Highbridge

by Phil Redmond

  ‘Who needs Big Brother’s surveillance society when we’ve got social media?’ he asked as he waved the phone at Sandra. She nodded towards her handbag and Sean dropped it in.

  ‘Who came up with the Kids for Kiddies Facebook page?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Noah sighed. ‘Just one of the group. And I told them not to post until we were actually there and established.’

  ‘And … Dump the Druggies?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘That was me. It’s the way to beat them. Name and shame. Drive them out. Social media is the new public protest.’

  ‘Or village mob?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Or posting a target on your back?’ Sandra asked, the scathing edge slightly softened by a mother’s concern. ‘Don’t you think your druggies will be online too? As well as the police? And who would you have rather got to you first?’

  Noah glared at her. Wanting to fight, but caught by her logic.

  Sean couldn’t suppress the wide grin on his face. Nor resist saying, ‘That could be Mark Twain’s missus, that.’

  ‘You can be such a dick sometimes, Dad.’ And with that he got up and went out. No doubt to reconnect with the group.

  ‘Language,’ Sandra called, more from habit than anger. That was directed at Sean. ‘Did you have to?’

  ‘No. But I don’t really appreciate being dragged away from work to collect him from the police station.’

  ‘Well you can’t say your family hasn’t had experience of that in the past. So let’s hope he hasn’t inherited the wrong Nolan genes.’

  Sean took the barb. This might be rites of passage stuff, but he too hoped his son hadn’t inherited any of the more aggressive Nolan genes. Like his Uncle Joe.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Matt announced from his position halfway up the hill.

  Luke glanced down at the monitor again. The street was quiet. As expected.

  ‘You can record on that monitor as well you know,’ Matt added, assuming Luke was watching.

  ‘You know where that can end up,’ Luke replied as he arranged the black weed matting he had got from Sean. It was supposed to be for the cottage garden, but before that it had been commandeered to act as blackout inside the van. Even when he slid the door back to take the shot, anyone who happened to be looking in the direction of the van would find it difficult to make him out. ‘Bad enough when we had to do it. Ended up collecting evidence on ourselves.’

  ‘Yeah. Perhaps not the best of ideas. Hey up. Spuds on the horizon.’

  Luke watched the monitor as the delivery guy’s van came down the road towards the chippy. He then settled back down behind the Barrett. It was already chambered and ready to fire. He pushed a foam earplug into his right ear. Even with the suppressor the muzzle blast inside the van would be enough to cause temporary deafness. He tugged on a cord attached to a pulley system rigged to the side door. Just enough ease it back a few inches. They had taped and wedged the door lock to make it easier, and quieter, to slide open and if they had lined up the van properly with the marks on the road, then pointing the Barrett at the scratch mark on the inside of the door would line it up exactly on the open chippy door. And zero it in on where they had expected Fatchops to drag in a replacement fridge. It was. Spot on. Luke flicked off the safety.

  ‘How close?’

  ‘Twenty seconds,’ Matt replied. ‘Take the shot.’

  Luke pushed the other earplug into his left ear and started to steady his breathing. Clear shot. Squeeze.

  The old fridge exploded before the trigger finished travelling. Fatchops was once again diving for cover. Even before he hit the ground Luke had panned left a few degrees, sliding the bolt to reload, then steadied and the back wall turned green under a fountain spray of mushy peas. Luke came back right, now lined up on the delivery van.

  A second later the driver discovered what the antimaterial weapon was really designed for when he was thrown forward into his windscreen as a shattered engine block brought the van to a juddering halt. At such close range, without armour there was no need for luck. The 50 cal round had probably pierced the aluminium block, to smash a connecting or push rod, immediately causing the engine to seize.

  Luke had already slid the door closed and was looking for the discharged cartridge casings as he felt the Transit rock, then start to move. Matt had arrived, as planned, just after the second shot, to drive them away, past Spudman, who was getting out, nursing his head, to inspect the steam, water and oil pooling beneath his now immobilised vehicle. As Matt turned the corner he could see Spudman was recovering the usual box of forks from the front and heading for the chippy, with an occasional glance back, wondering what had happened.

