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

by Paul Harris

  Buffalo followed my gaze as I scanned the tables that ran along the left side of the pub. “You can’t even get a game of dominoes anymore,” he baited.

  “You never played dominoes!”

  “I was thinking of taking it up!”

  Amos, meanwhile, was tucking into a bowl of chips and was dipping them into a ramekin of mayonnaise. Excess mayo was dribbling down his chin. He wiped it off with the palm of his hand.

  “Why don’t you use the napkin?” asked Lola.

  Amos’s response was abusive but inaudible as his mouth was still full of chips. Coming from a man whose clothing was more often than not adorned with one food product or another, Lola’s words of advice cut Amos deeply.

  “Scruff!” concluded Lola. He drained his glass and refused a fresh one from the alarmingly enthusiastic barmaid.

  “You going already?” asked Buffalo with what sounded like genuine disappointment.

  Lola took his phone from his pocket and looked at the time.

  “You still got that old thing?” teased Buffalo. “Isn’t it about time you got an upgrade?”

  “It does what I want it to.”

  “So, why you going so early, anyway?”

  “There’s a load of empty beer bottles in the kitchen that I’ve got to put out for the bin men.”

  I decided to avail myself of the new smoking shelter and taking my lighter from my pocket, made my way towards the double doors that now opened up onto the small patio outside. There was a man already there, sitting in an armchair chewing on a limp looking roll-up. He nodded a silent greeting.

  “How you doing?” I asked rhetorically.

  His damp cigarette hung impressively from his bottom lip as he muttered, “Been better.”

  I lit my cigarette and gazed into the night sky. There was a full moon shining high above my head and the huge blanket of stars were as bright as I had ever seen them. I began to pick out the constellations that I could see and to speculate about inter-stellar travel. My reverie was broken when my smoking companion began to roll around in his armchair, coughing uncontrollably. I wondered if there was something I should be doing. My dilemma was resolved when his coughing became less raucous and his breathing returned to a more reasonable gasping sound.

  He coughed up a large mouthful of phlegm and spat it on the carpet in front of me. My stomach turned. “What do you think about what they’ve done to the old place?” he croaked, re-igniting his cigarette with the lighter I had handed him.

  “It’s alright, isn’t it?” I replied and took the lighter back off him.

  The expression on his face suggested that he didn’t share my enthusiasm. “Too dear!” then he began to cough again.

  As I swung the doors open to make my way back around the bar, I saw a couple sitting at a table eating. They had two fluffy white dogs on leads with them. The dogs were an identical match for one another. The woman was pushing a piece of cod around her plate with a fork and surreptitiously dropping chips onto the floor for the dogs to squabble over.

  Opposite them, a man was sitting alone on a barstool reading a newspaper. He too had a dog on a lead that was sitting at his feet peering up at me as if he was trying to remember who I was. I smiled and he began to wag his tail. The man turned the page of his newspaper and glared at me as if I had been smiling at his wife.

  At the bar, Buffalo and Lola were still arguing and Amos seemed quite pleased that I had returned to them. “Hey, Amos?”

  “What?”

  “Have they changed their policy regarding dogs in here or something?”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Look around you. It’s like a bad hair day at Crufts in here.”

  Amos shrugged. “No harm, is it?”

  “I suppose not. So, why did they ban them in the first place?”

  “Hygiene, I suppose.”

  “So what’s changed? They’re still serving food, so what’s different now?”

  “I don’t know, Rod. I don’t care. Go and have another fag.”

  The door swung open and someone else walked in with a dog, and brought a cold draft in with them. “See? See what I mean?”

  The pitch of Lola and Buffalo’s latest disagreement was beginning to rise and Amos was clearly more interested in being a non-participatory spectator of that discourse than listening to me.

  “But, for the millionth time,” Buffalo wailed, “it’s not recycling day tomorrow anyway!”

  “Yes it is.” Lola was adamant.

  “No, that was last week. It’s general waste this week.”

