Beck le Street

by Tony McHale

  “Can I wait until my father comes out of theatre?”

  Wood just nodded.

  “Do you want a coffee?” asked the police officer.

  Charlie’s turn to nod. He’d wanted one since he’d arrived, but hadn’t dare let go of the coat hiding the gun, in case he gave away his little deadly secret.

  “How do you like it?”

  “Just black.”

  Without another word the junior officer went off and Wood sat down next to Charlie. Wood looked round as if to check they were by themselves.

  “Off the record, do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “I thought you said I needed a lawyer.”

  “This would be just between me and you. I’m no Sam Naylor.”

  “We were attacked by two men.”

  “Did you recognise them?”

  Charlie paused for a moment then decided to lie: “No.” He had unfinished business and he didn’t want the police interfering.

  “Where was this?” asked Wood.

  “Moor Cottage … do you know it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s about five miles out of Beck le Street …”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I’ve rented the place.”

  “Winter break?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Look Charlie, the investigation into Naylor and his wife’s death is continuing. Ridley and Armstrong will be charged regarding Miss Bahl and there will be an enquiry into Naylor’s behaviour. No one … dead or alive, is going to get away with this.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “No … because I never promise anything I haven’t already delivered.”

  “Anything could happen.”

  “Exactly. I’m just saying … we’re on track.”

  The junior officer arrived back with the coffees and they drank them. At one point Charlie’s coat nearly fell off his lap, but he managed to save it.

  Charlie told Wood how when they’d opened the cottage door they were fired on and how he’d fled onto the moors and eventually made it back to the Land Rover. Wood seemed satisfied this was enough for his men to work on. He dispatched a team onto the moors to check out the Land Rover.

  Eventually a doctor appeared. He was still in his theatre scrubs, his mask hanging loose round his neck. He pulled off his cap as he approached and Charlie knew this was bad news. He knew the timing, the walk, the look, he knew his father had just died.

  The doctor spoke explaining how they’d tried, but the ‘tissue’ damage and blood loss had been too severe, he used various medical terms that Charlie neither understood nor really heard. He just had a massive yawning pain somewhere deep in his stomach and an overwhelming desire to scream.

  But instead he just nodded and said nothing. Then he heard the doctor say: “Do you want to see him?”

  Charlie just nodded. He stood up and the doctor moved in to take hold of the Barbour.

  “Here let me take that.”

  Charlie for a moment was caught out. The doctor’s hands were reaching out for the coat. Charlie, his mind still full to bursting with the abrupt news his father had died, instinctively knew he had to hang onto the coat.

  “It’s my dad’s … I want to … keep it,” he heard himself saying.

  The doctor didn’t argue and he was ushered into the theatre. The team had obviously spent some time cleaning up not only the theatre but also his father. He looked at the cold, lifeless body of the man he’d only just started to understand. He’d made some massive mistakes in his life, but who hadn’t. He’d tried his best to protect his wife from his stupidity, he’d tried his best to make things right, but he was a product of not necessarily his upbringing, but of the world he found himself immersed in. Beck le Street was a place that if you didn’t break from it, then it would drag you back in, sucking you into its own form of justice, a form of justice with which the Greek tragedian queen Clytemnestra, would have readily concurred.

  As the tears ran silently down Charlie’s cheeks, he didn’t realise that although he’d made that all-important break, his mother’s death had sucked him back in and he was heading for those Dark Waters.

  Wood was waiting for him when he came back out of the theatre.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, it would be good to take a formal statement from you now, while it’s still fresh in your mind … if you don’t mind.”

  The last thing Charlie wanted to do was to make a statement. On the outside he was bedraggled, dirty and bloodstained, inside he was angry and keenly focused.

  “We need descriptions of the two men,” Wood continued, “and any other details you can remember.”

  “Okay,” said Charlie numbly.

  They started to walk off down the corridor towards where the junior officer was waiting. Then Charlie suddenly spoke, “There was one detail I didn’t mention.”

  “What’s that?” asked Wood.

  “There’s a dead body on the moors. He was shot.”

  “A dead body?”

  “Lucas Kenyon.”

  “So you recognised him?”

  “Sorry … didn’t I say. Yeah … it was Lucas Kenyon.”

  “And he was killed?”

  “Yeah … shot.”

  “By you?”

  “No – I don’t have a gun,” Charlie lied again.

  “Look … do you know whereabouts he is … on the moors.”

  “Not sure. The mist made it impossible to say exactly. I would say a couple of miles from the cottage, maybe three or four hundred yards onto the moors from a road. He’s definitely there.”

  Wood wasn’t sure if Charlie was lying, or if he’d just got confused. He had certainly just being through a traumatic ordeal and a befuddled mind was a distinct possibility.

  Wood thanked him and asked him to hold on ‘two seconds’ while he gave his team some more instructions.

