Manchester Slingback

by Nicholas Blincoe

  ‘If he had your videos, then you had to kill him.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know.’ Shaking his head. ‘This was Kevin Donnelly. I know I wouldn’t have had to kill him.’

  ‘Donnelly wasn’t a kid any more. We’re talking about a thirty-two-year old man. He’d had half his life to think it over; he wasn’t going to be persuaded by you. I mean, take a fucking look at yourself. Touch earth.’

  Halliday was sitting there saying, ‘No, no. I wouldn’t have had to kill him.’

  ‘Of course you fucking would. The videos are the only evidence. You had to kill Donnelly. Just like I had to kill Johnny.’

  Jake’s voice flattened until it was nothing but uninflected desperation. And it broke open the scene they were playing. Halliday’s arms slipped off the shiny table top: there was nothing to hold them there.

  ‘You did it.’ Halliday, in a whisper. It wasn’t even a question.

  ‘You know I did.’ As Jake said it, he saw Johnny’s body again, screwed around on the floor, the head twisted backwards around a broken neck.

  ‘The night we left you, he was all for going straight to the cops. He gave you copies of your video, he made another set for them. When they raided you, they’d have matching documentary evidence. Party night at Colchester Hall, starring the masters and boys… and me.’

  ‘Johnny made copies for himself?’

  ‘He had them with him, you arsehole. That same night, they were in the boot of the car.’

  ‘Where did you… where did it happen?’

  ‘Where did he meet his end?’ Jake pointed to the grilled window. It happened out there. Halliday followed with his eyes, looking across Caldenstall Moor to the far hills.

  ‘You couldn’t… persuade him? Make him reconsider, for your sake?’

  ‘He never saw more than a few seconds of the tapes, so he never knew about my role.’ Jake shook his head, trying to lose the tinny buzz that was racing between his ears. ‘But there was nothing I could say. Not that night – not the state he was in. And I know for a fact you wouldn’t have had a hope with Kevin Donnelly.’

  Jake reached forward, his voice at a hiss. ‘So tell me, you cunt, what happened?’

  *

  Halliday’s story started out slow. Five cigarettes burnt to his lips, and he only got to the beginning point. One month ago, Colchester Hall was burgled. Nothing was stolen except the videos.

  ‘I kept them in boxes under the floor of the boiler-room. They were the only copies. I didn’t let the other masters have their own copies any more. The thief tried to make it look like a real robbery: everything was broken up and smashed. But I was sure one of my boys had something to do with it, and I finally got it out of the little bastard. Kevin Donnelly had got hold of him and persuaded him to make a stand.’

  Jake thought: fifteen years of abuse, all on tape. Kevin Donnelly must have watched it through, pushing on rewind until he was primed and insane.

  ‘So you went looking for Kevin?’

  ‘I tried. I went to everyone I could think of who might know him. One of his sisters told me he was living between Crumpsall and Cheetham Hill, subletting a room in a council flat. The place was disgusting: nothing in his room but a blanket on the floor, a TV and a video-player. But when I got there, he was already gone, the TV was kicked through and the video had been stamped to pieces. I found some of the tapes there, or what I assumed were the tapes. He’d pulled them open and strung the insides across the room like Christmas decorations. I knew there were more. He’d stolen so many, he could have decorated the whole shitty block. That’s when I started going to Good-Day’s again, every night for more than a week. I heard rumours that Donnelly was bumming round London, but I waited. I don’t know why but I was sure he was coming back. Then I got lucky. He phoned ahead for somewhere to stay and I got the news off one of his friends. I was there to see him get off the train at Piccadilly. I only had to wait for eight hours before I got the right train. He was carrying a bag, nothing else. I knew it wasn’t large enough, so I followed him. He walked to the lockers, I circled round. I guess I was too confident. When he opened the locker, I saw the stacks of tapes inside and called out his name.’

  Jake could just imagine the way he said it: the master’s voice.

  ‘He went for me. I was so stunned, I didn’t have a chance. I thought he’d broken my nose, there was so much blood. Even when I was on the floor, he was still hammering me. He cut my face open…’ Halliday touched a pinkish scar that ran across his eyebrow; it didn’t look so bad. ‘He did that with the edge of one of the bloody videos.’

