The Devil Came to Abbeville

by Marian Phair

  It seemed a life time since he had bathed, eaten, slept! His throat was parched, and his lips so dry, they felt as if they would split open at any moment. He turned on a tap in the nearest sink, and not waiting for the water to run cold, held his mouth under the flow. Drawing in as much water as he could in the confined space, he gulped it down greedily as he slaked his thirst. Wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt, he set about cleaning himself up, washing the dirt from his hands and face, and drying them on paper towels.

  Then at the risk of being caught in the act, he filled the wash basin with water, and pumped some of the liquid soap from the dispenser onto his palms rubbing it through his hair. Cupping up the water with his hands, he washed the dirt from his scalp, thankful that he always kept his hair short. The job was done in next to no time.

  Before he could turn his attention to his clothes, the door opened and a youth swaggered into the room. Seeing Albert standing at the sinks, he nodded his head in Albert’s direction.

  “Alright, mate?” he asked Albert, who managed a weak smile in reply to the youth’s question. Going over to the urinals the youth proceeded to relieve his bladder.

  “That’s the trouble with beer,” he said, over his shoulder to Albert.

  “Once you really need to go for that first piss, you seem to end up going every five minutes after that,” he chuckled as if he had said something funny. Then zipping up his fly as he walked out without washing his hands, he said, “See yer, mate.”

  As the door swung to behind the youth, Albert let out a sigh of relief and realised he had been holding his breath. He went into a cubicle, locking the door behind him, and removed his shoes. Raising the toilet seat he held his shoes over the bowl and banged them together hard, to remove as much dirt as he could. Wetting some toilet paper he cleaned the tops and sides. When he was satisfied they looked half-way decent, he put them on, flushed the toilet, and with one more glance in the mirror, he left and returned to the main entrance. He stood with his hand on the lounge door handle, and breathed deeply a few times, trying to calm his nerves, before plucking up the courage to open the door and enter.

  A couple sat in animated conversation in a corner next to an old fashioned Victorian fireplace. The only other person in the room was an elderly gentleman, who sat on a barstool sipping the froth off a pint of ale. He glanced up as Albert approached the bar, and nodded his head in greeting, then without saying a word, turned his attention back to his glass.

  Albert walked across the room and sat down on a stool at the other end of the bar. He pressed the little brass bell on the counter top, for service, and then helped himself to a small dish of salted peanuts. Tipping the contents into his palm, he shoved the lot into his mouth and munched on them greedily while he waited for a bartender to come through from the main bar. He knew as he ate them that the salted nuts would give him a thirst. It was what he himself put out along the bar at the Crown and Garter to increase sales. It was a trick that always worked, and one everyone, including the customers, knew about.

  A young man with bright, ginger hair, pale skin, and a face full of freckles, came through from the other room. His shrewd eyes missing nothing as he took in Albert’s untidy appearance.

  “Yes, Sir, what can I get you?” he inquired.

  “Well, that all depends,” Albert replied.

  “All depends. Sorry I don’t get you, depends on what?” The young man looked puzzled.

  “It all depends if you can change a cheque for me. You see, my boss paid me by cheque, and it’s all the money I have until I can get it changed.” Reaching into a pocket, Albert produced the crumpled cheque and placed it on the bar. The young bartender turned the cheque round to face him. His eye’s widened when he saw the amount written on it.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that, I only work here. You’ll need to ask the landlord.”

  “Well, is the landlord here?” Albert asked him.

  “Yes, he’s serving in the other bar.” the youth replied. “Do you want me to ask him?”

  “That’s the idea. I guess I can’t get a pint here if I can’t pay for it up front.”

  “No, we don’t keep a slate here, not even for our regulars. Sorry.” He looked apoligetic.

  The elderly gent at the other end of the bar had overhread their conversation. Reaching into his pocket, he took out several coins, and laid them on the counter.

  “Before you go, Bert, I’ll have the same again, and give the gent a pint, on me.”

  “That’s very decent of you,” Albert told him. “I’ll return the favour when the landlord changes my cheque.” The old man gave Albert a sidelong look and shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that score; Harold Stokes is as tight as a stone jack’s backside. I’ll be most surprised if he’ll oblige you. You’re welcome to a pint; you look as if you need it.”

  Without asking Albert what he preferred, Bert swiftly pulled two pints of bitter and set a glass down in front of both men, then picked up the cheque, and left to find the landlord. Albert raised his glass to the generous stranger; “Cheers” he said, before putting the glass to his lips and gulping down the pint without pausing to take a breath.

  In the main bar, the landlord was in conversation with two burly looking strangers. Bert was a truly nosy youth, who liked nothing better than sticking his nose into affairs that were none of his business. Intrigued by the earnest look on the faces of the strangers, he decided he would wait until Harold was free before having a word with him about the cheque. On the pretext of refilling the dishes with peanuts, he moved closer, and eavesdropped on their conversation.

  “So, your sister went off with this bloke yesterday, and you haven’t seen or heard from her since. Did you tell the police?” Harold asked, as he pulled pints for them both.

