by AB Morgan
‘Run off with the milkman? Or did you bury her under the patio?’ Barney asked. Annette reacted with the skill of a mixed martial arts expert and scraped Barney’s shin with the side of her shoe. He recoiled rapidly, ‘What the bloody hell did you do that for?’
Annette turned on him, dark clouds of anger storming across her face. ‘You are an insensitive twat at times, Barney. Can’t you engage first gear before you open your gob?’
Rather than listen to people argue in front of him about his personal life, Rory rose from his seat and headed for the gent’s toilet even though he didn’t need to make use of the facilities. As he walked away, he heard Annette trying to explain to an innocent Barney. ‘He’s always sad because obviously she’s dead. He never ever talks about her, so I’m trying to find out when she died and what the circumstances were, in case we cause offence. Now you’ve done that anyway, with bells on.’
‘I didn’t know. How was I supposed to tell all that by a sad face?’
By the time Rory returned, Annette was giving Barney a hug of forgiveness and to their left, through the creaking oak door of The Valiant Soldier, walked a pub regular, familiar to everyone as their local celebrity. He was a tall silver-haired man who wore a patch over his right eye.
Konrad Neale was a close friend of Barney and Annette and was recognisable in most British households as the face that fronted “The Truth Behind the Lies”, a hard-hitting documentary series on Channel 7. The noise level went up as a result of his arrival.
‘Evening, Rob,’ Konrad bellowed at the landlord. ‘I’m starving. I hope these steaks of yours are as juicy as a well-endowed woman in her prime.’ Everyone in the crowded bar chuckled along except Rory. He wasn’t a fan. Konrad Neale was likeable enough, but his over-confidence and loud opinions often made Rory feel ill at ease. Besides which, the man never switched off from prying into other peoples’ lives.
‘Where’s Lorna?’ Annette asked.
‘On her way. She’s been running late all day, so she’ll come straight from the station by taxi. She won’t be too much longer.’
Rory watched how Konrad’s public persona dropped away when he was with his real friends. He seemed to relax and quieten in their company. With little choice, Rory approached the table to retrieve his beer.
‘No, please don’t go,’ Barney said, indicating for Rory to re-join the table. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any offence.’
‘None taken, Barney. Look, you’re all having a meal together so I’ll leave you to it. I’m happier sitting at the bar anyway.’
‘Come on man, you don’t smell. There’s no need to run away,’ Konrad said.
Noticing how jittery Rory seemed in response to their insistence, Annette piped up. ‘You should try one of Rob’s steaks.’ She had changed tack slightly, giving Rory a chance to reconsider. ‘Look at you. Any thinner and you’ll be mistaken for a lamppost. Barney, we have to fatten this boy up, he hasn’t even opened his peanuts. Sit down and stop being so antisocial. You always do this; disappear as soon as someone else comes to join us. He won’t bite. Will you Kon?’
It was when Konrad Neale looked directly at him, with his one good eye, that Rory realised why it was that he felt uncomfortable in his presence. It wasn’t his assertiveness or his overt questions. It wasn’t even Konrad Neale’s ability to read people, to absorb information about them through body language, signs and every nuance of speech. It was the fact that he too had experienced dreadful loss. Of all the people in the room, Konrad Neale would know how he felt, and because of this Rory’s insecurities were exposed.
‘No pressure Rory, it’s just nice to see you again. You should join us for a drink more often. It’s got to be better than staying at home listening to the feuding Fewtrells, surely? By the way, how are our local scumbag scrap dealers?’
Rory almost sighed with relief at being asked a question he was happy responding to. ‘Much the same. Noisy, uncouth and amoral.’
‘Go on, Cyclops, why don’t you ask Rory if he can do some of your undercover work instead of sending a poor defenceless female?’ Barney suggested.
Konrad wore a blank expression. ‘I’m not with you there, old mate. What undercover work and what girl are we referring to?’
Barney whispered behind his hand in a theatrical manner. ‘Anna Chamberlain. She’s the researcher doing the legwork on the story involving the Fewtrells. What are you calling it? “Scrapyard Slavery Secrets”?’ Barney stopped even before his flow of ideas had properly begun. Konrad was still indicating that he had no idea what Barney was talking about.
