Fighting Chance

by Shaun Baines

  His accomplices threw their battered bodies into the rear of the van and slammed the doors shut. The vehicle careered down the road, screaming around a corner and out of sight.

  The street grew empty. Even the loitering gangs had disappeared.

  "I think we've found who we've been looking for," Daniel said, picking a black banana skin from his shoulder.

  Bronson was on the other side of the road, making no move to cross over. His clothes were ripped and he held himself together with shaking arms. There was a look on his face Daniel couldn't gauge. He was too far away and his face was too bruised, but something in his eyes was asking questions.

  Why had Daniel saved him and not the boy?

  And Daniel didn't know how to answer.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The bell rang over his head, jarring his nerves. Bronson closed the door to Bon Bon Voyage, watching the obese owner picking at a salad carton with a plastic fork.

  "What's going on?" Bronson asked.

  "The doctors suggested I lose some weight." Charlie pulled something green from his salad and showed it to Bronson. "I've got stuff like this growing on my kitchen sink."

  Bronson had returned the shop to working order. The shelves had been righted and refilled with sugar. Breakages had been swept away. He didn't want Charlie to be reminded of how close he'd come to death.

  But one thing remained. A blood stain behind the counter where the shopkeeper had been attacked. That was for Bronson's benefit. It was a permanent reminder of how the Daytons had failed at their job.

  "How's business?" Bronson asked.

  Charlie waved his plastic fork around an empty shop. "You have to ask?"

  Taking a packet of chocolate covered raisins, Bronson tore it open and shovelled a handful into his mouth.

  "Do you have to do that in front of me?" Charlie asked.

  Bronson chewed faster and swallowed. "Sorry."

  Charlie pushed his salad to one side. "Listen, mate. I'm thinking of switching teams. I need to give those kids what they want."

  "You can't."

  "Why not?" Charlie asked. "They won't leave."

  Bronson looked to the door. "Are they bothering you?"

  "It's only a matter of time." Charlie looked down at his feet, but Bronson imagined it was the blood stain he was seeing.

  "We won't let it happen again," he said.

  "Did you know it was my blubber that saved me?" Charlie asked. "If I'd been any thinner, they might have hit an organ."

  "So put the salad away."

  "No chance. With this much weight and this much worry, the doctors say I'm a heart attack waiting to happen."

  "We have their leader. Look, these kids are like chickens," Bronson said. "Cut off their head and they'll run around for a bit, but eventually they'll drop."

  Outside, cars trundled along the road on their way to somewhere else, but there was no-one on the street. Trade was down due to the presence of a hooded gang. Whether Charlie paid them off or the shops went bankrupt from lack of custom, it was a loss to the Daytons.

  "I'm assuming this leader is heading to the bottom of the Tyne?" Charlie asked.

  "We're doing what we can," Bronson said, hoping Bear had made a breakthrough.

  Charlie snapped the fork in his chubby hand. "Well, do it fast. Neither one of us can afford to lose this fight."

  Bronson pointed to the storeroom. "Has my guest arrived?"

  But Charlie had turned his back on him, waddling to the shop window to watch for passing trade.

  The room was the same as he'd left it when Bronson had first met Sophia. Despite her deception, Bronson often thought of her. They were the same age, in the same desperate position. Relationships had been built on less.

  That was until he'd learned of a new development in his life; someone that wasn't entirely welcome.

  Liz sat by the table, playing with her phone. She was dressed in jeans and a dark woollen jumper. As matriarch of the Daytons, Bronson was used to seeing her in designer clothes and jewellery. This look was more natural. It suited her and he tried to think pure thoughts.

  "There you are, darling," Liz said, getting to her feet. "I thought you'd stood me up."

  She rushed into his arms, squeezing tightly. His body sang with pain, but Bronson held on.

  "How have you been?" he asked, finally pulling himself loose.

  A frown flickered across her forehead. "You look like you've been run over by a herd of cows. Sit down."

  "I'm fine," Bronson said.

  Liz raised her eyebrows and he saw the woman he used to know. It wasn't an offer. It was a command and Bronson took a seat.

