Deadfolk (13 page)

‘Aw, come on—’

‘Go on. Out.’ She weren’t shouting nor crying nor nothing. She were beyond all that. And when it gets to that, there ain’t much a feller can do.

She held out a fiver as I were going past her. ‘Here,’ she says, blue eyes flashing. ‘Save you askin’ us for it.’

I took the note and stepped out. Just as she were closing the door behind us I stuck my boot back in. ‘Sal,’ I says, pushing the door open despite her struggling against it. ‘Last night…’

‘What about last night? What the fuck does I know about last night?’

‘You were with me, right? I were with you.’

‘You what?’

‘I stayed here overnight. Didn’t I. All night.’

Her face were white and hard like marble. Suddenly I could see what she’d look like thirty year on. ‘Aye, all right.’

I leaned in to give her a peck, half expecting a belt round the chops. But none of that came. I kissed her cheek. That felt like marble and all. Cold and past caring. I moved away, then looked over me shoulder one last time. ‘And Sal,’ I says.

‘What.’

‘Couldn’t make that a twenty, could you?’

You might think I’d have enough to worry about already, but as I were driving homeward all I could think of were scran. I’d not had but a pork pie all morning and I had a right to consider me belly for a change. Full English, I reckoned.

Reckoned I’d earned it and all.

So I called in at the corner shop to fetch the essentials. It’d have helped if Sal had crashed us the full twenty like I’d asked her, but I reckoned I could set meself up all right with such funds as I had, which was a fiver. ‘All right, Blake,’ says Doug, the feller who stands behind the counter.

‘All right, Doug.’

‘Been chargin’ brick walls, eh?’

‘Wossat?’

‘Yer head.’

‘Oh, no. Fell down stairs.’

‘Oh aye.’

‘Aye.’

‘Sorry state of affairs, ennit.’

‘Wossat then?’

‘Mangel. This blinkin’ town of ours.’

I were ferreting around in me wallet as he spoke so I reckoned I hid my reaction well. It were obvious he meant the robbery of last night. He’d heard about it and he were having his old man’s rant. ‘Woss happened now then, eh?’ I says, all innocent.

‘Woss happened? You, askin’ woss happened?’

There were summat funny in his voice that I didn’t much take to. I felt me hackles stirring before I could think. But I damped em down, took a deep breath, and says: ‘You’ve lost us, Doug.’

‘That’ll be seven pound and tuppence.’

‘Oh, aye. Here you go. I’ll give you the two next time, eh.’

‘No you will not. You pays full, like everyone else. See that sign? No credit.’

‘Aw fuckin’ hell, Doug. Credit? Two fuckin’ pound?’

‘And tuppence.’

For a moment I stood there and gave him my lairiest glare. But I knew it were useless. I’d been owing him a few squid here and there far back as memory went. He knew I were good to pay him, and he knew his till had seen a fair bit of my trade over the years. Course, he didn’t know me and the lads had cleared it out once as younguns. But I reckoned I’d more than paid him back in patronage over the years.

And now he’d turned on us, the bastard.

Fuck knew what he’d heard and how many others had heard it, too. But he’d heard summat. And it weren’t good. ‘All right,’ I says. ‘Leave out the fags.’

He tilled my fiver and gave us the change without a word. I could tell he wanted us out of his shop, but I couldn’t go just yet. For form’s sake. ‘You ain’t telled us woss happened, Doug.’

‘What?’

‘Moanin’ about Mangel an’ that, you was.’

‘Oh, aye. Moanin’, were I?’ There it were again, that hard edge to his voice that got to us like a shoe in the teeth.

‘Well you tell us what you was doin’ then, Doug.’

‘So if a man sees things wrong all around him, and he speaks his mind about it, thass called moanin’, is it?’

‘Dunno. S’what it sounded like from here.’

‘Well that don’t surprise us. Not one bit.’

‘What the fuck is you on about? Robberies is nut’n special these days. Shop owner like yerself oughta allow for one every now and then. Ain’t no point whinin’. Best get yerself a good padlock and shut up.’

‘Who mentioned robberies?’

‘Y—thass what you was on about, wernit?’

‘I were on about this town, Blake. I were on about one thing after another, crime pilin’ atop crime so one day thass what Mangel becomes—one big crime that oughta be hanged by the neck until she hangs still.’

‘Know what you needs, Doug? Holidy.’

‘Oh aye? And who round here goes on holidy? Noticed summat missing down the High Street, Blake? Holidy shops. Mangel folk don’t travel well, do us. You’re born in Mangel, you stays here, whether you likes her or not. An’ thass fine, ennit. Or it would be without buggers like you fowlin’ her up fer decent folk.’

