by Jay Stringer
Channy’s language surprised me. I’d never heard him swear before, not even once. He’d always been the calm brother, the political one. There had even been a time when he’d looked set to go into local politics, but the guys in power hadn’t wanted another criminal. Politics in Black Country was a racket of its own, full of doublespeak and special handshakes. So the council had “encouraged” him not to run and had given him permission for all his building projects. As long as he didn’t want a seat at the table, he could run the rest of the restaurant.
“We need to take her out.” He saw me catch the use of the word we. His smile almost winked at me. “Yeah. You’re in this with me, too. Man, just because you sold that house of yours doesn’t mean you can forget who paid for it.”
“I guess not.”
Sometimes there’s just no way out from under, is there?
“I know Gaurav was on his way to meet you when they got him. So you have a choice, Gyp. It’s your blood or hers.”
Shit.
Moving far quicker than he had any right to, he seized the cricket bat with his hand and smashed both mugs with a fluid stroke. Black liquid erupted as the ceramic shattered and coffee splashed, still steaming, across my sofa and carpet. But I had other things to worry about. He stroked the bat again, and this time my armchair fell forward and hit the floor with a sickening thump. It was missing a leg. He was next to me now, making one final stroke clearly destined for my kneecap. I saw the bulge of large muscles against his suit jacket as he bought the bat to an instant stop just before the point of impact. I almost dropped the contents of my bladder right there. He ran the bat up the outside of my thigh gently, until it was pressing into my waist.
“You work for her now, maybe. But you still work for me. She can’t have her guards all the time—nobody can. You’re going to find a moment when she’s alone, when she don’t look so tough, and you’re going to call me, yeah?”
He put pressure on the bat, and I said yes.
“Good. Now clean this fuckin’ place up, you pig.”
He brushed past me and left. I stared at the wreckage in my living room. Channy was right about one thing. This would take a lot of cleaning up.
SEVEN
Every day that you wake up with full use of your kneecaps should be a celebration of life. I celebrated with a bacon sandwich. Not just any bacon sandwich—this one was lightly fried in some garlic and pepper, with melted cheese over the top.
I scanned the list Salma had given me and recognized a few names, mostly guys who had been bullies back when I’d been at school. As far as I knew, these types would still be found in their local pubs, collecting their unemployment and working on liver damage.
Could one of them force himself onto a woman? I didn’t find that hard to believe. Would any of them have what it took to run a serious hate campaign against immigrants? No way.
But there was another name that interested me: the People’s Community Party, or PCP. Originally, it had been called the English Socialist Party, or ESP. I’d policed one of their rallies toward the end of my time in uniform, and they hadn’t made me especially welcome. Hanging around angry skinheads waving Union flags and shouting racist chants isn’t my idea of fun. Everyone knew they’d been involved in a riot in Dudley over plans to build a new mosque, but nobody could prove it. Their negative media profile had been enough to warrant a rebrand. Like changing a chocolate bar’s packaging or selling “New Coke,” the party leaders had ditched the ESP title in favor of the newer, more inclusive People’s Community Party. I guessed they hadn’t noticed that shortened to PCP until they’d already ordered all the business stationary. Their posters were all over town in preparation for the local elections in May. A good showing there would give them momentum going into the national elections. If the PCP made big gains in the Midlands, of all places, then the rest of Britain would have to take note. This could get interesting.
First I had to get to my day job.
I got to the sports hall early. The place had been built the previous year, a community project for the surrounding estates, a chance to get involved and play sports. It made a nice story for the papers. What the media didn’t seem to talk about was that the Gaines family had footed the bill. Another sports hall was being built on the heath town estate across town. I’d already agreed to work there, too.
It was a freestanding building, modeled on the sports halls springing up at local high schools. A small monument to concrete and paint. Most of the interior was given to the playing area itself, but there was a changing room, a storage room, and a seated balcony area for spectators. Sometimes the parents of the children would sit and watch; sometimes it was scouts from the local football clubs.
I folded out the five-a-side goals and laid out the cones for the warm-up drills. I tested the pressure of the footballs and played by myself for a while, living out a few adolescent dreams of scoring great goals in important games.
The first few kids arrived straight from school, their voices announcing them long before they turned up. I sent them straight into the locker room to get changed, and then I held back a smile as they came out dressed to play and started acting out the same fantasy moments I’d been running through myself moments earlier.
Raj, a fourteen-year-old Hindu with a deft touch and a loud mouth, commentated on his own genius as he ran past. “He takes it past one…oh, and another. Nutmeg. This guy is on fire.”
I put my foot on the ball, killing the play and sending Raj tumbling from his own momentum. Everyone else laughed, and Raj climbed to his feet even more determined to score that great goal. He got the ball from me and then jinked past his friends and kicked the ball into the goal. Okay, there was no goalkeeper, but that wasn’t the point. He did a circuit of the hall, celebrating to an imaginary crowd. He shut up when the older boys arrived, already dressed in their football gear and ready to start. Raj was quieter when they were around.