  "Not much of a tough guy, are you?" she asked, rummaging in her handbag. "I've never seen so many bruises. Does no-one look after you?"

  She produced a small jar of ointment and unscrewed the lid.

  "I'm not going to be much of a tough guy if you put make-up on me," Bronson said.

  "It's a salve." Liz dipped her little finger into the mixture and dabbed it around Bronson's face. "Just relax."

  Bronson tried to stop breathing. As Liz leaned over him, he smelled her perfume. It was light and intoxicating. The heat from her body warmed him and he fought to keep his eyes open.

  "That should take the swelling down," Liz said.

  Bronson squirmed in his seat. He doubted it.

  "What about the rest of you?" Liz asked, reaching for the top button of his shirt.

  Taking her hand, Bronson pushed it gently away. "Nothing there but old scars."

  Liz sat, cleaning her fingers with a tissue. "I'm glad you agreed to meet me."

  Bronson looked at the plastic tubs filled with sugared sweets. They were either half full or half empty. He couldn't decide.

  "It's nice to catch up," Bronson said.

  "I've known Fat Charlie since he was only eighteen stone," Liz said. "We only ever came here when it wasn't safe to talk at Five Oaks."

  "Is that what you think?" Bronson asked. "It isn't safe?"

  Liz smiled sweetly.

  At any other time, Bronson might have fallen for it, but there was too much of a tiger in the gesture to seduce him completely.

  "Judging by the look on your face," Liz said, purring, "I'd say, you agree. What's on your mind?"

  "Things aren't going well." Bronson sensed a numbing sensation in his face. He hoped it was the salve and not the beginnings of a stroke. Or the effect of the woman opposite him. "Ever since Mr Dayton died, we've been in a tailspin," he said.

  "Do you still call him that? Even though he's dead?"

  Bronson nodded. "Nothing's clear. I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore."

  "We live in a dangerous world."

  "It's Daniel," Bronson said, pressing his hands into the table. "I'm sorry, but it is."

  "And you think as his mother I should be able to help?"

  They stared at each other, listening to Charlie wheeze his way around the shop.

  "Daniel is acting…" Bronson paused to find the right word. "Like he's my mother."

  "He never liked sharing."

  Bronson worked a tongue around his teeth, loosening a trapped piece of chocolate raisin. "He's being possessive of me," he said, swallowing it down.

  "Are you reading the situation correctly?" Liz asked.

  Daniel was the one with all the insights. He didn't need questions to read someone's thoughts. Bronson always struggled.

  He rubbed his face where the sensation had gone. "Maybe I've got it wrong."

  Peering between his fingers, he saw a frown returning to Liz's face.

  "Daniel has a secret." She took Bronson's hand, caressing it with a light touch. "If I tell you this, I can't be involved. I'm here for Eisha. That's all."

  Bronson was drawn to her eyes. They shone with moisture, sparkling in the dim light of the room. She was about to cry and Bronson didn't want to see that. He nodded slowly and waited for Liz to speak.

  "This secret," she began, "will change the
way you see him. You're the last true Dayton man. You would have given your life for my husband and we all know that."

  "I'd do the same for Daniel," Bronson said.

  "That's what he's worried about, but we can protect him," Liz said. "From himself."

  "Tell me what I need to do."

  Her hand gripped tightly, her nails digging into his skin.

  "You'd do anything for a Dayton, wouldn't you?" Liz asked. "There's a memory stick. Daniel won't let me see it. The stick contains information about him."

  "What kind of information?"

  Liz released Bronson's hand, but held his gaze as she dried her eyes with a fresh tissue. "I don't know. He wouldn't tell me."

  "But whatever is on the memory stick – "

  " – is the reason he's acting strange," Liz said, interrupting. "Bring it to me and we'll figure this out together."

  As much as he enjoyed Liz's touch, Bronson had never and would never cross the line with her. Her husband had been the face of the Daytons, but he'd often suspected Liz as the true authority. Their universe was powered by respect and Liz was a part of how Bronson saw his role as a Dayton soldier.

