Lost Angel (11 page)

Ruth couldn’t argue with that, not when he was showing genuine concern for their unborn child. So, off the hook – for now, at least – Johnny was able to go to sleep.

Honeymoon officially over, Johnny was up and out of bed before the alarm went off the next morning, and he was dressed and waiting by the door by the time Frankie came downstairs.

It was only half-seven, and he hadn’t been up that early on a weekday since he’d been at school. But this was the first chance he’d had to escape from Ruth, her mum, and this prison of a house since the wedding, and he couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Frankie’s car lot was situated at the end of a little industrial estate on a cul-de-sac off Great Ancoats Street. It was surrounded by six-foot-high metal railings and had two gates, both of which were closed when Frankie pulled up outside, secured by a thick steel chain and a massive padlock.

Frankie beeped the horn, and Big Pat came to let them in.

‘We’ve got a bit of a problem with that thing you sent the lads to do last night, boss,’ he said, casting a cautious look at Johnny.

‘What kind of problem?’ Frankie demanded, not giving a shit if Johnny heard or not. He was part of the family now, and if he forgot the loyalty rule and opened his gob about anything he saw or heard here he’d only have himself to blame for the consequences.

‘You’d best come and take a look.’ Pat relocked the gates and walked back the way he’d come.

Johnny gazed out of the window as Frankie drove through the front part of the lot. There were loads of cars parked haphazardly around, and they looked in even worse shape than the shit-heaps back at the house. Some had windows missing, most were minus at least one wheel, and they were all battered, with dents and scratches on their bodywork. If these were the ones that Frankie expected him to clean, he’d be here from now till the next blue moon.

A low prefab-type building sat around the corner, its windows protected by thick wire meshing, its roof edged with deadly-looking rolls of barbed wire. Two vicious-looking dogs were chained up at the side, and when they saw the car they started barking and straining to get free.

The prefab door opened as Frankie drew up, and two lads stepped out onto the top step.

‘What happened?’ Frankie demanded, hopping out of the car.

The lads exchanged nervous glances and came down the steps.

‘It wasn’t our fault, boss,’ one of them said. ‘We got chased, so I had to squeeze through some bollards and go over a field.’

‘You fucking what?’ Frankie roared. ‘What’ve I told you about going off-road?’

‘I had no choice,’ the lad insisted. ‘It was either that, or get nicked. And I didn’t think you’d want them getting hold of me and risk having them come sniffing round here.’

‘You’d best not have messed it up too bad,’ Frankie warned as he marched over to the garage. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he yelled at the dogs as he rolled up the metal shutter. They both lay down immediately and gazed sulkily up at him.

Johnny climbed out of the car. Shivering when the dogs locked their stares onto him and started growling deep in their throats, he gave them a wide berth and followed Frankie into a big, dark workshop. The combined stench of grease, oil, petrol and sweat hit him smack in the face, and he wrinkled his nose as he gazed around. There were tools strewn all over the floor and worktops, and an oldish BMW was up on a ramp at the far side. But it was the car that was parked up in the middle of the garage floor that caught his attention. It was a black Sierra Cosworth, with low-profile tyres, and a great big fin on the back. If it hadn’t been for the deep scrapes gouged into both wings, the headlight hanging out of its socket at the front, the massive dent in the bumper, and both of the back light panels being smashed to pieces, it would have been his dream car.

‘How the fuck did you manage to do all this on one set of bollards?’ Frankie demanded, anger glinting in his eyes as he strolled around the car and looked it over in disbelief.

‘The coppers rammed us,’ the lad told him. ‘It weren’t my fault.’

‘Stop fucking saying that!’ Frankie roared, punching him in the side of the head. ‘Have you got any idea how much you’ve just cost me, you stupid twat? The buyer’s waiting, but I can’t send it over in this state.’

‘Me and Del can fix it up,’ the lad bleated. ‘We looked it over while we were waiting for you, and we reckon it won’t take that much to get it back up to spec.’

‘You mean apart from knocking out the dents, fixing brand new light units, and giving it a complete fucking respray?’ Frankie bellowed, grabbing him by the front of his jumper now and shaking him like a rag doll. ‘That’d cost more than I’m fucking getting for it, you knob. And you two work like a pair of fucking snails so, by the time you’ve finished the buyer would have gone somewhere else.’

