by Ben Cheetham
Kevin edged around Angel. He reached for the back door handle, but hesitated. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand, then opened the door. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he gasped on seeing the girl. He felt for a pulse in her neck. His eyes widened. ‘She’s alive!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Her pulse is weak, but it’s definitely there.’ Kevin pulled out his mobile phone.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m phoning for an ambulance.’
Angel snatched the phone away. ‘No you’re not.’
Kevin looked at her in stunned silence for a second. ‘But she’ll die if I don’t.’
‘No she won’t, because you’re going to take her to hospital.’
Kevin’s forehead contracted. ‘I can’t do that, Angel. If I’m seen with this girl, it… well, it would—’ His voice snagged in his throat at the thought of what it would do to him if word of this got back to his wife.
‘I don’t give a shit what it’d do to you. You’re taking her.’
‘No I’m not.’
Kevin recoiled back against the car, his chest heaving as Angel aimed the gun at him. Her voice as hard as the steel the nearby factories produced, she said, ‘Yes you are.’
‘OK, OK, I’ll do it. Just stop pointing that thing at me.’
Angel lowered the gun. A groan from the prostrate man drew her attention. He was struggling to sit up, his muscular, tattooed arms trembling from the effort. She drove her heel into his face again, sending him crashing onto his back. ‘Bitch,’ he choked out, blood dribbling between his lips.
‘Keep your fucking mouth shut unless you want more of the same,’ snapped Angel. She looked at Kevin. ‘Get her into your car.’
As Kevin hooked his hands under the girl’s armpits and pulled her from the car, she exhaled a whisper of a moan. Her eyelids fluttered and cracked open a fraction. Angel leaned over her like a mother over a child. ‘That’s it, come on, open your eyes.’
The slitted eyes closed again.
‘Hold on, baby girl, we’re going to get you to hospital.’
The girl’s limbs dangled like broken twigs as Kevin carried her to his car and laid her on its back seat. Breathing heavily, he turned to Angel. ‘You coming?’
‘No.’
The creases on Kevin’s forehead deepened. His eyes flicked between Angel and the man at her feet. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘You don’t need to worry about that, all you need to worry about is getting her to hospital. Oh, and if I find out you’ve dumped her somewhere and rung for an ambulance, I’m not going to be best pleased.’ Angel patted the gun. ‘You get me?’
Kevin nodded, his tongue darting dryly across his lips. ‘You’re not going to do anything crazy—’
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ cut in Angel, her eyes flashing.
Flinching from her fury, Kevin ducked into his car. He accelerated away, wheels spitting gravel. Angel waited until he hit the main road before returning her attention to the Beamer’s driver. His eyes glared at her from between swollen pouches of flesh, glistening with hate but also fear. It sent a thrill through Angel almost as heady as a hit of junk to see his fear, to know that, for once in her life, she was the one with the power. ‘On your belly.’ Her voice was calmer. The anger was still there, but she was controlling it now, not it her.
Groaning, the man slowly rolled onto his belly.
‘Now crawl to the river. Crawl like the worm you are.’
The man dug his fingers into the cracked concrete and dragged himself forward. The light from the Beamer’s interior only stretched a few metres. At the edge of its reach, estuary mud glistened palely in the moonlight. When her heels sank into the mud, Angel said, ‘Stop.’
The man lay panting, agonised tremors vibrating through his body.
‘Roll over,’ said Angel. ‘I want to see your face.’
The man heaved himself onto his back again. He stared up at Angel, his mud-smeared face invisible except for the red-laced whites of his eyes and the gleam of his gold teeth. ‘You don’t know who the fuck I am,’ he gasped, his voice cramped with pain.
‘Yeah I do. I’ve known you all my life.’
Angel took aim. The man flung up a hand as if he might ward off a bullet with it. ‘Wait! Fucking wait! I’ve got money.’ He fumbled out his wallet and tossed it to Angel. ‘There’s more than a thousand quid in there. It’s yours.’
Angel took out the money and shoved it into her handbag. She didn’t look to see if there was any identification – she already knew all she needed to know about the man – she just threw the wallet into the estuary. Again, she took aim. Again, the man raised a hand. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked, panic sucking at his voice.
