Fallen Idols

by Neil White

It all seemed so separate from the scene I had left behind in London, sitting here on a concrete base to a derelict brick cube.

  But I knew there was a link between the football shootings and whatever had happened here years earlier. It was the neck-chain that confirmed it. Those words, so simple in Gaelic: Rath Dé Ort EW. Etched onto the back of neck-chains in London and Manchester. Found clasped in Annie Paxman’s hand as she lay where I was standing, the life squeezed out of her.

  I knew I had to act. I had information that could be used, but I owed it to my father to speak with him first, because I was about to bring London’s finest detectives onto his patch.

  She came face-to-face with a woman. She was old, late sixties, dressed tourist-style in white slacks and a flowered T-shirt.

  She caught her breath and stopped, almost turned back, but she made herself carry on. They exchanged glances, the older woman curious, uncertain.

  ‘What was that noise?’ The accent was American, probably in town for The Beatles experience.

  She looked back into the room, her mouth dry. She gritted out a smile. ‘There are some fireworks down by the river. Some kind of concert. They were starting around now.’

  The old lady nodded and shrugged, unconcerned, and turned to walk away.

  ‘I was wondering if you could help me,’ she said.

  The old lady turned back. ‘What’s the problem, honey?’

  She stood there, swallowing hard, trying to think what to say. There was now a witness, someone who had heard the shots. Her mind flew back to Manchester. She knew the security guard could identify her, describe her, but she wouldn’t be going back there. The police would be at the hotel soon, looking for where the shot came from, and if the American woman tried to help them, pointed out where she was heading, they would catch her nearby with a rifle in her bag. It was too early for that.

  ‘Could you show me where the lifts are please? Once you turn a corner all these corridors look the same.’ She cursed to herself, but it would get her away from the room.

  The old lady smiled. ‘Sure I will. I’m going that way myself.’

  She let out a deep breath and rushed back into the room, collecting the gold chain. It might make it too hard to identify it as the crime scene if the chain wasn’t there.

  And they walked off together, the old lady making small talk about the restaurant and the view.

  They arrived eventually, in between the two sets of lift doors. She pressed for one to go down, and when the old lady wasn’t looking, she pressed the button for the one opposite.

  She stood and smiled as the old lady talked, willing one of the lifts to her floor as she listened to tales of trips around the Beatles sites, visits to Aunt Mimi’s house and a walk down Penny Lane. She put her hand into her pocket and felt the silk scarf. Underneath that there was the gold neck-chain. She was improvising, and she cursed herself. She had planned this for too long to have to change.

  She thought she could hear sirens outside, shouting downstairs. Then she heard machinery slow down, and with a light ping the doors opened. The lift was empty. She gave a small glance upwards and smiled a thank you.

  She stood aside to let the old lady go first. As soon as the old lady was in there, she pulled the scarf out of her pocket. The lady started to turn at the movement. Too late. Her head was snapped backwards by the scarf as it went around her throat.

  She pulled hard and back, bringing the old woman to the floor, her frail shoulders blocking the doors. They tried to close, banging forwards and then back. The old lady was kicking, her hands reaching backwards, so she pulled harder, her teeth gritted, perspiration flickering across her head. The old lady was heavy, cumbersome, hard to hold on to as she kicked at the ground, but the grip on the scarf stayed firm until the old lady slowed down and her chest puffed out one last time. The struggle ended with a gargle and the movement stopped.

  She thought she could hear something.

  She got into the lift and pulled in the old lady’s body, limp and heavy. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the gold neck-chain. She put it in the old lady’s hand, the links swaying gently, and then pressed the button for the lobby. The door started to close, so she stuck her foot in it to make it pull back and then stepped out. She stood in front of the lift as the doors closed again, and then she heard the pulley wheels turn into life as it descended.

