Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘What the fuck are you goin’ on about?’ Harvey demanded.

‘I remembered how I knew you, Harvey. I remembered where we first met.’

Harvey scowled, suspicious. ‘How d’ya mean?’

‘We worked together.’

‘ Bullshit! ’

Harvey’s reaction was instantaneous. ‘That’s baloney !’

‘Yes we did,’ Dory insisted. ‘Years ago. Very briefly. I was an exchange-student, earning some extra cash during my summer holidays. And you were older, temping — just for a week or so. We were guarding the same site together. In Newington.’

‘ Nah . You got it all wrong, mate,’ Harvey tried his best to fob the German off. But he was starting to look uneasy.

‘I don’t think so. It suddenly all came flooding back. I remember it very clearly, in fact, because it was the same week that consignment of tiles went missing.’

‘ What? ’

‘The tiles. Antique tiles. Tiles from the old mill. They went missing. And I was held partially responsible…’

‘Really?’ Harvey seemed delighted by this news. ‘Get the boot, did ya?’

‘No. I mean yes . I mean I was very lucky. My boss— our boss — Tom Higson, was extremely reasonable about the whole thing…’

‘Yeah,’ Harvey sniggered, ‘very good of ‘im, weren’t it?’

‘So you do remember, then?’ Dory cut in.

‘Nope.’

‘Well I was sacked from the job, officially,’ Dory explained. ‘TML forced Higson’s hand. But then he still kept me on with the firm; moved me to a different project — the Park Street Sainsbury’s. They were expanding it at the time…’

‘So what’s the big problem?’ Harvey demanded.

‘There isn’t one,’ Dory shrugged, ‘I just remembered you, that’s all. I just remembered your face. I remembered that night — how you came to ask for my help after a group of protestors broke into your section of the site…’

Dory smiled, dreamily. ‘Although when we actually went down there — to take a proper look — we couldn’t find any evidence of a break-in, because the cruel irony was — as I’m sure you already knew — the real break-in was going on elsewhere…’

Harvey glanced off, sideways. He didn’t comment.

‘…but I kept my mouth shut,’ Dory shrugged, ‘I took the brunt of it. If I remember correctly you weren’t long out of prison and expecting your first child…’

A long silence followed, punctuated by the gentle pitter-patter of rain.

‘So…’ Dory eventually broke the silence between them, ‘the fates have finally seen fit to draw us back together.’ He held his hands up to the sky, catching the raindrops on his open palms. ‘And for some, strange reason,’ he grimaced, ‘you just couldn’t resist the idea of mugging me for a second time.’

Harvey scowled. He didn’t speak.

Dory sighed, almost forlorn now. ‘But that’s where you made your fatal mistake. You got too cocky, too smug. And somewhere along the line you forgot the single, most important rule of Cheat’s Law…’ Dory shook the rain from his hands and leaned forward, his voice almost dropping to a whisper…

Over in his car, Kane rapidly suspended his breath, determined to hear:

‘Never kid a kidder.’

Eh?

Was that…?

Kane grimaced, frustrated, not sure if he’d…

Did he just…?

And then–

‘HAAAAAARVEY! ’

Kane’s head snapped around as a scooter roared on to the road, at breakneck speed–

Kelly?

‘HAAAARVEY! ’ Kelly was screaming, her arms gesticulating wildly. ‘LOOOOK OWWWWT!!’

Harvey turned — confused — taking a single, tiny, almost mincing step towards her, as the air around him suddenly resounded with a most deafening clamour.

‘He had three visions— three of ‘em — all different…’ Kelly’s speech was garbled, her wide, brown eyes were bulging from their sockets, her hands were flying around, ‘and the first one was about Paul , see? Which came true. And then the second one was about the roof fallin’ down…’

She paused, scowling. ‘No, I mean the second one…’

‘Just take it easy,’ Beede murmured, patting her on the shoulder, then pulling off his crash helmet and resting it, carefully, on the seat of his old Douglas, ‘you’re probably still in shock.’

‘…The second one was about a house fallin’ down, but then after the ceilin’ collapsed — last night, on the ward…’

‘Ah yes…’ Beede smiled at her, sagely, ‘I think I may’ve caught wind of that incident on the hospital grapevine…’

‘Yeah, well I thought that was it , see?’ Kelly interrupted. ‘I thought that was the vision come true, cuz the Rev weren’t actually hurt or nothin’…’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Beede frowned, concerned, ‘a doctor has formally discharged you?’

‘What? ’

‘From the hospital? You have been discharged? Formally discharged?’ he paused. ‘And while we’re at it — should you really be resting so much weight on your bad leg yet?’

Kelly gazed down at her plaster-cast. ‘Uh…Yeah…’ she slowly shook her head, and then — quite out of the blue—‘Oh my God !’ she gasped, panic-stricken.

‘What’s wrong?’ Beede asked, alarmed.

‘I’ve only gone an’ lost the bloody Bible !’

Kelly patted frantically at her skirt pockets (on the improbable tip that the volume in question might’ve been miraculously condensed, reduced and then secreted inside one of them). Next she peered down the front of her skimpy top.

‘ Shit!’ she scratched her head, confused. ‘What the hell did I do with it?’

‘So your uncle wasn’t hurt?’

Beede tried to refocus her.

‘Huh?’

‘Your uncle?’

‘My uncle? You mean Harve ?! Nah. I mean yeah …’ Kelly glanced around her, slightly paranoid. ‘I told him to stay put. He rang me an’ I just…I had this feelin’. It came over me really, really strong while I was talkin’ to the Rev…But then we got lost — me an’ Gaff — on the way over to…’

She fell quiet for a moment, chewed on her lower lip (with an expression of intense concentration) and then, ‘That’s it !’ Her face broke into a beatific smile. ‘Garry’s got it! I gave the Bible to Garry ! I got him to hold on to it for me while I was…an’ then I…’

She silently re-enacted the scene in her head.

‘So when you finally arrived here,’ Beede pushed on, regardless, ‘your uncle was just standing there — perfectly alone — in the middle of the garden?’

He indicated towards the scene of unalloyed carnage which had once happily passed as Elen’s front lawn.

‘Uh…’ Kelly scratched at her head again. ‘Yeah. Yeah . He was just standin’ there, an’ we was comin’ down the road…’ she pointed ‘…on the scooter…’

Beede automatically followed the line of her finger. As he gazed down the street he detected a slight movement from within a parked car just two doors down. He focussed in on it. The car was a beige Mercedes. He frowned.

‘And then I just…’ Kelly drew a long, shuddering breath, ‘I just…I had this feelin’ again, kind of like a…’ she grimaced, slightly bashful ‘…like an orgasm , really. But not…Not dirty or nothin’…’ she shrugged, ‘ you know. So I just called out — at the top of my lungs. I just screamed . I went HAAAARVEEEEY! ’