The Family Man

by T. J. Lebbon

  She only hoped it was the most any of them had to pay.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said.

  ‘Em, I’ve been thinking. We should call the law. It’s not about me and prison, never should have been. It’s about you and Daisy. That’s all it’s about. You have to be safe, and if something happened … if anything …’ He turned away, a bloody tear leaking from his damaged eye.

  ‘Just keep still and quiet,’ she said. ‘Let the painkillers take effect. I’ve been doing some thinking too, and I’m afraid.’

  ‘’Course you are.’

  ‘No. I’m afraid that if we call the police now, that won’t be the end of it. They arrest you and Andy. Question you, put you on trial, you both go to jail. Maybe I go as well, for aiding and abetting a bank robber.’

  ‘Mum, it was a post office,’ Daisy said, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Of course it was. So, you two go to jail. Maybe me too, leaving Daisy with who? My father?’

  ‘God forbid.’

  ‘Right. And what about Andy’s family?’

  ‘We tell the police.’

  ‘And what? They catch them?’

  Dom frowned, wincing as the cut beneath his eye pouted.

  ‘I get it,’ Daisy said. ‘Mum’s right. We don’t know where they are, and if they’re as bad as Andy says, you know, always doing stuff like this, they’ll be hiding.’

  ‘They’re always hiding,’ Emma said. ‘That’s how they live. They’ll just melt away.’

  ‘For a while,’ Dom said, and she saw realisation dawn. She hated how it made him look, because she saw her own terror in his eyes. He glanced at Daisy.

  ‘They’re inhuman,’ Emma said. ‘What they did to that postmistress, her granddaughter. Horrible.’

  Daisy was quiet. She looked back and forth between them, eyes wide and desperate as if her parents were already being dragged away from her.

  ‘I’m only ten and eleven months,’ she said. ‘I know what’ll happen to me. Foster home, or adopted, or something. I don’t want to lose either of you. We’re a team, right, Dad? That’s what you always tell me.’

  ‘We’re a team,’ he said, nodding through the pain. He held out his hands. Daisy took one and Emma took the other, squeezing tight.

  ‘We’ve got to see what this Jane Smith woman suggests,’ Emma said. ‘She might have an idea. A plan that doesn’t just involve running.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And Dom …’ She waited until he looked her in the eye, focussed, all his attention on her. ‘Andy doesn’t factor in our future. We’re what matters. Daisy, me, you. Our team. You understand?’

  ‘Way ahead of you there, babe,’ he said.

  ‘Where is he?’ Daisy said. ‘I’m starving.’

  Emma leaned in and kissed Dom, then gave Daisy a hug. ‘Check in my desk where you found the painkillers. Should be some wet wipes in there. Give your dad’s face a wash, but be gentle.’

  ‘Wet wipes are for babies’ bums!’

  ‘Well, your dad is an arse.’

  Daisy giggled while she searched, and Emma went to the door, opened it carefully, and peered out into the dark corridor. She couldn’t see much. On the ceiling, two smoke alarms emitted very faint glows that gave the corridor a bluish haze. It was just enough by which to see, and she left her door ajar so that some of the lamplight spilled out.

  ‘Andy?’ she whispered. She headed along the corridor, and at the first junction she peered around at the bank of vending machines further along. Andy stood there, the glow of his mobile phone lighting his face. He looked up and caught her eye.

  ‘Jane Smith,’ he said. He pocketed the phone and scooped chocolate bars and crisps from the vending machine’s well. ‘Give me a hand?’ He nudged at the plastic bottles and cans lined at his feet.

  Emma helped him carry the food and drinks back to the office. Their footsteps sounded too loud in the darkness, the rustle of crisp bags and tink of tin cans echoing along corridors more used to bustle and chatter. It was a strange, haunted place at night.

  ‘Well?’ she asked as they entered her office.

  ‘She’ll be here soon, couple of hours,’ Andy said. He smiled as he popped the ring on a can of Coke. ‘Don’t worry, Em. You’ll like Jane Smith. She’s hard too.’

