by Bob Summer
There were loads of kids already clumped into groups and I led Stuart past them all to a table with a selection of drinks. A few of the guys said, ‘Hi’ and looked Stuart up and down but wandered away to do their thing.
I plucked out a bottle. ‘Let’s have a drink.’
We sat track-side so we could watch in case any Reds showed up and we needed to make a quick get-a-way. We passed the bottle between us. In my line of work, it’s best to keep a clear head at all times. My decision making hadn’t been great of late anyway, I wasn’t about to make it worse by adding alcohol to the mix, so sipped very little and watched Stuart relax into a happy, easy slouch. The music pounded from mega speakers hooked up to an old butcher’s van. The jockey stood on top of the roof and yelled at the girls sitting on the slab near the middle of the grass patch. ‘Let’s see you shake those toots!’
And they did. They stood and shook and Stuart’s eyes nearly leapt out of his head.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. I laughed. He looked at me and laughed back. ‘What the hell?’
‘Don’t you recognise any of them?’
He squinted. ‘Holy moly. The one in the red used to be in my geography class.’
‘We get a lot of easty girls over here,’ I said. ‘Come looking for their bit of rough.’ I nodded to the slab. ‘Tarts table, the lads call that.’
He shook his head. ‘Bloody hell. Her mum would go nuclear if she knew – she’s a right snooty cow.’
Stuart had clearly led a sheltered life. It must have been all that looking after his little sister. The alcohol went straight to his brain. Everybody watched him dance. He moved with an easy rhythm, like the tunes camped out in his bones. He grabbed my hands, ‘Come on.’ The beat travelled from his fingers to mine and when it slowed he pulled me in, his hand warm on the small of my back, and he sang hot breathy words about love and lust into my hair. A message dinged into my phone and I stood to one side. Stuart grabbed one of the girls queuing to get a turn writhing up close to him. He attracted a lot of attention and he wasn’t being choosy who he snuggled up to. So much for lying low. But he didn’t appear to be trying to impress any of them, he just wanted to move.
My message was from Joe, - Why have you not checked in? Don’t make me come over there. – Lying to Joe made me feel queasy but I texted back – All good, getting early night. - An immediate response - Stay safe x. There was no going back now. At least, not without Gemma.
Later, Stuart vomited behind a stone stack. ‘Oh Lordy, I’m sorry, Atty.’
‘No probs, mate.’
There was a shift in the atmosphere and the girls on tart’s table stood as if one. They messed with their hair and tugged to straighten their skirts. At the entrance, the lads from Shanks estate strutted in, Gav at the front, looking tall and skunky-hot like he’d just stepped out of a magazine. Leaning into him, all eyelashes and lipstick, the easty girl he claimed he’d elbowed for good. I slipped behind the stack. ‘Take it easy, Stuey. Everything’s going to be fine.’ I plugged in my earpins and tuned in. There were lots of slapping on backs and general buddy-buddy man-hugs.
‘Hey, Gav, how’re you doing, mate?’
‘We’re all good,’ said Gavin, dragging the doe-eyed blonde by her waist, tight to his chest. He leaned into her neck. ‘Sheesh, honey, it’s only ever been you I want.’
I pulled the pins and grabbed Stuart’s arm, heaved him upright. ‘Come on. Let’s get you home. We’ve an early start in the morning.’
Chapter 9
Stuart still looked a little green and grubby when I woke him just before dawn.
‘I’m so sorry.’ He held his head in his hands. ‘I don’t usually drink.’
‘Forget it.’
‘I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable, you know, all that dragging you up to dance and stuff.’
‘Stuart, shut the ducking hell up. It’s fine. I said forget it, didn’t I?’ I got real mad at myself for letting Gav do it to me. I knew he’d go back to her, so why the hell did I feel so pissed off about it? I was supposed to be playing him and still he left me feeling like a top star dumbster. But Gav being a cheating twonk wasn’t the only reason for my being so tense. I’d lied to Joe. Knowing I was no better than Gavin irked me something chronic.
Stuart stayed shut up until we got to Goldy’s house. We sat behind a wall in the grounds of a derelict looking office block, opposite his gate, with full view of his front door. No way could he leave without us spotting him.
