by Lee Stevens
But times change.
He reached for the newspaper sticking out of the post box, knowing full well that the shooting he was being linked with would be headline news and that his name might even be printed in the story. Now, journalists he could kill. They weren’t innocent. They were paid grasses who didn’t even check the facts before they wrote a story.
When he pulled the newspaper free he caught a glimpse of a package at the bottom of the box.
Dainton stepped back, his brow furrowing. He looked both ways along the road again, this time confused. There was no post on a Sunday. Maybe he’d missed it when he collected the mail yesterday. No, couldn’t have. It was too large to miss.
Before he could stop himself he snatched the package from the post box and looked at the handwriting on the side. When he saw that there was no address and that the one word on there was written in black marker pen, his blood froze.
DAINTON
He made a note to check the CCTV recordings later. Find out who delivered it. Then, studying the weight of the package, he soon realised it wasn’t heavy enough to warrant any immediate panic. He had enough experience of explosives over the years (safecracking in his younger days and bomb-planting to get rid of his enemies in later ones) to know that the package was too light to be a bomb of some kind. So what was inside...?A warning from Nash, he told himself. What else could it be?
Dainton tore the package open. Frowned as he pulled out the piece of paper and a small object, round in shape and wrapped in what looked like cling film or a food bag that was stained red.
Dainton held it close to his face to get a better look.
What the...?
When it dawned on him just what it was he held, he gasped and dropped it to the floor as though an electric current had passed from it into his hands.
He stumbled, his stomach turning as he grasped the post box to stop from collapsing.
After several deep breaths and a hard time keeping down the bile that was rising up into his windpipe, he looked at what was written on the piece of paper he still held.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
A second later, Dainton’s rage-filled scream cut through the stillness of the spring morning, and the birds scrambled from the branches of the trees in one huge flock, soaring upward into the clear blue sky in search of safety.
PART TWO
8 YEARS AGO
The music pumping from the speakers beneath the DJ stand didn’t hide the sound of trouble flaring up.
Someone shouted. A chair overturned. A bottle smashed. Then a woman screamed, and so Riley turned away from his post overlooking the dance-floor and hurried over to the fight, quickly assessing the situation as he pushed his way through the crowded club.
He could see two skinny men, both barely out of their teens, pulling at each other’s shirts whilst bouncing off tables and spilling drinks. A group of women were hurrying out the way. A group of older men were sat at a nearby table, laughing at them whilst shaking their heads. There were three lads standing behind one of the grapplers and two lads and three young women behind the other. One of the women was shouting whilst one of her companions held her back from the fight which, in actual fact, was pathetic. In the five or six seconds it took Riley to reach it, neither man had even attempted to land a decent punch. If they were going to fight in a crowded place then at least offer the people whose night they were spoiling a little entertainment.
“Hey, break it up, lads!” Riley said and pulled them apart.
He was about to try and calm the situation down and see what had caused the bother when one of them (the wide-eyed one, the one that looked like he’d snorted a few lines of something) tried to continue the brawl and dove for the other lad who was busy counting his missing shirt buttons.
Riley grabbed the lad round the neck and put him in a choke hold. The lad tried to shout something but all that came out was “Aaiieekk!” before he calmed down. But it was too late for him. Riley had been willing to listen to their reasons for fighting. Give them a chance to apologise or take it outside. There would be no second chances, though.
He nodded for the two bouncers on the door to come over.
Riley handed the wide-eyed crazy over to them and told them to get him out. Then he looked at the three lads who he assumed were his friends. He didn’t have to say anything for them to put their drinks down and leave with an escort from the doormen. They knew when they were outnumbered.
Then Riley turned to the other lad that had been fighting.
“What was that about?”
The lad shrugged as he tucked in his shirt, looking pissed off about the three missing buttons and the fact that most of his chest was showing. Pity it wasn’t seventies night. He’d look right at home.
“I honestly haven’t a clue,” he said. He sounded sober. That was good sign. “I was just sitting here with my friends and caught him staring over at me. Before I knew it he jumped up and came at me.”
“So you don’t know him?” Riley asked.
“Never seen him before.”
“And you did nothing to piss him off?”
“No.” The lad put his arm around the girl who’d been shouting earlier. She was crying. The other two couples were sitting back down, looking nervous and embarrassed. “I’m with my girlfriend and two other couples. We’ve been out for a meal and decided to come here for a few drinks. Why would I want to cause any trouble? That bloke was on something. I could tell. He was just looking for a fight with anyone.”
It made sense to Riley. In most fights one person was the aggressor and the other an unwilling participant. The lad who had been thrown out (who, hopefully, hadn’t given the doormen any mouth and therefore an excuse to pummel him) had indeed appeared the aggressor. Plus, three couples would hardly start a fight with four lads. Yes, the story sounded true.
“Sit down and enjoy your night,” Riley told him. “Let the arseholes fight each other.”
The lad looked down at his ripped shirt, then back up at Riley. He smiled.
