by Nicky Black
‘We’re running out of power!’ Jed was breathless, approaching Tommy and Frankie with a look of holy hell.
‘How?’ Tommy asked.
Jed hadn’t said a word about Tucker. Once he’d regurgitated his breakfast, he’d avoided eye contact with Tommy, walking away and busying himself when Tommy asked his opinion on the matter.
‘Three generators didn’t show,’ said Jed, looking over his shoulder. ‘The farm one’s a hundred years old and there’s no frigging fuel.’
‘Speak to Jimmy,’ said Tommy. ‘He knows how they work.’
‘Can’t find him, can I?!’
Tommy nodded in the direction of a line of three portaloos that would have to serve thousands, and where Jimmy was quite literally shitting himself, his impending night of MC fame taking its toll on his bowels.
‘And these,’ said Jed, holding up his precious, brick-like phone, ‘don’t work in the middle of frigging nowhere.’ He threw it over his shoulder, his face searching Tommy’s for answers that didn’t come, not for a few amusing seconds, anyway.
‘Good job I brought walkie-talkies, then isn’t it?’ said Frankie. ‘They’re in Lady Penelope’s boot. Back to basics, Gerald.’
Jed put his hands on his hips, as if he didn’t want to hear solutions, as if he was due a good moan.
‘Listen mate,’ said Tommy. ‘About Tucker—’
‘And where’s the lighting and the sound gear?’ Jed wasn’t interested in a conversation about the usurper. ‘I’ve got riggers sitting on the stage doing sweet Fanny Adams.’
Tommy sighed and looked around him. The sun was sinking. It would be pitch-dark in a few hours. ‘They should’ve been here by now,’ he said, too calmly for Jed’s liking.
‘Tommy!’ Jed raised his arms. ‘I’m stressing my tits off here!’
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Tommy, holding Jed’s arms and bringing them back to his side. ‘Enjoy it, this is going to be the best night of our lives.’
‘Jesus.’ Jed put his head in his hands. ‘Please, God, send power.’
The portaloo door swung open and Jimmy strode out, zipping up his flies.
‘Thank Christ!’ Jed strode off in Jimmy’s direction, arms gesticulating at all the things that were going wrong while Tommy walked away from Frankie towards the hangar. It was epic, remarkable, people bustling around its vast mouth like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The stress was gone, the fear evaporated. The plan would work, it had to.
Inside the hangar, he stared up at the floodlit walls. Great sheets of white were being staple-gunned to the wooden beams, giving the interior the appearance of the inside of a billowing tent. Mobz’s army were working their way efficiently around each sheet, some of the artists hanging from the rigging, some on great, wheeled ladders, others reaching up precariously from piles of empty crates. Each white sheet was imbued with an evocative alien, interspersed with iconic, smiley faces at various angles. Any spare piece of wall not covered by a sheet was being slathered in luminous, neon paint.
Tommy stood next to Mobz who tugged slowly on a joint, his oily curls fingering the edges of his back-to-front baseball cap.
‘Few hotels didn’t get their clean sheets,’ said Mobz, grinning in a way that hid his stained, rickety teeth.
Tommy had no words, and Mobz had little need of them. They stood, side by side, cocooned in the echo of hammering, drilling, shouting, and laughter. He was about to burst with pride when the generator’s hum faded, and the floodlights died.
‘Fuuuuck!’ Jed’s wail filled the hangar, but somehow, Tommy didn’t flap. He decided to add another rule to the billionaire’s list.
Six: trust your instincts.
He patted Mobz on the back and walked outside to find two minibuses parking up, great hulks of men pouring from their sides. Hadgy Dodds was at the helm, taking considerable pride at overseeing such a healthy bunch of specimens.
‘Hey, these better not be hooligans.’ Jed had sprinted to Tommy’s side, his voice fraught. ‘Christ, that one’s in a ’Boro shirt!’
‘Behave,’ said Tommy, striding up to Hadgy.
‘Where do you want us?’ Hadgy asked, back straight, hands clasped at his groin.
‘Back on the A1,’ said Tommy. ‘We need power and diesel. Some Valium for Jed would be champion.’