  Inside the chippy, Fatchops was now getting to his feet and making his way to the old fridge. This time he could see the entry hole in the buckled door and, not having had the time to fill it, he could also see the exit hole at the back. He pulled the fridge out and saw the damage to the wall. Not too far from and not too dissimilar to the damage caused the night before. It took another second for it to register and another one for him to drop to the floor again. Now he got it. Someone was sending a message.

  7

  Follow-Up

  ‘WHEN WAS THE last time we did this?’ Joey asked, pouring water into two glasses as Natasha put the reheated chicken casserole meals on the table.

  ‘What? Have lunch together in the week? Or plan on attacking someone?’

  ‘Well, I do that bit quite regularly.’

  ‘Don’t, Joe. It’s not something to joke about.’

  He nodded to accept the rebuke. And acknowledge that what Luke termed a proportional response did not come naturally to her. After a moment of guiding the chicken pieces round her plate she pushed it away and sat back in her chair. She had no appetite. For food.

  ‘Go on then. Tell me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Just what or how you are involved.’

  Joey still hesitated. He didn’t want her to know much, just in case it blew back. He wanted her to be ignorant. So ignorant the cops couldn’t charge her with anything. Just as Luke kept telling him to keep out of the details. The operational logistics, as he put it. He’d given Joey the talk about the law of conspiracy. Just talking about doing something illegal was enough in itself, without actually committing the crime. For murder the sentence was mandatory life. As it was for conspiracy to murder. So, how far was he involved? And how far could he allow Natasha to go?

  ‘OK. I’m going to try and pick my words here,’ he began. ‘I don’t know what Luke is up to. He won’t tell me because he doesn’t want me involved. Because I can’t be involved. OK?’

  She nodded and waited. She had had the conspiracy chat too.

  ‘All I’m doing is helping a mate working on his cottage. And lending him a few quid here and there. OK?’

  ‘Bankrolling him?’

  ‘Helping a mate with his cashflow.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘About five grand so far.’

  ‘What? And where’s that coming from?’

  ‘Stuff Benno scavenges from the skips every weekend. Stuff that rich Russian fella keeps throwing away.’

  ‘But … But that’s supposed to be going to set you … set us up back here.’

  ‘I know, I know. And Luke is going to pay me back when he gets his next job sorted. It’s just that he hasn’t got it at the moment, to pay for – well, whatever he needs to do.’

  Natasha was silent, her brain trying to process how Joey seemed to be using their cash to bankroll a couple of mercenaries. ‘How?’ she finally asked.

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How did you get involved?’

  ‘I’m not involved.’

  ‘How did you start lending your mate money, then?’ She tried hard to take the edge off the sarcasm. But the irritation remained.

  Joey now sat back in his chair. ‘The night that prick took a knife to Tanya.’

  ‘What? You just went to Luke and said, “Someone
’s just threatened my little girl, will you sort them out please?” Really sounds like you, Joe.’ No effort to hide the sarcasm this time.

  It brought an ironic smile to Joey’s face. ‘He’s already told me it’s nothing to do with me any more. ‘He’s just found a way to get some sort of payback for Janey. The bloke who killed her is probably long dead. But he, well, he just wants to take this lot out so they won’t kill anyone else.’

  ‘And he actually believes that?’

  ‘No. ’Course not. Just wants the excuse.’

  ‘Why? He must know the police will come after him.’

  ‘Doesn’t care. Said he’s screwed up mentally anyway. Walking dead.’

  Natasha took a moment to digest this. She could believe it. ‘He always was off his head. That’s why Janey was so good for him.’

  Joey reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Like you and me. You pulled me back. And that is the real issue. If he was on the edge before. She pulled him back. So where do we think his head is now?’

  ‘God, Joe. You seem to be so, I don’t know … matter-of-fact about it all. He’s your best friend. You can’t just give him a few quid every now and then and wait for him to do God only knows what.’

  Joey was trying to remain calm, but was becoming exasperated. This was his world. Even if it was one he tried to keep from her. ‘Nat, look. Do you trust me?’

