Town of Fire

by Rebecca Fernfield

  He switches the radio on. It crackles. Michael does his best Burt Reynolds impression. “Breaker one nine.”

  “That is a terrible accent, Mikey!”

  He snorts. He likes it that Clare has given him a nickname. He likes it that he can make her laugh.

  The radio crackles and a voice replies. “What’s your twenty?”

  Five minutes after giving Martha a final kiss and squeeze, Sam stands before the butcher’s shop. The black plastic that he’d taped across the doorway is ripped and flapping in the soft morning breeze; George must already be in there organising the meat ready for collection.

  Sam wipes at the sweat damping his forehead as he steps over the shop’s threshold; there may be a breeze this morning but the day was already hot and, without a cloud in the sky, only likely to get hotter—perfect for a day of fun at the park.

  “George,” he calls as he walks to the back of the shop not wanting to give the older man a shock. No answer, but if he was busy in the cold room then perhaps he wouldn’t hear. Or maybe there was just his assistant here at the moment. “Blake!” he calls as he steps into the preparation room. All is pristine. The double butcher’s blocks that sit at the centre of the room have been scrubbed clean and all seems in order. The door at the far side is locked and the cold store bolted. Where is he?

  “George!” he calls out, unsure if there are further rooms, perhaps an office upstairs. Looking for an alternative door, Sam notices the white flakes and odd chunks that lie scattered across the pristine floor tiles. Even on the well-scrubbed butcher’s blocks there’s a covering of pale dust. Looking up, a ragged hole sits in the otherwise brilliant-white ceiling. George did have an explosive temper, but ... He studies the hole closely. “Bloody hell!” he exclaims to the quiet room. “He’s taken a shot at the ceiling.” He scans the room with fresh eyes. Blood smears the door frame. The imprint and scuff marks of boots is clear across the tiled floor, trapped in the white dust. A man, or men, have walked between the door and the cold room—the bolted cold room. What the hell has George been up to?

  Striding to the door, his heart hammering in his chest, he steels himself against what he might find in the room. Perhaps the girl from yesterday? He slides the first bolt back. But why wouldn’t he have come to find Sam or one of the Protectors? Too early in the morning perhaps? Or, and dread sinks in Sam’s belly, has he shot her and hidden the body in the cold room? He slides the second bolt across, takes a breath, and opens the door.

  The stench of warmed and rotting blood wafts to his nostrils but it’s not that that makes his breath catch. Slumped against the wall, head lolled against his shoulder, is George, his usually florid complexion waxy and pale. “George!” The man makes no effort to speak, makes no indication that he’s heard Sam’s shout.

  Crouching, he scans George for injury and taps at his cheek. Come on man! Wake up! “George!”

  The heavy jowls are cold and clammy. Sam moves into action. Grasping George’s legs, he heaves the unresponsive man across the floor until he’s laid out flat. Checking for obstructions in his airways, Sam tips the head back then forces his own breath into George’s lungs. The man’s chest rises. Another rescue breath. He interlocks his hands over the chest-bone and begins to push. One. Press. Two. Press … thirty. Rescue breath. Repeat. His arms ache and he’s heady from the breaths. No sign of life. He shouts. “George!” Another breath. Another push on his chest. Nothing.

  “Breathe, George!” he shouts in frustration. “Breathe, damn you!” He raises his fist and hammers a blow against George’s breast bone.

  A gasp rattles in George’s throat and his eyes flick open and stare at the ceiling. He takes great gasping breaths. His chest heaves.

  “George!”

  The cadaver-ish pallor still coats his jowls but a slight flush of pink has returned to his cheeks.

  “Just lay still.”

  The butcher stares about the room, confusion written across his face as he takes another breath. He gulps then stares at Sam. “Meat,” he rasps.

  “You’re OK now. I’m here.” Sam lays his hand on George’s shoulder with a reassuring pressure. “Just lay still. I’ll get help.”

  “Thieves.”

  “Don’t try to talk. Just lay still.”

  “Protectors …” he takes another breath. “Helmets.”

  Protectors? What was he trying to say? “Someone broke in?”

