The Dying Place (21 page)

‘Not in college?’ Murphy said, perching on the opposite settee to the one Peter had been occupying.

‘No. Day off,’ Peter replied, scratching at his head, his hair flattening back into shape for a second before bouncing back up.

‘You have many of those?’

Peter was silent for a few seconds before leaning back into the settee. ‘Spoke to me mum then. I’ve not heard from you for ages, so it figures.’

‘She’s just worried about you, lad. What’s been going on?’

A shrug was the extent of his answer.

‘Only a couple of months until your eighteenth,’ Murphy said, ‘any plans?’

‘Dunno yet. Probably go into town and that.’

‘Then what?’

Peter didn’t answer. Just stared at the screen in the corner as if it was about to magically spring into life.

‘What are you doing with yourself, Peter?’

‘I just don’t see the point.’

Murphy leant forward. ‘The point of what?’

‘Going to college and that. Not like it’s going to get me anywhere.’

‘Course it will,’ Murphy said, trying to catch Peter’s eye and failing. ‘Get some qualifications under your belt and you’ll be much better off.’

‘Will I though? You didn’t need anything like that and look at you now. It’s just a waste of time. I may as well wait until I’m eighteen and then join the police …’

‘You don’t want to do that …’

‘Or the army,’ Peter continued, without acknowledging Murphy’s interruption. ‘I couldn’t sit in a call centre and I’m not going to get much else. There’s no proper jobs out there.’

‘How do you know? Have you looked into it at all?’

‘Course I have. I’ve got mates with NVQs coming out their arses and they can’t get a job around here. It’s all call centres and fast food stuff. I’m not doing anything like that.’

Murphy sighed. He’d heard the refrain often, repeated over the years from so many young people. Everyone wanted the perfect career.

‘You were doing well in school. Maybe you could do an access course like your mum did all them years ago. Go to uni.’

‘I’m not good enough for that. You know it, I know it, Mum knows it. I’m just not made for that.’

‘Well, you can’t live your life like this Peter. Getting up to all kinds of trouble …’

‘I’m not getting into anything …’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Murphy said, his hands up in a placating stance. ‘I’m not judging or anything. God knows I got myself into enough trouble when I was your age. I’m just saying, you don’t want your mum worrying herself, do you? You need to get sorted. If college isn’t working for you, find something else. You can’t lie around here all day and then mess about with your mates at night, getting into all kinds.’

‘Yeah …’

‘Believe me, I’ve dealt with enough teenagers who have chosen the wrong path over the years. You’re better than that.’

‘Am I though? What have I got to look forward to, Uncle David? I’m nearly eighteen, and because I can’t do all that maths and science shit, I’m stuck at college doing some worthless qualification, for no reason.’

Murphy shook his head. ‘You’re young. You’ve got plenty of time to decide what you want to do with your life. You’re not going to find that out smoking weed and getting pissed every day though. For one, your mum will eventually just cut you off. No more pocket money.’

That brought a small smile to Peter’s lips, which was quickly shut off.

‘Look, son. If you’re serious about the police, then we can talk about it. Just stop doing stupid shit, and your mum can stop worrying. Get your head down and finish college …’ Murphy held up a hand to stop Peter interrupting. ‘I know, I know, it’s
pointless
, but it’ll keep your ma off your back for the next couple of months. We can work this out, okay?’

Peter blew out a long breath. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll go back in this week.’

‘Good lad. Now I’ve got to get going. Believe it or not, you’re not supposed to take time off in the middle of the day when you’re in the police to talk with your godson.’

Murphy said goodbye, giving Peter an awkward half-handshake, half-hug at the door and walked back to his car. Felt a little relieved as he drove away. The kid was messed-up enough without having him put his foot in it.

His phone broke the silence, chirruping away in his pocket. He removed it and placed it on the hands-free kit Sarah had bought him, fiddling with the wire whilst keeping one hand on the wheel.

‘Murphy,’ he said, once he’d answered the phone.

