“What the fuck?”
“I told you I was driving round.”
“Yes, you. Not you and two shiny friends. You bring me along to try and do things the easy way, then you come rolling in like the fucking Sweeney.”
“I should send the uniforms away?”
“You should send the uniforms away.”
He nodded and relayed the message on the radio. We both watched as the marked cars started inching backwards, looking for a safe place to turn around. The crowd cheered, but it was only a muted success, as far as they were concerned there were still two of us on the camp. I caught a glimpse of the teenager again, who I figured for Shannon’s son. He was stood at the edge of the crowd staring at the car, his eyes were focused with anger.
I told Becker to go back down to the road and wait there unless I called him. I gave him Shannon’s name and asked him to run a background check while he waited, then I turned back towards the crowd.
Shannon was waiting at the front, his face stayed locked in determination until Becker’s car was gone, then he turned to me, “You trying to show how brave you are?”
“It’s more a case of confirming my stupidity, probably.”
He cracked a smile and nodded for us to walk.
He led me through the camp, nodding at everyone as he passed, stopping to greet each of the women by name and ask after their children.
“Do you know Tom Bennett?” I asked as we walked.
He nodded, “Sure.” He was going to leave it there, but saw that I wanted him to elaborate, “He was one of the first people to move onto the estate.”
“Did you meet people as they moved in?”
“We tried. I made a point of going round and knocking on their doors, tried to explain we weren’t looking for trouble, be neighbors, like, aye?”
“How did they take it?”
He shrugged, “Oh, you know. Some gave us a chance, some didn’t. Bennett did at first, used to come through the gap and buy eggs off us, promised to take my son to a football match.”
“What happened?”
“You have to understand, we see them as the squatters. My father bought that land. He owned it, had a piece of paper with his name on it.”
“So-”
“People from over here started going over there and causing trouble. They’d steal things, or damage property. A couple of our boys burned out Bennett’s car.”
“Why target him?”
Another shrug, “Because he was there.” He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Look, I was born here. Most of us were. You want us to just give that up? They’re going to keep coming and people here are going to keep fighting back.” I turned to continue walking put he pulled at my arm and continued talking, “When they come for us, they’re coming for you too. Do you think of that?”
A Clash song popped into my head unbidden.
Bass and violence running through my head.
***
I found Shannon’s son sifting through the mess of the ruined allotment.
“What happened?”
He didn’t acknowledge me at first, but looked up once he realized I wasn’t going away. “What’s it to you?”
“Just wondered.”
“I come here to think, sometimes. This was my mum’s favorite place, you know? She loved coming down here and working. We had chickens, over there,” He pointed to a twisted heap of wood and chicken wire. “I’d come and help out, feed them, or dig the soil.”
“Where is she? Your Mum?”
He shrugged and I left it alone.
“Men come over sometimes,” he said. “They made that hole in the fence, they come over when they’ve had too much to drink, wreck our stuff. They trampled this, and mum said she’d had enough. Took my little brother with her.”
“But you stayed?”
“Gotta stick by my dad. He can’t do it all himself.”
He turned to walk back into the camp and I followed.
“You know Tom Bennett, right?”
He didn’t answer, so I stayed at his side, matching him step for step, a dog with a bone. At the door to his fathers caravan he hesitated and turned to me, “Yes.”
“You used to be close, too, right?”
He nodded. “Used to let me go round his and watch the football on his big TV, hang out with his mates like I was an adult, you know? But I think I was just there as a token, like, to show how cool and open minded he was.”
“He promised to take you to a match?”
“He used to have a season ticket at Chelsea, drive down to every home game. He said he’d take me, if my mum said it was okay, but they fell out.”
I snapped a connection.
Of all the things over here that could have been vandalized, they had targeted Mrs Shannon’s allotment. I don’t believe in coincidences anymore than the tooth fairy. I kept that to myself though.
“Is that why you torched the car?”
“He couldn’t afford the payments on that thing anyway, like the season tickets.”
He pulled the door shut behind him.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see Becker was calling me. I thought about ignoring it, but remembered he was doing background checks.
“Michael Shannon has quite a record,” he said. “Was arrested for GBH in 1995, and for arson in 2000. Charges were dropped both times. Broke a coppers jaw during the first evictions. Be careful.”
I hung up and turned back to the caravan. Shannon was stood in the doorway, staring at me.
“Come in,” he said.
***
Shannon settled down into the same sofa as before and waited for me to sit opposite. Then he leaned forward so that we could talk quietly.
“I admit it, I did it, take me in.”
“No you didn’t. Tell me, your son-”
“Sean’s a good kid.”
“-No doubt. But did he know about your wife and Bennett?”
If that hurt him, he was well past showing it.
“I think everyone knew apart from me. Funny, eh?” He licked his bottom lip for a moment, said, “It was only a couple times.”
“Why did she leave?”
