‘Where’d you get that?’ I said. Not that I gave a shit. ‘Cut yourself shaving? Give it a couple more goes and you’ll get the hang of it.’
‘I don’t mind it. I’ve adjusted to it already, see? Only got it stitched half an hour ago and I’m easy with it. That’s what I’m about. I adapt and react - that’s how I’m gonna take over here. People will call me Scarface from now on.’
‘People will call you wanker. Same as they do now.’
‘Whatever. I ain’t fuckin’ around here. You put in an order, I’ve come through for you.’
‘What order?’
‘You know what.’
‘A gun? You already gave me a gun. A shit one.’
‘This ain’t about the gun. I’m on about the other thing you wanted.’
‘What?’
He chewed his gum five times. ‘Graven.’
My balls tightened.
19.
I was driving. I insisted.
Even with all this shit going on, I still found it in me to enjoy the smooth handling of the Beamer. Even a knackered old 316i like this one. Kraut engineering stays the course, no matter how hard you thrash it.
I was thrashing it now.
‘Just tell me,’ I said. It was the second out of three times I was going to say it in a polite and patient manner. Three strikes and you’re out was being very generous, I thought. Next time, he was going to find out how it feels to be out.
I made sure he wasn’t strapped in, then looked across his lap at the passenger door handle. Seemed like an easy movement.
Reach. Open. Shove.
You’re out.
‘Just through the grapevine, you know,’ he said, touching his stitches. ‘Like Marvin Gaye.’
‘How did I know you’d mention Marvin Gaye?’ I said.
He gave me an innocent smile. ‘Do you think black minds think alike?’
‘What I think is that I’m gonna ask you one more time. How do you know Graven is at this address?’
The lights I was heading for turned red. Fuck it - no one was about. I bombed them, swerving easy around the cyclist coming over the junction just then. I looked in the rear-view and watched him wave a fist at me. Such misplaced rage. I slipped my eyes sideways and checked Gnash on the back seat. Maybe he’d give me some aggro when I dumped his cohort on the tarmac. I worked out a follow-through move to tag on the end of that without even taking my right hand off the wheel. Should be easy.
And it looked like it was gonna happen. I said:
‘Five.’
‘What?’
‘Four.’
‘What? Four what?’
‘Tell him, Sid!’
‘Three.’
‘Get off me, Gnash! Tell him what?’
‘Tell him how you know Boo... erm, Graven is where he is!’
‘Two.’
‘Tell him!’
‘One.’
‘Alright! Alright, I’ll tell you, if it means so much.’
‘Tell him, Sid!’
‘Fuck off, Gnash! You touch the back of my head again and I’ll stripe you!’
‘Come on, just tell the bloke.’
‘Alright, well... What I did, see, is I thought about what you said. Chain of command, you said. In any kind of organisation, you’re only dealing with the one above you. And that’s Booker. You try to get past him to the one higher up, you’re making Booker sort of like unemployed, know what I mean?’
‘Redundant.’
‘Yeah, that. You’re making him redundant, like my dad is. So he’s gotta protect his ass. He’s gotta make the one above him invisible, so you don’t even try to get to him.’
‘That’s very clever,’ I said. ‘You got initiative, son. I can see you climbing a ladder one day. Cleaning windows, perhaps.’
‘You asked, I’m telling, right? I did some asking around, sticking my nose where it weren’t wanted, and I turfed up the name Graven. From there, it was a piece of piss. The higher ranks, they don’t move in the same circles like us ones. You gotta go to different places to find ’em, different pubs.’
‘Graven don’t drink in pubs.’
‘Course he don’t. But his boys do. And...’
‘And his boys won’t talk. He’s a secret, pal. To plebs like you he don’t exist.’
‘Ah, but... do you know what I’ve found, mate? There’s always a weak link. No matter how loyal you think your homies are, there’s always one who’ll let you down. There’s always one... cunt who—’
‘You don’t know that, Sid,’ the lad in the back said.
