by Nicky Black
Trevor Logan raged. Glass and crockery smashed to the floor, windows shattered, wood splintered on wood. Trevor’s cries came from the depths – long, anguished roars.
Murphy pushed his hands into his pockets, his eyes closed, head bowed as if witnessing Billy Logan’s drawn-out death in real time. On it went for several long minutes, until Trevor’s cries started to abate, reduced to exhausted moans, rendered more sorrowful by their maleness.
‘Come on! I’ll fucking kill you!’
Trevor’s feeble sob was cut short, the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the front door bringing him back out into the hallway.
Peach pulled the bedroom door open and, before Murphy could protest, he was on the landing, now in gloomy darkness, only the kitchen light illuminating the hallway below. Murphy was by his side a few seconds later, his face agitated at his boss’s rashness.
The latch of the front door clicked open and Denise appeared in the doorway. Trevor stood stock still, the sports bag in one hand, the gun outstretched in the other. Denise stepped back in fright, her hands darting to her ears.
‘Put the gun down,’ said Peach from the top of the stairs.
Trevor spun around, pointing the gun up at Peach. It shook in his hands, and Peach lifted his arm instinctively to protect Murphy who pushed through it and took a few steps down the stairs.
‘Do what the man says, mate,’ he said.
Trevor’s terrified eyes bounced to Murphy before he turned the gun back on Denise who still stood in the doorway, face rigid with terror. She gasped, her legs buckling beneath her, and she sank to her knees, one hand held up as if it might halt the course of the bullet.
‘Come near me and I’ll kill her,’ said Trevor, striding to Denise and pointing the gun at her head.
Peach took a few tentative steps down the stairs, stopping when Trevor began to bellow. ‘Where’s Paul fucking Smart?! Eh? Where the fuck is he?!’ Trevor swung the bag viciously at Denise who fell sideways and curled into a ball, not flinching at Trevor’s kicking feet as if she knew exactly how to protect herself.
‘We were wondering the same thing, weren’t we, boss?’ said Murphy.
‘Fucking shut up!’ Trevor turned, dropping the bag, and lifting the gun with both hands, pointing it at the two detectives who were halfway down the stairs, palms raised.
‘Back up’s on the way,’ said Murphy. ‘They’ll be here any minute. Just put it on the floor and kick it towards me.’
Peach watched Murphy walk down the stairs, stopping at the bottom just a few feet from Trevor whose eyes darted around him. His DS was braver than he thought.
But Trevor’s face remained set in panic and fury. ‘Get up,’ he ordered Denise.
Denise stayed motionless, her muffled whimpers barely audible.
‘Fucking get up, man!’
‘Trevor,’ said Peach, his hands still raised as he joined Murphy. ‘I know what happened, I was there.’ In any other circumstance, he would have said Billy Logan didn’t suffer, that he died instantly, but Trevor had witnessed the whole sorry affair through his living room window.
The circle was closing in Peach’s mind. Trevor Logan and Reggie Collins, the visits to the prison, the gun runner who’d supplied the weapon in Trevor’s hand, meant to assassinate Paul Smart. Trevor had nothing to lose in taking his vengeance. His life was over, ruined already by the things he’d seen and done.
Trevor took hold of Denise’s arm, dragging her to her feet with one hand, the gun wobbling precariously in the other. If he pulled the trigger, the bullet could hit any one of them.
‘Get the bag,’ he said.
Denise picked up the sports bag, held it loosely in her fingers.
‘It’s not worth it, mate,’ said Murphy, stepping forward.
‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Denise protested, turning her pleading eyes on Trevor. ‘I know where he is—’
Eyes red with hate, Trevor pulled Denise to him, put the gun to her temple, his arm hooked around her neck as he dragged her backwards towards the Jaguar, opened the passenger door and shoved Denise inside with the bag. With the gun aimed at Peach, he jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, the three-point turn sending a shower of gravel their way as he sped off.
When the car reached the end of the dirt track, the passenger door flew open, and Denise came tumbling out.
Peach was the first to reach her. ‘Where are the car keys?’
Denise’s breath rasped, speech beyond her.