“She’d wanted to move away for years. Only stayed because of me, because I feel I owe it to my dad to stay here and stand up for him, you know? But after what she- well- after that, it was like she became this object. Just another thing for them to insult and throw around. I couldn’t blame her in the end, she’s better off away from here.”
“But Sean stayed with you.”
“Do you have any kids?”
My throat dried up and I must have flinched, because he saw something in my face. I mumbled that I didn’t have any.
“Don’t,” he said. “All we do is fuck them up.”
Silence settled over the room. Shannon looked around, at all his belongings and pictures, then his eyes settled on the pile of children’s toys. He stayed that way for a long time, then put his hands out towards me.
“I told you, I did it, take me in.”
I stayed put. There was something else eating at me, something that I was trying to reach out and touch.
“Sean said something about Bennett and money, does that mean anything to you?”
He shrugged, “This all started when Tom was getting stressed over his business. All those mortgage and credit card guys, they’re all struggling right now, right?”
Sirens cut through the air, and the sound of shouting, louder and farther away than the last time.
Something was happening.
***
Shannon and I ran in the direction of the noises.
The fence.
As we cleared the last row of caravans we could see the crowd gathered by the hole, it looked like the whole camp had turned out. I pushed through the crowd and saw Bennett, flanked by three other drunken beer bellied house owners, arguing with Sean and a group of the camp’s teenagers. The adults of the camp were closing in, and Becker wa
s between them, arms outstretched in either direction, trying to keep everyone apart.
The sirens were coming from the other side of the fence. The wrong side.
“I told you,” Becker shouted over at me, “This thing was stoked.”
The volume was getting louder, and the crowds closing in. More home owners were coming through the gap, teenagers with sticks, adults both trying to calm people down and rile people up. The couple of uniformed cops from earlier came through, holding onto people, doing a pathetic job of holding them back.
I felt Shannon tense up behind me at the sight of Bennett.
“Arrest him,” Bennett pointed over my shoulder, following his call with a string of expletives, “Gyppo scum.”
The people behind me surged forward to get at Bennett, and I got knocked from my feet. Someone pulled me out of the way of all the rushing feet, and I turned to see the old man who’d spit in my face earlier. I smiled at him and climbed to my feet, turning back to the crowd. More officers were coming through the fence, and I could hear sirens coming through the camp now, I could just about see a way out of this.
I pushed back through the crowd, to find Becker stood between the travelers and Bennett, keeping them apart by the width of his frame. I pushed in beside of him and started pushing Bennett back, trying to clear some space. Shannon stepped in beside me and started pushing his crowd back, helping to keep the peace.
I turned and got into Bennett’s face, talking quiet enough that only he and Becker could hear me, “Half done, you said?”
“What?”
“Your extension was half done. Your business is in the shit and you’re working six days a week just to cover the mortgage. How much did you need the insurance payout?”
Becker turned to face us, looking from me to Bennett with his mouth open.
I continued pushing Bennett back, towards the line of officers that was now forming, where I could get him arrested safe from the mob.
I could see behind Bennett’s eyes he was debating whether or not to put up an argument, but that was enough to tell me I was right. He came out fighting from a different angle.
“What? You’re going to arrest me? It’s them who started it, him and his fucking wife-”
I heard an animal yell and was pushed out of the way. I hit the floor and rolled as, again, the crowd followed through. Things got crazy for a couple of minutes, jostling, screaming and clawing, until the uniforms managed to wade in and split the crowd in two like parting the red sea.
Three officers were pinning Sean to the ground, a bloody knife being wrestled from his right hand as he kicked and shouted.
Becker was kneeling over Bennett, his hand pressed down onto his neck, blood covering them both. Two uniforms were knelt beside him, calling for medical aid. As Sean’s hands were twisted up into the handcuffs, I saw his father staring deep into me.
Traitor.
***
The house was dark when I got home.
I’d stayed at the hospital long enough to see Sean Shannon’s assault charge turn into murder. The paperwork could wait for tomorrow, as could all the shit I was going to catch over it.
I shut the front door and leaned against it for a while in the darkness, then went through into the living room and settled onto the sofa.
Laura came in, wearing her dressing gown. She sat beside me and rubbed my hand. “Becker called to tell me. Want to talk about it?”
I turned to look at her, shook my head.
She ran her hand over my suit, “You’ve got blood on you.”
“Yeah.”
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then again on the lips, “Come to bed.”
I nodded, said, “I will, in a minute. Just need to chill out first.”
She got up and walked to the doorway, then turned back for a second and offered a sad smile, “I got my period today.”
I nodded, trying to gauge what she was feeling. She smiled again and went to bed. I sat in the darkness long enough for her to fall asleep.
The Lost Profits
Tony was watching his hand move. No kidding, he’d been doing it for twenty minutes. Ever since Fuller had arrived. Word was he’d been drinking the punch, which Bobby Buddha had said was safe. Bobby’s a cunt like that. The only time Tony paused was to cock his head to one side to say, hey, “what’s that noise?” But nobody was listening to him.
