‘Thirteen.’
‘A decent feller don’t meddle with birds so young as that. A decent f—’
‘You kissed us.’
‘Keep yer voice down. Look, yer kinfolk would’ve frowned upon it when you was thirteen, an’ I can’t see em cheerin’ us on now.’
‘Why? You an’ me brothers is mates, ennit?’
‘Well…it don’t look good, Mand.’ I went over and gave her a cuddle. Her arms slipped around me back, so I knew she were all right. Which meant I’d be all right. I looked at my watch. If they was to come in and see us like this…
‘Blake.’
‘Aye,’ I says, zipping up me track suit top.
‘Oh…forget it.’
She looked like she were still bothered about summat. But I had to be hard on this one. I had to push. ‘Mind if I pops upstairs for a slash, Mand?’
She turned to the sink and ran the tap. ‘Go on,’ she says, swilling out the mugs.
I went on up. I knew she’d be a moment or two faffing about in the kitchen, so I opened a few doors and had a goose around. It had to be here somewhere. Either here or at Munton Motors. They hadn’t had time to take it nowhere else, I reckoned. First room I tried were Lee’s, by the looks of the clothes lying around the floor and the reek of stale aftershave. There weren’t much to see besides togs and some furniture. Not even a couple of pictures on the wall. I opened a drawer and found nothing but socks and trolleys. Two more yielded sundry firearms and ammo. The one on the bottom contained a large collection of wank mags. I had a flick through em for a moment or two, but stopped that when I had to peel apart two pages too many. Then I looked under the bed. And I knew I were getting close.
Wads of cash. Same as Jess had pulled from the stock room safe.
‘Wrong turnin’, eh?’
I stood up and waved my hands about. ‘Mand…I were just—’
‘Bog’s t’other way. Lee won’t like it if you piss down there under his bed.’
‘No, I were…Ah, fuck it. Mand, I’ve fallen in a pile o’ shite as high as a house. If I don’t find what I’m after I’m a dead man. You gotta help us, Mand. You gotta forget you seen us here.’
She were leaning up against the door frame, arms folded. It were strange to know that a few minutes ago I’d been banging her. ‘Already says I would, didn’t I? What you lookin’ for?’
‘Oh, Mand. If I could tell you I would. Thing is, I dunno.’
‘You dunno what you’re lookin’ for?’
‘Aye. I mean no. See…’ I knew I were holding me knackers out for the chop here. But I were trying to forget about that. Didn’t do no good to fret on such things. Not in the spot I were in. ‘Lee an’ Jess an’ meself done a place over last night…this mornin’. Came away with a bit o’ gear. But there’s—’
‘You didn’t though, did you. You done a runner, what I heared.’
‘How’d you hear that?’
She looked down at the floor, cheeks turning a mite rosy. I were beginning to hanker for her all over again. ‘I hears what they says. Walls is thin.’ Suddenly she pulled herself straight. ‘But I ain’t blamin’ you, Blake. I admires what you done. Takes a brave man to realise what he’s doin’ ain’t right and walk away from it.’
Ran away from it more like. With a round of buckshot coming after us. ‘Well, ta for that. But it ain’t workin’ the way you’d hope. Got coppers after us, see. Fuck knows how, but they’ve copped on that I were involved last night. Not your brothers, just me. An’ less I can set meself up with an alibi sharpish I’m fucked good an’ proper. But…but…’
I could tell I had her interested. Them black eyes was burning into us, head nodding a bit now and then.
‘See, I got the alibi all set up,’ I went on. ‘Airtight as a nun’s knickers. Only there’s a snag, like. He’s wantin’ payin’ for it. Summat in particular. Thass why I’m here lookin’ for it under this here bed.’
She crossed her arms again. ‘I might of knowed it. You didn’t come to see us at all, did you.’
‘Mand…’ I stepped towards her. ‘Mand, I can’t tell a lie. I came here lookin’ for the wossname. I’m tryin’ to keep meself out o’ jail, see. I didn’t know you’d be here. But you was. An’ then things happened, didn’t they? Things is all different now. Here, in me heart. Do you see? You never knowed I were comin’ neither, did you? You never. But them same things has happened in your heart an’ all. Ain’t they?’