Angel studied the man with a cold fire behind her eyes, greedily drinking in his fear, savouring its bittersweet taste. ‘The same reason you did what you did. Because I can.’
The fear in the man’s eyes was joined by a hopeless rage. He spat a glob of phlegm at Angel, which left a bloody snail-trail down her thigh. ‘Fuck you, bitch! Fuck all you slags. I’d kill the lot of you if I got the chance.’
‘Well you’re not going to get the chance.’
Angel pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She pulled it again. Still nothing. ‘Shit.’ The word whistled through her teeth as she thought, The fucking thing’s broken. Another thought came to her. The safety must be on. A quick examination of the gun revealed a catch marked ‘Safety’ above the trigger. She flicked it.
‘Please, I don’t want to die!’ pleaded the man as Angel took aim again. An ear-splitting shot rang out. The gun’s recoil jerked her hand upward. The muzzle flash set pinpoints of light dancing in front of her eyes. The man screamed and flailed in the estuary slime, clutching his right shoulder. As her vision cleared, Angel took careful aim at his chest. The man just had time to cry out some incomprehensible final words before a second bullet punched the breath from his lungs. He lay gurgling like the estuary for a moment, then fell silent.
Angel closed her eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath. The night tasted good. It felt good against her skin. She felt good. Strong and alive! Every sensation in her body seemed to be heightened almost to the point of ecstasy. She hugged herself, moaning, swaying. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there immersed in the throbbing whirlpool of her mind, but when she opened her eyes the tide was lapping at the man. Soon it would cover him, and as it receded it would draw him out to sea, hopefully never to be seen again.
Slipping the gun into her handbag, Angel approached the BMW. She considered burning it out, but dismissed the idea, realising she almost certainly wouldn’t have time to get back to town before a passer-by alerted the police. With her jacket sleeve, she rubbed the door handle she’d touched. She didn’t know whether doing so would erase her fingerprints, but she figured it was worth a try. Keeping her hand covered, she reached into the car and switched off the interior light. Then she started walking.
It was at least six miles back to town. Angel hadn’t gone far before her ankles started to throb. She took off her boots and continued barefoot, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for vehicles. A fragmentary hedgerow ran alongside the road. Whenever she saw approaching headlights or heard the rumble of an engine, she ducked out of sight until the vehicle had passed. Her mobile phone rang. She flipped it open and ‘Deano’ flashed up on its screen. She wasn’t surprised. He rang several times a night. He said he did it because he cared about her, which of course was bullshit. The only thing he gave a toss about was making sure his property was in working order. The temptation not to answer was strong, but the consequences wouldn’t be worth it. She put the phone to her ear and said in a hushed tone, ‘I can’t talk right now, Deano. I’m with a punter.’
‘Where?’
‘The Thistle Hotel. He’s a businessman. I reckon I’m onto a good little earner. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.’
‘Make sure you work him for all he’s
got.’
‘I always do, baby.’
Angel hung up, reflecting that it was a lucky thing for her the dead man had attempted to buy his way out of trouble. Three or four hundred quid of the thousand would be enough to keep Deano sweet. As for the rest, she would find some way of getting it to the girl, assuming she survived her injuries.
Dawn was beginning to crack by the time Angel reached the Transporter Bridge. She paid the toll and leaned wearily against the gondola’s railings. She could feel the beginnings of withdrawal symptoms setting in – her teeth chattered as if she had a fever, and bitter mucus ran down the back of her throat. It wasn’t just withdrawal, though. For hours she’d been on a high unlike any she’d ever known, but now she was coming down, and she was coming down hard. She scratched the track marks on her arms, itching for the oblivion of heroin. Glancing around furtively, she slipped a hand into her handbag and touched the gun. The feel of the plastic grip sent a little shuddering thrill through her. Wrinkles of indecision spread over her face. She’d intended to toss the gun into the Tees, but now that it came to it she was reluctant to do so. She closed her handbag. She knew it was crazy to keep the gun, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. Not with the memory of the feeling that had coursed through her body as she pulled the trigger so fresh in her mind.