‘Wha…?’ I stared at him. This were the feller sold us milk, fags, and a paper every fucking day, and had done long as time went back. He’d barely spoke more than a word or two about the weather to us before today.

‘I knows what you are, Royston Blake. You can’t hide in a place like Mangel. No one can. A man crawls from cradle to grave and folks round here sees it all. They sees what he becomes. An’ iss a wise feller who once spoke of leopards and spots.’

I were struck dumb, you might say. I could think of no words to summon, and none was coming up off their own steam.

‘Go on,’ he yells, breaking us out of me stupor. ‘Take yer vittles and piss off.’

Climbing in the Capri and starting her up had the effect of calming me nerves no end. As I pulled into our road I were starting to think of me belly again, picturing a fork with a bit of banger, a mushroom, and some fried bread on the end of it, the whole lot dripping with runny yolk. It were quite a thought, and had me guts rumbling their appreciation loud enough to hear it above the knackered exhaust. I were still thinking on it when I pulled up outside the house and got out. But when I saw the copper’s car parked across the way I forgot all about that forkful.

It were too late to back out. Two coppers was out of the car and approaching us from different angles before I knew it. One of em had a fat head and hands. Other one had bow legs. They was both lanky, but not so’s they had an edge on anyone. I gave em the winningest smile I could muster. Then I recognised em and relaxed quite a bit. ‘All right, lads.’

‘All right, Blake.’

‘All right, Blake.’

‘Bloody hell. If it ain’t Plim and Jonah.’ That’s the thing about Mangel, and places like it. There ain’t many folks you ain’t brushed up against one time or other. ‘Ain’t seen you two fuckers for yonks.’

‘Best not speak that way these days, Blake,’ says Plim. ‘Not to officers of the law, leastways.’

‘Why not? Spoke to you like it at school.’

‘School’s a long way behind, Blake. Folks change.’

‘Fuckers is fuckers.’ I knew I were being a cocky cunt but I reckoned I were on safe ground. I’d come away with nothing from robbing Hoppers, and I had an alibi.

Plim shook his fat head. Jonah just stared at us.

‘Hey, lads,’ I says. ‘You knows me. Don’t mean nut’n by it, does I.’

‘That looks nasty,’ says Plim, looking at my head. ‘Been beatin’ panels with it, eh?’ They both had a laugh at that.

‘Fell down stairs, as it happens. An’ I don’t reckon coppers oughta be mockin’ an accident victim. Does you?’

They must have agreed with that cos they shut up and took to frowning instead. ‘Woss in the bag, Blake?’ says Jonah.

‘Wha? Oh, scran. Don’t believe us? Go on then, have a gander. Fuck sake, can’t even do me shoppin’ these days without—’

‘We don’t want no trouble, Blake,’ says Plim, putting his chubby hands up. He’d always been like that at school. Soon as someone starts acting aggro he comes along and damps things down. ‘Less just go on inside, eh? Can we go inside?’

Jonah grimaced like he had a mouthful of vinegar and ear-wigs. ‘What you doin’ askin’ him? We don’t need his permission.’ Jonah hadn’t changed neither. Still all mouth and no trolleys. I thought about decking the two of em right there in the street. But thinking were far as that one got. They was coppers, after all.

‘Come on, Jonah.’ They was whispering now, but I could still hear em. ‘You knows how we’re meant to conduct our investigations these days. Softly softly, an’ that.’

‘But we got a fuckin’ search warrant, ain’t us.’

‘Aye, but we don’t have to use it. You’re settin’ off on the wrong foot if you pulls—’

I stopped listening and started thinking. ‘Lads,’ I says. ‘Less not stand out here, eh? Neighbours’ll think I’m a crook.’

I led em indoors and put the kettle on. When I turned round only Plim were there, blushing. ‘Jonah gone for a slash?’ I says.

‘Er…well, he’s just havin’ a quick gander. That’ll be all right, won’ it?’

I shrugged. ‘Sit.’

‘Oh, ta.’ He parked his arse on a wooden chair. It were the one I never sat on being as it seemed fit to break any day. It’d been that way for years, come to think on it. If it didn’t give up under Plim’s heft, I decided, I’d start using it again. ‘So, Blake. How’s it goin’?’

‘Sociable visit, this?’

‘Well we ain’t here to arrest you, if thass what you’re drivin’ at.’

‘I ain’t drivin’ nowhere.’

Plim started fiddling with the huge wart on the side of his face. It were about twice the size of how it had been at school. ‘Juss got a question or two for you,’ he says.

‘Ask way. Milk and sugar?’

‘Milk. Ta. Jonah…P.C. Jones, that is…has milk an’ four.’

‘Sweet tooth.’

‘Aye. Look, seen Baz Munton of late, have you?’

