by Shaun Baines
The colour drained from Jordan's face. "They have their own ideas about what counselling is."
"And that didn't include you?"
"They were exhausting," Jordan said, his shoulders sinking. "They decided I wasn't cool enough and ripped into me. I've never heard language like it before."
Liz climbed down the stairs with Jordan in tow. "So you let them have a party in your house?" she asked.
"For a couple of hours every week. It's still kind of helping them. I'm running a youth club, that's all."
The doorbell rang and a teenage girl burst out of the party room, skipping down the hallway.
Jordan groaned. "That'll be the pizza," he said. "It stinks out my house for days."
With the turning of a key, the front door slammed open. The young girl screamed as the hallway was overrun with strangers.
Three men in sheepskin coats rushed into the entertainment room, knocking Liz aside. She fell on top of Jordan and they collapsed to the floor.
The teenagers cried out. Some bolted, others were dragged outside.
Jordan held onto Liz in a frightened grasp, ducking behind her shoulder.
She drove an elbow into his stomach. As she lurched to her feet, she was batted to the floor again by a man returning to the room. Looking up from under her scowl, he wasn't a man at all. He was a boy, his face reflecting the same terror as the fleeing teenagers.
She grabbed at his ankle. "Leave them alone."
The boy tried to kick free, but Liz wouldn't relinquish her hold.
"What are you doing?" she shouted.
He raised his other foot and brought it down on her wrist. Pain shot through her forearm.
"No," she said, still holding firm.
A larger man approached, swirling a knotted rope above his head. He swung at Liz. She let go of the boy and rolled from the strike.
"Take her down, Adrian, you fruit," the older man shouted.
The boy's face creased in confusion. "But she's not – "
"Do as I say." The man marched into the room, only to return seconds later. "They've gone. I don't believe it."
He cuffed Adrian around the back of the head. "Come on."
Together, they grabbed Liz, pressing her arms behind her back. She clung tightly to her handbag, searching for Jordan, hoping her therapist might help.
Liz heard a slamming door from upstairs. As usual, she was on her own.
She was herded into the back of a van. Two shivering teenagers, one girl and one boy, sat on a wooden bench screwed to the floor. The doors were shut and the engine rumbled into gear. They were thrown into the canvas sheeting as it squealed into motion.
Liz clambered onto the bench. "Where is everyone else?"
The boy, no older than fifteen, was sobbing. "What are they going to do with us?"
Liz opened her handbag and retrieved the memory stick, secreting it into her sock. She didn't know what was going to happen next, but she had an idea. This situation had to be managed carefully, she thought. For everyone's sake.
Tossing the handbag aside, she took the boy's clammy hand. "Don't worry," she said. "My son is looking for these men and God help them when he finds them."
And God help her, she added silently, if Daniel found his precious memory stick.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Newcastle was a smudge on the horizon, its high rise blocks lost in a greasy smog.
Daniel and Bronson kicked the heads of dancing flowers in a field bordering a country lane. They had their hands on their hips, blowing impatient air through their lips. Budding hedgerows criss-crossed the fields, like the cuts in a side of Christmas ham. The air was filled with the buzz of furry insects and the drone of a distant tractor.
"Are you sure we're in the right place?" Bronson asked.
Daniel had returned to the scout hut to find Rachel. She'd been asleep in one of the hospital cots, curled into a ball, but had woken as he'd approached.
"She told me she escaped outside of the city walls," Daniel said. "Near Carlstown. Next to a stone circle."
In the centre of the meadow was a ring of jagged rocks reaching four foot high. Lichen crusts covered their surfaces, their swirls painting forlorn faces. The stones pointed toward a central slab of rock.
"You know I hate fresh air," Bronson said, jamming his hands into his pockets. "What are we doing here?"
Daniel watched something with too many legs crawl along a flower. He didn't know the name of it or the flower, but something told him, they were in the right place.
