by J M Gregson
‘You can make economies, if necessary.’ Darren found himself enjoying taunting this man, who would not have given him the time of day without the hold he had. ‘I find people can always make economies, when the wolf is at the door.’ He smiled a vulpine smile, enjoying the image.
‘I’m warning you. If you drive me too far, you’ll regret it.’ But it was an empty threat, and both of them knew it. Chivers said, ‘Another threat, mate. Better be careful. I’d say. Just in case you get any silly ideas, all my information is filed at home. If anything dire was to happen to me, the police would search the place and turn up all sorts of interesting information.’
‘I’ve a wife and two innocent kids. They’ve done you no harm. It’s them you’re hurting.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, mate. But times are hard for me as well as you. We all have to live, mate.’
Mark Rogers wanted to tell Chivers that he wasn’t his mate. That he’d rather smash his miserable face to pulp than sit here bandying words with him. Instead, he rose and left without a word or a backward glance, banging his empty pint glass on the bar as he went, a gesture designed to relieve his frustration and mark his re-entry to the normal world beyond the blackmailer’s restrictive net.
Darren Chivers sipped his half of bitter, enjoying the feeling of being in the wider world but not part of it, an observer who noted the foolish actions of people in that world and made use of them. After all, it was only just that people should pay for their sins, wasn’t it?
There was no need to deal tonight. This other branch of his business had been more lucrative than he had dared to hope. And he was in charge of it, not at the mercy of those anonymous drug barons who would snuff you out like a flickering candle if you stepped out of line. He bought himself another beer, nodding cheerfully to the plain-clothes policeman who might have persecuted him if he had been dealing.
By the time he left the pub, it was almost dark. He put up the collar of his anorak, unlocked the chain on his bike, and rode home happily.
Karen Lynch usually enjoyed Tuesdays. It was Peter’s unofficial day off. Vicars were never really off duty, but when you worked at weekends you had to arrange a little time for yourself during the week. Karen had encouraged him to set aside Tuesday as his rest day and insisted that as far as possible he arranged his commitments for other days of the week.
Sometimes they even managed little outings. Last week they had walked undisturbed on the chalk grasslands of Minchinhampton Common. Next week she was determined that they would have a day at the seaside, probably at Weston- Super-Mare or Bumham-On-Sea, if they could persuade the old Ford to run that far. Pleasures didn’t have to be expensive, but it was important to get away from the parish occasionally, if you were not to get stale.
This Tuesday wasn’t free for them to use. Peter had a clergy meeting at the Cathedral, later in the morning, and she had work planned for herself during the day. But she had made her husband a rare cooked breakfast, then insisted that he took a leisurely half hour over it and talked to her. They tried politics, then talked a little about the second day of the tennis championships at Wimbledon. Inevitably they came back to their own immediate concerns, the parish matters they had been trying to eschew.
Karen said thoughtfully, T think I’ll go to see Barbara Lawrence again this morning. She’s gradually getting accustomed to life on her own, but she and Brian were obviously very close. She came to church on Sunday and she says she’s ventured out to her local shop a couple of times, but that’s all. I think she might let me take her into town today.’
Peter stood up, came round the table and stood behind her, raising his hands to stroke her shoulders, enjoying feeling her muscles relax under his touch. ‘You’re good with people like Mrs Lawrence. Far better than I could ever be.’
‘I have the time to be patient. And elderly people like Barbara are always a little in awe of their vicar. Even when he’s an old soft pot like you.’ She raised her hand to stroke his larger one as it rested on her shoulder, then twisted her head to smile up at him.
‘It’s not just patience. You get on to people’s wavelengths, the way I never do. You communicate with them, and then they trust you and tell you what’s worrying them. I’ve watched you at work.’
‘Voyeur! You make it sound cold and scientific. There are no tactics to it. I just do what seems to work at the time.’
