by Chris Simms
‘Mama?’ His voice was now barely a whisper.
She thought about the day before: how she’d taken Salvio’s little present and poured it down the toilet. He’d heard the flush and guessed what she’d done.
‘Face it, sweetheart. That tosser’s gone and left you. It’s us now, just like the old days.’
Her anger had taken her by surprise. Salvio didn’t dare touch her while she was with Dave. Not with the amount of people he knew. ‘Just piss off, Salvio. You hear me? When Dave comes back, he’s going to sort you out. Just fucking wait.’
His scornful laugh had slowly faded as he’d stalked off back down the stairwell.
Now look, she thought, glancing about the kitchen. Dave still isn’t here. Should never have tipped the fucking H away.
A corner of paper popped out but she continued rolling, pressing hard with her fingers as she ran the tip of her tongue along the gummed edge.
The misshapen object had the look of a battered trumpet, and as she tried to light it, clumps of tobacco fell from the flared end. The paper caught fire, quickly burning back towards her fingers. ‘Fuck it!’
She slammed the cigarette lighter on the table, hurling the rapidly disintegrating mess into the sink.
‘Telly?’ Coming from the next room, the word was barely audible.
‘Shut up, will you? Just shut up! God!’ She pressed her upper-most knuckles against her cheeks. ‘Stop mithering me, OK?’
She looked at the window, eyes focused on the sky beyond. I never wanted this kid. You did, Dave. Not me. And now where the fuck are you? Another rasp from the front room, this one not even a word.
‘For fuck’s sake.’ She stood up, and as she marched into the other room, the newsreader was talking about possible links to Sheffield. A body, found somewhere. Whatever, she thought, pointing the remote. CBeebies came on and Jake sank back against his cushions, breath going rapidly in and out, lungs sounding like crisp packets being repeatedly scrunched up.
She tried to count how fast he was breathing, but gave up after he’d taken almost thirty breaths in as many seconds.
She sighed, moving over to the window and looking out. Where the fuck was he? This was past a joke. What if the deal he’d been arranging with Redino in Haverdale had come off ? Would he have just taken the money and disappeared without her? No, not Dave. She looked back over the wreckage of her life, doubts nagging away. After all, every other bastard had let her down, sooner or later.
The light was starting to fade, the distant hills a mere suggestion in the gloom. A memory fast losing strength. Tonight, she decided. If he doesn’t come back tonight, that’s it. Jake needs fucking medicine and I cannot stand it trapped in this flat any longer. Salvio can do what he likes.
Twenty Three
Come on, you cunt. Jon sped along the country road, eyes looking ahead but attention on the periphery of his vision. He imagined death was out there, somewhere in the dusky fields that bordered the road. Watching, waiting. Want to take me as well? He closed his eyes, and as he lifted his fingers from the steering wheel, he pressed the accelerator down. You’ve got my family in your sights, my brother, my unborn fucking child. Here’s your chance with me.
The left-hand side of the car started to judder and he opened his eyes. The hedge was flying past far too close to his window and he saw that he’d drifted off the road and into a layby. Fifty metres in front, the rough tarmac ended and the yawning ditch began again. He stamped on the clutch and brake simultaneously, gripping the steering wheel as the tyres locked into a skid. The car came to a halt, metres from the drop. Oh, God. He leaned forward and started banging his forehead against the wheel. That was stupid. Oncoming traffic, a lorry parked up in the layby. I could have died.
He ran over the hurried conversation he’d had with Alice’s mum. Foetal measurements indicated it had died several days ago. Signs of infection were present in Alice’s womb and the consultant obstetrician was concerned enough to have taken Alice straight off for a D and C.
‘What’s that?’ Jon had whispered.
‘They’ve removed it, Jon. A minor operation under local anaesthetic.’
‘It’s gone? They took the baby?’
‘She’s on antibiotics and painkillers, Jon. They’re sending us home.’
He thought about his wife and daughter. They would be back by now. Hopefully Holly would be asleep. And where am I? Racing through the countryside, flirting with the Grim Reaper. Jesus, get a bloody grip. He indicated right and pulled cautiously back onto the road, eyes lingering for a second on the edge. Searching for a cowled figure crouching behind it.
