‘Well, that plan o’ yours…’
‘Oh aye. Worked, did it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
He were a quiet for a bit. You could hear all them voices in the background. The disprocessed of Mangel, he’d called em. Well, they’d be disprocessed a bit longer, the way things was turning out. ‘Ah well,’ says Nathan, ‘can’t win em all, can us? Anyhow, I’m busy…’
‘But, Nathan—’
‘But nuthin’. I can’t help you, Blake. There’s some things a feller can get help on and others he’s on his own for. You can’t see how the world works, but she’s always turnin’ nonetheless, takin’ us on to the next day come what may. Other times she stops, Blake. Know that, did you? The world stops and she ain’t goin’ nowhere. She’s waitin’ fer summat to happen, Blake. She ain’t happy with the way things is goin’ up there on her skin, which is where this here town of ours is located. She’s waitin’ on a feller while he gets a job done for her. Them’s the times, Blake. Them’s the ones you got to pull yer finger out for. You hearin’ us?’
‘But—’
‘That’s too many buts, Blake. Physician says I gotta cut down on me buts. Bad fer the kidneys. Bye, Blake.’
‘Bu…’
But the cunt had hung up, hadn’t he? And fuck knows what he’d been going on about anyhow. So I were left with no plan, being as the plan had been to ask Nathan what to do.
I turned on the telly and tried watching that for a bit. There were fuck all on that I hadn’t seen already. I picked up the blower again and rang me own number. I weren’t turning barmy, mind. I wanted to see if Fin were back. Not that I were after his help. Any man asks Fin for help is beyond helping. No, I wanted him to have a gander out front and see if my motor weren’t there. Filthy Stan had had long enough. Especially considering the premium rate I’d bunged him. But no one answered.
The bastard were still out, weren’t he? I couldn’t understand it. What reason did he have for going out? You goes out after nightfall, you’re drinking, shagging, or doing a job. Fin were a cripple, so he had no one to drink with, no bird to shag, and no one were thick enough to give him summat to do.
I put down the blower and scratched me swede. I dunno why I even bothered phoning folks. If there’s one thing I always knew in me heart it’s this:
You want summat doing, do him yourself.
Don’t never expect help from no fucker. Oh aye, most times they’ll be falling over emselves to hold your cock for you while you has a slash. But when there’s a whiff of shite in the air they’ll drop you, and you’re pissing down your strides and all over the floor.
And there’s no such thing as a mate, neither. Folks is all cunts, every last fucking bastard of em. Aye, that’s what I’ve learned in life.
I went out.
Even caught meself whistling on me way down the stair. Just as I reached the front door Sal comes through it, clutching a couple of placcy bags. I’d forgot about that. Could have murdered a few right then, but I had it all sorted in me swede now and I couldn’t let Sal put us off me stride. ‘Where’s you off?’ she says.
‘Out,’ I says, going past her. She shouted summat behind us but like I says, I had it all sorted in me swede.
I were knackered when I reached the top of the hill. It were right late and all. I were used to coming home late after a hard night down the Hoppers, but not on foot. Still, I were hoping Filthy Stan had come through and parked the Capri outside my house. If he hadn’t, I’d fucking have him. A deal’s a deal, and seventy sheets says that’s what it is. I stopped on our corner and peered up the road.
A motor were parked outside our house all right. But she weren’t mine. Not unless Stan had sprayed her white.
I started walking towards her, guts tightening. What the fuck had he done to my motor? ‘Pick her up and fix the tyres,’ I’d said to him. Not ‘Pick her up and fix the tyres and spray her white.’ I fucking hated white Capris. Mine were gold. Mine were the only gold Capri in Mangel and I liked it that way.
Mind you, Minder had a white Capri, didn’t he?
‘Ah, it’s you, is it?’ says Doug the shopkeeper from the open doorway of his shop. ‘Go on then, woss you got to say for yerself, eh?’
13
LOOKING FOR JOEY: PART ONE
Steve Dowie, Crime Editor
At last, after four hours of waiting, my patience is rewarded. He comes out of the arcade and makes his way towards the High Street—hands in pockets, hood up, narrow shoulders hunched. I thank the gods of investigative journalism that he is alone. But then, I always knew he would be alone.