‘Where are the keys?!’ he repeated, raising his voice and pulling her into a sitting position.
She pointed at her pocket.
‘And where’s your brother?’
She whimpered, finding her voice at last. ‘He’s coming here. He should have been here by now. Please, he’ll hurt my Samantha!’
Peach put his hand in her jacket pocket and drew out the Range Rover’s keys, tossing them to Murphy.
‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself,’ he said to Denise before she fell back to the ground and he jumped into the car with Murphy.
TOMMY
Tommy and Jed sat together on crates in the hushed blackness, the moon and the tip of their cigarettes their only light. The silhouette of the hangar loomed in front of them.
‘Maybe we should move to Scotland.’ Jed’s nerves were still on edge.
‘There’s some hard bastards coming from Glasgow,’ said Tommy.
‘Howay, Hadgy. Where is he?’
They still had no power, but the sound and lighting had arrived just twenty minutes after Frankie set off on his recce to the farm.
‘Don’t go into the grounds,’ Tommy had said to Frankie. He was to drive past the farm entrance, and if the trucks were there, he was to park up somewhere, find the crew and give them directions.
‘You can count on me,’ Frankie had said.
‘Hundred per center.’ Tommy had slapped him hard on the shoulder, his hand resting there a while before Frankie jumped into the Lady Penelope and drove off, the box of walkie-talkies still at Tommy’s feet. It had been too late to chase him down; Frankie was out onto the road in a few seconds flat and incommunicado.
That was two hours ago, and Tommy felt Jed’s tug on his arm. They stood slowly as the twinkling of a single set of headlights in the distance came into view. The lights grew larger, another set appearing behind them, and the people lounging around the hangar began to stir.
‘These better not be punters,’ said Tommy.
Jed swallowed. ‘The numbers have been live for an hour.’
‘Hadgy,’ said Tommy, grabbing Jed’s arm and pulling him across the tarmac.
The minibuses pulled into the airfield, grinding to a halt at the doors of the hangar. Hadgy emerged and pulled the sides of the first minibus open. Two men hauled a generator from it, carrying it easily inside, followed by another man who carried a barrel of fuel.
‘You beauty!’ exclaimed Jed, approaching the second minibus where three more men were lugging another generator from its interior. Jed crossed himself and held his palms together in prayer. ‘Please work, please work, please work.’
‘Pray harder,’ said Tommy.
Another set of headlights shone in the distance.
‘Hail Mary, full of grace …’ Jed’s panicked voice trailed off as they watched the headlights approaching, one after the other, from the roads to the north, south and the east. They heard the distant pounding of bass, people already pumped up, high on the anticipation. ‘I think I’m gonna piss myself,’ said Jed.
The sound of a helicopter approaching had them turning their faces skyward. Not the cops, please not the cops. They watched its flashing light pass over them, heading south, dissolving into the distance.
As they brought their heads back down, the aircraft hangar burst into light, beams of silverish white slicing through the roof’s void panels in strobes that pierced the darkness. Cheers rose up from inside the hangar and they heard the buzz, felt the vibrations, of the s
ound system revving up. The first few bars of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ blasted out and a mass of coloured lights rebounded from the beat before the piano riff of ‘Strings of Life’ drew Tommy and Jed into each other’s arms.
‘I believe in God! I believe in God!’ yelled Jed.
They jumped up and down, fingers grasping at each other’s backs, then they ran hell for leather towards the hangar.
***
The coaches and cars didn’t stop. They crawled into the airfield like a troop of illuminated, giant caterpillars, the roads lit up as far as the eye could see.
Shona and her gaggle of girls, wearing fluorescent jackets robbed by Hadgy from the workmen’s portacabins, waved cars and buses into spaces across the runways and beyond onto the fields.
Tommy and Jed, flanked by Hadgy and three other beefy men, stood at the entrance to a long, coiling tunnel fixed to the huge doorway of the hangar. It was lit in neon ultra-violet, forming an umbilical corridor which punters stared at in wonder as they parted with their twenty-quid. Mobz had come up trumps.
‘You didn’t see Frankie, did you?’ Tommy asked Hadgy.