I busied meself with Jonah’s milk and eight sugars, thinking it over. This weren’t what I’d expected at all. The body must have turned up somewhere. I might have knowed it. Folks don’t just swipe corpses for a laugh. They do it to get someone into bother over it. ‘Depends what you means by “of late”, don’ it.’

‘When were the last time you seen him?’

‘Couple of days. Seen him outside Hoppers.’

‘Two day ago, you says?’

‘Reckon so. No. Three. Aye, three.’

‘And what’d you talk about with him?’

Jonah came back in the kitchen and sat down. I put his mug in front of him.

‘Ta,’ he says.

‘Pleasure.’

‘Eh, Blake?’ It were Plim again. ‘What’d you talk about?’

‘Who says we talked?’

‘Did you?’

‘Well, aye. Chatted about this an’ that. Can’t recall zackly what.’

Jonah took a sip. ‘I heared you an’ Baz had a row,’ he says, grimacing.

‘Who telled you that?’

‘Half a dozen witnesses is who.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Aye.’

I drank some tea. It were too hot still and burned me tongue and lips. I drank some more. ‘So?’

‘Blake,’ says Plim, showing us his palms. ‘We’re just establishin’ facts is all.’

‘He’s givin’ us aggro,’ I says, pointing at Jonah.

‘Come on, Blake. Jonah don’t mean it that way.’

I took a deep breath. ‘All right. Me an’ Baz had a…dispute.’

‘About what?’

‘Footy.’ I drank some tea and looked shocked at their reaction. ‘Woss funny?’

‘If you an’ Baz was rowin’ over footy, then I’m a…’ Jonah looked confused for a second, like the feckless streak of piss he’d been at school and still were. Then he got angry with himself. ‘Never mind what I is. You weren’t fightin’ over no footy match.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says I, is who.’

‘I never says it were a footy match.’

‘Fuckin’ did an’ all. Just now you did.’

‘Says footy, didn’t I. Don’t mean a match.’

‘Oh aye? What do it mean then?’

‘Anythin’. Footy rules. Footy players. Tactics an’ that.’

‘Bollocks.’

We batted it back and forth like that for a while, him getting more aggro and me more relaxed. I were starting to enjoy it. Then Plim stepped in with: ‘Where was you lunchtime two day ago, Blake?’

‘Havin’ lunch.’

‘Where?’

‘Paul Pry.’

Well, it came out just like that. Like if it were true. And I knew they believed us cos I’d said it so innocent and matter-of-fact. But in that moment I felt the kitchen walls closing in on us, and saw bars growing up out of the window sills, and heard the teeth of Lee and Jess Munton snapping at my arse like two hungry bull terriers. I’d lied. And it wouldn’t take em but a couple of hours to smell it.

Unless I could hide the hum, course.

‘And what’d you eat?’ says Jonah.

‘Pie and chips, I reckons. Far as I knows thass all you can eat down the Paul Pry.’

‘Heh heh, ain’t that right,’ says Plim shaking his swede. But Jonah weren’t laughing. His bonfire had been well and truly pissed on.

I laughed. I laughed and laughed, looking at Jonah the whole time. By the time I noticed that Plim had shut up and were looking at us like I were a mong, I couldn’t remember what were so funny.

‘Right, then,’ says Plim, slapping hands his knees and hauling upright. ‘Thass that then, I reckons.’

Jonah gave us his look for a while longer, then got up himself.

‘Ta for droppin’ by, lads. Nice to see you again. We’ll get together some time eh? Sink a few an’ talk about old times, like.’

Neither of em replied, which were just as well. Soon as I heard their motor running I got on the blower.

‘Hello. Paul Pry. Fine selection of ales and—’

‘Nathan?’

‘Aye. Who zat?’

‘Blake. You on yer tod?’

‘Aye. Why?’

‘Well, you knows you done us that favour t’other day, regardin’ Baz an’ that? I needs summat else from you along same lines.’

‘Oh aye.’

‘Aye. Needs you to back us up on summat this time, that I had me lunch down the Paul Pry that day.’

‘But you never. You popped in before—’

‘I knows I never. That ain’t the point. I needs you to make out like I did.’

‘But you never.’

‘Nathan, I’ll make it worth yer while. Same as last time.’

‘You can’t get us that way, Blake.’

‘You what?’

‘Fifty pound I charged you. Fer a pint o’ lager. Keep chargin’ them prices an folks’ll stop suppin’ here.’

‘All right, Nathan. What’ll it take?’

‘I happens to know you can afford a fair bit more’n fifty pound, today.’ I could picture him there with a smirk playing under his sparse tash. ‘I happens to know you got a little bonus from yer boss early this mornin’. Without his say so.’