“You there, Marnie?”
Marnie’s head lolled to one side and her breathing changed, growing huskier.
“You there?”
“I’m here, lover.”
The voice wasn’t Marnie’s. It was pure Bow Bells whereas Marnie was from down on the south coast near to Brighton.
“Who’s that?”
Marnie’s hand grew colder in Harry’s grip.
“You can call me whatever you like as long as you’re buying but most people call me Peaches on account of ‘ow sweet and plump I am!”
“I’m Harry.”
Marnie’s eyes fluttered open, they were distant and unfocused.
“Oh, you look like a catch, bit old for me but still. Get a girl a drink, Harry?”
Harry looked around the lounge and spotted a collection of bottles on a sideboard. He carefully placed Marnie’s hand into her lap and walked over to the drinks. “What’ll you have?”
“Gin, straight. No ice and don’t be a miser.”
Harry threw a good measure of Bombay Sapphire into a glass and carried it back to the table. Marnie reached out and brought the glass to her lips and took a hearty swig.
“Got a smoke?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
A throaty sigh.
“Well, I guess a girl can’t have everything. What can I do you for, Harry?”
“I need to know if someone is on . . . your side of things.”
“Oh here in the dark you mean?”
“I suppose I do,” replied Harry, trying not to think too hard upon what he was asking.
“Who you looking for?”
“A young girl—fourteen. She’s my granddaughter, she’s missing up here and I think it might have something to do with some bad things that happened a long time ago.”
“And you think she might have fallen into the dark place where I am?”
“I pray to God she hasn’t but I need to know. Certain things might have to be done.”
Marnie threw the remains of the gin down her neck. “Well I’ll go and have a look-see while you make me another drink and see if you can’t rustle me up a fag while you’re at it, handsome.”
Marnie’s eyes closed and her head made a slow roll on her neck until her chin touched her chest. Her breathing grew deep and rhythmic. Harry got up and refilled the glass with another large measure of gin. He searched the drawers of the sideboard and found half a packet of Mayfair’s and a lighter. Returning to the table he took up his seat next to Marnie and waited.
The time passed slowly and Harry was thinking about getting a drink for himself, hangover half forgotten, when Marnie’s head snapped up and she let out a loud gasp.
“Marnie? Peaches?”
“She’s not there, Harry. I think I’ll take the rest of that drink now, please.”
Harry put the glass into her hand and helped it up to her lips. The thing inside Marnie drained the glass and licked the last drop from inside. He took a cigarette from the packet and placed it between her lips. She took a long drag and blew the smoke up to the ceiling. Harry held the cigarette for her.
“Thanks, Harry.”
“What did you find? Tell me, Peaches, I need to know.”
She took another deep pull on the cigarette.
“Rhian’s not there, but there are others—too many others. One of the others knew her. They talked about the dark ones, Harry. And what they did to them before they came to where I am. Horrible things, Harry! Things that shouldn’t be done to any girl.”
Nails dug into Harry’s arm and Peaches began to sob within the vessel of Marnie. Marnie’s eyes rolled back to the whites. Harry grabbed her shoulders.
“Marnie! Marnie!”
Marnie coughed. “I can taste gin. Have I been smoking?”
Harry laughed but it sounded hollow. Marnie looked tired and drawn.
“You okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I just need to lie down.”
Harry helped her up.
“Who did you talk to?”
“Peaches.”
It was Marnie’s turn to laugh.
“Oh, she’s a live one. No wonder I can taste gin and cigarettes. Surprised you didn’t give her a jump what with being away for so long.”
Harry felt heat grow in his ears.
“I’m joking. Come and lie down with me, Harry, like you used to.”
Marnie was asleep as soon as she hit the sheets. Harry took off his boots and lay down next to her. He turned and studied her face while she slept. She was right about the wasted years. Harry remembered the days they spent lying together in Marnie’s one room bed-sit after they’d worked the late shift at the casino. Too wired from the nights work to sleep they would drink and smoke with the other workers from the casino and then they’d head back to hers. Good days, thought Harry.