I lined them all up and did the roll call, and I noticed the few who were missing. Then I got them started on their warm-up. I made them do two laps of the hall and then run between the cones I had laid out. They were quiet to begin with, focusing on the running, but soon their tongues loosened and the jokes started. They mentioned the size of one another’s dicks as often as they mentioned their names. There was lots of hand slapping and talk of girls.
I pulled Raj to one side and told him he’d done well earlier.
“What you mean?”
“I made you look a fool, but you didn’t lash out. You put your head down, got the ball back, and proved your point the right way. When you first came in here a couple months ago, you would have shinned me.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t need to. I’m a better player than you, no?”
He laughed and joined back in with the running. He was learning how to hold himself. Soon he’d be confident enough to clown around in front of the older kids. As the kids were finishing the warm-up, Marcus Boswell tried to sneak in behind me.
“Nice of you to join us, Boz.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Gyp. Mom wanted me to go home first. You know how she is.”
I did. The last time I’d seen her had been at the funeral for Boz’s older brother, Bauser, a stopper for the Mann brothers. I’d pushed the guy for information, caught him up in my business, and that had gotten him killed. I wanted to keep Boz on the right track. He was the great hope of the team, too. He was still young enough that Wolves scouts were keeping half an eye on him. He was years behind their academy students, who were really learning to play football, but if I could get him fit and focused, they might give him a try. I wasn’t going to let him have it easy, though.
“I don’t care, Boz. You know the rules. Give me ten.”
He rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. He started doing laps of the hall while I divided everyone else into two teams and got a game started. When one kid kept up with some tackles that were too rough, I stopped play to ask him why.
“Cause I could
n’t get the ball, man.”
“So you couldn’t get the ball. Just learn from it. Watch what the other guy did to keep the ball away from you, and then come up with a way to beat him next time. By the rules.”
I blew the whistle during buildup play, happy to see the kids stop where they were and look around curiously. What came next was my way of teaching: we’d look at how the play was spread out and debate what the kid in possession should do next. Who should he pass to, and why? Where was the best space to play into?
Boz slotted straight into the game after his punishment and scored three goals in quick succession. He kept goading Raj, but it was good-natured. He was trying to get Raj to come out of his shell, and sometimes it worked. After the game I had them do a lap around the outside of the building and then talked them through some cool-down stretches. I almost managed to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about.
As they meandered off to the changing room, creating their own soundtrack of loud jokes and squeaking running shoes, I started packing away the equipment. Each kid called bye to me as he came out of the changing room and headed out the door. Boz was last, and he seemed to want to sneak out the same way he’d tried sneaking in.
“You okay, Boz?”
“Yeah, why?”
I cocked my head to one side.
“Because I know you, cob, and you’re not okay.”
He shrugged and turned to leave. He waved at me over his shoulder. I shook my head and decided to leave him alone. He knew where I was if he needed me. I was folding away the goalposts when I heard a powerful car start up outside. I made it out in time to see a black four-wheel-drive vehicle pulling out of the car park. Boz was sitting in the passenger seat. Behind the wheel was Letisha. I knew her. She was one of Channy Mann’s lieutenants.
I swore out loud. I was losing him like I’d lost his brother.
In the changing room I checked my phone. There were seven missed calls and a voice mail. I recognized the number straightaway: Laura. My sorta-wife. The message was short but not sweet.
“Eoin, your mother’s been taken to hospital. Call me. Now.”
My mother? When I called back, it rang so long that I thought it would go to voice mail, but eventually she answered.
“It’s about time,” she said.
Under any other circumstances, I would never have passed up the chance to annoy her.
“What’s happened?”
“She had a fall.”
“Fall?”
Having a fall is what happens to old people. People who can’t look after themselves and need help at home. People with arthritis. People with angina. People who fought in wars. It is not something that happens to my mother. A healthy woman in her fifties does not have a fall.
“Eoin, have you seen her lately?”
I tried to think of the last time I’d visited. It made me feel very small.
“Is she okay?”
Laura didn’t answer. There was just the hiss of the phone connection and background noise of a hospital.
“Laura?”
“Look, I’m not a doctor. Just get over here, okay?”
“Which hospital?”
“Manor.”
That was in Walsall, a couple towns over. Laura hung up. I stared at the phone for a minute.
The phone was shaking.
My hand was shaking.
When did everybody get so old?
The flames are dying out.
The water puddles around my feet. The fireman looks down at me and smiles.
“Don’t worry, sunshine,” he says, “we saved the booze.”
We’re stood outside my parents’ pub. It’s three in the morning, and I’m nine years old. This isn’t the first time the place has burned.
One of the firemen puts his helmet on my sister’s head, and she giggles.
My father walks among the firemen, thanking them. They will be expecting free drinks later, once their shifts have ended. Free drinks and maybe some sandwiches, because they will have noticed that the fire didn’t touch the kitchen.
