by Julie Shaw
In answer, he flipped down the stalk for the indicator, and turned the car into a yard beyond which stood a huge tin building. Corrugated roof. Very old. Like a shed. In what looked like a field. Surrounded by a fence, a bunch of bushes, a garland of monster-sized weeds. Isolated. That was the word that came to mind.
Paddy stopped the car, yanked on the handbrake and pulled the key from the ignition. Then he twisted in his seat and took her hands.
His huge pupils were like an advance guard, paving the way for what he was about to tell her. His hands were sweating. ‘It’s Gurdy, babe. He’s a treacherous cunt, and I’ve found him out.’
Vicky shook her head. ‘No, Paddy. He wouldn’t.’
‘Shhh,’ he said, stroking a thumb across the back of her hand. ‘Listen, I have the facts now. I don’t know when it all started but him and that Jimmy have been working together with the cops to bring me down, I swear it.’
‘But that’s—’
Now his hands gripped hers more tightly. ‘That’s the reason I’ve brought you here,’ he said quietly, speaking slowly, as if to an infant. ‘So you can bear witness. So you can listen to him admit it.’
‘What?’ she said, feeling her gorge rise. Was Gurdy in there? Or – God – in the boot? For a moment she thought that must be it.
She swallowed. ‘Paddy, please don’t tell me that you have Gurdy in there.’ He had to be wrong. Gurdy was a loyal, loyal friend. He would never, ever grass on Paddy, no matter what. Christ, yes, Jimmy might – probably would. But Gurdy? Never.
She said so. ‘You’ll see,’ Paddy said, reaching behind him to open his car door. ‘Come on. Come with me, babe, you’ll see.’
What choice did she have? So she followed him on shaky legs to the big corrugated and padlocked door, and stood silently while he sorted through his fob for the correct key. He had a key to a place like this? Chilling.
Finally he did it, released the padlock, and pushed the door open, where Vicky’s nostrils were assaulted by a foul faecal smell.
And her eyes to the sight of her poor defenceless friend, gagged and bleeding, tied to a chair, in the middle of the empty shed.
Chapter 24
The lock-up still smelt of good, honest business. Of engine oil and petrol. Of hard graft and rubber. As it would. It was still haunted by the remnants of the past, when it had been the place where Mo had first plied his trade. Proper trade it had been, too – he’d sold car parts and tyres, almost all of it legit. Many moons ago, this had been, back when Paddy was just a boy and at a time before Mo realised that there was a great deal more money to be made on the wrong side of the law.
It was growing dark. There was no longer any electricity or running water, and the only light was what was filtering through the long-ago smashed-out windows, leaking in, along with the ivy and taller weeds. But that was fine. There was still plenty of daylight available. Plenty enough for him to complete his secret mission.
Secret mission. A bit rich, that, but he liked it, even so. Even as he was aware of his own grandiosity, he liked that his brain was so fucking razor-sharp. He shut the doors again, vaguely conscious of Vicky wrenching herself from his grasp, crossing the cavernous empty space and kicking up dust. He hoped she had the intelligence to understand why this was necessary.
Clearly not. ‘For fuck’s sake, Pad!’ she yelled at him, her voice shrill and aggressive. ‘What the fuck are you on! For Christ’s sake, untie him!’
Paddy studied Gurdy with scientific interest as he approached him. Still in pain, obviously. Still groaning. Still bleeding. Still staring at him, wide-eyed, from behind the drool and blood-soaked gag.
‘Had any flashbacks yet, you black cunt?’ he asked him brightly. The words boomed and echoed in the shell of the building. ‘Eh?’ he said, rather liking the way his voice filled the space. Like he was in a Bond movie, almost.
Vicky had sunk down beside Gurdy, and was trying to lift his head up. ‘He can’t answer you!’ she screamed at him. ‘Untie him right now, Paddy! God, I can’t believe what you’ve done. He’s my fucking friend!’
Paddy felt something shift in his stomach. Not like Gurdy – filthy cunt that he was – just a shifting of possibilities. How dare she stick up for this sneaking fucking grass? Even now. Even after he’d explained everything. ‘Are you right in the head?’ he barked at her. ‘I’ve just told you, Vic. He’s been on a right fucking grassing spree! Thinks I’m as thick as him and Jimmy, he does,’ he added. And would have added more, but she was screaming at him again.
