Angels Of The North

by Ray Banks

  "Five Star, is it?"

  Dryden nodded. "You know the business?"

  "Yes. But I didn't know they were selling. Lot of cars there. Big investment."

  "Well, I think Mr King would be persuaded to sell if he knew he had a serious offer, and if that offer came with a recommendation."

  Gav smiled. Nice way of putting it. "Well, a serious offer normally means serious money."

  "I'm sure that can be arranged. I mean, look at all the added value you'd be bringing."

  Gav's smile became a grin. He knew what was going on here. Your man Dryden was in with the Newcastle council, which meant he was in with the councillors, too. They brought him and his magic wand up from Gateshead to cast a spell on Benwell and the surrounding, they could show that their police initiatives and community responsibility was working, working in the face of what their blue-badge brethren were doing around the rest of the country. It was a political thing, point scoring on a regional level. Gav couldn't help but feel a bit proud of himself for managing to make it to a stage where he was politically valuable. And who knew, maybe this could lead to bigger and better things for him. If he was politically valuable, then maybe he could parlay that into a sideline in politics himself. Yeah, he'd told Fiona that he wasn't interested, but a man had to do what he was good at. He was a good talker, he was a natural born leader and he was shrewd enough to know the system within minutes of walking in. These two here – Andrea and Alan – they were looking at him like he was their saviour, like he was going to bring them all the good press in the world. Well, they didn't know what they were getting themselves into. They didn't know him.

  Gavin Scott had read books. He understood the way things worked. He knew that there was always a catch. Theirs was that he'd be wedded to their politics, and he'd probably have to do the rounds with them, give them credit for the patrols. That was fine. Because while he was doing their press, he'd be prepping for his own. And the more he thought about it, the more he could see himself breaking out of the small businessman role and moving into something more important, something that could have a bigger impact on the region as a whole. Something that might get him off the Hall and into a nice house in Jesmond or somewhere.

  Gav grinned and raised his glass of red wine. "Well then, let's see if we can do some business, shall we?"

  35

  Joe was sick. Vomiting. Aching. The old man told Michelle it was a bug, but they all knew what it really was. It was Joe trying to stay away from Dylan, because the tracks on his arms had started to hurt and he was frightened. But he needed something to occupy his mind beyond the sickness, and now all he could think about was Michael Ryan.

  Half the newspaper was dedicated to the bloke. The telly wouldn't shut up. The ten o'clock bongs the night before had been all about Ryan, Hungerford, all death, shock and horror. It burrowed into Joe's head, made sure he got no sleep that night; it kept him by his daughter's cot, watching her breathe. And then, as soon as he heard the milkmen on their rounds, he left the house. He walked up to the newsagents and bought a handful of papers, went back home and sat down in the front room.

  If you were afraid of something, you studied it. Knowledge trumped fear. That's what the brass always used to say. The better trained you were, the less frightened. At least, that was the theory. It didn't always work in practice. But it was worth a shot now.

  The stories all followed the same pattern, some of them more indignant than others, but they all agreed that it had started the same way: the bloke abducted a young woman out picnicking with her two kids, caught her just as they were packing up to leave. He told her to put the children in the car, then he told her to pick up the groundsheet they'd been using for the picnic, and then made her walk into the woods. There he pumped – and the papers used that word, pumped, like it was almost a sex thing – thirteen bullets into her back.

  She was the first. And he left the kids to bear witness: "A man in black has shot our mummy."

  Ryan drove to the nearest garage in his own vehicle to fill the tank. When he saw the cashier on her own, he tried to shoot her through the glass. He missed. He went inside the place, attempted to shoot her again, but he'd knocked the release mechanism on the carbine, and the magazine fell out.

  That was the first thing to go wrong.

  He went home and went up to his bedroom where he stocked up. A flak jacket, a Rambo headband, a big bag of stuff to keep him going in the wilderness, not to mention the rest of his arsenal – two shotguns, three pistols and one other semi-automatic. He went back to his car, got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition. And the fucking engine wouldn't start.