‘It may be a natural talent, but don’t tell me you haven’t worked hard to develop it!’ He caressed the back of her neck for a moment, then the top of her spine. Then he dropped his hands back to his sides and sighed. ‘You’ve seen a lot more of life than I have, Karen.’
She rose abruptly and turned to face him. ‘Let’s not go there, Peter. Believe me, you shouldn’t envy me that! You don’t want to see the things I have seen, and I don’t want you to make me remember them.’
‘You make me feel inadequate, when I see how you get through to people.’
‘And you make me feel proud, when I see your sermons making a whole congregation of very different people think about their lives. One-to-one contact is OK, but a major part of your job is communicating with people en masse. I see you doing that every week. Sometimes you even inspire people, and that’s the most difficult thing of all!’
He grinned down into her earnest face, which was so anxious to convince him of his worth. ‘You’re at it again, Karen Lynch! Getting straight through to someone’s psyche and massaging it for him. In this case, it’s your husband!’
She grinned at him. ‘Piss off, vicar!’ She put her arms round his shoulders and kissed him firmly and with some relish. ‘You said when you proposed to me that the modem parish church needed to be run by a partnership. That’s what we are - a partnership. We complement each other’s skills and muddle through to make the whole thing work. And now get about your business, please!’
She gathered the dishes noisily together and did not look at him again as she took them into the kitchen. The Reverend Peter Lynch watched her move with the pronounced limp which she never complained about. He marvelled once again at his good luck in wedlock.
Robert Beckford used the excuse of a dental appointment to leave Gloucester Cathedral that morning.
Edwina Clarkson was preoccupied with the clergy meeting arranged for later in the morning. Although the gathering was not directly concerned with her work as civilian administrator of the cathedral’s commercial activities, she always felt on show when there were clergy around in numbers. She grumbled a little about the inconvenience of Beckford’s absence, but made no further protest.
He had insisted on meeting Darren Chivers during daylight and away from the cathedral. The blackmailer came in his usual dress of worn blue jeans and navy anorak, but he did not look at ease. Perhaps he did not like the number of people in the city-centre coffee bar; more likely it was the brightly lit interior and the sunny day outside which upset this creature of the night.
Beckford slid the banknotes across the table to him in their crisp white envelope. ‘Count them!’
Chivers glanced at the edges of the notes, then pocketed them swiftly, his eyes glancing slyly from left to right to check that the transaction had not been observed. ‘I don’t need to do that, do I? Not with a pillar of rectitude who works in the Cathedral. Besides, you’ve too much at stake to try to con me.’
‘It’s the last you’re getting.’
‘I hope that’s true. But you’re not in a position to call the shots, are you, soldier boy?’
‘I’m not a soldier and I’m certainly not a boy. There’s no more. I haven’t got it and I wouldn’t give it to you if I had.’
‘I don’t think those good people who employ you at the Cathedral would like to hear about your past, do you?’ Darren enjoyed offering the taunt. He felt in a position of power, a situation he had never enjoyed before in his chequered life.
‘Just don’t push it, Chivers. You can drive people too far, you know. You’ll regret it if you do that with me!’
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Rob Beckford put his large hands on the table and levered himself up, looking all the while at the thin face opposite him, as if it was important to him to commit every detail of it to his memory. He did not speak again, but turned and strode swiftly out of the busy coffee bar.
Darren Chivers gave him a couple of minutes to get clear, fingering his latest takings lovingly in the pocket of his anorak. Another threat, the third in the last few days. He didn’t see how any of his victims could risk harming him. But this other branch of his activities might be more dangerous than he had thought. Not as dangerous as drug-dealing, of course, where you could disappear without trace at the whim of some man you had never seen.
Nevertheless, perhaps he should think of some means of protecting himself.
Eight
On that same Tuesday afternoon, Karen Lynch visited the hostel again. She did not really relish going there, but it seemed that she could be useful. And she needed to work with people like this, as some sort of reparation for her past.