‘No!’ she yelled, clambering up off her knees and heading towards him. ‘He wouldn’t do that. Christ, Paddy, you’re not thinking straight. Please take that thing off. Please take that thing off.’ She was trying to get round him now. ‘Take it off so he can explain.’
Paddy caught movement just behind her. The lying fucker was actually trying to nod! It made him want to hit him all over again. He clenched his fists. ‘Explain?’ he roared. Why the fuck didn’t Vicky get it?
He reached into his jeans, immediately clear what was needed. He pulled out his coke stash and set up three lines on the nearest window ledge.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Vicky squeaked. He ignored her. He snorted them fast and then carefully wiped his nose. Then turned around to see Vicky frantically tugging at the rope he’d used to tie up Gurdy.
Not that she’d succeed. Because he’d tied it like a pro. So he could leave her to it while he did another couple of lines. But it was the principle. Always the principle. Such arrogance. Such fucking disloyalty. Who was her fucking boyfriend here? Who mattered most?
‘You stupid cow,’ he growled as he stomped across the floor. Bits of glass crunched like cornflakes beneath his boots. He grabbed her by the shoulder, then grasped an arm and tried to hurl her out of reach, but as she’d grabbed the chair back, it toppled and crashed onto its side as she slumped in a heap a yard away.
Since Gurdip’s head was on the floor now, he kicked it.
Vicky sobbed. A sort of keening noise. ‘Keep out of this, Vic, I mean it. Stop trying to interfere. I only brought you here to hear his confession. Because when I get nicked, and I will, you can depend on that – see what you’ve done to me? – I want everyone to know that it was this fucker who saw to it.’
Vicky was whimpering on the floor now. Like she still didn’t get it. ‘Please, Paddy,’ she said, ‘I’m begging you. Just take that thing off his mouth. Please. Look. He can hardly breathe.’
She’d started crawling. Like an insect. Across the dusty, rubbish-strewn floor. Soon her face was only inches away from Gurdy’s.
Was he breathing? Paddy stood and watched Gurdy’s chest rise and fall. In and out. In and out. Yes, he was.
‘Don’t worry about that, babes,’ he told Vicky, righting the chair one-handed. He had the strength of ten men. Much good that would do him. The second thought booted the first into touch. Much fucking good that would do him.
‘It’s coming off, babe,’ he told her. ‘It has to come off. Remember? Because I need you to hear his confession.’
He scanned the room, the corners of which were already growing gloomy. Where had he put down the crowbar? Sighting it under a window he strolled across to retrieve it. Then returned to his trembling victim.
He yanked the gag down. ‘You ready to tell the truth yet?’ he asked, smacking Gurdy around the face for good measure.
Vicky squealed again, but he ignored her. Instead he looked into Gurdy’s eyes, which were bloodshot and wet. Why the hell hadn’t he seen what he was seeing now before? This prick was so obviously working as some kind of double agent. Just wait till he told Mo about him.
Gurdy licked his lips and spoke, and Vicky squeaked again behind him. This time Paddy silenced her by raising the crowbar. Not that he’d ever hurt her. Not really. But she needed to shut the fuck up and listen. ‘Please, Paddy,’ Gurdy whispered. ‘Please don’t hit me anymore. I swear, I never told a soul, not a soul.’ He raised his head slightly. Blood drippe
d onto his shirt. Why always a shirt? Did he think he was going to a fucking wedding? ‘I don’t know why you think I would. Honest, mate,’ Gurdy said with difficulty, ‘I was earning good money off you. Why would I betray you?’
Paddy felt crosser. That was another fucking point. ‘Yeah, you were, you treacherous cunt!’ he yelled into Gurdy’s face. ‘But your fucking face, mate. It said it all. Your fucking face! Now …’ He swung the crowbar hard against Gurdy’s legs, causing him to howl out in pain. ‘You fucking admit, in front of her. In front of your fucking girlfriend.’ He pointed at Vicky. ‘Admit what you done, and all this will be over.’