  Her breathing evened out but still she knew she had to move quickly. She wasn’t sure how long she had before security burst onto the floor. She jabbed at the call button and then waited for another lift to arrive. She listened for the sound of movement but it seemed like the hotel had become still. Too much so.

  The other lift arrived. She entered it, every step bringing some relief. As the doors closed, she felt the end get nearer, began to imagine the effect of the news in London. Just as the lift began to gain speed, she thought she could hear screaming from below. She guessed the old lady had been found.

  The lift stopped and the doors opened. She was looking at the backs of people, all shocked and jabbering, crowded around the lift opposite hers. She saw a security guard to her left, the only way out, listening intently to a walkie-talkie. He looked shocked, part-confusion, part-horror. He glanced over and noticed her bag, and then he looked back to where the old lady lay and forgot about her.

  She headed away from the lift and towards the lobby. The doors were only a few seconds away, and as they got nearer she could hear the clamour from behind the reception area as the manager started to bark out instructions. The police must have called. She was nearly there when she heard sirens from the street and she faltered for a moment. There were lights outside flashing blue and red and moving fast. She stared at the doors, transfixed. Then she saw the reception staff come out from behind the desk, heading towards the lifts. It was now or never.

  She went out through the doors and walked quickly across the street, into the Old Church Yard, using the shortcut as a shield. She ended up in Tower Gardens, a dark narrow street where ship merchants had once lived, until the commerce of Water Street guided her down to the waterfront. The wail of sirens converging on the hotel got louder. She tensed, waiting for the shout, the grab from behind, the shot.

  None of that came. She made it to the Liver Building, ran across the wide lanes in front of it, the traffic gone, the daylight yellow, and headed straight for the river. The noise began to recede as she got near the water, and the dark spread of the Mersey came at her like relief. She paused for a moment by the river to get her breath back, sucking in deep lungfuls of air, and then carried on.

  As she rushed along, she felt a kind of peace return, every step taking her away from the hotel. She thought she could hear someone cheering her on, running alongside her, but the sound was coming out of the shadows, out of the old warehouses of the Albert Dock, so she walked faster, her heart beating in time with her steps.

  She burst back into streetlighting and found her car. She looked back along the river and saw the red and blue flashes bouncing off the buildings. It was quiet and still where she was. She threw her bag onto the passenger seat and climbed in. She was sweating, breathless.

  She didn’t wait around. Within ten minutes of the shooting, just when the area around the hotel had been cordoned off, the streets being searched for signs of the shooter, she was pointing her car away from the river. It had all gone to plan.

  She thought she heard a laugh from the seat next to her and she jumped, gave out a small scream. She looked but there was no one there.

  She focused her mind back on the road and headed out of town.

  David Watts still had his head in his hands when the newsflash came on the television.

  ‘Reports are coming in of another shooting.’

  David looked up and went white. He saw the newscaster looking at sheets of paper and then staring at the camera as messages came through his earpiece.

  ‘Reports are coming in that there has been a shooting in Liverpool,’ he continued. There was
a pause as the announcer received more information. He looked surprised and said, ‘We have this report from the scene.’

  The picture moved away from the studio to a man standing by a police barrier in front of the Liver Building.

  ‘Good evening. Yes, that’s right, Gordon. I’m by the Mersey in Liverpool, the scene of another footballer shooting. The police aren’t saying much at the moment, but the news coming from a nearby hotel is that someone has fired a shot at the Tottenham players as they were getting off their coach. Someone has been hit, but we don’t know who and whether anyone has been killed.’

  David wrapped his arms around his stomach and rocked gently.

  The pictures from Liverpool faded. ‘We’ll return to Liverpool when we get more news.’

  A pause again. David just looked at the floor. He moaned and then ran to the bathroom. He retched over the toilet bowl and then collapsed backwards, panting and hot.

  He had to get out. He’d known about the shooting in Liverpool and done nothing. More blood on his hands. He had to get out, go somewhere, decide what he was going to do.

  He retched again and then sat back with his head in his hands, clammy and hot.

