by TM Logan
‘Everybody out,’ the bouncers were saying loudly and without much enthusiasm, waving people towards the front door.
On the main gambling floor, two side fire exits had opened up onto the car park, cold midnight air rolling in. Shit. I’d assumed everyone would go out of the front door. Wincing against the harsh whine of the fire alarm and taking their drinks with them, tonight’s gamblers shuffled towards the fire exits as I moved to stand in the small shadows that remained by the blackjack tables. My eyes were fixed on the exit to the executive lounge. A couple of middle-aged dark-haired men emerged through the doors, pulling on leather jackets. They spoke loudly to each other over the wail of the alarm. A Slavic language I didn’t recognise, maybe Russian. One gave a cigarette to the other, put another cigarette in his own mouth, and they headed for the fire exit.
I waited by the door of the executive lounge, ready to snap a picture of Ben when he came through. The blue-eyed bouncer reappeared, looking at me like I wasn’t right in the head. He took me firmly by the elbow, walking me out of the fire exit and into the car park.
‘Everybody out, sir,’ he said loudly above the noise of the fire alarm.
The cold October air was like a slap in the face after the casino’s warmth. It was obvious that I’d not been quick enough: Ben must have gone out through one of the side exits before I’d got back through the crowd of people near the front desk.
There must have been a couple of hundred people in the car park, lit up in the glare of security lights, and Ben was somewhere among them. I started walking slowly through the assembled group, scanning left and right, phone at the ready to take a picture. He was here somewhere. I had worked my way from one side of the group to the other and was about to work my way in deeper when I saw the blue-eyed bouncer staring at me, brows knitted into a deep frown. By his side, the supervisor from the front desk was talking to him, close in his ear, pointing at me. I turned away and pushed into the crowd again.
That was when I saw him. Twenty-five feet away, his back to me. Dark hair, five foot eight, smart jacket. Smoking a cigarette, as usual.
I barged someone out of the way and pushed through a group of people, eyes fixed on the back of Ben’s head. Abruptly, the fire alarm ceased, leaving a deafening quiet broken by a little cheer from the shivering crowd of gamblers assembled in the car park. They started to move towards the doors, obscuring my view. I shouldered someone else out of my path. Almost there. He was definitely the right build, right height, right hair.
The bastard started walking quickly away from me, without even looking round. I held my mobile up above the crowd and pressed the shutter to take a picture. So close –
A strong hand on my shoulder pulled me abruptly backwards and I stumbled, just about managing to keep my balance. The iron grip belonged to a hugely muscular bouncer with a flat-top haircut and Celtic tattoos up the side of his neck. Steven Beecham, I thought but didn’t say. It’s him. Another hand – the blue-eyed bouncer I’d spoken to earlier – grabbed my other arm and together they marched me backwards, stumbling, almost falling, into the alley at the side of the casino. A few in the crowd watched with interest as I was marched off, but most were more interested in getting back inside, back into the warmth of the bar and the tables and the action.
As soon as we were far enough up the alley to be out of sight of the other customers, Blue Eyes spun me round and punched me in the face before I could get a word out. I had never been hit so hard. It was like getting belted with a cricket bat.
My head spun with the punch, and my mouth was flooded with the warm salty taste of blood. I staggered backwards but stayed on my feet.
‘Fuck off back to London,’ the blue-eyed bouncer said.
Beecham stood next to him, his huge hands balling into fists.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. A back tooth felt loose. I spat blood.
‘You know what happens,’ Beecham said, ‘when you pull the fucking fire alarm and all the punters end up in the car park?’
‘Listen, guys, I’m just trying to find my –’
‘The punters stop spending money. And the boss gets upset.’
‘And then this happens.’
‘I’m looking for Ben D—’
Then it was Beecham’s turn to hit me, and everything went black.
70
Pain.
Awake.
Not in bed. Not indoors, even. Outside.
Dark.
Hard pavement.
Wet.
A bright throbbing pain in my jaw and the side of my head. My cheek pressed against rough gravel.
I blinked, winced, sat up with a groan. Fought back a feeling of nausea. Put a hand to my face and it came away sticky with blood. I was in an alleyway at the side of the casino, big wheelie bins lined up side by side against the wall. The mingling smells of piss and fresh rain and rotting food, the October cold keen as a blade. My ribs were raw with pain. Evidently the casino bouncers had given me a bit of a kicking into the bargain, after knocking me out. How long had I been unconscious? Ten minutes? An hour? It was hard to figure out. One of my back teeth felt loose, blood leaking from the gum.
Brushing the gravel off my face, I got gingerly to my feet, the world still spinning. Walked unsteadily out of the alleyway and saw that the crowds in the car park had gone. The casino doors were shut, faint sounds of music coming from inside. For a moment I thought about trying to get back into the casino, but one look through the front windows into the foyer told me that wasn’t going to work. The blue-eyed bouncer was there, staring at me. He saw me looking and shook his head slowly, definitively. Not tonight, mate.
