by Nicky Black
THE RAVE
Nicky Black
Published by Nicky Black Ltd
Copyright © 2018 Nicky Black
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction inspired by the author's experiences. Any similarity of these names to the names of any living person is purely coincidental.
The publisher can be contacted at [email protected]
“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it.”
- William Shakespeare
For Dad
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Denise
Tommy
Denise
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Denise
Peach
Denise
Tommy
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Denise
Peach
Tommy
Denise
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Denise
Tommy
Peach
Denise
Tommy
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Denise
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Tommy
Peach
Acknowledgements
Author's Note
About the Author
The Prodigal Sample
PROLOGUE
TUCKER
Newcastle upon Tyne
June 1989
I didn’t go to Tommy’s rave. I wouldn’t have been welcome there, all things considered, so I’m here instead, shotgun in hand, the unarmed coppers in their car burying their heads under the dashboard.
Cowards.
There’s only a single bullet left, so just one of these men I despise will die today. They’re standing like waxworks, all three of them, looking at me and wondering who it’s going to be: Paul Smart, my boss, my mentor. My betrayer. I’ve learnt everything from this man who’s staring me square in the eye, not a glimmer of fear. He doesn’t feel fear. Paul Smart doesn’t feel anything.
The copper’s here too – the Chief Inspector, wearing that cliched beige Mac like the tosser he is. He doesn’t look scared either. He’s been trained not to show fear, but I’ve clocked the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. I hate all coppers. I loathe them. They’ve hurt me physically, but I can take that. It’s their words that do the damage: coon, darkie, half-cast, nig-nog. I’ve heard it all from their filthy mouths while they search my pockets, asking if it’s true what people say about the size of my dick. I would happily put this bullet into the Chief Inspector’s chest. He could take it for the team.
And here’s the third man on my list.
He's scared all right. He’s shitting himself. I bet young Tommy didn’t think he’d be staring down the barrel of a shotgun this time last week. But he’s only got himself to blame for that, because there’s one thing that hurts me more than ignorance.
Rejection.
I think I might hate Tommy Collins more than Paul Smart and the copper put together.
Tommy’s saying something, but I can hardly hear it, what with the blood in my ears. I strain to listen, try to look like I’m not listening at all.
‘Do the right thing,’ Tommy’s saying.
He’s trying to be friendly, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know he doesn’t really mean it.
I will, Tommy, I think. I’ll do the right thing all right.
SATURDAY
8 days earlier
TOMMY
The wall pulsed to the beat of the music pounding from inside the small, disused warehouse. It echoed in the calm night, the trickle of the Ouseburn river below the fire escape the only other sound. It had been a sweltering summer so far, the hottest for a generation, and some of the rivers and burns were all but dried up.
Tommy Collins leant back against the wall, rubbing at his shorn head, drinking in the rhythm and breathing out the white fog of his cigarette as he reminded himself of The Rules, running them over in his head as he did most days. He’d read them in a magazine a couple of years before – one of those men’s mags; the sort that made anyone with a pigeon chest feel inadequate. The article was about an American billionaire who said making money was "nothing but a game.” He’d even set out his own rules of play.
Tommy knew them by heart.
One: work hard, play hard.
Barely eleven o’clock and the warehouse was rammed inside. He heard the music melt into a slower, Balearic beat – Herp Alpert: one of his all-time favourites. He bounced his head in time to the beat, felt his chest swell, energy charging his fingertips. He didn’t need the drugs or the booze; they were for mugs who had no ambition. The music was his addiction, and he was happily drowning in his dependence on it.
Two: treat others with the respect they deserve.
The fire exit door next to him flew open and a bare-chested youth was tossed out by the bouncers. Tommy looked on impassively as the kid picked himself up in a swirl of profanity and crashed down the fire escape’s metal stairs. Tommy’s security could sniff out dealers like bloodhounds.
The music ramped up again, and he felt the warehouse throb to its foundations. He smiled as the cheers and whistles of the ravers inside rose above the beat. They were having the night of their lives, thanks to Tommy Collins.
Three: beware of your enemies.
He saw it before he heard it: the jarring blue flicker of the police tearing over Byker Bank. He swore under his breath, and flicked his cigarette onto the cobbled bank below, the bouncers throwing the doors open on cue when his fists pounded.
The concrete stairs smelt of piss, and Tommy put his hand to his nose as he skipped down them onto the mezzanine level, inching his way through the throng of jerking dancers. Below him, an ocean of bodies faced the MC, Jimmy Lyric, who stood motionless in his own personal spotlight, his tattooed arms stretched wide like Christ the Redeemer while the music halted for a few beats then slammed back in, bass heavy as concrete, and a thousand hands reached up in unison.
Tommy leant over the balcony, arms signalling to Jimmy, but Jimmy’s lips remained fastened to the microphone, unaware of any other ego but his own.
