The Graft

by Martina Cole

  He had no interest in his son Jerome other than as a topic of conversation in the pub. He had systematically threatened all his neighbours over the years and consequently enjoyed their discomfiture when he bumped into them while going to or from the local pub.

  He did not disappoint this fine Friday evening. A neighbour’s daughter had got married that afternoon in Basildon register office. The girl, a pretty blonde with a belly full of arms and legs and a new husband who worked for the Post Office, was getting out of the wedding car. Mackie stood staring at them from his garden, enjoying the uneasiness he was obviously causing.

  In the close everyone else’s house was pretty and cared for. His, however, looked like it had been bombed regularly by the Luftwaffe ever since the Second World War.

  ‘Who you fucking looking at?’

  This was directed at a man walking past on his way home from work. It was a nightly insult and he hurried on his way.

  Yet when Nick Leary pulled up a few minutes later in his Range Rover, Mackie was all smiles for him. He was a bully, but he only bullied people he knew were scared of him. Nick Leary did not fall into that category, and as Nick had helped his boy out Mackie owed him even though it galled him to admit that much to himself.

  It didn’t matter that his son had no time for him, it didn’t matter that Stevie had come out of prison and had not been told the half of it by his sister about the way Mackie had treated her. As far as he was concerned, it was always everyone else’s fault.

  He was sensible enough to know, however, that Nick Leary was big-time while he himself was strictly small. And his mouth was causing him trouble as usual.

  Nick stood outside the gate and looked his home over with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Fucking hell, Mackie, this is a bigger shit hole than I imagined.’

  Cars were pulling up all over the road now as the guests arrived back for the reception. Nick smiled at a couple of them and they smiled back, relieved that whoever was over at Mackie’s was not going to start a fight with them. Some of his less than salubrious guests had been known to provoke the occasional spat amongst themselves or with innocent passers-by.

  Nick stood and stared at the other man, knowing it would make him nervous. No one knew how to play the game like Nick Leary. And for a few minutes he found he was enjoying himself.

  ‘You coming in, Nick?’

  ‘Fuck off. If the inside is anything like the outside I’d need tetanus and typhoid jabs at least before I chanced your fucking front room.’

  Mackie had to laugh even though he barely had a laugh in him.

  ‘So what you after then?’

  He knew exactly what Nick Leary was after but needed to hear the words from him. Mackie knew he had opened his big trap too far and had a sinking feeling that Nick was here to shut him up. Stevie had warned him to keep it quiet but he had not been able to resist talking about it.

  Mackie’s real name was Fergus McDermot, not a good name to grow up with outside Glasgow and consequently he had taken a lot of stick for it over the years.

  Mackie was what everyone called him now. A friend who was going into the wedding called over, ’All right, Mackie.’

  The mother of the bride nearly passed out with fright in case he took it as an invitation to join them all.

  Nick looked around him at the nicely dressed wedding guests arriving and then said quietly, ‘On second thoughts, I think we will go inside, Mackie.’

  They disappeared into the house and Nick kicked the front door to without closing it. Then, standing in the cluttered hallway, he said loudly: ‘How many times have you been warned over your fucking great big trap?’

  Mackie didn’t answer. His eyes were glued to the claw hammer sitting neatly in Nick’s hand. It had been hidden up the sleeve of his jacket but now he held it comfortably in his right hand.

  Mackie had a sinking feeling that his Nemesis had finally found him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jude squinted at the policeman through tired and bruised eyes. She could see the way he was looking at her and knew he couldn’t wait to leave her in the casualty department and get on with his own life. She had taken a battering but, like everything else in her life, that was secondary to getting out of this hospital and back home to see if there was any of the brown left untouched.

  Gino, his mother and uncles were long gone by the time the police arrived, and Jude had not offered any kind of explanation for her state. In fact, she wondered if it was the Whites who had rung the police in the first place. This was just routine to Old Bill. They dealt with cases like this on a daily basis. Junkies were forever fighting among themselves after imagined slights or ripping off each other’s gear.

  The young PC stared at her for a few moments more before he said, ‘If you’re sure you’ll be OK?’

  Jude didn’t even bother to answer him. She was going to pick up some methadone first, in case of emergencies, and then she’d get herself back home. She had managed to hide her kit before the filth and the ambulance had arrived; now she just wanted to pick up her gear and get on her way. She also needed some food. If she ate something it might still the queasiness in her belly. She hoped the script would not be too long coming, because she could sell the methadone on and then if need be buy more brown.

  She wondered if anyone had tried to find it. Her front door had been kicked in and on her estate that meant someone would take the opportunity to rob her. But they would be wasting their time. Anything saleable had been gone this long time.

