The Driver

by Mandasue Heller

Glancing around when Eddie snapped his phone shut, Clive said, ‘What d’y reckon?’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ Eddie admitted. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Kenny seemed convinced,’ Clive said. ‘And I can’t see Daz having the bottle to turn up in person if he was bullshitting, can you?’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ Eddie agreed. ‘You’ve never trusted him, have you?’ he said then.

  ‘Who, Joe?’ Clive frowned. ‘No. But I told you that from the off. He’s too . . .’ Unable to find the right words to describe what he felt about the man, he shrugged. ‘Just a bit too good to be true, I suppose. Always there when you need him, day or night. Never asks questions, never complains.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Eddie murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘And what do you really know about him apart from what he’s told you?’ Clive went on.

  ‘All right, you’ve made your point,’ Eddie snapped. ‘Shut up now – I need to think.’

  ‘Well, you’d best hurry up and decide what you’re going to do,’ Clive said ominously. ‘’Cos if he is a pig, he knows everything.’

  26

  Carl hadn’t been able to get straight into Patsy’s flat because one of her neighbours had been messing about with a bike in the corridor when he’d first got there. He’d had to pretend that he was on the wrong floor and wait on the stairs until he’d heard the bloke go back into his flat.

  Already paranoid, his legs had felt like butter dripping down a hot knife when he’d sneaked back out of the stairwell, and he’d dropped the key the first time he’d tried to slot it into the lock. But he’d made it at the second attempt – only to be knocked off his feet by the smell when he opened the door.

  Carl had never smelled anything as bad in his entire life. It was like a mixture of everything rotten and putrid that anyone could think of: shit, piss, sweat, vomit . . . death.

  Shuddering when he remembered that death was the reason he was here, he pulled the collar of Joe’s jacket right up over his mouth and nose and ran into the bedroom. But just as he moved the cot away from the wall and dislodged the floorboards, his phone rang.

  ‘Where are you?’ Eddie asked when he answered it.

  ‘Just getting that thing,’ Carl told him cagily.

  ‘Right, well, when you’ve got it fetch it down the arches,’ Eddie told him. ‘And bring Joe.’

  ‘He’s probably in bed.’

  ‘So get him up,’ Eddie said sharply. ‘Tell him to park up by the station and fetch him the rest of the way on foot. And don’t tell him nothing. You got that?’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Carl asked – doubting, even as the words came out, that anything could be more wrong than what was already happening.

  ‘It fucking will be if you don’t quit asking stupid questions and do as you’re told!’ Eddie barked.

  When Eddie cut the call, Carl groaned and yanked the case out. All he wanted to do was get a shower and go to bed – even if he had to kick his door off its hinges to do so. With any luck, by the time he woke up tomorrow the world would be back on its axis and none of this would have happened.

  Joe had been back in his own flat when Clive had arrived. Already suspicious that something shady was going on after what he’d seen through Molly’s spyhole, his suspicions had deepened when he’d watched Clive enter the flats only to reappear a couple of minutes later with Eddie’s dog and reverse the car right up to the door below.

  It had been impossible to see what Eddie and Carl had put into the boot after that but Joe had thought it a fair bet that it was probably the thing he’d seen them carrying into Chrissie’s flat earlier.

  Eddie and Clive had driven away then and Carl had disappeared into the shadows, heading towards the far end of the estate. But he was on his way back now, clutching a large silver briefcase.

  Two minutes later he was tapping at the door.

  ‘Get your keys,’ Carl hissed, almost knocking Joe over in his rush to get inside. ‘We’ve got to take this to Eddie asap.’ He held up the case.

  ‘Why, what is it?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ Carl said, stalking agitatedly into the living room and lighting a cigarette as he stared down out of the window. ‘Come on, man. We’ve got to get moving.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Joe asked, frowning at him from the doorway.

  ‘Aw, man, I’m not supposed to tell you,’ Carl muttered, flopping down on the couch now and sucking on his smoke as if his life depended on it. ‘But it’s bad shit.’

  ‘What kind of bad shit?’