  In one swift movement, Liz planted a kiss on his twitching cheek, stunning it into inactivity.

  "Do as I say," she said, "and I'll make everything alright."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The bunting flapped in the diesel fumes of the Bull and Cart car park. Bikers milled around, pint glasses filled with flat lager. The sun was reaching its zenith, glancing off their white skin. A radio played, drowning out the rumble of passing traffic. Oil barrels had been halved, creating home-made barbeques.

  The Sheriff sat on a sofa, her feet on a table. Her eyes were closed to the sun.

  "Would you like another beer?" Simon asked, hovering by her arm.

  She tugged at her leather jacket and said nothing.

  Simon looked to the angry faces of the bikers. "The boys are getting hangry," he said. "My lemon slices can only do so much. When are we firing up the barbeques?"

  "You don't like barbeques," the Sheriff said. "You say it hurts the meat."

  "I learned to like them because of you."

  The Sheriff cocked open an eye and stared at her husband. "Do you remember when we met?"

  Sliding into the sofa, Simon sat straight, fingers playing with his rhinestone cufflinks. "Best night of my life."

  "But do you remember where we were?"

  Simon remembered. It was the first day of his new life and coincidentally his last day of attendance at Plymouth University. After an early morning lecture about flood plains, he'd walked to the pebbled coast wondering if countryside management was for him.

  "We were at the beach," he said. "It was raining and we huddled under a bandstand."

  "Hiding from the weather." The Sheriff dragged her heels from the table and pressed into Simon. "I was sleeping there. You were kind and bought me a coffee."

  "Half an hour in a greasy café," Simon said. "That's all it took to change my life."

  The Sheriff twisted a piercing in her eyebrow.

  "Are you okay?" Simon asked.

  "It seems like a lifetime ago. Long before I had all of this," the Sheriff said, opening her arms to the car park.

  Someone had inflated a child's paddling pool. It was coloured blue with golden fish on the side. As one biker filled it with water, another tipped in a box of bottled beer to keep them cool.

  "It is better now," the Sheriff said, sliding along the sofa to a spot of her own. "I have you and I have my son."

  "Is that what's bothering you?" Simon asked. "We'll get him back. I promise."

  A beer was thrown through the air, which the Sheriff caught without looking. Snapping off the cap with her teeth, she finished it in three gulps.

  "You didn't want a drink," Simon said.

  The Sheriff hurled the bottle to the far side of the car park, watching it shatter into stars. "We all want family," she said, "but I did not keep him safe. How could he have been taken from me?"

  A shadow fell over both of them as Viper blocked out the sun. He was still healing from his encounter with the Daytons and his face looked like the inside of a mutton pie.

  "When's the meat coming?" Viper asked. "He should be here by now."

  A bottle of vodka swung from his hand and the Sheriff snatched it from him. "I've dropped a beer. Over there," she said, pointing at the smashed glass. "Sweep it up."

  Viper sneered. "What for?"

  "Because she told you to," Simon said, sliding to the edge of the sofa.

  The defiance drained from Viper's injured face and he disappeared into the pub.

  Simon turned to the Sheriff. "Why are you so hard on him?"

  The vodka spattered over the Sheriff's boots as she poured it over a patch of weeds.

  Viper appeared with a dustpan and broom, and proceeded to sweep the far side of the car park.

  "Don't you dare," Simon said, but his wife wasn't listening. She flipped the vodka bottle in her hand, catching it by the neck. Hurling it at Viper, the bottle missed him by inches, but it was enough to give him a scare.

  Viper jumped, toppling over the fence into the field next door.

  The rest of the bikers watched in shock, sipping quietly from their drinks.

  "There are things you don't know about Viper. I've been watching him. Why would a grown man like Viper visit a skatepark?" the Sheriff asked. "I've seen him there many times."

  "He's a bit old for that sort of thing," Simon said.

  The Sheriff twisted another piercing until a jewel of blood trickled down her cheek like a red tear. "And not just any skatepark, but the same one my son was taken from. I saw them there together."