‘It’s Laura.’ Rossi’s voice echoed around the car through the speakers.

‘What is it?’

‘You need to get back here now.’

The Farm

Two Days Ago

‘It’s not right. We shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have done that …’

‘Hey, don’t get like that. Not now. We need to keep our heads, now more than ever. If we start losing it, the whole thing will crash down around us.’

They sat in a rough circle around the kitchen table, the fire crackling in the hearth behind them providing a little heat, which was making them sweat. The air was thick with tension, eyes darting back and forth, each of them checking to see if the others were feeling the same as themselves.

Guilty.

Except one of them. He was more controlled, fixing his stare on each of them in turn. Alpha. There wasn’t supposed to be a leader, but he was the one in charge, they all knew that – the choice of code name a big clue.

Omega wiped a sleeve across his forehead, it coming back damp. He turned away from Alpha’s stare and looked towards Delta.

‘What should we do?’

‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Delta replied. ‘We had no plans for this.’

‘Hey, we all knew what we were getting into here,’ Omega said, his arms spread wide. ‘I’ve thought about this long and hard. More than any of you, I’d guess. And after much contemplation and prayer, I’ve come to one conclusion. It must’ve been part of His plan. There wasn’t anything any of us could’ve done about it. This is just how it was meant to be. It was coming. We’re all complicit. Us, the boys themselves. All of us. There was no other way. Simple as that. He’s someone else’s problem now.’ Omega crossed himself as he finished speaking.

‘Beating the hell out of them is different than actually killing them,’ Gamma said, her voice quiet and steady. ‘When you laid him out on those church steps … it suddenly became very fucking real. We need a new plan, because this one clearly isn’t working.’

All the while Alpha sat still, just watching them. Delta could feel something behind those eyes. Almost grey, piercing. He was sizing them up.

Gamma was the only female there. Delta was pretty sure she was related in some way to Tango, but wasn’t certain. That was the deal with them. Everyone used a code name; that way everyone was safe.

It was bullshit. They all knew enough about each other if the time came that they needed to tell someone outside the circle what had been happening. Who had been involved. They knew what each other looked like, how they spoke. The way they thought, in so many ways.

That’s what happened down a pub, you picked up only the parts of the story that you actually wanted. That fit with your view of the world as it was. You’d slowly get pissed, putting the world to rights with some like-minded people over a few pints and whisky chasers. The real reasons life was all going to bollocks.

They were, all of them, lonely at heart. That was the only reason he could find for the fact they’d all latched on to each other. The quiet pub, even quieter since the smoking ban (political correctness gone mad … or health and safety bullshit, he couldn’t remember which one), became a safe place for them. Drawn together, all of them knowing what was needed.

Then those drunken plans become sober reality. The first time it happens, you feel alive. Taking one of the little bastards off the street feels like real power. You’re doing something about the problem. The bizzies aren’t doing fuck all, so you’re doing what’s needed.

They had to make new plans. Alpha supplying them all.

No one talked about what would happen if it didn’t work. If they didn’t listen.

No one talked about death.

Now Alpha listened to them all speak, argue, go around in circles. There was doubt there, no matter how much Omega tried to placate them.

It was all going to shit. Everything they’d planned, carried out, all of it. It was one moment, the whole process coming to its natural end, yet people couldn’t handle it.

He’d known they’d have to do it at some point. It was a natural progression. Some of them wouldn’t accept the help they were providing. It was an inevitable outcome when you thought about it logically. Looking around at the other faces though, he should have known they wouldn’t have thought that far ahead. It was all a game to them. Just something to get their frustrations out. They didn’t really have a cause, unlike him.

They still had four of them in the Dorm. Four minds that were changing, slowly, but getting there. It could still work, but he couldn’t trust the others. They were all having second, third and fourth thoughts about the whole thing. He could feel it emanating from them. The shared glances, the looks they gave each other when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Like he was crazy. Like he’d lost it.

They should have known. All of them were in too far to back away now, so they should have been willing to take this process to its natural end point.