Stuart looked me in the eye for the first time that morning. ‘What if he leaves out the back?’
‘He won’t.’
‘Oh. Okay. If you say so.’ He looked away but I caught the eye roll.
Ten minutes later, Goldy trotted down the steps and sauntered up the road. The limo pulled up at the corner, he climbed in the back, and it rolled away. The relief settled my nerves just a tad.
‘Right.’ I said. ‘I’ll go in through the back garden. You wait here and if he comes back – make sure you stall him.’
The back of the house led onto an alleyway lined with cameras. I lingered at the entrance and wiped the sweat off my face. This was a major tipping point. If I went ahead and broke into an ISS agent’s house, the Law would surely find out and then I’d be no use to Joe as a listener ever again. I’d be forever dodging and ducking and, if it proved unjustified and Gemma was with her mum, or even M Gee, and the whole thing was a massive misunderstanding after some minor communicative hiccup, I might even have to leave the county for good.
But if I didn’t do it, I’d have to go and tell Joe how big I’d messed up. And I’d lied to him already. He wouldn’t trust me again, even as a listener, and probably send me to start again elsewhere. So the same result, whatever my action. And Gemma might be in trouble and I could save her and be a hero and jump the queue for promotion - my heart thumped with the possibilities. Might as well go for it.
I took a few big breaths and walked up the alley, hands in my pockets, whistling. If I looked any more chilled my eyeballs would freeze.
Goldy lived five doors up. The wall around his back yard stood four meters tall with razor wire around the top. His back gate used to be blue but the cracked paint was spider-webbed from years of harsh Welsh wind and rain. Decay had settled along the base. I kicked at it with my boot until two slats gave way, just enough for me to get my fingers behind and yank them out. One winter of ice is all it takes to weaken a gate that old. I dropped to my belly and wriggled under like a snake. If anybody happened to be monitoring the alleys’ cameras at that moment, then I reckoned it gave me three clean minutes to do the job and get the hell out. One second over and I had every intention of dissolving into a major, frenzy-riddled panic.
The garden looked rough with neglect. A fake wishing-well stood lopsided and abandoned near the steps leading up to the door. I waded, knee deep, through spiky-sharp grass to the house. I felt the sun branding the back of my neck bubbly pink. I jumped down into the pit by the basement window, hopefully putting myself beyond range of the camera perched high on the wall under the edge of the pitch roof.
The window frame looked solid white plastic, ugly and impenetrable. The panes were at least triple glazed. They’d make out like an explosion if I hammered them in. I cupped my hands to peer through and almost whooped when I spotted the latch hanging askew and useless. Somebody had beaten me to it.
The brief image of a hooded, knife-wielding lemondropper lurking in the shadows ahead of me, flashed through my head and I swear my heart paused. But I breathed deep and forced my grit to pull itself together. Even I wouldn’t be that unlucky; I’d had my fair share of the stuff already, surely to God. I eased my fingers under the rim and prised and heaved. It gave like a dream and I scrambled through, dropping into a dusty cellar. I made straight for the inner door, noting nothing but dirt and spiders along the way. I took the stairs three at a time and came out in the passage with the kitchen to my left, front door to my right and living room opposite.
In the living room there was a massive desk parked in the bay window at the front of the house. There were papers everywhere. I scavenged through looking for anything that looked vaguely to do with children and/or boarding schools. The get-ready-to-panic clock ticked way too fast in the back of my head, synchronising with the thumpthumpthump of my pulse, loud in my ears. I tugged at the drawers, one stuck fast, guaranteed to be the one. I yanked and rattled so hard the desk jumped out of position but the drawer refused to give. Holy frickety frogging fridges. My head screamed at me to forget it, that it was a crappy bad idea, and to get the batting hell out of there. I raced to the kitchen, rifled the drawers, found a knife and ran back to poke and prod it at the lock. I screeched in frustration before the drawer slid open. Yowzy – always knew I was wasted as a listener. Something panged as I wondered if I’d ever be able to brag about this natural talent at lock-breaking to Joe.
