Sudden Death Page 22

  The list was a long one but it included Tories, Americans, Tony Blair, Liverpool Football Club, Eccles cakes, the Royal Family, teacups instead of mugs – a sure sign of bourgeois decadence, and last but not least, the Welsh.

  Pete’s dad, as a true socialist, never admitted he hated the Welsh, the people who had given him the Labour party, that would have been akin to racism in his book. But the fact was plain to see in every utterance and facial expression that had accompanied Pete’s childhood holidays to Wales.

  A typical scenario would have Pete’s dad returning to their Granada saloon with a plastic Spar bag full of Monster Munch and Pacers, and a face like thunder after spending twenty minutes trying to buy said items from a small granite store in a one-street village in North Wales on their way to Anglesey.

  As Pete and his sister devoured the food that had been thrown in the back of the car like a keeper launching fish to sea lions, his father would complain to Pete’s mother, ‘They pretend they don’t understand me, Marion, but they fucking well do, I can see them laughing. I fucking hate the buggers. They hate Scousers!’

  And all the time he was eating picked onion Monster Munch Pete was thinking, I hate the buggers too!

  So when he found himself in Wales, as he did today, he had to remind himself that the reason for his antipathy was his father, and that it wasn’t a dark, strange place where every Spar and pub was full of small, dark haired men and women waiting for an opportunity to snub an Englishman. Which was a difficult position to maintain as he stood behind a middle-aged man in an old British army jumper conducting a conversation in Welsh with the elderly shop assistant behind the counter in the local shop where he had called in to buy some credit for his phone. The shop assistant, a woman with thick stubble, looked over the shoulder of the man she was chatting to, gave Pete the once over and then carried on talking, ignoring him completely.

  Pete shifted from foot to foot for a few more seconds and then walked towards the counter.

  ‘Listen, I need some credit for my phone. Apologies for not waiting but it’s kind of an emergency.’

  The shop assistant looked at him as though he had just defecated on the counter while singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’.

  ‘Well, there’s rude of you. Tssk!’

  ‘It’s an emergency, life and death stuff.’

  She said something in Welsh and the man grunted in response.

  ‘Well, go on then, how much?’

  Pete paid and then walked out of the shop. Outside clouds as black as coal were settling above the mountains that towered above him. The first splattering of rain hit his face.

  He rang Erasmus.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve found her.’

  There was a sound of shuffling, like Erasmus had jumped out of bed.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘And one other thing. You were right about the nappy wrapper outside Frank’s house. There is a baby.’

  CHAPTER 35

  It took Erasmus forty-five minutes of pushing his bartered old VW Golf at 90 mph down twisting country lanes and dirt tracks to reach the GPS co-ordinates that Pete had given him. He followed a narrow country track, bounded on both sides by a dry rock wall, until he came to Pete’s old Land Rover parked at the end of the lane which was blocked by a wooden, five bar gate.

  He pulled over behind Pete’s car and got out. Erasmus checked his mobile phone but the bars remained resolutely unlit. It had been the same for the last fifteen minutes, since he had turned off a quiet village road and onto the farmer’s tractor trails that cut through the wooded valley. No wonder Pete hadn’t been able to contact him since his call giving him the location.

  Erasmus headed towards the gate and then stopped. The gate was hanging open slightly, a long piece of blue string hung from it, blowing in the wind. He walked forward and grabbed the string. It had been cut. Erasmus knew that Pete would never have cut a gate’s tie.

  In the field beyond there were tire tracks from at least two cars: they looked very fresh. Erasmus had a bad feeling about this. His stomach cramped with tension and sent bile up his oesophagus. An image of his long dead army buddy James waving goodbye before he left to meet the local governor flashed into his mind. He started to run.

  The field stretched out for maybe half a mile and then turned to woodland. At the far end of the field Erasmus could see a narrow gap in the trees where a path just wide enough to take a tractor dipped out of sight. Erasmus headed for the gap. For a moment the wind changed direction, coming straight at him from the trees, rather than from behind as it had been doing. He heard what sounded like a scream. He picked up his pace, sprinting now.

