by Paul Finch
“Mir … iam …” she stammered. Her mouth was terribly dry, her lips cracking and sticky. “She’s not …”
“Can’t tell what you’re saying, love. Miriam was Don’s mum, wasn’t she? I don’t think you should worry yourself about her at the moment.”
Berni tried to shake her head, but her neck had been totally immobilised.
“You’re clearly not yourself yet,” McAllister added. “Understandable after all the sedatives they’ve shot into you. The main thing is you’re going to be alright. But we’ll need to talk in the morning, yeah? Whoever was seen climbing through that window attacked you savagely. You sleep now, and try to remember anything you can about him.” He backtracked away across a small room. “You’re in Layburn Infirmary, by the way. That’s a long way from the Bannerwood. So you’re perfectly safe.”
Berni didn’t think she could be safe anywhere now. In fact, she knew she couldn’t.
“I’ve even got two lads out in the corridor, so nothing can happen to you. Don’s on his way too. He had to find someone to cover the rest of his shift, but he’ll not be long.”
She could no longer form speech. Her drug-addled consciousness was ebbing away.
“That reminds me,” McAllister said from the door. “I’ve had one of our PCs bring you some gear. I spoke to Don on the phone and he told me you had an overnight bag at your mother-in-law’s. Well it’s over there.”
In the corner of Berni’s fading vision, the pink-flowered shape of her holdall perched on an armchair. Frantic spittle frothed between her lips.
“You get some kip,” McAllister said, banging the door closed behind him.
Berni put everything she could into a last effort to scream his name, but it came out a barely audible whimper. At the other side of the room, the holdall’s zip was already working its way down.
God’s Fist
Paul Finch
Contents
Cover
Title Page
God’s Fist
Skelton didn’t know which one of the photographs he found the most disturbing.
The first depicted the aftermath of a brutal lynching in Serb-occupied Kosovo; a man who had been murdered by being hacked and disembowelled, had been hoisted into the air on a metal pole – several children, presumably that same man’s children, were screaming and crying and trying to console each other around his dangling feet. The second featured a murder actually in progress; it had been taken during the atrocities in Rwanda, and showed a child – perhaps no more than two or three years old – naked and curled in the dust, but shrieking with pain and terror as two men in baggy jungle fatigues and big, heavy boots, stamped it to death. The third picture was an odd one, but was explained by the rough caption someone had handwritten on the back of it: Congenitally-deformed prostitutes, Rio. It displayed a hellish backstreet slum, where two women waited idly amid the trash. One wore a very short dress and high heels, the other a halter top and tight shorts. There, the charm – if ‘charm’ was the correct word – ended. The woman in shorts had both her legs in callipers; the right one ended in a hefty clubfoot, the left tapered down to a stump at the point where the ankle should be. The woman in the dress and heels had a nice figure and shapely legs, but bizarrely, her face had sunk inward – scrunched like a deflated football. Presumably, they’d both got used to their disabilities; by their shoulder bags and saucy postures, they were touting for business.
Skelton assessed the pictures for several minutes, his heart thumping. He’d seen a lot of nasty in his time, especially during his ten years as a beat cop in one of the city’s most rundown districts, but never anything quite like this. He laid the pictures to one side, and continued to empty the filing cabinets, shoving files and folders into the various cardboard boxes. When he’d been told the narrow, dusty room was a library, the least he’d been expecting was reams of heavy books – probably video tapes and microfilm cans as well. Of course, newspaper libraries were slightly different. He should have realised that when he’d first found out where they’d be working today. Not that this operation was a newspaper as such. The Catholic Echo was a hefty broadsheet that came out weekly, but it catered exclusively to the Catholic communities of Britain and Ireland, detailing the latest developments in Church affairs, plus world news of interest to the religious-minded. The majority of the photographs in the drawers reflected this, showing groups of monks and nuns smiling, priests posing beside their altars, celebrities launching charity events, or landscape views of St Peter’s Square, Knock and the Holy Grotto at Lourdes.
