by Pete Trewin
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘Vicky Sefton, I believe you’ve been looking for me?’
‘Why yes. But I thought...’
His voice trailed off. He sat down on a log.
‘What, that he’d bumped me off? He’s a violent bastard but not that violent. Do you know where he is? My solicitor has repeatedly rung his telephone number and sent several letters but got no reply.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Are you some kind of private dick? Are you working for him? If you are, tell him that I have got a new man in my life. So you’re out of a job, Mr Crosby. All I want is my share of the house.’
‘I’m not working for him. In fact I’m investigating him.’
‘Well that wouldn’t surprise me. What is it? Drugs, porn? God, he’s a disgusting man.’
‘I can’t talk about that.’
‘Well the best of luck.’
The phone went dead. Chris sat for a while on the log, then filled in the hole as close as he could remember to what it was before. He pulled the pile of brushwood over the resulting mound. He went back to the garage and slapped the gloves together to remove any soil. He put them back with the screwdriver and the spade in their original positions, after wiping their handles.
He remembered to retrieve the two cameras.
It was getting dark when he sat on the front steps and rang Bert Robinson.
‘Oh, hi, Bert. Chris here. Chris Crosby. Still looking for Mr Sefton?’
‘Rather.’
‘Check out his house in Frodsham. And the grounds. I’m afraid he might not be in too good a state of health. You might also find the other stuff you’re looking for. Dig for victory, Bert.’
He rang off before Bert could reply. The mobile went again.
‘Chris, it’s Jeanette. I’ll have to be quick, they’ve taken all the mobiles. I’m ringing from the cafe. Listen, the coppers have busted us. They’re accusing us of illegally accessing databases.’
‘Is that Robinson there? Big feller with a mop for a hairstyle?’
‘Yeah. We call him Boris. He seems to be in charge.’
‘The bastard. I was just talking to him on the phone. He must have been speaking from over there.’ He paused. ‘Well, Jeanette, I’m sorry it’s turned out like this. I suppose we’ll all be looking for jobs now.’
THIRTY FIVE
A dozen great white shafts of light stood over the city – like the columns that lance down from low cloud in a beautiful summer twilight. Then, impossibly, they began to move back and forwards across the sky, making Chris jump with fright. He realized that it was a laser show. The lights went off and the sky was black for a couple of seconds before fireworks burst overhead. The explosions crunched like artillery shells, making him wince. The Somme might have been like this. Impossibly loud, throbbing rap music started. He thought he recognized the group – yes it really was them. Top of the charts and, yes, he remembered reading that they were going to perform live in Liverpool.
He had set off into the park to see what was going on but now it seemed that the show was over. Crowds spilling down the paths and across the grass. Happy. Buzz of conversation. Excited. He realized that there was a crackle of male aggression in the crowd and that much of it was composed of young men. From their shouts, he realized that it wasn’t the usual pop show audience; this lot was more like what you’d see coming out of a football match.
As he got to the road that ran around the park, something happened. Something snapped. The mood of the crowd changed. A white police van rolled slowly by.
‘Bastards!’ someone yelled.
A traffic cone sailed through the air and hit the van. Then someone threw a dustbin which clattered off its roof. A youth executed a perfect flying karate kick on the van’s door, leaving a huge dent.
The van accelerated away and screeched around the corner.
The crowd was getting bigger all the time. Many were young men in tracksuits and baseball caps. All were angry and bitter.
The crowd milled about then a buzz of excitement shot through it as if it was a single animal responding to a stimulus. The crowd had been growing for some time and it must have reached a critical mass. It surged forward. Chris was swept off his feet and carried for maybe fifty metres, his face pressed into the leather jacket of the man in front of him; the sharp smell of the leather mixed with the sour stink of the man’s body odour. Now he could see the lodge. His home.
A flash of flame. A man in the street held a bottle. A bottle on fire. A Molotov cocktail. The crowd roared. The man threw the flaming bottle through the window of the lodge. It exploded inside, flared for a moment then died back to a dull glow as a fire caught. Then there was a bigger flash as something inside caught fire.