  The second thing to go wrong.

  Curtain-twitching witnesses said that he lost his temper. Got out of the car and took a couple of shots at it. The noise brought people out to gawp. But he was already on his way back into the house, where he took his frustrations out on the family dog. After a few minutes, there was the smell of smoke. He'd set the place on fire.

  When Ryan emerged from the house, he'd decided that the car was useless, and he'd walk instead. As he walked, he used the rifle. Shot some people. Shot a copper who'd rushed to the scene. When his mam got home to find her house in flames and her son gone jungle with a semi-automatic rifle in his hands, Michael shot her. The reports had him everywhere and nowhere. The only fixed position they could confirm was where there was blood on the ground.

  Later, he'd call the dead people "casualties". Of which war, nobody knew.

  The police arrived, but too late. Police helicopters that could've been used were in for repair, other back-up was away in training. By the time the busies got their act together, Ryan had barricaded himself into the local school. Once he was in there, the police made sure he wasn't leaving.

  They shouted that the place was surrounded.

  They shouted that he should give himself up.

  Ryan talked about his shitty luck. Talking in ifs. If only the car had started, he wouldn't have been in this mess, stuff like that. Didn't say where he would have been otherwise, but Joe could guess that it would've been far away from that fucking school room, and his apparently shitty luck revolved around him not being able to kill more people.

  Ryan chucked the semi-automatic rifle – later identified as an AK-47 – out of one of the windows, a makeshift white surrender flag tied to the barrel. The police didn't take that as a done deal. They knew he still had a pistol on him. Ryan tossed the magazine from the Beretta, but he'd kept one in the spout.

  The police tried to talk to him, but he was becoming uncommunicative now.

  His last words, now blown to heavy black capitals across the red-tops: "I wish I'd stayed in bed."

  Then one final gunshot, and it was all over, finished almost as quickly as it had started. They found Michael Ryan huddled behind a filing cabinet, barricaded in the school room. The Beretta pistol was tied to his wrist with a bootlace, and there was a hole in his head. There was some immediate business about a grenade – the police believed he'd rigged himself to blow – but it turned out to be nothing. For all the subscriptions to Guns and Ammo and Soldier of Fortune, the bloke had turned out to be as resourceful as the sullen little kid he'd always been, even if that kid had killed sixteen in what amounted to a lethal tantrum. There were another fourteen seriously wounded.

  The day after, there was some political talk about gun ownership, mostly along the lines of how the fuck did this loop get his hands on an AK-47 when the police had nothing? The usual pundits calling to arm the police, other saying that wasn't the issue, the clamour of voices talking a lot but not saying anything. Mostly, though, they were stuck in the mire of pop psychology and character description – Ryan was a loner, he was a gun nut, he was a spoilt mummy's boy who lashed out at his mam on a regular basis. He was a short-arse, chubby only child who'd been a target for bullies at school and whose elderly dad had carked it from cancer two years before. His personality was summed up with dark emotion: shame and guilt, remorse
and depression to follow, finally warping into revenge and hatred.

  And all Joe Warren heard were excuses.

  There were rumours flying about that Ryan was ex-Army. Joe knew about the psychos, but he'd taken one look at that squinting photo of the bloke and known that fat bastard hadn't done so much as a day in basic.

  He put the paper down. Closed his eyes. Pictured nothing. Black.

  Remained aware of how he was breathing – heavy, as if he was fighting off a rolling nausea. Concentrated.

  He closed the sickness and worry down. Bit by bit.

  He opened his eyes again. The picture of Ryan on the front page swam into focus.

  The headline: "I SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN BED".

  Depressed. Angry. Unable to cope.

  Joe rubbed his eyes and breathed out through his nose. He grabbed the paper and slung it down the side of the settee; didn't want to look at it or Ryan's face anymore.

  Six o'clock.

  He checked it again. The same time, the second hand jerking around the face.