‘It weren’t my fault,’ the lad protested. ‘It was the coppers. They proper wanted to stop us.’

‘How did they spot you in the first place? What did you do, set off the fucking alarm or something?’

‘No, the pickup went sweet, but the sneaky cunts were parked out of sight in a lay-by when we turned off the motorway on the way back, and they pulled out behind us.’

‘So you thought you’d be a dick and put your foot down, did you?’

‘No, I carried on like there was nothing wrong for ages. But then he shoved his blues on, so what was I supposed to do? It was either run or get nabbed. And at least we got it back here in . . .’

The lad trailed off and swallowed loudly when Frankie bared his teeth and glared at him as if he was contemplating ripping his face off.

‘Get rid of it,’ Frankie growled, tossing him aside. ‘It’s fucking useless to me now you’ve been clocked in it.’ When the lad immediately darted around to the driver’s door, Frankie screwed up his face. ‘What you doing now?’

‘Getting rid – like you said.’

Losing patience, Frankie kicked him in his back and sent him sprawling across the greasy floor.

‘Not in broad fucking daylight, you cretin! Wait till it gets dark, then dump it and torch it. And keep the fuck out of my way for the rest of the day, or I won’t be responsible. D’ya get me?’

Johnny winced when Frankie aimed one last kick into the boy’s ribs. But Big Pat and the other lad looked on impassively, as if violence was par for the course if you screwed up around here.

Frankie turned to Big Pat now and said, ‘Give them something to do,’ before jerking his head at Johnny and striding back outside.

Johnny made a mental note to stay on Frankie’s good side as he followed him back out into the yard and around to the front. Frankie opened a door in the garage sidewall and flicked on a light.

‘This is where we keep all the cleaning shit,’ he explained, waving Johnny into the storeroom. ‘It’s a mess, so you can sort it out before you get started. Then I want all the motors washed – and use the proper shampoo, ’cos I don’t want you scratching the paintwork.’

Johnny wondered how anyone would notice a new scratch on any of the cars when they were all covered in them already.

‘When you’ve finished washing the outsides, hoover them out and give them a polish,’ Frankie went on. ‘There’s a box of plastic covers somewhere. Find them and cover all the front seats, then make a list of all the plates, and detail what damage each one’s got: dents, bald tyres, knackered wiper blades, ripped seats and carpets – that kind of shit. Give it to Big Pat when you’re done.’ He paused now and gave Johnny a questioning look. ‘Got all that?’

‘Yeah.’ Johnny nodded.

Frankie glanced at his watch. ‘Right, I’ve got some calls to make, so find yourself some overalls and get started. You can take a fifteen-minute break at half-ten, and an hour for lunch at one. There’s a butty shop across the road. I’ll be in the office if you need me.’

When he’d gone, Johnny gazed around and scratched his head. It would take hours to sort this mess out, and then he had the cars to deal with. It was going to be a mammoth task, and he just hoped that Frankie wasn’t expecting him to get it all done today.

Already knackered just
thinking
about what lay ahead, Johnny chose the least dirty, least smelly pair of overalls off the hook on the back of the door and pulled them on over his jeans.

There were numerous bottles of shampoo, tins of polish, sponges, and various other stuff that he didn’t recognise crammed together on the shelves and heaps of unmarked boxes all over the floor. Starting on the shelves, he took every item off one by one and put them into groups on the ledge.

He’d cleared one shelf and was halfway through putting it all back when one of the lads he’d seen in the garage suddenly emerged from the shadows in the far corner of the room.

‘Jeezus!’ he gasped, jumping at the sight of him. ‘Have you been there the whole time?’

‘Nah, there’s a connecting door,’ the lad told him, jerking his head back towards it. ‘What you doing?’

Johnny used the back of his hand to push his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

‘Frankie told me to sort this lot out, but it’s a fucking nightmare. I don’t even know what half of it is.’

‘Me neither,’ the lad snorted. He leaned against a ledge and took a pack of rolling tobacco out of his pocket. ‘Want one?’

‘God, yeah,’ Johnny said gratefully. He’d been dying for a fag, but he’d run out last night and had no money to buy any more.

The lad rolled two and passed one over. Lighting his own, he squinted at Johnny through the smoke.

‘So, you’re the new son-in-law, are you? How’s that going?’

