‘You have no idea how vicious she is when no one’s looking.’
‘What’s hot?’ he joked. It made Kelly laugh and defused the tension. He changed the subject.
‘Is your mum set for Christmas?’
‘Yes, she’s looking forward to coming.’
Josie was coming too. At fifteen, Johnny’s daughter was turning into a madam; an even bigger one than she already was. It was pretty much the only source of tension between Kelly and Johnny. There was nothing especially wrong with the girl, but it was the way she manipulated her father that bothered Kelly. She’d caught her several times grinning after she’d got her own way, as if to say to Kelly, ‘I have way more power than you do.’ Kelly supposed that like any doting father, all Johnny needed was a flicker of cow eyes to make him melt, and Josie knew it.
Christmas dinner had the potential to be fraught, but they all knew that Kelly might have to leave them to fend for themselves should she get a call on Christmas Day. She half suspected it might be a welcome diversion. Wendy had met Josie several times and had a knack of disarming her, which was partly why she’d been invited. Besides, last year, Wendy was at Nikki’s, so it was Kelly’s turn.
The subject of inviting Nikki and her family had been skirted round several times, with Kelly finding a way out each time. She swung wildly between caving in for the sake of her three nieces, and a stubborn refusal to entertain her sibling no matter how they struggled. No one pushed the idea, not even Wendy. It had been a tough year for Nikki, of that there was no doubt, but Kelly wasn’t a charity, and even the blood they shared ran thin. Kelly believed that the olive branches she’d held out on many occasions had been too often thrust back into her face, causing long-lasting scars. Nikki still wasn’t back to her normal self, and she wasn’t good in groups. Even Johnny agreed that she wasn’t ready; she was unpredictable and in the very early days of rehabilitation.
Kelly drove out of Pooley Bridge and up to the A66. The snow began to fall more heavily and she needed to use her wipers. She looked at her temperature gauge: minus two degrees. It would freeze tonight.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said. It was true: the snow blanketed anything ugly and discoloured and kissed the whole landscape with a clinical white blessing.
She took it slowly, but others whizzed past them.
‘Wankers,’ she said. She’d seen enough RTAs to know the importance of respecting the weather. Last year a woman had swerved on black ice at over sixty miles an hour on this very road and killed her three kids sitting in the back. That kind of thing slowed Kelly down. Not like these idiots.
It wasn’t long before the lights of Keswick came into view ahead and the great silhouettes of Blencathra and Skiddaw towered over them on their right-hand side.
Parking was always a nightmare in Keswick, but Kelly found a space at the police station. She’d got to know many of the local coppers over the last few years, and she knew that Stan MacIntyre was on shift. From there it was a short walk into town. They fastened their thick walking coats and pulled on hats, and headed towards the fair.
They heard it before they saw it. Screams carried on the freezing air, and they heard the juddering of powerful machinery and the chugging of the lorries powering it. Petrol lay heavy in the air, as well as caramel and burger fat. It was the Christmas market that Kelly was interested in, but she also loved walking through the fair and watching. She linked Johnny’s arm and they spotted the first crowds.
‘Why am I doing this?’ Johnny asked.
‘Oh come on, you old fart! Where’s your sense of adventure?’
‘I get enough of that in my day job, and this weather isn’t going to help. I dread to think about the halfwits who’ll get stuck up there this year. Remember that guy who tried to ski down Helvellyn last year, pissed out of his brains?’
‘Christ, yes. He was shit-faced. He’s lucky to be alive,’ Kelly said. The snow always brought out way more walkers because it made the fells look so pretty. But the weather changed so quickly in winter and the days were brutally short, trapping even experienced walkers. Johnny wasn’t on call over Christmas, but knowing him, if they were particularly busy, he’d turn up anyway. One misjudged slip up on the higher peaks could be fatal.
