“Nah, I’m clean. Had a few beers and a smoke round me brother’s place, but nowt else. Nowt daft, like.” He sounded proud, as if this short period of abstinence meant something important in his broken life.
“Listen, Hacky, tell me what the fuck this is all about or I’ll have your legs broken.”
This time the pause was longer and held an intensity that had not been present before. Erik listened to the static on the line. He thought for a moment that he could make out other voices in there; voices and a soft slow clicking sound, like distant maracas. But then it faded.
“Remember Monty Bright?”
That got Erik’s attention. “Yes. Of course I remember Monty.” They’d been friends and sometime enemies, comrades and occasionally business rivals. Theirs was always a complex relationship, but one that often created a lot of mutual wealth. Monty had run a loan sharking business, and Erik had been known to fund some of Monty’s bigger deals. They’d been silent partners many times, mostly in security companies and anything where hired muscle was required. They’d drawn blood together, fought hard men, and shared slutty women. They’d even organised a few boxing bouts, matching local fighters for a cash prize. On the level. Everything above board. Just for the hell of it.
“It’s got something to do with him… with Monty.”
“Monty’s dead, Hacky. He died in the fire when his gym burnt down, remember? My gym, now, that is if your fucking brother and his mates hurry up and get that fit-out job finished.”
“Just come to the estate and take a look. Meet us at the gym. There’s nobody working there today. You really need to fucking see this, man. It’s… it’s… shit, I don’t know what the fuck it is, man. It’s weird. Weird, with fucking long roots…”
Erik checked the time; it was past lunchtime but he hadn’t eaten a thing. He wasn’t even hungry.
He had nothing better to do. It was a depressing thought, but it was true.
“Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour. If this isn’t good, you’d better run hard and run far, Hacky my boy. If I’m wasting my time here, it won’t just be your legs that get broken. And I might just break your brother’s, too, for slacking on the job.”
“I know,” said the kid on the other end of the line. “Just come and see.” Then he ended the call.
Erik’s mind was still on Abby Hansen. If he had business on the estate, then it wouldn’t be out of order to maybe pay her a little call. See how she was. Find out if she needed anything. He knew that he was being stupid, that she’d pussy-whipped him without even trying, but still he could not stay away. She was like a drug; he needed her, even if it was like this: brief, unwanted visits, during which she usually verbally abused him. Stolen time. Tense, bruising moments spent in her company when she didn’t even want him there, not now.
He locked up the house, checked the dogs — two border collies; Rocky and Apollo — in their kennels and set off for the Grove. On his way there, through the winding roads of the Northumberland countryside, he wished again that Abby would wake up and see what it was he had to offer, how good it could be for them both if she dropped her guard, let him back in.
Erik had never lived on the Grove. He’d been born in Byker, in the east end of Newcastle, and from a very young age had demonstrated that he could take care of himself. His father had enrolled him in a boxing academy when he was five years old. He’d beaten everyone they put in front of him, and graduated through the age and weight classes with ease.
His teenage years had seen him go off the rails and he began street fighting rather than using his craft in the ring. Erik was always bright enough to know that, unless you were truly dedicated, the fight game would never make you rich. He lacked the application and willpower to become a champion; his skills were purely natural, and a wide lazy streak coupled with habitual indiscipline meant that he could not stick to any kind of training regime.
So he used his skills in other ways.
Years ago he’d realised that he didn’t have to fight every battle himself. He surrounded himself with tough guys, men who were strong and fast but lacked his cunning and intellect. He set up illegal fights and made a fortune. When he’d made enough money he bought an old farmhouse a few miles from here and started hosting bare-knuckle bouts in the Barn, a small outbuilding with thick stone walls and neglected horse paddocks — he’d employed Hacky’s brother and his gang to do the building work there, too.
He also ran a security firm that provided pubs and clubs with trained door staff, big blokes who knew exactly what to do if trouble started. Erik saw himself as a primitive renaissance man; a facilitator; an entrepreneur: he was the Donald fucking Trump of the mean streets and even meaner housing estates.
Now, at the age of fifty-one, he was what his younger self would have considered wealthy. He owned a large, beautiful home, several other properties, two well-trained dogs, had three cars in the garage, but lacked someone to share it with. There was a time when Abby Hansen would have walked over broken glass to live with him, but that time was long gone. These days she’d rather cut herself on the scattered shards than stand by his side.
The Concrete Grove… why would she want to stay here? Their daughter wasn’t coming back; she would never come home. This place was the dark centre of a universe Erik could barely even understand. He cruised through it, that alien universe, and he used it and its denizens for personal gain, but he had no idea how it really worked. Like a black hole, it sucked everything towards it, bleeding them dry: Monty Bright, his absent friend Marty Rivers, the once beautiful Abby Hansen… all of them drawn inexorably towards the black centre of this place, screaming silently as it ate them alive.
He drove through the estate with these dark thoughts on his mind. Part of him hoped that Hacky was taking the piss; he had the urge to commit violence, and that useless kid would do as target practice. He guided the car along the grubby streets, along Grove Road and onto Grove Street, where Monty Bright’s old gym was situated. He’d acquired the building and was having it fitted out; it would be a gym again, and this time
He parked at the kerb and got out, walking quickly to the front door. He opened the door and stepped inside. Three young men stood at the bottom of the new timber stairs, huddled around the bottom step. Hacky looked up and smiled. He raised a hand and walked over.
“So, I’m here.”
“I’m sorry to make you come all the way here, Mr Best. Really. But there was no other way… this has got to be seen. You wouldn’t believe it otherwise.”
The other two boys nodded, looked away, staring at the fire-damaged walls. They were guilty; all of them, guilty of so many petty crimes that it would be difficult to pin a single one on them. He could see the badness dripping off them like sweat. He was covered with it, too, but he was clever enough to construct a barrier. The black hole wouldn’t suck him in. He would never allow it to get a good enough grip on his soul. These fuckers were already halfway inside; it was consuming them like space debris.
“What the fuck is it, Hacky?” He stepped forward, grabbed the kid’s upper arm with one big hand, and knocked his baseball cap from his head with the other. The cap was old, faded, and had a decal featuring Scooby Doo smoking a spliff. “I’m really not in the fucking mood for any of your bullshit.”
“Please.” Hacky cowered; he actually stepped back and hunkered down a few inches, as if he were a dog trying to subjugate itself before an alpha. He bent down and picked up his cap. “Honest, we have summat to show you.”
The other two nodded. They wouldn’t hold Erik’s gaze. They were too afraid even to speak.
“Show me.” He let go, pushed the kid away. “Show me before I change my mind and knock you out just to release some tension.”
“It’s at Beggy’s place.” Hacky motioned towards one of the other young men — a tall, thin streak of piss with acne scars all over his long neck and thin throat.
“Yeah,” said the one called Beggy. “I didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it in my old man’s lock-up. It’s on Grove Drive. One of them old garages past the Corner… you know?” He looked down, inspecting his oversized trainers. He blinked too much; it was making Erik angry, grating at his nerves.
“So take me there. Go outside and get in the car. Now.”
He watched them troop slowly out through the door and then glanced up the stairs, at the partially repaired upper floor. The walls were bare, some of them still stained by smoke. He locked the door on his way out. “Give me your keys,” he said to Hacky. “I don’t want you letting yourself in there ever again, not unless I’m around. Oh, and when you see your brother, tell him to get back here and finish the job.”
