HIGHWAY TO HELL
Alex Laybourne
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HIGHWAY TO HELL
Published by Alex Laybourne
Copyright © 2011 Alex Laybourne
Cover Art by Eelco Wijnands at http://www.waskracht.com
Highway to Hell by Alex Laybourne is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.alexlaybourne.com
All Rights Reserved
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Formatting and layout by Everything Indie
http://www.everything-indie.com
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This would have never happened without the continuing support of my wife who puts up with me and all my disturbing conversations at bedtime.
I would like to thank my editor Nick Ambrose at Everything Indie, I know that this wasn’t an easy case for you.
I would also like to thank my brother-in-law Eelco Wijnands for creating my cover art.
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DEDICATION
This is for my wife Patty, and our kids, James, Logan and Ashleigh.
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CONTENTS
PART I
DEATH
CHAPTER 1
I: Marcus (Plus One)
II: Richard
III: Helen
IV: Sammy
V: Graham
CHAPTER 2
I: Marcus: An Old Friend Returns
II: Becky Relives Her Highs and Lows
III: Richard Lusts For Life
IV: Helen: It’s the Quiet Ones You Have To Watch
V: Graham: Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
PART II
A GREAT HALL IN A DYING WORLD
CHAPTER 3
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
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PART I
DEATH
To sad humanity alone,
(Creation's triumph ultimate)
The grimness of the grave is known,
The dusty destiny await . . . .
Oh bird and beast, with joy, elance
Effulgently your ingorance!
Oh man, previsioning the hearse,
With fortitude accept your curse!
Dark Truth
by
Robert Service
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CHAPTER 1
I
Marcus (Plus One)
Marcus Fielding looked at his watch; he was halfway through his shift, the last one of his current rotation, not to mention the last shift before his three-week vacation. It was a sort of second honeymoon. He and his wife had been together twenty years the previous April, yet had never been away just the two of them. They had always had at least one kid tagging along; first it was the twins, Erica and Bryony, then Roger, and finally little Marcus Jr. Not that Marcus cared. His kids were his life and he would do anything for them.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand before replacing his cap. It was the middle of July and the temperature had been stuck in the low thirties for over two weeks already. While the heat was welcome, the new bulletproof vests the force had just issued made the officers who wore them lose fluid quicker than they could consume it. All in the name of safety, the duty sergeant had said. “Easy for him to say”, Marcus had grumbled along with all the others in his section at the end of their first shift wearing the new vests. He remembered that there had been a queue of people by the toilets waiting to wring their shirts out before putting them in their bags.
“I’ll make one more round, and then head back to the car. I’ll meet you there.” He spoke into his radio using another recent addition, the covert earpiece and microphone.
“Ok, I’m done up here anyway. There’s nobody; it’s too hot; everybody’s down at the beach,” a young voice answered, him optimistic as ever, his love for the job still passionate and unbridled.
Simon Dillings had been on the force for three months, and was the lucky protégé of Marcus. The only problem Marcus and every other officer he knew had with tutoring a rookie was the foot patrol. Although, it did bump him up over quota, not to mention it was a tried and tested method of breaking in the new guys, showing them it’s not always gunfights and car chases like you see in the movies.
“Lucky them. Well we’ll head in for some grub and then you can impress me with your paperwork skills again. How’s that sound?” Marcus asked, grinning as he pictured Simon’s face drop, his glasses slip down his nose and his mouth screw up, pursing his lips together in a way that made him look constipated. Marcus liked the kid: he was a good, honest guy, and he would go a long way.
“Boy, sounds like a party. You sure do know how to spoil a man,” the voice answered back, a little bit of attitude finally beginning to crack the ‘good-boy’ rookie shell.
The town center was quiet, with the age demographic definitely favoring the slow moving older citizens, whose idea of causing trouble ended with whispering about someone at the local bingo hall or bridge club meeting. Deciding to cut his route short, Marcus turned left at the midway point of the high street and entered the covered shopping arcade. It had just been renovated a couple of weeks before, but the local youths had already managed to tag two walls with vibrant paint and even more colorful language. Truth be told Marcus was surprised it had taken them that long. The town wasn’t known for being the most picturesque place in the country, and with an unemployment rate that never seemed get any lower, benefit claimants flocked to the town in droves, which in turn had led to council estates springing up wherever there had once been a bit of green ground where the kids could play.
Unlike Simon, Marcus had lived in the town his whole life, and had watched as it made the transition from a small coastal English town to a place the size of a small city, and now it was on the cusp of linking up with the three surrounding towns, all of which were suffering the same fate. Marcus knew it would only be a matter of time before someone would raise the idea of combining them all.