"I reckon this gang are pretty confident," he said, "and they have a right to be. They've developed a sophisticated money machine without anyone realising it. These kids are slaves going from warehouse to warehouse. I doubt they'd take them anywhere they didn't need to be."
Bronson wandered into the stone circle. "There's no CCTV out here. No witnesses."
Daniel scratched off the lichen with a fingernail. "That didn't bother them when they were abducting the kids," he said. "but their operation is so slick, I can't believe they'd make a detour."
Bronson waved away an insect purring in his ear. "They were on their way to another job."
"Or coming back from one," Daniel said, scanning the horizon. "There must be a warehouse out here somewhere. Fancy a ramble?"
They set off at a trudge, stumbling over hillocks and dips in the ground. The sun was hidden behind streaky clouds, but its heat remained. Their skin grew tacky under their clothes. Each step coated their shoes in mud or worse and the stench of the countryside filled their nostrils.
"You know we're not going to find anything, don't you?" Bronson asked.
Something with wings landed on Daniel's shoulder and he flicked it away, watching it dance into the haze of the sun. "The bikers are scouring the motorways," he said. "The Sheriff is tracking Viper. Hannah is still at the hut. Everywhere is covered, except here."
Bronson stroked the scarred remains of his moustache. "You never mentioned Sophia."
"I didn't, did I?" Daniel wafted the air. The smell was unbearable and growing stronger. "I don't trust her. I never did."
"You're just pissed off she lied to you and got away with it."
There was no denying it, thought Daniel, but there was no admitting it, either.
"I've got the measure of her now," he said.
They stopped at a hedgerow and turned right toward a rickety stile.
"Your bullshit radar works on people like us," said Bronson, "but it has a blind spot when it comes to decent folk. It's like they don't compute with you."
Daniel ground his heel into the mud. "She's not decent," he said. "Sophia is a liar."
"Only to you," Bronson said, side-stepping him. "I think she's cute."
With a shove, Daniel forced Bronson into the hedge. "You can do better than her."
Bronson bared his teeth. "What's your problem?"
"She's not who you think she is."
Bronson stood tall and shoved Daniel in the chest. "Neither are you."
Although the physical blow didn't register with him, Daniel gulped at Bronson's words.
"You heard," Bronson continued. "You're pushing people away. New people who might ask questions. You can control your family, but strangers are a threat."
"A threat to what?"
The sun beat down on them, obliterating the clouds as it lanced through them.
Bronson's eyes bore into Daniel's. "You tell me," he said.
Sweat prickled Daniel's brow. He only had one secret, something he had taken great pains to hide from his friend. Bronson's loyalty to the Daytons kept him at Daniel's side, but it also kept them apart. His adoption, Daniel's mysterious lineage, was the black anvil dropping on the thin ice of his life.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Daniel said.
Bronson brushed him aside and climbed the stile in the hedgerow. Rather than clamber over, he hesitated. "Come here," he whispered.
Creeping to his side, Daniel still towered over Bro
nson. "What is it?"
It was the source of the smell. On the other side of the hedge, the field had been reduced to a muddy squalor. A dozen pigs rolled in the muck, orange flies buzzing around their ears, making them twitch. They grunted or kicked their stubby legs in the air.
And behind them was a rusting warehouse.
"Jesus, they stink," Daniel said, cupping his nose.
A farmer lingered by a brown spattered tractor. Under the dirt was the name Kockley Pigs. The farmer was in his sixties with a round stomach pushing against the frayed material of his overalls. On his scabbed head was a halo of dirty white hair. His mouth dropped like a buck toothed trap door at the sight of Daniel and Bronson.
"He's watching us," Bronson said.
Kockley wrenched his ankles out of the mud, releasing a fart of ammonia and he staggered to a firmer piece of land.
"What's he doing?" Daniel asked.
"Getting ready to bolt." Bronson dropped down onto other side of the stile. "Hurry up."
The farmer wobbled through a quagmire, lurching from side to side.
Bronson ran after him, leaping over sleeping pigs. They stirred, wriggling onto their feet as he used them as stepping stones through the mud.
