Marlborough Man

by Alan Carter

  In the night I hear the wind tearing at the tin roof and the rain pounds down. I can’t sleep and still can’t rid myself of the thought that Sammy Pritchard has found me and sent out his emissaries. Gary and Steve: harmless wayfarers or lethal cuckoos in the nest? At one point Vanessa moans in her sleep. I can’t tell whether it’s from pleasure or pain.

  5

  The hills around here make their own clouds. The vapours rise from the trees to join the sky and it’s like they live and breathe before your eyes. When I first came here, the pine-clad hills were part of the outrageous beauty and serenity of this land I’d fled to. How lucky it felt to be taking refuge in such a place. Now I am watching them being systematically reduced to debris and dust. A life force extinguished. These days I look at a view and wonder how long it will last.

  Latifa digs deep for some sympathy. ‘Yeah, must be tough, eh?’

  We’re on a boat headed out into the Sounds again. No detectives this time, just Latifa and me and some begrudging volunteers from Search and Rescue.

  ‘You reckon?’ I want to know what Latifa really thinks, I can tell she’s just being polite this morning, which is not really like her.

  ‘Yeah, having your lovely view spoiled just so someone can make a living.’ She blows out a breath. ‘Sucks.’

  As we approach Patrick Smith’s jetty, the smoke is still rising where his bach once stood. The driving rain has pretty much put the fire out but the emergency services volunteers set about finishing the job for sure. Patrick is sitting cross-legged on the ground beside what remains of Ginger.

  ‘They shot my pig,’ he says bleakly.

  ‘Small towns can be rough when word gets out,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Latifa. ‘I’ll head over and supervise the volunteers while you fellas chat.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ I ask Smith, not really that interested.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘This won’t stop. You know that.’

  He strokes Ginger’s lifeless bristles. ‘I’m tired of running away.’

  Over at his charred house, some volunteers are grinning at the destruction.

  ‘Nobody will help you rebuild, no tradies, no post, no deliveries, nothing. If I were you I’d pack my bags, call it quits.’

  He blinks up through the rain. ‘But you’re not me, are you?’

  There’s a crash as the remaining wall of the bach caves in on itself. A desultory cheer from the workers.

  Latifa returns, pen and notebook in hand. ‘Ready to make a report, sir? For insurance, or something?’

  Back at the station there are two messages waiting for me. District Commander Ford would like a word, as would Jessie James the Journo. I decide Jessie will be marginally more fun right now and, besides, I have a bone to pick with her.

  ‘What’s your boyfriend’s name, again? The one on the mail boat?’

  ‘Sergeant Chester, thanks for calling back.’

  ‘I’ve just returned from the scene of a crime. We don’t need vigilantes around here. We’ve already got enough on our plates right now.’

  ‘D’you reckon he did it?’ She laughs. ‘When the mail boat’s not running you can’t get him out of bed before eleven. Nah, try Denzel and his mates. Much better bet.’

  ‘You rang?’ I growl, thinking she’s probably right.

  ‘Yes, I was after a comment.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Mr McCormack, local businessman, major employer, supporter of local charities and community groups, and biggest advertiser for our paper …’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He says you’re not doing your job properly and wonders if you’re in with the greenies. Care to comment?’

  ‘No. Talk to Police Media.’ I can half-guess what the DC wants now.

  ‘I did. They put me back onto you.’

  ‘Again. No comment.’

  ‘That’s fine, we can run with that. Police Media said they didn’t have a photo of you on file, which is strange, but don’t worry we snapped a couple off when you came back in on the boat today.’

  ‘Don’t –’ But the phone is already dead.

  I pray that Sammy Pritchard doesn’t have some facial-recognition computer program trawling the net in search of me. Next, the DC.

  ‘What’s happening with Patrick Smith?’ he says. ‘When’s he going?’

  ‘He’s not. He’s staying put.’

  ‘Then you’d better dampen down the fires of wrath and vengeance over there unless you want the extra paperwork.’

  ‘I’m onto it.’

  ‘DI Keegan isn’t too impressed with you. What have you done to piss her off?’

