Stone Cold

by Taylor, Peter

  Tonks’ eyes fixed on his like two laser guns locked on a target.

  ‘You’ll need a bit of cash, then?’

  John shook his head. He had an idea what might be coming next, didn’t want to know.

  ‘Forget it, Barry. I ain’t going to deal drugs.’

  ‘Naw, man, you got me wrong. I just want someone to drive me somewhere, then back again. Got to make a special delivery, see.’

  ‘So this special delivery has nothing to do with drugs and you’re incapable of driving yourself there. Pull the other one, Barry.’

  ‘It’s nowt to do with drugs,’ Tonks protested. ‘It’s a fair distance and you know I’m a bad driver. You were always better than me when we nicked cars.’

  That much was true. John didn’t like being reminded, but when they were fourteen they’d stolen cars a couple of times, gone joy riding. Luckily they’d not been caught in spite of Barry’s erratic driving.

  ‘Twenty quid for just driving and minding the car.’ Tonks said. ‘As Mr Tarrant says, ‘final offer’.’

  At that moment, twenty quid seemed a fortune. John was tempted. He figured it would help him to eat for a few days while he tried to sort out his next move.

  ‘I just drive, that’s all? There’s nothing criminal going on?’

  ‘Naw, man. I swear it. Just a little job.’

  John stared out of the windscreen. A scrawny pigeon waddled into a puddle on the pavement to peck at a discarded pizza. He could empathize with the creature. It seemed like a brother in need.

  ‘All right then, I’ll do it,’ he said, noticing the butcher was about to open the shop. ‘For twenty quid — and a pork pie from the shop.’

  ‘Deal,’ Tonks said, looking pleased with himself.

  They both got out of the car. John slid into the driver’s seat while Tonks entered the shop. When he returned, he sat in the passenger’s seat and handed John a pork pie which was consumed with relish.

  ‘We’re going for a nice drive in the country,’ Tonks told him.

  John set off, followed the roads Tonks had written down on a piece of paper and soon they were on the outskirts of Middlesbrough with the Cleveland Hills in view. He recognized the roads because they were the same ones they’d used on their way to Peter Fairbrother’s farm.

  When they arrived at Great Ayton, he began to wonder at the coincidence but then they took a road he hadn’t been down before and he figured coincidence was all it could be. Eventually, Tonks directed him off the main road, down a single track lane overarched with trees. Thick bushes grew profusely between the trees making it difficult to see anything beyond the lane’s confines. Tonks told him to stop the car.

  ‘Just wait here,’ he told John. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes, max.’

  He was out of the car before John had a chance to speak. Through the mirror, he watched him remove something from the boot and stuff it inside his jacket but couldn’t see what it was. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared through the bushes.

  Now that he was alone, John had time to think. In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with any of Barry Tonks’ enterprises. Tonks wasn’t above lying, could be conducting a drug deal right now for all he knew. After five minutes, his curiosity got the better of him. He got out of the car, paced restlessly, then scrambled through the bushes.

  When he emerged on the other side, he realized he was at the edge of the field where Peter Fairbrother kept the horses. The house was a quarter mile off to his right, the barn in a straight line 200 yards away. John’s stomach started to churn. This was stretching coincidence beyond its limit. What was Tonks up to? Did he know he worked with those horses?

  He scanned the ground, spotted a figure lying in the grass near the barn. Tonks! He watched the gang leader rise to his feet. Something flared in his hand. A torch? He started towards the barn. John couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. Was this a bad dream? Surely he wasn’t going to torch the stables? His body felt numb, as though an invisible force was pressing in on him, weighing him down. He started to panic, searched the field for the horses, couldn’t see them, realized they must be inside. Tonks was slipping through the door and still he was rooted to the spot like a soldier with battle shock, paralysed by the horror of what he was witnessing.

