The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read, Part 1

by Andy Ritchie

Tukaal then did something really, really disgusting. He made that horrible sound people make when they are clearing their throat and you just know that what they now have in their mouth is a mass of green mucus. He then spat whatever he had dragged up from his lungs into the card slot of the cash machine.

  ‘I said I didn’t have any nanite pods,’ he said as the rather impressive splat of ‘gob’ began to move, ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t have any nanites.’

  I stared at him disbelievingly.

  ‘Are you telling me that you can rake up nanites from your air passages, gob on things and then, hey presto, they do what you want.’

  ‘More or less,’ he replied, glancing anxiously up and down the street. ‘It’s standard practice to have embedded nanites which can be controlled by my neural net.’

  ‘So why don’t you use them all the time? Why bother with the nanite pods?’

  ‘Because I only have a limited number of embedded nanites and it’s always best to save them for an emergency...like this.’

  As he spoke, he continued to glance anxiously up and down the street. I sensed his nervousness.

  ‘Something wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ he replied, as the cash machine starting to whirr into life and the familiar sound of money (lots of money) being counted could now be heard.

  ‘It’s something Mendelssohn said,’ Tukaal continued as the first of several batches of cash appeared. ‘He said that they were able to track me by the power cells of my neural net. He said that when I get within a few feet of anything connected to the electricity grid, they can pick me up.’

  There was little doubt that the cash machine was connected to the electricity grid. There was, therefore, little doubt that THEY now knew where we are.

  A second batch of cash appeared.

  ‘How much have we got?’ I asked

  ‘Two thousand pounds thus far.’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘Get one more thousand and then that’ll do.’

  Obligingly, the cash machine spewed forth another wad of £20 notes which Tukaal quickly snatched from the slot. We immediately started running across a Piccadilly that was still busy in spite of the hour and the rain, heading towards Mosley Street and preparing to turn into the relative gloom of Marble Street. Just before we reached the corner, however, Tukaal suddenly veered off to the left and hurried towards two young men who were walking towards us up Mosley Street.

  There was a couple of bemused expressions, a hurried conversation, incredulous but short-lived laughter, the furtive handing over of cash, and then the two men both took off their caps and handed them to Tukaal.

  Tukaal quickly shook their hands, seemed to hand them some more money, and then dashed back over to where I was loitering at the entrance to Marble Street.

  ‘Put this on,’ he said, handing me a black cap with a simple Nike tick on it (identical to the one I’d lost, which is bloody weird) whilst he donned a thankfully understated black and grey cap with a Manchester United crest on it that actually went quite well with his suit.

  Just as we hurried off down Marble Street, we heard the roar of a couple of engines followed by the screeching of tyres on the other side of Piccadilly, close to the cash machine we had just been using.

  I couldn’t be certain, of course, because we were already out of sight; it may just have been joy-riders or boy-racers out for a late night razz around town. But something inside me knew it was THEM.

  The same thought had occurred to Tukaal.

  ‘That was quick,’ he said as we dashed through the puddles. ‘They’ll be watching the cameras in this area now, probably with automatic facial recognition software which is why we needed the caps, and their vehicles will be searching the streets, so we will need to be extra careful.’

  I wondered about asking him how much he had paid for the caps, but thought better of it, choosing instead to remain silent as we made our way along Marble Street, across Fountain Street and through a small alleyway onto Market Street.

  It was not lost on both of us that we were close to where the Researcher had been killed earlier in the day.

  ‘If we stay where there are crowds now,’ Tukaal said as we headed through the pedestrianised area alongside the Arndale Centre, ‘that should make us more difficult to spot.’

  It was annoying to note that, although he had been running, Tukaal’s voice was steady and measured. My voice, on the other hand, could only come up with a grunt of agreement between the wheezing breaths. And I didn’t have the strength to comment on the fact that I still looked like a tramp and therefore probably stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the ‘beautiful people’ of Manchester.

  So there we were, two fugitives fleeing from dark and sinister forces, with £3000 in cash, looking for some youths to persuade to break into a stolen car and rescue our luggage. I’m not sure anyone’s life could get any more bizarre than that!