  “Yes. Yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Your men … Helmets … Protectors.”

  Sam pulls back. Each one of his men had been carefully chosen. He hadn’t just accepted anyone. “They’re all good men, George,” he says with an edge of defence. “They’re doing their best to keep us safe. Did you recognise the men who broke in?”

  “Not faces—too many incomers these days. Not local.”

  That would narrow it down. A few of the boys were recent arrivals in the town so it would be easy to prove that it wasn’t one of his Protectors that had stolen the meat and attacked George.

  “Just forget about that now. We need to get you a doctor.”

  “They took my rifle.”

  Dread knots at his stomach. “Forget about that now.”

  Chapter 7

  The trolley had been a pain to push back up the hill. The meagre rations of food Jake had eaten over the past days were telling on him now and the muscles of his calves ached with fatigue. They’d burned as he’d pushed the heavy load up the hill. The damned wheels had found every damned pothole in the road and stuck on every raised edge of damned paving slab. The stench from the meat had wafted back at him too and made him gag.

  ‘You sure this meat’s alright?’ he’d asked Aron as they’d finally reached the turn-off for their road. The trolley had stuck against the corner of yet another raised slab and Jake had almost lost control, only Aron’s quick reaction had saved the load from tipping over and landing in the long and turd-infested grass of the verge.

  ‘Yes,’ was his terse reply and they’d pushed the trolley the last hundred yards to his house checking for nosey neighbours then locking it in the garden shed. There was no way he could take it into the house. Tina would kill him. Part gypsy, and proud of it, she still clung on to their ways and kept the house immaculate. Smells were not allowed, and certainly not trays full of bloody and dripping meat, even if it was steak.

  Jake’s stomach aches with hunger and his mouth waters at the thought of the steak. He takes another swig from his second can of beer. “Let’s cook some now,” he says to Aron just as the man leans back to take a gulp from his can and props his boots on the shining top of the coffee table. Jake leans forward and slaps at his leg. “We’re not allowed to put feet on the coffee table,” he whispers. “If Tina catches you-”

  “If Tina catches you doing what?”

  Flippin’ hearing of a bat! “Nothing, love,” he replies quickly as Tina walks through the door. He considers his petite wife for a moment. She’s as immaculate as her house—blonde hair brushed into a neat ponytail with a fashionable quiff at the front, pinned at the sides, simple white and pristinely ironed T-shirt, and blue jeans with navy plimsols complete with snow-white trim. In her hands is the fold of fabric that Jake recognises as her pinny. She stood out among the other women on the estate like a sore thumb, but for all the right reasons. “Morning love,” he continues as she waits for an explanation.

  “Sorry, Tina,” Aron says quickly. “I put my feet up on the coffee table. Jake kindly pointed out the error of my ways.”

  A broad smile breaks across her face and Jake sighs inwardly with relief; scene avoided!

  As she turns, she unfolds the fabric and ties the pinny around her waist. Cleaning again! What could there be left to clean? The past couple of days had been a nightmare. Tina, so house proud, had struggled more with the lack of water for cleaning than for drinking until Jake had suggested boiling some of the rain water and using some of that for the cleaning. He follows her quickly into the kitchen.
r />   “Tina, you can’t use all of that water for cleaning,” he says as she pulls at the bottle of water they’d boiled yesterday.

  “But I’ve got to clean.”

  “We won’t have anything to drink.”

  “There’s three bottles of water in the pantry and six bottles of wine plus the four boxes of beer you got from the supermarket the other day.”

  “We can’t live on alcohol.”

  “You certainly try!”

  “The bottles of water were the last I could get. All the shops are empty now.”

  “Did you get the meat I asked for?”

  “Yep,” he replies with a broad smile.

  “So where is it then?”

  “In the shed.”

  “In the shed?” She sighs. “Bring it in then. If you get the fire going I can give it a mustard rub.”

  Jake’s mouth waters.

  “I got steak.”

  “Just some pepper then. I can put it on the griddle over the fire. Bring it in then.”

  “All of it?” Aron interrupts.

  “What do you mean all of it?” Tina asks swinging round to face Aron with a frown.

