Bucket Nut

by Liza Cody

  When he came in with the tea I was lying on my back with my feet up on the arm of the sofa.

  I said, ‘How much is standard rates?’ And then I said, ‘No don’t tell me, it can’t be enough.’

  He said, ‘You’re right. People think modelling’s easy. It isn’t. It’s a hard job, especially if you aren’t used to it.’

  He poured the tea. Did I tell you he had very nice hands? Well he did. When he was drawing his hands looked sort of useful. The rest of him might look twizzockish but his hands were useful.

  He stirred sugar into my cup and said, ‘If I don’t get any satisfaction from those solicitors, you know who you should ask?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That private detective.’

  ‘What private detective?’

  ‘Anna Lee,’ he said.

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Didn’t she find you? She was looking for that blonde friend of yours.’

  I would’ve sat up but I was too weary. ‘Her?’ I said. ‘She’s polizei.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s a copper.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She told me she was a private detective.’

  ‘You believed her?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘That night when there was all that trouble at the club, the police were there, and when the smoke cleared they questioned everyone who was left. They questioned her along with everyone else.’

  ‘They did?’ That was a new one. Polizei grilling polizei. ‘Her with the lamppost up her back?’ I asked, to be sure we were talking about the same one.

  ‘She is very upright, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. I would have to think about it. I don’t like being wrong about stuff like that.

  ‘She came to talk to me the next day. Apparently she had seen you and me in conversation at the bar earlier on. She thought I knew you.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘I told her to ask Harry. He seemed to know you.’

  ‘That was you, was it?’ I was too tired to be really narked, but he had to be told. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you better sew your yapper up with string. You don’t go round telling strangers where to find people. You don’t dob off on people you don’t know, or them same people might stuff your yapper full of your own feet.’

  He just blinked at me. He was about as bright as a twenty-five watt light bulb.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stuff a chicken at the moment. Got any more tea?’

  He poured and we drank in silence.

  Then he said, ‘All the same, she knows how to find people.’

  ‘She didn’t do too good on Goldie.’

  ‘Not yet, maybe. But she’d know how to find someone who’d perhaps changed her name.’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ I said, ‘Simone wouldn’t change her name.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘Forget I mentioned it.’

  He picked up his drawing book and pencil. ‘Stay still,’ he said, ‘just the way you are. That’s magnificent.’

  He stopped yapping and starting drawing again and I was ever so chuffed that he didn’t make me stand up because I was really butchered and I don’t think I could’ve stood up unless someone pinned me to the wall with a nine inch spike.

  Chapter 20

  When I woke up next, there I was on the sofa with my feet up. I hadn’t moved a muscle, only someone had covered me with a blanket. There was a small lamp left on in the corner and I could see without moving my head that the clock on the shelf said it was seven o’clock.

  I got up and climbed into my clothes. I couldn’t quite credit the fact that I’d spent all night in my underwear. And half the night with some stranger staring at me. Dave de Lysle was a very weird man but he seemed harmless enough.

  I slid around very quietly and found the kitchen. There was all sorts of food in there but most of it looked like hayseed, so I cut myself another big slice of his fruit cake and shoved a banana in my pocket. Then I went out.

  The milkman had already come and left a couple of bottles on the doorstep. I drank half a pint of milk to wash down the cake.

  Dave de Lysle probably thought he had got the best of the bargain – loads of time to draw his pictures for one little phone call. But look at it this way – I got supper, breakfast, and a warm bed for the night, so you tell me, who was the winner? All that, for just monging around in my singlet and knickers. What a steal!

  About fifty yards down the road I found a nice old Volvo estate just begging to be borrowed which took care of transport back to the yard. I ate the banana in the car and whistled along with the radio as I drove. I was whistling because I felt good. I felt good because the banana was ripe and sweet – neither hard nor mushy. And I sort of felt I was in the clear. Last night I had taken care of business with Mr Cheng, and I did not think he would turf me up with the polizei. Say what you want about blokes like Mr Cheng but they don’t go whining to the polizei any more than I do.

