Trilogy: The First Three Books in the Amber For Go Series

by Paul Harris

  “It’s never that cold,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Shshh!”

  It was so quiet that I thought I could hear Timmy’s heart beating next to me. He and Lola glanced at each other almost surreptitiously. I wondered why. Were they actually involved in some way or did they just think they were because they’d stumbled upon the scene earlier in the day?

  The reporter was speaking into the camera with a stern look on her face. “We’re here in South London at the scene of what police are now describing as an horrific crime...” She paused as the heightening wind blew a car door shut behind her. The branches of the trees along the approach were swaying rhythmically above her head but her long dark hair never stepped a millimetre out of line. Her lips seemed to tremble as she resumed her report.

  “Police have arrested a fifty-two year old local man on suspicion of murder…”

  There was a hushed gasp and everybody turned to look at their neighbour.

  “It is thought that the victim died of a shotgun wound to the chest…”

  “I told you that,” blurted out Lola.

  “Shshh!”

  “The whereabouts of the murder weapon are, as yet, unknown. Police are appealing…”

  There was a stillness and a silence in the bar that the Archbishop of Canterbury himself would have envied during one of his sermons, had the Archbishop of Canterbury himself ventured into the Pig & Whistle that Sunday evening.

  “Elsewhere today, Katie Price has announced…” The television was turned down and conversation returned, and returned at a climactic level. Everybody was asking questions of each other that nobody, or almost nobody, knew the answers to. Having honed my detective skills earlier in the day up in North London, I suspected that I might know some of the answers but not all of them. Should I break my silence? Would that be grassing? Could I exchange what I knew, or thought I knew, for information about Bangla’s death?

  “What do you think, Rod?” asked Lola.

  I licked my lips anxiously. “What about?”

  “What do you reckon happened?”

  “I reckon Spider upset someone.”

  “Really?” asked Buffalo sarcastically. “How did you come to that conclusion, Sherlock?”

  “Perhaps he ballsed up someone’s tattoo and they took exception to it.”

  “Like spelled their name wrong or something?” Timmy offered. “Or their girlfriend’s? Or their kid’s? Or maybe their mum’s or their dad’s?”

  “You can’t misspell Mum or Dad,” said Lola.

  “Maybe he gave someone blood poisoning.”

  “Maybe he tattooed the wrong part of their body?”

  “Wouldn’t they have noticed that before he did it?” I asked, naively.

  “Not necessarily,” replied Timmy.

  “How not necessarily?” enquired Buffalo.

  Timmy thought about it and while he was thinking about it, the conversation moved on to a new level.

  “Suits!” grunted Lola, suspiciously eyeing the door.

  Indeed, two men in suits had entered our humble public house and were showing people their identity cards as they mingled with the assembled clientele. We watched them earnestly and after they spoke to people, some of those people could be seen to cast shadowy glances in the direction of Joe Large who was feigning intense concentration on a game of dominoes that he appeared to be about to lose. You could almost discern the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

  Detective Inspector Chisholm was holding a photograph of Georgie Widdows in his hand. He was asking questions about him and was most interested in George’s known associates but wouldn’t say why. Nobody mentioned big Joe Large by name because big Joe Large was very large indeed and had been known on occasion to be quite ferocious too.

  As the two detectives circulated with great conviction and intensity of purpose, the tension rose and the chatter declined. Eyes shot from face to face, curious to see or hear what was being said and what was not being said. Except for my eyes because they were fixed on the back of Joe Large’s head; and his eyes, in turn, were fixed on the dominoes that he was gently nestling in his huge right hand.

  I ordered four beers and as I was paying for them, I was shown the photograph of George Widdows. “You know this man?” I paused and then shook my head. I paused for too long. “You sure?” asked the detective, mistrust written into every one of the multitudinous wrinkles around his deep eye sockets.

  I could feel Joe’s gaze had been drawn to me. I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Eventually, when the detectives departed, apparently no better informed than they had been when they first entered, the chatter once again rose and now the tension declined, but only ever so slightly.

  “What about that then!” exclaimed Timmy.

  “What about what?”

  “They’ve got old Georgie for it!”

  Buffalo sniffed. “I bet you never called him ‘old Georgie’ to his face.”

  “I wonder if Spider gave him blood poisoning?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Lola. “This runs deep, whatever it is.”

  “What do you think it is though?”

  Someone put a pound in the jukebox and said defiantly, “This one’s for Spider!” as the first few distinctive bars of ‘Paranoid’ pumped out and Ozzy took up the microphone.

  “Spider would’ve liked this,” said Timmy. “He liked his rock music, old Spider. Do you think he was paranoid?”

  “Looks like he had good reason to be,” I commented whilst opening yet another packet of crisps.

  It was like a clap of thunder as a fistful of dominoes were smashed down on a table top behind me. A dark cloud began to descend and I was aware of a figure looming beside me. Joe Large was suddenly leaning on the bar shaking his head. He wasn’t looking at us but his presence there was significant.

  “You lot are worse than a bunch of old women with all your yapping!” he said, still without looking at any of us.

