by Steve Finbow
***
Not really. Bet that got you going. Did you smell a rat? Just keeping you entertained while we drive up to the forest. Not sure I enjoy being in a car driven by Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones. He’s either drunk or in that weird spaced out, sort of epileptic state, where he just stares and you look at what he’s fixated on and you can’t see why he would be – could be a hat, an ice-cream cone, a road map of Spain. But I can’t drive, as you know, so I should stop moaning. Enjoy that little digression? Yeah? Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not looking forward to wandering around the forest late at night. I’m a city boy. Christ, cows scare me. I was in Somerset once with my friend Mary. We were staying at her parents’ farm and we decided to walk across the field to a pub. We took the dog with us, Border collie, bit fat and old, but a working dog. I kept my sunglasses on so as not to upset it. And Mary. So, we’re halfway across this field and Mary’s telling me stories about her childhood on the farm and it’s kind of grossing me out, what with all the births, deaths, and offal, and all of a sudden (I know it’s a cliché but it was like that) all of a sudden, I feel this huge tongue licking my face, and I think, ‘Aye, aye, I’m in here,’ and turn expecting to see Mary, arms open, legs akimbo, mouth puckered in expectation of my erotic onslaught, when what do I see but the large and – worryingly beautiful – eyes of a Jersey cow calf, its tongue going back and forth like an overexcited sea cucumber. I was off. Like Ben Johnson. Only faster and with more drugs inside me. So, me and wildlife, unless it’s fried or roasted and on a plate, do not get on. And I’ll let you into a little secret just while H parks the motor. Foxes. Yeah, foxes. Now, foxes are members of the family canidae, which includes dogs, obviously, I know you’re not stupid, but bear with me. So the domestic dog Canis familiaris and the fox – in Britain the red fox – Vulpes vulpes (so foxy they named it twice) belong to the same family. Hold on. Ben Johnson? Vulpes? Sounds like an essay on Elizabethan theatre. Better not mention it to H, otherwise we’ll be here all bleeding night listening to him going on about Dekker, Fletcher, and Webster – sounds like a dodgy ironmongers. So, anyway, what I’m wondering is, will my little dog trick work on old Reynard? Not sure. But I’m not that happy about the idea of finding out. I’m not really in the mood to get my first whiff and butchers of noxious fox emissions. Another time, after we’ve sorted this out, and found Sarah before the others get their grubby mitts on her, I’ll tell you about my adventures in Japan and my meeting in the mountains surrounding Lake Shikotsu with Tanuki the raccoon dog.
‘Better lock it,’ I say to H, pointing at the car.
The forest looms before us – it does – it’s like standing underneath the prow of a giant ship. H does that twitchy-shoulder, neck click of his. I crack my knuckles and move my bottom jaw in a half-circle. I look at H. He looks back at me.
‘Ready?’ I say.
‘If you are, dear boy,’ H says.
And we’re off walking into the trees, the moon hardly bothering to do its stuff.
***
It should be no more then a fifteen-minute drive up to Chingford, but the traffic seems to have come out of nowhere, crawling along like a fat drunken snake on its way to bed. ‘Bloody hell,’ I say through my teeth and drum a little tattoo on the leather-look dashboard. My mobile goes.
‘Mer? H and I are on our way into the forest. Where are you?’
‘I’m stuck in traffic. I should have gone up the Great Cambridge Road instead of taking the North Circular.
‘Don’t need an A-Z, doll, we’re busy. We’re just stepping into the forest.’
‘You said you were going to wait for me, Balzac.’
***
It’s getting dark. Sarah looks up. She cannot see the moon between the branches of the trees.
***
‘No, I said for you to stay put, go home, make a nice cup of Formosa dong ding, order a curry, and crack open a bottle of Gewürztraminer, and we’ll be home in two sheiks in an imam’s tale.’
‘Balzac.’
‘Sorry, I thought you’d like that one. But, seriously…’
***
Things moving above Sarah’s head. Birds settling in for the night? But it could be bats? Are there lizards here? Worms?
***
‘But seriously, I’m on my way. Put your phone on vibrate and you can text me your position.’
‘Position? We’ll be in the forest, and there’ll be trees, muck, and the starry sky above. I’ve never been one for orienteering.’
