Fighting Chance

by Shaun Baines

  "Thank you," Karin said.

  Crash smiled and dipped his finger into a pool of blood. On a clean section of table, he wrote 'Adrian.'

  Karin rolled her eyes.

  'Lazy,' wrote Crash.

  "How has he survived here so long?" Karin asked, but Crash shrugged and continued packing.

  She looked at his words before smearing them away with the heel of her hand. "We're going to get out," she said. "I promise."

  Smiling, Crash nodded, but didn't look convinced.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "She's going to get us killed," Bronson said, gripping the dashboard.

  The dual carriageway carried them past White Mare Pool, a roundabout boasting of a low cost hotel and a McDonald's. The Sheriff led the way, weaving in and out of traffic. Her motorbike was like a comet, its exhaust fumes trailing behind her.

  Daniel and Bronson followed in the van. The seats juddered and the engine howled as Daniel struggled to keep pace.

  "You're losing her," Bronson said.

  "Does it look like I'm driving a sports car to you?" Daniel asked. He slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding a dinted Mercedes switching lanes. Daniel sounded both the horn and his opinion of the driver's mother before screeching around another roundabout.

  The Sheriff slowed, pointing toward a junction. They joined her and pulled into a car park in the Bede Industrial Park.

  Situated in Jarrow, the estate was a gridwork of single storey warehouses. Most had been abandoned, wearing graffiti tags like medals won in wartime. Others battled on, but their doors were closed and their windows mirrored, preventing their secretive inner workings from being revealed. The roads were choked with parked cars, but their passengers had vanished.

  Hovering by his van, Daniel watched the entrance of an indoor skatepark called Board Sick. Teenagers in hooded tops tucked skateboards under their arms and laughed with their friends. These weren't the pasty-faced attack dogs who had fought with Bronson. They weren't the gangs people crossed the road to avoid. They were just kids pursuing a hobby and perhaps the fastest route to broken bones.

  Daniel's innards twisted.

  "Let's get going," he shouted at the Sheriff.

  Startled, the skateboarders caught the look on his face and scuttled inside.

  "My son went to the skatepark," the Sheriff said, crossing the road. "I spoke to the owner."

  "Bet they enjoyed that," Bronson said.

  The Sheriff ran a hand through her tousled hair. "They told me, my son had a friend. A biker like me. They would meet up and talk."

  "Who was he?" Daniel asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "In the end, I got here too late."

  Daniel rubbed at his cheek. "Is that where he was held?"

  "Not there," the Sheriff said. "Over here."

  The frontage of Factory 21 was littered with spray painted cartoons interfering with other spray painted cartoons. The door was sealed with chipboard and rusting nails.

  Burrowing her fingers around its edge, the Sheriff ripped it free.

  Proceeding inside, they passed a foyer with a single desk. The small room smelled of damp and must. Mouldering leaflets advertised poultry farms and the nutritional benefits of eggs. A poster behind the desk depicted a happy couple with a chicken, their smiling faces replaced with wet mushrooms.

  The Sheriff continued through a glass door that opened into a cavernous room with a floor covered in shredded cardboard.

  "They live here," she said, "and work here."

  The damp smell was overpowered by the scent of ammonia. Pellets of dung dotted the floor. Rotting feathers, disturbed by the draught of their entrance, attempted to flutter.

  Egg boxes were stacked everywhere.

  "What the hell is this place?" Bronson asked.

  His voice surprised a flock of crows, who took to their wings. They cawed and divebombed him. Bronson waved them away and they disappeared through a broken skylight.

  "Egg packing plant," the Sheriff said.

  Daniel walked through the room, his hands behind his back. "This is contravening some serious food standards."

  "I'm guessing it's an illegal racket," Bronson said and turned to Daniel. "The ear Sophia received was sent in an egg box."

  Daniel picked one up. There were no identifying marks. Just like the box Sophia had been sent.

  "Why do you think your son was here?" Daniel asked the Sheriff.