They had enough blood on their hands that a little more shouldn’t matter. He honestly couldn’t see what the problem was. It was logic, pure and simple. That’s how he worked. How he’d always worked. It was sad, he supposed, but that was it.

He needed them back onside. He couldn’t let the situation get out of control any further. He needed to exert his power – the power he’d had from the beginning.

A meeting. That would be right, would be good. They could get whatever they needed off their chests and move forward. They’d see he was correct. Know that it was just an unfortunate side-effect of what they were doing. They knew they were doing all this for good reason, they just needed reminding of it.

Boys. That’s all they were really, even though they’d tried to get them a bit older. All heading towards the scrapheap. Not now, though. Not now he was involved in their lives. Now they’d have purpose. As long as they listened.

And if they didn’t … well, that was the side-effect.

Alpha walked out of the kitchen as the others continued to talk. Listened in the darkness as the voices became lost the further away he walked. Shook a cigarette from its box and lit up. Lifted the balaclava up further away from his face and savoured the first drag as he blew it out, sensing rather than seeing the smoke swirling around him. The only light drifting from the main house, fifty yards behind.

Silence consumed him, cocooning him from reality. It wasn’t the time. Not yet. He was right. He was on course. They just needed to be set back on track, that was all. They’d understand the need to be together on this. He didn’t want to do this alone, not yet.

He didn’t trust himself. The hate inside him was coming to the surface. Starting to affect those around him.

They didn’t know the true meaning behind all of this. They were just as hateful as he was, but they didn’t understand why. Striking out was just their default setting. Taking back what they believed they’d lost.

He was the one who had lost.

The one who was lost.

Something was different. They could all tell. Overnight the mood had changed, leaving them in the lurch as to what had happened. When he thought about it, Goldie knew it was the Norris Green kid dying which had started it all. As much as they’d taken them all aside one by one and explained his death had been a consequence of his own actions, Goldie knew they hadn’t all believed it to be so.

It was only the main guy, the one in charge, Alpha, who had said it with any meaning. Not just with his words but with his eyes as well. Which was handy, as that was the only part of his face they’d ever seen in all the time they’d been in there.

Goldie had known some mad bastards in his life, some fucked-up nutters who would stab someone for looking at them wrong, that kind of thing. Some even worse than that. He’d known a lad once who had kicked the shit out of some kid because he didn’t like the colour of the coat the lad had been wearing. Laughing as he stamped on the kid’s head, blood streaming out of various cuts to his head and face. Goldie had remembered laughing along at the time, but now the memory made him sick. It was horrific violence for no reason. Passed off as no big deal. Now though, he’d had time to think more deeply about things like that. About the effect such an action would have on someone.

The lessons had brought that out of him. Endless talking about what he’d done in the past, what he’d witnessed. Why he’d taken part in things that had hurt others. What he got out of it. The usual answers of
something to do
or
bored wasn’t I,
wouldn’t do here. No, he’d been questioned relentlessly. Then beaten if the answers weren’t good enough.

He’d had time to think. To step back and look at himself. Look at his life. He’d always known on some level that what he’d been doing was wrong, but it had taken the shock of something like this happening to really drive the message home.

Goldie shifted on the bed, staring at the darkness above him. He could hear crying coming from the other side of the room. Probably the new lad. Goldie had been there the longest, so he’d seen this from the others as well. Late at night was when it finally hit them. The gravity of their situation. Four of them left now, all just lying there and waiting.

Things were different now though. Mealtimes had become more spaced out. There’d been no lessons in a while.

Maybe they’d not meant to go that far. But what had they expected? The Norris Green lad might have been in there only a few weeks longer than Goldie, but he’d not taken to it as he had. No, the lad had spent his whole time in there sulking, not listening, not doing as he was told. He was asking for it. He’d come back in after his lessons in the evening, beaten and bruised. Blood staining the floor, curled up on his bed, moaning. Still, he’d gone back for more. Not just given in.