Deadfolk

by Charlie Williams

  He weren’t as heavy as I thought he’d be. I found that I could balance him with the one arm and hold the pistol with the other. That were good, seeing as I’d just shot the one Munton and the other were still at large. I headbutted the door fully open and went outside.

  I looked around the yard, eyes popping out my head. No fucker were there. I pulled up the door of the next garage, expecting to see a dead Jess lying there next to his chainsaw. But Susan weren’t there.

  Nor Jess neither.

  Finney were light as a stillborn kitten. I wished he were heavier. I wished he were so heavy his weight pulled us down and made him hard to carry. But carrying him weren’t a problem for us. I could have carried two of him right then. I walked up the path to the street, saying his name quietly over and over, asking him to wake up and stop fucking about. But he just carried on being light and limp and covered in blood.

  A car were coming up from the right. I stepped into the road and pointed the gun at the driver, who were a lad of sixteen or so. He stopped and got out, leaving her running. I put Finney down on the back seat and drove us out of Norbert Green. I carried on talking to him the whole while, telling him what a thick cunt he were and how he were gonna get himself killed one of them days with his twattery. He didn’t have much to say back. I reckoned he were kipping.

  When I got to the Infirmary I pulled up behind an ambulance and got him out. I kicked the glass doors open—cracking one of em—and carried him inside. He were heavier now, which were a good sign, I reckoned. The place were packed with sick and lame of Mangel, moaning and yelling. They all shut up when I waved the pistol at em. I laid Fin out on the front desk and told the nurse he’d had an industrial and could they sort him out sharpish cos he’s got an important game of footy in two days’ time. She said nothing but I knew me and her understood one another.

  When I got out front again a feller in a green and yellow tunic were shouting at us about parking. I aimed at his head and fired. I thought I’d nailed the fucker but he ran off, so perhaps I missed. I got in the car and had away, noting with interest that it were a Morris Marina. The commonly held view of Marinas is that they goes like a combine harvester through a forest. But this one were fair nippy—an 1800, I reckoned—and not at all uncomfortable to drive. I took it around the block a couple of times before I recalled what I were meant to be doing.

  I turned the radio on to see what kind of output it had. The news feller came on and said a lad in Norbert Green had had his purple Marina hijacked by a large armed feller in a black leather carrying a blood-soaked and possibly deceased third party across his shoulder. Coppers said the man were highly emotional and warned folks not to fuck with him in case he shot em. I pulled in, got out, and started walking.

  It were only half a minute or so before an old feller came chuntering along on his moped. Soon as I seen it I knew it were the right transport for us at that particular time. I ran into the road and waved him down, but he went right on past us. I ran after him, thinking how it were a good job he were going uphill. Any folks could tell you how nippy I were over thirty yards. Farther than that and me lungs always started screaming. I reckoned I had asthma or summat, but I couldn’t ever be arsed to go along to the doctor and find out for surely. Weren’t as if it bothered us anyhow. A feller can run away from you, but where’s there to hide in Mangel?

  Anyhow, I caught the old feller after ten yard or so and wrenched his hand off the throttle. That’s all I meant to do, mind. Weren’t my fault he fell off. Took a swing at us, didn’t he. Cheeky old sod. As I were riding off on his bike, I looked back at him. He were lying still in the road. But he’d be all right there. Someone’d find him.

  I reached where I were headed a few minutes later and without further mishap. I parked her round back and went on up the fire escape. His light were on, so I were sure he were in. Legs weren’t the sort to waste nothing, not even a couple of pennies on the leccy bill. I rapped me knuckles on the door frame and waited. No one came. I lit a smoke and knocked harder. Perhaps he were in the bath or summat. I couldn’t hear no music so he’d be sure to hear us sooner or later. But no one came to the door. I knocked again for good measure but still got no avail. I walked slowly back down the stair, feeling a bit cheesed off. All right, he were my mate and I had to trust him at the end of the day. But he were in. I fucking knew he were in. Why didn’t he open the door for us? Cunt.

