A Kind of Hush

by Richard A. Johnson

  Chris took a look and said, 'No chance, you won't get into that through the front.'

  He then went through the kitchen and into the garage to see if he could find something that could help. He came back with a club hammer, a crowbar and a few cold chisels. I think that he was happy to have found something to do that would keep his mind off the shit that he had seen upstairs. Anyway, keeping the noise down as much as possible and using the club hammer and crowbar, he ripped the safe clean out of the wall. He laid it on its face and started to cut away at the back with the hammer and cold chisel. It took over an hour before he could bend the panel down enough to take out what was inside. We could see that he'd done it before, he was very efficient.

  While we watched, Pete and Den must have pushed something on the bookcase at the back of the room, because a whole section swung open revealing a fully stocked bar. The slag even had lager on draught. Needless to say, we made full use of it.

  The safe was now empty and on the floor in front of it were piles of fifty-pound notes still in their bank wrappers.

  'Loadsamoney!' Wivva shouted and started to count it.

  There was another small book full of names. I flicked through it and recognised a few of them. I couldn't believe two of them, I'd watched and heard these people on radio and telly for years. I showed the others. They all agreed that the sooner the Old Bill started looking at this lot the better. Mick got his Rolex. It was exactly the same as mine.

  'Must have got a job lot,' I said.

  We made eight thousand, four hundred pounds each. Wivva had laid it out in nine neat piles.

  There's one too many,' said Chris.

  'No, you get a share,' said Mick.

  Thanks, but there's still one too many,' he said again.

  'Eight grand should buy a brilliant funeral and headstone for Alan,' said Mick.

  Chris nodded, smiled and said, 'Nice one.'

  We all sat down and started to discuss for the first time what it was that we were going to do. Until then I thought that we were going to get Si back, give Gus a good spanking and then piss off and leave him to the police. Chris said that we needed more than that. He said that if Gus was in with the locals and they were called in, then anything could happen, and if it wasn't the locals, then it seemed fair to expect him to have one or two very high contacts within the police, who could influence any investigation.

  'We've got to let your briefs copper know then,' said Mick.

  'We've got to get Si back first,' I said, 'and then we decide what to do.'

  'Sounds good to me,' said Chris. 'We'll play it by ear until we know that Si's safe. But whatever we do, we make sure that he goes down for a very long time, even if it means calling the papers before we call the Bill.'

  Everyone agreed.

  I switched on the telly. Neighbours again. It seems that Harold has just been made an earl or a lord or something. I like Harold, he's good. I've often thought that he'd make a brilliant Oliver Hardy.

  The afternoon was spent going through the office. It was full of equipment - typewriter, computer, fax, that sort of stuff. In the corner was a photocopier. 'Great,' said Chris and began making copies of the diary and address book. 'Insurance,' he said.

  It seemed that the cash in the safe was for an investment. Gus was going to buy his way into a string of sex shops. He also had ledgers and books that showed that he was into loads of other things like car sales, escort services, mini cabs, betting shops, even a sweet shop and tobacconist in Peckham. He also fully owned Fotojoy UK. We learned a lot about the guy that day and with each new piece of information, we hated him more.

  At half-past three I was looking through the blinds keeping an eye out for Gus. Up the road, still wrapped around a tree, was the burned out Granada that Alan had totalled. Tapes and barriers had been put around it by the police. A copper was standing beside it with his arms behind his back; he looked thoroughly pissed off. Also taped off was the place where Alan was found. We'd all drunk, snorted and smoked far too much.

  A Ford Sierra cruised softly down the road from the top end and turned quietly into the drive. I motioned to the guys to be quiet. I could see two figures in the car. It stopped and the driver got out; it was Gus, it couldn't be anyone else. He walked up the road to where the copper was, stopped and started to talk to him.

  'What the fuck's he up to?' Mick whispered in my ear.

  The passenger door opened and the other guy got out, he opened the back door and dragged little Si out from under a blanket and took him into the garage. That's why Gus was talking to the copper, I thought, to keep his attention away from the house. Mick and Chris went into the kitchen and waited by the connecting door to the garage.

