Divide and Rule

by Solomon Carter

  “You think he’s going to commit suicide?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “What about Jerry Burton?”

  “Jess. Think. Will Burton will be letting Dan take the lead. Dan will be finding the hideouts.”

  “So?”

  “If I know Dan, then there’s one place I’ve got to try right now. We’ve got to find them and intervene before Burton does anything desperate.”

  “And before Peter Serge finds them.”

  Eva put her foot down on the accelerator. Their new destination wasn’t far, but who knew how much time they had left?

  Twenty-five

  The boxing gym was quiet. Dead quiet. And worse than the quiet, it was far too cold to be comfortable. Dan had never known the austere old gym to be this cold, but then again, he’d only been there when sweaty, sinewy bodies were heating it up as they pummelled the punch bags, flew over jump ropes, and sparred hard. The hard work of thirty men and boys was as good as any heating system. But now the club was silent except for the pacing feet of Will Burton, accompanied by the noise of him tutting and groaning. Dan initially wondered what all the tutting and groaning was about, but he realised before he asked. Will Burton was staring down the barrel of a life of regret. The man missed out on his political dream – yeah, he was set to take the cheapest and ugliest ride to Parliament a politician could ever take, but Dan reckoned the man had taken the UKFirst ticket as a last resort. He was desperate, and now even his last resort was gone. The man was grieving for the death of his ambition. Funny, Dan had been there once a long time ago, and back then it had all been about boxing. But when he remembered it now, that dream seemed stupid and pathetic. Will Burton still had his son, his wife, and maybe thirty good years of life ahead of him to achieve something substantial. But Dan wasn’t sure the man could see it. If the guy wasn’t happy simply to be safe with his son when crowds were baying for his blood, would he ever see anything as it really was?

  Being considered a professional detective, Dan had been entrusted with the keys of the Southchurch Boys’ Club back to the time when he had lived down the road with Eva in the apartment above the agency office. Ed Cooley, the old pug and chief trainer trusted him because he was a private detective, but Dan never understood why Ed trusted him like that. PIs were rogues and idiots as much as any other profession.

  Two hours after eating fried chicken and chips together at the out of town drive-through, they had hastily shifted past all the mayhem of the protests and mini-marches and whisked the Jag around the back of the White Hart nearby.

  Now they were in the cold gym, using only the lights at the back of the gym so they weren’t visible from the roadside. They were in old Ed Cooley office now. It wasn’t really an office, just Spartan, a cupboard with a desk, some wine coloured bucket chairs and a droopy leather sofa even more haggard than Ed himself.

  Jerry Burton didn’t look good. Dan was wondering how long to give it before he made any kind of medical decision. A half hour ago the boy had been trembling and pale, so he’d gone around the gym searching for anything to help. In the end a moth-eaten blanket and his own leather jacket were called in to do the job. There was some colour back in the boy’s face, and for the first time in a long time, his eyelids were beginning to flicker. Sometimes the boy groaned. Soon, Dan reckoned he would wake up. He wondered whether the boy would cope with what he saw, especially what he saw of his father. Will Burton was a mess, pacing around his son like a neurotic. Dan didn’t want the man flipping out. After all, Dan had enough stress trying not to flip out himself.

  “Look, Will, Chill out. Another day from now and all this will be over. While the election is running tomorrow, we can work out your next steps, you can call your wife, that kind of thing. It’ll look better in the morning. We’ll get Jerry to a hospital in another town if he needs it. So stop worrying.”

  “I’m not worrying.”

  “Really? Yes, you are. I can see it in everything you’re doing right now. For my peace of mind, for your own peace of mind, calm down. Just try it. Understood?”

  “How can I be calm? You tell me that Peter Serge and Joe Merton of all people, caused this to happen, and what am I supposed to think? Maybe you’re wrong! Maybe you convinced me, but I made a big mistake in running away. I could have stayed and tomorrow night I’d be celebrating with them! We’d have won the election. I could have fixed them, persuaded them to stay with me. Persuading people – that’s what I do! Now what have I got?”

