Breaking Point (13 page)

Sweet.

Okay, let’s get this over with. I open the rear of the lorry. It’s an effort, because I have to lower the rear ramp, which is technically a two man job, but I get it done, then pull open the doors and lock them open. It’s fucking dark in there. The dull streetlight coming over the wall barely illuminates the back bumper of the Beamer. Beyond that, all I can make out is the shape of it. It’s an estate, and a recent one, but that’s all I can tell for sure.

At least it should run okay.

I climb into the back of the lorry and, after unbuckling the back wheels, move down the side of the car, sliding one hand so I’ll find the door handle. I get to the front, and pull out the key. I can feel three buttons on the plastic surface. Fuck. I try the door handle. Locked. Double fuck. I think about going back out and just looking at the buttons to find the unlock, but I can’t be arsed, I just want to get it over with, so I press the first button. The front lights flash, but that’s it. Door still locked.

Bollocks.

I hit the second button.

Suddenly the horn is blaring, the lights are flashing. The noise in the enclosed space is tremendous, and I just about leap out of my skin, jumping back from the car fast enough to bang my head off the wall, with a clang that I barely hear above the fucking din. It hurts though, an explosion of pain across the back of my head, and the shock of the pain on top of the jump of the noise makes me drop the fucking key.

Smooth, Del. Fucking criminal mastermind.

I drop to my knees and scramble around on the floor in the strobing from the flashing headlamps for only about seven million fucking years, while the horn blasts tell everyone in a ten mile radius that criminal activities are occurring at the scrap yard. Eventually my fingers close on the plastic, and I hit the third button, and the din cuts out immediately and the locks unclick.

Thank fuck for that. My heart is absolutely hammering in my chest, painfully, and I’m sweating, even in the cold night air. I’m also feeling a little faint. Take some deep breaths, try and unclench my jaw, lean against the wall of the truck.

Better. Better. Back under control. I glance back, once, just to make sure the ramp is down, then open the driver’s side door and climb in the car. It’s a tight squeeze, what with the wall of the truck and me not being as thin as I used to be, but I get it done. The dome light doesn’t come on, which is odd, but I don’t really give it much thought. Adjust the mirror, push the seat back – whoever drove this last was pretty fucking small – then I press the metal button on the key, slot, slide, and fire up the motor.

Starts first time, and it’s loud, but it’s still a good sound. I put it in reverse, then swivel in my seat so I can look out the back. The reversing lights show the way to the ramp, but the interior of the car is still dim. There is a definite smell though. I can’t place it, but I don’t much like it. As the car crawls backwards (safety first) and inches towards the light, colours start to bleed in. There’s a bundle of sheets over the back seat, piled high. The side windows are coated with some kind of dark paint, smeared. I watch with horrid fascination, completely transfixed, as the light gets brighter, and the scene gains an awful clarity.

The light confirms what my mind was already trying to tell me. It’s not paint. It’s blood, drying but still fresh enough to glitter in the streetlight glow. I stare at this, my brain just totally frozen, slack jawed, as the brightness goes up and up. This isn’t a car, it’s a fucking crime scene. I’m fucked, I’m totally fucked. What am I thinking, what am I doing, what am I going to do, and there’s just a roaring blankness in the middle of my head, and I don’t notice the increase in speed until the car hits the bottom of the ramp, and the jolt almost makes me shout in surprise, and my foot slips off the clutch and I stall the motor, causing the car to jerk back again, and I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and I look down, slowly, everything’s moving slowly, and out of the pile of sheets dangles an arm.

It’s a woman’s arm. Thin, smooth skin, slight tan. There’s paleness around the wrist, like where a watch used to be. Red fingernails, perfectly shaped. And the three rings – engagement, marriage, eternity. Diamonds. Not super showy, but nice stones, by the look.

Ah, fuck me.

I just sit in the stalled car, for I don’t know how long, not really thinking of much, seeing but not seeing. I feel all the shitty nights’ sleep and OT hours come crashing in, and all at once, I feel fucking exhausted. I can actually feel my eyelids closing, and I nod forwards before sitting up with a start.

