Deadfolk

by Charlie Williams

  That were my last moment, I reckon. Leaning there up against the bark, entertaining barely a flicker of a doubt that what I were up to were for the best. That were the last time I still had a choice. I didn’t have to go through with it. I could skulk away quietly, like an old tomcat who knows his prime’s behind him and henceforth he’ll take more hidings than he can give. And maybe I would have done that if I’d looked into the future and seen the shite that’d kick off shortly thereafter. But I weren’t no old tomcat and I couldn’t see into no future.

  And Baz Munton were pulling level right about then.

  ‘All right, Baz.’

  ‘All right, Bla—’ He stopped, wobbled a bit, and gave us one of the dirty looks for which his family were famed. But there were summat else there and all. I wondered if he weren’t cacking his pants just a mite. Summat along those lines were going on anyhow, and that were enough for me. You latch onto these things when you finds em.

  ‘Woss matter, Bazzy boy?’ I says, laying it on thick like. ‘Lost yer voice or summat?’

  He licked his lips. ‘What the fuck you doin’ here?’

  ‘Well, mate, I’m here so’s I can lean against this here tree, see? I mean, if I weren’t here in this graveyard I’d have to lean against some other tree. An’ I don’t want that. I want this un.’

  He were becoming more himself as the seconds ticked by. ‘Best clear off before I gives you a smack.’

  ‘A smack, eh? Would that be a smack on the arse? I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you. Smackin’ a feller’s arse.’

  He shot us another of them nasty glares. This time it were a good un, marred by none of the fear that he were surely feeling inside. It didn’t work on us, though. We was all alone. Far as I were concerned he were just a fat chicken who hid behind his brothers. They all was, when you thought about it.

  ‘Didn’t you hear us last night?’ he says. ‘I got some shite on you, Royston Blake. Bad, bad things is what I been hearin’. Shite that’ll put you away for a long un. Been a naughty boy, ain’t you. Murder’s a very naughty thing to get up to, I reckons. Speshly when iss yer own dear wedded wife on receivin’ end.’

  I’d been expecting summat along them lines, and I weren’t planning on letting it get to us. I didn’t even blink. ‘No one can touch us on that one. Not even the coppers. Tried to make a charge stick on us already, didn’t they. But it wouldn’t.’

  ‘And why were that?’

  ‘Dunno why you’re askin’ us. Whole town knows about it and I don’t mind if they does, bein’ as I got nothing to hide. No evidence, Baz. Nuthin’ sticks cos there’s nut’n to stick.’

  ‘Ah, but that ain’t true. There is summat. Summat that’ll stick to you like a burr on a mongrel’s arse.’

  I’d been keeping a cocky grin up all right until then, but suddenly it shrivelled up and dropped down me throat.

  ‘Woss matter, Blakey boy?’ he says. ‘Lost yer voice?’

  ‘All right, you reckons you knows summat. Tell us then.’

  ‘Never mind that. We knows what we knows, see? And thass a lot more than you wants us to know, I can tell you. So you best clear off and hope that I don’t spill the beans too soon. Know what I means? If I were you I’d shift arse out of Mangel. Pack up and move somewhere else, far away. And never come back. Hearin’ us all right?’

  I opened and closed my gob a couple of times. Then I licked me dry lips and says: ‘Leave? No one leaves Mangel.’

  ‘Ain’t my problem, is it? Oh, and you can take yer tart with you if you likes. You could say I’ve had her every way a man can, an’ I’m pretty sure there’s nuthin’ special to her. Course, I tried her out the other night one more time, just to be sure. But a tart’s a tart, ennit. Keep her.’

  I stared at him.

  He stared back. His eyes was crystal blue against the pink of his fat cheeks. We was stood a few feet apart, but I could smell the beer on him. He’d looked half-cut coming out the Bee Hive. But he didn’t now. It were me who were half-cut.

  He stared at us.

  I stared back. His fists was clenching slowly, like a gunfighter inching hand to holster. I wanted to look down but I couldn’t. All I could do were stare back and bide me time. I were Clint Eastwood and he were Lee Van Cleef. A fat Lee Van Cleef. And a heavily built Clint Eastwood, if I’m honest. I stared, and I knew me eyes looked just like Clint’s. My leather jacket were a poncho, and though my scalp were sporting nothing but a quarter inch of hair, I truly believed I had a cowboy hat perched up there.