‘Hello?’ He paused in the hallway, head bowed as he listened for a response.
‘Up here.’
Amanda’s voice. They were upstairs in the bedroom. Punch appeared in the kitchen doorway, his stump of a tail hesitantly wagging. You know something’s up, don’t you? Jon crouched, slapping a palm against his thigh as he did so. His dog huffed in relief, quickly approaching to nuzzle his squashed nose into Jon’s outstretched hands. He ran his fingers round behind the animal’s ears, then lifted its chin so their eyes met. ‘How is she?’ he whispered, staring into its sad brown eyes. Bad, then.
He climbed the stairs with a mounting sense of fear. The door to Holly’s room was slightly ajar, the interior softly lit by her night light. At least she’s asleep, he thought, stepping into his and Alice’s room.
His wife was under the covers, her back supported by several pillows. Amanda was next to her, sitting cross-legged on the covers, a book balanced in the V of her shins. His eyes caught on her white ankle socks. White with a pink band at the toes. At the end of the bed was a tray with two empty cups.
He looked at Alice’s face. She was pale, drawn, exhausted-looking. Guilt burned inside him like bile. ‘Hi there,’ he coughed.
She glanced in his direction, but her eyes stayed at stomach level.
He walked round to her side of the bed and knelt down, hands searching out hers beneath the duvet. They were cupping her lower stomach and he had to worm his fingers between hers to lightly grasp them. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Alice closed her eyes and he turned to Amanda for guidance, support: just the faintest hint of how to proceed. He saw something flicker in her eyes and he knew exactly what she was thinking: my husband let me down and now you’re doing the same to my daughter. Men.
Jon had to look away, certain of the hint of reproach in the arch of her pencilled eyebrows. Typical fucking Amanda. Never here for the good news, but wings straight in for the bad.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ she stated, placing the book face down. She climbed off the bed and headed out of the room, tray in her hands.
Jon looked back at his wife. Her eyes were open again, but directed down at her stomach. He circled his thumbs, trying to coax a response, but her fingers were lifeless in his grasp. He felt like someone trying to spring open a lock with the wrong implement. I don’t have the tools for this. ‘Does it hurt?’
She moved her chin towards the bedside table and he spotted the bottles there. Christ, it didn’t seem that long ago that she’d been weaned off her tablets for post-natal depression.
‘Painkillers?’
She nodded. ‘And antibiotics.’
‘So what did they say at the hospital? Did the doctor give any reason . . .’ He stopped, knowing the urge to rake over the technicalities was for his satisfaction alone. ‘How do you feel?’
Her head rocked a little as she let out breath through her nose. ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know, Ali. Maybe numb?’
Her eyes swivelled to meet his. ‘Dead. Inside, I feel dead.’
He swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry, Ali.’ He searched his mind for something positive. ‘We’ve got a beautiful daughter right in the next room.’
Her eyes dropped, giving him nothing.
‘We can try again. When you’re ready, Ali, we can try for—’
‘I don’t want another! I
want this one!’ The tears came suddenly and she looked mournfully at the far wall. ‘What did I do? Why didn’t I protect you better? Oh, my little angel, I should have protected you better.’
Jon stared at his wife in shock. I’m not even here. She’s talking to our dead baby. ‘Ali.’ He tried again to coax a response from her fingers. Ask me where I was. Demand to know. Just don’t shut me out like this. He waited a second longer, but she wasn’t going to speak. ‘I’m so sorry, Ali. There was news about the night Dave died. A discovery.’ He let the word hang, but it had no impact. ‘A witness.’ Still nothing. ‘Someone who might have seen what happened. I got caught up trying to trace him – and my phone; I’d turned it off, stupidly. That’s why I missed your calls. As soon as I realised . . .’ Excuses. The ungainly scrabble of it all. Despair made him want to collapse on the bed next to her. She’s not interested in what happened to my brother. I could carry on in the same whining tone, but just repeat the words
‘blah, blah, blah’ over and over again. It’s what she’s hearing, after all. He almost smiled. It’s probably how I deserve to be heard.
