gave her the address.

  “Hull?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, Hull. I told you that last time.”

  “Why would you be in Hull?”

  “Perhaps it is hell after all. Perhaps I am contacting you from the beyond, or the back of beyond as they say around here.”

  “I’ll think about it. I promise I will. And I’ll get back to you.”

  “I know you will. I’ll be waiting.”

  * * *

  “Was that Chrissie you were talking to?” Fran challenged me the second I was off the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she believe you this time?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I think she did,” I replied in contradiction to my gesture. “I was much better prepared this time.”

  “Does that mean that you are going to walk out on us and bugger off to London?” she asked, with more than a suggestion of gratifying resentment in her voice.

  “Not for the moment,” I assured her. “I haven’t got the money, and Chrissie is not ready to meet me yet. If I push her too hard, she will panic and run away from me.”

  I approached Fran and forced my arms around her. Her body was absolutely rigid, rejecting both me and any emotion I might try to project onto her, yet seeking it out nonetheless. “I am not going to abandon you and Tommy,” I assured her.

  “You aren’t going to abandon Kathy more like,” she retorted.

  “I am not going to abandon anyone. There is a way round this.”

  The phone went. Fran answered it. “Hello? Yes, he is just here. It’s Chrissie for you, Harry.” She emphasised the Harry.

  “Chrissie? That was quick.”

  “I have thought about it, and no thank you. Have a pleasant life.” She cut the phone line with a determined click.

  That was a quick decision, much quicker than Chrissie would usually make, I told myself. She was bound to reconsider it in a few days. On the other hand, I could not rely on her changing her mind. In the meantime, I needed the money to get to see her, whether she wanted to see me or not. I had better press ahead with my plan.

  * * *

  Mike the Hammer lived, and lives, in Chomley Street, less than five minutes away. Kathy arranged for me to see him at his house alone.

  I knocked on the door, and he invited me into one of the most rundown, depressing and soulless places I have ever visited. His nickname was stiletto-precise in its sarcasm. Mike certainly did not like DIY, or even painting. His wife had left him twenty years ago, and he hadn’t painted the place since. It may have been vacuumed in the meantime, but it had dark heavily-patterned carpeting and rugs everywhere which looked dirty without actually betraying specifics. The door to the sitting room was shut (closing me off from God knows what horrors), and he led me into the kitchen which was tatty but not untidy. In fact, there was not the slightest evidence that it had witnessed fresh cooking this many a year. It was as if it had been mothballed by social historians to illustrate how lonely abandoned husbands typically lived at the turn of the millennium. My wife has left me and I only pass through the place. I don’t really live here either.

  Mike picked up two mugs and flicked the switch on the electric kettle. Within two minutes it had begun to make hissing noises accompanied by a few ominous percussion effects. Mike did at least make coffee, white with two sugars for him and for anyone else who happened to be around. It was instant coffee, of course, the cheapest, Kwik Save’s own. He must have been stockpiling the stuff. Kwik Save had gone bust the previous year and he was obviously a regular coffee drinker. Maybe he had bought it in a fire sale.

  I would guess that Mike was ‘typical ‘ull’ – a guy who had been trying to make ends meet, an imperative that had forced him to narrow his horizons all his life.

  I found myself staring at his face, examining every line, of which there were many, few of them denoting any past pleasures. As the saying goes, up until forty you have the face you were born with, and after forty, you have the face you deserve. How had Mike deserved that face? And yet there was kindness etched there amid these corrugated scars to hardship, and his pale blue eyes were more grieving than aggressive. He actually gave the impression of being a man I could confide in. Maybe that was how he survived.

  “Well, ‘arry, what’s up? Kathy was all mysterious over the phone. She said you needed to see me urgently about something.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “I have a plan.”

  He looked surprised. He already had a plan for me, which would make any of my plans entirely redundant.

  “What’s your plan, ‘arry.”

  “To make money, a lot of money, a lot of easy money, you and me.”

  “You want to cut out the rest of the gang?”

  “Initially, yes. We will give them something afterwards.”

  “Some boss you are.”

  “It is called the need-to-know principle.”

  “I am glad that there is a principle still in there somewhere, then, ‘arry.”