‘It looks like you have been badly misled. I’m not doing any documentary on the Fewtrells or any other band of festering itinerants.’
‘So Anna Chamberlain isn’t working for you or Channel 7 then?’
‘Most definitely not. She’s as mad as a box of frogs, that girl. She emails head office several times a day with her latest theories about slaves, prostitutes, incest and a random dead body wrapped in carpet, but she is most definitely not one of our researchers. If anything she probably needs to get some help.’
Barney glanced across at Rory. ‘Well, that explains who she’s talking to in the car all the time. Herself. You saw her today. What do you think?’
‘I have to agree with Konrad. Steve and I had a long chat after work. We’re thinking of declining to take her out on the road. She can barely concentrate. I didn’t want to say anything to you, I wasn’t sure who else had noticed.’
‘What can we do about it?’ Annette asked. ‘We can’t leave her like this, she’ll get into a proper pickle if she keeps pursuing Mad Leo Fewtrell around.’
Rory took a deep breath. ‘I’ll try to speak with her. I know quite a lot about mental health services and how they function, so maybe I can advise her mother-in-law, even if Anna won’t or can’t listen to me. But you never know, sometimes these things come better from strangers.’
Konrad leant forward, engaging with Rory. ‘I take it motorcycle instructor has not been a lifelong career.’
‘You assume correctly, Mr Neale.’
‘Well done for volunteering. Keep us informed and do what you can. If you need help just yell.’
Rory finished off his pint and headed to the bar for a second with the addition of a bag of plain crisps and a pickled egg, humouring Annette. He enjoyed listening to the ever-increasing laughter and ribald jokes coming from the table where Barney and Annette had been joined by Konrad and his fiancée Lorna. They were planning a wedding.
‘You’re not wearing white are you, Lorna?’
‘Don’t be daft, at our age? We’re keeping it small and intimate.’
‘Will your outfit require a hat?’ Annette asked.
‘With mad hair like mine, I don’t think so. Yours?’
‘She’s going to be wearing one of those apostrophes,’ Barney said with conviction. Lorna sought help from Annette, shrugging.
‘An apostrophe? What are you talking about, you great goon?’ Annette asked, looking at her husband in despair. Then she smiled with understanding. ‘Oh, do you mean a fascinator?’
Even dour Rob chuckled loudly from behind the bar as the comment was repeated around the room. ‘You should have heard them last week. Kon was telling a story about a bloke who got arrested. Barney, being a bit mutton, completely misheard him and asked the whole pub what the world was coming to if you can get yourself arrested for farting in a nightclub. He ranted on for several minutes about air fresheners and the right to break wind, before Kon managed to stop him. He’d said “fighting” in a nightclub, not “farting”. It was brilliant. I love it when those two are in here. The whole place has free entertainment.’
Rob leant further across the bar. ‘He’s not a bad old stick.’
‘Who?’
‘Kon. I know you don’t think much to him, but he’s okay underneath the loud exterior. Most people who don’t know him can’t see past his eyepatch. Still, pretty much everyone knows about that. It was nati
onal news.’
‘Yeah, that was pretty horrific. It’s amazing that he and Lorna have managed to get on with their lives, and I suppose he must be okay if she’s agreed to marry him. I like her. She comes across as such a genuinely kind person. You know, the sort you’d trust.’
‘Better than his first wife, she was a right one. Barney always refers to the first Mrs Neale as The Camp Commandant. She was one to avoid. Moved to London, thank God.’
As the laughter in the bar settled, Rory decided it was time to make a move and he bade goodnight to the people he knew before making his way home on foot in the summer twilight. He walked towards Ribble’s Garage and the turning for Quarry Farm Lane where he checked the lay-by for any sign of the blue Mondeo, relieved not to see it parked anywhere within plain sight.
In the gloom of the single-track lane, Rory stopped to alleviate the pressure from a bladder full of lager. The sounds of the hedgerows and fields were broken by rowdy bellowing voices that rose above the grey metal gates of Fewtrell’s Yard. The solid barriers were firmly closed as usual. Rory had only seen beyond them into the compound when vehicles entered or departed, or from his bedroom windows.