  Emma turned her back on him and sat on the coffee table again. As Daisy dabbed dried blood from Dom’s face, Emma ate a bar of chocolate, trying to forget that Andy was even there.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hired Help

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Kidding how?’ Sonja asked. She was sitting on the car bonnet, smoking, wrapped in a heavy ski jacket. She always appeared to feel the cold, even on nights like this.

  Lip nodded at the two men who’d brought him here. Well, one man and a kid. He can’t have been more than twenty. With youth came attitude, and he was the one to step forward, chin jutting.

  ‘Roman, don’t be a prick,’ Sonja said. ‘He’d have you for breakfast.’

  ‘Not hungry,’ Lip said. ‘Where’s Mary?’

  ‘Here.’ She emerged from the shadows.

  They were parked beside an old stone barn, walls standing strong but roof holed and rotted away. The road leading past the barn was narrow and rough, rarely used, but even so they’d parked out of sight. Starlight silvered the rolling landscape beyond, a gentle hillside sloping down into a wide valley. A few lights sparked here and there, distant and flickering in the heat. All was quiet.

  ‘Okay?’ Lip asked.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  She wore shorts and a vest top, and its left strap was torn and speckled with dried blood. Her shoulder and upper arm were bandaged. But he knew it wasn’t the pain dealt by shotgun pellets that was upsetting her. He saw no self-pity in her eyes, only rage. They glimmered. But he had never seen Mary cry, and she did not break that habit now.

  She stood close and leaned against him, and Lip held her around the waist. She was hot and tough, coiled like a wild animal. To him, she always felt like violence ready to explode. He guessed that was why he’d stayed with her far longer than he’d ever intended.

  ‘So they got away from you?’ the other hired help asked. After ten minutes in their souped-up Subaru – about as inconspicuous as a hard-on in a nudist colony – Lip already knew far more about this streak of piss than he wanted. His name was Callum, he was originally from Edinburgh, he was thirty-four and claimed to have murdered four men, the first when he was seventeen. His wife killed herself seven years ago when he was inside for aggravated assault. They’d had a kid together when they were in their twenties, but she’d been removed by social services. He had no interest in tracking her down. He loved Scotland, hated England, and liked hurting people for money. He didn’t drink or smoke, but he enjoyed recreational drugs.

  He’d worked with Sonja several times before, the last time five years ago when the Scott gang turned over a security van in Melton Mowbray. He enjoyed heavy metal, but not American music. He liked raw burgers. Blah blah. Lip had tried to shut out the continuous chatter but it had filtered through, subliminal bullshit.

  ‘So you’re a murdering child-abusing junkie who can’t keep his mouth shut,’ Lip had said, the only words he spoke during that ten minute journey. He hadn’t even opened his eyes. Callum had fumed in the driver’s seat, but nothing had happened.

  ‘They got away from me,’ Lip confirmed, speaking slowly. He stared Callum down. It was easy. He’d never met anyone who could meet his gaze for long.

  ‘They’ll have gone to ground,’ Sonja says. ‘But they’ll still be close. Andy won’t run, not yet. He hit the post office because he knew we were looking at it. Somehow.’

  ‘Fucking weasel,’ Mary said.

  ‘He did this?’ Lip asked, touching her shoulder. She flinched.

  ‘Who else?’ she said.

  ‘Not a very good shot,’ Lip said.

  ‘Only broke the skin in a couple of places. He’ll regret missing.’

 
‘So how did he know?’ Lip asked. ‘He’s been gone three years. Strange that he pops up now.’

  ‘Someone fucked up,’ Sonja said. ‘Sent an email, did a web search, something like that.’ She looked at Mary. Then Lip. She grunted. ‘Probably Frank. Never the brightest flower in the bunch, bless him.’

  They were silent for a while. Sonja smoked, lighting a new cigarette with the butt of the old. She might have been in her seventies but she was still sharp and strong, and Lip held a grudging respect for her. In some regards, at least. She knew how to run what they did, keeping them below the radar. She even thought she was in charge. But Sonja was no fool, and he knew that she understood his place with them. He was there because it suited him. Mary was a nice distraction, but little more than that. He’s shown them the landscape of his true desires, mostly in isolated incidents since just before Andy had fled.