  My eyes started watering. Clint’s eyes never started watering. Not that you saw anyhow. I thought about it for a second and decided his eyes must water sometimes, all that staring and squinting and sand blowing about in the dry air. And if Clint’s eyes watered then he’d have to blink. He were only human after all, weren’t he? Aye, course he fucking were. And if he blinked, it were all right for us to blink. I just about had to, tears welling up in my eyes and getting ready to spill down me cheeks as they was. Wouldn’t want Baz to reckon I were crying, would I.

  So I closed my eyes.

  It were only a scrag end of a second later when I opened em again. But already it were too late. His right fist pinged off my head around the left eyebrow. I closed me eyes again, thinking how that were the fist he wore his sovereign on. I opened em to find same fist closing in on me right kidney. I crunched that side up without thinking about it, like you’ll always do if you’ve grown up scrapping. It stopped the worst of it, but he still knocked half the wind out of us. I stepped back to give meself a chance, but the oak tree were there and I lost me footing and went down. Baz put the boot in straight away.

  I curled up in a ball and tried to guess what Clint might’ve done if he were us. It were a fair bet that he’d never have found himself on the deck getting a shoeing in the ribs in the first place. But if he ever did you could be sure he’d get out of it somehow. And he’d not waste all that sweat and blood fighting back neither. He’d do it clever. He’d have lost his gun by now, else he wouldn’t be getting a kicking. But he’d have summat else hid away. Summat like a knife.

  Well, I didn’t have no knife down me trouser leg. But I did have the old monkey wrench tucked away in the lining of my jacket. As I slipped my arm in to get at it, Baz left off my ribs and started on the back of my head, which made it hard to think but easier to ferret around in me leather. I don’t know how long it took cos it were hard to keep track with Baz shoeing my head, but after a bit my fingers curled round cold hard metal.

  I rolled over and took one in the face. He tried to pull the leg back, but I grabbed it and twisted, wanting him to go down. That didn’t work. He stopped the kicking and hopped around a bit, but stayed up. While he were busy doing that, I pulled meself up using his leg for support. Soon as I were level with him I swung the wrench. And swung it again.

  And again.

  And…

  A noise.

  I looked up, feeling summat hot and black and solid drain out of us. A mongrel were sniffing around a headstone not ten foot away. He were a tatty old cur with not too much hair and only one ear. That didn’t seem to bother him, mind, wagging his tail as he were. He cocked his leg and started pissing. I watched the steaming flow darkening the old grey stone, and a little knot of worry took hold in my belly. I looked down at Baz, and felt me breakfast clamouring for daylight.

  I turned about and chucked me guts on the path. As the chunder spewed forth, I shook my head. It’d never been like this in the old days. Spilt blood were summat to be proud of back then. A mashed face were the mark of a job well done, not summat to make you sick. I stood up and tried to calm meself. Couple of deep breaths ought to do it. Stretch the back and loosen up them neck muscles.

  Baz were lying still where I’d left him. Didn’t look much like Baz now mind. More like one of Alvin’s kebabs with extra chilli sauce. I laughed. In a good-natured way, mind. We was all mates underneath. Even if we was acting like enemies. One day we’d all be codgers sitting in
the pub blabbing on about the good old days when we used to thump each other ragged. But I stopped laughing when I noticed that Baz weren’t moving.

  Right on cue his head shifted a bit, like he were trying out his neck. His mouth opened and closed. Didn’t sound too good. Sounded like he’d need a bit of wiring there. Plus all the stitches. Maybe I’d gone a bit overboard. I had to admit, I hadn’t left no one with a face like that before. But I couldn’t blame meself. It’d been a long time since I’d had a scrap, so I’d had a lot of steam to let off. Baz knew that and shouldn’t have pushed us. I felt more chunder stirring in me guts. But I couldn’t hang around for none of that. Nobody were about, apart from the mongrel. And now he’d pissed off somewhere looking for a fight or a bone or a shag. But you never knew who’d be along next. I took off.