The spacious bedroom, in which he endured a fitful night of sleep if he was lucky, had a double aspect. From the upstairs window at the side of his cottage he could see the front of next-door’s house where Leonard Fewtrell’s double-cab truck was parked at night, nose on to a brick outhouse built against the adjoining wall. From his rear bedroom window he had a view of his own overgrown and uncared-for garden with its ramshackle old greenhouse. He also saw into the scrapyard and could witness the regular comings and goings between static caravans and a workshop.
There had been many occasions when Rory abandoned the larger of his two bedrooms and resigned himself to resting on the single bed of the smallest bedroom away from the racket made next door. Sleep often eluded him altogether.
On returning from the pub that night he made his way upstairs and, without turning on the light, he viewed the scene in Leonard Fewtrell’s compound. They were having another oil drum bonfire around which a dozen men, of various ages and cleanliness, sat with bottles clamped in their hands, staring into the flames in front of them. The language was ripe as they reviewed the day’s haul.
‘I can’t fuckin’ believe she ’anded over eight-hundred quid in cash for doin’ fuck all to her guttering. I feel a bit guilty. That could ’ave been ’er savings, Dylan. You shouldn’t ’ave taken it.’
‘Piss off, I was hardly going to refuse a wad of tenners that fuckin’ huge, was I?’
‘Give the mongs some of that chicken,’ a man in a hoodie said to the one called Dylan, who passed a carcass to three dirty, dishevelled individuals hunkered down, away from the light of the fire, on what looked like a tree trunk. None of these men had a drink in their hands, Rory noticed. The three tore at the bones of the chicken as if desperately hungry.
Rory’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he too must eat. He turned his back on the window only to pivot again when the noise of a bottle being thrown into the fire made him flinch.
‘Right. Who’s up first with tonight’s entertainment? You can let Pavel out now,’ a gruff gravelly voice commanded. It was Leonard himself. Mad Leo. Rory surveyed the scene, bemused, as the tree trunk was unrolled. It turned out to have been an old carpet inside which was another of Leo Fewtrell’s workers. A form of punishment, Rory had to assume.
He went in search of supper in his peaceful, clean kitchen where he put on the radio to drown out the shouts and howling from his neighbours. He needed time to think of a better way of alerting the authorities about the employees in the yard, without getting himself beaten to a pulp. His emails had gone unanswered, as had phone messages.
12
Gathering the Evidence
Anna sat at her dining room table, the pale light from the screen on her laptop radiating across her face. The rest of her house was in semi-darkness, only a glow from the street light outside giving form to her furniture. Satisfied with what she had seen on the computer, she rested her back, sitting up and stretching her arms above her head. It was only then that she noticed how the night had crept in.
‘I told you there was a person rolled up in that carpet before. Now they’ve done it again.’
‘I suppose you’ll be emailing Channel 7 to tell them about a kidnapping’.
‘Yes, of course I think it’s kidnap. What else could it be? Even zoomed in it was hard to see if it was a young boy or a small blonde woman. God knows what they did to him or her in that caravan. I’ll write it up and then I’ll think about how to get in there to see for myself. Maybe I should send the film direct to the police.’
‘No. You can’t let them steal your glory. The police can’t be trusted to do anything. You have to go there and film them. If they’re raping young girls, you have to save them. You need a solid plan, Fruitcake. You need good reconnaissance and a sound reconnoitre.’
Anna checked that the curtains were securely closed before turning on the lights in the lounge. She didn’t want to be seen. As she walked into the hallway she caught sight of herself in the full-sized mirror and involuntarily gasped. ‘God, I need to wash my hair. I look a fright.’ She stopped and stared at herself for several minutes. How long was it since she last had a shower? Yesterday? The day before? She couldn’t remember. ‘Fuck,’ she announced, smelling her armpits, ‘I reek.’
‘Have a shower. You stink. You smell really bad. You stinker. You’re a minger, a slovenly scrubber. Get in the shower and wash yourself clean, woman. I don’t want a malodorous wife today.’