  The police were already at the Land Rover and Scenes of Crime had been informed, but hadn’t arrived. Wood now instructed his team to go search the moors for the body and leave one officer protecting the Land Rover. Satisfied he’d done all he could for the moment, he turned back to Charlie.

  But Charlie had gone … he was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Charlie didn’t immediately leave the hospital. He’d jumped into the elevator and travelled upwards. His thinking behind this rather circuitous exit strategy was that the first thing Wood would do when he realised he was missing, would be to rush outside hoping to prevent him making a getaway. His thinking was correct, that’s exactly what Wood did and of course there was no Charlie.

  On the fourth floor Charlie ducked out of the lift and looked for signs for the toilets. He saw them and headed for the gents and as luck would have it they were empty. He needed to clean himself up. The state he was in would attract too much attention. He placed the gun, still hidden under the coat on the floor, then washed his hands and face, even running his wet hands through his hair. He then dried himself the best he could with paper towels. Checking no one was coming in he picked up the coat and took out the gun. He was going to wear the coat and hide the gun underneath. As he picked up the gun to place it under his coat the door opened and in came a father and his ten-year-old son. It was virtually impossible for them to miss seeing the shotgun. The father stopped in his tracks, not sure whether to bluff it out, or just turn and run. The son was almost excited by the sight of the weapon.

  Charlie had to think fast.

  “It’s okay … it’s okay. Just a toy,” he said with a smile hoping they missed seeing the blood on his jumper.

  “It’s for my son,” he continued, “ he’s just crazy about toy guns. I have to smuggle them in, the staff are not too keen on them.
”

  The father nodded a nod of understanding, but not totally convinced by the explanation. Charlie knew the father wasn’t convinced, so he quickly left the toilets. He wasn’t sure what the man would do, but he was guessing he needed to get away from there as quickly as possible.

  He decided to use the stairs. He was thankful he was going down, although he reckoned he was quite fit after his frequent gym sessions; he knew after being chased across the moors half the night and not having slept, climbing stairs would have taken its toll.

  The stairs came out quite near the hospital’s main reception. Taking a deep breath he strode out of the hospital and there was the No 10 bus loading passengers bound for the city centre. Charlie climbed on and whilst still holding onto the gun, managed to get the money out of the bum bag he still had round his waist explaining to the driver how he couldn’t move his left arm … a bad accident.

  At the same time Wood received a call that a man had been spotted carrying a shotgun and wearing a Barbour coat on the fourth floor of Scarborough General Hospital. Could there be a connection with the man he was looking for? Wood was in no doubt there was a connection, now what he had to figure out was what Charlie intended to do next.

  * * * * *

  Tyler had arrived home in the early hours of the morning. He’d managed – just – to drive the pick up home.

  Cassie had been sitting in the armchair in the kitchen. Unlike her she’d been unable to do anything. She’d just remained in the armchair thinking of Charlie. There had been a moment a few hours earlier when she’d picked up her phone and started to dial Tyler’s number; she was going to tell him to call it off. But then she couldn’t. If Charlie continued, then sooner or later everything would come crashing down around them. All she’d cared for, all she’d worked for would be destroyed. She couldn’t let that happen. Nevertheless thinking of Charlie was almost unbearable. In life she loved Georgie, he was top of the list. Did she love Tyler? She was grateful to him, she was fond of him, but love him … she knew she didn’t. She knew he loved her. She knew that. She knew he was her saviour, hers and Georgie’s. Without him it was hard to imagine how their life would have turned out. He married her pregnant, knowing who the father must be, but never mentioning it. He was there when she gave birth, he was there when they broke the news to her about Georgie, he was there holding her when she cried uncontrollably. Tyler had come to their rescue and for that she would always be grateful. But she didn’t love him. She couldn’t. Because there, permanently entrenched in her heart and mind, was Charlie. She’d always loved him – always. He was her first love and her continuing love. The thought of him dead … the thought she would never see him again … was too much to imagine. She’d tried to warn him … she had. But he wouldn’t listen … Why didn’t he listen to her? She felt tears welling up in her eyes.

  Then there was sound of Tyler’s truck pulling up outside.

  She had to pull herself together. But the deep apprehension she was experiencing didn’t vanish, not even when she saw the blood sodden Tyler clamber out of the pick-up. She was just hit with the horror, the horror of what a shotgun blast can do a to a person.

  Once inside the cottage Tyler tried to explain what had happened and how it had all gone wrong. He wasn’t very coherent, but Cassie managed to decipher that he thought Jed and Lucas were both dead, but their target – Charlie, was still out there somewhere. A huge wave of relief swept through her, something that collided with the panic she was feeling for Tyler.

  Cassie wasn’t even bothered about learning what actually happened. Whatever happened was a fuck up, but she also knew it meant two things – they had to somehow deal with the mess Tyler was in and that she’d been given another chance, another opportunity to find an alternative way out of this.