  She walked to the corner of the room, kicking aside a nest of cardboard. Underneath was a pile of clothes singed from an unsuccessful fire. The Sheriff pulled out a T-shirt that had once been white. The lower half had been turned black by flames while the upper half had since been swallowed by mould. Green algae spores collected in the armpit area.

  Squinting, Daniel discerned the words Harley Davidson and a picture of a motorbike, which was now leaping over a scorch mark.

  "I pick out my son's wardrobe every morning," the Sheriff said. "The day he went missing, he was wearing this."

  Daniel's own mother had stopped trying to clothe him on his seventh birthday. By then, he had developed an unswerving taste in dressing to un-impress. Eisha appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, but was no less stubborn.

  Now her son was free of the Sheriff's control, Daniel wondered what he was wearing now.

  Walking the perimeter of the room, Daniel looked through Styrofoam boxes and peered into the straw. He completed his circuit and stood in front of Bronson and the Sheriff, his arms folded over his chest. "My father once told me a story about Frenchie's boys."

  "Oh hell," Bronson said. "I've heard this story."

  Daniel massaged a frown between his eyes. "Thomas French was a drunken cobbler from Laygate. He was too hammered to do the work himself so he forced his son into the trade. His son made such a good job of repairing shoes, French began abducting his friends to work alongside him. It was something to do with small hands making lighter work. Soon French had an army working for him."

  "It was slave labour?" the Sheriff asked. "A sweat shop?"

  "Worse than that," Daniel said. "When the children tired, French chopped them up and hid them in barrels of tanning fluid."

  "Which is basically piss," Bronson added.

  Rolling his neck, Daniel smiled at the crack in his vertebrae. "The operation was so successful, the people of South Shields referred to wearing their shoes in the French way. Meaning cheap but well made. Thomas French asked my father to help expand the business."

  Bronson shuffled his feet and looked away. "What did your father do?" he asked.

  "The business grew," Daniel said, "but the authorities were getting worried about the number of children going missing. It was the eighties. A few working class kids going astray was no big deal, but when it grew into an epidemic, something had to be done."

  "Which was what?" the Sheriff asked.

  "Thomas French felt the pressure from the police, but he was arrogant. Rather than kill the kids, he decided to sell them back to the parents. And it worked. For a while."

  Bronson tugged on his tie, tightening the knot around his throat. "Whenever I misbehaved, my Mam would say she'd sell me to the French," he said. "I thought she was packing me off to Marseille. Didn't seem so bad, to be honest."

  "And then it all went wrong," Daniel said. "He stole the wrong kid. Someone from a wealthy family. When he was returned, the family went to the police."

  "Surely the other parents did the same?" the Sheriff asked.

  "If they did, they weren't believed," Daniel said. "Like I say, they were working class."

  The Sheriff nipped at her upper lip. "So what happened?"

  "Because of the association with the Daytons, my father had to act. Thomas French was…" Daniel paused and cracked his knuckles, "redistributed himself."

  "Same thing is happening again," the Sheriff said.

  "With a few improvements."

  The Sheriff plucked at an eyebrow piercing, twisting it enough to draw blood. "The Daytons
are animals."

  "They were," Daniel said.

  Bronson's phone rang. He answered, taking the call out of earshot of the other two.

  "Did you check the other door?" Daniel asked.

  "What door?"

  Daniel led the Sheriff to a makeshift office. It was constructed from stud walls leaning on each other for support. Through a dirty window in the door, they saw an empty desk gathering dust and feathers.

  "Nothing in there," the Sheriff said.

  "Not that door," Daniel said, pointing in another direction. "This one."

  An opening had been cut into the warehouse wall. The hinges were barely visible. A nail acted as a handle.

  Daniel took hold of it and pulled. The wall swung open to the outside world. They stepped into a yard with a high fence around the perimeter. Seagulls screeched in the sky. The ground was made from cobbles fringed with yellow flowers. In the centre was a metal chair, bolted to the ground. The head and arm rests were stained with blood.

  "In an abattoir," Daniel said, "the animals are separated from the herd just before they're killed. That way, they don't panic."

  The Sheriff looked back at the way they had come. "Keep the herd in there," she said. "Do the slaughter out here."