  “Well … we got a bit more than-”

  “A bit more! We did good Tina. We got a whole trolley full.”

  “A trolley full? Let me see.”

  Walking behind Tina to the shed his chest swells with pride. She’d sent him to the shops to get some meat and he’d brought the shop to her.

  She opens the door and stares at the laden trolley in silence.

  “What we can’t eat we’ll sell.”

  “What we can’t eat! Where the hell did you get this lot from?”

  Jake thinks back to the butcher’s shop and George Henson now locked into his own cold store. “The supermarket. We raided their cold store.”

  “And just where the very hell did you get that from?” She stabs at Henson’s rifle standing propped in the corner.

  Jake nudges Aron in the ribs. “I told you to make sure that was put away,” he hisses.

  “I did. I put it up in the corner. It’s safe.”

  Jake grits his teeth, irked by the stupidity of the man. Now he’d have to come clean and tell her the whole grisly story about the theft and she’d start wittering about how he’d get locked back up and she’d be on the outside having to wait—again!

  “Nobody saw us, love,” he says by way of explanation. “There’s no CCTV, so no evidence, and we had helmets on so the bloke-.”

  “The bloke!”

  He groans. “We’re going to sell it,” he says deflecting the conversation.

  “It’ll rot in here.” She turns to him with a scowl.

  He hates to see the crease between her brows. He’s in for it now; a hard time and the cold shoulder for a good few hours—days, probably.

  “It’s already hot this morning and it’ll only get hotter.”

  “We meant well, Tina,” Aron adds.

  She sighs and shakes her head, her lips pursed, and Jake sinks with the familiar sense of failure.

  “If you’re going to sell it you’d best get on with it,” she insists swatting at one of the flies that has already begun to buzz around the open shed door.

  Jake stares from his wife’s hardened face to the trolley.

  “Well go on then!” she chides. “Pull it out. Let’s see what you’ve got. I can salt some of it.”

  Ten minutes later Tina has filled several containers with meat for themselves and is busying herself lighting a fire in the back garden as Jake stands at the first doorstep scanning the surrounding houses, mentally organising his route through the estate, and noting any unwelcome interest, a habit he’s found hard to drop though he hasn’t been involved in any criminal activity for the past two years. Tina had insisted on moving to the town after his last stint in prison. She wanted a different kind of life and expecting the coppers to turn up each day and raid the house was not something she was prepared to do. A pang of guilt waves over him as he knocks at the door again, but this, he debates with an imaginary Tina in his head, is different. This is a matter of life and death. They were in crisis and he wasn’t about to let her starve. They needed the money to buy food and he was, in fact, doing everyone on the estate a favour; otherwise the meat would be kept for the likes of George Henson and the other fat, rich buggers in the town.

  Tap! Tap! Tap!

  The door swings open and a girl, not more than nine years old, and still dressed in nightclothes, opens the door. She looks at Jake then Aron with a frown. “Yeah?” she asks nonchalantly.

  “Get your dad, love.”

  “Dad!” she calls whilst simultaneously closing the door and turning away. Another call of ‘dad’ muffles as she wanders back through the house and they wait for the thudding footsteps of Jack ‘Mad Dog’ Docherty. Jake takes a step away from the door’s threshold as the figure of Mad Dog approaches through the tinted glass. At six-foot seven and with a reputation as a fighter, he’d earned his nickname from the stunts he’d pulled on his motorbike as a teenager along with his propensity to lose himself to a tearing, violent, and terrifying rage when in a fight. Bloody noses and broken bones were the least of your worries if you got on his wrong side.

  The door swings open and the hardened face of Mad Dog stares down at Jake. He doesn’t speak and it’s a moment before Jake realises he’ll have to initiate the conversation.

  “Morning Jack.” He takes a quick look around at the surrounding houses. Mad Dog follows his gaze and scans the area, instantly alert to the fact that Jack isn’t on legitimate business.

  “Get round to the side door,” he growls.

  “Sure, sorry mate.” Jake steps over the grass as the door clicks shut.