  After about four minutes of fast walking (running would have been too conspicuous), we had arrived by a somewhat circuitous route at the junction of Corporation Street and Shudehill, not too far from where the stolen Peugeot was parked.

  All we needed now were some youths.

  A little way up Shudehill was the Birdcage nightclub. Opposite that was one of the entrances to The Printworks, still lively and bustling. Surely we would be able to find some willing accomplices around here. We went a little further up Shudehill and tried as best we could to hide in one of the alleyways to wait for an opportunity to appear.

  For once, fortune seemed to shine on us.

  Even before we saw them, we could hear the voices of the young men, their language coarse and loud. There were six of them on the opposite side of the street, walking down Shudehill towards the Birdcage, young stags with courage and bravado fuelled by alcohol and drugs. Their demeanour was loutish and overtly aggressive as they jostled each other on and off the pavement, and their conversation consisted of a constant exchange of slurred insults, liberally sprinkled with what Mr Spock in a Star Trek film once described as ‘colourful metaphors’. They seemed completely oblivious to the rain which continued to fall, as it had all evening, from the dark sky above.

  I was now regretting my idea to enlist their help in retrieving our bags from the car, and I expressed my concerns to Tukaal.

  But Tukaal simply brushed those concerns aside as he walked across the road and made to intercept the drunken gang.

  Almost immediately, our presence was recognised by the man at the front, someone I would simply describe as a short-arse loud mouth who, if he had been on his own, wouldn’t have said boo to a goose, let alone come out with what he did to a couple of complete strangers.

  ‘Fuckin’ ‘ell, look at these two, lads, coming out of the alley. Couple of fuckin’ queers, if you ask me.’

  Immediately the others picked up on the theme.

  ‘Whay-ay, gay-boys,’ one shouted, ‘Been up to a bit of back-alley work, eh?’

  The other boys found this piece of crude humour insanely funny, and within a couple of seconds, all six of them were laughing hysterically.

  Two of them then simulated a bit of gay-sex, much to the continued amusement of the others, before the short-arsed loud mouth spoke again.

  ‘Shit, look at that fucker!’ He was pointing (roughly) at me. ‘He looks beat up to shit. What sort of weirdo homo stuff ‘ave you queers been up to?’

  The others had now stopped laughing and I sensed a sudden darkening of the mood of the gang. The short-arse loud mouth’s tone had been harsh and accusing, laced with undertones of homophobic hatred.

  Things could get very ugly, very quickly.

  Then Tukaal began to speak.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen...’

  With that sort of introduction, I felt certain that the gang would set upon us in an instant. Why the hell couldn’t he have started things off by saying something like ‘Who are you calling a fucking queer, you little gob-shite?’ At least that would have made them thi
nk twice about who they were messing with. But that, apparently, is not the way Tukaal’s Jedi-mind-trick-shite works.

  ‘...it is great to be wandering through this glorious city, sampling the delights and vibrancy of its culture, the energy and exuberance of its people, its food and alcoholic beverages and, of course, its unpredictable weather. Don’t you agree?’

  Now, in my limited experience of such things, if a well-dressed man emerged from an alleyway in Manchester with a tramp in tow and said that to six drunken lads, he’d have had his head kicked in. Simple as that.

  But not Tukaal. His voice was strong, confident and, most of all, assertive. Almost as soon as he had started speaking, the group of young men had fallen silent, and their aggressive movements towards us had slowed noticeably.

  ‘Tell me, what brings you to Manchester this evening?’

  His question was directed at short-arse loud mouth, who answered immediately.

  ‘It’s Jonno’s birthday. We’ve come down to get shit-faced and then go to a couple of clubs to see if we can get him laid!’

  Tukaal nodded with eager interest as a couple of the other lads made comments such as ‘Get in there!’ and ‘’Ave it!’

  ‘Which one of you is Jonno?’

  A tall, skinny lad, maybe 19 or 20 (and probably the youngest of the group) was stood at the back. Amazingly, he tentatively raised his hand and said ‘Me, sir.’ And even more amazingly, he wasn’t instantly pilloried by his mates.