  How the fuck had it managed to get that late? He looked out the window – still light outside. Sure enough, that richer light that came close to a sunset, but he still couldn't fathom where the day had gone. He'd gone out first thing in the morning, got the paper, sat down to read it at, what, seven? Maybe seven thirty?

  Joe swallowed. When he turned back to the settee, he saw a mug of tea down on the floor. The mug was cold to the touch.

  He looked up again. Stayed quiet, listening. He couldn't hear Michelle. He went into the kitchen. It was empty. Back through the front room, into the hallway, up the stairs, checking their bedroom, the bairn's bedroom, even the bathroom.

  Nobody there. Michelle was gone. The bairn was gone.

  The tremors started in his hands. He placed one hand against the wall, pushed it flat and taut to kill the shakes. The tightness rising in his chest again, making him draw short breaths before it got too much for him. A burst of cold sweat at the back of his neck. This time it felt like he was about to pass out.

  He moved to the banister, used it and the wall to navigate the stairs down to the hall. The shake in his hands appeared to move deep into his body, into his arms and legs. At the bottom of the stairs, he had to sit down for a minute or so until he felt less fragile.

  She wasn't there. The bairn wasn't there. And it was six o'clock. Wherever they'd gone, they should've been back by now. And forget for a moment where he had been all this time, it was Joe’s family that worried him now. He should have been watching out for them, should have seen where they went. His brain flashed up visions of blood and murder, and hoped it was just the newspapers putting them there.

  He struggled to his feet, opened the front door.

  "What's the matter, pet?"

  Michelle's voice jarred him alert. And with her voice came the trundle of the pushchair. He turned towards her, and she was looking at him as if he was sick. He opened his mouth to say hello, something, anything, but nothing would come out.

  "What happened, Joe?"

  He leaned against the doorjamb and forced a shaky smile onto his face. "Nothing. Where've you been?"

  "The park."

  "Right."

  "I asked you if you wanted to come."

  "Course you did." He didn't remember that at all.

  "Like, three times. You didn't say anything. Just read your paper."

  Nodded at her, couldn't meet her eye. "I'm going out."

  "You all right?"

  He grabbed his coat. "Fine."

  He pushed on out to the road. Once he was round the corner, he walked a little slower, tried to suck some cold air into his lungs to kill the nausea. He'd tried. Knew that the old man was right; something needed to be done about the smack. So he'd tried to do something about it, but it was too hard. This flu of his would have to be cured with a shot.

  It was a good thing. It was necessary. Off the smack, he was frustrated, frightened and angry and he didn't know why. He watched his family with feral eyes, and that wasn't right. He wanted to scream and shout at the old man. He wanted to hurt Michelle. And as for the bairn ... Christ, the thoughts he had, each one of them more bloody than the last. He didn't want to have them. He tried to suffocate them, ignore the impulses that told him he was strapped into a straitjacket and he needed to tear his way out of it. Those were the voices that told him that it didn't matter who he hurt or how bad, he just needed to change this existence of his and it needed to be dramatic. Used to be, he could tap out and leave life to those who wanted to live it, but not anymore. The drug house was gone.

  And so was Dylan. He arrived at Eldon Court to see it charred and derelict. He could see the remnants of Dylan's flat from where he stood, and his legs felt weak.

  Dylan was gone. They'd burned him out. All that was left was a broken window and soot on the walls. The smell of smoke still hung in the air.

  Joe swallowed. He tried to think. Then he walked.

  If Dylan was no longer an option, then he had to go elsewhere. The only place he knew of was the Leam Lane, and that was only by rumour.

  There was nothing else for it: he got on the bus to the Interchange and then out to the Leam.

  No more discretion. No more special deals.

  After an hour of wandering the streets, he was sweating – a cold sweat that rose and prickled his skin, and there were the grumblings in his stomach, the watery gurgle somewhere deep in his bowels. He felt like he was going to throw up and scream and shit himself all at the same time. All he wanted was a pair of rheumy eyes to see him, a pair of scabbed hands to take his money and the quiet of a low alley to disconnect. Then everything would be fine.

