Lost Souls

by Neil White

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Terry suspiciously.

  ‘Like I said, to meet Jimmy,’ came the voice. It was quiet, with a measured menace.

  Terry looked out of the window again and his hand flicked at the door handle. Locked.

  The car turned into a narrow housing strip, the houses separated only by a thin line of tarmac that didn’t go the full length of the street. There were still cobbles at one end, and over a wall there was the viaduct, the curved rail tracks that ran high above the town.

  They stopped outside a terraced house at the end, the bricks daubed with graffiti, the tags of local kids. The windows had chipboard covers over them, one downstairs, two upstairs. Terry’s door opened, and he felt a hand grip his shoulder.

  ‘C’mon, let’s talk about your money.’

  Terry was pulled out of the car and then pushed towards the front door. He stumbled to his knees and gasped. He looked down the street quickly. There were streetlights, but all the houses were dark. He thought he saw a figure in the shadows further away, maybe a dealer, lurking in the alleys. Then the door to the house opened, and he felt the hand behind him lift him by his arm and push him inside.

  He stumbled again. This time his hands hit the floor, and he ended up with grit in his palms. The York stone floor had been removed, leaving just dirt and pieces of broken brick. He looked up, scared, and saw Jimmy King. He was sitting in the corner, on a plastic picnic chair. He looked immaculate in his suit, his legs crossed, his hands placed neatly on his thighs, a ring cluttered with small diamonds on his little finger, catching the light from the builders’ lamp next to him.

  Terry hauled himself to his knees and wiped the dirt from his chest. His mouth had turned dry, his chest was tight.

  Jimmy King grinned, his teeth glinting in the semi-darkness.

  ‘Hello, Terry. Shall we talk about your money?’

  Sam was running through the building. He shouted out, but the shape ahead kept on going. It was dark, hooded, pushing through doors, always running away. He reached out, pleaded for the shape to stop. Someone was crying, begging for help. Then he was falling.

  He jumped as he woke up. His shirt collar was damp, his forehead wet. He looked around quickly, tried to remember where he was. It was dark. He took deep gulps as it came back to him. He was in his car, outside Alison’s apartment.

  He loosened his collar and rested his head on the steering wheel. How much longer would he be plagued like this?

  He eventually looked up. His windows had misted up. He wound his window down and looked back towards Alison’s apartment building, and then he started as he saw an empty space where her car had been.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ he shouted, his eyes wide. He thumped the steering wheel. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

  He tried to calm himself down. Think, he told himself. Where would she have gone? He checked his watch. It was after nine. She wouldn’t go to Harry’s house, not this late. What about the office?

  He grinned. That’s where she would go, back to the office. Harry was probably there now, waiting for the latest on Terry McKay. And Sam knew why: because Harry had lied to save Jimmy King’s son.

  And now it was Alison who was doing the dirty tricks, selling out her colleagues to get her leg up the ladder.

  He turned on the engine. He was angry now. All the hours he had put in for Parsons, all snatched away because of one case. It wasn’t going to happen.

  He mounted the kerb on the opposite pavement as he accelerated hard and headed back to Blackley town centre.

  Terry cried out when the first kick landed.

  He curled himself into a ball, tried to protect himself, but the kicks still made it through. To his stomach, to his face. He was yelling, ‘Stop it, stop it,’ but blood splattered his face as his nose took a hit. He felt it crack, sensed the room go quiet as he reeled from the pain, the noise muffled. He felt like he was elsewhere, felt himself slip from the room.

  The haze slowly cleared, and he started to feel the blows again, now punches, methodical and slow, hard and on target.

  He tried to ride it out. He had been there before, the victim of gang attacks by restless teenagers. But he sensed that this one wouldn’t end when the man in the suit got bored. If he ever did.

  There was a pause and Terry tried to look up. He couldn’t do it. He rolled onto his back and tasted his own blood in his throat. He coughed. He tried to roll over, but the pain made him gasp. He sank back again and looked towards the ceiling, his chest sucking in air fast.

  ‘Now, Mr McKay,’ King said, the tone gentle. ‘You said that I owe you some money. Is that right?’

  Terry nodded, but his hand shot to his head as the pain in his nose almost made him pass out.

  ‘Good,’ said Jimmy. ‘I wanted to make sure I heard you right. Five thousand pounds, you said. Who else have you told about this misunderstanding?’

  Terry shook his head and coughed.

  ‘No one?’ said Jimmy in mock surprise. ‘Just that whore you presented to me this afternoon?’

  Terry nodded, more slowly this time.

  ‘And what about Sam Nixon?’

  Terry said nothing at first. He looked up at the ceiling. The state of his life flashed through his mind. The drink. Prison. His digs. The promise he’d had as a young man. Nice clothes. A car. Girls he’d known. Pretty ones. He shook his head again, this time ignoring the pain. ‘I just want my money,’ he said quietly.

  He heard Jimmy sigh, and as he turned to gaze at him, Terry saw Jimmy look at the man in the suit and nod.