Daniel followed, his shoes filling with whatever was leaking out of the pigs' backends. He was heavier than Bronson and the mud sucked at his legs. His thighs screamed. Curious pigs blocked his path. He ploughed onward, his lungs heaving, spitting out orange flies drawn to his panting mouth.
"We only want to talk," Bronson shouted after Kockley, but the farmer kept wobbling. He reached a metal gate and struggled over it to freedom.
Bronson was tripped to his knees by a half-submerged pig.
Daniel stopped to help, but was waved away. Drawing in dirty air, he waded through the filth, reaching the gate and jumping over it in a single bound.
Kockley was a hundred yards away, heading for the metal barn.
Daniel stamped his foot. The ground was firm and he set off at a gallop, quickly closing the gap. Hand outstretched, his fingers brushed the farmer's collar, who froze in fright. Daniel's momentum carried him forward and he barrelled into Kockley. They tumbled to the ground with Daniel bouncing through a thistle patch.
"I'm sorry," Kockley said between gasps. "I'll pay."
His face was flushed red with exercise, the red veins in his jowls throbbing with every heartbeat. He wore a knitted jumper riddled with holes and he carried the stench of swine. Around his flabby neck was a leather necklace with a silver pig pendant.
Daniel stood, shaking thistle spines from his clothing. "Why were you running?"
Kockley remained where he was, somehow sensing Daniel would prefer him that way.
"I thought…" Kockley examined the empty field, steadying his breath. "I wasn't running."
Daniel swallowed the growl in his throat. He grabbed a thistle, ignoring the sting in his hand and thrashed it across the farmer's face. "Why were you running?" Daniel shouted.
Kockley writhed under the repeated blows until he was forced into a foetal position. "I thought you were one of them," he said between whimpers. "One of the Motorheads."
Daniel threw the thistle at him. "What have they got to do with you?"
"I owe them money," Kockley said, peeking out from under the crook of his arm. "If you've come to collect, I don't have it."
"I'm not interested in your money," Daniel said, kicking at a grassy stump, "but how much?"
"They package my pigs for me. Deliver out the bits and parts. We're supposed to split the cash fifty-fifty, but now they want it all."
That was a good sign, thought Daniel and he almost helped Kockley to his feet. Instead, Daniel leaned over him, blocking out the sun with his shoulders. If the Motorheads were getting greedy, it meant they were getting desperate.
Daniel jabbed the farmer with his finger. "I need to find these Motordicks," he said, "and you're going to help me."
Kockley rubbed his chest where Daniel had prodded him. "I don't know where they are. They move around."
"That's what everyone else says so you better come up with something better. I heard pigs can dispose of a human body just as easily as they do a turnip. You don't want to be a turnip, do you?"
The farmer held tightly to his pendant, his hand trembling. "I can arrange to meet them," he said, producing a set of keys. "I'll drive, if you want?"
Chapter Thirty-Five
Team Valley Trading Estate was a vast map of outlets and car parks. It was metal construct surrounded by tarmac lakes. Greenery was staged and unattended. Cars scuttled from warehouse to warehouse like hard-shelled beetles, collecting their goods and returning them to their nests. It was a hub of retail and industry, generating millions of pounds for the area. As it sprawled west, the warehouses grew smaller and the traffic thinned. There was more graffiti and more chipboard over broken windows.
Hannah lay on a slope behind an abandoned unit. She was shrouded by a stack of wooden pallets. They were dark with damp and riddled with woodlice, but they allowed a view of the access points to the car park below.
"Are you okay?" Bear sat at a distance, staring through a pair of binoculars. "I can get a cushion from the car."
Hannah picked at the fringe on the leather jacket Bear had bought for her. "We can't move from here," she said.
The hours had passed slowly. They'd arrived before dawn and watched the sun creep over the warehouses, its rays reflecting off the metallic structures.
In those moments, Hannah squinted against the light, but couldn't hide from the glare of Bear's eyes. She felt him silently observing her. When she turned to him, he looked away and even though the connection was lost, his presence still reached her.