  ‘Nothing. I just guessed before she did that Smith is probably a dud.’

  ‘She’s digging dirt on you. You’ve made an enemy.’

  ‘Maybe you can tell her I’m not part of some HQ boys’ club conspiracy to bring her down.’

  ‘That’s what she thinks?’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘She might be touchy but she’s good. Organised, methodical. You could learn from her, Nick. Try being nice. Try not being too smart.’

  ‘What’s to learn? I don’t have any ambitions beyond making it to retirement age.’

  ‘So try being nice anyway. Enemies don’t make for a quiet life.’

  ‘Fair point. Anything else?’

  ‘Another enemy: McCormack. Again, try being nice. Find his vandal and grovel a bit.’

  The DC is one of the very few people who knows about me, knows where I came from, knows why I’m hiding. If I’m going to have to be nice, I need a favour from him in return. ‘The Journal is running a story about me, with pictures. We need to squash it.’

  ‘Leave it to me.’

  Just fifteen minutes later Jessie James is back on the phone and seething. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who the fuck are you, getting my story spiked?’ The phone dies. I imagine it being hurled across a room.

  Out at the shoe fence they’re dismantling the outer perimeters of the crime scene, although the body tent is still up and the numbered plastic markers remain in place. The road has reopened, in one lane anyway, and there’s a queue of half a dozen cars waiting for the sign to spin from Stop to Go. The rain has cleared and the wind has dropped. Marianne Keegan breaks away from talking to a colleague and comes up to me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she says.

  ‘I’m here to apologise, I think we got off on the wrong foot.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help.’

  Marianne scrutinises me. ‘Why?’

  I decide honesty is the best policy, up to a point, and invite her to take a wee walk with me. ‘I’m not on file because I’m in a kind of witness protection, it’s an old and long story. That’s the only reason. Nobody has sent me to white-ant you.’

  ‘I know.’ She lifts a palm. ‘Not the whole tale. But the DC invited me to back off.’

  I offer her my hand. ‘Friends, then?’

  She shakes it. ‘For now.’

  Her hand feels warmer today and I have this weird urge to hold on to it for longer than I should. I nod at the crime scene. ‘Any developments?’

  ‘No. Doorknocking is an epic undertaking in these parts. As usual, the only people coming forward after the media appeal are fruit loops.’ She steps closer. There’s a hint of tobacco and mints on her breath. ‘We’re focusing back in on family and friends. Neighbours, teachers, sports clubs. Whatever.’

  ‘Good luck.’ And I mean it. ‘So, anything I can do?’

  She looks at me appraisingly. ‘Some extra help on the canvassing will always be welcome but everything is pretty much covered. Otherwise I’ll let you know if I think of something specific.’

  The DC will be proud. I seem to have been nice and undone at least one enemy – maybe too diligently; I’m not obliged to fancy her. There’s definitely
an attraction, like a possum to a gin trap, or a wasp to a bait. I start to leave.

  ‘It was interesting though,’ says Marianne, lighting up a ciggie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My colleague in Wellington who looked you up. He’s in IT, so he knows this stuff.’ I wait for her to go on. ‘He said someone else had been following your trail recently.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dunno, but when he looked at the numbers and codes it seemed to be coming from the old country.’

  ‘The UK?’

  Marianne blows out some smoke. ‘That’s what he said, yeah.’

  The sun pokes through as I wind back up through the hills driving full tilt Latifa-style. My first instinct was to phone home and tell Vanessa to get Paulie and just go, now, anywhere. But I resist. If they’re that close, Vanessa won’t be hard to follow and find. I’ve called the DC and brought him up to date, and he’s promised to look into it. Sammy Pritchard can pay people, even official police people, to look for me. All I need to know for now is just how far behind they are.

  Down to my right the river shimmers and birds dart among the trees. Sheep, cows, deer, and alpacas graze like nothing has changed. Pulling into the driveway, smoke curls from the chimney. Vanessa is hanging out some washing in the rare and probably brief sunshine.

  She’s pleased to see me. ‘What are you doing home so early?’ But then she looks at me again. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I tell her. ‘Where are the guys?’ I ask.