  His body was still in a state of inertia, his brain refusing to give it orders as, seconds later, Tonks burst out the barn, closed the doors and started to run. A lazy curl of smoke escaped under the doors, shaped itself into a cloud. That left no room for any more doubt in John’s mind. Revivified, he leapt the fence. Visions of those horses he’d come to love flashed into his mind as he covered the ground. He imagined their flesh burning, their agonized screams. It drove him on faster.

  Tonks saw him coming, broke his stride, veered into his path, arms splayed to halt his progress.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he yelled. ‘Get back!’

  John had an urge to batter him to the ground but had other priorities. He knocked him out of the way, focused his eyes on the stables, remembering how the old chestnut nuzzled him, trusted him even when one of his kind had already given it such a good reason to hate all men. He threw himself at the doors with all his strength. They yielded easily to his ferocity.

  Inside, the flames had taken hold, were eating ravenously, red tongues competing in an orgy of gluttony. Like a sly accomplice, the smoke crept around them obscuring John’s vision so that he could only just make out the stalls. Frightened whinnying cut right to his heart. He could hear hoofs pounding on wood. Coughing and spluttering, he rushed through the flames, ignoring the waves of heat that slapped against his face. He opened the first two stalls and stepped aside. Slipping and sliding in their panic, the horses rushed out, became more sure footed as they ran for the stable doors.

  The third stall was the chestnut’s. He saw instantly it was in a worse state than the others, its eyes wide and rolling, its great chest heaving as it fought for breath. Tears in his eyes, not just from smoke, John grabbed a bridle. His presence and his voice calmed it enough for him to slip the bridle on. Talking to it with a calmness he did not feel, he led it out of the stall, through the smoke and flames to the door and into the fresh air.

  John released the bridle and the chestnut limped away. He doubled up, gasping for breath. He wanted to go after the chestnut but didn’t have time. Down at the farmhouse, he could see a blonde head sticking out of one of the windows. Peter Fairbrother’s wife! At that distance, he doubted she’d recognize him but any moment she’d be sounding the alarm and all hell would break loose. Self-preservation kicked in. He started to run, didn’t turn to look back until he reached the fence. He saw men running towards the stables which were shrouded in smoke. With a final glance at the corner of the field where the three horses had gathered, he hurled himself over the fence.

  There was no sign of the car and he didn’t have time to lament the fact. If anyone had spotted him, they would be coming after him. With too little time to form a plan, he took off down the lane towards the main road, cursing Tonks, himself too for trusting him when he should have known better.

  Running at full tilt, he rounded a bend and came up short. There was a car ahead, two men leaning on the bonnet. He scrambled into the bushes, grateful the men were facing another way, hadn’t seen him. Were they part of a search party? Surely, there hadn’t been time to organize one? Either way, he couldn’t risk being seen, was trapped, the clock ticking against him.

  Suddenly a third man stepped out of the tree-line. At a signal from him all three pulled balaclavas over their heads and jumped into the car. The engine roared and it took off, dirt squirting under the back tyres. John breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever those men were doing, their business didn’t involve him. He started running, reached the main road, crossed over, leapt a fence into a field, ran alongside a hedge for cover.

  When he’d put distance between himself and the stables, he rested for a moment, allowed his breathing to set
tle down. Tonks was in his mind, as painfully as a needle sticking in his flesh. There was no excusing what the gang leader had done. He hated him for it. Did he have ice in his veins instead of blood? That he’d been there to save the horses was the one blessing out of the whole mess. If he hadn’t been there, he dreaded to think of their fate.

  Now he had the problem of getting home and he decided to walk, keeping off the main roads because the police would be watching them. When he was clear of the area he would try to catch a bus in one of the small villages. As he set off again, he was already dreading having to tell Henry Torrance what had happened. However badly it reflected on himself, he knew he had to tell him the truth.

  *

  It was dark when Henry heard the knock on his door. He wasn’t used to late night visitors so he opened up cautiously, peered out. It took a moment before his eyes adjusted and he could recognize the tired, bedraggled figure on the doorstep. Even in the poor light, he could see the strain in John Walsh’s face, his embarrassment as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other like an agitated parrot on a perch. John’s mouth opened but nothing came out. He tried again with the same result. Finding words seemed a step too far for him and it didn’t take genius on Henry’s part to gather something must be very wrong in John Walsh’s life.