***
Or snakes. She’s sure she read somewhere there were adders in Epping Forest.
***
‘Keep your phone on. I will meet you. I have a torch.’
‘Torch? Shit. Why didn’t we think of that? Look, go home. We’ll be fine. Gotta go, H is either doing duck impersonations with his hand or telling me to keep schtum. I’ll call you. At home.’
***
The deer would be sleeping, wouldn’t they?
***
‘Little fucker,’ I say to myself, trying to manoeuvre past a Tesco lorry.
***
What about foxes? What about badgers?
***
I’ll find Balzac and H. I know Epping Forest better than those two. Well, maybe H knows it as well. Used to spend whole weekends in the forest with my parents. My father, besides being a train fanatic, was also a bit of a twitcher.
***
What about people? People. Bonfires. Burning effigies. Dancing naked around fires. Pentagrams. Was that a circle of ashes she saw earlier?
***
While my father camouflaged himself in the trees or on the banks of the ponds and lakes watching for grebes, I’d run off and explore the forest and the paths, chasing squirrels, looking for frogs and toads.
***
What was that? She thought she heard voices. Low, whispering. Maybe it’s the leaves. Or beetles burrowing into the bark of trees.
***
Knowing Balzac, he’ll make so much noise, he’ll scare the life out of Sarah before he finds her. If she’s there, of course. I think she is. And she’s scared. I know that. I would be.
***
Sweating even though there’s a cool breeze drifting through the woods, Sarah holds her head in her hands.
***
I wish this traffic would get a move on. I still can’t figure this all out. Why would Sarah be on the run? She must have seen something. She panicked.
***
She panics. Her armpits burn. Her heart races.
***
Maybe I would have done the same. No. I would have gone to H. Or Spaghetti Monster and The Bush.
***
Sarah desperately needs to go to the toilet. She wonders what’s happened to her mother. Her father. There it is again. Voices. She’s sure.
***
I haven’t heard from Spag Mon and The Bush today. Maybe they’re off somewhere with their crochet or their knitting. I suppose I could even turn to Balzac at a pinch, if I were in serious trouble.
***
Maybe it’s the police. They must be looking for her. Or maybe it’s Ronya and the others.
***
Sod Balzac. I’m going, I don’t care what he thinks, or what he’ll say when I get there. Cheeky sod, expecting me to go home, curl up on the sofa in front of the TV and wait for him like a good little – I nearly said wife…
**
Closer now, coming from her left, rapid breaths, quick-fire words, one bass, one contralto, but wait, there are others. It’s too dark to make things out. Now the voices are collapsing in on themselves, and it’s not human, the sounds don’t seem to be coming from man or woman.
***
Woah, Meredith – like a good little girl. Balzac knows me better than that. Balzac in Epping Forest. Huh! Like a polar bear in a spacesuit, a blue whale in a Bedouin tent, a sheep tethered to a chandelier. I’m glad H is with him. That man has some serious past.
***
Are there rats in the
forest?
***
The car carrying Martin Eaves towards a rendezvous with his brother continues its slow progress around the outskirts of the forest.
***
Driving at speed past Loughton station, two Range Rovers head towards Strawberry Hill ponds.
***
After leaving Green Lanes, Ozan made a few phone calls to call in some favours. He was all out.
***
Along Ranger’s Road, up Epping New Road, over Woodridden Hill, Honey Lane, Claypit Hill, down Nursery Road, Fairmead, Road, on to Green Ride, Hornbeam Lane, and Bury Road back to Chingford station, Martin Eaves, while waiting for his brother to join him, has been looking for signs of Sarah. For life.
***
In the lead Range Rover, Ronya sits in the passenger seat loading, unloading, and reloading a Ruger P89 semi-auto 9mm, her hair swept up in a hairnet. Her clothes are old, dirty, efficient.
***
No one will help Ozan. Not now. No.
***
Nothing that Martin can see. Nothing from the car. They would have to go into the forest.
***
Behind Ronya, a man with a Geordie accent strokes the barrel of his black armour matte finish semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun.
***
Ozan knows the Badirkhans are back. Somehow. Somewhere. Maybe they’d never left. Just biding their time. Waiting for the right moment.
***
The Eaveses will track mud into their Aston Martin, their BMW.