  I stopped dead when I saw a feller running up the stairs at us, hood up and head down. I didn’t have much time to think, so as he came close and looked up I thumped him full bore on the forehead, knocking him cold and hurting me knuckles a bit. I had a look at him as he lay sprawled on the metal steps, head hanging over the side. He were only about thirteen by the looks of him. What the fuck were he playing at, taking a run at us like that? I looked inside the big orange bag over his shoulder. It were full of newspapers. I picked one of em out and had a look at it. It were the Informer. The headline were KILLER, and under it were a photo of meself. I squinted at the writing.

  Mangel Police are after Royston Roger Blake in connection with the death of Daniel Herbert Draper of Mangel.

  Going by the testimony of a witness who was walking his dog by the River Clunge yesterday, police believe Blake dealt Draper a series of blows over the head with a large metallic object and pushed him into the water. He then dumped an unidentified body in the water after him. Draper’s body was found further down the river near Higgis Wharf. The other one remains at large.

  Blake, of South Mangel, was arrested two years ago for the murder of his wife Beth. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence, but not before Blake was diagnosed clinically insane. He was released back into the community eighteen months ago after a spell at Parpham General Asylum. ‘Quite a nice chap, I thought,’ said Dr. Lawrence Gelding, who treated Blake at Parpham. ‘I can’t believe he’d so much as swat a fly, let alone murder a person. Oh well, there’s no accounting for folk, is there?’

  Members of the public are warned not to approach Blake should they see him. Just phone the police and let them sort it out.

  Only thing I didn’t like about it were the photo. It were an old one, from when I were eighteen and half stone of solid beef. Don’t get us wrong, it were a good picture. But that were the problem. Showed how much I’d let meself go in the past couple of years, didn’t it? I tucked the paper back in the kid’s bag and trotted down the stair.

  I didn’t fancy getting on the moped again. My arse were aching still from the ride into town. Besides, coppers’d be on the lookout for it and I couldn’t be doing with none of that bollocks right then. I pushed it into the corner and hid it behind a load of rubbish bags. Then I walked round front.

  Before stepping into the street, I hesitated. What the fuck were I playing at? My face were plastered all over the bastard paper, for fuck. Walking round town with me chin in the air wouldn’t be clever. Folks’d spot us—despite me not comparing well to the photo of meself—and sooner or later I’d end up in an interview room with two hard coppers and a truncheon. I stepped into the shadows and felt inside my pockets. There were a lot of gear in em, I can tell you. Any trouble cropped up I’d be all right. Short term, anyhow. But trouble were what I aimed to avoid, long as I could. I fished out the wig and pulled it on, then looked at meself in a window. It were all right, but I needed summat else if I were to pass meself off as not meself.

  I walked back up Legsy’s fire escape and had a look at the kid’s anorak. It were nice and baggy on him, but it’d be a bit of a stretch around my generous girth. Still, it were that or nothing. And it were a disguise all right. Folks’d never expect to see Royston Blake wearing such twatwear. I pulled it off him careful as I could. He grunted and wheezed a bit but didn’t wake. I put it on. I couldn’t zip it up without bursting the seams, but hanging free it looked all right, if you likes that sort of thing. And with the wig on I looked nothing like meself.

  I took everything out of me jacket and put it in the anorak, then du
mped the leather in the bins. I thought about putting it on the kid, as a little thank you, like. But that’d be leaving evidence. And it were a warm day anyhow so he’d be all right.

  I walked off up the street, humming ‘My Way’. When I saw Hoppers off up the way, a thirst took hold of us that shrivelled me tongue and made my hair ache. I gave meself a once over in the window of a junk shop. I looked like a twat all right, but nothing like Blake. Not even Rachel’d recognise us. I walked in.

  It were midafternoon and slow. A few lunchtime stragglers was laughing and getting pissed over by the back wall, but no one else were there. Besides Rachel, course. But she were always there. I stepped up to her, trying to walk different to what were my habit. I wished I’d practised that one beforehand cos all it did were make us look more of a twat. The fellers at the back laughed a bit louder and I knew they was pointing at us. Fuckers. If they knew who I were they’d not find it so funny.

  ‘Hiya, Blake,’ says Rachel, not even looking up from her paper.

  ‘All right, R—how the fuck did you know who I were?’

  She looked at us. ‘Oh, I see. Incognito is it? Sorry, should of looked first. Pint, is it?’

  ‘But how’d you know?’

  ‘Dunno, Blake. Reckon there’s summat about you that walks before you, like. Know what I means?’

