by Jennie Finch
‘They loves it,’ he gloated. ‘Them kids in town, they can’t get enough of the whiz and the wings is doing good too. Told you – easy money all round, this is.’
Around the table there were shrugs and a few grunts but no-one wanted to say much. Tom, seated at the end as usual, eyed his band of followers and was both disturbed and relieved by their reaction. He had serious doubts about expanding into the new goods and he was pleased to see most of the group seemed to share his concerns. It was dangerous, dabbling in drugs. Penalties were very high for anyone caught distributing and he knew his network of contacts in useful places were less likely to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. Besides, this stuff could be dangerous. He was not a sentimental man and years of law-breaking had hardened him to most things but he didn’t agree with selling to children and in his eyes most of Max’s ‘customers’ were still just kids.
He was beginning to suspect they had made a grave error getting involved with Max in the first place but he was damned if he could see how it could have been avoided. Through any number of sleepless nights he’d lain awake wrestling with the problem. Max was well connected, with powerful friends and allies up Bristol way and he was determined to move into the West Country, bringing his drug culture with him. Better, surely, to bring him in to the group where he had some chance of controlling his activities – even if he was putting himself and his companions in danger. If only there were some way of getting rid of him, he thought, watching Max preen and crow at his success.
‘Well now, I reckon we’s all had a very good Christmas,’ he said, cutting across Max’s flood of self-congratulation. ‘Will be midnight soon and I thought we deserves something special so there’s champagne coming and food. Let’s drink to a prosperous New Year.’
The gathering cheered up at once and the men pushed the tables to one side, relaxing and talking about their plans for the next few months. Only Jimmy Earl seemed that friendly with Max, he noted. Of course Jimmy needed to keep on his good side if he wanted to be included in the deal. Max didn’t need Jimmy and his fleet of lorries. He could easily cut the young man out and arrange his own transport. Geoff Bund kept a good distance between himself and Max, chatting to Mark about hiding places in Cheddar. Tom listened to that conversation with half an ear whilst considering the group dynamics. Geoff didn’t want to be drawn in to any of this. His workers were too vulnerable to detection, what with the sudden checks with dogs and such. The last thing Geoff and the dock workers needed was a load of really heavy stuff arriving for ‘special handling’. No, Geoff wouldn’t have anything to do with it, whatever any of them said.
The champagne arrived, a bottle each, and the group had a fine time wrestling with the caps and firing the corks at one another. Tom smiled and nodded to each of them as they raised their drinks, Max and Jimmy swigging the foaming wine direct from the bottle. Tom kept smiling, kept nodding and wondered how long he could hold it all together.
Alex’s mother, who went by the relatively restrained name of Dorothy Elizabeth Hastings Norman (when she wasn’t being addressed as ‘Brown Owl’), arrived on the doorstep on New Year’s Eve. Alex greeted her appearance with a mixture of exasperation and relief – whilst she was utterly sick of the stupid fuss the whole ‘Brightlingsea’ business had stirred up amongst the family, she was beginning to worry about her mother’s lengthy absence. Dorothy had often made threats about cancelling Christmas in the past but never actually followed it through, but from the miserable phone calls she had endured from the rest of the family on a daily basis since the Christmas Eve it seemed her mother had really meant it this time. The boys had looked hopefully at their youngest sister, but Clytemnestra, or Nesta as she was now called, was slightly less acquainted with the kitchen than Sue and the scratch meal of sausage sandwiches, crisps and shop-bought mince pies had not gone down well with the rest of the family. In contrast, Alex and Sue had been quite festive with a chicken dinner, some excellent wine and friends dropping in over the holiday, a very different time to Alex’s self-imposed misery of the previous year. Still, she was increasingly worried by nagging concerns about her mother’s whereabouts and had become quite sharp with Hector and Archie when they rang to complain about the prolonged absence. Opening the door and finding her standing there, looking a bit tired but obviously in good health, was the best present she could have received.
