‘But why weren’t they in the monastery like the others?’ Evan repeated.
‘I think that-just guessing here, mind, mate-they were sort of recruitment officers. Like encouraging young kids to become addicted, sort of dealers.’
‘Drug dealers, you mean?’ Evan's voice held the disgust he felt at the thought of Alicia and Shelly having anything at all to do with drugs, never mind dealing them.
‘Can’t think of any other name for it.’
Evan thought this through for a minute, then said, ‘You were in the monastery. How bad was it?’
‘Bad, mate. Real fucking bad.’
‘Tell me.’
But Danny’s face had glazed over, remembering the state most of the kids were in. Dead souls looking out of eyes that were way too old for them. The eagerness with which they greeted the pill delivery every day. The scraps they were forced to eat. They way they all huddled together on a night for warmth. He shuddered.
‘Tell me,’ Evan prompted.
Danny shook his head. ’Another time, mate.’ If Evan knew half of what had gone on in the monastery, it would probably be the tipping point that sent him right over the edge. ‘We’ve got a lot of things to do. One thing though, if I ever catch that Leader twat, I’ll rip his lips off, throw them in the fucking frying pan and make him eat the bastards.’
Evan stopped walking, picturing what Danny had just said. He looked at his friend, and shook his head. Only Danny could come up with something like that. ‘Gross!’
‘He is that. Look, I’m gonna pop off home for a few minutes, grab some clothes and stuff, OK?’
‘OK. Catch you in a bit.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Brother David took the key from Aunt May’s outstretched hand and opened the door. He frowned when he had to put his shoulder to it and push.
‘What’s the matter?’ Aunt May asked, just as the door swung open. ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped. ‘We’ve been bloody burgled.’
Brother David held his hand up to stop her rushing in. ’Careful. I’ll go in first.’
‘What have they done?’
‘Just a minute.’ He moved an old wooden coat hanger that had fallen across the doorway. It must have been the reason he hadn’t been able to open the door. He stepped into chaos.
‘What’s wrong?’ Smiler asked, coming up the path behind them with Aunt May’s bags.
White-faced and shaking, Aunt May turned to him. ‘We…we’ve been burgled, son.’
‘No way!’
‘Yes.’ She nodded.
Stepping in front of her, Smiler followed Brother David into the house. For a moment he stood as transfixed as the monk, until a loud gasp from behind him broke the spell. Quickly, he turned and put his arm around Aunt May, who was sobbing into her hands.
‘Who would do this?’ she kept repeating.
‘Morons,’ Smiler stated.
Brother David moved into the kitchen, which was in pretty much the same state as the sitting room. Smashed furniture everywhere, the floor littered with broken crockery, hardly a bare place left to stand on.
In the sitting room, Smiler cleared a chair of torn pictures from three photograph albums. Being careful not to damage them further, he placed them on the table, leaving the chair clear for Aunt May to sit on. He looked around. Everything was broken, from the television to the ornaments on the sideboard. Nothing had been missed out. Plant pots had been smashed, their contents scattered everywhere soil was even clinging to the lampshade. And some of the flowered wall-paper was torn and hanging.
Smiler had a feeling that nothing had been stolen. Somehow this looked like a warning. He’d seen houses ransacked like this before, over drug money or if the person was a grass. He frowned, what the hell had Aunt May done to deserve this?
A moment later, he froze as Brother David came back in from the kitchen, stopped dead and, mouth hanging open, stared at the far wall. Slowly, a feeling of dread rising from his feet and spreading rapidly, Smiler turned.
On the wall, the outline of two horses back to back had been painted in gold paint.
Aunt May swung round. She stared at the outlines for a moment, her body stiffening.
‘Aunt May,’ Smiler said, his voice showing the worry that he was feeling.
As if Smiler’s voice had brought her back to the here and now, she said, ‘Why would somebody paint two unicorns on me bloody wall? If I get my hands on the sods, I’ll strangle the life outta them.’ Aunt May was shaking with anger as she looked around her ruined home, then back up at the paintings on the wall.
