The White Stuff

by Simon Armitage

  On top of the container again, this time in silhouette against the arc lights behind him, Teddy Moffat was trying to load a second pellet into an air gun broken across his knee. Felix could see him perfectly and could hear a policeman under the container shouting at him, telling him to get down. Teddy stood up and fired another slug in the direction of the coach. This time it entered through the smashed window and thudded into a cardboard box.

  ‘I swear to God, Spotland, I’ll savage your head.’

  He broke the rifle to load it again. Felix had been hit with an air-gun pellet when he was a kid and it only bruised his thigh. But this was different. This was a man firing an air gun in the middle of a siege, with God knows how many marksmen with their fingers on the trigger and a desperate Jimmy Spotland holding a pistol in his sweaty hand. All hell could break loose, with Felix caught in the crossfire. He dropped down into the stairwell to shelter behind the door. Along the coach, he could hear Jimmy answering back, stuttering and muttering under his breath at first, then louder, sneering at Teddy’s comments, shouting back that Teddy was Moffat scum and scum got what they deserved. Felix could hear that the police were now on top of the container, scuffling with Teddy, who sounded to be lashing out at anyone in his way. It was at this moment that Jimmy emerged from his hiding place between the cases, got to his feet and began walking down the coach. Crouched below the front seat, Felix could see him making his way forward, his bald head shining in the artificial light, the gun still visible in his hand.

  ‘You Moffat scum, you’re all gob,’ he shouted through the window.

  ‘Get out here, you dirty fucking monster,’ yelled Teddy.

  Jimmy laughed, leaning forward to get a better look at Teddy, sticking his bald, shiny head and then his upper body through the broken window, into the space where the most light fell. Into the one place where anyone outside, spying through the telescopic sight of a high-velocity rifle, would have a clear and uninterrupted view.

  The fuse box at home was in the cubbyhole under the stairs. There was a problem with the wiring, a loose connection; every couple of weeks - usually when the outside light was switched on - a fuse would blow. It meant groping around in the dark for a torch, then trying to thread a length of invisibly thin fuse wire into the fuse box. And the light for the cubbyhole was on the same circuit, so it also meant Felix trying to hold the torch between his teeth and aim it at the problem. Three qualified electricians had not been able to trace the fault, but the last one had ripped out the old fuse board and fitted a bank of modem trip switches in its place. The outside light still caused an occasional overload, but now all that Felix needed to do was to find his way to the cubbyhole and throw the switch.

  And the noise of the gunshot was very like that of an electrical short circuit. Close by there was a crack, coupled with an intense fizzing sound, and just a moment later came a crisp thwack, almost a pop, from somewhere in the distance. The blowing of a bulb and the tripping of a fuse. A marksman’s single bullet outrunning the speed of sound, arriving milliseconds before the sound of the gun that fired it. Then another noise - a leaden thump - the sound and weight of a human being hitting the deck. Felix waited in his hiding place in the stairwell, but nothing happened. Peeping under the front seat he could see Jimmy on the floor, motionless. Still nothing happened. Eventually Felix pushed himself over the top of the steps and began crawling along the aisle of the coach. Jimmy had fallen backwards, with his legs underneath him, buckled at the knees. As if he had keeled over while praying. His arms lay open at each side, with the pistol held loosely in the hand furthest away.

  ‘Jimmy? Jimmy?’ Felix whispered.

  Keeping as low as possible, he reached across Jimmy’s chest, stretching as far as he could until his fingertips nudged against the handle of the revolver. He’d never held a weapon before and he hooked it into the palm of his hand, anticipating the heaviness and seriousness of cold steel. But the object he gripped was empty and light. It had none of the qualities of forged metal but all the properties of moulded plastic. It was a replica. A toy.

  ‘Jimmy? Jimmy?’

