by Steve Liszka
‘Don’t worry,’ Wesley said. ‘I intend to.’
After five minutes of silence, the Bentley pulled into the car park and headed slowly toward them. It parked just close enough so its doors wouldn’t touch the other car if they opened, then the blacked-out passenger window lowered, revealing the smiling face of Mac.
Wesley wound his own window down to hear the man.
‘I have to say; you boys were pretty fucking awesome today. I knew I was right to put my faith in the fire service.’
His smile dropped a little when he looked past Wesley to see Jimmy sitting there.
‘I told you to come alone, but seeing as you did such a good job back there, I’m willing to let this one go.’
Jimmy got out of the car without saying a word then opened the boot of both vehicles. He took the bags out of the Fiat and threw them into the Bentley then slammed them shut again. When he was done, he walked around to the other side of the car and leant into Mac’s window.
‘There’s your drugs. Now, do us all a favour and get fucked. I don’t want to see you at our fire station ever again. Got it?’
Mac held his gaze for a few seconds, then moved his head so he could see Wesley. ‘This one’s got some balls on him, hasn’t he? And there I was thinking it was the old boy who ran the show.’
Jimmy lowered his own head so they were level again. ‘Now you know how things really work. My guys fucked up when they took your money, and if I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened. But the fact is, it did, and what we did today more than made up for it. We’re all square now, and we don’t owe you shit. Got it?’
Mac laughed and looked across to his driver. ‘This here is Don,’ he said. ‘My new driver.’
For the first time, Jimmy looked across and took the man in. Even though he was sitting, it was clear he was a unit. He must have been at least six-four and a good sixteen stone. He wasn’t as big as Lenny, but he was younger and more athletic looking, with a face just as intimidating. Jimmy weighed the guy up and reckoned that he’d fought worse in his time.
‘See, the thing with Don,’ Mac said, ‘is he may look like a real piece of work, but I can’t say just how good he is. He tells me he’s the sort of person who can do the things I need doing, but so far, it’s just talk. Now, Tony, my sadly deceased ex-driver, that guy was a real nut-job when he needed to be. I mean, the man would shoot someone in the face, then drive me home without once going over the speed limit. He was ice cold, but then, those fucking Albanians went and put a bullet in him. But, anyway, back to Don here. If you want to keep this attitude going, my friend, then I may just have to see if he really is as good as he thinks he is.’
He turned and looked to the stone-faced man next to him. ‘What do you think, that sound good to you?’
Don nodded, then opened his jacket and showed Jimmy the pistol he had stuffed down the front of his trousers.
‘Now, we could go that way,’ Mac said, ‘or I could just say thank you once again for what you did today and pass on this token of appreciation to you.’
He nodded at the driver who leant into the back of the vehicle and passed him a package. Mac leant out of the window and offered it to Jimmy.
‘There’s fifty grand there,’ he said. ‘That’s just to show you how good I’m feeling about what went down today. Take it and give it to your boys. They deserve it.’
Jimmy’s face remained stony. ‘I’m not interested in your money.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
Moving far quicker than a man of his age had any right to, Mac reached out with his spare hand and grabbed hold of Jimmy’s wrist. He was a strong little fucker too.
‘Right, sunshine, I’m rapidly getting tired of your bullshit. Take the money or else tomorrow morning, some poor dog walker is going to find the two of your bodies in a fucking ditch not far from here. Now, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to spoil some old dear’s day in that way, would you?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Jimmy said, shocked at the fear he could feel in his chest.
At the same instant, Mac loosened his grip and stuffed the package into his hand. ‘Good man. That’s what I like to hear.’
He leant forward and looked across to Wesley again. ‘He’s feisty, this one. I can see I’m going to have to keep my eye on him. Thanks again, fellas. I’ll be seeing you around.’
He closed his window as Don fired up the engine and drove them away.
‘Fuck,’ Jimmy said as he slammed the car door and threw the package into the backseat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Wesley asked, ‘You should be happy. It’s all over now.’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘You really don’t get it, do you, Wes. At first, I thought you just a bit dim, but you really haven’t got a fucking clue, have you, pal?’
‘What are you talking about? It’s over with. He’s finished with us now.’
‘That package,’ Jimmy said, ‘means it’s never going to be finished.’
Wesley
‘Get out of the sodding way!’ Wesley yelled at the car in front of him.
The grey Skoda Fabia was barely doing sixty miles an hour and had no place in the fast lane of the M23. Wesley beeped his horn and told himself he’d be doing the same thing, even if it was a car full of lads rather than the little old lady, oblivious to his ill feeling toward her. Even as he thought it, he knew he was lying to himself. If there was a car full of boys in front of him, he would have sworn under his breath but done nothing about it.
To be fair, he wouldn’t normally have beeped at the woman at all, but the man just wanted to get back home to see his kids. The last couple of days had scared the shit out of him. Now, all he wanted to do was hug his girls and tell them how much he loved them.