  He reached the gap in the trees. What he thought was a path was actually the end of the road for vehicles. Twenty yards beyond the tree line, two 4X4 vehicles were parked. Erasmus recognised one as the same Land Rover sport that had been standing in Frank Tallow’s driveway.

  Erasmus didn’t wait. He followed the single-track path through the trees until suddenly the ground dropped away revealing a natural bowl, an old disused quarry some five hundred yards across. At the bottom of the bowl, maybe two hundred yards away, was a small white-walled stone house. A washing line with freshly hung clothes was visible in the garden to the side of the house and the green front door was ajar.

  He halted at the tree line for a moment. The slopes down to the house were bereft of any cover and although the curtains of the ground floor rooms were drawn, if anyone were to choose to look out he would be spotted straight away. He needed a way down.

  As he looked around he noticed something on the ground next to him. He picked it up. It was a piece of roughly torn black material about an inch across with a purple paisley pattern on it. Only Pete would be wearing Mod gear while manning an observation post.

  He checked his phone again. No signal.

  Erasmus scanned the house and the surrounding countryside. There was no sign of Pete but running straight down to the house was a trail of flattened grass that marked where Pete had been. If Pete had approached the house directly, not seeking cover, he must have been in a hurry. Erasmus’s stomach tightened again.

  Suddenly there was a quick flurry of white flashes from inside the house lighting up the windows. Gunshots, thought Erasmus. There was no time for subtlety, he began running full pelt down the slope towards the door of the house.

  When he got within five metres there was another flash accompanied by a loud bang. Erasmus headed straight for the front door. He kicked it open and found himself in a hallway; boots and shoes lay scattered on the stone floor. The door to his right was shut. Erasmus gripped the door handle and burst into the room beyond.

  As he did so he was blinded by a flash but not before he had registered the sight of a young girl, Jessica, sitting in a chair with a man leant over her pointing a gun at her head.

  Erasmus, temporarily blinded, leapt towards where the man was standing. He thumped into him with his shoulder, knocking him to the floor. Erasmus fell on top of him. He was dimly aware of other people in the room and screams from the girl. His bandaged right hand was next to useless so he had to improvise fast. He stuck his left thumb into the eye socket of the man flailing below him and twisted. The man’s screams were only cut off by Erasmus’s forehead connecting hard with his, knocking him unconscious.

  He rolled off him and looked up. Steve Cowley was coming towards him followed by Dave.

  Erasmus sprung to his feet and stood between them and Jessica and her child. He crouched and readied himself. All he could think of was James, this child and the children he hadn’t been able to protect in Afghanistan. His vision narrowed, taking in Dave’s position and posture, calculating distances, scanning the room for weapons.

  Cowley had begun to talk but it didn’t register with Erasmus. He had to save the girl, save the child: nothing else mattered.

  Dave had been standing behind and to the right of his boss but now he took a step forward. The room they were in was
an ordinary cottage living room but Erasmus had already chosen his weapons. He moved quickly, leaping towards the open fireplace and snatching the coal shovel from the scuttle that was next to the fireplace. He didn’t look but swung it hard in an arc behind and to his right, and he felt the edge of it catch something soft. There was a grunt from Dave. Erasmus’s momentum kept him spinning round. He saw Dave staggering backwards, trying to put back the large flap of his open cheek which hung loosely by his neck. His eyes were full of terror and shock.

  Cowley was raising his hand. Erasmus swung his hand again catching him under the chin with the blunt end of the shovel handle. Cowley went sprawling, landing on the crushed red velvet sofa behind him and falling back stunned into a sitting position.

  Erasmus was flowing now, free in the violent choreography of the moment but the threat was still there. The child had to be protected. He brought the shovel up above his head, ready to bring it crashing down onto Cowley’s skull.

  ‘Erasmus, stop!’