Skelton looked again at the three horrific photographs.
Even a Church newspaper had to cover the real world, of course, the downside of life. There’d also been shots of dismal ghettos, discarded syringes in gutters, nervous British troops on the bombed-out Bogside streets – but these three particular images had an unsettling quality all of their own. He gazed at the prostitute with the head like a kicked-in football, at the mangled remains of the Bosnian father, the weeping, wailing children gathered beneath him. Again, he placed the photos to one side. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t throw them into the boxes with all the rest – at least, he wasn’t sure yet.
“Ray!” Jervis said, sticking his tousled head through the door. Jervis was Skelton’s foreman. “How you doing, pal?”
“Almost there.” Skelton closed a couple of the fuller boxes, and stood up.
“Good … ’cause we want to start shifting the computer gear next.”
The tousled head disappeared. Skelton glanced around the narrow room. The shelves were now bare, the bulk of the drawers hanging open and empty. The company librarian had already removed the various A, B, C, D and so on stickers from the fronts of them, as well as the posters from the walls and the sheaves of old back-copies from the rack underneath her desk. Her own personals had also been taken, which meant there was virtually nothing else in there – apart from the three black-and-white photographs.
Skelton considered tossing them into the last box, but instead slid them under his overalls.
Outside, the newsroom was alive with people bustling back and forth: removals men mainly, but also secretaries and admin girls, plus a couple of the journalists who the company management felt would be more of a use than a hindrance during the move to new premises. One of these was The Catholic Echo’s editor, Len Hoggins. His name suggested a plump, pig-like man with a mop of greasy grey hair and an irascible, middle-aged temperament. In fact, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hoggins was only in his mid-thirties, slim, a smooth dresser, and rather good-looking in a blond ‘film star’ sort of way. He was patient with his staff, polite to visitors, and of a generally amenable nature.
He was also a complete bastard – at least, that was the way Skelton felt about him. And Skelton ought to have known, having been a classmate of Hoggins’s all the way through infant, junior and finally middle school. Of course, time had rolled on since then, and Skelton and Hoggins’s paths had long since diverged, though they still recognised each other.
“Ray!” Hoggins said, stopping Skelton as he carried two of the boxes through the Echo’s old reception area. The journalist was apparently delighted to see his one-time acquaintance.
“Len,” Skelton said, also stopping.
There was a momentary silence. Skelton was well aware that his overalls and t-shirt were coated in dust, and that he was sweaty and rather bedraggled. Hoggins, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the toil and panic around him. His blond hair was combed back in a crisp wave, not a strand out of place, while his white shirt and florid silk tie looked as if they’d just arrived from the dry-cleaner’s.
“So, long time no see,” Hoggins said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” Skelton replied.
For the first time, Hoggins seemed to notice his former pal’s work-clothes. “You’re not with the police anymore, then?”
“Nah. Got tired of it.”
That wasn’t entirely the tr
uth, but Skelton certainly wasn’t going to tell Len Hoggins that it had been more a case of the police getting tired of him.
“How’s Mary?” the journalist asked.
Skelton shrugged. “Okay. I see her from time to time.”
The message of that wasn’t lost on Hoggins. “Oh dear. Trixie?”
“She’s fine. I get access once a week.”
“Sorry to hear that, Ray.”
Hoggins’s commiseration seemed genuine enough, but Skelton knew that it wasn’t. Len Hoggins was just about the most disingenuous person he’d ever met.
“It’s alright,” the ex-cop said. “Life’s a lot quieter.”
“Suppose so. Anyway … where you living these days?”
“Got a flat down Bagley End.”
Hoggins nodded, his expression neutral – clearly unsure whether further pity (because Bagley End was seven blocks of semi-derelict council tenements, and basically a junkie sewer) would be welcomed, or whether it would be deemed an insult because it openly implied that Skelton now really had sunk to the bottom of the pile. “So, this is … this is what you do, then?”