***
Next to the Geordie, in the middle seat, the Londoner runs a finger along the blade of a hunting knife, tucks it in his belt, and coin rolls a sovereign over the knuckles of his right hand.
***
The blackness of the forest sucks Ozan into its midst. He slows the bike, taking the paths and tracks that bisect the dark woods.
***
Martin laughs to himself, thinking of all the years they’ve spent trying to get away from this. The drudgery. But he is excited.
***
Next to the Londoner, sitting behind the driver, the bearded Middle-Eastern man – not Middle-Eastern in fact, but from Belarus – stares out of the window at the passing suburban houses. His thoughts are of strangulation. His cock hard in his stonewashed, double-waisted, flared jeans.
***
The bike’s vibrations over the dirt and stones cause Ozan’s teeth to chatter, and the machine strains, not used to travelling at such a low speed.
***
For years, they’ve let others do the dog runs, Martin thinks, the spadework. Jonathan enjoys making money. Martin likes inflicting pain.
***
In the second Range Rover, five of Ronya’s men watch the taillights of her car, waiting for the signal to pull in.
***
Maybe Sarah will see the flash of Ozan’s petrol tank caught in the moonlight.
***
Jonathan lost patience with the Badirkhans. Rather than negotiate, rather than share in their billions, he went to war with them; not with muscle, no, with brains – and it left the Eaveses floundering in a North London no-man’s land of cheap coke deals, bank heists, hijacking – a return to the old days.
***
Ronya pulls on a cigarette, flicks the ash on to the floor.
***
When Ozan looks up, he can’t see the moon, or the stars, just the wine-bottle green of the trees, and beyond that the brassy glow of London.
***
They still have the trappings of successful crime – the motors, the six-bedroom gaffs, the apartments in Spain and the south of France, the jewellery, the schmutter – but they don’t have respect, not from the Kurds, the Turks, the Albanians, the Russians, even that little shit Mikey is starting to take liberties.
***
The men sitting behind Ronya are hirelings, paid muscle, selfish, greedy, no loyalty except to the pound, the euro, the dollar.
***
Every few minutes or so Ozan stops, lets the bike’s engine idle, tick over like a sleeping cat, walks into the woods, looks back, keeping the bike in view.
***
The Badirkhans had it all sewn up within a few years of arriving on Green Lanes – the protection, the counterfeit money, the fake passports, the smack – the whole fucking money-spinning shebang.
***
Ronya looks ahead at the streetlamps’ flicker, their pale sulphurous glow, the light-streaked road whips by.
***
Ozan whispers Sarah’s name, not believing it has come to this.
***
Jonathan thought that with the Badirkhans banged up for a score apiece, out of the picture, this was his chance to drag back the empire.
***
The quiet of the forest has its own beat, like paper being rubbed together, someone blowing over the neck of a bottle, tapping on a glass with a spoon, and then there are drops, feathery sometimes, sometimes metallic, and shadows pass over Ozan’s head, move through the great trunks of the trees, stop, add their unseen form to the ever-growing darkness around him.
***
Martin thinks, ‘And now Jonathan’s going to have us roaming around the fucking woods, looking for some pissy little miss, who may or may not know who hijacked our fucking gear.’
***
The others are to mind Ronya’s back, keep watch for the police, for the Eaveses, for that fool Ozan and his friends.
***
Shapes diminishing. Sometimes not. Undone. Expectation.
***
Martin Eaves parks his BMW M6 convertible in the station’s car park.
***
The girl saw Ronya, heard her voice. Instead of going to the police, she fled into the forest.
***
Shapes overhanging. Folded away. Replaced. Sacrifice.
***
As Martin Eaves turns off the engine, a motorbike pulls in to the slip road, comes to a halt beside the driver’s door. Inaccessible.
***
The men in the Range Rover following Ronya once tracked people in the mountains and forests of Kurdistan.
***
Shapes listening. Stripped back. Thousands. Invisible.
***
Martin Eaves steps from his car.
***
What hope do the others have in finding the girl? ‘None,’ Ronya thinks.
***
Shapes breathing. Must be something. Descending. Slowly.
***
‘Martin.’
‘What are you doing here? I told you to keep an eye on Balzac.’
***