by Keith Nixon
***
I’m not sure where I’m off to now. It’s dark in the boot of this car. I’m lying on a bed of heavy tools, there’s definitely an axe and a hacksaw in here with me. I don’t suppose wherever this car stops I’ll be having too much fun when the boot opens — all because of some fucking fish.
AN IMPERFECT ARRANGEMENT
Gary Duncan
Frank looks around the basement. All eyes on him: Rick, Michael, Eric, Alan. Eight eyes, watching him, waiting for him to do something, to say something.
He looks at the poor bastard tied to the chair. First thing he saw when he came down the cold concrete steps.
He tries not to gag. Frank’s seen some terrible things in his time — he’s done some terrible things in his time — but nothing like this. All that blood.
“Rick,” he says slowly, eventually, “tell me what the fuck happened here.”
Rick shrugs. That stupid grin on his stupid face. Rick is Bill’s boy, and that’s the only reason he’s still breathing.
Rick wipes some blood off his cheek with the back of his hand. Not that it makes any difference: the hand’s bright red from finger tip to wrist, like it’s been dipped in a tin of paint. He’s holding a knife in his other hand: a big fucking knife with a serrated edge — the kind of knife you’d use to gut a rhino.
Frank looks back at the poor bastard in the chair. The guy missing all that blood. He’s still alive. Just.
He takes a closer look. Doesn’t want to, but knows someone has to. He steps forward. Feels the squelch of blood under his boots. Gets close and leans in for a better look. Not too close though. Guy like that, guy in his state, he coughs and you’re too close then you’re going to get a face full of blood and spit and snot and fuck knows what else.
“What the fuck,” Frank says.
Something’s not quite right, apart from all that blood, and it’s so obvious it takes him a minute to realise what it is.
He straightens up, slowly, and turns to Rick.
“Rick,” he says, “where’s his fucking nose?”
***
Guy’s name is Don. Don Hudson. Don’s a low–life piece of shit, and not the brightest guy who ever drew breath. Frank used him once to shake down a fat guy in Alnwick who owed Bill two–hundred quid. Maybe Don didn’t understand the job description. Maybe he was just trying to impress. Don got a little over–excited. A little over–zealous. Seven or eight years ago now, and the fat guy’s still shitting into a nappy, still eating his food through a straw. For two–hundred quid.
Rick shuffles his feet, side to side, sheepish, like a ten year old caught with his hand in his mother’s purse.
Frank looks down at the floor, and sees it. Don’s nose. Sitting in a pool of congealed blood next to the chair leg. It’s a normal looking nose, except for the fact that it’s not attached to Don’s face.
“You cut his fucking nose off?” Frank says.
Rick nods. Looks at Frank sideways on and says, “He wouldn’t talk.”
“So you cut his fucking nose off? His fucking nose?”
“Well, yeah.”
Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Guy didn’t talk, so yeah, course I cut his nose off. What else am I supposed to do?
Frank looks up, at the hole in Don’s face where the nose used to be.
First time in his life, he doesn’t know what to say, so he just says, “Fucking hell, Rick.”
***
Rick looks like he’s about to say something, but thinks better of it. Then says it anyway.
“What we gonna do with him?” he asks, wiping more blood off his face.
Frank turns back to Don. His head’s lolled forward, his chin buried deep into his chest. Frank listens, for anything. Can hear the drip, drip, drip of a burst pipe somewhere up above, can hear his own heart thumping like it’s trying to punch a hole through his chest, but nothing from Don. Not a squeak from Don, like the poor bastard’s finally decided enough’s enough. Frank doesn’t blame him.
Rick takes a step towards him and says, “You think he’s snuffed it?”
Frank looks at Rick, at the knife.
“Put that fucking thing away before you cause any more fucking damage.”