‘Don’t ask where I’ve been,’ Dorothy warned as she stepped through into the warm back room and dropped a small bag into an empty chair.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Alex, trying to be cool and adult but in reality grinning like a little girl. ‘Is that all you’ve got with you?’ She gestured towards the bag.
‘My, that fire is lovely,’ said her mother, holding out her hands and sighing happily. ‘Now Alex, surely you offer your guests a cup of tea when they arrive?’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Sue, springing to her feet.
‘Thank you dear, so kind. And a belated Happy Christmas to you, by the way.’
Sue threw a smile over her shoulder and called, ‘You too. Back in a moment.’
There was a pause as mother and daughter eyed one another, wondering how their relationship developed from this strange moment.
‘I suppose they made a perfect pig’s ear out of Christmas?’ said Dorothy, finally folding herself into the corner of the sofa.
Alex snorted in amusement. ‘They expected Nesta to cook,’ she said. ‘Of course I don’t think anyone thought to go shopping or look in the freezer in time either.’
Dorothy nodded, her eyes fixed on the flames in the grate. ‘Well, I’m not sorry. I was just – so – angry!’ She punctuated each word with a sharp gesture with her right hand. ‘I had to get away. How dare they behave like that. They had no right …’
Alex realized her mother was close to tears and leaned forwards but Dorothy waved her away impatiently.
‘Don’t fuss. I’ve had more than enough of that this last month.’
Sue returned with the tea and they sipped their drinks and nibbled at the last of the chocolate biscuits, contemplating the fire and searching for a way to restart the conversation. Finally, after slurping the last of her tea and plonking the mug down on the coffee table, Sue dived right in.
‘So you were at this protest,’ she said, ‘and you were fined for a Public Order offence. Why didn’t you want to pay it?’
Alex opened her mouth to apologize for her friend’s bluntness but Dorothy seemed happy to talk.
‘Well, I thought that was a bit cowardly. After all, so many young people – and some not so young may I add – are standing up and not being bullied into going away. Just because I can pay the fine doesn’t mean I should get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.’ She tilted her head and gave Sue a little smile. ‘Some of the protesters have gone to prison and there is a lot of publicity now. The public are waking up and starting to see just how horrible this sort of trade is and I want to help with that.’
‘If you hadn’t paid it …,’ began Alex.
‘I didn’t pay it,’ her mother snapped. ‘I refused to pay it and someone else decided they knew better.’
Alex kept a tight grip on her temper and continued.
‘If it hadn’t been paid you would have been back in court. Then you would have had a further fine and a proper criminal record. I don’t see what that would have achieved.’
‘I would have had a chance to speak for myself,’ retorted her mother. ‘All my life I’ve sat by and nodded and agreed with people – well what is happening is just plain wrong. And not just what’s going on out at the port either.’
Alex looked at her mother in amazement, shocked at her vehemence.
‘All over the place, even in all those nice affluent little villages out in the country, we have more and more people losing their jobs and then their homes. We are supposed to all be better off but most of the people I know are worse off and what’s more they are miserable. I know I am.’
&n
bsp; Alex opened her mouth to reply but Dorothy started again.
‘I don’t mean to be disloyal but I don’t agree with people like your brother getting paid an obscene amount of money whilst someone who works stupid hours nursing in a hospital has to struggle to get by. I never did agree with “greed is good” anyway. I think greed is despicable and we should share things out a bit more equally.’
Her ire expended, Dorothy flopped back into her corner and closed her eyes leaving Alex searching for a response.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’ she asked finally.
Dorothy sighed and shifted on the sofa.
‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll go back home in a few days – if you don’t mind me staying here for a while?’
‘No, that’s fine. It’ll be nice to spend some time together. I’ll make a bed up in the back room for you.’
‘Thank you dear,’ said Dorothy. The fire crackled, flaring briefly before settling in the grate. ‘I was ready to go to court you know,’ she added. ‘I wanted to stand up and make a difference.’