She put her arms round me neck and pushed us onto the bed. Like I says, Mand were a strong lass. And somehow she’d managed to pull off her top again. I thought about letting her carry on. It’d be a laugh to do it right there on Lee’s pit with his own sister. But I were so close to pulling summat out of the flames.
I pushed her off us. Gently. ‘Mand, don’t you see? If I don’t sort it out soon I’ll be kissin’ it all good-bye. And then we’d be apart.’
She stared at my shoulder, tongue poking out the side of her mouth. ‘Woss this thing you’re after?’
‘Dunno. I…well, iss summat they robbed last night. Summat they found in the second safe. We got the money out the first un, right? But I never seen what were in the second. I’d cleared off by then. An’ whatever it were, Na…my alibi knows about it. An’ thass what he wants. Won’t take nuthin’ else.’
She sat chewing her lip and thinking for a while. Then she says: ‘Hang on…’
‘What?’
‘I knows what it is.’
I grabbed her hand and started rubbing it. ‘Mand, what is it? Where is it?’
‘I dunno what it is. But I heared em talkin’ about it, sayin’ things like “Where shall we hide it?” and “I can’t believe we got our hands on it.” And there was long bits of silence when I reckon they was just starin’ at it.’
‘Mandy,’ I says, rubbing both her hands now, ‘where is it?’
She chewed her lip a bit more, then stopped and gave us a hard look. ‘Take us away.’
‘Where to?’
‘Away. Juss get us out of Mangel. You and me. I don’t wanna be here no more. I can see that now. Iss what I been thinkin’ about lately. There’s gotta be more out there than this. I ain’t stayin’ here no more. Take us away.’
I rubbed me face. I hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and it were getting rough as a cat’s tongue. ‘But, Mand, no one leaves Mangel.’
She looked at us funny, like I’d spoke out of turn at a posh tea party or summat. Then she says: ‘Eh?’
Like most birds Mandy could be thick at times. For that reason you couldn’t blame her too much for not seeing everything like it truly were. I’d come across it time and again in Mangel, folks reckoning they could just hop in a motor and piss off to some other town. Aye, they said it, but none of em had done it. Ignorance were rife in this town, and concentrated mainly in the female population, I truly reckoned.
Course, Mandy hadn’t barely been out of her house in donkeys, so you couldn’t expect her to know what were what. ‘Ah, never mind,’ I says. ‘So, you’d come away with us, would you?’
‘Oh, Blake. You knows I would. If you’d only asked us all them years ago I’d of said it then an’ all.’ She went to pull her jeans down again.
I held em up. I had to keep her talking. Long as I kept her talking—even if it were bollocks about leaving Mangel and me running off with a Munton bird—I still had chance of saving meself. ‘But, Mand, it won’t work out unless I pays off me alibi. Where’s this doofer?’
‘I can get it. Kiss us.’
‘When? Can you get it now?’
‘Kiss us.’
I kissed her.
‘I can get it. Leave it to me.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Leave it to me. Meet us later on. In the graveyard. Nine o’clock.’
‘The fuckin’ graveyard? What for?’
‘Cos no one ever goes there. An there’s trees an’ that to hide us.’
‘But folks walks through it.’
‘Aye.
An thass what you’ll do. Walk through at nine. I’ll be waiting somewhere near the path. I’ll see you.’
‘Mand, I ain’t sure about that. Can’t we juss get the thing now?’
‘Nine o’clock, Blake. And remember, you’re takin’ us away. Tonight. So pack a bag and have yer car ready. And, Blake…’
‘What?’
‘You let us down an I’ll tell me brothers on you.’
I kissed her again. Her kit came off easy.
I kept me wig on.
13
I closed my eyes.
I were in a strange place somewhere between bursting out me skin and knackered to all fuck and back. Head were pulling one way and arse the other, and I were stuck between the two. I were stuck there until I could find whatever this thing were and plonk it in Nathan’s greasy paw. And then I’d only be halfway sorted. Seemed as like the only way to rid meself of one worry were to swap it for another un.
I drove around for a bit, trying to think above all the din in my head. I tried to hark back to the last time I’d felt all right, free of cares and happy to be breathing the Mangel air. Well, I don’t reckon such a time had ever been. Not that I could recall anyhow. There’d been moments, when your tail’s up and you can’t smell the shite for roses. But moments was all they’d been. And it didn’t look like there’d be many of them no more.