He stops to stick a cigarette in his mouth as I reach him.
‘Here,’ I say, holding out a lighter.
He takes the light, then glares at me with the same narrow-eyed furtiveness I have seen in him before. ‘**** d’you want?’ he asks.
I just want a chat, I tell him. But I read in his eyes that I’m losing my chance. I reach into my overcoat and flash the brown leather of my wallet.
‘All right,’ he says. ‘But not here.’
It is ten minutes later. I am sitting on a wooden bench. A high wall is behind me. In front of me are the brown waters of the River Clunge. The only passersby are old men and their dogs. My eyes light on a pair of white swans on the water, twin beacons of purity in a town whose innocents are few in number and rapidly becoming fewer. A waft of stale sweat assaults my nostrils. The bench creaks as it takes another occupant.
The boy is sitting next to me. ‘What?’ he asks.
Can we talk about Joey?
‘Joey who?’
Ah, games.
I pass him a folded-up bank note.
‘Oh, that Joey. What d’you wanna know about him?’
Where did he come from?
‘**** knows.’ His eyes seem to look in every direction at once, ready to flee at the first sign of anyone but elderly dog-walkers approaching. ‘Just turned up, didn’t he?’
When?
‘Dunno. Few weeks ago. Few months.’
How often do you use it?
The boy shrugs. His face, snow white in the glare of the autumn sun, shows no evidence of the hot summer just gone. Faint lines encircle his squinting eyes. ‘When I can get it.’
Do you know what it is?
He shifts uncomfortably. A leg starts jumping nervously. No answer comes.
I offer another bank note.
‘Sweets, ain’t it?’ he says. ‘Fancy sweets what does your head in.’
But you don’t really believe Joey is a sweet, surely? You realise you’re taking an illegal drug, and you have no idea what it does to you?
‘Dunno nothin’ about no drugs. Joey does what it does, dunnit? It’s a sweet and it does your head in.’
What do you mean by ‘does your head in’?
He is looking around more than ever now. Both feet are jumping. ‘Gotta go.’
Just tell me.
His eyes narrow as he looks at me. Suddenly I am an enemy.
‘You likes it here, does you?’ he seethes. ‘Mangel’s a nice place for you? Well, lucky old you. For me and everyone I knows it’s a ******* ****-hole. Not just cos it’s borin’. I could put up with just having **** all to do. But it’s worse than that. It’s bad. I’ve seen the telly and Mangel ain’t nothin’ like places you sees there. There’s Mangel here on the one side, right, and on the other there’s the telly place. But you can’t get to the telly place. And then a feller comes along with a bag o’ sweets and they ain’t normal sweets. They’m sweets that’ll take you to the telly place, ain’t they? What you gonna do?’
I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. I have no argument. And by the time I realise it, I am sitting alone again.
‘What about?’ I says. To be honest I didn’t have nothing to say to Doug. But I had to say summat.
‘About what, you says? About what? About my bloody daughter who ain’t been home. About that little basta
rd who’s led her astray. That’s what about.’
‘Oh aye, well…’ I looked at Doug. He weren’t so scary really. Must be getting on for sixty if he were any age at all. One of them who always looked same no matter what age he were. It’s them you wants to watch out for, so they says. But I’d had enough of Doug the shopkeeper and his demands. And like I says, he weren’t so scary really. I took a deep one.
‘Knows what you can do, Doug?’ I says. It were dark in the street. There were one lamp flickering over the way there, but that were too far off to be much help. And no light were spilling from the shop behind him. So all in all Doug weren’t much more than a lanky black shape in front of us. But I guessed where his eye were and gave him a look in it, saying: ‘You can take yer lager and fags and—’
‘I’d stop right there if I were you.’
And I did. Just to be on the safe side, like. Cos he were Doug the shopkeeper, and there’d always been stories about him.
‘I’d consider your position before openin’ me big fat trap, if I were you. I’d think of others for a change. Like me and my Mona. Like that mate o’ yours, Finley.’