  ‘What’s happened to you,’ Henry said gently.

  John found his voice, stammered, ‘I’ve left home and I’m living in a pigeon loft.’

  ‘You look like you need some food inside you, son.’ Henry beckoned him to follow him inside. ‘I’ve just been to the chippy. You’re welcome to share my fish and chips.’

  When John was seated in the lounge, Henry retreated to the kitchen, emerged with two plates of fish and chips, a pot of tea and a copious amount of buttered bread, all laid out on a tray. John attacked his food with such indecent haste Henry knew he couldn’t have eaten much that day, remained silent while his visitor demolished the food right down to the last crumb. Replete at last, John shot his host an embarrassed glance.

  ‘Want to talk about what happened?’

  John couldn’t meet Henry’s eye. He stared down at the carpet as though its patterns were gateways into another world where he would rather be than in the real one around him. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked off each second of their impasse but Henry didn’t press him. Finally, John raised his head, looked straight at Henry, gave a resigned sigh and told him everything that had happened to him from the moment he’d found his books missing.

  Henry listened without interrupting, his emotions vacillating between sympathy for John Walsh, undisguised horror when he heard about the fire, fury at Tonks’ callous actions. When he’d finished, John buried his head in his hands.

  ‘I’ve let you down,’ he mumbled through his fingers, ‘I was an idiot to take notice of Tonks. Should have known no good would come of it.’

  Henry’s brain was reeling. He was sure burning his place of work was Tonks’ way of getting back at him. He had his suspicions about the men John had seen in the lane but kept silent about that for now, focused on John. There was no doubting the lad had been foolish, but in his circumstances how many could say they wouldn’t have done the same?

  ‘Go easy on yourself,’ he said. ‘You made a bad mistake but I’m proud of the way you went in to save the horses. You could have just panicked, run off and left them to die. You passed the real test.’

  John removed his hands from his face. There were tracks on his cheeks where the tears had run down.

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘I know so.’

  That seemed to cheer him up. His voice was stronger.

  ‘You don’t think it was all a coincidence?’

  ‘No more than I think South Bank is a tourist trap.’

  ‘Tonks was getting back at you. That’s what you think?’

  ‘It certainly looks that way.’

  ‘Those men in balaclavas,’ John mused. ‘Do you think they were going to the farmhouse.’

  Henry frowned. ‘The fire could have been a distraction to get the people out in the field.’

  John focused on Henry with greater intensity.

  ‘You mean they used Tonks.’

  Henry was pretty sure he knew the answer but didn’t want John to know how worried he was.

  ‘You’re weaving a web there, Inspector Morse. I’m due up there tomorrow so I’ll find out if the place was robbed — or if anything worse happened. Probably you shouldn’t come with me until I see how the land lies.’

  John took on a pained expression. ‘I hope we’re wrong — maybe they were poachers or something.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at any of them?’

  John shook his head. ‘Didn’t really get close — but there was one thing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The one that came out of the trees. Now I think about it he was something like you, something about his face, the way he moved.’

  Henry smiled ruefully. John was helping confirm his underlying suspicion. It wouldn’t be the first time Frank had been likened to him and vice versa.

  John caught the smile. ‘Do you know those men?’

  The lad was sharp. Henry had to give him that. He’d shown considerable trust coming to him and confessing. Perhaps it was time to do some confessing of his own. Taking a deep breath, he plunged in.

  ‘If I tell you something about myself, something that I did that was wrong, can you keep it to yourself?’

  John didn’t hesitate. ‘You’ve tried to help me, been a real mate. Goes without saying, doesn’t it?’

  Henry began his tale. No matter what he was thinking, John showed no emotion as he told him about his prison sentence, his relationship with his father and brother, how his brother was trying to force him into the fight.