Soon after he’d been busy collecting debts for the casino owner and his friends in Gerrard Street. But even then he’d lay down with Marnie for a few hours of peace. He could’ve been happy if it wasn’t for them. Harry put a blanket over Marnie. She rolled over and murmured his name in her sleep. He sat for a moment and then laced up his boots and left.
***
Harry found a telephone box on Charing Cross Road and called Nicola. She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Dad.”
“Have you found her?”
“Not yet. But I might be able to find the boyfriend. What does he look like?”
“Well he’s taller than you so about six one. Dark hair; gelled on top, short around the sides how all the boys have it. He’s sort of slim but not too skinny, not a bean pole but not built.”
Harry tried to picture the boy in his head.
“Does that help?”
Harry nodded and then realised he hadn’t replied.
“Yeah, it should. As soon as I know more I’ll let you know.”
“You have to find her.”
“I told you I’ll try.”
“Find her, please! The coppers are worse than useless, couldn’t find their arses with both hands.”
“Calm down, Nicola.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! Have you found her yet? No, you’re just like the rest of them. What have you ever done for me in my whole life?”
“Nic, I’ll phone you when I know more.”
Harry hung up the ‘phone. A temper just like her mother, he thought as he walked up towards The Montagu Pyke.
***
The Montagu Pyke was a barn of a pub which had been a cinema a century earlier and the shape of the frontage still displayed the fact that it had begun its life as a picture house. Harry went in through the back door on Greek Street. He headed to the closest bar and ordered a pint of lager. Strolling slowly through the pub Harry let his eyes move far ahead of him watching for familiar faces. Sipping his pint Harry scanned the room. Nothing. He moved through into the next part of the pub and quickly stepped behind a pillar when he saw a face he knew. It was Howie Kinski.
Harry moved to a fruit machine and spied at Kinski around the edge of it. He looked older and sicker but Harry could see the same man he had known twenty five years earlier. Now he sat with his bleached blonde hair looking stringy and thin, his face red and swollen and his stomach pushing against what was once an expensive suit jacket but was now dated and frayed. Harry could see the dark thing that hung like a leech on the man’s shoulder; scarred and battered it was as fat and slug-like as the man it clung to. Harry watched Kinski’s hand beating out a tattoo on the table top and he saw the missing fingers from his right hand, the dent in the left side of the man’s skull.
For a moment Harry was thrown back through the years to the moment in a basement club where hard steel flashed under party lights and fingers fell to the floor like unwanted chipolatas at a children’s party. Harry leant against the flashing lights of the machine and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for minutes.
“’Scuse me, mate.”
Harry turned
and a man in a polo shirt stood before him. “What?” Harry held the pint glass tight and to his hip, ready to launch it into the man’s neck.
The man held out his hands. “Sorry, mate, just trying to get to the fruity like.”
Harry stood for a moment and then moved to the side. “Sorry.” He moved into an alcove opposite and took a deep breath. Harry felt disgusted that he had almost let the beast out from its cage. He took a sip from his pint and threw another look over at Kinski. The fat man sat with two other men; a light skinned man with a half-hearted afro and stingy beard and a thick boned meat head with an inch of neck and a shaved bowling ball for a head. They were dressed in the same manner as Kinski, pricey but life worn. A young guy stepped through the doors and moved to Kinski’s table. The newcomer was tall and slim. The talk was animated and there was a lot of gesturing outside.
Harry put his pint down and made an exit through the back. He cut around to Charing Cross Road until he stood opposite the front of the pub. A small yellow Fiat was parked at the curb. A young girl sat in the front passenger seat. Harry found himself crossing the road. The girl in the car was young, maybe fifteen, dressed in a neon pink tube dress and little else. She looked at Harry staring and she stared back. She wasn’t Rhian. The young man that Harry had pegged as Danny Carter exited the pub. He caught Harry’s eye and glared at him.
“The fuck you looking at, old man?”
Harry shrugged.
“Nothing here you can afford.”
“That so?”
“You want something or not?”
Harry smiled.
The kid stepped off the kerb and made to square up to Harry. As he stepped in Harry turned and dropped his foot hard into the kid’s knee. Danny fell forward letting Harry close the distance and throw a fist into his throat. He choked and dropped.