I found meself on the road out of town again. The Capri were giving it the big un, pushing past the ton mark on a nice clear stretch. It were always quiet out on them country roads. No bastard ever came to Mangel, and it were sure as a cat shags in the alley that no fucker ever left her. Not ones like me anyhow.
I pulled into a lay-by and checked my watch. It were getting on for late afternoon. I tried to think of all the things needed doing. But right then I couldn’t put me finger on one of em. Never had been one for writing shite down, but right then I wished I were. Putting it all on paper seemed a better way forward than not knowing my arse from a burst tyre anyhow. I had a rummage in the glove box and came out with a parking ticket and a little betting pen. I scrawled around on the back of the ticket for a while, trying to get the bastard pen to work. When it started scribbling blue all over the shop I turned the ticket over and placed the nib on the paper ready to write.
But writing never got no one out of bother. Only thing that counts is action. I tossed the paper out the window and drove home. After cleaning meself up and putting on some new kit, I fried up the stuff I’d bought earlier and sat down to enjoy it with a nice glass of whisky. I were down to me last bottle, and made a mental note to borrow a few more next time I were at Hoppers. And that led us to the next thing to do.
‘Oh, I fell over.’
She shook her head. ‘Feel all right now?
‘Aye. Thirsty, mind.’
‘Pint?’
‘Ta, Rache.’ I lit a fag and started whistling ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon’. Stepping inside Hoppers often put that tune inside my head. Always had done and always would, far as I reckoned.
I glanced at Rachel while she were pulling the pint. There were nothing to be read on her face. Nothing along the lines of Hoppers being robbed last night and her boss hospitalised anyhow. So I set my eyes at chest level and tried to switch me brain off. She dumped the pint in front of us and started away. ‘Rache.’
‘Blake?’ She smiled. Same sort of smile I’d got out of her last time I got her talking. Kind of smile a feller aims at getting from a bird.
‘I were just…well…Quiet in here tonight, ennit?’
‘Time of the week. You knows it’s quiet this time of week. Specially early on.’
‘Aye, reckons you’re right there.’ I drank a bit of me pint and licked the foam off my tash. Rache went off down the bar. No one else needed serving but she had some sorting to do. ‘Fenton in tonight?’
‘Aye.’ She didn’t even look up.
Fucking hell. I drank some more. ‘In his office?’ I says, belching in the middle of it so it sounded all casual like.
‘Far as I knows.’
I finished me pint, stretching it out over a minute or two.
Rache pulled us a fresh one. ‘Ain’t like you to spend your free time in here.’
‘Ain’t it?’ I weren’t sure what she were getting at. If she didn’t know about last night, and Fenton were back there in his office, then no one knew about it. Coppers included. ‘Well, I were in town anyhow, and…’ I looked down, smiling shyly. ‘You knows how it is.’
‘What? You came to see me?’
‘Well…aye, I did.’
‘Ah…Royston. Gonna buy us a drink?’
She poured herself a vodka and orange and set herself in front of us. We chatted and larked about for a while, me thinking about Fenton back there in his office the whole time. What were he up to? Why hadn’t he hoyed the coppers? What the fuck had Lee and Jess done to him last night?
‘So thass on, then? You’ll meet us after work?’
‘Wha? Oh, was we…?’
‘Blake, you wasn’t windin’ us up, was you?’ Her grip on my hand slackened a bit.
‘Course not.’ I gave her a kiss on the cheek by way of chasing doubt from her mind. She moved her face sideways so her mouth were on mine, and we sat there snogging across the bartop for a while. To be honest I were a bit shocked that Rache were behaving like that in front of all and sundry. I hadn’t seen her so much as wink at a feller before, and here she were putting it all out for us in public. Perhaps she’d been saving herself for us. I liked the sound of that. Took my mind off Fenton for a second or two. But no more than that. Not even when she stuck her tongue in me ear.
I broke it off and pointed out the punter waiting for serving down the other end. While she were gone I sloped off out back. I had to know. If Fenton had clocked on to me being in on the job, it’d do us no good thinking he hadn’t.