Jimmy would have to wing it.
The storeroom at the end of the mezzanine was just a few yards away, where Tommy’s right-hand man and best friend in the world was guarding the takings, his first DJ set over and done with an hour ago. Jed would be bored out of his skull by now, waiting for the second set that wasn’t going to happen.
Four: expect the unexpected.
Bursting into the storeroom, Tommy found Jed – not staring at the walls or playing Patience with the pack of cards he’d brought to keep him occupied – but taking a woman from behind over some old beer barrels, his tall, athletic frame grinding in perfect time with Jimmy
Lyric’s incomprehensible words.
Grimacing at the sight of buttocks he hadn’t seen since childhood, Tommy whistled sharply, and Jed turned his hot face over his shoulder, his silky dark hair framing a face as striking as any Levi’s model.
Jed winked, displaying a blissful smile before turning back to his prize – oh so close.
‘Oy!’ Tommy grabbed the plastic carrier bag of money from one of the barrels. ‘The cops, man!’
Jed’s head dropped. ‘Ah, you’re fucking joking!’ He stepped back, snapping off the condom and throwing it into the corner of the room. Pulling up his jeans awkwardly, he planted a kiss on the woman’s arse cheek before running out the door after Tommy who headed back towards the fire exit; their quickest route out.
But they were too late.
Tommy glimpsed a uniform at the fire exit door, felt the adrenaline kick in as he looked over the balcony onto a stream of fluorescent hats wading through the sea of bodies who danced on, oblivious. Pushing his way through the ravers on the mezzanine, he dragged Jed back into the storeroom where they shoved some barrels up against the door and walked to an arched window that reached from floor to ceiling. It opened easily, flakes of paint falling onto the rotten wood of the sill as it had when they’d trialled their Plan B escape route that afternoon.
Five: and remember, it’s only a game.
They’d had a blast, jumping from the window onto the flat roof below, ducking like SAS soldiers as they crept towards the rusty ladder that would lead them to a yard full of scrap metal. A hole in the yard’s fence would take them down the hill to Frankie, their trusty driver and lover of all things on wheels. It had seemed easy to Tommy in the light of day, but now hearts were pumping, the rozzers were everywhere, and the flat roof, just a few feet below the window, had assumed the dimensions of the black abyss.
The two friends’ eyes met when the music came to a sudden stop, and the sound of whistling and dissenting jeers filled the warehouse.
Jed, fit as a lop, was out the window in a matter of seconds.
‘Are you Tommy Collins?’
Tommy had forgotten about Jed’s prize, skulking in the shadows, still holding her blouse together at the neck. She emerged into the moonlight, cheekbones like wings, one side of her short black hair falling over one eye.
‘Aye,’ said Tommy, climbing onto the sill. ‘The one and only.’
Below him, Jed waited, and he hit the roof soundlessly. They crouched like Neanderthals, looking into the whites of each other’s eyes as a voice bellowed from below.
‘Hey! Ye cannit take me decks, it’s not my do!’ Jimmy Lyric was beyond furious.
‘Illegal do, the gear gets confiscated.’ A different voice, low and gravelly.
‘It’s not my fucking do, man. It’s not my do!’
‘Tough!’
Something in Tommy’s memory jarred at the sound of the voice that wasn’t Jimmy’s. He pushed the bag of money under this jacket, crawled to the edge of the roof, and peeked over the metal barrier that encased it. He could see Jimmy gesticulating angrily, his bleached Mohican glowing yellow in the beam of a single streetlight as he marched away from a tall man, grey hair falling in waves over the collar of a beige Mackintosh.
Tommy felt his stomach somersault. It was him, he was sure of it.
‘Jed! Jed!’ The girl with the cheekbones was at the open window, leaning out like a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Tommy gulped silently and pushed his body deeper into the asphalt, eyes fixed on the man in the Mac who had turned his head towards the sound. Tommy watched him for a moment, recognising the face instantly.
Peach.
Their eyes didn’t have time to meet, and Tommy scuttled crab-like towards Jed who hung from the ladder, waving frantically. They climbed down, hit the ground, and ran like hell.
***
The lime green bonnet of the Mini Metro was poking out from behind a mountain of tyres. The interior light was on and Tommy could see Frankie at the wheel, his receding ginger hair tied back in a scraggly pony tail. Frankie held a magazine on his lap, open at its centre, his tongue running over his lips as his finger followed the curvy outline of a shiny, red Rover 200 series, released recently to rival his favourite car of all time: the Ford Sierra.
‘Frankie, man!’ Tommy hammered on the window.
‘Open the doors, you daft twat!’ Jed’s handsome face took on a Hulk-like appearance as Frankie closed the magazine and fumbled with the lock of the passenger door. Tommy peeked around the mound of tyres, watching with alarm as officers poured through the hole in the fence like spiders, holding onto their hats as they scampered down the hill towards them.