“We can’t let him go,” Rick says. “We–”
Frank moves quickly, and catches Rick on the side of the head. Not hard, but hard enough to knock him back against the damp wall. The knife clatters to the ground and Frank scuffs it away and throws himself at Rick, rugby tackles him and starts swinging wildly, four, five, six times, missing a couple of times as Rick squirms underneath him, but connecting with something hard, Rick’s head or the concrete floor, he’s not sure which. He keeps swinging till he punches himself out and he’s being pulled away by Michael and Eric, meaty arms around him, helping him up, telling him the fucker had it coming but Christ all fucking mighty enough’s enough.
***
Frank walks out the back, hands deep in his pockets, down the path to the beach. It’s raining, proper rain, cold and heavy and coming in sideways off the sea.
He stops near the lighthouse, and shelters behind the rocks. He looks out, and can just about see the Farne Islands through the thick wall of fog.
He used to come here often, after the accident. Bill let him use the house, to get away from it all, and he used to come down here on his own and watch the waves and pretend things were different, like they used to be: just looking out to sea, for hours and hours, and hoping and praying.
He hears Michael coming up behind him but doesn’t turn around, and they both stand there in silence, watching the waves crashing against the rocks down below.
“I thought you were going to kill him,” Michael finally says.
Frank grins. Something catches his eye, just beyond the outlying rocks. They’d watched some surfers a few days ago, bunch of fucking beardy hippies, splashing around like it was the Pacific fucking Ocean and not the North Sea in the middle of fucking January.
“How is he?” Frank says. “Rick?”
Michael stamps his feet. “He’s fine. Piece of fucking shit.”
Frank turns to face him.
“I told Bill,” he says. “I told him Rick’d fuck it up.”
Frank looks up at the house. Bill’s not the richest bloke in the world, not Bill Gates rich, but he’s rich enough. Rich enough to have half a million quid of house on the beach and not even live in it.
“What about Don?” Michael asks.
“Get the boat,” Frank says.
Michael hesitates. Bill keeps a Luhrs 340, a thirty–footer, in Seahouses, a few miles up the coast.
“He’s still breathing,” Michael says.
“Get the boat,” Frank says. “Get rid of him.”
***
Bill called Frank a couple of hours ago.
“We’ve got a situation,” Bill said.
Frank knows him well enough to know the difference between a situation and a problem. A problem is fine. You fix it, nice and neat, and you move on. A situation is something else. Situations are messy and fucked up and usually end up sucking you in and shitting all over you.
“Another one,” Bill said. “Another break–in.” The third in the past three months. One of his offices down the Station Road, this time. Front door kicked in, computers smashed. More money gone. Ten grand, this time.
“Don Hudson,” Bill said.
“Who?”
“Don Hudson. Remember, few years ago, he helped us out with that fat fuck in Alnwick. You remember Don. Rick said he saw the fucker snooping around couple days ago, casing the place out.”
Frank said, “Fuck.”
“Find the bastard, Frank. Take him down to the basement and get my fucking money back.”
Frank was just about to hang up when Bill said, “Rick’s out there looking for him. Give him a call.”
Frank knew he had to choose his words carefully, so he said, “Bill, Rick’s a fucking idiot.”
Any
one else talked to Bill like that and Bill would call Frank and tell Frank to take care of it.
Bill said, “He’s my fucking kid, Frank, you think I don’t know he’s a fucking idiot?”
“He’ll fuck it up, Bill.”
Bill hawked and cleared his throat. “Just keep an eye on him,” he said. “And call me.”
***
Bill’s waiting for him in the conservatory. Big bloke standing in the doorway between the conservatory and the living room. Huge bloke, almost as wide as the door, squeezed into a tight black suit. Head like a bowling ball. Frank thinks he must be close to seventeen, eighteen stone, and not an ounce of fat on him.
Frank pulls his eyes away from him and looks at Bill. Bill’s sitting at a long oak table, a big sturdy thing that looks like it had to be airlifted into the room, a cup of coffee in front of him.
“What’s with the muscle?” Frank asks.