  The man beneath him was motionless. Inert. And lying there, Felix became aware of a growing heat between them. Not just body heat, but a true, tangible warmth, made of a substance, welling from somewhere dose to Jimmy’s heart and spreading through Felix’s shirt and on to his skin. It was blood. He looked at Jimmy’s face. His eyes were open. Metallic, unnatural light fell across his taut, razored scalp. From his brow to the crown of his head, pinpricks of sweat beaded the stubble and pores. As Felix stared, Jimmy’s eyes rolled slightly to one side and his head followed, almost leisurely, until it came to rest on his shoulder, dragging his bottom lip sideways and pulling open his mouth. His top dentures had slipped forwards - he now had the mouth of a shark. Every perfect tooth glistened with saliva, and as his mouth gaped wider, something else glinted from the tip of his tongue. It was the piercing that Felix had noticed before. Except hadn’t that been a small, silver stud? This was something far more elaborate and ornate. It was gold, apart from a precious red stone in the middle. And as Felix squinted at the finely worked jewellery only inches from his eyes, what finally came into focus were the eight golden legs and ruby-red body of an insect. A spider, in fact.

  Felix was lying in bed with a pillow propped behind his back and the remote control in his hand. His eyes were half-closed, but he stirred when Abbie came into the bedroom and put a mug of tea on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She had a quick shower before climbing into bed next to him.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘Hm.’

  Abbie took the remote from him and skipped through the channels. It was almost half past ten. The news finished with a couple of football results and a story about a dog being rescued from an abandoned mineshaft after three days. Then came the regional bulletin, with footage of a three-hour siege which had ended in the fetal shooting of a local man and the dramatic rescue of an eleven-year-old girl.

  ‘Hey, isn’t this your patch?’ Abbie asked, nudging him with her elbow.

  Half-asleep again, Felix grunted in reply.

  Abbie watched as the incident unfolded. A cordon had been set up around a mobile shop on the notorious Lakeland Estate after a girl had been taken hostage by an armed man. Footage from the scene showed police snipers in doorways and windows with their weapons aimed at a dilapidated blue coach illuminated by floodlights. A senior police officer gave an account of events leading up to the incident and described how a ‘trained negotiator from another agency’ had entered the bus in the hope of bringing a peaceful end to the situation. Then came the climax of the story as the door of the coach opened and the girl - asleep or unconscious - was carried into the light in the arms of her rescuer. The next picture was a close-up of the man’s face. His face was tense and streaked with sweat and dirt, or even blood. But still he was unmistakable. It was Felix. It was her husband.

  Abbie screamed, ‘FELIX.’

  He pulled the cover back and sat up straight. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’ve just seen you on the telly.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘In a… coming out of a coach.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘With a girl in your arms. What’s going on?’

  Felix rubbed his eyes and looked at the television in the corner of the room, but the news had moved on to a different story, about speedway.

  ‘Oh, that,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, “Oh, that”?’ Abbie demanded. ‘What’s going on? FELIX?’

  ‘It was Ruby Moffat. But she’s OK.’

  He could feel tiredness like a weight around his neck, pulling his head back to the pillow. The muscles in his face ached with weariness. Even breathing felt like a struggle, and when he spoke it was with a supreme effort and a miracle if what he said made any sense.

  ‘That’s all,’ he muttered.

  ‘But someone was killed. Felix, why didn’t you tel
l me?’

  ‘I’d been to have my ears syringed. I was tired.’

  Abbie punched the remote control with her thumb, silencing the television. She kicked the duvet away with her legs and pulled the cord that hung from the ceiling. Brightness filled the room, stinging Felix at the back of his eyes. She wanted to talk. No, it was worse than that. She wanted Felix to talk. The whole story. From beginning to end. And when she said she wanted an explanation, she wasn’t talking about why an armed man had taken a young girl hostage on a beaten-up coach. She was talking about the man she was married to. She was asking how the man lying next to her in bed could witness a fatal shooting but forget to mention it because earlier in the day he’d been through the trauma of having a wax build-up sluiced from his ears. She was flabbergasted. Absolutely bemused. She wanted a complete and utter analysis of everything, and she wanted it right here, right now. But through Felix’s exhaustion came a sudden irritation. And from that irritation came an unusual surge of impatience, bordering on courage, bordering on strength. He said, ‘Abbie, I’m fucked.’

  She looked shocked, and mildly offended.

  Then, with a forced, tuneless voice, he said, ‘We can talk about this in the morning. Or if you’d prefer, you can wait until I’m fast asleep, when no doubt I’ll tell you everything you want to hear. But if I don’t close my eyes in five seconds, I’m going to pass out. So please, I’m really sorry, but if you don’t mind…’

  He didn’t remember the light going out, but when he woke, no more than an hour later, it was pitch black. The sheet beneath him was sodden with sweat. Abbie was holding on to him tightly, with her arms around his shoulders and one of her legs twisted around his.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ she whispered to him through the dark.