Hadgy nodded, as if he was asked regularly to find such things. He whistled, and his men gathered around. He picked half a dozen, dishing out the orders before they climbed back into the minibuses which headed back off in the direction of the roadworks, the bane of every northern driver’s life, and Tommy’s electricity salvation.
Tommy put a hand on Jed’s shoulder. ‘Show these boys their stations, then.’
Jed was frowning at the bouncers, and he cleared his throat, drawing his shoulders back and flexing his muscles before leading them away.
Looking back at the hangar, Tommy saw Jimmy waving him over.
‘Where’s the lights and the sound? I’m getting worried,’ Jimmy said when Tommy reached him.
‘Aye,’ said Tommy, looking at his watch. It was gone eight o’clock. The trucks were two hours late. ‘Where’s Frankie?’
Jimmy nodded his head towards the pink car where Frankie was bent over the bonnet with a handkerchief, rubbing at spots of dirt.
‘Maybe they’ve gone to the farm,’ said Tommy.
‘Christ, Tommy, it’s a hundred-mile round trip,’ said Jimmy, his red face suddenly flushing redder. ‘Oh, Jesus …’ A loud gut-groan had Jimmy heading for the portaloos once more.
Tommy watched Frankie as he uncurled himself, stretched his back and waved, happy as Larry and completely out of place in his dated two-tone finery. A hundred-mile round trip. If he avoided the roadworks, he could be back just in time. Then there was Peach to consider. Peach thought they would be at Groat Hall Farm. He’d probably be watching, and Tommy didn’t want Frankie leading the police back to the airfield. But no lights, no sound – no rave.
Jed was back at his side, considerably calmer, like a dog who’d been scolded by its pack leaders. Tommy explained the dilemma.
‘Jesus,’ Jed whined. ‘I told them the new venue.’
Frankie was walking across the tarmac towards them. ‘How’s it gannin’?’ he asked. ‘Need ’owt doing?’
Tommy and Jed exchanged a brief glance.
‘He can’t take that car,’ said Jed under his breath.
‘What?’ Frankie looked puzzled until Jed enlightened him. They needed someone to go to the farm in case the sound and lighting had gone there by mistake.
‘Nee bother,’ Frankie said. ‘But I’m not leaving Her Ladyship here. More than my job’s worth.’ He looked back at the car with something akin to tenderness. ‘Where I go, she goes,’ he said.
Jed sighed and looked at Tommy who shrugged his agreement. Who was he to separate a man from the woman in his life?
‘Right,’ Frankie smiled. ‘What do you want us to do?’
PEACH
‘Great party, boss, fancy a dance?’ Murphy sucked thirstily at a can of Irn-Bru, the liquid echoing down his throat in noisy glugs.
Peach could barely contain his frustration. Had they been duped?
Silence reigned, the shadows of tree branches dancing on the walls as the sun began to sink. They’d been sitting either side of a filthy window they’d had to wipe clean with toilet roll and spit for almost nine hours. Peach’s top lip burned, his fingers clawing at the hair of his moustache harder than ever. The stench of the farmhouse – mould, damp, and wet dogs – turned his stomach. Even the sandwiches Murphy had brought seemed infused with a hint of manure flavouring.
Peach lifted his radio to his mouth.
‘Any activity at the petrol stations?’
‘No, sir,’ came the bored response four times over.
The patrols had been at the service stations for four hours, others on standby at every conceivable entry point within ten miles of the farm. Riot and dog teams, armed response and a
ir patrol were awaiting orders. Chief Superintendent Forbes was not going to be a happy man come Monday if Peach didn’t get a result, and McNally would have every reason to put him on the backlog of unsolved crimes that were accumulating at a rate of knots – if he wasn’t sacked outright for disobeying orders. This was his one chance, and something had gone very wrong.
Murphy crunched the empty can in his hand and flung it across the room while Peach eyed him doubtfully, wondering if Murphy had heard wrong, whether his confidence that the set-up would happen in stages was unfounded. Not everyone would arrive together, Murphy had said, they wouldn’t want to draw attention to convoys of vans and lorries. It would all start at midday and go on until past ten when the phone numbers would go live. Then they could move in.
But there was nothing to move in on.