  ‘Up the valley. They got a job.’ There’s a fresh pile of firewood, neatly chopped and stacked by the back door. ‘Gary did it,’ she says. ‘This morning, after breakfast.’ She shakes her head and hurries indoors, waving sandflies from her face. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’re trying to find out more. Whether it’s something or nothing.’ I look around the house, fresh cut flowers in a vase on the table, newly filled jars of jam waiting for their lids to pop and seal. ‘Maybe you and Paulie should go somewhere for a while until we know.’

  She laughs, short and bitter. ‘I knew it couldn’t last.’

  ‘It might be nothing.’

  She lifts her eyes to me, blazing and tearful. ‘It usually is. You’ve been looking over your shoulder ever since we got here. You keep a gun under your pillow. You jump at sounds in the night. You’re suspicious of good people. You’re poisoned, Nick.’ She waves her hand out the window. ‘You can’t even enjoy the fucking view. You’re just waiting for someone to take it away from you. And you wonder why I put crosses on the calendar and why Paulie is so fragile.’

  She storms to the bedroom, grabs a case and starts packing. I follow her. ‘I’d love for this to be yet another false alarm but I can’t take that chance. The police have a safe house in Nelson. A week or so. Then …’

  ‘Then what?’ she says, taking the address from me. ‘More of the same?’ She gets a bag for Paulie too. ‘I’ll pick him up from school and go straight on from there.’

  I follow her out to the car. She slams the door and winds the window down. ‘A week. Sort it out, or sort yourself out, for all our fucking sakes.’

  6

  Sunderland, England. Four years earlier.

  It’s a summer’s evening, sunny but cold, and still light at nine o’clock. I’m in the back of Sammy’s Audi with Marty, and he’s taking up more room than he needs. We’re off for a curry in South Shields, it being Friday and Sammy being a man of strict habits. Vanessa is getting sick of me spending all this time with Pritchard and his crew, and she let me know as much before I came out tonight.

  ‘How long do we have to put up with this, Nick?’ She pokes my recently acquired beer gut. ‘Hanging out with those sleazy, drunken thugs. Coming home at all hours smelling like a pub ashtray, and for what?’ Paulie is in the background playing with his iPad and trying not to listen in to yet another of our simmering rows. ‘They’re scum, Nick. The world is full of them and you’re not going to change that. They’ll never go away.’

  ‘It’s my job, love. It’s what pays the bills.’

  I shouldn’t have said that, she’s already pissed off at having to go half-time at the school to take up the extra childcare load with Paulie while I fraternise with society’s worst.

  She opens a kitchen cupboard and rattles some pots and pans. ‘Use the spare room when you get back, and keep quiet. I need a good night’s sleep bringing up Paulie on my own.’

  The coast road is busy with people heading out on the weekend lash. The North Sea is calm and unusually blue, and seagulls wheel and settle on the limestone stacks at Marsden. Sammy is in the front seat next to his driver-cum-bodyguard, a muscly Indian lad who’s done one of those specialised defensive-driving courses. Sammy has been quiet, which is not like him at all; usually the prospect of chicken vindaloo and a cold Stella has him bubbling over. Like many men of his age up here, life revolves around his growing stomach as the adventures and distractions of youth recede. I glance down at my own recently poked belly and wonder how much of it I can blame on the undercover job.

  ‘Pull over, Vikram,’ says Sammy.

  The driver pulls up in the car park at Marsden Grotto. Sammy gets out and we all follow. He waves Marty and the driver away; he only wants to talk to me. I see a smirk cross Marty’s face as he leaves. Sammy strolls on a few more yards, then plants himself next to the low fence overlooking the sea stacks and those squawking gulls.

  ‘Fucken hate scenery, me. Happy to drive past it, like.’ He turns to me. ‘You?’

  ‘Aye, I don’t mind it, Sammy. Bit of fresh air and that. Smashin’. ’

  ‘Our lass loves it. She wants me to buy a cottage in the Lakes.’

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘Fuck off, pet.’ He shakes his head. ‘Remember when this was just the old proper Marsden Rock?’