  “No, Buffalo, general waste was last week.”

  I glanced at Amos. His tongue was in his cheek as he winked at me. Either that or his mouth was still full of chips.

  Buffalo took his smartphone from his pocket, carefully laid it on the bar, and opened an app. “Let’s see,” he said.

  “Go on then.” Lola wasn’t impressed. “Well, what’s it say?”

  “Give us a chance! It’s still loading.”

  Lola gave a deep sigh. “How long’s it take?”

  “Just wait! The wi-fi’s crap in here. Just like everything else.”

  I could sense Amos chortling to himself behind me as he scraped the last of the mayonnaise out of the ramekin with his fingertip.

  “Yes, it’s definitely not recycling day this week.” Buffalo put his phone back in his pocket.

  “Well, show me then!” Lola protested. “Show me what it says on your incredibly slow phone!”

  “No, I can’t.” Buffalo ordered another round of drinks and included Lola in the round.

  “Why not? Is it a state secret or something?”

  “No, the app’s not working but it is definitely not recycling day tomorrow.”

  Amos jabbed me in the small of my back and began to snigger audibly. I laughed too. “He’s right, Lola,” I assured him. “It’s not recycling this week. When I walked up, everybody had their grey bins out in the street.”

  Lola turned to face me, pursing his lips in frustration. “The grey bins are recycling, aren’t they?”

  “No, the blue one’s recycling, I think.”

  “What’s the green one for?”

  “Isn’t that for garden waste?”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “You haven’t got a garden anyway, Rod. Why you got a green bin?”

  “I thought it was for recycling.”

  “What’s the brown bin for then?” asked Amos, mayonnaise still smeared across his lips.

  A waitress walked past holding two large platefuls of food above her head. She slalomed between us and took them over to a table in the newly designated snug, leaving behind her a wonderfully stomach-rumbling aroma of grilled steak, fried onions, and roasted vegetables. We stood quietly and watched her, all four of us inhaling deeply. I could have sworn that Lola had a tear in his eye, as if the smell had rekindled long-forgotten memories of home-cooked meals that were once but are no longer. Amos seemed to be dribbling. He raised a hand and wiped the dribble from his chin but yet managed to miss the final blob of mayonnaise.

  A dog barked and strained at his leash. I was momentarily startled and my heart leapt in a random direction. I felt a sudden stab of pain in my chest and I instinctively clasped my hand to it.

  “You alright, Rod?” I heard Buffalo ask. But, I couldn’t respond. I felt myself gasp as I attempted to assure him that I was fine. I felt dizzy and nauseas. I leant on the bar for support. I had never felt this way before.

  Amos laid a hand on my shoulder. “Rod?”

  Although still a little disoriented, I began to breathe more easily.

  “You still with us, Rod?”

  “I’m good,” I confirmed with an unintentional whisper. “Just smoking too much.”

  All three of them were examining me with ridiculously serious expressions on their faces. “You sure?”

  “Did we establish which bins are being collected tomorrow?” No one replied to my diversionary enquiry. They wer
e still looking me up and down and shaking their heads. I pushed Amos’s hand off my shoulder and then broke the silence with a musing of my own. “You know what? I haven’t seen much of Sol the last couple of days.”

  “Nah,” said Buffalo, “nor me.”

  “So, what’s the story?”

  Amos took a gulp of his beer and then, realising that he still had mayonnaise on his face, dabbed a finger at it. “He’s got this bird staying over from France.”

  “Staying over? What, living with him or just crashing?”

  Amos shrugged.

  “Just staying, I think,” Lola said. “She’s like a refugee.”

  “How can she be a refugee if she’s French?”

  “I didn’t say she was French. I said she was over from France.”

  “She is French. I know who she is.”

  Lola was becoming irritable again. He wiped some sweat off his bald head with the sleeve of his high visibility orange jacket. “I don’t know, Rodney! I just know her name’s Monique and that she’s had some problems with a geezer overseas or something. That’s why she’s like a refugee. I didn’t say she was a refugee.”