An orange glow crept across the water, followed by the emerging sun. Angel blinked, tears rising in her eyes. She’d seen the sunrise hundreds of times before during her nocturnal existence. But she’d never seen it like this, so brilliant and blazing. Her trembling subsided as its faint, cleansing warmth washed over her. Then the gondola passed into the shadows of the industrial units on the south bank, and the moment was gone. Not that it had really been anything other than a fleeting illusion. The sun was for other people, not her. She’d learnt, or rather been taught, that hard lesson a long time ago.
Angel felt as though she was wading through deep water, but even so she walked fast, dragged along by the heroin itch. She found Deano crashed out on the bed, his tracksuit bottoms around his ankles, a fresh track mark where he’d injected the big artery in his groin. The veins in his arms had collapsed years ago. Angel had bad veins too. Recently there had been times when she’d missed by so much that blood had streamed down her wrists. So she too had taken to injecting her groin, or as Deano called it, ‘opening the window’.
Deano’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open as Angel slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small lump of black tar heroin wrapped in cellophane. She took a shoebox full of drug-taking paraphernalia from under the bed, tore open an alcohol swab and cleaned her hands and a bent spoon. She dissolved the lump on the spoon over a lighter, then placed a little ball of cotton-wool in the solution. When the ball had puffed up, she inserted a syringe into it and drew up all the dirty-brown liquid. Spreading her legs as if for a punter, she felt for the pulsing femoral artery. She slid the needle in and pulled the plunger a millimetre. Blood swirled into the syringe barrel. Slowly, she depressed the plunger. The rush was instant, enveloping her like a lover’s soft, warm embrace, soothing away all the pain and memories. Eyeballs rolling, she lay back next to Deano. As sweet oblivion stole over her, she replayed in her mind the moment the man had died. That was one memory she wanted to hold on to. Always.
2
Stephen Baxley wandered around the grounds of his ungainly mock Tudor mansion saying goodbye to everything. He said goodbye to his Aston Martin. He said goodbye to his horses. He said goodbye to the swimming pool, the tennis court, the sprawling landscaped gardens. Then he headed inside the house.
The entrance hall’s ornate beamed ceilings, chandeliers and faux-antique furnishings reeked of tasteless extravagance. Stephen entered the study, its wood-panelled walls stuffed with unread leather-spined books. He locked the door, poured himself a large whisky from a crystal decanter and sank it in one. He poured another and took it to his desk, which was strewn with papers. His gaze skimmed over a letter, lingering on the words ‘foreclosure’ and ‘court action’. A spasm twisting his face, he yanked open a drawer and took out a sheet of writing-paper whose black letterhead read ‘SB ENGINEERING’. Pen in hand, he stared at the letterhead for a long moment. Finally, lips pale and compressed as if every word was a knife slashing at his mind, he wrote, ‘Dear Jenny. Please forgive me for telling you this in a letter, but the words are simply too painful to say to your face. I’ve been forced to declare the business bankrupt. I tried everything I could to save it, but failed. I’ve failed you, I’ve failed the children…’
Stephen broke off from writing to empty his glass. Whisky dribbled down his chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it off. He pressed pen to paper again, but no words appeared. His hand trembled as if struggling against some invisible resistance. Suddenly, he jerked it up and stabbed down, tearing the paper, scratching a deep gouge in the desk. Eyes shining wildly, he stabbed the letter again, snapping the pen, the jagged end of which pierced his palm. Blood spattered the papers as he thrust them off the desk, along with a reading lamp whose glass shade shattered across the parquet floor. He ground his forehead against the desktop, digging his fingers into his scalp, emitting a low, anguished groan.
‘Everything OK in there? I heard a noise like something breaking.’
Stephen’s head snapped up as Jenny’s voice came through the door. He took a deep breath to steady himself before he spoke. ‘Everything’s fine, darling. I dropped a glass, that’s all.’
‘Do you need a hand cleaning it up?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Are you almost done for the day?’
