The Elephant Tree

by R. D. Ronald

  ‘They must’ve seen him after me and Angela managed to escape into the cave,’ Scott said, getting back into the car, and started the engine.

  ‘They’re animals.’ Jeff muttered under his breath.

  They drove down to the village in silence. Making a turn, Scott caught sight of his own dirt streaked reflection in the mirror. The look in his eyes was two parts rage and three parts hatred. He tried to rationalise that it was just a dog, that Twinkle had already been killed by the bastards, but Twinkle had been an idiot. He hadn’t deserved to die, of course not, but at least he’d had a say in it. They’d killed Boris just for the hell of it, a passing thought as they drove off. How’d you like that Scott, how’s that sit with you? He gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were as white as the snow at the side of the road.

  Scott pulled into a parking space outside of the Post Office and checked his phone. He had a signal. A call to Angela’s phone went straight to voice mail. If she was here in the village then surely her phone would be turned on and she would be able to receive calls. He ran over to the Black Boar and spotted his own car at the far corner of the parking lot; Maurice had come through for him. The few staff inside were preparing for what would pass for the lunch rush in a place this remote. Scott asked around but no-one had seen Angela. There had been three men in from the city earlier, he was told by a bored barmaid with a nose stud and a southern accent, but Angela hadn’t been in there for over a week. Scott crossed back over to the Post Office and went in to speak to Maurice.

  ‘Your friends catch up with you then?’ Maurice asked him, glancing up from the newspaper he had spread out in front of him.

  Scott stopped in his approach to the counter. ‘You told those guys we were up at Jeff’s?’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Maurice said, and grinned like he’d just done Scott another favour. ‘Said they happened by and noticed your car parked,’ he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the pub. ‘Lucky I managed to get it towed last night or they wouldn’t have seen it here this morning.’

  Scott knew Maurice thought he’d done him a good turn, but keeping the bitterness out of his voice when he asked if Angela had been by took more effort than he felt he could muster.

  ‘Yeah, she was in not long ago, asking about you actually.’ Maurice looked up directly at Scott. ‘She seemed kind of jittery, not at all like she normally is. Put it down to her sore foot myself.’

  ‘So where is she now?’ Scott asked, impatience bubbling up in him like acid indigestion.

  ‘Like I said she was jittery, wouldn’t stay in one spot for more than a minute, I offered her a chair but she said no. In and out she was, the damn store freezing with her letting all my warm air out. Anyway, I saw your friends pass by in that van and she never came back in so I suppose she just got a ride with them.’

  Scott felt as if the remaining strings that were holding him up had just been cut. He slumped against a shelf, knocking some cans of soup to the floor where they rolled tiredly across the linoleum.

  ‘Steady on,’ Maurice said, standing up straight, but the sudden exertion brought on a coughing fit and he sat back down and attempted to catch his breath. ‘They weren’t your friends were they?’ he asked, after spitting into his container behind the counter.

  ‘No. They weren’t my friends.’

  Maurice nodded solemnly, although unaware of the severity of the situation.

  Scott walked back out to the car. The tinkling bell on the shop door danced as it snapped closed behind him.

  Scott didn’t know what their next step should be. He’d regaled what he’d heard from Maurice but as he was driving a lot faster now, Jeff was struggling to force out more than an odd word every now and then, most of his attention focused on breathing as the car lurched and dipped along the winding country lanes.

  One thing Scott did know was that Angela’s dad must be told. And he had to do it in person.

  Chapter 14

  Scott knocked on the door to Putty’s flat and Keep opened it wide once he’d recognised Scott’s voice. A glance past him both up and down the corridor showed that his presence without Angela was unexpected.

  Scott made his way into the flat, hoping there would be no occupants other than himself, Keep and Putty. When he entered the living room he discovered at least something was going his way.

  ‘Where’s Angela?’ Putty asked, a pungent joint smouldering between his fingers.

  ‘Something really bad has happened,’ Scott said sitting down on the old couch, resting his forearms on his knees and leaning towards Putty.

  Keep came back into the room and stood silently in the doorway.

  ‘What? What’s happened Scott, where’s Angela?’ he asked, more insistently, his voice taking on a frantic edge, with worry that only a parent can understand.