‘I can’t!’ Gurdy gasped, once he was capable of speaking. ‘I never, Pad. I never! I don’t know what you’re saying!’ Then dissolved into screaming as Paddy swung the metal bar again, this time coming down on his back and shoulders. ‘Stop fucking crying, you fucking nancy!’ Paddy told him, the screams getting on his nerves now. ‘Save your lungs for telling me the fucking truth!’
‘He is!’ Vicky screeched now. She was on her feet again and hitting him. ‘I’m not his fucking girlfriend, you moron! He’s fucking gay! Jesus, you thick bastard! He’s gay!’
Moron. Thick bastard. That riled him. And as he obviously couldn’t hit her he swung the bar at Gurdy’s face, causing blood and snot to spray onto his T-shirt. Which made him hate the fucker even more.
As if he could. Fucking gay! So in Daley’s pants instead then? That bastard had always looked like a faggot to him, so it figured. He swung the bar again and the chair crashed down, putting Gurdy on the floor again. He was now trying his best to curl up into a foetal position while Vicky once again tried to fiddle with his bonds.
Paddy nudged him with his foot. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. Then made a big show of holding his hand behind one of ears to amplify the sound. Not that either of them were actually looking. ‘Did you say something, Gurdip?’ he asked, bending down. ‘Was that an admission you were spitting out?’ He knelt on the floor amid the blood, piss and shit. ‘Come on, you little cunt,’ he said, right in Gurdy’s foul-smelling face. ‘A bit louder so we can all hear it.’
‘Paddy,’ Gurdy gurgled, his eyelids beginning to flicker shut. ‘I never told. Nothing. To no one. About anything. The only person I ever told anything about anything was Vik.’ He coughed and spluttered. ‘Who I trust with my life.’
His eyes closed, and Paddy stood up. Then he met Vicky’s eyes. Unusually, he found he couldn’t read them. What the fuck? What the fuck? But he couldn’t hurt Vicky. So, abandoning the crowbar, he pulled his foot back then smashed it into the middle of Gurdy’s face, where it connected with a satisfying crack.
His own bastard bird. His own girlfriend!
She could clearly read his eyes. The hurt in them. The shock. ‘Vic! You told Vic!’ He screamed, kicking Gurdy’s face a second time. ‘You wanted to shag my fucking missus as well, you cunt?’
He raised his foot for a third time, but felt strong hands grab his arm.
Her! His own Vic! Another fucking traitor! He tried to throw Vicky off but she was like a lunatic – and a strong one. And she also had the crowbar in her hand. She surely wouldn’t. Would she?
‘Fuck, Vic. Fucking you?’
She raised the bar. ‘Paddy, stop it NOW!’
‘Fuck, Vic,’ he tried again. ‘Him and you?’ He eyed the crowbar. Perhaps she would. Could he block it?
‘Vik as in Vikram!’ she screamed at him. ‘He meant fucking Vikram, you stupid, evil bastard! His brother! His brother!’ Tears were streaming down her face, two wet tracks through her make-up. ‘And now you’ve fucking killed him!’ she yelled.
She swung the bar then, and, his arms flailing too late, it connected.
He went down slowly, the floor rising up to say hello. Then a brush, a playful thump, almost. Then nothing.
Chapter 25
Vicky’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She held them up and was mesmerised. She knew this. Knew about this. She was in shock.
The memory came from nowhere, bright as freshly spilled blood. School. Being in the hall. A talk from two policemen about road safety. She remembered the screen being erected and a film being shown. The motes of dust dancing in the beam from the projector.
The images. One or more? She couldn’t quite remember. Just the boy. The little boy who’d been run over by a drunk-driver. She’d never heard the expression ‘drunk-driver’ before then. She remembered the horror, though. The little boy being covered in blood. The way his leg was almost hanging off. Could it have really been? Would they really have shown that to children? She wasn’t sure where reality ended and her imagination had picked up the story, but what she did recall was the way he shook, and his haunted, staring eyes. The way he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t respond to his crying mother.
That’s the effect of shock, one of the policemen had said, in response to someone’s question. That’s the body’s way of protecting itself.
She lowered her hands from her face and rolled onto her side. She had no idea how long she’d been lying there, howling. Could have been minutes. Could have been hours. Time had no meaning. But it was dark. Fully dark. A darkness that was protecting her, she knew – as was the numbness in her heart – from the full horror of what she had witnessed. Of what Paddy had done.