  At the side door Mad Dog waits but doesn’t invite them inside. “What you got?” he asks gesturing to the long gym bags slung across their shoulder. “Not tea-towels and pegs by your shifty looks.”

  Jake drops his bag to the floor ignoring the slight on his wife’s heritage. “Sirloin and T-bone steaks. Pork and lamb chops. Best Lincolnshire sausages,” he says unzipping the bag.

  Suddenly interested, Mad Dog peers down into the bag. “Ain’t that a sight for sore eyes. How much?”

  “Ten pounds a steak,” Jake attempts.

  “Not a chance. Keep it real.”

  “Five then.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll give you a quid a piece.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a twenty-pound note.

  Jake zips the bag back up and turns to leave. He was expecting to make thousands on this haul, not hundreds.

  “Just wait a minute.”

  Triumph slides across Jake’s cheeks but he damps it down as he turns back to the huge man in the doorway then swallows it to the pit of his belly as he recognises the dangerous glint in Mad Dog’s eyes.

  “What do you think you’re playing at, offering me food then taking it away?” His voice rises with menace as his frown deepens. “My wife and kids are starving in there.”

  Before Jack has time to react, Mad Dog tears the gym bag from his hands and disappears into his house.

  “What the!” Aron shouts.

  “Shut up!” Jake hisses. His palms burn from the ripping of nylon handles against soft skin unused to work.

  “He took the bag. Get it back.”

  “It’s Mad Dog,” Jake whispers. “You don’t mess with him. Let’s just go.”

  The door opens as Jake turns to leave and the bag slides along the dusty concrete path to stop at his heels.

  “Let’s go.” Jake picks up the bag. It isn’t empty but a good portion of the meat has gone and the familiar sense of failure envelops him.

  “If I catch you at my door again …”

  Chapter 8

  Sam turns back to the Police Station as the car taking George to the hospital moves away from the kerb. A small crowd still lingers outside and as Sam pushes through he enters the door to a chant of, ‘Hang the bastards!”

  He clos
es the door with a sigh of relief then twists the slatted shutters of his office windows to block out the sight of the crowd. He slumps into his chair, closing his eyes as his heart beats a rapid tattoo that fills his chest.

  As the chanting subsides Martha enters with a soft knock. “Sam, do you think it’s time we made our way to the park?”

  He groans inwardly.

  “I’ve just seen a couple of groups walk past.”

  His guts twist.

  “One lot had a wheelbarrow full of barbecue coals so I think the message got out.”

  A small wave of relief washes over him. Anxiety about the barbecue had bitten at him since the morning’s conversation with Bill and snapped at him since the discovery that there was even less meat to distribute thanks to some thieving little shite.

  The chanting fades as Sam forces himself to rise from the seat and when he steps out of the door the small mob of over-excited and angry men and women has disappeared. A lone protestor sits slumped against the low wall, his head lolling against his shoulder. Sam kicks at one of the numerous beer cans littered on the path. It clatters and clinks then rolls to a stop at the man’s feet but doesn’t wake him from his sleep.

  “They’re drunk.” Sam kicks at another can as he strides across the road.

  “There’s no water; it’s all people have got to drink.”

  He sighs, welcoming the relief the deep breath brings. “You’re supposed to get drunk at a barbecue, not before it.” He clasps Martha’s hand and takes comfort from its firmness.

  Outside George’s shop, supermarket trolleys are lined up in an orderly fashion, a guard stationed beside each one. Sam steps into the shop to check on progress.

  “I don’t believe it was one of us who stole the meat,” Chugger states as Sam drops the last of the sausages into a bag.

  “I’ll be carrying out an investigation later this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t one of us.” Chugger grabs a bag of meat from the butcher’s block and strides to the door.

  Sam can think of nothing until the afternoon’s event is over and, unwilling to discuss the matter, he repeats his intention of carrying out the investigation later and joins the group of Protectors to walk up to the park. The sight of three trolleys full of meat, along with the bags that he and Martha carry, is reassuring. There were three other butchers in the town that had agreed to hand over their stock and one supermarket. A small truck had been found to collect that stock. If each one of those had this much meat then perhaps there would be enough to go around.