  Scott covered the main points as quickly as he could. He sketched an outline of Jeff’s operation, the previous involvement with McBlane and the incident after the van turned up that morning and Jeff’s assault.

  Once Scott reached the end with Angela being taken away in the van, Putty rose out of his chair and walked to the wall behind him. In a single movement his right fist plunged straight through the plaster as deep as his wrist. Scott could understand her father’s anger. He’d felt like punching things himself, he still did. But keeping control of his emotions was the only thing Scott could think of right now, that might see them get through this with Angela back home safely.

  Putty took hold of a broken chunk of plaster and tore it away from the hole he’d made in the wall. He tore away another piece, the hole he’d made now widening, revealing some kind of partition which became more visible as further handfuls were torn free. Through the cloud of plaster dust that hung around him Putty reached inside the hole and pulled out a shotgun and a pistol wrapped in sealed plastic bags; bullets and shotgun shells lay in the bottom like dust bunnies under a bed.

  Both Scott and Keep watched as he tore open the plastic and began inspecting the weapons.

  ‘Where do we find them?’ Putty asked flatly without looking up.

  ‘I don’t know where they’ll be, but once they decide what it is they want surely they’ll be in touch. You can’t go wandering the streets carrying them. You won’t be any use to Angela from the inside of a cell. It’s shit, but for now we just have to wait,’ Scott said. His frustration had been equal to that now shown by Putty and until the words had come from his mouth, Scott had been at a loss as to their next move. But now he’d said them, it felt right. Something Jack had said about some business deal he was about to push through years ago came back to him. Consider and then act, don’t react. A worthy opponent will calculate his move to entice a response from you. Make your own play. The tactical way Jack spoke about such things always seemed as if he were discussing a game of chess. No matter how important the stakes were, he maintained a calm detachment that had annoyed Scott back then, seeming cold and almost robotic in his thinking. But right now he’d take cold and robotic in a second if it meant getting Angela away from McBlane and back safe with him. He realised in the absence of them having a play to make, they should just wait.

  ‘Where’s Jeff now, what does he think?’ Putty asked, looking up from the guns. His expression betrayed agitation and fear, rather than the hate and vengeance that had driven him a few moments earlier.

  ‘He’s still in the car downstairs. He really needs to get checked over at the hospital, his ribs are in a bad way and fuck knows what else might be wrong internally.’

  ‘Right, for now we’ll wait here,’ he said, looking at Scott. ‘Keep, you take Jeff to the hospital and make sure he gets fixed up, then bring him back here. Keep your phone switched on. If we hear anything I’ll call you.’

  Keep nodded, took the car keys from Scott and left the flat.

  * * *

  It was around five hours later that Keep arrived back. He helped Jeff up the stairs and into the flat. Scott had made something to eat and doze
d in their absence but Putty had only paced the floor and repeatedly cleaned both of the guns.

  ‘He’ll be OK the doctor said,’ Keep informed them, as he helped lower Jeff down onto the couch.

  ‘We waited for an X-ray. The doctor advised it with the injury being around the lower ribs, but it came back clear. No internal damage so they strapped them up and gave me a bunch of pain killers. Still no call then, I take it?’ Jeff asked, and looked from Putty to Scott and back again.

  Scott shook his head.

  ‘I’ll give them till morning and there’s been no call by then I’m gonna go looking,’ Putty said; a resolution showed on his face and Scott knew it was pointless to try and change his mind. He just hoped the call would come before then and that Angela was unharmed.

  Keep brought some blankets in for them in case anyone felt they could sleep. Jeff took one and said after the painkillers he’d been given, he’d more than likely be sleeping soon.

  ‘Did the doctor ask how you got the damage?’ Scott asked him.

  ‘I told him I’d done it falling down the stairs but he looked anything but convinced.’

  ‘Yeah he kept looking at me like I was the one that done it,’ Keep said, shaking his head. ‘Fucking racist.’

  ‘The doctor was Chinese,’ Jeff said, and winced as he chuckled.

  ‘Don’t matter, they’re just as bad.’

  Putty smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder.