Bill shrugs. “Thought I’d tighten things up a bit, that’s all,” he says, staring off into the blackness beyond the conservatory windows.
Bill’s been jumpy lately, even before the break–ins, like he knows something’s in the works, and it’s starting to show, in the deep lines around his eyes, in the thinning grey hair. He’s not much older than Frank, mid–fifties, but you didn’t know him you’d put him at seventy.
Frank walks over to the coffee machine in the corner and helps himself to a cup. Bill’s coffee usually tastes like warmed up piss, but Frank fills the cup anyway, takes it over to the table, and sits down opposite Bill, oceans of table between them.
“Three fucking times,” Bill says. “Three fucking times. What the fuck’s going on, Frank?”
Frank tells him about Don Hudson. About his nose, and all that blood. Bill doesn’t say anything, just sits there looking old and haunted. Doesn’t even say anything when Frank tells him he had to kick the shit out of Rick in front of the other guys.
“Rick cut the guy’s nose off?” Bill eventually says. “Rick did that?”
Frank nods.
Bill starts to say something, then stops. Exhales, slowly, like the fight’s been sucked right out of him. Like he’s thinking, what’s the fucking point.
***
“Did the fucker say anything?” Bill asks. “Don? About the money? The ten grand?”
Frank shakes his head.
“You ask me,” Frank says, “Don’s got nothing to do with it.”
“You think?”
“You think Don could pull off something like this? You know what he’s like.” Frank raps his knuckles hard against the big oak table and says, “This table’s got more fucking sense than Don. You think Don’d put something like this together?”
“Rick said he–” Bill starts to say, but stops himself. Frank’s right, and he knows it. Rick’s his boy, his own flesh and blood, and he’d do anything for him, but he knows Frank’s right: Rick is a fucking idiot.
“Okay,” Bill says. “Say it’s not Don. Say the bastard’s got nothing to do with it, who then? Who else?”
“You want me to draw up a list?”
Bill smiles. “That bad?”
Frank gets up to refill his coffee. The first one’s left a bad taste in his mouth, though, so he pours himself a glass of cold water instead.
“Take your pick,” Frank says, turning back to Bill. “All these new guys. The Brennans, Gordon Connor, Davey Willis. They want everything and they want it now. They’re hungry, Bill.” He stops himself from saying, Like you used to be.
Bill gets up, and shuffles over to the patio door. He looks out into the night, and eventually says, “We’re too old for this, Frank. We’re too fucking old for all this.”
Time was, Bill would have been licking his lips, itching for a scrap. The Brennans? They had a good little outfit, some good guys, but Bill would have tore right through them. Would have hit them first and hit them the hardest. A message to everyone else. A warning: fuck with me and this is what happens.
But Frank looks at Bill now, at his hunched shoulders and baggy arsed trousers, and he feels sorry for him. Sorry that it’s come to this.
“It’s not too late,” Frank says, because that’s what he’s supposed to say.
“For what?” Bill says, turning.
“To hit them back.”
“Hit them back? You just said it yourself. We don’t even know who it is.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Frank says. “The Brennans or Gordon Connor or Davey Willis. Just do it now, something, before it’s too late.”
Bill walks over to Frank and puts his hand on his shoulder.
“Go home, Frank,” he says. “I’m going to bed.”
Frank gets up. The big guy with the bowling–ball head is in the doorway again. Frank thinks he might have done him a disservice earlier: seeing him again, up close, the guy’s got to be well north of twenty stone.
“Have a think,” Frank says. “About what I said.”
Bill stops at the door. “Go home, Frank. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
***
Frank takes the long way home, and stops at Kelly’s on the way there.
He finds the key under the flower pot around the back and lets himself in. Kelly’s left the light on in the hallway, dimmed as low as it can go, an old habit of hers.