Inside the drawer lay a folder. I opened it for a quick scout and paper-clipped to the top page, thank you all the gods everywhere, was a picture of Gemma. I didn’t stop a second longer than necessary but ran for the front door. A complicated double-slip-lock type system almost had me peeing my pants, but once I tucked the file under my armpit to free up both hands, I managed to unclick the latch and was away. Outside, I leapt the steps and legged it across the road like my bum was alight. ‘Quick, run!’
And we did. Up the street, onto the tracks, off into a field, along its edge and down into the old quarry. I heard dad whisper in my ear, Don’t look back, Atty. Run. I scrabbled down the bank towards the water, gravel rolling beneath my feet, dust clouding and sticking to my damp skin.
‘Stop!’
I stopped and sat down with a bump that rattled my teeth, panting like a dog at the races. I must have held my breath the whole way out of there. I looked back at Stuart leaning over, his hands on his knees.
‘Bloody hell, Atty. You can’t half run.’
I grinned and waved the file. ‘But I got it.’
He skidded his way down and sat so close our thighs touched. ‘Quick, let’s see.’
The file shook in my hands. ‘Is that you trembling or me?’
He laughed. ‘Bit of both I think.’ And he moved away, just a little.
I handed him the sheet with Gemma’s photo and looked at the next in the pile. I examined the picture of the girl, the same one I’d seen Goldy talking to in the park. It listed her details as twelve years old, her address somewhere over the east side. So he’d got her after all. The next page put my nerves right on edge. The podgy, smiley baby in the snapshot looked the spit of Fran’s. The address confirmed it. I read on as Stuart’s arm tensed beside mine. There were minutes of a meeting and numbers. It didn’t make sense. ‘What does it all mean?’
Stuart’s jaw twitched. His warm, clean, twinkly, blue eyes turned an icy grey. ‘The git. The dirty, selfish, scheming git.’
‘What?’
‘My dad sold her. Sold Gemma. Look.’ He pointed to a signature next to a number big enough to buy the whole of Shanks estate.
I looked back at the paper in my hands. Carl’s signature, next to a sum of £300,000. Under that another signature, supposed to be Fran’s. But I knew Fran’s writing and that wasn’t it. It was her name, but in somebody else’s hand, maybe - no, probably - it was Carl’s.
I’d been mad angry before, of course I had, everybody knows what it’s like, but the anger that I felt towards Carl exploded bigger than anything I’d ever experienced before. It slammed huge and uncontrollable into every nerve and muscle of my very being. Tunnel vision, red haze, black hole, whatever. I knew, without doubt, Carl would pay, my head cleared and my mind focused into one stripped-clean thought – kill Carl. I scrambled back up the side of the quarry and strode west towards the toxi-plant.
Stuart followed, prattling away. ‘Where are you going? You can’t go back there. We have all we need now, look, we know where Gemma is. You said you’d help.’
But nothing and nobody was going to stop me.
Carl had worked at the toxi-plant since baby Stacey had been born. He didn’t get the job because he was smart, but because fathers took priority whenever a position came free. The chance to earn money was probably why he stuck with Fran and Stacey in the first place.
The bloke on the gate answered pleasant enough, if abrupt. ‘Carl James? Not turned up for a couple of weeks. Lost it now, plenty of others needing work …’
I walked away.
There are only two pubs left in the west, both are twenty-four-hour fleapits. The first I headed for not only sold alcohol, but the local addicts their lemondrops.
Stuart held my arm. ‘Atty please, stop. You can’t go in there. Jesus no. Please, Atty.’
I shrugged him off. ‘Keep back, Stuart. I swear I’ll rip your face off if you get in my way again.’
He let go and stopped at the entrance.
I stood inside the door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. There were several lads sitting at a table in the corner, an old man at the bar, and a couple of creepy guys in old threadbare suits at a table by the back door. None were Carl. I searched the ceiling for the inevitable camera.
A barman with a beer barrel belly came through a door to stand behind the bar. He looked me up and down, slack-mouthed and dull-eyed. ‘What can I do for you, love?’
One of the lads in the corner said something which made the others laugh.
