Blackstoke

by Rob Parker

  What people didn’t tend to get was that when they were on their own, completely in control of the terms, they were different. Their characters didn’t entirely look back at each other with identical gazes.

  They had their own rooms, off along the corridor, opposite each other. Their own spaces, which they would get to eventually—but for now, they weren’t quite ready yet, so they slept on couches in the newly designated playroom (which is where the Xbox lived, while the PlayStation resided downstairs). Their rooms were ready for them—both furnished, both beds made, both sets of (very similar) clothes in both wardrobes.

  There was a distant rumble which they both felt deep in their guts more than actually sound in their ears.

  ‘A car?’ said Burnett.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘2 litre?’

  ‘2.5. Maybe even three.’

  They waited as it grew.

  ‘Definitely 2.5,’ confirmed Boyd with authority. ‘Dad.’

  The growl turned up and abruptly increased in both volume and clarity, and thin shafts of light spun on the ceiling after sneaking through the gaps in the curtains.

  Burnett checked the clock on the wall, but had to wait a second until his eyes adjusted enough to see the dull hands. Two forty-five in the morning.

  ‘He’s early,’ said Boyd.

  The car slowed, the growl paused, a car door clunked. There was a moment of calm, then a plant pot broke.

  ‘Oh God,’ whispered Burnett. A sigh accompanied the words.

  Both boys were out of bed in a second, and heading for the window, each one grabbing an end of curtain and peeling it back. The shafts on the ceiling widened.

  The scene they found outside was a familiar one, although the smashing of a plant pot suggested that this was a particularly extreme variation of the norm. Sure enough, their father, his tie loose, his hair mussed and his shirt untucked, stood with his legs wide apart and one of his feet buried in soil with shards of terracotta poking out at all angles. A two-foot palm tree lay prostrate, its roots still hidden in the mound of earth. All of this was laid scant by the unforgiving glare of the security light by the guttering over all their heads.

  The twins watched as their father’s long-suffering driver, Mike, ran around the bonnet of the car and grabbed Fletcher’s outstretched arms before he toppled, his eyes casting around the street in concern. Mike held his client up and cleaned his foot off, ushering him to the house. Even without Mike’s arm around him, it was clear that Fletcher Adams was in a hell of a state.

  ‘Will mum get up for this one do you think?’ asked Boyd.

  ‘She might,’ replied his brother, and as he spoke, Mike’s eyes suddenly darted up to the window, and registered the boys. His expression spoke of exasperated apology. The boys waved in unison accidentally.

  The sight of their father in a state of disrepair was not a new one, nor one that inspired anything in them other than a non-committal ‘huh’ and shrug of the shoulders. There was no shock, sadness, amazement, betrayal—all of that had been eroded by the frequency of its occurrence. Now though, thanks to the transformative qualities of time, it had metamorphosed into something akin to fascination. This was their patriarch, their leader, and he caused such drama.

  Everywhere he went, furore seemed to follow. They knew they were expected to follow in his footsteps, and in turns were both daunted and couldn’t wait. He did whatever he wanted without recompense, and when they sat there to enjoy his latest escapade, it was with the amazed gaze of children who know this shouldn’t happen but reacted in wonder that it did—although being here, in their new home, he was clearly ahead of the curve. None of the other dads did this, that they could see—even that house over the road that had two of them. Although the other boy’s dad did have a moment when he stormed out, angry. They had heard the door slam and done just the same thing as now—leapt up to the window to watch. They’d seen the one from the little house come out, with that amazing dog. They’d watched the dog tear off, and them follow.

  It was drama. It was what they were used to.

  The voices started downstairs. Loud, over the top. Well, one of them was.

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry, that it’s got so late.’ The voice was muffled, through layers of plywood, paint and wood facias, but it belonged unmistakably to their father.