  “Yeah, we let them know, but they said she is over the age of consent, so there’s nothing they can do. The police think they have just run off together, and that Rosemary will be in touch when she’s ready,” Roland York told him.

  “So why are you looking for her? What makes you think she’s here, in Buxton?

  “This is where she said she was coming. She was supposed to be meeting a mate and staying overnight with her,” Pete York told Harold.

  “Yes, and if I hadn’t had to spend time sobering you up first, we could have gone after her when I first saw her heading off with Albert Brooks,” Roland snapped at his brother.

  “Leave it out,” Pete said. “How the hell was I to know she was messing about with Albert Brooks.” He slammed his pint glass down on the counter, spilling his beer.

  Harold took a cloth and mopped up the spilt beer. “Who’s this Albert Brooks?

  It sounds as if he’s a bit of a scoundrel the way you’re talking.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Roland stated. “He’s married for a start, got kids all over the place by different women, and he’s old enough to be our Rosemary’s father.”

  “Humph, not a nice bloke then,” Harold said. “Don’t you have an address for your sister’s friend, or a phone number?” he asked them.

  “No. We already checked that. We also tried looking up her name in the phone book, but couldn’t find her. Either she’s ex-directory, or Rosemary was lying and just made her up.” They were silent for a few moments, as they lifted their glasses and drank.

  “Does your sister have a mobile phone?” Harold asked Pete York.

  “A mobile phone?” Pete, had a puzzled look on his face for a second, and then the penny finally dropped. “Why the heck didn’t I think of that?” Pete York turned to his brother and asked, “Do you have Rosemary’s mobile number?”

  Bert never got to hear his answer, because just then the bell sounded in the lounge. Spotting his assistant hovering around, and guessing he had been listening in on their conversation, Harold told him to go and serve the customers in the lounge. Reluctantly, Bert went into the other bar.

  Albert played with his empty glass, turni
ng it round and round between his fingers. “Well, has the landlord changed my cheque?” he asked.

  “I haven’t asked him yet,” Bert replied. “He’s talking to a couple of blokes who are looking for their sister; she’s ran off with some old bloke called Albert Brooks. My guess is they’ll kill him when they catch up with him. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when they do.”

  Just then the phone in Albert’s trouser pocket rang. Startled, he pulled it out with trembling fingers, and his face turned ashen when he saw the name Roland York on the screen, with a phone number underneath, and suddenly realised what was happening. Mumbling something about having to take the call, he almost ran from the room. In the lounge a wide-eyed Bert called after him. “What about your cheque?” but Albert had gone, and the door swung closed after him.

  Next to the main entrance was a silver bin. The top of which contained sand, and several cigarette butts, where smokers obeying the ‘No Smoking’ rule, had stubbed out their cigarettes before entering. Albert threw the mobile phone into the bin, and took off down the road. While in the bar, Roland York had his phone to his ear, he could just make out a ring tone above the noise in the bar. Pete stood by impatiently, watching his brother’s face.

  “It’s ringing,” he told him, as the strains of UB40’s ‘Red, Red Wine,’ the song Rosemary had chosen as her ring tone, played in his ear. “She’s not answering.”

  Bert Crabtree came through and went up to where Harold stood waiting to serve customers. He took the cheque out of his pocket and showed it to Harold and told him of Albert’s request. Harold looked at it and shook his head.

  “Where’s this chap now? Why didn’t he ask me himself?”

  “He was in the lounge, and he asked me to see if you would change it. He said it was his wages and he had no other money. Old Bob Brice stood him a pint.”

  “This cheque’s made out to ‘pay-bearer.’ How do we know it’s his? He could have stolen it. I’ll go and have a word.”

  “No, he was in the lounge, but his phone rang, and he left in a hurry to answer it.” Bert told his boss, sensing something exciting was about to happen.

  Roland York was having difficulty hearing his phone, as raucous laughter, coming from a group celebrating a little too heartily filled the room, and he pressed it even closer to his ear, covering the other with his free hand. Shaking his head with frustration, he headed for the main door where there was less noise and he could get a better signal. He could clearly hear Rosemary’s phone music now. It was so loud, it was as if she was standing next to him. Perplexed, he held his phone away from his head and could still hear the music. It seemed to come from the main entrance.

  He walked towards the sound, and peering into the silver bin he found Rosemary’s distinctive purple phone. Just then, Pete came through the door followed by Bert.

  “This lad’s just told the landlord that a chap was trying to change a cheque for two hundred quid and he came out to answer a phone call. He hasn’t come back in yet, have you seen...” Pete stopped mid sentence when he saw the look on his brother’s face, and his eye’s travelled down to the purple phone still playing its song. He spun around and grabbed hold of the front of Bert’s tee-shirt, pulling him in closer.

  “This chap who wanted the cheque changed, what did he look like?”

  Bert just stood with his mouth hanging open, momentarily shocked at being suddenly grabbed this way. Pete tightened his grip on the tee-shirt, and gave it a shake, Bert came to his senses. He was scared of the big guy who had a hold of him and couldn’t wait to tell all he knew.