‘You might have ended up in prison,’ said Sue bluntly. ‘They’re taking the Public Order Act very seriously and using it for all sorts of stupid things. They can ban pop festivals using it, stop people picketing – it’s a real catch-all and my advice would be not to get caught up in it at all if you can avoid it.’
‘Well, how are decent people supposed to stage a protest then?’ demanded Dorothy.
‘I think that’s rather the point,’ said Sue. ‘You can’t.’
Ada Mallory greeted the New Year alone, standing on her back step watching the stars slide gently across the deep, soft sky. She had dug out a bottle of her best home-made blackberry cordial, an interesting beverage that sat in the bottle fermenting with the natural yeast in its seeds until released, often with an accompanying explosion. Ada rarely drank nowadays, memories of her father and Frank, her late, ex-husband too vivid for her to succumb to that weakness, but she was feeling sad. With her son away in the travelling fair the loneliness nibbled away at her, sapping her strength and draining her energy until some days she wondered why she bothered getting out of bed. There was a scuffling behind her and she felt the soft touch of a cold nose on her arm. She sighed and leaned towards the rough warmth of Mickey, one of her two lurchers. The dog huffed at the cold and gave a soft bark.
‘What’s that then boy?’ she asked, ruffling his ears. Mickey stiffened and raised his head, a growl forming deep in his chest. Ada stepped back into the doorway, wary and alert at the faintest possibility of danger. Like Alex and Lauren, she had suffered at the hands of Derek Johns and it had undermined her belief in her own strength. She no longer felt invincible out in her own home. In the long dark nights she was glad to have the dogs around her, even if Mouse lived up to his name and Mickey was getting on a bit, his muzzle greying and one hip causing him to limp in the cold mornings. She shushed the dog, stroking his head and straining to hear what had disturbed him. All was still apart from a light breeze rustling the branches of the willows overhanging the stream at the back of her garden.
‘Get off you girt daft thing,’ she said affectionately and turned to go back inside. A soft, plaintive sound drifted on the breeze and she momentarily froze before turning very, very slowly back to the open door. Her eyes were blinded by the light in the kitchen and she pulled the door to behind her, blinking and looking away into the distance to clear her vision. There was a pause and then the sound came again, floating past her ears and into her mind, a half-recalled fragment of music, teasing and tantalizing and threatening to pull her towards the unseen source. In the distance, on the edge of the Avalon Marsh, there was a spark of light and Ada stepped back through the door, closing and locking it swiftly behind her.
‘Get in the front now,’ she said to Mickey and gave him a nudge in the direction of her cosy little parlour. She followed the dogs through and closed the middle door as well. Despite the warm fire she was shivering as she poured herself another glass of blackberry cordial and it was a long time before her hands stopped shaking.
Chapter Eight
January, always a dismal month after the outburst of self-indulgence surrounding the end of the year, was particularly gloomy at the probation office. Alex and Sue arrived back to work to find everyone in a state of shock. Someone had broken in over the holidays, tearing through the main office and trying to break into the locked record cabinets. Several drawers had been forced open and the files were strewn around, in some cases with pages ripped out and screwed up. Several typewriters had been pushed off the desks and the office holiday and duty calendar had been altered so the coloured dots and squares now spelt out a series of rude words. Lauren was standing in front of it, reading the multi-coloured result with some interest.
You know what’s got me?’ she said to Alex later in the day. ‘All of them words was spelt right, even the posh ones.’
‘I didn’t know there were any posh swear words,’ said Sue.
‘Well, even the long ones then. Don’t know of no client could spell well enough to do that. And how come they never triggered the alarm then?’
‘Better ask that boyfriend of yours,’ said Sue. ‘Isn’t that his job?’
Lauren blushed and turned her attention to a particularly lush egg and cress sandwich.
‘Seriously though Lauren, you don’t think it’s an inside job do you?’ pressed Alex. ‘Why would anyone want to break in the office? Most of us can’t wait to get out.’