Fuck me, man! That was a bit close. I feel an unwelcome hit of adrenaline, and all of a sudden I need to be out of this fucking coffin and sucking in fresh air. My hand is trembling as I reach for the door handle, but it stops halfway there, almost against my own will.

Because here’s the thing; once I get out of this car, I don’t think I’m getting back in it again. Ever. And if I get out now, that means that I won’t be able to pick it up with the forklift, which means I won’t be able to crush it, which means this nightmare will never fucking end. So my trembling hand moves instead to the key, and starts the engine again, and I turn and look straight out the rear windscreen, focussing on the cold night outside, and breathing through my mouth. I back the car up until I’m parallel to the crusher bed.

Then I kill the engine, and suddenly full-blown panic hits, claustrophobia as bad as I’ve ever known, worse, and my hand is fucking shaking now as I reach for the handle, bad enough that I have trouble gripping it, and then I yank the fucking thing hard and shove, and the door flies open, and I lurch out, and when the belt snaps tight around my chest, for a second I think someone has grabbed be from behind, and I do yell out, my heart lurching in my chest painfully, and I sink back into the seat. I’m drenched now, heart fucking hammering, shaking all over, and my fingers are stabbing frantically at the belt release before I even understand what’s happened, and then I’m out and away and leaning against the side of the crusher, panting like a fucking dog and wondering if I’m gonna puke or pass out or just fucking keel over.

It’s a shitty, long couple of minutes, but I manage to do none of the above, and instead get my breathing and pulse under control a bit. My shoulders feel like fucking steel cables, my gut is burning with acid, and my hands still tremble, but the worst has passed.

Okay. Oh-fucking-kay. Ten gees. That’s the fucking ticket. Ten gees, you’re home and dry, Pam will never know, you’re gonna start living right, Tel will be happy, and you’ll never tell another living fucking soul about this.

It sounds like bullshit. Worse, it fucking
feels
like bullshit. But here we are. Only way to deal with doing something shitty, something you don’t want to do: Do it quick, do it right, then fuck it off.

This gets me into the forklift, and gets me and the forklift to the car. I lift the car, and that bloody back seat window comes back into my eyeline. I’m staring through it, into the car, and I can see that dangling woman’s arm, and the blood on the glass makes it look like the whole inside of the car is full of blood. I just stare, mind absent, no thoughts at all. I don’t know how long for.

Then I hear a siren. It’s not close, but it makes me jump out of my fucking skin. Caught!

But no, it’s moving away, staying distant. Still, time to stop fucking about. I drop my eyes to the forklift controls, enjoying the familiar feel of the levers in my hands, and move the car into the bed of the crusher, using the corner of my eye to line it up, so I don’t have to look back at that fucking window. God knows how many times I’ve done this in my life, but the auto pilot is strong, and before I know it, I’m backing the forklift into the bay where I got it, turning off the engine, and feeling almost normal.

I check my phone. Four a.m. Time flies when you’re giving yourself the shits. Okay, let’s finish this motherfucker and go home. Phone back in my pocket, I walk over to the crusher, fire it up. The noise is tremendous, and I slip on the ear defenders that sit on a peg without thinking. Just another night on the job. Just one more OT shift. I give it the regulation two minute warm-up, aware that there’s just a bit more mass than normal, wanting to make sure there’s no snags. I find myself worrying about the drainage – the battery acid will go down there, and probably some blood too – but then I realise that if they trace the car this far, I’m fucked anyway, and that helps me relax, weirdly.

I do a last check on the pressure gauge, moving my thumb over the button the boss calls Big Red as I do, then I hit it.

The machine makes a fuckload of noise, but I hear the windscreen give out even over that, with a crunch. There’s squealing, screaming metal and the rumble of the hydraulics, and I’m already thinking about where I’m going to hide the cube, and driving the lorry back to the garages afterwards, when my fucking pocket starts vibrating.

Tel. Shit, it must be Tel. I shut the machine off, slide the ear defenders around my neck, and scrabble for my pocket. I pull out the phone, but it’s not my work one. It’s my personal one, and the word ‘Wife’ is flashing on the screen.