  ‘She’s already there?!’ asked Burnett. Boyd didn’t answer, as their eyes drifted to somewhere around the door. There was a moment of silence, so protracted that the boys were unsure if their mother was there at all. They edged closer to the door, on a soft subconscious tide.

  ‘Are you going to be sick?’ they heard their mother ask.

  ‘Don’t be daft, I…’ Something caused their father to stop speaking.

  ‘I don’t care about the process behind it. I just want to know if you’re going to make a mess somewhere in our new home.’

  There was another gap of sound while the boys stood in their pyjamas staring nowhere in particular.

  ‘I might,’ their father said, so softly they weren’t sure they’d heard it. Burnett’s eyebrows rose softly. There was a resigned, defeated quality to his voice that they seldom heard. Meek and spanked. Boyd’s jaw dropped slightly, and he looked at his brother. He was met by the same reaction, and though they didn’t know it at the time, they were struck by the moment’s weight. Their father, chastened.

  ‘Needless to say,’ they heard their mother say, although she was sounding less like their mum and more like a sergeant major, ‘you are not to come upstairs. I don’t care what you need. I can smell the cheap perfume on you, and even that’s stronger than the booze that’s dripping out of you. The camp bed is in the downstairs study, pull it to the downstairs loo if you have to. In the morning, you’re going to be sober, whether you like it or not. I’ll come down and kick you at seven fifteen, and if that doesn’t get you up, the tabloids get a phone call. And if you try to come upstairs with any amorous intentions, I’ll make sure you regret it more than anything you’ve done yet. Just try me—okay?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ Fletcher said.

  ‘Just in case you were wondering how good you have it,’ Joyce said, ‘I would have left you long ago if it wasn’t for the boys, and your behaviour has always repulsed me to the point that I even loath myself for letting you get away with this for so long.’

  No answer for a moment, until. ‘Aye aye, capitan.’

  Footsteps started plodding up the stairs. There was no urgency, no angry stomp. But then the steps paused.

  ‘Did you remember to bring that cash home for the boys’ lunches?’ Joyce asked.

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. It’s folded neatly in a stripper’s knickers, isn’t it? Which one was your favourite again—Sandy wasn’t it? Well, maybe she wouldn’t mind feeding your children.’

  The footsteps resumed, and after a couple of seconds, they could make out their mother’s shadow under the crack of the door. It paused outside their room.

  They froze, the air between the boys crackling with the excitement of what they’d heard and the fact that they definitely should not have heard it. There was a standoff for one long moment, an unspoken, silent balancing act. The boys held their breath in unison.

  Their mother moved, and the boys ran for their beds, hyped up and buzzing.

  Drama. There’d been so much in their lives that it was now a drug to them, the days monotonous unless there was some kind of a fall out or incident.

  And this was one to savour.

  33

  Quint was up with the larks, with a Christmas morning-level of excitement he’d not felt in years. He’d left Wendy in bed, one curtain open just how she liked it in the mornings so she could gently pull back to consciousness with the rising of the sun. Now, he was bounding down the stairs with a bounce that served primarily to remind him just how dour his life had become—not because of what was in it, moreover thanks to his outlook. He was aware he’d become a bit of a git, and h
e’d embraced it, furrowing the rut of gittishness ever deeper with each mope, frown and sneer.

  He didn’t even pause for coffee, or venture into the kitchen, rather heading straight to the front door and throwing it open, embracing the gold dawn light as it crept over the treetops around the estate. The day was starting beautifully, with just a hint of frost on the lawn grass at the bottom of the porch steps and either side of the path, lending a jewel-encrusted sheen. The houses around were quiet, dormant, still asleep themselves. It was pleasant, and he stuck to the porch, not needing to venture any further from the house.