  We glanced at one another without responding, just waiting for what was coming next. Joe rose to his full height which was an impressive height when all was said and done. He barged his way between us, spilling crisps onto the floor, as he made his way towards the door and slammed it shut on his way out. I watched him go and decided to follow. As I made my move, Buffalo stepped into my path and held out his hand like a traffic officer. He shook his head at me and as he did so a pork scratching dropped out of his beard and slowly descended to the ground, firstly bouncing lazily off his wool-knit bound belly. All of which did nothing to lend Buffalo’s self-appointed position of wisdom any credibility whatsoever. I pushed past him and followed Joe out into the night.

  “Joe!” I called out blindly and could feel kebab meat clinging to the soles of my trainers.

  He stopped and turned around. My mouth went dry and I felt as though I were choking. He stood stock-still and remained silent like an ominously huge iceberg looming up out of the ocean. I approached him, my feet squelching in chilli sauce, still unclear as to what I was going to say. I was inches from him and he still hadn’t moved.

  “We both know where that gun is, Joe.”

  “Best thing you can do, son, is keep it shut.”

  “But you never had anything to do with what happened to Spider. Why you covering for the other geezer? What’s it got to do with Rat?”

  He seemed to flinch before reiterating his point of view. “Best thing you can do is go a long, long way from here.”

  We stood staring squarely into one another’s faces. Eventually, he gave a great sigh and seemed to break down. “It’s deeper than you think. We all stand to lose if George talks. We robbed this gaff and an old geezer got killed.”

  I licked my lips nervously. I was panic-stricken. I couldn’t comprehend why he was telling me all this; why he was confiding in me; why he thought he could trust me. It was far more responsibility than I had anticipated.

  He went on, his silence broken, and the flood gates open.
“I don’t even know how it happened. The old boy fought back and he got killed.” A tear formed in one of his eyes as he spoke. I dreaded the thought that he might start crying and wondered if this man had ever wept before.

  “Spider bottled it. That’s what he did. Put his hands up to it. George thought he’d drop us all in it.”

  “But they’ll find you anyway now. George’ll make a deal.”

  Joe shrugged. “It is what it is.” He began to walk away but I called him back again.

  “What about all those boxes in Rat’s shop? What’s in them?”

  “Just a load of old records. They came from the robbery in Kilburn. Just need dumping.”

  I watched Joe hobble off up the road. He had the gait of a condemned man who was in no hurry to meet with his destiny. A police patrol passed him on foot coming in the opposite direction. One of the officers looked over his shoulder at Joe and said something to his partner. His partner laughed and they continued to walk towards me. I lit a cigarette and gazed up at the full moon that was just visible between the rooves of the shops and the bed-sits. This great white orb seemed to be casting light down upon these dark little mysteries of ours.

  When they reached me, the two policemen stopped. I wondered what I would say to them. They both looked down at my shoes. “That your kebab all over the place?”

  “No.”

  They walked away. As my eyes followed them, a memory stirred from somewhere deep in my subconscious; a flicker; a shadow from a parallel universe: a truck load of records on a baking hot day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Monkey on My Back

  Things were getting hectic again; my mind was spinning; thoughts dashing themselves against the barriers in which I had imprisoned them. I knew what it was that I had to do but wasn’t sure how to go about achieving those ends. I was beginning to feel exhausted; drained and lethargic. Instead of walking, I waited for the bus. Twenty minutes passed and the small group of passengers at the bus stop began to grow impatient and increasingly agitated. The tension was palpable. A woman in an anorak and woollen skirt slammed a shopping bag down on the pavement. A man in a suit checked his wrist watch and sighed heavily. I tried to think about something else because impatience, along with intolerance, were no longer my masters. But wherever my thoughts took me, there was very little salvation.

  I read the graffiti that adorned the perspex panels of the bus stop but could make neither head nor tail of it. The humour seemed to have been removed from graffiti just as it has been from so many things. The woman in the anorak kicked her shopping bag. I smiled as she caught my eye. She looked at me as though it were my fault that the bus was late; a scowl of pure loathing. She chewed her bottom lip and defiantly refused to break from my gaze.

  Thankfully, the bus eventually arrived. In fact, two buses arrived at the same time, one behind the other. The man in the suit said, “Oh, bloody typical!”, and I jumped aboard the second one because the first one was full.

  I paid my fare and climbed the stairs to the upper deck. Timmy Cubberley was sitting, alone, gazing blankly through the window, and muttering to himself. He was oblivious to all around him. I called out a greeting that he neither heard nor acknowledged.

  I sat down beside him. “What’s the matter, Timmy?”

  He shuffled along the seat to give me more room, and, in one of those Eureka moments, made his big announcement. “I want to write a book.” And then he bowed his head sheepishly.

  “What?” I wondered if I’d misheard him.

  “A book!”

  “Why? Can you write? Can you even read?”

  “Of course I can read, you patronising bastard!”

  “Okay. Sorry, Tim, you just surprised me, that’s all.”

  “It is patronising, ain’t it? The word?”

  “Yeah, yeah, spot on, mate,” I assured him feeling slightly ashamed of myself for needling him at what was clearly a momentous occasion for him. “So, what makes you want to write a book?”

