By Sandra
I hadn’t planned to be in a stinking alley at two am with the Fry brothers, and as a fist smacked into my jaw and my head snapped sideways, I had time to regret a number of life choices, which included – in no particular order –
Not learning a martial art from a young age – which would have seriously improved my chances in this situation.
Pretending I could play poker – a large part of why I was in this alley getting lamped.
Not moving out of mum’s house years ago – so I wouldn’t have been involved with Aunty-Pat-next-door’s problems.
Agreeing to help Aunty Pat find her missing – and annoying, and useless – son.
Making friends (of a sort) with Andy Pritchard, see above.
Oh, and not kissing Tracey Evans, in first school, when I had the chance. Nothing to do with this situation, but just representative of my life decisions.
The evening had started well. Or at least better than this, but then it was a low bar. After trawling the main pubs in search of ‘poor Andy’ with no luck, I was starting to think he’d done a proper bunk this time and left town altogether, when Dai Deals had hailed me from a corner of the Drover’s. He was in that state of drunkenness which made everyone his pal and he greeted me like a lost brother, hugging me tight and breathing fumes up at me. Luckily at six-four I can stay out of the cloud most times. He was buying rounds for a group of shifty eyed mates, and even bought me a drink, all of which was unusual enough for me to stay. Dai Deals loved a bargain, was always talking about how much money he’d made, but was perpetually piss poor. That he had money was an event worth digging into.
Which was how I came to the Ddraig, a pub on its own at the top of a windswept barren hill which had gone through owners like a dose of the squits and was known locally as the Drag. This was where he said he’d seen Andy last week, the last sighting I’d heard of. He was definite that it was Andy. Well, pretty sure.
The only people in it were an ancient crone with improbably blonde hair playing patience on crusty round table, a large brown pint at one side and a miserable looking man who constantly scratched his scalp, which made me give him a wide berth. I wasn’t sure what he might find up there.
The barman was stony faced, with a blank stare and didn’t speak, except with his chin. He jerked it upwards in a question.
‘I’m looking for Candy.’ I spoke the magic words Dai Deals had secretly told me with a hot blast of beery breath in my ear. Quiet enough that only myself and the nearest six or seven people could hear.
The barman gave me an appraisal which made me squirm, but I tried to look like a hardened card player, which I assumed was how he looked. So, we just stared silently at each other, until he turned and went through a door at the back. Dai Deals had said the game was poker which I knew absolutely nothing about except what I’d seen on TV – it used a deck of cards, and you had to pretend you didn’t have a brilliant or shite hand by keeping a blank face and give nothing away. I’d be fantastic at it as I wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other with a gun to my head. Anyway, I just needed to get in there to ask about Andy. I didn’t need to stay long.
The barman came through the door and used his chin again to signal the way.
I nodded, unsmiling. I could be tough, it was easy. Don’t smile, don’t speak. Seemed I’d been doing life wrong all these years being open and friendly.
I walked into a gloomy half lit space, filled in the middle by a large round table with eight chairs, four of which were occupied. One unlucky chair was beneath Big Mac and I felt my tough guy persona shrivel like scorched cling film. He squinted at me through a fog of cigarette smoke, and I felt another appraisal run over me. My skin prickled. Beside him were the Fry brothers, his muscle, both big fat men, but with more muscle than Big Mac. Together they were Big Mac and Fries. The larger of the two was Extra, as in Extra Fries, but noone alive had ever been known to say it to his face. This hadn’t been part of Dai Deals’ intel. The local gangsters, fantastic.
A pudgy finger suddenly thrust my way ‘I knows you,’ he said, ‘Fuckin’ ‘ell butt, you’re Kev. Wait, Wait.’ He held up a hand as he thought some more, ‘What was it you were called? Don’t tell me…don’t tell me.’ His eyes narrowed to piggy little slits. ‘Kev the Spew!’ he said triumphantly. He was always a mean bastard, he remembered all the nasty little names for everyone round here. He slapped his thigh, laughing and the Fries joined in, like the sycophantic hyenas they were.
‘Kev the Spew, as I live and breathe.’ He abruptly stopped laughing and stubbing the cigarette out on a crumb strewn plate, he said, ‘And what can I do for you, ‘Kevin Johnson’’ he said the last in a faux English accent. Being the only English lad at a Valleys school had meant I was immediately associated with English aristocracy, despite most of my family coming from Reading and the closest I’d got to royalty was a trip to Madame Tussaud’s.