  The front of their house was wrapped by a well-appointed, American-style porch, about five feet deep, across the entire frontage—except that, unlike a traditional wooden-style porch in the US of A, this one was made of red brick pillars to match the house itself, and grey stone slabs. Quint walked briskly to the farthest pillar, on the corner of the front of the house, where seven feet up he had hung the hunting camera by passing the attachment loop around the column. It had been positioned out facing the front garden and the street, its unblinking lens watching all before it dispassionately. He reached up, unclipped the loop buckle, and eased it down with the kind of care that would suit an injured bird.

  He checked to see if he’d been seen, and once noting the coast was clear, marched back inside.

  Back in the kitchen, the kettle on and bowl of sugar free Alpen poured, he checked the rear monitor on the trail cam, powering it up. He had set it up to be motion-activated, so that anything that passed in front of its field of vision would switch it on and start recording automatically. He thumbed the menu button, and navigated to last night’s recordings.

  There were two of them. Two video files, with dark thumbnails, peered back up at him from the tiny screen.

  He felt a tingling surge from the back of his scalp to the base of his balls, a crackle of excitement and glee. This was evidence collection, just like the old days. And he had something.

  The kettle clicked off, the water boiled, but he ignored it, and pressed play on the first recording of the two. It immediately began moving, the screen filling with grey shapes. Quint was momentarily crestfallen, thinking that something had gone wrong, but he soon realised that the grey shapes on the screen was his front lawn, the road beyond, and on the left side of the screen, the next pillar along. And as soon as he realised it, a pair of bright lights swung left to right across the screen. A car, navigating the road.

  The instincts of Quint’s former profession sprang back to life, as his police-hewn attention to detail started noting the cars vitals. Dark, four door saloon, nice body shape, possibly a Mercedes. He couldn’t make out the registration number, but was sure he’d be able to if he put the video on a bigger screen and paused it at the right time. The speed it was going suggested it was rushing past and headed to the end of the street. The penny didn’t even need to drop, as it was already there.

  This was just that damn politician returning home.

  Perturbed and a little disappointed, he waited until the end of the clip, which finished after five further seconds of inactivity on the screen, and immediately started the second one.

  It was identical in composition to the first, with nothing obviously amiss. Quint’s excitement restored with every passing second of anticipation. He waited. Nothing.

  He was about to turn the machine off when something tiny on the screen caught his eye. A slight fluctuation right in the middle of the screen, off down the street. A second passed, and it grew ever so slightly, the bobbing becoming more pronounced. It was coming towards the camera, down the street along Broadoak. He waited further, and his breath got caught in his gullet when he saw that the thing jittering along the street was somebody’s head. Somebody, in their corner of an uninhabited estate, with no reason to come in unless you lived there, was walking down their road.

  As the person got closer, it became obvious that the head was bald, and the person it belonged to was marching with a purposeful yet odd gait, as if one leg was slightly shorter than the other. The right leg was overcompensating for the left. The clothes on the person were barely discernible thanks to the low light conditions, but they wore a dark jogging suit. And as unclear as a lot of the physical details of this visitor were, it was clearly not someone who lived on Broadoak.

  He ran through all the residents in his mind. Definitely none of them. When the figure had walked across the screen and was out of sight, and the usual five seconds of stillness ticked by before the clip ended, the screen went back to the menu.

  Confused, Quint found himself back looking at the thumbnails on the screen, and that’s when he saw that the file names beneath them included the time and date of recording. The first one was the day’s date at 2.32am. The second one with their hairless visitor was at 3.48am.

  Quint sat back and assessed the situation. Maybe the bloke had just got lost. Maybe he was the site security which they’d been promised, which would be somewhat underwhelming, especially if they wore such unofficial attire. Maybe it was one of Fletcher’s angry constituents. Quint knew just how bad his press was. He gradually came round to thinking it was interesting and nothing more, and was quietly disappointed he hadn’t caught that bloody Grace or her stupid dog doing something they shouldn’t.

  He resolved to have another go later, after dutifully filing the evidence on his home computer. Once a cop, always a cop.