Four oh five am, and the missus is calling. Fuck. Some high pitched noise is squealing on in the background as I stare at my phone, no fucking idea what to do, until my hand just takes over and presses answer, and holds it up to my ear.

“Where are you?”

On the surface, she sounds flat, uninterested. But there’s real anger just underneath.

“I’m.. at work.”

That shuts her up for a second. Fucking stupid, but then so was answering the phone in the first place. I’m not really in control of things, just reacting, and what is that fucking noise? It’s going right through me.

“...the fucking piss? It’s four in the morning, and you’ve gone to work?”

She’s hissing at me, furious but not shouting, not wanting to wake Jodie.

“Have you got some bird stashed away, is that it? You out with some fucking slapper you picked up somewhere?”

“Do me a fucking favour, darlin, will you?”

“Then what the fuck?”

The noise stops, then starts again. It’s a high pitched squeal, like shrieking metal, but the fucking crusher is off, so what the fuck? It’s distracting, and I need to concentrate, or I’m never going to get off this fucking phone.

“Babe, I just...”

“Just what? Just went out for a fucking walk at four a.m.? Do you think I’m a fucking idiot, is that what you think?”

“Will you just fucking listen? I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. Then I remembered I’d left my wallet at work, that’s all, thought I’d better go and get it.”

It’s a bad lie, a desperate lie. But I didn’t get my wallet out last night, so it might just hold. Doesn’t need to be true, just needs to be something she can’t prove is bullshit.

The noise stops for a second, then starts again.

“You decided at four a.m. that you wanted your wallet that you’d left at work, so you walked there to get it?”

“Babe....”

“You do think I’m a fucking idiot. God, Del, what the fuck do you take me for?”

“Look,” and suddenly, the stress of the evening ploughs into my throat, and I let it, “I swear to you, I couldn’t sleep, I remembered I’d left my wallet at work, I thought the walk’d do me good. Okay? There’s no bird, no slapper, no big mystery, okay? I’m just...”

The noise has stopped again, but it doesn’t restart straight away. When it does, the sound is different, somehow. It almost sounds like someone screaming.

“...I’m just a little fucked up, okay? You know I ain’t been sleeping, and it’s starting to mess with my head. I love you, I’d never do nothing like that to you or Jodie, would I?”

The pause at the other end sounds different. She wants to believe me, I think, but it’s a struggle. I can hear it.

“Please babe, I’m sorry I freaked you out, really, okay? Just lemme come home and we can talk okay? I won’t be long.”

Pause.

“I swear Del, if I catch a whiff of some sluts perfume...

“You won’t babe, you won’t! Fucking motor oil is all you’ll get a nose full of, okay?”

The noise stops.

The noise yells, “Please help, please help, please-please-please, oh God, please HELP!”

A child’s voice. Cracked and packed with more pain and terror than it can really handle. Insane. Shredded. Terrified. In agony.

My hands and feet go completely numb. My stomach flips once, lazily. My heart beat stays steady, I think, but each pulse feels heavy, painful. My brain is trying to tell me that my phone is still talking to me, but it’s a million miles away, and might as well be speaking Martian.

“Listen, I’ll call you back, okay? Five minutes, I promise.”

I end the call. Auto-pilot. Behind me the voice is still yelling, begging, pleading, screaming. My whole fucking body feels like it’s made out of lead, all my limbs feel distant. I feel like I’m turned to fucking stone.

My fingers, still moving of their own accord, dial three nines into the handset, and my thumb moves to the connect button, but as it gets there, a vision of Jodie comes into my mind, and I stop. Jodie, crying, because she’s fallen over, skinned her knee a good one, claret all over the shop, and I’m hugging her, and kissing her head, telling her it’s going to be okay, that I’ve got her safe, and all by itself, my other thumb moves towards big red, rests on the plastic, and then I see Pam, watching on the news about that guy who drowned trying to get that kid out the sea, a kid he didn’t even know, and she just turned to me and said, “You fucking would though, wouldn’t you?” and my thumb does not press Big Red.