  ‘The worst kind,’ Carl moaned. Then, thinking that he owed it to his mate to warn him so he didn’t turn up and get the same kind of shock that Carl himself had already had, he said, ‘If I tell you, you’ve got to promise not to say a word to Eddie.’

  ‘Course,’ Joe assured him.

  ‘Remember that bird I told you about?’ Carl said. ‘The one I hadn’t seen for ages, then she grabbed me the other week asking for gear?’

  ‘Patsy?’ Joe said.

  ‘Yeah, her,’ Carl muttered. Shaking his head now as he recalled what he’d seen tonight, he said, ‘She’s dead, man. Eddie called me round to his place earlier, and she was lying there in a pool of fucking blood.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Wish I was, man. I don’t know what the fuck he did to her but I didn’t even recognise her. Then he made me help him fucking move her. And it was gross, man.’

  ‘So where is she now?’ Joe asked.

  ‘He’s fucking getting rid of her,’ Carl told him. ‘Sent me up to her place to get his shit out of it.’

  ‘The case?’ Joe guessed.

  ‘Yeah. And now he wants us to go over there – and I’ve got a horrible feeling she’s still going to be there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The arches,’ Carl told him. ‘You don’t know it. Hardly anyone does. But that’s the place where people disappear – if you get me.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Joe murmured. Then: ‘Look, just chill out. There’s nothing you can do about it now and he’s obviously got it under control. So let’s just go and do whatever he wants, then we can get back home and forget all about it, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carl agreed, sighing wearily. ‘Cheers, mate. Feels loads better getting it off my chest.’

  ‘No worries,’ Joe said. ‘Just give me a minute to get my stuff and we’ll get off.’

  Joe went into the bedroom, eased the door shut and pressed his ear up against the wood to make sure that Carl hadn’t followed him. Then he reached for his phone. After leaving a hushed message he put on his trainers and jacket and picked up his keys before going back to Carl.

  27

  The arches were a row of derelict workshops beneath a disused Victorian freight-railway line on the dark undeveloped outskirts of the city. The only access to the units was via a rough cobbled path that was just about wide enough for a carefully driven vehicle, and it dipped so steeply after it left the road above that it would have been invisible to anyone who didn’t know it was there.

  There was a canal to the immediate left, its dark waters made all the more murky by the shadows that were cast by the wall of the long-abandoned warehouse that loomed high on the opposite bank. And the path ended so abruptly beyond the last unit that someone could easily find themself drowning in the centuries-old sludge below if they lost their footing. They’d be held fast by the discarded tyres, shopping trolleys and bicycles that had been lobbed off the bridge above over the years.

  Fred Abbott had been running a motorbike-repair shop out of the end unit for some fifteen years, but business had declined to such a degree over recent years that he’d have been forced out if it hadn’t been for shady fucks like Eddie Quinn bunging him backhanders for his waste-disposal facilities. And, as Fred had found out to his cost pretty early on, if you did it for them once, you were stuck doing it for life. So now he asked no questions. If they called, he came – simple as.

  Fred parked his motor up so
me distance away from the unit now, and walked the rest of the way. Nodding a sombre greeting to Eddie and Clive who were already waiting outside he edged past the growling dog and squeezed past the car that they had reversed down the path. He took a bunch of keys out of his overall pocket and unlocked the numerous padlocks and mortise locks before shoving the door open and flicking on a dim overhead light.

  Desperate to get the corpse out of his car before it tainted his carpet, Clive flipped the boot open. ‘Yo!’ he hissed when Eddie made to follow Fred into the unit. ‘No fucking way am I doing this by myself, man. Get hold – or it’s going straight in the canal. And I ain’t messing.’

  Eddie sucked his teeth but did as Clive had said without argument.

  After dumping their burden on the oil-stained unit floor they both stepped away from it. Then they wiped their hands while they waited for Fred to move the huge stack of tyres away from the corner and open up the door behind it that connected this unit with the empty one next door. The unit where Fred kept the waste-disposal kit: a huge industrial barrel filled with lime.

  ‘I’ll need some rope,’ Eddie said when Fred had finished clearing a path for them. Plus a couple of chairs and the machete.’

  Nodding, Fred shuffled off to set things up.