  19

  PC Lily beckoned Felix to duck beneath the counter at the front desk and follow her through the police station to an empty office at the back. The walls of the room were little more than partitions and screens, decorated with photographs and maps from a murder case that had made the headlines a couple of years ago.

  ‘Ever catch anyone for that?’ Felix asked.

  ‘No.’

  PC Nottingham poked his head around the door. ‘Oh, aye. This is very cosy.’

  ‘Why don’t you do something useful and make us a brew?’

  ‘Yeah, right, like I’m the tea boy all of a sudden.’

  ‘Go on, Notts. And you can help yourself to one of my chocolate biscuits.’

  He walked away, making a comment to the three or four other policemen sitting at their desks in the main office, of which ‘debriefing’ was the only audible word. A round of laughter followed.

  ‘So how is she?’

  Felix nodded. ‘She’ll be fine. She’s back at home, and we’ve got lots of help lined up for her. When she’s ready.’

  ‘Counselling?’

  ‘That kind of thing.’

  ‘From you?’

  ‘No. It’ll be a woman. Anyhow, I’ve been given some time off. Compassionate leave. I’d just called at the office to tidy up some loose ends and got your message…’

  ‘You were very brave.’

  ‘I was very scared. And very stupid.’

  ‘Well, for what it’s worth you’re a bit of a hero with the lads in there. They’d never say so, of course. They’ve even got a superhero nickname for you.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Duffel Man.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Felix, and narrowly avoided twiddling one of the wooden toggles on his coat.

  ‘But I’m going to call you the Corduroy Kid.’

  ‘That’s… very good as well.’

  ‘Anyways,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm.’

  From somewhere further away Felix could hear prisoners shouting in the holding cells, and the very occasional reply of the duty officer. Then another voice rang out in the distance, a voice that Felix thought he recognized. He ignored it, but a moment later heard it again, echoing around the bare-brick walls of a cell. ‘Boss, I need a piss. Come on, boss, I’m fucking busting.’

  It caused Felix to hold his breath and listen, because the last time he had heard that particular accent he was cowering in the stairwell of the Big Blue One, just seconds before Jimmy Spotland was shot dead.

  ‘Isn’t that…’

  ‘Teddy Moffat.’

  ‘Because of the air rifle?’

  ‘Yes, technically speaking, but we’re following up some other lines of inquiry.’

  ‘Such as?’

  PC Nottingham came in with two big mugs of coffee, but he didn’t speak because his mouth was jammed with a whole chocolate biscuit, causing his bottom lip to stick out in a semicircle in front of his face. He winked and dosed the door behind him.

  ‘Did you ever go in Spotland’s garage?’ said PC Lily.

  ‘I did, actually.’

  ‘A right little Aladdin’s cave. Anyhow, in and among the knock-off tellies and DVDs we found a few dozen bags of powdered chalk.’

  ‘I thought it was plaster.’

  ‘He’d been supplying the Moffats with their kit. The stuff was everywhere.’

  ‘Including Ruby’s underwear.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But it seems like the odd packet of white powder that made its way into the Moffat house was a higher-calibre substance altogether. We’ve had our eye on Teddy Moffat for a while. We knew he was dealing but we didn’t know where he was getting it from. He’s not told us much but we think him and Spotland fell out over a batch that went missing. All that shouting and bawling on the roof of the bookie’s - it wasn’t just about Ruby. It was about cocaine as well. And money.’

  ‘But the rest of the family weren’t involved?’

  ‘We don’t think so. Except poor Ruby. Spotland told her that her brother was buying drugs and he’d have him sent to prison unless she came to visit him in his…’

  ‘Web?’

  ‘Web. Precisely.’

  Felix nodded, satisfied with his choice of word.

  Then she said, ‘They had a job pulling that thing out of his tongue, once he’d stiffened up. It’s sitting in a pot on my desk -exhibit A. Do you want a look?’

  ‘No. I can… still see it pretty clearly,’ said Felix. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

  PC Lily folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘Any time.’