  He would know it was me. He’d know that with knobs on. And word would get round. Word would get back to Count Suckle’s people. Then they would know where I stood too.

  See what I mean? I was in the clear.

  Also, tonight was the night. Tonight, at the old Ladywell Baths I was fighting Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East. Tonight would be the first night I fought a real star. Tonight would be magic.

  Things started to go wrong as soon as I got back to the yard.

  Why do they do that? Why?

  Can’t they leave me alone to enjoy my life? I mean, what harm would it do if I had one decent day without any fuck-ups? Other people have them, so why not me? One single solitary decent day, that’s all I ask.

  Did I get it? Was I born beautiful? Same answer to both questions.

  I parked well away from the yard in a different street to the Cortina. It was funny but I had the Renault 12, the Fiat Panda, the Cortina and now the Volvo estate all within spitting distance of the yard, and the polizei hadn’t found one of them yet. All you have to do with a borrowed motor is to park it with other motors and no one will notice it. It’s trying to hide them which gets you in bother.

  All the same, I was thinking I should be a bit careful and not ride my luck. I came round the corner thinking about this. And then I saw the dogs. Those poor dogs.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I said.

  It was awful. The dogs were sort of hanging from the wire fence.

  I didn’t even want to go and look.

  We were a team – Ramses, Lineker and me. We were Armour Protection.

  I had to go and look.

  I walked slowly towards them. I should never have left them on their own. Saving my own bacon had seemed the important thing. I should’ve thought.

  But as I got closer I saw Lineker move. I ran.

  He was hanging all right, but his back legs were on the ground and he had been able to save himself from choking.

  Further on Ramses’ great body dangled from the fence. His huge neck was rolled up in a ruff round his face.

  As I approached he opened his evil yellow eyes and glared at me.

  He blamed me. I could see that at a glance.

  I raced to the gate, opened it and took a look round. The yard seemed to be empty and silent. Everything looked in order. It was just the two dogs hanging from the fence.

  I went to Lineker first. To tell the truth, although Ramses looked worse off I was worried about what he might do to me when I cut him down.

  As soon as I got to him Lineker started threshing weakly. The silly bastard was even trying to wag his stumpy tail.

  ‘Stay still, you dopey bugger!’ I growled, because he was just making things worse for himself.

  His head was in a noose and the free end of the noose was tied tight to the fence. There were scraps of sacking caught between his teeth. While I was freeing him, I realised what had happened. It’s a method of trapping animals which is in my own SAS Survival Handbook. I could do it
myself if I wanted to.

  You stand outside a fence with two sticks. On one stick you have something to attract the animal – a piece of meat or something. On the other stick you have the end of a noose. The animal puts its own head in the noose to get at the bait. Then you drag the animal towards you, the noose tightens and the animal chokes.

  With guard dogs you don’t even have to use meat. Guard dogs are trained to attack moving objects, so all you have to do is wave a rag or a piece of sacking to provoke the dog and you get the same result. But you don’t have to choke the dog. You only have to tie him up. A nice person would cut him free afterwards. There’s no need to hurt him. If he’s tied up, he can’t hurt you.

  Lineker’s throat was red raw with rope-burn. He was so weak from struggling that he dropped to the ground and lay there. I was not dealing with nice people. Whoever they were, they were not dog lovers.

  I approached Ramses with caution, but he didn’t move. He didn’t move when I cut the rope. And then I saw that on him the bastards had used wire as well. It was buried so deep in his neck that I couldn’t see it. I went to get some wirecutters and when I got back I found that Lineker had recovered enough to come over and try to lick the blood from Ramses’ chest.

  Ramses just stared at me. I didn’t like that look at all, so I made a rough muzzle with the cut rope and slipped it over his nose. You’ll think it was cruel, but I know Ramses, and the way he was looking at me – as soon as I freed him he would have torn my hand off at the wrist and used it for shredding practice.