  34

  On the patented Fletcher scale of shocking hangovers, he was enduring a solid 9.8 out of a possible ten. His skin felt like he’d been smothered in chip fat, and he could smell his own foul fug of BO and part-digested liquor, despite the shower he’d already had. And atop it all, seared into the very capillaries of his nostrils, was the stink of that godawful Poundland body spray Sandy liked to wear—which he found profoundly arousing despite himself. He’d bought her some more up-market Armani stuff, but she never wore it at The Sin Bin, the club she worked at, telling him: ‘that’d be like putting on your best knickers to nip to Tesco’s’. He hadn’t pressed her on it, nor was he thrilled by the implications of her comment, but that other odour she used was so strong with citrus and musk, that it turned him on at a moment’s notice—so much so that he’d once got a raging boner at a fruit stall. Not very ministerial.

  He’d got four hours sleep before dragging a razor over his cheeks and leaning against the bathroom wall while searing hot water singed off the top layer of his epidermis. Teeth scrubbed (amid a few gags when he prodded a bit too far back down his throat thanks to his shaky hands), new suit back on, and out the door he went—stepping over the downed plant pot fragments. He’d become a master of hiding hangovers, and like an elite combat operative scopes out all the possible exits on entering a new environment, Fletcher did the same with bins, bathrooms and bushes in case he needed to skip off for a tactical vom. He knew where every trash can and toilet was in Westminster. Tic-tacs always in his pocket, covering a multitude of sins.

  He marched straight across the empty street to the West’s house, and rang the bell. He’d tried yesterday to get the neighbourhood watch approved, which was all fine, but it turned out they’d have to wait a month or so for the start-up cash to be released. That wouldn’t do at all—not if nights like yesterday’s were going to be a regular feature. The wet rag man-of-the house answered, looking very much like he was about to head out also, and would be in a rush.

  Perfect, though Fletcher, flashing his best polling-station grin.

  ‘Morning,’ said Peter. ‘All ok?’ His hair was freshly styled and toast crumbs hung perilously at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Good morning, Peter. I’m so sorry to disturb and won’t keep you long—I’m just after another signature?’ replied Fletcher.

  ‘Another?’ said West, insecurity obvious. Fletcher loved it and pressed on.

  ‘Yes, I’m terribly sorry to put you out, it’s just that I missed something at our previous signing session. About ensuring we are up and running with the
support of the national network as quickly as possible. Or have I misunderstood your enthusiasm for the project? I’m very sorry if I have.’ That’s it. Make them want to please you, no matter what it is. ‘It’s just admin, and if we are partners, you and me, I need both signatories for it to be official, remember?’ Fletcher wasted no time in switching from apology to dejection. ‘I must have misunderstood, please forgive me, I will take no more of your—’

  West mellowed immediately, yet still retained the fraught shoulder shape of a man in a rush. ‘No, of course, I remember. Do you have it on you?’

  ‘Of course. If it’s no trouble, and I assume it won’t be.’ Fletcher brought his hand up, holding an envelope. ‘Right there.’ A pen soon followed, a document was withdrawn and pressed against the door frame, as Fletcher pointed to a line below his own signature—on a council chitty for the two grand bursary. Two signatures meant two grand cash to be picked up at Fletcher’s discretion. A much more satisfactory result.

  It was only when Peter saw that line did he seem to pause, a hint of indecision creeping in. Bring it home, Fletch. ‘I’m so sorry for the intrusion. But we will all be so much safer.’ He hadn’t needed to say anything further than the word sorry - as soon as he got there, the pen was moving again. The psychology of the deal always fascinated Fletcher, but more than that, the buzz of getting what you wanted was like the greatest drug, and now sat in his head along with Sandy’s cheap body spray.

  ‘Thank you,’ Fletcher said, taking the paper and turning briskly. ‘I’ll let you know when the first meeting is scheduled, partner!’ he shouted over his shoulder. A couple of seconds later, during which time he could feel Peter West’s bemused stare on his back, the door shut. Job done.