  ‘What kind of stupid question is that?’

  ‘No, it’s not. I mean. You do, don’t you?’

  Natasha nodded but didn’t comment. She did trust him. She trusted that all of this would have been thought through long and hard. And she wanted to know where it was going.

  ‘So you’ll know that whatever Luke is up to,’ Joey continued, ‘I know it’s not something he suddenly decided last weekend. It’s not something he decided after that fight in the Lion. Up to that point it was him who was holding me back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, listen. We’ve both wanted to rip the town up ever since Janey’s funeral. But … we held each other back. By telling each other that I’d already lost a sister. He’d lost a wife. And the kids had lost their aunty. I didn’t want them to lose their uncle. Just as I didn’t want to lose my best mate. So by holding me back he was also, actually, holding himself back. Yeah?’

  ‘So far,’ Natasha said.

  ‘And it was working, Nat. I kept feeding back what he had always told me about how random shit like that happens. Random shit. That was always his phrase. His stock in trade, he told me. So I fed it back. Over and over. But every now and then it would boil over. Like in Luke’s head when that idiot desecrated where Janey died. Then later on started mouthing off about us only having jihadists running amok because of what guys like Luke were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. I could have punched him myself, I tell you. If—’

  ‘So,’ Natasha finally cut in. ‘So what happened to this great pact of self-control?’

  Joey emptied his lungs with one huge sigh. This was the bit he didn’t really want to get to. ‘Me. That’s what happened,’ he said but held up his hand so she wouldn’t ask anything else while he pulled the words together. ‘I lost it.’

  She gave him a look that asked what else was new, but he slowly shook his head to signify that this was a bit more than usual.

  *

  ‘Human beings, that’s why. After all we’ve seen and done, does anyone have to ask why there are bad guys. Adam and Eve. The serpent and temptation. Sin. All that.’

  ‘You fantasising about Sister Frances, again?’ Luke turned to Matt as they settled back into the No. 2 position overlooking the chippy. Halfway along the Hilltop Walk, from where they could still look down on the chippy.

  They had not long visited the fifth skip they had used to dump the last of the stuff out of the van. Each one at the back of a factory or industrial unit where guys dumping building waste from a Transit would be too common to notice. Now it was in the car park of the Hilltop Walk, stripped and cleaned. In case someone had said they’d seen a builder’s van outside the chippy. It was now just another white van.

  They held on to the Motorolas as with no data records anywhere they were just tools of their offshore trade. Another piece of typical British logic. Ownership in itself was not illegal, but using them was. The Barrett was left under the railway bridge, from where it would be retrieved by Billy Higham, once they told him what weapons they would like next.

  ‘Now Sister Frances was sent by the devil. Defo,’ Matt continued as he trained his birdwatchers on the chippy. ‘Did I tell you she used to stroke my backside?’

  ‘Once or twice. And, if I remember, you only made that up after Joey told us about getting his leg over the woman next door.’

  ‘Er, I think you mean I felt safe enough to confide in you.’ He drifted off into some real or imaginary memory. ‘Pity I was too young to realise what was going on.’

  Matt let out a long, regretful sigh at the distant memory and opportunity, in his mind, lost, while Luke had a more immediate thought in mind as he started to dig out a ration pack from the rucksack. Fatchops too was overseeing the lunchtime trade, but also staring at the piece of plastic that had just cost him a sausage dinner. He had been given it by the guy who had come in ranting about reporting him to the Trading Standards people after finding it in his mushy peas. Normally Fatchops would’ve argued, too used to people trying to get anything free, but the last thing he wanted was to have anybody official poking around inside the shop. Especially as the shard of plastic looked like a piece of the shattered drinks cabinet. He went across to the peas and gravy counter tubs and started fishing. It only took one swirl before he was reaching for his phone.

  ‘No, Nat. When I heard about Tan being threatened with a knife I just … After Janey. I went hunting. Down the Riverbeck estate.’

  Now Natasha became alarmed, but Joey was staring hard at the table, avoiding eye contact. Which worried her more.