"What time is it?" Hannah asked.
"I don't have a watch," Bear said, consulting his mobile phone.
She heard an intake of breath.
"I didn't know you had a phone," she said. "I've never seen you with one."
"I don't like carrying it with me, but Daniel insisted."
Bear's teeth clattered, but he wasn't cold, Hannah thought. They were basked in sunshine. If the leather jacket hadn't been a gift, she would have left it in the car. Sweat gathered in her cleavage, making her uncomfortable.
Taking Bear's phone from his grasp, Hannah laid it in her lap. Looking up at her was the reason Bear didn't keep it with him.
"My Dad left before I was born," she said. "I grew up knowing I was a mistake, that I wasn't supposed to be here."
"Did your mother tell you that?" Bear asked.
Hannah shook her head. "No, she told me how much he loved me, but that he wasn't ready to be a parent."
"Is anyone?"
"You were. You chose that path." Hannah swallowed down memories she'd worked hard to drown, but they continued to rise to the surface. "Every birthday, I'd get a card from him. We never had enough money for parties or presents. My birthdays were spent waiting for the postman to arrive."
Hannah enlarged the image on Bear's phone.
"The card meant more to me than any of that stuff," she said, "but on my eleventh birthday, it all changed."
"Did he forget?" Bear asked.
"No, it arrived like it did every year and so did a letter for my Mam. It was self-addressed. She'd had to send some documents off for our rent arrears or something and they'd been returned."
Hannah shielded the phone from the sunlight. The screen saver was of a young girl. She was thin, like Hannah. She wore a punk T-shirt and a frayed leather jacket. Her tongue protruded from a mouth on the cusp of a smile. In the background was a theme park and Hannah could almost hear the rattling rollercoasters and the screams of fear and excitement.
"Your daughter?" she asked, handing back the phone.
Bear closed his eyes to the image. "It was the one year anniversary of her adoption."
"She looks happy," Hannah said.
"She was, until I got her killed." Bear took a second look at the image before switching off
his phone. His shoulders sank and he buried his chin into his chest.
"So what happened on your birthday?" he asked.
***
Opposite the hill where Hannah and Bear sat was a roadwork tent. Constructed from a canvas of red and white stripes, it was pitched next to an open manhole. The tent wasn't there the day before and it wouldn't be there tomorrow. The tent had appeared in the middle of the night and was immediately occupied by men in dark clothing.
"Where is the Sheriff?" Bronson asked.
Simon searched the tent as if he might find her in its tiny confines. When he failed, he checked his phone again.
"I left her in bed this morning," he said. "I think she was asleep."
"Any idea why she isn't here?" Bronson tugged on the striped canvas, exposing a ragged hole. Further down the road, he saw a roundabout clogged with overgrown grass. In the centre were two stray dogs locked together in frantic congress, but the roads were clear and the traffic was a distant hum.
He pulled the canvas tight and settled into one of the deckchairs Simon had brought with him.
"I don't like this," Bronson said.
Simon popped the lid on a Tupperware box and offered him a coconut macaroon. "Have you ever killed a man?"
The biscuits were nestled in paper cups and Bronson smelled a liqueur that turned his stomach. Of course, he'd killed people, he thought, but there had always been a reason.
He took a macaroon and tossed it from palm to palm. "I've never killed in malice," he said.
"What would that feel like?" Simon asked, dropping into a deckchair next to Bronson.
"To kill a man with hate?" Bronson said, thinking briefly of his father. "I can't imagine. Why are you asking?"
Simon checked his phone again.
"There's enough of us to take these guys, even without your wife," Bronson said. "There's no need to be so edgy."
Simon wriggled out of his deckchair and paced the tent, taking three steps in one direction and three steps back.
"Why do they call her the Sheriff?" Bronson asked.
"That's not her real name," Simon said, picking at his shirt cuff. "Her real name is Lapsen Saalis, but no-one could pronounce it so she got stuck with the Sheriff."