Paddy. She felt a scream rise in her gut and try to escape her. She clamped a hand against her mouth, then the other hand, pressing frantically, tasting dirt on them, and something else, something she didn’t dare even guess at – clamping both against her face as if unable to contain what was inside of her, then pulling her knees up to her chest and shivering, waiting for the shock to re-engulf her.
More time passed. But this time she was aware of its passing. She was in a kind of fugue but she was still aware of it moving inexorably forward. Coming to claim her from the ‘pause’ button she had pressed. But then a noise. A low moan, and she initially thought ‘Gurdy!’ but when she risked opening her eyes, forcing herself to accept what she couldn’t, the hump on the floor was still there, outlined by the moonlight, still moulded round the upturned metal chair. She stared. And as still as the building itself.
It hit her again then. Paddy. It was Paddy who was moaning. Paddy who – oh, God – she had walloped round the head.
She scrabbled up onto her hands and knees, feeling shards of something pressing into them. Then, effortfully, as if she’d been kicked, to her feet. He moaned again, and though she couldn’t see him, she was aware of him moving. Then a slice of darkness crossed one of the windows. He was lurching towards her.
Instinctively (it had to be, because by rights she should surely run from him) she held out her arms and let him stumble into them. ‘Shit, Paddy. Shit!’ she whispered. Did the dead hear? But still she whispered. ‘Shit, Paddy, what have you done?’
‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Fuck,’ then his head fell against hers, warm and heavy. And bringing with it with the beaten-metal smell of blood.
As she held him, and shushed him, she tried to think straight. Shake off the nausea that had begun to grip her. ‘Come on,’ she said, trying to balance the dead weight of him. Was he crying? ‘We need to get outside. Get the doors open. Get some air.’
He was barely responsive, but she managed to shuffle the pair of them back to the big metal doors, haul one of them open and let the light – such as it was – spill in. She staggered out with him then, holding him up before plopping him down again on what looked like an oil drum, whereupon he immediately put his head in his hands and moaned some more.
Then she turned around to where she could see back into the nightmare they’d just exited. To what was left of her friend. And saw a shaft of light – a guiding star? What the fuck? – shining down on the blood and gore where his face ought to be; a sick halo illuminating exactly what Paddy had done. She span around, ran blindly to the side of the building and vomited her guts up into the weedy grass.
Once she’d found the wherewithal to stand up
straight again, her stomach voided, details began to catch Vicky’s unwilling attention. She was still wearing the pinafore she’d been in when he’d come to get her. Pink. Very old. Been through the washer a zillion times. Only now, as she tried to cough the sick from her throat, did she see how it was pebble-dashed with blood. She retched again, feeling dizzy, her body convulsing of its own accord, just as it had in childbirth. Giving birth to Chantelle. She kept her head down till the feeling passed. Fuck. Chantelle. What the hell was she going to do now?
Then his voice. Another whisper. ‘Vic, babe.’ He sounded broken.
She turned around. ‘Paddy, Christ! What the fuck have you done?’
He was crying. Sitting on the oil drum exactly where she’d left him.
She walked across to him, wiping her mouth on her skirt. Pulling it up from beneath the pinafore – the murderously stained pinafore – and dabbing at her mouth with the hem.
He held his arms out and, as she got to him, he flung both of them around her, properly sobbing now, his face buried against her stomach.
Like a child might. Like a daughter might with a mum. Though not her mum.
She stood and let him, looking up into a perfectly starry sky. Not the moon, then. Just the starlight. A multitude of constellations. The Plough. The Great Bear. The Brave Hunter, Orion. She could barely identify any of them but it suddenly struck her that she must learn them, so she could show them to her daughter. Thinking of Chantelle made something clutch at her, and she thought she might be sick again. But she breathed, deep and long, pushing the wave down.
She stroked Paddy’s head rhythmically, almost instinctively, and he responded by lifting his face to her. ‘I don’t know what …’ he began. ‘I just can’t …’ Then he faltered. ‘That wasn’t me,’ he said finally. ‘I took something bad, babe …’ His voice was all panicky. ‘Babe, I took something.’
Her hand, sweeping over his curls, felt the bump where she’d hit him. She could have killed him, she thought distractedly. Just like he’d killed Gurdy.