  ‘He got away?’

  Halliday nodded. ‘I think it was a passer-by… someone pulled him off me. But before I could get to my feet, he’d run. I was surrounded by a crowd, all of them asking if I was all right. I couldn’t see Donnelly anywhere.’

  ‘He still had the tapes?’

  ‘Most of them. I managed to get outside the station. The traffic was backed up as usual and as I ran down the hill, I kept looking in the taxis. I finally saw him as I reached the traffic lights; he was still on foot. I wouldn’t even have seen him then but he was nearly hit by a truck coming round the corner from Great Ancoats Street. I guessed he was heading for one of the car-parks. I was lucky there, as well, I suppose. I got a taxi, then all I had to do was wait. The one-way system brought him swinging in front of me, driving this old yellow Capri.’

  ‘Where’d he go?’

  ‘Here.’ Halliday tapped the prison table. ‘Well, almost. I actually lost him in Littleborough.’

  Halliday pointed over his shoulder, back in the direction of Manchester where Littleborough village lay, pressed hard to the Yorkshire border. ‘I told the cabbie to keep circling. Eventually, I saw his car again, parked in the central car-park close to the bus terminal. I paid off the taxi and I waited for him to come back.’

  ‘You got him?’

  ‘No. That was it. I just waited, across the road, watching from a pub. He never came back. After it got dark, I went out and broke into his car, hoping he’d left the videos there. I didn’t find them.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  Halliday nodded. He was telling the truth.

  ‘So you lost him?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened. Maybe he got a taxi or a bus somewhere.’

  ‘Or stole a new car?’

  ‘I suppose so. He knew how to do that, didn’t he?’

  ‘You were the one with access to his records. But, yeah, I’m sure he knew how to steal a car.’

  ‘You know I didn’t kill him?’

  Jake nodded. ‘You blew it, though. You’re just lucky the tapes never turned up.’

  He signalled to the guard. Halliday remained sitting there, staring out of the window. Pinning everything on the appeal, a second trial, and no evidence.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Even driving after midnight, it took Jake and Johnny more than an hour to reach Littleborough – one side of Greater Manchester to the other. The rain fouling up the route didn’t help. Then Johnny took a wrong turn and took them into a jigsaw detour around the outskirts of the city, finally clicking on the right road past Hollins. Johnny was slamming on the clutch and the wheel, driving the car like it was a tug in an Atlantic spray.

  But it wasn’t just the weather. Johnny couldn’t get over the boy in the Speedo trunks, shivering in the doorway of Colchester Hall. As long as he carried the image, he couldn’t concentrate on Jake’s directions. Jake suggested they switch seats at the next petrol station; let him take the wheel for the last eight miles. There were spectre swirls of sleet mixed into the rain, and Jake knew the weather would only get worse as they climbed Caldenstall Moor.

  Johnny said, ‘What’s with this fucking weather?‘

  The heater was running full-blast and Johnny was still shivering. The sleet had begun to stick to the windscreen, making sugary patterns to snare the wipers. Instead of a smooth arc, they were wiping at a slow bump and grind. As Johnny pull
ed onto the garage forecourt, Jake asked if he’d seen any de-icer, maybe in the boot? Johnny couldn’t remember.

  Jake said, ‘I’ll get some. You stay there.’

  The garage sold more than just car accoutrements. Jake took a look around, found a gift rack of sock-slippers and bought a pair for Johnny. The boy was still barefoot in slingbacks. The next leg of the journey took them up into the hills, but Johnny missed out on the scenery because it took him twenty minutes to strap his shoes over the top of the socks. Not that there was anything to see; visibility was lower than zero. Jake cleared a porthole in the windscreen, about the size of a football. When that frosted over, he just drove even slower. It was too late and too cold, they weren’t likely to meet much head-on traffic. The whole journey was nothing but a mad, blind steer.

  Jake said, ‘This is fucked.’

  ‘Not doing anything – that would be fucked.’ Johnny had his plan; they were going to see it through. He was sure the Manchester police didn’t care what went on, just so long as they were seen to be policing. If it was a straight choice between the hypocrites who enforced the anti-queer line and the man who directed operations, they were better off with Pascal: the inflexible zealot.