  “You’ve got your son. You’ve got your skin, and a future. Listen to me and make sure you really hear me now. Serge did this, to scare you, to control you, maybe to help you get some kind of pity vote. I know it was him. I heard him refer to this situation time and again. You and your son were one of his problems. That is what he called you. What kind of a future do you think you had with him?”

  “A better one than I have now. I’m nothing now. Zero. I’m a corpse.”

  “You exaggerate, Burton. But you carry on like that and I’ll be inclined to agree with you.”

  Jerry Burton stirred and rolled his head as he lay on the sofa, he groaned out loud.

  “Look. You need to snap out of this. Your son needs you.”

  “Right now they’ll be looking for me. If what you say is true…”

  “Come off it, Burton. You KNOW what they are like. You’re not frightened of them because of what I’ve told you. You’re frightened of them because you know what they are capable of. Even if you haven’t seen Cordy Farm you’d know if from Peter Serge’s face. The man is evil. You got into bed with the devil, and you know it.”

  Burton looked at him and bit his lip. He shifted round, folded his arms and looked down at his son.

  “They’ll never forgive me. If they find me now… who knows what they’ll do.”

  “Tonight maybe. But tomorrow they’ll be too busy fighting for their political lives. They won’t have time to worry about you.”

  “Then when we lose the by-election?”

  “Then I’d take a holiday if I were you. But at least you won’t be close by with people who actively meant you harm. You’ll be in control of the situation. Isn’t that what you want?”

  Will Burton turned around and looked at Dan. Something in his eyes, some spark, intrigued Dan. What did the odd look in his eyes mean? The man looked quizzical, confused, and angry all at the same time. A moment later Burton said, “Yes. Yes. Of course that’s what I want.”

  The boy shifted again and groaned.

  “He’s in pain, Dan. Can I give him some medicine? Will you help me?”

  Dan looked at Jerry. In his unconsciousness, there was a grimace of pain in his face.

  “We should wait until he wakes up. You can’t tell what he needs until he wakes up.”

  “Of course I can, look at him.”

  “He’s asleep, Will, he’ll choke on it.”

  “I’m his father, I know what he needs best of all, for God’s sake.”

  “Calm down, Will. You’re acting irrational. I know irrational when I see it.”

  Will Burton nodded and ran a hand from his forehead all the way back over his bald scalp.

  “Maybe you’re right. But as soon as he wakes, we’ll give him water and some strong pain killers.”

  The first scare came about eleven o’clock. The door at the front of the Boys’ Club got kicked and rattled hard in the frame, sending the noise echoing across the gym’s cold space. Dan went from lethargic and cold to ready to cause grievous bodily harm inside a second. Then silence fell again. Dan did not trust silence. He looked at Will Burton, and saw a man dominated by a torrent inside his head. Dan thought he was troubled until he saw Will Burton’s wild eyes, and flapping bottom lip. It occurred to Dan that maybe all slick politicians were like Will Burton, just one wrong step away from becoming a babbling wreck. Maybe Obama was like that in the Oval office on the day of the Great Crash in 2008, when his historic reign suddenly took a dive into a nightmare. Dan wasn’t
a politician. These days he didn’t even vote, but he knew the difference between good and evil. And men like Will Burton tried to tread the line like a man on a tightrope, one moment falling left, the next falling right, just about balancing the whole way along. But they always fell in the end, because you can’t play at being evil without it hooking into you, and dragging you down into the mire. Now, somehow, those hooks were tearing Will Burton apart. The rattle and thud came again – loud and close at the back of the gym. Dan stepped past Will Burton, who whispered “It’s them…” and sat down close to his son. Dan ignored him, and slid the bolt of the door without a trace of noise. The door was heavy, fortified by a layer of metal protecting it from the outside world. Dan backed himself up to be able to shut the door before trouble pushed in. When he opened it, he saw a thin wiry shape full of agility and strength, and two glinting eyes. Dan opened the door and let the tall black man with the jutting chin walk into the gym as the wind played havoc with the trees behind him. Rufus Murphy, a West Indian who hailed from Brixton and one of the oldest pugs who trained at the gym. “What you doing, Bradley?” said Rufus.