I knocked.
No answer. I wanted to walk away, fuck off somewhere else, and get pissed off me swede. But I were feeling too nosy for that. I knocked again. Nothing. I tried the door.
Locked. ‘Mr. Fenton,’ I says loud. Rachel had said he were in. ‘Mr. Fenton?’ Then I heard summat behind the door. Furniture creaking, shite like that. ‘Mr. Fenton, you there, like?’
‘Blake? Is that Blake?’ I could barely hear it. And it didn’t sound much like Fenton. Barely a whisper, just the other side of the door.
‘Aye. Let us in.’
‘Ah, Blake. I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t think you’d be in tonight.’
‘Aye, well. I popped in to…say hello to Rache. Gonna open the door or what?’
‘Hang on. This isn’t easy. You’re sure no one else is with you?’
‘Aye. Go on.’
There were a lot of scratching and grunting, and a couple of minutes later he had the door unlocked. I let meself in. Fenton padded slowly back to his chair. He looked all wrong from the back, but I couldn’t see exactly how, other than that he were moving like an old man. His shirt were hanging out and his floppy hair were all messed-up and wrong-looking. ‘Sorry about the wait, Blake. Had to unlock the door with my teeth.’ He turned about and showed us his busted face and bandaged hands. A few drops of blood dotted his shirtfront and blue tie.
I had to play it straight. ‘What the fuck happened to you?’
He gave us a strange look at first, which had us wondering if I hadn’t walked into a trap. But then his face gave way to other things, like pain and grief and that. He started blubbering a bit. ‘I’m a weak man, Blake. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Help what, for fuck?’
‘I gave it away. I let them get away with it.’ He started crying proper now.
I shook my head and looked out the window. Fucking twat. Fancy crying. After a bit it got a bit embarrassing, so I coughed and says: ‘Mr. Fenton, tell us—’
‘Blake…’ He sat down a bit too hard and yelped. ‘I’ve got so much to tell you. But I can’t. I can’t tell the half of it.’
‘Giz the bare
bones then. Like who done this to you?’
‘It was those thugs who I bought this place from. Munton, their name was. The three brothers, you know? The ones I asked you to ban some time ago. But don’t tell anyone, OK? It’s no one else’s problem, and I don’t want the police involved. The Muntons did it, just like I always knew someone would one day. I just didn’t think it would be someone…local. The Muntons came in here and took my…’ He waved a bandaged paw at the safe in the corner. The door hung open, showing the big fat jack shite inside. ‘They took it, Blake.’
‘What were in it?’ I says. ‘Money?’
He laughed. It were a sick laugh, like a dying feller who don’t give a toss no more. ‘Money? Blake, it wasn’t money. I wouldn’t let my fingers get broken one by one for money. But…’ He looked us for a few seconds then shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you what it was. Sorry.’
‘Have you been down the ozzy, Mr. Fenton?’ I says, knowing full well he hadn’t. No doctor would bandage up his hands like that. He’d done it himself. With his teeth like as not. And hankies for bandages.
‘I can’t. Forget it, Blake. I don’t need that kind of help. It won’t mean a thing unless…’ He looked at us. It were a look I hadn’t seen on him before. He were sizing us up, I reckoned, deciding whether I could do what he had in mind or no. Or if I’d be prepared to do it anyhow. ‘Blake. You know how I gave you a chance, back when I first came here and bought this place? Well, I did that because I saw something in you. I saw a bit of myself there. Now, you might think that’s amusing, us being hardly similar in any way. But that’s just it, Blake. I saw in you the bit of me that I felt inside but could never let out. I’m not big and strong like you. And I don’t act on instinct. I’m a thinker. I think everything through. But you’re different. You have your own rules and you don’t even know it. You act on them without thinking and you don’t mess about. You live by your heart, Blake. And I live by my head. But part of me wants to live by my heart. Part of me wants to live out there with the people and fight and fuck with them.’
To be honest I weren’t sure what he were on about. I were looking around the room, rolling my tongue around me teeth, noting that I hadn’t been cleaning em proper of late. You shouldn’t do that. If you don’t clean your teeth regular the muck builds up on em and then you can’t shift it. I’d heard that on the telly.
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