“Thanks, but I don’t feel comfortable with my nipples showing.”
Riley smiled back and said, “Well at least finish your drinks before you go. Give the dickheads outside time to move on. They might hang around for you.”
“Oh.” The lad sounded shocked, as if he hadn’t even thought of that.
“How you getting home?” Riley asked.
“Taxi, probably.”
“Tell you what. Finish you’re drinks and then call a taxi. Tell it to pick you up directly outside. When you’re ready to leave I’ll walk you out and see you get in it safely.”
The lad looked surprised. What, a doorman acting like a doorman should? What’s going on?
“You sure?”
“Just give me a shout when you’re ready,” Riley said and walked back to his spot overlooking the dance floor, looking for signs of more trouble. It was often the case that after one fight several others would start soon after, as if all the pricks in the place were working on a rota.
The second he got there, the manager’s voice crackled out of the radio clipped to his belt.
Riley unclipped it. Raised it to his mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Got a minute?”the manager asked.
“What’s up?”
“Come to the office.”
After taking another look at the dance floor, and seeing that everyone seemed nicely drunk or off their heads on pills and powder, Riley made his way to the office.
The door was already open when he arrived and Martin Price, the manager, waved him inside where two other men were sitting on either side of the desk. One, he knew, was Mike Nash, the owner of the club and instantly recognisable by the sharp suit, gold jewellery and big bald head.
The other, he didn’t know.
“Right,” Price said. “I’ll leave you to it.”
He winked at Riley as he left and closed the office door behind him.
“Take a seat, son,” Nash said and
Riley sat down opposite him, beside the man he was yet to be introduced to. “It’s Riley, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You got a first name?” Nash asked.
“Riley is my first name.”
Nash smiled. “Okay, then. This is Pete Turner.”
Riley turned to the man next to him. Shook his hand. Wondered what all of this was about.
He didn’t have to wonder long.
“I’ve heard good things about you,” Nash said.
“Thanks.”
“How long have you worked on the doors now?”
“A couple of years,” Riley said.
“You got another job?” Turner asked.
“I did have,” Riley told him. “I worked at a factory that closed down earlier this year. Tech-world – made televisions.”
“That’s a pisser,” Nash said, lighting a cigar.
“It was,” said Riley.
“Well, like I said, I’ve heard good things about you, Riley,” Nash said, exhaling a plume of thick smoke. “I’ve heard that you’re tough but fair. That you get respect because you can beat the shit out of people but choose not to if it can be helped.”
“I’m here to protect the customers not hurt them.” Riley didn’t know where this was going. He just wanted to get back to work. He had to walk that lad and his friends to the taxi soon. Not only did he not want them to leave alone in case they were jumped, he also didn’t want them to think he was lying about his offer.
“Do you like working here?” Nash asked.
“It pays the bills.”No, he didn’t like working here. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. He had a shitty one-bedroom flat to pay rent on. He needed the money.
“You want something a bit more challenging?” Turner asked.
“Like what?”
“You heard about Decka?” Nash said and Riley nodded. Decka Bates was head doorman. He’d been off work ill with a virus for the last month. Hospital tests had recently revealed the virus to be stomach cancer. He’d been given three months max. “It’s a shame about him but life has to go on. You want his job?”
“Head doorman?” Riley asked, shocked.
“It pays a full time wage. It has a bit variety. Means you aren’t stuck in one place all night and you don’t have to get your hands dirty as often.”
Riley didn’t know what to say. This job had initially just been to earn a little extra money when the overtime had ceased at the factory. Now, it was the only job he had.
“What about some of the other lads,” he asked. “I mean, some of them have been here a lot longer than I have.”
Nash clamped the cigar between his teeth and said, “But they’re not as good as you.”
“So, what do you say?” asked Turner.
What could he say? Work was work and money was money.
“Yeah, alright. Thanks.”
“Good.”Nash stood up and pulled on his overcoat. He then pulled out a card from his inside pocket and handed it to Riley. “Give me a call in the morning. We’ll go over your knew duties.”
Riley looked at the card. It had Nash’s name and mobile number. No business address or job title.
Nash tapped Riley on the shoulder as he and Turner both headed for the door. Riley sat still for a few seconds, dumbstruck. Then he tucked the card in his back pocket and went back to work.
Five minutes later, he was escorting the three couples into the waiting taxi and, as expected, their friends from earlier were waiting on the corner of the block. The wide-eyed crazy and his buddies remained where they were when they saw Riley.
When the taxi pulled away, the three couple safely on their way home, Riley turned to face them.
A few seconds later, the scumbags walked away.
Good boys, Riley thought as he headed back inside the club.
The last thing they wanted to do was fuck with Mike Nash’s head doorman!
29
As if the occasion called for it, the weather was wet and gloomy, and a galleon of dark and sombre clouds had gathered overhead, draining the colour from the land.