  Shivering in the icy air, Clive poked the rolled-up rug with his toe. ‘You sure it’s proper out?’

  ‘Over and,’ Eddie affirmed.

  ‘Hope so,’ Clive murmured, lighting a cigarette and offering the pack to Eddie. ‘It stinks, man,’ he complained, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Soon be over,’ Eddie said, squinting as he took a light.

  ‘Not quite,’ Clive reminded him. ‘We’ve still got the bitches to find.’

  ‘First things first,’ Eddie replied, thinking that they were the least of his troubles right now. Glancing at his watch, he said, ‘Right, I’m going to have a couple of lines before they get here. Make sure I’m nice and sharp. Having some?’

  ‘Yeah, I think I better had,’ Clive said. ‘I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a long night.’

  Carl was shivering as he and Joe traipsed down the path fifteen minutes later. ‘God, I hate it round here,’ he muttered, jumping at every shadow. ‘Always feel like there’s a shitload of ghosts watching me.’

  Glancing out over the tarry waters, Joe gazed at the broken warehouse windows and gaping holes where cargo had once been hauled in straight off the barges. ‘It is a bit spooky,’ he agreed.

  Fred was standing in the doorway of the last unit but they didn’t see him until they were almost on top of him because his face and hair were as grey with ingrained oil as his hands and his overall.

  ‘They’re waiting,’ he muttered, jerking his head at them to go in.

  ‘About fucking time,’ Eddie said when Carl stepped over the lip at the bottom of the metal door. ‘You got my case?’

  ‘Yeah, here.’ Carl passed it over.

  Taking it, Eddie waited until Joe was inside too. Then, nodding at Fred to lock up, he laid the case on top of a pile of tyres and took out his gun.

  ‘You and you,’ he said, pointing it from Joe to Carl. ‘Move that through there.’

  Joe glanced down at the rolled-up carpet. Even if he hadn’t already known that it contained a body the smell would have given it away. ‘You’re not serious?’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Deadly,’ Eddie said, coming nose to nose with him and peering down at him with malice flashing from his eyes. ‘So be a good boy and pick it up, or you’ll be joining it. You too, Carl. Chop chop.’

  Carl recognised the tone and knew that Eddie wasn’t messing about. And he wasn’t about to argue, not while Eddie had the gun in his hand, that crazed look in his eyes, and the dog sitting close by. It might be tied up but it would take less than a second for Eddie to release it – and Carl had already seen the damage it could do.

  ‘Just do it,’ he urged Joe, his legs already shaking as he bent down to take one end of the bundle.

  Joe had picked up the bad vibes off Eddie as soon as he’d stepped through the door, and he could sense that Clive was shooting him the evil eye even though he was standing in the shadows and Joe couldn’t actually see him. There was something going on and Joe’s instincts told him that he should get out of there. But the other man had not only locked the door, he’d padlocked it, so there would be no escaping that way. And there was no way Joe would be able to fight his way past all three of them – four, if push came to shove, because Carl would be a fool not to back Eddie up if something kicked off.

  ‘Okay, where do you want it?’ Joe asked, speaking calmly to make it sound as if he was still on side and hadn’t realised that anything was wrong.

  ‘Follow me,’ Eddie said, snatching the dog’s lead off the hook he’d tethered it to and heading for the door into the adjoining unit.

  Carl felt as if his legs were really going to buckle. He struggled not to throw up when he lifted his end of the bundle and the smell gripped his nostrils.

  ‘Man, this is gross,’ he mumbled, wondering how Joe was managing to stay so calm.

  ‘Stop thinking about what’s inside and breathe through your mouth,’ Joe advised him quietly.

  ‘Quit arsing about, you pussy fucks,’ Eddie barked, poking his head back out to see what was keeping them. ‘We ain’t got all night.’

  Gritting his teeth, Carl carried his end of the carpet roll through. Then, dropping it like a hot brick, he stepped as far away from it as he could get and rubbed his hands on his jeans in disgust.

  A thick plastic sheet was spread out on the floor and two chairs were resting against the far wall. Fred moved a stack of steel sheeting away from one of the walls, revealing an alcove in which a large metal vat was concealed behind yet more tyres. He pulled on a pair of welding gloves and removed the lid carefully.