  Scott checked that his phone had both a strong signal and battery power and placed it on the coffee table in front of him. Within the hour Jeff was sleeping and Putty and Keep had pulled both of the armchairs together and were talking conspiratorially in the corner of the room. The events of the day hadn’t dampened their appetite though and joints were steadily rolled and smoked between them. Scott turned down all offers extended his way. He wanted to keep a clear head for whatever was to come next.

  At 5am the next morning the silence in the flat was shattered by a sudden ring as Scott’s phone came to life. Startled out of sleep he lurched forward and snatched it up. Everyone else was awake now and listening. The incoming number had been withheld; Scott connected the call.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Scott, I hope I didn’t wake you,’ McBlane’s voice rang out jovially on the other end, ‘but I have a friend of yours here and she’d like to say hi.’

  A muffled sound as the phone was handed over and then Angela spoke.

  ‘Scott?’

  ‘Are you OK, have they hurt you?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice level. Putty was over beside Scott now and knelt down so he could listen in better on the call.

  ‘I’m fine. Apart from the nausea from looking at their disgusting fucking faces all this....’ The phone was snatched away from Angela before McBlane spoke again.

  ‘Right, now you know she’s OK I’ll see you and Jeff at his house this afternoon. Don’t try and do anything stupid, Angela won’t be with us, but once our business is concluded I’ll make a call and she’ll be released in the same condition we picked her up in. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’

  ‘Oh, and I’ll be keeping the bag she was carrying as a token of your gratitude that she gets to walk away unharmed.’

  With that the line went dead, with McBlane’s laughter still ringing in Scott’s ears. He placed the phone back down on the table and relayed what had been said for the benefit of Jeff and Keep and in case Putty had missed anything.

  ‘Angela sounded OK?’ Keep asked.

  ‘Yeah, she’s keeping her spirits up. They’ll probably be glad to see the back of her,’ Putty said, and forced a smile that looked as natural as a horse on ice.

  Within the hour Scott and Jeff were in the car and driving back up into the mountains. Putty had taken some persuasion that the best thing he could do was wait by the phone. He’d taken even more persuasion to keep the shotgun with him.

  ‘Just in case,’ he’d said, attempting to thrust the weapon, wrapped loosely back in the plastic bag into the car with Scott.

  ‘If they don’t release Angela then maybe you’ll need it. But McBlane said on the phone she won’t be up there anyway. If I take that along and they see it it’s gonna fuck everything up and put Angela in even more danger.’

  Reluctantly Putty agreed and went back up to the flat with Keep.

  Jeff, having managed to sit upright in the front seat, armed with the painkillers he’d got from the hospital and his old revolver tucked inside his coat, seemed fresher but remained tight lipped about the afternoon ahead of them. His face was still swollen and bruising crept out from under his beard, now an angry purple and black. The hospital had cleaned him up and he looked better for it but his sweater still displayed medals of blood earned from their encounter the day before.

  The weather had taken a turn for the better and as the altitude rose the closer they got to the mountains, there had still been no sign of frost on the ground.

  Scott slowed as they approached the turn up towards the house. He steered the car under the archway, swallowing against the lump he could feel rising in his throat, and cautiously drove the half mile to the house.

  The white van was already parked up around back when they got there. Dominic and Shugg were sat smoking cigarettes on the bench beside the firewood and McBlane came out from the back door of the house. He was dressed in another impeccably tailored suit, and couldn’t have looked more out of place surrounded by the rugged wilderness. Despite this he was calm and self assured, as if he’d just stepped out of a plush city centre office for a lunch meeting.

  ‘Scott, Jeff,’ McBlane greeted them and glanced at his watch. ‘Thank you for being so punctual. This won’t take much of your time and my associates and I will be on our way.’

  Scott took out a cigarette and lit it. Fighting the revulsion he now felt for these men. It was beyond fear now. He just wanted this meeting over, for Angela to be freed and to never see any of them again.

  ‘The reason we came up here for you yesterday Scott, was simply to show you the error of your ways and bring you back into the fold. What happened with Twinkle was unfortunate but you were the one I wanted to work with.’

  ‘You killed him didn’t you? You had something in the van recording what we said on that job, when you heard him talk about ripping you off you had him killed.’