“Yeah. It’s labouring, mostly.”
“It’s certainly keeping you in shape.”
Skelton nodded. His dusty t-shirt did little to conceal his broad chest, bull neck and massive arms and shoulders. “I always liked to work out.”
“Yeah … I remember.”
Jervis approached, tapping his watch. “Ray … time, eh!”
“I’d better get on,” Skelton said.
Hoggins slapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, well … it’s good to see you again, Ray. Presumably we’ll keep running into each other while the move’s on?”
“Very possibly,” Skelton replied, moving away. “See you.”
*
That evening, when he got back to his flat, Skelton stripped down to his jockey shorts and went into the bathroom. He was thirty-five years old and stood six feet, three inches tall. He was very strongly built; according to the scales he weighed fifteen stones, seven pounds, and thanks to his dedicated fitness programme, none of that was flab. He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was still jet-black, almost oily, but at present unruly and badly in need of a trim. Thick, black sideburns ran down either cheek; the face in between them, once reasonably handsome, was now pitted and stony.
Skelton went back into his pokey little lounge. Its furnishings were sparse – an armchair, a single wardrobe, and a chest of drawers with a portable TV on top. Beside the small electric fire, there was a variety of weights and dumbbells. Skelton got to work on them straight away, breaking off only to flick on the early evening news, which wasn’t particularly uplifting. The latest batch of Middle East peace talks were floundering – the body count in the streets grew alarmingly as the region’s so-called statesmen haplessly bickered; an Iowa gun-buff had committed fourteen murders as he strode through a shopping mall, shooting people at random – later investigation revealed that he’d held his cache of high-powered weapons entirely legally; a British MP had been exposed for loitering in public toilets and behaving indecently with young men. The leader of his party had gone on air to describe the incident as “a great personal tragedy” – for the MP, not, it seemed, for his wife and kids. Skelton watched and listened in silence as he exercised, his torso gleaming with sweat, his deltoids and pectorals – already hugely developed – now bulging all the more as blood suffused them, his biceps hardening, standing out like wood, the veins showing in them as thick as cable.
Later on, after he’d showered and changed, and eaten his usual evening meal of poached eggs, fruit and rye bread without butter, Skelton called Mary. A man answered the phone who Skelton didn’t recognise; he was young, with a loutish Manchester brogue. “Yeah?”
“Is Mary there?” Skelton asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Her ex-husband. Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Okay. So is she there?”
“Er … I’ll just see.”
“You don’t need to sound so worried,” Skelton advised him. “I’m not planning on coming round.”
“I’m not worried. Why should I be worried?”
“Just get Mary. I haven’t got all night.”
When Mary finally came on, she didn’t sound particularly enamoured.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I see you’ve got company.”
“What’s that to you?”
“Nothing. I just hope Trixie’s being treated with the respect she deserves.”
“We’re not bonking next to her playpen, if that’s what you mean.”
“Glad to hear it, though it’s a pity you’re bonking at all. That dickhead sounds fifteen years younger than you.”
“Ray, have you just rung up for a fight, or what?”
“No.” He paused. “No … I just wanted to let you know I’ll be okay for Sunday.”
“You’re always okay for Sunday. Why are you bothering ringing to tell me that?”
“Perhaps I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Well I don’t want to hear yours. So if that’s it, I’ll go.”
“That’s it,” he said.
Empty airwaves buzzed in his ear. She hadn’t bothered to say goodbye.