I cleared my throat. I hadn’t thought this part out much. Questions flashed in my head, ‘What have you done with Andy Prichard?’ or ‘Have you killed Andy Prichard?’ Dai Deals had told me this was a high stake, high consequence game. When people owed on card games, they paid, one way or another. I heard myself say, ‘I want to play. At the next game. Thursday.’ I wasn’t really going to play, clearly, just get in with them, ask what I needed to, make an excuse, leave. Simple. Big Mac was nodding slowly, and the Fries just stared.
It was the other guy that bothered me, sitting in the shadows. I hadn’t had time to assess him, but now he leant forward and I saw a cadaverously thin face come into the light. I could sense the threat from him, through his shark’s dead-eyed stare. He spoke in a raspy whisper, ‘Well, gentleman, it seems we have a new player.’
Big Mac nodded, obviously he took his cue from Mr Cadaver as I’d named him in my head. He must be the boss. If Big Mac and Fries made me nervous, this guy made all my hairs stand on end. Big Mac said, ’Get here at eleven. Play starts at midnight. Two grand stake.’ More than my car was worth, but I just needed time, I’d work it out. Details.
‘Right, ok then,’ I cleared my throat and tried not to stammer. Remember to look tough. ‘Until Thursday then.’ I turned to go.
‘Stay.’ Mr Cadaver spoke. It was a quiet sound, barely audible over the scuff of my boots on the gritty floorboards, but it was unmistakably an order. Chin the barman was standing in the doorway, arms folded. The chin was looking mulish. I turned to face Mr Cadaver. I put my hands in my jacket pocket, casual but tough. I tried to puff up my six- four frame. Someone was turning my stomach inside out.
Mr Cadaver smiled and I had the joy of seeing his eyes weren’t the only thing he had in common with sharks. Little sharp teeth. His mummy must have been naughty with Carcharodon carcharias. ‘Let’s play a little game now, shall we? No money. We just like to see who we’re playing with.’ Long pale fingers tapped a new deck of cards, in a complicated rhythm.
I swallowed, throat dry, ‘Would love to, err… ‘ I consulted my watch, which was at ten to get the fuck out of there. ‘…but got to get back.’ I nodded as if this would seal the deal. If a man’s got to get back, then he’s got to get back, no one could argue with that.
‘Sit,’ Mr Cadaver pulled out the chair to his left and patted the seat.
I nodded. Then turned and sprinted to the doorway. There was a loud bang, a crunch, as my nose cracked, then pain and black.
I woke being dragged from a car into chill night air and into an alley, which, I could just see though watering eyes, was dark, dingy and full of the usual piles of crap people dumped. The Fry brothers continued Chin the barman’s work, punching and kicking me until all I could do was huddle in a ball on the ground. Their breathing became laboured and I thanked god they weren’t fitter.
‘Leave ‘im, Abel, he’s had enough.’ Cain Fry said. (Their mother had had only a nodding acquaintance with the Bible, and had chosen some ‘nice holy names’ for her two cherubs. The rest of the world was still waiting hopefully for the inevitable.)
I couldn’t have agreed with him more, but Abel obviously didn’t and his large heavy boot landed on my kidney with a blast of pain that zoned me out for a while. I heard ‘Piece of shit,’ followed by some fading expletives and thanked the universe, for the chance to die here in peace. It was quite a decent alley as alleys went. A rat crept out from some rubbish further up and looked at me, pityingly. I could have sworn it shook its head at me. But that could have just been the fading stars of pain through tear blurred eyes.
I paid the taxi off, grateful he’d finally agreed to bring me home, in the state I was in. I guessed I looked bad from his face and the demand that I pay fifty quid for any cleaning. I tried opening the front door by stealth, but in time honoured fashion, mum’s parental bat radar must have been full strength, and the landing light went on like a stadium floodlight. I blinked my sticky, swollen eyes and resigned myself.
‘Kevin? Kevin? Is that….Oh my God, oh my God, What happened to you?’ Mum rushed down the stairs, wincing with her hip. I wanted to help but the door was so nice and supportive and upright that I didn’t think I could leave it.
‘Oh, look at your face!’ she wailed, her hands up to her own in horror.
I really, really didn’t want to look at my face. Not now, not this week. Maybe never again.
‘Look at your eyes! Can you see out?’ That explained why everything was so fuzzy and vague. I nodded, then groaned as a bolt of pain shot down my neck, my back and electrified my bruised kidneys.
‘Come on, come into the kitchen.’ She put her arms round me as best she could but being over a foot shorter than me her arms pressed uncomfortably round my waist. We hobbled our way to nirvana, aka a chair, where I sat oh-so-slowly and closed my eyes.
‘I’m ringing Aunty Pat.’ That woke me up.
‘No! Mum, no.’