  Jake said, ‘We really going to hand the tapes over to John Pascal?’

  Johnny nodded. ‘You convinced me the guy’s for real. And if he hates puffs so much, he’s not going to be able to ignore the evidence.’

  They approached Caldenstall on a ridge road, slipping around the skirts of the moor. One side, there was a cliff of millstone grit. Below them, a valley so full of fog it had lost its depths. The headlights were doing nothing but throwing a white haze into their path; anything that appeared out of it, loomed in a soluble grey block that never recovered its definition. They weren’t going any faster than zimmer-pace, Jake only wanted to catch sight of the fork, and the road that led up into the hills. When he reached it, it was easy to spot. Staggered either side of the road, snow-signs flashed out of the night.

  Jake turned to Johnny and said, ‘The road’s closed.’

  ‘What’s that mean? There’s a gate closing it?’

  It didn’t mean that. It meant the road might become impassable, the higher they climbed. It certainly would be by morning. He left the decision to Johnny.

  ‘You’re saying, we drive on and we might never get the car back down, or we walk through this?’

  Johnny pawed at the windscreen, trying to gauge the weather conditions. It didn’t require guesswork. The car was rocking in the wind. Johnny was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt under his frockcoat but at least he had a coat. Jake was wearing nothing but a suit and shirt.

  Jake said, ‘If we manage to drive up there, we’re definitely going to have to walk back. And then we don’t have a car.’

  There wasn’t any choice, in fact. Jake did the best he could, turning the car at the fork and reversing as far as he could up the hill of Caldenstall Road. Looking backwards, the hill seemed twice as steep. As they inched upwards, they seemed to be hanging nose-down into the white pit in front of them. The car finally stalled.

  ‘Okay.’

  They climbed out of the car into a wall of blistering cold. Jake turned up the lapels of his suit and held his hands to his throat. Johnny fetched the box of videos from the boot and joined him.

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Only quarter of a mile.’

  It would seem further, walking on near-ice up a one-in-twelve hill. Jake in gripless Cuban heels, unable to rip his hands from his throat and use them for balance. Johnny in his slingbacks. Three steps, Johnny slipped on the road and began skidding on his back, the box of tapes smashed open and his feet in the air. At least he had the socks now.

  Johnny didn’t want to be told, again, he’d made a bad shoe choice. ‘I didn’t know about no fucking mountains.’

  Jake bent to help him collect the videos. The box was torn, soggy and useless, but there were only four tapes. They took two each, forcing them into their pockets, and started climbing again.

  Jake knew they were at the edge of the village when he caught of the Jericho Chapel, a squat sentry pillbox buried into the hillside to guard the only road in and out of town.

  As the hill flattened and widened into the village, the snow got deeper. Now they were wrapped to their shins, paying for every step. But they were close. Jake knew all the Chapel Elders’ houses. John Pascal lived past the row of shops in a terrace of black stone cottages. A bare mile past his house, the road would turn back into a packhorse track, over the moors to Haworth and beyond into Halifax.

  Jake stopped. ‘What now?’

  ‘This is it?’

  Jake pointed to the second house in the short terrace, a Cavalier choking in snow outside. ‘That one. And he’s inside. This is his car.’

  The door was child-size but studded with heavy metal nails. It looked as strong as the stone lintel stuck across it. The windows on either side and on the two upper floors were tall and narrow, all diamond-crossed with lead.

  Johnny said, ‘What kind of fucked-up doll’s house is this?’

  It was a weaver’s cottage: an odd, squashed building of three floors fitted into the height of two. Johnny was peering over the low wall, getting a scan inside while he worked on his plan.

  ‘You any idea which floor he sleeps on?’

  Jake thought probably the top floor. That contained one large room and had the best light. It was the room where the old weavers worked on their frames. He pointed Johnny towards the row of windows under the caves, and asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

  The door had a narrow letterbox hacked out of its centre, maybe wide enough to post a tape, but it didn’t play any part in Johnny’s plan. The boy stepped over the wall and pushed his face to the leaded window and said, ‘Guy’s got a video-player, I can see it winking.’

