House of Lads

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  38

  “We’re on the same side,” I mumbled.

  The bag came off.

  A beardy face looked at me. Took me a sec to place him. He looked shocked when he saw my face.

  “Eh?”

  Ralph. My old trainer from the posh jail. He stood back and dropped the bag on the floor.

  I sat up and looked around. Not much to see. Panelled door and peeling yellow wallpaper.

  “Where am I?”

  “Not far, mate. Safe house off Linacre Lane.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Eight.”

  “You’ve got to get after them.”

  “Don’t worry, mate. We’re all over it.”

  “But they’re… ”

  “We’ve followed Mossie and Casho and Ayax to Lime Street. They’ve bought their tickets.”

  “Trains?”

  “Ayax to Birmingham. Casho to London. Mossie to Leeds. We’ll see where they lead us. They’re going to lay this cell wide open.”

  “But they’re… ”

  “Don’t worry, lad. None of them was wearing a vest.”

  “You daft sods. He’s jabbed them full of lurgy.”

  “Eh?”

  “It’s what he had in his fridge. He’s jabbed it in me too.”

  He took a step back.

  I held onto the floor and tried to calm the shivers.

  “Where’s Hanzi?” I said.

  “On his way to hossie.”

  “Were they wearing yellow suits?”

  “Eh?”

  “The medics. He’ll be coughing it all over them.”

  He stared at me. He got on his phone. He acted like it was all in a day’s work but I could tell he was crapping himself. He walked over to the window and peered out through the curtain as he jabbered away. He looked at me over his shoulder. Hung up his phone and stuck it on his belt.

  “We’ll grab them,” he said. “Fly them to the Royal Free. Seal them off.”

  “And Maya?”

  “Rodney’s taken her off somewhere. We’re following.”

  I thought of the baggy robes she was wearing.

  “There was a bomb vest,” I said. “It was for her.”

  He looked at me. He got back on his phone.

  “You going to get me sealed off and all?” I said when he was done. “Better get yourself looked at too.”

  “We’ll sort you out,” he said. “After your big date.”

  “I’ve had a wank today already.”

  “Raz thinks he’s getting away. Thanks to Maya, we know how.” He pointed the phone at me. “You’re going after him.”

  “Why don’t you go? He’ll kick my arse.”

  He reached in a jacket pocket and handed me a shiny new Glock.

  “That all I’m getting?”

  “Seventeen slugs in there, Az. Plenty.”

  “Raz has got Bombs. Klashnis.”

  “David and Goliath, eh?”

  I stuck the gun in the back of my trackie bottoms. He took me down to the car. Same old Golf he’d driven when he dropped me off in Tocky that first day.

  We bombed down Knowsley Road to the docks.

  We stopped by the fence along Crosby Road. Ralph killed the lights. He got out and went to the boot. Took out a roll of carpet. He carried it to the fence and rolled it open over the spikes.

  I scrambled up. The prongs were pricking through the carpet. I just made it before they bust into my arse-cheek. I dropped down on the other side.

  Ralph pointed into the dock. I turned to look. Shipping containers stacked three high. Orange carriers zipping around, picking them up and loading them onto the blue gantries that plonked them on the ships.

  In between me and the dock there was a scrap of old railway. Then another fence. Not that high. But it had curly-wurly rolls of barbed wire on top.

  I turned to Ralph and stared at him through the fence.

  “First stack of red containers on the right. There’s a feller in a yellow jacket,” he said. “He’ll point you the way.”

  “You joking? I’ll get nicked.”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Once you’re in the container, it’d take the bizzies months to find you. There’s cameras watching the fence. You’re a fast runner.”

  I looked at the barbed wire. Ralph humped the carpet over the first fence till it flopped down on my side. I gathered it up while he drove off.

  I nipped across the rails, lobbed the scrap on the barbed coils and scrambled up and over.

  No one in sight. I scanned the lines of crates and cars waiting to be loaded on the freighters. A yellow vest popped out at the foot of one of the stacks.

  I ran.