  “Laying low with some friends.”

  “Yeah. Not a great place to lay low, Bradley.” Rufus looked around and saw the Burton boys on the sunken sofa.

  “Who they running from? The police?”

  “Everyone, to be honest.”

  Rufus wasn’t ever a snitch and he could take a shedload of punches without a whimper. Rufus was all right.

  “Really now?”

  Rufus smiled and walked over to see them. He walked around the front of the sofa with his hands in his shiny sports-coat pockets. He smirked a little at first, then his face grew more serious.

  “Do you mind?” said Burton.

  “No I don’t. And neither should you, brother. People like you… people like you need to get in the ring with me for a while. You need to learn some respect. What you doing harbouring people like him in this place, Bradley?”

  “Things have changed, Rufus. The skinheads are after him. This man just quit their campaign, and now tomorrow they are going to get destroyed in this election. Believe it or not this man has done us all a favour. He should probably get a knighthood,” said Dan with laughter in his voice.

  “Will you please, please shut up!” said Burton. “This is my actual life we are talking about! This isn’t a joke.”

  Rufus was smiling, but his smile sank without a trace. “What kind of man are you? Look at you! You’re a shape shifter, crying like a girl. Be grateful that Bradley is with you. This man might just save your life.”

  Dan nodded thanks for the vote of confidence, though he didn’t feel up to the standard old Rufus had set for him.

  “The boy. He’s bad sick, right? But he looks ready to wake up soon. He still looks bad to me.”

  “He looks in pain, don’t you think?”

  Rufus bent down, looked a moment, and then stood again. “Yeah. There’s pain all over his face.”

  Will Burton twisted round on the sofa to face Dan. “Can we have some privacy? We should be quiet in here, not having gawping and talking about my son.”

  Dan sighed and nodded. “Do you mind us staying Rufus? Just tonight. We’ll be gone by the morning.”

  Rufus walked away from the sofa. When he drew level with Dan, the man pulled a hand from his jacket pocket and slapped Dan on the shoulder. He whispered. “It’s not my gym. It’s Ed’s. But be careful, Bradley. This man is a shape shifter. Don’t trust him. I always read their eyes. And I can read trouble in that man’s eyes.”

  Dan nodded, and let old Rufus out into the windy night and shut the door.

  As soon as Dan locked up, he saw Will Burton was out of his chair. Rufus had said something which Dan’s gut agreed with. Nerves scratched at the edges of Dan’s mind. The anxiety came whenever the blackness closed in. Yet in his gut there was a heaviness, a sensation of foreboding. But there were so many raw sensations now, Dan didn’t know which to trust. He took a breath and pushed them all away.

  “He’s going to wake up any moment. He’ll need a drink. I’m parched too. Can you get us something?”

  “Water. There’s plenty of water and that’s it.”

  “No. He can’t eat, but he’ll need energy. Can you get him some Lucozade? Please?”

  Dan waited and felt anxiety and the burden in his stomach. Tension, just tension, that’s all.

  “I can’t leave you.”

  “I’m scared, Bradley, but I’m still rational. There’s a shop across the street. You could be there and back in what, 90 seconds or less?”

  Dan stared at the man as hard as he could, probing him, trying to look for the lie. But the man was a mess of twitches and wrinkles. All Dan was left with was pity.

  “I’ll go. But watch it. I think I could do it inside 60 seconds. So do me a favour. Sit tight and count to sixty and I’ll be back. Understood?”

  Will Burton nodded. “Thank you Bradley.”

  Dan turned and made for the door. As soon as he was outside he walked just as quickly as he could without looking too obvious. And he started to count.

  Dan crossed the street in a fast diagonal, bobbing between parked cars and noisy drunks. In the bright white convenience shop he picked an orange coloured litre bottle and some chocolate. He had to queue behind a giggling teenage wreck who smelt of skunkweed. All the while Dan was counting in his head. He made it back around the back of the Boys’ Club on the count of 63. Dan had left the door on the latch, and teased it open with his fingernails. Dan stared inside and his eyes adjusted. Suddenly the burden of his stomach weighed so heavy he felt like collapsing.