‘They are unicorns,’ Smiler muttered, seeing the horns he had missed at first. ‘I thought they were horses.’ Turning back to Brother David, he said, ‘What does it mean?’
Brother David swallowed, looked at Smiler and said, ‘In the Leader's apartment at the monastery, he had two gold back to back unicorns on the ceilings.’
Smiler shivered. ’He’s warning us, isn’t he?’
‘Looks like it. Never did understand the reason for them.’ Brother David's mind was in a turmoil. How to keep Aunt May safe? How to keep Smiler safe? Was the message actually from the Leader, or from the ones who had hurt Aunt May? They were obviously connected in some way to the Leader, but they seemed to have their own agenda.
Smiler pulled his phone out and dialled Kristina Clancy’s number. Hearing what had happened, she promised to be there as soon as possible, and told him not to touch anything. As he put his phone away, he looked guiltily at the photograph albums.
‘Er, sit down, Aunt May. And we, we…er, she said don’t touch anything, OK?’
Brother David walked to the door that led to the stairs. ‘I’ll just have a quick look up here.’
He was back in moments. ‘It’s fine.’
‘You sure?’ Aunt May asked.
‘Promise, Aunt May. Everything’s all right up there.’
‘They might have seen us coming before they got to upstairs… I’ll just go and see how Tiny is.’ Smiler was out of the door before either of them could say anything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Standing outside the police station in London, Mike stared at the building. He’d been here for a good fifteen minutes, and knew something was not quite right. Something was missing from the picture, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He looked around again, just as a pigeon swooped overhead and flew in the direction of the bird lady.
Only she wasn’t there.
That’s it, he thought, snapping his fingers, she’s what’s missing. No flash of red against the grey building.
He frowned. But she’s always here.
Hope she’s all right.
The bird lady, who everyone in the station had nicknamed Little Red Riding Hood, had been part of the landscape for as long as anyone could remember - but she left his mind as quickly as she’d entered it when he saw Tony come out of the station and turn left. Mike was pleased to see that he was alone. That was what he'd wanted -no one to know they had met up, no phone calls that could be traced. He hadn’t expected to strike it lucky this soon, and had been quite prepared to hover for days to find him.
Mike crossed the road and caught up with him. He was less than five feet behind Tony when he changed his plan. Instead of confronting him right off, and demanding to know which puzzle piece he was in this hopeless jigsaw, Mike decided to follow him for a while and see what happened.
Five minutes later, Tony turned down a side street. Mike fell in behind a party of early revellers going their way, obviously a hen party of a dozen or so young women dressed as bunny girls. As the street narrowed, Mike found himself in the middle of the girls.
‘Hey, you gorgeous man, wanna come with us?’ a tiny redhead asked, exaggeratedly batting her eyelids at him as the other girls laughed. She had huge breasts. Surely they cant possibly be real? Mike was thinking, as he tried to tare his eyes away.
A tall blonde caught his eye. ’Come on a good time guaranteed.’ she giggled.
&nb
sp; ‘No thanks.’ Mike smiled at them, hoping the noise they were making wouldn’t attract Tony’s attention, as he disentangled his arm from the redhead's.
‘Have it your way, gorgeous, but I promise you don’t know what you’re missing.’ The tall blonde winked at him and blew a kiss as she led the way through a club doorway with twinkling lights and a huge flashing neon sign.
He gave her a quick smile, then they were gone from his mind as he saw Tony turn into a shop doorway. Hurrying up, he saw that it was an old second-hand bookshop. He hovered in front of the window for a moment, but it was impossible to see past the piles of second-hand books that filled the window.
Should I go in or wait until he comes back out?
He glanced quickly around. No one suspicious-looking lurking in the street.
OK, do what you came to do!
He pushed the door open. Inside was quite dark and gloomy. It took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust. Then he spotted the door at the far end, and another window piled high with books. The shop had two frontages and an entrance in two streets.
Bastard!
He knew I was following him.