  He worked a lever at the back of the crate and pulled the door of it open a few inches. He pointed inside and put a finger to his lips. I pulled myself up and kneeled there on the floor.

  His face vanished as he shut the door. The rubber seal squeaked. It went dark.

  I found a space on one side of the cargo and groped my way around. Stacks of boxes. A narrow gap down the middle of them. I squeezed along through it.

  There were air holes somewhere. I could breath, just. But it was stinky hot in there. Or was it the fever?

  I stood there in the dark with the smell of petrol and damp sacks. Heard a sound. A dry rustling. Somewhere near me. And again. Lighter than creaking wood. Heavier than dripping oil. Steadier. Real. Alive.

  I held my breath and listened.

  Laughing, it sounded like. Or crying. Hard to tell. Soft, sobbing, sniggering sound.

  A few yards away from me it was, at the back end of the container.

  I groped my way along the gap in the dark. Stepped on a pallet. My right foot went through between two planks. I swore and tugged my foot. Wedged tight.

  I held my breath and braced my arms against the crates. Yanked away at my right foot, biting my lip with the pain. Trying not to make a sound. I yanked again. Sweating. Praying.

  I heard voices outside just as my foot jerked free.

  Crack of pain. I bit my lips and steadied myself against the crates. Heart heaving. Head spinning. Lungs leaping. A big yell trying to burst out of me. I choked it down.

  The voices died away.

  I tiptoed through the gap and round the far end of the stack, head and shoulders first. I couldn’t see a thing but I could smell his sweat. Hear his breathing. There was a gap between the last boxes and the back of the cabin. He was there on the floor.

  I slipped the Glock out and held it down beside me as I squeezed towards him. I got down on my knees and laid a hand on his shoulder. He lifted an arm and gripped my hand where I was touching him. That sound again from his mouth. Muttering nonsense. Gasping. Blubbing.

  He slumped into me and rested his chunky head on my chest, quivering and crying with no sound. Dribbling on my top.

  I hauled him upright and slapped him awake. He sighed and shivered.

  I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. He wasn’t sobbing anymore. The noise had got quicker, higher.

  Giggling.

  I let him slump back down. He fumbled around. I heard the scratch of a lighter.

  The flame flared under his nose and lit his face up. A ciggie in his gob.

  I sprang back and pinned my shoulders against the side, cowering as far away from him as I could in the few inches I had.

  He blew the smoke towards me and kept the lighter burning. The flicker of it caught the muzzle of his rifle, leaned against the side of the crate. His gold teeth. His beard and shaven head. Earrings. His cheeks were slick with blood. His eye… what was wrong with his eye?

  “Them sparks is flying upward!” he said.

  His glass eye seemed to look at me in the glow. His other one was gone. Black nothing in the hole.

  The flame went out. Just the sweet smell of Regal smoke. He tittered and sobbed in the dark.

  “Raz, what happened?”

  “Oh, that Beshat,” he said. “Closer than the jugular vein!”
/>
  “He’s here?”

  “He’s old school, your dad. Likes to settle his own scores. I told him it was you the scum, not me. But it’s all the same to him. Caught up with me at the container depot. Taught me a lesson.”

  “You need help, mate. I’ll take you to a doc.”

  “Witch doc?”

  “Eh.”

  “I’m shipping out, lad. Seaforth containers! They plonk us on that jolly boat any time now.”

  “Raz, you’re blinded.”

  There was noise outside the container. A truck grinding around out there.

  “Little nooky cranny for me under the engine room,” Raz was saying. “Hot and cosy. Shipmates hand me butties all the way to Mombasa.”

  I saw the red rock on the end of his ciggie bobbing up and down in the dark.

  “Where’s Maya?” I said.

  “She why you came, eh?”

  “Where?”

  “Bomb vest and no knickers! Something for the telly!”

  I stuck the Glock where I thought his neck was. I was no better off than him in that pitch-dark bin.

  He shoved me off. I crashed back and landed on my arse. Dropped the Glock. He lunged and groped and got his hands round my neck. Lifted me up like that and shoved me against the boxes. Slammed me a couple of times. Then he eased his grip and let me breathe. He held me still with one hand.