Hadgy shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t get back in anyway,’ he said, nodding towards the queues of traffic.
‘’Suppose not.’ He wouldn’t leave the Lady Penelope out on the road either.
Tommy looked up at the ceiling of stars, piecing together the face of an alien. But its face wasn’t friendly. If anything, it looked a little too much like Paul Smart for his liking.
PEACH
The Jaguar was speeding ahead of them, lights on full beam as the sky finally gave up its grasp on daylight. Peach fumbled in his pocket, cursing silently when he realised his radio was still lying on the farmer’s bed.
‘Here, use mine.’ Murphy passed his radio to Peach.
‘Control,’ said Peach. He had to repeat it twice more before he got a response.
‘Go ahead,’ came a frazzled voice.
‘In pursuit of a blue Jaguar, probably stolen, heading north from Groat Hall Farm, Hexham, on the B6306. Driver, Trevor Logan, that’s Trevor Logan, we know him well.’
His hand fell away from his mouth as he noticed the tail lights of another car just a few yards ahead of the Jaguar. It looked small and sporty, and it sped up as the Jag got closer.
‘Paul Smart had a silver MG on his drive, boss,’ said Murphy, and he pushed down further on the accelerator.
‘Is anyone in immediate danger?’ the radio sputtered.
Peach held the radio to his mouth, kept it there, the speaker button un-pressed.
‘Is he armed, sir? Is anyone in immediate danger?’
‘Boss?’ Murphy was keeping his eyes on the road while he drove, glancing intermittently at Peach.
The Jaguar was closing in the on the MG and the only person in danger now was Paul Smart.
Peach pressed the button. ‘No.’
‘Downgraded, over and out.’
Murphy’s glances became more frantic. ‘What you doing?’
Peach stared straight ahead. ‘Turn back.’
‘Wha?!’
Murphy didn’t understand after all. Paul Smart was clean as a whistle now as far as his drugs were concerned, and when someone harms your child or puts them in danger, you would happily see them destroyed by whatever means necessary.
Peach didn’t flinch when Murphy’s hand slammed on the steering wheel, a vein in his neck throbbing as he lifted his foot from the accelerator and pulled into a layby to turn the car around.
They coasted back towards the farm in silence, until Murphy’s face shot forward, his eyes on something in the field to Peach’s left as they slowed to take a bend.
‘What the …?’ Murphy stopped the car and reversed, parking up on the grassy verge. In the field, what looked like the back end of a pink Cadillac jutted from a shallow ditch, surrounded by a herd of curious cows. The passenger door was hanging open, a man lying on his back just a few feet away, the bloodied face glistening in the beam of the Cadillac’s headlights.
Shooing the cows away, they approached the car, Peach hunching down next to the man’s body, the back of Murphy’s hand springing to his mouth when he saw the driver’s face, beaten and swollen to a pulp. The fingers of one hand had been crushed and forced into the rocky soil, and blood soaked his chest.
‘Get an ambulance,’ said Peach.
As Murphy strode towards the pink car with his radio to his mouth, Peach felt for a pulse; it was faint, but present. He tore open the man’s shirt which revealed two stab wounds that oozed blood with every shallow breath.
‘Can you hear me?’ Peach urged.
One of the victim’s eyelids fluttered open despite the swollen mess.
‘Don’t move, help’s on the way,’ said Peach.
‘I didn’t tell him.’ The man’s lips barely moved. ‘Didn’t tell him where it was.’
‘Who?’ asked Peach. ‘Who did this to you?’ But he had a good idea.
‘On their way, boss, air ambulance,’ Murphy said, getting down onto his haunches by Peach’s side.
‘Loverboy!’ The man smiled a weak, bloody smile, and Peach heard the gurgle of fresh blood from the wounds. He put his hands over them to stem the flow. ‘I’m not telling you either,’ the man said.
‘I think it’s Frankie Donahue,’ Murphy said. ‘The hair, boss. He was in the pub last night.’
Frankie’s laboured breathing faltered, the white of the one eye he could barely open like a tiny light bulb amidst the crimson of his face.
‘Needs to get away,’ he said, straining his neck.