  “Oh, there is much more than you would ever imagine in there, Mike.”

  His expression indicated his scepticism that Harry’s brain could dream up even a fraction of what I was claiming. He had Harry pegged as a fall guy, not as a savvy criminal strategist.

  “Spit it out then,” he said.

  “First we need a van.”

  “A van? Why do we need a van, ‘arry?”

  “To ship the merchandise.”

  “And what’s the merchandise, ‘arry?”

  “Human cargo.”

  “You what?”

  “People, Mike. People.” I could be as condescending as he could. The shift in the relationship between us was beginning to trouble him. He slurped his coffee rather too hard, sounding a bit like his kettle.

  “Go on.”

  “I need to kidnap someone.”

  “Kidnap?”

  “Yes, kidnap. Only for a few days.”

  “That’s a serious crime, ‘arry. The coppers will be down on us like a ton of bricks for that.”

  I levelled with him. “You and I both know, Mike, that the police will be down on me like a ton of bricks anyway over the next few days.”

  “What do you mean, ‘arry?”

  “You know exactly what I mean, Mike.”

  “You think that someone has ratted on you, ‘arry? One of the gang?”

  “I think that everyone in the gang has ratted on me, Mike, starting with you.”

  Mike’s habitual response to any acute embarrassment was always to stand up sharply and hit someone. I beat him to it, sending him sprawling against the frayed melamine. He came back up again, fingering his right cheek, checking for lost teeth. “What did you do that for, ‘arry?” he asked more plaintively than angrily.

  “I’m not messing around, Mike. I wouldn’t forget that if I were you, if you want to be in my team.”

  It had clearly never occurred to Mike that Harry would ever be worth teaming up with over anything, but he was rapidly reappraising his position. “Nah listen …..” he said, launching into some sort of threat I was not going to hear out.

  I raised my fist, and he stepped sharply backwards, rattling the electric kettle on its stand.

  “Either we are blood brothers, or I leave you here a dead man, Mike. Which is to be?”

  Mike was all confusion. It was plastered across his face as if someone had just custard-pied him.

  “Now ‘ang on a second, ‘arry ……”

  I stared at him with malice in my eyes, and said nothing.

  He spluttered into silence too.

  I stepped towards him. He took evasive action, edging towards the fridge. I opened the cutlery drawer from which I had observed Mike
extracting a teaspoon earlier, and I picked out the sharpest knife I could find. I gestured that I wanted him to offer me his right hand, which he did, hesitantly. I cut my right palm first, then his. He flinched. I squeezed both our hands together.

  “Right,” I announced conclusively. “Now I’ll tell you my plan.”

  * * *

  Mike listened attentively, only interrupting my flow to ask for respectful clarifications.

  “It’s a good plan,” he said. “It is risky, but it’s good.”

  “Now we have to engineer the risk out of it, systematically. That is a speciality of mine.”

  For a second, Mike reverted to his previous scepticism of my worth, but he recovered quickly.

  “Where are the weakest points, do you think?” I challenged him.

  “Snatching the boy. Giving oursens enough time to get away without being traced. Keeping the boy for a week in a place where ‘e won’t be noticed. Planting ‘im on Plant without ‘is noticing. Making sure the coppers nab ‘im before ‘e has time to extricate ‘imself from our trap.”

  ‘Extricate’? That was a word I would never have associated with Mike.

  “What are your thoughts?”

  He hesitated like a boy being quizzed by his headmaster, then he smiled so sweetly that I began to like him. “I think it’s time I cracked open a couple of John Smiths to ‘elp us mull it over.”

  ‘Mull’? There was another surprising word. Mike was turning literate all of a sudden, and I had become worth talking to.

  * * *

  Tommy was watching TV in the sitting room at Pease Street, the first time I had seen him in front of a TV set. He didn’t even seem to be enjoying it very much. My real children, Ella and Mark, spend hours each day paying homage to the moving, and frequently violent, image. The other day they were watching Transformers, and Chrissie and I overheard one character say to the other “Watch it, Motherfucker!” In a children’s programme?

  I turn to Chrissie. “Did I just hear what I thought I just heard? Did they just use the word %^$*&*&?” I mouthed the word motherfucker, underpinning it with a whisper.