  The sofa was empty. Man and boy were gone.

  “Burton?” called Dan. The gym swallowed the solitary word and spat back an empty echo. What a time to stop listening to his gut. Whatever he once had, Dan was now sure he was losing it. But he still hadn’t lost yet. Burton was with his son. Only one minute had passed since he left them. He could find them. He had to find them, damn it. Dan put the latch back on the door, turned into the blustery darkness and ran.

  Across the Southchurch Road parked by the white-lit convenience store, a man sat quietly in a black Vauxhall Omega saloon. The car was warm. The engine was off and the metal ticked as it cooled. The man dialled a number on his mobile and put the phone against his ear. As he waited for an answer, the man scratched at the stubble on his shaven head.

  Twenty-six

  Above all else Eva had to save the boy. Let Will Burton do whatever he wanted to. Whether he had been a part of the horror at Cordy Farm or not didn’t matter. The man had been content to ride the Nazi ticket all the way to Westminster. Now Eva knew that Burton was the man who had hurt his own son, it made the cover up all the more understandable. Serge and the gang wanted their Westminster ticket safe at least until after the election, so the assault had to be covered up. And Will Burton was a win-by-any-means kind of man. Lashing out at his son provided him no wakeup call about the price of his naked ambition, instead it was a reason to plough on, destroying what remained of his family in the process. Will Burton deserved all that was coming to him.

  Eva and Jess arrived at the Southchurch Boys’ Club and parked the Alfa Romeo on the slope below. The air was cold, and the wind pushed meanly at the swirl of pale brooding clouds above. Rather than walk up the slope, Eva wasted no time. She bounded up the steep grass verge and made it up to the level of the Boxing club. At the front the place was shut up and dark, but she caught sight of a glimmer of light reflected out the back.

  “It’s closed,” said Jess. Eva pointed down to the pale light on the concrete near the back of the club and she edged around the building carefully but quickly as the wind dragged at her hair and whipped it around her face. Jess followed. They got around the corner, and now Eva saw the car park at the back of the nearby White Hart. There, in the corner, glinting at them from beneath a street lamp was Dan’s tired looking Jag. Jess pointed to redeem herself and Eva nodded. Eva tur
ned to the back door when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. The boxing club was at the top of a very steep hill, with the pub at the summit beside it. Far down the road towards the bottom of the hill was a man running away. He was too far to call and besides, who knew who else could be listening. Eva knew the gait of the man immediately. She had run with him many times, seen him train and knew almost everything about him. It was Dan and he was running hard, hurrying and all alone. None of it boded well. A black saloon swept down the hill in front of her, and it was moving fast. Tiftan Way was a busy road leading down to the seafront – so far, so normal. Then watched as the car slowed, its tail lights flaring once and then twice as it hovered to stay a way back from the running man.

  “You see that?” said Eva.

  “Is that… Dan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what is that car doing?”

  “It’s tracking him. We’ve got to move. Come on!”

  They ran back down the steep verge with sideward steps, almost falling onto the concrete. They clambered into the Alfa and Eva started the engine and pushed off in one go. Dan was still in sight, but the saloon was gone. Damn. Where was the car? Eva accelerated hard, flipped up through the gears and made the bottom of the hill in less than fifteen seconds. Dan’s back grew closer all the time, but he still didn’t look round. It was time to be sensible here. The enemy was nearby, and the car would be no good for hunting down Jerry Burton. Eva pulled the car up and parked around the corner near Southchurch Park on the right, and another vast empty park space on her right. The parks were a vast expanse of grey-blue and black in the moon-washed night. Eva ran to the corner and looked around, holding her breath to listen. There. She caught a glimpse of Dan’s back as he rounded a tall hedge into the vast field across the road from the main park. Eva knew the place as a field where people parked their cars and walked their dogs around a scrubland and large pond. By day the place was a pretty kind of wasteland. By night it would be a different prospect. Eva drew a deep breath to fight the fear and tension in her chest and throat, then she looked at Jess.