  At the post office he had let that landscape erupt, bloom, and reveal itself in its full glory.

  By then, he knew that Mary, Frank and Sonja would barely blink. He had been right. Mary especially had revelled in the act, wielding the brick with glee.

  ‘So why these two?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve worked with Cal and Roman before,’ Sonja said. ‘They enjoy what we have to do. They’re good at it, and trustworthy.’

  ‘And cheap,’ Roman said. Lip guessed he was Greek, though his English was good. He must have been living in the UK for some time. They came as a double act, and that worried him already. He saw no talent in them, little style or pride, only bluff and bluster. The fact that he’d spotted them in seconds in the town square only displayed their carelessness.

  ‘Cheap,’ Lip said, nodding slowly.

  ‘Lip, this is what’s happening,’ Sonja said. ‘Just until we get Andy. He can’t be left now, not after what he’s done. You know that.’

  ‘He’s really your son?’ Cal asked. His smile was ugly.

  ‘He’s really my son.’ Sonja went to draw on her cigarette, looked at it, flicked it away with a sigh. ‘Fruit of my loins.’

  ‘Nice family dynamic,’ Roman said. Cal nudged him, but the Scot was still grinning.

  ‘We should be away from here,’ Mary said. That surprised Lip. He thought she’d be burning to avenge Frank. He’d never liked the big man, thought him stupid and aimless, but Mary had a soft spot for him.

  ‘We will be soon,’ Sonja said. ‘Just as soon as my Andy’s dead.’

  ‘And the others,’ Lip said. Even thinking of them excited him. The man, his face darkened by the rock Lip had heaved. The girl, all limbs and youth. The woman. She was strong; he had almost smelled the motherly instinct seeping from her as he’d chased them through the streets. They had become a challenge. He had never backed down from a challenge.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Cal asked. Eager to go, Lip saw. Itching to move. No caution, only impulsiveness and hunger for the hunt. He was probably the stupidest of the two. Roman was quieter, and that meant he saw more, didn’t cloud his judgement with unnecessary chatter. They made a strange team. Maybe they were lovers.

  ‘I can find out where they are,’ Lip said. He stared at Sonja, and it was a full ten seconds until she glanced away.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Mary, you stay with me. We’ll scan the police channels, try and pick up any sign of them. If they keep driving around in a car like that, they’ll soon be reported. You two, walk the streets.’

  ‘Walk?’ Cal asked.

  ‘Stay in the town. Leave the car, it’s a fucking eyesore. Keep an eye on their house, just in case they’re stupid enough to come back. Check in with me every thirty minutes.’

  ‘All our weapons are in the car.’

  ‘Idiots,’ Lip muttered. They heard; Cal stared at him. He didn’t care.

  ‘Come here,’ Mary said. She grabbed his hand and pulled him after her, heading around the parked car and towards the darkness inside the dilapidated barn. They passed under the heavy lintel and inside. Creatures scurried away, rustling through the brambles and undergrowth clogging the building’s interior. Mary pulled out her phone and used it to guide their way.

  Lip let her lead him. But he was eager to go, keen to pursue what he knew was a remote chance at best. Because it held the promise of pleasure. His life consisted of blank periods filled with the white noise of existence, when mundanity ruled and he did little more than exist. Wake, eat, move through the day, drink, fuck, sleep, repeat. But sometimes, opportunity called and he truly lived. At the post office he had come alive, and he was hungry for what the immediate future might bring.

  Mary stopped, turned around and embraced him. She rested her head on his shoulder, squeezing tight.

  ‘I can’t believe Frank’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t believe you both let Andy get the better of you.’

  She pulled away. In moonlight, he saw the true landscape of grief on her face and realised why she’d brought him here. She didn’t want to be seen as weak.

  ‘You’re not at all sad about Frank, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m crying on the inside.’

  ‘How would I ever know? You wear a mask. You’re faceless. You don’t even have a come-face. What guy doesn’t have a come-face? If I didn’t like it on my belly, I’d never even know when you were done.’