‘I am’ Mum got her stubborn look, which was preparation for battle. Mum could be summed up by the words of the Bard, ‘though she be but little, she is fierce.’
‘Mum, its’s got to be past three now.’ I tried to look at the clock behind me but my neck refused to cooperate.
‘It’s half past four!’ mum said, in a triumphant tone that sealed the argument. I’d obviously lain in the alley with my rat friend a lot longer than I thought. The Fry brothers had managed to stomp my watch, which like an Agatha Christie novel had stopped at two twelve, the time of the crime.
I heard mum in the living room calling on our landline. Mum and Aunty Pat were the last bastion of the landline, not trusting mobiles. ‘They listen to you all the time.’ Probably had a point there although I felt a brief pang of pity for any government agent having to listen to their marathon conversations which lasted hours, managed to be about absolutely nothing, and involved a lot of repetition.
I must have zoned out because the next thing I heard was a faint scream and Aunty Pat came barrelling into the kitchen. She, like mum, was a small, tiny bird of a woman, but she could barrel with the best of them. Personality really does count.
‘Oh my god, what happened to you?’ Aunty Pat’s Welsh accent was more pronounced under stress and she came forward, while the scent of TCP filled the air as mum dipped cotton balls in hot water.
‘Owww. That’s boiling water!’ I winced as the TCP touched various sore spots on my face.
‘Oh, be quiet. It’s got to be sterile.’ Mum’s kindness could kill.
‘Shouldn’t we take pictures?’ Aunty Pat said, her face looking worried. ‘For the police?’
I shook my head, as much as I could. ‘No police.’ I waited for the inevitable questions.
‘What happened Kev? Was this anything to do with Andy?’ Her voice trembled with fear and my heart sank. I didn’t want to tell her, but I couldn’t think of what else to say, because my head was now thumping in time with my heart and my eyes were starting to join in with the pain-fest.
I sighed, ‘Not really…well sort of. I thought I’d ask a few people…’ I trailed off.
‘What people? Where? What did they say?’ Aunty Pat searched my eyes, no mean feat when they felt glued shut.
I groaned inwardly; I did not want to mention the gambling. And the drinking. And the occasional drug use, which was probably neither here nor there.
‘I went down the Station,’ I said, feeling my way. Aunty Pat nodded, that was one of Andy’s favourite pubs to start a night. ‘Asked a few guys….’ I shook my head, ‘Hadn’t seen him in a while.’ This wasn’t news. Noone had seen Andy in several days which was why I had ended up in this mess.
‘So I went to the Butcher’s, then the Lighthouse, the Swan…’ I listed all the nearest pubs and bars. ‘No luck anywhere except at the Drovers. I met Dai. Dai Deals.’ Aunty Pat nodded. In this town, everyone was either related or knew everyone else.
‘He mentioned some money he’d made.’ I didn’t want to go on.
‘Go on.’ Aunty Pat said.’ Bugger.
‘He made it playing cards.’ The implication was clear, but she shook her head, as if Andy wouldn’t do it. I continued. Here it was, ‘He said he’d seen Andy there.’ I shrugged and winced, each movement triggering a cascade of aches.
‘Card games?’ Aunty Pat’s face was a mix of worry and anger. I didn’t fancy Andy’s chances when (if) he came back. ‘I’ll bloody kill him.’ Then she burst into tears and mum put her arms around her, giving me a grim stare. What was I supposed to do? I wanted to ask. She had wanted to know the truth. And I hadn’t even got to the worst parts. Big Mac and… I wouldn’t mention Mr Cadaver. I didn’t know who he was. I hoped that she would leave it there.
I wanted to lie down and sleep. A week should do it.
Aunty Pat gulped back her tears and gently shrugged her way out of mum’s arms. She looked at me, and I saw the steel. ‘Tell me.’
I groaned, trying to find a way to start, but looking at the determination in her eyes, the sticking plaster approach would be best; as in just rip it off.
‘Big Mac and Fries,’ I said, voice grim. Mum who had been emptying the bloodied water down the sink, turned her face, her mouth a wide oval, eyes shocked.
Aunty Pat went a worrying shade of white and mum hurried to pour a medicinal shot of brandy from a dusty bottle.
‘You mean…’ mum stammered, Aunty Pat still unable to speak.
‘The criminal gang, yes.’ I said, as opposed to: Big Mac and Fries the local nutjobs, headcases and people you kept away from at all costs. The ones that didn’t care if they beat you up (exhibit A, your honour), burnt your car, or killed your dog.
‘Oh my god,’ Aunty Pat wailed. ‘What are we going to do?’
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