  We heard the key turn in the lock and just as the door was about to be pushed open, Mick grabbed it and pulled hard. The guy came flying into the room head first and landed in a heap by the sink. Wivva hit him with the hammer knocking him spark out. Poor old Si just stood there crying buckets.

  'He must be happy to see us,' said Mick. Then he took him to one side while we waited for Gus.

  'Point to which door,' said Chris. I nodded and watched. Gus left the copper and walked back to the house. He calmly locked his motor, pushed the garage doors shut and walked up to the front door.

  'Front door,' I hissed. Chris slipped behind it and Mick slid into an alcove on the other side.

  The door opened, Gus walked in and pushed it shut behind him. He was folding his keys back up into their leather case when Mick said, 'Hi, Gus.' Gus turned and was about to shout when Chris whacked him full in the throat. He collapsed choking for air.

  When he looked up we were all standing around him in a circle.

  'Hi, Gus,' we said together, 'nice to meet you.'

  Si had been handcuffed and had tape across his mouth. Chris gently removed it and with the key that he'd ripped from the chain on Gus's trousers, he undid the cuffs and started rubbing Si's wrists to get the circulation going.

  'Did he hurt you son?' he asked.

  'They slapped me around me a bit when they snatched me, but they've not touched me since. I'm starving hungry though, any nosh about?'

  'You're all right,' said Chris with a laugh and tossed him an apple. 'I'll see what's left in the fridge.'

  'Anything you want boys, anything, it's yours,' said Gus. He was still on the floor recovering from the smack in the throat.

  'There's nothing you've got that we want,' I said.

  'Money,' he said. 'There's money.'

  'No, there ain't,' said Mick.

  'There is,' he said. 'It's in the safe.'

  'No there ain't,' said Wivva.

  'There is, I tell you, there is.' He was looking worried.

  'There ain't,' I said again. 'We took it ages ago. There's nothing in the safe now.' He began to panic.

  'I can get you more,' he said.

  'Can you?' asked Chris. 'How much?'

  'We don't want his money,' I said, scowling at Chris.

  'I was only asking, Stu. You can't blame a bloke for asking, can you?' he said.

  'Knock it on the head you two,' said Mick, sensing that I was getting angry at Chris. He then turned to Gus and said, 'We don't want your stinking money. There's nothing you've got that we do want. Nothing at all.'

  'Drugs then,' he said. 'Come on boys, you know how hard it is to get anything decent these days. Anything you want, I've got it.'

  'Already got them,' said Wivva, going cross-eyed from the joint that he was puffing on. Underneath his arm was the brass chest. Gus saw it and swallowed hard. He had nothing else to offer.

  'What do you want then?' he said. He was shaking from head to foot now.

  'You,' said Wivva.

  'You,' said Mick. Then one after another the rest of us said 'You'. He started to cry, Chris hit him again and he shut up.

  We were going to get him to write a full confession, but his hands were shaking so much that he couldn't hold a pen. We tried to get him to talk into a tape-recorder
but all he did was blubber and wail. He was making us all fucking angry. This big, powerful man was no more than a snivelling coward when it came to the crunch.

  We dragged him and his pal up the stairs to his bedroom. We thought that if we took him there, we could somehow make him produce evidence that we needed to put him and his cronies away. We weren't thinking straight, the booze and drugs were making us lose control.

  We all had ideas about what we wanted to do but no two ideas were the same. And none of us, by that time, was in any condition to discuss the matter.

  Mick and me wrapped a carpet around Gus's pal and dumped him in the corner with the two blow-ups. Chris and Wivva were holding Gus down on his bed.

  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, so we all took another snort of coke, thinking that it would wake us up. It didn't. Cannabis, coke and alcohol just don't mix. We walked around like zombies, everything was going on automatic. We all had just one thought, and that thought was Gus and what we could do to him.

  'Kill him,' said Wivva, raising his hammer. 'Smash his fucking head in.'

  'No hurt him, really hurt him,' said Tony.

  'Easy lads,' said Chris. 'We've got to get from him what we want first. We don't want to fuck this up.'