  ‘It wasn’t hard, tracking him down. I got enough out of Tanya to get the rest out of one of the street corner gangs. He had one of those daft tidal wave style haircuts. He’d be in the park. Behind the precinct or up on the old bridge across the railway. Third time lucky.’

  He then fell into a reflective silence and used the arrival of Roscoe, who plonked his head on Joey’s thigh, to avoid looking at Natasha again. Perhaps Roscoe had sensed the need for moral support, but it gave Joey an extra moment or two before having to answer the next obvious question.

  ‘And?’ The anxiety was equally obvious.

  Joey carried on ruffling Roscoe’s head for a moment until the question came again. More insistent. And in a tone that made Roscoe decide it was time to slope back to his basket. Out of harm’s way.

  ‘And? What happened, Joe? Or is this something else I shouldn’t know? Or something you can’t trust me with?’

  Joey looked across at her. A slowly brewing and volcanic mixture of concern, anxiety, irritation and anger. Trust her? With his life. But admit his failings? Face up to his own imperfections? He couldn’t hold her stare.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Joe. Cut the macho numb act. Just tell me what you did. Or what you shouldn’t have done. I’ve worked that bit out.’

  ‘I didn’t finish the thing,’ he responded, his own sense of frustrated anger erupting. ‘I had him hanging off the railway bridge ready to drop him in front of the next train.’

  Tanya physically recoiled. Whatever she was expecting, it was not this image he was conjuring up.

  ‘All I had to do,’ Joey continued, ‘was wait. Wait for a train to come through and …’ He tailed off again.

  Tanya waited. Hoping for the ‘but’. It didn’t come. Nothing did.

  ‘He’s moving,’ Matt announced. The food was forgotten and five minutes later the Transit was slowly cruising behind Fatchops, who was scuttling down the High Street.

  ‘Absolutely classic,’ Matt said as he watched Fatchops turn into the park and head for the playground area. ‘He’s heading
for smack alley.’

  ‘Double bluff, so he thinks,’ Luke replied. ‘If the users think it’s safe, so will he.’

  ‘What do you reckon, then? Don’t want to be sitting in this thing for too long looking at the kiddies’ playground.’

  Luke nodded. No one would think they were planning to shoot someone, but plenty would immediately identify them as potential paedophiles. He started to edge the Transit away, watching Fatchops flop on to a bench on the far side of the park. Away from the playground, but right next to another entrance. ‘Let’s go round the other side. They’ll probably come down Waters Street.’

  Which they did. A BMW X5 came to a stop outside the park entrance and three guys got out and headed towards Fatchops. Just as Luke and Matt arrived to watch. One was white, undercut and windswept top hair, wearing a heavy leather duffle-style coat and leather ankle-strap boots. Expensive. From that, and the way the other two – one Caribbean, one Asian – had shaved heads in mid-market designer sweat pants and puffas, obviously not yet earning real money. They let Leather Jacket go out in front suggesting he was Fatchops’s next link in the chain, and confirmed by the way he greeted a now nervous but grateful-looking Fatchops. A quick head butt, punch to the side of his head and a push back on to the bench. The sweats and puffas took up positions at either end.

  ‘Another classic. Don’t look at us folks, whatever you do,’ Matt chuckled. ‘Easto, like Fatty, you reckon? Looks like he grew up where the hard men wore leather. Stasi. KGB.’

  ‘Russian Mafia chic?’ suggested Luke. Then added with a grin, ‘Or subscribes to Bobby McBain’s counterfeights catalogue.’

  Matt nodded. ‘Interesting thought. Although the other two probably nicked a box set of The Wire.’

  They sat watching as Fatchops appeared to be talking eighteen to the dozen, finally showing them the piece of shrapnel he had fished from the mushy peas. Leather Jacket took it and turned it over in his hands. Eventually he nodded, but then leaned in to Fatchops with a pointing finger to emphasise some form of motivational message along the lines of, if this happens again you’re dead. It seemed to work, as when he flicked a dismissive hand Fatchops was up and scuttling away, once more at a speed no one would have thought possible.