  ‘No, Rache, I don’t.’ I looked at meself in the mirror behind the bar. It were a fucking marvellous disguise in my opinion. ‘Hey, got a pair of sunglasses behind there?’

  ‘Aye. Here.’

  ‘No, fellers’ sunglasses.’

  ‘What would I be doin’ with fellers’ sunglasses?’

  Eventually I got her to have a look in that drawer down the bottom where all kinds of shite is stowed. She rummaged through it for a while, cooing at this and turning her nose up at that. At last she came up with two pair of fellers’ shades. One had only one arm. The other were all right. I put em on and had another gander in the mirror. It were perfect. The shades and hairpiece did such a job that I had to move my head side to side to make sure it were meself I were looking at. Did look a mite strange, mind, which were like as not why Rachel were giggling. I reached over and gave her a slap on the arse.

  ‘Hey, you, get off,’ she says.

  ‘Weren’t what you says yes’dy.’

  ‘Yesterday were a different day, before all this came out.’ She nodded at the paper spread out on the bartop. It were the same one I’d already seen just now. ‘Got summat to say about it, eh?’

  She were looking at us funny, not like you’d expect her to. But it weren’t bad. It weren’t a bad look at all, in fact. No, her eyes told us that she thought I were summat special. She were looking at us, to be honest, as if I’d got out a foot-long tadger and waved it at her. ‘Know what I oughta do?’ she says, not blinking nor taking em off us. ‘Pick up this phone and call the coppers.’

  ‘What would you do that for, Rache?’

  ‘Why not? You don’t care for us.’

  ‘Rache, that ain’t true.’ I took her hand in mine. I could hear the fellers laughing behind us. ‘Why’d you reckon such a thing?’

  ‘Feller who cared for us’d turn up when he said he would. Like last night.’

  ‘Last night? Oh…I were—’

  ‘Aye, I’ve read about what you was up to.’

  ‘Rache, t’aint like you thinks. Coppers just wants to talk to us is all. I ain’t done nuthin’. Ever knew us to lay a finger on a feller other than to keep the peace?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘No, course you ain’t. S’why I’m a doorman, ennit? Cool head.’

  ‘What about the, uh…’ She frowned at the wig.

  ‘Juss don’t want coppers botherin’ us right now is all. Got other business to—’

  ‘Other business? Blake, you weren’t involved in the…’ She nodded at Fenton’s office. ‘The robbery?’

  ‘Come on, Rache.’ I squeezed her hand harder, wondering what Fenton might have told her about it. She winced a bit, so I let go and started rubbing up and down her arm. ‘You knows that weren’t me. Wouldn’t Fenton know if I’d ripped him off? Course he fuckin’ would.’

  ‘What other business then, Blake?’ I could tell she wanted to believe us. Rachel were a good un, and there weren’t many of that kind in Mangel. She were the sort who’d walk through walls for you once you’d got her in your corner.

  And I wanted her in my corner. I weren’t sure why. With all the shite rising up around my ankles right then, you’d reckon I’d be more concerned about other matters. But, looking right back at her as I were then, nothing were more important than making things straight with her. ‘Rache,’ I says. ‘Rache, sometimes there’s a time when a feller’s gotta put his life aside and do a few things so’s he can…Well, iss like that story about the fox and the…er…What were that story about? You know…’

  She put her fingers up to my lips. ‘Shut up,’ she says. Then she leaned over the counter and kissed us.

  I looked over her shoulder and got a fright when I saw the mop-haired gimp in shades and anorak in the mirror. Didn’t look right for such a one to be kissing a bird like Rachel. But I weren’t complaining.

  Things was all right for a bit after that. I drank me pint and we chatted about this and that, without getting heavy nor her letting slip that I were Blake. Course, us having a snog might have drawn a few eyes. But it didn’t give us away. After a while a skinny cunt with thick glasses, sticky-out ears, and pigeon toes came in and told her he’d come for the interview. It were Mick Runter, a useless cunt who’d never had a job in his life, far as I knew. You wanted Mick Runter, you’d find him down the bookies or Blender Stadium, or kipping under a bus shelter when his mam wouldn’t have him. Though why you’d want Mick Runter I don’t know. She sent him out back to Fenton’s office, then went bright red and turned to her glass polishing.