‘Fuck off, Gnash! Dux grassed me and you fuckin’ knows it!’
‘But you don’t—’
‘Dux?’ I said, getting confused here. ‘Isn’t he your other mate, the skinny one?’
‘Forget Dux,’ said Sid, touching his stitches again. ‘Dux is just a cunt. He’s history now anyway, good as. I’m on about the one who betrayed Graven. Up in the Chequers. Big feller with a footy top on, tats all over on his—’
‘What team?’
‘Eh? Who cares what—?’
‘Come on, convince me. Spread some detail. Who’s name was on the back?’
‘Well, it was, erm... blue. Everton, I think. And it was that striker... what’s his name?’
‘Rooney?’ I said.
‘Rooney? Mate, you’re a bit out of date there. Rooney got sold to Man Utd years ago.’
‘What? Oh...’
‘You feelin’ alright?’
‘Shut up. Go on... what about this bloke in the Chequers?’
‘All I had to do was bung him some skunk. Got him talking and within ten minutes I got an address.’
‘So that’s all you got? An unconfirmed address?’
‘No, mate,’ he said, ‘it ain’t about the whether or not Graven’s there. It’s about what he showed me. It’s about what he offered me in exchange for a block of skunk.’
‘Sid.’
‘Shut up, Gnash, I know what I’m doing. I gotta tell him.’
‘Tell me what?’
Sid just looked at me, licking his lips. Looking for the words.
‘What?’
‘He... the bloke showed me pics on his phone. Of a bird. A young bird, too young.’
‘What? Who? What did she look like?’
‘Well, you couldn’t really see but, you know, she wasn’t white.’
‘You dunno for sure.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Gnash! I’m helpin’ the man. You think I’m enjoying this? The man needs to know!’
‘But...’ I didn’t know what to say, what to ask. My fingers kept squeezing the wheel and letting go. I gripped again, hard, not letting go. Deep breathing, firm chin. Common sense. Perspective. ‘You dunno it’s her,’ I said. ‘Could be any black girl.’
‘You’d best pull in a minute, mate.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘Just for a sec. Trust me.’
I didn’t even notice doing it. One minute I’m going sixty in a thirty zone. Next I’m tucked in between an Astra and a Mondeo.
‘I got this for you,’ said Sid, opening his jacket. Street light wasn’t coming in from this angle but no mistaking what he had in there. The dark metal found a bit of light from somewhere and made it shine a bit, like sweat oozing out of a sick person.
No way was this one a BB gun.
‘It’s heavy. You takin’ it or what?’
‘How much you want for it?’
‘It’s a gift.’
‘A gift? Fuck off.’
‘I swear. This is an offering, from brother to brother.’
I sighed. ‘That all you wanted me to pull in for?’
‘No, that’s cos of what I’m gonna tell you next. This feller in the, erm... Liverpool top, he said the girl’s name was Kelly.’
20.
You bring them up with such hopes, dreams of what they’ll be when they grow up. Prime ministers, athletes, scientists... whatever. None of that matters, really. All you want is fo
r them to grow up safe. And for nothing bad to happen to them.
‘It’s just in this next road.’
I was following Gnash. Sid had stayed with the car because he didn’t want to bring it too close, he’d said. Gnash was showing me the way to Graven’s new place.
The new Destiny.
‘I been thinkin’,’ he said, spying round a corner before stepping out. ‘I remember where I seen a brothel bouncer recently. Remember I said I seen one? Yeah, it was a thing on telly.’
Destiny. After all your hopes and dreams and wishes, this is where they end up. Cross out scientist, put down prostitute. Slag. Whore.
‘Feller cuts up a hooker and the bouncer beats him up bad, then has to go on the run from the local crime boss.’
Only it wasn’t her, was it? She hadn’t chosen this path. She’d had it thrust on her.
‘I think it was Denzel Washington.’
I’d had it thrust on me.