Easterton had once been nothing more than a proud and well-respected fishing village, which grew as the industry it housed did. Then overnight the fishing moved away, taking the majority of the jobs with it. Yet the people had stayed; they were settled, had families, and so the next generation of employment arrived. Factories rolled into town, offering short-lived salvation to the locals, but the eternal quest for cheaper labor played its part and they all watched as once again their industry was taken away, this time to make room for the immigrants who were not only willing to work, but more than happy to do so for a much lower remuneration.
Marcus knew first-hand what a crappy place the world was, and that was in part why he decided to join the police. He wanted to be able to say the neighborhood that his kids would grow up in was safe. It was a losing battle, he knew that, but he had never been one to just cover up and take the abuse.
Marcus noticed that three shops had decided not to open at all today. Each had signs in their windows advising potential customers that the temporary closure was a result of the ne
ar unbearable hot weather. They were small, family run establishments. One dealt in leather bags, and another sold handmade cards for all occasions – or so the sign in the window claimed. The last was a craft shop, its window filled with knitting patterns; wool of every color imaginable lined the back wall as if it were where God had made his Technicolor Dreamcoat. None of them would see the end of the year. It was a sad fact of small town life that no small business could compete with the bigger corporations, many of which were part of international consortiums and so not dependent on the locals to survive.
Stopping, Marcus bent down and grabbed an empty cola can and threw it in the bin that was about half a meter away. Preservation of Public Image had been the session that asked every office to stop and pick up litter while on duty. Marcus and his colleagues had another name for it, but complied nonetheless. He whistled to himself as he moved further along, not a song but just a jaunty tune that seemed to grow in his head.
Marcus’s stomach growled; he had skipped breakfast that morning, and now he would be made to be made to regret it. He patted his trousers, and the pockets of his vest, and then the pockets of his sweat soaked shirt. Nothing. Then he saw it: his wallet, on the table beside the front door. Sitting, waiting for him to grab it – only he had gone out the back that morning.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. He looked at his watch, annoyed with himself. In truth it wasn’t the fact that he forgot his wallet, or even his grumbling stomach that made Marcus frustrated. He had just learned over the years that something always went wrong when he was unprepared.
Before joining the force, Marcus had been a boxer; a light heavyweight, and one with a lot of potential if the people back then were to be believed. He had a record of 21-0 with 18 knockouts when his manager Walter Whitney had first promised him a title fight. Walter had been a small, reptilian looking man with the cold beady eyes of a shark and a temper to match. He had been Marcus’s manager from the beginning, ever since he had first spotted him sparring at the local fitness center. He had been big and fast, and even as a youngster had had the power to stop most of the other fighters in his gym. He had been described as the perfect mix of George Foreman and Joe Fraser with his raw power yet graceful style.
Yet it had all begun to crumble around his ankles one afternoon, a matter of days after he had knocked out the number one contender for the WBO title at the start of the fifth.
He remembered it like it was yesterday, a fact helped by his regular repetition of the tale at the many gatherings he attended. It had become his trademark party tale, one that could be rehashed as often as required without getting stale. Of course his children had also loved it, still did – or at least so they told him. He had only come into the gym to pick up his running shoes, but he had gotten chatting with some of the other fighters who had been milling around waiting to start training. Big Joe – one of the trainers – had spotted him, and came across telling him that Walter wanted to see him up in the office. He looked up and saw Walter’s shadow looking down on them from behind the dirty glass. He wasn’t alone; someone else was up there. Marcus had no idea who it was; his mind wasn’t thinking about his next fight, let alone a shot at the champ, Virgil Hill.
Despite the strange feeling that rumbled in his gut, Marcus ran up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. He buzzed past the dusty photos that lined every wall in the gym. They were nothing more than a random collection of old pictures and newspaper clippings of boxing events, and fellow pugilists going back to the days of bare knuckle fights held on the fishing docks. He had spent years staring at them, reading them all while he waited for his time in the ring or a spare heavy bag .
Marcus stopped himself just outside Walter's office, running his fingers through his then thick and bushy hair. He hadn’t shaved for a week, and the thick stubble threatened to become a beard. Bracing himself, Marcus rapped on the office door three times and then walked in without waiting for an invite.
Inside, Walter's office was as run down as the rest of the gym. The walls hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years; not since before Walter had bought the place. The lone light, nothing more than a bare bulb, hung from the ceiling, its fixture long since vanished. A thick, gray-green cloud hung in the air from the constant stream of cheap cigars that Walter insisted on smoking. Lighting one was the first thing he did each morning, and the glowing embers never left his mouth until he went to sleep at night.
He had died of lung cancer at the age of 63, an age that everybody who knew him was amazed he ever reached at all.