  Terry shrieked when his wrist was twisted as he was dragged across the floor. His feet scuffled in the dirt, and then he cried out when his left hand banged against a radiator, the pipe squashed against his fingers. He tried to kick out, but he felt something wrap around his wrist. He tried to pull against it, but the hand holding him down was too strong, too determined. Terry strained, tried to wriggle free, but when the pressure eased he realised that he couldn’t move his left hand. As he looked, he saw that it was tied to the radiator pipe.

  He reached round with his other hand to get to the knot, but it was kicked away.

  He heard Jimmy stand up, his leather soles making light crunching noises in the dirt. Jimmy stepped over to him. As Terry looked up, he realised that he was trapped. He couldn’t move away from the wall, and he was in a derelict street where no one would find him. Or hear him.

  ‘I grew up on this street,’ said Jimmy, his voice calm and deliberate. ‘The old children’s home just across the road. Me and Harry Parsons.’ When Terry looked up at him, he nodded, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. ‘Surprised? About me? Or is it Harry?’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘You’re a greedy little bastard, Terry McKay,’ he said. ‘You take everything. You give nothing back. And we’re all supposed to feel sorry for you.’

  Jimmy tapped him in the ribs with his shoes.

  ‘You live like a dog,’ Jimmy said, and then knelt down, and Terry sensed that it was so Jimmy could see the fear in his eyes. ‘How did you get to this?’

  Terry tried to scuttle backwards, away from Jimmy, but he couldn’t. He was jammed against the wall. ‘Don’t leave me here,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m sorry, Mr King. I won’t ask any more.’

  Jimmy smiled, and then chuckled. ‘That’s not enough. You’re frightened now. You’ll say anything to get out. But when you get out, you’ll go back to living like you do and forget about this, about what you tried to do to me.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘How you threatened me.’ He shook his head. ‘You need something to remind you, every waking moment of your pitiful life, drunk or sober, that you never, ever threaten me with anything.’

  Terry was breathing heavily now, his mouth open, his nose blocked by blood. He saw Jimmy look at his hand, the one bound tightly against the radiator, and then back to the man in the suit.

  ‘Burn it off,’ he said.

  Terry began to moan, tried to pull again at the bindings around his wrist. The man in t
he suit nodded and went over to the corner. He picked up something that gleamed metallic in the light from the builders’ lamp, and then pulled out a cigarette lighter from his pocket.

  Terry cried out when he heard the soft hiss of escaping gas, and then the small flicker from the lighter turned the gas into a blue flame. He began to shake, felt his legs go warm as he pissed himself, tried to pull himself away from the radiator. His eyes opened wide as the man came towards him, the blowtorch in his hand. He tried to cover up his face with his free hand, but the man grabbed it. Before he could cry out with pain or beg or plead, the air was pushed from him as the man knelt on his chest.

  He felt the flame get nearer, felt the heat on his palm. His mind raced, driven fast by terror. He screamed, ‘No, no, no,’ but still the heat got closer. It was just to frighten him, he thought, to hurt him, just to make sure he wouldn’t ask again. He wouldn’t, he knew that now. He had learned his lesson, not to cross Jimmy King. ‘Let me go,’ he tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  He bucked as the flame hit his hand, his eyes wide, his mouth open, screaming, crying. It was searing, not stopping. Then he couldn’t think any more, his mind overtaken by pain.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Sam had parked down the road from Parsons & Co. He hoped to see a light on, just proof that someone was there. He checked his watch again. It looked all in darkness, but maybe they were just being careful. He thought about checking the car park, but he wouldn’t be able to see the cars until he was right there, and then he would be in full view of anyone in the building. No, it was better to wait, to catch them unawares.

  He took a mouthful of the energy drink, a mix of caffeine, sugar and chemicals.

  He waited thirty minutes and still the office was in darkness. He knew he had to take a closer look.

  The street seemed quiet when he stepped out of his car, just a sweep of dark windows opposite orange streetlights. Sam didn’t want to go to the front of the office; it was too well-lit. There was an alleyway that ran behind the street and separated the offices from their car parks. He walked quickly and ducked into it. The crunch of his shoes resounded as he entered the shadows. He thought he heard breathing, but maybe it was just echoes.

  The alleyway was long, just a brick wall on one side that stretched as far as he could see, broken by gates from the office yards, and on the other a low wall, just a short step into the firm’s car park, nothing but a patch of gravel.

  Sam jumped as the security light flashed on. He stopped, tried to listen out for movement. Had someone heard him? Then he saw something, just a dark shape in the corner of the car park.

  He stood still and the light went off. He tried to peer into the shadows. What had he seen? There had definitely been something.

  Sam took a deep breath and then walked slowly forward. His shoes crunched loudly on the gravel, the only sound he could hear. He stepped over the low wall and tried to stick to the edge of the car park, to keep out of range of the security light. There was a glow from the streetlights that ran along the other side of the car parks. Sam could see a mound, a bundle of rags. He edged forward. It was someone lying down. He could hear moans, rasping and low. It was only a few feet away now, and he reached out, ready to touch it. Then he recognised the shape. The streetlights caught the coat he had seen earlier in the day, the worn-out shoes, with the sole flapping away from the cracked uppers. It was Terry McKay.