  ‘Congratulations, young man. It must be great to be able to share your birthday with such a fine group of friends.’

  Tukaal’s voice had now gained that vaguely hypnotic quality that I had experienced in the car when we had first met, and I could visibly see the eyes of the young men begin to glaze over as he continued.

  ‘Where have you men hailed from, somewhere local?’

  ‘Rochdale.’

  They said it almost in unison.

  ‘Oh, wow, that’s just amazing.’

  ‘What is?’ the transfixed men asked like a well-trained chorus line.

  ‘That you fine young men should hail from Rochdale...’ Tukaal responded, his voice so melodic and captivating that I even began to find my own tired mind being drawn into its fold. No wonder these young men, with their senses blunted by several pints of lager and a few cheap shorts, were completely entranced ‘...because not only did Rochdale give us the likes of Gracie Fields, Lisa Stansfield, Cyril Smith and Bill Oddie, it also happens to be where I was born. None of you are from the Shawclough area are you, by any chance?

  There was excited nodding.

  ‘Yeah. Most of us come from Shawclough, but Paddy lives in Wardleworth and Topper lives in Cronkeyshaw.’ It was short-arse, loud mouth again.

  ‘Fantastic! Any of you live close to Healey Dell?’

  The lad who had earlier said ‘Get in there!’ now raised his hand like a pupil desperate to impress a teacher.

  ‘I do,’ he said eagerly, ‘I live on Heald Drive. That’s pretty close.’

  ‘Heald Drive,’ Tukaal said thoughtfully as he feigned deep thought. ‘That’s just off Shawclough Way, isn’t it?’

  The young man nodded vigorously, a broad, idiotic grin on his face.

  ‘I lived on Fallowfield Drive for a few years,’ one of the others offered, ‘that’s just as close to Healey Dell.’ He too sounded desperate to impress.

  ‘I know Healey Dell very well,’ said Tukaal. ‘When I was young I used to live in one of the cottages on Harridge Road, just up Shawclough Road. My parents still live in Rochdale, just off Whitworth Road.’ The lie was effortless and utterly believable. Tukaal had even managed to introduce a slight northern accent to what he was saying.

  There was a chorus of ‘ohhh’s from the young men as they realised they were talking to one of their own. I thought, judging by the expression on his face, that the man who lived on Heald Drive was going to embrace him like a long-lost brother!

  ‘Now,’ Tukaal continued, ‘how would you chaps like to make a thousand pounds by breaking into a car and stealing a couple of bags?’

  The shift in the conversation from Rochdale to crime had been abrupt and yet, at the same time, had occurred almost imperceptibly.

  ‘A thousand pounds?’ short-arse loud mouth gasped.

  ‘That’s right,’ Tukaal said. ‘This thousand pounds to be exact.’

  The eyes of all six men seemed to light up as Tukaal drew a wad of money from his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Danny’s done a couple of cars in his time, haven’t you, Danny?’

  One of the men with short blond hair and a piece of body jewellery through his left eye-brow nodded sheepishly.

  ‘I must warn you that there may be some men watching the car, so once you’ve got the bags you’ll need to get away pretty quickly.’

  I rolled my eyes in disbelief. Why the hell had Tukaal mentioned that? He may just have blown the whole caper.

  Fortunately, however, the presence of ‘men watching the car’ did not seem to faze the young men who continue to stare, hypnotised, at the cash which Tukaal held invitingly in front of them.

  ‘So where is the car?’ short-arse loud mouth asked. I swear he was licking his lips in anticipation.

  ‘It’s parked in Victoria Station car park, just behind the three large billboards by the side of Corporation Street. It’s a green Peugeot 206, licence plate PK05, ZXK. In the boot of the car are a blue duffel bag and a silver metal case. What I’d like you to do for this thousand pounds is get the duffel bag and the metal case and bring them back to us. We’ll be waiting at...’

  Abruptly I interrupted him.