  He tried to care, tried to figure out how he could say something to please her so they could be on their way. But he was a man of few words, and those he did share were rarely false. Life was as he wanted it; he saw no need to lie.

  ‘Jesus, Lip.’

  ‘I need to go,’ he said. ‘Time’s ticking. Sonja might be wrong, they might be running.’

  ‘You don’t believe that.’

  Lip shrugged.

  ‘Jesus.’

  He said no more. Mary pushed past him and walked back to Sonja and the hired help. Lip remained there for a while, looking up at the stars through holes in the roof. He really didn’t care about Frank, but he did welcome the consequences of his death. The fury and grief felt by Sonja and Mary.

  The need to deal more death in return.

  It sounded like they were screwing. Animal grunting sounds, small cries from her, the rhythmic creaking of bed springs. It would have been better if they were asleep, but Lip didn’t really care. At least their mutual rutting sounds covered any creaking stairs or rustle of clothing as he climbed the staircase towards them.

  The family’s car was still in the driveway. He’d taken a cursory look inside, then circled around to the rear of the house once again. He’d already crossed that garden once, only several hours before. It had taken him two minutes to lift one of the patio doors out of its track and snip its locking mechanism. No dogs barked. No lights flickered on.

  On his way through the dark house he had looked for weapons. He carried what he had chosen in his right hand.

  He paused on the landing and listened to the sound of flesh on flesh, the man’s whispering, urgent and sibilant, too quiet to make out. The woman’s frequent cries, high and sharp. Bed springs creaked, and a heavier knocking sound matched their rhythm.

  Lip was not at all aroused by the sounds of sex, nor the anticipation of seeing these strangers coupling. His excitement came from the promise of violence.

  He slipped into the room and quickly assessed the situation. The bed was against the left wall, offering him a side view of the couple. She was face down, looking away from the door. He was hunched over her, sheet still covering his rump.

  Lip stood close to the bed and held the sheet, whipping it smartly away.

  They continued for a while, lost in what they were doing, or perhaps both thinking the other one had pulled the sheet aside. It was hot, after all. The room was heavy with musty sweat.

  Lip hefted the object in his hand, then swung it hard at the man’s head. The man grunted and fell to the side. The woman looked at him, turning on her side, perhaps thinking he had finished or wanted to change position.

  Lip used their momentary confusion
to walk around the end of the bed and strike the man again. The hardback book he’d chosen was heavy and thick, and after several impacts he felt the front cover tear away. The man grunted with each strike, so shocked that he didn’t even bring his hands up to protect his face or head.

  Lip stepped back, book raised ready to strike again.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman shrieked. One hand sought the sheet to cover herself, but it was on the floor. She sat up against the headboard, knees drawn up and one arm across her breasts. Lip didn’t care. He wasn’t looking at her.

  ‘I need to know where Emma and her family are.’

  ‘Emma? What? Who are you?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Lip asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  Lip struck the man again, aiming for his crotch this time with the edge of the heavy book. The man gasped, curled into a ball, and it took a few seconds for him to start groaning again. Strange, how ecstasy and agony could sound so similar.

  The room stank of sex and alcohol, fear and sweat. For Lip, his focus was the moment, every sense absorbing the here and now. Beyond this darkened room where frightened shadows writhed there was nothing. Outside the walls, reality had faded away. The book was a solid thing, slick with sweat or blood. Every breath, every heartbeat, fed him.

  ‘Mandy,’ the woman said.

  ‘Mandy. I need to know where Emma and her family are. Your friend Emma was here earlier with her daughter. I want to speak with them.’

  ‘I don’t … I came home and …’

  Lip went at the man again. Head, shoulders, crotch, stomach, the book thudded and slapped down. This time, the man made some effort to protect himself. He tried to kneel, and Lip smacked the book into his throat. He threw a punch, and Lip swung the book up and connected with his wrist, hearing the delicate crack.

  ‘Please!’ Mandy said.

  ‘Please what?’ Lip’s voice was soft. He never got out of breath. He was too much in control for that.

  ‘Please, stop,’ she said.