  Then he thought about his agent. He needed to speak to her, she would advise him.

  He rushed back into the room and jabbed her number into his mobile. He listened as her phone rang out. No answer. Shit. He ran his hands through his hair. He tried her number again. Still no reply. Where was she?

  He rummaged through his pockets and found the cocaine. He needed something to help him focus.

  He shook his head. He couldn’t do this.

  He went back into the bathroom and his hand hovered over the bowl. But then, as he gripped the bag, he knew that he would do better with it than without it.

  He opened the bag and poured out a small pile of powder onto the cistern, and then pulled out a credit card. This would help, he thought, just to get him through.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The American smiled as he drove into Turners Fold. Small towns made his job so much easier. Everyone knew everyone else, so it made people easy to find.

  He stopped at a red light, and as he wound his window down, warm air assaulted him. He watched as a handful of people walked slowly from a shop, looking drab, unhappy. It was nothing like London. There was no rushing in Turners Fold, none of the excitement. It seemed like everyone was waiting for bad news. He watched the faces: the sullen teenagers sitting on benches; the big-bellied men walking to the pubs, faces scarred by broken veins; the grim-faced women marching down the street, T-shirts flapping in the breeze, cigarettes clenched between their fingers. There was a challenge in their eyes, like they wanted to meet his gaze, not avoid it.

  He knew he had to be careful. He sensed the anger, the grit, but he also intuited a togetherness, even as he drove. Do the job, get out.

  He had the tools. There was a semi-automatic handgun in a holster, hooked onto the back of his belt. A long knife, jagged blade, was strapped to his leg, and there was a small can of pepper spray in the glove compartment, ready for his pocket, good for disabling a target quickly, giving him time to get his other weapons ready. And into his jacket pocket would go an old handgun that he’d bought a few months before, with the serial numbers scrubbed off, stored away especially for occasions like this.

  He checked himself in the rear-view mirror, saw certainty in his eyes. He put his head back and breathed deeply, flexed his fingers, stretched his muscles, and then relaxed back down again, breathing out, his head coming down slowly, so that when he saw the reflection of his eyes, he knew he was ready.

  He wanted to see the town, hear its heartbeat. He parked his car in front of the town hall and walked around the triangle, sat on a seat for a while, watched the cars go by. Then he noticed the Swan.

  Time to check out the local nightlife.

  I found it hard to think properly.

  I had come back to Turners Fold to write a biography of the town’s local star, prompted by the football shootings. Now I’d found out that the town’s star wasn’t as pure as I’d thought.

  But murder? And rape?

  I would have heard about it. Someone would have heard about it. And there was a man in prison, serving out a life sentence.

  But if it wasn’t true, then my father was lying, or making such a mistake that he was right to keep it covered up. No one else believed him. Was I too close to him to see what other people could see in him?

  But in both cases there were the words on the back of the chain: Rath Dé Ort EW. That couldn’t be a coincidence. For some reason, David Watts was being blackmailed. He was being told to confess to the murder of Annie Paxman. And football players were being shot.

  But I couldn’t find a why. It felt like I had the what, but not the why.

  I needed to call Laura. She needed to know what I knew. But something stopped me. Maybe it was because none of it made any sense. Or maybe I was just trying to protect my father. He had just admitted to me that he had told lies. He would go to prison for that.

  Then I realised that Alice was talking, but I’d heard little of it.

  We were in the Bridge Inn. It was a modern pub made to look like an old one. The wooden sign swinging outside was like battered driftwood, and inside, its tables and dim intimacy made for a relaxing place to spend an evening. No pool tables, no fruit machines, no television. It was less real than the Swan, but it had a bar full of beer and my father’s friends didn’t go there. Sometimes, that’s enough.

  Alice was bubbly, happy, trying to kick-start conversations, pleased to have someone from out of town to talk with.

  She asked me if I ever thought about Megan, her sister.