  “How come everyone knows this stuff apart from me?” moaned Buffalo.

  Lola sighed, rolled his eyes, and looked at Buffalo. “You don’t listen too good, that’s why you never know what’s going on.”

  “You never tell me what’s going on, that’s why.”

  “I do tell you but you’re always too busy chatting shit to listen properly.”

  I interrupted them before they immersed themselves too deeply into another quarrel. “How long’s she been staying at Sol’s?” I’d spoken to him on the matter only days earlier.

  “Don’t know, Rod,” replied Amos, teasing his tongue around his lips, searching for more mayonnaise.

  Lola shrugged. “Nice looking though.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “He brought her out on Tuesday night. Didn’t stay long though. She’s not much fun. Very sad girl.” Lola tapped his empty glass on the bar to attract the barman’s attention and then ordered another round. “Are all French women sad, Rod?”

  “Why would you even ask that?”

  “Edith Piaf for one.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danger! Keep Out!

  In one of the new houses on the brand new residential development that has recently been constructed on the site of the old tyre factory, a young man anxiously paced from room to room, waiting for the telephone to ring. He glared at his wrist watch with abnormal regularity and with an anger that suggested that time itself was mocking him. He placed his elbows on a kitchen worktop and buried his head in his hands for several seconds before standing upright once more, his neatly coiffured hair now randomly pointing in all directions except, that is, for straight ahead. Following half an hour of such behaviour, during which time his head spent most of its time being cradled in his impulsively clawing hands, he finally exhausted himself of all patience. He picked up his phone from the worktop and dialled the number.

  As he listened to the dialling tone, he stared blankly through the kitchen window. The housing estate was not yet complete and across the newly laid tarmac road, a building site clattered and banged as it hoisted yet more houses from the ground. Stinking plastic cubicles lay face down in the mud like fallen statues. A yellow telescopic fork lift truck hauled a pallet of bricks to the top of the scaffolding. The steel mesh fence that cordoned off the site was littered with signs: “Danger! Keep Out!”, “Children Must Not Be Allowed to Play on This Site”, “Strictly No Entry”, “Authorised Personnel Only”, “PPE Must Be Worn At All Times”. The constant nagging had a way all of its own of making him feel tired. As his call was answered, he turned from the window and continued to pace. He spoke rapidly into his telephone.

  More chain-link fences, bent and bowed, snaked off across the huge expanse of derelict land beyond the building site. An old cast iron turnstile stood oddly alone, abandoned and redundant, like the men that had once tried to cheat it. A pile of rubble marked the location of the former gatehouse. The clocking-in machine still lay amongst the debris.

  Another new building site stood on the horizon, its shiny white cement silos pumping out a brave but boring new world, standing as a neat reflection of the huge decaying old steel storage silos of the disused factory that yet still towered above the corrugate roof sheets and tore the great clear sky in two. They patiently awaited demolition, as did what was left of the Victorian red-brick factory buildings, the corporate logo still visible in the brickwork extolling an industrial heritage that was all but dead. They seemed to shudder in the wind as the bright yellow bulldozers edged everyday closer through pools of stagnant water.

  Beneath the factory walls and their steel-framed windows, another discount supermarket rapidly sprang from the mud like an autumn harvest. Its car park rolled out towards the unfinished roads of the new estate, where the sudden dead-ends; where development paused for a much-needed breath; gathered up motorists like a fisherman’s keep net. The driver of a black SUV stopped to ask directions of a postman. The postman enthusiastically waved his hands in the air, pointing back along the road. The driver remained expressionless but seemed annoyed at having to make yet another three-point turn.

  White rendered facades mingled sociably with the red of the brickwork and the glass and the steel of the apartment block balconies. A sea of For Sale signs littered the newly planted hedgerows; steaks plunged into freshly rolled turf even before it’s had time to take root. Compact rear gardens, each one equipped with a standard rotary washing line, backed on to the old factory walls in an odd juxtaposition of architecture.