  ‘Aye,’ I say.

  The sea stack collapsed in on itself a few years ago. People accommodated the transition. They just called it Marsden Rocks for a while instead of Marsden Rock. Resilience and adaptability, it’s the key to survival in the north-east. Then when they demolished the smaller pile a year later it went back to being one diminished Marsden Rock again. Geologically speaking, it was all a bit of a non-event.

  ‘Not the same is it?’

  Well, no. I can see people on the beach a hundred feet below, kids scrambling on the shingle. Sammy nudges me, his arm drifts up around my shoulder. One good shove and I’m gone. He takes a step forward and brings me with him.

  ‘Everything alright, Sammy?’ I try to make it sound like a casual inquiry from a mate.

  ‘You grow up, and life throws these uncertainties at you. Does she fancy me? Will Sunderland avoid relegation again? Who’ll be their manager this year?’ His hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck. ‘Who’s with me, who’s not?’

  My eyes are watering with the chill wind. I wonder how many seconds it takes to go from up here to down there. ‘Death and taxes, Sammy. Somebody said they’re the only certainties.’

  ‘Aye, and with the right accountant you can even beat one of them as well.’

  ‘I didn’t know Alfie was that good.’

  Sammy laughs. ‘Twat.’ He turns to face me. ‘I always thought Marsden Rock was one of those certainties. Or maybe I didn’t. But once it collapsed I realised I’d been taking it for granted all these years. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Like the Berlin Wall–type thing?’

  He prods me in the chest. ‘Spot on.’

  ‘Cold for July,’ I say. ‘Are we going for that curry or what?’

  He steps closer. His face fills my vision. ‘Marty doesn’t trust you.’

  There, it’s out.

  ‘Aye?’ I say. ‘Marty doesn’t trust any bastard though, does he?’

  ‘He thinks I should send you packing.’

  A seagull rides the updraft, screeching, and a wave breaks on the beach below. ‘And what do you think, Sammy?’

  He claps me on the shoulder
again. ‘I think Marty’s a miserable twat. Loyal, like a poodle, and just as fucken vain.’ He chortles. ‘He’s jealous. He was the only pretty boy around here. Then you come along looking like you belong on a horse with one of them ten gallon hats. Square jaw, shoulders like a swimmer on steroids. Fucken Cowboy Joe. No wonder he thinks you’re a cunt.’

  As we reverse out of the car park I notice Sammy staring out of the windscreen at Marsden Rock. We head off for that curry.

  7

  Steve and Gary are bemused by the turn of events.

  ‘Bit sudden?’ says Gary who comes bearing a bag of lemons from the farm down the road. He’s looking around the room as if I’m kidding and Vanessa’s going to jump out from behind a door.

  ‘Tell the truth, we had a bit of a row.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Steve.

  ‘They for us?’ I say, pointing at the lemons. ‘Thanks.’

  He hands them over. ‘Yeah, sure. Anyway we’ll leave you to it, eh.’

  They back out and I pour the lemons into the fruit bowl. There’s more murmured conversation and that low harsh laugh again. I’d love to send them packing but when, if, Vanessa comes back, she’d be furious.

  I bring in the washing that Vanessa hung out earlier and fold it and put it away. There’s some leftover soup in the freezer. I get it out to thaw. Stuff needs fixing: a broken venetian blind, a screen door that keeps coming off its runner, paint chips, a loose board in the balcony rail. I put the radio on and twiddle the dial but it’s all static and crackle up here. And no mobile signal. We’ve got satellite internet at unearthly prices so if Sammy’s men come calling I can send an email: Help :( Or post an update on Facebook: They found me LOL.

  The sun drops behind the hill and the river changes colour. It’s a beautiful view but Vanessa’s right; I’m just waiting for someone to take it away from me. Paddy the Paedo’s got more balls than me. He’s made his life out on the Sounds and he’s not going anywhere.

  There’s a rap on the flyscreen. It’s Steve. ‘Gary’s cooking up a couple of patties. Want one?’

  You’re suspicious of good people.