He’d just about made it through the previous day without losing it, and as there was enough of them on duty, he’d taken the opportunity to book his night shifts off and go back to Milton Keynes. His soon-to-be ex-wife had been shocked when she’d heard from him; he wasn’t meant to be having the girls until the weekend, and it had taken more than a little persuading to convince her to let him have them for a few days. It was the school holidays, for Christ’s sake, he had wanted to say, but had managed to refrain himself.
Every time he saw the girls, he felt like he had to jump through hoops before he got them to himself. As soon as he got there, he would have to turn around again and drive them straight back to Brighton. He was no longer welcome in the house that he still paid for and rightfully owned. Nina had made it painfully clear after nearly ten years of comfortable if unspectacular marriage that she thoroughly despised him and struggled to look at his face without wanting to throw up. It hurt him that she felt that way, who wouldn’t it hurt?
He knew he was no Daniel Craig and might not have been the most exciting man in the world, but he had loved her, even if he hadn’t always shown it. But it was the girls that mattered most to him. He could just about deal with what she had done; it was the thought of their rejection that really terrified him. The five-hour round trip was a pain in the ass, but it would be worth it when he got the girls back to Brighton for a long weekend together.
The old woman finally moved out of the fast lane, and Wesley stepped on the accelerator, cursing as the Fiat slowly passed her on the outside. The pissy little engine was not made for long distances, and Wesley yearned for his much-loved Audi that he’d been forced to sell to help pay for his lodgings.
His conversation with Jimmy two days earlier still sat heavy on his mind. He hadn’t been completely honest when he told him it was his financial situation that had prompted him to take the money. Obviously, that was a major factor, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. Wesley was aware he wasn’t well regarded on the Watch or even in the brigade as a whole. Just because he acknowledged the fact, though, it didn’t make it any easier to accept. No one liked being the boy the captains didn’t want on their team.
He knew why they didn’t like h
im too. When the strikes had kicked off, he had left the union, rather than take industrial action. It wasn’t that he was opposed to it ideologically, but at the time, he had been working in fire safety, and nothing he did could have had a meaningful effect on the strikes. It was the firefighters downing tools and taking the engines off the run that really made an impact. When he had been on the lorries in the previous strikes ten years earlier, he had done the same as the rest of his colleagues and joined them on the picket line. Whether that was because he was new to the job and his Watch would have eaten him alive if he had gone against them, or because he felt it was the right thing to do, he couldn’t say with any degree of honesty.
What he hadn’t done, though, in the recent strikes and what seemed to be overlooked by people like Harrison, was that unlike many of the other officers, he hadn’t ridden the resilience fire engines, or scab lorries as they came to be known by the men. During the strikes, a few of them had decided to post pics of themselves on social media; smiling and laughing as they put on fire-kit for the first time in years. When the firefighters were trying to protect their pensions and hard-earned conditions of service, such jovialities went down with them about as well as being offered a shit sandwich for lunch.
But Wesley hadn’t done it, despite the pressure that had been placed on him from above. He may not have joined the crews in solidarity, but he was not prepared to undermine the strikes either by making it easier for the brigade to continue like it was business as usual. That was the real reason why he had ended up back on the appliances. It certainly wasn’t, as was stated, to give him more experience on the frontline before he could advance in the job. No, the man had bitten the hand that fed him, and it was unlikely he’d ever be promoted again. Making him operational was management’s way of punishing him for his dissent. There were other officers who had taken the same stance as him and whose reputations had remained intact. But not Wesley’s; his act of resistance had done little to improve people’s opinions of him. His reputation hung around his neck like an albatross and was formed long before the strikes had ever taken place. No matter what he did, he doubted it was something he’d ever shake off.
Wesley had never had a desperate urge to join the fire service, but as his father had been the Deputy Chief of Buckinghamshire, he knew what was expected of him from the family, and followed the old man into the business. The incident that had really put the dampeners on his career had happened before it had really got started. He was on Blue Watch at Central at the time, and only just out of training school. Although he had never displayed any signs of excellence, he had been coasting along nicely with no real doubts about him, other than the usual things probies encountered. On the night in question, both of the Brighton engines had been called to a house-fire with smoke issuing. When they arrived on the scene, there was indeed smoke pumping out of one of the windows upstairs. Thankfully, everyone was safely out of the premises.
The BA crew was made up of Wesley and Fat Terry, one of the older members of the crew. As his name suggested, Terry may have been more than a few stones overweight, but the man was one of the best BA wearers in the business. Even though he smoked like a chimney, he was legendary for using less air in an incident than anyone else. Years of doing the job meant his breathing remained steady throughout, and he didn’t waste energy doing unnecessary tasks. In BA, Terry was the true measure of efficiency.
They had taken a hose reel into the building and, after quickly pushing upstairs, searched the rooms. The neutral plain was almost to the floor, making it impossible to see anything, and by the time they had searched two of the rooms, they were getting hot and still hadn’t found the fire. As they pushed into the third bedroom, the hose reel snagged, and Terry, who was the number one and had hold of the branch, could progress no further. He tugged at it a few times, but it had got well and truly stuck. The only option was for them was to go back and release the hose from wherever it had got caught up.