‘Don’t move,’ said Peach, pressing down harder on the wounds.
‘Who, mate?’ asked Murphy.
Frankie’s head fell back with a thud. ‘Tommy.’
He was trying to say something else, lips moving but no sound coming out, and Peach put his ear to Frankie’s lips.
‘He’ll kill him,’ Frankie whispered. ‘Smartie …’
But Peach knew there was someone else he would target first. Paul Smart’s drugs were in the hands of Trevor Logan and Tommy Collins had deceived him. If Trevor Logan hadn’t already run him off the road, he knew where Paul Smart would be headed.
‘Where’s the girl and the baby?’ asked Peach, his voice gentle but urgent.
Frankie’s eyes were closed, bubbles of blood forming at his nostrils. ‘Jed’s.’ The address came out in a single breath, and the blood seeped through Peach’s fingers.
Indicating for Murphy to take over stemming the blood, Peach grabbed Murphy’s radio from his hand and called Control.
‘Get a patrol car to 10 Elm Street on Valley Park,’ he said, ‘it’s urgent.’ He didn’t give them the chance to refuse, told the controller he’d kick his arse halfway to Scarborough if he didn’t do what he asked. Now.
A pause, then a ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And stand down all officers on Operation Red Kite.’
They already had.
With the distant put-put of a chopper at the edge of his hearing, Peach’s eyes were drawn to the distance, miles away to the north, where two beams of white light suddenly sliced through the night sky.
‘He’s trying to say something, boss,’ said Murphy, and Peach crouched down, putting his ear to Frankie’s mouth once more.
Frankie lifted his crushed hand, attempting to point in the direction of the distant beams. ‘Looks like the lights turned up,’ he whispered, and the bloody bubbles at his nose stopped inflating.
TOMMY
Three hours passed. Eight thousand people were inside, spilling out onto the surrounding tarmac; and still they came, in cars and double-deckers, camper vans, Transits and motor-cycles. When there was no more room for vehicles they came on foot, abandoning their rides on the road and running through the fields, their glow torches like a swarm of fireflies.
Inside, the hangar pulsed like a beating heart, white strobes moving across the heads of the dancers like celestial fingers. Alien faces drifted above them,
breathing misty, dry ice from their paranormal lungs, their neon eyes flashing in hypnotic time to the pounding bass. Hadgy pushed his way through the smoke and the bodies with bin bags full of money to the safe that stood guarded by four burly Sunderland supporters behind the stage, the stage where Jed was preparing for his first set, a bundle of nerves and excitement to be joining DJs he’d been idolising for years.
Tommy moved to the back of the throng and watched Jed take his place at the decks. He spotted Shona in the wings, tiny in the distance, a thumb and finger at her lips as she whistled in support of her new man. Jimmy Lyric and another MC joined Jed on stage for the hand-over. It was seamless, professional, Jed’s face elated, his ego pumped as he spun his first tune, Lil’ Louis’s ‘French Kiss’. The crowd went wild and Tommy raised his arms along with the masses, his body alive with the drumming rhythm.
He felt arms around his waist and he turned. ‘Sam!’ He hugged her so tightly she had to thump his back hard.
He let her go, grabbed her hand, and led her outside, through the crowds of outdoor dancers, one with a leg in plaster, crutches flailing in the air, another dressed as an African prince, holding onto his white skull cap as he jerked his elbows and knees. They peeked around the back of a caravan where a couple sat in camping chairs smoking joints, a beatbox supplying their very own chill-out tunes.
He pulled her behind a tree where she put her arms around his neck.
‘I had to come,’ she said. ‘The police turned up and Mrs Foster’s barricaded the door. She’s got half the street in there for protection.’
Her eyes were sad, he noticed. ‘Sam …’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go. I want to go.’
Tommy looked away from her, the apology on his lips, but Sam’s hands were stroking the back of his head.
‘Look, Tommy,’ she said, turning her head towards the hangar, throbbing with life. ‘Look what you’ve done.’
He followed her eyes, and he saw the rave in all its glory from a whole new perspective. ‘Yeah.’ He couldn’t help but smile.