As Tommy shouted his warning, the passenger door sprang open and Jed jumped in, reaching over to unlock one of the back doors.
‘Why are the pissing doors locked?!’ yelled Jed.
‘Safety first,’ said Frankie in his usual long drawl.
Tommy hurled himself onto the back seat, lying face down with his feet still sticking out the open door as Frankie started the engine and revved the car, only to stutter a couple of yards before the engine cut out.
‘Howay, Kermit, don’t let me down.’ Frankie named all his borrowed cars. It was his thing.
‘Fucking move!’ screamed Tommy, feeling hands on his feet. He kicked out as the engine started again and Frankie screeched away, the back door still swinging open, and one of Tommy’s trainers in the hand of a panting officer.
Scrambling into a sitting position, Tommy reached out and pulled the car door shut, made all the more difficult as the wheels bounced over pot holes and discarded metal. He turned and gaped out the back window at the growing crowd of police, some with their hands on their hips, most clutching their knees, wishing they were younger and fitter. They were joined by the man in the Mac, who held a carrier bag aloft, his face lit red in the car’s rear lights as it roared up the hill towards freedom.
Tommy spun back around, frantically rummaging under his jacket, panic almost bringing tears to his eyes.
The money was gone.
‘Shit!’ he sputtered.
Jed’s face said it all as he turned to look over his shoulder at Tommy’s empty hands; a thin smile that said, I told you so.
Tommy sighed and threw his head back against the leather of the seat as the car swerved onto Byker Bank. This was the second time they’d been raided by the police, only this time there were more of them and they’d got there sooner. And this time, DCI Peach was in charge.
‘Back to base, Frankie,’ Tommy said, leaning forward and patting their driver on the shoulder.
As the car sped through the empty streets, Tommy stared out the window. He’d taken the billionaire’s rules and applied them to a new game: raves. A release for hundreds – thousands – of cooped-up young people, gagging for it, anything to escape the toil of angry parents, dead end jobs or no job at all. Young people who had found their expression.
Young people like him.
PEACH
Detective Chief Inspector Peach stared after the disappearing car at the head of a cluster of uniforms, sprawled behind him like a formation of geese. He held open the handles of the carrier bag, examining its contents under the weak beam of the streetlight: a couple of grand, maybe less, hardly worth him working past midnight for. He turned to the gaggle of officers behind him, watching a ruddy-faced PC approaching, holding out a white trainer.
‘Why, thank you, Cinderella.’ Peach grabbed the trainer and cuffed the officer over the head with it, knocking his hat to the ground. ‘Anybody get the registration?’
The officers shuffled and coughed, avoiding eye contact and responsibility for their failure.
Peach looked away from them, turning his attention to the streams of youths piling out of the warehouse onto the cobbles. They hung off each other’s necks, chewing ferociously, grinning like goons. Some danced in the flashing lights of the squad cars, their euphoric cries like a call to arms. They chanted, arms and legs jerking, whistles blowing
. This, thought Peach, was their ludicrous idea of enjoyment.
‘Get them out of here,’ he said to Cinderella.
‘But, sir, there’s hundreds of them!’
Peach’s glare had Cinderella scampering away, and he watched glumly as the officers attempted to round up the youths like dogs herding disobedient sheep.
Turning away from the chaos, he stared up the hill, pulling at his grey horseshoe moustache with a finger and thumb. These kids were running wild, drugged up to the eyeballs, roaming the streets at all hours. This is what he’d been brought to; a game of cat and mouse, chasing yobs who should be working for a living instead of creating mayhem on the city’s streets. But it was only a matter of time before he found the organisers, caught them in the act. They were hardly bright after all. Just like this bloody lot, he thought, looking over his shoulder, unable to distinguish a single uniform. They’d been submerged into the mass of bodies, drowned by louts.
A low growl settled in his throat. If he had a decent team he could delegate the legwork, take command and dole out the orders as warranted his position. But here he was, standing around in the middle of the night, dispersing a bunch of dopey students and council riff-raff. What were the parents thinking, anyway, letting their bairns out ’till all hours? They had no control these days. They had no sense.
A throat cleared behind him, and he turned, looking down into the half-hidden face of a young man wearing a long sweatshirt and baggy jeans that bunched like concertinas around booted ankles. The chin was aloft, a white cotton hat pulled down over the eyes. It took Peach a few seconds to recognise DS Murphy, his new sergeant, freshly seconded from Manchester, and, if Peach had his way, straight back on the next National Express.
This was his team.
‘You need to come inside, sir. They’re saying it’s your young ’un,’ said Murphy.
‘Follow them,’ Peach replied, nodding up the hill. But Murphy didn’t move.