Graven Image

by Williams, Charlie

  I’m no fool.

  I know that an Uzi and a derelict estate don’t add up to a bright future.

  11.

  Don’t panic. You can deal with neds.

  ‘What’s you got?’ said Sid, the leader. He was ten or so yards off, his homies flanking him like bodyguards, Uzi trained at my knees.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. Truthfully. ‘But you know that, right? You frisked me already, right?’

  They looked at each other, hissing quiet blame.

  ‘Look, you might as well get on with it. No one’s here to stop you. Gimme what I got coming, eh.’

  ‘Hold your horses, nigger,’ said Sid.

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Yeah, but... I mean, I thought it was OK to—’

  ‘You wanna say that word to me again, white boy?’

  ‘I don’t mean it like that! I’m saying it in the good way. You know, the way you’re allowed to say it. Like NWA - niggers with, erm...’

  I turned and started walking towards the nearest building - an old metal castings plant, I think.

  ‘Oi! Where’s you—?’

  ‘You wanna do it inside,’ I said. ‘Out here in the open, you never know who’s watching.’

  I carried on in there, smirking a bit. I couldn’t believe what twats these were. If that’s the level Graven was operating at, I’d been overestimating him. He still had my Kelly, though. As long as he did, I’d tread careful.

  They followed, bickering.

  I marched on, walking faster all the while. If they didn’t keep up, I was going to walk on through the building and out the other side. Probably find some kind of rusted old machine edge around here to break these cuffs. Then they’d have some explaining to do when they got back to Graven.

  ‘Mate!’ one of them shouted. ‘We... we ain’t gonna kill you. We just wanted to shit you up, like. ’Cos of you roughing up Dux, in the abbey.’

  ‘You’re not gonna shoot me?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. It’s Dux - he can’t fight his own battles.’

  ‘Oi!’ shouted Dux. ‘That ain’t true!’

  ‘Yes it is! You said he was a massive cage fighter!’

  ‘I... I just said...’

  ‘And you never told me he was a brother! I ain’t pluggin’ no br—’

  Sid stopped there because I was coming right at him, slowing up not a bit as I bore down on his ass, as he would put it. A change of tactics, this was, in light of how useless these lads were turning out to be. Why break off my cuffs when I could get them to do it with a bit of intimidation? He jumped out of the way but I kept after him, surging on at a steady pace.

  ‘Oi!,’ he was whining, ‘I’m your mate! It’s me who saved your life here!’

  ‘Take these cuffs off, then.’

  ‘Alright! Just stand still, OK? Right, that’s good. Dux - get his cuffs off.’

  He chucked some keys at Dux and pointed the gun at me.

  ‘We shouldn’t let him go,’ said Dux. ‘He’ll turn on us.’

  ‘I’ll plug him if he does.’

  ‘You said you don’t plug brothers.’

  ‘Just undo him!’

  Dux went behind me. Took him over a minute to get the key in the hole, he was shaking so bad. I stared at a dot on the wall the whole while, thinking about Kelly and imagining the dot was her, far away but I could just about see her. Then the dot started moving, and eventually flew off, looking for other cockroaches or whatever it was.

  Soon as the cuffs were off I went after Sid. He aimed at me but didn’t have the balls to fire. I’d judged him correct there. When I finally cornered him he dropped the gun and put his hands up, crying.

  ‘Please, I swear I never meant to—!’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘What? Please let me go and I’ll—’

  ‘Where’s Kelly.’

  ‘I dunno no Kelly!’

  ‘Tell me where she is and I’ll let you live. Don’t, I’ll gut you with a big knife. It’s that simple.’

  I don’t know why I’d said that about a knife. I didn’t even have a pen-knife on me, let alone a big one. I picked up a bit of corroded iron and moved in.

  ‘P-please! Don’t kill me!’

  His face was soaking wet with tears and snot. He put his arms over it but I yanked them down, scanning his head, looking for the softest spot to plant the sharp end. To me he was no longer a person, just a piece of work I had to do.