  Summat made us stop after three or four strides. I dunno what it were. Might have been the good Samaritan in us, taking pity on the poor battered Munton lying roadside. Whatever it were, I found I couldn’t walk no further. Not without going back for another gander at him. Just to be sure he were all right and that.

  Course, it were only when I found him eyes open and not breathing that I knew he weren’t all right.

  He were dead, weren’t he.

  I scratched my ear, wondering how that had happened. I got the monkey wrench out and looked at it, shaking my head. But them who talks of workmen and their tools is right, you know. I had to shoulder some of the blame. Specially after all I’d been saying about monkey wrenches and being careful with em and that.

  I knelt down beside Baz. ‘Soz about that, mate,’ I says. ‘I er…I reckon I dunno what came over us, like. You’ll understand, won’t you? Aye, course you will. Well, er…I’ll be off then. Bye.’ I pushed his eyelids down, but they crept up again. I tried again a couple of times, then gave up. He’d always been an awkward cunt and he were no different dead.

  I stood up. A bus chuntered past alongside the graveyard. A dog barked. A plane flew overhead, likely heading somewhere better than Mangel. I had to do summat, I supposed.

  I hauled the carcass behind some nearby bushes. There were a big pile of dug earth amongst em which didn’t seem to be doing much in particular. So I dumped Baz next to it and kicked some soil over him. Not much, mind. I had to be able to find him again. When his face and hands was covered, and he looked like a few old rags in the dirt when you stood a few yard back and squinted, I legged it.

  I headed back same way I’d come, seeing even less of it this time. All I could think of were Legs, raising his fatherly eyebrow in that way of his and telling us I’d done all right. It were barmy to ponder along such lines, I know. But it were better than the other—to think about how I’d just killed a Munton.

  When I got back to the Capri the engine started first time. If I were a man who lived by omens I’d take that as a good un. I crossed me fingers and let the clutch off. If there were one time I needed her to purr nice and quiet like a good pussy, it were now.

  And she did.

  I nigh on floated through the streets, heading back to the graveyard. I didn’t dare think about what the hell I were to do once I got there. It were broad bastard daylight, fuck sake. And driving your motor across a graveyard ain’t exactly the most discreetest of things a feller can do. How were I planning on getting Baz inside the car? I weren’t even sure he’d fit, your Ford Capri being a bachelor’s coupé and not well suited to what I had in mind for it. I pulled up a block away from the graveyard and gave the situation my full and undivided.

  If I left it until dark, some bastard might find him. Or some dog, more like. No, I had to get him out fast. At least if I took Baz that’d be the evidence hid. And it were better to be seen hauling summat into a car now than to have folks find a dead feller later on. Wouldn’t take many brains to link the corpse to meself. Not even Mangel brains.

  From my vantage point at Capri-level I could see a fair bit of the graveyard two blocks down the road, including the foot of the old oak tree, which is where Baz and I had come to blows. My eyes stayed on that spot as I sat behind the wheel and tried to think. But a sudden movement set my heart thrashing like a landed trout. Someone were coming up the path towards the bushes and the dirt heap.

  Some bastard with a shovel and barrow.

  I gunned the engine and charged into the car park. I weren’t sure what I were up to. All I knew is what I had to do—stop the gravedigger finding Baz. The car crunched to a halt. I got out. The digger were still where I’d first spotted him. But now he were staring at us, gob agape. I reckoned the dodgy exhaust had finally earned its keep. I ran up to him, wondering what the flaming Betty I were meant to say. But then, like it always do if you leaves yourself open to it, Providence steamed in clutching a little plan in his sweaty paw.

  ‘Hoy, mate,’ I hollers, all urgent and scaredy-eyed, which were how I were feeling anyhow so I didn’t need to put it on. ‘Yer, uh…yer bird’s had accident, like.’

  ‘Me burd? Who?’

  ‘Aye. You know. She’s…’

  ‘Me gurlfriend?’

  ‘Aye. Thass her.’

  He were a young feller, as gravediggers went. But bald as a duck egg. ‘But I ain’t got no gurlfriend.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Me woife, you means?’

  ‘Oh aye. She’s had accident.’