Lauren put her sandwich down and looked around the room before speaking. ‘I don’t reckon it’s one of us,’ she said, ‘except maybe someone new. Someone we don’t know so well.’
‘Oh come on,’ said Sue. ‘I know you don’t like him much but that’s really stretching it a bit.’
Lauren scowled and picked up her lunch again, taking a large bite. ‘Don’t know about that,’ she said somewhat indistinctly. ‘Looks like it was a man ’cos they typewriters is beastly heavy. Tall too, ’cos the calendar’s right up on the wall. And nothing like this ever happened before did it?’ She glared at Sue and Alex defiantly but they were spared her wrath by Pauline who stuck her head round the door and called Lauren back to the office.
‘She’s got a point though,’ said Sue after Lauren had left, muttering furiously about her lost lunch hour. ‘You do wonder how anyone got in without setting off the alarms.’
The day only got worse as Alex was called in to see Garry that afternoon. She climbed the stairs, searching her memory to recall what she had done now to upset him, but stopped in the doorway, shocked to find Lauren’s PC Brown and Sgt Willis from the Highpoint station already in the room.
‘Come in Alex,’ said Garry, who was seated, as usual, behind his desk. He used the damn desk like a weapon, she thought, as she closed the door and made for the chair in the middle of the room. The ‘naughty girl’ chair, she called it in her head. Settling herself in front of the men, she folded her hands in front of her and turned a perfectly polite, neutral expression to the two policemen.
‘Gentlemen,’ she nodded, before looking at Garry. ‘What can I do for you?’ Garry shook his head and frowned as he gestured towards Sgt Willis. I hope he doesn’t think I broke in to the damn office, Alex thought. Her cast, now grey and fraying around the edges, was itching abominably and she gritted her teeth as she fought the urge to poke at it. Sgt Willis shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable about something.
‘I’m afraid I have some rather bad news,’ he said softly.
Alex felt a flash of panic run through her. Not her mother – oh please, let her wretched, difficult, wonderful mother be alright.
‘I believe you have a young man, a Darren Foyle, attending the day centre.’ It was a statement not a question. Alex tried not to let her relief show as her heartbeat slowed to a more reasonable rate and she fought a tremendous desire to let her breath out in a sigh. Nodding cautiously she sneaked a glance at Dave Brown
but he was staring at the floor. This was more than a routine arrest, she thought.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you Darren died over the Christmas period,’ Sgt Willis continued in his soft, slow West Country burr.
Alex stared at him, not sure she had heard correctly. ‘What?’
PC Brown raised his head and said, ‘We believe he was experimenting with some form of hallucinogenic. He is reported to have woken up screaming on Boxing Day night and assaulted his father before running out into the street. Several neighbours heard the noise and saw him leave but no one knows where he went then.’
‘So – so how do you know …’
‘His body was washed up on the beach at Brean Sands last night,’ said Sgt Willis. ‘It seems as he was in the sea for some considerable time but we don’t know how he got to the coast in the first place. He was only wearing a light shirt and he had bare feet. Is a long way to the coast from Highpoint and it’s not likely he got a lift, undressed like that.’
This was too much detail for Alex, too vivid a picture in her head and she stared at PC Brown for a moment, horrified by what she had heard.
‘You spoke to me, the week before Christmas,’ said Dave, leaning forwards in his hard chair. ‘You said something about thinking maybe some of the lads in the day centre were on drugs.’ He nodded towards her plastered wrist and continued, ‘And they caused that, didn’t they.’
Sgt Willis added, ‘We need you to tell us what you know. We believe Darren took something that affected his mental state. He ran off, still screaming and seemed to think he was being chased by something. Several neighbours recall him shouting about heat, fire and such like. If he had taken something nasty we’ll find it in the toxicology tests but we really want to uncover the supply lines. This is new, round here, and we want to stop it before it takes a hold.’