  What Johnny wanted to do was set the tape running in the machine so it would be the first thing Pascal saw when he came down to breakfast. See if the man’s appetite ever recovered after that.

  ‘We can’t just leave the tapes with a note?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘We got to rub the bastard’s face in it.’ He was a step away from the window, looking to the door and then up at the side of the house. ‘What about the back – you reckon that’s safest?’

  Jake nodded grimly. He knew, anyone who could afford it always built a kitchen extension on these kind of houses. Pascal had built one years ago. It would be a lot easier to break in at the back rather than through the two-hundred-year-old fortress door at the front. Jake hitched his jacket tighter to his neck and led the way round the last house of the terrace, to where the backyards of the cottages formed a last line of defence against the moorland. The wall to Pascal’s yard was high, the height of the outdoor lavvy. Johnny leapt up to grab a handhold on the lavvy roof, his slingbacks scrabbling at the wall. Jake reached up, pulled him at the shoulder and brought him down.

  Johnny started. ‘The fuck’s the matter with you?’

  ‘If we wake him, Pascal’s going to recognize me.’

  Johnny stamped his feet on the ground, looking round while he rubbed at his forearms. Getting some friction heat for his thoughts. ‘That’s right.’ But if Pascal put up a fight, there’d need to be two of them. ‘It’s up to you. What about you keep right to the back? If the guy wakes, he’ll only see me. If he starts anything, you hit him with something?’

  It wasn’t a plan, but Johnny was over the roof now. The snow at the other side muffled his drop into the yard. Jake followed. He was set to jump down, when Johnny stopped him.

  ‘He’s not got a dog?’ Johnny was pointing to the plastic hood of a dog-sized trap fitted into the door.

  Jake shrugged. ‘He didn’t have – but I don’t know. I’ve not been round this way for nearly a year.’

  They stood there: Johnny in the yard, squinting at the house; Jake looking down the back path where their footprints slurred through the snow, ended at the lavvy wall, and began again
across its roof. Two pairs: Cuban heels and slingbacks. The snow carried its own light. Up on top of the outhouse, it was like Jake was caught on a stage, lit up for anyone to see.

  He turned back to Johnny. The footprints didn’t matter, what was behind them was over with.

  He dropped into the yard, close to Johnny, and said: ‘If they had a dog, it’d be barking by now. But give me your knife. If there is one, I’ll kill it.’

  ‘You’ll kill it?’

  Jake pointed to the trap. ‘The size of that, we’re not talking about a Doberman. It’ll be a terrier, and not even a Yorkie. That would definitely be barking.’

  Johnny reached inside his coat, pulling out a screwdriver and a scout knife. ‘Alright, country boy!’

  Jake took the knife and balanced it on his palm. It wasn’t what he’d wanted at the beginning, to be actually equipped. But if he was supposed to watch Johnny’s back, then it was better like this.

  Johnny was looking over the kitchen windows for somewhere to use his screwdriver, but this was a policeman’s house with locks on every handle. It was Jake who suggested climbing to the extension roof and going straight through the old windows on the first storey.

  ‘What difference will it make?’

  ‘Leaded windows – you can pull them apart without making much sound. Also, we get up and have a look, we’ll know for sure what room he isn’t sleeping in.’

  Standing on the flat roof of the extension, the window was at chest height. Johnny forced the blade of his screwdriver under the lead surround to one of the diamond lights and started working it back and forth. His fingers were raw cold, but pretty soon the lead began to slip free and the window started to buckle.

  As Johnny pulled a piece of glass free he said, ‘How do you kill a dog?’

  ‘Same way as a sheep?’

  ‘How do you kill a sheep?’

  ‘You run it over with a car, but I’m hoping I’ll think of another way.’

  Johnny ripped away at the window, peeling it back until he had a space like an imploded hole, big enough for him to slip through. Jake put the knife in the inside pocket of his jacket and followed on behind, head-first through the hole, just like Johnny. When he was half inside, half out, his hand touched a scalding radiator, and the burning jolt carried him the rest of the way. He ended head-first in the drying softness of a bedroom carpet, suddenly aware of how wet his hair and suit were, plastered in quick-melting snow.