She passed quickly through the red-light area, which was very quiet at three o’clock on a bright afternoon, with scarcely a person to be seen. The building she was aiming for had three storeys, so that it towered above the terraced housing around it. Its series of square, plain windows were clean, but not all of them had curtains; plastic and paper litter was scattered over the derelict gardens to the front and side of this huge and grimy brick cube.
The man in charge fitted these surroundings. Father George Ryan wore a dog collar - when you worked with addicts some badge of authority was essential - but looked otherwise as if he might have been brought in to clear the drains. He had his sleeves rolled up and his shirt was stained with what looked like human vomit. The Roman Catholic priest greeted Karen warmly, then went on vigorously cleaning the floor with long mop and bucket.
Father Ryan’s work here was aided by a charity. It is a charity which is perpetually short of funds; cancer research or sick animals being far more appealing vehicles for donations and legacies.
There were some very sick human animals dependent on St Mary’s Hostel. Father Ryan did not talk much of success; he had of necessity familiarized himself with failure. He did not allow the people who used this centre to bring stolen property on to the premises, but he knew well enough that the addicts who had a haven here had to find the means of feeding their habits. They roamed the city like birds of prey, seeking the currency to purchase the deadly ammunition which would pulse though their veins and blow their heads away from reality.
By five or six o’clock on most days, the majority of the young people who used the hostel were tooting heroin, snorting or injecting the substance which would lead many of them to early graves. By early evening, they would be back in the hostel with bruised skin, dilated eyes and clammy hands. Their young lives were shattered by utter dependency on the substances which crippled their intelligence, replacing logic and reason with derangement and illusion.
Those who were in the building rather than out on the streets at this time were some of the successes of the hostel. Father Ryan’s exhausted face lit up when he saw Karen Lynch. ‘Lisa’s around somewhere,’ he said. ‘Have a word with her, if you can. You did wonders with her last time. She’s scared. But she seems to listen to you. She’s even quoted you to me.’
‘I muddle along as best I can. Like you, I don’t think there are any rules to help us. My only advantage is that I’ve been there, done that. Sometimes it helps you to get through.’
‘She’s supposed to be going to the rehabilitation unit tomorrow. I don’t want her to run away from it.’
‘I’ll go and find her.’
Lisa was a heroin addict who had turned like so many to prostitution to pay for her habit. Karen had discovered her on the streets sniffing glue and brought her here. Today she found her sitting on a chair in the kitchen, shaking from head to foot, her breath degenerating from time to time into a mirthless giggle which seemed scarcely human. Karen stroked her hair, wrapped both arms round her for a moment, feeling the bones beneath the thin flesh and the damaged skin. Then she boiled the kettle, made two mugs of tea, set them on the table and wrapped the sinewy fingers of the younger woman round the beaker in front of her, feeling how cold they were despite the warm day, hugging her again in an attempt to stop the trembling in the damaged body. She had still not spoken a word, preferring tactile reassurance as a prelude to any spoken contact.
It was the addict, not her mentor, who spoke first. Staring at the steam rising from the mug between her hands, she said, ‘Fuck off and leave me! I’m not going. I can’t do it.’
‘You can do it, Lisa. You’re going to do it.’
‘I can’t. I’m too far gone. For fuck’s sake, piss off.’ Strange phrasing for a cry for help, thought Karen. Because this was what this was. There had been no vehemence, no hatred, in the woman’s commands. Whatever she said, she did not want to be left in isolation with her devil. ‘You can do it, Lisa. If I did it, you can!’
Karen tried to force conviction into the words. She knew the statistics as well as anyone. When addicts reached this stage, you had only a one in five chance of reclaiming them.
‘It’s too strong for me. Look at me, Karen! I haven’t the energy to fight it. Not if it means what you said it would!’ Perhaps she shouldn’t have been as honest about what the rehabilitation course involved, about the sickness and the pain and the endless, degrading diarrhoea. Most of the medics and counsellors preferred to get addicts on the course at any price, then let them find out the harsh truths for themselves. But she had made contact and established trust with this brutalized girl- woman by her absolute honesty and she wasn’t going to jeopardize that trust now. ‘You’ve got more fight than most, Lisa. You’ll need it, but you’ve got it. And if you fight, lots of other people will help you. You won’t be battling on your own. Everyone in that unit will be desperate for you to succeed.’