My father looks old. His shoulders sag.
My mother doesn’t sing us any songs. She wraps the three of us in a big hug and smiles.
“Back to bed soon, don’t worry.”
She goes to talk to my father, putting a hand on his shoulder. They stand there for a moment, framed by the last wisps of smoke. It’s the first time I see my parents look old. The first time I see my parents look fragile. I look into my brother’s eyes and know he’s seen it too.
EIGHT
All hospitals are made up of the same sounds and smells, but each one has a defining characteristic. The Manor hospital was lonely. It wasn’t dilapidated or even empty, but it somehow felt forgotten. The sound of my feet squeaking on the floor echoed down the empty corridors as I made my way to the ward. My mother was in a room on her own. The only times I’d ever seen anybody in one of those solo rooms was because they were either rich or dying.
Laura was leaning against the wall outside, sipping from a plastic cup of coffee and staring as the steam rose from the top. She straightened up when she saw me coming, and almost offered a smile. She was looking good; being promoted clearly suited her. Stepping up to her new job had given her a little bit more of everything; she seemed a little taller and a lot stronger. She was born again. I knew what lengths she’d gone to gain this new authority, but neither of us wanted to talk about that.
“Relax,” she said when I asked about the room. “Being married to a DCI has its privileges. At least it does for your mum.”
“How is she?”
“She’s asleep. She’ll be okay, the doctor says. But she’s shaken.”
“How come you’re here?”
“You’re welcome.”
I checked my ego for a moment. I smiled at Laura, and she smiled back. Just a little bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Why did she call you and not me?”
“I’m her emergency contact at the moment.”
That hurt. It probably showed. Three children and yet she chose her estranged daughter-in-law. Laura kept talking to try and cover any emotion, for the both of us.
“I’ve called your brother and sister, too. They’re on their way.”
“Great, a family reunion. We should probably start a campfire in the reception and make sure there’s space for all the caravans in the car park.”
She laughed and eased back against the wall. We’d often made jokes about my family over the years. She never meant any of them, and I meant only half of them. I wondered how she’s tracked down my siblings. Last I’d heard my sister was living in Glasgow. I was clueless as to where. My brother? No idea. Laid out in a ditch somewhere from too much booze and gambling. Laura had obviously kept better track of them than I did. It was easy for her. Everyone liked Laura.
“What happened?”
“I told you—”
“How?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t gone into any detail.”
I put my hand onto the door handle. Before I pushed my way inside, Laura put her hand on my arm.
“Don’t react,” she said.
I walked into the room and took a long look at my mother. She looked old. She was dozing with the television on mute, the channel tuned to a daytime soap. I walked round the bed to sit by her side. Her arm was bandaged, and the way she was positioned seemed to favor one hip. I carefully avoided her face. It’s the first place you notice any age or weakness in the people you care about. The last place you want to look, sometimes. When I did look, it wasn’t the age or the weakness that I noticed.
It was the blossoming black eye.
A swelling spread outward from her eye, threatening to merge with another bruise on her cheek. I knew this kind of bruise. It wasn’t the kind caused by any fall; these were deliberate.
I’d seen this woman stand up to the police, to bailiffs, and to people who would burn down her family’s home. I’d never seen her take a beating.
>
Laura stood in the doorway. She caught the expression in my eyes and nodded for me to join her outside.
“Who did this?”
She made to put her hand on my arm again, but I shrugged it off.
“Laura—”
“I don’t know.”
“What—”
“Look, all we know is what she told us. She says she had a fall. She says she doesn’t want to cause a fuss. I’ve seen the same things as you, and I’ve called in some favors to get the situation looked at. But, Eoin, if she doesn’t want to cause a fuss—”
I killed it with a look. My mother had never shied away from causing a fuss in her life. It was due to her stubbornness that I had been raised in the settled life. It had cost her a marriage, eventually, but she’d fought every step for her children to have a home and go to one school, to have the same things other children had. The things we wouldn’t have had if we were shunted from camp to camp by the local councils.
And now someone had hit her.
“Channy. He came to see me last night, did a little redecorating with a cricket bat.”
Laura leaned in and looked me over, as if expecting to see bruises. She asked if I was okay.
“Fine. He didn’t do anything to me, but my carpet looks like it was roughed up by a really pissed-off barista. Now this—”
She shook her head.
“Gav Mann, maybe, but this has never been Channy’s style. What would he have to gain? He already threatened you. He’s made his point.”
“Where did she ‘fall’?” We both knew at this point it was just a euphemism for something else.
Laura seemed to debate whether to answer. She knew why I was asking. She knew she had a duty to her job. She also had no moral high ground when it came to breaking the law.
“At her house.”
I smiled at her.
“Thanks for looking after her,” I said. “Say hi to my family for me.”
I walked away down the corridor, trying not to burst into a run. Time to visit my mother’s house.