  ‘What you got that for, Nick?’

  Mackie’s eyes were like flying saucers as he stared at the claw hammer and Nick smiled lazily, enjoying his fear.

  ‘Oh, ain’t you heard? It’s the new Basildon fashion accessory. You take it and you crunch through people’s heads with it, see? Smaller than the ball-peen, of course, but just as deadly.’

  He was balancing the hammer between his hands, playing with it.

  ‘It’s a good little weapon actually. If you’re caught with it, you say you just bought it because you was doing a bit of do-it-yourself. And I am doing this myself, aren’t I?’

  He smiled again and Mackie felt his breath leave his body as fright took hold.

  Nick shook his head reprovingly before continuing, ‘You couldn’t even let your own boy have a bit of peace after his ordeal, could you, Mackie? Anyone else had that happen to their son, they’d have swallowed it down and kept it in the family, but not you. You used it to get drinks in the fucking pub! Did you mention me by any chance while telling your tale? Only I heard about it from Siddy Haulfryn.’

  Mackie was pasty-faced now. Nick knew his name may not have been bandied about, but Mackie would have left no one in any doubt who the saviour of the McDermot family honour had been.

  This was one dangerous fuck.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Nick. I know the score . . .’

  Mackie held up his arms in supplication.

  ‘Please, Nick, I have learned me lesson, mate. No need to go to all this trouble, is there?’

  He was panicking and it just made Nick more angry with him.

  ‘Get upstairs, Mackie.’

  ‘What for?’

  This was not what he had been expecting.

  Nick sighed dramatically.

  ‘Walk up the fucking stairs, now, and don’t get any hopes or dreams going that you are capable of talking your way out of this because if you try it will be the worse for you, see?’

  He stepped towards the other man who moved quickly to the stairs. Nick followed him slowly.

  ‘This place fucking stinks!’

  Mackie didn’t answer as he watched Nick checking all the rooms over.

  ‘This is your bedroom, I take it?’

  The room was filthy, with grey stained sheets and the smell of old socks and takeaways, mingling with the stench of antique farts and lager. But what it had going for it as far as Nick was concerned was the large window that overlooked the front garden. This w
as to be a statement of revenge and that window suited him perfectly.

  ‘Get in here.’

  Mackie walked into the room slowly. He was sweating profusely now and Nick was deliberately stretching things to make it all the worse for him. Mackie was a bully, it was time he had a taste of his own medicine. He was also such a coward he didn’t even try to do a runner like a normal person would.

  ‘Come on, Nick, this has gone far enough. I won’t say another word, I was out of order . . .’

  Nick silenced him with a look.

  ‘Too right you were out of order. Your boy was nonced by Proctor and you told the whole fucking world about it! How is that going to affect him, eh? And then to add insult to injury you bring me into it and I was doing you a right fucking favour.’

  ‘I didn’t mention your name, I swear, Nick.’

  ‘You might not have said it out loud, but I bet it wouldn’t have taken Basil fucking Rathbone long to suss out who you meant, would it?’

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘You’re scum, Mackie. You are pond life. Fucking vermin. Now stand in front of that window.’

  Mackie stood there shaking and for once it was not because he needed a drink.

  ‘You got a fag?’

  Mackie nodded and looked down. As he felt in his trouser pocket for his pack of Samson tobacco Nick took the opportunity to whack him three times over the head with the hammer. He went down as Nick knew he would, but in fairness to Mackie was up again in no time.

  It was then that Nick with all his considerable strength picked the other man up and threw him unceremoniously through the bedroom window. Mackie’s scream as he went through the glass was like an animal’s.

  Nick walked sedately down the stairs and out the front door, leaving it open. He had touched nothing in the place.

  Mackie was lying awkwardly but fully conscious on the overgrown grass of his front garden.

  ‘You want to take more water with it, mate.’

  Nick was laughing as he said it.

  Then, after hitting Mackie twice more in the face with the hammer, he took out a thick plastic bin bag from his sheepskin jacket pocket and deposited the hammer carefully inside it. In the Range Rover he checked himself over in the mirror. Blood had splattered him and he had a pack of baby wipes handy to tidy himself up with. He wiped his hands and face carefully before driving away.

  He would go to his yard and change his clothes then get rid of everything, hammer included. He had other fish to fry this evening.

  He had no fear of retribution from Mackie or his mates or from the police. The neighbours would have seen nothing, that was how it worked in their world. Plus he had finally shut Mackie up, got shot of him: that alone would get them all on side. Mackie was looking at a few months in hospital at least, and if he walked again he would be lucky. But knowing Mackie he would buy Nick a drink in a few years to celebrate his Invalidity Benefit payments.