‘Not as desperate as me.’
It was the first acknowledgement that she was going to take the course after all. Karen wondered if Lisa recognized that, in her present state of terror. She gave her another hug, pressing her harder, clasping the shoulder blades, so sharp, so pathetically close to each other. ‘That’s the spirit, girl! You need to be desperate, to go through with it.’
‘Tell me about it again.’ Lisa spoke quietly, earnestly, like a trusting child.
She didn’t need the details. Not again. No point in upsetting her and myself with the details, thought Karen. ‘The first days are the worst. There’ll be times when you think you can’t carry on, when the hell of the cure seems much worse than the hell of the addiction itself. But you’ll come through it, because you’re Lisa and you’ve got the will, and because other people will be helping you, however cruel they may seem to you at the time.’
‘I’ll tell them to fuck off and leave me! Call them everything under the sun.’
‘You won’t use any words they haven’t heard before. You won’t shock them. They’ll take every “fuck” and every “cunt” as evidence of your progress.’ Karen wondered how long it was since she had last uttered those words, what Barbara Lawrence and the other good ladies of the parish would think if they could hear her now.
‘I’ve done bad things, Karen.’
‘And I probably did worse, in my time, Lisa. When you’re hooked on horse, you don’t care what you do. Inhuman things, things that turn everybody away from you, except for a few good men like Father Ryan.’
‘And a few good women like you.’
Karen Lynch shook her head. ‘I’ve been through it, Lisa. Been through as much as you and worse. I know how lucky I was to come out of it - incredibly lucky. I’m just trying to help one or two others to survive and come back to real life, the way I did.’
‘Is that what it is? Real life?’
‘Believe me, it is, Lisa. You’ve lived the nightmare. Now you’ve got the chance to get back from it. For God’s sake don’t chuck it away!’
‘Never mind me, you daft sod! Don’t let yourself down. You’re the one that’s going to fight the battle. It will be a bloody awful battle, particularly in the first week. But the victory will be worth all the pain, believe me.’
The damaged young frame was rent with a new and more wracking bout of shivering. ‘I need a fix.’
Karen nodded. ‘I know you do. You needed one when I came, but you’ve been a good girl. Tomorrow you’ve got to be an even better one.’
‘Will you come and see me?’ She flung a hand up to her mouth as her teeth began to chatter.
‘Of course I will, as soon as they let me in. They usually don’t allow any visitors for a few days, because they have to control the process. But they know what they’re doing. You’ll have to trust them, even when you’re calling them all these names you’ve got ready for them.’
She smiled at her, but Lisa was beyond teasing now. Karen gave her a last vigorous, prolonged hug and left. She looked in on Father Ryan, who was extracting sheets from the washing machine with one of his voluntary helpers. ‘If she won’t go in the morning, don’t let them manhandle her. Give me a ring. I can be here in ten minutes if I use the car.’
Karen Lynch felt exhausted as she went out into the bright sunlight, grateful for the walk through the streets in the soft, restorative breeze. Her leg always felt worse when she was tired. In her fatigue, she made no attempt to disguise her limp, as she did in her parish activities. Visiting people like Lisa was far more exhausting than visiting the sick in hospital. You felt that what you said and did was crucially important, that you could send a damaged mind and a damaged body spiralling towards ruin if you used the wrong words or gave the wrong reaction.
So preoccupied was she with her own thoughts that she neither saw nor heard the man who hurried along behind her, even when he moved to within a few paces of her. He left it thus for a hundred yards or so, then moved up to her shoulder and spoke, almost in her ear. ‘You’ve done well for yourself, Karen Burton. Very well, for a prossie and a junkie.’