  Her lips trembled and the Sheriff shrank into her leather jacket.

  Daniel checked the ground. There was blood, but not enough. "I don't think so. I think this is where they cut off the ears, fingers, whatever and then post them off to the parents."

  From where they stood, Daniel heard the laughter of the teenagers at the skatepark. Music played and he imagined the smiles on their faces.

  The Sheriff came forward and sat cautiously in the chair. Rustling in her pocket, she pulled out the freezer bag she'd shown them at her home. The meat had defrosted and swam in its own juices. She laid her head on the headrest and lifted the bag to her mouth.

  "This is where my son lost his tongue," she said.

  Bronson's head poked through the gap in the wall. His eyes widened at the Sheriff, but he said nothing, turning to Daniel instead.

  "That was Charlie on the phone," he said. "He's out of hospital, but he's scared."

  "Tell him we'll be right there," Daniel said, walking around the chair.

  A pile of chicken feathers gathered beside a leg. Crouching, Daniel brushed them aside, scattering them to the wind. Underneath was a bracelet charm. He picked it up and held it in the sunlight. A silver teddy bear glinted between his fingers.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked Bronson.

  "Fine."

  "Are you sure?"

  Bronson fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket. "What are you talking about?"

  "Are you okay to go see Charlie on your own?"

  "Of course, I am," Bronson said, blood rushing to his face.

  Daniel tucked the silver charm into his pocket and laid a hand on Bronson's shoulder. "Get the fat man home and then go to Five Oaks where you'll be safe," he said before clambering over the fence.

  The Sheriff looked from the bloody chair, her son's tongue in her lap. "He's a better mother than I am. You must be happy he takes such an interest in your welfare."

  Bronson turned and kicked open the door to the warehouse, skulking inside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  "Thanks for doing this," Bronson said.

  Simon sat cross-legged in the passenger seat of Bronson's car. He was dressed in a velour tracksuit and sandals. Turning to Bronson, he offered up a paper bag. "Peanut brittle?"

  "Let me guess," Bronson said, "Nigella?"

  "She's my goddess."

  Bronson declined the offer. His jaw still ached from his last beating and a chunk of peanut brittle might tip him over the edge.

  They sat outside watching the front of Bon Bon Voyage.

  Charlie was in his flat above the shop, no doubt crunching his way through sugared almonds and painkillers. Before he'd retired for the night, Bronson had watched him lock the doors and secure the rickety shutters. The once welcoming shop was now a fortress.

  The teenagers hadn't shown, but Bronson sensed their presence nearby.

  "You're only here for the company," he said. "If anything happens, I don't want you getting involved."

  Simon unfolded his legs and stretched in his seat. "That's sweet of you, but they're just children. You must remember what it was like to be that age?"

  When Bronson was a teenager, he was a fighter and a thief. He hadn't tried to roast someone alive in a baker's oven. Everything he'd done was to get noticed. It wasn't a cry for help. Bronson didn't need any. He knew exactly what he was doing. His crimes were a calling card, his CV for when the Daytons came to recruit him.

  The kids prowling these streets were aimless, amusing themselves with random acts of terror.

  "How do you get on with your son?" Bronson asked.

  "He's not my son," Simon said, "and he doesn't like me much. The whole adoptive father thing. He doesn't think I'm right for the Sheriff."

  Bronson looked down at Simon's sandals and painted toenails. "Can't think why," he said.

  "I know, right? I'm wonderful with children." Simon folded down the top of the paper bag and slipped the peanut brittle into the glove compartment. "He was a nightmare before the accident and worse after."

  "Was he hurt?"

  "Not really, but he lost an arm," Simon said. "Joyriding on his mother's motorcycle. It's where he got the nickname Crash."

  Bronson was under strict instructions. No heroics. Just surveillance. Do his job and scuttle back to Five Oaks, presumably where he was to wait like the little wife for big, brave Daniel to come home.

  He shifted in his seat. "How long have you been married?"

  "Forever," Simon said. "We met young."