Their pace slowed as they hit the bulk of the thrill-seekers. The attractions were overflowing, and people of all ages waited in long lines for their turn. It was still quite early, and so young children milled about with their parents, eating candyfloss and pointing to the bright lights. Older children showed off and paraded in front of the opposite sex. Kelly’s eyes were drawn to one group, and she stared at their attire. The girls all looked the same: skinny jeans, midriff tops, bulky biker-style coats, chunky sneakers and tons of dark make-up. She couldn’t tell if they were pretty or not, they were hidden behind so many layers of cosmetics. Oh shut up, Kelly, she thought. It’s called youth.
She suffered an acute moment of melancholy as a vision of Jenna Fraser entered her mind. She tried to push it away. At the funeral, Jenna’s father had said she was finally at peace. It was as if her death had been inevitable, and she’d somehow been born with an innate sense of fatality.
‘Come on, I’ll win you a teddy,’ said Johnny.
‘Really? So you do like the fair! You tease!’
He smirked. He couldn’t walk past guns without having a pop. He paid the shifty-looking guy a crisp fiver and was handed a rifle. Kelly had never seen him cock a weapon; he looked like a pro.
‘Best shot in Basra,’ he boasted, and squinted through the sight. The pellet pinged and hit the first-prize target. The stallholder looked utterly pissed off and eyed Johnny suspiciously.
‘Professional?’
‘No, mountain rescue, mate.’
‘You need to do that three times.’
‘No problem.’ He cocked the weapon again and pinged another one off. The guy shook his head as Johnny hit the same target, and reluctantly set it up again. Johnny hit the mark for the third time and handed the rifle back.
‘Sight’s a bit off, mate,’ he said. They all did it, those stalls – put the sight off a touch so no one ever won – but Johnny knew how to spot it and make the necessary adjustments. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ he added.
‘You can choose anything from the top row,’ the guy told Kelly, knowing the gift was for her; what man won himself a teddy? Kelly chose a huge unicorn and Johnny rolled his eyes.
‘Will you carry it for me?’
‘Of course I will,’ he said.
They walked away, and the stallholder watched them until they disappeared round the corner. Kelly held on to Johnny’s arm, both of them on high alert. She had noticed this about him after only knowing him a short time: he never stopped searching out the enemy, even if it was only a bartender short-changing him. His eyes were never still.
‘I don’t trust any of these guys; they’re dodgy as hell,’ he said, glancing around. They all looked as though they only emerged from the underbelly of society at night. Some were old and some were young; all looked unclean and criminal.
‘I know. They give me the creeps. My sister used to go out with one of them; they’d meet every year and I’d lie to my parents. He stank,’ she added.
‘You lied to your parents?’
‘Believe me, Wendy had hawk eyes. If we wanted any fun, we had to cover for each other.’
‘And what about your dad?’
‘Which one?’
‘I mean John,’ he said.
‘Sorry, it was rhetorical. I was being petulant.’
‘I know.’
‘He always favoured me. I guess he didn’t know I wasn’t his.’
‘Does he know?’ He meant Ted Wallis, the senior pathologist and Kelly’s biological father.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you tell him?’ he asked.
‘I really fancy some glühwein.’ She changed the subject.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ he asked.
‘If you don’t m
ind. This snow looks like it’s getting thicker. We shouldn’t stay out long anyway.’
They walked towards the stall and ordered a cup of the warm spicy red wine, and a coffee for Johnny. It was as if the fair was divided into two ghettos: the rides, and the stalls. The former frequented by kids and predators, the latter by shoppers and lovers.
There was no room to sit, and so they took their cups and wandered through the little wooden stalls that popped up every year selling trinkets, woollen goods, food and drink. They chose some local artisan cheese, some Cartmel sticky pudding, and a couple of bottles of red wine, as well as a hand-carved wooden trinket box for Josie, then made their way back to the car.
Kelly’s cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and she felt warm. She held onto Johnny’s arm as they navigated around clumps of people. The demographic of the multitude had changed somewhat, the younger children and their parents conspicuously absent. The atmosphere was different too. Now huddles of girls followed gangs of lads swaggering and smoking.
