Angels Of The North

by Ray Banks

  He would suffer and grow strong.

  He nodded to himself.. He truly was a great man, he thought, and wiped the fresh tears from his face.

  60

  The weeks that followed the fire at Puma Cabs were rife with rumour, and nowhere were they more concentrated or extreme than Kielder Walk.

  The first thing everyone thought was that the dealers were back, that someone had done something outside the estate to bring the big boys' wrath upon Gavin Scott and his drivers. It made a kind of knee-jerk sense –all people had known for the last year were escalating arguments and reciprocal violence. And it made a good story to share down the Long Ship or in the queue at the corner shop or at the hairdressers. But everyone knew deep down that this was no retaliation, and that the dealers were long gone.

  No, this was a personal thing, and about as far from professional as it was possible to get.

  For a start, the attack was a half-arsed job. Only the front half of the office had really caught fire, and the rest was smoke-damaged more than anything else. Secondly, whoever it was had been relying on the gas canisters to blow, and while they were dangerous, the fire hadn't gone far enough to ignite or build pressure. And thirdly, there was the inconvenient truth that Gav had told everyone to go home before the place went up.

  So everyone knew who it was. And it was only a matter of time before someone let that slip to the police, because the people of Derwent Hall were long finished protecting Gavin Scott.

  Joe was on his way back from the park with Michelle, rolling the bairn's pushchair through the light drift of new morning snow. Bleak grey sky above, the winter full in now, but it was the good kind of winter, the cold kind where the snow was white and the air was fresh. It was the first time that the bairn had ever seen weather like this, and the snow was proving to be a perplexing experience. She shivered when it touched her, and then giggled. She tried to catch flakes as they came down, but was disappointed when they disappeared in her tiny hands. Michelle couldn't get enough of her antics, spent most of the morning with a daft smile on her face. Perhaps it would've annoyed Joe had he not worn a similar smile himself. There was no getting away from it – the bairn was adorable, and there was a part of him that was proud of himself for finally seeing it. It felt right, normal. He felt normal, whatever that was. The feeling was warm enough to live with, anyway, so it would do for the time being.

  Michelle stopped the pushchair so that the bairn could grab another snowflake. They were watching her when the police car pulled up outside Gav's house.

  Joe, crouched in front of the bairn, watched a plainclothes and two uniforms get out of the car and crunch through the new snow towards Gav's front gate. They had to jostle the gate to get it open. Joe straightened up.

  "What's going on?" Michelle's face was ruddy with the cold. She wasn't smiling anymore.

  "I don't know."

  But he did. He'd known as soon as Gavin left the other night that he was going to do something stupid. He'd tried to do it there, after all, and it had only been Brian's death that had stopped Gav from killing him. Joe reckoned he'd storm off and take out his frustrations on someone else. Thought he had when he saw Phil Cruddas hobbling around on crutches – it took a rage, a weapon and the element of surprise to put down someone like Phil Cruddas, more so to turn him into the beaten dog he was now. And maybe Gav had been responsible, but Joe doubted it. Gav wasn't the kind of bloke to take out his frustrations on a human being. Even after all this time and everything they'd done together, Joe knew he was the kind of bloke to throw one punch and hope that ended things. He was a soft arse, always had been. He talked a good game – or bellowed it, screamed it – but at the end of the day he was just another bottler.

  So it only stood to reason that he would take out his frustrations on an inanimate object. He was a kid, chucking his toys out of the pram. Or setting light to them.

  The plainclothes knocked on the door and stood back. After a brief pause, he knocked again. It was still early, right enough. Another pause, and the door opened to reveal Gav's wife. Joe couldn't remember her name. She and the copper talked for a little while, then she turned and shouted on her husband, who arrived to the front door bleary and suspicious. Words were exchanged. The plainclothes brought out a piece of paper from his coat. The breeze carried the rustle it made as he clumsily unfolded it with gloved hands. Gav saw the piece of paper, then started shaking his head. The breeze carried the one word – "No" – over towards Joe, who turned to Michelle and said maybe it'd be a good idea if they went home now.

  The "no" turned into a shout.

  "Oh God," said Michelle, one hand up to her mouth.