  Tyler was in shock and his body was reacting accordingly. He was shaking from head to foot and perspiring cold sweat. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating and he kept crying out. Cassie rushed to the medicine cabinet in the kitchen and got out some Tramadol that Georgie took when his pain got unbearable. She grabbed the bottle of Metaxa and shoved three tablets into Tyler’s mouth and washed them down by forcing him to drink the brandy. She then tried to attend to the wound, using towels in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

  “What we going to do?” muttered Tyler.

  “We’re going to get you to hospital.”

  “We can’t … we can’t …”

  “Okay … so we just leave you here and let you bleed to death …”

  “You can stop the bleeding.”

  “Your shoulder’s a mess … it’s riddled with gunshot …”

  “Then get it out!”

  “I’m not a fucking doctor Tyler. For Christ’s sake …” Cassie’s voice cracked, as she fought to hold it together.

  “Please Cassie, you got to try. I can’t go to hospital … I can’t.”

  Cassie looked away, trying to pull herself together. She knew Tyler was right – he couldn’t go to hospital. If he did the police would be onto him and with Naylor now dead, there’d be no one to protect him. Another scenario she couldn’t allow to happen.

  “Okay … okay. I’ll try,” she said turning back to him. “We need to get you into the bedroom, we can’t have Georgie seeing you like this.”

  Giving him a hand Cassie helped him through into their room, which was directly across the narrow hall from Georgie’s room. They’d moved to the cottage because there was no upstairs … all the rooms were ground level, which meant Georgie could move around the house, but it also meant he could at any time come into their bedroom. Cassie just had to make sure he didn’t.

  Tyler lay on the bed. Breathing for him was becoming an effort. He wanted to sleep … maybe forever.

  Cassie gave him more Metaxa … pouring it down his throat. The brandy trickled down his chin as the blood still kept coming and Tyler shivered as if he was buried deep in snow.

  Cassie took a pair of scissors from the first aid box and started to cut Tyler’s clothing away from the wound. It was an impossible task. He still had on his thick waterproof jacket, there was no way she would be able to cut though it. She needed to be rid of it. So with a great deal of effort she started to pull the jacket off him, causing Tyler to cry out in intense pain. Cassie grabbed a towel and shoved it in Tyler’s mouth. She needed to deaden his cries of anguish so he didn’t wake up Georgie. Eventually she removed the jacket and Tyler lay there, drenched in sweat still with the towel in his mouth. He was trying to spit the towel out, but it was caught on his teeth. Cassie pulled it out.

  Cassie looked down at him, this was a mess, but they had to somehow get through it. She gave him some more brandy before cutting off his shirt and cleaning the wound with disinfectant.

  “You’ll need to drink …”

  “I am doing,” said Tyler.

  “A lot more,” qualified Cassie. “If I’m going to remove those pellets you’ll need to be out of it. We’re going to do this … we’re going to fix it.”

  Tyler just managed to smile at her … smile at her unfailing optimism. Smile at the girl he’d always loved. Then he spoke, his voice croaky and weak.

  “We had everything … everything.’

  “Sssh …” she encouraged.

  “ Killing Aaron was stupid. I should … We should never ….

  “You did what you had to … like I did what I had to.”

  Tyler looked at her, suddenly realising what she meant.

  “You ….?”

  But she didn’t allow him to continue. This was not the time for analysis.

  Cassie finished dressing the wound and sat on the edge of the bed, encouraging Tyler to drink more Greek brandy. The mixture of the alcohol and the Tramadol was having its effect and the pain seemed to be subsiding. She’d managed to remove some of the pellets, but a lot still rem
ained in the bleeding wound.

  Dawn was starting to break when Cassie knocked on Georgie’s door – time for him to get up.

  Coolly and calmly Cassie made her son his breakfast like she did every morning, whilst also helping him get washed and dressed. Then she ran him to school in the Espace.

  On the journey Georgie was quieter than usual, much quieter than usual.

  “Got a problem?” she asked him. She wondered if he’d heard something in the night.

  “Just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “About how good it would be to get out of Beck le Street.”

  It was like hitting Cassie with a left hook, she felt the blow. Everything she’d ever done was to keep Georgie safe, in a safe environment. In a place where nobody teased him, where he was treated as an equal. That was what she had always fought for and now here he was saying he wanted to leave, go some place new.

  “What makes you think it would be good?”

  “You’ve seen what happens here. It’s not right. People are too narrow-minded … too wrapped up in their own little world … that’s how you create fundamentalists. Everybody is wrong but you. What happened in that field yesterday … that was wrong.”

  This was a totally new tack for Georgie, Cassie had never heard it before.

  “What happened to my father … was wrong,” Georgie continued.

  “Your father?”

  “Charlie – my father,” he emphasised. “It’s the rule of the brutal … where do I fit in that world? As soon as I can I’m going to do what Charlie did – get out.”