  'No Chris,' I said. 'What you want.'

  'Come on, Stu,' said Chris. 'I want this guy to go away as much as any of you, but we've got to do it properly. After what he's done to Si, and what we've seen in this stinking house, we can't afford to fuck it up.'

  'Bollocks to all that. Kill him,' Wivva slurred. 'He killed Alan.'

  'That was nothing to do with me,' Gus wailed. 'It was that stupid bastard in the corner.' Wivva turned and walked towards the guy wrapped in the carpet, his hammer at the ready. Chris jumped over and grabbed his wrist. 'Hang on Wivva,' he said. 'You don't need that. Look at him.' We all looked at the guy. His head had fallen back, his eyes were wide open and rolled up, his mouth gaped, a bubbly foam running from the corner.

  'He's gone,' said Chris. 'His heart's given out.'

  'Lucky bastard,' said Wivva and he turned back to Gus. Gus shat himself.

  'Keep him off me! Keep him off me!' he screamed. He then jumped from the bed shrugging Tony aside as he made a bolt for the door. Wivva threw the hammer at his head, he ducked and the hammer thudded into the wall lodging there. We all stood rooted to the spot and watched as Gus lost his footing and rolled out of the door, smashed through the banister rail and fell screaming down the stairwell. Three floors he fell, head first on to quarry tiles. We rushed down to check him, it wasn't a pretty sight. Still I guess it solved our problem.

  We had to leave, but this time we weren't laughing. This time we were all deadly serious. This time we had gone much too far. No one spoke, we just cleaned ourselves up, wiped everything that we had touched and left, taking care not to let the copper up the road see us.

  Mick took Gus's pen and the Sierra. I've not touched a joint or had a snort since. Those fucking drugs robbed us of the chance of seeing that shit go down for a very long time, and possibly the chance of taking all of his perverted friends with him.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  For two days we sat at Mick's, barely saying a word to each other. Chris said that he would hang on for a couple of days before he gave all the information to his brief, so we were waiting to see what would happen.

  I went to Greenford, but couldn't stay long, I wasn't very good company. Beryl sussed that something very serious was wrong with me, but didn't push it. I needed time on my own, time to think, time to take in what I had done. I told Mick.

  Thank fuck for that,' he said. 'I thought I was the only one.' We all decided to split up for a few days.

  Just before my mum left, she took Jen, Ali and me to Jaywick for a week on holiday. We stayed in a chalet by the seafront. I remembered coming out of the chalet very early every morning and going straight on to the beach. I loved it, especially when the sea was a bit rough. The spray used to fly through the air as the waves hit the breakers, its smell and feel seemed like magic to me. When I said this to Mick he said, 'No problem. There's a motor downstairs, why not use it.'

  The drive was much quicker than I had remembered. I seemed to be there in no time. I drove straight to the seafront.

  It wasn't how I remembered it, but then nothing really is.

  I parked up the Sierra and walked along the front. It was getting dark.

  On my right were the chalets, all lit up. Rows and rows of them.

  I found the one that I thought I had stayed in all those years ago. I was sure it was, though it was now a different colour. This one was a kind of yellow and red and ours had been blue, but I was sure that this was it. There was a way of checking, I remembered. When I was a kid, I was always getting a clout around the head for fucking around with my penknife. I used to carve my name into everything. Mum kicked my arse for doing it at the chalet. Right on top of the handrail on the balcony at the front it was.

  I crossed over the road and climbed the few steps up on to the front of the chalet and began to check the handrail. There it was. It was covered with God knows how many layers of paint, but there it was - 'S S 19 . . .'. I was going to carve 1978 but Mum caught me before I could finish it.

  The door swung open and an old dear stood there.

  "Ere, what's your game,' she said.

  'Sorry, love,' I said. 'Wrong place, wrong time.' I walked down the steps and away. I heard her call to her old man, 'Louieee! You make sure that you lock up properly tonight, there's some funny people about.'

  I got back to the car and sat there for a while. No, it wasn't really the same at all.