  A series of thuds made Joe look over, the squeak and tap of the door knocker as it banged against the door Gav was trying to force closed. The uniforms got in there as quickly as they could, big boots making short work of tiny gaps, and double the weight on the outside forcing the door open in seconds. Gav disappeared from view. There was a scream from inside the house. The door creaked open further as the uniforms rushed in. Joe could see a boy on the stairs, dressed in Spider Man pyjamas, his round face pale and worried as he pushed glasses back to his eyes and shuffled back up the stairs the way toddlers did. Suddenly, Gav appeared, flanked by uniforms, his hands behind his back. The policemen marched him out of the house in his boxers and T-shirt, his feet like claws as he tried to grip the slippers that threatened to go skidding off into the snow. Gav was shouting, screaming, crying, struggling, but the uniforms remained in step and emotionless as they marched him out towards the police car. The plainclothes appeared in the doorway behind them. Gav's wife was with him. She was crying, but she wasn't as distraught as she could've been. She nodded and said something to the kid, who stood and ran up the stairs. The plainclothes came out. Gav jerked in the uniforms' grip, turned back to the house, yelled a name: "Fiona!" The wife didn't appear to hear him. She closed the door and the police bundled Gav into the back of the car.

  "Come on." Joe put a hand on Michelle's waist. "Let's go home."

  The police car rolled away from the kerb. Joe touched Michelle's arm and she snapped out of her stare, put both hands on the pushchair and rolled it back the way they'd come. She kept saying how weird it was, and asking why they would arrest Gavin Scott like that: "What's he done?"

  "Maybe they think he burned down his business."

  "Why would he do that?"

  "You saw him the other night."

  "I know, but you don't do that, do you?"

  "I don't know what someone like that does, love."

  They stopped at the house. Joe opened the gate for Michelle to get through, then the front door. She pushed the buggy inside. The old man was waiting for them. He grinned at the sight of the bairn. The bairn squealed at the old man's face.

  "You not coming in?"

  Joe checked his watch. "Nah, I'm going to go up the dole, see if there's anything on the boards."

  "You sure? It can wait, you know."

  "No, I want to check. It's okay." He smiled. "I'll see you later."

  "All right." She went inside.

  Joe shared a look with the old man before the old man closed the front door. There was a time when Joe going off by himself would mean he was off to score, but that time was gone. The look was one of trust. The old man was proud of him. He wouldn't say it, probably didn't have the vocabulary to say it, but he felt it and he could communicate it in other ways, and that was good enough.

  He turned to the street. The house across the way was still empty. He'd seen Brian's ex-wife and the daughter come round the other week. They'd gone inside, spent about an hour in there and emerged with two boxes full of the daughter's stuff. Got into the back of a silver Merc and drove away. They didn't look much like a family in mourning; if anything, they looked as if they were on a particularly shitty shopping trip. Joe had watched them and wondered just what Brian had been protecting all these years, that they were so eager to be done with him. The next week, the council m
oved in and gutted the place. Now there was a skip out front that contained what little remained of Brian Turner's broken possessions after the local kids had nicked whatever they thought might be valuable. No doubt there'd be another family coming along soon to move in.

  It scared him when Brian died. Not because he was dead – that was a common enough occurrence when you lived long enough or saw active duty – but because, like his family, nobody seemed to give a shit that he was gone. Ask anyone about Brian Turner on the estate and he was "that bloke who got brayed" or "that pisshead who killed Gavin's kid". Brian was a couple of defining actions, both of them negative, and there was nobody around to stick up for him.

  Joe went along to the cremation, and he and Michelle were the only ones there. The ex-wife and the daughter didn't bother to turn up. When the vicar asked if Joe wanted to say anything, he shook his head. He didn't even really know Brian. All he really knew was that the bloke had been in pain when he died, and that pain wasn't just physical, despite the calm look on his face when they found him.

  Brian had died forgotten and alone. It bothered Joe, wondering what Brian had done that was so wrong to deserve a slow, sad death on someone else's settee. He made mistakes, yes. And he'd killed a kid, but it had been an accident. He was weak, yes. He was a bit soft, a bit frightened. But Joe never felt that he was a bad man, not deep down, just a hurt man, maybe a little bit broken. He needed help, that was all. A little bit of fucking love, maybe.

  Or maybe that was bollocks, and Brian had deserved every last lingering second of his death. That was the thing with other people. You could never know them completely enough to decide stuff like that. The only thing he really knew about Brian was that he didn't want to suffer the same fate. That would have to be good enough.

  Joe put his hand on the front gate. He paused. Snow had started to fall, just a light flurry, and it wouldn't lie. He watched it for a moment, thought about getting the bus into town, waiting in the sweltering dole office, checking off the same old jobs at the same old places, listening to the coughs and the sneezes and the complaints. And he looked at the empty house across the road once more before he turned around and headed back home.

  The dole could wait. Joe reckoned there were more important things in life, and tea, warmth and family were just the beginning.

  ###

  Books by Ray Banks

  Novels

  Dead Money

  Wolf Tickets

  Inside Straight

  Angels Of The North

  Matador

  Cal Innes Novels

  #1 Saturday's Child

  #2 Sucker Punch

  #3 No More Heroes

  #4 Beast Of Burden

  Novellas

  Gun

  California

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