  Erasmus paused, the shovel poised to smash the cowering Cowley’s skull into pieces. The pause allowed the background noises to filter through his adrenaline whiteout. He could hear a baby crying, the sobs from Jessica, the groans from Dave and lastly the shocked voice of Pete who had called for him to stop.

  He turned around and saw Pete standing at the living room door surveying the destruction that lay in front of him. Behind Pete stood Wayne Jennings, who had gone pale at the sight of Dave holding his face together with his fingers. And striding into the room now was Frank Tallow, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s going on, Pete? They were going to kill her!’ said Erasmus as he let his left hand, the hand holding the shovel, fall to his side.

  Tallow snorted. ‘Kill her? You fucking idiot! They were taking pictures of her. It’s a photo shoot and you’ve turned it into a massacre. Well done, who says PTSD isn’t a proper mental illness, eh? You should be their poster boy. Christ, you’re not really very well, are you?’

  Pete came across and placed his hand gently on Erasmus’s arm. The room was full of the sound of groaning and pain. Erasmus looked at his hands covered in blood. He felt the telltale signs of panic: the crushing pins and needles following the retreating oxygen in his limbs.

  ‘I’m going to sue your fucking ass off,’ slurred Cowley through his broken teeth.

  ‘Erasmus, it’s OK now, I know about Kyle, I’m made up,’ said Wayne.

  Erasmus felt his breath slipping away from him and he began to feel faint.

  ‘Outside now,’ said Pete and steered him out of the smashed door and into the front garden.

  They sat down on a small brick wall. Pete pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit two. He gave one to Erasmus.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, I know I should be giving you a paper bag to breathe into but it doesn’t look good to the clients, well, ex-clients.’

  Erasmus took a drag of the cigarette. He thought he would throw up but he managed to gulp the smoke down.

  ‘I followed Tallow and when he came here I saw the girl come out to greet him and I called you. Half an hour later Cowley’s Land Rover pulls up with the muscle and I reached the same conclusion as you obviously did, that they meant her harm. I raced down there but unlike you I observed and when I saw Wayne holding the baby and the cameraman bringing his stuff in I could see what must have happened.’

  ‘Tallow struck his deal.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever you said to him scared him, but not in the way we figured. He must have lowered his price. Wayne is on board. Cowley told him he was a father and he’s embraced it. That photographer you knocked out was getting a shoot together for one of those glossy lifestyle mags. I saw him getting his equipment from the Land Rover, next thing I know I am watching you run down the hill like some Boy’s Own soldier. I ran after you but, well, I got here too late to stop you.’

  Erasmus examined his knuckles, they were scraped and bloody.

  ‘I thought the flashes were gunshots. I thought they were going to kill her.’

  Pete looked concerned.

  ‘I know. But things aren’t like that here. This isn’t Afghanistan,’ he said quietly.

  There was a shuffling of feet. Erasmus looked up to see Wayne shifting awkwardly by the front door.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Wayne.

  The boy’s concern was palpable but there was something else, a fear in his eyes that Erasmus hadn’t seen before.

  Erasmus nodded.

  ‘Is everyone, are they all right?’

  Wayne glanced back towards the house.

  ‘The photographer is coming round, I think he’ll be all right, like, and Steve looks better without a front tooth anyway. Not sure about Dave though, I think he may need to see a doctor.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll drive him to the nearest hospital,’ said Pete.

  Behind Wayne, Cowley appeared. He was clutching a handkerchief to his bloody mouth. He pointed at Erasmus.

  ‘You, you fucking psychopath. You are fucking lucky he likes you,’ he pointed at Wayne, ‘or you would be up for fucking GBH.’

  Pete jumped up.

  ‘Drop the act. You know that isn’t going to happen. You want your full-page glossy spread ruined, the details of this sordid little deal out in the open?’

  ‘What deal? What proof have you got? None. Just the paranoid imaginings of that fucking nutter! Fuck you both. Come near me or my client again and you half arsed lawyers will find out what a real lawyer can do. Now fuck off!’