  I drove up through Clacton and on to Walton. I found a quiet place that overlooked the sea, parked up and sat staring out at it. I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, it was early morning. I looked at my watch, it was almost five. I got out of the car, stretched and decided to walk to the beach. There were two joggers running over the sands, so I sat down to watch them.

  They had obviously been running for some time because their tracksuits were drenched with sweat. The girl turned and ran towards the water, the bloke chased her. They fell over each other into the sea, the girl was squealing and laughing with delight. I felt dead jealous, my eyes began to sting.

  Fucking sea air,' I said to myself as I took out a hanky and blew my nose. It didn't work. I sat there and cried like a baby. Best cry I've ever had that was.

  I was starving, so I got up and walked towards the shops on the front. I found the public lavatories, went in and swilled my face. I felt a lot better. I then had a giant breakfast in a transport cafe just off the front, walked back to the car and drove back to London.

  I woke Mick up with a big mug of tea.

  'Can't stay away eh?' he said bleary-eyed as I went back to the kitchen. I came back with a tray on which was a full English breakfast.

  Fucking hell,' he said. 'Breakfast in bed too. What have I done to deserve all this?'

  Now Mick is one of those blokes who can't face anything in the morning until he's had at least three cups of tea and three smokes, his stomach just won't take it. But he sat there and ate everything that I had prepared for him, and what's more, he even said that it was great. I really appreciated him for that.

  We decided to start sorting out everything that day, while we had the time to ourselves. Si was with his uncle Chris, Pete, Den and Wivva had gone home for a while and Tony had gone to stay with his nan for a few days.

  We visited Ali first, taking her a massive bowl of fruit and some flowers.

  'Oh, Stu,' she said. 'Where have you been, we've all been so worried?'

  'Sorry, toots,' I said. 'I had some things to do.'

  'Like what?' she asked.

  'None of your business,' I replied. 'Let's just say that you don't ever have to worry again about the old man or Gus and his goons.'

  'Why? What have you done?' she asked.

  'Nothing, honest. They just went a bit overboard.'
Mick coughed and looked at the ceiling.

  'And as a result,' I continued. 'They've gone away for ever.'

  'Police?' she asked.

  'Something like that,' I said.

  'Are you sure about this Stu?' She looked very serious.

  'Would I lie?' I said, palms upwards and shrugging my shoulders.

  'Guess what, Stu? I can leave tomorrow,' she said.

  'Brilliant!' I yelled. 'I'll zoom over to Beryl's now and make all the arrangements.'

  'What about the house?' she asked.

  'Let the council have it back,' I said. 'Too many bad memories.'

  'It's not the council's any more,' she said. 'He bought it from them, cash. Two years ago.'

  'Even better,' I said. Then we can flog it and get something else. Look, don't worry about it now, let me get over to Beryl's and make the arrangements to get you out of here first.'

  'Okay, love,' she said.

  'First thing tomorrow,' I said. 'We'll be back first thing tomorrow.' We said goodbye and left.

  I phoned Beryl, gave her the good news about Ali and said that I would pop over later to see them. She told me to bring Mick with me for dinner. We then drove down to see Chris.

  'The Bill have raided the house and cleaned it out,' he said. 'My brief assures me that they are looking for nobody in connection with any deaths and that I pass on the grateful thanks of his friend for a job well done. The bloke in the freezer was picked up and is singing like a bird. It seems that he was very near to freezing to death. Thankfully the unit was on at a low setting. Anyway, he's been arrested in connection with allegations of sexual abuse of children, and more arrests are expected. The copper dealing with it will be on the news tonight.

  'My brief suggested that I send copies of the diary and address book to a bloke on one of the papers that has been exposing this sort of thing. I took them to him today, he even bought Si and me lunch. He said that it was the best evidence that he had ever seen to prove that some very influential people are running or are involved in the sexual abuse of children. He will be working closely with my brief to watch and make sure that all that needs to be said publicly, will be, and then he will expose the whole bloody lot in his newspaper. He also said that he would like at some time to talk to all of you. I told him that I would ask, but that he wasn't to hold out any hopes.