A car door opened and the girl screamed.
Harry dropped to one knee and rattled Danny’s head off the kerb. “Tell Howie the past’s coming for him.” He slammed Danny’s head down again and then ran across the road heading towards Seven Dials.
***
Harry sat on the bed in his room in the bail hostel, hands on knees, and remembered. The years seemed to roll back; Harry as a younger man, Nicola as a child, Marnie the most enamouring woman Harry had met. Harry had dealt in debts, bad debts mostly. He collected for the owner of the casino where he worked, Mr Conway, and some of his Chinese friends across Shaftsbury Avenue. His name got around and he freelanced; collecting debts and making sure certain rules were enforced. The way Harry saw it the violence would get dealt out and the hurt laid on even if he wasn’t there, so why shouldn’t he profit from it.
Kinski approached him as Christmas ‘87 loomed. A man named Kenny Logan owed him eight grand, gambling debt. Harry went round and had a word. Through broken teeth Kenny had offered Harry his twelve year old daughter in lieu of the debt. Harry broke his arm. Kinski had laughed and told Harry he should have taken the offer—soon after Harry began to see the dark things. It seemed that even a trip to the supermarket showed Harry a dark underbelly of the creatures hanging on people and forcing them to do their will.
A story did the rounds in Soho; Kinski had gone to see Logan himself and he had taken him up on his offer. He had Logan’s daughter in a room up in Mornington Crescent and was charging every nonce and chester in Central London to jump her. Harry went to see them; Kinski and his partners Bernie Glass and Omar Sanchez. They laughed and Harry saw the mouths of the dark things that hung on their shoulders. They offered Harry a free go on the girl—he refused. They offered him a cut—he turned it down. The dark things began to whisper and then the men spoke. They asked Harry about Nicola; how old she was, how tight she was, did Harry want to trade. Harry left. He came back an hour later with a hatchet and when he was done two men lay dead and another was wheeled away. No, Harry had never done anything for Nicola.
Swinging his legs off the bed Harry grabbed up his money and took one last look around his room. It wasn’t much but it had been home since he got out. He checked his watch, it was ten thirty. Harry’s curfew was eleven P.M.
Kicking open his door Harry walked out and headed for the stairs. Taking a deep breath of the night, Harry hailed a cab and treated himself to a chauffeured ride back into Soho—where it had started and where it would end.
Harry jumped out the cab on Tottenham Court Road and walked his way down through the wet pavements and neon lights. He stopped at a call box filled with the calling cards for brasses based in Bayswater, Greek Street, Pentonville Road and streets around the British Museum. Harry called Eddie first and asked for an address. Then he called Marnie.
“Hello, Babes.”
“That you, Harry?”
“Wish we were still lying down together.”
“Even though you left me like sleeping beauty earlier?”
“You know I always loved you don’t you?”
“I had my suspicions, Mr Sands.”
“I’ll try and see you later.”
“Whenever you can, Harry. Take care.”
Harry dreaded the call and called Eddie back.
“You got it?”
“Do you really have to do this, Harry?”
“You know I do, Eddie. Imagine it was one of your grandkids.”
“Okay, they’ve got a flat in St. Anne’s Court. Blue door. You’re to say Perry sent you for Amy.”
“Thank you, Ed. I wish we’d got to play chess again.”
“So do I my friend, so do I.”
Harry walked the streets, coat zipped to the neck, a relic making one last move.
Tourists and drunk kids on nights out milled around in the streets. Shall we go to another pub or straight to a club? Time to catch the last train or we staying out? Harry slid past them trying to think of a reason to just call the cops and leave it at that. He couldn’t find a reason but he found himself in St. Anne’s Court. He looked over the basement flats until he found the blue door. He walked down the stairs and knocked twice. A few moments passed and Harry wondered if he had the wrong door. Then it opened and Harry came face to face with the bowling ball head he had seen sitting with Kinski earlier.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, Perry sent me, said I should ask to see Amy.”