  “Let go of me, and I’ll tell you all I know,” he told Pete, who reluctantly released his hold on the youth. Pete felt they were so close to finding their quarry, and didn’t want to waste anymore time; but they had to be sure they were on the right track. So he listened impatiently while Bert told his tale from the beginning. When it came to the discription of the stranger in the lounge, neither of the York brothers recognised Albert. The only thing the two men had in common it seemed, was they both had short, blond hair.

  “You said this bloke left the bar to answer a phone call, and he never came back.”

  Roland stated, and Bert just nodded his head.

  Roland had switched off both mobile phones and was putting them into the pocket of his jacket when Bert’s excited voice stopped him.

  “He had a mobile phone, just like that purple one you’re holding, I saw it when he took it out of his pocket, it had transfers of roses on it as well.”

  The two men looked at each other, and both spoke at the same time, “Brooks.”

  “It’s got to be him, Pete, who else would have Rosemary’s phone. Unless somebody nicked it from her. The description doesn’t match Albert Brook’s though. We’ve got to find this bloke and ask him a few questions.” Turning to Bert, Roland said,

  “You check the main bar, you know what he looks like, and we’ll check the toilets. Meet back here in five minutes.”

  After meeting back up, there was no sign of the man they were all seeking.

  Roland didn’t like the thoughts that were running through his head, he feared something bad had happened to Rosemary, he felt it in his bones. They had always been really close. He was closer to Rosemary than he was to any other member of his family, including his mother who he loved dearly. Growing up they had always looked out for each other, and he wasn’t about to let his little sister come to grief in the hand’s of Albert Brooks.

  “Have you got a pen on you?” he asked his brother. Pete quickly searched the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a small flat capless biro, and handed it to Roland.

  “I might have known.” Roland took it from him, recognising the free pen left out on the counters of betting shops. “This is how you get all those ink stains on your clothes.”

  Withdrawing his cigarette packet, Roland tucked the one remaining cigarette behind an ear, and opening out the packet, wrote his mobile number on the inside. Discarding the inner foil, he handed the packet to Bert.

  “Here’s my mobile number. If this bloke comes back here I want you to let me know, okay?” Bert nodded his head in agreement and slipped the cigarette packet into his trouser pocket. Then turning to his brother, Roland asked him if he was ready to go and look for the man who had discarded Rosemary’s phone. His gut instinct told him, despite the odds, it was Albert Brooks.

  Outside the public house, the two brothers stood on the pavement of the deserted street, undecided as to which direction to take in search for the missing Albert.

  “If you had bought yourself a phone instead of wasting your money in the bookies, we could have taken opposite directions and had a better chance of finding him. Now we’ll just have to stick together and hope we get lucky. So, which way do we go, left, or right?” Pete just shrugged his shoulders. Roland was always getting on at him about something. It should be the other way around really, as he was the eldest of the siblings, but he knew if he said ‘left,’ that Roland would go right.

  “Up to you, you’re in charge. If you can’t make your mind up, flip a coin. I say we go right back the way we came and head up the main high street where there’s bound to be some people about. Someone might have seen him.”

  Roland was paying little heed to what Pete was saying; he was trying to put himself in the shoes of the man they sought. If he himself was running from something, he wouldn’t want to be seen. Looking to his left, he could see lots of dark alleyways where someone could easily hide from a pursuer,

  “We’ll go left,” he said, “Come on we’ve wasted enough time already.” Without further ado, the two men set off in their search for the elusive Albert Brooks.

  Less than two hundred yards away, Albert was fighting for his life with two muggers who had jumped him and dragged him down an alleyway behind a Chinese takeaway. One produced a knife and demanded Albert hand over his wallet.

  “Do I look like a man who has wallet full of money?” Albert asked him.

&nb
sp; The second assailant grabbed Albert from behind in a bear hug pinning his arms to his sides. Using his combat training skills Albert lean’t back against the body of his attacker for leverage, and swung both feet off the ground, striking the second attacker squarely in the chest. He sent him flying backwards, the knife falling from his hands. Two sharp chops from his hands into each side the other’s groin affected his release from the bear hug. Albert made a dive for the fallen knife, and missed.

  Weak from hunger and lack of sleep, Albert’s reactions were slower than that of his younger assailents, and before he could regain his balance, his legs were kicked from under him, and he hit the concrete. A boot caught him in the face, and he felt warm blood spurt over his cheeks. He almost passed out from the pain, and he knew his nose had been broken. Winded, and in agony he lay where he had fallen, and curled up into a small ball; using his arms to protect his head, and bringing his legs as tight into his chest as he could, in an attempt to protect his vital organs. A boot caught him in the side, and another in the small of his back, and Albert knew unless they stopped their attack on him, he would die here in the dirty back alley. Hands reached out forcing his left arm away from his head, snatching the wristwatch from it then a miracle happened.

  The backdoor of the Chinese takeaway opened, and light streamed out into the alleyway through the open door, lighting up the scene, and a man came out carrying a bag of rubbish. Startled, the two muggers took off down the alley, as the man, realising what was going on, called out something in Chinese. Dropping the bag of rubbish, he ran over to where Albert’s bloodied and beaten form lay. Albert heard a man’s voice telling someone to phone for the police and an ambulance.