  Cowley flung a hand in the air and then walked back into the house.

  Pete looked at Erasmus.

  ‘Come on, mate, he’s right, we’d better go.’

  Erasmus flicked the cigarette butt on the floor and took a deep breath. This time his lungs responded and he felt the pins and needles receding. He stood up and walked over to Wayne. He hugged him.

  ‘Watch him, Wayne. He can’t be trusted.’

  Wayne slipped out the embrace, his head bowed.

  ‘Everyone has their own agenda, Erasmus. What’s yours?’

  It was at that moment that it came to Erasmus; he knew what he really wanted. He wanted an end to the chaos.

  CHAPTER 36

  The ride back to Liverpool wasn’t a good one. Erasmus thought about his reaction, his assumption that something terrible had been happening and whether his judgment was askew, knocked off its normal axis by events that had taken place five years ago in the heat and dust of Afghanistan. He wondered whether Tallow was right, maybe some neurons were misfiring, synaptic pathways for ever twisted and broken, unforeseen casualties of IED’s and broken, long dead comrades and civilians.

  He chain-smoked all the way back, pulling furiously on each cigarette as if the answer would only become clear with the effort.

  He parked his car, slammed the door of his flat behind him and opened the Yamakazi, the destination he had been driving to all the way back.

  Four hours later, the evening had smothered the lights over Sefton Park and the whisky had choked the voices and the enhanced interrogation they were inflicting upon him. The only light in the flat was his Mac shuffling through his music collection and it was as though it could read his mood: Nick Cave, Steve Mason, Jim James and then Nina Simone. Erasmus wondered whether Apple had installed a new function, software that picked up on and then reflected the user’s mood in song selection.

  He lay back on the couch and let out a mirthless, whisky sodden laugh. The laugh was threatening to turn to tears when he heard something that made him swallow his laugher: the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from outside. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and staggered to the bay window that overlooked the park. He looked out.

  There was another smashing noise. This wasn’t somebody trying to be subtle.

  The lights in his apartment were off and Erasmus could see the bruised blue of the park illuminated dimly by the small orbs of yellow light from the Victorian street lamps. He could see the entrance of the driveway to his bui
lding but not his car and that’s where the noise had definitely come from. The security light had clicked on. There was someone down there.

  Still holding the whisky bottle, Erasmus ran to the door and descended the stairs into the lobby. He clicked the latch up and then swung the front door open.

  The first thing his booze-soaked brain registered was the fact that the driver’s side window of his old Golf had been smashed in. Broken glass lay on the gravel path and sparkled like crystals. The next thing he noticed was a man raising a crowbar in preparation to even up the damage to the passenger’s side window.

  ‘No!’ shouted Erasmus.

  The man paused and looked over at Erasmus. He recognised him immediately. It was Ben, Cat’s boyfriend.

  Ben’s face contorted in an expression of rage and he brought the crowbar down, smashing the window.

  Erasmus moved forward quickly or that was what he intended to do. Instead his front foot caught on the doorframe and he fell, face first, into the gravel. He put out his hands to cushion the blow and fell onto his cut hand. He wanted to scream in pain but he wouldn’t give Ben the satisfaction.

  He heard Ben laughing and then the sound of another window ceasing to exist.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered to himself.

  He could taste blood running from a cut in his mouth. Slowly he got to his feet. He stood there for a second and dislodged two pieces of gravel that had stuck to his face. His right hand felt like he had placed it on a hot plate.

  Ben was circling the car like a hungry predator looking for fresh targets now that all the windows had gone.

  Erasmus raised his right hand at the same time as he realised that despite the fall he still held the whisky bottle intact in his left. He didn’t know whether this was a good thing, speaking to his reaction times, or whether it was the triumph of addiction over self-preservation. He chuckled out loud, and then took a swig from the bottle. The whisky was hot and stung the cuts in his mouth. He relished the sharpness.