The eyes in the room turned to face Marcus, and the bad feeling (which to until his last days on earth continued to creep over him every time a bad call came over the radio) rumbled his stomach again, louder this time. There were three men in the room, and none of them were on Hill’s payroll. Walter ushered him inside and offered him a seat. The three strangers all wore expensive suits, which hugged their giant, steroid-enhanced muscular frames as if made of Spandex.
“Listen, Kid, you fight well, but to get the champ you gotta let him think he can win. D’ya understand?” Walter croaked. His voice was deep and scratchy from a lifetime of tobacco.
Marcus was only young then, a real talent in the boxing world, but naïve to the workings of the real one. He had nodded; what he heard made sense. He just hadn’t heard what they were asking of him. There and then plans were drawn up for him to fight Aleksander Papp, a young German fighter, who had a good reputation but who was not regarded as a title fighter because of his nationality and the fact his trainer was a Russian defector. Everything moved at lightning speed, and before Marcus knew it, his hand was clutched in the sweaty, powerful grip of all three strangers in turn. The fight had been arranged and dates confirmed. Many years later Marcus would realize that it had all been done before he had even arrived, and his presence was a matter of unimportant coincidence.
Tensions had begun to rise in Marcus’s camp eight weeks out from the fight. He felt as though he wasn’t being put through his paces enough. This had led to several heated arguments, and he started to work out himself in the garage of his flat. Walter kept telling him that the fight was more of an exhibition, just to get the champ’s teeth chomping. Marcus, who was foolish and young, had believed him.
It wasn’t until three days before the fight that Marcus began to get a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. He cornered Big Joe one day after training. It was the end of the day and everybody had already gone home. Joe was about forty kilos overweight, and would break into a sweat just climbing into the ring, yet despite his name and appearance was one of the kindest men Marcus had even known. He bred racing pigeons, and enjoyed tending to his own allotment whenever he had the chance.
Joe had crumbled like a baby before Marcus had even started to ask him any real questions. He told him that he was being undertrained in order to make the fight harder for him; to make him have to work hard for the win. Joe had started to sob when he confessed to knowing what was happening, and between repeated apologies he said that they were trapped in something much bigger than they could understand. Some big time mobsters from London had already bribed the referee to make sure that the German won no matter what he had to do.
Marcus stopped in his tracks. His heart pounded as he looked around the shopping arcade. He could have sworn he heard something, but he still got worked up when he remembered that incident. It had robbed him of his future, and he would never forgive Walter, not even if that simple act was all that stood between him and the fires of Hell. It wasn’t about being the champ, but that they were taking away from him the thing that he loved. Boxing made the world a simple place: you were given an opponent, you trained hard, looked after yourself and then you either won or lost. Or so Marcus had always thought.
Once Big Joe had finished apologizing and offering promises of redemption that included all the fresh vegetables he could eat, Marcus stormed straight into the local bar where he found Walter in the lap of some local woman f
or hire. Marcus ripped the fresh cigar from his manager’s mouth and after pulling him to his feet, struck him with a lightning fast jab, right cross combination that sent Walter flying into the table behind him, snapping it in two and upsetting the two large tattooed men who had been the occupants.
Marcus had walked away and never spoken to Walter again. He had turned up to the fight, determined to do it on his own. “Fuck the consequences,” he had told Big Joe in the dressing room. Walter hadn’t been foolish enough to show his face. His nose had been broken and a further slapping from the bikers he had upset put him under self-imposed house arrest for several weeks.
The fight began and Marcus knew from the first jab that his German opponent was clearly up to speed with what was planned, so Marcus just came out swinging.
Marcus survived the first few rounds with little damage. It was obvious to him that while his opponent was a good fighter, he wasn’t a killer. He lacked the look in his eye and the ruthlessness in his gut to move in and pile on the hurt if his man refused to fall from the heavy blows. Marcus’s long-term girlfriend was ringside; he looked over to her for inspiration at the end of every round. It was the beginning of the seventh when the realization of where he had seen the two large, shaven headed gentlemen (who now flanked his girlfriend) before. They had been present at the pre-fight weigh in, whispering with Papp's trainer and management team. By the end of the eight round, Marcus saw the two men stand and walk away. His future wife was in tears, her caramel colored face had paled, and she looked like she was about to faint. Her lips had blended in shade and disappeared from her face, while her eyes were expressionless. He looked at her, with his left eye beginning to swell shut from a well-placed series of blows, but she wouldn’t look at him. She simply sat staring straight ahead, her expression one similar to the abused women Marcus would later take statements from on a regular basis. She cried; he had never seen her cry before, but she had tears welling up that just couldn’t be held back any longer.
Highway To Hell Page 1