  Nick knew his enemy, all right, it was what had kept him on top for so long.

  Tyrell picked up a bucket of chicken and some fries and went back to the flat. It was later than he had thought and Willy was watching the cartoon network on Sky Kids. The lights were all off and Kerr was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’

  Willy shushed him and that was when he saw that Kerr was asleep behind the sofa in a tattered old sleeping bag. Tyrell realised that it was Willy’s, the one he tied up and carried about with him all day.

  ‘Did he talk?’

  Willy smiled.

  ‘Most of it’s down there.’

  He pointed to a pile of pages torn from his notebook. As Tyrell glanced at them he thought again how neat Willy’s handwriting was. This was a clever kid who through no fault of his own had no future to speak of.

  The smell of the chicken woke Kerr up and Tyrell smiled at him as he said, ‘Tuck in, mate, I’ll get some plates from the kitchen.’

  When he came back with the plates and the condiments neither of the kids had moved.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Willy looked at Kerr and grinned.

  ‘We were waiting till you got yours.’

  It was the law of the street: whoever provided the food got the lion’s share.

  ‘That’s all right, I ain’t hungry.’

  And in truth he wasn’t any more.

  He’d looked at Kerr’s wiry hair when he’d turned on the overhead light. The boy was walking alive with all sorts of vermin and Tyrell made a mental note to make sure he outed the carpets at the soonest possible opportunity.

  But he also saw that the boy had tried to tidy himself up and guessed that was something to do with Willy because he was quite fastidious in his own way. Tyrell gave them both a Diet Coke, knowing they would rather have a beer, and poured himself a large shot of Bacardi and Coke, drinking it down quickly and then making another immediately.

  He had a feeling he would need to anaesthetise himself before he read the notes. It was strange but the closer he got to finding out about poor Sonny, the less inclined he was to know any more.

  That, he supposed, was human nature.

  Kerr ate as if his life depended on it, in great big bites washed down with guzzles of Diet Coke. But Tyrell also noticed that he had placed some of the paper serviettes on his lap and knew it was to save the carpet not to protect his clothes. He was watching the silly cartoon of the Cramp twins with avid interest. Once more Tyrell marvelled that a woman somewhere had given birth to this child and thirteen years later this was his idea of a holiday. Where was the love, where was the care, and more importantly where were the fucking parents of these kids? Didn’t they give a damn what happened to their offspring? And was the care system in this country so bad that these kids would rather risk life and limb on the streets than go into it?

  He glanced at Willy. He had HIV. Slowly but surely he was dying and he had not even lived yet. Just like Tyrell’s Sonny Boy, Willy’s life was over before it had even begun.

  The underbelly of society frightened Tyrell, as it did most people. And if you didn’t know about it you didn’t have to deal with it. He wondered now how he would react with the rest of world after all this was wrapped up and put away.

  He couldn’t answer that question yet so, settling in the armchair, he started to look at the notes Willy had made. It was strange but he didn’t mind the boys being there. In fact, they were so quiet and respectful he forgot they were after a while and lost himself in the terrible story written down so neatly by Willy.

  Angela couldn’t sleep. It was nothing to do with the bed or the fact that she felt strange in her daughter’s house.

  It was because of Nick.

  The room she was in was lovely, all muted colours and pretty prints, but she felt her heart racing with terror because her own son had done something terrible and she knew what it was.

  The dinner had been gorgeous, and she had sat and watched the family happily interacting. Carl had a fantastic sense of humour, and little Ria, she was a darling. They all were in their own way. But it was Dixon who had surprised her most. He had poured her a glass of wine after dinner, cleared the table with his wife and loaded the dishwasher, all the time chatting with the kids and being interested in them and their lives.

  When her other grandsons were home from school, Nick and Tammy hardly saw them. It was as if their lives were too busy for there to be space for children or anyone else come to that. Yet none of them really did anything. Poor Tammy filled her days up with the gym and her lunches because she couldn’t stand being in her own home.

  A home most women would kill to possess.

  And then there was Angela’s Hester. Well, she was a truly happy woman. Later, when the kids had gone to bed, Angela had caught her and Dixon having a quick cuddle in the kitchen. How different this house was from her son’s, and how different from her own house when they were growing up.

  Yet it was Nick who still had her heart. Even now, she realise
d. Hester was a good girl, none better, but from the moment Angela had given birth to her son, he had ruled her heart and mind. Even after what she had found out, she was still worrying about him, and knew in her heart of hearts that she would always worry more about him than anyone else, even herself.

  Frankie saw Nick at the door and grinned.

  ‘Can’t keep away, can you?’