My mobile. I had taken a picture of Ben in the car park, just before the bouncers grabbed me. Maybe this was it. A little buzz of excitement pushing through the pain in my head. I called up the image gallery and found a dark, blurry shot of heads and upturned faces, half smears of colour, not enough light for a clear picture. Ben’s head turned to the left. I double-tapped on the screen to zoom in on his face, studying the hairline, the jaw, the shape of his nose. Could it be? Looking closer, I frowned. It was hard to tell because of the quality of the image, but the harder I stared at it, the less sure I was that it was him. I held it closer, my hope disappearing.
The guy in my picture had a beard.
It wasn’t Ben after all.
I stabbed the screen to delete the picture, swearing loudly enough to startle two girls skittering past in the tiniest of miniskirts.
The street was deserted. No taxis. I googled nearby hotels, picked a Travelodge that was nearest according to the GPS and started walking in that direction, back towards the city centre. Going to the police would waste time – and in any case they’d probably think I’d got what I deserved. There was also the possibility that Naylor had put out a warrant for my arrest. Too risky.
A group of teenage lads was coming towards me, a loose gang walking up the middle of the street, all in T-shirts despite the cold and eating chips out of white polystyrene trays. Heckling one another in voices loud with beer and bravado. One of them saw the fresh bruises on my face and gave me a knowing grin. I looked away and moved on past, hands jammed in my pockets, through the dark streets of this unfamiliar city. A siren, the noise piercing like a stiletto. Blue flashing lights reflected off the glass front of an office building made me duck into an alleyway, between two shops closed and shuttered for the night. I stumbled forward into the shadows and crouched behind a wheelie bin, listening to the rise and fall of the siren getting nearer. It seemed to stop, then started again, then flashed past on the street and was gone. I waited for a minute in case more police were coming. Then another minute.
I felt more alone than ever. Adrift in a strange city, I knew no one and belonged nowhere. I certainly didn’t belong here. My aim had been to find Ben, but I’d found a beating instead.
I checked into the hotel, ignoring the stares of the night receptionist when he saw the state of my face, and locked the door of my r
oom behind me. In the tiny bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face over and over again, the cuts and grazes stinging, the water running pink with blood from a gash above my eye. The man in the mirror looked like a victim. Cut, bruised and bloodied, eyes shadowed dark with exhaustion. A long way from home.
I stared at my reflection for a moment.
Then straightened up, took a deep breath that filled my chest. Chin up. Shoulders back.
Beaten up, maybe. But not beaten. Not yet.
I still had a couple of cards left to play.
FRIDAY
71
I slept badly and woke early with a pounding headache, my face sore and my ribs stiff. I’d left the mobile on overnight in case any important calls came in, and its chirrups and bleeps had kept me in the shallow waters of sleep for most of the night, unable to fall all the way into a deep, uninterrupted slumber. My limbs felt heavy. After a bleary check of the phone for texts or emails – nothing significant in the precious few hours I had been asleep – I stood under a scalding hot shower for ten minutes, head down, eyes closed, feeling the water beating hard against the back of my neck. I tried to remember what I’d been dreaming about. It felt like something important, something relevant, hovering just out of my reach. Some fact or connection that had eluded me for too long. But it was a blur, and the more I willed it to snap into focus, the further it drifted away.
By the time I was dressed it was still only 7.20, too early for what I had planned, so I sat on the bed and scrolled through my Facebook feed on the mobile. Four new notifications. A colleague’s birthday, and a belated comment in response to the picture of William I had posted last Friday. At least someone hadn’t noticed I was now a pariah. The third notification was to let me know another of Ben’s friends was now my friend, on Facebook at least: Hardeep Sangha accepted your friend request.
I’d sent the request earlier in the week, along with a dozen or so others. Hardeep seemed to be a friend of Ben’s from Manchester, and I scrolled quickly through his posts from the last week to see if they’d had any interaction.
My last notification was the most interesting.
It was a response on Messenger from Mark Ruddington, one of Mel’s friends on Facebook who’d accepted my friend request a couple of days ago. I had asked him to get in touch with me after seeing the post about their schooldays together. And now he had.
Hey there Joe, nice to *meet* you. Yes can give you a call – what do you want to talk about?
I typed another message:
We’re having a party for our 10th wedding anniversary and I’m gathering stories from her schooldays. I didn’t know her back then so thought you might be able to fill me in.
He replied almost straight away.
No probs. School run now but can call you a bit later this morning?
An hour later I sat silently in the back of a taxi, watching street after street of terraced houses slide by, working-class neighbourhoods clustered near to the docks. The air was cold under a sharp blue sky, people walking to work, standing at bus stops smoking or staring at their phones, teenagers slouching to school. Lines of cars bunching up in the morning rush hour.
My mobile rang in my hand, Mel mob on the display.
‘Joe, are you OK? Where are you?’
It occurred to me that these two questions always went hand in hand when she tried to reach me.