‘Finney,’ I says. Cos I knew how Fin always hated being called that. ‘Not Finley.’
‘Finney he might be,’ he says. ‘But he ain’t your mate.’
I didn’t like this. I wanted to go home and watch the telly. I didn’t care if I didn’t have no drink in the house. I’d put the kettle on. ‘What?’
‘He can’t be your mate. He were your mate, you’d look out for him.’
‘Who says I don’t?’
‘Does you?’
‘Aye, course I—’
‘Know his whereabouts then, does you?’
‘Aye, he’s…’ I looked up the road at my house. There was no lights on. He’d be in bed, fast akip. I knew he weren’t, mind. That were plain as the gibbous moon hanging up there over our heads, or the whiff of old cheese coming from Doug’s shop.
Doug took a step forwards, folding his arms. There were no sound in the street besides his breathing and my breathing and the thumpety-thump of my heart. I wanted to step back but I were froze to the spot like a dog turd in February. Doug put his face not half a foot from mine. He were tall as meself and about half as heavy. But heft didn’t count for shite on that night, stood there outside his shop.
‘I got him,’ he says. ‘Until you gets rid of that Nick feller and I gets my Mona back, I got Finley. An’ I’ll tell you summat else—I’m only keepin’ him one more day. After that, you can forget about him. Midnight the morrer, Royston Blake. Midnight the morrer.’
‘You fuckin’ what?’ I says after a bit. But he were long gone. There were no sign of Doug and the door were shut.
I stood alone on the pavement, trying to think.
He had our Fin? That what he were saying? That where Fin had been the past day or so, locked away in the back of the shop, wheels took off his chair like as not? I went to hammer on his door. I’d get Fin out of there and teach Doug a thing or two besides. That’s what I’d do all right. But me fist stayed where it were, stuck out before us like a toffee apple.
Listen, I weren’t being straight with you before, when I telled you about Doug and Sammy Blair and them sausages back then as younguns. All the lads went in for their tea and that, but not meself. Didn’t have no mam to call us in, did I? It were a good day when my old feller brung us home half a bag of cold chips. Went round the block instead, I did. Down the alley and over the high brick wall behind Doug’s back yard. It were nice and quiet back there, and I felt smart, like I were on a mission or summat. I crept up the side of the house and peeked through a window.
It were the kitchen. Light were on in there and I could see how clean he kept it. I thought that a bit odd at the time. Doug weren’t married back then so why the fuck were his kitchen clean? The one in our house weren’t clean. I moved to the next window.
Living room, by the looks of it, but the light were off. I could see a telly and a couch and not much besides. I stood back and had a gander at the upstairs windows.
All dark except the one.
I had a quiet poke around the yard and found a ladder behind Doug’s shed. Weren’t a very long one but it’d get us high enough. I took him over and leaned him under the lit window. It were an odd room I found when I got up there. Weren’t a bedroom cos there weren’t no bed in it. Weren’t much else in it neither, besides a few boxes and a wood chair, Sammy sitting on it with no kit on.
Funny old sight he were, skinny as a sapling and pale as pigeon shite. I had a quiet chortle at that. But I soon stopped and started wondering why he had no kit on. I mean, fair play to Doug for locking up the thieving bastard for a bit, but why strip him? I rapped on the pane.
Sammy looked at us. His eyes was wide and red-rimmed, like fried eggs with tommy sauce round the edge. I could see he wanted to say summat to us, but he wouldn’t come out with it. He kept looking at the door and then back at meself. ‘Open the window,’ I says, nice and quiet. ‘Got a ladder here, ain’t I?’
But he wouldn’t move. Just sat there, looking from door to me to door again.
I tried the window meself but it won’t budge. ‘Open the fuckin’ win—’
I stopped there and ducked. I didn’t move for a bit, thinking about what I’d just clocked. Couldn’t be true, could it? I stuck my head up again, nice and slow.
Aye, it were Doug all right. Had a mask on, but I could tell it were him. Odd mask it were and all, made up of red rubber by the looks of him and stretched across his whole head except for the two peeping holes and a big round one for his gob. Red rubber covered the rest of his body and all, except for a big hole where his tadger came out.