Peach looked back at the streaky window, the flicker of stars becoming visible as the sun made its slow descent. He heard a rustling, Murphy digging into one of his voluminous trouser pockets for his tobacco and papers. As Murphy drew out the machine he used to roll his cigarettes, his wallet fell to the floor, falling open, displaying a photograph of his younger self. The picture was around ten years old judging by Murphy’s flares and the wide necked shirt. In his arms he held a toddler, a little boy wearing a white sun hat.
Peach leant down and picked it up. ‘He yours?’ he asked, surprised that Murphy was mature enough to father a child.
‘No, that’s our kid,’ said Murphy. ‘Bit of an age gap, eighteen years.’ Murphy pressed the tobacco into the roller, slotted the Rizzla behind it. ‘Let’s just say he was a surprise for my parents. He was a good kid, though, proper angel. Well, most of the time.’ He laughed gently.
Was? Peach closed the wallet, held it in his hands. ‘Was he killed?’
‘You could say that. Cancer,’ said Murphy, licking the edge of the Rizzla with the tip of his tongue. ‘Fuckin’ ’orrible, it was. Six-year-old when he went.’
Peach found himself concentrating on Murphy’s hands.
‘Broke me mam’s heart,’ said Murphy. ‘She was never the same after that. Or me dad. Moved down south and threw themselves into their work.’ He lit his cigarette, eyes squinting at Peach over the flame. He took a long drag, blowing out a plume of smoke as he put his lighter and paraphernalia back into his pocket. ‘I’ve seen what losing a kid does to people,’ he said.
Handing the wallet back to Murphy, Peach exhaled his relief, feeling unexpectedly lucky. Sally would be home soon – tomorrow if Doctor Flynn gave her the all clear. He felt something he hadn’t felt in a long while – the need to share.
‘It’s like …’ But he couldn’t finish. He felt it in his heart but couldn’t find the words.
‘No need to explain, boss,’ said Murphy. ‘No need at all.’
Peach nodded, grateful of the reprieve, his eyes turning back to the window and the grey dusk beyond it. No red sky tonight, no shepherd’s delight in the morning. Perhaps the long dry summer was finally over.
Leaning forward, he spotted a flash of light in the near distance.
‘Ay up,’ said Murphy, suddenly alert.
The lights flickered through the hedges that lined the road, drawing closer until the vehicle slowed and turned onto the track that led to the farm. A black Range Rover approached, the darkening sky glaring off the windscreen. Peach squinted, trying to see beyond the glassy sheen, unable to see inside the vehicle. But he knew the car, and he knew the owner.
The wheels bounced over pot holes and the car came to a stop a few feet from the gate of a fence that enclosed the overrun garden. If it would just inch forward into the shadow of the house, he’d be able to see inside. Instead, it remained stationary, engine turning.
‘Sir.’ Peach heard an urgent voice crackle from his radio. ‘Reports of two firebombs in the Byker Wall, an armed robbery in Gosforth and three stabbings in the city centre. We need officers.’
What? Peach rubbed at his eyes with a finger and thumb. ‘How many do you need?’
‘Six units… Sorry, make that seven, we’ve got a jumper on the bridge.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’ Peach clenched his lips together in frustration. ‘Take them from the service stations, I need the others.’
‘Roger.’
‘Boss.’ Murphy was on his feet and Peach joined him, looking down at the car, the driver’s door now open. A foot emerged, then another – red peep-toe sandals with a short heel. A few seconds later, she was standing by the car and pulling a sports bag from the back seat.
‘What the hell …?’ said Murphy.
Denise Morris was clutching the bag in her hand, bending to one side with the weight of it, surveying the farmhouse with anxious eyes. She staggered at first, then began walking towards the building with small, nervous steps.
Peach switched off his radio and indicated to Murphy to do the same as they heard the latch clunk and the front door creak open.
‘Don’t move,’ Peach whispered, and he walked carefully to the bedroom door, avoiding the creaky floorboards he’d already tested. He eased the door open a crack and listened: shoes on lino, then a grunt and the sports bag hitting the kitchen table.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ he heard, then footsteps echoing again, in and out of rooms, the sound of panicked breathing, then the faint tinkle of a bell as Denise picked up the receiver of the telephone on the hallway wall. He heard the rasp of the telephone’s rotary dial and the painfully slow click of its return as she dialled a number. The silence was so dense he could hear the ringing of the recipient’s phone from the earpiece.