  Sam rushed over and knelt down.

  ‘Terry!’

  The security light flashed on, blinding him for a second. He heard a moan.

  Terry turned towards him, and Sam saw blood on his face. Then Terry started to raise his arm, opened his mouth as if to say something. There was a gurgling sound. Sam saw blood in his mouth. As Terry turned, his left hand came into view, catching the beam.

  Sam spluttered as he saw the hand, the searing taste of vomit in the back of his throat.

  There wasn’t much left. It was black and swollen, pieces of charred skin hanging down, ragged in places, red and raw in others. Sam thought he could see bone, like white spindles, visible through the flesh.

  Sam stepped away quickly, kicking gravel as he went, and vomited at the side of the car park. Terry McKay looked at him, shuffled forward, tried to speak, his eyes pleading, in pain.

  Sam whirled around quickly. Who else was there? Who else had seen him? Then his mind flashed back to what had been said by Jimmy, that arrangements had been made to meet. If Sam spoke to the police, he would tell them that. But as he looked down at Terry, he saw exactly what happened to people who crossed Jimmy King.

  He wiped his mouth and rushed out of the car park. He didn’t look around, not wanting to see Terry looking at him, begging for his help. He looked ahead instead, focused hard on getting away.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Sam rushed straight to the bathroom when he got home. He sat on the edge of the bath, his head in his hands, his fingers gripping his hair.

  What had he done? Why had he allowed Terry to antagonise Jimmy King? It had been his job to protect Terry. He tried to tell himself that it had been Terry’s choice, that it had been nothing to do with him. But then he remembered how he had left him in the car park, desperate, in agony.

  He rushed to the toilet and heaved into it, but there was nothing left in his stomach. Cold sweat prickled his forehead and he took in big gasps of air. His hands were shaking.

  Sam slumped backwards and looked around, at the expensive Italian mosaic tiles, the power shower, the decadent toiletries Helena loved. Had he left a man desperate for help for all this? Financial security, a world away from his mother’s struggles, her worries about the bills or whether her son would mess up his chance to get away from the estate. He thought about Terry McKay. About Jimmy King. About Eric Randle, and Harry Parsons. And as he heard someone turn over in bed, the lightest of creaks, he thought about his children, beautiful young boys he loved but never saw.

  And then he thought about Helena. Beautiful Helena. He’d thought once that all he needed was Helena. Her laugh. Her look. That tease, playful and girlish. When was the last time he had seen that? Or her naked? Not just without clothes, but naked with him, wanting him, needing him?

  He put his head back and thought about how she was now, cold when sober, angry when drunk. It wasn’t meant to be like that.

  He wrapped his arms around his knees, started to rock backwards and forwards, just lightly at first. But then he got faster. Before he had a chance to stop himself, he had his head buried into his knees, sobbing like a lost child.

  Kyle was dodging the streetlights, ducking his way through the back alleys. He was out too late, had been told to be back indoors three hours earlier, it was too late for a boy his age. His footsteps made soft pat-pat noises, his trainers creeping along the bricks in the alleyway.

  He had to get back, he knew that, but he didn’t want to. He was in trouble already but it was nothing new. Ever since his mum’s new boyfriend had moved in, he had gone from one argument to another, sometimes beatings. And what was there to go back for anyway? His damp bedroom, in a building covered in graffiti? And his mum? She was drunk all the time, or worse.

  Kyle remembered how she used to be, just a year before. She had hugged him, cuddled him. She had always smelled of drink, and she fell down sometimes, but she was worse now. The flat was always filled with smoke, and with men who sat around and said little, just listened to loud music and giggled at each other.

  He had stepped on a damp carpet a few houses back, and he crinkled his nose at the smell—damp, almost like sewage. The alley ran between the two streets of terraces, about four feet wide with a streetlight at each end. The bricks had a wet look and shone back the orange light, the gutter that ran along the centre not much more than a dip in the bricks. The walls were over seven feet high, with tall gates, padlocked, guarding small concrete yards overlooked by narrow, dirty windows. He knew he could cut across the main road at the top and work his way home.

>   He sneaked along, enjoying the furtive excitement of it. His footsteps were the only sounds he could hear, just soft slaps on the damp floor. He stopped whenever he saw a headlight go across the top of the alley, but otherwise he had the night to himself. He pushed at gates as he went, just to see if they were open. He might find an unlocked bike, maybe even a moped. He wouldn’t steal one. He would just take it for a few hours in the fields, and then he would leave it so that it could be found.

  A headlight flashed, then the sweep of a beam. He stopped and flattened himself against a wall, faded into the brickwork. It might be the police. He had done nothing wrong, but the police wouldn’t think that. They had taken him home a few times. The last time they had visited, a social worker came with them. She’d said he might get taken away if it happened again.