Kelly shivered. It was time to go.
Chapter 10
Away from the main street, two men chatted in a doorway. They wore dark baggy clothes and a guess at their age would have been unproductive. A car pulled up and one of the men walked to it and handed something over, receiving a small package in return. The car carried on and the men walked down the street and into a terraced house.
The house was dark and quiet, though voices could be heard coming from several of the rooms. The men split up and entered separate rooms, where they were greeted like old friends. All over the house, lights were dimmed and windows shut, creating an ethereal atmosphere, reminiscent of a brothel where secrets were swapped and innocence traded. But none of the occupants of the house wanted sex. They were there for something far more powerful.
They’d scored, and managed to cobble enough together to pay for it. Soon they were huddled around, each waiting for a tiny bagful of powder to be handed to them. Their addiction took over, and nothing else mattered. The boy, horse, mud, thunder … whatever the name for it, the effects were the same, and the risks just as high as the trip they anticipated. No one was ever quite sure what was in the small packages; it could have been rat poison for all they knew. But they didn’t care.
A girl whose parents lived in a million-pound house on the shores of Windermere held out her hand, as did a guy who used to own five car dealerships; a woman who’d been a primary school teacher shuffled forward, next to a man who taught the trombone. All scratched and rubbed sores and imaginary itches as they waited, barely able to contain their anticipation.
They sat on unkempt, stinking mattresses and began their rituals. Some helped others coil straps around their arms, and a few injected into necks, if veins elsewhere wouldn’t perform. The only sound was of rubber ties being released, and groans as individuals gradually collapsed one by one into pools of satisfaction, fists unclenching. As they sank into oblivion, pain receptors, designed to ward off danger, both physical and emotional, stopped working, and minds floated off to a world of nothingness, if only for an hour or so.
The house fell quiet once more and the radiators belted out oppressive heat, floating over bodies that looked like corpses. The line between overdose and recovery became more blurred every time they used, but they continued to do so because it was scarier not to. High, they couldn’t dwell on family disappointments, debt, abuse, neglect or depression. High, they couldn’t feel a thing, and that was the point.
The shit coursing through their bloodstreams had travelled thousands of miles from the fields of Afghanistan and made certain people very rich, including the man who had overseen the evening’s delivery to Keswick charter fair. He cared nothing for the dark deals in quiet streets, or for the losers burning their brains on the stuff. All he was interested in was profit, and the business was developing nicely. It was a natural progression out of the cities, where coppers heated everything up and spoiled lucrative trade. Moving to the country was the obvious answer, and there were still as many takers. Of course, supply in the city never dwindled, but more connections were being made in the provinces, and the Lake District was as attractive as any.
The man who supplied ninety per cent of the drugs to the Lake District was clean; he’d never been an addict. But he didn’t mind those who were, and if he could facilitate his customers in any way, he was happy to oblige. Yet the profit from his business, which had quadrupled in one year, wasn’t his only reason for being in the Lake District. He really didn’t have to make the journey from Manchester to Keswick to deal with these lowlifes who threw their futures away on heroin. He had other interests in the area, and one of them was his son.
The last time he’d seen the boy, he’d been in the custody of the local authorities, and one woman stood between getting him back and losing him forever.
Her name was DI Kelly Porter.
Chapter 11
Michael Shaw stopped in front of the Pendulum. His heart thumped. He knew that he could no longer use his size as an excuse to avoid it; this year, he was tall enough. He looked up and swallowed. The thing must be a hundred feet tall, the cages hurtling round at ridiculous speeds. Screams echoed on the night air as the riders whizzed past, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. As the arm descended to earth, he realised that Faith was on the next cage to belt past the awe-struck crowds below. Loud, pulsating music throbbed in Michael’s ears, and he felt nauseous. Faith was with Sadie, and they howled as they hung on tight.
As he followed their cage with his eyes, his friend tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well fit, your sister,’ he said.
‘Fuck off, Adam,’ Michael replied.