  ‘Ain’t got a woife neither.’

  I scratched my head, which I sometimes found to work at times like this un.

  ‘Could be…’ says he, rubbing muddy paws together.

  I were looking at the heap of soil across the way, not ten yards from where we was stood. One of Baz Munton’s clumping boots were sticking up clean out of the earth, announcing quite clear to the world that he were lying there, dead. ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘Aye. It could be that you means me muther.’

  I slapped meself hard across the cheek and says: ‘Thass for me bein’ so blinkin’ thick. Course I means yer mother.’

  ‘So woss happened to her?’ he says. I were starting to think it were normal for his gob to be hanging open like that.

  ‘Run over. She got run over. You gotta go to her.’

  ‘Who let her out?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Ain’t got legs, has she. Who had her out in the road?’

  ‘Well, she were in a wheelchair, weren’t she. Out in the street.’

  ‘Lord almighty,’ he says, rubbing his pate. ‘Who done it? Who gone an’ ran over me muther?’

  ‘It were…well, iss a bit hard to talk about. I were a passer-by, like, just bypassin’ and mindin’ me own an’ that. I…oh hell…’ I says, all quivery and rubbing me eyes.

  ‘You’re all right, mate. Go on an’ tell us.’

  ‘Well, there was so many coppers and ambulances, you see. You ain’t seen the like of it before. I ain’t anyhow. Thass why I comes to tell you, ennit. All the coppers and that was all busy sweepin’ up the road and lookin’ after hurt folks.’

  ‘Who were it? Who ran her over?’

  ‘Sure you wants to know?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘All right. Well it were a bus, big red double-decker. Just ran out, didn’t she. In her chair, like. Driver had no chance. Passed away instantly, she did, by all accounts.’

  ‘A buzz?’

  ‘Aye. A bus.’

  ‘Flamin’ heck.’ He dropped the barrow and hared off homeward.

  Alone as I now were, I got to work. I hauled Baz up into the barrow along with plenty of loose grave dirt. Then I wheeled him over to the Capri and lugged him, after much grunting and sweating on my part, into the boot. I put everything back as it had been, checking that no item had fallen from Baz as I’d tossed and lugged him about. I even had presence of mind to turn over the bits of bloodstained gravel with me boot, where I’d given Baz his final hiding.

  I drove out of Norbert Green, thinking how I might just be all right if I hit the right buttons and scored a few nudges. A
ye, long as I took care of Baz’s body all right. And long as no bastard knew I’d gone after him.

  I slammed on me brakes.

  The heavy object in the boot near came through onto the back seat. What were I thinking of?

  I set off again, heading for the Paul Pry.

  A few cars was parked out back when I pulled up. It sank my heart to see em, but nothing were to be done about that. I got out.

  I called in at the bog first. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise the feller in it. My hands, face, and hair was covered in dirt and blood. But after the shock wore off I reckoned it weren’t so bad after all. Clothes was mostly all right, which were the main thing. It took us fairly five minutes to get all the shite off my hands and clean up my head, but needs must. When the dirt were off my face, the cut above my eyebrow from Baz’s sovereign didn’t look so bad. I felt the back of my head. It were starting ache like shite, but I couldn’t find no major bumps nor cuts, which were a bonus. A couple of fellers came in for a piss during that time. ‘All right, Blake,’ they each says on seeing us.

  ‘All right, mate,’ I says back, not even looking.

  When I got to the bar I called Nathan the barman aside.

  ‘All right, Blake,’ he says.

  ‘All right, Nathan.’

  ‘You’ll be wantin’ this now, I reckon,’ he says, getting the glass he’d put by earlier.

  ‘Oh…aye.’

  He were looking at my head as he filled her. ‘I hopes he came off worser’n you, mind.’

  ‘Aye, well. You know what I were sayin’ before?’ I says, low of voice and shifty of eye. No one else were near, but too careful is summat you can never be.

  ‘Aye. Find Baz all right?’

  ‘Shhh. Do us a favour, will you? I never told you about Baz. All right?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Funny, I reckons you did.’

  ‘I knows I did, but I wants you to reckon I didn’t. Gettin’ us?’