Denise’s voice was hushed, verging on hysteria. ‘Paul Smart, get Paul Smart.’ There was a long pause before she spoke again. ‘There’s no one here! …Yes, I’m at the right place … No, no other cars … I don’t know! … Nobody, it’s completely empty.’ A long silence followed where Denise tried to speak but was cut off at every attempt. Finally, her voice trembling, she said, ‘The barn? … okay, okay, I’ll go and look.’ She hung up, and the front door opened and closed once more.
‘Who is it?’ Murphy asked, watching Denise reappear as Peach reached his side.
Murphy whistled when Peach enlightened him: Paul Smart’s sister, Tommy Collins’s mother-in-law, one of the witnesses from the building society robbery.
Outside, Denise was standing amidst the weeds, looking about her before disappearing around the side of the farmhouse. While Peach’s car was being repaired, he’d picked up a temporary vehicle from the depot, ten times better than his own, and had parked it behind some trees off the public road half a mile away, so if it was vehicles she was looking for, she’d find nothing.
‘Control?’ he said when he switched on his radio.
‘Sir, we’ve been trying to get hold of you. There’s a shit storm going down here, we’ve had to take all your units.’
‘What? Listen to me—’
‘Reports of gun-fire in three locations, two hostage situations, another armed robbery.’
Peach dropped the radio from his mouth and Murphy slumped down into his chair. ‘They’ve got to be hoaxes, boss,’ he said.
‘Sorry, sir, but we’ve got to respond.’
Peach struggled to hold back the convoy of expletives that herded in his throat. ‘I need at least four units,’ he said.
‘Superintendent McNally’s orders, sir.’
Peach’s furious eyes met Murphy’s. Could the man not have a weekend away without sticking his nose in?
‘We had to contact him, sir—’
Peach switched the radio off and flung it onto the farmer’s unmade bed as a long ‘Shhhhit!’ slid from Murphy’s mouth.
Peach peered around the window frame as a pale blue Jaguar pulled up alongside Paul Smart’s car. The sun was low enough now for Peach to see inside: white baseball cap pulled low over the driver’s face. A cigarette was flicked from the window before the door opened and Trevor Logan stepped out, the butt of a pistol sticking out the front of tracksuit bottoms that he hik
ed up before looking towards the bedroom window. Peach and Murphy snapped their heads away, and when they looked back, Trevor Logan was out of sight.
‘Armed response, Groat Hall Farm,’ said Murphy into his radio.
‘All units are out, man, I’ve just told you!’ The tone was stressed against a background of raised voices and ringing phones.
‘Switch it off!’ said Peach, straining his neck to see out the window.
Murphy obeyed, and the farmhouse door opened, Peach indicating to Murphy to keep watch at the window while he made his way to the bedroom door once more.
Footsteps shuffled down the hallway, then in and out of the downstairs rooms, the pace quickening as Trevor walked to the bottom of the stairs.
Peach edged the door open another inch, put one eye around its frame. Trevor had his foot on the bottom stair, looking down at the gun which was now in his hand.
‘Boss!’ Murphy hissed, and Peach turned to him angrily with a finger to his lips. ‘We’ve got no back up,’ Murphy mouthed, pulling a finger across his throat.
Peach hesitated, thoughts of Sally, fatherless as well as motherless, forming a nub of indecision in his throat.
A stair creaked, and he heard the soft padding of footsteps. Trevor reached the landing, and Murphy pulled the long curtain around him while Peach put his back to the wall behind the door. It opened, and Trevor’s short, raspy breaths could be heard as he stood in the doorway. Peach closed his eyes, held his breath, and the footsteps crept away, three other doors opening and closing before Trevor’s low, seething voice could be heard.
‘Come out, you fffffucker, I’ll blow your bastard brains out!’
The sound of feet on the stairs again drew Peach’s breath from his lungs. A few seconds later, he heard the grating of the sports bag’s zipper, then a short laugh and the scraping of a chair on the kitchen floor. The gun rattled as it hit the kitchen table, then there was nothing but silence for a while.
The sniffles were quiet at first, growing louder until the sobs became long, angry howls. The chair scraped back, and Peach heard it fall to the floor.