Three miles outside of the city centre, Riley, dressed in his one black suit and overcoat, an umbrella held above his head to keep the worst of the weather off him, stood on the waterlogged field a hundred yards or so from the viaduct that towered above him.
It had been repaired and re-enforced over a period of months after the accident and was still in use to this day. Most people who rode the trains that crossed it probably never thought about that day twenty-five years before. Out of sight, out of mind and all that shit. Only those who survived the tragedy and those that had lost loved ones probably felt shivers down their spines when close to this spot; only they felt the icy chill of a graveyard when looking at the small copse of trees that now flourished on the spot where the carriages once lay.
Riley stared at the four oaks, at the markers of death. ‘Memorial trees’ the council had called them when they’d been planted on the first anniversary of the rail accident. Oak trees had been chosen as they were the national tree of England. At the ceremony all those years ago he remembered the Mayor (who’d planted the first tree) saying something about how in Celtic mythology oak trees were known as the Tree of Doors – a gateway between worlds, a way for those still living to be closer to those that had crossed over.
It was a nice thought, but even as a child, Riley never really believed it. His parents had been stolen from him. His life had been wrecked just as much as the carriages that had formed their tombs. Sugar-coating things didn’t do anything for him.
He checked his watch and saw that it was almost nine-thirty. There was still an hour until the funeral and even though he was only eight miles from the church where the service would be held he assumed that he’d better get moving, just in case the traffic didn’t ease up.
But before he turned to leave, he took one final look at the four trees that towered above him, their strong branches sprouting new leaves, like skeletal arms growing new flesh.
I still miss you...
I still think about you...
This was a place of mourning and remembrance, and death was the talk of the day. So what better way to get in the mood for a funeral than to visit here, a place of massive loss, a place he rarely came anywhere near anymore. Not on the anniversary of the event, not at Christmas or birthdays. He hadn’t placed flowers here since he was a child when the trees were mere saplings, yet today he had, the bouquet of roses now lying at the foot of the first tree, the inscription card blank, the flowers already saturated by rain as if the petals themselves were weeping. Next to the flowers, the rain-speckled brass plaque rooted in the ground in front of the gnarled trunk bore eighteen names, more names than were engraved on any of the other plaques in front of each subsequent tree.
Two stood out from the others.
COLIN DAY
DEBRA LOUISE DAY
Again he felt that pang of loss mixed with a strange feeling of guilt.
He knew there should be another name beneath those two. An entire family should’ve died together that day. But it hadn’t meant to be.
“Everything happens for a reason,” his grandmother often used to tell him, especially during the first few years following the accident when he used to wake sweating and shaking after a nightmare. “You survived for a reason...”
A reason? No, his survival had been just what he’d always thought it was – pure luck! There was no reason for it. He wasn’t special. He wasn’t saved for something later in life and he certainly hadn’t deserved to survive anymore than those who’d died. He was no better than them. Life just isn’t fair sometimes. Simple as that. Good people can die young and evil people can live to a ripe old age, surviving wars, avoiding fatal accidents and dodging killer diseases. There was no such thing as fate and certainly no higher power as God. Surely there couldn’t be, for it didn’t make sense. What divine force would decide that a serial killer or rapist should live only for a child to succumb
to leukaemia? If there is a God or gods then why let anything bad happen to an innocent person? Hell, why allow evil people to be born in the first place? And if God does exist but can’t change what happens down here on earth or refuses to intervene then why worship the sadist at all? Riley would soon be sitting in a church listening to a vicar praising the same Lord who allowed Michael junior to die in a hail of bullets. It seemed so ridiculous. But then again, he’d never gotten along with the concept of religion. He preferred to believe that what happens in life is as simple as being dealt a hand of cards. Some people get dealt a winner whilst others can only bluff for a few bets before having to fold. Everything in life comes down to chance. The reason Riley was still alive today was down to chance and nothing more and he had to believe that, because if he chose to believe in God or fate, then he’d have to assume that working for Mike Nash was part of some divine plan to make the world a better place; that working for Mike Nash was what he’d been saved for, what he was meant for.
And that thought depressed Riley more than anything.
He checked his watch again. Told himself for the second time he should get moving. Nash wouldn’t want him to be late - that’s if Nash was in the right frame of mind to notice what was going on around him. Who knew what state the boss would turn up in today? He hadn’t left his mansion in the past ten days and only Purvis and Turner had seen him since Mark Dainton had been taken care of. Purvis had said that Nash had been drinking a lot and crying a lot. When he wasn’t doing either of those he was snorting coke and rambling on excitedly about when Michael junior had been a boy, telling stories of football matches and holidays. When his body couldn’t take anymore booze or powder he was sleeping, and even though he was somewhat incapacitated for the time being plans were being made to take out Dainton with Turner running things in Nash’s absence. After the funeral, whether Nash recovered from his loss and found enough closure to return to work or remained a wreck, those plans would be carried out. That was if Dainton didn’t get to Nash first.