Barry had said stubbornly, Car crash, bar-fight, hanged in prison. There’s no connection. It don’t mean anything. Three ex-Regiment dead, not of natural causes. All their deaths are different. It means nothing. How could it?
He was right, of course. These were men for whom violence had been a way of life, who found it hard to adjust when they came out of the army, who were often emotionally damaged. It was no big deal, except that they were all mates.
Syd’s mates. Assume that his visit to Byron at Allensmore had coincided with Nasal’s death. Maybe he’d even read this same account in the Sunday Times. Gone to tell Byron that another member of the club was history.
Merrily began to make notes on the sermon pad, under the anglepoise, but she was too tired to construct a logical framework. And, anyway, there was something missing. Something which almost certainly related to Byron’s reasons for coming to Brinsop, where the church, with its celebration of necessary violence, was a kind of spiritual crucible.
She sprinkled some dried cat-food in Ethel’s bowl, put out the lights and crawled off to bed, pausing to look out from the landing window where she could see, across Church Street through the wintry trees, Lol’s house, still in darkness.
She awoke at two. Back to the landing window. Still dark at Lol’s, but perhaps he’d come in, gone to bed. A vehicle crossed the square, but it was a light-coloured van. She’d rung Lol’s landline twice, finally leaving a message, just asking him to ring her back, whatever time he got in. Now she wanted to ring Danny, but it was far too late; Greta at least would be in bed, and Greta had to work in the morning and…
…oh God, the Maundy service.
The next time she awoke she was in a corridor.
Sporadically lit, lumpy with pipes and the smell was of antiseptic and bleach, and there were double doors and an old leathered bench, and the need for a cigarette.
I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here.
Breathing. The uneven respiration of the chronically sick. A dim and wobbly light. Grey-white sleepers.
We’ve always had him in a side ward.
An iron bed. Tubes.
Brace yourself…
Lowering herself into a clammy vinyl-covered bedside chair, summoning reserves of compassion as she peered below the hair dyed black, into the reptilian eye-slits. Green tubes curling up either side of the nose like a smile. Hands out of the sheets, rubbery snaking hands, and the smell…
Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, see it through, don’t wake up, and Jesus, don’t let him touch Jane with his…
Curling nail on yellowed finger. Scritch, scratch…
The air rushed through the corridor like a hollow scream, trailing an awakening into half-light and… exhaust.
Merrily sat up to find the dawn gleaming like raw meat in the bedroom window.
Part Five
…they’re all mad in one way or another. There’s Kev, who knows he’s a reincarnated Viking. There’s Si, who only reads books about the paranormal… Only a few of the boys are normal, but they’re so normal that they’re weird. What a bunch of crazies we are. And we go out with our lethal weapons every day.
Frank Collins
Baptism of Fire (1997)
47
It was nearly light but not quite, the sun still below the Tesco clock turret, when Bliss raided the Plascarreg Hilton.
DC Vaynor with him and three of Rich Ford’s uniforms, two of them women. No enforcer, they just rang the bell, and a worried-looking Asian lady let them in, and then Goldie was there, halfway up the reduced baronial stairway in a yellow kimono with pink dragons on it and matching turban.
‘Wassis, wassis? You won’t find no drugs yere, Mr Francis, and that’s a damn fact! We en’t never had no drugs, and anybody yere who says we ’ave-’
‘Norra problem, Goldie.’ Bliss opening out his arms with transparent generosity. ‘We find any dope, you can keep it for those quiet nights in.’ Turning now to his team. ‘Colleen, ground floor with Darth. Kath and I will accompany you to your boudoir, Goldie, while PC Timlin will hang around the hall in case any of the guests try to leave without settling the bill.’
Goldie stood her ground, arms folded like a very mature geisha, as Bliss mounted the stairs.
‘Come on now, Goldie, how much more considerate could Her Majesty’s filth be to a respected senior citizen?’
‘What is this? What’s it about?’
‘Clothing and fancy goods, Goldie. We’re collecting for Oxfam.’
‘Gotter warrant, have you?’
‘Has Stevie Hawking gorra GCSE in physics? Now, back off, you old witch.’
Within half an hour they had quite a little boutique going in the hallway: designer tops, silk scarves, perfume, odds and ends of jewellery. Much of it still in the wrapping, labels intact: River Island, M amp; S, Fat Face. Harriet’s, of course, and a couple of quality shoeshops. Bliss was made up, the Mersey going tidal in his vocals.
‘Just like me bairthday all over again, Goldie.’
‘All paid for, Mr Francis. I got all the receipts. Somewhere.’
‘How much did they owe you?’
‘Who?’
‘The gairls! How many weeks’ rent for that nasty little room?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yeh.’ Bliss smiling kindly down at the old girl. ‘You’re well known for having no head for business.’
They were sitting in extravagant peacock wicker chairs in what Goldie called the breakfast room. Just the two of them. Nobody breakfasting yet. It was just gone half-seven. Bliss was due to meet Karen at Gaol Street at nine. He’d had four hours’ intermittent sleep. Flying on blind rage – so much cheaper than crystal meth.
‘All right,’ Goldie said, ‘a few weeks, thassall, swearder God, and I never pushed hard for it. Some weeks I let them off it, I did!’
‘Yeh, that’s why, the morning they were missing, you were all over the estate after them because it was rent day.’
‘I never-’
‘Shurrup. You know what I think? I think – and it just kind of came to me in a flash, the way these things do – I think that you told them ways they could pay in kind.’
‘If people wants to give me presents…’
Goldie had shrivelled herself into the wings of her wicker throne, hair like brass curtain-rings escaping from the pink and yellow turban. Bliss shook his head sadly.
‘An’ I never had them on no streets!’ Goldie said.
‘Only ’cause they wouldn’t bloody do it, as decent icon-carrying Russian Orthodox-Oh, the shame of it, Goldie.’ Bliss leaned towards her, sniffing at the perfume she evidently wore in bed. ‘Oh, the ignominy of one of Hereford’s leading hoteliers nicked for fencing leggings and camisoles.’
‘What you want?’
‘… and all the extra menial offences which might come to light.’
‘ What you want off me? ’