‘All right, Damien, no need to rub it in. I’ve been busy. I forgot.’ Making her way to the bathroom upstairs, Anna began to think back to where she had been and who she had met over the past couple of days. Did they notice her bad body odour? She then put her hand up to her mouth and huffed into her palm before sniffing it. ‘Crap and double crap. My breath smells like …’
‘The bottom of a parrot’s cage. I won’t be kissing you tonight, Josephine.’
Anna laughed. She was still smiling as she grabbed onto the bathroom light-pull and gave it a downward tug, but her face fell when she saw the disarray in front of her. Dirty clothes lay scattered on the floor. A scum mark remained around the bath and the toilet was unflushed since its last use. A cold sensation arose in Anna’s legs that then spread to her stomach. She looked around in bewilderment. Who could have done such a thing?
‘Check the rest of the house. Do it quietly and get a weapon. Who does the bastard think he is? Goldilocks?’
Anna instinctively crouched before picking up the only thing that came to hand. The toilet brush. She held it in both hands in front of her face as she made her way towards her bedroom, hardly conscious of the foul stench wafting past her nose. Stopping outside the door, she held her breath trying to discern any sound that would help locate her intruder. Her heart was pounding in her chest and with palms sweating she adjusted the grip on the toilet brush by holding it in one hand only, raising it like a tennis player about to serve to their opponent. She held the doorknob in the other hand and, with one swift movement, she pounced through the doorway onto the bed. Thrashing at the pillow she screamed vile threats at the interloper lying under the covers. Breathlessly, she sat back on her heels and checked the damage. ‘I got him.’ She leapt up and flicked the switch on the main light to reveal an unmade bed and two out of four pillows covered in specks of excrement and toilet tissue.
‘Well he’s been here that’s for sure. I always make the bed before I go out. Always.’
‘Sharpen up, soldier. Keep your noise down and check the rest of the house.’
Anna followed her husband’s orders and, creeping around, she searched the lounge and the under-stairs cupboard before venturing into the tiny back garden. She moved silently through the dark kitchen, abandoning the toilet brush and taking a torch in her hand before she lay, commando style, in the long damp grass. She bega
n crawling towards the shed in the far left-hand corner until she heard her next-door neighbours’ back door opening.
‘Tabitha, come on in now. Come on … puss, puss, puss.’ Anna pressed her face hard into the lawn to avoid being seen.
‘What? No camo paint? Idiot. Stay down.’
She could hear Dawn, her neighbour, kissing and cooing to lure their pet cat indoors. When she had gone inside with the cat rubbing at her legs, the door had clicked shut, allowing Anna to stealthily complete her mission. Helped by a covering of long grass, she made it to the garden shed and back and was satisfied that the shed and its contents had remained untouched. She couldn’t recall the last time she had mowed the lawn and made a mental note to complete that particular task the next day.
After slipping back into the kitchen like a thief, Anna rolled the blind down and switched on the light. ‘This cannot be happening,’ she exclaimed as she stared in disbelief towards the sink and the draining board littered with used crockery and cutlery. Some of it had produced enough mould to supply penicillin to the third world. ‘Squatters? Tramps? Fewtrell’s men?’
It occurred to Anna that if there was mould then the intruder must have left several days previously. She frowned, stamped her feet and shook her head trying to clear her mind. ‘Come on. Think. When were you last at home? Did you sleep in the car last night?’
The phone rang. Anna turned with a jerk to face the red telephone that hung on the wall. She had almost forgotten that she owned a landline, so rarely was it used these days.
‘Hello?’
‘Anna? Are you okay?’
‘Hello, Mum. Yes, I’m fine thanks, how are you?’ she asked automatically.
‘Are you sure you’re fine? Only we’ve just had a call from Dawn who says she saw you crawling across the grass to your shed just now.’
‘Ha, ha, ha.’ A hollow laugh without humour emanated from Anna’s lips. ‘How ridiculous,’ she said, noting the time on the kitchen clock then double-checking the display on the cooker. Twenty-three, thirty-seven. ‘Why on earth would I be in the garden at this time of night? She must have been mistaken.’