  ‘So you can see what’s going down,’ Henry concluded. ‘I’ve no intention of fighting and Frank’s trying to pressure me. I’m almost certain it was him you saw, that he was using Barry Tonks.’

  ‘You could call the police anonymously,’ John suggested. ‘Tell them you think your brother was behind the fire.’

  ‘My brother’s too clever to leave evidence. Besides, this is gypsy business we’re talking about. Gypsies don’t grass. That’s the way I was brought up.’

  ‘You’re in as big a mess as me,’ John said. ‘And your father sounds like mine — no use to man nor beast.’

  ‘The last time I saw mine,’ Henry said, ‘he’d changed. It took me by surprise that he’d mellowed.’

  ‘Mine won’t,’ John said. ‘He’s set in stone.’

  Henry felt for the lad. He knew from bitter experience what it was like to have nobody to turn to in your hour of need. It was so easy to stray when you had nobody you respected to take an interest and guide you.

  ‘If you want to you can bed down in my spare room until things calm down.’

  John’s face lit up. ‘That’s good of you, if you’re sure —’

  ‘I’m sure. Bed’s all made up. You look as though you need sleep right now so go on up. It’s the first on the right.’

  John didn’t need any more encouragement. After his exhausting day, he was fighting to stay awake. Henry was left alone in the lounge and his thoughts were bleak. The worst thought of all was how close the horses had come to being burned alive. It was unbelievable that a brother of his could be involved in that. He could only hope there wouldn’t be worse news tomorrow.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Frank Torrance pulled his car onto the concrete space, glanced across at his father’s caravan. It was late and he was tired after a busy day. He hoped the old man hadn’t heard him arrive. He couldn’t face it if he came shambling over to keep him up with small talk. Time the old guy croaked it, no doubt about that; he’d gone downhill and then some in the last year. Hard to imagine now the times when he’d been afraid of him. These days he had no respect for him. If ever he became so useless, Frank hoped someone would give him a pill, put him out of his miser
y.

  Thinking of uselessness brought to mind the raid on the Fairbrother place earlier. The safe had been right up to date and unyielding. All they’d managed to spirit away were two paintings from the walls, which he figured might bring a thousand, tops. Divided three ways it was a paltry reward. The main point though, the whole object of the operation, was that Henry could be in no doubt he was right into his life, biting at his tail until he agreed to fight Chip Jackson. The trouble was his brother could be a stubborn cuss like himself, like their father had been in his pomp. The Jacksons weren’t paragons of patience. Henry had to fight or there was no way out for Frank except in a coffin.

  Frank felt a shiver run up his spine. The Jacksons walking over his grave? If the fire didn’t emphasize to Henry how far beyond serious he was, he’d have to crank up the pressure, maybe kidnap the girlfriend, hold her somewhere until it was done and dusted.

  He was surprised that the door was already ajar, had a moment of trepidation, thinking perhaps he’d been burgled, the biter bitten. Then he remembered his old man had a key that fitted, was in the habit of borrowing things when he wasn’t there. He must have come over earlier, forgotten to lock the door after him, another sign of his failing faculties. Tomorrow he’d have to remember to ask for the key back. He felt for the light switch but decided the old man might notice the light on, head over when all he wanted to do was get to bed, not get drunk with him, waste his time listening to maudlin reminiscences.

  He slipped his jacket off in the dark, started to undress, had just got one leg out of his trousers, was balancing precariously when the whole place lit up. Losing his balance, he fell against the cooker, set off a discordant rattling as pans jumped and clashed, nagging at his already frayed nerves. Then he saw them and his nerves climbed to the top of the scale, from nagging to screaming.

  Three men were in the caravan, two of them seated on the couch, the other standing with one hand on the light switch. Bizarrely, just for a second he thought they were ghosts. But he soon realized they were far from other worldly, that it wasn’t spirits but the Jacksons in the flesh who’d invaded his home. Fear, and an awareness his state of undress must make him look ludicrous to these hard men, caused the blood to rush to his face.