  “At ease, la’,” he said. “Don’t trash your old mate Raz for Maya’s sake. She’s wrong in the head.”

  “That why you chose her, eh?”

  He shrugged. The sick bastard.

  “Well your plan’s messed up now, isn’t it,” I said. “The pigs have got them all.”

  “Not so, la’. The plan’s just taking off.”

  “Eh?”

  “Any pigs come near them lads, they slash themselves up and splat a bullet through their brains. Spray their sicky blood all over.”

  “So you put a few people in the hossie.”

  “Few, yeah. Three rush-hour trains? Few dozen. Enough to get folks panicking. Enough to mess up the hossies. Only one unit in the UK for that kind of thing and it ain’t big enough. And no one knows how to cure the bastard.”

  I twitched with rage. Was that it? All my running around for Paterson and he lets this happen?

  “What about Maya?” I said. “She can’t pass it on if she’s blown to bits.”

  “True enough, la’. It’s not about the bug with her. Told you he’s old-school, your dad. Hers is just your everyday bomb vest. Rodney’ll make sure she gets there. Then they phone it in to set the belt off.”

  I wriggled. “Where?”

  “Hmm, yah, let me check my watch. By now she’ll be near the gates of Saint Rock’s.”

  “Eh?”

  “It’s little Ali’s first day of big school, eh?”

  Go ’ead, Mr God Mate Lad. Take me now. Nice and quick. I won’t tell.

  Something clunked on the roof. The carrier-crane was grabbing us. Gave me a jolt. In a good way. Snapped me out of my whingey daydream. Fear cut through my fever and sparked me up.

  Raz slackened his arms a tad when he heard the bump. He wasn’t ready for me. I swung my head back and let fly, all the way from the heels to the snap of the neck. Bang. I closed the gap before his arms could straighten. The top of my crown crunched square on his nose.

  He was a big one, but Ralph was right. Nothing like a Kirby Kiss to take the legs from under you. Raz crumpled onto his arse.

  I jumped on him. I groped around and picked up the Glock. Rammed the muzzle into his neck.

  “Where’s your phone?” I hissed.

  He blew air through his lips, spitting blood. He shrugged and chuckled. I raised the Glock and smashed the butt down on his nose. What was left of it. Nothing seemed to hurt him. He just moaned a bit and cackled to himself.

  “Ooh-la la!”

  “Where?” I said.

  “Ain’t got one. They don’t work at sea.”

  I felt the box sway and tilt. We were in the air. They were carrying us to the ship to load us.

  I saw myself from the outside. Right daft prick I looked. Hunched over this lummox with a gun, in a box, on a crane. I froze. Raz smirked, spitting out blood.

  “Nice girl that, Azo,” he said. “Get a move on, you can hold her hand. You can hold Ali’s an’ all!”

  “You daft prick,” I said. “You said you’d set her belt off by phoning it in.”

  “Dead right, la’.”

  “Then you said you had no phone.”

  “Not me. Your dad.”

  My pits were streaming. I dug the gun deeper in his neck.

  “Where?”

  “Your top pubby-wub.”

  Where all this shitstorm started.

  “I’d hurry, la’. He’ll be shipping out an’ all before it all goes off.”

  I shoved him away, fumbled around in the dark and got hold of his rifle. I slung it on my shoulder and limped round the stacks. Groped my way back to the door I’d come in by. No latch on the inside. No catch that I could see. I rattled and banged on it. No good.

  A few weeks back I’d been lying staring at a door just like this one, when the Yanks had me laid out.

  I put the Klashni to my shoulder and raised the barrel as far as I could in the space. Wriggled back into the gap in the cargo to get another inch or two. Braced my knees against the floor. The container was swaying in the air. I trained the rifle halfway up the door and heard the muzzle clank against it.

  I tried to guess where the locking rods were that ran down the door on each side. A few inches out from the rubber seal. Levers on them half way up and the bolts they snapped into.