‘Yeah! Serves the pervert cunt right!’ screamed someone right in Chris’s ear. The man’s breath smelt as if he’d been eating dogshit. ‘Burn the bastard! Cut his fucking balls off first!’
The crowd roared. Chris twisted to see. He was maybe fifty yards away. A figure at the window. Porky? Half-heartedly trying to escape through the window. The figure stopped moving then walked back into the flames.
The crowd gave out a great, ecstatic bay of triumph.
‘Yeah! We got him! There’s justice for you! There goes his van!’
The crowd heaved backwards in one movement. A plume of flame was shooting from the fuel tank of a white van. Chris’s van.
The crowd surged forwards again and Chris was spat out sideways onto the pavement, like a pip from a squeezed orange. He sank to his knees.
A policeman leaned over him. Chris could see the sweat dripping off the man’s face. A lined face, shiny with fear.
‘Are you OK?’ the copper said. ‘We’ve got an ambulance over there.’
Chris nodded and sat down. The cop’s radio beeped and crackled. He held it to his ear.
‘OK,’ the cop said. ‘We’ll pull back to Aigburth Road. I wish I could get my hands on the twat who started the rumour. Why did they have to burn him? Cunts!’
He turned off the radio and looked round.
In the distance the wail of a siren got louder and closer. At first Chris thought he was making the sound himself. He touched his lips but they were clamped shut. He giggled at this and then began to imitate the siren which was now right behind him and unbearably loud. He had to scream at the top of his voice.
THIRTY SIX
‘Alison? Alison Mason? It’s Stroller. We spoke recently.’
Silence. He was about to repeat himself when she replied.
‘Yes. How can I help you?’
Her voice was quiet and relaxed.
‘You know how you can help me. You’ve got something of mine and I want it back. Forty thousand quid to be exact. I won’t charge interest. Though it has been twenty years. I suppose interest would add up to quite a lot over a period like that. But I’m not greedy.’
‘How do I know that this will be the end of it?’
‘You don’t. But I just want what I’m owed and to get out while I can.’
He could hear murmuring on the other end of the line. It went on for some time.
‘Hi, there, Stroller,’ she said. ‘Still there? You know Ed Sefton’s place? You ought to.’
‘Yes, I know Ed Sefton’s place,’ he said, giving in and letting sarcasm creep into his voice.
‘Follow the lane from there towards Helsby, right round the back. Follow the signposts to the parking area then walk up to the top of the hill. Ten tomorrow morning.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But any sign of hit men or cops and it’s off. Don’t forget, I know where your kid goes to school. What happened to Sefton is just a taste of what’ll happen to him if you try anything.’
Silence.
‘There will be no need for that,’ she said at last. ‘You’ll get your money.’
‘So that’s Stroller,’ said Alison as she watched the sequence again on the laptop from over Chris’s shoulder. On the screen a
hand grasped the top of the wall. It was bathed in bright light. The hand searched around, found something and another joined it. A head appeared, the face contorted with effort. The hands slowly slipped back to the edge and the mouth uttered a silent expletive. The head turned to one side, looked down then disappeared, but not before you caught a glimpse of a ponytail.
‘Looks like direct assault failed and the only thing left was negotiation,’ Chris said.
She walked over to the sofa and sat down.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You’ve lost your job, your house and your car and the cops are after you. I’ve lost my partner, I’m under threat and my son’s under threat.’
He turned and looked at her.
‘It seems to me that neither of us have much to lose now,’ he said. He had also lost the iPad in the fire but he could hardly mention that.
She stared at him.
‘I’m not going back to prison, Chris.’
He stared back.
‘And I’m not going there in the first place.’
THIRTY SEVEN
‘Breakfast in bed?’ Chris said. ‘Things are looking up.’