The trio had hooked up at football training in Year 5 and had been inseparable since. Recently, though, Adam had begun to attract trouble, and the others had started to walk a different way home. Problem was, Adam had noticed and had begun to pick on Michael, the smallest of the three. Adam himself wasn’t particularly tall, but what he lacked in inches, he made up for in volume.
‘Look at her tits jumping up and down on that thing!’
Michael’s face turned purple and he scowled. Adam spread his hands in mock apology, then placed them on his chest and began to pretend to fondle himself.
‘Ah, yeah. She’s asking for it,’ he jibed.
Something shifted on the caramel-laden air; the music dipped, someone screamed and the ride slowed. Michael charged at his tormentor and felled him in one hit. Adam, taken by surprise, never saw what was coming. A small crowd noticed the commotion and gathered round the bodies writhing on the floor. They began to cheer. Ethan could only watch, frozen and unsure what to do. Michael was sitting astride his tormentor now, and the pair grappled for dominance.
The crowd parted and Faith fought her way through the gap. She screamed at Michael and dragged him off.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she yelled.
Adam lay panting on the floor. His eye was cut and had begun to swell. Faith looked from her brother to his victim and back again. Michael glared down at Adam, then threw up his hood and left the scene. He didn’t know where he was going, but anywhere that put distance between himself and humiliation would be good right now.
* * *
‘Ethan, what happened?’ Faith asked breathlessly. Ethan looked past her to where Adam was being helped up.
‘Adam was dissing you. Michael stuck up for you,’ he said.
‘Oh shit.’ Faith looked about for her brother, but he’d vanished. ‘Where do you think he’s gone?’ she asked.
Ethan shrugged. Faith looked at her watch: it was ten past eight. She had plenty of time to find him. Sadie asked what was going on, then rolled her eyes. It was obvious that there was only one thing on her mind tonight, and that was hooking up with Luke Miles, who owned a car and had offered to take them to get spiced. Luke was a sixth-former, and his parents were rich and lived in a massive pad on the outskirts of Keswick, so attention from him was flattery indeed, and Sadie wasn’
t about to miss the opportunity.
Faith was nervous. She’d never been that into drugs, but she knew that Sadie was. She wanted to be like her friend, to be cool and interesting, but she didn’t like what it did to her brain and her stomach, making her feel sick and out of control. She always knew when her friends were close to making a deal, as they spoke in coded riddles to outwit people who might disapprove, like parents, teachers and coppers. ‘Spice’ and ‘joker’ were nicknames for chemical marijuana, and they sometimes smoked it dipped in ozone to make a wet joint. When Faith had tried one it had nearly blown her head off. If they were planning on doing that tonight, she should really make her excuses and leave. But first she had to find Michael.
‘What’s going on?’
Luke had arrived. He looked at Faith and his eyes wandered to her unzipped coat. She’d changed back into the short top as soon as she’d found the first pub toilet. She followed his gaze and he smiled. Her pulse quickened and she felt as though she was on a precipice. He’d told her that he had some new stuff for them to try, and she was torn between her sober brain telling her the right thing to do, and her teenage brain that wanted to experiment and not let her friends down. She also couldn’t deny that she was hopelessly in love with Luke Miles. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sadie fiddling with her hair and rubbing her nose: she’d already been at it.
‘Are you OK? What happened?’ Luke asked.
‘Nothing, just my brother, he got into a fight, I don’t know where he is.’
Faith felt dumb. She fully expected Luke to tease her about her concern, or perhaps make a joke. But he didn’t. He was so close, she could smell him; it was a mixture of skunk, tobacco and cologne, and it thrilled her.
‘Can I help?’ he asked. Sadie’s mouth fell open and Faith saw that she was jealous. She saw Luke as her own. The problem was that Sadie was always smashed off her tits, and Faith knew that it bored him.
‘Please,’ she said.
‘Let’s spread out. It’s Michael, isn’t it? Call him,’ Luke said.
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