  ‘...at the Corporation Street entrance to the Printworks. Do you know where that is?’

  A couple of the men frowned, but one or two others nodded eagerly. Tukaal cast me an angry glare and I realised that my interruption could well have broken the spell under which he now had the group. I lapsed back into a sheepish silence.

  ‘As we said, the Corporation Street entrance to the Printworks. But remember, gentlemen, we need you to get both of the bags, and you have not to look inside either of them. Can you do that?’

  The men turned to look at each other. Then they all looked at the thousand pounds.

  ‘Yeah,’ said short-arse loud mouth, ‘We can do that!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Tukaal added, ‘do it quickly and there’s another five hundred in it for you. How does that sound?’

  Two of the lads cheered. One of them did that hateful American ‘whooping’. All of them set off at speed down Shudehill whilst Tukaal and I began to walk along Garden Street, heading for the top entrance of the Printworks. I’d eaten there a couple of times in the past, so knew my way around.

  ‘Sorry, I was nervous about waiting where we were, it was a little bit...exposed,’ I said in explanation for my interruption. ‘At least in the Printworks we will be out of the rain, can get a drink and not look so conspicuous’.

  ‘I agree,’ Tukaal replied. ‘There may be a few cameras in there, but there will be a lot more people, which is to our advantage.’

  As we made our way through the Printworks entrance, I asked him a question.

  ‘All that stuff about Rochdale, all those street names...I take it all that came from this neural net thing you have in your head with all the information on it.’

  ‘Correct,’ Tukaal confirmed.

  ‘But how did you know they were from Shawclough?’

  ‘I didn’t. It was a bit of a gamble really. From their appearance and their manner, I guessed most of them came from households that were fairly affluent in a district that was pre-dominantly white and middle class. From the limited information I have about Rochdale, the Shawclough district seems to fit that criteria. Healey Dell is a wildlife reserve near to Shawclough, so seemed a good choice to act as a focal point for the discussion.’

  I nodded thoughtfully, admittedly impressed by the observations and deductions he had made in such a tense situation. />
  Then another question occurred to me.

  ‘Why did you tell them that there may be men watching the car? That could have scared them off.’

  ‘It would be no use to us if, after they had broken into the car, the men were all rounded up and taken away, now would it? Besides, it was only fair that I should inform them of any dangers involved in what I was asking them to do.’

  I smiled and said, almost without thinking:

  ‘It would have been nice if you had offered me the same courtesy.’

  Tukaal cast me what I thought was an angry stare. But, in spite of the fatigue I felt in every sinew of my body, my inner spirit remained bold and defiant and I held his gaze until, eventually, it was he who turned away.

  ‘I’ll go and get us a couple of drinks from here and we can sit and wait for the young men to return. Maybe they will be able to rustle up a coffee to get us warm again.’ If he had felt any anger at my instinctive comment, his voice didn’t betray it, and he marched off into Waxy O’Connors with the air of a man who was genuinely keen to get me some hot refreshments.

  As I watched him head towards the bar, I have to admit that I felt a little guilty at the thoughtlessness of my comment; and yet, at the same time, I felt a strange satisfaction that I had reminded Tukaal of the fact that my life was now a crock of shit and he was solely to blame.

  A couple of minutes passed and Tukaal returned with two large lattes.

  ‘Any sign of the young men?’, he asked, glancing around as he took his seat.

  ‘No, not yet,’ I replied, watching the Corporation Street entrance for signs of movement.

  ‘Any sign of THEM?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘But I suggest we don’t stay here too long, just in case.’

  ‘Agreed,’ replied Tukaal. ‘That’s why I asked for some cold milk in the coffee, so we could perhaps drink it more quickly.

  Cold milk or not, the latte was still hot, but that was something I was thankful for. To be honest, it tasted crap, all bitter and harsh on the palate; but then again, when you’re soaking wet, tired as fuck, shivering cold and scared shitless, taste is not a very high priority.

  The fact it was hot was all that really mattered, and by both holding it and drinking it, the coffee brought me much needed warmth and much needed comfort, for which I was very, very grateful.