  ‘Interview?’ I says. ‘For what?’

  ‘Your job.’ She were still blushing, but there were a defiant tone to her voice that I didn’t much care for.

  ‘My job? How fuckin’ come? S’goin’ on, Rache?’

  ‘Well you can’t hardly do it, can you? Shouldn’t even be here now, coppers after you and all.’

  ‘But I’m Royston Blake, head doorman of—’

  ‘Who’s gonna man the door tonight then? Clint Eastwood?’

  I didn’t answer. She shook her head a bit and went off to serve someone. I felt bad. I felt like everyone were ganging up on us and setting us up for summat. And I didn’t like feeling that way. I were Blake, head door…

  Ah, you knows who I were. And so did every cunt in Mangel.

  I pissed off. I walked down Friar Street for a bit, thinking how right it all weren’t. I snapped out of it when a feller coming up on the pavement decided to step to the right just when I stepped to the left, and vicey-versa. Before long we was nose-to-nose, a pair of totems deathing each other out. I could feel the sinews in me neck tense, getting ready for the head I were about to drop on him. But I stopped it right on the point of letting go. His eyes was a bit funny, like he were pissed. Only I knew he weren’t cos I couldn’t smell it on him. And a pissed-up feller’d surely have said summat by now.

  It weren’t much of a surprise when I finally recognised him. Weren’t many folks I didn’t know in the Mangel area. This were the feller from the repair shop, the one whose head Finney had dropped a battery on. Funny how that happens. You think of someone for the first time in donkeys, then next day you sees em. Shite like that always happens to me. Used to reckon I were special that way. But now I knows better. Way of the world, ennit? You can’t get away from folks. Not properly. Not even when they’re dead. ‘All right, mate,’ I says.

  He says nothing.

  I waved my hand in front of his face. His eyes moved a bit. He were a mong, all right. Finney’d not been wrong there. I stepped aside.

  The feller shunted slowly on like a bus pulling away.

  I tagged alongside, peering at his
face. His mouth hung agape. A trickle of flob dangled from his lower lip. ‘You all right, mate? Know where you’re goin’?’

  Still he says nothing.

  ‘Who let you out?’ I says, and a few other such enquiries after his welfare. There’s one type of feller I always looks out for, and that’s the one whose mind ain’t straight. Poor fuckers has got enough on their plates without worrying about folks wanting to fight em. But it were clear my solicitations was all for nothing. The cock were crowing but the farmer weren’t home. We walked a bit more. He crossed the road and went up a side street. Seemed like he knew where he were going. ‘Hey, mate,’ I says. ‘You used to run that car shop on down by the Muckfield Road, right?’

  His eyes didn’t move. But I could have sworn his ears did a bit. ‘Packed it in in the end, didn’t you? Younguns broke in and gave you a proper hidin’. That right? One of the little cunts dropped battery on yer swede, eh?’

  I reckoned a touch of pink came to his cheek. Might have been wrong, mind.

  ‘Well, you won’t believe this, but…’ Now I might be wrong again here, but if his eyes didn’t flick over to us and back then I weren’t born in Mangel. ‘Them young fellers—the ones what done yer head in—s’me, ennit. I fuckin’ done it. With Legs and Fin.’ I laughed. I laughed all the way to buggery and back. It were funny. It were funny as fuck painted blue and stuck atop a may-pole.

  The feller stopped. He looked at us in that same sad way. The flob hanging off his lip dropped off and landed on his shirt. I wondered what he were thinking, if anything. You hears things about mongs. Superhuman strength, so they says. I stopped laughing.

  Things stayed like so a moment or two, then he went on his way. I watched him walk twenty yard up the road and turn into a courtyard. There was a couple of nurses walking around the yard with other mongs, ones who couldn’t walk proper. One of the nurses took his arm and made him sit down on a bench. I stood staring at him over the wall. A feller like him ain’t a real man, they says. Can’t make his own judgements, can’t choose his own path. He’s stuck where his arse is until someone decides otherwise. That’s what I’d heard anyhow. But I reckoned he had it about right. His arse might be stuck in Mangel. But he weren’t. He were off in the clouds, doing fuck knew what and bugger the consequence.