  It was Friday. Late afternoon. The end of one hell of a week - and it wasn’t over yet. From the secure car park at the rear of the police station, Felix raided over the metal plates beneath the exit barrier and turned left on to the dual carriageway. Almost instantly he was part of a traffic jam that extended into the distance, and twenty minutes later he was still crawling along in first towards the temporary traffic lights - a big metal sign with the word ‘Stop’ written against a red background. Felix yanked on the handbrake and was fiddling with the cassette player when there was a tap on the window. It was the traffic light operator, one of the Moffat boys. He grinned and gave Felix the thumbs-up. Felix lifted his hand to acknowledge the compliment, and saw the boy, Gerry was it, or maybe Connor, speaking into a walkie-talkie in his fist, radioing ahead. After the stream of traffic had passed in the other direction, the sign was swivelled around and Felix made his way through the red and white cones across a section of scarified tarmac and along the opposite carriageway. The contraflow extended as far as the roundabout at the far end, but halfway along Felix was confronted with an apparition almost biblical in appearance. An old man with wild grey hair stood in the middle of the road, prophet-like in the fading light of the evening, demanding with the palm of his hand that Felix should halt. In his other hand he carried fire. As he approached the vehicle, Felix recognized the mystical figure as Mr Moffat senior, his face illuminated by a flaming gas jet that only moments ago had looked like a burning staff. He didn’t speak. But when Felix wound the window down the old man reached into the car and took him by the hand. It wasn’t a handshake as such, be
cause there was no movement involved, just a prolonged and meaningful grip, accompanied by a long, hard stare and a slight nod of the head.

  ‘How are things?’ Felix asked.

  He nodded again.

  ‘Ruby OK? Good. That’s good.’

  A car in the queue behind sounded its horn, which caused a wave of honking from other cars further back in the line. Mr Moffat’s eyes were not deflected and his grasp of Felix’s hand didn’t soften.

  ‘I’m sorry about Teddy.’

  He nodded again.

  ‘And listen. It’s none of my business, but if there’s anything at the house… anything you don’t recognize… I’d get rid of it if I were you. For Teddy’s sake.’

  There was yet another nod of the head but with it came a smile. Mr Moffat stepped back from the car and held the fire-torch out towards the centre of the road. Felix didn’t know what the gesture meant at first, but as he followed the direction of Mr Moffat’s outstretched hand, he suddenly got the message. Beyond him, a brilliant white line extended unbroken from where he stood to some vanishing point in the dark. Wet and freshly painted, the line shone and glimmered in the reflection of headlights and the shimmer of late, wintry sun. And its whiteness had a quality that was quite brilliant, luminous almost, the product no doubt of some very rare and very expensive… stuff. Now it was Felix’s turn to nod, and Mr Moffat’s turn to laugh. Then, with the sound of car horns growing longer and more frequent, he turned away and waved Felix on. At the far end of the roadworks, two more of the Moffat clan had dipped long, bitumen-coated sticks into a brazier. They raised them, making a gateway of fire through which the honoured stranger, the saviour of their sister, must pass.

  Still buzzing with pride, Felix turned into the car park of Prospect House and made his way up the back steps. The door was bolted from the inside, which meant the office was empty. Everyone had gone home and the place was locked up for the weekend. He skipped back down, went in at the front door and jogged up the main staircase. As soon as the door was unlocked he made straight for the reception hatch, intending to slide his hand through the glass shutter and punch the code into the keypad. But the usual stream of high-pitched beeping never came. The alarm hadn’t been set. And even though it wasn’t his job to secure the premises at the end of the working week, Felix felt another wave of self-importance. One day without him and the whole operation started to creak. He tutted loudly, then vaulted over the desk and made his way inside. It was properly dark by now, and although the glow of street-lamps outside would not normally have been enough to guide him along the corridor, they were enhanced by a row of fairy lights on the huge crane standing in the Strawberry Field, its arm running parallel to the corridor. Decorated for Christmas, it looked like a sign of peace. But in the weeks to come it would swing into action, hoisting machinery and materials on to the town’s last few acres of common ground. The people had lost. The developers had won. Soon, the view from the office would be the roof of a supermarket. A superstore. The Strawberry Field Shopping Centre. Whatever. There would be no more grass or mud. No more talk of ancient grazing rights, the Domesday Book and rare butterflies. No more bulls.