‘Playing the bouncer, not the crime boss. The crime boss was Joe Pesci, I’m sure of it. You know him? He’s brilliant in Goodfellas. Hey, d’you like pizza?’
Kelly. Sapphires in the desert. Blue crystals, glinting in the sand. You’re paying for my sins. You’re paying because I fucked up. He’s making you pay.
Graven.
‘No? I could murder one meself. Anchovies, I likes. Hate pineapples on a pizza, though. What’s all that about?’
Graven.
‘Anyway, look, it’s in there. Number 33 - the blue door there. See it?’
I’m walking.
Lights on upstairs but none down. That’s because the windows are boarded up. Front door’s out of commission too - no way I’m getting in there. I slip round the side. Got to be an entry somewhere. How do the punters come and go? But there’s nothing in the back yard. Windows boarded up here too and the back door’s made of breezeblock.
A sound behind me.
I slip behind a shed and peek out.
Just some twat, a kid like Sid and Gnash. There’s chipboard where the kitchen window should be and he knocks on it, waits, stepping trainer to trainer. He turns - I swear he’s seen me. But he couldn’t have.
Anyone who saw me right then would have shit.
Seconds later the board lifts outwards from the bottom. There’s hinges at the top - nicely done. The lad climbs in and it comes down.
I wait a few minutes. Thinking.
About Kelly.
Rubbing her eyes, sleepy.
Trying to save that teddy from a burning house.
I step up to the window and knock. Not too hard, not too soft. I’m looking at my watch: forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine... Chipboard goes up. Glazed eyes looking out at me. Another ned, too stoned to react and save himself.
I point the gun at him and blow his head off.
All of him seems to disappear. There’s a big area of red slop on the wall behind him and a bit of smoke, like he’s exploded. I climb in. There’s a sink you have to clamber over but they’ve filled it with bricks to help people like me. I can hear voices now, upstairs. Shouting and screaming. Female screaming.
I hit the lino, finding where the stoned lad went. No time to check what state he’s in - sidestep around the destruction and into the dining room. That’s what we called that type of room in our old house, between the kitchen and the living room.
‘Where’s your Daddy?’ Jane would say.
‘Daddy ’mokin’ in dinie room!’
I loved the way she used to say that. ’Mokin’.
‘Kelly!’ I’m at the foot of the stairs, booming that name. Front door’s open and a nice breeze is coming in, bringing a whiff of distant bonfires. A noise in the front room and I stick my head round the door. There’s a lad behind the couch, plain as the white sock on his ankle, which is sticking out the far side.
‘Come out now and I might spare you,’ I say, calm.
He does it, hands up. It’s Sid’s other pal, the one from the abbey. Dux. I never really took to him. He’s staring back at me, trying to smile. I don’t think I return that smile. Whatever is on my face, he knows it’s not good.
‘Booker!’ he yells. ‘Booker! Help!’
He’s got one of them really irritating voices.
I put a bullet in his leg, aiming to both shut him up and give him a permanent limp for his treachery. His leg disintegrates at the knee. Funny kind of bullets in this gun. He looks at it, opens his mouth and passes out.
I’m looking at the gun as I back out toward the stairs. Doesn’t say what it is but it’s a big one alright. Someone’s moving up there in the front bedroom. A whimper, female.
Kelly?
I run up, doing it in about two bounds. It’s dark in the room and the light doesn’t come on when I tell it to. There’s a big double bed all messed up in the middle, stuff on it like bottles and little plastic bags. The floral patterned duvet is all bunched up on the far side, half fallen off.
It’s breathing.
I go round there and wrench it off. It’s a big duvet, and I have to keep yanking and yanking, like a magician pulling hankies out of his mouth. I get to the end and someone’s hanging on for dear life. A girl, wet face and blood coming out of her nose. She looks up at me. The eyes do seem blue.
I crouch and look into her face. Could it be? Could she have changed so much? She seems to think so, the look of hope and eager-to-please on her face. But I don’t.