Amanda walked back into the room, lowered the tray onto the bed and then sat on its edge. He turned to her. ‘Have you spoken to Alan and Mary?’
‘We’ve tried calling them,’ she replied.
‘But they’re not answering their calls?’ She gave him a look and Jon was suddenly aware of his mobile digging into his thigh. He glanced up at the ceiling, then back to Alice. She hadn’t moved. Turning away, he saw Amanda’s bag in the corner.
‘You’re staying the night?’ Amanda looked at Alice.
‘That’s cool,’ he continued. ‘I’ll set up the sofa bed for you.’
‘She’s sleeping in here. I don’t want to be on my own.’ Jon’s eyes went to his wife.
‘Perhaps I should take the sofa bed, Alice,’ Amanda said.
‘Now Jon’s back.’
Alice slid her fingers out from under Jon’s and a hand emerged from the covers. It sought out her mum’s. ‘No. I need you here. With me.’
Jon could see Amanda’s eyes were starting to glisten. ‘You stay in here,’ he said. He pushed himself upright. ‘I’ll sleep downstairs, it’s fine.’ He looked at the top of his wife’s head.
‘I wish I could tell you more than just sorry, but I don’t know what else to say. I really don’t.’
Out on the landing he paused at his daughter’s door, then eased it open and stepped inside. She was face down on the little bed, covers off, arms out at her sides, bottom in the air. He smiled through the tears that were causing his vision to swim. Draping the duvet back over her, he hoped that he could force closed the thing he felt opening up between him and his wife.
Ian Flynn yanked the handlebars towards him and his Kawasaki rocked back on its stand. There was light shining through the gap in the front room’s curtains, but he knew he wouldn’t be in there. Turning to the garage, he saw the crack of light at the base of the door. He gave his usual knock and waited.
‘Who is it?’
‘Me.’
The bolts were drawn back and the door half-opened. ‘Have you got it together, yet?’
Flynn touched each temple with his fingertips, then rotated his hands towards the other man, keeping the space between his palms exact. ‘Straight as an arrow.’
‘You’ve been smoking.’
‘I know,’ he replied sheepishly. ‘I had to chill myself out.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’
The person moved aside and Flynn stepped into the garage, taking in a breath. The table below the long strip light was lined with rows of pills. To the side was a pair of electronic scales, piles of plastic ziplock bags, semi-unwrapped blocks of compressed marijuana. Rolls of cling film and tinfoil. ‘Did you read the newspaper?’
‘Yes,’ the man replied.
‘It was going on about a link to Manchester or Sheffield.’
‘Yes.’
‘He wasn’t known in Manchester, though. Was he? Your contact,’ he nodded at the supplies covering the table, ‘he’d never heard of him, right?’
‘Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a player. There’s more than one supplier in that city.’
Flynn picked at a tooth. ‘What about the brother? Fucking
Major Incident Team, whatever that is.’
The other man snapped open the lid of an airtight container and started spooning out white spiky shards onto the scales.
‘What, exactly, did you say to him?’
Flynn plonked himself down in an old kitchen chair by the workbench that ran along one side of the garage. ‘I dunno. Enough.’
‘I need more than a “dunno”, you halfwit. What the fuck did you say?’
Bending forwards, Flynn ran both palms over the stubble covering his scalp. ‘That I could get him anything. Whizz, pills, ice. The works. Grass by the sackful.’
‘What the hell were you even talking to him for?’
‘We got chatting in the Spread, he said he was opening a club in Sheffield. Later, he hinted he might be interested in cutting a deal to supply it. It just sort of came out as we chatted. I thought we could clean up.’
‘So you meet a stranger in the Spread and hours later he’s in your house and you’re offering to supply him with unlimited amounts of my drugs?’
‘I know it sounds stupid now. But at the time, it didn’t. Everything just flowed along, natural, like.’
‘Imbecile. Did you say anything – I mean anything – about where you would get the drugs from?’
‘No! Not a thing.’
‘Talk me through what was said, word for word.’