Going by the book, a BA crew should never split up, but as he would be going over ground they’d already covered and would not encounter the fire, Terry sent Wesley back into the hallway to deal with the situation. It was the number two’s job to drag the hose into the job, and if Wesley had done a better job of managing it, then perhaps it wouldn’t have got snagged. While Terry continued his search of the bedroom, Wesley followed the hose back into the hall, tugging it as he went, to try and locate the problem. Once outside, that was when his problems began. The hallway had suddenly got much hotter, and even though he still couldn’t see any flames, he was aware the situation was getting worse. Unless they found the fire soon, conditions would only escalate. He followed the hose into the previous room they had been in and, after a lot of messing around, managed to untangle it from the bed post that it had somehow got stuck around.
When he got back into the hallway, the temperature had increased further, forcing Wesley down to his knees. It was the first time he had felt this hot outside of training school, where the instructors were close at hand and could step in at any time. With zero visibility and the skin on his ears and neck starting to burn, Wesley began to panic. He tried to find the entrance to the room he knew Terry must have been in, but even though it was only a few feet away from him, Wesley was unable to locate the door. The only thing he could think of with any clarity as this point was to get out of the building as quickly as possible to a place that was safe and cool. Instead of yelling out for Terry and calling him back to the hallway, he turned and headed to where he thought the stairs were located.
When he got outside, he ripped his helmet and BA mask off, and as he stood there ventilating, the rest of his crew stared at him in disbelief. He had broken the cardinal rule of BA wearing. You never leave your partner in the building. Terry had fucked up, too, by letting an inexperienced firefighter leave his side and would get his arse kicked for doing so, but his real mistake was to overestimate the level of Wesley’s skills.
Trying to protect the new boy, Terry tried to laugh off what had happened, telling the others when he emerged five minutes later that it was just a mattress alight, nothing serious, but it was too late for Wesley, he had committed the ultimate firefighting sin: YOU NEVER LEAVE YOUR PARTNER IN A FUCKING JOB. It was a mistake that he had never been allowed to forget. So, when he had agreed with the crew and instructed them to take the money, there was just a part of Wesley that hoped this decision would be enough to wipe the slate clean and erase the view of him that he knew his Watch held. It had become clear all to soon that, unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.
He pulled up in front of his old house at noon. It was a bit later than he had expected, but considering he’d battled through the Friday morning rush hour traffic on the M25, and he was driving a 1.2 litre shopping trolley, it hadn’t been too shabby.
Standing at the front door, he braced himself for Nina’s icy reception. Her attitude was pretty rich, if you asked him. It was she who had told him to leave, and he had made sure that none of them had wanted for anything since his departure, yet somehow, he was always made to feel the bad guy. When the door opened, he was immediately hit by the wall of vitriol that surrounded her. Nina was an attractive, if slightly horsy looking woman who always dressed like she was about to take part in a business meeting, which was ironic considering she hadn’t gone back to her job as a human resources manager for the local council since Olivia was born.
‘Are they ready?’ he said, trying his best to sound pleasant. He could do without the bullshit.
‘Olivia’s just finishing doing her hair,’ Nina said in the manner he had been expecting, ‘and Emily is sitting in the living room with her bag on her lap. You said you’d be here nearly an hour ago.’
Wesley bit his tongue and shrugged. ‘Blame the M25.’ He wanted to say that it was more like half an hour ago, but that would just be asking for trouble.
‘The M25 didn’t phone me up last night and ask to have the girls without prior notice. That was you, Wesley.’
He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to tell Nina that he missed her too and to ask her to take him back. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t expected to say it, and he wasn’t even sure that was what he wanted. Did he love her? At least part of him felt like it did. Some days, all he could think about was being back there with the three of them, and other times, he kind of enjoyed the solitary nature of his newfound predicament.
Fighting the urge to say anything, he followed Nina into the house. The place was immaculate as usual. Even when she was working, Nina had always been slightly OCD about the housework, but now that the girls were both in full-time education, her daytime hours seemed to revolve around making the place look like a show home. Perhaps that was why she kicked him out, maybe he was the one thing that was preventing her having her dream house.
She led him into the living room where Emily was sitting quietly with her Peppa Pig rucksack on her lap, watching an episode of the same animal on TV. When she saw him, she did that shy sideways look that kids did when they were really happy to see someone but didn’t want to show it. Wesley sat next to his little girl, and lifted her and the bag onto his own lap. She was getting heavy; she was nearly six now and was already in year one at school. He hadn’t noticed himself getting older until he had children. Now, the girls acted as a visual indicator of his own mortality.
‘I know this one,’ he said, looking at the TV screen. ‘This is where Pedro Pony breaks his leg.’
He did know it, too. Emily had it on DVD, and he must have seen every episode on it at least fifty times.
Emily laughed and snuggled into her father. ‘Yeah, and then, Peppa and the others write on his cast.’
Wesley tickled the girl under the arms, almost making her fall off his lap. ‘Yeah,’ he said, imitating her voice, ‘and then, Peppa tries to fall over and break her leg so she can get a cast too. Silly piggy.’