  I could sense his two pals behind me, both a long way off and staying that way. Treacherous little bastards, standing by and watching their pal get dispatched. I ought to do them instead of this one. He should ditch them and get some proper friends. Friends who watch your back, fight your corner and never let you down.

  Friends like Darren.

  12.

  Darren. Ah, where are you, Darren?

  There had never been many times when I’d had to ask that question. He was just there, Darren was, making sure you’re never alone when you don’t have to be, giving you a strong arm when you needed it or a laugh when you wanted to share one. He had a funny laugh, actually, Darren did. Jane used to say it sounded like a seal, and if she closed her eyes she could picture him trying to clap his little flippers together. We had a chuckle at that. All of us, including Darren himself, flapping his flippers. That was Darren for you. He could have a laugh.

  But he knew when to take things serious, too.

  I can’t even remember when we first met. If you live in one place your whole life, there’s always going to be someone you can trace right back to the start. You went to school with him, play-school before that. Your mums used to get together for a yak, leaving you two toddlers to wrestle for dominance on the carpet. They brought you into this world within an hour of each other, in the same maternity ward.

  Even when Darren went away at eighteen we stayed close. Things were quiet at first but I’d send him little parcels with food and mags and CDs, and he’d write letters. He’s got into a fight in a bar in Belfast and broke someone’s leg. He’s got a girl up the spout in Bosnia but she thinks he’s an American called Marlon. He’s just done his first kill. I’ve still got that letter. Still got all his letters.

  Somewhere.

  He wanted me to come when he went to join up. Be a laugh, he’d said. Guns, action... seeing the world. We can leave this town behind us, sweep away all the trouble and bad feeling and get back to what’s important: mates, loyalty, living life to the full and experiencing new shit every day. And I wanted to go, really I did. I knew he was right and that we were both perfect for the army. But he knew I was right as well. He must have. I was getting married. Jane was pregnant with Kelly. I was doing my HGV license. Darren had one life in front of him and I had another.

  It was hard to face that at the time. Harder for him, I think. I could see his point of view. In a way, I think he was jealous. I mean, I’m not thick. I could see he still held a candle for Jane.

  I couldn’t worry about that. She was with me now. You ditch a girl, you lose your rights over her.

  But you don’t let that stuff get in the way of friendship, do you?

  13.

  ‘I can get you stuff.’ Plausible deniability.

  That’s what they do with the US president. Don’t tell him about all the bad stuff so he doesn’t have to lie about it when reporters come sniffing. Any bad shit goes down with a US government stamp on it, the Prez stays clean and fragrant. That’s what you had here, going the opposite way down the chain of command.

  ‘I can get you herb, solid, skunk. You want a brick? I can get you one. I got smilies, bennies, mitsubishis, glass—’

  ‘You swear on your mum’s life you never heard of Graven?’

  ‘I do swear it, mate. This Graven shit is a new one on me. Does it bring you up or down? Sounds like a downer. Hey, you want skag? I can get you—’

  ‘Graven is a person,’ I said, looking out the window. The world was pitch black. ‘A bad person.’

 
‘Shit, he sounds like one. And he’s got this Kelly, you say?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions, you’re answering them. Right? And driving. Keep your eyes on the road.’

  ‘No probs, mate. I’m just glad to, you know...’

  ‘Be alive, I realise that.’

  I was in the front this time. The other two lads were in the back, cuffed together. I’d threaded the cuffs through the armrest to keep them still. I didn’t trust them. Anyone who can sit by and watch his pal potentially get killed with a rusty iron bar is a wrong ’un in my book. But they had time to learn. These lads couldn’t have been more than two years older than Kelly. Could be they even knew her. They’d better not, though.

  I had higher hopes for her than that.

  ‘I ask you summat, mate?’ Sid was saying, coming off a roundabout into the dual carriageway. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Thought I told you I was asking the questions?’

  ‘I know but, you know, you ain’t asking none.’