‘A cup of coffee isn’t breakfast in bed,’ Alison said, putting the cup and saucer on the bedside table. She looked a picture of elegance in a pink silk dressing gown. ‘Don’t get used to this. It’s just till we get this sorted out.’
‘That stuff about the sack of spuds. Still apply?’
She stood and looked at him.
‘Sack of turnips,’ she said. ‘You don’t qualify for spuds.’
‘OK,’ he said, laughing. ‘Message received.’ He looked around the room. Cream walls, white ceiling. Sanded floorboards. Large white-painted sash window with sunlight streaming through where she had opened the curtains. ‘If this is the spare bedroom what are the mains like?’
‘This house is way too big,’ she laughed. ‘Without the army of servants they had in olden times.’
‘Oh, by the way,’ he said. ‘Have you got a connection to the Internet? I need to check the breaking news on the Echo website.’
ARSON ATTACK ON HISTORIC LANDMARK
One of Liverpool’s historic landmarks was burned down last night in a suspected arson attack after a major disturbance in Lark Lane. The Aigburth Lodge was one of the four original entrance lodges to Sefton Park. A van parked outside the property was also burned out. Although a search of the premises this morning found that they were unoccupied, Merseyside Police would welcome any information as to those responsible. You can call Crimestoppers anonymously on the number below.
‘Look,’ Chris said. ‘I’ll take it. Just in case he tries anything.’
Sitting at the wheel of the Merc in the Helsby car-park, he was surprised at how calm he was. The back of the Merc was stoved in but it was just about driveable. The empty car-park was surrounded by mature trees. The road was quiet. Peace.
Alison opened her mouth to object. Chris touched her hand. She was wearing tight blue jeans with a white t-shirt and a leather jacket. The leather creaked as she took his hand and squeezed it.
‘This feller is bad news,’ he said. ‘You should have seen what he did to Sefton. He’s a psycho. Look, I’ll make the drop.’
‘You’re not going to do a runner with it, are you?’
He shrugged.
‘It’s practically worthless isn’t it? And I haven’t got any wheels now.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t know that the money’s no good. He’s not going to be happy when he finds out is he?’
‘Hopefully he’ll just take it and go.’
It was a lovely autumn morning. Cool and clear. As he walked up the hill insects were already humming in the undergrowth. He felt OK. He was wearing his usual climbing pants and t-shirt and he had his climbing boots in his rucksack so that it would look as if he was out for a stroll. Good views across the estuary to the city. The motorway already heavy with traffic.
He paused at the edge of the trees. Stroller was sitting on a large boulder right at the edge of the main cliff. Behind him the green-painted concrete trig point. A bare, stepped rock pavement stretched around him.
When Chris reached the base of the crag he was surprised how sweaty he was. He sat down at the bottom of Time Lapse with his back against the rock and his eyes shut to compose himself.
After several minutes his breathing began to slow and he opened his eyes.
‘You won’t learn, will you?’
The peregrine lady was standing on the path, fifteen feet away.
‘I’ve called the police,’ she said.
He realized that she was younger than he had thought, maybe in her mid forties. He closed his eyes again.
‘I don’t know what that big ape is doing up there,’ she continued. ‘I’ve been watching him through my binoculars. He’s got a gun and I’m sure he’s going to shoot the birds. Is he anything to do with you?’
‘Has he got a ponytail?’ He kept his eyes shut.
‘Yes he has.’
‘Never met him before in my life.’
She stomped away, tut-tutting as she went.
He put on his climbing boots and strapped his chalk bag to his waist.
He did some loosening up exercises. He checked the rock. Warm and dry. The first fifteen metre slab went easily, each move feeling well within his ability. He was soon at the overlap. He found himself holding the undercut with only the required amount of force. He was going well. Never felt better. The friction was fantastic, his boots sticking to the slightest imperfection in the rock.
He reached up from the undercut and moved his feet up onto smears. He found the tiny one finger hold on the vertical wall above. He pulled and slapped for the vague edge. He felt a momentary doubt but something in his unconscious kicked in. He was moving in a time lapse sequence, totally out of his conscious control. Lay off the edge, foot on tiny fingerhold. Got it.