‘All right.’ Johnny leaned forward to get a light. ‘Johnny.’ He held out his hand.

‘Del.’ The lad shook it.

‘Is your mate all right?’ Johnny asked. ‘He didn’t look too good back there.’

Del shrugged. ‘Our Robbie’s a tough bastard, he can take it.’

‘Oh, you’re related?’

‘Brothers,’ Del told him. ‘We do the pickups,’ he added – as if he thought that Johnny would know what that meant.

Johnny didn’t have a clue, but he was curious to know who was supposed to do what around here. As far as he could tell nobody had touched the cars before he’d arrived, and that made him wonder how Frankie could possibly be making any money out of them. He sure as hell couldn’t see anyone being mug enough to pay for them in the state they were in now.

‘Del . . . ?’ Big Pat shouted just then. ‘Where are you?’

‘Shit, best go,’ Del muttered, dropping his rollie and grinding it into the floor with his heel. ‘See you later.’

‘Yeah, see you.’ Waving as the lad rushed back out the way he’d come in, Johnny finished his smoke and got back to work.

Once he got into the swing of it, it went pretty smoothly, and he finished the storeroom well before he’d expected to. He was dying for a brew by then, so he wandered round to the prefab to ask if there was a kettle.

Frankie was inside. About to knock, Johnny decided against it when he heard him yell, ‘Quit fucking me about, Phil. I told you I’d get it, and I have, so you’d best get your arse round here with the dosh. And don’t make me come looking for you, or I’ll make you shit yourself and eat it.’

Reluctant to disturb Frankie when he was obviously still pissed off, Johnny started backing down the steps. But he hadn’t reached the bottom when the door was yanked open.

‘What you doing?’ Frankie demanded.

‘I’ve finished cleaning the storeroom,’ Johnny told him nervously. ‘And I was just wondering if there was anywhere to make a brew before I start on the cars. But I’ll wait till lunch if it’s a problem.’

‘Get yourself a fucking brew and quit acting like you’ve shit your kecks,’ Frankie snapped. ‘The kettle’s in there.’ He jerked his thumb back through the prefab door. ‘Don’t use all the milk,’ he warned, coming down the steps and striding towards the garage.

Johnny went into the prefab and looked around. It was every bit as messy as the storeroom had been before he’d sorted it out, with a desk at the far end upon which sat a phone and several untidy heaps of paper. A couple of fold-down chairs were leaning against the window wall, and a kettle, coffee, tea bags, sugar and milk sat on a table opposite the door. He contemplated asking if anybody else wanted one. But Frankie was already in a foul mood and he didn’t want to piss him off by getting in his face again, so he made himself a coffee and scuttled back to the solitude of his storeroom.

When he’d finished the drink, he filled a bucket with hot water and got cracking on the cars. By lunchtime his stomach was grumbling loudly. He’d been so eager to get out of the house that morning that he hadn’t bothered with breakfast. But the gates were still locked and he didn’t want to ask Big Pat to let him out. Anyway, nobody else seemed to be thinking about food, so he pushed the hunger to the back of his mind.

The day had started off cold, but it got progressively worse as it went on. By four in the afternoon there was a glittering of frost on the scrubby grass edging the fence, and Johnny’s hands and feet were frozen by the time Big Pat strolled around the corner. Frankie was right behind him in his car. Stopping, he leaned his elbow on the open window and gazed at Johnny’s handiwork.

‘You’ve done a bloody good job on that, son.’ He nodded at the gleaming bonnet of the Escort that Johnny had just finished cleaning. ‘Don’t even look like the same motor.’

‘Thanks,’ Johnny replied, trying to sound modest despite feeling ridiculously pleased with himself. He’d worked harder today than he’d ever worked in his life before but, surprisingly, he’d enjoyed it. There was something hypnotic about the repetition of washing, polishing and hoovering. And considering what a heap of shit the cars had looked when he’d arrived that morning, the ones he’d done now looked almost good enough to sell.

‘You can pack up for the day,’ Frankie said, taking a tenner out of his pocket and holding it out. ‘Get a cab back. And tell Rita not to wait up, ’cos I don’t know how late I’m going to be.’

When Frankie had gone, Johnny gathered his cleaning equipment together and carried it into the storeroom. He shrugged out of the overalls and reached for his jacket. Then, taking one last proud look around, he switched off the light and went home.