Flynn’s hands dropped to his lap and he looked up. ‘We were in my front room. I was putting a number together. Using that little bit of grass I persuaded that Manc, Dave, to sell me. The really good shit. He asked me – the older brother – he asked me if that was the stuff I could supply him with. I said, no.’ He pointed at the blocks of compressed leaves on the table.
‘I said the stuff I could get hold of wouldn’t be quite as good. He started acting strange – like he wasn’t interested. So I said I could get him all the other stuff, too. Even ice. Said the kids really loved the stuff. He turned white, man. I thought he was going to throw up. Then he just staggered out. Nothing more was said, I swear.’
The other man crossed his arms. ‘That’s not so bad.’
Flynn looked surprised. ‘Really? But I told him, didn’t I? Said
I was his man.’
‘True.’ He looked at the ceiling, then said, almost reluctantly,
‘Best you disappear until this blows over. Got anywhere you can go?’
‘I’ve got some cousins. Down in Somerset.’
‘Perfect.’ The man walked over to a shelf and removed a folded-up sheet of plastic. ‘Do you need cash?’
Flynn glanced over his shoulder. ‘Could you? I’d appreciate it, man.’
Behind him, the other person unfolded the sheet, and it crackled as he lay it across the floor. ‘Reach under that workbench. There’s a block of twenties wrapped in cellophane, I taped them to the centre strut.’
‘Oh, you’re a star.’ Flynn stretched a hand under and started groping around. ‘You know the other bit in the paper. About the forensic stuff – footprints and a tyre track from a motorbike?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was thinking. I mean, I was pretty much out of it the whole weekend that Manc bloke got topped. Payday and all that. But didn’t you come round mine to borrow my bike at some point?’
‘Did I?’
‘I’ve got this vague memory of you coming into my front room. Was that for real?’
‘What, borrowing your bike?’
‘Yeah, it seemed funny. I mean, that night in the Spread, when he was going on about finding some buried treasure, didn’t you say there were a few places you could think of where it might be?’
‘Did I? I can hardly remember, mate.’
‘Yeah, you did. This cash
– you said it’s taped to the centre strut? I can’t feel anything.’
‘Reach further, it’s right at the back.’
Flynn strained forward, the top of his chin now pressed against the wooden surface. Behind him, the other man lifted a large claw hammer from the row of tools hanging from the garage wall. He raised it to shoulder height and then, with a casual sweep, buried the long twin-points deep into the crown of Flynn’s skull.
Twenty Four
‘Thanks for getting back to me, I really appreciate your help,’ Rick said, yet again. ‘I know what a pain it is to be disturbed of an evening.’
He listened to the woman from the council claim it was no inconvenience at all, but her voice carried no conviction.
‘Great, well, I won’t take up any more of your time. Thanks again.’ He hung up and turned to the piece of paper. He now had a list of eleven names. Zoe Price. Zoe Evans. Zoe Jackson. Zoe Croxton. No Zoe Spicer, though. There were addresses in Stretford, Longsight, Droylsden, Cheetham Hill, Openshaw. He imagined the terraces and tower blocks. Bloody grim. With a sigh, he ran a finger down the list; seven had phone numbers. He glanced at his watch: 0. 0, at night. Not a reasonable hour to start phoning strangers to ask if they were seeing a petty criminal who had just been murdered. First thing in the morning, then.
He looked around the incident room, seeing he was now the only person there. Bloody hell, he thought. How come working with Jon Spicer is like holding down two jobs at once?
The springs in the sofa bed were digging into his back and the sleeping bag was too narrow. Jon raised himself onto one elbow. This was hopeless. With a downward sweep of his arm, he opened the zip and his bare legs slid out, like the stomach contents of a gutted crocodile. The look of utter desolation on Alice’s face wouldn’t go away. He rested his forehead against the heels of his hands. Christ, what’s happening to us?
Punch raised himself from the carpet, placed his chin on Jon’s knee and stared up at his master. Jon lowered a hand and looked into the animal’s eyes, so sad and black in the gloom. ‘I know, I know. Really fucked up this time, haven’t I?’ His dog’s gaze didn’t waver.