  Over-sized four-by-fours sat on each and every shiny asphalt driveway, bursting with the radiance of a short-term lease. Aspirations paid for by redundancy money from the factory as it gradually wound down production and limped, and staggered and, due to a lack of enthusiasm from both management and workforce, finally fell to its death.

  The impatient roar of an engine could be heard as the black SUV found itself trapped at another road junction that had not yet been constructed. It was forced to perform one more three-point turn.

  A young woman dismounted a motorcycle that appeared far too big for her. She removed her helmet to reveal a head of short blonde hair. Despite the helmet, still not a hair was out of place. She walked along a gravel path outside one of the new houses with her front door key poised between her fingers.

  Bullshit FM

  Angker Fischer was surprised to find Tom’s car parked on the drive of their rented semi when she arrived home from work. It felt as though she hadn’t seen him for weeks. He was always busy nowadays; always busy, but there was never anything to show for it. Their bank account was dwindling day by day. Tom had sworn that he had investments on the verge of maturing and that business partners all over London owed him money and that they would pay him soon.

  On the strength of these assurances, Angker had had money sent over from Austria to tide them over until Tom could recover what was owed him. She had confided in Tom that she was due to be the beneficiary of a trust fund that her grandfather had set up for her in her infancy. Tom had promised to handle these arrangements and he knew people who were more than capable of finding the very best places to invest her windfall.

  As she found the keyhole with her key, the door opened without her unlocking it. In his haste, Tom had forgotten to close it behind him. She stepped inside and could hear raised voices from one of the rooms within. She hesitated in the hallway and was loathe to become embroiled in another one of Thomas’s crazed rants. She could only hear one voice. He was on the telephone and was becoming agitated. She heard him slam the palm of his hand down onto a hard surface and could almost sense the stinging sensation that it caused.

  “But you assured me, Cawthorne!” Tom raged. “You assured me that the documentation was all in order!”

  Angker held her breath as she listened for a reply but she could no
t hear the voice on the other end of the line.

  But Tom was more than audible: “Still missing?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “And the courier? What of this so-called courier?”

  There was a short paused whilst Tom listened for a satisfactory response. Evidently, he did not receive one. “How on Earth can it take so long for a document to be brought from Salzburg? How can it though?”

  Angker’s heart leapt. “Salzburg?” she thought. “What does he know of Salzburg? What business does he have with Salzburg?”

  “I have explained to you how imperative it is that…?” Tom paused as if he had been interrupted, and then Angker heard him slam his phone down on the kitchen work-top.

  She waited for a few seconds, composed herself, planned a strategy, fabricated an expression of nonchalance, and then walked into the kitchen. “Hi, darling, who were you talking to?”

  Tom seemed surprised to see her, so surprised that his head nearly collided with the saucepans hanging from a row of hooks above the work top. “What are you doing here?” he asked in an almost accusatory tone.

  “I live here, remember? With you. So, who were you talking to?”

  “What do you mean, who was I talking to?” he snapped, his face flushed and agitation clear in every word he spoke.

  “I heard you talking to someone.”

  “I had the radio on. That must be what you heard.”

  “Yeah? What did you have on? Bullshit FM?”

  Tom picked his phone up and examined it for damage. “I don’t need to listen to this, I’m too busy.”

  “You’re always too busy. We’re supposed to be partners. Do we have a problem?”

  He pushed past her and she followed him to the front door. He stepped outside and tried to pull the door closed behind him but Angker had already placed herself between the door and its frame. She watched him as he walked away from her and released the central locking on his car. Another car was parked in the street in front of their house and the engine was running: a black Toyota RAV4 with tinted windows and a satellite navigation system that had not been updated to account for the roads on the new estate. Angker saw a man step from it. Tom didn’t. She watched the man as he checked some notes in a pocketbook. Still the engine of the Toyota was running.