‘I’m all right,’ I said quietly. ‘How are you and Wills doing?’
‘We’re worried about you. Both of us. William keeps asking what’s happening, and why you weren’t here this morning to take him to school.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘That you were visiting a friend.’
It wasn’t even a lie. Despite everything, I almost laughed.
‘Yeah. A friend.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Who?’
‘Ben. Did he say where he’s been the last few days?’
‘I didn’t quite get the chance to talk to him.’
‘Oh,’ she said, trying hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice. ‘That’s a shame. But you saw him?’
‘I thought I did, at a casino last night. But I couldn’t get a picture.’
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Joe? Your voice sounds a bit strange.’
‘Just tired, trying to get my head around things,’ I said. This last week I had become a stranger to myself.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Look after our boy.’
‘Of course. You would tell me if there was anything else, wouldn’t you?’
The taxi turned a corner and pulled to a stop by the side of the road.
‘Got to go. Love you. Kiss Wills for me.’
‘When will you –’
I hit end, cutting her off.
The taxi had stopped on a broad, well-kept street of smart Victorian houses. I paid the driver and got out, checking up and down the street. No police. No Ben. It was 8.51 a.m. – just getting to a time when I could reasonably knock on the door of a complete stranger.
The garden of number 33 was immaculate: neatly cut lawn, trimmed edges, shrubs pruned back away from the path. A spotless cream Mercedes A-class sat on the driveway, latest registration plate. Just a few months old. The front curtains were open, upstairs and down. I rang the doorbell and stood back from the door. She was a widow who had lived alone since Ben’s dad died of a heart attack a couple of years ago, and I didn’t want to freak her out before we’d had a chance to talk.
A figure approached down the hallway, outline blurred through the frosted glass, accompanied by the yelping and yapping of small dogs. For one mad moment I wondered whether it might be Ben walking down the hall towards me. Or maybe I’d walk in and find him sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, munching a piece of toast, watching Jeremy Kyle with eight days of beard on his face. After all, what better place was there to lie low than in your mum’s spare room, 250 miles from London? Maybe he’d been here all week, monitoring everything via social media.
The door opened and a thick security chain snapped taut.
72
A woman looked at me through the gap.
Not Ben.
She was in her mid-fifties, younger than I’d expected, trim and tanned and dressed in white jeans and a long grey woollen cardigan belted at the waist. She had the same oval face shape as Ben, the same eyes, deep dark brown – eyes that narrowed now at the arrival of a stranger on her doorstep. There was a scramble of growling and jumping at her feet as two Jack Russell terriers tried to get through the two-inch gap allowed by the door chain.
She looked up at me without saying anything – studying me like a headmistress awaiting an explanation.
‘Mrs Delaney?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m a friend of your son. A friend of Ben’s, from London.’
Her expression changed immediately, lines of worry appearing on her brow.
‘What is it? Have you heard from him?’
‘I was going to ask you the same question.’
She shook her head.
‘The police say he’s a missing person.’
‘Could I come in and talk to you for a minute, Mrs Delaney?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Maybe the idea that Ben’s been hiding out here isn’t so crazy.
‘Just for a moment?’ I said, keeping eye contact.
‘Who are you?’ Her soft Sunderland accent was tight with tension. I was about to tell her my real name but instinct told me not to. A colleague’s name came to mind.
‘My name’s Sam King.’ I put my hand out to shake but she didn’t take it. ‘One of Ben’s poker friends from London.’
She studied me for a moment, her eyes on my face. I realised she was looking at the bruises from last night’s beating. The dogs continued to paw at the door, half whining, half growling, one trying to climb over the other as their blunt claws clicked and scraped down the doorframe.
<
br /> I added: ‘I was wondering whether you’d –’
‘Maisy! Billy!’ Mrs Delaney spoke sharply to the two terriers, ignoring me. ‘Go to your bed. Go on now!’
The two dogs whimpered but trotted off obediently down the hall, tails down, claws clicking on the wooden parquet flooring. She returned her gaze to me, more inquisitive now.
‘How did you get my address?’
‘Beth gave it to me.’
‘My daughter-in-law?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve been worried about Ben,’ I said. ‘We all are. Trying to find out whether he’s OK. I’m at a conference in Sunderland this weekend and I’ve been going to a few of his favourite places to see if anyone’s seen him.’
Her eyes narrowed.
‘You’ve come all the way from London to do that?’
‘I was here anyway, thought I’d try to help. Have you heard from him recently?’
‘Not this week. But I told everything to the policeman who came round on Tuesday.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Of course not. Why would he be here?’
There was the tension in her voice again. Her anxiety was palpable – but was it the despair of having lost her son, or the strain of lying to protect him?
‘Has he been here at all this week?’ I said.
She ignored the question, indicating my bruises with a slender index finger.
‘What happened to your face?’
‘Last night I was at a casino in town looking for Ben. The bouncers took exception to me asking questions.’