  Because otherwise he wanted to hurt people. He wanted to make them pay. He wanted to destroy things. Not out of hate, or fear or anything like that. Those were easy emotions. Those were common, Neanderthal, Michael Ryan "Daddy didn't love me enough" emotions. This was something more, something that preyed on his mind. This was an itch in the soul, something he needed to eradicate. He wanted to smash the bairn's head in, stove its skull in with a brick, he wanted to ruin something so he could be excused a rational existence. He wanted attention and then he wanted to implode. He wanted it all, a pure personal annihilation. And he wanted it because he deserved it.

  Joe slumped into a walkway that ran between the flats. He heard kids shouting and screaming, the echo of footsteps. He slowed down, stopped, then turned his face to one side and spewed against the wall. His head spun. The strings of spittle that hung from his lower lip refused to leave; they clung to his hands. He wiped his palms on the brick and stopped dead, blinking and confused. Forgot for a second where he was. He leaned against the wall, then tried to push himself up. He put hand on concrete and steadied himself. Spat at the ground. He was going to be okay. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and fumbled out the fiver. Wrinkled, greasy and balled, but legal tender and it would do. He just had to find someone to give it to.

  "What d'you want, eh?"

  The voice belonged to a man with a face that wouldn't come into focus. Leaning in a doorway. Waiting for him.

  Joe told him he was looking to score. He fumbled out the money again, tried to pay him. The man didn't smile. Looked sick himself. Told Joe to go up the way, knock on the third door on his right – remember that, third door – and see the man.

  Joe did as he was told, taking longer steps than normal, eager to get there, but desperate not to seem desperate – this was a new dealer after all; he didn't know what he was getting himself into. He stopped and knocked at the third door. The man gave him a bag after he unrolled the fiver and pulled a face. Then he shut the door. Joe looked around for privacy. Found a doorway that faced onto waste ground. It started to rain. He sat down in the doorway and unrolled his works. Cooked quickly. Too quickly. Knew it was a dirty hit, but didn't have the time or the energy to take precautions. He sunk the whole pin in one and felt his jaw go slack as the warmth clutched his face. This was it. The n
ausea remained, and the pain pushed into the background to become a dull, almost pleasant, throb. He closed his eyes, leaned forward and huddled in the doorway.

  Give it time and he'd be able to go home.

  Until then, he could nod in peace.

  Snap.

  Snap-snap.

  A rush of white light bullied his eyes open. He couldn't see, but he could hear: "What's your name, son? What's your name?"

  Joe recognised the pocks of the hospital ceiling, the smell of antiseptic, and the only thing that sprang to mind was: "Shit."

  36

  Sophie refused to eat her breakfast, Kevin was acting like he couldn't find his PE kit and Andy was yet to be seen. Fiona held one hand to her head, the other smearing porridge against Sophie's mouth, while she tried to direct Kevin to the clean laundry. Gav pretended to read the newspaper and kept well out of it.

  "But I already looked in the basket and it's not there."

  Fiona blinked slowly. "Then look again."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's there."

  "But I can't see it."

  That whine made both of them flinch. Fiona dropped the spoon into the bowl and pushed sharply back from the table. She leaned over and flicked Gav's newspaper. "Give Andy a shove, will you?"

  Gav checked his watch and feigned innocence. "He not up yet?"

  She offered him a withering look in reply, then marched off to sort through the clean washing. Sophie looked down at her bowl and tried grabbing the spoon. Her stumpy fingers clutched the fat end. She managed to hold it for a second before the spoon slipped out of her grip, clattered into the bowl and threatened to tip it over. Gav moved the bowl out of reach.

  Fiona grabbed a fistful of clothes. "Here, you see?"

  Kevin started to whine again; Gav hastened to the hall.

  He was about to head upstairs when there was a knock at the door. He shouted up instead. "Andy, you get your arse out of bed now or I'll come and drag you out."