‘I’m looking for Carl James, worked down the plant, blonde, ugly like a pug.’
The old man snorted, ‘Ain’t what he claimed, is she?’ He chortled until he coughed - a phlegmy smoker’s hack. ‘You Fran? He told us you were hot.’
I kept my eyes on the barman. ‘Has he been in lately?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘Seen a poncy guy in a suit about? Gold tooth?’
He put his hands flat on the bar and gave me the look all blokes did when they didn’t want to answer a straight question. ‘And what’s it to you?’
I smiled. ‘Cause he’s got ISS Approval.’
He stood straighter, his face greyed out, and he twisted a tea towel between his hands. I looked at the lads in the corner who had fallen quiet and were listening good and hard.
‘Yep, an Approved ISS agent. Hope you were all on your best behaviour.’
One of them glanced, he didn’t move his head just his eyes, towards the bottom corner of the bar. I walked down the length and there, crouched in the corner, sitting on his heels, looking like some little kid who’d just shat his pants, was Carl. He stood and smiled, smiled. The group behind me jeered, one said, ‘Oops, caught red-handed, mate.’
Carl squirmed a little and smiled again. ‘Hi, Atty. How’re −’
‘Did you forge Fran’s signature? Sign the baby away?’
He shot a look at his mates and shrugged. ‘Seemed for the best.’
My fist connected with his face, clean and sharp. His eye socket popped, my second knuckle squelched into the soft tissue behind his cheek bone, his head jerked back, cracking his neck and he got sent onto his scrawny arse.
‘Get up. Get up!’ I yanked at his hair, trying to drag him to his feet. ‘Call yourself a man, a father? You useless heap of freaking crap. Get up!’
He grasped at my wrist trying to support his weight. I raised my knee and slammed it into his face, putting all the force of my grief for Fran behind it and blood and snot spattered in all directions. I flung him sideways. He crashed into the table, glasses flying, blokes stepping back, ‘Jesus Christ she’s gone mental.’
I looked at them. My teeth ached with mad fury. ‘Too fannicking right I have.’
And that’s when Gavin walked in the door. He stood staring at me, mouth open. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
The barman grabbed me from behind. ‘Out.’ I dropped to a crouch. He let go. I leapt to my feet, span around thrusting the heel of my hand into his jaw, his teeth slammed shut. I threw my left fist into his throat and ground my heel i
nto his right shin. Hard.
Hands grabbed from all directions, pinned my arms to my side and dragged me kicking and screaming to the door. I spat at them all, the barman on his knees, Carl on all fours bleeding into the broken glass, and Gavin watching from the corner with his mouth drooping open.
When the men got me outside they dragged me down the alley alongside the pub, behind the crates and threw me to the ground. I leapt up and they knocked me down. I tried again and again but each time they knocked me back a little harder. My lips grew tight, my nose turned numb, and my eyes transmitted everything through a tunnel of red.
Then it stopped. Stuart stood square in front of me, legs spread, fists clenched. Calm and solid. ‘Leave her alone.’
‘You need to rein her in, mate.’
‘And you need to take yourself off, mate.’
They laughed, ‘Oh do we? Take ourselves orff, eh?’ But the laughter became fainter as they turned and wandered away.
Well, who’d have thought?
Stuart knelt next to me. Those huge hands, so gentle, picked the dirt out of my face. ‘Bloody hell, Atty. What have they done to you?’
Chapter 10
When I woke the skin on my face felt like it had been stretched tight like a drum and every inch of me flamed red hot. And oh sheesh did everywhere ache, deep into the marrow of my bones. I flinched and squawked when I tried to sit up.
‘It’s okay, Atty. You’re okay.’ Stuart eased me back into a lying position. ‘You need to rest for a while. Wait there, I’ll get you a drink.’
My thick tongue and lips wouldn’t work properly and I dribbled the water down my chin. It tasted nasty anyway, like warm rusty iron. ‘Where are we?’
‘In a beach hut. I didn’t know where else to go.’
A torch hung from the ceiling and beamed a weak ring of light onto the dry sand. ‘What time is it?’