The big man looked him up and down. “Yeah alright.” The big man stepped to the side and Harry slid past him and inside.
Harry was ushered into a bedroom at the side of the hallway. He looked around; a bed, a TV with a porn DVD running on a side table and a couple of posters of jail bait girls in provocative poses. There was a knock at the door and a small woman with a pinched face and dirty bleached blonde hair entered.
“Okay, what you here for?”
“Usual,” replied Harry.
“The usual? What the fuck’s that then?” asked the woman.
“Y’know . . .”
The woman eyed Harry suspiciously.
“A suck and a fuck, what d’you think?”
“Alright, that’s two hundred,” she replied.
Harry eyed the dark thing that hung skinny and mean from her shoulders and then he looked away quickly. “Bit steep in’it?”
“Oh, this girl’s tight as fuck. Young ‘un, thirteen if that. A really good ride, good girl she’s no trouble.”
Harry tried to look like a nervous punter as he pulled out his roll and peeled off ten score notes. “Go on then. Send her in.”
“Alright, lose the clothes and I’ll send her in, darlin’.”
The woman left and Harry took off his jacket, he put it carefully on a chair. He waited a few moments and then pulled his jumper over his head. He threw it on top of his jacket. Harry stood in vest, jeans and boots and waited. Moans came from the TV but Harry tried to listen beyond them to the rest of the flat. The door opened and a girl stepped into the room. To Harry it seemed the antithesis of the sexual come on he knew from the working girls in Soho—the girl was dressed younger than her years in a T-Shirt with a ca
rtoon bear on it and a tight pair of pastel coloured shorts. Harry recognised her from the off. It was Rhian.
Her eyes were as big as dinner plates and her pupils were so large they eclipsed the colour in her eyes. She walked like a zombie towards him.
“Do you want to be my daddy?” she asked.
Harry felt a tear begin to trace a line down his face. “Rhian, Baby, I need you to sit here for a minute.”
She was loose limbed and pliable. Harry sat her on the bed and then picked up his coat. He took the meat cleaver out and laid it on the bed while he wrapped the coat around her skinny shoulders. She didn’t say a word she simply sat there and stared at the wall. Harry took the cleaver and stepped out into the flat. He crept down the corridor. The first door was the kitchen and he saw the madam watching a soap opera on a small TV set. He leant the cleaver against the door frame and stepped in quickly behind her. Harry’s right forearm slid to the front of her throat and his left slammed into the back of her neck. Once the choke hold was in place Harry locked his arms and stared at the ceiling. The woman’s legs kicked against the floor but Harry held her up and applied continuous pressure until she stopped moving. He threw her to the floor and watched the inky blackness of the dark thing as it tried to crawl away. Harry stamped down on the woman’s head. The animal made of the dark bucked and twisted as its host slipped away. Harry headed towards the next door.
The door opened as he reached it and the meat head who’d let him in stepped out. Harry put a kick in between the man’s legs and hit him with the flat of the cleaver. Harry stamped his foot twice on the head of the prone man. Three of them sat in the room beyond; Kinski, his light skinned partner and Danny Carter resting his leg on the coffee table. Makeshift crack pipes fashioned from empty lager cans littered the table.
Danny sat up. “What the fuck do you . . .”
Harry cut him off by hacking the cleaver into his jaw. The room became pandemonium. Kinski jumped to the right and his partner hurtled into Harry. Harry caught him with the back sweep of the cleaver and the man crashed into a wall. With blood running from this face the man pulled a knife and slashed at Harry. He cut Harry across the shoulder. Harry kicked out and the man scuttled back. Danny writhed on the floor attempting to get up and Kinski was throwing papers out of a drawer in a sideboard. The man with the knife rushed at Harry. Harry let go of the cleaver and caught the man’s wrist. As they tangoed around the room Harry pushed the knife back towards the man and grabbed at him with the other hand. Once he had hold of him Harry threw himself backwards and let the man’s momentum do the rest. The knife ended up buried in his gut—the dark thing on his back squealed as blood spilled out onto the carpet. Harry dragged himself up and then the room filled with noise.
For The Night Is Dark Page 17