  “I need to. It’s like I need to get this thing off my back, you know.”

  “The monkey?”

  “No, the book! What’s up with you today, Rod? You ain’t listening too good. Where’re you going, anyway?”

  “Round to Sol’s gaff.”

  “What for?”

  “To see him.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s personal. What would it be about, Tim? Your book?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno, really. Maybe it’d be about you, Rod. You got stories to tell.”

  “That’d be one boring book, Tim.”

  The bus lurched to the left as it turned sharply into Delville Road and we were flung together. As we straightened up, Timmy was pushing me away with the palms of his hands. “Easy, Tim. Go and give the driver a dig if it offends you that much.” He ignored me, and wriggled in his seat. The interior lights were flickering on and off and a group of teenagers were getting loud behind us. We all swear but not at the top of our voices on a bus full of grannies and children. They began throwing sweets at each other and one of them hit Timmy on the shoulder. We both took a deep breath and meticulously managed our anger issues. I rang the bell.

  “I got all these ideas swimming around in my brain,” he blurted out. “It makes my head hurt. It makes me feel poorly. I can’t concentrate on nothing.”

  “So, what you gonna do about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Your book? How you gonna get the monkey off your back?”

  “Why you keep going on about monkeys for?” Then he sniffed and raised his forefinger before his eyes as if he had, finally, been possessed of the answer. “That was a good advert; them monkeys, with the tea, carrying the piano down the stairs, weren’t it? Remember it, Rod?” Then, he sniffed again. “Talking of pianos, you hear Bothwell’s car got smashed up the other night?”

  “What’s that got to do with pianos? You got a cold or something? Yeah, I know about his car.”

  “Heavy objects, innit. Some kids smashed the back window in. Didn’t nick anything though. He swears blind he’s gonna kill them. And, no, I ain’t got a cold, I don’t think.”

  “Why you sniffing then? How’s he gonna find them?”

  “Think it’s the gear.”

  “It weren’t kids, it was me! And I’d do it again.”

  “Fuck off, Rod! What you mean? Why did you do that?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “You’re barking mad, you are!”

  “Something else you can put in your book. Let me know how you get on with it. See you later.”

  As I stood, Tim gripped my sleeve. “You need to get away from here; Bothwell’s a dangerous bastard. You’ll start a war and you won’t know who your friends are, Rod.”

  “I still got a couple more scores to settle yet.”

  “It’s gonna be a big book then, innit,” said Tim, examining me closely as I zipped my jacket up to the neck and turned up my collar like Edward Woodward.

  I climbed back down the stairs and nearly twisted my ankle as I leapt from the bus. Clouds were gathering above my head as I turned up a side street and headed for Sol’s house with the idea in my head that I had already let things run for too long, and that if I didn’t start acting more decisively, the moment would pass and House would never get his comeuppance.

  Quend

  “He’s lost the plot, man,” said Rodney, “His head’s gone.”

  Amos looked concerned, almost frightened. “What we going to do, though?”

  “I don’t know! I think he’s having a breakdown or something.”

  Amos mumbled something puerile about the scooters that were parked nearby next to an abandoned tractor and the two young men gazed with trepidation at the entrance to the barn. “We can’t leave him in there.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Rodney demanded. “He just had me around the throat. Look, I’m still shaking!” Rodney held out his hand in front of Amos’s face.

  “That’s jus
t the piss making you shake.”

  The two of them continued to stare hopelessly at the barn. “Is that smoke?”

  Amos looked in the direction that Rodney was looking in. “Probably having a fag.”

  “A fag? With that much smoke?”

  “A big reefer, then,” Amos replied, unconvincingly.

  “Must be a hell of a reefer.”

  “Shit! You don’t think he’s set himself on fire? Come on!”

  They edged, tentatively, nearer to the entrance and could see flames in the darkness at the far end. “Bird!” called Rodney. There was no answer forthcoming from the smoke-filled gloom. “Bird! Get out of there!”

  “Why’s the mad bastard started a fire?”

  “Shit! I spat my cigarette out when he grabbed me around the throat. There’s straw and hay and stuff everywhere. Come on, we need to get him. I hope those oil drums are empty.”

  “Oil drums! Shit!” But, even as Amos spoke, the scene was lit up with a blinding flash and an explosion ripped through the barn. Everything was ablaze: the bales of hay that were stacked high on either side of them; the wooden rafters of the roof; the very floor upon which they stood. Amos retreated back to the entrance and relative safety. Rodney froze, peering searchingly into the smoke.

  “Look! You see her?”

  Angker Fischer was standing there; standing there without a care in the world, watching the fire engulfing their fragile lives. Her maroon leather jacket was zipped up tight and her immaculately short trimmed hair had not one strand out of place. She smiled straight back at Rodney.

  He turned to Amos, who was, by now, outside the barn. “You see her? You see her? Angker Fischer?”

  “There’s no one there! Get out of it, you idiot!”

  Rodney turned back towards the inferno but Angker Fischer was gone, as was Bird; they vanished in the smoke, and all that was left was the putrid stench of death.