  Eddie lit a cigarette and jerked his chin at Joe. ‘Unroll it.’

  ‘Aw, fuck, man, don’t make me have to see it again,’ Carl groaned. ‘I haven’t got the stomach for this kind of shit. Can’t I just wait outside?’

  Ignoring him, his gaze still fixed on Joe, Eddie said, ‘Didn’t you hear me, nark?’

  ‘Eh?’ Joe tilted his head and gave him a questioning smile. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You saying you’re not a nark?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Joe snorted. ‘Fucking hell, man, I knew I was picking up weird vibes but I never would have figured you were thinking crap like that about me.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Carl asked, looking from one of them to the other.

  ‘Interesting,’ Eddie murmured, still gazing at Joe but with a slight smirk on his lips now. ‘You’re cool, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘’Cos I haven’t done anything,’ Joe replied sincerely. ‘Come on, man, think about it. If I was a nark, don’t you think you’d have been nicked by now? I’ve seen all sorts while I’ve been working for you, but I’ve never opened my mouth, have I?’

  Clive sucked his teeth with irritation. ‘The chat can wait, man. Let’s just get this finished and take it somewhere else.’

  ‘Chill,’ Eddie said, sauntering over to the chairs and sitting down. ‘Our friend here is about to prove he’s one of us. Ain’t that right, Joe?’

  ‘If that’s what it takes.’ Joe shrugged. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Unroll it, and put the stiff in there,’ Eddie told him, nodding towards the barrel.

  Carl grimaced when Joe coolly untied the scarf that secured the bundle and peeled back the top flap of the rug. Apart from his grandad, who he’d been forced to visit in the funeral parlour as a kid in order to pay his last respects, the only other dead body that Carl had seen before today had been a junkie who’d OD’d in the bin cupboards a couple of years back. And that corpse had started to rot by the time somebody had decided to investigate why the wheelie bin wouldn’t go all the way into the shed, so it hadn’t even looked like a real person. But this one was by far the worst of t
he three dead bodies he’d seen because he actually knew Patsy. Or, rather, he had known her – he knew that he would never be seeing her again after this.

  Carl didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking when Joe peeled the rug back. Patsy’s eyes were open, the dark lashes matted into spikes around the dust-coated iris of one, while the other was almost completely out of its socket and facing the opposite direction. Her battered head seemed to have doubled in size, and the blue tip of her tongue was poking out grotesquely through the gash that her teeth had made when they had burst through her lip.

  ‘Oh, fuckin’ hell,’ he croaked, as if he hadn’t believed his eyes the first time around.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ Eddie snapped. ‘And help him get her in there.’

  Carl wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. ‘She won’t fit,’ he said, mentally sizing her up against the vat.

  ‘She will,’ Eddie informed him, his gaze still on Joe. ‘Give him the chopper, Fred.’

  The grey man did as he was told without a word.

  Joe looked from the machete to Eddie. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

  ‘Use your imagination,’ Eddie drawled.

  Carl gagged.

  Snapping his gaze onto him, Eddie said, ‘Puke, and you’ll be licking every last drop of it up, you fucker. I’m not having you leaving your fucking DNA around to lead no one back to me.’ Turning back to Joe when he was satisfied that Carl had got himself under control, he said, ‘What you waiting for?’

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ Joe said firmly. ‘Everything else, yeah. But there’s no way I’m cutting up a body.’

  ‘You disobeying me, cunt?’ Eddie snarled, strolling over to him and ramming the nozzle of the gun under his nose.

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ Joe repeated slowly, gazing steadily back at him.

  ‘So you’re telling me you’d rather die?’ Eddie asked, smirking nastily.

  ‘No, but if you’re going to do it you’re going to do it,’ Joe replied.

  ‘Youse are doing my head in,’ Clive snapped, losing patience with Eddie because he was messing about too much and costing them time. ‘It’s half fucking five, in case no one’s realised. Give me that!’ He stalked across the room, snatched the machete out of Joe’s hand and shoved him out of the way. Then, dragging the body into the centre of the plastic sheet by its feet, he drew his arm back and hacked into one of its thighs.