  I didn’t reply. I was swirling my bottle absent-mind edly, thinking about what my father had told me. The story I had been sent to write was almost written, but I had a real one to write now, one that would dominate every headline for days to come. But now I was worried. What would happen to my father if he went public after all and told his story? He could go into print and say how he saw David Watts leaving the scene, but his bosses wouldn’t back him up, and there’d be no other evidence to help him out.

  I sat back and glanced at Alice. She had an expectant look on her face. I felt my heart sink when I realised she was still waiting for an answer to her question.

  I reached out and put my hand over hers. She blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice. I was thinking about the feature, just something I should have put in there and didn’t. It’s bugging me.’

  ‘That’s okay. I was trying not to talk about the job.’ She eyed me carefully. ‘I was asking if you ever thought about Megan.’

  I smiled. ‘Yeah, sometimes. Even men remember their first time.’

  She laughed at that, her eyes shining with mischief. She looked down at her drink and then back to me, now coy.

  ‘Did you know that I’m a journalist because of you?’ she asked.

  I laughed, taken aback. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Because you used to talk about it with Megan, about your dreams, your hopes, and make it sound like the most exciting thing in the world. I thought that if I became a journalist, I would meet exciting people, or travel the world, have celebrity interviews, exclusives, maybe even uncover Watergates.’

  I nodded, smiling, understanding what she meant. I had felt the same, expecting to break big news, my name at the top of the front page. ‘And now you write up council meetings and car crashes.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She laughed. ‘You’ve got a lot to answer for, Jack Garrett.’ She watched me carefully over the top of her beer bottle, and then asked, ‘What have you forgotten?’

  I looked back at her blankly.

  ‘The feature,’ she said. ‘What have you forgotten to put in?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I replied hurriedly. ‘Just some anecdotal stuff my dad told me.’ And then I cursed myself for mentioning him.

  ‘And you want to get it down?’

 
‘I’m sorry, Alice.’ I squeezed her fingers. ‘I’ll be bad company until I do this.’

  Alice nodded, but she looked like she didn’t agree.

  I smiled at her. I could tell what she was thinking, that there was an attraction, maybe a rekindling of something she thought she had forgotten. I knew it was one way, though. I was flattered, she was young and beautiful, fun to be with, but ever since I had sensed a change in Laura, that maybe we had begun to connect, I had thought just about her. And I wished I was with her right then.

  Alice nodded and smiled ruefully. ‘Okay, Jack. I know you’ve come back to work, not for a holiday. Promise me we’ll finish this drink.’

  ‘I promise.’

  And with that, we both left the Bridge, walking along the canal so I could take her home, and then go back to whatever thoughts were buzzing round my head.

  Bob Garrett headed down to the Swan.

  It was quiet. The evening crowd were still making their way back from work, so it was just him, the landlord, and a couple of drunks.

  He wasn’t making good conversation.

  ‘Everything okay, Bob?’ said the landlord.

  Bob smiled, but looked distracted. ‘Everything’s fine. Just tired, still trying to get back into the nights routine.’

  The landlord didn’t pursue it. His pub was a refuge for the local men, he knew that, and if they wanted to unburden themselves over a pint, that was fine. If they didn’t, that was okay too.

  Bob looked into his beer. The inn was quiet. The television was on, as ever, a large white screen pulled down at one end of the bar, but its echo emphasised the lack of life.

  Bob was only half-watching the television. He was thinking about what he would say to Glen Ross. He felt good about it at last, knowing that he was trying to do what was right. It was ten years too late, but at least it was something. Now he had to get something good enough to make the papers run it.

  But there was something else troubling him. The whole story had lain as dead as Annie Paxman for more than ten years, and then suddenly it comes rushing back again. None of it made sense. Where was the sudden proof to make David Watts panic and send Glen Ross round to fight his battles? And why had Glen Ross agreed to it? What was making him nervous now, after all these years?