  I stopped. I didn’t know how much use Raz’s rifle slugs would be on the steel door. Might ricochet back and slot me.

  I groped around behind my back. Some kind of wooden bed stood upended there, wrapped in sheeting.

  I squirmed around in the space, humping and dragging the bed about. Worked open a gap behind to shelter in. I angled the Klashni over the top of it, pointed it as best I could at the middle of the door.

  I took a breath, braced myself against the bed and frigged away at the trigger in the dark, biting my lip at the din and the smoke.

  The slugs were useless by themselves. But Raz had the rifle full. At least thirty rounds. I fired them all.

  I stepped out from behind the bed and squeezed round into the space, waving the smoke away. The door was still there. I bashed at it with the butt of the rifle in the dark. A spot of light showed near the middle. The metal had buckled. Part of the rubber had snapped out. A blade of daylight cut through.

  I dropped the gun, squared my back against the load and hoofed the door till the bolts and levers gave out.

  I knelt down and squeezed my head and shoulders through the opening. My throat was dry. My head was spinning. My ears were dead from the din of the shots.

  We were twenty yards up and dangling from a gantry. Just a few paces of hard ground from the side of the ship and closing.

  I let my legs down into space. Hung on the edge with my hands and dangled. I swung gently. One, two and I let myself drop.

  I’d already frigged my ankle getting stuck in that pallet. It twisted again as I hit the ground. My right wrist jarred as I stuck it out to break my fall. I didn’t feel the pain yet. I was back on my feet. I whipped the Glock out of my trackies and started limping away.

  I was nearly back where I started. Seaforth container dock. The Grace was just across the road.

  There were dockers around in their hard hats. They yelled but didn’t get close when they saw the gun. I ran through the gaps between the stacks of containers. Out again and through lines of new cars. On towards the back of the depot. Fifty yards from the fence.

  The dock bizzies had woken up. They had one car coming along the line of containers. Another heading for the fence.

  I made it there first. Ran for the spot where my scrap of carpet was flopped over the barbed wire. I scrambled ove
r as the bizzie car screeched up to the fence.

  No time to drag the carpet on with us to the outer one. The one with the three-pronged spikes on top. I left it draped over on the inner fence, ran to the far one and jumped.

  I yanked myself up and crouched on top, my arse an inch from the spikes. Shifted on my toes as I braced to spring over. Sparing my bad foot. All the weight on the left. I shivered. The balance was all wrong inside my head. My trainie slipped in the dew on the steel. Spike stabbed right into my arse cheek. Tore through my trackie, gashed into the top of my thigh. I squawked like a fanny. The spike scooped out flesh as I tumbled into the road where the overpass comes down.

  I staggered over, dripping blood, to The Grace. Its red bricks and peeling paint. A dim light through the frosted glass. I hobbled in under the corner arch.

  39

  Gibbsy looked at us through his milk-bottle specs like a scared owl as I came through the porch door.

  “I’ve not told him nothing,” he said.

  I started to turn. I felt a flutter at my back as the Glock slipped out of my waistband.

  He stood there with it in his hand.

  A snapshot. But old and scuffed now. That same muzzy and grin. Them jokey-around eyes, but wrinkled at the edges. Too friendly to be good. Hard-friendly.

  “Hami, man,” he said. “Good man, Hami.”

  He was shorter than me. He looked like some sad old git. This big black padded jacket. Same floppy fringe. Grey in his hair at the sides.

  I’ve gobbed on a bit about my dad, haven’t I. Spent all those years wondering about him. But Frank was right. It’s hard to know what you’re really after. All that time thinking about it, and now I didn’t have anything to say.

  I stood there panting and just looked at him till he spoke.

  “I come a long way to be here,” he said.

  “To kill kids? What’s this then, your tea break?”

  “It’s not all work, work, work.”

  I stared at him.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  He shrugged. Grinned. Sucked his bottom lip. It bunched up his muzzy like in that snapshot.

  “You.”

  I thought of my mum. I felt sad. Mad. I wanted to go home to my bedsit and curl up in my old bunkbed with a tinnie.