  He smirked at me. He wasn’t so bad, this one. Bit confused about his racial heritage, though. I told him a bit about myself. I had nothing to hide.

  ‘Brothel bouncer?’ he said, speeding up a bit to overtake a truck. ‘You serious? That sounds like a smart job, that. You hear that, Gnash? Hey, do you get to shag all the toms?’

  ‘It’s about protection, not exploitation,’ I said. ‘They get enough of that in their jobs.’

  ‘I heard about one of them, recently,’ Gnash was saying. ‘Brothel bouncer? Where’d I hear about a brothel bouncer?’

  ‘I’m the only one in town, pal,’ I said. ‘And I’m on sabbatical, you could say.’

  ‘Hmm... You know, I think I might remember where I—’

  ‘Enough questions, right?’

  I turned around. It was so dark you couldn’t see their faces on the back seat, just the shape of their bodies, chained at the wrist like they were holding hands. ‘You two twats heard of Graven or what?’

  Two heads shaking fast.

  Plus mine, but weary and slow.

  ‘Don’t you know nothing about what goes on around here?’ I was saying. ‘Don’t you wanna know who runs things? Who’s sitting on top of the pile?’

  Their shoulders shrugging.

  My fists clenching.

  ‘It’s Booker,’ Dux was saying. I’d made sure it was his right hand in the cuffs. He was the little one but you had to watch him closest. ‘Booker runs everything around here. Got guns and everything.’

  ‘Yeah, and he’s a cunt!’ shouted Sid, almost swerving off the road.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Sid! Don’t say that!’

  ‘Why? He can’t hear me, can he? And he is a cunt! Give it a year and he’ll be out of here. No, he’ll be in the fuckin’ ground, that’s where he’ll be. I’ll put him there meself!’

  ‘My my,’ I said. ‘Such ambition.... I’m impressed.’

  ‘He don’t mean it,’ said Dux. ‘He’s just pissed off ’cos Booker stole his bird.’

  ‘I fuckin’ do mean it! Yeah, alright, I am pissed off about Fiona. But that ain’t it. Booker’s just a piece of shit with a couple of hard mates. Take them two away and he’s nothing! You gotta see that, lads.’

  I was still shaking my head. The ignorance of youth. If they only knew that this Booker was just another link in the chain of command, another rung on the ladder that had Graven at one end and these twats at the other. Mind you, I was worried now. Working at Destiny, I’d never come across firepower. I had no idea it was so rife. And if ground troops like this Booker had it, I needed it too. I turned to Sid.

  ‘You know you said you can get me stuff?’

  14.

  A BB gun. A plastic fucking BB gun.

  And there was me, calling it an Uzi.

  I’ll just pause for a minute while you have a good laugh.

  Finished?

  I got the neds to drop me off by the abbey, not far from where this whole affair got moving. I thought about going in there and checking out that stained glass again, have a closer peer at the burning man and see if I could find a few distinguishing marks that made him not at all like me, actually. Maybe, if I could do that, I could slow my heart down. Maybe I could shake that hunch that I was going to pay the ultimate price for my actions. But that’s not true, is it? The ultimate price is Kelly. My firstborn.

  My only born.

  So, yeah, I had a BB gun. Which is basically an air gun, but with... Well, it’s an air gun. A nice one though. They’d come a long way since my rabbit-hunting youth. Which was just as well, because I was hunting more than rabbits now.

  But I still didn’t know where to start. What was it Carla had said? That seemed weeks ago now, although it was only a couple of hours. The lads said they’d picked me up in a playground behind the Alma, slumped over a swing with a Tesco bag pulled over my head, the plastic going in and out as I snored. What the hell had that one in the Alma hit me with? Enough to obliterate a chunk of memory. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been sparked out. They must have used a sledgehammer, swung with ruthless eff...

  Ruthless. Babe Ruth.

  A baseball bat.

  Maybe you should go back where you did it.

  Go there and try to work things out for yourself.

  Amazing how the mind works.

  Remember one bit and the whole dam bursts.