‘I’ve just got one or two more things to sort out.’
‘Well try not to be too long. Charlotte’s getting hungry.’
‘Don’t wait for me.’
A note of displeasure that suggested this was an all too familiar topic of conversation entered Jenny’s voice. ‘You know how I like us to sit down and eat together as a family, Stephen. We talked about this last week and you said—’
Irritation sparked in Stephen’s voice. ‘For Christ’s sake, Jenny, I know what I said—’ he started to snap, but caught himself. He drew in another long breath and continued in a softer, if slightly forced tone, ‘Look, just give me ten minutes. Then I’ll be all yours for the evening. I promise.’
‘OK, Stephen.’ The way Jenny said his name was full of significance. It meant there was going to be an argument if he broke his promise.
As his wife’s footsteps moved away from the door, Stephen picked up a framed photo of her, himself and their two children, Charlotte and Mark. It was one of a set that had been taken by a professional photographer four years ago. Charlotte would have been eleven and Mark nineteen or twenty. Stephen was squatting in front of Jenny with his arms around the kids’ waists. All four of them were casually dressed – the photographer had wanted to avoid the stuffy formality of many family portraits. All four of them were smiling, but Mark’s smile didn’t look quite real, at least not to Stephen. There was something strained and awkward about it. There was a certain stiffness about the way he held himself too, as if he’d rather be anywhere else but there. Stephen had angrily pointed this out to Jenny on first seeing the photos. As usual, she’d defended Mark, saying his smile looked perfectly genuine to her. She’d been lying, of course. But there was no point arguing with her. There never was when it came to Mark, reflected Stephen. The little shit couldn’t do any wrong in her eyes.
Stephen would have kept the photo somewhere out of sight if it hadn’t been for Charlotte. The photo captured her perfectly. He often found himself staring at her face with its laughing, liquid-blue eyes and frame of auburn hair, wondering how he’d ever managed to create something so beautiful. Tenderly, he ran his fingers along the contours of her features. His breath came in a shudder. She’d had everything, every luxury money could purchase, and now she would have nothing. Nothing! The thought tore at him like a howling madman. His fingers curled into a fist, nails pushing deep int
o the wound on his palm. He knew what it was like to have nothing. His childhood had been a pitiless, degrading struggle against poverty. He’d sworn his children would never know that sort of life. But the last few years had been one long string of cancelled orders, failed deals and bad investments. The economy was going down the drain, and it was taking him and his family with it, all the way back to the sewer he’d spent half his life climbing out of.
Stephen shook his head, tears spilling down his cheeks. ‘No. I won’t let it happen. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.’ The words hissed through his teeth like escaping steam. For several minutes he chanted them to himself. Then, as if a solution had suddenly occurred to him, the tension drained from his features. He raised his eyes, and for a moment seemed to be looking through the ceiling to some other place. His gaze returned to the photo. ‘Don’t worry, my sweet little girl. You won’t have to find out. None of you will.’
Placing the picture face down on the desk, Stephen reached for the phone and punched in a number. A male voice answered. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘It’s not Mum, Mark. It’s me.’ Stephen’s voice was flat and emotionless.
‘Dad.’ Mark sounded surprised, as if his father was the last person he’d expected to be calling. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can you come over?’
‘What? Right now?’
‘Yes, right now.’
‘I’ve only just got in from uni.’
‘This is important.’
A note of concern came into Mark’s voice. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Look, Mark, I don’t want to go into this on the phone, except to say that this is something that concerns us all. So just get yourself over here and I’ll explain everything.’
‘OK,’ sighed Mark. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Stephen hung up without saying goodbye. He reached for the whisky again, but hesitated. As much as he thirsted for the warmth of its liquid embrace, it was going to take a clear head and a steady hand to do what must be done. His eyes unblinking, his movements curiously stiff, like a wind-up toy set in motion, he turned to a TV screen split into four quadrants. CCTV cameras showed the front gate, the front door, the back garden and the garage. He switched off the CCTV. Then he made his way to the large living room. It was decorated in muted tones of misty blue, chosen by him to match Charlotte’s eyes.