  "Everything going okay?" Bronson asked, glancing down at Simon's toenails again.

  "The Sheriff is very protective of her own."

  Bronson dismissed Daniel's image as it popped into his head. His body ached from repeated beatings and he was tired. Bronson closed his eyes and allowed his mind to go blank, inviting in sleep.

  If Daniel was protecting him, he thought, why was he covered in bruises?

  His eyes snapped open and he was awake.

  Damn. He was thinking about him again.

  Simon coughed into his hand. "Of course, she has her secrets."

  "Like what?" Bronson asked, slouching in his seat.

  "Like stuff she never mentions," Simon said. "Like how she ended up in England."

  Bronson stroked his chin, giving Simon a sideways glance. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

  Simon sat up, pressing his face to the passenger window. "Showtime."

  Peering through the windscreen, Bronson saw the teenagers appear from an alleyway. They shambled along the pavement, their heads low and the tips of their vaping pens glowing.

  Simon's hand went to the car door.

  "Where are you going?" Bronson asked.

  "To talk to them."

  "You can't talk to them," Bronson said. "They're animals. I told you, you're here for company."

  Simon tipped him a wink. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll Dolittle the hell out of them."

  Before Bronson could stop him, Simon was outside, his sandals slapping the ground as he approached the feral gang.

  Bronson scratched at his twitching cheek. Who was this guy? Was he fearless? Or too trusting?

  Simon stopped at a respectful distance from the teenagers. He smiled. He made small, non-threatening gestures with his hands as he talked. It was like hypnosis and some of the gang retracted their hoods. It looked like Simon was getting through.

  One teenager stepped forward and Bronson recognised her from the fight. Her face bore the red outline of a gingerbread man. The girl, somewhere around eighteen, was as thin as a scarecrow after its stuffing had been beaten out. She chatted to Simon, demurring when he enquired about the wound. Vaping pens were passed around like peace pipes.

  "He really is good with chil
dren," Bronson said.

  The first punch was thrown by Simon. It dropped Gingerbread Girl to the ground. Spinning on his heels, he dealt an open-handed blow to another's mouth, lodging the vaping pen down their throat. Too stunned to react, the teenagers swayed on the spot.

  Bronson rushed to Simon's side, but by the time he got there, the remaining teenagers had scarpered.

  "Poor little mites," Simon said.

  He crouched to the ground, plucking out the vaping pen threatening to choke a teenager to death. "Disgusting habit."

  "Where did you learn to fight like that?" Bronson asked.

  "I'm married to the leader of a biker gang," Simon said. "Baking only gets you so far."

  He pointed to the two kids groaning on the pavement. "Now which one shall we take?"

  Chapter Seventeen

  Daniel strangled the steering wheel as he pressed his foot to the accelerator. He tore along Whitley Bay's coast road. The sun had dipped behind the horizon. Out at sea, lightening split a velvet sky and thunder closed in on the shore. Rain had yet to fall, but it was on its way. Soon the streets would be washed clean.

  He jerked to a stop outside of Sophia's house, glad to see lights in the downstairs rooms. The silver teddy bear bit into his palm. It was the same one he'd seen on Sophia's bracelet, the same one Karin had stolen for her mother. Of course, it might have been a coincidence, but Daniel would sooner believe in Santa Claus than one of those.

  Sophia had been at that warehouse and finding the charm confirmed one thing: there was more to her than he'd anticipated.

  Daniel politely knocked on the door.

  It opened to reveal a man in jeans and a T-shirt. He had a small, pointed beard and square glasses.

  "Where's Sophia?" Daniel asked.

  "Who?"

  Daniel drew himself to his full height and filled the doorway. "Your wife, I'm presuming," he said.

  The man scowled. "I'm not married. You've got the wrong house."

  He attempted to close the door, but Daniel shouldered it open, knocking the man back on his heels.

  "Get the hell out," the man shouted, but Daniel wasn't listening. He stormed into the entertainment room, expecting to find Sophia hiding behind a harp. Flames crackled in a fireplace and he was met with a wave of heat, but Sophia wasn't there.