I didn’t hang about after that. I climbed down and put the ladder back and pegged it home.
Course, all made sense next morning when I seen the SAUSAGES sign in the shop window. Doug had stripped Sammy cos he were getting him ready for the sausage machine. And his rubber kit were his sausage-making outfit, to keep the blood off of him. The hole for his tadger were so he could have a slash.
But no (getting back to many a year later), I didn’t knock on Doug’s door as I stood there thinking about Fin locked up inside. I’d leave it a bit first and then come back for him. I mean, I had promised Doug, hadn’t I? I had said I’d get his youngun back and sort Nick Wossname.
You what? Calling us scaredy, is you? Me? No I fucking is not. Told you already—I ain’t scared of nothing. Not even Doug the shopkeeper, who drags folks out back and turns em into bangers.
I went back across the road, trying to get it all out of my head. I tried to concentrate on that white Capri parked outside my house, which weren’t mine as it turned out cos the reg were different. And it weren’t no 2.8i anyhow—it were a fucking 1.3.
If there’s one thing I cannot stand it’s a fucking 1.3 Capri. All right, shape’s the same and a Capri’s a Capri…but a Capri ain’t a Capri, is it? A Capri is a 2.8i. A 1.3 is a fucking embarrassment. Whose idea were it to fit the world’s greatest automobile with a lawnmower engine? How can you get satisfaction from that?
Mind you, a motor’s a motor when you thinks about it. Ain’t the car’s fault she’s got a lump of cack under her bonnet. No, it’s the folks who drives em that I despairs of. I mean, what kind of cunt would drive a 1.3 Capri?
‘All right, Blakey.’
‘All right, Blakey.’
I watched em come out my front door. I were watching em but I couldn’t take it in. By habit I’m good at copping on to situations sharpish, but I’ll admit here that I were struck as dumb as a slaughtered calf.
What the fuck was Nobby and Cosh doing coming out my front door?
‘Eh…’ I says. I know I ought to be saying more but my head were just then starting to catch on. Nobby and Cosh was coming out my front door—course they fucking would be. Hadn’t their mate Frankie just got bladed? Hadn’t folks been saying it were meself who done it?
‘All right, lads?’ I s
ays, judging it best to take a friendly tone. Them two was anything but my mates, but you had to be careful with em.
They just stood there, looking back at us. The door were still open behind em. You could see right through the hall to the kitchen. Stuff were lying all over the floor and the blower were hanging off its cradle. The bastards had turned the place over, hadn’t they? Mind you, I couldn’t swear blind I hadn’t left it that way meself.
And then I clocked the big brown Mr Whippy, slap bang centre of the hall carpet. I keeps an informal household but not that informal. ‘Right,’ I says, starting round the 1.3 towards the two of em. I weren’t standing for that. I didn’t care if they was tapped in the head and handy with sharpened steel—no fucker gets to do a shite on my carpet. ‘Come here, you fuckin’—’
Nobby had a blade. I dunno if he’d had it out ready for us or what, but it were out now. A blade changes matters. Not for permanent, but it makes you stop and weigh up your options. I stopped and weighed em up.
There weren’t many of em.
See, Cosh had his cosh out and all, which were no great surprise to us. One man with a blade is a problem. You can get over a problem. Especially if you got a monkey wrench on your person. But one man with a blade and another with a cosh is a dilemma. And I don’t like dilemmas.
I reached for me pocket. But I didn’t go in it. ‘Come on, lads, let’s just—’
‘Get in,’ says Nobby, pointing his knife at the excuse for a Capri.
‘I ain’t gettin’ in there,’ I says.
He nodded at the 1.3.
‘I ain’t gettin’ in,’ I says, looking at Cosh now.
‘Boss wants you,’ says Cosh, pushing his filthy black hair out of his eyes then wiping his hand on his jeans. ‘Best get in the car.’
‘Why’d you shit in my hall?’ I says. No one were making a move just yet so I were all right to chat.
They smirked at each other. I thought about reaching for me wrench again but I didn’t do it.
‘All square now, ain’t us?’ says Nobby. ‘Called us names, you did.’
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