Adele Wright had been taken home an hour before, she’d been found in the kitchen, pale white with a bloody needle in her hands and cling film tied around her forearm. Nobody had ever seen the cling film thing before, what was it, a celebrity diet? Someone, maybe it was Toast, bundled her into a car and drove her home, and Bobby handed out a few more drinks to get the party going again.
Most people were crowded into the front room, the one Alex had turned into a games room. A crate of lager and a stolen air hockey table made for the best games room in the street. Alex said, “I’ll always have the coolest flat in the street, even if I have to move.” It was one of those parties.
Fuller wasn’t really there to listen to Alex, or to watch Tony’s hand move. He was there for Lee Owen. Owen had turned up at the start of the evening and set up camp in the bathroom, calling it his office. Then, except for some thoughtless idiots who needed to piss, he spent the night selling to everyone who walked in. Tens and twenties, black bulls and stingers. He promised it was the good shit, that your belly would melt after taking it, and nobody came back to complain. Bobby Buddha backed him up, said, look what the bull did to the punch. Fuller was usually the guy who turned up and sold at these parties, but he was low key, he’d sell a few bags out of his coat pocket then party. Owen’s business style just messed things up, attracted attention. Fuller stepped into the bathroom and shut the door before saying, “Hey, what the fuck?”
Owen looked around the room, making a show of it, then, “I dow see your name anywhere?”
“So that’s how you’re going to be?”
Owen shrugged, “No choice.”
“Oh, aliens controlling your brain again?”
Owen softened, handed Fuller a bag and said, here, on the house. Then he opened up a little more, “I’m in a corner here, I owe Claire Gaines seven grand.”
“Seven grand?”
“And If I dow have it by the end of the week, she’s gonna rip my dick off, she says.”
“Seven grand?”
“Did you hear the part about my dick?”
“Yeah but I’m ignoring that, it’s a mental image I don’t want. Shit, seven grand? Why’d you borrow that?”
“I didn’t. Remember the thing I used to run at college? You give me a fiver at the weekend and I’ll bring you back 30 from the bookies?”
“Sure, I used to like that.”
“Way it worked, there was this guy I followed, good tipster. I’d win 50, keep twenty and give you thirty.”
“Sure.”
“Well I been working on that, only then it was, you give me 100 and I’ll bring you 400, like, or you give me 500 and-” He shrugged, “I’ve been pretty good at it.”
“So what happed?”
“Gaines came to me, said she wanted to raise some money quick, wanted to invest in something without her family knowing, to prove she was better than her sister or something.”
“She has a sister?”
“Yeah, older. Anyway, she gave me a grand, said she wanted to see four back, I said that was cool. I been following this tipster on twitter, see? And he’s better than the old guy, never fails. So I laid all the money out, but not one of the fucking bets came in.”
“So that covers one grand.”
“No, see, she said I’d guaranteed her four, so she expected that back. Then she said, if I was making her four then I was making myself at least two, so she added that in because she says I must’ve ripped her off, and that if I don’t stump up she’ll do some ripping off of her own.”
Fuller laughed, “Oh shit, you’re in it. Look, you sell, Ill go chill
with Alex.” Then he left Owen to it in the bathroom, saying under his breath, “It’s just one of those parties.”
The kind where they played MC Hammer remixes all night to sound hip and ironic, but really just ended up enjoying the music and dancing.
Fuller nodded at Tony on his way past, before he got to the games room. Tony looked spaced, he wasn’t going to respond, but then he grabbed Fuller by the arm and said, “Serious, what’s that noise?”
Fuller cocked his head and listed, humoring the space cadet, but then he heard it. Radio squawk, chatter through static. For the first time he noticed the strobing blue light coming in above he front door, through the pane of frosted glass.
Cops.
Looks like Adele Wright may have been a little more trouble than everyone thought. Fuller handed Owen’s free sample to Tony, then emptied his stash out of his pockets and into the coats that were hung up in the hallway. He zipped up his coat and quietly let himself out the front door, nodding to all the officers that were lined up outside, ready to bust in. They stared at him for a second, caught off guard, then rugby tackled him to the ground while the rest of them ran on into the house shouting, “police.” From inside, Fuller could hear the cops banging on the bathroom door, and heard the toilet flushing.
Lee Owen was going to have to find another way to come up with seven grand.
About The Author
Jay Stringer was born in Walsall, West Midlands, in 1980. He would like everyone to know he's not dead yet. He's worked as a zoo keeper, a bookseller, a video editor and a call centre lackey.
His work is a mixture of crime, mystery and social fiction, and Jay coined the term "social pulp" to describe the mix. He likes to write about the difference between the 'haves' and the 'have nots,' and to show that violence and crime are sharp and brutal acts that are done for a reason, and by those who have reason to do them.
His first novel, Old Gold, is due from Thomas & Mercer in July 2012, and he blogs every Thursday at DoSomeDamage.Com. You can also catch him at Twitter under his own name.
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