How the hell? But he knew that Tony was nothing if not resourceful. Probably clocked me as soon as I reached the station.
And here’s me thinking I’m practically invisible… Damn!
Quickly, Mike ran through the store. An old man and a teenager, both wearing the same frown, watched him pass.
His hand ready to slap the handle, the breath was suddenly knocked out of him as he was hit with a rugby tackle from behind. Mike landed on the floor. Quickly he flipped onto his back and launched his left fist, connecting with the chin of the man who had brought him down.
On his back, Mike saw there was another one. Against two, he was at a severe disadvantage, but he’d taken more than one on before. He used every fighting technique that he knew. Throwing his head back, then quickly forward, he nutted the one he had just chinned, rendering him semi-conscious. Jumping up, he turned to the other man, who held a large sword and was about to bring it down on Mike’s head. Stepping quickly under his raised arm, Mike delivered a knife-hand strike, crushing his cartilage in seconds. The sword slid out of the man's hands and fell with a loud clatter onto the tiled floor.
For a moment, Mike was stunned as the man who, eyes bulging and staring at him, reached slowly for his own throat and made a strange gurgling noise as he collapsed in a heap on the floor. Stepping back Mike stood on the unconscious man’s hand and heard bones crunch in at least two of his fingers.
Inwardly Mike cringed, but felt no qualms this time. The broken fingers would send a message. The gauntlet was down. It had after all been a case of him or them.
The sound of sirens coming his way urged him on. In seconds, he was out of the bookshop and walking briskly in the opposite direction.
At the top of the street, he turned and watched as half a dozen officers jumped out of two police cars and ran into the shop.
So that’s it then, he thought.
Knowing that their next move would be to publicly discredit him and officially declare him on the run, he headed for Tony’s flat.
No pussyfooting around now. The owner of the shop and the kid had seen him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
As Smiler walked down Jill’s path, he heard Tiny bark from the back garden. ‘Hi, mutt, it’s me,’ Smiler said loudly. Tiny was silent for a moment, then recognising Smiler’s voice he went into a frenzied fit of excited barking.
The front door opened before he reached it, and Jill smiled at him. ’Thought it might be you, Smiler, the way he’s carrying on. Come on in.’
Following her into the house, Smiler was wondering how to tell her what had happened. He knew Jill could be a bit awkward sometimes. He shrugged, and said to her back as they reached the sitting room door, ‘Aunt May’s been robbed.’
‘What?’ Jill spun round.
‘Well, we don’t really know if she’s been robbed yet, but somebody’s been in and trashed the place.’
‘Is Aunt May all right? Does she know?’
‘Oh, she just got out of hospital ‘bout an hour ago. We walked right into the whole mess.’
‘What! You mean May actually walked into her house and saw it all wrecked?’
‘Well, yes.’ Smiler felt himself becoming agitated. She wasn’t giving him a chance to tell her what happened.
‘Where is she now?’ Jill demanded.
‘At home.’ Just listen, will you? he thought.
‘Jesus!’ Turning, Jill ran out of the house. Just as she left, Smiler heard her mutter to herself, ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’
Puzzled by what she’d said, or by what he thought she'd said, and slightly annoyed, Smiler unhooked Tiny’s lead from a peg on the back door. Going in to the garden, he was pounced on by Tiny who showered him with dog kisses.
‘Come on, boy.’ Smiler patted Tiny, then surprised himself by giving the dog a cuddle. Stepping back, he looked at the dog and sighed. ‘Let's go. Aunt May needs cheering up.’
They reached home just as Kristina arrived. ‘How bad is it, Smiler?’ she asked, jumping out of the car.
‘Bad.’ Smiler nodded solemnly.
‘Damn.’
Two male police officers got out of the car and followed Smiler and Kristina down the path. They reached the door just as Aunt May and Jill, who had ran down the back way, came out of the house.
‘Hello, love,’ Aunt May said to Kristina. ‘You got here quick.’
‘The causeway was clear, thank God. How are you?’