A flood of feelings surged through his body. Elation. Surprise. A pleasant awareness of his muscles, tendons and joints.
He was up. He climbed carefully to the small cave just below the top and rested on big holds. Silence above. The distant sound of traffic on the motorway below. He reached into the cave for the rucksack, and climbed up. He peeked over the top.
Stroller was sitting on the rock step with his back to Chris. Chris watched him for a couple of minutes. No sign of any accomplices. He pulled the revolver out of the rucksack. Heavy in his hand. Sweating now.
‘Ahem,’ Chris said. ‘Stroller?’
Stroller turned.
‘Chris? Chris Paterson?’ he said. ‘The cunt in the van. What are you doing over there? I thought you and Alison had got together. Are you shagging her?’
He raised a pistol and pointed it at Chris.
‘Hold your horses there, matey,’ Chris said, raising his revolver. ‘Mine’s bigger than yours.’
He approached to within a couple of yards of Stroller.
‘Lower it,’ Chris said. He realized that the pistol Stroller was holding was some kind of toy or replica gun. A Colt 45 automatic. Which was just as well because he didn’t know how to cock his.
Stroller complied. Chris kept the revolver trained on him.
‘Come on, don’t be shy,’ Stroller said. ‘Let’s get a good look at you. So you’re the thieving cunt who stole my money. I served twenty years for you.’
‘No, you didn’t serve twenty years for me. You shot a security guard. That’s why you went to jail.’
Stroller laughed, the sound coming from deep in his chest.
‘Look, mate,’ he said. His voice was quiet. ‘I know you think that I am some kind of heartless thug. But all I want is the money and a bit of peace. Forty grand isn’t that much. Come on, hand it over.’
Chris took the bag of money out of the rucksack and stepped forward.
‘Oi!’
They both turned. Ed Sefton was stumbling towards them. His head was bandaged and he was limping.
He wrenched the bag from Chris.
Stroller pointed his gun at Ed.
‘Come on, bison bonce!’
Ed giggled.
‘Put the toy popgun down, dickhead.’
Stroller tried to grab the bag from Ed but it ripped open, scattering banknotes over the edge of the crag and into the breeze. They fell in fluttering clusters.
‘Stop that, you stupid twat!’ Stroller yelled. They struggled for a moment, teetering on the edge of the cliff, two big men wrestling with each other. Ed turned his face, contorted with effort, to Chris.
‘Help me, Chris!’
Chris didn’t move.
‘I thought you were my friend!’ Ed yelled.
By now all the banknotes had gone and the two men were fighting over an empty plastic bag. Stroller dropped the pistol, reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. He fumbled with it one-handed. A Stanley knife. The blade was retracted. Difficult to open with one hand.
‘Ah!’ Stroller screamed. ‘My knee!’
He went down like a big tree toppling over, taking Sefton with him. Then they were gone.
Chris could hear police sirens. He could see movement below. He gave the revolver a wipe on his t-shirt then threw it over the edge. There was a quiet way down via grass ledges and then a gully over on the side if you knew where to go.
As he reached the road he noticed a police car parked there and he dodged behind a tree. He crept closer to the car from tree to tree until he was right opposite it. The driver, in police uniform, was watching the road ahead.
Something moved in the back of the car. Porky. He caught Chris’s eye then lifted something up in a parody of reading from it. An iPad. Chris’s iPad. Porky grinned at him. He nudged a big man sitting next to him. The man leaned over to look. Herbie held Chris’s gaze for a second, showing no emotion on his big round face. The car suddenly moved off and in a couple of moments it was gone.
THIRTY EIGHT
From Pickering’s Pasture you got a good view of the Helsby and Frodsham hills on the other side of the Mersey. Chris always thought that it was a shame about the chemical works in the foreground. Still, it was a nice, clear day, the river calm, the sky blue and the meadows green.