No way.
I lift the gun to shoot her. I want to punish her for not being my daughter. Someone jumps from behind the curtains and out the door. Male? Female? Clumping footsteps down the landing says it’s a bloke.
I’m after him.
He’s in the back bedroom now. Window’s open and curtains billowing. I fire a shot on the off-chance, hitting the wardrobe. I reach the room and the air is full of talcum powder and bits of cotton. I stick my head out the window in time to see the last bit of him disappear over the back wall. Graven?
It must be him.
I aim the gun, hearing the running footsteps and waiting for him to appear somewhere. You can see all the little roads around here. Lights are coming on in upstairs windows all around, scared and angry voices in the night. Then I see him, a shape running through the allotments over there, knocking down beanpoles and disturbing new roots.
I’m out the window, hitting the grass and rolling over like you’re meant to.
I’m over the wall and after him.
Sirens are getting nearer but we’re heading away, towards Birchwood.
21.
LEVEL 4: OUT OF CONTROL
1. Stabilise situation
2. Escalate problem to higher authority
3. When higher authority arrives, keep out of the way
4. Accept consequences
I locked her in the en suite. She didn’t like it but I had to do it, for her own safety. Rogue punter was incapacitated on the bedroom floor behind me still but liable to get up any minute, and I couldn’t take chances. I had a job to do. There were procedures. ‘Lee,’ he said, barely getting it out. ‘Lee, I’m...’
He was behind the bed from me but I watched him in the wardrobe mirror. He looked groggy but he was able to pull himself up a bit using the bedside table. I jumped on the bed and destroyed the cheap bit of MFI tat with two swings of my bat. He went down again, sprawling with his face in the plywood fragments and bits of glass from the framed picture I always kept on that bedside table. Straight away he lifted his face again, like a boxer who don’t know when he’s beat. Bits of glass and droplets of blood fell off his cheek onto the photograph. He craned to look at me, eyes trying to say what his tongue didn’t know how.
‘Lee, we just...’
I looked at the photo. A little family of three: one dark, one pale and the other a combination of the two. Whatever it had been, it was finished now. Everything was different now and I felt myself splitting apart.
Jane was banging on the en suite door, screaming for her daughter.
Scre
aming for forgiveness.
‘Lee...’ Darren was just croaking. ‘Come on, think about this.’
But that was just it, wasn’t it?
I couldn’t bear to.
I brought the bat down on his head again, finally stabilising the situation.
You don’t have to think. Not when you’ve got procedures in place for all eventualities. I went downstairs and made a call, then closed my eyes for a few moments. When I opened them again, Graven was there. He was holding the lighter fluid from the security cabinet and a box of matches. He turned his eyes on me and said he’d take over now.
I wasn’t sure about it. I really wasn’t sure. But it was out of my hands.
I said I’ll tell you why Kelly had been taken away from me and now I have done. Those are the details how I remember them and how I need them to be. Maybe there are other bits, I don’t know. Memories fade over time, and although I could swear this happened only a moment ago it also seems like it happened a moment before that... and every moment going back years and years. And it will go on happening forever and ever until I stop it. But I was going to stop it. I was going to be with Kelly again.
This time I knew how to reach her.
22.
‘It’s diabolical.’ ‘Isn’t it just.’
‘He’s done it before, you know. Eight times. No, nine.’
‘Three.’
‘What?’
‘It says it in the article here.’
‘Where?’
‘There, see? Bla bla... “no less than three occasions since he was placed at the secure unit seven years ago, after being found not guilty due to diminished responsibility. The last time was two years ago, when he caused terror at a peaceful house party by threatening guests with a machete. Two years before that, he—”’
‘Yes, I can read. I still think it’s diabolical.’
‘I know.’
‘His own daughter. Five, she was. Five years old.’
‘I know. It says it all here.’
‘I don’t think people like him should be allowed to come back to the places they did their crime.’
Graven Image Page 6