  "You were spying on your own son?" Simon asked.

  The Sheriff slaked the last gulp of vodka from her bottle and let it roll from her grasp. "It was for his safety."

  Her words sounded hollow. Simon didn't want to look at her then. He didn't want to see the lie in her face. The Sheriff loved Crash, but she loved him too much. Her affection had stunted her son's growth, leaving him defenceless against a harsh world. Simon wondered if she was the reason Crash had been abducted and if Crash was the reason there was no room in her heart for anyone else.

  "You could ask Viper," Simon said. "Find out why he was at the skatepark."

  "Do you think he'd tell the truth?" The Sheriff wiped away the blood from her skin and sighed. "Where the hell is the meat?"

  A lorry with canvas sheeting and a smoking engine pulled into the car park.

  The bikers cheered, throwing their hands into the air, covering each other in foaming beer. They crowded the van, hopping from foot to foot.

  Choo slithered from the driver's seat and opened the rear doors.

  The Sheriff stood from the sofa. "We never know where our enemies are," she said, staring at Viper as he mounted his bike.

  The bikers unloaded polystyrene boxes. There were torn open and dripping slabs of meat were thrown onto hot grills. The pork sizzled, punctuating the exhaust fumes of the road with cooking flesh.

  "You're late," the Sheriff said to Choo.

  Judging by the marks on his face, it looked like Choo had been hijacked, thought Simon. But who would attack someone so insipid? And why?

  "We had problems," Choo said. "I give you discount."

  The lorry was emptied and the meat smouldered over the barbeque coals.

  "Have you been busy?" Simon asked.

  "Lots of deliveries," Choo said, watching the Sheriff from the corner of his eye. "Lots of cheap meat."

  Simon wafted a plume of smoke from his face. "Your money is behind the bar. Same as always. You know where it is."

  Choo nodded, but didn't move. "How are things?" he asked.

  "Fine," the Sheriff said, seemingly entranced by the charring pork.

  "You find son?" Choo asked.

  Whether there was a skip in the music or whether Simon imagined it, the world seemed to freeze. The bik
ers' whispers went mute. They shuffled closer to the flames and Simon bit white flesh from his thumb.

  "We're still looking," the Sheriff said.

  Choo gathered the empty boxes and stacked them into his lorry. "Good luck," he said, wiping bloody hands on his trousers. "Is there anyone else looking?"

  A police car drove slowly past the pub. The officers inside stared pointedly ahead. Simon watched them go, knowing they wouldn't dare disturb the boys at feeding time.

  The Sheriff fished a bottle of beer from the paddling pool. "It's all taken care of. Just like you'll be if this meat is bad. Last week's delivery tasted odd."

  Rubbing his hands in supplication, Choo stalked around the Sheriff, retreating into the darkness of the pub for his payment. He emerged moments later, blinking and scurrying to his vehicle.

  As he started the engine, Simon wrapped his knuckles on the window.

  Choo wound it down slowly.

  "How do you keep your prices so low?" Simon asked.

  "Good meat. Good prices," Choo said, jerking the van into gear. He stalled it twice before dissolving into the motorway.

  At the other end of the car park, Viper started his own engine and followed in the same direction.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Smoke rose from the end of the jetty at Five Oaks. Daniel tended his barbeque under a blue sky, pushing glowing coals around with tongs. Eisha played on the lakeshore with Princess, wrestling the dog into a pair of fairy wings.

  Daniel watched as the meat turned as black as his mood.

  Outside of his home, threats were mounting and they were no further forward in finding Sophia's daughter. Given that Sophia had also disappeared and there were doubts over whether she had a daughter at all, Daniel wondered whether they should bother. Their money was depleting and a stolen painting was harder to fence than he'd anticipated.

  Now more than ever, it was important for the Daytons to put up a united front.

  Bronson had declined Daniel's invitation by text without giving a reason. His mother, who had professed a desire to spend time with his daughter hadn't responded either. Even the Sheriff and Simon had been silent.