  I supported his weight and cut the wire. I let him down slowly. I couldn’t let him go because I had to find the wire that was still round his neck.

  ‘Sit!’ I said.

  And I talked to him while I searched in the folds of his neck.

  ‘You stupid bastard,’ I said. ‘Fancy you falling for that old trick!’

  He kept looking at me with those evil eyes. Lineker was too stupid to blame me, but Ramses knew better, and Ramses is an unforgiving sod. Even when he was strangled half to death I had to dominate him or he would murder me.

  ‘You should know better,’ I said. ‘What do you think I feed you for, you great plonker? You’re supposed to be the brains of this team.’

  I got the wire off. It was only because he had enough brains to stay still that he hadn’t died. The wire had almost cut his throat in half.

  I led them back to their pen. Lineker went straight for his bowl and lapped up water like there was no tomorrow. Ramses wanted a drink too, but I couldn’t take the muzzle off him till I’d cleaned his neck.

  I went to the Static to find some cloth. And then I saw what they had done to my home. It looked like they had attacked it with an axe. The outside wasn’t too bad except for the broken glass and the smashed door. But inside! Inside was like the council rubbish tip.

  I squeezed my eyes tight shut and just stood there. The only way I could think was by shutting my eyes and not looking.

  ‘The dogs,’ I said to myself. ‘See to them first. Then you can worry about this lot.’

  I opened one eye and grabbed the first piece of rag which came to hand. Then I ran back to the dogs.

  The rag was one of my own T-shirts. I wet it and got to work on Ramses’ neck. The wound looked nasty and I cleaned it as best I could. I rummaged in my kit bag until I found the antiseptic cream. It was the same stuff Goldie had used on me the time I came back from Count Suckle’s scraped and bruised. I spread it all over his cut neck.

  ‘You fool,’ I said to him. ‘You silly old fool.’

  All the time I was thinking, if this is what those bastards did to the dogs what would they have done to me if they’d caught me?

  ‘You poor old bugger,’ I said to Ramses. I ripped a bit more off the T-shirt and tied it round his neck to keep the germs out.

  Then I had a go at Lineker, and the dumb animal tried to lick my face.

  ‘Don’t you ever learn?’ I said. ‘Look what being soft does for you.’

  I put food and fresh water out for them, and when I was ready to go I slipped the muzzle off Ramses’ nose. After all I’d done for him he still tried to snap my fingers off. You can’t blame him though, can you? Not after what he’d been through.

  He drank a little water, but he wouldn’t eat. He just slunk away into his shed to hide, poor old bugger.

  I trailed slowly back to the Static. I wasn’t feeling too bright any more. Armour Protection had taken a terrible whacking. There was only one good thing about it – this was Saturday and there was no one in the yard to see what had happened. Some of the second-hand dealers would come in at about nine, but they stayed in their nice clean area. They hardly ever strayed into the wrecker’s yard.

  I stood outside the Static shaking with rage.

  What shall I tell you first? Well, first, the bastards had found my stash. I can tell you where it was now. Why not? Everyone else seems to know.

  My stash used to be in a hole in the ground under the steps to the Static. The steps were box-steps. They looked nice and solid, but you could move them easily. I had dug a hole and lined it with polythene. A board went over the hole and the steps went on top of that.

  There had been some extra protection. The hole had been quite deep – you had to reach your arm in to get at what was inside, and while you were doing that you couldn’t see where your hand was going. If you didn’t know, your hand went straight into a small coil of razor-wire. And, if that wasn’t enough to put you off, at the bottom, on top of my stash, were two mousetraps.

  It wasn’t much comfort, but there was blood on the razor-wire and both mousetraps were sprung. Some bastard, somewhere, had a very sore hand.