  ‘You understand that I can’t tolerate any insubordination from anyone working for me. Twinkle was a blunt object that could have been employed for certain duties from time to time. Perhaps even earned himself a tidy sum to go with it, but when I heard what he said in the van I knew he could never be trusted. If he’d been caught on an actual job he would have given every one of us up. If he was prepared to risk taking me on, then he would have given your name without a second thought.’

  ‘Twinkle panicked, that’s all it was. He got past it. You could have just not hired him again and left it at that.’

  ‘No. He got past it because of what you said. That reinforced the strength of character I’d been led to believe you had in you Scott. And besides, when someone talks out of turn like that a message has to be sent. It was regrettable,’ he said, with counterfeit sympathy, ‘but unavoidable.’

  ‘Anyway, that’s all in the past. We came up yesterday to give you a little reminder that you’re one of us and that it was time you came back to work. A tracking device planted on your car when you parked in the city the day before was all it took. Of course your having to abandon the car when you got stuck in the snow caused a bit of a problem. We waited for a while not knowing what to do next until that old guy came along and towed it to the village. That was handy but there was nothing else we could do by then. It was dark and I knew you wouldn’t return that night so we came back the next morning. Your car was in the same spot and no-one in the pub knew anything. We were just gonna sit and wait it out again until I had a word with the fella in the shop. He’s chatty isn’t he? I’d heard folk in remote places like this were unlikely to tal
k to strangers, thought maybe we’d have to twist his arm or something but once he heard we were old friends his lips loosened up no end. Must be quite fond of you Scott. He gave this place up right away, so up we came. Seeing old Jeff here was quite a surprise I must admit. I’ve thought about you over the years,’ he said looking at Jeff, ‘but I never expected our paths would cross again. Strange how things turn out. Two birds, one stone and all that.’ McBlane chuckled at his own impromptu joke.

  ‘But things have worked out for the best and now we all get to work together,’ McBlane said, and a smile spread across his face as easy as a politician’s lie. He waited for the obvious question to be asked but neither one of them spoke. Unperturbed, he continued.

  ‘When you and the young lady made off down that hole like Alice in fucking Wonderland I was quite surprised, but once I saw that big door down there and with old Jeff being here as well the pieces all came together quite nicely. You’ve taken the plan we’d made years ago and made it happen here. Well good for you Jeff but now that I am aware of the situation I think I quite fancy being a partner.’

  ‘You can have the place,’ Jeff said bitterly. ‘It’s yours, once Angela is safe.’

  ‘Angela is fine, I’m not a monster,’ he said holding his arms apart in a gesture of innocence, ’and she’ll stay that way as long as there are no problems. But you seem to have misunderstood my intentions for our future. I don’t want to work underground like some kind of fucking goblin doing whatever it is you do down there. You two will stay here and grow the plants. I will take care of the sales and the money will be divided up. It might not be an even split but you’ll get a fair wage.’

  ‘If you think me and Scott are gonna stay up here growing cannabis plants so you can get rich you must be mad. I said you can have the place so take it. Get those two meat-heads to do the work,’ Jeff said, pointing at Shugg and Dominic.

  ‘They are many things but I don’t suspect they’re particularly green fingered. You will both stay and you will grow the plants. I’ve already decided. And once you accept this I’ll make a call and Angela will walk, then we can all have a look behind that big door down there so I can see exactly what kind of setup you’ve managed to assemble for yourselves. Of course if you were to agree and then somehow vanish into the night, I would come after you but more importantly I’d come after Angela. She’s a pretty little thing isn’t she? I thought that the first time I saw her. Dominic and Shugg there, well they were rather looking forward to spending some quality time with her last night. They have quite an appetite for young ladies. Of course I didn’t let that happen. It would have been the wrong thing to do, but if ever our little arrangement here comes to a premature end, then you can guarantee that spending a night with those two will be the least of her worries. I’ll let them have her every way they want and when their appetite for her soft pink flesh has been satiated I’ll let the dogs finish off what’s left,’ McBlane said, any shred of humanity now gone. His eyes, ink black wells, soulless as they stared, challenging either Scott or Jeff to question the arrangement he had laid out before them. ‘Just ask Stephanie what happens when you go against an agreement you make with me. Oh that’s right,’ he said with a snap of his fingers, ‘you can’t now can you?’