Frank kicks his boots off at the bottom of the stairs, and makes his way up, stepping over the squeaky floorboard on the landing. He stops outside the first bedroom on the left. The door’s closed. It’s always closed. He reaches for the handle, rests his head against the door and shuts his eyes. He listens. It’s quiet, but he hears the voices in his head, the voices that never leave him.
He stands like that for a long time, then moves on, to the next bedroom along. Kelly’s sleeping, her back to him. When he gets in beside her, she reaches back, her warm hand finding him, pulling him in closer.
“Hello you,” she says.
“Hello you.”
She mumbles something and drifts off again, and he lies there next to her, his fingers tracing a line over the ridge of scar tissue on her shoulder.
He wants to talk to her, wants to tell her all the things he’s never told her: that he still thinks about her every day, that he still sees Dylan every single time he closes his eyes. He wants to tell her everything: the unspeakable things he did to that kid who’d taken Dylan from them, how he thought it might have helped, an eye for an eye and all that shit, but how, in the end, it didn’t make a bit of difference. Not a bit. And how, despite all that, he’d do it all again, how he wishes the kid was still alive so he could kill him all over again.
One day, he whispers to himself. One day, they’ll talk, and they’ll share their secrets, but for now, all he wants to do is close his eyes and hold on to her and sleep.
***
It’s still dark when he gets up. He knows Kelly’s awake, curled up with the duvet tucked under her chin, but he dresses slowly, quietly, and leaves without saying anything. It’s an imperfect arrangement, he knows that, and he knows they both deserve better, but for now it’s all they’ve got, and that’s good enough.
He tries to sleep again at home, on the sofa, but every time he slips away he sees Dylan and wakes with a start. Not just Dylan, but Kelly too, and that kid and Don Hudson: Don, tied to the chair and all that blood, all that blood everywhere.
***
Frank’s already showered and changed when he hears the doorbell. He checks his watch. Half–eleven. Half an hour early.
He opens the door.
“Hello, Rick,” he says.
Rick looks like he’s been hit by a freight train. Like the train’s hit him, backed itself up and hit him again and again.
Frank steps aside, lets Rick in. Frank locks the door and turns, and takes a good one in the mouth. Rick grabs him and pushes him back against the door.
“What the fuck, Frank,” he shouts, spit flying, dribbling down his chin. “We said slap me round a bit, not nearly fucking kill me.”
Frank could n
ut him, could bring his head down and shatter every bone in Rick’s nose that wasn’t already broken, but he holds his hands up in a peace offering. He’s not happy about the sucker–punch, but that’s his mistake, not Rick’s: he should have seen it coming the minute he turned his back on the little fucker.
“You’re fine,” Frank says, hands still up. “Just a few cuts and bruises.”
Rick lets go, and backs off. A gash on his forehead has opened up, a trickle of blood running down his cheek.
“Come on,” Frank says. “I’ll get you a towel or something before you bleed to death all over my carpet.”
Rick follows him into the kitchen and Frank runs a towel under the cold tap. He hands the towel to Rick, and motions towards the table. Rick sees the two brown envelopes propped up against the salt and pepper pots.
“Five grand each,” Frank says. “As agreed.”
Rick picks up one of the envelopes and checks it. Smiles, and slips it into his jacket pocket.
“Nice doing business with you,” he says, the towel pressed against his forehead. “Apart from the bit where you tried to fucking kill me.”
“I didn’t try to kill you.”
“You fucking tried to kill me.”
“If I’d tried to kill you, Rick, I would have killed you.”
Rick looks away, then at the other envelope on the table.
“Whatever,” he says. “You talked to the old man?”
“We talked,” Frank says.
“And?”
“Nearly there. We need to hit him again. Wait another couple of weeks and do it again. Another break–in.”
Rick shakes his head.
“You’re really fucking something,” he says. “All those years with the old man, you and him going all the way back, and now this.”
Frank shrugs. “What do you think we should do? Keep on doing nothing, till it’s too late? Do nothing and lose everything. All of us. You, me, everyone.”