  But my stash was missing. All my savings, everything I had put by to pay for new teeth, all gone. Nothing left. Not even the little gold earring Simone gave me when we had our ears pierced. Well, she had her ears pierced. I gave up after one. I have never fancied punching holes in myself anyway, and I only did it to keep her company. It wasn’t the pain which frightened me off. It was the horrible crunching sound as the punch went through the earlobe. Anyway Simone gave me one of her gold earrings because she lost the other and I only had one hole instead of two. My earlobe went septic in the end and the hole closed up, but I always kept the earring. Well, it was gold, wasn’t it? And Simone gave it to me.

  As for inside the Static – well, it took me all morning to clean up. It was such a tip that I didn’t know where to start. There was nothing that wasn’t broken, torn or dented. The bastards had even pissed on the sofa and crapped in my bed. They had written stuff on the walls, like DIE OF CANCER, SLAG, and worse things which I couldn’t possible tell you because they were so revolting. It’s funny, isn’t it, when the nicest thing someone says to you is, ‘Die of cancer, slag.’

  I solved the problem by chucking everything out and making a bonfire.

  Everything went on that bonfire, and I do mean everything. That includes my London Lassassin poster which now had extra bits of drawing and writing on it, my bed, the sofa, the curtains – everything.

  What those bastards didn’t take or destroy I burned.

  And when I was finished the Static was just an empty shell.

  I boarded up the windows and I mended the door. Then I went and broke into the paint shop – where the blokes from the yard keep the spray guns and stuff. I chose scarlet, because it went with the way I felt, and I spray painted the entire inside of the Static with scarlet car paint.

  It made me feel quite dizzy. Partly that was due to the colour, and partly it was because I shouldn’t have boarded up the windows first. I should’ve had more fresh air.

  And it looked like hell – I mean really, like hell is supposed to look. But it covered up the writing on the wall like nothing else could.

  Then I went to look at the dogs. Ramses still hadn’t touched his food, and it worried me. If he hadn’t eaten by tomorrow, I would take him to a vet.

  Then I left the yard. The bonfire was still sm
ouldering. Everything I had left was on my back. It was, in any case, everything I needed to survive. I even had a tin opener now.

  I didn’t tell you about that, did I? There just happened to be a spare tin opener in Dave de Lysle’s kitchen and I sort of borrowed it. But it seemed a long, long time ago. Hardly worth mentioning.

  Everything I had left was on my back, and it seemed to me I was right back to square one. Except one or two of the things I had weren’t exactly mine. Apart from the tin opener, I still had the keys to the Cortina. So I drove straight to Sam’s Gym to have a long hot shower.

  When I got there, I was in a funny old mood. You’d expect that, what with the morning I’d had. I felt as if I had billiard balls all up my back and in my neck and shoulders. I felt as if my head was packed from ear to ear with high explosives. I felt as if I had sand rubbed into my skin.

  So instead of having a shower straight off, I worked out. There was no one else there, and there was nothing else to do. I went from machine to machine and from weight to weight until the sweat poured. My skin leaked poison like a battery leaks acid.

  After that I had my shower. After that I almost felt clean.

  I lay on the bench in the ladies’ changing-room. It was the same bench where Goldie had sat when I told her about Simone.

  That was yesterday, but Goldie was already a stranger.

  Goldie was worse than a stranger. Goldie was an enemy.

  Because it was Goldie who sicked Count Suckle’s people on to me.

  I knew that now. I knew it because of what happened to the dogs, and most of all, I knew it because the bastards had ripped off my stash.

  Because, aside from me and Ramses and Lineker, Goldie was the only other person on earth who knew about the hole under the steps. I didn’t tell her about it, but I didn’t hide it either. And while she was staying with me I took some money out. I took money out because she needed things. When I found her she had nothing. I even bought the soap she washed with, more fool me.

  Do you like it? I do. Goldie, my friend. Goldie, my enemy.

  I counted the money in my pockets and realised I had problems. The money in my pockets was my week’s wages from Mr Gambon. Normally it would see me through till next Friday. But I had to buy stuff now. First of all I had to replace my fighting gear which included knee pads and boots.