Later that evening, Skelton walked across town to the ten-screen multiplex, where the latest Hollywood blockbuster was showing. From the very outset it was a blood-streaked ballet. Men were mowed down like watermelons, shot spectacularly to pieces, dying in elaborate patterns of slo-mo carnage. At every instant of course, the hero scowled and frowned through his commando face-paint, and shook off his bumps and bruises, and pumped his trigger finger, and threw in the odd quip, and stamped on heads and punched guys out and slashed and hacked and kicked them to oblivion, and left trails of exploding cars and buildings in his wake. The whole thing was a dazzling display of pyrotechnics, the endlessly expanding fireballs glaring red and orange on the mesmerised audience, the quadraphonic sound system thundering above, beside, below, the gunfire rattling from cinema wall to cinema wall, the very seats vibrating …
It might have been impressive, Skelton thought as he left the cinema, if he hadn’t seen it all so often before. He felt numb to that kind of thing now. He supposed it would be the same on the world’s most death-defying roller coaster. If you tested it twenty times a day, the adrenalin would soon stop pumping. Of course, if you rode it twenty times a day, you would also increase your chances of being involved in a terrible accident, as well. That was worth thinking about.
By the time he got back to his neighbourhood, the girls had started to appear: haggard scarecrow shapes on the dingy street-corners. The dealers were abroad too: dark outlines in graffiti-covered doorways. It was only ten o’clock, but drunks were in evidence, slumped against the grilled shop fronts or lying senseless on the litter-strewn pavements. There were raucous sounds from the pubs. From one of them – The Mechanics, a scummy little drinking-hole squashed under a railway bridge – a stool came hurtling through the window, curses and screams accompanying it.
Skelton ignored it all. He let himself into his flat without a backward glance. No-one in this district really knew him, but his look alone was enough to dissuade the opportunist muggers and addicts, while the crumbling block in which he lived hadn’t seen a decent burglary in several years because, let’s face it, what was in there to pinch? Of course, there were certain other creatures, in more distant parts of the city, who might well give Ray Skelton hassle, and worse. As a copper he’d never knocked on the custody office door if he could smash his latest prisoner’s face into it instead, while all his arrests – even those for minor offences – had been made with the maximum use of thumb-in-the-eye and knee-in-the-groin, because he’d always believed in leaving the toe-rags no illusion about what breaking the law on his manor meant. Yes, there were many individuals who’d be interested to know where he now lived, though the British police didn’t willingly issue
such information, not even when it concerned an officer they’d eventually, angrily, dismissed from service.
Back indoors, Skelton made himself a mug of tea, set his alarm clock for six, and then, as was his habit, turned in early. For once though, he didn’t settle down in bed with a Jack Higgins or Robert Ludlum; he settled down with three glossy black-and-white photographs. He looked at them again, hard, letting his mind wander. There were so many injustices in the world that just putting a tiny proportion of them right seemed beyond the combined powers of all the human agencies set up to serve the cause of good. There were so many instances in his own personal experience. More than once, he’d dragged the bloated, rot-riddled corpses of OD victims out from foul, flooded storm-drains, knowing full well that nobody would ever be blamed let alone prosecuted. One freezing winter, he’d broken into an old lady’s home to find the occupant on the kitchen floor, encased in ice; it was anyone’s guess how long she’d been there – only her failure to return library books had finally aroused interest. Then there’d been the turf war where several teen hoodlums had hauled a rival gangbanger up to the top floor of an eight-storey block, thrown him off, and when they’d come out at the bottom and found him still alive, had dragged him back up and done it again. That last incident had occurred in this very neighbourhood, Bagley End. Not surprisingly, no-one had ever been arrested for it, because nobody round Bagley End ever saw or heard anything.
Skelton went to sleep still staring at the photographs.
*
The transfer of The Catholic Echo from the outskirts of town to a new, more central location was completed within five days. Over the years, it had outgrown its former premises – a purpose-built but relatively small editorial centre on a suburban industrial estate – and was now relocating to the third and fourth floors of a palatial Victorian building on the city centre’s main trunk road, quite close to the railway station and, more importantly, to the borough’s impressive Catholic cathedral. There was much lugging of furniture and machinery from the backs of wagons, then up and down stairs, and into and out of lifts. It was a chaotic and physically draining business, but by the end of the week the bulk of the heavy work had been done, and come Friday afternoon the journalists and telesales girls were back at their desks, and Jervis and his removals crew were relaxing in the nearest pub.