But Aunt May’s attention was taken up by Tiny who, refusing to be ignored, was standing on his hind legs, one paw resting on Aunt May’s shoulder and the other one batting the air. ‘OK, OK, good dog, pleased to see you an’ all, you bloody ugly hound.’
Everyone laughed as Aunt May ruffled Tiny’s head.
‘Good job he doesn’t know what you’re saying,’ Jill put in, but Aunt May had turned to Kristina.
‘Me, I’m fine. The bloody house isn’t, though! Take a look in there. Bloody hooligans. Think they can do what they want these days. A good slap around the chops, that’s what they bloody well need. But oh no, the bloody do-gooders won't have that, will they? Course they won't. It’s not their bloody houses that’s getting trashed, is it?’
‘Come on, May,’ Jill said, nodding at Kristina. ‘I’m taking her up mine for a bit, until your lot are finished, then we’ll get on with sorting the place out.’
‘Fine.’ Kristina smiled. ’Catch you later, Aunt May,’ she said - with the emphasis on 'Aunt'.
Aunt May smiled. She knew Kristina saw Jill as a rival, and she had been rather disappointed when she and Mike had split up-but now she was back.
I only hope Mike makes the right choice, she thought, heading up the path after Jill.
Inside, Kristina surveyed the mess. ’Well, they’ve certainly gone to town, haven’t they?’
‘Uh huh,’ Brother David replied, as the two officers started dusting for fingerprints.
‘Any idea why this would happen?’
‘It’s got to be the same people who hit her, hasn’t it? Too much of a coincidence for it not to be.’
‘Yes, that’s what I think… But what do they think she has, or knows about them?’
Brother David shook his head. ’Haven’t got a clue. She’s hardly steps foot off the island, apart from the odd trip to Berwick and a few holidays with friends a couple of times a year down Norfolk way.’
‘Don’t blame her, wish I could live here.’ Kristina didn’t add, 'with Mike', though they both knew that was what she was thinking.
Feeling useless hanging around with nothing to do until the police were finished-though he guessed, rightly, there wouldn’t be a lot they could do, only fools leave fingerprints these days-Smiler took Tiny for a walk. Most of the day-trippers had gone home, and the island was pretty quiet. This was just how he liked it.
As he headed up
towards the castle, the only other person on the road was a youngish woman in denim jacket and jeans, with a haversack slung over her shoulder. She was about fifty yards in front of him and walking fast.
Smiler was wondering what Jill had meant when she’d said, ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’
‘She definitely said it,’ he muttered. ‘I know she did. But why? She must have meant something else.’ Puzzling over it, he carried on up the road.
He blinked a moment later when he saw something that looked like a purse drop from the woman’s haversack as she shifted it along her shoulder.
Suddenly he was back in the midst of London, forcing his way through the crowds, praying that no one picked up the dropped purse before he did, hoping that there was plenty of money in it for him to party. He was desperately in need of a fix. The purse was manna from heaven.
Reaching the spot where he had seen the purse fall, he knelt down, a solid rock in a raging river. He pushed his arms against the tide of legs around him, begging, pleading, praying for the purse to be still there when he reached the right spot. Blindly, he scrabbled around with his fingers. At first there was nothing - then his fingers closed around the purse.
Suddenly, Tiny started barking. Smiler blinked and straightened up. He looked in puzzlement at the purse in his hand, wondering where it had come from, then at the back of the retreating woman. For a moment, he hesitated.
Got to give it back, a small voice said in his head.
No, it’s mine. I found it.
Got to give it back, the voice repeated.
He shook himself. ‘Course I have to,’ he muttered, remembering her dropping it. 'Might be all she’s got.' Smiler well knew what it was like to wake up penniless.
‘Hey! Hey, lady! You dropped your purse,’ he shouted, jumping up and running after her.
She turned when he shouted again. Recognising what he held in his hand, she waited until he reached her. Breathing a sigh of relief, she held her hand out. ‘Thank you very much.’
Holy Island Trilogy 02 - Nowhere Man Page 11