  I walked, BB gun inside my coat, eyes staring four slabs ahead. I went in the Onestop for fags and a can of something with a lot of caffeine. I needed food as well, in theory. But something told me not to bother. Press on. Do not dawdle.

  I did just that, drinking and smoking and burping. A bus slowed, heading for my destination. I ran a few steps but let it go. I needed fresh air and clarity of mind. I needed to think, plan, get my head straight.

  Destiny?

  What was Kelly doing at Destiny?

  She knew about the place. I wasn’t one of those dads who could lie to their kid. She knew I did something to earn a crust, and she knew my skills and qualifications weren’t in chartered accountancy. I look after escorts, I’d told her, an escort being a lady who entertains a gentleman. That was enough. I left her to fill in the blanks in her own time.

  What? You think I was wrong to?

  Look at it this way: was it better coming from me or from one of the vicious little neds she endured school alongside? Believe me, some of them knew. Their dads were regulars, and shameless about it. So she needed to know, if only to soften the impact when the neds started on her. But I hadn’t told her where it was. She didn’t need to know it. And that’s not plausible deniability.

  That’s holding it back for her own safety.

  I was at the end of the street now, looking down at row upon row of terraced houses. You couldn’t tell one apart from the others. Some had families in, some old couples, some bed-sits. One was a knocking shop with my daughter in it. She had to be. Why would Carla lie about it? My phone started ringing.

  ‘Kelly?’ I barked into it. Like a twat.

  Go on, have another laugh.

  ‘Leon, thank goodness you’ve answered,’ said a voice that wasn’t Kelly’s. ‘Don’t hang up.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Leon, please, you need to tell me where you are. I will personally come and pick you up and there need be no fuss. I found your notes, Leon. I know that this is another scenario.’

  I wanted to hang up but I couldn’t. I was having one of my moments, like I sometimes did and always at the worst time. Reality all around me seemed like it was slipping away, showing the nightmare beneath. If only I could snap out of it. If only I could get the phone away from my ear.

  ‘But it can’t work,’ he was saying. ‘The scenario is flawed, Leon, just like the others were. Synthesis is the only way to—’

  A dog barked. I didn’t know where – could have been a mile away for all I knew. All I cared was that it snapped me out of it enough for me to hang up and switch of the phone.

  What a t
ime for a wrong number.

  15.

  It takes the breath right out of you. For a moment, as she opened the door of Destiny Gentlemen’s Club, I thought it was her. She was the same age... same height, hair, beanpole figure and heart-shaped face.

  But the eyes were brown.

  And the skin, when you recovered, you saw it wasn’t that dark at all. Cream without the coffee.

  ‘Hello?’

  But still you stared. Still you hoped and yearned and rationalised. It was the light. The moon was shining in through that coloured glass above the door, distorting her colouring. Yeah, that was it.

  But it wasn’t, was it?

  ‘Er, wait there a sec.’

  She turned and walked off down the hall, showing a swing in the hip that put her two years older than I’d first thought.

  ‘Dad! There’s a bloke at the door!’

  It was the same hall where the security cabinet was meant to be, but now there was just a coat stand and a shoe rack with a school bag chucked on it. She went into the waiting room, where you sometimes had fights on a busy night. Down the end, in the kitchen, you could hear an oven door being slammed. No one ever used that cooker. I’d flagged it up as a health and safety risk, but had anyone taken any notice? Had they hell.

  What...

  What the fuck? This was Destiny. Destiny, a brothel.

  ‘I help you, mate?’ The bloke was saying it as he came striding down the hall, almost lunging for the front door and closing it a bit, jamming his toe behind it. Brown Eyes was going to get a bollocking later about leaving the door open on a stranger. A stranger with an Uzi-shaped bulge in his coat and a look of desperation about him, I realised, seeing my reflection in the door glass. ‘You lost, are you?’

  ‘Lost?’ I said, staring into his eyes.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Know me? You? No... no you don’t. That’s just it, ennit? You don’t know me and I don’t know who the hell you are!’